Her grandson, Charles Francis Adams, to whose Memoir of her we are indebted for these statistics, says, that "the ten years immediately following, present little that is worth recording." Prior to 1778, Mr. and Mrs. Adams had been separated at sundry times, in all, more than three years, which was a severe trial to her fortitude. The strength of her conjugal affection may be gathered from an extract from one of her letters: "I very well remember," she writes, "when the eastern circuits of the courts, which lasted a month, were thought an age, and an absence of three months, intolerable; but we are carried from step to step, and from one degree to another, to endure that which at first we think impossible." Thus she was schooled for separation from her husband, when, in 1778, he went to France as a joint commissioner. While he was absent from his country on that occasion, faithful to the calls of duty, she remained at home, and managed, as she had done before, the affairs of the household and farm. And _there_ let the reader look at her and see a picture of a true mother of the Revolution. "She is a farmer cultivating the land, and discussing the weather and crops; a merchant reporting prices-current and the rates of exchange, and directing the making up of invoices; a politician, speculating upon the probabilities of peace or war; and a mother, writing the most exalted sentiments to her son." What nobler deed could the mother, thus situated, do with her son, John Quincy Adams, in a foreign land, than to write to him in a tone like that of the extracts which follow, and which are taken from letters dated 1778-80: "'Tis almost four months since you left your native land, and embarked upon the mighty waters, in quest of a foreign country. Although I have not particularly written to you since, yet you may be assured you have constantly been upon my heart and mind. "It is a very difficult task, my dear son, for a tender parent to bring her mind to part with a child of your years going to a distant land; nor could I have acquiesced in such a separation under any other care than that of the most excellent parent and guardian who accompanied you. You have arrived at years capable of improving under the advantages you will be likely to have, if you do but properly attend to them. They are talents put into your hands, of which an account will be required of you hereafter; and being possessed of one, two, or four, see to it that you double your numbers.