ton in 1790. He said of his practice: " I can hardly call it practice, because for the space of one year, it would be difficult for me to name any practice which I had to do. For two years, indeed, I can recall nothing in which I was engaged that may be termed practice, though during the second year there were some symptoms that _by perse vering patience, practice might come in time. The third year, I continued this patience and perseverance and, having little to do, occupied my time as well as I could in the study of those laws and institutions which I have since been called to administer. At the end of the third year I had obtained something which might be called practice. The fourth year I found it swelling to such an extent that I felt no longer any concern as to my future destiny as a member of that profession. But in the midst of the fourth year by the will of the first President of the United States, with which the Senate was pleased to concur, I was selected to a station, not, perhaps, of more usefulness, but of greater consequence in the estimation of mankind, and sent from home on a mis sion to foreign parts." Mr. Adams was always a great student of the Bible, and wrote a series of letters to his son on its teachings, which were pub lished in a volume after his death. In 1817, when Mr. Monroe made him secretary land. He of returned state, he immediately was minister to this to coun Engtry. On his arrival, a great dinner was given in his honor in New York at Tammany Hall, at which Governor Clinton, the mayor of the city, and two hundred other distinguished guests were present, all uniting in praise of the great diplomat and statesman. From there he went to Boston, where another large reception was given him, at which his aged father had the pleasure of being present. February 22, 1819, the United States bought Florida from Spain, thus securing the last of the Spanish territories which
were too near to our country to safely re main the property of another. In 1821 the Greek revolution broke out. The Greeks were subject to the cruel Otto man power and they resisted. The Ameri can people naturally sympathized with the Greeks. Money, provisions and arms were collected all over the United States, and sent to Greece, and resolutions were passed at many public meetings. The Greeks ap pealed to the United States, as a government, for assistance, but Mr. Adams, true to our principles of non-interference in European affairs, wrote to the Greek minister: "But while cheering with their best wishes the cause of the Greeks, the United States are forbidden, by the duties of their situation, from taking part in the war, to which their relation is that of neutrality. At peace themselves with all the world, their estab lished policy and the obligations of the laws of nations preclude them from becoming voluntary auxiliaries to a cause which would involve them in war." It was during Mr. Adams's term as sec retary, that President Monroe, December 2, 1823, in a message to Congress, gave utter ance to the now famous American doctrine, called the Monroe doctrine, which in a nut shell is : " That we must not entangle our selves with foreign alliances, nor permit European interference in American affairs, cither in our own or other American re publics." During these years we acknowledged the independence of the South American Re publics. The Seminóle war came on, and General Jackson's going upon Spanish soil and hanging as spies two British subjects, might have caused war with England, but for Mr. Adams's diplomacy in convincing the British cabinet that General Jackson was right. During the whole time he was secretary, he was followed by a bitter persecution from political enemies, his father's and his own, but when asked by his friends to defend
