Chapter Forty-Three
SCOTCH PLAINS
New Jersey
After all that blood spilled in their revolution, the French had merely traded a king for a different sort of tyrant. And
I feared the United States might meet the same fate if my husband was not re-elected to the presidency. Accordingly, I was
more willing to take on public functions. Even those slightly unusual for me . . .
Arriving at the military encampment, I was both apprehensive and eager to stand in the president’s stead in saying farewell
to the provisional army. Together with Nabby, I searched for Colonel Smith’s lodgings—a log house on a yard muddied from the
rain. Still, for Nabby, it was as if the sun burst forth when we found it.
She ran to her husband, so proud to see him in uniform. For so long now, he’d been lost to her, if not in body, then in soul.
But now Colonel Smith seemed himself again in the army, even with a lower rank than he’d earned.
My son-in-law was a born officer and justly gratified by what he’d accomplished with his men—some of whom stopped by to thank
him for forming them into soldiers. Some even wept to know they’d be parted from him.
All this added to Nabby’s happiness as she set about preparing a little camp dinner out of army rations. Pork stew with corn
cakes to be washed down with a whiskey flip she frothed with an iron from the fire.
As we dined at the little wooden table, my son-in-law said, “I’m sorry to know the army must be disbanded. Does it not seem wiser to maintain it in case negotiations with France bear no fruit?”
“Congress doesn’t wish to keep up the expense of an army,” I said, which was a fact I could admit without revealing my husband’s
true fears that the army would be misused. “How do the soldiers take it?”
“They like it not but submit with good grace.”
“And you, sir?” I asked, trying to forget the way he’d left my daughter alone for so long. “What will you do now without your
soldier’s pay?”
In answer, the colonel stared at the table forlornly. “I haven’t the savings to go back into any kind of business that might
return me to wealth. I’ll have to turn yeomen farmer on my lands in western New York.”
It was a sensible plan, though I dreaded it for Nabby. She’d live a hardscrabble life as a farmer’s wife on the frontier.
A life more isolated than mine had ever been. Nevertheless, it filled me with pride to see my daughter put on a face of good
cheer. “It’ll be another adventure for our family! I’m only sorry we’ll be far from you, Mama.”
We’ll never see her, I thought, miserably. Why must my family always be so scattered? But I, too, put on a happy face, saying that of course
they were always welcome at Peacefield whenever they wished.
Blowing delicately on her stew, Nabby said, “I wish Papa had come to inspect the troops himself, but perhaps it’s for the
better. Because as of late, I’m not sure it’s safe for the president and General Hamilton to be in the same spot.”
I raised a brow. “Are we certain it’s entirely safe for General Hamilton to be in the same spot with me?”
They both laughed.
I was well acquainted with Hamilton and his bravado, of course.
I’d seen him work as a lawyer mentoring my son Charles.
I’d watched him command the machinery of government as secretary of the treasury.
I’d even seen him try to move public opinion as a prominent citizen of New York.
But it was another thing altogether to see the pomp and circumstance the next morning when he marched with an attendant drumbeat onto the muddy field in his exquisitely tailored uniform, gold buttons glinting.
What a little cock-sparrow general he made.
Still, from my place in the reviewing stand, I took genuine pleasure in the pageantry of horse and soldier as they came into
formation. I liked watching this smartly uniformed and well-trained soldiery execute their maneuvers with bayonets flashing.
I was quite proud of them and asked permission to address the troops. When Hamilton granted it with a nod, I told those assembled,
“The president regrets he couldn’t be here to see your accomplishments. You’ve performed wonderfully today, as I know you
would whenever called upon to defend your nation. I admire you all, and you’ve done great honor to your officers and to yourselves.”
How warmed I was by their cheers.
“God bless the President’s Lady, a patriot brave and true!”
“Three cheers for the First Lady!”
“Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”
With great ceremony, General Hamilton dismissed the troops. And when the last had filed away, he asked, “Will you honor me
by sharing breakfast, Mrs. Adams?”
“Gladly, sir. I can imagine nothing more agreeable.”
A lie, of course. I knew Hamilton did not want to breakfast with me. And I wanted even less to breakfast with him. Nevertheless,
form must be observed, and a tent had already been erected for us under a nearby tree.
We sat before a spread of tea, coffee, cakes, biscuits, apple butter, and boiled eggs. And I was the first to speak. “I must
ask after your dear wife. How is Mrs. Hamilton?”
“She’s very well. The best of wives and best of women.”
She would have to be, I thought. To put up with all you’ve put her through . . .
Then Hamilton leaned toward me. “My wife recently served some excellent confections to my friend, the former secretary of
war. I may tell you, in confidence of course, that James McHenry thinks himself much abused by your husband. And he also believes
the disbanding of this army to be sheer madness.”
Surprised that Hamilton was willing to raise these subjects with me, I stiffened. “If that’s what he thinks, then it’s not a surprise that he offered his resignation.”
“President Adams told him to resign,” Hamilton said. “Didn’t you know?”
Of course I knew. I was the one to recommend that McHenry be dismissed because the rift between my husband and his cabinet
was ever widening. He couldn’t trust them. And I’d said so in no uncertain terms. It’d all come to a head in a furious meeting
in which John shouted at them. I’d have preferred it happened quietly and with dignity, but I couldn’t blame the president
for venting his spleen after he’d tolerated disrespect for so long.
Now, I stabbed my knife into the apple butter with more force than necessary and said, “It’s the president’s prerogative to
have men of his choice in his cabinet.”
“Perhaps so,” Hamilton replied. “But it isn’t his prerogative to slander me in the process. I’m told that in his altercation
with Mr. McHenry, the president spoke several slurs against me, calling me a bastard and a foreigner.”
No doubt John called him worse than that, yet I feigned a lady’s delicacy. “Is this subject quite fit for our breakfast, sir?”
Hamilton cracked his egg, ignoring my protest. “I should be sorry to see it become an affair of honor. I assume the pressures
of the presidency sometimes elicit unwise words.”
I blinked. Was he issuing a threat to duel the president of the United States? Maybe he was mad . . .
Pointedly, I said, “General Hamilton, I should think you would happily let the matter pass. After all, we all sometimes say—or
even do—things we might later regret.”
Had he not been foolish enough to print a pamphlet confessing his torrid affair? Surely he regretted that!
Yet he didn’t flinch against my veiled barb but only smiled thinly. “I know you wield great influence with the president.
I hope you’ll use it to prevent him from standing for a second term.”
I’d been about to bite into my biscuit, but now I put it down again. “Why would I?”
“Because if we make peace with France, madam, we will have guillotines on these shores.”
“I think it much more likely if we make war with them.”
Hamilton’s grip tightened around his cup. “Do you know that we had an opportunity to strengthen ourselves against the French
or any other enemy by liberating the Spanish colonies? We had a chance to expand this nation, which President Adams has thrown away by disbanding my army.”
It wasn’t his army, and the fact he was willing to refer to it as such confirmed my husband’s instincts. “Do you mean we had the opportunity
to liberate the Spanish colonies the way Bonaparte is trying to liberate Egypt by way of invasion and conquest?”
Hamilton didn’t dignify me with an answer. “Your husband prefers to live as Farmer John in Peacefield, does he not? I’m sure
you prefer him there, as well. So have him retire and let someone else better able prevail in the election.”
“Someone better able?” I asked, probingly. Surely he didn’t think that he could be elected. Even Hamilton must know an infamous
adulterer couldn’t be chosen to lead this nation . . .
“Yes, someone,” Hamilton replied. “Someone more suited to the presidency. Someone more willing to block the political rise
of that raving Jacobin, Thomas Jefferson.”
My spine straightened, and it was not for Jefferson’s sake. “The president is more able and suited to his role than any other
man I know. He has no intention of removing himself for re-election. And I won’t suggest it to him.”
“Then you ought to warn him, Mrs. Adams. Because I do not intend to sit idly by. I will use my influence to encourage another candidate.”
“That would split the vote,” I said, now furious. “It would risk throwing the election to the man you’ve just called a raving
Jacobin. No, I don’t think you’ll take that risk. Not if you believe what you say.”
“Then you do not know me very well, madam.”
“Nor do you know me very well, sir, if you think this conversation will persuade me to do anything other than tell my husband that you’re looking to install a puppet in the presidency, so he must stand for re-election and he must win.”
We finished our breakfast in silence.
Then I rose and returned to my son-in-law’s cabin, where I promised Nabby that I’d try to convince her father to find some
appointment for Colonel Smith.
I didn’t care if the Senate would call it nepotism.
Our son-in-law had been loyal, dutiful, and humble in the face of Hamilton’s humiliations. Far from being advantaged as the
president’s son-in-law, he’d been held back because of it. And no more would I allow us to buckle under the insincere and
disingenuous criticisms of ambitious madmen.