263. Abigail Adams.
26 February, 1780.
My dearest Friend,—This day I am happy in the news of your safe arrival at Corunna by a vessel arrived at Newburyport in sixty days from thence. I cannot be sufficiently thankful for this agreeable intelligence or for the short and I hope comfortable passage with which you were favored. I suppose you will proceed from thence by land, and flatter myself that a few weeks will bring me the tidings of your arrival in France.
Captain Sampson has at last arrived after a tedious passage of eighty-nine days. By him came three letters for you, two from Arthur Lee and one from Mr. Gellée. Both these gentlemen are pleased to make mention of me. You will therefore return my respectful compliments to them and tell them that I esteem myself honored by their notice.
I wrote you by Mr. Austin, who I hope is safely arrived. He went from here in the height of the sublimest winter I ever saw. In the latter part of December and beginning of January there fell the highest snow known since the year 1740; and from that time to this day the Bay has been frozen so hard that people have walked, rode, and sledded over it to Boston. It was frozen across Nantasket Road so that no vessel could come in or go out for a month after the storms. We had neither snow, rain, nor the least thaw. It has been remarkably healthy, and we have lived along very comfortable, though many people have suffered greatly for fuel. The winter has been so severe that very little has been attempted and less performed by our army. The enemy have been more active and mischievous, but have failed in their grand attempt of sending large succors to Georgia, by a severe storm which dispersed and wrecked many of their fleet.
We have hopes that, as the combined fleets are again at sea, they will facilitate a negotiation for peace,—a task arduous and important, beset with many dangers.
In one of these letters received by Captain Sampson, Mr. Gellée mentions a report which was raised and circulated concerning you after you left France.
The best reply that could possibly be made to so groundless an accusation is the unsolicited testimony of your country in so speedily returning you there in a more honorable and important mission than that which you had before sustained.
Pride, vanity, envy, ambition, and malice are the ungrateful foes that combat merit and integrity; though for a while they may triumph, to the injury of the just and good, the steady, unwearied perseverance of virtue and honor will finally prevail over them. He who can retire from a public life to a private station with a self-approving conscience, unambitious of pomp or power, has little to dread from the machinations of envy, the snares of treachery, the malice of dissimulation, or the clandestine stabs of calumny. In time they will work their own ruin.
You will be solicitous to know how our Constitution prospers. The Convention are still sitting. I am not at present able to give you an accurate account of their proceedings, but shall endeavor to procure a satisfactory one against a more direct conveyance.
I earnestly long to receive from your own hand an assurance of your safety and that of my dear sons. I send all the journals and papers I have received.
Success attend all your endeavors for the public weal; and that happiness and approbation of your country be the reward of your labors is the ardent wish of your affectionate
Portia.