What John and Abigail Adams may have thought of this from the man who had professed to believe that all men are created equal is not known.
“The departure of your family has left me in the dumps,” Jefferson wrote to Adams from Paris. “My afternoons hang heavily on me.”
Crossing the Channel on board the Dover packet days later, Abigail offered to share the family’s cabin with a desperately seasick young man who, in gratitude for her kindness, gave her two songbirds of his own. “As they were quite accustomed to traveling, I brought them here in safety, for which they happily repay me by their melodious notes,” she would write to Jefferson in her first letter from London, knowing his love of music.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LONDON
An ambassador from America! Good heavens what a sound!
~ London Public Advertiser
* * *
I
HIS MAJESTY THE KING of England and the new American minister to the Court of St. James’s were not without common interests and notable similarities. Like John Adams, King George III was devoted to farming. Seldom was His Majesty happier than when inspecting his farms, or talking crops and Merino sheep with his farm workers at Windsor. Like Adams, the King had a passion for books. The difference, as with the farming, was mainly a matter of scale. His private library was one of the treasures of Britain. During Adams’s earlier stay in London, the American painter Benjamin West had arranged a tour of the royal quarters at Buckingham House, and for Adams the high point had been seeing the King’s library. He wished he could stay a week, Adams had said.
George III was to turn forty-seven on June 4, which made him two years younger than Adams, and though taller, he had a comparable “inclination to corpulence.” Like Adams, he was an early riser, often out of bed before five. He, too, kept to a rigorous schedule and was an exuberant talker. Adams would later say George III was the greatest talker he had ever known. He was obstinate, affectionate, devoted to his wife and children, who numbered fifteen — again it was a matter of scale. He was deeply religious and, like Adams, sincerely patriotic.
Yet for all they had in common, the principal difference between the two was vast and paramount. One was the King of England, the other a Yankee farmer’s son — John Yankee — who spoke now for an upstart nation the survival of which was anything but assured. Indeed, in England as in Europe it was generally thought that the experiment in democracy across the water had little chance of success.
With his appointment to the Court, Adams felt he had attained the pinnacle of his career, and, with the retirement of Franklin, he was now America’s most experienced diplomat. But from Elbridge Gerry he had learned that the appointment had come only after rancorous dispute in Congress, and that the central issue, as Gerry reported with blunt candor, was Adams’s vanity, his “weak passion.”
Gerry’s letter had arrived in the last days at Auteuil. Deeply hurt, Adams had written an extraordinary reply, a dissertation on the subject of vanity set forth in his clearest, plainest hand, as if intended for posterity as much as for Gerry. There were all kinds of vanity, Adams wrote — of material possessions, of physical appearance, of ribbons and titles — but there was also that which came from years spent in the service of other men, without attention to oneself, in the face of exhausting toil and at risk of life. This latter kind was a vanity, a pride, he knew. He had experienced that “joy,” and for him to deny it or try to conceal it would be rank hypocrisy:
If at times I have betrayed in word or writing such a sentiment, I have only to say in excuse for it that I am not a hypocrite, nor a cunning man, nor at all times wise, and that although I may be more cautious for the future, I will never be so merely to obtain the reputation of a cunning politician, a character I neither admire nor esteem.
Apologizing for the length of the letter, Adams added finally in a small hand at the bottom of the page, “When a man is hurt he loves to talk of his wounds.” But after further thought — and possibly on the advice of Abigail — he put the letter aside. It was never sent.
The old charge of vanity, the character flaw that Adams so often chastised himself for, had been made again, and on the floor of Congress, just as he was to assume his most important role. So now more than ever he felt bound to do all in his power to serve honorably, succumbing neither to vanity nor political craftiness.
On arrival in London, he went promptly as instructed to confer with young Lord Carmarthen. Informed that his private audience with the King was arranged for June 1, he began preparing himself for what he knew would be an occasion of historic importance for his country and one of the great events of his life. Told that he must deliver a brief speech before the King, and that it be as complimentary as possible, he worked and reworked what he would say until he knew it by heart.
OF THE TIMES when Adams felt himself uncomfortably alone at center stage, there were few to compare to the afternoon in London, when at the end of a short ride through the rain with Lord Carmarthen in his carriage, they approached the arched gatehouse at St. James’s Palace. Doors opened for them, Adams was led up a flight of stairs and down a hall to a room crowded with ministers of state, lords, bishops, and courtiers, all eyes on him as he and Carmarthen stood waiting outside the King’s bedchamber, which was not where the King slept, but a formal reception room.
When the door opened, they proceeded, Adams, as instructed, making three bows, or “reverences,” one on entering, another halfway, a third before “the presence.”
“The United States of America have appointed me their minister plenipotentiary to Your Majesty,” Adams began, nearly overcome by emotion.
“I felt more than I did or could express,” he later wrote. Before him, in the flesh, was the “tyrant” who, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, had plundered American seas and burned American towns, the monarch “unfit to be the ruler of a free people,” while to the King, he himself, Adams knew, could only be a despised traitor fit for the hangman’s noose.
“The appointment of a minister from the United States to Your Majesty’s Court will form an epoch in the history of England and of America,” he continued.
I think myself more fortunate than all my fellow-citizens, in having the distinguished honor to be the first to stand in your Majesty’s royal presence in a diplomatic character; and I shall esteem my self the happiest of men if I can be instrumental in recommending my country more and more to your Majesty’s royal benevolence, and of restoring an entire esteem, confidence, and affection, or, in better words, the old good nature and the old good humor between people who, though separated by an ocean and under different governments, have the same language, a similar religion, and kindred blood.
I beg your Majesty’s permission to add that although I have some time before been intrusted by my country, it was never in my whole life in a manner so agreeable to myself.
Brief as it was, he got through the speech only with difficulty, his voice at times quaking, and the King, too, was greatly moved. “The King listened to every word I said, with dignity but with apparent emotion,” Adams would report to Foreign Secretary John Jay. “Whether it was in the nature of the interview, or whether it was my visible agitation, for I felt more than I did or could express, that touched him, I cannot say. But he was much affected, and answered me with more tremor than I had spoken with.
The circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say that I not only receive with pleasure the assurance of the friendly dispositions of the United States, but that I am very glad that the choice has fallen upon you to be their minister. I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do by the duty which I owed to my people. I will be very frank with you, I was the last to consent to separation; but the separation having been made,
and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.
He could not vouch that these were the exact words, Adams cautioned in his letter to Jay, for the King’s manner of speaking had been so odd and strained. (It was Adams’s first encounter with the famous stutter of George III.) “He hesitated some time between his periods, and between the members of the same period. He was indeed much affected.”
Smiling, the King changed the subject. “There is an opinion among some people that you are not the most attached of all your countrymen to the manners of France,” he said.
Adams, embarrassed, replied, “I must avow to your Majesty, I have no attachment but to my own country.”
“An honest man will never have any other,” the King said approvingly, and with a bow signaled that the interview was ended.
I retreated [Adams wrote], stepping backwards, as is the etiquette, and, making my last reverence at the door of the chamber, I went my way. The Master of Ceremonies joined me . . . and accompanied me through the apartments down to my carriage, several stages of servants, gentlemen-porters, and under-porters roaring out like thunder as I went along, “Mr. Adams’ servants, Mr. Adams’ carriage.”
It had all gone superbly. Adams’s remarks had been graceful, dignified, appropriate, and, with the possible exception of his reference to “kindred blood,” altogether sincere. He had proven a diplomat of first rank, almost in spite of himself.
The King, too, had been the essence of courtesy and poise, as Adams later acknowledged. But any thought that the interview presaged an overall cordial welcome for the new minister was dashed soon enough by the London press, which dismissed the meeting as nothing more than a curious anecdote for future historians. “An ambassador from America! Good heavens what a sound!” scoffed the Public Advertiser. The London Gazette expressed rank indignation at the very appointment of such a “character” as Adams to the Court. To the Daily Universal Register it had been a notably cool reception, while the Morning and Daily Advertiser described Adams as so pitifully embarrassed as to be tongue-tied.
Beneath the polite English surface lay burning animosity, surmised Abigail, who, like John, felt she was taking part in an elaborate stage play.
UNTIL A SUITABLE HOUSE could be found, the three Adamses were residing in the Bath Hotel in Piccadilly, where, after the quiet of Auteuil, the noise of the streets seemed horrendous. Abigail hated the thought of having to hire servants again and making the necessary domestic arrangements on her own. “I cannot bear to trouble Mr. Adams with anything of a domestic kind, who from morning until evening has sufficient to occupy all his time,” she wrote to her sister Mary. Still, she delighted in being once more where her own language was spoken. A performance of Handel’s Messiah at Westminster Abbey was “sublime beyond description,” she wrote to Jefferson. “I most sincerely wished for your presence, as your favorite passion would have received the highest gratification. I should have sometimes fancied myself amongst the higher order of beings.”
Three weeks after Adams’s private audience with the King came the Queen’s circle, or “drawing room.” This time all three of the family were to attend, as well as Colonel William Stephens Smith of New York, who had been appointed by Congress as secretary of the American legation and was also newly arrived in London. Smith had served with distinction in the Continental Army. At the battle of Long Island he had made the night withdrawal across the East River and later served on Washington’s staff. He was a graduate of the college at Princeton and, with his soldierly carriage and dark good looks, made a handsome addition to the group.
Days were consumed in preparation. She must look “elegant but plain as I could possibly appear with decency,” Abigail instructed her dressmaker. The dress she wore was of white silk trimmed with white crepe and lilac ribbon, over an enormous hoop. “A very dress cap with long lace lappets, two white plumes and a blonde lace handkerchief; this is my rigging,” she informed Mary in high spirits. “I should have mentioned two pearl pins in my hair, earrings and necklace of the same kind.” Nabby’s attire, too, was in white, only with a petticoat, “the most showy part,” and included a cap with three immense feathers.
Mother and daughter had seldom if ever looked so glorious. “Thus equipped we go in our own carriage,” wrote Abigail. “But I must quit my pen to put myself in order for the ceremony which begins at two o’clock.”
“Congratulate me, my dear sister, it is over,” she commenced the next installment, settling in to describe in detail and with wry humor all that had transpired, and leaving little doubt as to what she thought of such business overall, or whether she was capable of meeting the test, even if it meant four hours on her feet.
Of the English novelists, Abigail was especially fond of Samuel Richardson, whose popular works, Pamela and Clarissa, were tales told through the device of extended letters. Richardson, “master of the human heart,” had “done more towards embellishing the present age, and teaching them the talent of letter-writing, than any other modern I can name.” That her own outpouring of letters was influenced by Richardson, Abigail would have readily agreed. In Richardson’s hands events unfolded in letters written “to the moment,” as things happened. “My letters to you,” she would tell Mary, “are first thoughts, without correction.”
At the palace the Adamses were escorted to a large drawing room, where two hundred selected guests, including foreign diplomats and their wives, were arranged in a large circle. “The King enters the room and goes round to the right, the Queen and princesses to the left,” Abigail began her account for Mary.
Only think of the task the royal family have, to go round to every person and find small talk enough to speak to all of them. Though they very prudently speak in a whisper, so that only the person who stands next can hear what is said. . . . The Lord in Waiting presents you to the King and the Lady in Waiting does the same to Her Majesty. The King is a personable man, but my dear sister, he has a certain countenance which you and I have often remarked, a red face and white eyebrows. . . . When he came to me, Lord Onslow [Arthur Onslow, lord of the royal bedchamber] said, “Mrs. Adams,” upon which I drew off my right glove and His Majesty saluted my left cheek, then asked me if I had taken a walk today. I could have told His Majesty that I had been all morning preparing to wait upon him, but I replied, “No, Sire.” “Why don’t you love walking?” says he. I answered that I was rather indolent in that respect. He then bowed and passed on. It was more than two hours after this before it came my turn to be presented to the Queen. The circle was so large that the company were four hours standing. The Queen was evidently embarrassed when I was presented to her. I had disagreeable feelings, too. She, however, said, “Mrs. Adams, have you got your house? Pray how do you like the situation of it?” Whilst the Princess Royal [Charlotte Augusta Matilda, the oldest daughter of George III and Queen Charlotte] looked compassionate, and asked me if I was much fatigued, and observed that it was a very full drawing room. Her sister who came next, Princess Augusta, after having asked your niece if she was ever in England before, and her answering, “Yes,” inquired me how long ago, and supposed it was when she was very young. And all this is said with much affability and ease and freedom of old acquaintance.
The two princesses were quite pretty, “well shaped,” “heads full of diamonds.” Queen Charlotte, however, was neither pretty nor well shaped, and on the whole, Abigail told Mary, the ladies of the Court were “very plain, ill-shaped, and ugly, but don’t tell anybody that I say so.”
All things considered, the royal family was surprisingly affable, but certainly the life they led was not to be envied. Nor should anyone imagine that Abigail remained anything other than herself: “I could not help reflecting with myself during the ceremony, what a fool I do look like to be thus accoutered and stand for four hours together, only to be spoken to by ‘royalty.’”
THE SUITABLE HOUSE was found and, th
eir furniture having arrived from France, the family moved to the quiet of Grosvenor Square in the West End. The tree-shaded square with its neat gravel walks covered five acres — exactly the size of the garden at Auteuil — and was framed by elegant town houses belonging to a number of London’s most eminent citizens, including Lord Carmarthen.
The house the Adamses rented — what became the first American legation in London — was No. 8, at the northeast corner. The front entrance opened onto a large hall. There was a dining room spacious enough for entertaining on the first floor and another ample room that Adams made his office for public business. Drawing room and library were on the floor above, bedrooms on the third floor. The kitchen was in the English basement, and a stable was to the rear. Once the servants were hired and in place “below stairs,” the staff consisted of Esther Field, now elevated to lady’s maid, a butler, a housemaid, a cook, a kitchen maid, two footmen (one of whom was John Briesler), and a coachman. This made a total of eight, as at Auteuil, and again Abigail would have preferred fewer who worked harder. Adams, after several weeks in residence, allowed that after so long in France he was “not so pleased” with English cookery.
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