Why did Abigail Adams write the following line?: ''You, however, readily, submitted to my advice, I hope, will never have occasion yourself, nor give me reason, to lament it."

This quote comes from a letter Abigail Adams wrote to her son, John Quincy Adams, just two years after he left on an overseas voyage to France in 1778. Adams was the American foreign diplomat to France, and he was to spend the next three years in the Netherlands. He spoke fluent French, and therefore was able to articulately request French support in the ongoing Revolutionary war against Great Britain. Specifically, Adams requested any and all available French military support, and also for a hefty loan, from the French monarch, Louis XVI to bolster the colonial resistance efforts. Abigail is here reminiscing on her success at persuading the young Quincy Adams to depart with his father, John Adams, to Europe. She remarks about Quincy Adam’s original reluctance to travel to Europe for a second time and conveys her hope that he will not have any reason, either because of danger to him in Europe or on the high seas, to “lament” his decision to follow his mother’s advice. The implication here is that John Quincy Adam’s services are so desperately needed in Europe that the most noble decision for him to have made was to risk the journey and secure French military and financial support in the war.