 It's so good to have you home. What is it? Whatever do you mean? You have news. Bad news. What is it this time? I have just crossed over our threshold and scarcely spoken a dozen words and you suddenly realise something is amiss. We've been married for ten years and you think you can keep anything hidden from me? A woman just knows these things. I'm well too aware of that. Very well. Do you remember about four years ago when I returned home from Boston to tell you I had consented to my own ruin? Oh yes and my ruin as well and to the ruin of our children because you were chosen as a representative of Boston in the colony's house. Mind you I was chosen. I was not asked. I did not ask for it but I did believe it was my duty and I do also believe you burst into tears. Scarcely. I believe that I recovered quite quickly and told you well I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you and to be ruined with you if you are to be ruined. And I was grateful for your magnanimity. Those were times that tried women's souls as much as men's. And they still do John. But why are you recounting this to me now? Because I have consented to our further ruin. I have been chosen to represent Massachusetts in a continental congress to discuss our response to the intolerable acts. Finally it is about time. One moment you are happy about this? I'm more relieved than happy but probably nonetheless. It should have taken much less time and taxes than this to garner a response from all the colonies. I do not disagree with you. Of course you don't. You of all people have known and seen that the actions of the Parliament and the British Army upon Massachusetts are a reflection of their attitude toward all the colonies. When do you leave? We are to present ourselves in September. But I suspect we will leave in August if not sooner as there will be far too many unnecessary receptions and dinners we must go to along the way. But how far will you be travelling? Far away from home than I have ever travelled. To Philadelphia. For the Delphia? But you protest to a place you have never been to. One reads things about such a large and dirty city. I pray you return safe. Oh I have read things as well that some of the delegates are bringing their wives. You could come with me. To Philadelphia? I think not. Besides who would tend to the farm? Henry Faxter? Who would instruct and care for the children? Your sisters? Who would gather money for this family? I presume they have not offered to pay you for your participation in this Congress? Not precisely no. Well then it is settled. I shall remain and collect your fees from your clients, tend to the farm and care for the children. You travel to Philadelphia and your unnecessary dinners and receptions. It is not something that I look forward to. Besides I shall have to care for children too. They are called Congressmen. We shall each have sacrifices to make if our liberties are to be respected. How else may I help? I shall likely need more white linen shirts and another suit. I have heard terrible things about the Philadelphia Laundresses and I don't want to find myself at their mercy for clean clothes. Done John, done. Naby and I will get to work immediately and we will have twelve white shirts and a new wool suit ready by the time you leave. Thank you my dear. No husband of mine will be subject to the nefarious business negotiations and shoddy laundering practices of the Philadelphia Wash Women. Let us find the children. It is time for supper and we will have to explain your impending travels to them. I know not where this will find you, whether upon the road or at Philadelphia, but wherever it is. I hope it will find you in good health and spirits. Your journey I imagine must have been very tedious from the extreme heat of the weather and the dustiness of the roads. We are burnt up with the drought having had no rain since you left us, nor is there the least appearance of any. I was much gratified upon the return of some of your friends from Watertown who gave me an account of your social dinner and friendly parting. May your return merit and meet with the grateful acknowledgments of every well-wisher to their country. Your task is difficult and important, heaven direct and prosper you. Our little ones send their duty to their papa and the gentleman their respects. And that which at all times and in all places evermore attends you is the most affectionate regard of your Abigail Adams. My dear, I received your kind letter at New York and it is not easy for you to imagine the pleasure it has given me. I have not found a single opportunity to write since I left Boston, accepting by the post and I don't choose to write by that conveyance for fear of foul play. I hope to find there some private hand by which I can convey this. The particulars of our journey I must reserve to be communicated after my return. It would take a volume to describe the whole. It has been on the whole an agreeable jot. We have had opportunities to see the world and form acquaintances with the most eminent and famous men in the several colonies we have passed through. We have been treated with unbounded civility, complacence and respect. The spirit of the people wherever we have been seems to be very favourable. They universally consider our cause as their own and they express the firmest resolution to abide by the determination of the Congress. The education of our children has never been out of my mind. Train them to virtue, habituate them to industry, activity and spirit. Make them consider every vice as shameful and unmanly, fire them with ambition to be useful. Make them disdain to be destitute of any useful or ornamental knowledge or accomplishment. Fix their ambition on great and solid objects and their contempt upon little frivolous and useless ones. It is time for you, my dear, to begin to teach them French. Every decency, grace and honesty must be inculcated upon them. I have kept a few minutes by way of journal which shall be your entertainment when I come home. But we have had so many persons and so various characters to converse with and so many objects to view that I have not been able to be so particular as I could wish. I am with the tendress affection and concern. You're wandering, John Adams. The great distance between us makes the time appear very long to me. It seems already a month since you left me. The great anxiety I feel for my country, for you and for our family, renders the day tedious and the night unpleasant. The rocks and quick sands appear on every side. What course you can or will take is all wrapped in the bosom of futurity. Uncertainty and expectation leave the mind great scope. Did ever any kingdom or state regain their liberty when once it was invaded without bloodshed? I cannot think of it without horror. Yet we are told that all the misfortunes of Sparta were occasioned by their true great solicitude for the present tranquility and by an excessive love of peace. They neglected the means of making it sure and lasting. They ought to have reflected, says Polybius, that as there is nothing more desirable or advantageous than peace when founded in justice and honour, so there's nothing more shameful and at the same time more pernicious when attained by bad measures and purchased at the price of liberty. I have taken a very great fondness for reading Rollins' ancient history since you left me. I find great pleasure and entertainment from it and I have persuaded Johnny to read me a page or two every day and I hope he will, from his desire to oblige me, entertain a fondness for it too. I want to hear from you. I long impatiently to have you upon the stage of action. The first of September or the month of September perhaps may be of as much important to Great Britain as the Ides of March were to Caesar. Abigail Adams. My dear, I have written but once, well twice actually, to you since I left you. This is to be imputed to a variety of causes which I cannot explain for want of time. It would fill volumes to give you an exact idea of the whole tour. My time is totally filled from the moment I get out of bed until I return to it. Visits, ceremonies, company, business, newspapers, pamphlets, etc, etc, etc. The Congress will, to all present appearance, be well united and in such measures I hope will give satisfaction to the friends of our country. Dearest friend, five weeks have passed and not one line have I received. I had rather give a dollar for a letter by the post, though the consequence should be that I eat but one meal a day for these three weeks to come. Everyone I see is inquiring after you and when did I hear? All my intelligence is collected from the newspaper and I can only reply that I saw that you arrived by such a day. I know your fondness for writing and your inclination to let me hear from you by the first safe conveyance, which makes me suspect that some letter or other has miscarried, but I hope that you have now arrived at Philadelphia and you will find means to convey me some intelligence. But as to the movements of this town, perhaps you may not hear them from any other person. In consequence of the powders being taken from Charlestown, a general alarm spread through many of the towns and was caught pretty soon here. About eight o'clock a Sunday evening there passed by here two hundred men proceeded by a horse cart and marched down to the powder house from whence they took the powder and carried it to the other parish and there secreted it. I opened the window upon their return. They passed without any noise, not a word among them until they came against this house, when some of them perceiving me asked if I wanted any powder. I replied not since it was in such good hands. Abigail Adams. My dear, I received your very agreeable letter by Mr. Marston and have received two other letters which gave me much pleasure. I have wrote several letters, but whether they have reached you or not, I know not. There is much rascality in the management of letters now come in fashion that I am determined to write nothing of consequence, not even to the friend of my bosom, but by conveyances by which I can be sure of. The proceedings of the Congress are all a profound secret, as yet, except for two votes which passed yesterday, an order to be printed. You will see them from every quarter. These votes were passed in full Congress with perfect unanimity. The esteem, the affection, the admiration for the people of Boston and the Massachusetts which were expressed yesterday and the fixed determination that they should be supported were enough to melt a heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into the eyes of the old grave Pacific Quakers of Pennsylvania. You cannot conceive, my dear, the hurry of business, visits and ceremonies which we are obliged to go through. We have a delicate course to steer between too much activity and too much insensibility in our critical, interested situation. I flatter myself, however, that we shall conduct our embassy in such a manner as to merit the approbation of our country. In your last letter you inquire tenderly after my health and how we found the people upon our journey and how we were treated. I have enjoyed good health, as usual, much more than I know how to account for when I consider the extreme heat of the weather and the incessant feasting I have endured since I left Boston. The people of Connecticut, New York, the Jerseys and Pennsylvania we have found extremely well principled and very well inclined. Although some persons in New York and Philadelphia wanted a little animation, their zeal, however, has increased wonderfully since we began our journey. My dear, I am very well yet. Write to me as often as you can and send your letters to the office in Boston or to Mr Cranshers, where they will be sent by the first conveyance. I am anxious to know how you can live without government, but the experiment must be tried. The evils will not be found so dreadful as you apprehend them. Frugality, my dear, frugality, economy, parsimony must be our refuge. I hope the ladies are every day diminishing their ornaments and the gentlemen too. Let us eat potatoes and drink water. Let us wear canvas and undressed sheepskins rather than submit to the unrighteous and ignominious domination that is prepared for us. John Adams sitting down to write to you is a scene almost too tender for my state of nerves. It calls up to my view the anxious distressed state that you must be in amidst the confusions and dangers which surround you. I long to return and administer all the consolation in my power, but when I shall have accomplished all the business that I have to do here, I know not, and if it should be necessary to stay here till Christmas or longer in order to affect our purposes, I am determined patiently to wait. Hmm, I shall be killed with kindness in this place. We go to Congress at nine, there we stay, most earnestly engaged in debates upon the most abstruse mysteries of state until three in the afternoon. Then we adjourn and go to dinner with some of the nobles of Pennsylvania, and at four o'clock we feast upon ten thousand delicacies and sit drinking Madeira, claret and burgundy until six or seven, and then go home fatigued to death with business, company and care. Yet I hold it out, surprisingly. I drink no cider, but feast upon Philadelphia beer and porter John Adams. I have just returned from a visit to my brother with my father who carried me there the day before yesterday and called here in my return to see this much-injured town. I view it with much the same sensations that I should, the body of a departed friend, only put off its present glory for to rock the earth. Should the body of a departed friend only put off its present glory for to rise finally to a more happy state, I will not despair, but will believe that our cause, being good, we shall finally prevail. The maxim in time of peace, prepare for war, if this may be called a time of peace, resounds throughout the country. Next Tuesday they are warned at Braintree, all above 15 and under 60, to attend with their arms and to train once a fortnight from that time. It's a scheme which lays much at the heart of many. Abigail Adams My dear, there is a great spirit in the Congress, but our people must be peaceable. Let them exercise every day in the week, if they will, the more the better. Let them furnish themselves with artillery, arms and ammunition. Let them follow the maxim which you say they have adopted in times of peace, prepare for war, but let them avoid war if possible, if possible, I say. My dear, I am wearied to death with the life I lead. The business of the Congress is tedious beyond expression. The assembly is like no other that ever existed. Every man in it is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman, and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism and his political abilities. The consequence of this is that business is drawn and spun out to an immeasurable length. I believe if it were moved and seconded that we should come to a resolution that three and two make five, we should be entertained with logic and rhetoric, law, history, politics and mathematics concerning the subject for two whole days, and then we should pass the resolution unanimously in the affirmative. The perpetual round of feasting, too, which we are obliged to submit to, make the pilgrimage more tedious to me. Adieu, John Adams. My much loved friend, I dare not express to you at 500 miles distance how ardently I long for your return. I have some very miserly wishes and cannot consent to your spending one hour in town till I at least have had you for twelve. The idea plays about my heart, unnerves my hand whilst I write, awakens all the tender sentiments that years have increased and matured, and which, when with me, were every day dispensing to you. The whole collected stock of ten weeks absence knows not how to brook any longer restraint, but will break forth and flow through my pen. You will receive letters from two who are as earnest to write to papa as if the welfare of a kingdom depended upon it. If you can give any guess within a month, let me know when you think of returning to your most affectionate. Abigail Adams. John, I'm so happy you're home. I thought your travels would be much longer though. I was able to return in half the time as I was not stopped in every town by fanfare and foreing. Well, now that you are away from all those people, you can tell me what you could not write to me. Oh, this Congress sounded exhilarating. He was exhausting. But you wrote that everywhere people shared in the common cause, that people said they would abide by the determination of the Congress. That would require the Congress being able to determine anything. This Congress, much like America itself, is a slow, unwieldy body and its progress must be slow. But the esteem of the people? Oh, all began well with calls for unity and harmony and it very quickly turned to ruin. Fifty wise and well-read men bickering over seating and procedure and the prospect of prayer before Congress. It began with hopes for a calling of a list of grievances and then John Galloway speaking for the need of a Continental Council, which sounded even more useless than the Congress itself. The call for a Declaration of Rights. And then the call for a humble petition to our King. The attempt at an embargo and then every colony seeming to ask that it would not apply to them. It was miserable. I would have taken a hundred more letters from you. And I would have written them if my time were not filled with papers and pamphlets and papers and meetings and feasting. It sounds like your day was not nearly as full as your stomach. It was misery, tables full of sweet meats and syllabubs and soups and jellies and fruits and wines. Oh, yes, it sounds dreadful. But it was hardly to my liking. You know I prefer hearty New England fare. I would have taken your boiled dinner over the finest meal in the country. How kind of you. That was meant better than it sounded. Of course it did. Now, where are my entertainments, you promise? Ah, yes. I am so sorry. I wished I could have written more in my journals, but... Well, yes, you're such a busy man. Yes. What is it now, John? Whatever do you mean? You're looking a bit sheepish, as if you have something unpleasant to announce. Remember, a wife knows these things. I will likely have to return to Philadelphia in the spring of next year. The business of the Congress is not nearly finished. Well, I never expected the resolution of our conflicts with Great Britain to be accomplished in a matter of weeks. Let the preparations begin anew. At least we will have more time to plan ahead, and I already have all the shirts I need. Well, that reminds me, if or more likely when you go back to Philadelphia, I do wish you could send back a card of pins. Pins, madam? Yes, sewing and dressing pins. With the New England ports so restricted, we cannot find pins for sale, and the ladies of New England are going to start falling apart without them. Philadelphia's a more open city. Surely you can send home a bundle of pins, and maybe some smuggled tea. I will see what I can do, my dearest. Thank you, John. Now, let us go and eat that boiled supper you've been craving.