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 2

Contemporaries

“Your Country is not yet, quite Secure enough, to excuse your Retreat to the Delights of domestic Life.  Yet, for the Soul of me, when I attend to my own Feelings, I cannot blame you.”

--John Adams to Thomas Jefferson,  May 26, 1777 (Cappon, I. 6)

To better understand the Adamses and their deep commitment to each other and their country, a contrast can be drawn between them and their contemporaries.  Men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, served their country in a political sense during and immediately following the Revolutionary War. *  Though they shared a sense of patriotism equal to John and Abigail Adams, it is impossible to find the same patriotic commitment that the Adamses shared among their contemporaries.  Many of their contemporaries married to consolidate their positions in society, to acquire property or to advance themselves socially (Wood 28).  John and Abigail married out of the love and respect they had for each other.

If any Revolutionary War era couple comes close to John and Abigail Adams, it is the Washingtons.  George Washington married Martha Custis, who was a rich widow.  Martha Washington often followed George Washington during the Revolutionary War, putting herself in danger while doing what she could to help the soldiers (Smith, Presidents 10).  She, however, did not have to spend years at a time away from George as Abigail did from John.  Another difference is that John Adams saw his wife as an equal (as much as a woman could be a man’s equal in that time), speaking and writing to her about politics and other intellectual ideas, among other items.  Martha, on the other hand, did not participate in political or intellectual conversations with George Washington (Smith, Presidents 10).



Another contemporary, Thomas Jefferson, was married to Martha Wayles Skelton, a rich widow in 1772.  When Martha was weak (especially after child birth), Jefferson would leave or decline political duties assigned to him in order to be with his wife.  John Adams never left his posts, even when Abigail or another family member was sick.  John wrote, in 1775, “If I should hear more disagreable Advices from you I shall certainly come home, for I cannot leave you, in such Affliction[. . .]unless there was an absolute Necessity of my staying here, to do a Duty to the Public” (Butterfield, I. 291).  Abigail, their children and Abigail’s mother were all sick, as were many others in town around her.  Abigail’s mother would die; still John would not come home, despite what he wrote.   Jefferson was extremely distraught at his wife’s passing in 1782.  He spent her final months at her bedside, and after she died he spent three weeks in his room and five months further without communicating with anyone (Padover 111).  He, unlike Adams, was willing to forgo public duty for private matters.



Benjamin Franklin married Deborah Read, but it was more of a pragmatic arrangement.  In fact, historian Gordon Wood suggests that the real reason Franklin married Deborah may have been because Franklin had a son from another woman and Deborah would raise him (40).  Franklin spent much of his marriage (fifteen of the last seventeen years) in Europe and was especially fond of the women of Paris, and they of him.  Franklin’s friend in England, William Strahan, even wrote to Deborah to try to persuade her to join Ben in Europe, even going so far as to allude to him possibly being unfaithful (Isaacson 178-179).  Deborah still would not leave America.  Franklin’s letters to Deborah have little intellectual or emotional content, being mostly concerned with business matters at home, while his letters to women friends show much more playfulness, emotion and intellect (Isaacson 180). 

The other leading couples of the time may have been patriotic and committed to each other, but no couple of the time displayed the level of commitment to both family and country as did the Adamses.

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* Other leading couples of the period, such as James and Dolley Madison and James and Elizabeth Monroe, took part in Revolutionary events, but were not married until after the Revolution had ended.  During the Revolutionary War, James Madison served in the legislature of the state of Virginia (1776-1779).  He was a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1780 to 1783, as the war was coming to a close.  At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Madison drafted the basis of what was to become the Constitution that the United States has today.  It was not until 1794 that he married Dolley Payne Todd.  James Monroe joined the military as a sixteen year old and saw action as a soldier during the Revolutionary War.  He fought in numerous battles and was seriously wounded at the Battle of Trenton.  In 1780, he studied law under Thomas Jefferson, and from 1782 onward, he served in government positions.  In 1786, three years after the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Revolution, he married Elizabeth Kortright.