Chapter Thirty-Five #2
one form of tyranny with another. Our factions became opposing political parties. The president’s party—the Federalists. And
the Jacobin-loving Democratic-Republicans founded by another Virginian—little James Madison, who was always in Jefferson’s
shadow.
All this deeply distressed my husband, and his relationship with Jefferson suffered for it. But not wishing to distress my
daughter, I merely said, “Secretary Jefferson still defends the French Revolution, and this has emboldened the citizenry of
Philadelphia to riot.”
I didn’t tell her that John reported Washington being hanged in effigy—Washington! Or that crowds wore pins and earrings of the guillotine. Or that her father was quite sure that the government of the United
States was saved from the rioters only because yellow fever emptied the city.
Arriving home after the outbreak that autumn, my husband announced, “Well, I escaped the pestilence. And the fighting between
Hamilton and Jefferson, too, which is a pestilence of its own.”
“How long can it go on between them?” I asked, for the battles of the two men in the cabinet had spilled out into the press
with enormous venom. “I fear they’re going to destroy each other.”
John sighed. “Whenever I speak to either of them, it is plain their quarrels have evolved into a mutual and personal dislike.
And here I am, still caught in the middle between them.”
“I doubt that,” I said, helping him out of his greatcoat. “You have an opinion about which of them is right, and which of
them is wrong.”
John didn’t want to admit it. “Hamilton is an ambitious upstart. How many times did we sit with him at some dinner party, listening to the man vapor about his administration
like some young girl over her brilliants and trinkets?”
I had, indeed, suffered through many a party where the sparkling-eyed Hamilton, a man of small stature but large presence, maneuvered every conversation to his own glory.
And it’d always pained me to see the way his lovely young wife, Eliza, sat by his side gazing up at him with a nearly religious awe.
I loved my good man, too. But I was long past blind adoration.
In Eliza Hamilton’s place, I would’ve cautioned my husband against arrogance and hoped she was doing the same.
“The problem is that I like Jefferson,” John confessed. “But these days, in almost every political matter, Hamilton is right, and Jefferson is wrong.”
I smirked, filling a basin of water for him to clean himself of dust from the road. “Likability should hardly be the test
in politics if we mean to have good governance.”
“Well, there is little I can do about it either way. Truly, I ought to resign this useless post.”
I thought so, too, but knew his vanity wouldn’t allow it. I believed all the men in Washington’s administration to be entirely
too stubborn and ambitious to give way. Which was why it surprised me when John reported, “Jefferson tells me he’ll resign.
He’ll retire to Monticello to spend his days in rural amusements and philosophical meditations. At least until the president
dies or resigns, when I suppose Jefferson fancies the people will plead with him to take the reins of the state and conduct
it forty years in piety and peace. Amen.”
“Sarcasm is an unattractive trait.”
“To the contrary, my dear, my sarcasm is one of the things you love best about me. For I say all the sarcastic things you
think, but your better nature will not permit you to say.”
I laughed, but my smile soon faded. “I’d love you even better if you’d carried our children back from New York to escape any
pestilence there.”
“Charles says he’s too busy and Nabby wouldn’t come so soon again after their recent visit. In any case, her husband is so
proud of his wealth that he’d not let her go without a coach and four, and such Monarchical Trumpery I must have nothing to
do with.”
I grinned. “Colonel Smith was once too poor. Now too rich?”
Grumbling, John admitted, “Truthfully, I wish my own sons had a bit of his cleverness in securing a fortune. I do believe Colonel Smith is helping to tutor Charles in that direction. But he must stop boasting of his wealth. Especially now that I have some idea that he’s dealing with the French, who hope to have him use his influence in collecting outstanding war debt. ”
Well, this was a tangled web best left alone.
At least our own financial footing was steady, and when I told him as much, John said, “Then I’ll be content if my boys are
plodders like their father. Can you imagine if I’d put all my energies into farming and practice of the law, instead of public
service? I’d be wealthier than John Hancock.”
I almost laughed, because he had little idea of how he made money. “Speaking of our boys, how does Charles do?”
Taking up the washrag, he said, “Charles is fat, handsome, happy, and doing well in business.”
“But?” I asked, for I sensed hesitation.
“It’d be better if Charles spent less time with girls,” my husband said, vigorously scrubbing his face. “For that matter,
better if all my boys spent less time with girls. All form easy crushes and none are situated to start a family. So, time
spent with girls is nothing gained.” He caught my expression in the looking glass. “Pardon me! Disciple of Wollstonecraft!”
“Pupil,” I said, archly, for I had been reading Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and learning much from it. “You say there is nothing gained from spending time with ladies? I demand that you admit Eden
was tasteless till an Eve was there.”
“Probably so,” he said.
“When you’re sick of the treachery of your own sex, you seek comfort and consolation in the gentleness and tenderness of mine.”
“All right, my dear.”
I wasn’t finished. “Moreover, these nurturing qualities of my sex are beneficial to the human race.”
John snapped the cloth playfully. “You may rest your case, barrister. You’ve carried the argument. You’ve become a good lawyer.”
I straightened my cap with smug satisfaction. “I should think so. It is the family profession after all.”
I was wrong to say that law was the family profession. As it turned out, it was diplomacy that called with a siren’s song to the brace of Adamses. For in May of the following year, whilst his father was back in Pennsylvania, our eldest son rode so fast and hard to our
gate that his horse was left frothing and lathered.
Of all my boys, John Quincy seldom allowed himself an obvious enthusiasm, so I nearly wilted with fear when he burst into
the garden where I was tending my budding rosebushes. “What’s wrong?”
My son shook his head, as if he didn’t know where to begin, marching back and forth in the spring mud. “I’ve had word from
Papa and the secretary of state.”
He pulled from his coat a packet of official letters, his hand shaking. I saw the signature of Secretary of State Edmund Randolph—for
Thomas Jefferson had resigned the position at the start of the year, to which my husband had sniped, Good riddance of bad ware.
Now my son explained, “I’ve been appointed resident minister to the Netherlands.”
So thunderstruck was I that I nearly dropped my shears. “Appointed?”
“By President Washington,” my son panted, still winded from his long hard ride. “But I had no notion of this—not the slightest
inkling!”
He showed me the other letters, holding them so that my dirtied garden gloves would not mar the wax seals. And I divined upon
an impressive fact he neglected to mention. “Unanimously confirmed! My dear boy, what an honor. And you knew nothing?”
“How should I know anything? I didn’t seek the post. Apparently, Washington read some essay I’d written and decided I was
his man. Father swears he didn’t seek it for me, though he advises I should accept. And now I’m obligated to go.” For the
first time I realized that Johnny’s frenzy wasn’t entirely excitement. “I wish I could’ve been consulted. In fact, I wish
this appointment had not been made at all.”
“Why wouldn’t you wish to accept?” I asked, vaguely worried about a young girl I’d heard about who may have caught my son’s
fancy in Boston.
But my poor dutiful son met my eyes with fear. “Mother, I’m only twenty-six years old. Neither my years, experience, reputation, nor talents could possibly entitle me to an office of so much respectability.”
It was a trial not to smile at his unwarranted self-doubts. But I managed it, removing my gardening gloves, letting them fall
to the dirt, and taking my son’s hands in mine.
“John Quincy Adams.” I used his full name so he’d know how earnestly I meant what I’d say next. “We devoted you to the public
at a very young age accompanying your father to embassies abroad. There you spent nearly a decade studying diplomacy and the various languages of Europe. Just how many Americans do you think have your breadth of experience?”
He didn’t answer—for it may have shaken him a little. Instead, he lowered his head. “Then you want me to go, too?”
No. I didn’t want him to go. He had, in these past few years, been a godsend. From helping plant trees, hauling seaweed to fertilize the fields,
bringing supplies from Boston, to taking his father’s place at the hearth for late-night discussions—we’d both strived to
make up for all the years we had spent apart.
Alone amongst my sons, I couldn’t think of one instance in his whole life when Johnny had ever given me embarrassment or regret.
And I was loath to send him again across a war-torn sea, for Revolutionary France—having now killed both her king and queen—was at war not only with itself, but also with all Europe.
But I’d always hoped that my eldest boy was meant for great things. How else but destiny to explain that he’d now serve as
diplomat in the very same embassy his father had established in Holland years ago?
Despite my selfish longing for him to stay, I mustered the strength to tell him, “Painful as the separation will be, I will
derive a satisfaction from knowing you’ll be eminently useful to your country. So, yes. You should accept. You should go.”
My son removed his hat, ran a hand through his sweat-soaked dark hair, then turned his face to the sky, as if petitioning the heavens.
“I want Tommy to go with me. He cannot always be left behind, the only son of John Adams never to see Europe. I’ll need a secretary I can trust, and I can have none better than my own little brother. ”
No, I wanted to say. In truth, I wanted to shout it. It’d transport me back to those days of having to worry for the lives of
two sons on the sea. But I knew that Tommy—so often overlooked, so often an afterthought—would be made happier by this opportunity
than he had ever been in his life.
And so it was on a September morning bright and fair, that I straightened my spine and watched another ship leave bearing
away from me two of my children, part of my heart gone with them.