For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 9

1782 - 1784 

“Oh When shall I see my dearest Friend.–All in good Time. My dear blue Hills, ye are the most sublime object in my Imagination. At your reverend Foot, will I spend my old Age, if any, in a calm philosophical Retrospect upon the turbulent scænes of Politicks and War.”

--John Adams to Abigail Adams from Amsterdam, Mar 22, 1782 (Butterfield, IV. 301)

A month before John would take up residence in the first American legation in Europe in the Hôtel des Etats-Unis at the Hague, Abigail wrote him a lengthy letter. “Eight years have already past, since you could call yourself an Inhabitant of this State,” she remarked.  “I shall assume the Signature of Penelope, for my dear Ulysses has already been a wanderer from me near half the term of years that, that Hero was encountering Neptune, Calipso, the Circes and Syrens.”  She closed the letter letting him know how she wished to be there to “partake of your Labours and cares, sooth you to rest, and alleviate your anxieties” (Butterfield, IV. 306, 308).  Two days after John moved into the Hôtel des Etats-Unis, on May 14, 1782, he wrote Abigail, “I must go to you or you must come to me.  I cannot live, in this horrid Solitude, which it is to me, amidst Courts, Camps and Crowds” (Butterfield, IV. 323).  This letter would be the first of many calls by John over the next couple of years for Abigail to make the voyage to join him in Europe.

In August, with an American victory seemingly more clear, Abigail wrote to John, “But will you can you think of remaining abroad? Should a peace take place I could not forgive you half a years longer absence… I begin to think there is a moral evil in this Seperation, for when we pledged ourselves to each other did not the holy ceremony close with, ‘What God has joined Let no Man put assunder’” (Butterfield, IV. 358).  In September, she wrote that she had started to feel even more pained at the separation day after day.  She let John know, “To say I am happy here, I cannot, but it is not an idle curiosity that make me wish to hazard the Watery Element. I much more sincerely wish your return. Could I hope for that during an other year I would endeavour to wait patiently the Event” (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence 5 Sep 1782).  In October, Abigail shifted her request.  “I resolve with myself, to do as you wish,” she wrote.

If I can add to your Happiness, is it not my duty? If I can soften your Cares, is it not my duty? If I can by a tender attention and assiduity prolong your most valuable Life, is it not my duty?[. . . ]Yet if you do not consent so much is my Heart intent upon it, that your refusal must be couched in very soft terms, and must pledge yourself to return speedily to me[. . . .]I feel loth you should quit your station untill an Honorable peace is Established, and you have added that to your other Labours. Tis no small satisfaction to me that my country is like to profit so largely by my sacrifices. (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence 8 Oct 1782)

Again, Abigail is willing to do whatever John wishes; she will love him no less.  She will be satisfied if he returns to her and she will be satisfied if he continues to serve his country well. 

On October 25^th, John and Abigail’s wedding anniversary, Abigail wrote to John that eighteen years have passed yet their fire still “Burns with unabating fervour, old ocean has not Quenched it, nor old Time smootherd it.”  She missed John dearly, but she also supported his position and where it took him.  “How dearly have I paid for a titled Husband,” she wrote in the same letter.  “Should I wish you less wise, that I might enjoy more happiness? I cannot find that in my Heart” (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence).  John wrote only once to her in November and twice in December.  Sentiments were few, but in his diary on November 13 he marked an anniversary: “This is the Anniversary of my quitting home. Three Years are compleated. Oh when shall I return?” (Adams Family Papers, Diary).

On December 23^rd, Abigail wrote a touching letter to John.  “I look back to the early days of our acquaintance; and Friendship, as to the days of Love and Innocence; and with an undiscribable pleasure I have seen near a score of years roll over our Heads, with an affection heightned and improved by time,” she wrote, letting him know that her love was as strong as ever for John.  Ending the letter, Abigail recalled a conversation she had a few days prior.  The person asked Abigail if she would have consented to John’s appointment if she knew he would be gone so long. “If I had known Sir that Mr. A. could have affected what he has done,” she wrote, “I would not only have submitted to the absence I have endured; painfull as it has been; but I would not have opposed it” (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence).  Again, the intense love shared by Abigail and John was entangled with the love of their country, and there was no giving up one for the other in their minds.

The new year would send John off to The Hague once again, after he spent the end of 1782 signing the preliminary peace treaty with Great Britain.  In August, John and John Quincy went back to Paris and on September 3, 1783, the final peace treaty between the new United States and Great Britain, the Treaty of Paris, was signed by David Hartley representing the King of England and Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams representing the United States. 

With the treaty signed, John and John Quincy traveled to England to visit London, Oxford, and Bath.  While in London, John wrote to Abigail, “I cannot be happy, nor tolerable without you” (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence 8 Nov 1783).  In the letters John had sent to Abigail during the year, he had requested her to come to Europe to be with him.  In her responses, Abigail attempted to persuade John to come home.  When she realized that was not likely to happen, Abigail tried to excuse herself by claiming she did not think she could make the voyage or that she was not fit for the courts of Europe.  In December, Abigail made one last effort to bring John home.  “If you felt yourself under obligations during the dangers and perilous of war,” she wrote him on the thirteenth, “to sacrifice, your Health your ease and safety, to the independance and freedom of your Country, those obligations cannot now be equally binding” (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence 7 Dec 1783). 

She knew there was no convincing him though, and in February she wrote again to John, this time of her apprehensions about leaving her Country, her family and her friends to make a long, dangerous and harsh journey across the Atlantic.  “But on the other hand,” she wrote, “I console myself with the Idea of being joyfully and tenderly received by the best of Husbands and Friends, and of meeting a dear and long absent Son” (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence 11 Feb 1784).  It was with this consolation that Abigail would set sail from Boston with her daughter Abigail 2^nd to England on June 20, 1784.

For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 8

1779 - 1781

“I hope this will be the last Seperation, We shall suffer from each other,  for any Length of Time.”

--John Adams to Abigail Adams off Cape Ann, November 1779 (Butterfield, III. 235)

            On September 27, 1779, Congress appointed John Adams to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain.  He did not, of course, turn down the appointment, and Abigail did not ask him to stay.  The country needed him.  John’s second trip to Europe was far more successful than his first.  John spent his time negotiating treaties of commerce, friendship and peace with European nations.  Abigail worried, as usual, about John’s health and safety, and she missed him, but she was happy as she could be without him as he was successful in the name of the country.  John was successful in negotiating treaties of commerce with some European nations, as well as obtaining loans for the United States.

            On November 15, 1779, John boarded La Sensible again, this time with John Quincy and Charles, and headed across the Atlantic Ocean.  Again Abigail stayed in Massachusetts as the couple felt it was too expensive and dangerous for her to go along.  A leak in the ship forced La Sensible to stop at El Ferrol, Spain.  Instead of spending his time doing nothing while waiting for the ship to be repaired, John set off for France overland across northern Spain.  The trip was long and arduous, over many mountain ranges including the Cantabrians, the Basque and the Pyrenees.  The Adamses would not arrive in Paris until February 9, 1780, about two months after they left El Ferrol.  John took time out to write to Abigail, “After this wandering Way of Life is passed I hope to return, to my best friend and pass the Remainder of our Days in Quiet” (Butterfield, III. 252). 

            While John was in Europe, Abigail would write to him concerning the war in the Colonies, the health of family, gossip about friends and officials, weather, and business.  Abigail also wrote to him requesting goods, usually when John was in Paris.  After John would ship items such as pins and clothing items to Abigail, she would sell them for extra money.  They were, of course, also filled with loving sentiments and wishes to be together again.  “May Heaven permit you and me to enjoy the cool Evening of Life, in Tranquility, undisturbed by the Cares of Politicks or War,” John wrote in June 1780, just as the Congress in the United States was commissioning him to raise a loan in the Netherlands. “And above all,” he continued,

with the sweetest of all Reflections, that neither Ambition, nor Vanity, nor Avarice, nor Malice, nor Envy, nor Revenge, nor Fear nor any base Motive, or sordid Passion through the whole Course of this mighty Revolution, and the rapid impetuous Course of great and terrible Events that have attended it, have drawn Us aside from the Line of our Duty and the Dictates of our Consciences!  (Butterfield, III. 367)

A month later, John would take his two sons from Paris to Amsterdam to raise a loan for the American cause.  Abigail wrote to John, exclaiming how happy she was that such an important charge was given to John.  “It would not become me to write the full flow of my Heart upon this occasion,” she wrote.  In the last six years, John and Abigail had seen each other for about nine months in all, yet they still both had an intense love for each other, and both were delighted in John’s position and accomplishments for the country.  While still in Paris at a dinner John had a conversation with Marie Grand, the wife of Ferdinand Grand, who was the French banker for American funds.  John remarked that sometimes it was a citizen’s duty to sacrifice his everything for the good of the country.  Marie Grand commended the sentiment, but found it hard to believe as true.  She remarked to John that loving one’s wife and children was a natural feeling that would “operate more powerfully” than the love one had for his country.  John responded to Marie Grand that not only were his feelings truthful, but his wife felt the same way as he did (McCullough 206).  Although many people may not have understood the feelings that John and Abigail had for each other and for their country, they understood each other perfectly.

The time apart, however, resulted in loneliness and heartache.  “My Dearest Friend,” Abigail began a letter at the end of December 1780 as they began almost every letter that they wrote to each other,

How much is comprised in that short sentance? How fondly can I call you mine, bound by every tie, which consecrates the most inviolable Friend-ship, yet seperated by a cruel destiny, I feel the pangs of absence some-times too sensibly for my own repose.  There are times when the heart is peculiarly awake to tender impressions…It is then that I feel myself alone in the wide world, without any one to tenderly care for me, or lend me an assisting hand through the difficulties that surround me.  (Butterfield, IV. 50)

            John would spend most of the year 1781 in the Netherlands, traveling only briefly to Paris in July.  Abigail worried about his health in the damp climate of the country.  John, for his part, told Abigail he wished for nothing more than to be home.  In May he wrote, “If I could get back again I would never more leave the Country, let who would beg, scold, or threaten.”  John would not be in his country again for seven years, but once he got back, he would never leave it again.  In July, John wrote Abigail again.  This time, he wished for wings so “that I might fly and bury all my Cares at the Foot of Pens Hill” where the Adamses home was (Butterfield, IV. 122, 170).  Abigail, who had not received a letter from John in some time, wrote in August, “I turn to the loved pages of former days and read them with delight. They are all my comfort, all my consolation in the long long interval of time that I have not received a line” (Butterfield, IV. 191).  John and Abigail loved each other through their letters for those seven years.  They shared views on politics, their fears, their ideas and their hopes.  They depended on each other for comfort and love.  Their letters to each other were everything (Withey 58).  It would take three more years of loving through letters before they were able to see each other again.  In ten years, save for the nine months John was in Massachusetts in 1779, John and Abigail only knew each other through their letters.

In October 1781, the Americans and French would strike a huge victory at Yorktown, Virginia when the British forces commanded by Lord Cornwallis surrendered after a siege of almost three weeks.  With the surrender of about 7,500 soldiers, approximately three-quarters of the British forces remained available on the continent.  The British still maintained a large force in New York and smaller forces throughout the country.  It was not clear to either side that the end of the war was near.  In fact, Washington believed it would continue on for at least another year, if not longer.  John was to be a key player in the signing of the peace treaty between Great Britain and the United States.