RC (Adams Papers); internal address: “His Excellency John Adams Esqr.—”

JA’s Boston homecoming on 17 June, after a busy decade of diplomatic service in Europe, was marked with great fanfare and celebration. Governor Hancock and a pier packed with citizens greeted JA and AA on arrival. A cannon salute boomed, and church bells across Boston pealed throughout the day, as the Adamses made their way to Hancock’s Beacon Hill mansion for a brief stay before proceeding to their new home of Peacefield. “Every countenance wore the expressions of joy,” the Massachusetts Centinel reported on 18 June. “And every one testified that approbation of the eminent services his Excellency has rendered his country, in a manner becoming freemen, federalists, and men alive to the sensations of gratitude” (JA, D&A , 3:216–217; AFC , 8:279).

Newspaper tributes to JA’s diplomatic work trickled in for the rest of the year, alongside reports of the U.S. Constitution’s embattled ratification. Many, like that printed in the 3 299 Dec. Massachusetts Centinel, emphasized JA’s ministerial skills and his “sensible, strict, and curious investigation” of mixed government in the Defence of the Const. “Indeed his publick transactions have been conducted with so much judgment, spirit and address, that his character will rise in the esteem of an impartial publick the more it is considered,” the Centinel observed. For JA’s return to New England, see also Descriptive List of Illustrations, No. 7, above.