Chapter Twenty-Eight
LONDON
England
Mr. Jefferson stayed with us on his visit to London, which was very much to our liking. He’d come to help negotiate a treaty
with Portugal and to meet with the minister from Tripoli. If one could call him a minister. In truth, the turban-clad, bearded
fellow represented the Barbary pirates, who were demanding protection money from the United States.
My husband and Mr. Jefferson both believed we ought to pay this ransom, but I protested, “It’s extortion!”
“Indeed, Mrs. Adams,” Jefferson said, crossing his stockinged legs at the knee. “Of the basest sort.”
John chuckled ruefully. “My dear, we can either purchase a peace or have a war that will cost us three times as much—if we
had a navy fit for the purpose, which we do not. We mustn’t be afraid of two hundred thousand pounds to procure treaties with
the Barbary powers which will save us millions.”
Jefferson added, “Alas, it falls to Mr. Adams and me to divine where we’ll get the money.”
“Money for bribery or tribute,” I groused. “Oh, I like it not! And I can well imagine what will be printed about it in the
British press.”
With that, I handed a few of the day’s sheets over to both men. Mr. Jefferson perused them and made a sound of disgust. “I
tell you, John. You’re a rock to withstand these slanders. I wouldn’t trade places with you for all the world in this matter.”
Jefferson’s expression then turned wry as he bounced his foot in its buckled shoe. “Or that other, more personal matter.”
I smiled my own wry smile, knowing he was needling my husband about Colonel Smith’s recent request for our daughter’s hand
in marriage.
It’d been eight months since Nabby broke things off with Royall Tyler, during which time he proved himself every bit the scoundrel.
At first Tyler wouldn’t accept the end of the relationship, threatening to come to London and drag Nabby back with him. He
then refused to return Nabby’s miniature, questioning her honor and fidelity.
Nor would he pay his rents to my sister Mary, who had been his kind and indulgent landlady, but was also the aunt of the woman
who spurned him and therefore must pay the price.
I was embarrassed that I’d ever taken his part.
Thankfully, a better suitor was on the scene.
Before pursuing my daughter, Colonel Smith had taken a four-month tour of the Continent. But since his return, he’d wooed
ardently and won Nabby’s heart.
I cautioned patience, but Smith wished for a speedy union.
“From the frying pan into the fire,” John said, but saw no reason to object. He liked Colonel Smith—a war hero from a prominent
New York family with a rising future. He simply did not like the speed of it.
I had sought to ease his worries by saying, “A soldier is always more expeditious in his courtships than other men, and they
know better how to capture the citadel.”
But now my husband asked Jefferson, “Is he good enough for my daughter?”
“Not remotely,” Jefferson replied. “Miss Adams is a rare gem. As a father I concur with your own unspoken judgment that no man could ever
deserve her.”
John laughed. “Yet . . .”
“Yet, they are of age,” Jefferson said. “And I think Colonel Smith to be of worthy character.”
And that settles it, I thought. For there were few men whose judgments my husband trusted as much as Jefferson’s.
Truly, it was a blessing to have the Virginian’s diplomatic help and family advice.
He’d procured for me more shoes from France, and for him I’d purchased some table linens he’d needed from London.
He was charming with Nabby, who served ad hoc as her father’s secretary whilst Colonel Smith was away, and she was delighted Jefferson wrote her under cipher as if she were a regular member of the delegation.
For my part, I was happy to accompany Jefferson to the theater and on his tour of English gardens, during which he expressed
his frustration that though he’d sent for his youngest daughter, Polly, her relations in Virginia had been dragging their
feet in sending her.
“It’s painful to be away from them even for a worthy mission,” I said, confessing my own longing for my boys. “The servile
ceremonies of court certainly don’t compensate.”
“How do you otherwise enjoy the duties of Madam Ambassador?”
“Never the same two days in a row. I never know if I’ll need to rearrange the seating at a dinner to account for a gentlemen’s
feud or if I’ll receive as a diplomatic gift from the West Indies a hundred and fourteen pounds of turtle meat.”
Jefferson laughed. “And for amusements?”
“I observe the absurdities of Britain. I’ve noticed the people here think even more of their titles than in France. Oh, the
airs they put on.”
Jefferson nodded. “You must not repeat this, but I would not be averse to sinking the whole island.” When I laughed, he asked,
“By the way, what did you do with the turtle meat?”
“Ate it, of course. It was a fortunate thing we had a banquet coming up. The rest we gave to charity.” For just as in France,
I never set my foot out without encountering many starving persons in tattered clothing or riddled with disease. “I do not
see how the British consider themselves a superior nation when there are so many poor. There must be some essential defect
in the government and morals of a people who tolerate this.”
At home, our communities attempted to make small basic provisions for the unfortunate.
Even in Boston, we didn’t walk amongst the poor as if their woes were not our care.
But I dared not question Jefferson on how it stood in Virginia, lest we trod upon the subject of slavery—a subject upon which he professed to agree with us, but which he could not discuss without awkwardness.
Back at Grosvenor Square we discussed another matter on which we did not quite see eye to eye. John and I despaired that a brewing insurrection against tax collectors in Massachusetts fed into British
stereotypes of American anarchy. “We mustn’t let liberty become licentiousness,” I said.
But Jefferson was less troubled. “We’ve had thirteen states independent for eleven years with only a little protest. What
country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? The
tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is a natural manure.”
It was not a shocking statement to hear, given that we’d all so recently lived through scenes of violence. We now had the
luxury of thinking in abstractions. And having received from American friends copies of the proposed new Constitution, John
asked, “How do you like the plan for our new government?”
Jefferson grimaced. “I confess there are things in it which stagger me. Their proposal for a president seems a bad edition
of a Polish king—he may be reelected from four years to four years for life. Once in office, possessing the military force
of the union, he would not be easily dethroned, even if the people could be induced to withdraw their votes from him. It would
be better if the president were to serve one term and be banned forever from seeking a second.”
John nodded thoughtfully. “It is a fearsome responsibility that trusts men of honor to quit it.” We all knew what little stock
my husband put in trust when it came to mankind. “Yet we shall need a strong executive. And in any case, I like the checks and balances of this government.
It is not a pure democracy, but mixed, which will preserve it longer. Remember, there never was a democracy yet that did not
commit suicide.”
The two gentlemen continued their debate well into the night, long after exhaustion sent me to bed.
By morning, I found that they were now discussing Jefferson’s forthcoming unpublished book, from which he read a quote about the evils of slavery.
“‘I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever.’”
I thought it a remarkable statement from a man who had inherited many enslaved persons from his late wife’s estate. “Some
at Monticello are relations, in truth,” he now confided, punchy from the late night before. “My wife’s father took to him
a half-African woman named Elizabeth Hemings, and now her children serve mine.”
That his father-in-law had done this disgusted me. It also opened my eyes. For we had, when in France, met Jefferson’s cook—the
light-skinned James Hemings, who I now realized must be near kin. I’d seen for myself that Jefferson gave that man wide latitude;
certainly, James Hemings did not behave as if he believed himself to be enslaved. But the fact that Jefferson was master over
his wife’s relations was a shameful situation—one that probably pushed him to champion a failed move for abolition in Virginia,
about which he said, “Doing so nearly ended my political and financial life.”
How glad I was that my husband had never trafficked in persons! Gladder still that the constitution my husband had drafted
for Massachusetts had been interpreted to abolish slavery altogether. Of course, I sympathized with Jefferson in the matter
of inheriting a moral problem, for my own father’s freedwoman was tending to our house whilst we were away. Phoebe was serving
me, I assumed, in a similar family capacity as the Hemingses served Jefferson. But of course, Phoebe was free to go whenever
she wished . . .
Before Jefferson took his leave of us, he sat for a portrait, and my husband insisted on purchasing a copy to grace our home.
The visit with our Virginian friend had refreshed my husband as if he’d rested idle abed for a month. Truly, none of us wanted
him to go. But thankfully, Jefferson reassured us all it was not the final farewell of adieu, but only au revoir.
A few months after Jefferson’s visit, we gave our only daughter in marriage to Colonel Smith, a man who swore to make it his
purpose in life to bring about my daughter’s happiness. Yet the occasion was too momentous not to feel anxiety equal to what