EIGHT
This Cruel State of Separation
John was home just a scant four months when he once again faced the “melancholy tryal” of leaving his family. This time, after her husband’s second departure for France, it was as though the previous separation served as a rehearsal for the tears, loneliness, fears, bitterness, and pride of the next years of Abigail’s life. The letter that would tilt their lives still another time, and in still another direction, dated October 20, 1779, was signed and sealed by the President of Congress, Samuel Huntington. It informed John of his nomination as Minister Plenipotentiary to “confer, treat, agree and conclude” with representatives of His Most Christian Majesty, George III, in the negotiations of a peace founded on “solid and equitable Principles, as reasonably to promise a Permanency of the Blessings of Tranquillity.”1
Abigail recognized the invitation to serve as an “honour.” It was only after she said good-bye, on that forlorn Saturday, November 13, that she took full measure of the void left by John, who boarded the Sensible, this time, not only with Johnny, but with his son Charles, John Thaxter, a servant named Joseph Stevens, and a gift of cranberries, along with the myriad supplies. Left behind with Tommy and Nabby, in the house she found more tomblike than ever, Abigail began to lose her appetite and her sleep. How to justify her splintered family and the fleeting wedding anniversaries that were drifting by with alarming regularity in stony separation were numbing questions that preempted all other thoughts.2
A sense of loss pervades Abigail’s correspondence during this second major separation from John. Increasingly reflective, her hand trembled as she wrote of the “hours days and weeks” when she deliberately chose not to “paint” all her feelings to her friend for fear that she would make him unhappy. Or told him how she wandered from room to room, pitying herself for feeling deserted, unprotected, unassisted, uncounseled. In time she began to think there was a “moral evil” in their separation. When they had pledged themselves to each other, hadn’t the holy ceremony closed with the words “What God has joined Let no Man put assunder”? She wondered now whether theirs was a voluntary separation; she concluded with uncharacteristic asperity, “I feel that it is not.”3
When she rode out the swells of self-pity, as she did repeatedly, Abigail fought for logic that would bring her some peace of mind. In times of greater equanimity she spoke of experience teaching her “patient acquiescence,” though it did not lessen her anxiety or affection. But compared to Mrs. Francis Dana, whose husband was traveling with the Adams party, and who was irreconcilable over her separation, Abigail could indeed pat herself on the back as a “mere philosopher” who was “inured, but not hardned to the painfull portion.”4
In a sense, Abigail’s endless quest for justification and understanding of her loss—there could never be another “season” in their lives that the family would enjoy together in quite the same way, she said wistfully—might have been due to the need to quench subconscious feelings of guilt at parting with Johnny, who was twelve, and nine-year-old Charles. To both she expressed tender concern for their personal welfare and safety. About their roles and current mission she wrote with the sentiments of a patriot and the goals of, at best, a judicious, inspired parent, and, at worst, a fatally ambitious one.5
* * *
Neither of the children had wished to leave home. If Abigail thought Johnny’s reluctance stemmed from proper deliberation, however, or that he was capable of judging what was most for his own benefit, she assured him that she would not have urged him to leave when he was so “averse.” As for Charles, his tears, she admitted, melted her heart a thousand times. But, she insisted, in his case, being the “sweet” favorite of the neighbors, bound to a “golden destiny,” it was well that he had gone. Both boys were at an age, in her opinion, when a mother’s care was less important; with attention and diligence they would best learn to discharge their duties to their “Great Preserver,” to society in general, to their country, their parents, and themselves, under their father’s eye.6
Having submerged all qualms and private needs to her tolerable satisfaction, Abigail was quite prepared to chart her childrens’ lives, Johnny’s in particular. Were he beside her, she wrote, she would remind him of the sacrifices of ease, pleasure, wealth—of life itself—to be made in their country’s defense. She would also assure him that he had the character of a hero and statesman, that “Nature [had] not been deficient” with him. Her only worry was that he learn to curb his impetuous temper: “He that is slow to anger is better than the Mighty, and he that ruleth his Spirit than he that taketh a city,” she cautioned him.7
Abigail’s concerns for Charles were perhaps more fundamentally rooted. This engaging child was to have an opportunity to see a foreign country, learn a foreign language that might be serviceable to him, and form, at this early period, friends who would do honor to him in the future. But he must also, she insisted, pay attention to his books, and to every branch of knowledge, every opportunity for improvement, to which he was exposed. She hoped that his ambition would lead him to master all he undertook, that he would not be content to lag behind others. He must “strive to excel.”8
However Abigail lavished her children with worldly hopes of leadership and intellectual aggrandizement, it was religious commitment that superseded all other considerations. Religion, said Abigail, was the only sure and permanent foundation of life, the truth she would “engraven” on the hearts of her children. Distance, time, and undoubtedly need conspired in honing the formidable code to which all her descendants would be bound, in which some would flourish and others wither. Abigail was addressing Johnny specifically when she wrote:
Improve your understanding for acquiring useful knowledge and virtue, such as will render you an ornament to society, an Honour to your Country and a Blessing to your parents. Great Learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small Estimation, unless Virtue, Honour, Truth and integrety are added to them. Adhere to those religious Sentiments and principals which are early instilled into your mind and remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions. Let me injoin it upon you to attend constantly and steadfastly to the precepts and instructions of your Father as you value the happiness of your Mother and your own welfare.
There was more. There would be no compromise.
I had much rather you should have found your Grave in the ocean you have crossd or any untimely death crop you in your Infant years, rather than see you an immoral profligate or a Graceless child.9
By January 1780, Abigail was surfeited with the horrors of the long winter and mountains of snow of a kind not seen in sixty years; one passed by her house on foot, or not at all; sliding was the way to cross the frozen bay. Though it was a hard winter, it was not without high points.10
It was the winter of the convention for forming the Massachusetts Constitution, which John had worked on, the winter she must have learned of John Paul Jones’s expropriation of the Countess of Selkirk’s silver—“knight errant” Abigail called him—the winter when one could buy Tory estates at a bargain, the winter when Lovell’s behavior was a diversion: “For a Senator too!” Abigail protested faintly.11
Lovell, whom Abigail first met at the home of Richard and Mary Cranch, was obviously intrigued and touched, in his own arch, irreverent way, by her earnest devotion to her husband. In fact, he said that it was by giving her heart to such a man that “most of all makes me yours.” From the start of their mail-pouch flirtation, Lovell talked about Abigail’s virtue, sense, and beauty, teased her about her anxiety for John, named her the “most lovely of the loveliest Sex,” and signed another letter with a “sound and affectionate Heart.” When he offered to take care of her financial problems, to exchange paper for hard money, when he supplied her with weekly numbers of the Journal of Congress, she openly expressed the appreciation of a “greatly obliged Friend,” acknowledging her gratitude for the letters that were “a fund of entertainment” and eased her fears.12
For Lovell’s “exuberances,” Abigail maintained a different posture; she scolded openly, though with affection. When he asked questions such as, “How do you do, Lovely Portia, these very cold Days, Mistake me not willfully: I said Days,” she was apt to answer by calling him a “very dangerous Man,” also a “most ingenious and agreeable flatterer.” His defense was majestic:
Must I suppress Opinion, Sentiment and just Encomium upon the Gracefulness of a lovely suffering Wife or Mother? It seems I must or be taxed as a flatterer. Immured for many Months in a Prison, and, upon escape from thence, confined in a narrow Circle, with He-Creatures, drudging, plodding Politicians, for an equally tedious Period of Time, I did not suspect that my Pen could now run in such a stile of social Intercourse as to provoke a delicate Judge among the Polishers of the Manners of our Race, to call me Adulator.13
Lovell’s letter of January 6 elicited Abigail’s reprimand. It referred to days too short for getting pressing public business off his hands, and nights ten times more ruinous to his health, when he was inside bedcurtains the moment that public duty was discharged. To which Abigail crisply replied that she had charity enough to believe Lovell’s associates had been wholly of his own sex for three years past.14
* * *
One other winter’s correspondence allowed for no humor at all. Past experience made Abigail enormously sensitive to how her husband (who had not spared her a detail of his humiliation regarding his first tour of duty in France, nor the “rope of sand” with which he had been so miserably entangled) was treated. Arthur Lee’s horrendous allegations against Silas Deane had precipitated the formation, the past spring, on March 24, 1779, of a special committee on foreign affairs to investigate all members of the foreign service, present and past, involved peripherally or immediately.15
Deane, the blacksmith’s son, Yale graduate and lawyer, would juggle diplomatic triumphs with accusations of embezzlement and double-dealing until his death. His story involves four countries, America, France, England, and Holland, the French playwright and diplomat Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, and the American double agent, Edward Bancroft, who was said to transfer correspondence in bottles concealed in the hole of a tree near the Tuileries. Deane, whom the Connecticut Assembly failed to nominate to the Continental Congress for a third time, was sent to Paris in March 1776 on both commercial and diplomatic missions, charged with investing money to acquire supplies needed by the colonies, eight shiploads of which helped contribute to the success of the Saratoga campaign. Deane’s other instructions had been to sound out the French foreign office on the question of American Independence and the possibilities of an ambassador to Paris, as well as treaties of alliance and commerce between the countries. By September 1776, Deane was joined in Paris by Arthur Lee and Benjamin Franklin. By June 1778, Deane was on his way home to America to answer to a tribunal, including Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee, and Henry Laurens, on charges of corruption initiated by Arthur Lee, Richard’s brother.16
Deane, Arthur Lee insisted, had been at least as attentive to his own interests as to his country’s. He had conspired with Beaumarchais to charge America for supplies the French intended as gifts, and had dabbled in England’s funds. At least one reputable gentleman said he would give Mr. Deane fifty thousand pounds sterling for his fortune. As for his association with the double agent Bancroft: Deane had been introduced to him by Benjamin Franklin, who employed his fellow member of the Royal Society—Bancroft was a writer, inventor, and scientist—to spy for him in England.17
On April 15, 1780, Congress debated a proposed vote of censure of those actively perpetuating “suspicions and animosities” that might be “highly prejudicial” to the honor and interests of the United States. By April 20, Congress had made the censure official for Franklin, Deane, Arthur and the Virginia merchant William Lee, and Ralph Izard, the British-educated South Carolinian native. John escaped, mercifully, though it was a close call, but Lovell’s inferences of an “Accommodation … proposed in Whispers” only nudged John to ask for copies of all “Complaints and Evidences” against his conduct as a commissioner. He wished, he explained, to take measures to “justify” himself to Congress, a request that was rejected on the grounds that his “late Appointment” cleared him of involvement in the “animosities.” John’s friend Elbridge Gerry reassured him that, on the whole, it was his opinion that John’s character, in Congress’s esteem, was as “high” as any gentleman’s in America. John, heartened by his friend’s reassurances, was glad to say that he no longer felt like Ariel, “wedged by the Waiste in the middle of a rifted Oak.”18
On his return to America, Deane, of the opinion he had failed to obtain a satisfactory hearing before Congress, decided to put his case before the public in his address “To the Free and Virtuous Citizens of America,” published first in the Pennsylvania Packet on December 5, 1778, and then reprinted afterward in other papers and eventually in France. John Adams, unable to maintain a neutral position regarding Deane’s ethics, denounced the latter as a “wild boar” to be hunted down for the benefit of all mankind. Deane had responded: “This man who may have read much,” he said, “appeared to have retained nothing except law knowledge and the fierce and haughty manners of the Lacedemonians and the first Romans. These he has adopted as a perfect model to form a modern republican by.” Abigail, entirely out of patience with Deane’s conduct and the public attention he had “roused,” predicted that that “certain gentleman” had “stired up a nest which will sting him till he bleads.” To Mercy Warren on January 22, 1779, she wrote: “Tis unhappy that in the Infancy of our republicks such unworthy characters should stain our Anals and Lessen us in the Eyes of foreign powers. Yet this will ever be the case where self Interest is more powerful than publick virtue.”19
Having survived this unnerving episode with some sense of success, Abigail was dismayed by news from abroad that John, who had already returned there, reaching Paris on February 9, 1780, was still the target of controversy. A group of worthless, ambitious, intriguing Americans, she wrote to Mercy Warren, were circulating reports that John had entertained an illicit correspondence with the British Minister, and had in reality left France for England, rather than America; to no avail could it be pointed out in rebuttal that John had, in fact, embarked for America on the same ship with a French official.20
The collective intrigues of the French and the Americans provoked Abigail to wonder whether America, had it been her lot, would have had an easier time contending only with foreign enemies. It was the rancor of internal foes, she was convinced, that made the task of the patriot peculiarly difficult and dangerous. She despaired at the “machinations of envy, the Snares of Treachery, the malice of Dissimulation and the Clandestine Stabs of Calumny.” How was John to make his way? “Can the Innocence of the dove or the wisdom of a more subtle animal,” she puzzled, “screne him from all these foes?”21
As John’s champion, protector of his dignity, caretaker of his reputation, shattered by the faintest innuendo of disrespect, Abigail was moved openly to his defense by the announcement in a Philadelphia paper listing two of the newly elected members of the American Philosophical Society, in entirely different styles. The announcement in the Pennsylvania Packet referred to “the Honourable John Adams Esq.” as a “late Member of Congress;” “His Excellency John Jay Esquire” was mentioned as “Minister of the United States” at the court of Madrid.22
This was on January 27, 1780. By March 13, after a period of simmering discontent, Abigail decided to write Elbridge Gerry as “the sincere and constant Friend of one deservedly Dear to me, whose honour and character it is my Duty at all times to support.”
May I ask you Sir, why this distinction? Tho I do not know that you are in any ways connected with the Society, I presume no person will say that the commission with which Mr. A——s is invested, is of less importance than that of Mr. J——ys. I suppose they both bear the same title of Minister plenipotentary. Mr. A——s had acted under a commission from Congress near two years before Mr. J——ys appointment, which if I am not mistaken, both in the Army and Navy gives a pre’eminence of Rank.23
To Gerry, Abigail suggested that rank was considered of more importance abroad than in their own young country, and that honorary distinctions ought to be minded. In a twelve-paragraph letter she pointed out that she felt the distinction was aimed not so much at the person as at the state; that there was jealousy of Massachusetts and of every man of any eminence in it. This being so, she asked if it wasn’t “particuliarly incumbent” upon the members from Massachusetts carefully to guard the honor of their state and of those who represented it, “which never can be done if such Little Stigmas are sufferd to be fixed upon them.” A prophet, she said, was not without honor, save in his own country. Still, John had been embarrassed abroad on his first assignment, and though she was satisfied at its solution, she sought support with “honour and delicacy” for those who chose to serve. She also assured Gerry that her absent Friend never regarded the appendages of rank and precedence any other way but as they affected the public.24
By mid-April the correspondence would close with Gerry’s healing admission that Abigail’s sentiments on a “certain publication” in the Philadelphia paper were indeed “too striking” to escape the notice of Mr. Adams’s friends in Philadelphia. Nevertheless, the subject was “delecate in it’s Nature,” and required “Measures that point not directly at the Object.” It was decided, ultimately, that it was best to ignore the oversight, with Gerry promising, with “greatest pleasure”, to endeavor to support Adams “as a particular Friend, as well as a valuable Statesman.”25
* * *
After the rigor of the “Canadian Winter” of 1780, Abigail was relieved by quickening signs of spring; the new green warmth promised renewal of her impoverished spirit and weary body. Worry, loneliness, and confinement had drained her so drastically that she wrote now of being “less attached to the world,” and speculated about whether she was “better fitted for an other.”26
Detached though she might seem, Abigail was more involved than she realized. She decided to go ahead and order a “genteel chaise” from Mr. Thomas Bumstead. Seemingly so embarrassed by this indulgence, she referred to it as the “article,” the “you know what” that John had, obviously before his departure, “directed” her to make and one he found “horribly dear” when she had. She also had established herself as a knowledgeable trader of small supplies—she was partial to muslin handkerchiefs, bits of ribbon, and silk gloves that were easily contained in small envelopes sent from abroad—in exchange for money, or what she termed family necessities. She was preoccupied with Benedict Arnold’s “treachery”; she read and dismissed Lord Chesterfield as “polished,” conceding the elegance and grace of his Letters. Her sister-in-law was dying, her stepfather-in-law, John Hall, married to John’s widowed mother since December 1766, was also hopelessly ill. America’s patchy army dismayed her; the prospects of peace, she said, absorbed her soul.27
Essentially, however, Abigail was preoccupied with her “statesman,” her family abroad, and their whereabouts. Letters filled in the details of their arduous pilgrimage, the thousand-mile trek by mule, calash, and foot, from the northwest tip of the Spanish peninsula, where the leaky Sensible had docked in desperation, to their original destination of Paris. July brought news of the events of March. John had been presented to the King, Queen, and royal family of France, but he saw no great prospect of being presented in a similar manner in London; he fancied His Majesty of St. James would not look so placidly upon him as that of Versailles. Whatever doubts he had of a political nature gave way to indulgent praise of Paris. He would fill columns with descriptions of temples and palaces, sculptures, tapestries, porcelains—except, he claimed, if he took the time to do so, he would neglect his duty, which he described with durable eloquence:
The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts.—I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.28
John’s rigorous concept of his official role could not have surprised Abigail, but where it had led him was quite another matter. In mid-November, dreading the prospect of another “Stern Winter,” Abigail was at work on an extraordinarily ingratiating letter, an artful apology for others less pleasing to her husband. If she had complained (she was “wholy unconscious” of giving him pain), she assured him she had done so out of the “ardour of affection” that could not tolerate neglect, and that no “mediating power” was needed to adjust the difference. “The falling out of Lovers is the renewal of Love,” she said, urging him to
Be to my faults a little Blind
Be to my virtues ever kind.29
The puzzling pleasure Abigail found in mulling over what were admittedly “painfull scenes” was unexpectedly aborted by the arrival of Edward Davis, Captain of the Dolphin, with a letter from John. It was the only one salvaged from mail that had been thrown overboard during a chase at sea—and the first word from John in five months. It was dated September 4, and told her he had been in Amsterdam for weeks, that he was “much pleased” with Holland, that it was a “singular Country” unlike any other, and that its “Frugality, Industry, Cleanliness etc.” ought to be imitated by their own country. A subsequent letter, dated September 15, warned her not to expect a settlement: “You will have no Peace, but what you give yourselves, by destroying Root and Branch all the British Force in America.” John touched on France as well as England, and on Holland’s immense wealth, but did not elaborate, in this letter at least, on his own situation.30
* * *
Insidiously, in one instance after another, every project appeared to John to be a “paradox”; after he had settled in Passy, and boarded his children at M. Péchigny’s school, he sorrowfully concluded that his mission to France was hopeless. There were those who said America would abandon France, and others who said that France and Spain would abandon America, and still others who said that Spain would forsake France and America. Even those who foresaw the possibilities of America becoming the greatest manufacturing country of all, and the greatest military and naval power, predicted evil tidings as the result—all would be “terrible,” if not the actual ruin of Europe.31
The tarnished relationship with France was an especially grievous source of disillusionment to John. In December of 1775 the French had informally assured America of its backing, that it would welcome American ships and seemed already to be thinking in terms of financial aid. Bonded by the threat of their mutual foe, Great Britain, and with Spain’s consent, Louis XVI had, by orders signed on May 2, 1776, decisively come to America’s help, if not rescue. By stealth and intrigue of highest drama, the supply of 1 million livres worth of munitions administered by the French secret agent de Beaumarchais through a fictious company, Roderigue Hortalez et Cie, and a like amount from Spain’s Charles III, would account for eighty percent of America’s gunpowder for 1776 and the following year.32
The Franco-American Alliance of February 6, 1778, had affirmed the countries’ ties—the Treaty of Amity and Commerce granted one another most favored nation status; the Treaty of Alliance was to become effective if and when war broke out between France and Great Britain. Furthermore, the two nations had combined forces in July 1778 to attack the British on American shores. John’s doubts about the sincerity of the French had only surfaced during the period when he had replaced Silas Deane as commissioner to live in Paris and negotiate the peace treaty with Great Britain. It was then that he had begun to question not only the honesty, integrity, and efficiency of the Americans, but the loyalty and intent of the French. One could be grateful to the French for their financial aid but quite accurately perceive, as John did now, that the Foreign Minister, de Vergennes, meant “to keep his hand under our chin to prevent us from drowning, but not to lift our heads out of the water.”33
Given the subtleties and intricacies of the situation in Paris, John was hardly at his best. To be patient, to stand by, to be “so idle and inactive” was not a position at all agreeable to his “genius.” He had, therefore, decided to visit Brussels, The Hague, and Amsterdam, to serve his country “by transcribing Intelligence and in every other Way.” With Johnny and Charles in tow, he left Paris on July 27, 1780, for what he supposed would be a brief trip—he flattered himself that “something might be done to render us less dependent on France,” he had frankly told Vergennes. The brief trip would turn into a year’s stay, the beginning of what was possibly the most thoroughly miserable period of his life, personally, and the proudest diplomatically.34
By September, before Abigail had even learned of their whereabouts, Johnny and Charles were enrolled at the Latin School in Amsterdam; by December, John Thaxter had taken them to Leyden, where they were to study Latin and Greek and attend lectures at the University. It was cheaper in Leyden, the air purer, and besides, the company and conversation would be better, John wrote to their mother. He did not mention that lack of knowledge of the Dutch language posed a problem for the boys; that misunderstanding was thought by a hurt and grieving father to be the cause of their forced removal from the Latin School in Amsterdam. “La Desobeissance et L’impertinence de Monsieur votre Fils ainé, qui fait de son mieux pour corrompre son aimable Frere,” the headmaster had written, “n’etant plus a soufrir, puis qu’il cherche lui même par sa brutalité, a s’attirer le chatiment qu’il merite, dans l’Esperance de quitter les Ecoles, sous ce pretexte.”*35
Obviously unaware of her sons’ punishing adjustments, and rising from the ashes of her increasingly anxious solitude, Abigail, as though she were lecturing behind a formal podium, once again clarified her demanding expectations in a letter to Johnny. Writing in January 1781, she reminded her eldest son that he was in a country famous for its industry and frugality, a country that had given birth to many learned and great men such as Erasmus, Grotius, and Boerhaave.
You must not be a superficial observer, but study Men and Manners that you may be Skilfull in both. Tis said of Socrates, that the oracle pronounced him the wisest of all Men living because he judiciously made choice of Humane Nature for the object of his Thoughts. Youth is the proper season for observation and attention—a mind unincumberd with cares may seek instruction and draw improvement from all the objects which surround it. The earlier in life you accustome yourself to consider objects with attention, the easier will your progress be, and more sure and successfull your enterprizes. What a Harvest of true knowledge and learning may you gather from the numberless varied Scenes through which you pass if you are not wanting in your own assiduity and endeavours. Let your ambition be engaged to become eminent, but above all things support a virtuous character, and remember that “an Honest Man is the Noblest work of God.”36
About the best thing Abigail could say for the winter of 1781 was that the weather was pleasantly mild. Otherwise, these were stormy times. She lived for letters that did not arrive (it would be nine months this March without a word from either Johnny or Charles), nagged herself over money problems, and could not prevent herself from conjuring up the “Hair Breath Scapes” to which her family must be subjected, recognizing all the while that this tendency to imagine the worst was self-indulgent and “imbecility.” By early summer, however, she was alerted by letter to the fact that John was indeed in a precarious situation and that his safety was by no means assured, as far as his reputation was concerned.37
The letter of warning, dated June 17, was not even intended for Abigail, but for Sam Adams’s wife, Elizabeth Welles Adams. The previous instance of confusion over the two women’s mail, a cannister of tea was at stake. This time it was John’s future. Abigail claimed that she read the misdirected letter halfway through before she realized it was not hers. “Ought Eve to have laid it by then when so honestly come at?” she asked James Lovell. She had read on, though, knowing well that one did “pay for peeping.”38
The author of the wayward letter was Alice Lee Shippen, sister of the four Lee brothers of Virginia, one of them being the ornery Arthur, whose reputation was damaged in the tawdry controversy with Silas Deane, during John’s first term in Paris. Mrs. Shippen’s suspicions of Franklin left nothing to the imagination; implications of damage to John horrified Abigail. Mrs. Shippen wrote, initially about Franklin’s plans:
He has sent his resignation to Congress; this is probably no more than a State Trick to fix him more firm in the Saddle. He says perhaps he is too Old, but he does not perceive any thing like it himself; and then gives a strong Proof of it by recommending his Grandson as the Person who will, in a Year or two, be most fit for our Plenepotentiary. From this recommendation one or the other of these two things is clear, either Mr. F——’s faculties are impair’d, or he thinks ours are. This same Gentleman is now Blackening the Character of Mr. J:A. to Congress more than he did Mr. L——’s, and he has got the french Minister to join him.39
With dawning fury, Abigail understood the oblique warnings of Lovell’s letters, his capricious hints of strange undercurrents that had surfaced. On June 26 he had spoken of “Proceedings nearly affecting Mr. A’s public Character.” He thought it proper to tell her, as he did not want her to be uneasy about hints “catched here and there,” that a change of circumstances in Europe necessitated changes involving John, according to the majority opinion. Lovell’s “poor angry” private opinion was something else: “the real Truth being that our allies are to rule the roost.” Lovell enclosed two documents to substantiate his claim, along with his admonition, “Now Woman be secret.” One, dating back to January 10, contained Congress’s official backing of the Comte de Vergennes’s position that John Adams must deal circumspectly, rather than openly, with Great Britain, contrary to John’s wish for “a frank and decent Communication” of his mission in Europe.40
The second enclosure referred to probably noted that John Adams’s instructions of 1779, as sole minister for peace, were changed. Now he was to share his commission with four others, including Jay, Franklin, Laurens, and Jefferson. Collectively they were to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce without knowledge and concurrence of the ministers of their “generous” ally, the King of France. The shrewd Chevalier de La Luzerne had done his homework in Philadelphia. His lobbying was most effective among those who thought John Adams’s interpretation of his orders too high-handed, his stubborn unwillingness to consult the French on his overtures to the British untenable, his “Stiffness and Tenaciousness of Temper” disturbing. John’s singular concept of diplomatic conduct even provoked comment from the politically discreet Franklin. “I am persuaded,” Franklin said about John, “that he means well for his Country, is always an honest Man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses.”41
* * *
With sorrow and anger, out of loyalty and love, in a spectacularly forthright series of letters, Abigail now turned to her friends Thaxter, Gerry, Lovell, and Alice Lee Shippen for help. Abigail told of the sacrifice of her best years, her happiness, and her family’s unity so that her husband could serve his country. She was sure she was owed an explanation, therefore, for what had transpired. While she did not begrudge the sacrifice of domestic pleasure and independent fortune, she would not tolerate the “slanderous arrow, the calumniating stabs of Malice” that tore an honest character into pieces.42
Abigail also made her apologies to Mrs. Shippen. She knew Mrs. Shippen would excuse her unintended indiscretion. But she was wholly ignorant of the nature of the “charades” against her husband, though she now assumed that Benjamin Franklin must have had something to do with her husband’s latest embarrassment.
I can only say that those who have no private Interest to serve, no Friends to advance, no Grandson to plenipotentiarise, no Views incompatable with the welfare of their country, will judge I hope more favourably of a Gentleman whose Heart and Mind are truly republican.… It has been the Misfortune of America in the unhappy tradigy in which She has been engaged, that some of her principle characters have disgraced the Scenes. Her Frankling Dean, and Arnold may be ranked with her Hutchinson and Galloway.43
It was to Lovell, however, that Abigail made a disarming admission about her relationship with John: “When he is wounded I blead.” Her husband was a good man and “would to Heaven” they only had those kind in office. “You know my Friend that he is a man of principal, and that he will not voilate the dictates of his conscience to Ingratiate himself with a minister, or with your more respected Body.” It was not complete chance that Abigail was called Portia. Her defense of John was thorough, and yet it did not lack vigorous spontaneity. “The duce take the Enemy for restraining my pen,” she said. Franklin, she repeated, must be the culprit. If John was a “Gallant,” she would think he had been monopolizing women from the “enchanter.” If he was a “Modern Courtier,” she would think he had outwitted Franklin in court intrigue. If he was a “selfish avaritious designing deceitfull Villan,” she would think he had encroached on the old gentleman’s prerogatives. As John was none of these, she could only attribute Franklin’s malice against an honest republican to something else.
Tis fear, fear, that fear which made the first grand deciver start up in his own shape when touchd by Ithuriel[’s] Spear. The honest Zeal of a Man who has no Sinnester views to serve, no Friends to advance to places of profit and Emolument, no ambition to make a fortune with the Spoil of his country, or to eat the Bread of Idleness and dissapation—this this man must be crushed, he must be calumniated and abused. It needs great courage Sir to engage in the cause of America, we have not only an open but secret foes to contend with. It comes not unexpected upon me I assure you, he who had unjustly traduced the character of one Man, would not hesitate to attack every one who should obstruct his views and no Man however honest his views and intentions will be safe whilst this Gentleman holds his office.44
Abigail had still not plumbed the depths of her anger, or her curiosity. “I want to ask you a hundred Questions and to have them fully and explicitly answerd. You will send me by the first opportunity the whole of this dark prosess,” Abigail virtually ordered Lovell. At last Abigail had taken him precisely at his word. Initially, he had hoped she would command him “freely” in her husband’s absence, and she unhesitatingly honored his wish. If her “Friend” was uninformed, she begged Lovell to tell John of Congress’s feelings, that he might take proper measures in his defense. Her husband would be devastated, she predicted. “He must and will quit a Situation in which he cannot act with honour.” At this time she could see “nothing but dishonour, and disgrace attending his most faithful, and zealous exertions for the welfare of his Country.”45
Abigail was further incensed by the contents of Lovell’s letter of July 13, 1781. His explanation for John’s plight was direct. He had obviously discussed the problem with Sam Adams and come to the conclusion that Abigail’s “All” was not servile enough to gain the unbounded affection of the foreign court, that Count de Vergennes had sent letters of complaint to “old Franklin,” and that the latter had also written “a most unkind and stabbing one hither; which he had no necessity to doing.” Lovell added, to Abigail’s weary satisfaction, that he could not accuse anyone of lack of esteem for Mr. Adams, but that he saw him “indelicately handled by Means of wrong measures on a general Scale.” By August, Lovell assured Abigail that there was no pique or ill will against her Mr. Adams in Congress. What had happened had sprung out of mistaken principles of general policy, and he wished her not to think that there was any idea of criminality in Mr. Adams. “He is much esteemed. But such is the uncouth way of Proceeding here at Times that unintended Chagrin must arise.”46
* * *
Unknown to Abigail, John had returned to Paris that same July. He had received a grudging summons from the Comte de Vergennes to discuss offers of the Russians and Austrians to mediate a peace, John being the only American available with authority to accept such help. By harshly rejecting the Frenchman’s proposal, because he suspected that the United States was being compromised in these negotiations, John did not endear himself further on this mission. “This desireable object [peace] is yet unhappily at a Distance, a long distance I fear,” he had concluded.47
If, at this hour, John’s political life was speculative, his personal life was fragmented. Johnny had already left Amsterdam on July 7 to join Francis Dana, appointed the first American minister to Russia; by August 27 he would be in St. Petersburg, working as Dana’s private secretary and French interpreter. Charles, who had been feverishly ill and homesick—his father explained he was a “delightful Child,” but had “too exquisite sensibility for Europe”—was to begin, on August 12, his frightening journey home, which would land him at Beverly, Massachusetts, in January of the following year. John himself suffered a violent fever, blaming it on the summer heat, and on the “cold damps and putrid steams” arising from the immense quantities of dead water stagnating in the Dutch canals. He also blamed his anxiety over America’s state of affairs in Holland and his excessive fatigue for bringing him as near to death as any man ever approached “without being grasped in his arms.” But his broken spirits were shortly mended.48
Late in November, John learned of his new responsibilities. His assignment, voted by Congress the past August 16, was to form a treaty of alliance between France, the United Provinces, and the United States, contingent on Dutch recognition of American Independence. By this time Lt. General Charles Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, and John thought himself in a much stronger position to press for permission from the French to work for recognition at The Hague. By December 2, 1781, he could caution Abigail not to distress herself about any malicious attempts to injure him in the estimation of his countrymen. “Let them take their course and go the length of their tether,” he insisted now. They could never hurt her husband, whose character was fortified with a shield of “Innocence and honor ten thousandfold stronger than brass or iron. Say as little about it as I do,” he pleaded. Reinforced once more with title and position, that of Minister Plenipotentiary to the Netherlands, John promised he would laugh—“laugh before all Posterity”—at those who tried to dishonor him.49
* * *
As John’s future brightened, Abigail’s dimmed, her mountainous aspirations paled into sorrowful, self-pitying shadows. In her dearest Friend’s two-year absence she could no longer kindle brave words, but talked about the “load” of her heart, and brooded about the “vexations, toils and hazards” of public life. Where should she begin her list of grievances? she asked. First, with the silence between them. She had not received a letter in over a year from either her husband or from John Quincy, her Russian “vissiter”; Charles was still at sea, the welfare of his ship the subject of shattering rumors. Sustaining her end of their correspondence, she wrote John:
Alass my dear I am much afflicted with a disorder call’d the Heartach, nor can any remedy be found in America, it must be collected from Holland, Petersburgh and Bilboa.50
Frequently now, Abigail was confined over what she referred to as “slight indispositions” to which she had always been subject, but never severely. Her nervous system, she realized, was “too easily agitated.” Money was a continual problem, even more so after she had paid her taxes. She was shocked by how inadequate John’s salary really was, infuriated by those around her who, not worth ten Spanish “milled” dollars at the start of the war, indulged now in lavish furniture, equipage, clothing, and even feasting. She pleaded with John on December 9, 1781: “Will you not return e’er the close of another year?” She had plans for them to retire from the “vexations, toils and hazards of publick Life. Didn’t he sometimes sigh,” she asked, “for such a Seclusion—publick peace and domestick happiness?” For months Abigail continued to plan her purchase of land in Vermont; she referred to it as a “favorite object” without realizing, perhaps, that it was also a symbol of escape from a way of life, “this cruel State of Separation” she could no longer tolerate.51
Abigail’s dirge intensified with each letter. Eight years, she counted, had already passed since John could call himself an inhabitant of Massachusetts. Her fondest wish was for his return, for reasons specifically known to a feminine heart. She explained:
the age of romance has long ago past, but the affection of almost Infant years has matured and strengthened untill it has become a vital principle, nor has the world any thing to bestow which could in the smallest degree compensate for the loss. Desire and Sorrow were denounced upon our Sex; as a punishment for the transgression of Eve. I have sometimes thought we are formed to experience more exquisite Sensations than is the Lot of your Sex. More tender and susceptable by Nature of those impression[s] which create happiness or misiry, we Suffer and enjoy in a higher degree. I never wonderd at the philosopher who thanked the Gods that he was created a Man rather than a Woman.52
Six months later, on June 17, 1782, Abigail received two letters from Amsterdam that summarily revived her spirits. John was almost smug: “Your humble Servant has lately grown much into Fashion,” he had written on March 22. Nobody was nearly as important as Mynheer Adams, he continued: “Every City, and Province rings with De Heer Adams etc. etc. etc.” Furthermore, he judged he would be received in “awful Pomp” in a few weeks, a prediction confirmed shortly, in his letter of March 29, written a day after the states of Holland and West Friesland resolved to admit him to an audience.53
Abigail was exultant. “I will take praise to myself,” she responded. “I feel that it is my due, for having sacrificed so large a portion of my peace and happiness to promote the welfare of my country which I hope for many years to come will reap the benefit, tho it is more than probable unmindful of the hand that blessed them.” The patriot once again rose to the occasion. Ardently though she longed for John’s return, she assured him that she could not feel “the least inclination” to a peace, but on “the most liberal foundation.”54
Particularly during the last depressed months, Abigail had given a great deal of thought to her feelings about “patriotick virtue.” At times, when she might appear wanting in that realm, she assured John (as though to assure herself), that she urged his return not only for personal reasons but because she feared for his health and safety if he remained abroad. Even more important, she believed that the “wisest and ablest” citizens, such as John himself, were needed to alleviate the daily suffering at home. Dedicated to the illumination of whatever discrepancies existed regarding their standards, Abigail persisted in her analysis of the subject.
Patriotism in the female Sex is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honours and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Government from having held a place of Eminence. Even in the freest countrys our property is subject to the controul and disposal of our partners, to whom the Laws have given a sovereign Authority. Deprived of a voice in Legislation, obliged to submit to those Laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the publick Welfare? Yet all History and every age exhibit Instances of patriotick virtue in the female Sex; which considering our situation equals the most Heroick of yours.55
Happily, Abigail’s wish that John’s negotiations in Holland be “blessed” were granted. On March 15, John had bought a house in The Hague—bordering the Fluwelen Burgwal (the street of the “Velvet Makers”)—to serve as the Hotel des États Unis, or, as he called it, “L’Hotel de nouveau Monde.” By April 19 he had reached the turning point: the States General of the United Netherlands resolved “that Mr. Adams shall be admitted and acknowledged in Quality of Envoy of the United States of North America to their High Mightinesses, as he is admitted and acknowledged by the present.” On June 11 John signed five bonds in the amount of one million guilders—each bond for a loan by a syndicate of Dutch banking houses, at 5-percent interest—allowing for a 4½-percent commission to the bankers, repayment to begin in ten years and to be completed in fifteen. Congress ratified the contract on September 14, 1782. This was the first of four loans John maneuvered in the Netherlands, totaling 9 million guilders, or more than $3,500,000. It was the sole effective support, some would say, to languishing American credit, a crucial sum that enabled the government of the Confederation to survive until recognition of Washington’s new national government under the Constitution of 1787.56
John was not one to underestimate the success that had hung “upon a Thread, a Hair, a silken Fibre.” He boasted he could not foresee an opportunity for a century to come that would be “so critical and of so extensive importance in the political system of America.” He was proud for another reason: without money, without friends, in the face of mean intrigue, he had carried the cause “by the still small Voice of Reason, and Perswasion.” John had triumphed against the ceaseless opposition of family connections, court influence, and despotism. But he had also almost ruined his health in the cause. He was exhausted, feeling a half-century older and feebler than when he had left Abigail. His mind spun with memories: “What storms, what Chases, what Leaks, what Mountains and Valleys, what Fatigues, Dangers, Hair Breadth scapes, what Fevers and Gouts, have I seen and felt!”57
Eventually, John needed to ask himself whether he must stay or go, remain abroad or return to Braintree. At this opening scene of “Risque and Trouble,” feeling so “wedged” in with public affairs, he was afraid that an offer to resign would occasion “much Puzzle” and be adversely interpreted. British politics were a “Labyrinth,” in his opinion. Even John Thaxter observed that the world, in the summer of 1782, was in “all the Anxiety of earnest Expectation, all on Tiptoe.…”58
Charles James Fox, the British foreign secretary, was eager to grant absolute, unequivocal, and unconditional independence to America, to which the King took absolute exception, whereas John took exception to the King. George, in his opinion, was “an obstinate, miserable man, a monster, another Pharaoh,” who, it was predicted, would sacrifice a tottering crown and even forfeit life, to no purpose at all. John sighed as he faced up to the multitude of questions to debate at this juncture in his country’s history. If America conducted itself with “Caution, Prudence, Moderation and Firmness,” the new country would succeed. But if Congress or its ministers abroad were intimidated by threats, slanders, and insinuations, all would be lost: America would be duped out of the fishery, the Mississippi, and the western lands, as well as the rich forests of Penobscot, where every tree was a prospective ship’s mast.59
Apart from being uneasy about Congress’s “Designs,” and about whether or not he was being accurately informed, John was personally unhappy. He despised his state of “horrid Solitude” at The Hague, but remained indecisive about where salvation lay. He was uneasy with Abigail’s proposals about Vermont, or even Penn’s Hill. Even she questioned her husband’s genuine needs, apart from her hopes and his wishes.60
Only John could answer Abigail’s tumbling questions. Did his heart really pine for domestic tranquility and for the “reciprocation” of happiness he had once known? Was there, on the other hand, “ought in Courts, in Theaters or Assemblies that can fill the void? Will ambition, will fame, will honour do it?” There seemed to be no instant solutions. But there were the facts. She could no longer live in such a lonely state. And she was worried about Nabby, who was too silent, too attentive to her mother (in her mother’s opinion), too preoccupied with the separation from her father and brothers.61
On August 4, Abigail received a visitor who as much as told her what her next step must be. Doctor Benjamin Waterhouse, who would be appointed professor at the newly founded Harvard Medical School the following year, had befriended John, and was a mentor to both Johnny and Thaxter while in Leyden, was separated from Charles on their voyage and arrived home in June, 1782. He wished “exceedingly” that Abigail join her husband, sure that her presence was necessary to his happiness. One month later, Abigail made a “serious proposal” to John. It was a cold, dry September—the summer drought had shriveled the corn and baked the grass fields to a dull brown. The dismal landscape captured her own mood with desperate truth. She would have been married eighteen years in October; John and she had lived apart now for three years.
The blossom falls and the fruit withers and decays; but here the similitude fails, for, though lost for the present, the season returns, the tree vegetates anew, and the blossom again puts forth.
But, alas! with me, those days which are past are gone for ever, and time is hastening on that period when I must fall to rise no more until mortality shall put on immortality, and we shall meet again, pure and disembodied spirits.62
Later that November, Abigail wrote again of her abiding hope that God would grant John’s return, leaving no doubt of her complete confidence and devotion:
Give me the man I love; you are neither of an age or temper to be allured by the splendor of a court, or the smiles of princesses. I never suffered an easy sensation on that account. I know I have a right to your whole heart, because my own never knew another lord: and such is my confidence in you, that, if you were not with held by the strongest of all obligations, those of a moral nature, your honor would not suffer you to abuse my confidence.
Abigail also left no doubt about her repeated “proposal” to visit John. She could scarcely bear a refusal, she admitted. Yet she wanted to be asked “up on the best grounds and reasons.” If John was in favor of her coming, she would not need to urge him again; if he was against it, she would not embarrass him by making a further request. She had already assured him that she feared neither the enemy nor “old Neptune.” What she feared most, and would never accept, was “a half way invitation.”63
* * *
More than two years would storm by between May 1782, when John first expressed his desperate need to be reunited with Abigail, when he said it did not matter on which side of the ocean they met, and her departure on June 20, 1784, for England. These would be years fraught with as many uncertainties as there were possibilities, plans for going or staying wavering with each new aspect of what she referred to as John’s “garbled mission.” In a way, she seemed to be dancing a minuet of mysterious rhythm: one step forward, two back, three sideways, then sudden, ominous stillness. John’s invitations to Abigail pressed, halted, resumed, a composite reflection of America’s difficulties in establishing its identity as well as his personal vulnerability.64
When solutions eluded John, his mind veered toward explanations and analysis, the probing lawyer asserting himself. He consoled himself by saying that the case of America was a new one, that it had no example in history, that therefore no “reasonings” could be drawn on, no precedents were available for guidance. There was only one way, in his estimation, to negotiate with Englishmen. “That is clearly and decidedly, Firmness, firmness and patience,” he recommended to John Jay. He also warned Abigail not to expect peace—not before 1784, anyway. He predicted that the English were not yet sufficiently “humbled,” that they would have another campaign unless there was better news for America. Miraculously, there was.65
In the autumn of 1782, a year after Cornwallis had sent up a white flag signaling the surrender of his entire force at Yorktown, and the last land battle was fought near Chillcote, Ohio—at a time when Britain and America reminded him of eagle and cat—John could claim fulfillment of all his anxious years of work. That October 17, buoyed by the “full success” of his negotiations with the Dutch, having achieved a loan through the syndicate of Dutch bankers to the Continental Congress, and having signed a treaty of amity and commerce between the two powers, John pressed on to Paris. There he joined Benjamin Franklin and John Jay in negotiating provisional articles of peace between Great Britain and the United States. The signing of the Preliminary Treaty at Versailles on November 30 was celebrated afterwards with luncheon in Passy at Dr. Franklin’s.66
Just two months later, on Monday, January 20, 1783, a declaration of the cessation of hostilities was agreed on by the Americans and the British. Meetings begun at ten o’clock that morning in the opulent office of the Comte de Vergennes resulted in the historic Peace of Paris, Great Britain’s pact with Spain, France, and America promising the longed-for official declaration of the end of hostilities between the old nation and the new. “Thus was this mighty System terminated,” John said, “with as little Ceremony, and in as short a Time as a Marriage Settlement.”67
* * *
Never one to thrive in an uncertain political climate, John now found himself immeasurably restless, admitting that the newly forged peace, which put the rest of the world at ease, only increased his own “perplexities and anxiety.” The nervous letters that followed echoed his torment. Now he wrote of his intentions to go home with or without the permission of Congress: “Don’t think, therefore, of coming to Europe,” he warned Abigail. “If you do, we shall cross each other, and I shall arrive in America about the same time that you may arrive in Europe.” He also warned her of the hideous solitude among millions that she was sure to experience, pointing out how ardently Mrs. Jay was longing for home. In other words, Abigail was to do nothing but stay in Braintree and wait for her “old friend.” Besides, he wished them to live in their own country for another reason. “Upon no consideration whatever, would I have any of my children educated in Europe. In conclusion, I could not consent to it.”68
Yet, while John yearned for his homeland with all his heart, his intellect craved something different. In reality he craved the chance to stay abroad, nurturing the single hope that he would be needed and wanted by his government for further service, that he would be accorded the one honor that would keep him from returning to his children to live with them in “simplicity, innocence and repose.” On February 27, in a letter to Abigail revealing still-tender wounds, John claimed to be adamant about going home unless
I receive a commission to St. James’s. Don’t you embark, therefore, until you receive a letter from me desiring you to come. If I should receive such a commission, I will write you immediately by way of France, Holland and England, and shall wish you to come to me on the wings of the wind. But the same influence, French influence I mean, which induced Congress to revoke my commission, will still continue to prevent the revival of it. And I think it likely, too, that English influence will now be added to French, for I don’t believe that George wishes to see my face.69
John’s sense of failure as a diplomat was firmly ingrained. He was almost childlike in knowing the rules, and in being unable to observe them. While grumbling his way through suppers and visits with princesses and their princes, he knew it was much “wholesomer” to act the complaisant, good-humored, contented courtier. But something deep within him imposed limitations; frankly, he admitted his “Courtierism” would never be extensive. Playing his own Hamlet, he recognized the problem: “I must be an independent Man and how to reconcile this to the Character of Courtier is the Question.”70
His suspicions concerning the French did nothing to help him resolve his problem. French policy was so alarmingly subtle, to his thinking, that one could not be steady enough, patient enough, or determined enough when dealing with it or its perpetrators. In his opinion, Poland, Sweden, Corsica, and Geneva had all been victims, had all suffered the “horrid effects” of the French policy because of their yielding to it, whereas Switzerland, fearless of France, enjoyed her as an ally. If America was supported by a sturdy Congress, it would go clearly to the windward of the French; if Congress wavered, the United States would be stunted in such a way that it would not recover its present momentum in another fifty years, John predicted.71
Exhausted, John could not help contrasting his own bleak future and indifferent reputation with that of Benjamin Franklin, whose benign rapport with the detested and damaging Comte de Vergennes infuriated him. Franklin’s popularity was due to his being “pliant and submissive,” John thought; the result of keeping “Scribblers in his Pay in London to trumpet his fame.” Franklin’s appointment of his grandson William Temple Franklin as secretary of the commission only fueled his resentment and confirmed his theory that Dr. Franklin and Vergennes meant Billy to be made minister to the French court, and not “improbably” that the elder Franklin would go to London. “Time will shew,” John said, inferring that it would decidedly bear out his tormenting prognosis.72
Except for their common birthplace being Boston, given their wholly differing moral attitudes, interests, and temperaments, it seemed inevitable that Franklin and Adams would clash over their treatment by and of the French. Franklin had felt obliged to report to Congress on August 9, 1780, that “Mr. Adams has given Offence to the Court here, by some Sentiments and Expressions contained in several of his letters to the Count de Vergennes.” Adams, not having proper business elsewhere, seemed to Franklin to have endeavored to “supply” for his own defective negotiations, or those seemingly so to his colleague. Adams, Franklin explained further, felt that America had been too free in expressions of gratitude to France, that she was more obliged to America than America to her. Adams felt America should show “Spirit” in dealing with France.73
On the contrary, Franklin thought the court ought to be treated with decency and delicacy, that the King, a young and virtuous Prince, had, he was persuaded, pleasure in reflecting on the generous “Benevolence of the action in assisting an oppressed people” and proposed it “as a part of the glory of his reign.” Franklin was persuaded that different conduct was not only “improper and unbecoming, but may be hurtful to us.”74
Very likely, Adams was keener in comprehending the influential role that de Vergennes meant to play while Franklin was neither “aggressive or suspicious enough” championing the American point of view. Eventually, it was John Jay who would convince Franklin to negotiate peace with Great Britain without consulting de Vergennes. John, admittedly suspicious of court life, where, he told Abigail, he thought “conversation is only to flatter one that he may betray another,” was undoubtedly honest but uncomfortably blunt, if not clumsy in his dealings with the French. He was the first of three generations of diplomats who collectively would earn the comment that “Adamses have a genius for saying even a gracious thing in an ungracious way.”75
Mention of London and service in Great Britain touched every tender nerve of aspiration, dredged up all of his frustrations and his ambitions. He wanted the assignment to Great Britain desperately, and he had virtually applied to Congress for the job, writing to its president early that February. In describing to Elias Boudinot the qualifications he thought necessary for the foreign minister designated to the Court of St. James, he was sketching an exquisitely idealized, though fundamentally accurate portrait of himself:
in the first place he should have had an education in classical learning and in the knowledge of general history ancient and modern, and particularly the History of France England Holland and America, he should be well versed in the Principles of Ethicks, of the Law of Nature and Nations, of Legislation and Government, of the civil Roman Law, of the laws of England and the United States, of the public Law of Europe, and in the letters, memoirs and Histories of those great men who have heretofore shone in the Diplomatic order, and conducted the affairs of the nations and the world.76
John had added that this paragon ought to possess maturity of judgment gained from experience, ought to be active, attentive and industrious, and ought, above all, to possess an upright heart and an independent spirit. He should also “decidedly” be one who made the interest of his country and not the policy of any other nation, or his private ambition or interest or that of his family, friends, and connections, the rule of his conduct. He reminded the president of Congress that in neither America nor Europe had the present revolution been accomplished by elegant bows or by fluency in French.77
All that spring of 1783, John balanced despair against pessimism, bitter criticism against blatant hostility. Vergennes was the “vulcan at Versailles” whose chains he would elude. Though they might imprison many, he told himself they would never be strong enough to imprison a giant who would break through them, shatter them “like morsels of glass.” He would not be “horse-jockeyed,” he insisted. And at least, if he was, de Vergennes and Franklin should not be the jockeys. John grew increasingly dramatic, even paranoid, talking about a wound upon his honor; he would wear no livery with a spot upon it; stains would have to be taken out or he would not wear the coat. In fact, he thought Congress and its ministers had been treated like children, trifled with, imposed upon, deceived. Franklin’s reputation had helped lend credibility to Vergennes, and, in truth, John thought he could hope for little success, pitted against them.78
John promised his friend General Warren that the moment another person was appointed to Great Britain, he would be going home, leave or no leave. And to Abigail he confided that he was sure “some booby will be sent, in complaissance to two silly courts.” Yet he was “soberly” of the opinion that for one or two years to come he could do more good in England for the United States of America than in any other spot upon earth. While he did not go so far as to spell out Franklin as the “booby” he most expected to fill the position he cherished, he could not suppress his abiding revulsion of America’s senior statesmen.79
A letter written on April 6, 1783, to Arthur Lee embodied the fury that seethed inside John; it overflowed with bitterness.
I expect soon to see a proposition to name the 18th century the Franklininian Age: Le Siecle Franklininien, and I am willing to leave the question whether it shall be called Franklininian or Frederician, to him and the King of Prussia; tho I think the latter stands no chance, as a French writer, within a few weeks, says Franklin will after a few Ages be considered as a God and I take it Frederich has not enough of the Caesar in him to dispute with a God.80
The English called Franklin the “Founder of the American Empire,” but John had devised a title he thought more apt: “the Demon of Discord among American Ministers and the curse and Scourge of their cause.” No one man had, in his opinion, “the least colour” of a just pretension to the title of founder, not even George Washington. If he did have to name one, however, he would not be ashamed to say that Mr. Samuel Adams was the man who had acted the “longest and most essential part in this Revolution” and, further, he could say this without fear of being contradicted by Posterity.81
It was, of course, not Franklin’s politics alone that alienated John. It was said of Sir Walter Raleigh that his morals were not sufficiently exact for a great man, and John thought that observation could never be applied with more propriety than to Dr. Franklin. The latter’s whole life, John thought, considering its vast measure, had been “one continued insult to good manners and to decency.” His referrals of his bastard son and grandson, with what John called “characteristic modesty,” and his mention of his friend Polly Baker, were outrages to morality and decorum, not to be forgiven in any other American. John knew it would be folly to deny that Franklin had a great genius, or that he had written several things in philosophy and in politics apparently worth reading; he only meant to make clear that he thought Franklin’s reputation inflated, even grossly exaggerated. It had become “one of the greatest impostures that ever had been perpetrated upon mankind since the Days of Mahomet,” he told his friend Warren.82
That April, John seemed to grope his way to the pinnacle of uncertainty, to wallow in ambiguity. He was not ambitious, he said, of the honor of a commission to the Court of St. James. Nor did he entertain any expectations of a happy life in England. But pride, integrity, and vanity were involved, he freely admitted. And he truly believed that Congress could not soon enough send a minister to London to arrange a system of commerce to guard America’s interests. He felt sure that the French were at work in England, and he told Arthur Lee “we may depend upon it they labor less for our good than their own.”83
While he sensed the necessity of a minister, and was sure that he himself could best execute the duties involved, John’s private ambitions did not obscure his vision of the grandeur of the future. If the United States could keep united, they would in half a century give “Tone to the World.” To his mind, his country was a singular one, a “Temple of Liberty” open to all humanity. He alluded, too, at this time, to the motivating force of his life, surpassing all others, his reverence for his country. “I never had through my whole life any other ambition than to cherish, promote and protect it, and never have any other for myself, nor my children. For this object, however, I have as much as any Conqueror ever had.”84
* * *
For all his lofty purpose, John was still a parent and a husband and, most of all, a vulnerable being. Perplexed, even threatened, he turned to his family with almost childlike simplicity. Parted from them physically, he longed for them spiritually. Needing his independence from them in order to prove his worth, he turned to them when his hopes for fulfillment of his ambitions were most feeble. He was no longer a boy or a young man, and no matter what he wished for his country, he had needs of his own. “My family has become an indispensable necessary of Life to me,” he confessed. He was thinking there was no employment however honorable, no course of life however brilliant, that had such a “luster” in his imagination as an absolutely private life. His farm and his family “glitter” before his eyes, every day and night, he told his friend James Warren. “Decide my fate therefore as soon as possible,” he begged, “if it is not yet decided.”85
Taking stock, John concluded that the times had made a strange being of him. He was a domestic animal who was never at home, a bashful creature, a timid man braving the greatest dangers. He was also an “irritable fiery mortal,” enduring every provocation, and yet a humble farmer despising pomp, power, and wealth. But whatever else he might be, he consoled himself that there was no conflict in one area, at least. He was “an honest man in all and to the Death.”86
Midsummer, John returned to the Netherlands to talk and write about America’s interests, to confer with patriot friends in the Hague, with merchants and bankers in Amsterdam, to pay respects to the Stadholder. Still, there was no solution to his dilemma, “the most insipid and at the same time disgusting and provoking situation imaginable.” He was demoralized; he had decided he would rather be employed in carting street dust and marsh mud, in chopping wood and digging ditches on his farm, than in waiting through the present uncertainty. “Nobody knows that I do anything or have anything to do,” he complained to James Warren. He had one consolation, “thank God,” he said. “I have planted the American Standard at the Hague. There let it wave and fly in triumph over Sir Joseph Yorke and British pride. I shall look down upon the flagstaff with pleasure from the other world.”87
John clung to his accomplishments in Holland and as time went on it was apparent that neither the Declaration of American Independence nor the Massachusetts Constitution nor the alliance with France would ever give him more satisfaction than his negotiations with the Dutch, which he would renew triumphantly in 1784, 1787, and 1788. Friendship with Holland erected an eternal barrier against dangers from the house of Bourbon as well as from England, he was certain.88
Back in France and in Passy, the morning of September 7, 1783 Benjamin Franklin handed John the Congressional Resolution just arrived the night before. As of the previous May 1 Congress had authorized that a commission be formed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay to enter into a Treaty of Commerce between the United States of America and Great Britain. These somewhat amorphous orders would be more refined only on May 7th and 10 of 1784 when Thomas Jefferson was appointed successor to John Jay as Minister plenipotentiary and joint commissioner in Europe and Jay was elected secretary for foreign affairs. John Adams was to head the new commission of the three plenipotentiaries meant jointly to negotiate with twenty powers—three more to be added that June. Even John’s fears about William Temple Franklin were groundless. He was not to be promoted but, instead, replaced as secretary by David Humphries.89
About the choice of Thomas Jefferson, John was exceptionally generous. The latter was, after all, an old friend with whom he had often deliberated many knotty problems; of his abilities and steadiness he had always been confident. He thought his fellow laborer in Congress a uniformly wise and prudent man, a steady patriot whose approach to his many “tryals,” particularly in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, and in the formation of the Code of Articles of War and laws for the army, was scarcely equalled either in talent or virtue. John Adams’ only reservation about this colleague, at this critical juncture in his life, was his fear that Jefferson’s “unquenchable thirst of knowledge may injure his health.”90
John’s September appointment, though somewhat vague as it would turn out, was enough to renew his faith in his pursuit and refurbish his ambition. Now he could issue a wholehearted invitation to Abigail. Possibilities he had explored for hundreds of hours past crystalized now, and his letters to Abigail were full of optimism and purpose. “Will you come to me this fall and go home with me this Spring?” he asked his wife, for the uncountable time. And would she bring Nabby and leave the boys with her brother-in-law, Mr. Shaw, the school master? And would she plan to leave the responsibilities of her household to her father or Uncle Quincy, Uncle Tufts, or Mr. Cranch? John supposed that his letter would reach Abigail in October, and that she would leave for Europe in November or December. He asked that she write to him by every ship to Spain, France, Holland or England, that he might know when to expect her. He also told her that she gave him “more public intelligence than any body.” The only hint in Europe of this commission was from her to “Yours, forever.”91
John’s enthusiasm was momentarily deflected by the recurrence of his illness of two years before in Amsterdam. He was feverish, faint and sleepless. But John Thaxter, his former law clerk, friend, secretary, family tutor, nurse, physician and comforter while in the Netherlands together, had sailed for America. John was now dependent on his French servants and Sir James Jay, John Jay’s brother. Jay, a physician, advised him to move from the grinding noise of the Place du Carrousel, a thoroughfare wracked with the constant roar of carriages at least twenty-one out of twenty-four hours. Thomas Barclay, the Philadelphia merchant serving as American consul in France, took pity on him and offered his apartments in Auteuil, just four miles from Paris, known as a place of salubrité as far back as the twelfth century. By September 22, John’s health was improving, thanks to peaceful walks in the garden and restoring rides in an open carriage or even on horseback. His son John Quincy was also a comfort, proving, as his secretary, to write “a good hand very fast.”92
It had, of course, not only been traffic noise that unnerved John and compounded his illness but the indecision that obscured his future and his severe loneliness and unhappiness without Abigail. The stress too of the financial negotiations on behalf of his country, of the four and six and more month intervals between official communications, let alone letters from home, cost him, he had admitted, “much fatigue and ill health.” Self-pity, nearly a disease in itself, had been rampant in John at this time.93
But ill as John was he urged Abigail to embark for London, Amsterdam or any port in France. Now all ominous warnings were forgotten. He could only see the positive aspects of her visit. Surely, she would find friends enough, and certainly stimulation enough. Coming to Europe with Nabby, as soon as possible would satisfy their daughter’s curiosity and improve her taste. Viewing magnificent scenes, going to plays, seeing splendid buildings, would be of “service” to wife and daughter, apart from making them happy. As for himself, he would now realize the fulfillment of his most ardent wish, he confided to the newly married Charles William Frederic Dumas, unofficial American chargé d’affaires at The Hague. “I hope to be married once more myself, in a few months, to a very amiable lady whom I have inhumanly left a widow in America for nine years, with the exception of a few weeks only. Ask Madame Dumas,” John continued, “whether she thinks she has Patriotism enough to consent that you should leave her for nine years pro bono publico? If she has she has another good title to the character of an Heroine.”94