MR. ADAMS returned to the United States in 1788, just as the organization of government under the new constitution of the United States was taking place. He became the first Vice-President, having received more votes than any one, excepting Washington, under the original provision of that instrument, which made no distinction in the votes given to the candidates for the two highest offices; and presided in the senate throughout the critical period of the adoption of all the organic laws necessary for the execution of the new system. It was during the first year of this service, that he undertook to write the following series of papers in the Gazette of the United States, at Philadelphia, as a sequel to his volumes of The Defence. They were stimulated mainly by the manifest tendencies of the revolution in France, but mediately by the publication of the Marquis Condorcet, entitled "Quatre Lettres d'un Bourgeois de New Haven, sur l'Unité de la Législation," being a defence of the position formerly taken by M. Turgot. They furnished, however, to the partisans of the day so much material for immediate political use in the contest just then beginning, that the author deemed it best to desist, and they were left incomplete.

Fifteen years afterwards, when Mr. Adams was withdrawn from political life, the papers were collected in Boston, and published by Russell and Cutler, in one volume, with the following preface, not from his hand. The motto, however, was furnished by him.

A copy of this edition remains in the author's library given by him to the town of Quincy, and in it are a considerable number of marginal notes, made as late as the year 1812-13, in his handwriting. Such of them as are in any way interesting are inserted in the present work.