The memorials of that generation by whose efforts the independence of
the United States was achieved are in great abundance. There is hardly
an event of importance, from the year 1765 to the date of the definitive
treaty of peace with Great Britain, in September, 1783, which has not
been recorded, either by the industry of actors upon the scene or by the
indefatigable labors of a succeeding class of students. These persons
have devoted themselves, with a highly commendable zeal, to the
investigation of all particulars, even the most minute, that relate to
this interesting period. The individuals called to appear most
conspicuously in the Revolution have many of them left voluminous
collections of papers, which, as time passes, find their way to the
light by publication, and furnish important illustrations of the
feelings and motives under which the contest was carried on. The actors
are thus made to stand in bold relief before us. We not only see the
public record, but the private commentary also; and these, taken in
connection with the contemporaneous histories, all of which, however
defective in philosophical analysis, are invaluable depositories of
facts related by living witnesses, will serve to transmit to posterity
the details for a narration in as complete a form as will in all
probability ever be attained by the imperfect faculties of man.
Admitting these observations to be true, there is, nevertheless, a
distinction to be drawn between the materials for a history of action
and those for one of feeling; between the labors of men aiming at
distinction among their fellow-beings, and the private, familiar
sentiments that run into the texture of the social system, without
remark or the hope of observation. Here it is that something like a void
in our annals appears still to exist. Our history is for the most part
wrapped up in the forms of office. The great men of the Revolution, in
the eyes of posterity, are many of them like heroes of a mythological
age. They are seen, chiefly, when conscious that they are upon a
theatre, where individual sentiment must be sometimes disguised, and
often sacrificed, for the public good. Statesmen and Generals rarely say
all they think or feel. The consequence is that, in the papers which
come from them, they are made to assume a uniform of grave hue, which,
though it doubtless exalts the opinion entertained of their perfections,
somewhat diminishes the interest with which later generations scan their
character. Students of human nature seek for examples of man under
circumstances of difficulty and trial; man as he is, not as he would
appear; but there are many reasons why they may be often baffled in the
search. We look for the workings of the heart, when those of the head
alone are presented to us. We watch the emotions of the spirit, and yet
find clear traces only of the working of the intellect. The solitary
meditation, the confidential whisper to a friend, never meant to reach
the ear of the multitude, the secret wishes, not blazoned forth to catch
applause, the fluctuations between fear and hope that most betray the
springs of action,--these are the guides to character, which most
frequently vanish with the moment that called them forth, and leave
nothing to posterity but those coarser elements for judgment that are
found in elaborated results.
There is, however, still another element which is not infrequently lost
sight of. It is of great importance, not only to understand the nature
of the superiority of the individuals who have made themselves a name
above their fellow-beings, but to estimate the degree in which the
excellence for which they were distinguished was shared by those among
whom they lived. Inattention to this duty might present Patrick Henry
and James Otis, Washington, Jefferson, and Samuel Adams, as the causes
of the American Revolution, which they were not. There was a moral
principle in the field, to the power of which a great majority of the
whole population of the colonies, whether male or female, old or young,
had been long and habitually trained to do homage. The individuals
named, with the rest of their celebrated associates, who best
represented that moral principle before the world, were not the
originators, but the spokesmen, of the general opinion, and instruments
for its adaptation to existing events. Whether fighting in the field or
deliberating in the Senate, their strength as against Great Britain was
not that of numbers, nor of wealth, nor of genius; but it drew its
nourishment from the sentiment that pervaded the dwellings of the entire
population.
How much this home sentiment did then, and does ever, depend upon the
character of the female portion of the people, will be too readily
understood by all to require explanation. The domestic hearth is the
first of schools, and the best of lecture-rooms; for there the heart
will cooperate with the mind, the affections with the reasoning power.
And this is the scene for the almost exclusive sway of the weaker sex.
Yet, great as the influence thus exercised undoubtedly is, it escapes
observation in such a manner that history rarely takes much account of
it. The maxims of religion, faith, hope, and charity, are not passed
through the alembic of logical proof before they are admitted into the
daily practice of women. They go at once into the teachings of infancy,
and thus form the only high and pure motives of which matured manhood
can, in its subsequent action, ever boast. Neither, when the stamp of
duty is to be struck in the young mind, is there commonly so much of
alloy in the female heart as with men, with which the genuine metal may
be fused, and the face of the coin made dim. There is not so much room
for the doctrines of expediency, and the promptings of private interest,
to compromise the force of public example. In every instance of domestic
convulsions, and when the pruning-hook is deserted for the sword and
musket, the sacrifice of feelings made by the female sex is unmixed with
a hope of worldly compensation. With them there is no ambition to
gratify, no fame to be gained by the simply negative virtue of
privations suffered in silence. There is no action to drown in its noise
and bustle a full sense of the pain that must inevitably attend it. The
lot of woman, in times of trouble, is to be a passive spectator of
events which she can scarcely hope to make subservient to her own fame,
or indeed to control in any way.
If it were possible to get at the expression of feelings by women in the
heart of a community, at a moment of extraordinary trial, recorded in a
shape evidently designed to be secret and confidential, this would seem
to present the surest and most unfailing index to its general character.
Hitherto we have not gathered much of this material in the United
States. The dispersion of families, so common in America, the consequent
destruction of private papers, the defective nature of female education
before the Revolution, the difficulty and danger of free communication,
and the engrossing character, to the men, of public, and to the women,
of domestic cares, have all contributed to cut short, if not completely
to destroy, the sources of information. It has been truly remarked that
"instances of patience, perseverance, fortitude, magnanimity, courage,
humanity, and tenderness, which would have graced the Roman character,
were known only to those who were themselves the actors, and whose
modesty could not suffer them to blazon abroad their own fame." The
heroism of the females of the Revolution has gone from memory with the
generation that witnessed it, and nothing, absolutely nothing, remains
upon the ear of the young of the present day but the faint echo of an
expiring general tradition. There is, moreover, very little knowledge
remaining to us of the domestic manners of the last century, when, with
more of admitted distinctions than at present, there was more of general
equality; very little of the state of social feeling, or of that
simplicity of intercourse, which, in colonial times, constituted in New
England as near an approach to the successful exemplification of the
democratic theory as the irregularity in the natural gifts of men will,
in all probability, ever practically allow.
It is the purpose of the present volume to contribute something to the
supply of this deficiency, by giving to tradition a form partially
palpable. The present is believed to be the first attempt, in the United
States, to lay before the public a series of private letters, written
without the remotest idea of publication, by a woman, to her husband.
Their greatest value consists in the fact, susceptible of no
misconception, that they furnish an exact transcript of the feelings of
the writer, in times of no ordinary trial. Independently of this, the
variety of scenes in which she wrote, and the opportunities furnished
for observation in the situations in which she was placed by the
elevation of her husband to high official positions in the country, may
contribute to sustain the interest with which they will be read. The
undertaking is, nevertheless, too novel not to inspire the editor with
some doubt of its success, particularly as it brings forward to public
notice a person who has now been long removed from the scene of action,
and of whom, it is not unreasonable to suppose, the present generation
of readers have neither personal knowledge nor recollection. For the
sake of facilitating their progress, and explaining the allusions to
persons and objects very frequently occurring, it may not be deemed
improper here to premise some account of her life.
There were few persons of her day and generation who derived their
origin, or imbibed their character, more exclusively from the genuine
stock of the Massachusetts Puritan settlers than Abigail Smith. Her
father, the Reverend William Smith, was the settled minister of the
Congregational Church at Weymouth, for more than forty years, and until
his death. Her mother, Elizabeth Quincy, was the granddaughter of the
Reverend John Norton, long the pastor of a church of the same
denomination in the neighboring town of Hingham, and the nephew of John
Norton, well known in the annals of the colony.[1] Her maternal
grandfather, John Quincy, was the grandson of Thomas Shepard, minister
of Charlestown, distinguished in his day, and the son of the more
distinguished Thomas Shepard of Cambridge, whose name still lives in one
of the Churches of that town. These are persons whose merits may be
found fully recorded in the pages of Mather and of Neal. They were among
the most noted of the most reputed class of their day. In a colony
founded so exclusively upon motives of religious zeal as Massachusetts
was, it necessarily followed that the ordinary distinctions of society
were in a great degree subverted, and that the leaders of the church,
though without worldly possessions to boast of, were the most in honor
everywhere. Education was promoted only as it was subsidiary to the
great end of studying or expounding the Scriptures; and whatever of
advance made in the intellectual pursuits of society, was rather the
incidental than the direct result of studies necessary to fit men for a
holy calling. Hence it was that the higher departments of knowledge were
entered almost exclusively by the clergy. Classical learning was a
natural though indirect consequence of the acquisition of those
languages in which the New Testament and the Fathers were to be studied;
and dialectics formed the armor of which men were compelled to learn the
use, as a preparation for the wars of religious controversy. The mastery
of these gave power and authority to their possessors. They, by a very
natural transition, passed from being the guides of religious faith to
their fellow-men, to be guardians of education. To them, as the
fountains of knowledge, and possessing the gifts most prized in the
community, all other ranks in society cheerfully gave place. If a
festive entertainment was meditated, the minister was sure to be first
on the list of those to be invited, and to be placed at table. If any
assembly of citizens was held, he must be there to open the business
with prayer. If a political measure was in agitation, he was among the
first whose opinion was to be consulted. Even the civil rights of the
other citizens for a long time depended, in some degree, upon his good
word; and after this rigid rule was laid aside, he yet continued, in the
absence of technical law and lawyers, to be the arbiter and the judge in
the differences between his fellow-men. He was not infrequently the
family physician. The great object of instruction being religious, the
care of the young was also in his hands. The records of Harvard
University, the child and darling of Puritan affections, show that of
all the presiding officers, during the century and a half of colonial
days, but two were laymen, and not ministers of the prevailing
denomination; and that of all who in the early times availed themselves
of such advantages as this institution could then offer, nearly half the
number did so for the sake of devoting themselves to the service of the
gospel.
But the prevailing notion of the purpose of education was attended with
one remarkable consequence. The cultivation of the female mind was
regarded with utter indifference. It is not impossible that the early
example of Mrs. Hutchinson, and the difficulties in which the public
exercise of her gifts involved the colony, had established in the public
mind a conviction of the danger that may attend the meddling of women
with abstruse points of doctrine; and these, however they might confound
the strongest intellect, were nevertheless the favorite topics of
thought and discussion in that generation. Waiving a decision upon this,
it may very safely be assumed, not only that there was very little
attention given to the education of women, but that, as Mrs. Adams, in
one of her letters, says, "it was fashionable to ridicule female
learning." The only chance for much intellectual improvement in the
female sex was to be found in the families of that which was the
educated class, and in occasional intercourse with the learned of their
day. Whatever of useful instruction was received in the practical
conduct of life came from maternal lips; and what of further mental
development, depended more upon the eagerness with which the casual
teachings of daily conversation were treasured up, than upon any labor
expended purposely to promote it.
Abigail Smith was the second of three daughters. Her father, as has been
already mentioned, was the minister of a small Congregational Church in
the town of Weymouth, during the middle of the last century. She was
born in that town, on the 11th of November, 1744, O. S. In her
neighborhood there were not many advantages of instruction to be found;
and even in Boston, the small metropolis nearest at hand, for reasons
already stated, the list of accomplishments within the reach of females
was probably very short. She did not enjoy an opportunity to acquire
even such as there might have been, for the delicate state of her health
forbade the idea of sending her away from home to obtain them. In a
letter written in 1817, the year before her death, speaking of her own
deficiencies, she says, "My early education did not partake of the
abundant opportunities which the present days offer, and which even our
common country schools now afford. _I never was sent to any school._ I
was always sick. Female education, in the best families, went no further
than writing and arithmetic; in some few and rare instances, music and
dancing." Hence it is not unreasonable to suppose that the knowledge
gained by her was rather the result of the society into which she was
thrown, than of any elaborate instruction.
This fact, that the author of the letters in the present volume never
went to any school, is a very important one to a proper estimate of her
character. For, whatever may be the decision of the long-vexed question
between the advantages of public and those of private education, few
persons will deny that they produce marked differences in the formation
of character. Seclusion from companions of the same age, at any time of
life, is calculated to develop the imaginative faculty at the expense of
the judgment; but especially in youth, when the most durable impressions
are making. The ordinary consequence, in females of a meditative turn of
mind, is the indulgence of romantic and exaggerated sentiments drawn
from books, which, if subjected to the ordinary routine of schools, are
worn out by the attrition of social intercourse. These ideas, formed in
solitude, in early life, often, though not always, remain in the mind,
even after the realities of the world surround those who hold them, and
counteract the tendency of their conclusions. They are constantly
visible in the letters of this volume, even in the midst of the severest
trials. They form what may be considered the romantic turn of the
author's mind; but in her case they were so far modified by a great
admixture of religious principle and by natural good sense, as to be of
eminent service in sustaining her through the painful situations in
which she was placed, instead of nursing that species of sickly
sensibility which too frequently, in similar circumstances, impairs, if
it does not destroy, the power of practical usefulness.
At Mount Wollaston, a part of Braintree, the town next adjoining
Weymouth, lived Colonel John Quincy, her grandfather on her mother's
side, and a gentleman who for very many years enjoyed, in various
official situations, much of the confidence of the Province. At his
house, and under the instruction of his wife, her grandmother, she
appears to have imbibed most of the lessons which made the deepest
impression upon her mind. Of this lady, the daughter of the Reverend
John Norton, nothing is now known but what the frequent and cheerful
acknowledgment of her merit, by her disciple, tells us. "I have not
forgotten," says the latter to her own daughter, in the year 1795, "the
excellent lessons which I received from my grandmother, at a very early
period of life. I frequently think they made a more durable impression
upon my mind than those which I received from my own parents. Whether it
was owing to the happy method of mixing instruction and amusement
together, or from an inflexible adherence to certain principles, the
utility of which I could not but see and approve when a child, I know
not; but maturer years have rendered them oracles of wisdom to me. I
love and revere her memory; her lively, cheerful disposition animated
all around her, whilst she edified all by her unaffected piety. This
tribute is due to the memory of those virtues the sweet remembrance of
which will flourish, though she has long slept with her ancestors."
Again, in another letter to the same person, in 1808, she says, "I
cherish her memory with holy veneration, whose maxims I have treasured
up, whose virtues live in my remembrance; happy if I could say they have
been transplanted into my life."
But though her early years were spent in a spot of so great seclusion as
her grandfather's house must then have been, it does not appear that she
remained wholly unacquainted with young persons of her own sex and age.
She had relations and connections, both on the father's and the mother's
side; and with these she was upon as intimate terms as circumstances
would allow. The distance between the homes of the young people was,
however, too great, and the means of their parents too narrow, to admit
of very frequent personal intercourse; the substitute for which was a
rapid interchange of written communications. The letter-writing
propensity manifested itself early in this youthful circle. A
considerable number of the epistles of her correspondents have been
preserved among the papers of Mrs. Adams. They are deserving of notice
only as they furnish a general idea of the tastes and pursuits of the
young women of that day. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about them is
the evident influence upon the writers which the study of "The
Spectator" and of the poets appears to have had. This is perceptible in
the more important train of thought and structure of language, as well
as in the lesser trifles of the taste for quotation and for fictitious
signatures. Calliope and Myra, Aspasia and Aurelia, have effectually
succeeded in disguising their true names from the eyes of younger
generations. The signature of Miss Smith appears to have been _Diana_, a
name which she dropped after her marriage, without losing the fancy that
prompted its selection. Her letters during the Revolution show clearly
enough the tendency of her own thoughts and feelings, in the substitute
she then adopted, of _Portia_. Her fondness for quotations, the fashion
of that day, it will be seen, was maintained through life.
Perhaps there is no species of exercise, in early life, more productive
of results useful to the mind, than that of writing letters. Over and
above the mechanical facility of constructing sentences, which no
teaching will afford so well, the interest with which the object is
commonly pursued gives an extraordinary impulse to the intellect. This
is promoted in a degree proportionate to the scarcity of temporary and
local subjects for discussion. Where there is little gossip, the want of
it must be supplied from books. The love of literature springs up where
the weeds of scandal take no root. The young ladies of Massachusetts, in
the last century, were certainly readers, even though only self-taught;
and their taste was not for the feeble and nerveless sentiment, or the
frantic passion, which comes from the novels and romances in the
circulating library of our day, but was derived from the deepest wells
of English literature. The poets and moralists of the mother country
furnished to these inquiring minds their ample stores, and they were
used to an extent which it is at least doubtful if the more pretending
and elaborate instruction of the present generation would equal.
The father of Mrs. Adams was a pious man, with something of that vein of
humor not uncommon among the clergy of New England, which ordinarily
found such a field for exercise as is displayed in the pages of Cotton
Mather. He was the father of three daughters, all of them women of
uncommon force of intellect, though the fortunes of two of them confined
its influence to a sphere much more limited than that which fell to the
lot of Mrs. Adams. Mary, the eldest, was married in 1792 to Richard
Cranch, an English emigrant, who had settled at Germantown, a part of
Braintree, and who subsequently became a Judge of the Court of Common
Pleas in Massachusetts, and died, highly respected, in the early part of
the present century. The late William Cranch, of Washington, who
presided so long, and with so much dignity and fidelity, over the
Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, was the son of this marriage.
Elizabeth, the youngest, was twice married; first to the Reverend John
Shaw, minister of Haverhill, in Massachusetts, and, after his death, to
the Reverend Mr. Peabody, of Atkinson, New Hampshire. Thus much is
necessary to be stated in order to explain the relations, which the
parties mentioned in many of the letters bore to each other. It is an
anecdote told of Mr. Smith, that upon the marriage of his eldest
daughter he preached to his people from the text in the forty-second
verse of the tenth chapter of Luke, "And Mary hath chosen that good
part, which shall not be taken away from her." Two years elapsed, and
his second daughter, the subject of this notice, was about to marry John
Adams, then a lawyer in good practice, when some disapprobation of the
match appears to have manifested itself among a portion of his
parishioners. The profession of law was, for a long period in the
colonial history of Massachusetts, unknown; and after circumstances
called it forth, the prejudices of the inhabitants, who thought it a
calling hardly honest, were arrayed against those who adopted it. There
are many still living who can remember how strong they remained, even
down to the time of the adoption of the present Federal Constitution;
and the records of the General Court will show that they had not quite
disappeared even much later. Besides this, the family of Mr. Adams, the
son of a small farmer of the middle class in Braintree, was thought
scarcely good enough to match with the minister's daughter, descended
from so many of the shining lights of the Colony. It is probable that
Mr. Smith was made aware of the opinions expressed among his people,
for he is said, immediately after the marriage took place, to have
replied to them by a sermon, the text of which, in evident allusion to
the objection against lawyers, was drawn from Luke vii. 33: "For John
came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, _He hath a
devil_."[2]
Mrs. Adams was married on the 25th of October, 1764, having then nearly
completed her twentieth year. The ten years immediately following
present little that is worthy of recording. She appears to have passed a
quiet, and very happy life, having her residence in Braintree or in
Boston, according as the state of her husband's health, then rather
impaired, or that of his professional practice, made the change
advisable. Within this period she became the mother of a daughter and of
three sons, whose names will frequently appear in her letters; and her
domestic cares were relieved by the presence of her husband, absent from
home only upon those occasions when he, with the other lawyers of his
time, was compelled to follow the circuits. During these times he used
regularly to write to his wife, giving her an account of his adventures
and of his professional success. These letters remain, and furnish a
somewhat curious record of the manners and customs of the provincial
times. Several of them will be found in this collection. She does not
appear to have often replied.
It is said by Governor Hutchinson, in the third volume of his History,
that neither the health of Mr. Adams, nor his business, admitted of his
constant application to public affairs in the manner that distinguished
his kinsman, Samuel Adams, during the years preceding the breaking out
of the Revolution. If the sum of that application is to be measured by
the frequency of his appearance before the public as an actor in an
official character upon the scene, the remark is true; for up to the
year 1774 he had served but once or twice as a representative in the
General Court, and in no other situation. But this would furnish a very
unfair standard by which to try the extent of his labors for the public.
Very often, as much is done by beforehand preparing the public mind for
action, as by the conduct of that action after it has been commenced;
although the visible amount of exertion, by which alone the world forms
its judgments, is in the two cases widely different. From the time of
his marriage, in 1764, perhaps still earlier, when he, as a young
lawyer, in 1761, took notes of the argument in the celebrated cause of
the Writs of Assistants, there is evidence constantly presented of his
active interest in the Revolutionary struggle. There is hardly a year in
the interval between the earliest of these dates and 1774, that the
traces of his hand are not visible in the newspapers of Boston,
elaborately discussing the momentous questions which preceded the
crisis. It was during this period that the "Essay on Canon and Feudal
Law" was written. A long controversy with Major Brattle, upon the
payment of the Judges, and the papers of "Novanglus," were other, though
by no means all, the results of his labors. He drafted several of the
papers of Instructions to the Representatives to the General Court, both
in Boston and in his native town, and also some of the most elaborate
legal portions of the celebrated controversy between that body and
Governor Hutchinson. The tendency, which all these papers show, to seek
for political truth in its fundamental principles and most abstract
forms, whilst it takes off much from the interest with which the merely
general reader would now consider them, is yet of historical importance,
as establishing the fact, how little of mere impulse there was in his
mode of action against the mother country. They also show the extent of
the studies to which his mind applied itself, and the depth of the
foundation laid by him for his subsequent career. Yet, during all this
time, his professional labors were never intermitted, and ceased only
with the catastrophe which shut up the courts of justice and rendered
exertion upon a different theatre absolutely necessary to the
maintenance of the fabric of society.
Perhaps the preceding detail belongs more properly to a memoir of Mr.
Adams than that of his wife. Yet it would be impossible to furnish any
accurate idea of her character without explaining the precise nature of
the influences acting upon her, whilst still young, and when that
character was taking its permanent form. There was no one who witnessed
his studies with greater interest, or who sympathized with him in the
conclusions to which his mind was forcing him, more deeply, than Mrs.
Adams. And hence it was, that, as the day of trial came, and the hour
for action drew near, she was found not unprepared to submit to the lot
appointed her. Mr. Adams was elected one of the delegates on the part of
Massachusetts, instructed to meet persons chosen in the same manner from
the other colonies, for the purpose of consulting in common upon the
course most advisable to be adopted by them. In the month of August,
1774, he left home, in company with Samuel Adams, Thomas Cushing, and
Robert Treat Paine, to go to Philadelphia, at which place the proposed
assembly was to be held. It is from this period that the correspondence
between these parties, now submitted, becomes interesting. The letter of
the 19th of August of this year[3] portrays her own feelings upon this,
the first separation of importance from her husband, and the anxiety
with which she was watching the course of events. Yet there is in it not
a syllable of regret for the past or of fear for the future; but, on the
contrary, an acute perception of the obstacles in the way of an
immediate return to peaceful times, and a deliberate preparation, by
reading and reflection, for the worst. The Congress confined itself, in
its first sessions, to consultation and remonstrance. It therefore
adjourned after the lapse of only two months. It is during this time
that the letters in the present volume which bear date in 1774 were
written. They furnish a lively exhibition of the state of public feeling
in Massachusetts. That dated on the 14th of September is particularly
interesting, as it gives an account of the securing the gunpowder from
the British, in her own town of Braintree, as well as a highly
characteristic trait of New England, in the refusal to cheer on a
Sunday. The last of this series, dated on the 16th of October, shows
that all remaining hopes of peace and reconciliation were fast vanishing
from her mind; and in an affecting manner she "bids adieu to domestic
felicity perhaps until the meeting with her husband in another world,
since she looks forward to nothing further in this than sacrifices, as
the result of the impending contest."[4]
The second meeting of the Congress, which took place in May, 1775, was
marked by events which wholly changed the nature of its deliberations.
Up to that period, the struggle had been only a dispute. It then took
the more fearful shape of a war. Mr. Adams left his house and family at
Braintree on the 14th of April, only five days before the memorable
incident at Lexington, which was a signal for the final appeal to arms.
The news of the affair reached him at Hartford, on his way to
Philadelphia. General Gage had planned his attack upon Lexington with
the knowledge that John Hancock and Samuel Adams, two of the delegates
to the general Congress, were in that place at the time; and it was
probably one of his objects to seize them, if they could be found.
Gordon, the historian, attributes their escape only to a friendly
warning given them by a woman residing in Boston, but "unequally yoked
in politics." There was nearly the same reason for apprehension on the
part of John Adams. His house was situated still nearer to Boston, could
be more easily approached by water, and his family, if not he himself,
was known to be residing there. Under these circumstances, what the
feelings of Mrs. Adams, left with the care of four small children, the
eldest not ten years of age, must have been, may readily be conceived.
But the letters in which she describes them bring the idea home to the
mind with still greater force. She tells us that upon the separation
from her husband "her heart had felt like a heart of lead," and that
"she never trusts herself long with the terrors that sometimes intrude
themselves upon her;" that "since the never-to-be-forgotten day of his
departure, the 14th of April, nothing had agitated her so much as the
news of the arrival of recruits;" and that "she lives in continual
expectation of alarms." Neither were these apprehensions altogether
groundless. The letter of the 4th of May mentions that Colonel Quincy's
family, whose residence was nearer to the water-side than hers, had
taken refuge for one night with her. That of the 24th gives a highly
vivid picture of the consternation into which the whole town was thrown
by a party of British, foraging upon an island in the harbor, close upon
the town. Then follows the account of the battle on Bunker's Hill and
the burning of Charlestown, dreadful events to those in the immediate
vicinity of Boston and to herself; yet, in the midst of them, the writer
adds that she is "distressed, but not dismayed," and that "she has been
able to maintain a calmness and presence of mind, and hopes she shall,
let the exigency of the time be what it will."[5]
But it is superfluous to endeavor to heighten the picture given in the
letters with so much distinctness. Mr. Adams seems to have been startled
on the arrival of the intelligence at Hartford. Conscious, however, that
his return would rather tend to add to, than diminish, the hazard to
which his family was exposed, he contented himself with writing
encouragement, and, at the same time, his directions in case of
positive danger. "In a cause which interests the whole globe," he says,
"at a time when my friends and country are in such keen distress, I am
scarcely ever interrupted in the least degree by apprehensions for my
personal safety. I am often concerned for you and our dear babes,
surrounded as you are by people who are too timorous and too much
susceptible of alarms. Many fears and jealousies and imaginary evils
will be suggested to you, but I hope you will not be impressed by them.
In case of real danger, of which you cannot fail to have previous
intimations, fly to the woods with our children."
Mr. Adams very well knew to whom he was recommending such an appalling
alternative, the very idea of which would have been intolerable to many
women. The trial Mrs. Adams was called to undergo from the fears of
those immediately around her was one in addition to that caused by her
own apprehensions; a trial, it may be remarked, of no ordinary nature,
since it demands the exercise of a presence of mind and accuracy of
judgment in distinguishing the false from the true, that falls to the
lot of few even of the stronger sex. It is the tendency of women in
general to suffer quite as much from anxiety occasioned by the activity
of the imagination, as if it was, in every instance, founded upon
reasonable cause.
But the sufferings of this remarkable year were not limited to the mind
alone. The terrors of war were accompanied with the ravages of
pestilence. Mr. Adams was at home during the period of adjournment of
the Congress, which was only for the month of August; but scarcely had
he crossed his threshold, when the dysentery, a disease which had
already signified its approach in scattering instances about the
neighborhood of the besieged town of Boston, where it had commenced,
assumed a highly epidemic character, and marked its victims in every
family. A younger brother of Mr. Adams had fallen among the earliest in
the town; but it was not till his departure for Philadelphia that almost
every member of his own household was seized. The letters written during
the month of September, 1775, of which only extracts were printed in the
early editions of these papers, for reasons then thought satisfactory,
it is now deemed not unsuitable to produce in full. They tell their own
tale much more forcibly than any abridgment could do. They present
distinctly to the imagination the acuteness of trials of which female
history seldom takes much note, and yet in which female fortitude gains
its most heroic triumphs.
Without designing to detract from the unquestioned merit of that
instrument, it must nevertheless be admitted that the Declaration of
Independence, called by the celebrated John Randolph "a fanfaronade of
abstractions," might very naturally be expected to reward the efforts of
its signers with a crown of immortality; whilst the very large share of
the cost of maintaining it, wrung from the bleeding hearts of the women
of the Revolution, was paid without any hope or expectation of a similar
compensation.
Mr. Adams was again at home in the month of December, during the
sessions of the Congress, which were now continued without intermission.
It was upon his departure for the third time that the long and very
remarkable letter bearing date March 2d, 1776,[6] and continued through
several days, was written; a letter composed in the midst of the din of
war, and describing hopes and fears in a manner deeply interesting. With
this the description of active scenes in the war terminates. The British
force soon afterwards evacuated Boston and Massachusetts, which did not
again become the field of military action. The correspondence now
changes its character. From containing accounts of stirring events
directly under the writer's eye, Mrs. Adams's letters assume a more
private form, and principally relate to the management of the farm and
the household. Few of these would be likely to amuse the general reader,
yet some are necessary to show a portion of her character. Mr. Adams was
never a man of large fortune. His profession, which had been a source of
emolument, was now entirely taken away from him; and his only dependence
for the support of his family was in the careful husbanding of the means
in actual possession. It is not giving to his wife too much credit to
affirm that by her prudence through the years of the Revolution, and
indeed during the whole period when the attention of her husband was
engrossed by public affairs, she saved him from the mortification in his
last days, which some of those who have been, like him, elevated to the
highest posts in the country, have, for want of such care, not
altogether escaped.
In the month of November, 1777, Mr. Adams again visited his home, and
never afterwards rejoined Congress; for that body in his absence had
elected him to perform a duty in a distant land. This was destined to
furnish a severe trial to the fortitude of Mrs. Adams. On the 25th of
October, she had written a letter to him, it being the anniversary of
their wedding-day, in which she notices the fact that "out of thirteen
years of their married life, three had been passed in a state of
separation." Yet in these years the distance between them had never been
very great, and the means of communication almost always reasonably
speedy and certain. She appears little to have anticipated that in a few
short weeks she was to be deprived of even these compensations, and to
send her husband to a foreign country, over seas covered with the
enemy's ships. "I very well remember," she says, in an earlier letter,
"when the eastern circuits of the courts, which lasted a month, were
thought an age, and an absence of three months, intolerable; but we are
carried from step to step, and from one degree to another, to endure
that which first we think insupportable." It was in exact accordance
with this process, that the separations of half a year or more were to
be followed by those which lasted many years, and the distance from
Boston to Philadelphia or Baltimore was extended to Paris and a
different quarter of the globe. Upon the reception of the news of his
appointment as Joint Commissioner at the Court of France, in the place
of Silas Deane, Mr. Adams lost no time in making his arrangements for
the voyage. But it was impossible for him to think of risking his wife
and children all at once with him in so perilous an enterprise. The
frigate _Boston_, a small and not very good vessel, mounting
twenty-eight guns, had been ordered to transport him to his destination.
The British fleet, stationed at Newport, perfectly well knew the
circumstances under which she was going, and was on the watch to favor
the new Commissioner with a fate similar to that afterwards experienced
by Mr. Laurens. The political attitude of France still remained
equivocal. Hence, on every account it seemed advisable that Mr. Adams
should go upon his mission alone. He left the shores of his native town
to embark in the frigate in February, 1778, accompanied only by his
eldest son, John Quincy Adams, then a boy not quite eleven years of age.
It is not often that even upon that boisterous ocean a voyage combines
greater perils of war and of the elements than did this of the _Boston_.
Yet it is by no means unlikely that the lightning which struck the
frigate, and the winds that nearly sent it to the bottom, were effective
instruments to deter the enemy from a pursuit which threatened to end in
capture. This is not, however, the place to enlarge upon this story. It
is alluded to only as connected with the uneasiness experienced by Mrs.
Adams, who was left alone to meditate upon the hazard to which her
husband was exposed. Her letter written not long after the sailing of
the frigate distinctly shows her feelings.[7] But we find by it that to
all the causes for anxiety which would naturally have occurred to her
mind, there was superadded one growing out of a rumor then in
circulation, that some British emissary had made an attempt upon the
life of Dr. Franklin whilst acting at Paris in the very Commission of
which her husband had been made a part. This was a kind of apprehension
as new as it was distressing; one too, the vague nature of which tended
indefinitely to multiply those terrors that had a better foundation in
reality.
The news of the surrender of General Burgoyne had done more to hasten
the desired acknowledgment, by France, of the independence of the United
States, than all the efforts which Commissioners could have made. Upon
his arrival in that country, Mr. Adams found the great object of his
mission accomplished, and himself, consequently, left with little or no
occupation. He did not wait in Europe to know the further wishes of
Congress, but returned home in August, 1779. Only a brief enjoyment of
his society by his family was the result, inasmuch as in October he was
again ordered by Congress to go to Europe, and there to wait until Great
Britain should manifest an inclination to treat with him, and terminate
the war. In obedience to these directions, he sailed in November, on
board of the French frigate _Sensible_, taking with him upon this
occasion his two eldest sons. The day of his embarkation is marked by a
letter in the present collection, quite touching in its character.[8]
The ordinary occupations of the female sex are necessarily of a kind
which must ever prevent it from partaking largely of the action of life.
However keenly women may think or feel, there is seldom an occasion when
the sphere of their exertions can with propriety be extended much beyond
the domestic hearth or the social circle. Exactly here are they to be
seen most in their glory. Three or four years passed whilst Mrs. Adams
was living in the utmost seclusion of country life, during which, on
account of the increasing vigilance of British cruisers, she very seldom
heard from her husband. The material for interesting letters was
proportionately small, and yet there was no time when she was more
usefully occupied. It is impossible to omit all notice of this period,
however deficient it may prove in variety. The depreciation of the
Continental paper money, the difficulties in the way of managing the
property of her husband, her own isolation, and the course of public
events in distant parts of the country, form her constant topics. Only a
small number of the letters which discuss them, yet enough to show her
situation at this period, have been admitted into this volume. They are
remarkable, because they display the readiness with which she could
devote herself to the most opposite duties, and the cheerful manner in
which she could accommodate herself to the difficulties of the times.
She is a farmer cultivating the land, and discussing the weather and the
crops; a merchant reporting prices-current and the rates of exchange,
and directing the making up of invoices; a politician speculating upon
the probabilities of peace or war; and a mother writing the most exalted
sentiments to her son. All of these pursuits she adopts together; some
from choice, the rest from the necessity of the case; and in all she
appears equally well. Yet, among the letters of this period there will
be found two or three which rise in their tone very far above the rest,
and which can scarcely fail to awaken the sympathy of the coldest
reader.[9]
The signature of the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, which fully
established the independence of the United States, did not terminate the
residence of Mr. Adams in Europe. He was ordered by Congress to remain
there, and, in conjunction with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jefferson, to
establish by treaty commercial relations with foreign powers. And not
long afterwards a new commission was sent him as the first
representative of the nation to him who had been their King. The duties
prescribed seemed likely to require a residence sufficiently long to
authorize him in a request that Mrs. Adams should join him in Europe.
After some hesitation, she finally consented; and, in June, 1784, she
sailed from Boston in a merchant vessel bound to London. Mrs. Adams
found herself, at the age of forty, suddenly transplanted into a scene
wholly new. From a life of the utmost retirement, in a small and quiet
country town of New England, she was at once transferred to the busy and
bustling scenes of the populous and wealthy cities of Europe. Not only
was her position novel to herself, but there had been nothing like it
among her countrywomen. She was the first representative of her sex from
the United States at the Court of Great Britain. The impressions made
upon her mind were therefore received when it was uncommonly open, and
free from the ordinary restraints which an established routine of
precedents is apt to create. Her residence in France during the first
year of her European experience appears to have been much enjoyed,
notwithstanding the embarrassment felt by her from not speaking the
language. That in England, which lasted three years, was somewhat
affected by the temper of the sovereign. George and his Queen could not
get over the mortification attending the loss of the American Colonies,
nor at all times suppress the manifestation of it, when the presence of
their Minister forced the subject on their recollection. Mrs. Adams went
through the ordinary form of presentation at Court. She was not more
than civilly met on the part of the Queen, whose subsequent conduct was
hardly so good as on that occasion. Mrs. Adams appears never to have
forgotten it; for at a much later period, when, in consequence of the
French Revolution, the throne of England was thought to be in danger,
she writes to her daughter with regret at the prospect for the country,
but without sympathy for the Queen. "Humiliation for Charlotte," she
says, "is no sorrow for me. She richly deserves her full portion for the
contempt and scorn which she took pains to discover." Of course the
courtiers followed the lead thus given to them, and the impression made
against America at the very outset of its national career has hardly
been effaced down to this day. It is to be observed, however, that one
circumstance contributed to operate against the situation of the first
American Minister to Great Britain, which has affected none of his
successors. This was the conduct of the States whilst yet under the
Confederation, justifying the general impression that they were
incapable of the self-government the right to which they had so
zealously fought to obtain.
Yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, she seems to have enjoyed much her
residence in the mother country. The period was not without its peculiar
character to Americans. Their country, exhausted by her efforts in the
war of Independence, had not yet put herself in the way of restoration
by adopting a good form of government. It was even a matter of doubt
whether her liberty was likely to prove a blessing, or to degenerate
into a curse. On the other hand, France, Holland, and Great Britain
respectively presented an outward spectacle of wealth and prosperity not
perceptibly impaired by the violent struggle between them, that had
just terminated. This contrast is frequently marked in the letters of
Mrs. Adams; but the perception of it does not appear to have in any
degree qualified the earnestness of her attachment to her own very
modest home. "Whatever is to be the fate of our country," she wrote to
her sister at home, "we have determined to come home and share it with
you." She had very little of that susceptibility of transfer which is a
characteristic, not less of the cultivated and wealthy class of our
countrymen, who cling to the luxury of the Old World, than of the
adventurous and hardy sons of labor, who carve out for themselves a new
home in the forests of the West.
The return of Mr. Adams, with his family, to the United States, the
liberty for which was granted by Congress at his own request, was
simultaneous with the adoption of the present Constitution by the
decision of the ratifying Conventions. Upon the organization of the
government under the new form, he was elected to fill the office of
Vice-President, that of President being, by a more general consent,
awarded to General Washington. By this arrangement, a residence at the
seat of government during the sessions of the Senate was made necessary;
and, as that was fixed first at New York and then at Philadelphia, Mrs.
Adams enjoyed an opportunity to mix freely with the society of both
places.
The voluntary retirement of General Washington, at the end of eight
years, from the Presidency, was the signal for the great struggle
between the two political parties which had been rapidly maturing their
organization during his term of administration. Mr. Adams was elected as
his successor by a bare majority of the electoral colleges, and against
the inclinations of one section even of that party which supported him.
The open defection of that section, at the following election, turned
the scale against him, and brought Mr. Jefferson into his place. From
early life she had learnt to take a deep interest in the course of
political affairs, and it is not to be supposed that this would decline
whilst her husband was a chief actor in the scene and a butt for the
most malignant shafts which party animosity could throw. Her letters of
that period, of course, cannot be comprised within the period embraced
in this volume. A single exception may, perhaps, be permitted to be
introduced here. It is the letter of the 8th of February, 1797, the day
upon which the votes for President were counted, and Mr. Adams, as
Vice-President, was required by law to announce himself the President
elect for the ensuing term. This, though extremely short, appears to the
Editor to be the gem of the collection; for the exalted feeling of the
moment shines out with all the lustre of ancient patriotism. Perhaps
there is not, among the whole number, one which, in its spirit, brings
so strongly to mind, as this does, the celebrated Roman lady whose
signature she at one time assumed; whilst it is chastened by a sentiment
of Christian humility of which ancient history furnishes no example.
"Quincy, 8 February, 1797.
"'The sun is dressed in brightest beams,
To give thy honors to the day.'
"And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing season. You have
this day to declare yourself head of a nation. 'And now, O Lord, my God,
Thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an
understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before
this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is
able to judge this thy so great a people?' were the words of a royal
Sovereign; and not less applicable to him who is invested with the Chief
Magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown, nor the robes of
royalty.
"My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally absent;
and my petitions to Heaven are that 'the things which make for peace may
not be hidden from your eyes.' My feelings are not those of pride or
ostentation upon the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense of the
obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with
it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself,
with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to
this great people, shall be the daily prayer of your