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ABIGAIL ADAMS.

of the reign of Queen Anne. Abigail and her sisters "were familiar with the pages of Shakespeare and Milton, of Dryden and Pope, of Addison and Swift, no less than with those of Tillotson and Berkeley; nor were they unacquainted with those of Butler and Locke.

HE wife of John Adams, second | relish for the beauties and high moral president of the United States, principles of the poets and moralists was born at Weymouth, Massachusetts, November 22d, 1744. Her maiden was Abigail Smith, and she came from the old stock of New-England colonists. Her father was the Congregational minister at Weymouth for more than forty years; and on her mother's side, the Quincy family, she inherited a claim to belong to those who were distinguished and prominent in the educational and religious move. ments of the early Puritans. Abigail was the second of three daughters, and when a girl, being rather delicate, was not sent to school with other girls of her age and position. Her education and training, consequently, consisted in great measure in a somewhat discursive course of reading, and she owed a deep and abiding debt of gratitude to her grandmother, Elizabeth Quincy, who contributed largely towards forming and improving her taste and judg. ment, and assisting her in learning lessons of practical wisdom and goodness. Mrs. Adams, however, we are assured by her son, John Quincy Adams, was well versed in the best literature of the period, and was possessed with a warm

Perhaps no writer of any age or nation ever exercised a more beneficent influence over the taste and manners of the female sex, than Addison, by the papers of the Spectator, Guardian and Tatler. With these the daughters of Mrs. Smith were, from their childhood, familiar. The sententious energy of Young, sparkling amid the gloom of his Night Thoughts, like diamonds from the lamp of a sepulchre; the patriotic and profound sensibilities of Thomson and Collins, preeminently the poets of freedom, kindling the love of country with the concentrated ra diance and splendors of imagination, were felt and admired by Mrs. Adams, in her youth, and never lost their value to her mind in mature age." Trained under such influences, the superior native powers and faculties of Mrs. Adams, found their full development, and

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she became the wisest, safest and most farm, the dairy. Let every article of reliable counsellor of her husband in expense, which can possibly be spared, the busy and somewhat stormy career be retrenched. Keep the hands attenof political life. Her marriage took | tive to their business, and let the most place October 25th, 1764, and John prudent measures of every kind be Adams being at the time an active adopted and pursued with alacrity and rather ambitious young lawyer, she spent the first eight or ten years of wedded life in the discharge of home duties and in full sympathy with the patriotic movements which soon after led to a collision between the colonies and the British govern

ment.

Entrance into the public service seemed almost a necessity at this period to a man of John Adams' native capabilities and prominent position. The course of events which brought Boston into the forefront in the struggle with the mother country, naturally aroused every man of note and character in New England. Adams was chosen as one of a committee to meet other public spirited men in a Congress at Philadelphia, September, 1774, in order to consult upon existing and threatened dangers, and to provide as far as possible for combined effort in the common behalf. Beginning at this date, and continuing all through life, as far as occasion permitted or required, Mrs. Adams and her husband kept up a regular confidential correspondence, in which she bore her full part and justified the high praise we have bestowed upon her. "I must entreat you," Adams wrote, "my dear partner in all the joys and sorrows, prosperity and adversity of my life, to take a part with me in the struggle. I pray God for your health, and entreat you to rouse your whole attention to the family, the stock, the

and spirit."

Mrs. Adams, at this time, while her husband was absent at Philadelphia, was residing at their cottage at Braintree, with four little children, the eldest not ten years old. The battle of Lexington had taken place, and the whole country around Boston was alive with men eager to besiege the king's troops, and bring the contest to a distinct issue. Danger was imminent, and no one could tell from what quarter it might come, or say where the hand of the depredator might strike. Writing to her husband, under date of May 24th, 1775, Mrs. Adams gives a graphic account of the alarm just then occasioned by the approach of a small "Our house body of British soldiers. has been, upon this alarm," she says, "a scene of confusion. Soldiers coming in for a lodging, for breakfast, for supper, for drink, etc. Sometimes ref ugees from Boston, tired and fatigued, seek an asylum for a day, a night, a week. You can hardly imagine how we live.

My best wishes attend you, both for your health and happiness; and that you may be directed into the wisest and best measures for our safety, and the security of our prosperity. I wish you were We know not what a nearer to us. day will bring forth, nor what distress Hitherone hour may throw us into. to I have been able to maintain a calmness and presence of mind; and hope

I shall, let the exigency of the time be material aid to our country, and to enter what it will."

The value of John Adams' presence and services were so great in Congress, that he could not be spared, and consequently Mrs. Adams was called upon to exercise all her fortitude, and bear up, in great measure alone, under the terrible trials of war, pestilence and such like evils. Yet she did not murmur, and she sympathized fully in the glowing words of her husband, who had been the great and eloquent defender of the Declaration of Independence in July, 1776. "You will think me transported with enthusiasm," he writes, "but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, through Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not."

Early in the spring of 1778, Mrs. Adams was under the necessity of parting with her husband and eldest son for a season. Adams was sent to France to join with Franklin and others in efforts to induce the government to extend aid to the United States. Adams returned home in the summer of the next year, and was again deputed to foreign service. After a tedious and dangerous voyage, he reached Paris, in February, 1780; thence he proceeded to Holland, and accomplished there what his grandson terms "the greatest triumph of his life," in persuading the Dutch to give

into a treaty, October, 1782, between
the ancient republic and its newly born
sister. Mrs. Adams did not accompany
her husband at this time, but remained
at her post at home, in the cheerful dis-
charge of the duties incumbent upon
her, and in both waiting and watching
for the future of her native land.
The public service requiring Adams to
remain abroad, his wife and only daugh-
ter joined him, on the continent, in the
summer of 1784. "Her arrival com-
pletely altered the face of his affairs.
He forgot the ten years of almost con-
stant separation which had taken place,
and became reconciled at once to a long-
er stay abroad. No man depended
more than he upon the tranquil enjoy.
ments of home for his happiness. He
took the house at Auteuil, near Paris,
to which he had been removed in the
preceding year for recovery from his
illness, and returned to a state of life
placid and serene. With his wife, his
eldest son, John Quincy, then just ris-
ing into a youth of the greatest prom-
ise, and a daughter, in whom any body
would have felt a pride, about him,
near the society of a cultivated me-
tropolis, into which his official position
gave him free admission, he had little
to do but to enjoy the day as it passed,
heedless of the morrow. Some little
notion of his way of life may be gath-
ered from the fresh and sprightly let-
ters of Mrs. Adams, addressed, during
this time, to her friends and relations
at home, which have been already giv-
en to the world."

In the spring of 1785, Mrs. Adams accompanied her husband to England, he having been appointed the first

American Minister to the Court of St. James. It was a position of no little difficulty as well as importance to both Mr. and Mrs. Adams. The pride and haughtiness of the nobility, the stubborn will of George III., the entirely undefined position and rank of an ambassador just arrived and coming from a land recently in subjection to the British crown, all portended difficulties and annoyances not altogether easy to endure; and in addition, so far as his wife was concerned, the lofty assumptions of the leaders and rulers of society, and their ill concealed contempt for parvenus, like Americans, foreshadowed trials quite as difficult in their way to be borne, as those to which Adams was subjected.

It is a marked confirmation of the high estimate which we have expressed respecting Mrs. Adams, that she bore herself with most admirable skill and spirit in her difficult position. A true and genuine Christian lady, without pretension or affectation, claiming nothing for herself beyond what every lady is entitled to, and expecting and requiring from the haughtiest the consideration due to her rank as representing the women of her native country, she seems to have charmed the nobility and votaries of fashionable life by her unaffected simplicity, gentleness, refinement and courtesy, and fully to have sustained the character which her countrywomen may well have admired. Annoyances there were, it is true, and enough of them; but Mrs. Adams always proved herself equal to every emergency, and never tarnished the fair fame of the people to whom she belonged.

Her letters, as we have noted, give a clear insight into matters of interest and value to herself and her native land. Writing to her sister, on one occasion, she says: "When I reflect on the advantages which the people of America possess over the most polished of other nations, the ease with which property is obtained, the plenty which is so equally distributed, their personal liberty and security of life and property, I feel grateful to heaven who marked out my lot in this happy land; at the same time I deprecate that restless spirit, and that baneful ambition and thirst for power, which will finally make us as wretched as our neighbors."

In the spring of 1788, Mrs. Adams, with her husband and family, bade adieu to Europe, and returned to the United States. Adams was elected vice-president, and for eight years discharged the duties of his office with dignity, conscientiousness and success. Mrs. Adams, who had so well sustained her difficult position abroad, was now fully alive to the present duties and obligations. Abundant evidence exists of the admirable way in which she presided in her residence at New York and afterwards at Philadelphia, and displayed those superior excellences of mind and temper for which she was distinguished. Her husband's reliance upon her sympathy, her judgment, her clear insight, was unbounded, and it cannot be doubted that she exercised an influence over him most happy and beneficial in its effects. On taking up his abode in New York, Mr. Adams secured the beautiful rural residence of Mrs. Jephson at

Richmond Hill. It was, we are assured, the most agreeable place on the island, and admirably adapted to the views of both the vice-president and his wife.

In the autumn of 1790, Mrs. Adams was subjected to the annoyance of superintending the removal of her household to Philadelphia, this city having been selected for the national capital during the following ten years. It was a tedious and toilsome operation, but was bravely endured and successfully accomplished. Writing to her daughter, she says: "Though there remains neither bush nor shrub upon it, and very few trees, except the pine grove behind it, yet Bush Hill (her new residence), is a very beautiful place; but the grand and the sublime I left at Richmond Hill. The cultivation in sight and the prospect are superior; but the Schuylkill is no more like the Hudson than I to Hercules."

Society in Philadelphia, at this date, was distinguished for its brilliancy and liveliness. The number of beautiful women was unusually large, and as, in addition to personal attractiveness, there were superadded the higher elements of intellectual culture, the Quaker City was more gay than it has ever been since, or is ever likely to be again. "I should spend a very dissipated winter," Mrs. Adams wrote, "were I to accept one-half of the invitations I receive, particularly to the routs or tea-and-cards."

During the recess of Congress, and when occasion served, or the state of her health required, Mrs. Adams was absent from the seat of government, and sought relaxation and pleasure in

her country home at Quincy, Massachusetts. She kept up a regular correspondence with her husband, and was always the cheerful, genial, sagacious wife and counsellor.

Writing to his wife, in February, 1794, Adams said: "You apologize for the length of your letters, and I ought to excuse the shortness and emptiness of mine. Yours give me more enter tainment than all the speeches I hear. There are more good thoughts, fine strokes, and mother wit in them than An ounce I hear in the whole week. of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy; and I rejoice that one of my children, at least, has an abundance of not only mother wit, but of his mother's wit. It is one of the most amiable and striking traits in his composition. If the rogue has any family pride, it is all derived from the same source." To this Mrs. Adams replied, in a like genial strain: "You say so many handsome things to me, respecting my letters that you ought to fear making me vain; since, however, we may appreciate the encomiums of the world, the praises of those whom we love and esteem are more dangerous, because we are led to believe them the most sincere."

John Adams having been elected successor of Washington in the first and highest office in the country's gift, his wife wrote to him in terms of so great womanly dignity and appreci ativeness, that we give her letter in full. It was dated at Quincy, February 8th, 1797:

“The sun is dressed in brightest beams, To give honor to the day.

"And may it prove an auspicious

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