1. London merchant Benjamin Vaughan, who arranged an array of cultural visits and tours for the Adamses during their time in London, last wrote to JA on 21 March (Adams Papers). Vaughan asked JA to edit an unidentified friend’s pamphlet describing the Corporation Act (1661) and Test Act (1673), which barred all but practicing Anglicans from holding civil, military, and political offices. While there is no record of JA’s assessment of it, Vaughan took up the theme, writing A Collection of Testimonies in Favor of Religious Liberty, in the Case of the Dissenters, Catholics, and Jews. By a Christian Politician, London, 1790.

2. Hanoverian William Herschel (1738–1822), who discovered the planet Uranus six years earlier, had served unofficially as royal astronomer since 1782. Herschel set up his telescopes at Windsor Castle, the summer home of King George III (DNB description begins Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., The Dictionary of National Biography, New York and London, 1885–1901; repr. Oxford, 1959–1960; 21 vols. plus supplements; rev. edn., www.oxforddnb.com. description ends ).

In his 6 April 1787 reply to JA (Adams Papers), Vaughan advised visiting the Windsor observatory during the first quarter of the moon’s phase. JA had toured the grounds in July 1786, yet he made no mention of a return trip. Later, JA wrote of his “amazement” when “contemplating the heavens through the telescopes of Herschell” (AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 7:268–270; JA, Defence of the Const. description begins John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, London, 1787–1788; repr. New York, 1971; 3 vols. description ends , 3:504).

3. JA was reluctant to leave AA, who was ailing from rheumatism, and AA2, who was in labor (travail). JA’s first grandchild, William Steuben Smith, was born on 2 April 1787 (AFC description begins Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Richard Alan Ryerson, Margaret A. Hogan, Sara Martin, and others, Cambridge, 1963– . description ends , 8:6, 12).

4. John Wilkinson (1728–1808), of Clifton, England, was an ironmaster and industrialist who manufactured blast furnaces, cylinders, and cannon. Wilkinson supplied the steam-engine cylinders for Matthew Boulton and James Watt’s Albion Mill, which JA and Thomas Jefferson toured in April 1786 (vol. 18:250; DNB description begins Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., The Dictionary of National Biography, New York and London, 1885–1901; repr. Oxford, 1959–1960; 21 vols. plus supplements; rev. edn., www.oxforddnb.com. description ends ).