After concluding the treaty of peace, John Adams, together with Franklin and Jay, was charged with the duty of negotiating a treaty of commerce with Great Britain, and John Adams, taking his son John Quincy with him, proceeded to London, and took up his residence at the British Court.  Mrs. Adams embarked in June, 1781, to join her husband.

John Adams was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the same Court in 1785, and thus he, who ten years before, when a subject, in the province of Massachusetts, had said, “I know that Great Britain has determined upon her system, and that very determination determines me on mine,”—­was the first Representative of his independent country admitted to an audience by the discomfited majesty of the Imperial States.  The occasion was adapted to excite profound emotions, though of different kinds, in each party.  John Adams addressed the King thus:—­

“The United States of America have appointed me their Minister Plenipotentiary to your Majesty, and have directed me to deliver to your Majesty this letter, which contains the evidence of it.  It is in obedience to their express commands, that I have the honor to assure your Majesty of their unanimous disposition and desire to cultivate the most liberal and friendly intercourse between your Majesty’s subjects and their citizens; and of their best wishes for your Majesty’s health and happiness, and for that of your royal family.

“The appointment of a Minister from the United States to your Majesty’s Court, will form an epoch in the history of England and of America.  I think myself more fortunate than all my fellow citizens, in having the distinguished honor to be the first to stand in your Majesty’s royal presence, in a diplomatic character; and I shall esteem myself the happiest of men, if I can be instrumental in recommending my Country more and more, to your Majesty’s royal benevolence, and of restoring an entire esteem, confidence and affection, or in better words, ’the old good nature, and the old good harmony,’ between people, who, though separated by an ocean, and under different governments, have the same language, a similar religion, and kindred blood.  I beg your Majesty’s permission to add, that although I have sometimes before been intrusted by my country, it was never, in my whole life, in a manner so agreeable to myself.”

George III. replied with dignity, but not without some manifestations of excitement:—­

“The circumstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say that I not only receive with pleasure the assurances of the friendly disposition of the People of the United States, but I am very glad the choice has fallen upon you to be their Minister.  I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest, but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do, by the duty which I owed my people.  I will be frank with you—­I was the last to conform to the separation, but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States, as an independent power.