“Albeit Unused to the Melting Mood”
The morning that John Quincy was to leave London, he had set himself to performing his “indispensables.” Among them was an hour devoted to his last sitting for the artist Thomas H. Hull for the miniature he would exchange for one of Louisa in return. He had arranged for her father to deliver it to her, and he hoped she would “Accept it as a token of an affection,” he wrote, “which will cease only with the last pulse of the heart of him whose image it is. And may it often meet your eye with one half the delight which at this instant he derives from a look at the precious corresponding pledge of your regard, which now lays on the table before him.”1
On the whole, the miniature of Louisa, oil on ivory, copied by William Birch from Copley’s romantic portrait, was more pleasing to the sitter than the original. He thought it less flattering, “in want of a little assistance from The Graces,” in this instance, “a capital qualification.” As for his gazing at the young lady in the miniature and using all his eloquence, trying to elicit a smile from her countenance had become one of his favorite occupations and challenges. In this portrait of a mere girl with towering and tumbling hair, grave in wistful thought—in spite of all his efforts, she “continues inexorable,” and seemed to tell him “that she knows her power and is sure to please me let her look how she will.” As a result, he had given up the hope of a perpetual smile from the image and comforted himself with the hope of an occasional one from the original.2
From The Hague, he wrote tenderly and lovingly that “Six days have elapsed since I last enjoyed the happiness of seeing you.” It had been his hope that meanwhile, in sharing his need for comfort at their separation, she too “exercised and discovered the species of fortitude” of which they had often conversed. Back at The Hague, in the midst of a great deal of business, he realized that it would be some time before he was able “to bend myself properly to it.”3 Instead, discipline wanting:
My imagination cannot help flying from the flat realities around me to the scenes which have been recently familiar to me, which however highly prized while they were enjoyed, are still more valued now that they are past.
I see you sitting on the sofa with the table before you working at a Vandyke, and Caroline at the other end and with her silken net-work pinned before her, while Nancy calls the very soul of harmony from the forte piano.4
It was as though he had forgotten the misanthropic record he had left behind of a nearly hostile captive of his last months in London and its irresistible dissipation. Though he scornfully mourned “too much time spent in relaxation, perhaps lost,” he allowed himself one tentative apology: the state of his health. Then again, he would concede that “weakness of the heart is only a plea for me—much more might have been done by me.” But on the whole in regard to the past year, he wrote in his diary on his twenty-ninth birthday on July 11, none of its predecessors had been so innocent, “yet none of them have been more exposed to temptation.” In other words, John Quincy was in love and, at the same time, riddled with guilt and disapproval of his obsessive capitulation to the possibilities of marriage.5
Since his return to The Hague, he found himself determined to make the remainder of his stay as short as possible, as he saw no prospect for an increase in his earnings. But he meant to write home to his friends in America to explore other prospects “that would enable him to indulge the wishes of my heart,” he told Louisa. He would, he continued, “cheerfully resign a career of public life which forbids that private happiness, the first object of my hopes and which you only can confer.” He also asked to be remembered with respect and gratitude to Louisa’s mother, and “with kind attachment to all your lovely sisters.” As the bearer of his messages, he hoped she would tell Nancy that the new sonatas “yet vibrate upon the ears of Mr. Quiz,” as he was called, and Caroline, that he would with rapture hear once more her deep toned execrations on the Dutch language. “To yourself, Louisa, say in his behalf everything that can give you the most pleasing and unmingled gratification, and be assured that however warm and eloquent the language may be, it will fall far, far short of the feelings which fill the breast of your ever faithful and affectionate friend John Q. Adams.”6
In a most congenial mood, he also wrote that same June evening, to his prospective father-in-law, Joshua Johnson, requesting him and Mrs. Johnson and all their family to accept his gratitude for the “numberless marks of kindness” he had received during his stay in England. Also, he hoped to hear from him as frequently as convenient.7
Weeks later, he reaffirmed his commitment to Louisa and his future plans in his letter to his mother. Rather discreetly, but nevertheless with passion: “From considerations of necessary prudence,” he had left “a highly valued friend behind.”8
“Albeit unused to the melting mood,” he found the separation “not a little painful. It is meant however that it shall only be temporary.” Looking ahead, he proposed to pass one year more in the Netherlands, to complete the three years that he had committed to his present mission. In the meantime, he would try to make arrangements that might afford him greater support. He knew, of course, that he would have it in his power to return to the bar, but he would give preference to other choices. Three years of total abandonment of both the practice and study of the law, and a pretty constant pursuit so different from it, would deprive him, he knew, of whatever fitness he had for that profession, which certainly offered no alluring prospect in the first place.9
Being back at The Hague was more of a struggle to adjust than he had anticipated. It would take much of his time to recover the general information of the state of affairs which had been interrupted by his long absence, he apologized to his father. But he was, he assured him, paying formal visits to the president and secretary of the National Assembly, meeting with officials from Denmark, Sweden and Portugal, attending the weekly tea of the French minister and his card party. He had also met up with several old friends, including Mr. Dumas and his daughter. All of this was a little wearing to the confused young man, trying to sort out what he owed his family, his country, his brand new fiancée Louisa. Comparing the solitude at The Hague to the bustle of London, he concluded somewhat wistfully that his present life, on the whole, was infinitely better suited to his taste, or so he rationalized.10
He did note in his diary on June 30:
On my return from England, I determined to resume a life of application to business and study, which, during the principal part of my residence there [was] altogether impossible. . . . Rise and dress at six. Read works of instruction from thence till nine. Breakfast. Read the papers and translate from the Dutch till eleven or twelve. Then dress for the day. Write letters or attend to other business that occurs till between two and three. Walk till half-past three. Dine and sit till five. Read works of amusement till between eight and nine. Walk again about an hour. Then take a very slight supper and my segar, and retire to bed at eleven.11
He was also devoting an hour a day to the study of Italian with his friend Baron de Bielefeld whom he thought a “not very brilliant natural genius,” but learned. And yet, he was still dissatisfied: “Too much of this time is devoted to reading and too little to society. But I was not formed to shine in company, nor to be delighted with it; and I have now a considerable lapse of time to repair. . . . I hope and intend at a future time to take some of my present reading hours for the purpose of writing. I wish no other change.”12
Having also resumed his duties as trusted sentinel of his listening post at The Hague, John Quincy faithfully fulfilled his obligations with copious letters in cramped hand, crowded with intelligence on the state of Europe, on commercial relations with numerous maritime nations, on France’s persistent attempt to involve America in its war with Britain, on Bonaparte’s march toward Rome through the Tuscan territory. The issues were numerous and he was ardent about them. With elections looming and news of President George Washington’s retirement, he feared (obviously protective of his father) that his successor would be exposed “to the most tempestuous political season that the world perhaps ever witnessed.” And then, the passage of Jay’s Treaty was critical. Under no circumstances did he wish the United States to be drawn into war with Great Britain. Just the thought posed terrifying questions: “I am unwilling to look the prospect in the face,” he told his father.13
And yet, in an aside to his father, though he distrusted the French (and absolutely loathed the British), he could understand why they had made such powerful inroads on the American public. To begin with, French manners were captivating while the English were “always cold and distant, generally insolent and overbearing, and not infrequently contemptuous and malignant.” Though his fears were allayed with news that the House of Representatives had at last signed the Treaty with Britain, on April 30, 1796, he still did not consider their country out of danger of “being yet involved in the war that still rages in Europe.” Justly so in light of his father’s future and bitter challenge from the French, who would annul the Treaty of Amity and Commerce written into the Franco-American Alliance of 1778, refuse to recognize America’s minister to France, and, given the looming and sensational events of the notorious XYZ affair, help to cripple his presidency almost from the start.14
And in this connection, John Quincy mentioned to his father that their old friend Dumas, to his abject dismay, appeared to be retained in the service of the French Republic, a position he found difficult to justify either as a pensioner of the United States or as an old personal friend of his father’s or himself. With some tenderness, he added, “He imagines I am not aware of it, and I must so far do his heart the justice to believe that he is not altogether aware of it himself.”15
To his mother, John Quincy raised the subject of the treaty with Britain. He was happy to find that “after all there was a majority in that House of Representatives (a feeble one, indeed) who could make a distinction between the right to ratify or reject and the power to violate a solemn national engagement, a majority who did not think it proper to construe the latter which they certainly possessed in the former, which the Constitution had explicitly placed in other hands.”16
“But enough of politics for the present at least,” he wrote on July 25. “Let us come to something about ourselves.” His mother had guessed right as to the object of the attachment which had been intimated in his formal letters—an attachment which had now become irrevocably fixed, and on which much of his future destiny would depend.17
Then there was the fact that his father “wishes in his heart” that his attachment had been made in America. He wished so too, if he could have had control over his affections. He could only hope that neither his friends nor his family, nor he himself would ever have any other reason to regret his choice.18
But it was his father’s prospects for election as president of the United States that stirred his greatest anxiety. “Whatever of humor, of fame or of any benefit, which that station can bestow upon its next possessor will be counterbalanced,” he feared, by so many oppressive cares, by so many formidable dangers, by so much malevolence and envy, and by such boundless abuse and scurrility, that he was torn—his filial affection really and sincerely dreaded what his love of his country could not but strongly desire. As for his own prospects for promotion under his father’s presidency—“it must be altogether out of the question” and there were to be no exceptions. With his brother heading home, if he still found himself without means to support a family, he thought he too would return home to pursue his own concerns and serve his country in a private station.19
And then came his blunt response to his mother’s recent (but not first) inquiry as to whether “Maria? Has she no claim?”—clearly referring to his once beloved Mary Frazier: “She had none, but to my fervent and cordial good wishes for her welfare.” Seeming to have forgotten the pain of his youthful love affair, he assured his mother that they had parted forever: “it was a mutual dissolution of affection: the attractive principle was itself destroyed, the flame was not covered with ashes, it was extinguished with cold water.”20