ABSTRACT
Portly little Ambassador Adams and his wife could be sentimental—especially over the applause of their countrymen, and, more particularly, of Bostonian Americans. These accolades they received in measure full enough to satisfy the proudest heart when in June of 1788 the Lucretia brought them home. Adams, he surmised, was too tough a fellow to be led; consequently, Hamilton would prefer a more flexible Vice-President. His motives unknown to Adams, he sent Knox to Braintree with the intimation that the New Englander was too great a figure himself to serve second to Washington. The Presidency he did not expect —that would and should go, he thought, to Washington. To Theophilus Parsons, a lawyer of Newburyport, he stressed firmly that he would not accept the post of senator from Massachusetts. Adams hastily sought to free himself from a charge made by his Massachusetts friend, James Lovell, that he had given the casting vote because he himself wanted the Presidency.
