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 4

1764 - 1774

“We live my dear Soul, in an Age or Tryal.  What will be the Consequence I know not.”

--John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1774 (Butterfield, I. 107)

            From the middle of the 1760s, John and Abigail, as well as many others in the American Colonies, grew conscious of the problems that might occur with the actions of Great Britain.  What the Adamses were not aware of was that the crisis would take John from his family and put his life at risk.

 The British passed the Stamp Act in 1765, creating a stir in the Colonies.  It was repealed only months after its passage.  In the interim, John was directly affected, as all of his law documents were subject to the tax.  Business in the courts slowed to a trickle.  John joined an organization at this time that would later call themselves the Sons of Liberty.  At meetings politics were discussed, and John would inform Abigail of the sentiments of the men in the meetings.  Both John and Abigail started to become aware that the Colonies and Britain were heading towards an impasse (Coit 3).  The following year, 1767, the Townshend Acts were passed in Britain.  The acts taxed items such as lead, paper, paint, glass, and tea, but unlike the Stamp Act, only imported items were taxed.  The Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, called for a boycott on these items from Britain.  The Townshend Acts were repealled in 1770, except for the tax on tea. 

Throughout this period, John Adams was involved with the Sons of Liberty and his opinions were shaped by those of the other members.  Abigail was influenced by John when he brought those opinions home.  In a letter written on December 5, 1773 to her good friend Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail clearly shows that, if not of her own mind and opinion, she was surely influenced in her opinion (as well as highly informed) of current events by her husband and their close friends.  She wrote,

The Tea that bainfull weed is arrived.  Great and I hope Effectual opposition has been made to the landing of it[. . . .]The flame is kindled and like Lightning it catches from Soul to Soul.  Great will be the devastation if not timely quenched or allayed by some more Lenient Measures.  Altho the mind is shocked at the Thought of sheding Humane Blood, more Especially the Blood of our Countrymen, and a civil War is of all Wars, the most dreadfull Such is the present Spirit that prevails, that if once they are made desperate Many, very Many of our Heroes will spend their lives in the cause, With the Speech of Cato in their Mouths, ‘What a pitty it is, that we can dye but once to save our Country.’ (Butterfield, I.  88)

The next day, angry residents of Boston, organized by Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty, boarded the British tea ships that were in Boston Harbor and dumped the tea overboard.  John predicted the dire repercussions of the actions for the colonists shortly before the British acted.  “The Town of Boston, for ought I can see, must suffer Martyrdom: It must expire: And our principal Consolation is that it dies in a noble Cause,” John wrote just before some of the acts took effect.  He continued, “The Cause of Truth, of Virtue, of Liberty and of Humanity: and that it will probably have a glorious Reformation, to greater Wealth, Splendor and Power than ever” (Butterfield, I. 107).  In essence, John was writing that Boston would be the starting place of the war for independence. 

By the end of March, the British closed the Port of Boston until the damaged tea was paid in full.  The closing of the port was part of British acts which would be called the Intolerable Acts by the Colonies.  Elective government in the Colony was banned and any judge could decide to move a trial to Britain if he pleased.  The acts were aimed at Massachusetts, but were meant as a warning to the other Colonies as well.  

The first Continental Congress, which was to decide how the Colonies would proceed in their relations with their mother country, met in Philadelphia in September 1774.  For the first extended period of time John was away from Abigail. Abigail was aware of the role her husband would have to play.  “Your task is difficult and important,” she wrote days after he left her.  Abigail was already concerned about the worsening relations between Britain and the Colonies.  John’s safety was added to her worries about the family. “The great distance between us, makes the time appear very long to me,” she wrote to John less than a week later.  “It seems already a month since you left me.  The great anxiety I feel for my Country, for you and for our family renders the day tedious, and the night unpleasant” (Butterfield, I. 140, 142).  It was the first time in their marriage that John would be so far away from Abigail for such an extended period of time.

John, for his part, longed to be home, but he knew he would stay in Philadelphia as long as he needed to be there.  “Sitting down to write you, is a Scene almost too tender for my State of Nerves,” John wrote from “Phyladelphia” on September 29^th, seven weeks after he left Braintree.  He continued,

It calls up to my View the anxious, distress’d State you must be in, amidst the Confusions and Dangers, which surround you.  I long to return, and administer all the Consolation in my Power, but when I shall have accomplished all the Business I have to do here, I know not, and if it should be necessary to stay here till Christmas, or longer, in order to effect our Purposes, I am determined patiently to wait. (Butterfield, I. 163)

John would return before Christmas that year, but he would be on his horse to Philadelphia again shortly, to attend the second Continental Congress, this time leaving Abigail behind at a time when the war came very close to home.

            As tensions increased, John continued to spend more time away from Abigail and his family in order to contribute to the revolutionary cause.  The 1760s and early 1770s were only a preview of the conflict that was coming.  After 1774, John would spend less time at home and more time in the service of his country.