‘Mr. Bayard, I am surprised to hear you express yourself in this manner,’ said Adams. ‘Would you prefer a war with France to a war with England in the present state of the world; would you wish for an alliance with Great Britain and a war with France? If you would, your opinions are totally different from mine.’

‘Great Britain is very powerful,’ Bayard replied mournfully. ‘Her navy is very terrible.’[1678]

When at the end of the session, Adams set forth for his seat at Braintree, Harper expressed the hope that his horses might run away and break his neck.[1679] Only John Jay, among the outstanding Federalists, could see no objections to the mission, but he was always bothered by scruples.

VII

It was unfortunate that Adams’s love for Braintree caused him to desert the capital in this crisis. The policy of the conspirators was to wear out their chief’s purpose through procrastination, and, in the meanwhile, to bring all possible pressure to bear to restore his secret enemies to his good graces. He had made the sailing of the envoys conditional on a direct assurance from France as to the reception they would receive. Under the most favorable conditions this meant months of delay, and the treacherous policy of Pickering made it worse. On March 6th Adams instructed his Secretary of State to inform Murray of the conditions, but it was not until in May that the latter heard from Pickering. Talleyrand was immediately informed, and within a week Murray was in possession of the required official assurances, but it was the last day of July before they reached Philadelphia. Disappointing to the conspirators though these were, a careful study of the Talleyrand note disclosed a touch of annoyance over the delay. The insolence of the man! Another insult! The conspirators determined if possible to make this the occasion for further delay. If Adams could only be persuaded to insist upon an explanation of the impatient paragraph, more time would be gained, and Pickering strongly recommended this in his note transmitting the Talleyrand letter to the President. But Adams was too wary now to be easily caught. Replying dryly that he could overlook the language for the deed, he instructed Pickering that, while preparations for war proceeded, the commission should be hurried to Ellsworth and Governor Davie—for the latter had been named in the place of Henry, who had declined—with instructions to prepare for embarkation at any moment.

Meanwhile, with Pickering taking six weeks in the preparations of the instructions, efforts were being made to coax Adams into his enemies’ camp. One day Cabot suavely presented himself at the house at Braintree on a purely social neighborly visit. He went at the instance of the Hamiltonians to wheedle the old man back into their clutches. That the ablest politician of the Essex Junto was affectionately friendly, we may be sure, but his courtesy was matched by that of Adams and Mrs. Adams, and he stayed for dinner. But Abigail never left the room. The President occasionally went out, Abigail never. Though she was gracious to a degree. Thus the door of opportunity was closed and locked and Abigail had the key. Cabot found that ‘every heart was locked and every tongue was silenced upon all topics that bore affinity to those which I wished to touch.’[1680] Hamilton was in intimate touch with the leading members of the Adams Cabinet all the while—far more so than Adams; but the President knew of the movements of his dearest enemy through the Jeffersonian press. The latter part of April found Hamilton in Philadelphia with Gouverneur Morris, in close communion with Pickering, Wolcott, and McHenry. Duane flippantly announced that they had ‘kept the fast in Philadelphia,’ and that ‘a pair more pious, more chaste, more moral perhaps never mortified the flesh and the spirit since the days of David and the fair Shunammite.’[1681] At Braintree Adams was keeping his own counsels, enjoying the serenity of domesticity, with occasional excursions into Boston to attend church or the theater, always accompanied by the Marshal of the district. When the Boston Troop went to Braintree to accompany him, with military pomp, to the Harvard Commencement, he was enormously pleased.[1682] But he was on the alert. About the time Pickering’s belated instructions reached him with a letter from the Cabinet suggesting the suspension of the mission for a time, he read a cautiously worded note from Stoddert, his Secretary of the Navy, hinting at the importance of his presence in Trenton, whither the Government had temporarily gone because of the prevalence of yellow fever again in Philadelphia. Adams was able to read between the lines.

The silent treatment to which the conspirators were being subjected annoyed them beyond endurance. They were by no means certain it was a hoax when they read in ‘The Aurora’ on August 15th that ‘the Executive of the United States has ordered the frigate “John Adams” to be prepared to carry our envoys without delay to Europe,’ and the ‘Centinel’ in Boston was not able to deny it for several days.[1683] In September, Pickering was urging Cabot to persuade Ellsworth to dissuade Adams from sending the mission. ‘There is nothing in politics he despises more than this mission,’ he wrote.[1684] Ellsworth did as he was bid—with a difference. He asked that early notice be given him of the plans because of ‘unusual demands upon his time on the official circuit.’[1685] The real attitude of Ellsworth is not at all plain, for it was being whispered about that he hoped to reach the Presidency through the success of the mission.[1686]

Then came another pretext for delay. There had come another shift in French politics, with some indications of the restoration of the Jacobins to power, and Talleyrand had resigned. Did this not call for further postponement? Adams replied in the affirmative, fixing the latter part of October as the limit, and promising to be in Trenton by the middle of that month. Rejoicing in this delay, Pickering began to meditate on the possible intervention of the Senate. With this in view he wrote Cabot for advice. The reply was wholly unsatisfactory. ‘If the Senate should be admitted to possess a right to determine a priori what foreign connections should be sought or shunned, I should fear that they would soon exhibit the humiliating spectacle of cap and hats which so long and so naturally appeared in Sweden,’ said Cabot.[1687] Adams had the power, and he was silent. The conspirators began to mobilize for a desperate attempt at Trenton.

VIII

On October 6th, Adams drove down the road from Braintree on his way to Trenton with such secrecy that he was halfway there before Cabot knew he had gone.[1688] The conspirators were there before him, Pinckney on the ground, Hamilton at Newark within easy call. Ellsworth had been summoned from Hartford. Governor Davie, having received a flattering address from his fellow citizens at Raleigh, was on the road, ‘a troop of horse and a cavalcade of citizens escorting him four miles on his way.’[1689]