142 A D A A D A ihat republic, and joined in the ephemeral association called " the armed neutrality." In 1785 Mr Adams was appointed ambassador to the court of his former sovereign, where his conduct was such as to secure the approbation of his own country, and the respect of that to which he was commissioned. Whilst in London, he published his work entitled Defence of the American Constitution, in which he combated ably the opinions of Turgot, Mably, and Price, in favour of a single legislative assembly; and thus perhaps contributed to the division of power and the checks on its exercise, which became established in the United States. At the close of 1787 he returned, after ten years devoted to the public service, to America. He received the thanks of Congress, and was elected soon after, under the presidency of Wash ington, to the office of Vice-President. In 1790 Mr Adams gave to the public his Discourses on Davila, in which he exposed the revolutionary doctrines propagated by France and her emissaries in other countries. On the retirement of Washington, the choice of President fell on Mr Adams, who entered on that office in May 1797. At that time the Government was entangled by the insolent pretensions of the French demagogues, and by their partisans in many of the states. Great differences of opinion arose between the individuals at the head of affairs: one party, with Mr Hamilton at their head, was disposed to resist the preten sions of France by open hostilities; whilst Mr Adams was disinclined to war, so long as there was a possibility of avoiding it with honour. Owing to this division of his own friends, rather than to a want of public confidence, at the conclusion of the four years for which the President is chosen, Mr Adams was not re-elected. Perhaps this was in some measure owing to the preponderance of the slave states, in which Mr Jefferson, his rival, and a proprietor of slaves, had a fellow-feeling among the chief of the people. He retired with dignity, at 65 years of age, to his native place, formed no political factions against those in power, but publicly expressed his approbation of the measures which were pursued by him who had been his rival, who had become his successor in power, but had never ceased to be his firmly-attached friend. The last public occasion on which Mr Adams appeared, was as a member of the convention for the revision of the constitution of Massachusetts, in which some slight altera tions were requisite, in consequence of the province of Maine being separated from it. He seems to have enjoyed his mental faculties to the close of his protracted life; and even on the last day of it, two hours only before its final close, on the 4th July 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Act of Independence, he dictated to a friend, as a sentiment to be given at the public dinner of the day, " Independence for ever." By a very singular coincidence Jefferson, his rival and friend, died a few hours earlier on the same day. Mr Adams was considered a sound scholar, well versed in the ancient languages, and in many branches of general literature. His style in writing was forcible and perspicu ous, and, in the latter years of his life, remarkably elegant. In person he was of middling stature; his manners spoke the courtesy of the old school; and his address, at least when he was in England, was dignified and manly. ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY, eldest son of the preceding, was born at Braintree on the llth July 1767. The greater part of his education was received in Europe, which he visited in company with his father in 1778, and again in 1780, when he attended for a time the university of Ley- den. When only fifteen years old he went, as secretary, with Francis Dana on his unsuccessful mission to St Petersburg. Returning home after an interval spent in Holland, London, and Paris, he graduated at Harvard in 1788; and, after spending three years in a lawyer s office, was admitted to the bar in 1791. Three successive series of letters, on political subjects, contributed to a Boston newspaper, attracted much attention, and Washington appointed him ambassador to the Hague in 1794. An appointment to a similar post in Portugal, made just before the expiry of Washington s presidency, was set aside by his father, who sent him instead to Prussia, giving him the promotion by the express advice of Washington. During his residence as ambassador at Berlin, he succeeded in nego tiating a commercial treaty with Prussia. On Jefferson becoming President (1801), Adams was recalled, and resumed the practice of law in Boston. In 1802 Suffolk county returned him a member of the Massachusetts Senate, and in the following year he was elected to Con gress. Indebted for his position to the Federal party, Adams supported their views for four years, but separated from them by voting for Jefferson s proposed embargo. This course involved him in much controversy, and cost him his seat in the Senate. During his retirement he added to the employment arising from his profession the duties of the professorship of rhetoric and belles lettres at Harvard University, which he held for three years (1806-9). His lectures the first ever read in an American university were published in 1810, and were much thought of at the time, though now almost forgotten. In the winter following the resignation of his professorship, he visited Washington; and, in an interview with Jefferson, brought a charge against some of the Federal leaders of a design to dissolve the union, and form a separate confedera tion for the north. The charge was afterwards repeated in the newspapers ; and, though resting on slender grounds, greatly affected the confidence of the other states in the New England representatives. In 1809 Madison, having obtained after some delay the concurrence of the Senate, entrusted Adams with the embassy to St Petersburg, an appointment which the latter accepted against the wishes of his father, and continued to hold, though offered a seat on the judicial bench of New England some time after his arrival in Russia. When war broke out between England and the United States, Adams induced the Czar to make an offer of intervention, which, however, the English Government declined to accept. Independent negotiations were thereupon carried on for six months at Ghent (the representatives of America being Adams, Russell, and Clay), and resulted in the treaty of peace which was signed 24th December 1814. After serving for two years (1815-17) as minister in London, he again entered the arena of home politics as secretary of state under Monroe. In this office he distinguished himself specially by his arrangement of the treaty with Spain, which defined the boundaries of the ceded territories of Florida and Louisiana. An elaborate report on weights and mea sures gained for him also a name for scientific acquirements. In 1825 the election of a President fell, according to the constitution of the States, to the House of Representatives, since no one of the candidates had secured an absolute majority of the electors chosen by the States, and Adams, who had stood second to Jackson in the electoral vote, was chosen in preference to Jackson, Clay, and Crawford. The administration of Adams was marked by the imposition of a high tariff on foreign goods, with the view of promoting internal industry, and by the unsuccessful attempt to pur chase Cuba from Spain. Notwithstanding the efforts of Clay, and the special claim he himself made on the voters of Virginia on account of his discovery of the so-called New England " plot" twenty years before, Adams failed to secure his re-election in 1829. Dc.eated by Jackson, who had 178 votes to his 83, he retired o Quincy, where
his father s fortune, increased by his own efforts, afforded
