that the dame who taught him to spell flattered him into learning his letters by telling him he would prove a scholar. A student in his father's office instructed him in the elements of Latin.

Mr. Adams remained in Paris till June, 1779, when he and his son returned. In November, 1779, he went again to France to meet commissioners from England to negotiate a treaty of peace. Young Adams went again with his father.

In July, 1780, Mr. Adams was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands, and his son was removed from the schools of Paris to those of Amsterdam, and later to the University of Leyden. There he studied till July of the next year, when, at the age of fourteen, he was invited by Francis Dana, minister from the United States to the Russian court, to become his private secretary, and he accompanied him through Germany to St. Petersburg. Beyond his official duties he found time to continue his Latin, French and German studies, together with English history, until September, 1782, when he went to Stockholm and passed the winter. The next spring he went through Sweden to the Hague, where he met his father and went with him to Paris. He was present at the signing of the treaty of peace in 1783. He went with his father to England visiting eminent men and noted places; after which he returned to Paris and his studies, till May, 1785, when both father and son returned to the United States. He was now eighteen years old. His father had just been appointed minister to England. Should he go with his father, or go to college? Here was a great temptation. He saw the glittering prospects of a life at the court of St. James; he knew he needed the drill and discipline of a college and professional course of study. His father's finances had suffered by his public service. The boy chose to go home to study and become an independent worker-out of his own fortune. Wise choice, showing that the man and not the boy had control of him. After reviewing his studies under an instructor, he entered the junior class in Harvard college in March, 1786, a little before he was nineteen years of age. He graduated in 1787 with the second honor of his class, and gave an oration

on "The Importance of Public Faith to the Well-being of a Community," which was published on account of the interest felt in it.

THE LAWYER.

Now, at twenty years of age, young Adams entered upon the study of law, in the office of Theophilus Parsons, afterward chief justice of Massachusetts, at Newburyport. He was admitted to the bar in 1790. He at once opened an office in Boston. He was a stranger there, though born within ten miles. He afterward 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 persevering 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 for a station, not, perhaps, of more usefulness, but of greater consequence in the estimation of mankind, and sent from home on a missión to foreign parts."

THE WRITER.

While waiting for clients and continuing the active study of his profession, Mr. Adams was not a careless spectator of national affairs. He was an intense patriot. His travels abroad had made his patriotism broader, richer, more intelligent. He had been so thoroughly trained by his mother and the community in which he was born, in the morals of life, which he had been taught to apply to political and national affairs, that

it was difficult for him to separate his personal life from the life of the nation. About this time Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" was published in this country, with the approval of Thomas Jefferson. Both Paine and Jefferson had been much in France, and much influenced by the radically democratic, or as we would say now, communistic views of the French leaders in their revolution. Mr. Adams saw clearly the "political heresies" of Mr. Paine's pamphlet, and the mischief it was likely to do among the American people, who sympathized intensely with the French in their struggle for liberty, and exposed those heresies, and explained the difference between the French struggle and our own, in a series of articles which he published in the "Columbia Centinel," over the signature "Publicola."

In April, 1793, Great Britain declared war against France. Such was the sympathy for France in this country, that multitudes were ready to make our republic a French ally against our old enemy.

Mr. Adams published another series of letters, over the signature of "Marcellus," in which he advocated with great ability the neutrality of the United States. He enlarged upon the necessity of our keeping clear of all foreign entanglements.

A little later he published another series, over the signature of Columbus," severely criticising citizen Genet, whom France had sent here to arouse America in her behalf. These several articles were republished in pamphlets and other papers and widely read. They were published also, in England and held as among the ablest political writings from America. Washington and his cabinet read them with great interest. They advocated in the main the doctrines Washington was trying to enforce in his administration. They did not suit either party, but were broader and wiser than either. They tended greatly to establish an American course of conduct, and fix many things on solid bases, which were then unsettled. They threw light, and much of it, into the gloom of that most doubtful period of our national history.

In these papers there was not only shown great political and literary ability and moral character of a high order, but a clear

knowledge of foreign countries, and of the language and etiquette of courts and diplomacy. All this pointed out to Washington's quick and most accurate judgment, the man he wanted for a foreign minister; and when he found it was his vicepresident's son, who was yet but a young man, who had written so wisely, he did not hesitate on accunt of his few years, but appointed him minister to the Netherlands. His commission was given him July 11, 1794, the day he completed his twentyseventh year.

FOREIGN MINISTER.

Mr. Adams left Boston in September, and reached London in October, where Messrs. Jay and Pinckney were negotiating a treaty between England and the United States. After fifteen days in London he sailed, October 30, for Holland. Holland almost at once fell into the hands of France, and his intercourse was about as much with the conquering as the conquered country.

In October, 1795, he was directed by the secretary of state to repair to England, where he found he was appointed to ratify Jay's treaty with the British government. After fulfilling this mission he returned to Holland.

In August, 1796, he received the appointment of minister to Portugal, but his credentials did not reach him till his successor came, the next July. He at once repaired to London, to find that an appointment to the court of Berlin had superseded the other. While waiting for instructions, he fulfilled an engagement of marriage with Miss Louisa Catharine Johnson, daughter of Joshua Johnson, American consul at London. The marriage took place July 26, 1797. They proceeded to Berlin where Mr. Adams faithfully discharged the duties of his high office till 1801, when they returned to the United States.

BEGINS ANEW.

Mr. Adams returned to Boston and to the bar, but without practice. When he left the bar, seven years before, his practice had just become assured. But now, after seven years abroad,

he must begin anew. He had now a family to support; his finances had suffered by the failure of foreign bankers; but, nothing daunted, he again sought practice. He applied himself diligently to read up the new statutes and to acquaint himself with the new conditions of law and society in his own country. He was but started in this study when the Boston district elected him to the Senate of Massuchesetts.

In Massachusetts the federalists were in the majority. While he had been absent his father had been president, and lost his re-election by the division of his party and the rise of the democratic party, under Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Adams was not a politician by nature, and had had no part in the party differences of the time. His first public act as a senator was one of political justice and conciliation. He was elected by federalists, but when the governor's council was appointed he moved that a portion be appointed from the minority party, on the ground that the minority had rights that the majority were bound, in justice, to respect.

In 1803 Mr. Adams was elected to the Senate of the United States by the Massachusetts legislature. He was now thirty-six years of age. The country, at this time, was fearfully embarrassed, both by home distractions and foreign complications. Party spirit was almost a craze; one party affiliated with France, the other with England; the people had not learned to be stable citizens, nor what belonged to good citizenship; many of their leaders were distracted by foreign theories and Utopian schemes; war was appealing to the belligerent spirit of the young nation. The president, Mr. Jefferson, was dreaded and hated by many of the federalists as a French Jacobin.

When these perils and embarrassments were thickening in and about the young republic, Mr. Adams took his seat in Congress, elected by federalists. The next year, 1804, Bonaparte became emperor of France. All Europe seemed falling under his sway. England alone withstood him. In 1807 England issued the "Orders in Council," which forbade all trade with. France and her allies. Bonaparte replied with the "Milan Decree," which prohibited all trade with England and her