prices are in
"continental money," seventy dollars of which would hardly command one
of "hard money."

Hitherto Mr. Adams's residence had seemed too unsettled to render it
worth while for his wife to undertake a long and dangerous voyage to
meet him. But after the acknowledgment of our independence by Great
Britain, a commission was sent to Mr. Adams as first minister to that
court; and it was probable that his residence there would be
sufficiently long to justify him in a request to Mrs. Adams to join
him. The feelings of the latter on the subject were thus expressed
before the appointment was actually made: "I have not a wish to join
in a scene of life so different from that in which I have been
educated, and in which my early, and, I must suppose, happier days
have been spent. Well-ordered home is my chief delight, and the
affectionate, domestic wife, with the relative duties which accompany
that character, my highest ambition. It was the disinterested wish of
sacrificing my personal feelings to the public utility, which first
led me to think of unprotectedly hazarding a voyage. This objection
could only be surmounted by the earnest wish I had to soften those
toils which were not to be dispensed with; and if the public welfare
required your labors and exertions abroad, I flattered myself that, if
I could be with you, it might be in my power to contribute to your
happiness and pleasure." "I think, if you were abroad in a private
character, I should not hesitate so much at coming to you; but a mere
American, as I am, unacquainted with the etiquette of courts, taught
to say the thing I mean, and to wear my heart in my countenance,--I
am sure I should make an awkward figure; and then it would mortify my
pride, if I should be thought to disgrace you."

In spite, however, of this reluctance, she embarked on board the
_Active_, a merchant ship, for London. Of this voyage Mrs. Adams
has given a most graphic and not very agreeable picture; and nothing
can present a greater contrast than her dirty, close, narrow
quarters, on board a vessel deeply loaded with oil and potash,--the
oil leaking, and the potash smoking and fermenting,--with the
floating palaces in which the voyage is now made. The culinary
department was in keeping with the rest of the ship. "The cook was a
great, dirty, lazy negro, with no more knowledge of cookery than a
savage; nor any kind of order in the distribution of his dishes; but
on they come, higgle