John Adams

by David McCullough

AT THE END OF NOVEMBER came sensational news. On Friday, October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, by Chesapeake Bay, the British General Cornwallis had surrendered his army to a combined American and French force under Washington and Rochambeau.

To many on both sides of the Atlantic, it presaged a quick end to the war. In America, in the first flush of victory, Washington was hailed as “the deliverer” of his country; in London the British Prime Minister, Lord North, exclaimed, “Oh, God! It’s all over.”

It had been nearly three years since he told Vergennes that nothing would so guarantee a “speedy conclusion” to the war as a powerful French fleet in American waters, and now it had come to pass exactly as he had said.

But if Yorktown did not mean an end to the war, it changed everything in Holland, as Adams saw at once. The chance to achieve his goal of Dutch recognition and financial support would never be better—Dutch merchants had no wish to be on the losing side.

and so the question of American independence and Dutch-American relations became a matter of political debate throughout the country.

On February 26, 1782, the northern province of Friesland voted to instruct its delegates in the States-General to move formally to receive John Adams as minister from the United States.

ON MARCH 20 IN LONDON, in a dramatic appearance in the House of Commons, Lord North resigned, to be succeeded by Lord Rockingham, a friend of America whose earlier Ministry had repealed the Stamp Act.

In the Netherlands the tide turned on March 28, when the Province of Holland recognized American independence. In rapid order the other provinces followed suit.

On Friday, April 19, a year to the day since Adams presented his memorial, the States-General resolved that “Mr. Adams shall be admitted and acknowledged in the quality of ambassador of the United States to Their High Mightinesses.”

In May, Adams took up residence and put out a flag at the United States House, as he called it, the first American embassy anywhere in the world.

AT LAST, on June 11, 1782, Adams negotiated with a syndicate of three Amsterdam banking houses—Willink, Van Staphorst, and De la Lande & Fynje—a loan of 5 million guilders, or $2 million at 5 percent interest.

“If this had been the only action of my life, it would have been well spent,” Adams wrote to Abigail, hoping she would “Pardon the vanity.”

The news that the Dutch Republic had recognized the United States did not reach Philadelphia until September, arriving by a Dutch ship named Heer Adams.

October 8, 1782,

Finally, it was his turn, the treaty was signed and sealed, his work accomplished.

the famous château at Chantilly,

Adams was outraged. America was not fighting a war for independence to be told what to do by the French.

FORMAL SESSIONS WITH THE BRITISH NEGOTIATORS began the morning of October 30—Adams’s forty-seventh birthday—and continued into the last week of November, as snow fell on the city day after day, only to melt as fog set in.

THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS to be dealt with, after acknowledgment of independence, were the boundaries of the United States, the right of navigation on the Mississippi River, debts, the interests of American Tories or Loyalists, and American fishing rights on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, a main point with Adams.

Vergennes was overflowing with friendship.

In effect, the Americans had signed a separate peace with the British. They had acted in direct violation of both the French-American alliance and their specific instructions from Congress to abide by the advice of the French foreign minister.

Further, with amazing bravado, Franklin asked Vergennes for a loan of 6 million livres.

The all-important first sentence of Article I declared, “His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States . . . to be free, sovereign and independent states.”

The mighty Revolution had ended. The new nation was born.

IT HAD BEEN NINE YEARS since the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia, eight years since Lexington and Concord, seven since the Declaration of Independence, and more than three years since John Adams had last left home in the role of peacemaker.

And of all the serious events of the exceedingly eventful eighteenth century, none compared to the arrival upon the world stage of the new, independent United States of America.

Adams’s part in Holland and at Paris had been profound. As time would tell, the treaty that he, Franklin, and Jay had made was as advantageous to their country as any in history. It would be said they had won the greatest victory in the annals of American diplomacy.

What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything. ~Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey

Except for her marriage itself, it was the most important decision she had ever had to make.

Abigail said her farewells in her front parlor on the morning of June 18, the house filled with neighbors, “not of unmeaning complimenters,” she wrote, “but the honest yeomanry, their wives and daughters like a funeral procession, all come to wish me well and to pray for a speedy return.”

And thus it was, on Tuesday, July 20, 1784, that Abigail and Nabby were “safely landed upon the British coast.”

we were indeed a very happy family once more met together after a separation of four years.” Early the following day they were all off for Paris.

Why, with so much land available, there was no proper privy, Abigail could not understand.

She thought Paris far from appealing, for all the splendor of its public buildings. And if she had not seen all of it, she had “smelt it.” Given its state of sanitation, the stench was more than she could bear.

Everything looked filthy to her.

But most memorable was her first encounter with a “great lady” of France.

She had a little lap-dog who was, next to the Doctor, her favorite. This she kissed, and when he wet the floor, she wiped it up with her chemise.

It was as if the whole of society were a stage.

Lafayette, a hero in Paris no less than in America, and himself one of the richest men in France, had recently acquired a palatial house on the Rue de Bourbon, which he made a center of hospitality for Americans in Paris.

It still took two to three months for letters to cross the ocean, sometimes longer,

At thirty-nine, Jefferson had been left a widower with three young children, his political career over, he thought, his political ambitions dissolved.

He had seen nothing of the war. Its principal adverse effects on his way of life were spiraling inflation, and the loss of twenty-two of his slaves who ran off in the hope of joining the British side and gaining their freedom.

When 4,000 British and Hessian troops who had surrendered at Saratoga were marched to Charlottesville to be quartered outside of the town, Jefferson arranged for proper housing for the officers on neighboring plantations and saw no reason not to offer his friendship and hospitality.

Indeed, he took delight in having such welcome additions to his social circle.

Possibly, John and Abigail Adams learned of this while in Paris. In any event, for them to have entertained the enemy under their own roof while war raged would have been unthinkable.

He had no background or interest in military matters.

Called on for reinforcements, Virginia could only send unarmed men. Enlistments were down, the state treasury empty.

It was only when he saw by telescope that the streets of Charlottesville in the valley below were filled with British soldiers that he at last mounted his horse and took off through the woods, narrowly escaping the detachment of cavalry that arrived on the mountaintop only minutes later.

To have fled as he did had been Jefferson’s only realistic recourse, but it had cost him in reputation.

Approaching Monticello by horseback afterward, an officer from Rochambeau’s army, the Marquis de Chastellux, saw the great house “shining alone” on its summit, and described how, arriving on top, he found the “Sage” of Monticello wholly “retired from the world and public business.”