1. John Hodshon, of Hodshon & Zoon, was an Amsterdam merchant with whom JA sometimes did business and had occasional correspondence. See also note 2.

2. Joseph Stephens (sometimes Stevens), JA's servant since JA had first come to Europe, was making plans to marry and set up a shop in Amsterdam selling silks, linens, &c., especially to American sailors and other visitors from America. He expected to obtain capital from Hodshon to buy his goods, but a little later was trying to obtain credit and/or employment from other firms. By the end of June, according to Thaxter, Stephens and “his Family” were ill and in considerable distress. See Stephens to JA, 6 Feb., 23 May (Adams Papers); JA to Willink & van Staphorst and to Ingraham & Bromfield, 13 June (LbC's, Adams Papers); Thaxter to JA, 29 June (Adams Papers). In his recollections many years later, JA wrote that Stephens married “a very pretty English girl” and not too long afterward set sail for America, where the ship apparently never arrived (to the Editor of the Bostow Patriot, 14 Feb. 1812, published 29 April 1812). What happened to his wife and their shop does not appear.