Compliments to the Royal family at Versailles. My father carried twenty Guineas to
distribute among the servants of the great folks, a tribute every minister is obliged to pay
annually.
“January 1st. 1785. Saturday.,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/03-01-02-0007-0003-0001. [Original source: The Adams Papers, Diary of John Quincy Adams, vol. 1, November 1779 – March 1786, ed. Robert J. Taylor and Marc Friedlaender. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981, p. 212.]