Читать книгу A View from Abroad - Jeanne E. Abrams - Страница 7

Tis a little more than three weeks since the dearest of friends and tenderest of husbands left his solitary partner, and quitted all the fond endearments of domestic felicity for the dangers of the sea, exposed, perhaps, to the attack of a hostile foe.

Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 8, 1778

Europe, thou great theater of arts, sciences, commerce, war, am I at last permitted to visit thy territories.

Diary of John Adams, March 30, 1778

I am wearied to death with gazing wherever I go, at a Profusion of unmeaning Wealth and Magnificence.

Diary of John Adams, May 20, 1778

JOHN ADAMS RODE HIS HORSE THE LAST MILES FROM PHILADELPHIA back to his home in Braintree, Massachusetts, in November 1777, surrounded by the brilliant fall foliage, which made the New England countryside so famously beautiful. John and Abigail, as well as their four children, were overjoyed when he returned to his beloved farm that autumn after so many prolonged separations. He had promised to reunite with his family, restore his health, and resume his law career in order to earn a good living. And now he was coming home, but his retreat to private life was short-lived.

Even after his four grueling years as a member of the Continental Congress, and the untold personal sacrifices that had been made by both Adamses on behalf of their country, their patriotic resolve was to be tested yet again. To Abigail’s chagrin, just a month after he returned, the couple received notice from the new president of Congress, Henry Laurens, of John’s official election as a joint commissioner to the court of Louis XVI at Versailles to help forge an alliance with France. When the news arrived in Braintree, John was in Portsmouth, Maine, arguing a case before the Admiralty Court. Abigail, instructed to open all John’s correspondence in his absence, was the first to receive what was for her most unwelcome news.

Adams was to replace the recalled American diplomat Silas Deane, who had been sent to France in 1776 as a special agent of a three-man American commission. Now John was instructed to travel to Paris to join the other two remaining American envoys, Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee. The latter had sparked Deane’s recall by accusing him of financial irregularities. Adams’s maiden journey to France would provide him with a firsthand opportunity to define with more clarity what separated America from European nations and to develop his ideal view of the emerging individual and national American identity. While abroad, in addition to his diplomatic duties, John would grapple with the pressing issue of how to balance European inherited traditions with new American cultural models.

Although John had known that a formal invitation from Congress might be forthcoming, he initially had been poised to decline the post in order to remain near his family, whom he had often neglected during his lengthy stints in Philadelphia. His youngest child, five-year-old Thomas, barely knew his father, and when Abigail had given birth in the summer of 1777 to a stillborn daughter, John had not been by her side to share their grief. Although he had been grateful that Abigail’s life had been spared, the loss of the baby was a cruel blow to John, who commented to his wife poignantly, “Is it not unaccountable, that one should feel so strong an Affection for an Infant, that one has never seen, nor shall see?”1 Not only had John pined for Abigail while away, but he also understood that he had missed many seminal events in his children’s lives.

John had long been an ambitious man, and he undoubtedly felt that his European service would secure a place for him in the annals of history. Just the previous year he had told Mercy Warren that he felt unsuited for foreign diplomacy because he lacked “Complaisance and Ductility of Temper.”2 Unlike Benjamin Franklin, Adams had never set foot before in Europe, but he was well-read and more familiar with the subject of foreign affairs than most of the members of the Continental Congress. Soon he, along with his eldest son, John Quincy, would embark on a lengthy grand tour abroad.

A distraught Abigail met the prospect of their setting sail with justified trepidation. At first Abigail insisted that she and all their children journey to Europe, but she reluctantly gave in when John decided that embarking on such a voyage would be “too hazardous and imprudent,” and that the cost of housing the family abroad was too prohibitive. Many years later John recalled that his wife had always supported him in “all antecedent dangers and perplexities.”3 Although the Adamses experienced a strong and loving union, in the eighteenth-century world, women were legally and economically subordinate to their husbands, and the Adams marriage was no different. Once again, out of a strong sense of domestic and civic responsibility, Abigail deferred to her husband. She would remain in Braintree on her own, tasked with supervising the family farm, managing the finances, and overseeing the education and upbringing of the three children left behind.

She carried out these demanding undertakings admirably despite separation from her “dearest friend” for years at a time. Now she would lose the company of John Quincy as well. Her eldest son, then only a boy, had stood beside her on the Adamses’ doorstep watching the momentous and terrifying Battle of Bunker Hill during the early days of the Revolutionary War while John was away serving in the Continental Congress. Abigail appreciated his keen intellect and precocious maturity, and now he too would leave her.

The saltbox house on the left served as the Braintree home of John and Abigail after their marriage. Courtesy National Park Service, Adams National Historic Park.

As historian Woody Holton has demonstrated, while her son and husband were abroad, Abigail also became a successful businesswoman in her own right, selling luxury goods that John sent her from Europe. These items included fine handkerchiefs, gauze fabric, ribbons, decorative feathers, and artificial flowers, as well as intricate lace from Holland, all popular in New England with fashionable women. Abigail even peddled some of her wares through a Tufts cousin and her friend Mercy Otis Warren, who lived in Plymouth. Not only did that income help to pay their Massachusetts taxes and living expenses, but it also allowed her to make investments and land purchases. On at least one occasion she instructed her uncle Cotton Tufts to purchase bonds for her and use the “money which I call mine”—an unusual request in a time when a married woman’s property legally belonged to her husband under the law of coverture. Somehow, Abigail and John were able to reconcile their distaste for excessive luxury with their sale of such goods to fellow Americans, fueling the excessive American consumption of the “fripperies” they both disparaged.4

John’s official appointment to serve as an emissary to France would usher in a ten-year period of diplomatic service abroad on behalf of his country and mark his initial experience with imperial power. Still, like other revolutionary era leaders, Adams had incorporated classical eighteenth-century European political thought about the balance of power and state interests into his outlook, and he viewed America’s role within that framework. John later told a Dutch acquaintance that he had “been educated from my Cradle” in the “Balance of Power in Europe.”5

In February 1778, accompanied by ten-year-old John Quincy, John Adams set sail on the American-built Boston for a hazardous six-week and four-day voyage to France to help negotiate the terms of the Franco-American Alliance. Abigail and John had good reason to worry about the upcoming journey. Winter was the most dangerous season in which to cross the North Atlantic, and the prospect of John’s interception and capture by English forces and possible execution was a real risk. In later recalling his journey to Europe, Abigail eloquently described what challenges her husband had faced, which included “encountering the dangers of the ocean; risking Captivity, and a dungeon; contending with wickedness in high places; jeoparding his Life, endangerd by the intrigues, revenge, and malice, of a potent; tho defeated Nation [Great Britain].”6

As he prepared to sail, John recorded in his diary entry of Friday, February 13, that the “Wind was very high, and the Sea very rough.” The Adams party met the ship surreptitiously at Hough’s Neck near Braintree instead of the more common port of Boston to ensure that British spies were not aware of their departure. John and his son, along with a hired servant from Braintree, Joseph Stephens, a former seaman and soldier, boarded the ship on Saturday. The Adamses slept comfortably that night on cots that held double mattresses. Tucked into their own familiar home-sewn sheets, which they had brought aboard, and sufficient blankets, they were snug though outside nature did not cooperate. It snowed heavily, howling winds sent icy crystals swirling, and the ship was buffeted by fierce gusts as the passengers endured frigid temperatures.

On Sunday, February 15, their departure seemed imminent as they “weigh’d the last Anchor, and came under Sail, before breakfast. A fine wind, and a pleasant Sun, but a sharp cold Air,” John observed. But the hope of departure was premature. After stopping at Marblehead to bring additional crew aboard, the ship was stalled again. John became impatient as winds reached gale strength later in the day. On Monday, he noted that the young commander, Samuel Tucker, whom John came to admire, decided that due to increasingly strong winds followed by more heavy snow, they could not “go to sea.” John pronounced himself “anxious at these Delays,” and fretted, “We shall never have another Wind so good as We have lost.”7 It was not until Tuesday, four days after John had bid farewell to Abigail, that he and John Quincy were finally underway.

Although John found the ship and the young crew to be in a state of disorganization, he did not fault their thirty-year-old captain, who had already amassed years of sailing experience and accorded Adams all due respect as a pivotal American emissary. John was pleased with the company of several of the ship’s passengers. Dr. Nicholas Noel, a French doctor returning to France after serving in the Continental Army, became a favorite and graciously tutored John Quincy in French. The boy would soon become fluent and later, while only a teenager, he served as a translator and secretary to Richard Dana, the American emissary to the Russian court of Catherine the Great.

John was pleased to have been asked to supervise the voyage of two young men on their way to France. One was William Vernon, a recent graduate from Princeton College; the other was eleven-year-old Jesse Deane, the only son of the very man John was to replace. Jesse would later attend a private boarding school with John Quincy in France. Supervision was a task that John undertook with relish and what he termed a “kind of guardianship.” As he recorded, “Few Things have ever given me greater Pleasure than the Tuition of Youth at the Bar, and the Advancement of Merit.”8 The latter had always been important to John, who saw future American success as predicated on widespread education, which he believed would build character and eliminate hereditary rank by substituting merit, industriousness, and diligence as the avenues to personal advancement. Indeed, it was the very path Adams had pursued, and which had thrust him onto the national stage.

Despite the threat of belligerent British warships, potential capture, the possible presence of spies, and the added dangers of a treacherous winter crossing, forty-two-year-old John Adams and young Johnny, as he was nicknamed, braved the North Atlantic. Abigail’s fears turned out to be prophetic, however, when the Boston came under British fire. Still, Abigail took heart from what she considered John’s essential value to the American cause. Letters served as the link to connect the Adamses. As historian Edith B. Gelles has pointed out, writing served as a form of therapy for Abigail, a way of processing her thoughts, rationalizing her husband’s choices, and keeping her emotionally balanced.9 The parting had been painful, but she accepted it with both resignation and courage as part of her patriotic responsibility and wifely duty. Although it might have been self-rationalization, Abigail assured John, “Though I have been called to sacrifice to my country, I can glory in my sacrifice and derive pleasure from my intimate connexion with one [John], who is esteemed worthy of the important trust devolved on him.”10

Plagued by stormy seas, cramped and dirty quarters, the uncouth behavior of many of the sailors, and the dreary scenery, even the stoic Adams was frequently uncomfortable. He noted in his diary that once they sailed into the open sea the passengers were assailed by “constant Rolling and Rocking. . . . Last night made Us all sick—half the Sailors were so.” John Quincy and Jesse also became seasick, and John himself was “seized with it.”11 By the next day, however, the ocean had calmed, and the “Mal de Mer” put behind them until they encountered an even stronger storm in the Gulf Stream, which inflicted serious damage to their vessel. As John recorded, “To describe the Ocean, the Waves, the Winds, the Ship, her Motions, Rollings, Wringing and Agonies. . . . No Man could keep upon his Legs, and nothing could be kept in its Place.” John remained determined to carry out his mission, but he feared he had perhaps made a mistake by exposing his son to such danger. However, John was heartened at the boy’s visible resolve and “manly Patience.”12

Adams and John Quincy were well supplied on board with items that John considered essential to his existence, such as his beloved books, paper, ink, pens, and tobacco and clay pipes. They also brought along a variety of animals to keep them well fed, including chickens, hogs, and sheep. Wine, spices, condiments, and even a tin of chocolate were all stowed away for the voyage. John appears to have been especially fond of chocolate. Years later, after Abigail had joined her husband abroad, she thanked her sister Mary for arranging to replenish the Adams supply of chocolate in London as “Mr. Adams was just mourning over his last pound.”13

Congress was footing the bill for John’s supplies, but the always thrifty Abigail worked industriously to gather the best items at the least cost. John valued his culinary comforts, but he was forced to make the best of the ship’s cuisine, which was indifferent at best and unpalatable at worst. The Adamses and their manservant shared the often malodorous, crowded ship with nearly 170 fellow passengers, most of them members of the crew. A good number of those aboard were French officers, returning home after stints in the American Continental Army. John admired these men for their military prowess and willingness to aid the American cause.

During the arduous voyage, John displayed formidable determination and even courage when the ship was under direct threat, whether by the forces of nature, including a damaging lightning strike, or the British navy. As John put it, “This Day Six Weeks We sailed from Nantaskett Road. How many Dangers, Distresses and Hairbreadth Scrapes have we seen?”14 The Boston was a brand-new, imposing twenty-four-gun frigate, which was especially fortuitous when they crossed paths with three enemy British vessels, one of which opened fire. To John’s satisfaction, the American ship prevailed in the ensuing skirmish, and the Boston’s captain and crew ended up capturing the English frigate merchant ship Martha, which was carrying a wealth of supplies to the British in New York. Later, the vessel was recovered by British forces.

At one point when the Boston was under fire, John stayed on deck to offer his assistance, and a shot whizzed directly over his head. Another time he helped steady one of the vessel’s officers, when the young man underwent a leg amputation as the result of the accidental discharge of a cannon. That shipman later died of his wounds and was buried at sea. Influenced by his Revolutionary War experience and the toll disease had taken on American soldiers, Adams became an early advocate for good sanitation. He did not hesitate—indeed, he likely considered it his duty—to share advice (probably often unappreciated) with Captain Tucker about improving conditions aboard ship. “I am constantly giving Hints to the Captain concerning Order, Economy and Regularity, and he seems to be sensible of the Necessity of them, and exerts himself to introduce them,” Adams recorded with satisfaction in his diary.15

Several weeks into the voyage, John complained of boredom and wrote that life was dull aboard ship, with “No Business; No Pleasure; No Study.” As for the scenery, he insisted, “We see nothing but Sky, Clouds and Sea, and then Seas, Clouds and Sky.”16 Despite the formidable challenges and monotony, John developed a measure of fondness for life at sea. Adams may never have been a sailor, but he always craved the sight, sounds, and smells of a nearby ocean. As early as 1769, his admiration for seamen and interest in their welfare led to his honorary induction into the Boston Marine Society. Admission was generally limited to men who had served as ships’ masters, but even then, when John was only in his mid-thirties, he was recognized as a shrewd lawyer and a rising political force. John had long appreciated that seamen played a pivotal role in successful commerce and nation building.17

By March 7, John reported that good wind and weather enabled his ship to have successfully “passed all the Dangers of the American Coast.” They were proceeding on course, at about two hundred miles each day. Less than two weeks later, they were once more assailed by violent gales. Adams had to hold fast to secured furniture and railings to remain upright.18 Five days after John sighted the verdant Spanish coast through a spyglass, the Boston finally docked in Bordeaux, France, at the beginning of April 1778. In Bordeaux, John received his initial taste of European life. He attended his first opera, enjoyed a play, and was a guest at a sumptuous dinner hosted by local dignitaries. Adams was gratified to have been cheered by a large crowd while cannons were fired in his honor. Just days after reaching Bordeaux, the American travelers proceeded to Paris. They arrived there on April 8 after a strenuous five-hundred-mile trek by coach. John couldn’t help proudly noting that John Quincy had endured the “fatiguing and dangerous Voyage” with “Utmost Firmness.”19

Shortly after he reached Europe, John had been astonished to learn that agreements between France and America, described as treaties of amity, commerce, and an armed alliance, had been executed the previous month following the Battle of Saratoga, which had resulted in a significant victory for the American forces against the British. Diplomatic historian Jonathan R. Dull suggests that it was not Saratoga but instead worsening French relations with England and the completion of French rearmament that propelled France’s entry into the war.20 In any case, the three American envoys then in Paris, Franklin, Deane, and Lee, had indeed concluded initial agreements with France before Adams’s arrival, and England had even sent out signals that it was interested in peace. With French sentiment toward its American ally highly favorable, Adams was greeted in Paris as a hero, but John’s role was now unclear as his mission had largely been accomplished before he had even arrived.

Soon after he came to Paris, Adams met with Franklin. The elder statesman, whom the French idolized, confirmed that he and his fellow envoys had already secured a diplomatic milestone, including a most-favored-nation status along with a military alliance. Even in the face of reservations about aligning France with a republican nation, the young and often politically naïve Louis XVI had assured Franklin of his support for America. Despite the diplomatic progress achieved, John understood that much still remained to be done. Moreover, he was convinced that his presence was necessary to serve as a buffer between Franklin and Lee, whose growing discord threatened the mission.

Adams arrived in Paris as a confirmed republican, who viewed public and private virtue as life’s central goal, and as a strict moralist committed to basic tenets of the faith that had brought his Puritan forebears to Massachusetts. For Adams, in an ideal republic, elected officials, instead of a hereditary monarch, served as the representatives of its citizenry, and they were governed by the rule of law. Faith in God’s sovereignty and the centrality of religion remained a constant in his life, and he looked on Catholicism with disapproval. Moreover, most Americans, including Adams, had been taught from a young age to look down upon Catholic France and its absolutist government.21

John was shocked by his first encounter with the observance of traditional French Catholic precepts on the one hand and liberal deism, even atheism, among many members of the aristocracy on the other. When he joined Franklin, Adams may have distrusted the French almost as much as he did the British. In some aspects, it was a collision of cultures. After attending one Parisian salon, John was moved to criticize French mores, and even at the beginning of his time in France, he worried about the negative effects European manners might have on American society. “What Absurdities, Inconsistencies, Distractions and Horrors would these Manners introduce into our Republican Governments in America; No kind of Republican Government can exist with such national manners as these,” he insisted.22 Still, Adams was above all a realist, and he appreciated the critical need for French support if America was to prevail in the conflict with Great Britain. Schooled from his youth as a citizen of the British Empire, Adams certainly understood the necessity of powerful allies in the struggle for a favorable balance of power.23

Despite his critical attitude toward European dissipation and frivolity, John found much that captivated him in France. Yet he never became a man of the world like Franklin. Venerated in Europe as an Enlightenment-inspired scientist and intellectual and a symbol of republican America, Franklin counted the most famous of the French Enlightenment philosophes, Voltaire, as a friend. In part, Franklin’s social and diplomatic success was a result of his chameleon-like personality. As historian Claude-Anne Lopez astutely observed, Franklin was “immensely adaptable, knowing how to bend his personality to each time and place.” He was far more appreciative of French manners than Adams and was able to adeptly and profitably mix business, friendship, and pleasure.24 Indeed, Franklin came to love France so much that at one point he had even contemplated settling there.25

Dissembling was a trait Adams rarely exhibited. His sense of rectitude inspired frankness and unbending determination. Still, if Adams never developed the adoration for everything French that characterized Franklin, John appreciated the storied history of Europe and the opportunity to access its rich cultural offerings. He took long walks to explore his surroundings. Adams was amazed by the sights and sounds of Paris: the incessant rattling of carriage traffic along the crowded thoroughfares, the shouts of street merchants hawking their wares, the ringing of church bells. The court of Versailles was widely acknowledged at the time as the most opulent in all of Europe. Paris was then the sophisticated hub of Europe, and diplomats from most countries were stationed there. The city, with a robust population of about 650,000, buzzed with cutting-edge trends in art, music, literature, science, and medicine. In short, French culture dominated European taste.

Within days of his arrival, Adams traveled to Benjamin Franklin’s garden apartments in the Hôtel de Valentinois in Passy. The magnificent residence was located in the outskirts of the bustling Paris metropolis and conveniently situated on the road to Versailles. Part of the huge edifice, which included beautiful formal gardens and even a sparkling lake, had first been loaned and then rented to Franklin by Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, a wealthy shipping magnate, favored by the Crown. Franklin was particularly popular with the French ladies, who in turn were popular with him. His lengthy stays in Europe on behalf of the American government—a total of eight years in France and sixteen in England—had made him much more familiar than Adams with European culture, customs, and etiquette.

Still, at the age of seventy, Franklin had risked his comfortable lifestyle to join an uncertain revolution with his fellow American patriots. The self-made civic and business leader was the eldest of the revolutionary group, which included Thomas Jefferson, thirty-seven years his junior, and Adams, twenty-nine years younger than Franklin. Although Franklin had been a staunch supporter of the British Empire through the early 1760s, his “Americanization,” as historian Gordon S. Wood has described it, moved him quickly toward the Patriot cause.26

From 1752 to 1762, Franklin was stationed in London as a colonial agent with the goal of limiting the proprietary power of the Penn family in Pennsylvania. He returned to America in 1762, but in 1764 he again sailed to England to promote Pennsylvania’s interests. He witnessed the dangers of royal government and eventually opposed the Stamp Act of 1765, which the British imposed on the American colonies. In 1775 his service in England came to an unhappy end when he was chastised by the British government for what it considered his traitorous intrigues. Upon his return to America, an outraged Franklin became a leading member of the Philadelphia Continental Congress and a pivotal force in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.

In late 1776, Franklin was named the first American minister to France, where he advanced support for the new American nation. He remained there until he returned to America in 1785. In France, Franklin was venerated as a philosopher and man of science, famous for his experiments with electricity. That adulation often irritated the sober Adams. John also worried that Franklin’s popularity made him highly susceptible to French influence to the detriment of American affairs. Adams even began to question Franklin’s patriotism.

Engraving of Benjamin Franklin in fur hat in France by Johann Elias Haid. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Adams’s envy of Franklin’s widespread reputation in contrast to John’s own relative obscurity may have colored his opinion of his fellow envoy. He would come to think of Franklin as lazy, frivolous, and even duplicitous—“a conjuror,” as he famously termed him. At one point, Adams claimed in a humorous tone that Franklin’s friends were “all atheists, deists, and libertines as well as the Philosophes and Ladies . . . in his Train.”27 At the same time, John appreciated, at least grudgingly, that Franklin’s skilled diplomatic efforts and maneuverings had helped secure much-needed French loans and gifts worth about $40 million today. After defeat by Britain in the Seven Years’ War, the French were receptive to the American cause. France had been the first nation to recognize American independence, and more importantly, it provided both financial and military aid, which allowed the cash-strapped American government to function in its early days.

Despite some friction, Adams and Franklin had been relatively amiable comrades in Congress, and the two men got along well at the beginning of their time together in France. Along with Arthur Lee, Franklin and Adams co-authored a missive to the Dutch government, an initiative they hoped would foster a commercial relationship between the Netherlands and America. Moreover, Franklin served as John’s entrée into the dazzling Parisian social life and its influential salons governed by strict rules of protocol. The friendship between Franklin and Adams must have been sufficiently robust at first, since the elderly envoy graciously invited John to come live at his quarters at the Hôtel de Valentinois.

Adams moved into the small, furnished garden apartment formerly occupied by Deane. John didn’t have to pay rent, which must have pleased the frugal New England Yankee, although he likely found the estate too grand for professed American republicans. Adams remained there for ten months, until February 1779. On weekdays, John Quincy attended a private French boarding school in Passy along with Franklin’s grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache, further cementing the connection between the two American envoys. John Quincy joined his father on weekends, and the two became inveterate sightseers. Father and son especially enjoyed attending the theater together and browsing the enticing Parisian bookshops. Franklin became very fond of the younger Adams, and when the boy later left France, Johnny received an affectionate letter from Franklin.

Before long the relationship between John and Franklin began to deteriorate. Adams now found himself surrounded by a world of privilege and wealth, class distinctions that were far less apparent in America at the time. On his first full day in Paris, he and Franklin dined with the still powerful former French minister of finance Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot at his grand home. After visiting Turgot’s mansion, John gushed that “it is in Vain to Attempt a Description of the House, Gardens, Library, Furniture, or the Entertainment of the Table.” John’s visit with Turgot was followed the next day by supper at the luxurious residence of the aristocratic Brillion family.28

Because he understood that France’s support was so crucial, Adams was predisposed to form a favorable opinion of the French. Indeed, in the early days of his commission John was optimistic about his work. He reported in his diary, “The Attention to me, which has been shewn, from my first Landing in France at Bourdeaux, by the People in Authority of all Ranks and by the principal merchants, and since my Arrival in Paris by the Ministers of State, and others of the first Consideration has been very remarkable, and bodes well to our Country. It shews in what Estimation the new Alliance with America is held.”29 Many members of the nobility whom Adams encountered in Paris were decked out in glittering jewelry and exquisitely decorated ensembles, far more elaborate than John had ever seen. The magnificent estates, attractively designed buildings, and cultural works were equally impressive. Although John had crossed paths with the wealthy and elegant in Boston, it had never been on the grand scale that he witnessed in Europe. He reacted with mixed feelings of appreciation and disgust, which he often conveyed to Abigail back home.

John and Abigail each experienced periods of profound loneliness while separated. Correspondence had long been the bond that kept John and Abigail tethered during their frequent separations. When letters from John were infrequent, Abigail alternately became anxious that either he or their son was ill or in danger or that her husband was perhaps enjoying his temporary “bachelorhood” too much and had forgotten about her, although she knew she never had any cause to suspect him of infidelity. “How lonely are my days. How solitary are my nights,” she wrote plaintively to John during one hard winter evening when she felt she was as isolated as if she “lived in Greenland.”30 Overseas mail could take months to reach its destination. It was also notoriously unreliable, and undoubtedly some letters were lost or John was simply too preoccupied to write as often as he had during his time in Philadelphia. Still, Abigail felt neglected and sometimes angrily expressed her resentment to John, who was often left helpless and irritated. At one point, she insisted that “I cannot reconcile myself to the Idea of living in the cruel States of Seperation.”31

John began moving in exalted circles, although he always preferred the company of those people who were more similar to his own middle-class background. Indeed, he consciously led a modest lifestyle during all his years in Europe. He proudly reported to Abigail that he even denied himself the customary personal conveyance that his fellow diplomats sported: “I am told I am the first public Minister that ever lived without a Carriage.”32 Soon he was exposed to the swirl of palace intrigue and was wined and dined regularly in the homes of members of the influential elite. Franklin introduced Adams to a host of well-educated, wealthy aristocratic men and women, including the city’s leading Enlightenment intellectuals and philosophes, such as the elderly Voltaire and the Marquis de Condorcet.

He also met many of the famed Parisian salonniéres, such as Madame Helvetius, widow of a well-known French philosopher, the politically astute Duchess de La Rochefoucauld, and Madame Brillion, Franklin’s attractive young neighbor. The cultured Brillion was an accomplished pianist and referred to Franklin familiarly as “mon cher papa,” undoubtedly shocking Adams’s sense of propriety.33 At the same time, the stark contrast that John encountered in the French capital between the rich and the poor was in evidence daily, and he was appalled at the many beggars, who struggled to acquire even rough bread.

Adams’s time in France provided him with the opportunity to learn more about the liberal ideas circulating among the French philosophes and refine his own political thinking. He often parted ways with many Enlightenment thinkers and categorically rejected what he considered their naïve and romantic view that the world was set firmly on a progressive trajectory and that the application of human reason could eradicate all social ills. Adams thought it impossible that economic equity could be achieved through social engineering. He believed that humans across the world and throughout history had been driven by the same underlying universal desire for prestige, no matter their social class. Hardheaded New Englander that he was and influenced by his Puritan Protestant religious heritage, Adams maintained that human nature would never change, and utopian visions never held any attraction for him.34

In Paris, Adams encountered leading diplomats and political figures, including probably the most influential individual in the ongoing negotiations with France, the astute Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, who served as Louis XVI’s foreign minister. John and his fellow revolutionary statesmen had imbibed from youth the European idea that the level of a nation’s power played a central role in diplomacy.35 In France, he was exposed to its inner workings in real time. French support for the American cause was largely driven by the desire to degrade the position of England, France’s longtime primary rival both in Europe and in the New World. Vergennes was an industrious and ruthless though cautious diplomat whose most pressing aim was to tilt the balance of power toward his country and isolate Great Britain from its European neighbors and potential allies. Providing support for American independence likely attracted Vergennes because of its potential to accomplish these overarching goals. In retrospect, it was a shortsighted policy, for France’s involvement in the American war was ultimately a significant factor in its financial crisis and derailed attempts at internal reform that might have avoided the French Revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy, which Vergennes revered.36

Adams first met Vergennes in April 1778, when Franklin and Lee accompanied Adams to his first visit to Versailles. The magnificent French palace had been built under the direction of the absolute monarch Louis XIV, who became king in 1643 at the age of four and reigned for over seventy years. Located about twelve miles from Paris, it took almost twenty years and around thirty-six thousand workers to construct the baroque-styled royal residence located at the end of a grand boulevard that linked the castle to Paris. Louis XIV had consciously chosen the location to distance his palace from the city, which he viewed as a fertile ground for rebellion. The huge edifice, which was emblematic of French grandeur, was set among attractive parks, lakes, and forested areas. It housed not only the royal family but also members of the French nobility whom the king wished to keep under scrutiny, but who had found favor in the monarch’s eyes and adhered to the rigid protocols of rank that the “Sun King” had mandated. Inside, glittering chandeliers, sparkling china, crystal, and silver vied for attention with luxurious tapestries, striking paintings, rare objets d’art, ornate silk and brocaded furniture, and massive statues.37

Adams had his first glimpse of the current French monarch, Louis XIV’s great-grandson, as he toured the magnificent palace, which John pronounced “sublime.” As Louis XVI subsequently passed through his sumptuous apartments on his way to the Council, he bestowed a polite smile on Adams and the rest of the group without stopping to speak to any of them.38 John must have been awed at his first glance of a king but at the same time chagrined at the sight of all the conspicuous consumption and the monarch’s evident air of entitlement.

Louis XIV had introduced the lavish entertainments that continued in his great-grandson’s reign, including impressive theatrical productions and fireworks displays. After attending one of Louis XVI’s reviews of his guards, Adams was moved to remark, “The Shew was splendid, as all other Shews are, in this Country.”39 Yet, during his future visits to the palace, John realized that if one looked beyond the glittering façade, it was rundown in some sections. Versailles suffered from neglect, and broken windows and peeling paint were in evidence. Louis XIV’s stifling control of the nobility, whom he excluded from governance, as well as his extravagant spending, had long-term effects on his successors that left French coffers seriously depleted and contributed to the unrest that later stoked the French Revolution.

Little more than a month after he arrived in Paris, Adams received an invitation for his first official audience with the king. Before the meeting, John recorded in his diary that he was open-minded about the philosophical question of monarchy. Although he maintained that American society was best suited to a republican form of government, headed by a strong executive, balanced by a bicameral legislature, he believed that in some European nations a king was a necessary ingredient for stability. He contended that a monarch could broadly fulfill the role of executive and insisted that kings were not necessarily inferior in virtue to other men, nor more corrupt or attached to a love of power.40

John was formally presented to King Louis XVI on May 8, 1778. For this encounter with the king, who was only in his mid-twenties at the time, Adams donned the requisite ceremonial sword, purchased new French-tailored fine clothing, and made sure his powdered wig had been styled and refreshed. American officials in Paris, including Adams and later his fellow revolutionary comrade Thomas Jefferson, understood that dress conveyed privilege and rank, so even if their personal preference would have been for simpler “republican” attire, they acquiesced to what was expected of their positions as gentlemanly statesmen. Only Franklin clung to the rustic dress he had decided to don in Europe, but this eccentricity seemed to contribute to his popularity as a symbol of American republicanism. Unlike Franklin and Adams, Jefferson, raised as a Virginia aristocrat, appears to have appreciated stylish clothing. He purchased the finest fashions and art while later serving as an American minister to France. When Abigail later joined John in Paris in 1784, she noted caustically to her sister that although the wearing of extravagant clothing chafed against her more spartan tastes, “Fashion is the Deity everyone worships in this country and from the highest to the lowest you must submit.”41

Along with his two fellow American commissioners, Franklin and Lee, Adams was ushered into the king’s ornate private bedchamber, where he was in the process of being dressed by his servants. Unlike Franklin, who never mastered French grammar or became a proficient French speaker, John grew comfortable in conversational French. However, at his first audience with Louis XVI it was the multilingual Comte de Vergennes who facilitated the brief exchange of words. Adams was impressed with the “Character of Mildness, Goodness and Innocence in his [the king’s] face,” and he noted the monarch’s devotion to Catholic rituals and daily prayers, during which he knelt for hours on hard marble floors. John noted with approval that he was encouraged that the king’s reign was already distinguished by his agreement to sign the Franco-American Alliance treaty, and he described the young king vividly in his diary, observing that he appeared to have a strong constitution that boded well for longevity. Adams could not have predicted then that Louis XVI was destined to die at the hands of French radical insurgents. Though Adams would witness the deep emerging cracks in the French regime, he did not foresee the violent overthrow of the monarchy.42

In part, John held a favorable opinion of Louis XVI because, unlike Jefferson, he did not reject the institution of monarchy per se; rather, Adams opposed absolutist rule. Still, John noted critically that the alliance between the two countries was not sufficiently appreciated by French leaders, including Louis XVI. Perhaps more significantly, Adams understood that France was riven by competing factions. The growing political power of the French nation, John later maintained, had not only resulted in political danger for France, but also put all of Europe in a precarious position.43

John liked the king, whom he found to be kind, well read, and well intentioned, if naïve, but it was Queen Marie-Antoinette, dressed in an ornate gown with her hair swept up in an elaborate powdered coif, who captured his attention. He later rapturously described her beauty, fine dress, and grace. Although time may have burnished John’s memory, he recalled the queen as “an object to[o] sublime and beautiful for my dull pen to describe.” It is interesting to note, however, that although he found the queen to be a handsome woman, with a fine complexion, he later insisted that he had met many women in America, France, and England who were far more beautiful than the king’s consort. John astutely understood that part of Marie-Antoinette’s attraction revolved around the magnificent jewelry and costumes she wore at state occasions. At one event, the queen was reported to have worn sparkling diamonds worth millions.44

Despite his developing regard for the French, particularly his enjoyment of their cuisine and exuberant sociability, Adams was never enamored of the opulent Parisian high society, which he considered largely dissolute and immoral. He also looked down upon the constant focus by the elite on frivolous amusements. John noted that virtually every genteel French house he had visited boasted a stage for play performances, billiard and backgammon tables, chess and checker sets, and a host of card games. Adams also tired of incessant social events and elaborate palace ceremonies, and by early May confided in his diary, “Am to dine at home—a great Rarity and a great Blessing!”45

In early June 1778, John had the opportunity to visit the summer court of the French monarchs at Marli. He considered it the “most curious and beautiful place I have seen yet.” He wrote, “In point of Magnificence it was not equal to Versailles,” but Adams judged it to be superior in “elegance and Taste.”46 Less than a week later, along with Lee and Ralph Izard, the meddling American ambassador to Tuscany, Adams returned to Versailles for an intimate view of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at their “grand Couvert” and, after paying a fee, “watched the King, Queen, and Royal Family at Supper.” John recorded that he “Had a fine Seat and Situation close by the Royal Family,” so he was able to observe the monarchs’ behavior. Although that evening John was well dressed, it was still on a very modest scale compared to the glitter of the fashionable women and men surrounding him, who were decked out in glittering diamonds, sumptuous gold jewelry, and exquisitely embroidered costumes.47 John found the pomp impressive but vacuous and without any signs of the republican ideals of simple American elegance he had long admired.

There were other social occasions that John found more to his liking. The next month, on July 4, Adams and Franklin invited a group of American nationals and a few local Frenchmen to a dinner at Passy to celebrate the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and the day passed “joyously.”48 By the fall, John had had enough of French grandeur and longed for his simpler life at home in Massachusetts. After he visited the richly appointed apartments of the Prince of Conde at the Palace of Bourbon, he maintained with apparent sincerity that “I had rather live in this Room at Passy than in that Palace, and in my Cottage at Braintree than in this Hotel at Passy.”49

One aspect of French society that John clearly did admire was the accomplished, educated women whom he met in Paris, although he often felt gauche among sophisticated females. Abigail was not wholly pleased by the admiration of such women, and from Braintree, she took the opportunity to lament the general state of female education in America. In response to the praise (often unwelcome) she heard from John about the “brilliant accomplishments” of Parisian women, Abigail shared her strong views. She especially regretted “the trifling, narrow, contracted education of the females in my own country. . . . In this country, you need not be told how much female education is neglected, nor how fashionable it has been to ridicule female learning; though I acknowledge it my happiness to be connected with a person [John] of a more generous mind and liberal sentiments.”50 Indeed, John and Abigail felt that education, for both men and women, albeit focusing on different subjects, was essential to a viable republic. Their daughter Nabby was sent to a respected female academy in Boston. The Adamses believed that America required a virtuous, educated citizenry to succeed, as knowledge built character, enlarged wisdom, and developed leadership qualities. They remained lifelong advocates of the study of history, political science, philosophy, and literature.

Living in Paris brought the differences between Adams’s native land and France into sharp relief. Soon after he settled in Paris, John wrote Abigail that he found the French people deficient in morality, but at the same time they were welcoming, charmingly polite, and surprisingly charitable. As he put it, “The Delights of France are innumerable. The Politeness, the Elegance, the Softness, the Delicacy, is extreme.” He confided reluctantly to Abigail, “In short stern and hauty Republican as I am, I cannot help loving; these People, for their earnest Desire, and Assiduity to please.” The architecture of France, which featured exquisite cathedrals and churches, stately mansions, sculpted gardens, and the grand Palace of Versailles, was dazzling. He summarized his impressions by declaring succinctly, “The richness, the magnificence, and splendor is beyond all description.”51 Still, despite its outward grandeur, the Palace of Versailles, like the broader French society, had hidden faults lurking beneath its glittering surface, which Adams observed with dismay.

Although John appreciated the civility of the French and admired much about the culture and physical beauty of the country, his Yankee background and lifelong belief that moral and civic virtue were the only sound foundation for good government led him to be cautious. As early as 1776, John had maintained to Massachusetts patriot and writer Mercy Warren that “Public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics,” and he hoped that a thoughtfully designed government would ensure its continuance in America.52 From France, he warned Abigail about the splendid trappings that veiled underlying corruption, dissipation, and decadence and which were merely “in Exchange for the great Qualities and hardy many Virtues of the human Heart. I cannot help suspecting that the more Elegance, the less Virtue in all Times and countries.” It was a situation he hoped would never develop in his “own dear country.” Sometimes in his more pessimistic moments, he feared that the love of extravagance might even infect America in the future, if it had not already done so. John ended his missive to Abigail with the declaration that “All the Luxury I desire in this World is the Company of my dearest Friend [Abigail] and my Children.”53

The longer Adams remained in Passy, the more strained became his relationship with Franklin. Their temperaments could not have been more dissimilar. John confided petulantly in his diary, “On Dr. F. the Eyes of all Europe are fixed, as the most important Character in American Affairs in Europe. Neither L[ee] Nor myself are looked upon of much Consequence. The Attend of the Court seems most to F. and no Wonder. His long and great Rep[utation] to which L’s and mine are in their infancy, are enough to Account for this.” John reiterated that Franklin’s age, his tendency toward indolence, and his sociability often made him oblivious to keeping exacting records and combined to “render it impossible for him to search every Thing to the Bottom.” Adams took up most of the mundane but necessary work of the American legation, including writing urgent business letters. Yet Adams also acknowledged the respect Franklin received from the French, a circumstance that John well understood made the elder statesman essential to American diplomatic efforts.54

The reality was that although Franklin was crucial in raising French funds for the American cause and holding the alliance between France and America together, neither he nor Lee had been methodical about keeping records or reining in their sometimes extravagant expenditure. Moreover, the two disliked one another and were often distracted by their feud. John had worked hard to bring order to the commission’s chaotic finances while at the same time keeping Congress updated on foreign affairs. These were the types of task at which he excelled. As John asserted years earlier in his diary, “I was born for business; for both Activity and Study.”55

Adams was by nature organized, hardworking, exacting, and often blunt; Franklin, who as he aged was visited by a number of irritating illnesses, grew careless, unfocused, and at times content to merely sit back and work behind the scenes to charm his many French admirers, especially the ladies. With stern disapproval Adams noted Franklin’s inclination for incessant socializing; he recorded how Franklin dined out almost daily, often not returning home until late in the evening, sometimes even at midnight, making it difficult for Adams to consult with him.56 John seemed naïvely unappreciative of the way that Franklin successfully combined business and pleasure.

John still respected Franklin, but was increasingly resentful of the unqualified admiration the “doctor” enjoyed, and he tired of Franklin’s complaints about his fellow ministers. By April 1778, Adams recorded the bitter discord among the American emissaries and wrote of his “Grief and Concern” over their disputes. He declared himself “untainted with these Prejudices” and maintained that “Parties and Divisions” would have only “pernicious Effects.”57 Clearly, Adams had subtly altered his view of Franklin, whom he admitted was a genius and a great politician, but perhaps lacking in morality and statesmanship. In John’s opinion, Franklin was too deferential to the French and easily manipulated by the sophisticated Vergennes. Moreover, it appeared that Franklin had been duped by several of his so-called English friends. It was later revealed that British secret agents had insinuated themselves into the American mission, raising suspicion between the French and American diplomats. John often felt himself awkwardly caught between his colleagues and tried to steer a tactful course as “an Umpire between two bitter and inveterate Parties.” Yet John still felt compelled to publicly defend Franklin’s reputation because of the importance of the office he held and the favor he found at the French court.58

By the end of 1778, Franklin and Adams diverged in their opinion about how strongly to urge France to make greater military commitments to the American cause, but the two men still agreed on most substantive issues. However, as John became less optimistic about the prospect of an American victory over England and peace seemed increasingly distant, he became more suspicious of French intentions. The result was that Adams and Franklin moved farther apart. John astutely understood the central role naval power played in the American conflict with Great Britain, and he continued to press Franklin and Vergennes for increased French aid. John often forgot or ignored the fact that discretion, tact, and even outright dissimulation were frequently the most effective tools of diplomacy.

Vergennes was often unwilling to meet John’s relentless demands because his primary goal was understandably to weaken English power, not to bolster the American war effort. Moreover, he was offended by John’s dogged and single-minded persistence in a manner that did not view French interests as primary. It resulted in uneasy relations between the two men. Yet Adams was right to remain resolute in urging French military intervention. The deployment of the French navy, backed by Spain and the Netherlands and secured through alliances brokered by Vergennes, later proved essential. Indeed, France’s intervention played a decisive role in the American victory. Historian John Ferling posits that John’s concern about the course of the war and his differences of opinion with Franklin over how much pressure to apply for additional French military support were central factors in John’s decreasing confidence in Franklin’s diplomacy and their growing discord.59 Adams would have probably been wiser to have made an ally of Franklin. A strong partnership might have allowed them to work in concert together to influence Vergennes. Without Abigail by his side to smooth over his tendency to become irritable when frustrated, however, John easily slipped into suspicion and anger, which clouded his judgment.

John often felt like a third wheel in the American commission, overshadowed by Franklin and Lee, burdened by mere clerical tasks, and wounded by his perception that he was underappreciated by French diplomats as well as his countrymen back home. The mounting discord between Franklin and Lee, as well as their friction with Izard and Deane, frustrated John. He considered Lee and Deane men of integrity but too hot-tempered, and he tartly observed, “I had found more Intrigue and finesse among my own Countrymen, at Paris, than among the French.”60 For the sake of efficiency, John recommended that Congress reduce the number of French emissaries to one.

All of John’s colleagues agreed that he had the best interests of his country at heart but that he sometimes blundered in his frank style. The exchange of correspondence between Congress and the American emissaries in France was excruciatingly slow. It made it a challenge for the diplomats to ascertain their instructions and, in turn, to provide updated information to members of Congress. One of John’s most valuable contributions was keeping Congress abreast of developments in Europe with his frequent reports. As he put it succinctly, if immodestly, “I found that the Business of our Commission would never be done, unless I did it.”61

Even more distressing to John was what he perceived as ongoing British folly regarding a peace settlement. He lamented to his friend Elbridge Gerry, then a member of Congress, that “Great Britain is really a Melancholly Spectacle, . . . Destitute of Wisdom and Virtue to make Peace; burning with malice and revenge; yet affrighted and confounded at the Prospect of War. . . . An Idea of a fair and honourable Treat with Congress, never enters their Minds.” Adams informed Gerry that to his displeasure, Franklin had agreed that they would not proceed in peace negotiations without first consulting the French court for advice. He also confided that he thought that Franklin was responsible for some of the challenges that the Americans encountered with England. He noted that Franklin harbored personal “severe Resentment” against England’s King George, which impeded American efforts. Certainly, Franklin seems to have never overcome his sense of injustice at the hands of British politicians and the English court that had occurred back in the 1760s.62

Despite diplomatic frustrations, the bright spot in John’s sojourn in Paris was the company of his eldest son. Even in the face of inherent danger, John and Abigail had been united in their resolve to broaden the life experiences of their precocious child. They believed that the opportunity to accompany his father to Europe was an exceptional avenue to expose Johnny to the culture and venerable educational institutions in the Old World. Despite his youth, the Adamses were already imposing high standards on John Quincy and grooming him for greatness and service to his country. The close ties that developed between father and son were visible throughout their lifetimes. Years later, after John Quincy returned to America for college, Abigail’s sister observed that “His Father is his (Delphic) Oracle. There never was a Son who had greater veneration for a Father.”63

By the time John Quincy became the seventh president of the United States in 1825, arguably he was better prepared for conducting foreign policy than any of his predecessors or many of those who followed him. After father and son first arrived in Europe in 1778, Abigail offered her Johnny prescriptive advice, frequently echoing John’s philosophy about the necessity of public duty. She instructed her son to harness his talents to “Improve your understanding for acquiring useful knowledge and virtue, such as will render you an ornament to society, and honor to your country, and a blessing to your parents.”64 John later emphasized that the goal of John Quincy’s education was to become “a good Man and useful Citizen.”65 Thus, deep respect for the duty owed to their homeland was ingrained in the next Adams generation.

The Adamses were nothing if not industrious, and they were able to impart that trait to their eldest son. From youth, John and Abigail had developed a strong Protestant work ethic. Naturally studious and highly intelligent, John Quincy scrupulously followed his parents’ example. The elder Adams’s first months in France were characterized by unrelenting effort as well as the opportunity to immerse himself in culture firsthand. His son followed his own arduous schedule during the week at a rigorous boarding school. Classes began at 6:00 a.m. and ended at 8:00 p.m., punctuated by time for meals and exercise. John Quincy’s course of study included French and Latin as well as music and drawing, but he spent convivial weekends with his father, who found him a delightful companion. The elder Adams relished his temporary role as a single father, one who had the opportunity to focus his parental attention on just one child at a time. Father and son conversed freely about a wide variety of subjects, and John delighted in his son’s fine mind. In the face of his often frustrating diplomatic work in France, Adams sometimes became melancholy, but the time spent with Johnny was a balm. He told Abigail that while abroad, John Quincy had proved “the Joy of my Heart.”66

As the months passed, John worked relentlessly to improve his fluency and command of French grammar, and by the beginning of 1779, he declared that he “could talk as fast as I pleased.”67 He and John Quincy applied themselves to reading French textbooks and literary works. Father and son also attended meetings of the Academy of Sciences, where the proceedings were conducted entirely in French. The two often enjoyed plays and operas together. Even those entertaining productions served as a vehicle for education, a way to perfect their French and soak up the local culture. To hone their skills, for example, John made it a habit to take his French language book to the theater to improve his pronunciation by mimicking the actors. This was no mere frivolous exercise, however. French reigned as the diplomatic language par excellence in eighteenth-century Europe.

Ironically, the members of the American delegation seemed unable to solve their own disagreements diplomatically. At times, Adams was out of his depth in the complex world of foreign diplomacy, sometimes misreading situations and mishandling sensitive diplomatic interactions. For example, he often underestimated Vergennes’s power and the French minister’s strong preference for Franklin’s conciliatory style. After he criticized Deane and then defended Lee to Vergennes, John soon found that he was to be relieved of his joint commission by Congress. His worst fears were confirmed when Franklin was named the sole minister to the court of Louis XVI in September 1778, although the decision did not reach Paris until February of the following year.

Despite the fact that it was Adams himself who had recommended a reduction in the number of American diplomats in France, he was still taken aback by the abrupt end of his commission. It is likely that he hoped that he would be the one chosen as the solitary American minister. Yet he tried to cast the decision in a positive light, and he recorded matter-of-factly, “It appears that Dr. Franklin is sole Plenipotentiary, and of Consequence that I am displaced.” Somewhat disingenuously, he added that it was “the greatest Relief to my Mind.”68 Later in his diary, John blandly noted, “The Pleasure of returning home is very great, but I confess it is a Mortification to leave France. I have just acquired enough of the Language to understand a Conversation.”69 Lee was to go to Spain, and Adams, who was left in limbo without any instructions, made the decision to return home. He likely longed to return to Braintree and be soothed by his family and familiar surroundings.

In early March 1779, Adams visited Versailles to take formal leave of the French court and his ministry and to bid adieu to Vergennes. John was proud of the dispatch he received from Louis XVI tendered by Vergennes. The letter singled out “the wise conduct that you have held to throughout the tenure of your commission [and] . . . the zeal with which you have constantly furthered the cause of your nation, while strengthening the alliance that ties it to his Majesty.”70 Surely, the words must have bolstered John’s ego and allowed him to feel that his sojourn in France had not been in vain.

John again pretended to Abigail to be happy with the congressional decision. He wrote that he would soon join her back in Braintree as he was “reduced to a private Citizen which gives me more Pleasure, than you can imagine.”71 Inwardly, however, he still seethed. Adams fretted that the members of Congress, almost all men of wealth and position, had become a partisan oligarchy, with all sides putting their personal interests first. He had hoped to have been dispatched on a second mission to another European country such as Holland. In a later letter he complained to Abigail that Congress had instead left him in a state of “total Neglect and Contempt.”72

Determined to leave Europe quickly, he and John Quincy made a five-day journey to Nantes, which included the opportunity to visit Bordeaux, Brest, and other French towns as they searched for an available ship for their return voyage. While he awaited passage, John enjoyed dinners with locals and caught up on his reading. He also helped arrange an exchange of prisoners of war and the release of captured seamen, and he crossed paths with the famous American naval officer John Paul Jones. After numerous delays, he and John Quincy ended up sailing from Lorient to Philadelphia on June 17 on the French frigate La Sensible.

It was the same vessel that carried the new French minister to America, the Chevalier de La Luzerne. In fact, Luzerne’s ship quarters were directly across from John’s, and according to Adams the two men shared many engaging conversations about American affairs and literature. Adams recorded that he was discreet about American politics, and John Quincy tutored the charming Luzerne in English.73 Adams later recorded with satisfaction that in all his talks with Luzerne, “no unguarded Word has escaped me. I have conversed with that Frankness that makes a part of my Character, but have said nothing I did not mean to say.”74 Adams had at least learned to be diplomatic when he wanted to be.

After a year and a half of separation from their family, father and son arrived home in early August 1779. Their return came as a shock to Abigail, who had little advance warning. Though she had heard rumors that John and their son intended to sail home, she had received no details. Their arrival in Braintree ended nearly two years of anxiety for Abigail. Letters from John in Europe had only arrived sporadically, and Abigail, worried about her loved ones, had often complained to her husband about his prolonged absence. Back in the fall of 1778 she had declared to her friend and relative John Thaxter, “I wish a thousand times I had gone with him.”75

Little did Abigail know that she and John would soon be parted again as he undertook a second voyage to Europe on behalf of his country. Nor could she predict that she would join her husband across the Atlantic Ocean and visit the Old World to learn firsthand the opportunities and challenges that beckoned as she and her fellow Americans continued to build their nation and a distinctly American identity.