Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/269

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, sixth president of the United States, born in Braintree, Mass., July 11, 1767; died in Washington, D. C., February 23, 1848. He was named for his mother s grandfather, John Quincy. In his eleventh year he accompanied his father to France, and was sent to school near Paris, where his proficiency in the French language and other studies soon became conspicuous. In the following year he returned to America, and back again to France with his father, whom, in August, 1780, he accompanied to Holland. After a few months at school in Amsterdam, he entered the university of Leyden. Two years afterward John Adams s secretary of legation, Francis Dana, was appointed minister to Russia, and the boy accom panied him as private secretary. After a stay of fourteen months, as Catharine s government re fused to recognize Mr. Dana as minister, young Adams left St. Petersburg and travelled alone through Sweden, Denmark, and northern Germany to France, spending six months in the journey. Arriving in Paris, he found his father busy with the negotiation of the treaty of peace between 219