was not much
fatigued. Her sister, Princess Augusta, after having asked your niece
if she was ever in England before, and her answering, 'Yes,' inquired
of me how long ago, and supposed it was when she was very young. And
all this with much affability, and the ease and freedom of old
acquaintance. * * * As to the ladies of the court, rank and title may
compensate for want of personal charms; but they are, in general, very
plain, ill-shaped, and ugly; but don't you tell any body that I say
so; the observation did not hold good, that fine feathers make fine
birds." Referring to this same occasion in a subsequent letter, she
says, "I own that I never felt myself in a more contemptible situation
than when I stood four hours together for a gracious smile from
majesty, a witness to the anxious solicitude of those around me for
the same mighty _boon_. I, however, had a more dignified honor, as his
majesty _deigned to salute me_."

Of other sources of annoyance Mrs. Adams thus speaks: "Some years
hence, it may be a pleasure to reside here in the character of
American minister; but, with the present salary, and the present
temper of the English, no one need envy the embassy. There would soon
be fine work, if any notice was taken of their billingsgate and abuse;
but all their arrows rebound, and fall harmless to the ground. Amidst
all their falsehoods, they have never insinuated a lisp against the
private character of the American minister, nor in his public line
charged him with either want of abilities, honor, or integrity. The
whole venom is levelled against poor America, and every effort to make
her appear ridiculous in the eyes of the nation."

It would have been difficult to find a person better adapted than Mrs.
Adams for the trying situation in which she found herself. In other
times, a woman of more yielding temper, who could adapt herself more
readily to those about her, would, perhaps, answer better. Love of
country was engrained in her; for her "the birds of Europe had not
half the melody of those at home; the fruit was not half so sweet, nor
the flowers half so fragrant, nor the manners half so pure, nor the
people half so virtuous." Three years' residence in England produced
no change of feeling. In anticipation of a return to her home, we find
her writing thus: "I shall quit Europe with more pleasure than I came
to it, uncontaminated, I hope, with its manners and vices. I have
learned to know the world and its va