Thomas Crafts, Jr., was born at Boston, April 9, 1767; entered the Latin School 1774, and graduated at Harvard College 1785, where he took part in a syllogistic disputation "Sol est habitabilis," and read law with Gov. Gore. He was probably a son of Col. Thomas Crafts, who proclaimed the Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the old State-house, in 1776, in presence of the people. The son was counsellor-at-law. He was secretary to Hon. Mr. Gore, in the mission to the court of St. James, and was appointed United States consul for Bourdeaux. He was a bachelor. He was an effective political writer, and his chaste productions often appeared in Russell's Centinel. He had an infinite fund of wit and humor, and his companionship was eagerly sought. The elder Adams remarked of him that he was one of the rarest wits he ever knew. He died Aug. 25, 1798.

This was not the person so graphically characterized by the Boston satirist. Mr. Crafts was too decided an advocate for the Federal party to be the subject of such shafts. Old Democratic Justice Crafts was probably a near kinsman.

JOSEPH BLAKE, JR., was born at Boston, and a brother of Hon. George Blake; graduated at Harvard College in 1786, when he gave an English oration; became an attorney-at-law, and married Anna

Black, in 1793. He removed to New York, and died at Kingston, Jamaica, July 10, 1802, aged thirty-four years.

We find in the Democratiad, printed in 1796, a poetical sketch of Dr. Charles Jarvis' speech at Faneuil Hall, against Jay's treaty, which elicited an allusion to Mr. Blake :

"Now loud and clamorous the debate begins,
Jarvis his thread of tropes and figures spins;
And often pauses, often calls aloud,
To every member of the gaping crowd,
To show him, if the treaty should go down,
Why faction's hopes were not forever flown.
He wished delay - delays must not be had;
I've never read it, but I say 't is bad.
If it goes down, I'll bet my ears and eyes
It will the people all unpopularize;
Boobies may hear it read ere they decide,—
I move it quickly be unratified."

We quote the above for the purpose of introducing the allusion in a note of the Democratiad, as follows: "The doctor said this 'in a manner that would have done honor to a Cicero,' says his printer, Mr. Adams. Pray, Mr. Adams, who ever told you anything about Cicero ? Why did you not say, which would have done honor to a Joseph Blake, Jr., that classical young orator who seconded the doctor at the townmeetings in routing poor Mr. Hall? You might then have appealed for proof to an oration he spoke a few years ago, on the 4th of July, in which he says that this continent is very happily situated, being 'barricaded on one side by vast regions of soil.' Be so good, Mr. Blake, before you decide against the treaty, as to tell us which side of this continent is barricaded by vast regions of soil." We will quote the passage exactly as it is given in Mr. Blake's oration: "Most favorable is the situation of this continent. It stands a world by itself. Barricaded from external danger on one side by vast regions of soil; on the other, by wide plains of ocean. The Atlantic, upon her bosom, may undulate riches to its shore, but all the artillery in Europe cannot shake it to its centre."

As political meetings in Boston are known by the term caucus, it is not irrelevant to cite Gordon, who, in his history of the American Revolution, published in 1788, says, "More than fifty years ago Mr. Samuel Adams' father, and twenty others,- one or two from the north end of the town, where all ship business is carried on,-used to meet, make a caucus, and lay their plan for introducing certain persons into places of trust and power."

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

JULY 4, 1793. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES.

In this model oration, our orator, with a burst of fervor, exclaims: "Americans! let us pause for a moment to consider the situation of our country at that eventful day when our national existence commenced. In the full possession and enjoyment of all those prerogatives for which you then dared to adventure upon 'all the varieties of untried being,' the calm and settled moderation of the mind is scarcely competent to conceive the tone of heroism to which the souls of freemen were exalted in that hour of perilous magnanimity. Seventeen times has the sun, in the progress of his annual revolutions, diffused his prolific radiance over the plains of independent America. Millions of hearts, which then palpitated with the rapturous glow of patriotism, have already been translated to a brighter world, to the abodes of more than mortal freedom! Other millions have arisen, to receive from their parents and benefactors the inestimable recompense of their achievements. A large proportion of the audience whose benevolence is at this moment listening to the speaker of the day, like him, were at that period too little advanced beyond the threshold of life to partake of the divine enthusiasm which inspired the American bosom, which prompted her voice to proclaim defiance to the thunders of Britain, which consecrated the banners of her armies, and, finally, erected the holy temple of American Liberty over the tomb of departed tyranny. It is from those who have already passed the meridian of life, it is from you, ye venerable assertors of the rights of mankind,—that we are to be informed what were the feelings which swayed within your breasts, and impelled you to action, when, like the stripling of Israel, with scarce a weapon to attack, and without a shield for your defence, you met, and, undismayed, engaged with the gigantic greatness of the British power. Untutored in the disgraceful science of human butchery,― destitute of the fatal materials which the ingenuity of man has combined to sharpen the scythe of death, - unsupported by the arm of any friendly alliance, and unfortified against the powerful assaults of an unrelenting enemy, you did not hesitate at that moment, when your coasts were invaded by a numerous and veteran army, to pronounce the sentence of eternal separation from Britain, and to throw the gauntlet at a power the

terror of whose recent triumphs was almost coëxtensive with the earth. The interested and selfish propensities, which in times of prosperous tranquillity have such powerful dominion over the heart, were all expelled; and, in their stead, the public virtues, the spirit of personal devotion to the common cause, a contempt of every danger in comparison with the subserviency of the country, had an unlimited control. The passion for the public had absorbed all the rest, as the glorious luminary of the heaven extinguishes, in a flood of refulgence, the twinkling splendor of every inferior planet. Those of you, my countrymen, who were actors in those interesting scenes, will best know how feeble and impotent is the language of this description to express the impassioned emotions of the soul with which you were then agitated; yet it were injustice to conclude from thence, or from the greater prevalence of private and personal motives in these days of calm serenity, that your sons have degenerated from the virtues of their fathers. Let it rather be a subject of pleasing reflection to you, that the generous and disinterested energies which you were summoned to display are permitted, by the bountiful indulgence of Heaven, to remain latent in the bosoms of your children. From the present prosperous appearance of our public affairs, we may admit a rational hope that our country will have no occasion to require of us those extraordinary and heroic exertions which it was your fortune to exhibit. But, from the common versatility of all human destiny, should the prospect hereafter darken, and the clouds of public misfortune thicken to a tempest, should the voice of our country's calamity ever call us to her relief, we swear, by the precious memory of the sages who toiled and of the heroes who bled in her defence, that we will prove ourselves not unworthy of the prize which they so dearly purchased,— that we will act as the faithful disciples of those who so magnanimously taught us the instructive lesson of republican virtue."

President John Adams, the father of the subject of this article,— one of the most ardent patriots of the Revolution, one of the firmest advocates for the Declaration of Independence, and the first ambassador to the court of St. James, was characterized by Thomas Jefferson as our Colossus on the floor of Congress; not graceful, not elegant, not always fluent in his public addresses, yet he came out with a power, both of thought and expression, that moved us from our seats. On his interview with King George, in 1785, Mr. Adams displayed a manly dignity that would have honored the representative of the most

powerful monarch of any nation. King George said to him: "I was the last to conform to the separation; but, the separation having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States, as an independent power." In reply to an insinuation from the king, regarding an attachment to France, Adams remarked, "I must avow to your majesty I have no attachment but to my own country." The king replied, as quick as lightning, "An honest man will never have any other."

As an indication of the malignant prejudice of the royalists towards this eminent statesman, we will cite a paragraph written by a Tory refugee, published in the London Political Magazine of 1781: “This Adams was originally bred to the law, and is a native of the province of Massachusetts, in New England; he was born at Braintree, a village ten miles south, or rather south-east, of Boston. In person, he is a clumsy, middle-sized man; and, according to all appearance, by taking to the law and politics, has spoiled an able ploughman or porter, though the trade of a butcher would have better suited the bent of his mind. He has read Tristram Shandy, and affects, awkwardly enough, a smartness which does not at all correspond either with his personal figure or with his natural dulness. What has tended chiefly to distinguish him among the rebels is, the eagerness with which he urged the taking up arms, and his continued malignity towards all the friends of peace and the mother country. For these excellent qualities, he was chosen a delegate from Massachusetts to the first Congress. When at Philadelphia, several of his letters to his friends in New England were intercepted in the mail, as the post courier was crossing Narraganset Ferry. In one of them, dated July 24, 1775, and addressed to his wife, Mrs. Abigail Adams, he tells her, by way of secret, that no mortal tale could equal the fidgets, the whims, the caprice, the vanity, the superstition and the irritability, of his compatriots, on their journey from New England to Philadelphia. These compatriots were, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat Paine. The first of these was a distiller, and the last a lawyer; and both were weak and insignificant men, the tools of Samuel Adams, the grand confederate and correspondent of that hoary traitor, Franklin. In another letter, dated the day after, addressed to Col. Warner, of Plymouth, then at Watertown, President of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, he displayed the barbarity of his disposition, by asking him, 'Will your new legislative and executive feel bold or irresolute? Will your