In the midst of her public cares and anxieties, she did not neglect her sacred duties as a mother. The care of the education of her four children devolved entirely upon her, and “Johnny” was at an age to require much attention. This subject occupied much of her thoughts; and, indeed, the greatest value of her published correspondence consists in the hints which it gives us of the course of culture pursued in producing those glorious fruits of which other generations have had the enjoyment. She carefully guarded against the contagion of vice at that period when the mind and heart are most susceptible to impressions. “I have always thought it,” she says to her husband, “of very great importance that children should, in the early part of life, be unaccustomed to such examples as would tend to corrupt the purity of their words and actions, that they may chill with horror at the sound of an oath, and blush with indignation at an obscene expression. These first principles, which grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength, neither time nor custom can totally eradicate.” By precept, and much more by example, she sought to instil principles, and to form habits, which should lead to the practice of every virtue. Can we be surprised at the abhorrence which her “illustrious son of an illustrious mother” has ever exhibited to oppression, when we find her thus expressing her sentiments in behalf of the oppressed, at a time when the subject of which she speaks had not excited any attention either in Europe or America? – “I wish sincerely there was not a slave in the province; it always appeared to me a most iniquitous scheme to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”
During the recess of Congress, Mr. Adams was at home, but left it again for Philadelphia on the 14th April, 1775. Four days afterwards the expedition to Lexington and Concord took place. The news of this event reached Mr. A. at Hartford; he, did not, however, yield to his anxieties and return, but contented himself by sending home encouragement and advice. After saying that he never feels any personal fear, he adds, “I am often concerned for you and our dear babes, surrounded as you are by people who are too timorous, and too much susceptible of alarm. Many fears and imaginary evils will be suggested to you, but I hope you will not be impressed by them. In case of real danger, fly to the woods with my children.”
Mrs. Adams might be excused for entertaining fears; her residence was near the sea-coast, and the enemy sent out foraging expeditions: the point of destination was perhaps some island in the harbor; but of this there could be no certainty. Of one of the alarms thus occasioned, Mrs. Adams writes to her husband as follows: “I suppose you have had a formidable account of the alarm we had last Sunday morning. When I rose, about six o’clock, I was told that the drums had been some time beating, and that three alarm guns were fired; that Weymouth bell had been ringing, and Mr. Weld’s was then ringing. I sent off an express to learn the cause, and found the whole town in confusion. Three sloops and a cutter had dropped anchor just below Great Hill. It was difficult to tell their designs: some supposed they were coming to Germantown, others to Weymouth: people, women, children, came flocking down this way; every woman and child driven off below my father’s; my father’s family flying. The alarm flew like lightning, and men from all parts came flocking down, till two thousand were collected. But it seems their expedition was to Grape Island, for Levett’s hay.” “They delight,” says she, on another occasion, “in molesting us upon the Sabbath. Two Sabbaths we have been in such alarm that we have had no meeting; this day we have sat under our own vine in quietness; have heard Mr. Taft. The good man was earnest and pathetic. I could forgive his weakness for the sake of his sincerity; but I long for a Cooper and an Elliot. I want a person who has feeling and sensibility; who can take one up with him,
And ‘in his duty prompt at every call,’
Can ‘watch, and weep, and pray, and feel for all.’”
The battle of Bunker’s Hill followed soon, and, from the top of the highest house in Braintree, Mrs. Adams beheld the conflagration of Charlestown. But she does not lose her courage. In writing to her husband, she seeks to lessen his anxieties. “I would not,” says she, “have you be distressed about me. I have been distressed, but not dismayed. I have felt for my country and her sons, and have bled with them and for them.”
The appointment of General Washington to the command of the army, then stationed at Cambridge, inspired new confidence. Mrs. Adams thus speaks of the impression made by her first interview with him and General Lee: “I was struck with General Washington. You had prepared me to entertain a favorable opinion of him; but I thought the half was not told me. Dignity with ease and complacency, the gentleman and soldier, look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face. Those lines of Dryden instantly occurred to me —
‘Mark his majestic fabric! he’s a temple
Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine;
His soul’s the deity that lodges there;
Nor is the pile unworthy of the god.’
General Lee looks like a careless, hardy veteran, and, by his appearance, brought to my mind his namesake, Charles XII. of Sweden. The elegance of his pen far exceeds that of his person.”
The horrors of war were now aggravated by those of pestilence. From the British army in Boston, the dysentery had spread into the surrounding country. Mrs. Adams and her whole family were attacked. “Our house,” she writes to her husband, September 8, 1775, “is a hospital in every part, and, what with my own weakness and distress of mind for my family, I have been unhappy enough. And such is the distress of the neighborhood, that I can scarcely find a well person to assist me in looking after the sick.” Again on the 25th she writes, “I sit with a heavy heart to write to you. Woe follows woe, and one affliction treads upon the heels of another. My distress in my own family having in some measure abated, it is excited anew upon that of my dear mother. She has taken the disorder, and lies so bad, that we have little hope of her recovery.” On the 29th, “It is allotted me to go from the sick and almost dying bed of one of the best of parents, to my own habitation, where again I behold the same scene, only varied by a remoter connection —
‘A bitter change, severer for severe.’
You can more easily conceive than I can describe what are the sensations of my heart when absent from either, continually expecting a messenger with the fatal tidings.” “The desolation of war is not so distressing as the havoc made by pestilence. Some poor parents are mourning the loss of three, four, and five children; and some families are wholly stripped of every member.”
But the hand of the pestilence was stayed, and her country again engrosses her thoughts. She very early declares herself for independence, and wonders how any honest heart can hesitate at adopting the same sentiment. An attempt to drive the enemy from Boston is meditated, and she tells us that she has been kept in a state of anxiety and expectation. “It has been said ‘to-morrow’ and ‘to-morrow’ for this month; but when this dreadful to-morrow will be, I know not. But hark! The house this instant shakes with the roar of cannon. I have been to the door, and find it a cannonade from our army.” The militia are all ordered to repair to the lines. The result was thus related: “I have just returned from Penn’s Hill, where I have been sitting to hear the amazing roar of cannon, and from whence I could see every shell which was thrown. The sound, I think, is one of the grandest in nature, and is of the true species of the sublime. * * * I could no more sleep than if I had been in the engagement: the rattling of the windows, the jar of the house, the continual roar of twenty-four pounders, and the bursting of shells, give us such ideas, and realize a scene to us of which we could form scarcely any conception. * * * All my distress and anxiety is at present at an end. I feel disappointed. This day our militia are all returning without effecting any thing more than taking possession of Dorchester Hill. I hope it is wise and just, but, from all the muster and stir, I hoped and expected more important and decisive scenes. I would not have suffered all I have for two such hills.” The British soon afterwards evacuated Boston, and Massachusetts never again became the theatre of war.
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