In Amsterdam, Adams and his sons initially stayed in the simple lodging house of  Madame La Veuve du Henry Schorn on the Achterburgwal near the Hoogstraat. From here he worked almost daily on building a network of Amsterdam bankers and merchants.

He had mixed feelings about the workings of Dutch politics. To his foreign minister, John Jay, he wrote: "I have been in the most curious country among the most incomprehensible people and under the most singular constitution of government in the world". On the endless consultations that preceded every decision he remarked: "The councils of this people are the most inscrutable I ever saw."

For the Dutch Patriots he also had little praise. He thought them not very well-read and certainly badly informed about international developments. On the other hand he thought that in comparison with all other European countries the best information was to be obtained in the Netherlands.

In October 1780 Adams learned that Henry Laurens was detained at sea by the British while on his way to Europe. He had quickly thrown his papers overboard but they did not sink fast enough and the British had fished them out. Among his papers was the draft for a secret agreement between the US and the Netherlands. The discovery of these papers caused major embarassment to the Dutch and it would constitute the 'casus belli' for yet another war with Great Britain.The immediate outcome of Laurens' arrest was that responsibility for acquiring a loan of ten million dollars was transfered to Adams. He understood that he now had to ensure that his status increased. To silence the bankers and end any derogatory talk about his simple lodgings with the widow, in the summer of  1781 he took a lease on a house on Keizersgracht 529.

The house was built around 1760 and the exterior is still largely in the original state. Only the eighteenth century chimneys have disappeared from the roof (see the drawing by Caspar Philips).