er, to
recruit his health, after a violent fever with which he had been
attacked, shortly after signing the treaty of peace. He spent some
time, first at London, and afterward at Bath; but while still an invalid
he was recalled, in the dead of winter, to Holland, which he reached
after a stormy and most uncomfortable voyage; there to negotiate a new
loan as the means of meeting government bills drawn in America, which
were in danger of protest from want of funds--a BUSINESS IN WHICH HE
SUCCEEDED.

Adams was included along with Franklin and Jefferson, the latter sent
out to take the place of Jay, in a new commission to form treaties with
foreign powers; and his being joined by Mrs. Adams and their only
daughter and youngest son, his other two sons being already with him,
reconciled him to the idea of remaining abroad.

With his family about him he fixed his residence at Auteuil, near Paris,
where he had an interval of comparative leisure.

The chief business of the new commission was the negotiation of a treaty
with Prussia, advances toward which had first been made to Adams while
at the Hague negotiating the Dutch loan, but before that treaty was
ready for signature Adams was appointed by congress as Minister to the
court of St. James, where he arrived in May, 1785. The English
government, the feelings of which were well represented by those of the
king, had neither the magnanimity nor policy to treat the new American
States with respect, generosity, or justice. Adams was received with
civility, but no commercial arrangements could be made. His chief
employment was in complaining of the non-execution of the treaty of
peace, especially in relation to the non-surrender of the western posts,
and in attempting to meet similar complaints urged, not without strong
grounds, by the British; more particularly with regard to the obstacles
thrown in the way of the collection of British debts, which were made an
excuse for the detention of the western posts. Made sensible in many
ways of the aggravation of British feelings toward the new republic,
whose condition immediately after the peace was somewhat embarrassing,
and not so flattering as it might have been to the advocates and
promoters of the revolution, the situation of Adams was rather
mortifying than agreeable.

Meanwhile he was obliged to pay another visit to Holland to negotiate a
new loan as a means of paying the interest on the Dutch debt. He was
also engaged in a