(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) ADAMS JOHN Autograph Letter Signed as

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LONGING FOR HOME WHILE NEGOTIATING THE TREATY OF PARIS (AMERICAN REVOLUTION.) ADAMS, JOHN. Autograph Letter Signed, as U.S. Minister to the Netherlands, to Benjamin Rush, introducing Archibald Redford [a British clergyman who is hoping to settle in soon-to-be independent America], complaining of stagnation in Europe and the paucity of news from America, and hoping that his own resignation would soon be accepted so that he might return home to rest. 1 page, 4to, with integral blank; faint marginal discoloration from prior matting, folds, docketing on terminal page in unknown hand. Paris, 8 April 1783

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"Mr Archibald Redford, the Bearer of this Letter had been introduced to me by Gentlemen who have been Usefull to Us in the Negotiation for Peace, so that I venture to give him his Introduction to you.
"We have such a dead Calm in Europe as I never knew before--all is Stagnated. No Government in England and no News from America. . . . [I]f the acceptance of my Resignation arrives as I expect in the first ships, I shall go to Boston first and take a Dose of Repose, being very weary."
Published in Old Family Letters (Philadelphia: Press of J.B. Lippincott Company, 1892), 23-24.
In the letter he wrote to his wife on the same day, Adams elaborates upon his feelings of exhaustion and duty to endure that are hinted at in the present letter: ". . . If the Acceptance of my Resignation arrives, as I expect, and We finish the Peace, as soon as I can reasonably hope, I shall not now be able to embark before October. The Affairs of the World have little Complaisance for my Happiness, or yours, but it is not worth our while to be impatient, because it will do us no good. I am astonished however that We have nothing from Congress nor from you.
"If you and your Daughter were with me, I could keep up my Spirits, but . . . I am weary, worn and disgusted to death. I had rather chop Wood, dig Ditches, and make fence upon my poor little farm.
"Alass! poor Farm and poorer Family what have you lost, that your Country might be free and that others might catch fish and hunt Deers and Bevers at their Ease? . . ." (Adams Family Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society).