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At home every state but Pennsylvania and Georgia had a bicameral legislature, and because of the obvious shortcomings of the one-house Congress under the Articles of Confederation, agreement on the need for a bicameral Congress was widespread. So to a considerable degree Adams was preaching what had become accepted doctrine at home.
Drawing on history and literature, some fifty books altogether, he examined what he called the modern democratic republics (the little Italian commonwealth of San Marino, Biscay in the Basque region of Spain, the Swiss cantons), modern aristocratic republics (Venice, the Netherlands), and the modern monarchical and regal republics (England, Poland); as well as the ancient democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical republics including Carthage, Athens, Sparta, and Rome. There were frequent citations in Latin, Greek, and French, extended use of Swift, Franklin, Dr. Price, Machiavelli, Guicciardini's Historia d'italia, Montesquieu, Plato, Milton, and Hume, in addition to scattered mentions of Aristotle, Thucydides, Hobbes, La Rochefoucauld, and Rousseau, as well as Joseph Priestley, whom Adams had lately come to know in London.
But for all this it remained at heart a lawyer's brief for what he had said in his Thoughts on Government, and what he had helped establish in practice in the Massachusetts constitution. Where it departed most notably from what he had written before was in its pronouncements on human nature.
To Adams nothing had changed about human nature since the time of the ancients. Inequities within society were inevitable, no matter the political order. Human beings were capable of great good, but also great evil. Thus it had always been and thus it would ever be. He quoted Rousseau's description of “that hideous sight, the human heart,” and recounted that even Dr. Priestley had said that such were the weaknesses and folly of men, “their love of domination, selfishness, and depravity,” that none could be elevated above others without risk of danger.
How he wished it were not so, Adams wrote. Thucydides had said the source of all evils was “a thirst of power, from rapacious and ambitious passions,” and Adams agreed. “Religion, superstition, oaths, education, laws, all give way before passions, interest, and power.”
As to the ideal of a nation of equals, such was impossible. “Was there, or will there ever be a nation whose individuals were all equal, in natural and acquired qualities, in virtues, talents, and riches? The answer in all mankind must be in the negative.”
Even in America where there was “a moral and political equality of rights and duties,” there were nonetheless inequalities of wealth, education, family position, and such differences were true of all people in all times. There was inevitably a “natural aristocracy among mankind,” those people of virtue and ability who were “the brightest ornaments and the glory” of a nation, “and may always be made the greatest blessing of society, if it be judiciously managed in the constitution.” These were the people who had the capacity to acquire great wealth and make use of political power, and for all they contributed to society, they could thus become the most dangerous element in society, unless they and their interests were consigned to one branch of the legislature, the Senate, and given no executive power. Above all, the executive magistrate must have sufficient power to defend himself, and thus the people, from all the “enterprises” of the natural aristocracy.
Adams believed in a “government of laws not of men,” as he had written in his Thoughts on Government and in the Massachusetts constitution but, as he stressed now in conclusion, “The executive power is properly the government; the laws are a dead letter until an administration begins to carry them into execution.”
Through the months of work on the Defence, Adams knew it was time to wind things up in London. He had achieved nothing in his diplomatic role and could expect no improvement in his prospects. Within weeks after the first copies of his Defence were ready at the printer, he had written to John Jay to ask that he be recalled. So while noble in intent, the Defence may also have been partly intended as a way of reintroducing himself to his countrymen and influencing the debate on the Constitution. And however apprehensive he may have been over what the reaction might be, he moved ahead without pause, working on two more installments.
In February came warm praise from Paris. “I have read your book with infinite satisfaction and improvement,” wrote Jefferson. It would do “great good,” he predicted. “Its learning and its good sense will I hope make it an institute for our politicians, old as well as young.”
Such approbation was “vast consolation,” Adams responded, conceding that it had been a “hazardous” and “hasty” enterprise, and that he was pursuing it further. There were just two aspects of life in Europe that he regretted leaving. One was access to books, the other was “intimate correspondence with you, which is one of the most agreeable events in my life.”
In time came more praise and approval. From Philadelphia, where the Constitutional Convention had assembled, Benjamin Rush, a member of the Convention, wrote that the Defence had “diffused such excellent principles among us, that there is little doubt of our adopting a vigorous and compound federal legislature.” James Madison, who had taken the lead in drafting the so-called Virginia Plan, providing for three equal branches in the new government, and who had seldom ever had anything complimentary to say about Adams, declared in a letter to Jefferson that while men of learning would find nothing new in the book, it was certain to be “a powerful engine in forming public opinion,” and, in fact, had “merit.”
But as both John and Abigail had anticipated, there were others who perceived dark intent in what he had written. Cotton Tufts warned that there were people sowing discord, claiming Adams was all for monarchy and planned to put an English prince on a throne in America. In Virginia, the president of the College of William and Mary, a cousin of Madison's, the Reverend James Madison, saw a “secret design” in the book—that Adams, under the influence of a foreign Court, was “plotting” to overturn the American government.
• • •
LATE THAT SUMMER of 1787, in Philadelphia, the Constitutional Convention was nearing the completion of its efforts. In Paris parading mobs and incidents of public disrespect for the royal family had caught many by surprise, including the American ambassador. Suddenly all tongues had been let loose in Paris, Jefferson reported excitedly to Adams. There were placards all over the city, and though the mobs had ceased, the Queen had received a “general hiss” while attending the theater. “The King, long in the habit of drowning his cares in wine, plunges deeper and deeper; the Queen cries out, but sins on.”
• • •
WHEN COPIES of the new Constitution of the United States, signed at Philadelphia on September 17, reached London that autumn, Adams read it “with great satisfaction.” He would have preferred more power in the presidency than provided—particularly the authority to make presidential appointments without Senate approval. But of greater concern was the absence of a bill of rights, in the spirit of what he had written for the constitution of Massachusetts.
“What think you of a Declaration of Rights? Should not such a thing have preceded the model?” Adams wrote straight off to Jefferson.
Writing from Paris a few days later, before receiving Adams's letter, Jefferson said nothing about a bill of rights, only that there were “things” in the Constitution that “stagger all my dispositions to subscribe” to it.
His great concern was the office of the President, which, as conceived, struck him as “a bad edition of a Polish king.
He may be reelected from four years to four years for life.... Once in office, and possessing the military force of the union, without either the aid or check of a council, he would not be easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to withdraw their votes from him. I wish that at the end of the four years, they made him ever ineligible a second time.
Here was the difference between them, Adams replied prophetically. “You are afraid of the one, I, the few. We agree perfectly that the many should have full, fair, and perfect re
presentation [in the House]. You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.”
He was not so concerned about a President staying long in office, Adams said, as he was about too frequent elections, which often brought out the worst in people and increased the chances of foreign influence.
While Jefferson would have much to say about the Constitution and the need for a bill of rights in subsequent private correspondence with Madison, he made no public statement for the time being, whereas Adams sent off a strong endorsement to John Jay that was to be widely quoted at home. As once he had seen the Declaration of Independence uniting the different and often disputatious states in common cause, Adams now saw the Constitution as the best means possible “to cement all America in affection and interest as one great nation.” Indeed, if there was a consistent theme in all that Adams wrote and strived for, it was the need for a binding American union.
The public mind cannot be occupied about a nobler object than the proposed plan of government. It appears to be admirably calculated to cement all America in affection and interest as one great nation. A result of accommodation and compromise cannot be supposed perfectly to coincide with any one's ideas of perfection. But as all the great principles necessary to order, liberty, and safety are respected in it, and provision is made for corrections and amendments as they may be found necessary, I confess I hope to hear of its adoption by all the states.
On December 6, writing to Jefferson, Adams reported that at last his recall had been approved by Congress, “and how we say at sea, ‘Huzza for the new world and farewell to the old one.’ ”
• • •
FOR THE SECOND and, she hoped, the last time in her life, Abigail was making arrangements to cross the North Atlantic, and with hardly less apprehension than the time before.
There was a great accumulation of clothes, books, china, and furniture to pack, a York rosebush she was determined to take. The furniture included pieces purchased originally for the houses at Amsterdam and The Hague. There was a four-post Dutch bed, a great Dutch chest with heavy brass pulls and claw feet, tables of different sizes, a set of six cushioned Louis XV chairs and a settee, these with delicate floral carvings. Adams's desk, a beautiful French escritoire of veneered satinwood and ebony, which he had bought in Paris after the war, was his particular pride and joy.
All were considerably finer, more elegant pieces than the Adamses had ever owned in years past and would have looked quite out of place in the farmhouse at Braintree. But, as they now knew, they were not to reside in the old homestead. Through Cotton Tufts, Adams had arranged the purchase of what was known as “the Vassall-Borland place,” which Adams had had his eye on for years and which, in memory, seemed quite grand. Built more than fifty years before, about 1731, as the summer villa of a wealthy sugar planter from the West Indies, Leonard Vassall, the house had stood empty through much of the war, after Vassall's daughter, the widow Borland, a Loyalist, fled to England. When Adams heard the place was available, he made his decision. Located on the coast road, on the north side of town, the property included house, farm buildings, and some eighty acres at a purchase price of 600 pounds. Adams envisioned it as the ideal setting for his retirement.
There were friends in London for Abigail to say goodbye to, last letters to get off to her sisters, and to John Quincy, who, having finished Harvard, was now studying law and not very pleased about it. When Mary Cranch wrote to report that their brother William had died, Abigail was devastated.
Reflection on such bad news was too painful for her, she wrote in reply. Nor was there time for reflection. Her maid, Esther Field, had discovered with an astonishment equal nearly to Abigail's own, that she was pregnant with the child of the ever-faithful footman, John Briesler, and both wished to be married before sailing for home.
The first week in February, Adams paid a final call at Whitehall. On February 20, he had his “audience of leave” with George III, who in parting said, “Mr. Adams, you may with great truth, assure the United States that whenever they shall fulfill the treaty on their part, I, on my part, will fulfill it in all its particulars.” More than this, however, Adams was to remember the King's graciousness toward him.
Then, out of the blue and to his utter dismay, Adams was called on to make one last emergency trip to Holland, and in the worst possible season to cross the North Sea. It was essential that he take formal leave of his ambassadorial post there, he was informed, and to secure yet another loan, this to enable the United States to make its payments on earlier loans from the Dutch.
To Adams the journey was punishment for sins unknown. The single consolation was that Jefferson was to meet him at Amsterdam. Together they succeeded with the Dutch bankers and in high spirits agreed that when the time came that Adams was at last on his way to heaven, he would surely have first to negotiate another Dutch loan. It was the last time they ever collaborated in a public matter.
To Abigail, Jefferson had written, “I have considered you while in London as my neighbor, and look forward to the moment of your departure from thence as to an epoch of much regret and concern to me.... My daughters join me in affectionate adieus. Polly does not cease to speak of you with warmth and gratitude. Heaven send you, Madam, a pleasant and safe passage.”
It was a charming letter of the kind at which Jefferson excelled and that by now he was writing to a number of women within his Paris circle who, in addition to Maria Cosway, included Anne Bingham and another equally striking American, Angelica Church, as well as several Frenchwomen of note, all of whom, interestingly, were married.
Writing to Jefferson “in the midst of the bustle and fatigue of packing,” Abigail said simply and sincerely that she could not leave without sending “a few lines to my much esteemed friend, to thank him for all his kindness and friendship towards myself and family.”
• • •
THE AMERICAN MINISTER, his wife, and two American servants departed London for the last time on Sunday, March 30, 1788, by coach for Portsmouth, where they were to sail on the American ship Lucretia, bound for Boston. The Smiths, with their infant son, were to sail on another ship for New York, the temporary federal capital, where Colonel Smith planned to pursue his career.
“Mr. Adams, the late envoy from the American states, set off for Portsmouth on Sunday last, to embark for his return,” read a small item in the Whitehall Evening Post. “That gentleman settled all his concerns with great honor; and whatever his political tenets may have been, he was much respected and esteemed in this country.”
Because of bad weather, it was another three weeks before the Adamses were truly under way.
As Abigail fervently wished, she and John were never to see England or Europe again. Henceforth, she wrote on board in her diary, she would be quite content to learn what more there was to know of the world from the pages of books.
Adams is not known to have recorded any of his thoughts during the voyage home, but earlier he had said his great desire was “to lay fast of the town of Braintree and embrace it with both arms and all my might. There live, there to die, there to lay my bones, and there to plant one of my sons in the profession of law and the practices of agriculture, like his father.”
Only Nabby, it seems, strongly objected. Their father had still more to do for his country, she had written to John Quincy.
By his opinions, advice, and recommendations, he has, I believe, in his power to do as much, perhaps the most, towards establishing her character as a respectable nation of any man in America—and shall he retire from the world and bury himself amongst his books, and live only for himself? No—I wish it not.... The Americans in Europe say he will be elected Vice President. Besides, my brother, independent of other considerations, he would not, I am well convinced, be happy in private life.
John Adams was fifty-two. Except for the few months he had spent in Massachusetts in 1778, he had been away for ten years. In that time he
had traveled thousands of miles in France, Spain, the Netherlands, and England; he had repeatedly crossed the English Channel and the North Sea; and his voyage home now marked his fourth crossing of the Atlantic. Altogether by land and sea he journeyed more than 29,000 miles, farther than any leading American of his time in the service of his country, never once refusing to go because of difficulties or unseasonable conditions, or something else that he would have preferred to do.
He had first sailed for Europe in the midst of war. He was returning now after more than five years of peace. For him personally, the homeward passage marked as clear an end to one chapter of his life, and the beginning of another, as had his initial voyage out. The intervening years in Europe had been as memorable and important, he felt, as any in his life.
Through the first years in France, for all his troubles with Franklin, he had worked steadily with the old patriot and often with telling effect. That he had pressed doggedly for a greater part in the war by the French navy would stand as one of his own proudest efforts, and with reason, given what happened at Yorktown.
With his success obtaining Dutch loans at the critical hour of the Revolution, he felt, as did others, that he had truly saved his country. That he had embarked on such an unprecedented mission on his own initiative, that he had undertaken his own one-man diplomatic campaign knowing nothing initially of the country, its language, and with no prior contacts or friendships to call upon, and yet carried through to his goal, were simply extraordinary and a measure of his almost superhuman devotion to the American cause.
His part in the Paris Peace Treaty would stand the test of time, Adams believed, as much as anything he had ever done. If the years and effort at London had come to naught, he at least knew he had given devoted service, conducting himself with consistent aplomb and dedication. No one could fault him for a false step. Nor could it be imagined that another of his countrymen in the same role could have done better.
