Adams Family Correspondence, volume 5
1783-02-01
I arrived here a few days agone,1 and expect to be at the Hague by the latter end of this month where I shall wait for your orders, in case I dont find you there; what to do. I should have written you from Stockholm but when I arrived there I was told you was in Paris, and I did not know where to adress my letters. But just before I left Stockholm2 I receiv'd a letter from Mr. D
They talk a great deal here about peace. Tis said to be very near; but a great many people think the contrary, on account of the amazing armaments of the belligerent powers. But nothing is certain as yet I believe.
P.S. Please to present my duty to Mamma when you write. As soon as I arrive in Holland I shall write to her and to all my friends in America.
JQA had arrived in Göteborg, the largest city on the west coast of Sweden, on 16 Jan., and would not depart until 11 February. His Diary entries for this period, during which he took a side trip to the falls and canal works at Trollhättan, are among the most detailed of his entire journey from Russia to Holland (JQA, Diary
, 1:164–170).
JQA had arrived in Stockholm on 22 Nov. 1782 and left on 31 Dec. (same, 1:159–162).
Not found.
JQA had reached Norrköping, located on an inlet to the Baltic Sea, about 80 miles southwest of Stockholm, on 1 Jan., and departed on 14 Jan. (same, 1:162–164). His Diary describes his stay there in some detail.
Sweden was in the eighteenth century, and remains today, a leading exporter of high grade iron and steel products. This put the Swedes in natural competition with the United States, whose Pennsylvania iron deposits were also among the world's most valuable in the eighteenth century. Eli F. Heckscher, An Economic History of Modern Sweden, Cambridge, 1954.
Carl Söderström; his brother was Richard Söderström, Swedish merchant and later consul at Boston, whom JQA would meet in 1785 (JQA, Diary
, 1:167).
JQA's Diary entry of 23 Nov. 1782 suggests that Brandenburg may already have been in correspondence with Francis Dana before JQA's arrival in Stockholm (same, 1:161). JQA's letter to Dana requesting advice for Brandenburg has not been found. In a 28 Feb. letter to JA (Adams Papers), Brandenburg wrote that he lent JQA money in Stockholm, and that he had heard of JA's concern for JQA's whereabouts (see JA to AA, 4 Feb., note 5, below). He then told JA what he knew about JQA's journey through Sweden to Göteborg, and congratulated JA on the conclusion of the preliminary articles of peace.