WI John Adams Refused to go to Paris?

What if, in 1777, when the Continental Congress wanted to send John Adams to France as a backup to Ben Franklin, he had gotten them to pick someone else?
 
He certainly played a critical role, yes, but IIANM that was toward the end of the war -- his years in France preceding that were hardly helpful...
 
He certainly played a critical role, yes, but IIANM that was toward the end of the war -- his years in France preceding that were hardly helpful...

He was picked because his predecessor was a carpetbagging greedy scumbag (IIRC Silas Deane?) and Adams was viewed as honest to say the least. If he doesn't go and someone else does well who did you have mind? Jefferson is still relatively in the background. Perhaps instead of chairing the Congress again Henry Laurens goes? It would keep his family intact (most including John where still in England) and would remove him from the acrimony that had been bothering him since '74. He is the only other person with Adams-like stature I can think of although he is descended from Huguenots I am unsure if that plays a role.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Wasn't John Adams crucial to the US' relations with the Dutch Republic?

Yes, and he did it pretty much on his own initiative rather than on instructions from Congress. Had Adams not been there, America would not have received the critical loans it needed from the Dutch banks, and its capacity to go on with the war after 1779-80 would have vanished.
 
Congress actually asked Jefferson to go, but he declined on account of his wife's frail health.

I think Congress asked twice but he was going with Adams both times. It is not important my general point was that besides Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin; there were few people who were held in such high esteem and had the trust of the whole Continental Congress that those three had.

Laurens was made Minister to Holland and captured aboard a packet ship on his way to the Netherlands; I believe instructions to Adams where sent to him after he had already taken the initiative on his own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Laurens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams#In_Europe
 
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