Episode 4: Reunion
After a separation from her husband of more than four years, Abigail
Adams crossed the Atlantic Ocean with her daughter Nabby to join John on
his second diplomatic mission to Europe. Abigail writes to John on 23
July 1784 to inform him of their safe arrival in London two days
earlier. They are soon reunited with John and young John Quincy Adams
and travel together to France. They reside in Auteuil, near Paris,
until John is appointed the United States's first minister to Great
Britain.
Letter excerpt from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 23 July, 1784
At length Heaven be praised I am with our daughter safely landed upon the British Shore after a passage of 30 days from Boston to the Downs. We landed at Deal the 20 instant, rejoiced at any rate to set our feet again upon the land. What is past, and what we sufferd by sickness and fatigue, I will think no more of. It is all done away in the joyfull hope of soon holding to my Bosom the dearest best of Friends.
Other Adams documents related to the events of Episode 4
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For Abigail Adams's reflection on the long separation from her husband
and her anxieties about crossing the Atlantic:
"You invite me to you, you call me to follow you, the most earnest wish of my soul is to be with you ..." (from letter from AA to JA, 11 February 1784)