along with Franklin and Jay, to negotiate a commercial treaty with Great Britain. A sudden and violent fever prostrated him for several weeks, after which he visited London and Bath. Before he had fully recovered his health he learned that his presence was required in Holland. In those days, when we lived under the articles of confederation, and congress found it impossible to raise money enough to meet its current expenses, it was by no means unusual for the superintendent of finance to draw upon our foreign ministers and then sell the drafts for cash. This was done again and again, when there was not the smallest ground for supposing that the minister upon whom the draft was made would have any funds wherewith to meet it. It was part of his duty as envoy to go and beg the money. Early in the winter Mr. Adams learned that drafts upon him had been presented to his bankers in Amsterdam to the amount of more than a million florins. Less than half a million florins were on hand to meet these demands, and, unless something were done at once, the greater part of this paper would go back to America protested. Mr. Adams lost not a moment in starting for Holland, but he was delayed by a succession of terrible storms on the German ocean, and it was only after fifty-four days of difficulty and danger that he reached Amsterdam. The bankers had contrived to keep the drafts from going to protest, but news of the bickerings between the thirteen states had reached Holland. It was believed that the new nation was going to pieces, and the regency of Amsterdam had no money to lend it. The promise of the American government was not regarded as valid security for a sum equivalent to about $300,000. Adams was obliged to apply to professional usurers, from whom, after more humiliating perplexity, he succeeded in obtaining a loan at exorbitant interest. In the meantime he had been appointed commissioner, along with Franklin and Jefferson, for the general purpose of negotiating commercial treaties with foreign powers. As his return to America was thus indefinitely postponed, he sent for his wife, with their only daughter and youngest son, to come and join him in France, where the two elder sons were already with him. In the summer of 1784 the family was thus re-united, and began house-keeping at Auteuil, near Paris. A treaty was successfully negotiated with Prussia, but, before it was ready to be signed, Mr. Adams was appointed minister to the court of St. James, and arrived in London in May, 1785. He was at first politely received by George III., upon whom his bluff and fearless dignity of manner made a considerable impression. His stay in England was, however, far from pleasant. The king came to treat him with coldness, sometimes with rudeness, and the royal example was followed by fashionable society. The American government was losing credit at home and abroad. It was unable to fulfil its treaty engagements as to the payment of private debts due to British creditors, and as to the protection of the loyalists. The British government, in retaliation, refused to surrender the western posts of Ogdensburg, Oswego, Niagara, Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, and Mackinaw, which by the treaty were to be promptly given up to the United States. Still more, it refused to make any treaty of commerce with the United States, and neglected to send any minister to represent Great Britain in this country. It was generally supposed in Europe that the American government would presently come to an end in general anarchy and bloodshed; and it was believed by George III. and the narrow-minded politicians, such as Lord Sheffield, upon whose cooperation he relied, that, if sufficient obstacles could be thrown in the way of American commerce to cause serious distress in this country, the United States would repent of their independence and come straggling back, one after another, to their old allegiance. Under such circumstances it was impossible for Mr. Adams to accomplish much as minister in England. During his stay there he wrote his “Defence of the American Constitutions,” a work which afterward subjected him at home to ridiculous charges of monarchical and anti-republican sympathies. The object of the book was to set forth the advantages of a division of the powers of government, and especially of the legislative body, as opposed to the scheme of a single legislative chamber, which was advocated by many writers on the continent of Europe. The argument is encumbered by needlessly long and sometimes hardly relevant discussions on the history of the Italian republics.
Finding the British government utterly stubborn and impracticable, Mr. Adams asked to be recalled, and his request was granted in February, 1788. For the “patriotism, perseverance, integrity, and diligence” displayed in his ten years of service abroad he received the public thanks of congress. He had no sooner reached home than he was elected a delegate from Massachusetts to the moribund continental congress, but that body expired before he had taken his seat in it. During the summer the ratification of the new constitution was so far completed that it could be put into operation, and public attention was absorbed in the work of organizing the new government. As Washington was unanimously selected for the office of president, it was natural that the vice-president should be taken from Massachusetts. The candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency were voted for without any separate specification, the second office falling to the candidate who obtained the second highest number of votes in the electoral college. Of the 69 electoral votes, all were registered for Washington, 34 for John Adams, who stood second on the list; the other 35 votes were scattered among a number of candidates. Adams was somewhat chagrined at this marked preference shown for Washington. His chief foible was enormous personal vanity, besides which he was much better fitted by temperament and training to appreciate the kind of work that he had himself done than the military work by which Washington had won independence for the United States. He never could quite understand how or why the services rendered by Washington were so much more important than his own. The office of vice-president was then more highly esteemed than it afterward came to be, but it was hardly suited to a man of Mr. Adams's vigorous and aggressive temper. In one respect, however, he performed a more important part while holding that office than any of his successors. In the earlier sessions of the senate there was hot debate over the vigorous measures by which Washington's administration was seeking to reëstablish American credit and enlist the conservative interests of the wealthier citizens in behalf of the stability of the government. These measures were for the most part opposed by the persons who were rapidly becoming organized under Jefferson's leadership into the republican party, the opposition being mainly due to dread of the possible evil consequences that might flow from too great an increase of power in the federal government. In these debates the senate was very
