judicial hang, and whip, and fine, and imprison, without scruple? It is to this advice that he alludes, when he mentions the refugees, in his letter from Amsterdam. He was for stopping their career by hang. ing them on the spot, without favor or affection. If this man should live till the close of the rebellion, and be found in America, no good subject will lament if he should meet with that fate which he so strenu ously prescribed for others. The public will not be surprised that, with respect to the refugees from America, there should be such a coinci dence of opinion between certain speechifiers and a rebel ambassador. Neither will they be surprised that this man should regret his rebel confederate Laurens; prognosticate the ruin of this country; promise his rebel friends the assistance of Russia, and money from the Dutch; abuse the British ministry; talk of sumptuary laws to restrain superfluities in dress, where there is not even a sufficiency of the most ordinary clothing; and of paying the whole of their army expenses in a manner that would not be felt, by a few duties and excises, in a country where the paper money has gone to wreck, and where solid. coin is not to be seen."

John Quincy Adams was born in a house still standing, in the near vicinity of that in which his father had been born, within what is now Quincy, and was then Braintree, July 11, 1767; and was baptized in the meeting-house of the First Church, by Rev. Anthony Wibird, on the day after his birth. Mr. Adams once related, in regard to his grandfather Quincy: "The house at Mount Wollaston has a peculiar interest to me, as the dwelling of my great-grandfather, whose name I bear. The incident which gave rise to this circumstance is not without its moral to my heart. He was dying when I was baptized; and his daughter, my grandmother, present at my birth, requested that I might receive. his name. The fact, recorded by my father at the time, has connected with that portion of my name a charm of mingled sensibility and devotion. It was filial tenderness that gave the name. It was the name of one passing from earth to immortality. These have been among the strongest links of my attachment to the name of Quincy, and have been to me, through life, a perpetual admonition to do nothing unworthy of it." Senator Davis said of him, "the cradle hymns of the child were the songs of liberty;" it being the period when our country was struggling for liberty. To the plastic influence of his masculine mother, John Quincy ascribed whatever he had been, and hoped to be in futurity. His mother writes to one, "I have taken a

very great fondness for reading Rollin's Ancient History, since you left me. I am determined to go through with it, if possible, in these days of my solitude. solitude. I find great pleasure and entertainment from it, and have persuaded Johnny to read a page or two every day, and hope he will, from his desire to oblige me, entertain a fondness for it." "The child of seven years old," says Everett, "who reads a serious book with fondness, from his desire to oblige his mother, has entered the high road of usefulness and honor."

An effective reminiscence of Mr. Adams was related by Robert C. Winthrop, at the Acton celebration, Oct. 29, 1851, which, remarked he, is "one of the most interesting personal incidents that I can look back upon in the course of a ten-years' service in Congress. It was an interview which I had with our late venerated fellow-citizen, John Quincy Adams, about five or six years ago. It was on the floor of the capitol, not far from the spot where he soon afterwards fell. The house had adjourned one day somewhat suddenly, and at an early hour; and it happened that after all the other members had left the hall, Mr. Adams and myself were left alone in our seats, engaged in our private correspondence. Presently the messengers came in rather unceremoniously to clean up the hall, and began to wield that inexorable implement which is so often the plague of men, both under public and private roofs. Disturbed by the noise and dust, I observed Mr. Adams approaching me with an unfolded letter in his hands. Do you know John J. Gurney?' said he. I know him well, sir, by reputation; but I did not have the pleasure of meeting him personally when he was in America.' 'Well, he has been writing me a letter, and I have been writing him an answer. He has been calling me to account for my course on the Oregon question, and taking me to task for what he calls my belligerent spirit and warlike tone towards England.'

"And then the 'old man eloquent' proceeded to read to me, so far as it was finished, one of the most interesting letters I ever read or heard in my life. It was a letter of auto-biography, in which he described his parentage and early life, and in which he particularly alluded to the sources from which he derived his jealousy of Great Britain, and his readiness to resist her, even unto blood, whenever he thought that she was encroaching on American rights. He said that he was old enough in 1775 to understand what his father was about in those days; and he described the lessons which his mother

taught him during his father's absence in attending the Congress of independence. Every day, he said, after saying his prayers to God, he was required to repeat those exquisite stanzas of Collins, which he had carefully transcribed in his letter, and which he recited to me with an expression and an energy which I shall never forget the tears coursing down his cheeks, and his voice, every now and then, choked with emotion:

'How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there.'

"And there was another ode, by the same author, which, he said, he was also obliged to repeat, as a part of this same morning exercise, the ode, I believe, on the death of Col. Charles Ross, in the action at Fontenoy, one verse of which, with a slight variation, would not be inapplicable to your own Davis:

'By rapid Scheld's descending wave,
His country's vows shall bless the grave,
Where'er the youth is laid;

That sacred spot the village hind

With every sweetest turf shall bind,

And Peace protect the shade.'

Such, sir, was the education of at least one of our Massachusetts children at that day. And, though I do not suppose that all the mothers of 1775 were like Mrs. Adams, yet the great majority of them, we all know, had as much piety and patriotism, if not as much poetry, and their children were brought up at once in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and of liberty."

In February, 1778, being then a lad in the eleventh year of his of his age, he was taken to France by his father (in ship Boston, Capt. Tucker), who was sent by Congress as joint commissioner with Benjamin

Franklin and Arthur Lee, to the court of France. During the passage, they were exposed to extreme danger in a violent storm, and his father said of him, "I confess I often regretted that I had brought my son. I was not so clear that it was my duty to expose him as myself; but I had been led to it by the child's inclination, and by the advice of all my friends. Mr. Johnny's behavior gave me a satisfaction that I cannot express; fully sensible of our danger, he was constantly endeavoring to bear it with a manly patience, very attentive to me, and his thoughts constantly running in a serious strain. My little son is very proud of his knowledge of all the sails, and the captain put him to learn the mariner's compass." His father established himself at Passy, the residence of Franklin. Here he was sent to school, and acquired the French language. His dear mother, in writing to him, says: "I would much rather you should have found your grave in the ocean you have crossed, or that any untimely death should crop you in your infant years, than see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless child." And his father, in writing to his mother under date of 1779, says, young John "is respected wherever he goes, for his vigor and vivacity both of mind and body, for his constant good humor, and for his rapid progress in French, as well as for his general knowledge, which at his age is uncommon." The treaty of alliance being consummated, John Adams returned with his son, and arrived at Boston Aug. 2, 1779.

In 1781, when only fourteen years of age, he became private secretary to Hon. Francis Dana, the minister to Russia. He remained at St. Petersburg until October, 1782, when he left Mr. Dana, and journeyed alone to Holland, where he joined his father, April, 1783. After the treaty at Paris, signed in September of that year, he went to the court of St. James with his father, which occurred in 1785. He was a remarkably precocious youth, and since he was twelve years old had talked with men. Mr. Jefferson, then minister at Paris, in writing to Mr. Gerry, says: "I congratulate your country on their prospect in this young man."

In 1786 he was admitted at Harvard College at an advanced standing, and graduated in 1787. The subject of his oration evinces the maturity of his mind; it was on "The Importance and Necessity of Public Faith to the Well-being of a Community." He entered on the study of law under the instruction of the celebrated Theophilus Parsons, at Newburyport; and in 1790 he commenced legal practice,

which he continued until 1794, during which period he pronounced the oration at the head of this article, and became a liberal contributor of political essays in Russell's Centinel, over the signatures of Publicola and Marcellus, which developed the true policy of union at home, and independence of all foreign combinations abroad. Over "Columbus" he also advocated a national neutral policy toward foreign

nations.

Washington, in 1794, appointed Mr. Adams minister to the Hague, who remained in Europe on public business until his recall by his father, the successor of Washington. In 1797, our first president declared that he was "the most valuable public character we have abroad, and the ablest of all our diplomatic corps." On the 26th of July, 1797, Mr. Adams was married to Louisa, the daughter of Joshua Johnson, of Maryland, then acting as consular agent of the United States at London, who for more than fifty years was the partner of his affections and fortunes.

In 1801 he was elected to the Senate of his native State, and in 1803 he was elected to the Senate of the United States. This station in the national councils he filled until he became obnoxious to the Legislature of his native State, from the support which he gave to parts of Jefferson's administration; and, in consequence, he resigned his seat, in March, 1808. He was the first Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in Harvard College, from 1806 to 1809. In 1810 he published his lectures on rhetoric and oratory, in two volumes, 8vo. At this period he was confirmed as minister to Russia, on the nomination of Madison, and was abroad eight years. In 1814 he was one of the commissioners who negotiated, at Ghent, the treaty of peace which closed the second war between Great Britain and the United States. In 1815 Mr Adams was appointed minister to the court of St. James, under Madison. In 1817 he returned to America, and discharged the duties of Secretary of State during the whole administration of President Monroe. It will be recollected that Andrew Jackson said, at this period, of Mr. Adams, that he was "the fittest person for the office; a man who would stand by the country in the hour of danger."

In 1825 Mr. Adams was elected to the presidency of the United States by the National House of Representatives, on the first ballot. His administration, in its principles and policy, was similar to that of his very popular predecessor. Not long after Mr. Adams was suc