 | Letters of Mrs. Adams, |  |
MEMOIR.
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
activity 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 act 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
record, but the private commentary also; and
these, taken in connexion 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 conduct 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, for the most
part, when conscious that they are acting 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,
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
study 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 are 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 reasoning 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 to be 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 the coarser
elements for judgment, that may be found in
elaborated results.
There is, moreover, another distinction to be
observed, which is not infrequently lost sight
of. It is of great importance not only to
understand the nature of the superiority of
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 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
best of lecture-rooms: for there the heart will
coöperate 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
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
to control.
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 is truly remarked, in the present
volume, that "instances of patience, perseverance,
fortitude, magnanimity, courage, humanity,
and tenderness, which would have graced
the Roman character, were known only to those
modesty could not suffer them to blazon abroad
their own fame."[1] 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. Neither is there
much remembrance of the domestic manners of
the last century, when, with more of admitted
distinctions than at present, there was more of
general equality; nor 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, and others of her nearest
and dearest relations. Their greatest value
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 genunie
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
mother, Elizabeth Quincy, was the granddaughter
of the Reverend John Norton, long
the pastor of a church of the same denomination
in the neighbouring town of Hingham, and
the nephew of John Norton, well known in the
annals of the colony.[2] 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 was made
in the intellectual pursuits of society, was rather
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 armour, 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,
who, by a very natural transition, passed
from being the guides of religious faith to their
fellow men, to be guardians of their 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. If any assembly
of citizens was held, he must be there to open
the business with prayer. If a political measure
was 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
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.
Waving a decision upon this, it may very
little attention given to the education of women,
but that, as Mrs. Adams, in one of her letters,[3]
says, "It was fashionable to ridicule female
learning." The only chance for much intellectual
improvement in the female sex was, therefore,
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 developement,
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 llth of November, 1744, O. S.
In her neighbourhood, 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
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 develope the
imaginative faculty, at the expense of the judgment;
but especially in youth, when the most
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 large
schools, are worn down 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 these volumes,
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 the mother's
side, and a gentleman, who, for very many
years, enjoyed, in various official situations,
much of the confidence of the Colony. At his
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
remembrance; happy if I cou'd 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 connexions, 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,
for quotation and for fictitious signatures. Calliope
and Myra, Arpasia 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 to 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 flowers of literature spring
up where the weeds of scandal take no root.
The young ladies of Massachusetts, in the last
century, were certainly readers, even though
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.
Of Mrs. Adams's letters during this period of
her youth, but very few remain in possession of
her descendants. One specimen has been accidentally
obtained, which makes the first in the
present publication. The writer was, at the
date of the letter, not quite seventeen, and was
addressing a lady some years older than herself.
This may account for a strain of gravity rather
beyond her years or ordinary disposition. Two
other letters, written to Mr. Adams, after she
was betrothed, and before she was married to
him, have been added, because they are believed
to be more indicative of her usual temper at
that age. These have been admitted to a place
in the selection, not so much as claiming a particular
merit, as because they are thought to
furnish a standard of her mind, and general
character, when a girl, by which the improvement
woman may readily be measured.
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 1762, 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 present William Cranch, of Washington,
who has presided so long, and with so
much dignity and fidelity, over the Circuit
Court of the District of Columbia, is 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, in many
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, at its very last session, of 1810, will
show, that they have not quite disappeared at
this day. 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
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."[4]
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
apparently 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
absent from home only upon those occasions
when he, with the other lawyers of his time,
was compelled to follow the court in its circuits.
During these times, he used to write regularly
to his wife, an account of his adventures and of
his professional success. These letters remain,
and furnish a curious record of the manners and
customs of the provincial times. She does not
appear to have often replied to them. The only
example is given in the present volume, and
makes the fourth of the selection; a letter, remarkable
only for the picture it presents of
peaceful domestic life, in contrast to the stormy
period immediately succeeding.
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
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 Assistance,
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.
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 to
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
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,
Mrs. Adams's portion of which is
now submitted to the public, becomes interesting.
The letter of the 19th of August of this
year[5] 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
months. It is during this time, that the five
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."[6]
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
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
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 harbour,
close upon the town. Then follow 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."[7]
But it is superfluous to endeavour 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
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
of few even of the stronger sex. It is the tendency
of women in general, to suffer quite as
much anxiety from 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 neighbourhood 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, besides
being exclusively personal, are too uniformly
mournful in their tone to be suitable for insertion
in full in the present collection; yet it
would be failing to give an accurate idea of the
character of Mrs. Adams, to omit a notice of
this personal narrative, have been thought likely
to answer the purpose better than if they were
submitted in full to the public eye.
On the 8th of September, she commences
thus;
"Since you left me, I have passed through
great distress both of body and mind; and
whether greater is to be my portion, Heaven
only knows. You may remember Isaac was
unwell when you went from home. His disorder
increased, until a violent dysentery was
the consequence of his complaints. There was
no resting-place in the house for his terrible
groans. He continued in this state nearly one
week, when his disorder abated, and we have
now hopes of his recovery. Two days after he
was sick, I was seized in a violent manner.
Had I known you were at Watertown, I should
have sent Bracket for you. 1 suffered greatly
between my inclination to have you return, and
my fear of sending, lest you should be a partaker
of the common calamity. After three days,
an abatement of my disease relieved me from
that anxiety. The next person in the same
week, was Susy; her we carried home, and
hope she will not be very bad. Our little
Tommy was the next, and he lies very ill now.
Yesterday Patty was seized. Our house is a
weakness and distress of mind for my family, I
have been unhappy enough. And such is the
distress of the neighbourhood, that I can scarcely
find a well person to assist me in looking after
the sick."
On the 16th, after saying that her letter will
be only a bill of mortality, and that, of all the
members of her household, one only had escaped
the disorder, she adds;
"The dread upon the minds of people of
catching the distemper is almost as great as if
it was the small-pox. I have been distressed,
more than ever I was in my life, to procure
watchers and to get assistance. We have been
four Sabbaths without any meeting. Thus does
pestilence travel in the rear of war, to remind
us of our entire dependence upon that Being;
who not only directeth the 'arrow by day,' but
has also at His command 'the pestilence which
walketh in darkness.' So uncertain and so
transitory are all the enjoyments of life, that,
were it not for the tender connexions which
bind us, would it not be a folly to wish for a
continuance here?"
On the 25th, she mentions the illness of her
mother.
"I sit down with a heavy heart to write to
you. I have had no other since you left me.
the heels of another. My distress in my own
family having in some measure abated, it is excited
anew upon that of my dear mother. Her
kindness brought her to see me every day when
I was ill, and our little Thomas. She has
taken the disorder, and lies so bad, that we
have little hope of her recovery."
On the 29th;
"It is allotted me to go from the sick and
almost dying bed of one of the best of parents,
to my own habitation, where again I behold
the same scene, only varied by a remoter connexion,
'A bitter change, severer for severe.'
You can more easily conceive than I describe,
what are the sensations of my heart when
absent from either, continually expecting a
messenger with the fatal tidings."
Then follows the letter of the 1st of October,
which, as making the climax of her distress, is
inserted at length in this volume.[8]
The following
week, Patty, the female domestic mentioned
as the other sick person, also died; after which,
there appears to have been no return of the disease.
But among all the trying scenes of the
any much exceeded this.
"The desolation of war is not so distressing,"
she writes, "as the havoc made by the pestilence.
Some poor parents are mourning the
loss of three, four, and five children; and some
families are wholly stripped of every member."
Such as these are the kinds of trial, of which
history takes little or no note, yet in which
female fortitude is most severely exercised.
Without designing to detract from the unquestioned
merit of that instrument, it must nevertheless
be affirmed, 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 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,[9]
and continned
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, the 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, as specimens of a portion
of the author's 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 situations in the
escaped.
In the month of November, 1777, Mr. Adams
again visited his home, and never afterwards
rejoined the 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
to Philadelphia or Baltimore was lengthened
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.
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.[10] 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 infinitely 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
arrival in France, 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.[11]
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
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 these volumes.
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
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.[12]
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. The journal of her
voyage, given in a letter to her sister, Mrs.
Cranch, makes a part of the present collection.[13]
From this date the correspondence assumes a
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's
account of her presentation is among the letters
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. Of the effect of this upon
herself, Mrs. Adams will be found frequently to
speak.
Yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, she
seems to have enjoyed much her residence in
the mother country. Her letters to her sisters
during this period have been admitted almost
in extenso in the present volume. They describe
no scenes of particular novelty to the reading
public, it is true; but they delineate in so natural
and easy a manner the impressions received
from objects new to the writer, that it is hoped
they will fully reward perusal. 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 says to her sister, "we have determined to
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 to 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. Some of her letters descriptive of
it have been selected for publication in this collection.
The voluntary retirement of General Washington,
at the end of eight years, from the
between the two political parties, which
had been rapidly maturing their organization,
during his term of administration. Mr. Adams
was elected 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.
Of course, the letters of Mrs. Adams, at this
period, largely partake of the excitement of the
day. 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. As
it is not the design of this publication to revive
any old disputes, most of these letters have been
excluded from it. Two or three exceptions,
however, have been made. The first 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
ancient patriotism. Perhaps there is not, among
the whole number of her letters, 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.
At this time, the health of Mrs. Adams, which
had never been very firm, began decidedly to
fail. Her residence at Philadelphia had not
been favorable, as it had subjected her to the
attack of an intermittent fever, from the effects
of which she was never afterwards perfectly
free. The desire to enjoy the bracing air of
her native climate, as well as to keep together
the private property of her husband, upon which
she early foresaw that he would be obliged to
rely for their support in their last years, prompted
her to reside, much of the time, at Quincy.
Such was the name now given to that part of
the ancient town of Braintree, in which she
had always lived. Yet when at the seat of
Government, whether in Philadelphia or Washington,
the influence of her kindly feelings and
cheerful temper did much to soften the asperities
of the time. A good idea of the privations
and discomforts, to which she was subjected in
the President's House at Washington, when
forest, may be formed from one or two
other letters, which, in this view, are excepted
from the general exclusion.[16] In the midst of
public or private troubles, the buoyant spirit of
Mrs. Adams never forsook her. "I am a mortal
enemy," she writes upon one occasion to her
husband, "to any thing but a cheerful countenance
and a merry heart, which, Solomon
tells us, does good like a medicine." This spirit
contributed greatly to lift up his heart, when
surrounded by difficulties and danger, exposed
to open hostility and secret detraction, and resisting
a torrent of invective, such as it may
well be doubted whether any other individual
in public station in the United States has ever
tried to stem. It was this spirit, which soothed
his wounded feelings, when the country, which
he had served in the full consciousness of the
perfect honesty of his motives, threw him off,
and signified its preference for other statesmen.
There often are, even in this life, more compensations
for the severest of the troubles that
afflict mankind, than we are apt to think. It
may be questioned whether Mr. Adams's more
successful rival, who, in the day of his power,
wielded popular masses with far greater skill
and success than he, ever realized, in the hours
for his pecuniary embarrassments, like that
which Mr. Adams enjoyed from the faithful
devotedness of his wife, and, it may be added,
the successful labors of his son.
There were many persons, in the lifetime of
the parties, who ascribed to Mrs. Adams a degree
of influence over the public conduct of her
husband, far greater than there was any foundation
for in truth. Perhaps it is giving more
than its due importance to this idea to take any
notice at all of it in this place. But the design
of this Memoir is to set forth, in as clear a light
as possible, the character of its subject; and
this cannot well be done without a full explanation
of her personal relations to those about
her. That her opinions, even upon public affairs,
had at all times great weight with her
husband, is unquestionably true, for he frequently
marked upon her letters his testimony
to their solidity; but there is no evidence, that
they either originated or materially altered any
part of the course he had laid out for himself.
Whenever she differed in sentiment from him,
which was sometimes the case, she perfectly
well understood her own position, and that the
best way of recommending her views was by
entire concession. The character of Mr. Adams
is clearly visible in his own papers. Ardent,
right, easily roused to anger by opposition, but
sincere, placable, and generous, when made
conscious of having committed the slightest
wrong, there is no individual of this time, about
whom there are so few concealments, of either
faults or virtues. Instances of his imprudence
are visible, and of the mode in which his wife
treated them, in at least two letters of this volume.[17]
She was certain that a word said, not at
the moment of irritation, but immediately after
it had passed, would receive great consideration
from him. She therefore waited the favorable
time, and thus, by the calmness of her judgment,
exercised a species of negative influence,
which often prevented evil consequences from
momentary indiscretion. But her power extended
no farther, nor did she seek to make it
do so, and in this consisted her principal merit.
Perhaps it may be added, that, to men of ardent
and excitable temperament, no virtue is more
necessary in a wife, and none more essential to
the happiness and prosperity of both the parties,
than that which has been now described.
Four letters addressed to Mr. Jefferson in the
year 1804 have been admitted into the present
collection for reasons which require a particular
gentleman were published some time since in
the collection of his works made under the
authority and supervision of his grandson, Mr.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph, though unaccompanied
by any comment which could show
what it was that they replied to or how Mrs.
Adams got into the rather singular position
which she occupies of a disputant with him
upon the leading political questions of the time.
In order to understand this, it is necessary to
go back and trace the early relations between
the parties and the reasons why those relations
were afterwards changed. Mr. Jefferson
went to Europe at nearly the same time
with Mrs. Adams. Their residence there was
of similar duration, though not always in the
same place. Throughout the period of that
residence an active interchange of good offices
was carried on between them. The official
connexion that existed between Mr. Jefferson
and Mr. Adams, while the latter remained in
France, was improved into a pleasant social
intimacy. And out of the small circle of
Americans, whom Mrs. Adams met with in that
country, Mr. Jefferson could hardly have failed
to prove, as he did, by far the most agreeable individual
to her. It will hence be seen, that upon
her departure from Paris, the principal regret
at the necessity of leaving that gentleman—for
"he," she adds, "is one of the choice ones of
the earth."[18] Again, she manifests the confidence
which she entertains, both in his patriotism and
his personal friendship, in a letter written to
another friend[19] after her arrival in London.
Her kindly feelings were still further developed
by the arrival of his little daughter from Virginia,
and by the care she was requested by
him to take of her during the brief interval that
elapsed before he could send for her to join him.
Indeed, so far did they go, that when the moment
of departure took place, the affectionate
regret which the child manifested at the separation,
appears to have left an indelible impression
upon her mind.[20]
From the incidental notices thus gathered out
of Mrs. Adams's private correspondence with her
friends at home, it cannot be doubted, that up
to the period of return to America of the parties
now in question, the most amicable relations
had existed without interruption between them.
Even after that time, and when under the administration
of President Washington, it became
must inevitably have the effect to throw
two persons, so distinguished as Mr. Jefferson
and Mr. Adams were, into collision, the social
intimacy between them, though slightly relaxed,
was not materially disturbed. The address of
the former gentleman to the Senate, upon taking
his place as Vice-President, shows the desire
he then entertained to continue it. But events
were destined to be stronger than men. The
vehement contest for the Presidency in 1801
scattered to the winds all traces of former
friendship. It was at that time that each party
in turn strove to discover in certain overt acts
of the other, a justification for estrangement,
which would as certainly have occurred, whether
those acts had or had not been committed with a
design to give it a form of expression. It is not
in the nature of men to be able entirely to resist
the force of those passions which rivalry in a
common object of ardent desire will stir up in
their bosoms. The earnestness with which
Mr. Jefferson endeavors to deny their operation
upon him, whilst every page of his letters shows
as clearly as light how much sway they had
over him, constitutes the most serious impeachment
that can be brought against his sincerity.
There is an appearance of duplicity in this part
of his conduct which it is difficult altogether to
attach great weight to the charge in this instance.
For the fact can scarcely be doubted,
that both Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson tried, as
hard as men could do, to resist the natural effect
upon them of their antagonist positions. They
strove, each in turn, to stem the prescriptive fury
of the parties to which they belonged, and that
with equally bad success. But as the mode in
which they attempted it is singularly illustrative
of the opposite character of the two men, perhaps
it may not be without its use to the present
generation, to venture upon a feeble description
of it.
It is a well attested fact, that Mr. Adams
hardly attained to the Presidency before he
began to devise a mode by which he could
bring into office those leading individuals of the
party politically opposed to him whom he personally
esteemed. His offers to Mr. Jefferson,
to Mr. Madison and to Mr. Gerry, the last of
whom only accepted them, are perfectly well
known. These offers were not however made
without prodigious resistance on the part of
numbers of his own political friends, and probably
contributed much to weaken the attachment
of many, and to promote the disaffection
of more of them. The consequence was his
fall from power as the penalty of a disregard to
when elected to the same office, though
professing much good will towards, and personal
esteem of his opponent, Mr. Adams, yet
candidly admits[21] that he suffered the dictates
of his heart to be overruled by the decided
negative interposed to action upon them
on the part of his partisan advisers. It is not
probable, that, even had he carried into effect his
proposed design to offer to Mr. Adams an office
of trust and profit in Massachusetts, this gentleman
would have accepted it; but the offer alone
would have been invaluable to him at the moment
of defeat, as a testimonial openly given by
his successful rival both to his public and private
integrity. And it would have forever after
estopped the friends of the victorious candidate
from taking any ungenerous advantage of their
victory over him.
But the prudence of Mr. Jefferson gained the
mastery over his liberality of feeling. It went
even further—for not content with doing
nothing at all for his rival, he actually inflicted
upon him a blow. He removed, without cause
assigned, his son, John Quincy Adams, from a
very subordinate office, the instant that it happened
power. This was perhaps the act that
carried with it the most of bitterness to Mr. and
Mrs. Adams. It is no more than due to the
author of it to add his explanation. He solemnly
affirms that he made the removal without
knowing whom he was removing. Perhaps
the great majority of readers will agree with
the writer in thinking much less unfavorably
of the deed itself, than of the apology it was
thought advisable to make for it.
For after all, it can never be any great impeachment
of Mr. Jefferson to say that he
attempted no serious opposition to the party
torrent that bore him into power; a torrent
which must always have its course in the
United States, let who will endeavour to resist
it. He knew the effort would be futile, and
could be executed only to his own destruction.
The true ground of exception against him is,
that seeing and feeling the necessity of submission,
he did not do it at once with perfect
frankness. Considering the very high opinion
which he continued to profess towards his rival,
and which there is no doubt he felt when his
interests were not so deeply involved as to lead
him to suppress it, it would seem as if he was
under some responsibility for the odium which
it was in his day, and still is the pleasure of his
Mr. Adams. There were, doubtless, great and
radical differences of opinion upon abstract
points in the theory of government, between the
two gentlemen. And the soundness of their
respective notions, as Mr. Jefferson truly remarks,
yet remains to be tested by the passage
of time and the world's experience. In the
mean while, however, there is no more reason for
condemning the one party on account of his
opinions than the other. Yet, notwithstanding
the frequent admission of this truth in his private
letters, it can scarcely be denied, that Mr.
Jefferson drew, during his public life, every
possible advantage from the prevalence of a
wholly opposite conviction in the popular mind.
A very large number of the citizens of the
Union were impressed not simply with a dislike
of the sentiments of Mr. Adams, but with a
conviction that our republican institutions were
in danger from their predominance in his person.
This conviction, which was never entertained
by Mr. Jefferson, a few words inserted in any
document, designed to be public, and from his
own hand when President, would have gone
very far to dispel. He never chose to give this
form of utterance to them. It consequently
happened, that whilst he could affirm that in
private, "none ever misrepresented Mr. Adams
character," his official conduct and the tone of
all his political friends, was constantly giving a
sanction to the grossest and most unequivocal
misrepresentations of him. And whilst he
was professing in secret a wish to give him an
honorable office, his party was studiously making
his very name a word of fear to all the less
intelligent classes of the community. This inconsistency
may have been, it is true, a consequence
not so much of the will of Mr. Jefferson
as of the necessity in which he was placed.
Much allowance must often be made for the
difficult positions of our public statesmen. He
is also entitled to much credit for his voluntary
efforts, in after life, to repair the injury he must
have been aware he had committed. This
conduct, on his part, was not without a degree
of magnanimity, which may have its use, as an
example to future political rivals in America.
There will doubtless be many instances in our
history, in which the victor in party strife will
have gained much by fomenting popular prejudices
against his opponent; but it is not equally
certain, that there will be as many, in which
he will afterwards endeavour to repair the injury
done, by leaving behind him upon record the
amplest testimonials to that opponent's public
virtue.
It is by no means the disposition of the present
writer to judge with an undue degree of
harshness. But no duty appears to him more
absolutely incumbent upon all who address the
American public than that of exercising the
faculty of clear, moral discrimination, and he
should have felt himself deserving of censure
if he had omitted to attempt it to this extent
upon the present occasion.
Mrs. Adams felt, as women only feel, what
she regarded as the ungenerous conduct of Mr.
Jefferson towards her husband during the latter
part of his public life. And when she retired
from Washington, notwithstanding the kindest
professions from his mouth were yet ringing in
her ears, all communication between the parties
ceased. Still, there remained on both sides,
pleasant reminiscences to soften the irritation
that had taken place, and to open a way for
reconciliation whenever circumstances should
present a suitable opportunity. The little
daughter of Mr. Jefferson, in whom Mrs. Adams
had taken so much interest in 1787, had in
the interval grown into a woman, and had been
married to Mr. Eppes, of Virginia. In 1804 she
ceased to be numbered among the living. The
intelligence of her death revived all the kind
feelings that had long been smothered in the
breast of Mrs. Adams, and impelled her, almost
condolence to the lady's father which makes
the first of the series now submitted to the
public. Mr. Jefferson appears to have been
much affected by this testimony of her sympathy.
He replied, but not confining himself
to the subject matter of her letter, he added
a request to know her reasons for the estrangement
that had occurred. These reasons were
given in the letters that follow, now and then
betraying a little of the asperity to which
the contest had given birth on each side. The
correspondence ended without entire satisfaction
to either. It appears, from Mr. Jefferson's
statement, afterwards made in a letter to Dr.
Rush, that he did not choose at first to believe
Mrs. Adams's assertion that she had written to
him without the knowledge of her husband.
It further appears, that without any new evidence
upon which to found a change of opinion,
he afterwards convinced himself that what she
had written was true. Fortunately, the original
endorsement, made in the handwriting of
Mr. Adams, upon the copy of the last of the
letters retained by herself, will serve to put this
matter beyond question. Readers will be apt
to judge of the reasoning contained in the
correspondence, according to the political prepossessions
they may happen to entertain.
thing they will all be glad to know, and of that
they may be assured, namely, that the argument
of Mrs. Adams was entirely her own. If
it were not for this certainty, a great deduction
would be necessary from the interest that must
now be felt in her part of the correspondence.
As the letters of a man, trained in the discipline
and the logic of the schools, they would make
but a poor figure against the plausible and
adroit special pleading of the opposing party;
but when viewed as the simple offspring of good
sense and right feeling, combining in a woman
to form just as well as straight-forward conclusions
upon the most difficult public questions,
they are not without their value, even though
set in contrast to the polished productions of so
celebrated a writer as Mr. Jefferson.
It has been already remarked, that the correspondence
ended without appearing to produce
any favourable effect in restoring the
parties to their pristine cordiality. The principal
reason for this, probably was, that Mr.
Jefferson was still President of the United
States; and that a change then brought about
in consequence of a step first taken by Mrs.
Adams, might have subjected her conduct to the
possibility of misconstruction. This her spirit
would never have willingly submitted to. Perhaps
the general tone of her letters, which is not so
conciliatory, as from other parts of her character,
one might be led to expect. It was felt to be not
so by Mr. Jefferson, who considered it as having
interposed a new barrier to reconciliation,
rather than as having removed the old ones.
But such did not prove its ultimate effect.
The parties relapsed into silence for a time, it
is true, but there is evidence that they began
again to think kindly of each other. And
when they had come once more upon equal
terms, by the retirement of Mr. Jefferson from
public life, Dr. Rush, a common friend, found
no great difficulty in removing all obstacles to
a renewed communication. A correspondence
was again established which gradually improved
into something of the ancient kindliness. But
Mrs. Adams appears to have taken no part in
it; and it may be doubted whether it was before
the beautiful letter[22] of condolence, written to
him by Mr. Jefferson upon the news of her
decease, that the heart of Mr. Adams softened
his successful opponent.
From the year 1801 down to the day of her
death, which happened on the 28th of October,
1818, she remained uninterruptedly at home in
Quincy. This period furnishes abundance of
familiar letters. Her interest in public affairs
did not cease with the retirement of her husband.
She continued to write to her friends
her free opinions, both of men and measures,
perhaps with a more sustained hand on account
of the share her son was then taking in politics.
But these letters bring us down to times so
recent, and they contain so many allusions to
existing persons and matters of a domestic and
wholly private nature, that they are not deemed
suitable for publication, at least at present. On
some accounts, this is perhaps to be regretted.
None of her letters present a more agreeable
picture of life, or a more characteristic idea of
their author, than these. The old age of Mrs.
Adams was riot one of grief and repining, of
clouds and darkness. Her cheerfulness continued,
with the full possession of her faculties,
to the last; and her sunny spirit enlivened the
small social circle around her, brightened the
solitary hours of her husband, and spread the
influence of its example over the town where
she lived. "Yesterday," she writes to a granddaughter
completes half a century since I entered
the married state, then just your age. I have
great cause of thankfulness, that I have lived
so long, and enjoyed so large a portion of happiness
as has been my lot. The greatest source
of unhappiness I have known in that period
has arisen from the long and cruel separations,
which I was called, in a time of war and with
a young family around me, to submit to." Yet
she had not been without her domestic afflictions.
A daughter lost in infancy; a son grown
up to manhood, who died in 1800; and thirteen
years afterwards, the death of her only remaining
daughter, the wife of Colonel W. S. Smith,
furnished causes of deep and severe grief, which
threw a shadow of sadness over the evening of
her life. But they produced no permanent
gloom, nor did they prevent her from enjoying
the consolations to be found in gratitude to the
Divine Being for the blessings that still remained
to her. She was rewarded for the painful separation
from her eldest son, when he went
abroad in the public service under circumstances
which threatened a long absence, by surviving
the whole period of eight years that it
lasted, and witnessing his return to receive from
the Chief Magistrate elect, Mr. Monroe, the
highest testimony he could give him of his
wish nearest to her heart. The letters addressed
to him when a youth, which have been admitted
into this volume, will abundantly show the
deep interest she had felt in his success. His
nomination as Secretary of State was the crowning
mercy of her life. Had she survived the
attack of the fever which proved fatal, it is true
that she might have seen him exalted still
higher, to that station which her husband and
his father had held before him; but it is very
doubtful whether her satisfaction would have
been at all enhanced. The commencement of
Mr. Monroe's administration was marked by a
unanimity of the popular voice, the more gratifying
to her because it was something so new.
Later times have only carried us back to party
divisions, of the bitterness of which she had
during her lifetime tasted too largely to relish
even the little of sweet which they might have
to give.
The obsequies of Mrs. Adams were attended
by a great concourse of people, who voluntarily
came to pay this last tribute to her memory. Several
brief but beautiful notices of her appeared
in the newspapers of the day, and a sermon was
preached by the late Reverend Dr. Kirkland,
then President of Harvard University, which
closed with a delicate and affecting testimony to
friends," it says, "as becomes Christians, in a
manner worthy of the person you lament. You
do, then, bless the Giver of life, that the
course of your endeared and honored friend
was so long and so bright; that she entered so
fully into the spirit of those injunctions which
we have explained, and was a minister of blessings
to all within her influence. You are soothed
to reflect, that she was sensible of the many
tokens of divine goodness which marked her
lot; that she received the good of her existence
with a cheerful and grateful heart; that, when
called to weep, she bore adversity with an
equal mind; that she used the world as not
abusing it to excess, improving well her time,
talents, and opportunities, and, though desired
longer in this world, was fitted for a better happiness
than this world can give."
It often happens, that, when the life of a
woman is the topic of discussion, men think it
necessary either to fall into a tone of affected gallantry
and unmeaning compliment, or to assume
the extreme of unnatural and extravagant eulogy.
Yet there seems no reason, in the nature
of things, why the same laws of composition
should not be made to apply to the one sex as
to the other. It has been the wish of the Editor
to avoid whatever might be considered as
he has not altogether succeeded, some allowance
may, it is hoped, be made for the natural
bias under which he writes. It has been his
purpose to keep far within the line marked out
by the great master of composition, who, in allusion
to the first instance in Rome when a
woman, Popilia, was publicly praised by her
son Catulus, defines the topics which may be
treated with propriety upon any similar occasion.[23]
He does not claim for the letters now
published to the world, that they are models of
claim might, perhaps, be reasonably urged;
nor yet that they contain much novel or important
historical information. What merit they
may have will be found in the pictures of social
life which they present, daring a period daily
becoming more interesting as it recedes from us,
and in the high moral and religious tone which
uniformly pervades them. They are here given
to the public exactly as they were written, with
only those corrections or omissions which were
absolutely necessary either to perfect the sense,
or to avoid subjects exclusively personal. It was
the habit of the writer to make first a rough
draft of what she intended to say, and from
this to form a fair copy for her correspondent;
but in the process she altered so much of the
original, that, in every instance where the two
have been compared, they are by no means the
same thing. Only in one or two cases, and for
particular reasons, has the loss of the real letter
been supplied by the first draft. The principal
difference between them ordinarily is, that the
former is much the most full. Frequently, it
will be seen that she did not copy, the task
being, as she testifies in the postcript, extremely
irksome to her.
The value attached to her letters by some of
her correspondents, even during her lifetime,
of them, the late Judge Vanderkemp of New
York, a request that a collection should then be
made for publication. In allusion to this, Mrs.
Adams writes in a note to a female friend;
"The President has a letter from Vanderkemp,
in which he proposes to have him send a
collection of my letters to publish! A pretty
figure I should make. No. No. I have not
any ambition to appear in print. Heedless
and inaccurate as I am, I have too much vanity
to risk my reputation before the public."
And, on the same day, she replied to Judge
Yanderkemp as follows;
"When President Monroe was in Boston, upon.
his late tour, encompassed by citizens, surrounded
by the military, harassed by invitations
to parties, and applications innumerable
for office, some gentleman asked him if he was
not completely worn out? To which he replied,
'O no. A little flattery will support a man
through great fatigue.' I may apply the observation
to myself and say, that the flattery in
your letter leads me to break through the aversion,
writing.
"You terrify me, my dear Sir, when you
ask for letters of mine to publish. It is true,
that Dr. Disney, to whom the late Mr. Hollis
bequeathed his property, found amongst his papers
some letters from the President and from
me, which he asked permission to publish.
We had both forgotten the contents of them,
but left them to his judgment to do with them
as he pleased, and accordingly he published
some of them. One other letter to my son,
when he first went to France in the year 1778,
by some means or other, was published in an
English Magazine; and those, I believe, are all
the mighty works of mine, which ever have,
or will, by my consent, appear before the public.
Style I never studied. My language is
the spontaneous effusions of friendship. As
such I tender them to Mr. Vanderkemp, sure
of his indulgence, since I make no pretensions
to the character which he professes to fear, that
of a learned lady."
These observations are strictly true. To
learning, in the ordinary sense of that term,
Mrs. Adams could make no claim. Her reading
of literature, and she was well acquainted
with the poets in her own language; hut it
went no further. It is the soul, shining through
the words, that gives to them their great attraction;
the spirit, ever equal to the occasion,
whether a great or a small one;—a spirit, inquisitive
and earnest in the little details of life,
as when she was in France and England;
playful, when she describes daily duties;[24] but
rising to the call, when the roar of cannon
is in her ears,[25] —or when she reproves her husband
for not knowing her better than to think
her a coward and to fear telling her bad news,[26]
—or when she warns her son, that she "would
rather he had found his grave in the ocean, or
that any untimely death should crop him in his
infant years, than see him an immoral, profligate,
or graceless child."[27]
In conclusion, and in order to avoid the
possibility of misconstruction, it is proper to
state, that for the selection which has now
been made, and for the sentiments expressed
by the Editor, he is exclusively responsible.
He has consulted with no person in the progress
of his duty; hence, if it should be thought
the fault must be held to lie wholly with him.
The individuals in whose hands are the letters,
from which this compilation has been made,
furnished them to him at his request, without
limitation or restriction; for which manifestation
of their confidence in him, he begs leave thus
publicly to express his gratitude. Among those
persons, he would make known his obligations
particularly to Mrs. John Greenleaf, of Quincy,
and Mrs. Felt, of Boston, respectively daughters
of the two sisters of Mrs. Adams; Mrs. C.
A. DeWint, of Fishkill, New York, the daughter
of Mrs. W. S. Smith; and Mrs. and Miss
Quincy, of Cambridge. It is hardly necessary
to add, that to his father, John Quincy Adams,
and to the widow of his uncle, the late Judge
Thomas B. Adams, he is indebted for the opportunity
of freely examining and using the
great mass of papers in their possession. It
was the fortune of the Editor to know the subject
of his Memoir only during the last year of
her life, and when he was too young fully to
comprehend the worth of her character; but it
will be a source of unceasing gratification to
him as long as he lives, that he has been permitted
to pay this small tribute, however inadequate,
to her memory.
Note.—The following letter is the one alluded to in the
Note to page lxxiv of this Memoir.
THOMAS JEFFERSON TO JOHN ADAMS.
The public papers, my dear friend, announce
the fatal event of which your letter of October
the 20th had given me ominous foreboding.
Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the
loss of every form of connexion which can rive
the human heart, I know well, and feel what
you have lost, what you have suffered, are
suffering, and have yet to endure. The same
trials have taught me, that for ills so immeasurable,
time and silence are the only medicine.
I will not therefore, by useless condolences, open
afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although
mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I
say a word more where words are vain; but
that it is of some comfort to us both, that the
term is not very distant, at which we are to
deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and
ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved
and lost, and whom we shall still love and
never lose again.
God bless you and support you under your
heavy affliction.
As this anecdote rests entirely upon tradition, it has
been differently told; and it is here admitted in this form
rather as a characteristic feature of the age, and of the
individual, than from any positive reliance upon its accuracy.
There are yet transmitted, among the inhabitants
of Weymouth and Hingham, many stories of Mr. Smith's
application of texts, in a similar manner, to the events of
the Revolution, which render the truth of this far from
improbable.
See the "Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies,
from the papers of Thomas Jefferson—edited by Thomas
Jefferson Randolph." Vol. IV. p. 158.
Perhaps there is not, among all the productions of
Mr. Jefferson, a more graceful and delicate specimen of
his style than this short letter. As connected with the
present subject, it may not be unacceptable to the reader
to find it appended to the close of this Memoir.
"Ex his enim fontibus, unde omnia ornate dicendi
præcepta sumuntur, licebit etiam laudationem ornare,
neque illa elementa desiderare; quæ ut nemo tradat, quis
est, qui nesciat, qua; sint in homine laudanda? Positis
enim iis rebus, quas Crassus in illius orationis suæ,
quam contra collegam censor habuit, principio dixit;
'Quæ naturâ aut fortunâ darentur hominibus, in iis rebus,
se vinci posse animo æcquo pati: quæ, ipsi sibi homines parare
possent, in iis rebus se pati vinci non posse;' qui laudabit
quempiam, intelliget, exponenda sibi esse fortunáe bona.
Ea sunt, generis, pecuniæ, propinquorum, amicorum,
opum, valetudinis, formæ, virium, ingenii, cæterarumque
rerum, quæ sunt aut corporis, aut extraneæ: si habuerit,
bene his usum: si non habuerit, sapienter caruisse: si
amiserit, moderate tulisse. Deinde, quid sapienter is,
quem laudet, quid liberaliter, quid fortiter, quid juste,
quid magnifice, quid pie, quid grate, quid humaniter, quid
denique cum aliquâ virtute, aut fecerit aut tulerit."—
Cicero, de Oratore, II, 11.
| Letters of Mrs. Adams, | |