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88 JOHN ADAMS battle of Long Island, through his prisoner, Gen. Sullivan. He was, however, appointed one of the committee for that purpose, along with Franklin and Rutledge, and his autobiog- raphy contains some curious anecdotes of the visit. Besides his presidency of the board of war, Adams was also chairman of the commit- tee upon which devolved the decision of appeals in admiralty cases from the state courts. Having thus occupied for nearly two years a position which gained him the reputation among at least a portion of his colleagues of having " the clearest head and firmest heart of any man in congress," he was appointed near the end of the year 1777 a commissioner to France to supersede Deane, whom congress had determined to recall. He embarked at Boston, in the frigate Boston, on Feb. 12, 1778, reached Bordeaux after a stormy passage, and arrived on April 8 at Paris. Already before his arrival the alliance with France had been completed, and his stay was not long. He found that a very great antagonism of views and feeling had arisen between the three commissioners, Frank- lin, Deane, and Arthur Lee, of whom the em- bassy to France had been originally composed ; and as the recall of Deane had not reconciled the other two, Adams advised, as the only means of giving unity and energy to the mis- sion, that it should be intrusted to a single person. This suggestion was adopted, and in consequence of it, Franklin having been ap- pointed sole ambassador in France, Adams returned home in the same French frigate which took out the new French minister, the chevalier de la Luzerne. He arrived at Boston just as a convention was about to meet to form a state constitution for Massachusetts; and being chosen a delegate from Braintree, he took a leading part in its formation. Before this convention had finished its business, he was appointed by congress minister to treat with Great Britain for peace and commerce, under which appointment he sailed again for France in 1779, in the same French frigate in which he had returned. Very contrary to his own in- clinations, Mr. Adams was prevented by Ver- gennes, the Frencli minister of foreign affairs, from making to Great Britain any communi- cation of his powers. In fact, Vergennes and Adams already were and continued to be to each other objects of serious distrust, in both cases quite unfounded. Vergennes feared lest advances toward treating with England might lead to some sort of reconciliation with her short of the independence of the colo- nies, which was contrary to his ideas of the in- terest of France. The communications made to him by Gerard, the first French minister in America, and Adams's connection with the Lees, whom Vergennes suspected, though un- justly, of a secret communication through Ar- thur Lee with the British ministry, led him to regard Mr. Adams as the representative of a party in congress desirous of such a reconcilia- tion ; nor did he rest till he had obtained from congress, some two years after, the recall of Mr. Adams's powers to negotiate a treaty of commerce, and the conjunction with him of several colleagues to treat for peace, of whom Franklin, who enjoyed his entire confidence, was one. Adams, on the other hand, not en- tirely free from hereditary English prejudices against the French, vehemently suspected Ver- gennes of a design to sacrifice the interests of the United States, especially the fisheries and the western lands, to the advancement of the Spanish house of Bourbon. While lingering at Paris, with nothing to do except to nurse these suspicions, Adams busied himself in furnishing communications on American affairs to a semi- official gazette, the Mercure de France, con- ducted by M. Genet, chief secretary in the for- eign bureau, and father of the French minis- ter in America, who subsequently rendered that name so notorious. Finding his position at Paris not very comfortable, he proceeded to Holland in July, 1780, his object being to form an opinion as to the probability of bor- rowing money there. Just about the same time he was appointed by congress to nego- tiate a Dutch loan, Laurens, who had been se- lected for that purpose, being not yet ready to leave home. By way of enlightening the Dutch as to American affairs, Adams published in the "Gazette" of Leyden, and in a mag- azine called Politique hollandaise, a number of papers and extracts, including several which, through a friend, he procured to be first pub- lished in a London journal, to give to them an English character. To these he added a direct publication of his own, afterward many times reprinted, and to be found in the 7th volume of his collected works, under the title of "Twenty-six Letters upon Interesting Sub- jects, respecting the Revolution in America." He had commenced negotiations for a loan, when his labors in that direction were inter- rupted by the sudden breach between England and Holland, consequent upon the capture of Laurens, and the discovery of the secret nego- tiation carried on between him and Van Ber- kel of Amsterdam, which, though it had been entered upon without authority from the Dutch states, the British made the pretence for a speedy declaration of war. Adams was soon after appointed minister to Holland in place of the captured Laurens, and at the same tune was commissioned to sign the articles of armed neutrality, which had just made their appear- ance on the political scene. Adams presented memorials to the Dutch government, setting forth his powers in both respects ; but before he could procure any recognition, he was re- called in July, 1781, to Paris, by a notice that he was needed there in his character of minis- ter, to treat of peace. Adams's suspicions of Vergennes had, meanwhile, been not a little increased by the neglect of France to second his applications to Holland. With Vergennes the great object was peace. The finances of France were sadly embarrassed. Vergennes