by Jane Cook
“He was happy now to say that the cases of all the American vessels . . . were definitively decided; that the cargoes and parts of cargoes which had not the necessary certificates should be admitted.”
Because these sixty-seven ships belonging to the convoy and the others in Archangel did not have certificates issued by Russian consuls from their ports of origin, the Russian government decided to require bonds from the captains, who promised to acquire the certificates and forward them to the customhouse. This was a way for the Russian government to save face, maintain a sense of public honor, and exert its authority while doing the right thing by freeing the ships.
Campenhausen noted that everything recognized as American would be cleared. He apologized for the delay.
The news was the best that John could have received. Russia had not caved in to France’s pressure after all. Had the sea been free of ice, John could have voyaged to Boston and back in the time it took for the Russian government to complete the paperwork, but the results were a victory for American trade nonetheless. Campenhausen also strongly suggested that the US government make a public statement against France’s refusal to accept its own consul’s certificates.
John took up the baron’s suggestion and wrote US Secretary of State Smith: “At least it may be important for the protection both of the property and reputation of many of our citizens, to demonstrate that they are unjustly charged with having produced forged papers.”
He also gave his boss a warning: “If . . . according to the expectation now generally entertained here,” he wrote partly in the US government’s secret code, “a war between France and Russia should very speedily ensue, it may be of some importance to consider what its effects upon our commercial relations may probably be.”
John doubted that war would come soon “unless it be the deliberate and irrevocable determination of France to come to a rupture with Russia.”
Soon he had a good reason to reconsider his optimism.
No doubt Count Czernicheff had grown as tired of wearing his shoop and loose outer boots on his journey back to St. Petersburg as he had of drinking wine with Napoleon in Paris. Czernicheff had been around Napoleon so many times that he knew the man’s worst habits. He wasn’t sure which afflicted the French ruler more: insomnia or arrogance. Alexander’s special envoy to the French emperor traveled as fast as six horses could pull his coach from post to post from Paris to St. Petersburg. The letter from Napoleon to Alexander was the most important message he had ever carried.
Twenty-six-year-old Czernicheff, whom Louisa had described as the most handsome man she had ever seen when she met him the year before at a dinner, knew Alexander well. Unlike General Hitroff, he honorably served his Russian sovereign.
Czernicheff arrived in St. Petersburg on March 17, 1811. He immediately rode to the Winter Palace to personally deliver Napoleon’s letter to Alexander. The czar wasted no time. No sooner had he read the correspondence than he demanded a meeting with Caulaincourt. No matter that Napoleon had recalled him; until his replacement arrived, he was still the French emperor’s ambassador. The two talked until 10:00 p.m. Caulaincourt spent the next day writing letters. He refused to meet with anyone.
John heard the news from another diplomat, who whispered while the pair walked the streets of St. Petersburg. As the weather began to warm in Russia, the relationship with France was growing chillier.
“The coolness or misunderstanding between the cabinets of St. Petersburg and of Paris . . . has become a subject of very general notoriety,” Adams wrote to the secretary of state.
How would a Russian-French war affect America? The possibility was horrific.
“In constant expectation of letters from my children,” Louisa wrote with worry.
The Neva River broke on April 24, 1811. Ships were docking again. Adams would no longer rely on a Russian courier to send his letters to the United States by way of Paris. Perhaps they would finally receive correspondence from home. Louisa was more desperate than ever to learn about the well-being of her children. Maybe she would get relief soon.
The breakup of the river also enticed these prisoners of winter to get out and about. The day was May 6. Adams longed to see the long blocks of ice sweeping down the Neva. To do so, he changed his routine and took an afternoon walk along the Fontanka.
As he approached the canal, he met Alexander, who was walking toward him and away from the water. The emperor stopped and signaled for Adams to stand next to him at an iron railing along the canal. They spoke while the imperial guards stood with their arms turned outward, facing the Fontanka.
“The weather was warmer and finer,” Alexander proclaimed, noting it was more pleasant than he remembered from previous springs.
“It was very long,” Alexander remarked of the time he'd last seen his American friend walking.
John explained that he had not abandoned his habit but his timing.
“I believed it was the hour at which I usually walked that had deprived me of the happiness of meeting His Majesty.”
The emperor had often “of late been so engaged in business that he could not take his usual walks.”
Suddenly Alexander stepped away, as if signaling an end to their conversation. Just as John started to bow and turn away, the emperor faced him again, leaning intently on the canal’s iron railing. He waved his hand to dismiss the guards. His face was earnest. In a whispery voice, he asked a question. Did Adams have “any late accounts from home?”
“I had letters up to the 20th of February.”
Did they contain “information of any particular importance?”
“They did not.”
Alexander was not immune to winter’s prison. Just as Louisa and John longed for an encouraging letter from home, so the emperor was anxious for news about America. He continued to fish.
“What was the state of our affairs with England?”
Though surprised by the Russian ruler’s frank discussion of politics when previous conversations on such walks concerned trivial matters, a curious Adams answered forthrightly about the US relationship with Britain.
“They remained in an unsettled state; . . . our minister there had taken leave and was gone, but he had left the chargé d’affaires there.”
The emperor frowned. “And I hear you have lately made in acquisition?” Alexander asked, abruptly changing the subject.
John understood the reference to America’s latest territorial controversy: Florida. The emperor was intrigued by the process. When Russia acquired land, it was the result of war or diplomatic arm-twisting—not the will of the people.
“But it appears to have been a spontaneous movement of the people themselves, who were desirous of joining themselves to the United States,” Alexander astutely observed.
John agreed, detailing the controversy behind it. The Florida territory was ceded by France to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. Spain objected, especially claiming West Florida and Baton Rouge. France’s latest attempt to annex Spain changed the dynamics. On September 23, 1810, many inhabitants rebelled against Spanish rule and created the West Florida Republic. Three months later, the United States annexed the territory.
“Since then the people of that country had been left in a sort of abandonment by Spain, and must naturally be very desirous of being annexed to [the] United States. Under these circumstances the US government have taken possession of the country.”
“On s’agrandit toujours un peu, dans ce monde,” the emperor replied with a sparkle of understanding, saying in French that “annexation grows a little bit in the world.”
The czar’s reference to Napoleon’s takeover of the Hanseatic territories was unmistakable.
Alexander bowed. Adams replied in kind and left. He had been so focused on the emperor that he'd failed to notice the large crowd that had gathered between the two bridges to watch them. As John walked away, he passed many who had witnessed their conversation. They stared at him and moved out of his way as if he
were “a very important personage.” He wryly concluded, “Such is the magic of an emperor’s countenance.”
Once he was out of view of the czar, he noticed a change in the people he passed. They ignored him. These peasants had not seen him speaking to the emperor. “And every new mujik brushed by me with little notice as if passing one of his fellows.”
John understood the reason behind Alexander’s questions about America’s relationship with England. His advisors were pushing him to make peace with Britain and go to war with France. If Russia officially renewed trade with England, then American ships would be at even greater risk of French cannon fire and caught in the crosshairs of war. Adams was grateful that Alexander had declined the advice of his council. The czar was determined not to be the aggressor. If France wanted war, Napoleon must strike first.
Adams wrote to the secretary of state that the times were no longer notorious but disastrous. “The catastrophe is near at hand.”
37
Correspondence and Contractions
“I IMMEDIATELY SAW BY THEIR DISTRESSED COUNTENANCES THAT bad news had come to us.”
By the third week of May 1811, Louisa was growing more and more uncomfortable with the woes that come with the last trimester of pregnancy—such as fatigue, backaches, and the occasional fleeting contraction. After enduring the coarseness of the two old codgers at Count Romanzoff’s party, she avoided the social swirl by spending time among supportive intimate friends. With sisterly admiration, she praised the Spanish diplomat’s wife: “Went to visit Madame Colombi—She is so gay; so sensible; and so attractive it is impossible to know her without loving her.”
Though she found comfort in her small sorority of diplomatic sisters and satisfaction in championing female virtues, her heart continued to sail as a ship through rough waters. Any day a vessel carrying letters from home could arrive in St. Petersburg. While such correspondence might bring the greatest joy—such as the handwriting of her Boston birches—she was oh too fearful that some letters might carry words of woe. Her greatest anxiety was receiving tragic news. Now that day had come.
As soon as she walked into the study the morning of May 23, 1811, she knew something awful had happened. Her husband’s ashen face and her sister’s tears along with the limp, soiled papers they held in their hands spoke louder than any words. Fear gripped her so intensely that she could hardly breathe as she asked what was wrong. Their hesitation only made her heart beat faster.
“They could not conceal it from me.”
Yes, they had received correspondence from home. Yes, the news was bad.
Abigail was the messenger. After learning of an opportunity to send mail to John and Louisa by way of an outward-bound ship, she had written three letters in January 1811. In the first two she dished enticing political news, particularly pointing out the appointment of Massachusetts’s Lieutenant Governor Levi Lincoln to the US Supreme Court. She joyfully noted that Lincoln “accepted only to keep the place warm for JQ Adams whenever he returns.”
Abigail sought to fortify the possibility through her own prediction: “I would fain believe, what has long been impressed upon my mind, that you are destined to serve your country in her most essential and important interest for years yet to come.”
Then suddenly, tragic news had arrived in Boston from Washington City. Abigail had no choice but to write another letter. With great heaviness of heart she'd picked up her pen on January 24, 1811.
“I thought it best to communicate to you the sudden death of Mrs. Hellen, who was at church on Christmas day and buried on the New Year,” Abigail had written of the death of Louisa’s sister Nancy and her infant. “She died in childbirth.”
Nancy was two years older than Louisa. They were as close as two sisters could be. John and Louisa had lived with Nancy and her husband, Walter, at their home on K Street, while John was a US senator. As Adams labored on Capitol Hill, Nancy and Louisa had spent hours swapping ideas about motherhood, playing the piano, and riding horseback. Often Nancy and Louisa had listened to Adams as he read aloud from the classics in the evening. Nancy was the one who'd convinced John to accompany her to President Madison’s inaugural ball so he could show his support in case Madison wanted to appoint him to a position in his administration. Now her flashing smile and zest for life were gone. She left behind three children.
“Say to your wife that I enter her grief and most tenderly sympathize with her, and Kitty; however we may live, there is not any religion by which we can die, but the Christian which gives us the glorious prospect of life,” Abigail had written with as much tenderness, understanding, faith, and hope as she could muster.
Though Louisa’s greatest fear—the death of her son George or John—had not come, the news and its timing with her own delicate condition caused her great alarm.
“My heart collapsed with agony at the sudden shock in a dead fainting fit.”
John and Kitty immediately helped Louisa into bed, so she could cry and grieve freely without embarrassment. There she could soak her sheets with a torrent of tears. Adams, however, quickly detected that his wife needed more than a comfortable bed. Though she was more than two months from her expected delivery, she appeared to be in labor and needed a physician. He sent for Dr. Galloway.
Sometime after she began sobbing, Louisa felt her belly tighten and quickly loosen again. A stronger surge suddenly wrenched her womb, and then just as abruptly, it subsided. She felt another pain that ripped like a lightning bolt. Then another. And another. Each time the intensity grew worse and seemed to last longer than the one before.
When contractions come close together, a woman cannot easily discern when one ends and the other begins. The result is a continuous stream of intense, scream-producing pain. Occasional contractions are not abnormal thirty or so weeks into a pregnancy. However, these jolts were forceful enough to cause grave concern. Thinking of Nancy, who had felt similar sensations just before her death in childbirth months earlier, was enough to launch a thunderstorm of tears once again.
“The fright produced alarming consequences and a premature birth was threatened with dangerous symptoms for some hours.”
Louisa most likely suffered from what modern medicine describes as preterm contractions. Emotional stress alone cannot induce the physical symptoms of labor. Very likely her sobbing—combined with a lack of eating and drinking—left her dehydrated, which is the most common cause of preterm contractions. Today, physicians prescribe medication to stop such contractions in a woman who has not reached full term. Louisa had no pills to pop to make the contractions stop. Intravenous medications were not available to intervene. All she had was supportive care and intuition.
“My physician remained with me for many hours of intense suffering.” Dr. Galloway encouraged her to drink water and eat. She rested, perhaps lying on her side, hugging her womb, and praying that her child would not come too soon or that she would not suffer the same fate as her sister.
Though she had miscarried many times in the early weeks of pregnancy, Louisa had also experienced one traumatic full-term birth. Occasionally a woman would go days or weeks past her due date without going into labor. The child would grow, becoming too big, and then die inside the womb, resulting in a stillborn death. The risk of dying from an infection from the decaying infant was high. In June 1806 Louisa spent twenty-four hours in labor before giving birth to a son, who died shortly afterward. The experience broke her heart. However, the successful birth of Charles the following year on July 4 became her balm. Modern medicine induces labor to prevent such tragedies. Back then, stillborn deaths, infant death shortly after birth, and maternal mortality were all-too-frequent realities.
Louisa lived before municipal and state governments carefully counted the deaths of its residents and the causes behind them. The documentation that does exist from the early 1800s suggests that the maternal mortality rates and infant death rates were high. For every ten thousand births, sixty or more mothers would die, usually within
two weeks of the birth.
The infant death rate was substantially higher than the maternal death rate. For every thousand births, four to five mothers might die, but one hundred infants would die. Although the death of a child was far more frequent than the death of the mother, maternal mortality was common enough to make it highly feared among families.
Just as people today know someone who has died from cancer or a heart attack, most everyone in the 1800s knew of a woman who had died in childbirth. What should have been one of nature’s most joyous occasions turned into its greatest crimes, stealing a mother from her child; a wife from her husband. Though Louisa feared the death of the child she was carrying, especially after experiencing so many miscarriages and the loss of a son at birth, she didn’t need statistics to know that losing a child was very common. Abigail had lost a daughter at a young age.
Knowledge about obstetrics was in its infancy in 1811. Doctors and midwives did not understand the benefits of washing their hands before delivering a child. Why wash beforehand if your hands were going to get dirty anyway? So the thinking went. Postpartum infections, such as the notorious puerperal fever, and hemorrhage were the most common killers of mothers in childbirth. This tragedy would not improve until 1865, when Joseph Listerine made his discoveries about the benefits of washing one’s hands with antiseptic solutions.
Nancy likely either bled to death after giving birth or died from an infection she'd received following the delivery. Because Nancy’s child also died, it is more likely that she died from an infection than a hemorrhage.
The rise of antiseptics, penicillin, and improved obstetric standards has radically changed mortality rates. The infant death rate in the United States in 2010 was 6.14 infant deaths for every 1,000 births. According to the Center for Disease Control: “The maternal mortality rate in 2007 (latest available data) was 12.7 deaths per 100,000 live births.” These reductions are among medicine’s greatest triumphs.
