John Adams (1735–1826) was an American Founding Father who served as one of the most important diplomats on behalf of the new United States during the American Revolution. He served as minister to the Kingdom of France and the Dutch Republic and then helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris to end the American Revolutionary War.
Adams served as the first minister to the Court of St James's (Great Britain). Relations with France dominated diplomacy during his presidency (1797–1801). American anger at French insults in the XYZ Affair of 1797–1798 escalated into an undeclared naval war, called the Quasi-War. One wing of his Federalist Party that was led by his rival, Alexander Hamilton, demanded an all-out war. He rejected it and secured peace with France in 1800.
Early stages of the Revolution In the spring of 1776, Adams advocated on the floor of the Second Continental Congress that independence was necessary to establish trade and that trade was essential for the attainment of independence. He specifically urged negotiation of a commercial treaty with France. He was then appointed, along with Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, Benjamin Harrison V, and Robert Morris, "to prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers." While Jefferson was laboring over the Declaration of Independence, Adams worked on the Model Treaty, which authorized a commercial agreement with France but contained no provisions for formal recognition or military assistance. There were provisions for what constituted French territory. The treaty adhered to the provision that "free ships make free goods", which allowed neutral nations to trade reciprocally but exempted an agreed-upon list of contraband.
In early September 1776, after the British victory at the Battle of Long Island, Admiral Lord Richard Howe, having been appointed Acting Peace Commissioner, met with Adams, Franklin, and Edward Rutledge to hold peace discussions. The Americans insisted that any negotiations required British recognition of their independence. Howe stated he did not have the authority to meet that demand, and the British resumed the campaign. In October 1777, the Americans captured the British invasion army at Saratoga in upstate New York, and France was ready to recognize the US and to join the war.Jonathan Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (1985) pp 52-53, 91.
Commissioner to France
On November 27, 1777, Adams was named as commissioner to France and replaced Silas Deane. He accepted at once. He was to join Franklin and Arthur Lee in Paris to negotiate an alliance with the French, who were debating whether or not they would recognize and aid the United States. On April 1, he arrived in Spain, where Adams learned that France had already agreed to an alliance with the United States on February 6. Adams was annoyed by the other two commissioners: Lee, whom he thought to be paranoid and cynical, and the popular and influential Franklin, whom he found irritating, lethargic, and overly deferential and accommodating to the French. He took a disliking to Dr. Edward Bancroft, Franklin's advisor who was later shown to be a British spy. Adams did not speak French, the international language of diplomacy at the time, which made him assume a less visible role, but Adams emerged as the commission's chief administrator, who imposed order and methods lacking in his delegation's finances and recordkeeping affairs. Adams was frustrated by the lack of commitment on the part of the French to helping the United States. In December, he wrote a letter to French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, to argue for French naval support in North America. Although Franklin toned down the letter, Vergennes ignored it. In September 1778, Congress increased Franklin's powers by naming him minister plenipotentiary to France while Lee was sent to serve in Spain. Adams received no instructions on where to go or what to do next. Disgusted by the apparent slight, he departed France on March 8, 1779.
In the fall of 1779, Adams was appointed sole minister charged with negotiating peace and a postwar commercial treaty with Britain. After the conclusion of the Massachusetts constitutional convention, at which he drafted the state constitution, he departed for Europe in November aboard the French frigate Sensible and was accompanied by John Quincy and 9-year-old son Charles.
In France, constant disagreement between Lee and Franklin eventually resulted in Adams assuming the role of tie-breaker in almost all votes on commission business. Adams also increased his usefulness by mastering the French language. Lee was eventually recalled. Adams closely supervised his sons' education but wrote to his wife, Abigail, relatively infrequently, only about once every ten days.
Compared to Franklin, Adams held a distinctly pessimistic view of the Franco-American alliance. Adams believed the French to be involved only for their own self-interest, and he grew frustrated by what he perceived to be lethargy in providing substantial aid to the U.S. "It is interest alone which does it," he said, "and it is interest alone which can be trusted." Adams wrote that the French meant to keep their hands "above our chin to prevent us from drowning, but not to lift our heads out of water." His straightforward manner eventually led to a collision with Vergennes.
In March 1780, Congress, trying to curb inflation, voted to devalue the dollar. In June, Vergennes summoned Adams for a meeting. In a letter sent that same month, he insisted that any fluctuation of the dollar value without an exception for French merchants was unacceptable and requested for Adams to write to Congress asking it to "retrace its steps." Adams wrote back in defense of the decision and claimed that the French merchants were doing better than Vergennes had implied. Adams also used the letter to sound off on some of his grievances with the French. The alliance had been made over two years earlier, and an army, under the Comte de Rochambeau, had been sent to assist Washington but had yet to do anything of significance. The U.S. was expecting French warships, which Adams wrote were needed to contain the British armies in the port cities and to contend with the powerful British Navy. However, the French Navy had been sent not to the United States but to the West Indies so that it could protect French interests there. Adams believed that France needed to commit itself more fully to the alliance. Vergennes responded that he would deal only with Franklin, who had sent a letter back to Congress that criticized Adams:
Before a response could be sent, Adams had left France on his own.
Minister to the Dutch Republic In the summer of 1780, Adams went to the Dutch Republic. Since it was one of the few other republics in the world, Adams thought that the Dutch might be sympathetic to the American cause. Securing a loan from them could increase American independence from France, which was bankrolling the war and supplying army troops and its navy, and pressure Britain into peace.
At first, Adams had no official status, but in July, he was named envoy and took up residence in Amsterdam in August. Adams, at first, thought the chances of success quite good, and he greatly enjoyed the city. He soon found himself disappointed. Adams did not understand the very complicated system of government in the Dutch Republic, not knowing where sovereignty lay or how decisions were taken, or how he might influence them. "The constitution of government is so complicated and whimsical a thinking, and the temper and character of the nation so peculiar, that this is considered everywhere as the most difficult Embassy in Europe."quoted in Schulte Nordholt 1982, 12 Also hindering his mission was the language barrier; he did not speak Dutch, and the Dutch did not speak either English or French, but a Dutch emigrant to South Carolina, Alexander Gillon, now back in Rotterdam on business, helped with translation.Schulte Nordholt 1982, 107-108 The Dutch, fearing British retaliation, refused to meet Adams. Meanwhile, word reached Europe of American defeats at Charleston and Camden as well as the betrayal of Benedict Arnold. After the discovery of secret aid that had already been sent by the Dutch to the Americans, the British authorized reprisals against Dutch ships, which only increased their apprehension. After five months of not meeting with a single Dutch official, Adams, in early 1781, pronounced Amsterdam "the capital of the reign of Mammon."
He was finally invited to present his credentials to the Dutch on April 19, 1781, but no assistance was promised. In the meantime, Adams thwarted an attempt by neutral European powers to mediate the war without the U.S. being consulted.
In July 1781, Adams consented to the departure of both of his sons. Francis Dana, Adams's secretary, was assigned to go to Saint Petersburg to seek recognition from Russia. Knowing little French, Dana received Adams's permission to bring with him John Quincy, who was fluent in the language. Charles, who was desirous to return home, left for Massachusetts with Adams's friend Benjamin Waterhouse. In August, shortly after he was removed as the sole negotiator of the treaty to end the war, Adams fell seriously ill in what one scholar calls "a major nervous breakdown." In November, he learned that American and French troops had won the decisive victory over British troops at Yorktown with the crucial assistance of the French Navy, which vindicated Adams's stand for increased naval assistance from France.
News of the American triumph at Yorktown convulsed Europe. In January 1781, after recovering, Adams arrived at The Hague to demand for the States General of the Netherlands to answer his petitions. His efforts stalled, and he took his cause to the people by successfully capitalizing on popular pro-American sentiment to push the States General towards recognizing U.S. independence, which was done by several provinces. On April 19, 1782, the States General formally recognized American independence and acknowledged Adams as envoy.
Ferling, however, downplays Adams's efforts and argues that it was the success of Yorktown, combined with pressure put on the Dutch by the French, to have been chiefly responsible for the recognition of independence.
With the aid of the Dutch Patriot leader Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol, Adams negotiated a loan of five million guilders, financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Willem Willink, on June 11. In October 1782, he negotiated with the Dutch a treaty of amity and commerce. The house that Adams bought during his stay became the first American-owned embassy on foreign soil.
Peace treaty negotiations After negotiating the loan with the Dutch, Adams was appointed as one of the American commissioners to negotiate the Treaty of Paris to end the war. Since Vergennes still disapproved of Adams, which caused Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, and Henry Laurens to be appointed to collaborate with Adams; nevertheless, Jefferson did not go to Europe, and Laurens was posted to the Dutch Republic.Ferling, ch. 11–12.