II.ABIGAIL ADAMS.

Abigail Smith, the daughter of a New England Congregationalist minister, was born at Weymouth, in 1744. Her father was the settled pastor of that place for more than forty years, and her grandfather was also a minister of the same denomination in a neighboring town.

The younger years of her life were passed in the quiet seclusion of her grandfather’s house; and under the instructions of her grandmother, she imbibed most of the lessons which were the most deeply impressed upon her mind. “I have not forgotten,” she says in a letter to her own daughter, in the year 1795, “the excellent lessons which I received from my grandmother at a very early period of life; I frequently think they made a more durable impression upon my mind than those which I received from my own parents. This tribute is due to the memory of those virtues, the sweet remembrance of which will flourish, though she has long slept with her ancestors.”

Separated from the young members of her own family, and never subjected to the ordinary school routine, her imaginative faculties bade fair to develop at the expense of her judgment, but the austere religion of her ancestors, and the daily example of strict compliance to forms, prevented the too great indulgence of fancy. She hadmany relations both on the father’s and mother’s side, and with these she was upon as intimate terms as circumstances would allow. The distance between the homes of the young people was, however, too great, and the means of their parents too narrow, to admit of very frequent personal intercourse, the substitute for which was a rapid interchange of written communication. “The women of the last century,” observes Mr. Charles Francis Adams in his memoir of his grandmother, “were more remarkable for their letter-writing propensities, than the novel-reading and more pretending daughters of this era: their field was larger, and the stirring events of the times made it an object of more interest. Now, the close connection between all parts of this country, and rapid means of transmitting intelligence through the medium of telegraphs and newspapers, renders the slow process of writing letters unnecessary, save in instances of private importance. The frugal habits of the sparsely settled country afforded little material for the fashionable chit-chat which forms so large a part of the social life of to-day, and the limited education of woman was another drawback to the indulgence of a pleasure in which they really excelled. Upon what, then, do we base the assertion that they were remarkable for their habits of writing? Even though self-taught, the young ladies of Massachusetts were certainly readers, and their taste was not for the feeble and nerveless sentiments, but was derived from the deepest wells of English literature. Almost every house in the colony possessedsome old heir-looms in the shape of standard books, even if the number was limited to the Bible and dictionary. Many, especially ministers, could display relics of their English ancestors’ intelligence in the libraries handed down to them, and the study of their contents was evident in many of the grave correspondences of that early time.” To learning, in the ordinary sense of that term, she could make no claim. She did not enjoy an opportunity to acquire even such as there might have been, for the delicate state of her health forbade the idea of sending her away from home to obtain them. In speaking of her deficiencies, the year before her death, she says: “My early education did not partake of the abundant opportunity which the present day offers, and which even our common country schools now afford.I never was sent to any school, I was always sick.” Although Massachusetts ranked then, as it does now, first in point of educational facilities, it is certainly remarkable that its women received such entire neglect. “It is not impossible,” says Mr. Adams, “that the early example of Mrs. Hutchison, and the difficulties in which the public exercise of her gifts involved the colony, had established in the public mind a conviction of the danger that may attend the meddling of women with abstruse points of doctrine; and these, however they might confound the strongest intellects, were nevertheless the favorite topics of thought and discussion in that generation.”

While the sons of a family received every possible advantage compatible with the means of the father, thedaughter’s interest, as far as mental culture was concerned, was generally ignored. To aid the mother in manual household labor, and by self-denial and increased industry to forward the welfare of the brothers, was the most exalted height to which any woman aspired. To women there was then no career open, no life-work to perform outside the narrow walls of home. Every idea of self-culture was swallowed up in the wearying routine of practical life, and what of knowledge they obtained, was from the society of the learned, and the eagerness with which they treasured and considered the conversations of others.

On the 26th of October, 1764, Abigail Smith was married to John Adams. She was at the time twenty years old. The match, although a suitable one in many respects, was not considered brilliant, since her ancestors were among the most noted of the best class of their day, and he was the son of a farmer of limited means, and as yet a lawyer without practice. Mrs. Adams was the second of three daughters, whose characters were alike strong and remarkable for their intellectual force. The fortunes of two of them confined its influence to a sphere much more limited than that which fell to the lot of Mrs. Adams. Mary, the eldest, was married in 1762 to Richard Cranch, an English emigrant, who subsequently became a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Massachusetts. Elizabeth, the youngest, was twice married; first to the Reverend John Shaw, minister of Haverhill, and after his death, to theReverend Mr. Peabody, of New Hampshire. This anecdote is told in connection with the marriage of Mrs. Adams. When her eldest sister was married, her father preached to his people from the text, “And Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” The disapprobation to his second daughter’s choice was due to the prejudice entertained against the profession of the law. Mr. Adams, besides being a lawyer, was the son of a small farmer of the middle class in Braintree, and was thought scarcely good enough to match with the minister’s daughter, descended from a line of ministers in the colony. Mr. Smith’s parishioners were outspoken in their opposition, and he replied to them immediately, after the marriage took place, in a sermon, in which he made pointed allusion to the objection against lawyers. His text on this occasion was, “For John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, Hehath a devil.” Mr. Smith, it may be as well to add, was in the habit of making application of texts to events which in any manner interested himself or his congregation. In a colony founded so exclusively upon motives of religious zeal as Massachusetts was, it necessarily followed that the ordinary distinctions of society were in a great degree subverted, and that the leaders of the church, though without worldly possessions to boast of, were the most in honor everywhere. If a festive entertainment was meditated, the minister was sure to be first on the list of those invited. If any assembly of citizenswas held, he must be there to open the business with prayer. If a political measure was in agitation, he was among the first whose opinions were to be consulted. He was not infrequently the family physician. Hence the objection to Mr. Adams by her friends was founded on the fact that she was the daughter and granddaughter of a minister, and his social superior according to the opinions of zealous Christians, whose prejudices were extreme toward a calling they deemed hardly honest.

Ten years of quiet home-life succeeded her marriage, during which time little transpired worthy of record. “She appears to have passed an apparently very happy life, having her residence in Braintree, or in Boston, according as the state of her husband’s health, then rather impaired, or that of his professional practice, made the change advisable. Within this period she became the mother of a daughter and of three sons.”

Mr. Adams was elected one of the delegates on the part of Massachusetts, instructed to meet persons chosen in the same manner from the other colonies, for the purpose of consulting in common upon the course most advisable to be adopted by them. In the month of August, 1774, he left home in company with Samuel Adams, Thomas Cushings, and Robert Treat Paine, to go to Philadelphia, at which place the proposed assembly was to be held. In two months, Mr. Adams was home again. Congress met again in May, 1775, and Mr. Adams returned to Philadelphia to attend it. The long distance was traversed on horseback, and was repletewith hardships. At Hartford he heard of the memorable incident at Lexington, only five days after his departure from Braintree. Up to this time, the trouble between the two countries had been a dispute, henceforth it resolved itself into open hostilities.

“In November, 1775,” says Bancroft, “Abigail Smith, the wife of John Adams, was at her home near the foot of Penn Hill, charged with the sole care of their little brood of children; managing their farm; keeping house with frugality, though opening her doors to the houseless, and giving with good-will a part of her scant portion to the poor; seeking work for her own hands, and ever busily occupied, now at the spinning wheel, now making amends for having never been sent to school by learning French, though with the aid of books alone. Since the departure of her husband for Congress, the arrow of death had sped near her by day, and the pestilence that walks in darkness had entered her humble mansion. She herself was still weak after a violent illness; her house was a hospital in every part; and such was the distress of the neighborhood, she could hardly find a well person to assist in looking after the sick. Her youngest son had been rescued from the grave by her nursing. Her own mother had been taken away, and after the austere manner of her forefathers, buried without prayer. Woe followed woe, and one affliction trod on the heels of another. Winter was hurrying on; during the day family affairs took off her attention, but her long evenings, broken by the soundof the storm on the ocean, or the enemy’s artillery at Boston, were lonesome and melancholy. Ever in the silent night ruminating on the love and tenderness of her departed parent, she needed the consolation of her husband’s presence; but when she read the king’s proclamation, she willingly gave up her nearest friend exclusively to his perilous duties, and sent him her cheering message: ‘This intelligence will make a plain path for you, though a dangerous one. I could not join to-day in the petitions of our worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer parent state, but tyrant state, and these colonies. Let us separate; they are unworthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce them; and instead of supplications, as formerly, for their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty to blast their counsels and bring to naught all their devices.’”

Such words of patriotism falling from the lips of a woman who had just buried three members of her household, one her own mother, and who was alone with her four little children within sight of the cannonading at Boston, discovers a mind strong, and a spirit fearless and brave under scenes of harrowing distress.

Now she was alone, and she writes to her husband, “The desolation of war is not so distressing as the havoc made by the pestilence. Some poor parents are mourning the loss of three, four, and five children, and some families are wholly stripped of every member.”December found Mr. Adams once more at home to cheer his suffering family, but Congress demanded his presence, and after a stay of one month, he returned again to the halls of the nation. March came, and her anxious, solitary life was in nowise brightened. The distance, in those days of slow travel and bad roads, from Boston to Philadelphia was immense, and letters were precious articles hard to receive. In speaking of the anticipated attack on Boston, she says: “It has been said to-morrow and to-morrow; but when the dreadful to-morrow will be I know not.” Yet even as she wrote, the first peal of the American guns rang out their dissonance on the chilling night winds, and the house shook and trembled from cellar to garret. It was no time for calm thoughts now, and she left her letter unfinished to go out and watch the lurid lights that flashed and disappeared in the distance. Next morning she walked to Penn’s Hill, where she sat listening to the amazing roar, and watching the British shells as they fell round about the camps of her friends. Her home at the foot of the hill was all her earthly wealth, and the careful husbanding of each year’s crop her only income; yet while she ever and anon cast her eye upon it, the thoughts that welled into words were not of selfish repinings, but of proud expressions of high-souled patriotism. “The cannonade is from our army,” she continues, “and the sight is one of the grandest in nature, and is of the true species of the sublime. ’Tis now an incessant roar. To-night weshall realize a more terrible scene still; I wish myself with you out of hearing, as I cannot assist them, but I hope to give you joy of Boston, even if it is in ruins before I send this away.” But events were not ordered as she feared, and the result was more glorious than she dared hope. All the summer the army lay encamped around Boston, and in early fall her husband came home again, after an absence of nearly a year. Yet his coming brought her little satisfaction, since it was to announce the sad truth that he had been chosen Minister to France. Could he take his wife and little ones? was the oft-recurring question. A small and not very good vessel had been ordered to carry him: the British fleet knew this, and were on the watch to capture it. On every account it was deemed best he should go alone, but he finally concluded to take his eldest son, John Quincy Adams, to bear him company, and in February, 1778, sailed for Europe.

The loneliness of the faithful wife can hardly be understood by those unacquainted with the horrors of war. Yet doubtless there are many, very many, who in the dark gloom of the civil war can record similar feelings of agony, and can trace a parallel in the solitary musings of this brave matron. The ordinary occupations of the female sex have ever confined them to a very limited sphere, and there is seldom an occasion when they can with propriety extend their exertions beyond the domestic hearth. Only through the imagination can they give unlimited scope to thosepowers which the world until recently has never understood, and which are even now but dimly defined. Had mankind given them the privileges of a liberal education, and freedom to carve their own destiny, to what dazzling heights would a mind so naturally gifted as Mrs. Adams’, have attained? Circumscribed as her lot was, she has left upon the pages of history an enviable record, and while Americans forget not to do honor to her husband’s zeal and greatness, her memory lends a richer perfume, and sheds a radiance round the incidents of a life upon which she wielded so beneficial an influence.

Ofttimes weather-bound and compelled to remain indoors for days, with no society save her children and domestics, it is not strange that she should be lonely. Nor could her mind dwell upon any pleasing anticipations for the future. Her husband three thousand miles away, a hostile army encompassing the country, poor and forlorn, she yet so managed and controlled her little estate, that it served to support her, and in old age, to prove the happy asylum of her honored family. Mr. Adams knew her exposed condition, yet trusted to her judgment to protect herself and little ones. On a former occasion he had written to her “in case of danger to fly to the woods,” and now he could only reiterate the same advice, at the same time feeling that she was strong and resolute to sustain herself. Six months passed, and Mrs. Adams writes to him: “I have never received a syllable from you or mydear son, and it is five months since I had an opportunity of conveying a line to you. Yet I know not but you are less a sufferer than you would be to hear from us, to know our distresses, and yet be unable to relieve them. The universal cry for bread to a humane heart is painful beyond description.” Mr. Adams returned to his family after an absence of eighteen months, but no sooner was he established in his happy home, than he was ordered to Great Britain to negotiate a peace. Two of his sons accompanied him on this trip. He went over night to Boston to embark early next day, and the sad heart left behind again, found relief in the following touching words: “My habitation, how disconsolate it looks! my table, I sit down to it, but cannot swallow my food! Oh, why was I born with so much sensibility, and why, possessing it, have I so often been called to struggle with it? Were I sure you would not be gone, I could not withstand the temptation of coming to town though my heart would suffer over again the cruel torture of separation.” Soon after this time, she wrote to her eldest son in regard to his extreme reluctance at again crossing the ocean, and for its perspicuity and terseness, for the loftiness of its sentiments, and the sound logical advice in which it abounds, ranks itself among the first literary effusions of the century:

“June, 1778.

“My Dear Son: ’Tis almost four months since you left your native land and embarked upon the mightywaters in quest of a foreign country. Although I have not particularly written to you since, yet you may be assured you have constantly been upon my heart and mind.

“It is a very difficult task, my dear son, for a tender parent, to bring her mind to part with a child of your years, going to a distant land; nor could I have acquiesced in such a separation under any other care than that of the most excellent parent and guardian who accompanied you. You have arrived at years capable of improving under the advantages you will be likely to have, if you do but properly attend to them. They are talents put into your hands, of which an account will be required of you hereafter; and, being possessed of one, two, or four, see to it that you double your number.

“The most amiable and most useful disposition in a young mind is diffidence of itself; and this should lead you to seek advice and instruction from him who is your natural guardian, and will always counsel and direct you in the best manner, both for your present and future happiness. You are in possession of a natural good understanding, and of spirits unbroken by adversity and untamed with care. Improve your understanding by acquiring useful knowledge and virtue, such as will render you an ornament to society, an honor to your country, and a blessing to your parents. Great learning and superior abilities, should you ever possess them, will be of little value and small estimation, unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them. Adhere to those religious sentiments and principles which wereearly instilled into your mind, and remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions. Let me enjoin it upon you to attend constantly and steadfastly to the precepts and instructions of your father, as you value the happiness of your mother and your own welfare. His care and attention to you render many things unnecessary for me to write, which I might otherwise do; but the inadvertency and heedlessness of youth require line upon line and precept upon precept, and, when enforced by the joint efforts of both parents, will, I hope, have a due influence upon your conduct; for, dear as you are to me, I would much rather you should have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that any untimely death crop you in your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless child.

“You have entered early in life upon the great theatre of the world, which is full of temptations and vice of every kind. You are not wholly unacquainted with history, in which you have read of crimes which your inexperienced mind could scarcely believe credible. You have been taught to think of them with horror, and to view vice as

“‘A monster of so frightful mien,That, to be hated, needs but to be seen.’

“‘A monster of so frightful mien,

That, to be hated, needs but to be seen.’

Yet you must keep a strict guard upon yourself, or the odious monster will lose its terror by becoming familiar to you. The modern history of our own times furnishes as black a list of crimes as can be paralleled in ancienttimes, even if we go back to Nero, Caligula, Cæsar Borgia. Young as you are, the cruel war into which we have been compelled by the haughty tyrant of Britain and the bloody emissaries of his vengeance, may stamp upon your mind this certain truth, that the welfare and prosperity of all countries, communities, and, I may add, individuals, depend upon their morals. That nation to which we were once united, as it has departed from justice, eluded and subverted the wise laws which formerly governed it, and suffered the worst of crimes to go unpunished, has lost its valor, wisdom, and humanity, and, from being the dread and terror of Europe, has sunk into derision and infamy.

“But, to quit political subjects, I have been greatly anxious for your safety, having never heard of the frigate since she sailed, till, about a week ago, a New York paper informed that she was taken and carried into Plymouth. I did not fully credit this report, though it gave me much uneasiness. I yesterday heard that a French vessel was arrived at Portsmouth, which brought news of the safe arrival of the Boston; but this wants confirmation. I hope it will not be long before I shall be assured of your safety. You must write me an account of your voyage, of your situation, and of every thing entertaining you can recollect.

“Be assured, I am most affectionately“Your mother,Abigail Adams.”

“Be assured, I am most affectionately

“Your mother,Abigail Adams.”

The Government was organized under its presentConstitution in April, 1789, and Mr. Adams was elected Vice-President. He established himself in New York, and from there Mrs. Adams wrote to her sister, “that she would return to Braintree during the recess of Congress, but the season of the year renders the attempt impracticable.” She speaks in one of her letters of the drawing-rooms held by Mrs. Washington, and the many invitations she received to entertainments. After a residence of one year in New York, the seat of government was removed to Philadelphia. She says in a letter to her daughter, “that she dined with the President in company with the ministers and ladies of the court,” and that “he asked very affectionately after her and the children,” and “at the table picked the sugar-plums from a cake and requested me to take them for Master John.” In February, 1797, Mr. Adams succeeded President Washington, and from Braintree she wrote to her husband one of the most beautiful of all her noble effusions:

“‘The sun is dressed in brightest beamsTo give thy honors to the day.’

“‘The sun is dressed in brightest beams

To give thy honors to the day.’

“And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each ensuing season. You have this day to declare yourself head of a nation. ‘And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people; give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this thy so great a people:’ werethe words of a royal sovereign, and not less applicable to him who is invested with the Chief Magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown nor the robes of royalty. My thoughts and my meditations are with you, though personally absent; and my petitions to heaven are that ‘the things which make for peace may not be hidden from your eyes.’ My feelings are not those of pride or ostentation upon the occasion. They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to this great people, shall be the daily prayer of yours—”

Soon as the funeral rites of Mrs. Adams, the venerable mother of President Adams, were performed, and the sad leave-takings over, Mrs. Adams set out to join her husband at Philadelphia, from whence the seat of government was removed in June, 1800, to Washington City.

Her impression of the place is graphically described in the following letter to her daughter, Mrs. Smith:

“Washington,November 21st, 1800.

“My Dear Child:—

“I arrived here on Sunday last, and without meeting with any accident worth noticing, except losing ourselves when we left Baltimore, and going eight or nine miles on the Frederick road, by which means we wereobliged to go the other eight through woods, where we wandered two hours without finding a guide or the path. Fortunately, a straggling black came up with us, and we engaged him as a guide to extricate us out of our difficulty. But woods are all you see from Baltimore until you reach the city,—which is only so in name. Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed amongst the forests, through which you travel miles without seeing any human being. In the city there are buildings enough, if they were compact and finished, to accommodate Congress and those attached to it; but as they are, and scattered as they are, I see no great comfort for them. The river, which runs up to Alexandria, is in full view of my window, and I see the vessels as they pass and repass. The house is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the ordinary business of the house and stables: an establishment very well proportioned to the President’s salary. The lighting the apartments, from the kitchen to parlors and chambers, is a tax indeed; and the fires we are obliged to keep to secure us from daily agues, is another very cheering comfort. To assist us in this great castle, and render less attendance necessary, bells are wholly wanting, not one single one being hung through the whole house, and promises are all you can obtain. This is so great an inconvenience, that I know not what to do, or how to do. The ladies from Georgetown and in the city have many of themvisited me. Yesterday I returned fifteen visits,—but such a place as Georgetown appears,—why our Milton beautiful. But no comparisons;—if they will put me up some bells, and let me have wood enough to keep fires, I design to be pleased. I could content myself almost anywhere three months; but surrounded with forests, can you believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot be found to cut and cart it? Briesler entered into a contract with a man to supply him with wood; a small part, a few cords only, has he been able to get. Most of that was expended to dry the walls of the house before we came in, and yesterday the man told him it was impossible for him to procure it to be cut and carted. He has had recourse to coals: but we cannot get grates made and set. We have indeed come into a new country.

“You must keep all this to yourself, and when asked how I like it, say that I write you the situation is beautiful, which is true. The house is made habitable, but there is not a single apartment finished, and all withinside, except the plastering, has been done since Briesler came. We have not the least fence, yard, or other convenience, without, and the great unfinished audience-room I make a drying room of, to hang up the clothes in. The principal stairs are not up, and will not be this winter. Six chambers are made comfortable; two are occupied by the President and Mr. Shaw; two lower rooms, one for a common parlor and one for a levee room. Up-stairs there is the oval room, which is designedfor the drawing-room, and has the crimson furniture in it. It is a very handsome room now, but when completed will be beautiful. If the twelve years, in which this place has been considered as the future seat of government, had been improved, as they would have been if in New England, very many of the present inconveniences would have been removed. It is a beautiful spot, capable of every improvement, and the more I view it, the more I am delighted with it. Since I sat down to write, I have been called down to a servant from Mount Vernon, with a billet from Major Custis, and a haunch of venison, and a kind, congratulatory letter from Mrs. Lewis, upon my arrival in the city, with Mrs. Washington’s love, inviting me to Mount Vernon, where, health permitting, I will go, before I leave this place.... Two articles are much distressed for: the one is bells, but the more important one is wood. Yet you cannot see wood for trees. No arrangement has been made, but by promises never performed, to supply the newcomers with fuel. Of the promises, Briesler had received his full share. He had procured nine cords of wood: between six and seven of that was kindly burnt up to dry the walls of the house, which ought to have been done by the commissioners, but which, if left to them, would have remained undone to this day. Congress poured in, but shiver, shiver. No wood-cutters nor carters to be had at any rate. We are now indebted to a Pennsylvania wagon to bring us, through the first clerk in the Treasury Office, one cord and a half of wood, which is all wehave for this house, where twelve fires are constantly required, and where, we are told, the roads will soon be so bad that it cannot be drawn. Briesler procured two hundred bushels of coal, or we must have suffered. This is the situation of almost every person. The public officers have sent to Philadelphia for wood-cutters and wagons.

“The vessel which has my clothes and other matter is not arrived. The ladies are impatient for a drawing-room; I have no looking-glasses, but dwarfs, for this house; nor a twentieth part lamps enough to light it. Many things were stolen, many were broken, by the removal; amongst the number, my tea-china is more than half missing. Georgetown affords nothing. My rooms are very pleasant, and warm, whilst the doors of the hall are closed.

“You can scarce believe that here in this wilderness-city, I should find myself so occupied as it is. My visitors, some of them, come three and four miles. The return of one of them is the work of one day. Most of the ladies reside in Georgetown, or in scattered parts of the city at two and three miles distance. We have all been very well as yet; if we can by any means get wood, we shall not let our fires go out, but it is at a price indeed; from four dollars it has risen to nine. Some say it will fall, but there must be more industry than is to be found here to bring half enough to the market for the consumption of the inhabitants.”

The Hon. John Cotton Smith, a member of Congressfrom Connecticut, describing Washington as it appeared to him on his arrival there, wrote as follows:

“Our approach to the city was accompanied with sensations not easily described. One wing of the Capitol only had been erected, which, with the President’s House, a mile distant from it, both constructed with white sandstone, were striking objects in dismal contrast with the scene around them. Instead of recognizing the avenues and streets portrayed on the plan of the city, not one was visible unless we except a road, with two buildings on each side of it, called the New Jersey Avenue. The Pennsylvania, leading as laid down on paper, from the Capitol to the Presidential mansion, was then nearly the whole distance a deep morass, covered with alder bushes, which were cut through the width of the intended Avenue the then ensuing winter.... The roads in every direction were muddy and unimproved; a sidewalk was attempted in one instance by a covering formed of the chips of the stones which had been hewed for the Capitol. It extended but a little way, and was of little value, for in dry weather the sharp fragments cut our shoes, and in wet weather covered them with white mortar; in short, it was a new settlement. The houses, with two or three exceptions, had been very recently erected, and the operation greatly hurried in view of the approaching transfer of the national government. A laughable desire was manifested by what few citizens and residents there were, to render our condition as pleasant as circumstances would permit. Notwithstandingthe unfavorable aspect which Washington presented on our arrival, I cannot sufficiently express my admiration of its local position. From the Capitol you have a distinct view of its fine, undulating surface, situated at the confluence of the Potomac and its Eastern Branch, the wide expanse of that majestic river to the bend at Mount Vernon, the cities of Alexandria and Georgetown, and the cultivated fields and blue hills of Maryland and Virginia on either side of the river, the whole constituting a prospect of surpassing beauty and grandeur. The city has also the inestimable advantage of delightful water, in many instances flowing from copious springs, and always attainable by digging to a moderate depth.

“Some portions of the city are forty miles from Baltimore. The situation is indeed beautiful and pleasant.

“The President’s house was built to be looked at by visitors and strangers, and will render its occupants an object of ridicule with some and of pity with others. It must be cold and damp in winter, and cannot be kept in tolerable order without a regiment of servants. There are but few houses at any one place, and most of them small, miserable huts, which present an awful contrast to the public buildings. The people are poor, and as far as I can judge, they live like fishes, by eating each other.”

The first New Year’s reception at the White House was held by President Adams in 1801. The house wasonly partially furnished, and Mrs. Adams used the oval room up-stairs, now the library, as a drawing-room. The formal etiquette established by Mrs. Washington at New York and Philadelphia was kept up in the wilderness-city by Mrs. Adams.

At this time the health of Mrs. Adams, which had never been very firm, began decidedly to fail. Her residence at Philadelphia had not been favorable, as it had subjected her to the attack of an intermittent fever, from the effects of which she was never afterward perfectly free. The desire to enjoy the bracing air of her native climate, as well as to keep together the private property of her husband, upon which she early foresaw that he would be obliged to rely for their support in their last years, prompted her to reside much of her time at Quincy.

Thus closed Mrs. Adams’ life in Washington, of which she has given a picture in her letter to her daughter; and spring found her once more in her Massachusetts home, recuperating her failing health. She lived in Washington only four months—and yet she is inseparably connected with it. She was mistress of the White House less than half a year, but she stamped it with her individuality, and none have lived there since who have not looked upon her as the model and guide. It is not asserting too much, to observe that the first occupant of that historic house stands without a rival, and receives a meed of praise awarded to no other American woman.

In the midst of public or private troubles, the buoyant spirit of Mrs. Adams never forsook her. “I am a mortal enemy,” she wrote upon one occasion to her husband, “to anything but a cheerful countenance and a merry heart, which Solomon tells us does good like a medicine.” “This spirit,” says her son, “contributed greatly to lift up his heart, when surrounded by difficulties and dangers, exposed to open hostility, and secret detraction, and resisting a torrent of invective, such as it may well be doubted whether any other individual in public station in the United States has ever tried to stem. It was this spirit which soothed his wounded feelings when the country, which he had served in the full consciousness of the perfect honesty of his motives, threw him off, and signified its preference for other statesmen. There are oftener, even in this life, more compensations for the severest of the troubles that afflict mankind, than we are apt to think.”

The sacrifices made by Mrs. Adams during the long era of war, pestilence, and famine, deserves and should receive from a nation’s gratitude a monument as high and massive as her illustrious husband’s.

Let it be reared in the hearts of the women of America, who may proudly claim her as a model, and let her fame be transmitted to remotest posterity—the “Portia” of the rebellious provinces.

Statues and monuments belong rather to a bygone than a present time, and are indicative of a less degree of culture than we of this century boast. The pagesof history are the truest, safest sarcophagi of greatness, and embalm in their records the lives of the master-workers. Not in marble or bronze be her memory perpetuated, for we need no such hieroglyphics in this country of free schools. Place her history in the libraries of America, and the children of freedom will live over her deeds. To the crumbling monarchies of Europe on their way to dissolution, it may be necessary to erect statues of past greatness, that some shadow of their nothingness may remain as warnings; but the men and women of revolutionary memory are become a part and parcel of this government, whose very existence must be wiped from the face of the earth ere one jot or tittle of their fame is lost.

In viewing the character of Mrs. Adams, as it looms up in the pages of the past, we can but regret that she occupied no more enlarged sphere. The woman who could reply as she did to the question, (“Had you known that Mr. Adams would have remained so long abroad, would you have consented that he should have gone?”)—could have filled any position in civil life. “If I had known,” she replied, after a moment’s hesitation, “that Mr. Adams could have effected what he has done, I would not only have submitted to the absence I have endured, painful as it has been, but I would not have opposed it, even though three more years should be added to the number. I feel a pleasure in being able to sacrifice my selfish passions to the general good, and in imitating the example which has taught me to considermyself and family but as the small dust of the balance, when compared with the great community.”

With the marked characteristics which made her determined and resolute, she could have occupied any post of honor requiring a strong mind and clear perceptions of right; cut off, as was her sex, from participation in the struggle around her; confined by custom to the lonely and wearisome monotony of her country home, she nevertheless stamped her character upon the hearts of her countrymen, and enrolled her name among its workers. Had she been called into any of the departments of State, or required to fill any place of trust, hers would have been an enviable name; even as it is, she occupies the foreground of the Revolutionary history, and so powerful were the energies of her soul, that biographers and historians have deemed it worth their while to deny, in lengthy terms, her influence over her husband, and exert every argument to prove that she in no way controlled his actions. The opinions of men differ on this point, and the students of American biographies decide the questions from their own stand-points. Yet who will not venture to assert, that with the culture bestowed upon her which many men received, she would have towered high above them in their pride and selfishness! Controlled by the usages of society, she could only live in her imagination, and impress upon her children the great ideas that were otherwise doomed to fritter away uselessly in her brain. Indifferent to the charms of fashionable life,deprived of the luxuries which too often enervate and render worthless the capacities of woman, she was as independent and self-supporting in her actions, as were the inspirations of her mind; and through good and evil report, conduced by her example to place that reliance in her country’s success which in a great measure secured its independence. Her character was one of undeviating fairness and frank truthfulness, free from affectation and vanity.

From the year 1801 down to the day of her death, a period of seventeen years, she lived uninterruptedly at Quincy. The old age of Mrs. Adams was not one of grief and repining, of clouds and darkness; her cheerfulness continued with the full possession of her faculties to the last, and her sunny spirit enlivened the small social circle around her, brightened the solitary hours of her husband, and spread the influence of its example over the town where she lived. “Yesterday,” she writes, to a granddaughter, on the 26th of October, 1814, “completes half a century since I entered the marriage state, then just your age. I have great cause of thankfulness that I have lived so long and enjoyed so large a portion of happiness as has been my lot. The greatest source of unhappiness I have known, in that period, has arisen from the long and cruel separations which I was called, in a time of war, and with a young family around me, to submit to.”

The appointment of her eldest son as Minister to Great Britain, by President Madison, was a life-long satisfactionto her; and the testimony President Monroe gave her of his worth, by making him his Secretary of State, was the crowning joy of her life. Had she been spared a few years longer, she would have enjoyed seeing him hold the position his father had occupied before him. Mrs. Adams lost three of her children: a daughter in infancy; a son grown to manhood, who died in 1800; and in 1813 her only remaining daughter, Abigail, the wife of Colonel William S. Smith.

The warmest feelings of friendship had existed between Mr. Jefferson and herself until a difference in political sentiments, developed during the administration of President Washington, disturbed the social relations existing. “Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson tried as hard as men could do, to resist the natural effect upon them of their antagonist positions. They strove each in turn, to stem the proscriptive fury of the parties to which they belonged, and that with equally bad success.

“Mrs. Adams felt as women only feel, what she regarded as the ungenerous conduct of Mr. Jefferson towards her husband during the latter part of his public life, and when she retired from Washington, notwithstanding the kindest professions from his mouth were yet ringing in her ears, all communication between the parties ceased. Still, there remained on both sides, pleasant reminiscences to soften the irritation that had taken place, and to open a way for reconciliation whenever circumstances should present a suitable opportunity.”

The little daughter of Mr. Jefferson, in whom Mrs. Adams had taken so much interest in 1787, had in the interval grown into a woman, and had been married to Mr. Eppes of Virginia. In 1804 she ceased to be numbered among the living, and almost against her own judgment Mrs. Adams wrote to him. He seemed to be much affected by this testimony of her sympathy, and replied, not confining himself to the subject-matter of her letter, and added a request to know her reasons for the estrangement that had occurred. Without the knowledge of her husband she replied to him, but he at first did not choose to believe her assertion. Fortunately, the original endorsement, made in the handwriting of letters retained by herself, will serve to put this matter beyond question. Her last letter to him was as follows:

“Quincy,25th October, 1804.

“Sir: Sickness for three weeks past has prevented my acknowledging the receipt of your letter of Sept. 11th. When I first addressed you, I little thought of entering into a correspondence with you upon subjects of a political nature. I will not regret it, as it has led to some elucidations, and brought on some explanations, which place in a more favorable light occurrences which had wounded me.

“Having once entertained for you a respect and esteem, founded upon the character of an affectionate parent, a kind master, a candid and benevolent friend, I could not suffer different political opinions to obliterate themfrom my mind. I felt the truth of the observation, that the heart is long, very long in receiving the conviction that is forced upon it by reason. It was not until circumstances occurred to place you in the light of a rewarder and encourager of a libeler, whom you could not but detest and despise, that I withdrew the esteem I had long entertained for you. Nor can you wonder, Sir, that I should consider as a personal unkindness, the instance I have mentioned. I am pleased to find that which respected my son altogether unfounded. He was, as you conjecture, appointed a commissioner of bankruptcy, together with Judge Dawes, and continued to serve in it with perfect satisfaction to all parties (at least I never heard the contrary), untilsupersededby the appointment of others. The idea suggested that no one was in office, and consequently no removal could take place, I cannot consider in any other light than what the gentlemen of the law would term a quibble—as such I pass it. Judge Dawes was continued or reappointed, which placed Mr. Adams in a more conspicuous light as the object of personal resentment. Nor could I, upon this occasion, refrain calling to mind the last visit you made me at Washington, when in the course of conversation you assured me, that if it should lay in your power at any time to serve me or my family, nothing would give you more pleasure. With respect to the office, it was a small object, but the disposition of the remover was considered by me as the barbed arrow. This, however, by your declaration, is withdrawn from my mind. Withthe public it will remain. And here, Sir, may I be allowed to pause, and ask whether, in your ardent desire to rectify the mistakes and abuses, as you may term them, of the former administrations, you may not be led into measures still more fatal to the constitution, and more derogatory to your honor and independence of character? I know, from the observations which I have made, that there is not a more difficult part devolves upon a chief magistrate, nor one which subjects him to more reproach and censure, than the appointments to office. And all the patronage which this enviable power gives him is but a poor compensation for the responsibility to which it subjects him. It would be well, however, to weigh and consider characters, as it respects their moral worth and integrity. He who is not true to himself, nor just to others, seeks an office for the benefit of himself, unmindful of that of his country. I cannot accord with you in opinion that the Constitution ever meant to withhold from the National Government the power of self-defence; or that it could be considered an infringement of the liberty of the press, to punish the licentiousness of it. Time must determine and posterity will judge with more candor and impartiality, I hope, than the conflicting parties of our day, what measures have best promoted the happiness of the people; and what raised them from a state of depression and degradation to wealth, honor, and reputation; what has made them affluent at home and respected abroad; and to whomsoever the tribute is due, to them may it be given. I will not further intrude uponyour time; but close this correspondence by my wishes that you may be directed to that path which may terminate in the prosperity and happiness of the people over whom you are placed, by administering the government with justice and impartiality; and be assured, Sir, no one will more rejoice in your success than

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