With the passing of summer, Adams grew extremely disheartened. His one unfailing source of pleasure, “the joy of my heart,” was John Quincy, who, he told Abigail proudly, was “esteemed” by all. A prominent figure in Franklin's circle, Marie Grand, wife of Ferdinand Grand, the French banker for American funds, was so impressed by the boy—indeed by both father and son—that she wrote Abigail to tell her so. In a conversation with Adams at a dinner, she recounted, he had remarked that in some cases it was the duty of a good citizen to sacrifice his all for the good of the country. She had found such a sentiment worthy of a Roman, yet rather hard to believe. Surely “nature,” love of one's wife and children, would “operate more powerfully” than love of one's country. In reply, Adams said his wife felt as he did. And young John Quincy, too, Madame Grand told Abigail, “inherits the spirit of his father, and bids fair to be a Roman like him.”
Adams had never had more to do in his life, he wrote, or so little to show for his efforts. Maintaining a position of impartiality between Franklin and Arthur Lee, playing mediator, had become a dreadful strain. In October, determined to improve the situation, Adams urged Lee to give up living at Chaillot and move in with them at the Hôtel de Valentinois.
“I am very sincere,” he wrote. “There is room enough in this house to accommodate us all.” He offered Lee his own quarters, saying he would move into the library.
This arrangement will save a large sum of money to the public, and... give us a thousand opportunities of conversing together, which now we have not... It would remove the reproach we now lie under, of which I confess myself very much ashamed, of not being able to agree together... I am, dear sir, with an earnest desire and a settled determination to cultivate a harmony, nay more a friendship with both my colleagues.
When Lee declined, strife within the commission grew worse. “The uncandor, the prejudices, the rage among several persons here, make me sick as death,” Adams wrote in his diary. His two compatriots were men of honor and integrity, he still believed, but the one grew increasingly cunning and dissipated, the other sour, secretive, and no less cunning. “Virtue is not always amiable,” Adams concluded.
Feeling his role was little better than that of a clerk, feeling forgotten by Congress, he labored on intensely, writing letters, struggling with accounts, trying to keep abreast of events through the London newspapers and magazines, where he now saw himself derided as pathetically out of place. “The English have got at me,” he reported to Abigail. “They make fine work of me—fanatic, bigot, perfect cypher, not one word of the language, awkward figure, uncouth dress, no address, no character, cunning hardheaded attorney. But the falsest of it all is that I am disgusted with the Parisians.” He hated playing second fiddle to Franklin, and by the year's end, to judge by a letter written to James Warren, Franklin's self-indulgent, self-serving ways had become nearly more than Adams could bear, for though he mentioned no name, it was obvious whom he meant.
The longer I live and the more I see of public men, the more I wish to be a private one. Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public. Modest merit! Is there such a thing remaining in public life? It is now become a maxim with some, who are even men of merit, that the world esteems a man in proportion as he esteems himself... I am often astonished at the boldness with which persons make their pretensions. A man must be his own trumpeter—he must write or dictate paragraphs of praise in the newspapers; he must dress, have a retinue and equipage; he must ostentatiously publish to the world his own writings with his name.... He must get his picture drawn, his statue made, and must hire all the artists in his turn to set about works to spread his name, make the mob stare and gape, and perpetuate his fame.
Yet the mood that poured from Adams's pen did not always match the spirit with which he went about his daily business; and the gloom or vitriol of one letter might be nowhere apparent in others written at the same time, even the same day. He wrote little or nothing, for example, of how he and Franklin worked together, yet live and work together they did in close proximity for months on end while accomplishing much.
Once, several years earlier, in one of the many passages in his diary in which he worked out his thoughts, Adams had written that concealment of one's dislike for another was not a form of dishonesty or deception, but an acceptable, even wise way of conducting the business of life.
There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation ... is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral... that it is a duty and a virtue.
But this, he was quick to add, was a rule with definite limitations, “for there are times when the cause of religion, of government, of liberty, the interest of the present age of posterity, render it a necessary duty to make known his sentiments and intentions boldly and publicly.”
Whatever Franklin's failings and flaws, Adams never discounted the value of his popularity and prestige. French esteem for the “good doctor” remained of immense importance to the American cause, as Adams knew. Arthur Lee, by contrast, was seldom anything but a handicap. His dislike of the French was obvious. “His countenance is disgusting,” Adams was to write. “His air is not pleasing ... his temper is harsh, sour... his judgment of men and things is often wrong.”
What most distressed Adams about Franklin was his approach with Vergennes. He “hates to offend and seldom gives any opinion 'til obliged,” Adams noted. It was what had troubled Adams about Franklin in Congress. “Although he has as determined a soul as any man, yet it is his constant policy never to say yes or no decidedly but when he cannot avoid it.” Franklin's concept of diplomacy was to ask for nothing that Vergennes would not give, be grateful for whatever help the French provided, and remain ever accommodating and patient. As Franklin's friend Condorcet would remark approvingly, Franklin as a diplomat “observed much and acted little.”
Adams, no less than Franklin, felt the French alliance must be “cultivated with perfect faith and tenderness.” But he was apprehensive of too much diffidence. He worried about the effect in the long run, as he explained to Roger Sherman in a letter he appears never to have sent. “There is [a] danger that the [American] people and their representatives [in Congress] may have too much timidity in their conduct towards this power, and that your ministers here may have too much diffidence of themselves and too much complaisance for the Court.” Specifically, he warned of excessive attention to what the French thought, what France wanted, and “too much [French] influence in our deliberations.”
In 1776, Adams had argued in Congress that any alliance with France must be commercial only. To James Warren, he had expressed his shame at the “whining” he heard that all was lost unless France stepped in. “Are we to be beholden to France for our liberties?” But now, with the end of the struggle no nearer in view, and with his newfound regard for the French, Adams saw things differently. France was “a rock upon which we may safely build,” he told Warren. Like George Washington, Adams saw that sea power could decide the outcome of the war. Specifically he saw French naval support as the crucial necessity and felt duty-bound not just to voice his opinion to Vergennes, but to press for a greater commitment of French naval power, even at the risk of annoying the proud foreign minister.
Earlier in the summer, a French naval expedition under Admiral Charles-Henri Theodat d'Estaing, combined with an American land assault against the British at Newport, Rhode Island, had failed—news that didn't reach Paris until late in the year. Thus, to Adams, it was clear that more French ships were needed and no time was to be lost.
Franklin agreed, but counseled moderation. In December, Adams drafted a letter to Vergennes, which Franklin toned down. It was their most important undertaking together.
Signed by all three commissioners and submitted in the first week of January 1779, the letter stated that nothing would bring the war to a “speedy conclusion” more effectively than “sending a
powerful fleet sufficient to secure naval superiority” in American waters. “Such a naval force, acting in concert with the armies of the United States, would in all probability take and destroy the whole British power in that part of the world.”
Vergennes, however, chose to ignore the letter. His thoughts for the time being—and as probably the commissioners did not know—were taken up with the prospect of a French invasion of England.
• • •
ON SEPTEMBER 14, 1778, at Philadelphia, Congress named Benjamin Franklin minister plenipotentiary to the Court of Louis XVI. The three-man American commission was dispensed with. It was midwinter, however, before word reached Paris; the official dispatches did not arrive until February 12, 1779.
The new arrangement was exactly what Adams had recommended and the news was to leave him feeling more miserable than ever. He had been ill for the first time since coming to France, suffering from a violent cold and trying to cure himself in characteristic fashion by walking ten miles a day. Though he had clearly indicated that Franklin should be the one chosen, there had always been the possibility that Congress might pick him. Arthur Lee was dispatched to Madrid. But Congress had neglected to provide any instruction for what he, Adams, was to do, neither recalling him nor assigning him to a new post, which was both mystifying and insulting. Adams was not even mentioned in the communique.
Such being the case, he made the decision on his own, informing Vergennes that as he had been “restored to the character of a private citizen,” he would depart. He submitted a request for passage on the next available ship bound for America, and to Congress addressed a long letter saying that since no notice appeared to have been taken of him, he could only assume that Congress “has no further service for me on this side of the water, and that all my duties are on the other.”
“I shall therefore soon present before you your own good man. Happy—happy indeed—shall I be,” he announced to Abigail, trying to see the bright side. To Richard Henry Lee, he claimed his new status as a private citizen “best becomes me, and is most agreeable to me.” In truth, he was hurt and angry, and justifiably. He had been badly served by a Congress that told him nothing and showed no gratitude for all he had done. He felt himself strangely adrift, less able than ever in his life to sense what lay in store for him. In a letter to James Warren, he vowed never again to allow himself to be made the sport of wise men or fools.
His moods swung from high to low, then lower still with the arrival of a packet of letters from Abigail filled with abject loneliness and accusing him of neglecting her. “All things look gloomy and melancholy around me,” she wrote. “You could not have suffered more upon your voyage than I have felt cut off from all communication with you.” Adams claimed to have written nearly fifty letters to her between April and September, which was almost certainly an exaggeration, but whatever the number, she had received only two. “Let me entreat you to write me more letters at a time, surely you cannot want subjects.” What he wrote, she said, was always too brief, cold, and impersonal. It was as if he had “changed hearts with some frozen Laplander.”
Trying to respond as calmly as possible, Adams wrote and burned three letters in succession. One was too sad, the next too angry, a third too cheerful to reflect the truth, as he explained in a fourth and final version. Was it possible that “some infernal has whispered in your ear insinuations?” Had she forgotten the “unalterable tenderness of my heart?” he asked.
For God'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 [to]. I have no security that every letter I write will not be broken open and copied and transmitted to Congress and the English newspapers. They would find no treason or deceit in them, it is true, but they would find weakness and indiscretion, which they would make as ill use of.
In another letter, written after receiving three from him, Abigail said she had no doubt of his affection. “But my soul is wounded at a separation from you, and my fortitude is all dissolved in frailty and weakness.” She could not understand his reluctance to express his love. “The affection I feel for my friend is of the tenderest kind, matured by years, sanctified by choice and approved by Heaven. Angels can witness its purity, what care I then for the ridicule of Britain should this testimony of it fall into their hands?”
Adams enlisted support from John Quincy, who told his mother that Papa could “write but very little because he had so many other things to think of, but he can not let slip one opportunity without writing a few lines and when you receive them you complain as bad or worse than if he had not wrote at all and it really hurts him to receive such letters.”
“If I were to tell you all the tenderness of my heart,” Adams confided, “I should do nothing but write to you. I beg you not to be uneasy.”
As the time to leave drew nearer, he grew increasingly woeful. What had he accomplished after all? Did anyone care?
“I am left kicking and sprawling in the mire.... It is hardly a state of disgrace that I am in but rather of total neglect and contempt.” What was to become of him? He had never been in such a situation. “My present feelings are new to me.”
Not since the most anguished diary entries of his youth had he declared himself so overburdened with woe. “If ever I had any wit, it is all evaporated. If ever I had any imagination, it is all quenched.... I believe I am grown more austere, severe, rigid, and miserable than I ever was.”
As ardently as he longed for home, he hated to leave Paris, hated to leave France, and expected he would never return. “The climate is more favorable to my constitution than ours,” he acknowledged to Abigail. He loved the food, the civility of everyday life. The French were “the happiest people in the world... and have the best disposition to make others so.
There is such a choice of elegant entertainments in the theatric way, of good company and excellent books that nothing would be wanting to me in this country but my family and peace to my country to make me one of the happiest of men.
The one tribute he received was a letter from Versailles, a letter Adams treasured. Vergennes, speaking for the King, offered praise for “the wise conduct that you have held to throughout the tenure of your commission,” as well as “the zeal with which you have constantly furthered the cause of your nation, while strengthening the alliance that ties it to his Majesty.”
What appears to have pleased Adams no less was the discovery during his parting call at Versailles that his French had so improved he could manage an extended conversation and speak as rapidly as he pleased.
• • •
THE TWO ADAMSES took their leave of Benjamin Franklin and others at Passy on March 8, 1779, and, with the servant Stephens, departed by post chaise for the coast of Brittany. At the bustling port of Nantes on the lower Loire, they settled into a hotel to wait for passage on the American frigate Alliance. Days passed, eventually weeks, during which father and son were together steadily. Biding their time, they walked about the town and along the river. Through long afternoons, Adams helped the boy in translating Cicero.
In late April, they moved on board the Alliance, only to learn later still, in a letter from Franklin, that orders had been changed and the ship was not to sail for America after all. However, a French frigate, La Sensible, was due to sail from Lorient, with a new French minister to the United States, Chevalier Anne-Cesar de La Luzerne. Franklin gave instructions that the Alliance carry Adams to Lorient, but on arrival Adams found that Minister La Luzerne had been delayed. And so the wait went on, father and son remaining on board the Alliance.
In the days that followed, Adams spent considerable time with the daring young Scottish-American naval officer, John Paul Jones, who was fitting out an old French merchantman that he had renamed the Bon Homme Richard. They had met earlier at Passy, corresponded o
ver naval matters, and Jones, quite unjustly, had decided that Adams, in his role as commissioner, was conspiring against him. Privately, Jones referred to Adams as a “wicked and conceited upstart,” and expressed the wish that “Mr. Roundface” were at home minding his own business.
Having no part to play, no say in anything, no useful work, and no choice but to wait, was more nearly than Adams could bear. He began brooding. Imagining himself the victim of more than mere chance, he saw Jones and “the old conjurer” Franklin at the bottom of his troubles. He was being kept waiting, being humiliated, intentionally. “I may be mistaken in these conjectures, they may be injurious to J. and F., and therefore I shall not talk about them, but I am determined to put down my thoughts and see which turns out,” Adams wrote in his diary.
Do I see that these people despise me, or do I see that they dread me? Can I bear contempt—to know that I am despised? It is my duty to bear everything that I cannot help.
From time spent with Jones, Adams decided he was the most ambitious and intriguing officer in the American navy.
Eccentricities and irregularities are to be expected from him. They are in his character, they are visible in his eyes. His voice is soft and small; his eye has keenness, and wildness and softness in it.
Adams never doubted that faces carried clues to character: the white-as-paper pallor of Condorcet bespoke dedication to hard study; the eyes of Voltaire with their “fine frenzy rolling” were the eyes of a poet; in the face of Louis XVI, Adams had seen “goodness and innocence” as clearly as he saw “keenness, and wildness and softness” in the eyes of young Jones.