strain me.” The duke saw that Adams meant exactly what he said, and, finding that it was useless to oppose the negotiations, “fell in with me, in order to give the air of French influence” to them. Events worked steadily and rapidly in Adams's favor. The plunder of St. Eustatius early in 1781 had raised the wrath of the Dutch against Great Britain to fever heat. In November came tidings of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. By this time Adams had published so many articles as to have given the Dutch some idea as to what sort of people the Americans were. He had some months before presented a petition to the states general, asking them to recognize him as minister from an independent nation. With his wonted boldness he now demanded a plain and unambiguous answer to this petition, and followed up the demand by visiting the representatives of the several cities in person and arguing his case. As the reward of this persistent energy, Mr. Adams had the pleasure of seeing the independence of the United States formally recognized by Holland on the 19th of April, 1782. This success was vigorously followed up. A Dutch loan of $2,000,000 was soon negotiated, and on the 7th of October a treaty of amity and commerce, the second which was ratified with the United States as an independent nation, was signed at the Hague. This work in Holland was the fourth signal event in John Adams's career, and, in view of the many obstacles overcome, he was himself in the habit of referring to it as the greatest triumph of his life. “One thing, thank God! is certain,” he wrote; “I have planted the American standard at the Hague. There let it wave and fly in triumph over Sir Joseph Yorke and British pride. I shall look down upon the flag-staff with pleasure from the other world.”
Mr. Adams had hardly time to finish this work when his presence was required in Paris. Negotiations for peace with Great Britain had begun some time before in conversations between Franklin and Richard Oswald, a gentleman whom Lord Shelburne had sent to Paris for the purpose. One British ministry had already been wrecked through these negotiations, and affairs had dragged along slowly amid endless difficulties. The situation was one of the most complicated in the history of diplomacy. France was in alliance at once with Spain and with the United States, and her treaty obligations to the one were in some respects inconsistent with her treaty obligations to the other. The feeling of Spain toward the United States was intensely hostile, and the French government was much more in sympathy with the former than with the latter. On the other hand, the new British government was not ill-disposed toward the Americans, and was extremely ready to make liberal concessions to them for the sake of thwarting the schemes of France. In the background stood George III., surly and irreconcilable, hoping that the negotiations would fail; and amid these difficulties they doubtless would have failed had not all the parties by this time had a surfeit of bloodshed. The designs of the French government were first suspected by John Jay, soon after his arrival in Paris. He found that Vergennes was sending a secret emissary to Lord Shelburne under an assumed name; he ascertained that the right of the United States to the Mississippi valley was to be denied; and he got hold of a despatch from Marbois, the French secretary of legation at Philadelphia, to Vergennes, opposing the American claim to the Newfoundland fisheries. As soon as Jay learned these facts he proceeded, without the knowledge of Franklin, to take steps toward a separate negotiation between Great Britain and the United States. When Adams arrived in Paris, Oct. 26, he coincided with Jay's views, and the two together overruled Franklin. Mr. Adams's behavior at this time was quite characteristic. It is said that he left Vergennes to learn of his arrival through the newspapers. It was certainly some time before he called upon him, and he took occasion, besides, to express his opinions about republics and monarchies in terms that courtly Frenchman thought very rude. Adams agreed with Jay that Vergennes should be kept as far as possible in the dark until everything was completed, and so the negotiation with Great Britain went on separately. The annals of modern diplomacy have afforded few stranger spectacles. With the indispensable aid of France we had just got the better of England in fight, and now we proceeded amicably to divide territory and commercial privileges with the enemy, and to make arrangements in which our not too friendly ally was virtually ignored. In this way the United States secured the Mississippi valley, and a share in the Newfoundland fisheries, not as a privilege but as a right, the latter result being mainly due to the persistence of Mr. Adams. The point upon which the British commissioners most strongly insisted was the compensation of the American loyalists for the hardships they had suffered during the war; but this the American commissioners resolutely refused. The most they could be prevailed upon to allow was the insertion in the treaty of a clause to the effect that congress should recommend to the several state governments to reconsider their laws against the tories and to give these unfortunate persons a chance to recover their property. In the treaty, as finally arranged, all the disputed points were settled in favor of the Americans; and, the United States being thus virtually detached from the alliance, the British government was enabled to turn a deaf ear to the demands of France and Spain for the surrender of Gibraltar. Vergennes was outgeneralled at every turn. On the part of the Americans the treaty of 1783 deserves to be ranked as one of the most brilliant triumphs of modern diplomacy. Its success was about equally due to Adams and to Jay, whose courage in the affair was equal to their skill, for they took it upon themselves to disregard the explicit instructions of congress. Ever since March, 1781, Vergennes had been intriguing with congress through his minister at Philadelphia, the chevalier de la Luzerne. First he had tried to get Mr. Adams recalled to America. Failing in this, he had played his part with such dexterous persistence as to prevail upon congress to send most pusillanimous instructions to its peace commissioners. They were instructed to undertake nothing whatever in the negotiations without the knowledge and concurrence of “the ministers of our generous ally, the king of France,” that is to say, of the count de Vergennes; and they were to govern themselves entirely by his advice and opinion. Franklin would have followed these instructions; Adams and Jay deliberately disobeyed them, and earned the gratitude of their countrymen for all coming time. For Adams's share in this grand achievement it must certainly be cited as the fifth signal event in his career.
By this time he had become excessively homesick, and as soon as the treaty was arranged he asked leave to resign his commissions and return to America. He declared he would rather be “carting street-dust and marsh-mud” than waiting where he was. But business would not let him go. In September, 1783, he was commissioned,
