Congress or any member since I left you [seven months before].'vol. ii. p. 51.

Is it not clear that the main object of this mission could only be to get rid of him? However, about September he received—or, if we were to trust the biography, undertook on his own responsibility—a mission to Holland, where he resided a year and a half, almost, it seems, as a private person, principally engaged in negociating loans with individual capitalists to meet the pressing wants of the Congress; but about April, 1782, he was received in

public character, and in the five following months-during which he had not heard from his masters'-he negotiated, and at length concluded a treaty with the Dutch Government: but the value of his services was still so scantily acknowledged, that on his return to Paris, on the 4th December, 1782, he wrote to Congress a resignation of all his employments, and solicited leave for his immediate return to America. Of this no notice was taken; and he at last made up his mind to return home with or without leave, unless he should receive a commission to the court of St. James's: but that he thought unlikely, for—

'The same influence, French influence I mean, which induced Congress to revoke my commission, will still continue to prevent the revival of it. And I think it likely, too, that English influence will now be added to French, for I don't believe that George wishes to see my face. In this case I shall enjoy the satisfaction of coming, where I wish most to be, with all my children, living in simplicity, innocence, and repose.' -vol. ii. p. 92.

We notice particularly this flippant allusion to George,' as a pregnant indication of the predisposition with which Mr. Adams would visit the English court, and of the temper in which he was likely to regard the King.

His employment at Paris during the spring of 1783, in the most important and honourable office of negotiating the definitive treaty of peace, does not seem to have assuaged his ill humour, nor induced him to recall his resignation :—

'Paris, May 30, 1783.-Here I am out of all patience. Not a word from America. The British ministry lingering on. Mr. Hartley uncertain what to do. No regulation of commerce agreed on—no definitive treaty of peace signed, or likely to be signed very soon. My spring passage home lost. The total idleness, the perpetual uncertainty we are in, is the most insipid, and at the same time disgusting and provoking, situation imaginable. I had rather be employed in carting street-dust and marsh-mud.'-vol. ii. p. 93.

And again

'We advance slowly to the definitive treaty. hopes of seeing you before late in the fall.

I can now have no If the acceptance of my resignation

resignation arrives, as I expect, and we finish the peace as soon as I can reasonably hope, I shall not now be able to embark before October. If you and your daughter were with me, I could keep up my spirits; but, idly and insipidly as I pass my time, I am weary, worn, and disgusted to death. I had rather chop wood, dig ditches, and make fence upon my poor little farm.'-vol. ii. pp. 94, 95.

At length, however, a mission to England repairs all :—

'Paris, Sept. 7, 1783.-This morning, for the first time, was delivered me the resolution of Congress of the 1st of May, that a commission and instructions should be made out to me, Dr. Franklin, and Mr. Jay, to make a treaty of commerce with Great Britain. If this intelli gence had been sent us by Barney, who sailed from Philadelphia a month after the 1st of May, it would have saved me and others much anxiety. . . . This resolution of Congress deserves my gratitude. It is highly honourable to me, and restores me my feelings, which a former proceeding had taken away. I am now perfectly content to be recalled whenever they think fit, or to stay in Europe until this business is finished, provided you will come and live with me. . . . You don't probably know the circumstances which attend this proceeding of Congress. They are so honourable to me, that I cannot in gratitude or decency refuse.'-vol. ii. pp. 99, 101, 102.

Of this mission, or of his subsequent residence in London as minister, these Letters give no account whatsoever-as Mrs. Adams -to whom all those letters are addressed-soon joined him and remained with him in Europe till his final return. We have

therefore nothing to add to what we said in our former article concerning this period. After an absence of nine years he landed at Boston on the 17th June, 1788, and Congress honoured him with a resolution of Thanks for his able and faithful discharge of various important commissions.'

We have many reasons for thinking that these thanks appeared both to Mr. and Mrs. Adams parsimonious, if not invidious: but he soon received a more general and cordial testimony of approbation.

On the first election for chief magistrates under the new constitution, March, 1789, Washington was elected President and Adams Vice-President; and they were both re-elected in 1793. We have already said that during his first vice-presidency there are but a couple of insignificant letters; and it does not appear that there was any great concert or confidence between Washington and Adams; and Adams, towards the close of that period, writes with something of a tone of disappointed ambition :—

'I know not how it is, but in proportion as danger threatens I grow calm. I am very apprehensive that a desperate anti-federal party will provoke all Europe by their insolence. But my country has, in its wisdom, contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention

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of man contrived, or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others, and meet the common fate.'-vol. ii. p. 133.

But the violence of this anti-federalist party, and the atrocity of the French Revolution at home, and its audacious insolence to foreign powers, drew Washington and Adams into more intimate intercourse. The following are the strongest indications of this friendly feeling that we can find :—

Philadelphia, Jan. 9, 1794.-Nearly one-half the country is in constant opposition to the other, and the President's situation, which is highly responsible, is very distressing. He made me a very friendly visit yesterday, which I returned to-day, and had two hours' conversation with him alone in his cabinet. The conversation, which was extremely interesting, and equally affectionate, I cannot explain even by a hint. But his earnest desire to do right, and his close application to discover it, his deliberate and comprehensive view of our affairs with all the world, appeared in a very amiable and respectable light. The antifederalists and the Frenchified zealots have nothing now to do that I can conceive of, but to ruin his character, destroy his peace, and injure his health. He supports all their attacks with great firmness; and his health appears to be very good. The Jacobins would make a sortie upon him, in all the force they could muster, if they dared.'—vol. ii. p. 137.

And again

Yesterday I dined at the President's, with ministers of state and their ladies, foreign and domestic. After dinner the gentlemen drew off after the ladies, and left me alone with the President in close conversation. He detained me there till nine o'clock, and was never more frank and open upon politics. I find his opinions and sentiments are more exactly like mine than I ever knew before, respecting England, France, and our American parties.'-vol. ii. p. 214.

Yet at the time of this first confidential interchange of opinions on these great questions, Washington and Adams had been seven years colleagues in the offices of President and Vice-President. We really do not wonder that he should have felt some little dissatisfaction as to the insignificance of his position; but we must do him the justice to say that no such feeling was visible in his conduct. He acted honestly, and, as far as he could, zealously, in support of Washington's administration against the political agitation which the democrats and partisans of the French were directing against the government; and, the senate being almost equally balanced, his casting voice decided some very important questions—one in particular, on which he dwells with much earnestness, and which, even now, ought not to be forgotten. The main object of the French party was to force America into hostilities with England, and the accidental collision at sea between

the

the British cruisers and American commerce afforded the most plausible and popular pretences for a rupture-but these were with the most influential persons only pretences: the real state of the case was that—to Mr. Adams's great and just indignation-these persons were deeply indebted to English correspondents, and were pushing on hostilities as a short mode to cancel their liabilities and defraud their creditors. One of the most formidable of these attempts was Mr. Clarke's resolution, in the summer of 1794, to prohibit all intercourse with Great Britain. On this the senate. was equally divided; but Mr. Adams, who deprecated the political result and was indignant at the secret motive, negatived it, and, by this great service to justice as well as to the best interests of his country, proved that his office was not so entirely unimportant as in quieter circumstances it had appeared to him.

As Washington's second presidency was wearing out, politicians began to calculate whether he would retire or go on for a third term. There has been, since that time, an understanding -though there is no positive rule-that the president shall not be elected a third time; and there has been no such instance: but at this period there was a pretty general opinion that General Washington might go on, and even Mr. Adams himself, when looking forward to the presidency, intimated, with a parade of humility that makes us smile, that he would by no means be persuaded to accept a third election. Washington kept his intentions very secret, and had probably not made up his own mind till about the commencement of his last year. But if he ever contemplated another tour of service, the virulence and ingratitude of the French faction tired out his equanimity, and determined him to retire. During this period of doubt, we find Mr. Adams naturally but sometimes almost comically anxious about his chance of the great prize-though even to the wife of his bosom he attempts to keep up a show of philosophical and republican indifference; which, however, was really no more than a hedge-to borrow a metaphor from another species of competition-to console him in the event of failure. He relied, it appears, strongly on the right of succession, as if John I. ought necessarily to succeed George I., and he calls himself with a semi-serious pleasantry the 'heir-apparent.' Elected, however, he was by the good sense of his country, for he was undoubtedly, if not a cleverer, at least an honester and safer politician, as well as a more respectable private man, than his strongest antagonist, Mr. Jefferson. The short foot-notes in which the editor announces this and the former elections as vice-president, do not inform us of the majority by which he was chosen, nor who were his competitors-nor, strange to say, could it be anywhere

anywhere discovered, either from note or text, that during his presidency Mr. Jefferson was vice-president. Our readers will judge of the historical value of a correspondence which does not even allude to so considerable a circumstance.

The account of his inauguration-at which, it seems, no part of his own family was present-is curious and interesting in many points, but above all for the slight but striking sketch of his great predecessor in this his last, and, we think, greatest public

appearance:

'Philadelphia, 5th March, 1797.

'My dearest Friend,-Your dearest friend never had a more trying day than yesterday. A solemn scene it was indeed, and it was made more affecting to me by the presence of the General, whose countenance was as serene and unclouded as the day. He seemed to me to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him say, "Ay! I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which of us will be happiest.' When the ceremony was over, he came and made me a visit, and cordially congratulated me, and wished my administration might be happy, successful, and honourable.

'It is now settled that I am to go into his house. It is whispered that he intends to take French leave to-morrow. I shall write you as fast as we proceed. My chariot is finished, and I made my first appearance in it yesterday. It is simple, but elegant enough. My horses are young, but clever.

In the chamber of the House of Representatives was a multitude as great as the space could contain, and I believe scarcely a dry eye-but Washington's. The sight of the sun setting full orbed, and another rising, though less splendid, was a novelty. Chief Justice Ellsworth administered the oath, and with great energy. Judges Cushing, Wilson, and Iredell were present. Many ladies. I had not slept well the night before, and did not sleep well the night after. I was unwell, and did not know whether I should get through or not. I did, however. How the business was received I know not, only I have been told that Mason, the treaty publisher, said we should lose nothing by the change, for he never heard such a speech in public in his life.

. All agree that, taken altogether, it was the sublimest thing ever exhibited in America. I am, my dearest friend, most affectionately and kindly yours,

JOHN ADAMS.'-Vol. ii. p. 244.

But neither the sedative influence of age, nor his late intercourse with Washington, nor this great personal elevation, could altogether cure the innate feeling which he himself--in confidence to his lady, and probably in the hope of being contradicted by his affectionate partner-calls his egotism and vanity.' It appears that other reporters of the inauguration-scene just described had dwelt more largely on the abundant tears shed by the spectators

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