Abigail Adams and Her Times

o the trials of these two loving hearts. In November, Mr. Adams was again ordered to France on public service, and sa

o much sensibility, and why, possessing it, have I so often been called to struggle with it? I wish to see you again. Were I sure you would

ign more than I do, unless life itself were called for. My dear sons, I cannot think of them without a tear. Little do they know the feelings of a mother's heart. May they be good and use

arest friend, and, in his own time, r

rti

est snow known in forty years; all through January and February, the Bay was frozen over, so that no vessel could pass through for a month. "We had neither

Post Office was opened every Monday morning from the middle of March to the middle of September, "at 7 of the clock, to deliver out all letters that do come by the post till twelve o'clock; from t

le of the nineteenth century. Beside letters, the faithful Portia sen

tte, and the New England Courant. In both these, James Franklin, Benjamin's elder brother, had a hand; indeed, the Courant was his own paper, started when he was discharged from the staff of the Gazette. He seems to have been a quarrels

egularly to her John, who received the

haise and went into town to make s

n. I find she would not be averse to taking a voyage, should he be continued abroad. She groans most bitterly, and is irreconcilable t

; I remember a calash, in my childhood. It was made of thin green silk, shirred on pieces of rattan or whalebone, placed two or three inches apart. These were drawn together at the back by a cape, and thus, bent into hoop-shape, could be

they lasted for years and years. It was not till some years after this that American women began to make their own bonnet straw. It became the rage, both here and in England, and women vied with each other in the amount and qual

uckles; Ceres is the favorite, not only of the female but the male part of t

hat Mrs. Dana gave Mrs. Adams a good dis

re lost. In October Mrs. Adams again quotes the cur

nine; lamb, six, seven, and eight. Butter, twelve dollars per pound; cheese, ten. Sheep's wool, thirty dollars per pound; flax, twenty. West India articles: sugar, from a hundred and seventy to two hundred pounds per hund

ope." He notes in his diary of January, 1781, "John is transcribing a Greek Grammar . . . of his master's composition, and Charles a Latin one; John is also transcribing a treatise on Roman antiquities. . . . After dinner they went to the Rector Magn

trying to tell. Yet-surely never were husband and wife more entirely one-I must indulge myself, and my readers, with his account of the

t. One of the maids of honor told me she had diamonds upon her person to the value of eighteen millions of livres; and I always thought her majesty much beholden to her dress. Mr. Burke saw her probably but once. I have seen her fifty times perhaps

n A

by Gilbe

ibe the spectacle o

with the gold, and diamonds, and embroidery, about me. I could neither speak, nor understand the language in a manner to support a conversation, but I had soon the satisfaction to find it was a silent meeting, and that nobody spoke a word, but the royal family, to each other, and they said very little. The eyes of all the assembly were turned upon me, and I felt sufficiently humble and mortified, for I was not a proper object for the criticisms of such a company. I found myself gazed at, as we in America used to gaze at the sachems who came to make speeches to us in Congress, but I thought it very hard if I could not comm

in a single spoonful all at once. This was all performed like perfect clock work; not a feature of her face, nor a motion of any part of her person, especially her arm and her hand, could be critic

e to time, while he was at table. He looked at these. Some of them he read, or seem

the religion of nations, in any age, approved of the dogmas or the satires. On the contrary, it has always overborne them all, and carried its inventions of such exhibitions to a degree of sublimity and pathos, which has frequently transp

is full of

les and habits and tastes for expensive living without the means. He was not. My children shall never have the smallest soil of dishonor or disgrace brought upon them by their father, no, not to please ministers, kings, or nations. At the expense of a little of this, my children might perhaps ride at their ease through life, but dearly as I love them, they shall li

his own and General Greene's last great actions. They are in the way to negotiate peace. It lies wholl

ely for some time. But one thing I am determined on. If God should please to restore me once more to your fireside, I will never again leave it without your ladyship's company-no, not even to go to Congress to Philadelphia, and there I am determined to go, if I

sk, his chin up, his eyes flashing. So, I fancy, he may have looked, in his "

for each other. I say "friends," because it is their own

a day which I wished to have devoted in a particular manner to my dearest friend; but compa

at eighteen years have run their circuit since we pledged our mutual faith to each other, and the hymeneal torch was lighted at the altar of Love? Yet, yet it burns with unabating

allowed to join

o see me, but I know you are apprehensive of dangers and fatigues. I know your situation may be unsettled, and it may be more permanent than I wish it. Only think how the words, 'three, four, and five years' absence,' sound! They sink into my h

ld come home. I have, therefore, this day written to Congress a resignation of all my employments, and as soon as I shall receive their acceptance of it, I will embark for America, which will be in the spring or beginning of

f you had known that Mr. Adams should have remained so long

he absence I have endured, painful as it has been, but I would not have opposed it, even though three years more should be added to the number (which Heaven avert!). I feel a pleasure in being able to sac

on was to end. In Decembe

oyments, which I have transmitted many ways, I shall embark, and you may depend upon a good domestic husband for the remainder of my life, if it is the will of Hea

mindful of their welfare. They have had too much reason to think themselves forgotten, a

ords cannot express, I am

public took her place among the nations. On the 21st of January, 1783, article