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April 1973 | Volume 24, Issue 3
Adams Family Correspondence
Text Complexity Grade Level
9
The most important and impressive collection of family letters in this country is that of the Adams family. Extending from ij6i, when John Adams began courting Abigail Smith, almost to the end of the nineteenth century, it offers a view unparalleled in scope and depth of the ideas, actions, and feelings of an illustrious American family. Part of the huge undertaking called The Adams Papers , published under the editorship of Lyman H. Butterfield by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, the Adams Family Correspondence is expected to amount to some twenty-four large volumes. Volumes 3 and 4, covering the years ijj882, have just been issued—a most interesting period that found Abigail weathering the Revolution at home in Braintree, Massachusetts, and John abroad, in France and Holland, as an indefatigable advocate for the fledgling republic. They suffered the usual heartaches of a loving couple separated by oceans and wars—doubt, fear, jealousy, irritation—intensified by the fact that any letter between them, if it escaped capture by the British, was sure to take many weeks in transit. Here is one exchange, published with permission of the Harvard University Press, that gives a particularly poignant insight into the human quality of these famous personages. It begins with an apparent attempt by Abigail to stir her husband to more ardent correspondence through jealousy—for the French fleet under the Comte d’Estaing had been m Boston Harbor for several weeks. Her sophisticated pose soon collapses, however, and she gives herself to passionate reproaches. Neither of her gambits, as it turned out, produced quite the desired result in testy John. (Except for the last paragraph his letter was transcribed by his amanuensis, young John Quincy Adams.)
[ Braintree , 25 October 1778]
The Morning after I received your very short Letter I determined to have devoted the day in writing to my Friend but I had only just Breakfasted when I had a visit from Monsieur Rivers an officer on board the Langudock who speaks English well, the Captain of the Zara and 6 or 8 other officers from on Board an other ship. The first Gentlemen dined with me and spent the day so that I had no opportunity of writing that day. The Gentlemen officers have made me several visits and I have dined twice on board at very Elegant entertainments. Count dEstaing has been exceeding polite to me. Soon after he arrived here I received a Message from him requesting that I would meet him at Col. Quincy’s as it was inconvenient leaving his ship for any long time. I waited upon him and was very politely received. Upon parting he requested that the family would accompany me on board his Ship and dine with him the next thursday with any Friends we chose to bring and his Barge should come for us. We went according to the invitation and were sumptuously entertaind with every delicacy that this country