He also remarked several times that they must think of crossing the Atlantic to visit his family, who would be anxious to meet her. To this she replied, “Not yet, James. Not with little Weston so young.” And as this seemed reasonable, he did not argue.

When she became pregnant again, he was delighted. He’d rather hoped for a girl this time. Then she lost the baby and he was very sad. But for Vanessa, the loss took a greater toll.

She became depressed. For weeks she remained in the house, going out little, staring lifelessly through the window at the sky. She seemed to do everything listlessly. He tried to comfort her, persuade her to amusements, but mostly in vain. She seemed to shrink from intimacy. Even Weston seemed to bring her little joy. After a short time playing with him, she would hand him back to the nursemaid and motion them away.

Gradually she returned to her normal state, or something like it. But there was a change. Though she allowed him into her bed, it was plain to James that she did not really welcome his embraces. He tried to be tender, and hoped for better times. Almost more difficult for him to understand was her attitude to Weston.

He had assumed that all women were maternal. It was, he thought, their natural instinct. It was strange indeed to him, therefore, that even after she had recovered, Vanessa did not seem to care for her son. To outside eyes, she was a perfect mother, but she was going through the motions, and in her attentions to the child, there was little warmth. Once, with the little boy on her knee, she gazed at Weston’s face and remarked to James: “He looks just like you.”

“He’s the image of my father, actually,” James replied.

“Oh,” she said sadly. “Is that it?” And she put little Weston down, without enthusiasm, so that James could only wonder whether she had affection for either him or for his son.

It was shortly after this incident that James encountered Benjamin Franklin in the Strand. When he introduced himself and explained who he was, the great man was friendly. “Come back to my lodgings,” he said, “and let us talk.”

As always, Franklin was enlightening. They spoke of the Patriot cause, and James related the conversation he’d had with young Hughes.

“I confess,” he told Franklin, “that I have often pondered his words since, and wondered whether he may be right. Perhaps a fundamental agreement between the British government and the American colonies can never be reached.”

But Franklin was more sanguine.