geeky
Adams was a delegate from Massachusetts to the Continental Congress, where he played a leading role in persuading Congress to declare independence. He assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776. When the British defeated the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, British Admiral Richard Howe requested the Second Continental Congress send representatives in an attempt to negotiate peace. Adams was part of a delegation that included Benjamin Franklin, which met with Howe at the Staten Island Peace Conference on September 11. In 1777, Adams began serving as the head of the Board of War and Ordnance. He sat on over ninety committees, chairing twenty-five of them. He worked eighteen-hour days, mastering the details of raising, equipping and fielding an army under civilian control.
In the spring of 1776 Adams urged Congress that trade was essential for the attainment of independence. He pressed for negotiation of a commercial treaty with France. Congress appointed a committee composed that included Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison V of Virginia and Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, "to prepare a plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign powers".
In 1778 Adams was sent to join Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee as a commissioner to France, replacing Silas Deane. He sailed for France with his 10-year-old son John Quincy aboard the frigate Boston early that year. Their voyage was stormy and treacherous. Lightning struck the ship, injuring 19 sailors and killing one. The ship was later pursued by several British frigates in the mid-Atlantic, but evaded them. Near the coast of Spain, Adams took up arms to help capture a heavily armed British merchantman ship, the Martha. Later, a cannon malfunction killed a crew member and injured five others before the ship arrived in France.
At the time, French was the international language of diplomacy. Adams did not speak the language and as a result he was forced to assume a less visible role. Despite this, he soon emerged as the commission's chief administrator, imposing order where there had once been disorder in his delegation's finances and record-keeping. This was his first stay in Europe, and it lasted from April 1, 1778 to June 17, 1779. He returned to his home in Braintree, Massachusetts in early August, 1779.
Adams did not return home for long. In the fall of 1779 Adams was appointed as a Minister Plenipotentiary, charged with negotiating a "treaty of peace, amity and commerce" with peace commissioners from Britain. He participated in the Massachusetts constitutional convention, and then he departed for Europe in November of 1779 aboard the French frigate Sensible. Once again he was accompanied by his son John Quincy (the future President), as well as his 9-year-old son Charles. This voyage was not as eventful as his first trip to Europe. When he arrived in France, he found that there was constant disagreement between Lee and Franklin, and Adams was forced to assume the role of tie-breaker in their disputes. Adams learned the French language. Lee was recalled and Adams found himself at odds with Franklin, whom Adams felt was overly deferential to the French.
The French foreign minister, Charles Gravier developed a dislike for Adams. Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, and Henry Laurens were appointed to work with Adams in negotiations with the British. Jay, Adams, and Franklin played the major part in the final negotiations. Notwithstanding Franklin's dissent, Jay and Adams decided not to consult with France. They dealt directly with the British commissioners. The American negotiators were able to secure a favorable treaty securing most lands east of the Mississippi, and the document was signed on September 3, 1783.
Before the treaty was negotiated, in July 1780 Adams was appointed as the ambassador to the Dutch Republic. With the assistance of the Dutch Patriot leader Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, Adams secured the recognition of the United States as an independent government at The Hague on April 19, 1782. Adams also negotiated a loan of five million guilders to the United States, financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink. By 1794 a total of eleven loans were granted in Amsterdam to the United States with a value of 29 million guilders. In October 1782, he negotiated a treaty of amity and commerce with the Dutch, the first such treaty between the United States and a foreign power after the 1778 treaty with France. The house that Adams bought during this stay in The Netherlands became the first American-owned embassy on foreign soil.
In 1784 and 1785, Adams negotiated a trade agreement between the United States and Prussia. In 1785, Adams was appointed as the first American minister to the Court of St. James's (ambassador to Great Britain). Adams was joined by his wife Abigail during his service in London. He had not seen her for five years. She was accompanied to Europe by the Adams's daughter, "Nabby." Their sons, Charles, Thomas Boylston, and John Quincy, spent these years in the United States completing their schooling. During her visit to Washington to mark the bicentennial of American independence in 1976, Queen Elizabeth II said of Adams: "John Adams, America's first ambassador, said to my ancestor, King George III, that it was his desire to help with the restoration of 'the old good nature and the old good humor between our peoples.' That restoration has long been made, and the links of language, tradition, and personal contact have maintained it".
In 1787, while in London, Adams published a work entitled "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States". In the book, Adams wrote that "the rich, the well-born and the able" should be set apart from other men in a senate—that would prevent them from dominating the lower house. He theorized that social classes exist in every political society, and that a good government must accept that fact.
Adams returned home from London in 1788 after a ten-year absence from home. He came back to play a part in the new national government that had been created by the Constitution drafted by the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 and ratified the following summer. Knowing that George Washington would be the first President, Adams sought the vice presidency. He was elected to that position in 1789, receiving the second largest number of votes after Washington, who won the vote of every member of the electoral college.