For Love and Country: John and Abigail Adams and the United States of America, part 10

1784 - 1788

 

“Your Letter of the 23d. has made me the happiest Man upon Earth. I am twenty Years younger than I was Yesterday.”

--John Adams to Abigail Adams from The Hague, July 26, 1784 (Adams Family Papers, Correspondence) in response to Abigail’s letter informing him that she had arrived in London

Abigail arrived in London on July 21^st.  John Quincy met them on the 30^th.  John arrived a week later.  John recorded the event in his diary briefly.  The entry for August 4, 1784 reads: “Arrived at the Adelphi Buildings and met my Wife and Daughter after a seperation of four Years and a half.  Indeed after a Seperation of ten Years, excepting a few Visits” (Adams Family Papers, Diary).  When they last met it was during a period of war and uncertainty.  Now they were together again, husband and wife with their children, without the stress and politics of home. They were shy when they met again, but the meeting was filled with the emotions of ten years. Afterwards, Abigail wrote to her sister, Mary Cranch, of the moment she and John came together again, “You know, my dear sister, that poets and painters wisely draw a veil over those scenes which surpass the pen of the one and the pencil of the other” (qtd. in McCullough 311, Smith 602).  That was all she could say. 

In August, the Adams family moved to Auteuil near Paris in France, where they would remain until May of the following year.  On May 26, 1785, John, Abigail and Abigail 2^nd arrived in London.  Less than a week later, John was presented to King George III, a man who less than a decade earlier did not have John’s name on the list of those to be pardoned.  When they met, the king conveyed to John that he heard that John was not so attached to the manners of France.  John replied, “I must avow to your Majesty, I have no attachment but to my own country” (qtd. in McCullough 337).  It was for thoughts such as those that King George III wanted John Adams hanged years earlier.

The next month saw a flurry of activity for John and Abigail.  On June 23^rd, both John and Abigail were presented to King George III and Queen Charlotte.  The event was long, as the king and queen walked around the room greeting each guest individually, and Abigail was nervous.  The on the second of July, John, Abigail and Abigail 2^nd moved into a house on Grosvenor Square.  This was the first American legation in London.  It was a big step for the Adamses and their country. 

Abigail would be busy with visitors for the remainder of her time in London while John would be busy signing treaties with other nations.  When a foreign ambassador questioned John regarding if he was of English extraction, John replied, “I have not one drop of Blood in my Veins, but what is American.”  The ambassador responded, “Ay We have seen[. . .]proofs enough of that.”  John recorded in his diary that he was flattered and “vain enough to be pleased” with the observation of the foreign ambassador (Adams Family Papers, Diary 43).  His love and dedication to his country were never in question, even to foreign ministers.

In August, he signed a treaty of amity and commerce with Prussia.  In January 1786, he signed a treaty of peace and friendship with Morocco.  In August, John had to travel to the Netherlands to ratify the treaty with Prussia.  Not wanting to be away from John, Abigail went with him.  Upon their return, they would remain in England until May 1787, when John left Abigail to obtain yet another loan from the Dutch.  He was to return to London in June, where he would spend the next two months with Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Mary and her attendant, Sally Hemmings, who were on their way to meet Jefferson in Paris, as he was the foreign minister there. 

As the new year dawned, the Adamses were at the end of their time in Europe.  On February 20, 1788, John had a farewell audience with King George III.  Afterwards, he visited Holland one last time for another loan.  In April, John and Abigail were on their way back to Massachusetts.  In the time John spent in Europe, he traveled over 29,000 miles by land and sea in the name of his country.  This was more than any leading American of his time.  He never once refused a journey, regardless of difficulties or preferences (McCullough 384).  After spending four years with John, Abigail began to appreciate his career and her involvement in it once again.  Over the next few years, as John would continue to be active in politics in the new nation, Abigail would still dislike the traveling and time apart, but she enjoyed the time spent with John and being involved in his career.  She would have many more years to enjoy.

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.