"I cannot O I cannot be reconciled to living as I have done for 3 years past... Will you let me try to soften, if I cannot wholy) releave you, from your Burden of Cares and perplexities?'' So begins Abigail Adams' correspondence to herhusband in these volumes: a plea to end their long separation, as John Adams represented the United States in Europe while Abigail tended to family and farm in Massachusetts, and passed on to John Crucial political information from Congress.

In October 1782, the Adams family was as widely scattered as it would ever be, with young John Quincy Adams in...