The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

by Thomas Fleming

  III

  In this atmosphere, a desperate Abigail turned to another correspondent—sneering, leering James Lovell. She was not looking for love or even a substitute for it; she wanted information, and he was in a position to give it to her. He was secretary of the congressional committee on foreign affairs. She had written to Samuel Adams but he had not even bothered to answer her—a nice glimpse of that worthy’s flinty style. Abigail was also aware of another motive in corresponding with Lovell. In one of her first letters, she told him it was “a relief to my mind to drop some of my sorrows through my pen.”

  Lovell began sending her weekly installments of the journals of Congress, a privilege afforded to few Americans. The deliberations of the national legislature were supposed to be a state secret. But Lovell could not resist injecting erotic innuendos into almost every letter. “Call me a savage,” he wrote in April 1778, “when I inform you that your alarms and distress have afforded me delight.” There was little doubt that in Lovell’s imagination, he held a sobbing Abigail in his arms.

  To make money on the side, Abigail had become a merchant, selling items John sent her from France. Often these shipments arrived in Philadelphia, where Lovell forwarded them to Boston. Sometimes he opened them to make sure they were not damaged. “I feared moths,” he wrote about one consignment. “Have opened your goods—aired and shook the woolens—added tobacco leaves and again secured them for transportation.” This assistance in making money Abigail badly needed soon made Lovell difficult to resist.

  But she was not enthused by his personal comments and questions. “How do you do, lovely Portia, these very cold days, mistake me not willfully, I said days,” he wrote in one letter. Remarks like this prompted Abigail to call him a “dangerous man,” and to remind him that she was a married woman who had irrevocably given her heart to John Adams. But she signed her letter “Portia.”

  Lovell responded with a quotation from the Scottish poet Allen Ramsay, “Gin ye were mine ain thing, how dearly would I love thee.” Next he told Abigail that he was glad her husband’s rigid patriotism had not produced another pregnancy before his departure to France. He also hinted that John might be doing more to entertain himself in Paris than visiting museums.

  Abigail rebuked Lovell for these innuendos—but she continued their correspondence. There is more than a little evidence that she enjoyed Lovell’s flirtatious ways. What wife approaching forty could resist being told that she was desirable, especially when the “flatterer”—a term she often threw at Lovell—was three hundred miles away in Philadelphia? But she did not allow him unlimited verbal license. She told him he could call her “amiable” and “agreeable,” but “lovely” and “charming” were banned.

  Lovell did not relent at first. “Amiable and unjust Portia,” he cried. “Must I write to you in the language of the gazettes?” In another letter he protested that he would not be able to resist “all covetousness.” He would “still covet to be in the arms of Portia’s [here he reached the end of a page; on the next page he continued] friend and admirer, the wife of my busom.” Whereupon he sniggered that he hoped Abigail did not stop before turning the page because “a quick turnover alone could save the tenth commandment.” He urged her to consult Ecclesiastes 4:11: Again, if two lie together, they have heat; but how can one be warm alone? In another letter he teased her as “one of the ____est and ____est and ____est women” he had ever known.

  Their relationship changed abruptly when one of Lovell’s smutty letters to a fellow Massachusetts delegate, Elbridge Gerry, was intercepted by the British and reprinted in several loyalist newspapers. At first Abigail denounced him. “If what I heard is true, I cannot open my lips in defense,” she told Lovell. Calming down in her next letter, she apologized. Obviously she wanted to keep Lovell’s friendship for several reasons. Meanwhile, he was being condemned by numerous proper Bostonians. Abigail urged him to come home and spend some time with his wife and children. That would end many of the nastiest rumors.

  The vulnerable one now, Congressman Lowell bitterly confessed that he had no profession to support his family. His salary as a congressman would cease the moment he arrived in Boston. Before the war he had been a schoolteacher. He had denounced former students who had stayed out of the war and made fortunes. Did Abigail want him to go groveling to one of these people and ask to become a clerk? In a rage, he assailed her condescension about his “choice of words” and even wondered if she were a genuine American patriot.

  Abigail hotly replied that she was only trying to tell Lovell the truth about what was being said about him in Boston. She quoted some of the cruel gossip she had heard from her friend Mercy Otis Warren. Didn’t he realize he was becoming an object of derision? Lovell crumpled under this counterattack. “Why do you strive to make me vile in my own eyes?” he whined. He claimed to be true to his wife and even asserted he was “one of the most religious men in the world.”

  Abigail, sensing she was now in control, relented and assured him they were still friends. “In truth…thou art a queer being,” she told him. But Lovell “took an interest in my happiness,” and she had discovered that “I can make you feel. I hate an unfeeling mortal.” She told him he could “laugh and satirize with her ‘as much as he pleased.’ I laugh with you.” But she still felt it would be “necessary to keep a watchful eye on you.” Lovell assured her of his renewed respect and friendship, but felt compelled to suggest that “you also Madam are a queer being.”

  Over the course of the war, Portia and her literary lover exchanged more than ninety letters. But when Lovell finally returned to Boston, he never even tried to visit Abigail. One historian has called their correspondence “a virtuous affair.” In many ways that is an excellent description. James Lovell gave Abigail Adams a spiritual and emotional release that helped her survive her dearest friend’s political and emotional collapse in Europe.7

  IV

  In an ironic replay of the appointment of Washington as commander in chief, Congress’s decision to make Benjamin Franklin the sole ambassador to France deepened John Adams’s black mood. He had recommended the change but had apparently hoped that his friends in Congress might turn to Honest John, the one commissioner who had stayed more-or-less aloof from the quarrel. It was another proof, if he needed it, that he could not compete with Franklin’s fame. A brooding John told Abigail that “the scaffold is cut away, and I am left kicking and sprawling in the mire.” He was not “in a state of disgrace but rather of total neglect and contempt.” He could only wonder why he “deserved such treatment.”8

  Arthur Lee had been named ambassador to Madrid. There was not even a hint of an appointment, not a word of either commendation or blame, for John Adams. He vowed to his friend James Warren that he would never again let Congress make a fool of him this way. He told Richard Henry Lee, chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, that he was glad to become a private citizen again.

  John’s mood was not improved by more letters from Abigail, describing her loneliness and her resentment of his short letters and long months of silence. In a reply that was virtually a snarl, John wrote: “This day, the Chevalier D’Arcy, his lady and niece, Mr. Le Roy and his lady, dined here. These gentlemen are two members of the academy of sciences. Now are you the wiser for all this? Shall I enter into a description of their dress—of the compliments—of the turns of conversation and all that—? For mercy sake don’t expect of me that I should be a boy till I am seventy years of age.”

  He told Abigail to “consider your age” and acquire some “gravity of…character.” She had given birth to six children, including a daughter who was “grown up.” She should be setting an example to Nabby instead of whining about his short letters. He closed with an oblique apology. “I…am grown more austere, severe, rigid and miserable than ever I was. I have seen more occasion, perhaps.”9

  Without asking anyone’s permission, John decided to go home. His mood slowly brightened at the prospect, and he again began addressing
his letters to “My dearest friend,” telling Abigail she would soon be seeing him.

  By the summer of 1779, John was back in Braintree, regaling Abigail and the children with Parisian memories. John Quincy delighted everyone with his fluent French and charmed his older sister by volunteering to teach her the language. The gloom that permeated the eighteen-month separation vanished as John and Abigail rode out to visit friends and relations and invited others to join them in cheerful dinners in their farmhouse.

  V

  John’s friends were aware of how deeply he had been hurt by the way Congress had treated him in France. Meanwhile, he represented Braintree at a state convention that gave him a leading role in writing a constitution for Massachusetts. It is considered one of his greatest achievements, second only to his 1776 role as “the Atlas of Independence.” In Philadelphia, Congress was grappling with large and unfamiliar challenges. The alliance with France had plunged America into global politics. The new French ambassador informed Congress that Spain had volunteered to mediate the conflict between France and England that had erupted when the French signed the treaty of alliance with the United States. Congress needed to send an ambassador to Europe with power to negotiate a treaty of peace with England, if this diplomacy succeeded.

  John Adams’s friends decided he was the perfect choice for this large task. At the end of October 1779, a messenger arrived in Braintree informing him that he had been appointed “Minister Plenipotentiary” to explore and hopefully achieve a peace treaty. To underline their seriousness, Congress gave him a salary of $2,500 a year and money for a private secretary, a secretary of the mission, and a servant. John felt enormous satisfaction—even a kind of vindication—in this appointment. His acceptance was a foregone conclusion from the moment he read the document. He was especially pleased that Congress had chosen him unanimously.

  Abigail, simultaneously proud and forlorn, could not disagree with him. She made no protest when John decided to take John Quincy with him again, along with his nine-year-old towheaded brother, Charles. They soon boarded the French frigate Sensible and were on their way across the Atlantic.

  Once more, John did not pause to explore the realities behind his appointment. Congress’s unanimous choice of John was a compromise between two political parties that had emerged from the brawl over Silas Deane’s recall. Deane’s backers won a tacit acquittal of the charges against him, got rid of Arthur Lee and Ralph Izard, confirmed Franklin as the ambassador to France, and won their ally, John Jay of New York, an appointment as ambassador to Spain. Conceding the peace negotiation to John Adams was a minor matter, and making it a unanimous vote was an attempt to heal wounds. The chances of John doing any serious negotiating were dubious, at best. It depended on two very large questions to which no one had the answer: Was Spain serious about playing the mediator? Was Britain interested in peace?

  When John, his two sons, and the rest of his entourage reached Paris in mid-February 1780, the answer to both questions became cruelly obvious. Spain’s offer to mediate was never sincere. Even before the British rejected the proposal, the Spanish signed a secret agreement with France, committing them to a war that included an invasion of the British Isles by their combined fleets. Worse, the Spanish plan was totally unacceptable to the United States. It called for a peace that would permit the British to retain their grip on New York City and Long Island, Rhode Island, most of Georgia, and a huge swath of what was then called the Northwest, in the center of the continent. In the light of John’s previous experience with Congress’s ineptitude in foreign policy, one wonders why he did not at least inquire into the terms that Spain was proposing. Once more, his hunger for fame had overwhelmed his judgment and betrayed him into a pointless journey.10

  VI

  With typical amateurishness, Congress had not given John instructions to return to the United States if there was nothing for him to negotiate. He decided to stay in Europe and see whether the French-Spanish armada succeeded in invading England. The attempt was a fiasco. The French admiral in command was a bungler and a coward, and the Spanish ships took forever to reach the English Channel. Meanwhile, disease ravaged the crews of both fleets. The invaders crept back to their home ports without firing a shot.

  Seemingly oblivious to this disaster, John Adams asked the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, when America could open peace negotiations with the British. Struggling to be polite, the comte informed him the timing was inappropriate. In America the British had completed their conquest of Georgia and installed a royal governor. They were about to invade South Carolina. In the West Indies their fleet and army were winning more victories. Vergennes may well have wondered whether Adams was secretly loyal to the British and was trying to make France and Spain look ridiculous. He was getting reports from his ambassador in America about the nasty things John’s friends, James Lovell and Sam Adams, were saying about France in Congress. In a scorching reply, Vergennes asked why Adams was trying to become “the laughing stock” of Europe.11

  The only positive notes John struck in these demoralizing months of flailing in a diplomatic vacuum were in his letters to Abigail. He had regained her love and was determined not to endanger it again. He closed his first letter to her from Paris with: “Yours, yours yours, ever ever ever yours.” No matter how discouraging his situation became, he avoided telling Abigail any bad news. He said nothing about his disastrous meeting with Vergennes.

  He wrote cheerily of how much the boys were enjoying Paris. Abigail had been dubious about letting him take Charles, who had a sweet dependent nature that made him something of a momma’s boy. “Your delicate Charles is as hardy as a flynt,” John assured her. “He sustains every thing better than any of us, even than the hardy sailor, his brother.” This ebullience did not last long. Charles was soon yearning for his mother’s comforting arms.12

  VII

  Having nothing better to do, John also wrote letters to Congress—as many as two or three a day. He reported on British and French politics, naval news from European waters, and rumors that Russia was sending troops to America to help the British. He wrote ninety-five of these epistles, without getting a single reply from Congress. It never occurred to him that he was making himself look silly. “More letters from Adams” became a wry joke among the bombarded legislators.

  At Versailles, John’s relationship with Foreign Minister Vergennes slid steadily downhill. Adams sent him long letters arguing that France should be doing more to help the Americans. Vergennes soon grew so annoyed that he informed Minister Plenipotentiary Adams that he no longer wanted to hear from him. Henceforth he would consider Ambassador Benjamin Franklin the sole spokesman for America in Europe.

  Vergennes handed John’s letters to Franklin and told him to send them to Congress. Franklin forwarded them with a covering letter that reported Vergennes’s “extreme displeasure” with Adams. The elder statesman spelled out the difference between his and Adams’s approaches to France: “He thinks…America has been too free in expressions of gratitude to France…she is more obliged to us than we to her.” Franklin thought this was a mistake. The French should be treated “with decency and delicacy.” Franklin closed by asking Congress to let him know which policy they wanted. The ambassador told Adams he had forwarded the letters and urged him to write a reply, defending himself. John ignored him.

  Adams decided to go to Amsterdam to see whether he could obtain a loan from the Dutch. Franklin strongly disagreed with this decision. He did not think Americans should be wandering around Europe acting like beggars. It was not the way to win respect as a nation. Adams said he was going, no matter what Franklin thought. In Amsterdam he enrolled his two sons in a school that they both hated. Neither boy spoke Dutch, and John Quincy was dumped into a lower grade with boys half his age.13

  Meanwhile, John got nowhere trying to persuade the Dutch to loan money to America. The Dutch were covert allies of France in the spreading war with England. Before the year 1780 ended, the Britis
h declared war on the Netherlands. Dutch leaders were not going to do anything without the approval of their far more powerful neighbor. The French ambassador to the Netherlands made it very clear that John Adams was persona non grata to Foreign Minister Vergennes.

  VIII

  In Braintree, Portia was enduring emotional torments of her own. Months passed without a letter from John or the boys. In June 1781 she learned from a sister of Arthur Lee, Alice Lee Shippen, that Franklin had attacked John in letters to Congress. As a partisan in her paranoid brother’s camp, Mrs. Shippen made Franklin’s remarks far more evil than they were in fact. James Lovell did not help matters by giving Portia “hints” of Congress discussing matters “affecting Mr. A’s public character.”

  In a frenzy of resentment, Abigail began writing letters to a half dozen people, including Lovell, comparing Franklin to General Benedict Arnold as a traitor to true Republican virtue, as personified by John Adams. To Lovell she confessed, “When he is wounded, I blead [sic].” Soon she was concocting a totally imaginary Franklin who hated John Adams because he was so honest and had “no ambition to make a fortune with the spoil of his country or to eat the bread of idleness and dissipation.” How could her husband’s “zealous exertions for the welfare of his country” end in “dishonor and disgrace”?14

  If Portia knew what was happening in the Netherlands, she would have been even more distraught. Her dearest friend had hurled himself into his effort to win a loan and diplomatic recognition from the Dutch with a frenzy of activity remarkably similar to his mother’s outbursts of frantic housecleaning. Meanwhile, Charles Adams had become seriously ill with strange fevers and had lapsed into permanent homesickness. His father decided his “sensibility” was “too exquisite” for Europe, and sent him home in August 1781.

  The trip would take the eleven-year-old boy five anxiety-filled months. The ship that his father chose for him, the frigate South Carolina, had an erratic captain, one Alexander Gillon, a Franklin-hater and friend of Ralph Izard. Gillon was supposed to transport important war matériel to America. Instead he left the cargo in Amsterdam and put into a Spanish port, where he dumped Charles and other passengers ashore and went off privateering to make some quick money. Fortunately, the Connecticut-born painter John Trumbull was one of the other passengers and looked after the boy. He and Charles finally got home aboard another American privateer in January 1782.15