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The Adams Papers

RICHARD ALAN RYERSON, EDITOR IN CHIEF
SERIES III
GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE AND OTHER PAPERS OF THE ADAMS STATESMEN
Papers of John Adams
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Papers of John Adams

GREGG L. LINT, ROBERT J. TAYLOR, RICHARD ALAN RYERSON, CELESTE WALKER, JOANNA M. REVELAS
EDITORS
Volume 7 • September 1778 – February 1779
THE BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, AND LONDON, ENGLAND
1989
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Copyright © 1989 by the Massachusetts Historical Society • All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Funds for editing The Adams Papers were originally furnished by Time, Inc., on behalf of Life, to the Massachusetts Historical Society, under whose supervision the editorial work is being done. Further funds were provided by a grant from the Ford Foundation to the National Archives Trust Fund Board in support of this and four other major documentary publications. In common with these and many other enterprises like them, The Adams Papers has continued to benefit from the guidance and cooperation of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, chaired by the Archivist of the United States, which from 1975 to the present provided this enterprise with major financial support. Important additional funds were supplied by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust through the Founding Fathers Papers, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data (Revised for vol. 7–8)
Adams, John, 1735–1826.
Papers of John Adams.
(The Adams papers: Series III, General correspondence and other papers of the Adams statesmen)
Vols. 1–6 edited by R. J. Taylor, G. L. Lint, and C. Walker.
Vols. edited by G. L. Lint . . . [et al.]
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. United States — Politics and government — Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775 — Sources. 2. Massachusetts — Politics and government — Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775 — Sources. 3. United States — Politics and government — Revolution, 1775–1783 — Sources. 4. United States — Politics and government — 1783–1809 — Sources. 5. Presidents — United States — Correspondence. 6. Adams, John, 1735–1826. I. Taylor, Robert Joseph, 1917– II. Lint, Gregg L. III. Title. IV. Series: Adams papers: Series III, General correspondence and other papers of the Adams statesmen.
E302.A26 1977 973.4'4'08 77-4707
ISBN 0-674-65441-2 (v. 1–2)
ISBN 0-674-65442-0 (v. 3–4)
ISBN 0-674-65443-9 (v. 5–6)
ISBN 0-674-65444-7 (v. 7–8)
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This edition of The Adams Papers is sponsored by the massachusetts historical society to which the adams manuscript trust by a deed of gift dated 4 April 1956 gave ultimate custody of the personal and public papers written, accumulated, and preserved over a span of three centuries by the Adams family of Massachusetts
illustration
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The Adams Papers

ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD

  • Thomas Boylston Adams
  • James Barr Ames
  • Theodore Chase
  • F. Douglas Cochrane
  • Marc Friedlaender
  • Edward C. Johnson 3d
  • Paul C. Reardon
  • Stephen T. Riley
  • Arthur J. Rosenthal

EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

  • Bernard Bailyn
  • David Herbert Donald
  • Ernest Samuels
  • Vernon Dale Tate
  • Gordon S. Wood
The acorn and oakleaf device on the preceding page is redrawn from a seal cut for John Quincy Adams after 1830. The motto is from Caecilius Statius as quoted by Cicero in the First Tusculan Disputation: Serit arbores quae alteri seculo prosint (“He plants trees for the benefit of later generations”).
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Contents

  • Descriptive List of Illustrations ix
  • Introduction xiii
    • 1. Perseverance in the “most glorious Cause” xiii
    • 2. John Adams and his Letterbooks xxv
    • 3. Notes on Editorial Method xxvii
  • Acknowledgments xxix
  • Guide to Editorial Apparatus xxx
    • 1. Textual Devices xxx
    • 2. Adams Family Code Names xxx
    • 3. Descriptive Symbols xxxi
    • 4. Location Symbols xxxii
    • 5. Other Abbreviations and Conventional Terms xxxiii
    • 6. Short Titles of Works Frequently cited xxxiv
  • Papers of John Adams, September 1778 – February 1779 1
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Descriptive List of Illustrations

 

Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Izard, by John Singleton Copley, 1775 68

This large, double portrait of Ralph Izard (1742–1804) and Alice De Lancey Izard (d. 1832) was painted in Rome in early 1775. The Izards, then on a tour of the continent, had met John Singleton Copley at Naples and with him had toured nearby Greek and Roman ruins. The portrait recalls the visit and reflects Copley's interest in artifacts at a time when he was considering doing a painting on a classical subject.
Ralph Izard and Alice De Lancey were married in 1767. He was a native of South Carolina and heir to extensive plantations there. She was the daughter of Peter De Lancey and the niece of James De Lancey, former lieutenant governor and chief justice of New York. John Adams described her in his Autobiography as “a Lady of great beauty and fine Accomplishments as well [as] perfect purity of conduct and Character through Life” (JA, Diary and Autobiography , 4:70).
In 1778 Ralph Izard was a diplomat without a mission. The Izards had taken up residence in London in 1771, but with the outbreak of the war for independence they traveled to Paris with the intention of returning to America. Those plans were postponed when the congress appointed Izard commissioner to Tuscany in May 1777. Tuscany's refusal to receive a representative of the United States, however, caused Izard to remain at Paris, where he soon joined Arthur and William Lee in their disputes with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane. Recalled in 1779, Izard returned to America in 1780 and later served as a United States senator ( DAB ; Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1966, 2:251–252).
Ralph Izard played a brief but important role in John Adams' diplomatic career through a series of exchanges with Adams over the Franco-American treaties signed in February 1778. Izard questioned the suitability of several articles in the treaties and, in several letters written in September and October 1778, placed his objections before Adams. In his written replies Adams was noncommittal, but in conversations preceding the exchange of those letters he was apparently less tactful. As a result, Izard charged Adams with threatening him with the congress' displeasure over his opposition to Articles 11 and 12 of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, an accusation that the congress considered in the spring of 1779, during its inquiry into the conduct of American diplomats in Europe. Outraged that Izard's un• {p. R10} supported statement would be considered by the congress, Adams contemplated a public defense, but was dissuaded by James Lovell and Elbridge Gerry from an action that probably would have destroyed his public career (to Izard, 20, 25 September, 2 October 1778; from Ralph Izard, 24, 28 September, 8 October 1778; from Lovell, 13 June and 14 September 1779; from Elbridge Gerry, 29 September 1779, all below).
Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund.
 

The Committee for Foreign Affairs to John Adams, 28 October 1778 170

Signed by Richard Henry Lee and James Lovell on behalf of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, this letter communicated to John Adams the text of a congressional resolution of 22 October 1778 and news of Benjamin Franklin's appointment as minister plenipotentiary to France. The resolution stated “that harmony and good understanding should be cultivated” between the congress' representatives in Europe “and that such confidence and cordiality take place among them as is necessary for the honour and interest of the United States” ( JCC , 12:1053–1054). Benjamin Franklin's appointment made the resolution meaningless insofar as John Adams was concerned, but the letter, which Adams received on 12 February 1779, was important because it constituted his only notification from an official source that his commission had been superseded. Congress' failure to give Adams any new assignment, to thank him for his services, or even explicitly to permit him to return to America prompted him to declare, in a letter of 28 February 1779 to his wife: “the Scaffold is cutt away, and I am left kicking and sprawling in the Mire” ( Adams Family Correspondence , 3:181).
From the original in the Adams Papers.
 

Benjamin Franklin, by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, 1778 283

This is the “Fur Collar” portrait of Benjamin Franklin that was commissioned by his friend and landlord, Leray de Chaumont. It appears in its original frame, surmounted by a wreath of oak and bay leaves, below which is a rattlesnake lying on a branch of laurel to the left and an olive branch to the right. At the bottom is a liberty cap, a lion skin, the club of Hercules, and a scroll on which is inscribed the single word VIR, which in Latin means a “man of character.” It is the best executed and most famous French painting of Benjamin Franklin, portraying him as he appeared during John Adams' first mission to France, when the two men lived together at Passy (Charles Coleman Sellers, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture, New Haven, 1962, p. 247–249). The letters and Adams' Diary entries for the period from his arrival in France in April 1778 to his departure in June 1779 indicate that the two men lived harmoniously, collaborating closely on the Commissioners' business. Although sometimes critical of Franklin's conduct of business, Adams recorded anecdotes and occasionally made {p. R11} observations about Franklin at his own expense. Writing to Mercy Otis Warren on 18 December 1778, Adams observed that “the Ladies of this Country Madam have an unaccountable passion for old Age, whereas our Country women you know Madam have rather a Complaisance for youth if I remember right. This is rather unlucky for me for I have nothing to do but wish that I was seventy years old [Franklin was seventy-two in 1778] and when I get back I shall be obliged to wish myself back again to 25.” The view of Franklin presented in these letters and Diary entries is in sharp contrast to the much darker, and far better known portrayal in John Adams' Autobiography, which was strongly shaped by events during Adams' second diplomatic mission, particularly those surrounding the peace negotiations in 1782 and 1783.
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931. The Friedsam Collection.
 

The Fate of Palliser and Sandwich, 1779 318

One result of the indecisive battle off Ushant on 27 July 1778 between the British fleet under Adm. Augustus Keppel and the French fleet under the Comte D'Orvilliers was the court-martial of Keppel. The trial, which began on 7 January and ended on 11 February 1779 with Keppel's complete vindication, was politically charged because many believed that it was an effort by Lord North, through his First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich, to place the blame for the failure to achieve a decisive victory on an admiral who was also a member of the parliamentary opposition (to Francis Dana, 25 December 1778, note 4, below).
This cartoon celebrates Keppel's acquittal and reflects the popular mood. Vice Adm. Hugh Palliser, Keppel's second in command, who had brought the charges, and Sandwich (“Jemmy Twitcher”) hang from a gallows under the Latin phrase meaning “all's well that ends well.” Labels attached to Palliser refer to his ship, the Formidable, and his charges (“5 Lies”) against Keppel; the “LogBook” hanging from his feet denotes the fact that the Formidable's logbook was found to have been altered. The wine glass attached to Sandwich's vest and the cross hanging from his waist refer to his dissolute life and, more particularly, to his membership in the notorious brotherhood of Medmenham Abbey, a club of aristocrats who met to engage in blasphemous and debauched revels. The “Essay on Woman” had been used by Sandwich in prosecuting his former friend John Wilkes before the House of Lords in 1763. The box or book labeled “£400,000 Sunk” may refer to Sandwich's administration of the admiralty. Below Sandwich, grieving his fate, is a courtesan or “Kitty” ( OED ).
Hailing the fate of Palliser and Sandwich, and representing the people of Britain and the men of the fleet, are Neptune and a group of sailors in a ship's-boat. Above the sailors the flag carries a popular slogan and the Latin words meaning “although you plunge it in the deep, it comes forth more splendid still.” Above it all are Lord North, shown as the orchestrator of the affair, and the devil who {p. R12} declares that “the Gibbet has got their Bodies my Boy their Hearts & Souls are mine.” The book labeled “the Art of Financing” refers to North's problems in raising money to carry on the war. The passage at the bottom of the cartoon is from Samuel Butler's Hudibras, part 3, canto 2, lines 995-998. There the lines refer to the regicides of Charles I (British Museum, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires, comp. Mary Dorothy George, [London], 1935, 5:No. 5537; DNB ).
Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum, London.
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Introduction

Docno: PJA07d001

Perseverance in the “Most Glorious Cause”

In a letter of 28 February 1780 to his friend Samuel Cooper, John Adams declared: “if our Enemies Can be Obstinate and desperate in a wicked and disgracful Cause, surely We can be determined and persevering in the most just, the most honourable, and most glorious Cause that ever was undertaken by Men.” Volumes 7 and 8 cover the eighteen months between 1 September 1778 and 29 February 1780, and provide ample evidence of Adams' steadfastness in his nation's cause as well as an unparalleled account of the conduct of American diplomacy in the first years of the Franco-American alliance.1 The documents in these volumes throw new light on John Adams' activities as a Commissioner, his relationship with Benjamin Franklin, the development of his attitude toward France and the Franco-American alliance, his relations with Vergennes, and his mission to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain. A few key documents highlight another aspect of Adams' career: his political thought as embodied in Massachusetts' Constitution of 1780.
It is fortunate that John Adams kept the archives of the joint commission, which he shared with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, in good order. Adams' drafts of the Commissioners' correspondence in his own Letterbooks, combined with the file of incoming correspondence, have enabled the editors to provide an account of the Commissioners' business from September 1778 to February 1779 that is virtually complete.2 This is true of the Commissioners' exchanges not only with the French government, but also those with individuals ranging from American merchants in French ports to escaped prisoners, and on subjects as diverse as French commercial restrictions and a proposed expedition against the British whale fishery off Brazil.
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The volume of correspondence with private individuals was large and its content important for what it indicates of the demands placed upon the Commissioners and their efforts to meet those demands.3 Not everyone was satisfied with their efforts, particularly in regard to the expenditure of funds for prisoners. Adams, however, spiritedly defended the Commissioners in general and their expenditures in particular, declaring that their efforts were all that could be expected in view of the fact that the public funds available to them as well as their private purses would soon be exhausted if all demands were met.4 Indeed, the amount of time spent on such matters, as well as the difficulty of dealing with problems arising at French ports far from Paris, led John Adams and later Benjamin Franklin to urge the congress to appoint consuls as provided for in the Franco-American treaty of Amity and Commerce.5
The Commissioners' correspondence with the French government in the persons of Sartine, the minister of marine, and Vergennes, the foreign minister, was substantial and has much to say about developing Franco-American commercial and political relations in the first year of the alliance. Many of the issues brought to the Commissioners' attention by Americans in France concerned routine commercial or maritime matters and were successfully taken up with Sartine, who had extensive powers in French ports. The Commissioners' requests for convoys to escort American merchant ships to their destinations and their proposed expedition against the British whale fishery, however, were denied because of the lack of French naval vessels available for such tasks.
Equally disappointing were the Commissioners' representations to Vergennes. They failed either to clarify the status of the the goods sent to America through Beaumarchais or to obtain French aid in negotiations with the Barbary pirates. But the Commissioners' most important undertaking was their memorial to Vergennes in January 1779 calling for the dispatch of additional French ships to American waters.6 Drafted by John Adams, the appeal represented his view that {p. R15} only through decisive French naval superiority in the American theater could the war be brought to an end in a reasonable time. Benjamin Franklin toned down the original draft, but even in its final form the document implied that France was not doing enough and reflected Adams' growing belief that the United States should be more assertive of its own interests in representations to the French government.7 Vergennes did not respond to the memorial, but John Adams continued to urge such a strategy and ultimately his persistence in pressing his position on Vergennes in the spring of 1780 became a factor in producing a permanent hostility between the two men, which in turn motivated Adams' decision to go to the Netherlands in July of that year.
The Commissioners' often frustrating relations with the French government and Adams' developing attitude toward the proper conduct of American diplomacy in France must be seen against the background of a fundamental change that had occurred in Franco-American relations. With the arrival of Conrad Alexandre Gérard at Philadelphia in the summer of 1778, Vergennes determined that he would no longer settle major issues through exchanges between himself and the Commissioners, but instead would deal directly with the congress through his resident minister. He was persuaded to this resolve by the limitations of the Commissioners' instructions, and by his reluctance to deal with Arthur Lee. Most importantly, however, Vergennes' decision reflected his belief that direct representations to the congress would increase French influence over what he saw as the junior partner in the alliance and would, in particular, bring its peace objectives into conformity with those of France. John Adams received little information regarding the congress' handling of foreign relations while he was in France, thus he probably never fully understood the reasons for the “too much Reserve” shown by the French government “towards the Commissioners.”8 But the manner in which France chose to conduct relations with the United States in 1778 would have an enormous impact on Adams' diplomatic efforts in the 1780s.
In view of John Adams' later mission to the Netherlands and his negotiation of the Dutch-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1782, the Commissioners' letters from C. W. F. Dumas, reporting on events in the Netherlands, are particularly important. Initially Dumas' letters dealt with the plan, begun in April 1778, to seek an endorse• {p. R16} ment by the States General of Holland in favor of a Dutch-American treaty modeled on the just completed Franco-American commercial treaty that could then be used to influence the full States General of the Netherlands. When the abortive Lee-Neufville treaty of September 1778 compromised that effort, forcing the Commissioners to reprimand William Lee for acting without instructions and to repudiate his effort,9 the focus of Dumas' letters shifted to Dutch efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, to remain neutral in the face of competing demands by Britain and France.
One of the most important issues in these volumes is the changing relationship between John Adams and his two colleagues, Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee. The documents printed here suggest a need to alter certain commonly held assumptions about that relationship. For the greater part of his first mission, Adams sought to remain scrupulously neutral in the disputes dividing the two men and, if possible, to mediate their differences. His assumption of the day-to-day administration of the Commissioners' business required him to act as a liaison, and, in October 1778, Adams invited Lee to move into the house at Passy that he shared with Franklin, in order to bring the Commissioners together and facilitate their conduct of business. Lee's refusal had a significant impact on the relations between the Commissioners.10 But John Adams' estrangement from Arthur Lee, the diplomat, is most apparent in letters written in early 1779, particularly those concerning the approval of Jonathan Williams' accounts and the choice of an agent to be sent to England for the prisoner exchange.11 By that time it is clear that Adams, like Franklin before him, had concluded that Arthur Lee was a serious obstacle to the proper conduct of the Commission's business.
The view of the relationship between Adams and Franklin that emerges from these letters may be even more surprising. Their joint tenancy at Passy, where Adams managed the household accounts, helped to promote amicable relations, and the Commissioners' documents themselves provide ample testimony of close collaboration and mutual respect between the two men. That they worked well together {p. R17} and came to a general agreement about the proper conduct of the Commissioners' business is evident from the numerous emendations made by Franklin on drafts in Adams' Letterbook, even in fairly routine letters. It is especially apparent in the substantial and important changes made by Franklin in Adams' draft of the memorial to Vergennes of January 1779 requesting additional French ships for service in American waters. Moreover, in numerous cases Franklin and Adams acted on important matters without consulting Arthur Lee, most notably in planning William Temple Franklin's secret mission to Dieppe in November 1778.12 In addition, between March and June 1779, Adams served as Franklin's agent at Brest, Nantes, and Lorient for the resolution of problems involving the crew of the frigate Alliance and the exchange of prisoners with Britain.
From September 1778 until he left for America in June 1779, the letters that Adams received from America were less informative and fewer in number than he wished. Cut off by three thousand miles of ocean, he had an insatiable thirst for intelligence and believed that the lack of it was impeding his and the Commissioners' efforts to serve the interests of the United States effectively. The letters that he did receive reported on the disappointments attending the arrival of Estaing's fleet in America, the general progress of the war, the state of the army and navy, the fate of the 1778 Massachusetts constitution, and, to a limited degree, the domestic ramifications of the dispute between Silas Deane and Arthur Lee. James Warren's account of the French fleet at Boston and of Massachusetts politics, especially the rivalry between the Hancock and Adams factions, was of particular interest.13 But even in letters from Samuel Adams, James Lovell, and Richard Henry Lee, John Adams received little specific information regarding that which he most wanted to know: what the congress was doing about foreign affairs.
The character of Adams' letters from France in 1778 and 1779 sustains his reputation as a keen observer and analyst of events, as well as a candid commentator on those around him. His letters to the president of the congress indicate that he had few illusions about the British ministry's determination to carry on the war or the opposition's ability or willingness to frustrate those designs. To others in America, Adams was even more emphatic about the unlikelihood of an immediate peace and the need to continue the vigorous prosecution of the {p. R18} war; he also commented on French policy, the need for close cooperation with French forces in America, and the proper course for American fiscal and monetary policy.
Some of John Adams' most interesting letters, written between November 1778 and February 1779, resulted from his concern over Benjamin Franklin's appointment as minister, the failure of the congress either to recall him or to provide him with new instructions, and Silas Deane's address “To the Free and Virtuous Citizens of America.”14 Adams did not contest the naming of a single minister or the selection of Franklin for the post, but he did believe that the congress should be fully aware of Franklin's weaknesses and the problems that personality conflicts and unwise appointments had caused for the conduct of diplomacy. Both in his letters and in his Diary, Adams made it clear that he believed that Arthur Lee, as well as William Lee and Ralph Izard, were by temperament and attitude ill-suited for any diplomatic position.15 Commenting on Arthur Lee, he noted that he was honest and faithful to the American cause, “but there is an Acrimony in his Temper ... an Obstinacy, and a Want of Candor at times, and an Affectation of Secrecy” that made him a burden to his friends and an obstacle to the smooth operation of the Franco-American alliance. Benjamin Franklin, because of his age, lifestyle, and large personal correspondence, could not devote his full attention to diplomatic functions and was ill-suited to deal effectively with financial and commercial matters, but Adams admitted that “his Character, has excited such an Enthusiasm, that it would do us great Harm to recall him.”16
After learning, on 12 February 1779, that his commission had been superseded by Franklin's appointment as minister plenipotentiary to France, leaving him to wait for suitable passage to America, Adams' concern over his own position and the congress' handling of its affairs in Europe found increasingly candid expression in his letters. On 13 February 1779 he wrote that his new status as “a private Citizen, best becomes me, and is most agreeable to me.”17 Two weeks later, however, he declared that “I will never be again with my own Consent the sport of wise Men nor Fools.”18 And on 8 June, a little over a week before he sailed from France and perhaps contemplating inquiries into {p. R19} his own conduct when he returned to America, he wrote, in a letter that he decided not to send: “I am not dead ... nor have I lost my own Feeling or my Love to my Country. And if I can preserve my Head from Balls and Captivity that Voice <And that Pen> which has been heard heretofore very often and sometimes with Indulgence, shall be heard again.”19
This rapid escalation in John Adams' criticism of the congress' management of foreign affairs resulted in part from Silas Deane's pamphlet attack on Arthur Lee, which Adams described to Franklin as “one of the most wicked and abominable Productions that ever sprung from an human Heart.”20 He believed that the failure of the congress to censure such an assault on one of its appointees by a private citizen, whose own conduct had been questionable, had undermined its credibility as well as that of its diplomats in Europe. Adams vociferously attacked the address in letters to correspondents in America and Europe,21 and even wrote to Vergennes defending Lee's integrity, although not his conduct as a Commissioner, and assuring him of the ability of the congress to formulate and articulate a coherent foreign policy.22
No account of John Adams' first diplomatic mission would be complete without recognizing the importance of two of his correspondents in Europe. Edmé Jacques Genet, editor of Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique and chief of the foreign ministry's translators bureau, provided intelligence concerning events on the continent and in England and acted as an unofficial conduit to Vergennes and Sartine for Adams' views on the need to establish French naval superiority in American waters.23 In turn, Adams supplied Genet with letters from his American correspondents for publication in Affaires; he also contributed his own writings, most notably on the status of the British army captured at Saratoga and the suitability of ports in the United States, particularly Boston, as bases for units of the French fleet.24 With Edmund Jenings, formerly of Maryland and London, who was living in Paris in 1779, John Adams began one of the more substantial correspondences in the Adams Papers,25 an exchange that soon took on an intimacy approaching that with James Warren, James Lovell, or {p. R20} Elbridge Gerry. The two men commented on British policy and discussed Jenings' writings in support of the American cause and Adams' observations on the prospects for peace and the problems he had faced as a Commissioner.
On 17 June, John Adams sailed from Lorient on the French frigate La Sensible, which also carried the Chevalier de La Luzerne and Francois Barbé-Marbois, the new French minister and his secretary. During the six weeks spent at sea, Adams sought to familiarize them with political and social conditions in America and, in general, to promote the smooth functioning of Franco-American relations. He formed a favorable impression of both men and, convinced that they would avoid the mistakes of the previous minister, Conrad Alexandre Gérard, recommended them in letters to the president of the congress and others.26
John Adams reached Braintree on 2 or 3 August, but had little time to recover from his voyage. Almost immediately he was selected as Braintree's representative to the state constitutional convention, and by mid-September he was at work drafting the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which, although heavily amended, still serves the Commonwealth. It was a task for which he had been preparing throughout his career; no one had been more interested in the efforts of the former colonies to institute new governments, and his own Thoughts on Government, written in early 1776, had had considerable influence on state constitution-making in that year.27 As set down in the constitution that he drafted for Massachusetts, Adams' views regarding the rights of citizens, the organization of a constitution, and the separation of powers extended his influence still further, even to the United States Constitution of 1787.
Adams' draft of the constitution has not been found. Thus the text in Volume 8 is from The Report of a Constitution or Form of Government for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, 1779. This is the earliest surviving version of the document approved by the drafting committee for submission to the full convention. Little in Adams' correspondence bears directly on his composition of the text, but the editors have tried to identify his sources and innovations, the committee's changes, and the alterations made by the convention. Adams was proud of his work, and, because the convention was still in session when he sailed for Europe in November, he took copies of the printed {p. R21} Report for distribution and republication to satisfy European curiosity about American constitution-making.
During the three months that he remained in America, the largest and most significant part of John Adams' correspondence was with the president of the congress and with Massachusetts congressmen James Lovell and Elbridge Gerry. Some of the letters dealt with matters of continuing interest to Adams, such as his plan for increased French naval presence in American waters or his opinions of former colleagues. Three subjects were of particular significance: his observations on the current European political situation; the charge of diplomatic misconduct brought against Adams by Ralph Izard that the congress had considered in the spring of 1779; and the machinations necessary to achieve Adams' appointment as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain.
Adams assessed the European situation in letters to Lovell and Gerry, but his most important letter on the subject was that of 4 August 1779 to the president of the congress. At great length he analyzed the positions of both great and small powers vis-à-vis the Anglo-American war, the opportunities for American diplomatic initiatives, and the prospects for postwar commercial relations. Regarding Great Britain, Adams was very pessimistic about the prospects for recognition of American independence any time soon and predicted a prolonged war that would test American resolve. He saw the Franco-American alliance as the key to victory, but favored additional French assistance together with an increased American determination to see that its interests were served by the alliance. Adams' letter of 4 August closely resembles the intelligence-laden letters that he sent to the congress during his second mission. Against the background of an almost total lack of information received by the congress from its other representatives, it stands out as the most detailed and informative report on conditions in Europe that the congress had yet received from any of its diplomats.
While in France, Adams had received little information about the congress' deliberations on foreign affairs, and the news that he did receive confirmed his opinion that the congress had been inept. Not until June, however, did he learn, and then only from La Luzerne on board La Sensible, of the Spanish offer to mediate the Anglo-French war or the imminent entry of Spain into that war. And it was not until he arrived in America that he found that, at the insistance of France, the congress had been debating the peace terms to be demanded of Great Britain since February. More important from his point of view {p. R22} was the news that Ralph Izard, in a letter of 12 September 1778, had accused Adams of threatening him “with the displeasure of Congress” because of his opposition to Articles 11 and 12 of the Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce. According to Izard, Adams believed that the congress “would be inattentive to the interests of nine States of America to gratify the eaters and distillers of molasses [i.e. New England].”28 The charge stemmed from an exchange, both oral and written, between Adams and Izard over the suitability of various provisions of the Franco-American commercial treaty.29
Upon learning of the accusation, John Adams defended his conduct in letters to James Lovell and Elbridge Gerry and expressed outrage that the congress would take cognizance of Izard's complaint, unsupported as it was by any other evidence. Adding to his anger was what he believed was his friends' failure to defend him adequately when the congress, in March and April 1779, considered Izard's allegation during a general inquiry into the conduct of its representatives in Europe. Lovell and Gerry justified their congressional performance by noting that the peculiar political situation at the time made it impossible to consider the various charges against Franklin, Arthur and William Lee, Ralph Izard, and Silas Deane without also considering the one, minor accusation against Adams. In support of their position both men sent extracts from the Journals and Izard's letter. On first learning of what had transpired, Adams had written to the president of the congress to request all information and documents concerning it so that he might defend himself, but Lovell and Gerry dissuaded him from pursuing his quest for a public vindication, an effort they thought would be fruitless and that might destroy Adams' public career.30
The overriding interest of both Lovell and Gerry in the early fall of 1779 was the appointment of John Adams as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain. They were anxious for him to accept the post so that the interests of New England would be protected. Both men wrote about the machinations {p. R23} involved in the appointments of ministers to Spain and for the peace negotiations, especially in view of the fact that the appointment to Spain would supersede Arthur Lee's appointment as a commissioner to that nation. Lovell provided Adams with accounts of the votes taken and the positions of various members of the congress regarding his own appointment, which was approved on 27 September, and even reported the nomination and election of secretaries for the American ministers in Europe, which was also controversial.31 Much to the relief of his two friends, Adams accepted his appointment with little protest. In taking on this new assignment his major concern was with the means by which he and his official secretary, Francis Dana, were to receive their salaries. He wished to have specific authority to draw on Benjamin Franklin for compensation, so that he would have a definite claim to a portion of the limited funds under Franklin's control. This would serve to stabilize Adams' financial situation and to preserve the independence of his mission.32
On 15 November John Adams sailed from Boston, once again on La Sensible, with Francis Dana, his private secretary John Thaxter, and his sons John Quincy, age twelve, and Charles, age nine. Twenty-four days later, with the frigate in danger of sinking, Adams and his party landed at El Ferrol in northwest Spain and soon set out overland for Paris. Several letters describe Adams' preparations for this journey and the arduous trek through mountainous terrain on primitive roads in the middle of winter. But he was not too busy to report on conditions in Spain, the Spanish attitude toward recognizing American independence, prospects for Spanish-American trade, and even the cultural and political makeup of the Basque provinces. His correspondence is a valuable supplement to accounts of the journey in his Diary, and in the diaries of John Quincy Adams and Francis Dana.33
John Adams arrived at Paris on 9 February 1780, and almost immediately he was at odds with Vergennes over the proper way to announce his diplomatic mission. Adams believed that nothing would be lost and perhaps much gained by disclosing the presence of an American minister empowered to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce. Vergennes objected that premature disclosure, particularly of Adams' authority to negotiate an Anglo-American commercial treaty, might {p. R24} indicate a desire for a separate peace and thus a split in the alliance. In February 1780 Adams deferred to Vergennes' judgment, but he did so reluctantly and expressed his misgivings in letters to the president of the congress.
Despite his differences with Vergennes and his lack of any official status in France, Adams was at least as busy during the first month of his second mission as he had been at any time during his first. Even had Vergennes allowed him to announce the mission in detail, Adams was under no illusions that such a disclosure would bring about early negotiations. The prospect of inactivity spurred him to a concerted effort to gather intelligence that would be useful to the congress in its deliberations. He wrote to Edward and Charles Dilly and to Richard Lloyd in London and renewed his correspondence with Edmé Jacques Genet and with Edmund Jenings, who was then at Brussels, to further this objective. As a result, Adams' letters to the president of the congress and to his friends in America contain a wealth of information on events in England and the continent. Of special interest are his reports on the movements of the belligerent fleets and an initially overoptimistic analysis of the probable impact on the British war effort of the volunteer and association movements in Ireland and England respectively.34
Adams' inability to pursue the objectives of his mission directly had a negative side. If he was driven to seek out new sources of intelligence to inform the congress more effectively, he also was led to question whether such activity, in the absence of any prospects for substantive negotiations, justified the expense of keeping him and Francis Dana in Europe.35 More important, although Vergennes had not been elated at Adams' appointment, his opposition to the disclosure of the details of the mission was not as serious, at least in February 1780, as Adams' letters indicated. By emphasizing his conflict with Vergennes, Adams helped create a climate of hostility and suspicion that would ultimately lead to a final rupture between the two men.
Yet, while John Adams faced serious problems at the beginning of his new mission and was quite aware of the many obstacles ahead, he was determined to pursue his vision of the proper course for American policy. Never deviating from his essential optimism, he remained secure in his belief that the “most glorious Cause that ever was undertaken by Men” could not fail to be ultimately victorious.
{p. R25}

John Adams and His Letterbooks

“Sense or Nonsense frivolous or weighty, I must copy every line I write, for I know not what Accusations may be brought against me, grounded on my Letters if I do not.”36 Thus did John Adams explain to James Warren his reasons for devoting an immense amount of time to copying his and the Commissioners' letters. During the period from his arrival in France in April 1778 through his departure for the Netherlands in July 1780, coverage of which began in Volume 6 and will be concluded in Volume 9, Adams used seven Letterbooks to record 736 letters. These copies constitute an almost complete record of the Commissioners' correspondence as well as his own, both public and private. Adams' Letterbooks, of which there are 35 in the Adams Papers, have been assigned numbers corresponding roughly to the date on which each began. Those being considered in these volumes are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,37 10, and 1138; they appear respectively on reels 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, and 99 of the Adams Papers, Microfilms. Each Letterbook, with certain exceptions noted below, was devoted to correspondence of a particular nature: public or private, or with particular correspondents, such as the president of the congress or the French ministers. They were for the most part not Letterbooks in the classic sense, for they did not contain many exact copies of letters as sent. In fact, most notably in the Letterbooks kept prior to Adams' departure from America in November 1779 on his second mission to Europe, the texts are largely drafts that were then copied into the form actually sent. Only with Adams' second mission and his hiring of John Thaxter as his personal secretary did the Letterbooks become such in the traditional sense.
Letterbooks 4, 5, and 639 were begun at approximately the same time and for the same purpose: to bring order to the Commissioners' business and provide Adams with a record of his own correspondence. {p. R26} Letterbook 4 begins with the Commissioners' letter to Bersolle of 3 May 1778 and concludes with a letter of 12 February 1779 from Adams to Arthur Lee. It contains 183 letters, most of them clearly drafts and all the product of the Commissioners' business. The presence of copies in the hands of Arthur Lee and William Temple Franklin, as well as numerous emendations by Benjamin Franklin, provide information concerning the functioning of the joint commission and its members' relations with each other. Letterbook 5 is devoted to Adams' personal correspondence; it begins with his letter to William Vernon Jr. of 12 May 1778 and ends with that to Elbridge Gerry of 8 November 1779. It contains 156 letters to friends and acquaintances, as well as to the president of the congress and officials of the French government. The value of this Letterbook is clearly demonstrated by the one period when no drafts or copies of Adams' letters survive, in this book or elsewhere, from early March to mid-May 1779. Although most letters received by Adams during this brief period are extant, the great majority of his replies have been lost. Letterbook 6 contains copies of 43 letters, all in French, received by the Commissioners from Vergennes and Sartine between 15 May 1778 and 9 January 1779. In part this Letterbook may have been an exercise by Adams in learning the French language, but here too in many cases the copies are the only extant versions of the letters.
Adams may have intended Letterbook 7 to be a full record of his letters to members of his family. In fact, however, it contains only 9 letters for the period from 3 June 1778 to 9 February 1779.40 Seven are to his wife, the others to Richard Cranch and Mercy Otis Warren.
Shortly before he sailed for Europe in November 1779, John Adams began Letterbook 8.41 It contains 217 letters, beginning with one of 14 November 1779 to Samuel Cooper and concluding with that of 28 July 1780 to Mark Lynch, a merchant at Nantes. This Letterbook differs from the earlier ones in that, while many of the letters are drafts in Adams' hand, a significant number are by John Thaxter, his secretary, and are true copies. Through 15 February 1780 its content is also determined by the fact that Adams apparently had only one Letterbook at his disposal. It thus contains copies of his letters to friends and associates, as well as to the president of the congress, Vergennes, and Sartine.
{p. R27}
On or about 15 February, Adams purchased Letterbooks 10 and 11 from “Furgault,” a “Marchand de Papiers”42 near his quarters in Paris at the Hotel de Valois on the Rue de Richelieu, and set about organizing his correspondence in a more orderly fashion. Letterbook 10 contains 81 letters, numbered serially, to the president of the congress, written between 11 December 1779 and 5 June 1780. When Adams obtained this Letterbook he had John Thaxter copy Letterbook 8's 4 letters to the president into the new Letterbook, thus explaining why there are two copies of them in the Adams Papers. A high proportion of the letters in this Letterbook are in John Thaxter's hand, and there are numerous notations regarding the means by which they were sent to the congress.
Letterbook 11, entitled “Letters to and from the French Ministry,” contains 47 letters. Forty-four are to or from Vergennes and Sartine; 3 are copies of letters to Benjamin Franklin. With the exception of one from Sartine dated 31 December 1779, all were written between 12 February and 29 July 1780. Most of the 31 letters sent by Adams are in his hand and appear to be drafts. The first two letters to Vergennes and Sartine, of 12 and 13 February respectively, were originally written in Letterbook 8, then were copied by Adams into Letterbook 11, thus providing duplicate Letterbook copies of them. Of the 16 letters from Vergennes and Sartine, all were copied in the original French, most by Adams, a few by John Thaxter.

Notes on Editorial Method

The principles that have guided the editors of previous volumes of the Paper of John Adams and which have been set down in earlier “Notes on Editorial Method,” also apply here, but some additions must be noted. The statement regarding selectivity that appeared in the introduction to Volume 5 continues to be the standard for determining what documents will be printed. Volumes 7 and 8 are more selective than Volumes 5 and 6: 724 documents were considered for inclusion; 200 were omitted. In a departure from previous practice, however, the editors have included a list of omitted documents as an Appendix to Volume 8. Because such a list was not part of previous volumes, this Appendix also includes letters and documents omitted {p. R28} from Volumes 1 through 6. Each entry will identify the repository holding the letter or document and, where applicable, its location in a printed source.
John Adams' arrival in Europe in December 1779 to begin his second mission presented the editors with a new problem: the large number of letters written by him to the president of the congress, most of which appear in Francis Wharton's Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution . Although from Adams' arrival at El Ferrol in December 1779 to the end of Volume 8 he wrote only 11 letters to the president of the congress, between 1 March and 31 December 1780 he sent 124. The editors, therefore, thought it appropriate to establish in Volume 8 the procedure to be followed in later volumes. The number of such letters, their inclusion in Wharton's collection, and their character (most consist largely of extracts from printed sources, material taken from letters received by Adams, or comments repeated by him in letters to others) led to the conclusion that it would be inappropriate to print the majority of them. Instead, most will be calendared. This will allow the editors to include information that is not found in Wharton. John Adams' letters to the president of the congress will be printed, however, when the version included by Wharton differs significantly from either the recipient's or Letterbook copy, or when the letter led directly to congressional action, was a request for instructions, or constituted a significant analysis of an important issue not repeated elsewhere. It is unlikely that more than 10 to 15 percent of these letters will be printed.
 
1. See also Part 2 of the introduction to Vols. 5 and 6; much of what is said there regarding the first months of JA's tenure as a Commissioner applies with equal force to his final months in that capacity.
 
2. See Part 2 of this introduction, “John Adams and his Letterbooks.”
 
3. See, for example, letters to the Commissioners from John Gilbank, 4, 16 Nov., 29 Dec. 1778; and 21 Jan. 1779; and from James Smith, [Nov.] 1778.
 
4. To William MacCreery, 7 Sept.; to Thomas Greenleaf, 8 Sept. 1778; and to James Lovell, 3 Jan. 1779. See also the Commissioners' letter to John Gilbank, 10 Nov. 1778.
 
5. To Samuel Adams, 7 Dec. 1778. This is one of many letters in which JA called for the appointment of consuls, largely because he did not think Benjamin Franklin qualified to act in that capacity. In a letter to JA of 5 June 1779, Franklin agreed, noting, “I find myself too little acquainted with Mercantile Business,” and urged JA to press the matter on the congress.
 
6. Commissioners to Vergennes, [ante 20] Dec. 1778 – [ante 9] Jan. 1779. The editors have indicated Franklin's emendations to the text.
 
7. See, for example, JA's letter to Roger Sherman, 6 Dec. 1778.
 
8. To Elbridge Gerry, 5 Dec. 1778, and note 2.
 
9. See Dumas to the Commissioners, 4 Sept., and note 2; William Lee to the Commissioners, 17 Sept.; and the Commissioners to William Lee, [22–26] Sept. 1778. A copy of the Lee-Neufville treaty used by JA when he negotiated the Dutch-American commercial treaty of 1782 is in the Adams Papers.
 
10. Arthur Lee to JA, 6, 12 Oct.; JA to Arthur Lee, 10 Oct. 1778.
 
11. Jonathan Williams to Benjamin Franklin and JA, 31 Jan., and note 1; Arthur Lee to Benjamin Franklin and JA, 7 Feb.; Arthur Lee to Benjamin Franklin and JA, 8 Feb.; Commissioners to Jonathan Williams, 9 Feb., and note 2; JA [and Benjamin Franklin] to Arthur Lee, 12 Feb. 1779.
 
12. Benjamin Franklin and JA to William Temple Franklin, 20, [21? ] Nov. 1778.
 
13. James Warren to JA, 7 Oct. 1778.
 
14. Deane's address was published in the Pennsylvania Packet, 5 Dec. 1778; by late January it was being reprinted in London newspapers.
 
15. JA, Diary and Autobiography , 2:347. In his Diary entries JA was much more critical of Arthur Lee and his associates than he was of Benjamin Franklin. In his Autobiography, written years after the event, the reverse was true.
 
16. JA to James Lovell, 3 Jan., 20 Feb. 1779.
 
17. To Richard Henry Lee, 13 Feb. 1779.
 
18. To James Warren, 25 Feb. 1779.
 
19. To Edmund Jenings, 8 June 1779.
 
21. See, for example, JA's letter to Samuel Cooper, 28 Feb. 1779.
 
22. To Vergennes, 11 Feb. 1779.
 
23. Edmé Jacques Genet to JA, 29 Oct., and JA to Genet, 31 Oct. 1778.
 
24. JA to Edmé Jacques Genet, [post 24 Oct.] , [ante 30 Dec.] 1778.
 
25. For the period between 10 March 1779 and 23 June 1784, the Adams Papers Editorial Files contain entries for more than 200 letters.
 
26. To the president of the congress, 3 Aug. 1779.
 
27. Vol. 4:65–93.
 
28. Ralph Izard to the president of the congress, 12 Sept. 1778, Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev. , 2:710–714.
 
29. JA to Ralph Izard, 20, 25 Sept., and 2 Oct.; Izard to JA, 24, 28 Sept., 8 Oct. 1778.
 
30. JCC , 13:363–368, 479–487; to Elbridge Gerry, 10 Sept., 17 Oct.; to James Lovell, 10 Sept., 17 Oct.; to the president of the congress, 10 Sept.; from James Lovell, 13 June, 27 Sept.; from Elbridge Gerry, 29 Sept. 1779. JA was also angry with Samuel Adams, who had been a member of the committee that had reported the charges, but as Samuel Adams was in Massachusetts and on the committee to draft the state's new constitution, any complaints that JA may have made to him presumably were delivered orally, for in this period there are no letters between the two men.
 
31. From James Lovell, 27, 28 Sept., 1 Oct.; from Elbridge Gerry, 29 Sept., 12 Oct. 1779.
 
32. To James Lovell, 25 Oct., 4 Nov., 16 Dec. 1779; and 19 Feb. 1780; to Elbridge Gerry, 4 Nov. 1779; to the president of the congress, 17 Feb. 1780.
 
33. To the president of the congress, 16 Dec. 1779, 16 Jan. 1780, calendar entries; JA, Diary and Autobiography , 4:204–206, 230–236; see also the Diary entries in 2:404–434; and JQA, Diary , 1:9–32.
 
34. See, for example, his letters to Samuel Adams and Elbridge Gerry, 23 Feb. 1780.
 
35. To James Lovell, 4 March 1780 (LbC, Adams Papers).
 
36. JA to James Warren, 25 Feb. 1779.
 
37. Letterbook 9, Reel 97, of the Adams Papers, Microfilms, is AA's only effort at maintaining a Letterbook and contains copies of 13 letters written between November 1779 and December 1780. For a more complete description, see Adams Family Correspondence , 3:237.
 
38. JA used two additional Letterbooks to record accounts. Letterbook 34, Reel 122, contains a record of his personal expenses between 13 Feb. and 28 July 1780 (JA, Diary and Autobiography , 2:435–442). In Letterbook 35, Reel 123, he recorded the household accounts at Passy after he began keeping them in October 1778. For the accounts from 9 April to 24 Aug. 1778, see vol. 6:16–21; for those from 1 Oct. 1778 to 23 Feb. 1779, see below. This Letterbook was later used by JA to record 353 letters written between 13 Nov. 1816 and 12 Aug. 1819.
 
39. For additional information concerning the purchase and use of these Letterbooks, see vol. 6:22, 108, 43.
 
40. The remainder of this Letterbook contains copies of 183 letters written by JA between 25 March 1809 and 6 May 1814.
 
41. The first twelve pages of Letterbook 8, purchased at Paris during JA's first mission, were used by JQA to record 15 letters to his mother, sister, brothers, and John Thaxter between 29 May 1778 and 20 Feb. 1779.
 
42. See the microfilm for the bookplates on the inside of the front cover of both Letterbooks, where Furgault's address is given as “A l'entrée de la rue de Richelieu, près des Quinze-Vingts [a hospital for the blind].”
{p. R29}

Acknowledgments

Docno: PJA07d002
The editors owe a large debt of gratitude to the many people who have helped in the preparation of these volumes of the Papers of John Adams. Several of those acknowledged in previous volumes have continued to provide support and assistance, and the editors again thank them for their help. Two of these, however, deserve particular mention. Dr. J. W. Schulte Nordholt once again helped to illuminate the complex political system of the Netherlands, and Viola Thomas continued her translations of French documents. Not mentioned previously, but who have been of particular assistance in these volumes, are E. James Ferguson, John Catanzariti (now editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson), and Elizabeth Nuxoll — all of the Papers of Robert Morris — who provided essential information on the British Loan of 1779; and Douglas Arnold, formerly of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin, who read and made suggestions regarding the editorial treatment of the Massachusetts Constitution. Closer to home, Louis L. Tucker, Peter Drummey, Mary Cogswell, Ross Urquhart, Aimée Bligh, and their colleagues at the Massachusetts Historical Society continued to assist the editors in making the best use of the Society's rich collections. Our editor at Harvard University Press, Ann Louise McLaughlin, painstakingly reviewed these volumes for accuracy, style, and consistency with earlier volumes, a vital task that she has performed with distinction for over twenty-five years.
The work of several members of the Adams Papers staff whose names do not appear on the titlepage also deserves the editors' grateful appreciation. These volumes could not have been produced without the devoted and expert help of our editorial assistants. Katherine Oppermann and Mary Ellen Shriver helped during the early stages of preparation. Martha McNamara proofread and coded the manuscript for the printer, as did Sarah Hage, who also assisted with the submission of copy to the Press and indexing. Michael Crawford assisted in the early stages of the editing of Volume 7 during his tenure as a National Historical Publications and Records Commission fellow at the Adams Papers, and former assistant editor Keith Schlesinger helped with Volume 8. Finally, Marc Friedlaender, adjunct editor of the Adams Papers, read the editorial note to the Massachusetts Constitution and made important suggestions.
{p. R30}

Guide to Editorial Apparatus

In the first three sections (1–3) of the six sections of this Guide are listed, respectively, the arbitrary devices used for clarifying the text, the code names for designating prominent members of the Adams family, and the symbols describing the various kinds of MS originals used or referred to, that are employed throughout The Adams Papers in all its series and parts. In the final three sections (4–6) are listed, respectively, only those symbols designating institutions holding original materials, the various abbreviations and conventional terms, and the short titles of books and other works, that occur in volumes 7 and 8 of the Papers of John Adams. The editors propose to maintain this pattern for the Guide to Editorial Apparatus in each of the smaller units, published at intervals, of all the series and parts of the edition that are so extensive as to continue through many volumes. On the other hand, in short and specialized series and/or parts of the edition, the Guide to Editorial Apparatus will be given more summary form tailored to its immediate purpose.

Textual Devices

The following devices will be used throughout The Adams Papers to clarify the presentation of the text.
[...], [....]   One or two words missing and not conjecturable.  
[...], [....]   More than two words missing and not conjecturable; subjoined footnote estimates amount of missing matter.  
[ ]   Number or part of a number missing or illegible. Amount of blank space inside brackets approximates the number of missing or illegible digits.  
[roman]   Editorial insertion or conjectural reading for missing or illegible matter. A question mark is inserted before the closing bracket if the conjectural reading is seriously doubtful.  
<italic>   Matter canceled in the manuscript but restored in our text.  

Adams Family Code Names

First Generation    
JA   John Adams (1735–1826)  
AA   Abigail Smith (1744–1818), m. JA 1764  
{p. R31}
Second Generation    
AA2   Abigail Adams (1765–1813), daughter of JA and AA, m. WSS 1786  
WSS   William Stephens Smith (1755–1816), brother of Mrs. CA  
JQA   John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), son of JA and AA  
LCA   Louisa Catherine Johnson (1775–1852), m. JQA 1797  
CA   Charles Adams (1770–1800), son of JA and AA  
Mrs. CA   Sarah Smith (1769–1828), sister of WSS, m. CA 1795  
TBA   Thomas Boylston Adams (1772–1832), son of JA and AA  
Mrs. TBA   Ann Harrod (1774–1846), m. TBA 1805  
Third Generation    
GWA   George Washington Adams (1801–1829), son of JQA and LCA  
JA2   John Adams (1803–1834), son of JQA and LCA  
Mrs. JA2   Mary Catherine Hellen (1807–1870), m. JA2 1828  
CFA   Charles Francis Adams (1807–1886), son of JQA and LCA  
ABA   Abigail Brown Brooks (1808–1889), m. CFA 1829  
ECA   Elizabeth Coombs Adams (1808–1903), daughter of TBA and Mrs. TBA  
Fourth Generation    
LCA2   Louisa Catherine Adams (1831–1870), daughter of CFA and ABA, m. Charles Kuhn 1854  
JQA2   John Quincy Adams (1833–1894), son of CFA and ABA  
CFA2   Charles Francis Adams (1835–1915), son of CFA and ABA  
HA   Henry Adams (1838–1918), son of CFA and ABA  
MHA   Marian Hooper (1842–1885), m. HA 1872  
MA   Mary Adams (1845–1928), daughter of CFA and ABA, m. Henry Parker Quincy 1877  
BA   Brooks Adams (1848–1927), son of CFA and ABA  
Fifth Generation    
CFA3   Charles Francis Adams (1866–1954), son of JQA2  
HA2   Henry Adams (1875–1951), son of CFA2  
JA3   John Adams (1875–1964), son of CFA2  

Descriptive Symbols

The following symbols will be employed throughout The Adams Papers to describe or identify in brief form various kinds of manuscript originals.
D   Diary (Used only to designate a diary written by a member of the Adams family and always in combination with the short form of the writer's name and a serial number, as follows: {p. R32} D/JA/23, i.e., the twenty-third fascicle or volume of John Adams' manuscript Diary.)  
Dft   draft  
Dupl   duplicate  
FC   file copy (Ordinarily a copy of a letter retained by a correspondent other than an Adams, for example Jefferson's press copies and polygraph copies, since all three of the Adams statesmen systematically entered copies of their outgoing letters in letterbooks.)  
Lb   Letterbook (Used only to designate Adams letterbooks and always in combination with the short form of the writer's name and a serial number, as follows: Lb/JQA/29, i.e., the twenty-ninth volume of John Quincy Adams' Letterbooks.)  
LbC   letterbook copy (Letterbook copies are normally unsigned, but any such copy is assumed to be in the hand of the person responsible for the text unless it is otherwise described.)  
M   Miscellany (Used only to designate materials in the section of the Adams Papers known as the “Miscellany” and always in combination with the short form of the writer's name and a serial number, as follows: M/CFA/32, i.e., the thirty-second volume of the Charles Francis Adams Miscellany—a ledger volume mainly containing transcripts made by CFA in 1833 of selections from the family papers.)  
MS, MSS   manuscript, manuscripts  
RC   recipient's copy (A recipient's copy is assumed to be in the hand of the signer unless it is otherwise described.)  
Tr   transcript (A copy, handwritten or typewritten, made substantially later than the original or than other copies—such as duplicates, file copies, letterbook copies—that were made contemporaneously.)  
Tripl   triplicate  

Location Symbols

BM   British Museum  
CSmH   Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery  
CWhC   Whittier College  
CtHi   Connecticut Historical Society  
CtNhHi   New Haven Colony Historical Society  
CtY   Yale University Library  
DLC   Library of Congress  
DNA   National Archives  
DSI   Smithsonian Institution  
IHi   Illinois State Historical Library  
M-Ar   Massachusetts Archives  
MH-H   Houghton Library, Harvard University  
MHi   Massachusetts Historical Society  
NHi   New-York Historical Society  
NIC   Cornell University Library  
{p. R33}
NN   New York Public Library  
NNC   Columbia University Library  
NNPM   Pierpont Morgan Library  
NhD   Dartmouth College Library  
NjHi   New Jersey Historical Society  
NjP   Princeton University Library  
PHi   Historical Society of Pennsylvania  
PPAmP   American Philosophical Society  
PPL   Library Company of Philadelphia  
PU   University of Pennsylvania Library  
PWacD   David Library of the American Revolution  
RNHi   Newport Historical Society  
ScHi   South Carolina Historical Society  
ViU   University of Virginia Library  
VtU   University of Vermont Library  

Other Abbreviations and Conventional Terms


  • Adams Papers
  • Manuscripts and other materials, 1639–1889, in the Adams Manuscript Trust collection given to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1956 and enlarged by a few additions of family papers since then. Citations in the present edition are simply by date of the original document if the original is in the main chronological series of the Papers and therefore readily found in the microfilm edition of the Adams Papers (see below). The location of materials in the Letterbooks and the Miscellany is given more fully, and often, if the original would be hard to locate, by the microfilm reel number.

  • Adams Papers, Adams Office Files
  • The portion of the Adams manuscripts given to the Massachusetts Historical Society by Thomas Boylston Adams in 1973 and retained in the editorial office of the Adams Papers.

  • Adams Papers Editorial Files
  • Other materials in the Adams Papers editorial office, Massachusetts Historical Society. These include photoduplicated documents (normally cited by the location of the originals), photographs, correspondence, and bibliographical and other aids compiled and accumulated by the editorial staff.

  • Adams Papers, Fourth Generation
  • Adams manuscripts dating 1890 or later, originally part of the Trust collection together with Adams manuscripts acquired from other sources, administered by the Massachusetts Historical Society on the same footing with its other manuscript collections.

  • Adams Papers, Microfilms
  • The corpus of the Adams Papers, 1639–1889, as published on microfilm by the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1954–1959, in 608 reels. Cited in the present work, when necessary, by reel number. Available in research {p. R34} libraries throughout the United States and in a few libraries in Europe, Canada, and New Zealand.

  • The Adams Papers
  • The present edition, published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. References to earlier volumes of any given unit take this form: vol. 3:171. Since there will be no overall volume numbering for the edition, references from one series, or unit of a series, to another will be by title, volume, and page; for example, JQA, Papers, 4:205. (For the same reason, references by scholars citing this edition should not be to The Adams Papers as a whole but to the particular series or subseries concerned; for example, John Adams, Diary and Autobiography , 3:145; Adams Family Correspondence , 6:167.)

  • Arch. Aff. Etr., Paris, Corr. Pol.
  • Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, Correspondance Politique.

  • Koninklijk Huisarchief
  • Koninklijk Huisarchief, The Hague.

  • PCC
  • Papers of the Continental Congress. Originals in the National Archives: Record Group 360. Microfilm edition in 204 reels. Usually cited in the present work from the microfilms, but according to the original series and volume numbering devised in the State Department in the early 19th century; for example, PCC, No. 93, III, i.e., the third volume of series 93.

Short Titles Of Works Frequently Cited


  • Adams Family Correspondence
  • Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1963–

  • AHR
  • American Historical Review.

  • Allen, Mass. Privateers
  • Gardner Weld Allen, Massachusetts Privateers of the Revolution (Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, vol. 77), Boston, 1927.

  • Allen, Naval Hist. of the Amer. Revolution
  • Gardner Weld Allen, A Naval History of the American Revolution, Boston and New York, 1913; 2 vols.

  • Appletons' Cyclo. Amer. Biog.
  • James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, New York, 1887–1889; 6 vols.

  • Bemis, Diplomacy of the Amer. Revolution
  • Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolution: The Foundations of American Diplomacy, 1775–1823, New York and London, 1935.

  • Boston Record Commissioners, Reports
  • City of Boston, Record Commissioners, Reports, Boston, 1876–1909; 39 vols.

  • Braintree Town Records
  • Samuel A. Bates, ed., Records of the Town of Braintree, 1640 to 1793, Randolph, Mass., 1886.

  • Burnett, ed., Letters of Members
  • Edmund C. Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress, Washington, 1921–1936; 8 vols.

  • Cal. Franklin Papers, A.P.S.
  • I. Minis Hays, comp., Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin in the Library of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1908; 5 vols.

  • Cambridge Modern Hist.
  • The Cambridge Modern History, New York, 1909–1910; 12 vols.

  • Catalogue of JA's Library
  • Catalogue of the John Adams Library in the Public Library of the City of Boston, Boston, 1917.

  • DAB
  • Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, New York, 1928–1936; 20 vols. plus index and supplements.

  • Deane Papers
  • Papers of Silas Deane, 1774–1790, in New-York Historical Society, Collections, Publication Fund Series, vols. 19–23, New York, 1887–1891; 5 vols.

  • De Madariaga, Armed Neutrality of 1780
  • Isabel de Madariaga, Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality of 1780, New Haven, 1962.

  • Dict. Amer. Fighting Ships
  • U.S. Navy Department, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Naval History Division, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Washington, 1959–.

  • Dict. of Americanisms
  • Mitford M. Mathews, ed., A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, Chicago, 1951.

  • DNB
  • Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., The Dictionary of National Biography, New York and London, 1885–1900; 63 vols. plus supplements.

  • Dull, French Navy and Amer. Independence
  • Jonathan R. Dull, The French Navy and American Independence: a Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774–1787, Princeton, 1915.

  • Edler, Dutch Republic and the American Revolution
  • Friedrich Edler, The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution, Baltimore, 1911.

  • Evans
  • Charles Evans and others, comps., American Bibliography: A Chronological Dictionary of All Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications Printed in the United States of America [1639–1800], Chicago and Worcester, 1903–1959; 14 vols.

  • Force, Archives
  • [Peter Force, ed.,] American Archives: Consisting of a Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and Other Notices of Publick Affairs, Washington, 1837–1853; 9 vols.

  • Franklin, Papers
  • The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, William B. Willcox (from vol. 15), and others, New Haven, 1959–

  • Gérard, Despatches and Instructions
  • Despatches and Instructions of Conrad Alexandre Gérard, 1778–1780: Correspondence of the First French Minister to the United States with the Comte de Vergennes, ed. John J. Meng, Baltimore, 1939.

  • Gruber, Howe Brothers
  • Ira D. Gruber, The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution, New York, 1972.

  • Heitman, Register Continental Army
  • Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army during the War of the Revolution, new edn., Washington, 1914.

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  • J. C. F. Hoefer, ed., Nouvelle biographie générale depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours, Paris, 1852–1866; 46 vols.

  • JA, Diary and Autobiography
  • Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield and others, Cambridge, 1961; 4 vols.

  • JA, Legal Papers
  • Legal Papers of John Adams, ed. L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel, Cambridge, 1965; 3 vols.

  • JA, Papers
  • Papers of John Adams, ed. Robert J. Taylor, Gregg L. Lint and others, Cambridge, 1977–

  • JA, Works
  • The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Boston, 1850–1856; 10 vols.

  • JCC
  • Worthington C. Ford and others, eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, Washington, 1904–1937; 34 vols.

  • Jefferson, Papers
  • The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen (from vol. 21), and others, Princeton, 1950–

  • JQA, Memoirs
  • Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Philadelphia, 1874–1877; 12 vols.

  • JQA, Diary
  • Diary of John Quincy Adams, ed. David Grayson Allen, Robert J. Taylor, and others, Cambridge, 1981–

  • Journal of the Convention
  • Journal of the Convention for Framing a Constitution of Government for the State of Massachusetts Bay from ... September 1, 1779, to ... June 16, 1780, Boston, 1832.

  • Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel
  • Pierre Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX siècle ... , Paris, [1865]; 15 vols. and supplements.

  • R. H. Lee, Arthur Lee
  • Richard Henry Lee, Life of Arthur Lee, Boston, 1829; 2 vols.

  • Mackesy, War for America
  • Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, Cambridge, 1965.

  • Mahan, Navies in the War of Amer. Independence
  • Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence, Boston, 1913.

  • Martens, ed., Recueil des principaux traités d'alliance
  • Georg Friedrich von Martens, ed., Recueil des principaux traités d'alliance, de paix, de trêve ... conclus par les puissances de l'Europe ... depuis 1761 jusqu'à présent ... Par Mr. de Martens, Gottingue, 1791–1801; 7 vols.

  • Mass., House Jour.
  • Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts [1715– ], Boston, reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1919– . (For the years for which reprints are not yet available, the original printings are cited, by year and session.)

  • Mass., Province Laws
  • The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols.

  • Mass. Soldiers and Sailors
  • Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Boston, 1896–1908; 17 vols.

  • MHS, Colls., Procs.
  • Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections and Proceedings.

  • Miller, ed., Treaties
  • Hunter Miller, ed., Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America, Washington, 1931–1948; 8 vols.

  • Miller, Sir Joseph Yorke
  • Daniel A. Miller, Sir Joseph Yorke and Anglo-Dutch Relations, 1774–1780, The Hague, 1970.

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  • Samuel Eliot Morison, John Paul Jones, a Sailor's Biography, Boston and Toronto, 1959.

  • Morris, The Peacemakers
  • Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence, New York, 1965.

  • Naval Docs. Amer. Rev.
  • William Bell Clark, William James Morgan (from vol. 5), and others, eds., Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Washington, 1964–

  • NEHGR
  • New England Historical and Genealogical Register.

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  • Parliamentary Hist.
  • The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, London, 1806–1820; 36 vols.

  • Parliamentary Reg.
  • Parliamentary Register, ed. John Almon, London, 1774–1780; 17 vols.

  • Pattee, Old Braintree and Quincy
  • William S. Pattee, A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, with a Sketch of Randolph and Holbrook, Quincy, 1878.

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  • Repertorium der diplomatischen Vertreter aller Länder seit dem Westfälischen Frieden (1648), ed. Ludwig Bittner and others, Oldenburg, &c., 1936–1965; 3 vols.

  • Benjamin Rush, Letters
  • Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Princeton, 1951; 2 vols.

  • Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates
  • John Langdon Sibley and Clifford K. Shipton, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Boston, 1873– .

  • Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates
  • Paul H. Smith and others, eds., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789, Washington, 1976– .

  • Stinchcombe, Amer. Rev. and the French Alliance
  • William C. Stinchcombe, The American Revolution and the French Alliance, Syracuse, New York, 1969.

  • Sullivan, Papers
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  • Thorpe, ed., Federal and State Constitutions
  • Francis N. Thorpe, ed., The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America, Washington, 1909; 7 vols.

  • Ward, War of the Revolution
  • Christopher Ward, The War of the Revolution, New York, 1952; 2 vols.

  • Washington, Writings, ed. Fitzpatrick
  • The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, Washington, 1931–1944; 39 vols.

  • Warren-Adams Letters
  • Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren (Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, vols. 72–73), Boston, 1917–1925; 2 vols.

  • Wharton, ed., Dipl. Corr. Amer. Rev.
  • Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, Washington, 1889; 6 vols.

  • Wheatley, London Past and Present
  • Henry B. Wheatley, London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions, London, 1891; 3 vols.

  • WMQ
  • William and Mary Quarterly.
{p. R39}

volume 7

Papers

September 1778 – February 1779

{p. R40}
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007.
http://www.masshist.org/ff/