treasury of just reflections and striking illustrations, appropriate to the general subject. Nobody has done so much to prove the fatal effect of vesting power in great masses in any single agency. No one has shown so clearly the necessity of enlisting the aid of the various classes of society to the support of a common cause, by giving to each of them a legitimate field of exertion; and no one has more impressively warned posterity of the consequences of permitting the rise of distinctions, thus setting the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the gifted and the dull into opposition, without preserving ready means of restraint upon the violence of each. Over and above these recommendations, there are scattered here and there maxims of policy, and observations upon events and characters in history, both ancient and modern, well worthy to be stored in the mind of every man called to the office of a statesman. Strange as it may seem, this work supplied, in part, what was then a vacuum in literature, and what is not yet entirely filled. The later labors of Brougham, and Guizot, and De Tocqueville have added much to the stock of useful materials; but a philosophical and comprehensive treatment of all practicable forms of government, the joint offspring of learning and experience, remains to task the powers of some future genius, who, with the analytic power and the sententious wisdom of Montesquieu, will have a care to avoid his errors of precipitate generalization.

Whilst the leisure of Mr. Adams was thus absorbed in this interesting pursuit at home, it is not to be inferred that he did not derive much enjoyment from many of the events which were taking place in the world around him. The indifference of the court and ministers could not prevent him from enjoying the opportunities presented of witnessing the contests of eloquence almost daily occurring in the two houses of parliament. Mr. Adams heard Burke, and Pitt, and Fox, and Sheridan, and Camden, and was present at the opening of the solemn proceedings against Warren Hastings. It was the age of strong intellect in England. Nothing like it had occurred since the reign of Queen Anne, and nothing like it has been seen since. For the mind of the human race seems to be, in this respect, like the surface of the earth it inhabits, which must lie fallow at intervals between periods of excessive productiveness, in order

In addition to all these occupa

to recruit from its exhaustion. tions and diversions, Mr. Adams was engaged, in conjunction with Mr. Jefferson, then minister to France, with whom he had established agreeable social relations, in the duty of negotiating treaties with the Barbary powers and procuring the liberation of many unfortunate prisoners taken by them. This relation gave rise to an interesting correspondence between the two gentlemen, a large portion of which has been already laid before the world.

But much as Mr. Adams might enjoy these superior opportunities for study and recreation in Great Britain, there was a single drop of bitterness apart from every thing in Europe, which came in to spoil his pleasure. For the love or hate, the kindness or neglect of the English he cared little, so long as he could feel that the country which he represented, and for whose cause he had staked so much, was doing her duty in the new position assumed by her before the nations. It was during his residence here that he was compelled daily to receive new proofs of her reluctance to fulfil her solemn engagements, and of her neglect to sustain her honor as he would have wished her to do. In his situation, all the arguments in extenuation of her deficiencies, her poverty, her exhaustion, her inability to unite the several States in one policy, would have been of no avail, had he condescended to use them; but he never did. He would have been proud to defend her to the last drop of his blood against every unjust charge, but he would not stoop to palliate or equivocate about her short-comings, when they were undeniable. His feelings upon this subject he did not seek to conceal from his friends at home. In a letter, addressed to Dr. Tufts, an uncle of Mrs. Adams, at the time a member of the senate of Massachusetts, he thus expressed himself on this topic:

"As to politics, all that can be said is summarily comprehended in a few words. Our country is grown, or at least has been dishonest. She has broke her faith with nations, and with her own citizens; and parties are all about for continuing this dishonorable course. She must become strictly honest and punctual to all the world before she can recover the confidence of anybody at home or abroad. The duty of all good men is to join in making this doctrine popular, and in discountenancing

every attempt against it. This censure is too harsh, I suppose, for common ears, but the essence of these sentiments must be adopted throughout America before we can prosper. Have our people forgotten every principle of public and private credit? Do we trust a man in private life who is not punctual to his word? Who easily makes promises and is negligent to perform them? Especially if he makes promises knowing that he cannot perform them, or deliberately designing not to perform them?"

This was severe language towards his countrymen, but not unwarranted by much of the doctrine prevalent among the people of America at this period. A large number growing daily more restless under the bridle of the law, were encouraging each other to the last step of putting it at defiance, whilst others were resorting to more indirect but not less decisive means of annulling their obligations altogether. It was this relaxation of morals which gave Mr. Adams his moments of deep mortification as minister of the United States in London. Through life, his code as a public man was, on this subject, perfectly uniform. He never favored that species of logic, not infrequent among political leaders of all nations, whereby a different standard of right can be assumed at home from that which is proclaimed abroad, another rule acted upon individually from that which is presented in official station. He wished his country to be all that his dreams had pictured when advocating her independence; and finding that, as time went on, the prospect of his usefulness in his station became less and less, he determined, in 1787, to ask leave of congress to resign his trusts and to return home to private life. Letters of recall were accordingly sent out by congress in February, 1788. Not one of the important objects he had sought to gain in England had been effected. Supercilious indifference prevailed in the British councils. Alienation and not conciliation was the order of the day. The only compensation for a disappointment, which events rendered it utterly out of his power to prevent, was found in the receipt of a copy of a resolution adopted by congress, expressive of the sense entertained by that body of the value of his services during the ten years of his residence abroad. It was in these

"Resolved, that congress entertain a high sense of the services which Mr. Adams has rendered to the United States, in the various important trusts which they have from time to time committed to him; and that the thanks of congress be presented to him for the patriotism, perseverance, integrity, and diligence, with which he hath ably and faithfully served his country.”

CHAPTER IX.

ORGANIZATION OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT - ELECTION AND SERVICES AS VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

On the 20th of April, 1788, Mr. Adams bade farewell to the shores of the ancient world. He returned to his native land to find it permanently freed from all dangers, excepting those which had their origin from within. He had quitted it the first time at the very crisis of the war. He came back to see it in the most critical moment of the peace. The political world had undergone, in the interval, a great revolution. Those questions which had agitated the people so long as independence was in doubt, had all passed away, and many of the men who appeared to lead at the beginning had vanished from the scene. But four of the members of congress who had signed their names to the Declaration in 1776 were members of the same body when the treaty of peace was submitted for ratification in 1783. It may fairly be doubted whether, in any modern government having a semblance of free institutions, the state of public feeling or the motives and principles that affect action ever continue for three years together the same. The passions of men cannot long endure a high degree of tension, and the decline of an excitement is invariably followed by indifference to a revival of the same emotion, as well as indisposition immediately to enter upon any new one. The peace had been received with joy, because it was regarded as a final object. Nothing further was needed to make America happy and prosperous. Hence there was little disposition to exertion. It was expected that the country would go on of itself. Great was then the disappointment to discover, at the end of four or five years, that independence had not done all that was hoped of it, that the people were not prosperous, that law and order were not so well established as they had been in the colonial days, that instead of im