No

the acquisition of Louisiana, which was bitterly opposed by the federalists. The question of section as a matter of weight and power was involved. one in public life then discussed the moral aspects of slavery. Mr. Adams was always in favor of the acquisition of land, and advocated the purchase and treaty, though denying some of the constitutional propositions involved. In the grave matter of the impeachment of the ill-tempered, ill-mannered Judge Chase, he was enabled to vote with his party friends for an acquittal.

The period of Mr. Adams' service in the Senate covered some years of the sad history of the part France and England were permitted to play in the affairs of the republic. Generally the republicans held with France,— would have shaped the national policy to favor her. The federalists sided with her great rival. Their position, as a party, in opposition to the admin istration, logically made them the allies of Great Britain. For four years Mr. Adams was able to act mainly with his party. Questions arose on which he was obliged to sever from them. Under Washington we barely escaped alliance with France; under Adams we were nearly precipitated into a war with her. In Mr. Jefferson's second term France was evidently in the ascendant in American councils in the mortal struggle with her old enemy. Certainly the French party, in the United States, was in possession of every branch of the national government. The war which it finally declared, in 1812, against Great Britain, was, on the whole, disastrous. What would it have been in 1806? The naval supremacy of that power enabled her to enforce new and unjust restrictions upon the rights of neutral ships, aimed at the swelling commerce of the United States, which was almost the only neutral power. Mr. Adams was by nature a warrior. His pride would never permit him to submit to insult, much less to wrong. In February, 1806, he brought forward his resolutions condemnatory of the unjust measures of Great Britain, which were passed by the republicans. Curiously enough, the federalists, whose ships England captured, were less incensed against her than they were against France, charging the latter with being the real cause of their losses. The non-importation act of April following, aimed directly at England, was also supported by him, in the face of the fierce opposition of the federalists. Britain retorted by declaring the whole coast of Europe blockaded. This blow, of course, was directed at Napoleon, who, in reply, declared the British islands to be under blockade. The English then forbade all trade, by neutrals, with any of her enemies, and followed, a few months later, with the famous order in council, declaring any neutral vessel bound to any port closed to her, liable to capTo this Napoleon replied with his famous Milan decree, that city. then being his headquarters. This put the ships and commerce of the United States substantially in the position they would have occupied had both Great Britain and France declared war against the United States. Incihent to an enforcement of these British orders, was the right of search.

ture.

During all these years England had habitually searched American vessels for her sailors, and impressed many American-born seamen, and compelled them to serve on her war-ships. Whoever studies the history of these years of abasement, will feel that a disastrous war was preferable to submission. Then followed the affair of the ill-fated Chesapeake, in Hampton Roads. An American frigate, after a feeble resistance, surrendered to a British fifty-gun ship, the Leopard. There were killed three, and wounded sixteen of her crew; four sailors were impressed. These were carried to Halifax. One was hanged for desertion, one died in prison, and, five years later, two were returned to the Chesapeake, in Boston harbor. Berkeley, the commander of the Leopard, received the usual English punishment for such outrage—he was promoted. This affair fully aroused the fiery Adams spirit, and in the public meetings of republicans, and of the more tardy federalists, John Quincy Adams denounced it and the aggressors in becoming terms.

Jefferson was not the man for the troublous times in which he was called upon to serve. His philosophy, his idylic policy, his flotillas of gunboats, known by their numbers, were far short of the demands of the occasion. They were the diversion of his enemies, and receive little respect from history. The non-importation act failed; aggressions increased.

At the extra session of October, 1807, the administration brought forward its proposed embargo, forbidding American ships leaving the home ports after a certain day. Whatever may now be thought of the wisdom of this measure, it was a manly and spirited blow-a war measure. Mr. Adams not only voted for it, but was on the committee that reported it. This was the end of all possible connection between him and the federalists. They came about him like a pack of infuriated wolves. They were learned and ingenious in the arts of detraction, denunciation, and abuse; and exhausted their ability and resources upon him. Mr. Pickering wrote a denunciatory letter to the governor of Massachusetts, which he asked to have laid before the legislature. Adams was charged with supporting the measure for the purpose of securing a re-election to the Senate. Following the usage of the state, the election would be made by the legislature next after the passage of the obnoxious act. At the time of Mr. Adams' offense, the federalists were a majority in that body. Mr. Adams' time was to expire after the election of a new legislature. His enemies precipitated the election, and made choice of one Lloyd, of Boston, to succeed him, the senate voting twenty-one for Lloyd to seventeen for Adams; and the house two hundred and forty-eight to two hundred and thirteen. Though he had a year of unexpired term, Mr. Adams at once resignedan example of pride and spirit, lost on these later times and generations of mere place holders. To Mr. Pickering's letter, though withheld from the legislature, Mr. Adams replied in an able exposé of the whole situation, and charged the Hamiltonians, the leaders of which constituted the then

famous "Essex junto," with laboring to reduce the republic to a condition of colonial vassalage to England.

However mistaken in some of their measures, the republicans were then the party of the country, and the place of the young Adams was with them, and he took it, leaving a moribund party, to a fate it was only worthy. It is base gratuitously to ascribe noble actions to unworthy motives.

He was again a private citizen, and turned his attention to the law. He was already professor of rhetoric at Harvard; a course of his lectures was published, but have no interest here. The winter following his resignation he visited Washington, where, in an interview with President Jefferson, he made a charge of treasonable designs against some of the federalist leaders-charges repeated by him in an elaborate review of the now forgotten works of the forgotten Fisher Ames, published in the Boston Patriot. The proof of the charge was never very satisfactory. The charge was hurtful to the men-its memory was revived later.

In July, 1808, the republicans of his congressional district tendered. him a nomination for the House of Representatives; he declined it. Among his reasons was a wish not to endanger the success of his friend Josiah Quincy, federalist though he was.

As early as 1805, when his general adherence to the federal party was firm, he was approached with the offer of a foreign mission, which he did not favor. In March, 1809, President Madison sent his name to the Senate as minister to Russia, where the United States had never had a representative, although the Emperor Alexander had expressed a wish to exchange ministers with the United States. The Senate met it with a "resolve that it was inexpedient." On the 26th of June following, the nomination was renewed, with a message. It was at once confirmed by a vote of nineteen to seven. We are told that the elder Adams looked upon this mission as an exile of his son, brought about by the Virginia republican leaders, who wished the absence of a dangerous rival. That the thought of going out of the country was not unpleasant to the son is apparent. Pending his going he was nominated and confirmed a justice of the supreme court of the United States, which, against the earnest wish of his father, he declined. Undoubtedly his going was the part of wisdom.

August 5, 1809, Mr. Adams embarked on his last voyage to Europe, for an absence of eight years. Like most of the enterprises of Mr. Adams. the voyage was stormy and dangerous. He reached St. Petersburg October 23d, following.

In Europe the year 1809 saw Wellesley making head against Napoleon's generals in Spain, Napoleon himself being in the ascendant everywhere else. He had that year fought the battles of Eckmuhl, Aspern, and Essling; had annexed the Papal dominions, and held the pope a virtual pris

oner in Paris; was in alliance with Alexander, and meditating the divorce of Josephine.

czar.

Adams was received with marked kindness at St. Petersburg, where he became quite a favorite both with the emperor and his foreign minister, Romanzof. There was a series of court presentations, balls, fétes, dinners, and much in the way of social gayety and pageant. Everywhere M. Adams was a welcome guest. Though not distinguished for personal grace, and social tact, he was an admirable American minister. Educated in Europe, speaking all the court languages, having had much association with distinguished men there, plain, simple, dignified, prudent, sincere, well informed, few Americans were so well equipped to fill, successfully, the rôle of minister. Officially there could be little for him to do. Americans had little intercourse with the Russians, and they could do little for us of good Alexander was very kind to Americans, and beyond watching the wrangles of the other diplomats for precedence at court, our minister had little on his hands but to cultivate the amiable temper and disposition of the Meantime the mighty struggles provoked and carried on by Napoleon more and more astonished the civilized world, and spread terror through Europe. The two emperors quarreled. Alexander again armed, this time in the defense of his empire. Napoleon came, overthrew the Russian armies, captured Moscow-the "holy city"-sat on the throne of the Romanofs, was burnt out, frozen out, and fled, only not a fugitive, toward his own distant France, across a country that arose in arms against him. At St. Petersburg Mr. Adams saw the terror and anxiety of the Russians at the invader's approach; their doubt and uncertainty ere the tide turned, and witnessed their triumph and exultation as it rolled from them and died away in the distance. Meantime the chronic troubles of all the later years, between the United States and Great Britain, resulted in war, declared by the American Congress. In the early part of it, the Emperor Alexander, at Mr. Adams' request, offered his good services as mediator between the belligerents. The United States, acting upon his intercession, dispatched Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard to act as commissioners with Mr. Adams, to negotiate a treaty of peace. They proceeded at once to the Russian capital. The intercession was rejected by Great Britain, the United States placed in an unpleasant position, and her commissioners in a very awk ward one. However, a period was soon reached in the hostilities, where neither party cared further to wage the war.

England really had nothing to gain by the continuance of the war. Her fighting blood had been at white heat during the years of her gigantic struggle with Napoleon. She was used to war, but her people were in a condition of half barbarism and destitution in consequence. America was distant, and the war expensive. Great Britain now proposed to send commissioners to Gottingen, there to meet commissioners from the United

States. The place was changed to Ghent, and the United States renewed the powers of Messrs. Adams, Bayard, and Gallatin, added Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell, our minister to Sweden. Great Britain appointed Lord Gambier, a wrong headed old admiral; Dr. Adams, a writer upon public law; and Mr. Goulborn, an under secretary of state. The commissioners assembled at Ghent August 7, 1814. Four months of wrangling disputation, of ill blood, argument, propositions and counter propositions, followed ere the work was accomplished. If the Englishmen were pugnacious, overbearing, and at times insufferable, the Americans were as discordant a band as ever undertook to secure peace for a bleeding country. Certainly peace never was evolved of eight more incongruous men. A strong and graphic account of the whole is found in Mr. Adams' diary, with life-like, but not flattering, pictures of his associates and opponents. From his nature he could have few friends; his manner and temperament precluded intimacies, and the depressing view which he seemed honestly to entertain for all other men, kept him, as one would suppose, from desiring intimacies with them. Matters were finally arranged December 24, 1814, and though the treaty left the cause of war without so much as a mention-destruction of our commerce, the freedom of the seas, the personal rights of American seamen -yet the conclusion of the treaty was most fortunate. The war had, indeed, itself settled those questions forever, and no treaty stipulation was needed to secure American rights as to them. It was a credit to the American negotiators that they succeeded in agreeing among themselves. That on the whole they were too much for English envoys, and secured the advantage to their country, was declared by Englishmen. The Marquis of Wellesley applauded them in the house of lords; the Times published a heavy leader denouncing the treaty and the imbecility of the English commission.

After the completion of his labors at Ghent, Mr. Adams visited Paris, and was there on the return of Napoleon from Elba, and the beginning of his famous hundred days. There he was joined by his family, who made the then long and perilous journey from St. Petersburg. From Paris they proceeded to London, where Mr. Adams found awaiting him with the Barings, his commision as envoy plenipotentiary, etc., to Great Britain. Here he also found his former colleagues, Messrs. Clay and Gallatin, engaged with their former antagonists, the British commission, in settling the terms of a treaty of commerce between the late belligerent countries. Mr. Adams aided in closing it. Messrs. Clay and Gallatin left, and Mr. Adams entered upon his new duties; he was now at the head of the American diplomatic

service.

The close of the war of 1812, with the general pacification of Europe, put an end to the long and troublous period of American political history, under the Constitution. Old parties had substantially disappeared, to be followed by a few years of personal politics, the formation of new parties,