Mr. Adams, called by President Madison, to embark for Russia as its first accredited minister, Mrs. Adams determined to go, even at the cost of leaving her two eldest children with their grandparents, and taking with her a third, not yet two years old. They sailed from Boston early in August, and after a long and somewhat hazardous passage arrived in St. Petersburg toward the close of October.
What voyages those must have been, when nearly three months was consumed in getting from one country to another; when weary weeks of summer merged into winter before the barrier between the old and the new world could be passed. Yet how often had members of that family braved dangers unknown to perform some duty in the other world. Far back into the past, their Puritan ancestors had found a refuge on “wild New England’s shore,” and in that interval, the waters of the sea had wafted the children of the third and fourth generations over its crested waves, to ask for the heritage their forefathers claimed—liberty of conscience, and freedom to worship God.
Years before, a brave, strong woman had, with streaming eyes, seen the form of her eldest boy start over the same track he was now treading, and she had gone back to her lonely home to suffer. Now, through its well-known and treacherous path, that son, grown to man’s estate, with children of his own left behind, wends his tedious way, to bear to the halls of remotest nations the wishes and intentions of his young country.
His wife, preferring an uncertain exile in a foreign country to a separation from her husband, suffered extremest anguish as she thought of her weeping children, for the first time separated from her. She felt the great distance and doubtful prospects of hearing from them, not less keenly than she did the length of time which might elapse before she again would tread the shores of her native land. And the bleak climate to which she was hastening in nowise tended to make her cheerful; nor did the fact that Mr. Adams was the first Minister, allay her anxious sadness. Never, perhaps, in the history of the world, were such scenes being enacted as now. Europe was literally a battle-field, and Napoleon, the scourge of the continent, was ruling, by the mighty force of his great skill, the destinies of the Old World. Shut up in St. Petersburg, Mrs. Adams gathered rumors of the progress of that “man of destiny,” and listened for his knock even at the gates of the imperial capital.
During the six years of her stay in Russia, what wondrous things transpired! What intense interest marked the era, we, of comparative quiet, can scarcely conceive. Death took from her an infant, born whilst there, and the twofold affliction of public and private trouble weighed upon her.
“Mr. Adams,” said his son, “lived there poor, studious, ambitious and secluded, on the narrow basis of the parchment of his commission, respected for learning and talents, but little given to the costly entertainments of an opulent and ostentatious court circle. But the extraordinary mission could afford and was entitled to more expensive circulation in the splendid palaces of a magnificent city, inhabited by the owners of thousands of serfs, and some of them of Ural Mountains containing mines of gold. Living frugally, withdrawn from all but indispensable parade, Mr. Adams laid the basis of a modest competency for his return to America, whose official acquisition American, republican parsimony induces, if not justifies.”
The war between England and America broke out in the meantime, and communication was almost entirely cut off. British ships cruised about our ports to capture peaceful vessels, and thundered their cannon at the capital of the country. While Mrs. Adams grew tired and weary of her cheerless abode in that far, northern climate, British troops were busy devastating the country round about her old home, and burning the mansion which later in life she was to occupy. Completely cut off from all that made life dear, Mr. Adams hoped for some opportunity to be recalled, and restore his divided family to each other. Emperor Alexander unconsciously prepared the way for their return by proposing to be mediator for England and the United States. In consequence of this offer, the commissioners repaired to St. Petersburg, accompanied by Mr. Payne Todd, the stepson of President Madison, whose simple position in America was exaggerated by European mistake to princely position. Their coming was a source of pleasure to Mrs. Adams, whose time had been spent so quietly, and it was her hope to return with them; but while the commissioners enjoyed themselves with the sights of the Russian capital, great changes were taking place on the continent, and they were unaware how radical they were. The return ship to the United States brought the news to Boston that Napoleon was banished to Elba, Louis the XVIII. propped on the throne of his ancestors by foreign armies, and England was at the zenith of her power and greatness. Never were the prospects of republican America so low since its independence, and the hearts of those patriots trembled when they thought of the future. The Russian mediation failed, but the commissioners afterward met at Ghent, where delays succeeded each other until on Christmas eve, Saturday, 24th December, 1814, the treaty was signed. It was the desire of Mr. and Mrs. Adams to have returned home this winter, but the failure of the commissioners at St. Petersburg necessitated the presence of Mr. Adams at Ghent, and it was thought best she should remain in Russia. The state of Europe, restless and revolutionary, was considered another argument in favor of her remaining, and consequently Mr. Adams set out without her. Alone in that place where she had lived five years, where she had buried one child, and where she hoped her husband would soon rejoin her, she passed the sixth winter, and wished only for the spring to come to release herself and son from their exile. How her heart must have yearned, in days short only because the darkness was so long, for her little ones over the wide Atlantic, and with what zeal must she have prepared for that homeward-bound trip, so near in anticipation, yet in reality so far off. But her trial was in proportion to her strength, and if she did not go home, her children came to her afterward.[[10]] Spring at last came, on the almanac at least, if not in the gorgeous beauty it was wont to appear in her far-off southern home, and she was advised to travel by land to rejoin her husband at Paris, whither he had gone from Ghent. The difficulties and dangers of a land route through the late theatre of a furious war, had no influence to bear upon her determined idea to go, and braving solitary journeys, rogues, and dangers of every conceivable kind, set out with her child to travel to France. Hers must have been an indomitable spirit, else the lonely days of constant travel through villages and wild, uncultivated countries, where every inanimate thing bore traces of grim-visaged war, would have convinced her of the risk she was running. With the passports of the Russian government, and the strong recommendation of being the American minister’s wife, she bade adieu to all apprehensions, and risked all to only get nearer to home and children.
[10]. Mrs. Adams had four children, three sons and a daughter. 1. George Washington Adams, born in Berlin, 12th April, 1801. 2. John Adams, born in Boston, 4th July, 1803. 3. Charles Francis Adams, born in Boston, August 18th, 1807. 4. Louisa Catherine Adams, born in St. Petersburg, August 12th, 1811, and died there the next year.
Her son, in speaking of this time, said: “In such circumstances, to be fastened in a snow-drift with night coming on, and to be forced to rouse the peasants of the surrounding country to dig them out, which happened in Courland, was no slight matter. But it was of little significance compared to the complicated anxieties incident to the listening, at every stopping-place, to the tales of robbery and murder just committed on the proposed route, so perpetually repeated at that time to the traveller; and to the warnings given by apparently friendly persons of the character of her own servants, corroborated by the loss of several articles of value, and, most of all, to the observation of the restless contention between jarring political passions under which the whole continent of Europe was heaving until it burst forth at the return of Napoleon from Elba. Hardly a day passed that did not require of Mrs. Adams some presence of mind to avoid becoming implicated in the consequences of party fury. For even the slight symbol of a Polish cap on the head of her servant came near making food for popular quarrel.”
On the way she heard of Napoleon’s return from Elba, and knew that his coming would be disputed not only by the Bourbons in power, but that it would be the signal for a general uprising throughout Europe. As she journeyed along from place to place, she witnessed the excitement that followed the news, and saw, with much concern, the preparations for hostile demonstrations. As she neared the border the activity of the military was observable on all sides. Napoleon was making by forced marches the seven hundred miles that lay between the seaport at which he landed and Paris, and at every point he was receiving the accessions to his numbers that increased until he reached Paris at the head of an army. The immense influence which his past successes had over the French people was thus exhibited, and he took possession of the capital amid the huzzas of the populace and to their great delight. It was at such a time that Mrs. Adams was approaching the city, and it may well be imagined that her every thought was in the direction of her own and her children’s safety. Later, when the events were over, and she was at liberty to recall them, she dwelt with interest upon the dangers confronted and the anxieties she had endured, nor did she express regret that her experiences had been what they were. The scenes she witnessed were commanding the consideration of the world, and romance in her wildest dreams had not conceived of anything more thrilling than the enterprise in which Napoleon had embarked. It was a matter that concerned all Europe, and the moment he set foot upon French soil, the crown-heads of the old world began to prepare for a conflict that was to end his career, or change the fate of nations.