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 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.