Abigail Adams on the Wartime Service & Diplomacy of John Adams

A remarkable letter, very likely to Mercy Otis Warren, one of the more important women of her generation.

In September 1779, the Continental Congress appointed John Adams to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain and ordered that he proceed to Paris. He, accompanied by his sons John Quincy and Charles, sailed for France on November 15. Their ship sprung a leak and the Adamses had to be landed in Spain instead. They traveled across northern Spain to France, reaching Paris on February 9, 1780. However, with Benjamin Franklin in charge there, Congress thought better of the assignment and instead dispatched Adams to The Hague as U.S. Minister to the Netherlands. He arrived in January 1781 and was charged with the task of obtaining Dutch political and financial support in the form of a treaty of friendship and commerce. His strenuous efforts were rewarded when in April 1782, the Netherlands extended its formal acceptance of his credentials, which constituted de facto recognition that the United States was an independent nation. Then, on October 8, 1782, a Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed and publicly announced, whereby the Dutch formally recognized the United States as an independent nation and agreed to loan it five million Guilders. This was a key step in the U.S. effort to take its rightful place in the world community of nations as a sovereign state. Adams then went to Paris, where on November 30, he, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay signed the preliminary peace treaty between the United States and Great Britain. He also signed the final treaty in 1783. The Revolution was over, but Adams’s work was not. He returned to The Hague and on March 9, 1784, concluded a second Dutch loan in Amsterdam to save American credit. So John Adams efforts had helped the United States achieve its political and financial independence, and his place in history was assured.

…One whom his country delighteth to honour – one who has done them good, & not evil all the days of his life

At this point, the Adams family had been separated for almost five years, which was a great personal sacrifice, and there was no end to that separation in sight. So John and Abigail took advantage of the opportunity that peace provided to reunite their family. Abigail and daughter Nabby would sail to Europe in June 1784, and all the Adamses would meet in London upon their arrival. This would be Mrs. Adams first trip abroad, so she would be leaving home and friends to make a long and difficult voyage into what must have been, to her, the unknown. But she felt her husband had been without her personal presence and support long enough. Her departure date was set for June 20, and she and friends and family said their good-byes.

Autograph Letter Signed, Quincy, Mass., June 18, 1784, very likely to her friend Mercy Otis Warren. “I thank you my dear madam for your kind billet [note], your oranges & every mark of your kind attention, the regard of my friends, & the fondness they testify towards me; pleased while it pains one, and I am sometimes tempted to think that it is worth while to endure a temporary separation to be thus flattered. When my heart is full with the painfull idea of leaving all you my dear friends, I reverse the meddle [mix] & reflect that every duty should be cheerfully submitted to & that I am going not to the ‘Banished Man, condemned in lonely woods to move,’ but to one whom his country delighteth to honour – one who has done them good, & not evil all the days of his life – and to one who is certainly entitled to every domestic blessing. Heaven continue to [give] you & yours every favor you at present enjoy, & multiply upon you every blessing you wish both here & hereafter.” Here Abigail quotes from the last line of the “Henry” portion from Matthew Prior’s “A Test of Love”, which speaks of a “Banished man, condemned in woods to rove.” This shows a remarkable level of erudition and learning on the part of a women with no formal education, and who was embarrassed about that fact.

Although the year is not specified in the letter, it is clearly ascertainable nonetheless. From its context, the journey she was taking, the “separation” she was “enduring”, the negation of a characterization of her husband as “banished”, all require a conclusion that this was a major trip. And this 1784 trip, the greatest trip Abigail ever made, was the only time in her husband’s career of public service that Abigail took a journey to meet John in June of any year.

We would like to thank the Adams Papers curators at the Massachusetts Historical Society for invaluable input assisting our research. They confirm the 1784 date as fairly certain, and suggest that the recipient of the letter was none other than playwright Mercy Otis Warren, who at one time operated a market, hence the oranges. And with such a long voyage just ahead of Mrs. Adams, it is no wonder that Mrs. Warren gave her the oranges and that Mrs. Adams was grateful to receive them. It is worth noting that oranges were a very expensive, imported delicacy in 18th century America. Mercy Otis Warren was an author, poet and the first American female playwright. She wrote “Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous” in 1790 and in 1805 completed her three-volume “History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution.” She was a close friend of Abigail Adams and also corresponded with  Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and especially John Adams. There is a book published that recounts the close relationship, ”Bonds of Friendship: the Correspondence of Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren.” A search of auction records discloses just one other letter of Mrs. Adams to Mrs. Warren being offered for sale in the past 35 years.

On May 6, 1785, John and Abigail Adams arrived in London for him to assume the post of the first U.S. Ambassador to Britain; he was presented to King George III on June 1. A few weeks later, Abigail was presented to the King and Queen Charlotte. The Adamses would not return to America until 1788.