Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams During the Revolution Part 61

Pa.s.sy, 9 February, 1779.

It is now a year, within a day or two, of my departure from home. It is in vain for me to think of writing of what is pa.s.sed. The character and situation in which I am here, and the situation of public affairs, absolutely forbid my writing freely. I must be excused. So many vessels are taken, and there are so many persons indiscreet and so many others inquisitive, that I may not write. G.o.d knows how much I suffer for want of writing to you. It used to be a cordial to my spirits.

Thus much I can say with perfect sincerity, that I have found nothing to disgust me, or in any manner disturb me, in the French nation. My evils here arise altogether from Americans. If I would have enlisted myself under the banner of either party,[199] I might have filled America, I doubt not, with panegyrics of me from one party and curses and slanders from another. I have endeavored to be hitherto impartial, to search for nothing but the truth, and to love n.o.body and nothing but the public good, at least not more than the public good. I have hoped that animosities might be softened, and the still small voice of reason heard more and the boisterous roar of pa.s.sions and prejudices less. But the publication of a certain address[200] to the people has destroyed all such hopes. Nothing remains now but the fearful looking for of the fiery indignation of the monster party, here.

My consolation is that the partisans are no more than

"Bubbles on the sea of matter borne; They rise, they break, and to that sea return."

The people of America, I know, stand like Mount Atlas; but these altercations occasion a great deal of unhappiness for the present, and they prolong the war. Those must answer for it who are guilty. I am not.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 199: The party of Silas Deane and Dr. Franklin on the one side, and of Arthur Lee and Ralph Izard on the other.]

[Footnote 200: By Silas Deane, who had returned to America.]

245. JOHN ADAMS.

Pa.s.sy, 13 February, 1779.

Yours of 15th December was sent me yesterday by the Marquis, whose praises are celebrated in all the letters from America. You must be content to receive a short letter, because I have not time now to write a long one. I have lost many of your letters, which are invaluable to me, and you have lost a vast number of mine. Barnes, Niles, and many other vessels are lost.

I have received intelligence much more agreeable than that of a removal to Holland; I mean that of being reduced to a private citizen, which gives me more pleasure than you can imagine. I shall therefore soon present before you your own good man. Happy, happy indeed shall I be, once more to see our fireside. I have written before to Mrs. Warren, and shall write again now. Dr. J. is transcribing your Scotch song, which is a charming one. Oh, my leaping heart!

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

What an offense have I committed! A woman!

I shall soon make it up. I think women better than men, in general, and I know that you can keep a secret as well as any man whatever. But the world don't know this. Therefore if I were to write my sentiments to you, and the letter should be caught and hitched into a newspaper, the world would say I was not to be trusted with a secret.

I never had so much trouble in my life as here, and yet I grow fat. The climate and soil agree with me. So do the cookery and even the manners of the people, of those of them at least that I converse with, churlish republican as some of you on your side the water call me. The English have got at me in their newspapers. They make fine work of me--fanatic, bigot, perfect cipher, not one word of the language, awkward figure, uncouth dress, no address, no character, cunning, hard-hearted attorney.

But the falsest of it all is, that I am disgusted with the Parisians; whereas I admire the Parisians prodigiously. They are the happiest people in the world, I believe, and have the best disposition to make others so. If I had your ladys.h.i.+p and our little folks here, and no politics to plague me, and a hundred thousand livres a year rent, I should be the happiest being on earth. Nay, I believe I could make it do with twenty thousand.

One word of politics. The English reproach the French with gasconade, but I don't believe their whole history could produce so much of it as the English have practiced this war. The commissioners' proclamation, with its sanction from the ministry and ratification by both houses, I suppose is hereafter to be interpreted like Burgoyne's "Speaking daggers but using none." They cannot send any considerable reinforcement, nor get an ally in Europe. This I think you may depend upon. Their artifice in throwing out such extravagant threats was so gross that I presume it has not imposed on any. Yet a nation that regarded its character never could have threatened in that manner.

Adieu.

246. JOHN ADAMS.

Pa.s.sy, 20 February, 1779.

A new commission has arrived by which the Dr.[201] is sole minister. Mr.

Lee continues commissioner for Spain, but I am reduced to the condition of a private citizen. The Congress have not taken the least notice of me. On the 11th of September they resolved to have one minister only in France. On the 14th they chose the Dr. In October they made out his commission, the _Alliance_ sailed on the 14th January, and in all that interval they never so much as bid me come home, bid me stay, or told me I had done well or done ill. Considering the accusation against Mr.

Lee,[202] how unexpected it was and how groundless it is, I should not be at all surprised if I should see an accusation against me for something or other, I know not what, but I see that all things are possible.

Of all the scenes I ever pa.s.sed through, this is the most extraordinary.

The delirium among Americans here is the most extravagant. All the infernal arts of stock-jobbers, all the voracious avarice of merchants, have mingled themselves with American politics here, disturbed their operations, distracted our counsels, and turned our heads.

The Congress, I presume, expect that I should come home, and I shall come accordingly. As they have no business for me in Europe, I must contrive to get some for myself at home. Prepare yourself for removing to Boston, into the old house, for there you shall go, and there I will draw writs and deeds, and harangue juries, and be happy.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 201: Franklin.]

[Footnote 202: Made by Silas Deane to Congress.]

247. JOHN ADAMS.

Pa.s.sy, 20 February, 1779.

In the margin[203] are the dates of all the letters I have received from you. I have written you several times that number. They are almost all lost, I suppose by yours. But you should consider it is a different thing to have five hundred correspondents and but one. It is a different thing to be under an absolute restraint and under none. It would be an easy thing for me to ruin you and your children by an indiscreet letter, and what is more, it would be easy to throw our country into convulsions. For G.o.d's sake never reproach me again with not writing or with writing scrips. Your wounds are too deep. You know not, you feel not, the dangers that surround me nor those that may be brought upon our country. Millions would not tempt me to write you as I used. I have no security that every letter I write you will not be broken open, and copied, and transmitted to Congress and to English newspapers. They would find no treason nor deceit in them, it is true, but they would find weakness and indiscretion, which they would make as ill a use of.

There are spies upon every word I utter, and every syllable I write.

Spies planted by the English, spies planted by stock-jobbers, spies planted by selfish merchants, and spies planted by envious and malicious politicians. I have been all along aware of this, more or less, but more so now than ever. My life has been often in danger, but I never considered my reputation and character so much in danger as now. I can pa.s.s for a fool, but I will not pa.s.s for a dishonest or mercenary man.

Be upon your guard, therefore. I must be upon mine, and I will.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 203: 25 March. 18 May. 10, 18 June. 10, 21, 25 October. 2, 15 December, 1778. 2, 4 January, 1779. Many of these are missing.]

248. JOHN ADAMS.

Pa.s.sy, 21 February, 1779.

Yours by Mr. Williams I have received. The little bill must be paid, but I confess it alarms me a little. The expense of my son here is greater than I ever imagined. Although his company is almost all the pleasure I have in life, yet I should not have brought him if I had known the expense. His expenses, together with what you have drawn for, and a little collection of books I have bought, will amount to more than will ever be allowed me. My accounts must not be drawn into intricacy or obscurity. I must not be involved in suspicions of meddling in trade or anything else but my proper business.

You complain that I don't write often enough; and that when I do, my letters are too short. If I were to tell you all the tenderness of my heart, I should do nothing but write to you. I beg of you not to be uneasy. I write you as often and as much as I ought. If I had a heart at ease, and leisure enough, I could write you several sheets a day, of the curiosities of this country. But it is as much impossible for me to think of such subjects as to work miracles. Let me entreat you to consider, if some of your letters had by any accident been taken, what a figure would they have made in a newspaper, to be read by the whole world? Some of them, it is true, would have done honor to the most virtuous and most accomplished Roman matron; but others of them would have made you and me very ridiculous. In one of yours you hint that I am to go to Holland. But I think you must be misinformed. By all that I can learn, some gentlemen intend to vote for me to Holland _vs._ Mr. Deane; others to Spain _vs._ Mr. Lee. Neither, I think, will succeed; and therefore I think I have but one course to steer, and that is, homewards. But I can determine nothing absolutely. I must govern myself according to the intelligence which may hereafter arise, the orders of Congress, and the best judgment I can form of my own duty and the public good.

I am advised to take a ride to Geneva, or to Amsterdam; and I have been so confined from exercise, having never been farther from Paris than Versailles since my arrival here, that some such excursion seems necessary for my health; yet I cannot well bear the thought of putting the public to an expense merely for the sake of my pleasure, health, or convenience. Yet my situation here is painful. I never was in such a situation before as I am now, and my present feelings are new to me. If I should return, and in my absence any orders should arrive here for me to execute, in that case n.o.body would be here to execute them, and they might possibly fail of success for want of somebody with power to perform them; at least, this may be suspected and said and believed.

However, upon the whole, as Congress have said nothing to me, good or bad, I have no right to presume that they mean to say anything, and therefore, on the whole, it is my duty to return by the first opportunity, unless I should receive counter orders before that occurs.

If ever the time should arrive when I could have a little leisure and a quiet mind, I could entertain you with accounts of things which would amuse you and your children. There are an infinity of curiosities here, but so far from having leisure to describe them, I have found none even to see them, except a very few.