​Journals of the Continental Congress, ​​November ​7, ​1777

​John Adams had been working as a delegate to the Continental Congress for four years, and finally had the opportunity to leave. But ultimately, Congress did not send him back to Massachusetts.

More from John Adams:

1777 was not an easy year – for Congress or for Adams. The governing body had fled Philadelphia twice – first to Baltimore for the ’76-77 winter, and then again to Lancaster and then York, Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Adams was the head of the Board of War and Ordinance, essentially an unofficial Secretary of War. And in the summer, his wife’s sixth birth resulted in a stillborn daughter Elizabeth.

Adams had not been home since January – one of his longer absences prior to Europe – and was ready to get back to his home, family, and farm. According to Adams in his Autobiography,

​My Children were growing up without my care in their Education, and all my imoluments [sic] as a Member of Congress for four Years, had not been sufficient to pay a labouring man upon my farm. Some of my Friends, who had more compassion for me and my family than others, suggested to me what I knew very well before, that I was loosing [sic] a fortune every Year by my Absence.

​Adams found, to his relief, that his clients had not forgotten him, and new clients were ready to enlist him as a lawyer. By December, he was in New Hampshire, defending Elisha Doane against charges of illegally trading his ship’s cargo with the British. (Sidenote: this case was just the beginning of an eighteen-year series of trials that would eventually be decided in the Supreme Court as Penhallow v. Doane’s Administrators. Catchy title, eh?)

And in the midst of the first leg of the trial, Adams was approached by John Langdon, a fellow Congressman from New Hampshire, who came with surprising news. Adams had been chosen to replace a suspect Silas Deane as a joint commissioner to France.  As Adams mentions in the video above, he thought it was in jest.  He had no interest in traveling even farther away from Massachusetts.

But eventually, his wife Abigail, despite her misgivings about being separated again from her dearest friend, encouraged John to take the post.

It was the beginning of a long tour of Europe – one that lasted ten years with only one “mini-vacation” home. And that vacation included Adams writing the Massachusetts Constitution.

During the first round in France, Adams was constantly complaining about the bitter disputes between his fellow commissioners Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee. Neither was fond of the other, and Adams spent most of his time transcribing letters and records. But it was the beginning of a longer, more fruitful journey that included negotiating crucial loans with Holland, and the Treaty of Paris.  (And Abigail was able to join him in France by 1784. )