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 Adams was withdrawn from political life, the papers were collected in Boston, and published by Russell and Cutler, in one volume, with the following preface, not from his hand.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.

PREFA CЕ:

SINCE the publication of these Discourses, in 1790, our observations abroad and experience at home, have sufficiently taught us the lessons they were intended to inculcate; and the evils they were designed to prevent, have borne testimony of their truth.

It is unnecessary to mention the rank or reputation of the supposed author, to give celebrity to the work. The Discourses are allowed, by the best judges, to form a complete essay on associated man, in which practical improvement is drawn from profound investigation; his principles of action, as an individual, traced to their effects in his relative capacity; and, from the light of history, and a thorough knowledge of his nature, his past disasters are made subservient to his present and future happiness.

The maxims inculcated in these Discourses are calculated to secure virtue, by laying a restraint upon vice; to give vigor and durability to the tree of liberty, by pruning its excrescences; and to guard it against the tempest of faction, by the protection of a firm and well-balanced government.

A work combining so much excellence, on a subject of such dignity and importance, cannot be too much appreciated.

Conceiving it to be both useful and honorable to their country, the editors are desirous of preserving it from the inevitable wreck of a newspaper publication; and believing the work will not fail of being approved by their fellow-citizens, they now transmit it to the public in a more durable form, without the aid of subscription or private patronage.*

"Two factions, drunk with enthusiasm, and headed by men of the most desperate ambition, desolated France." Remarks on the History of England.

BOSTON, March, 1805.

The writer of this preface is unknown to me. I only furnished the quotation at the bottom from Bolingbroke's Remarks, &c. JOHN ADAMS.

DISCOURSES ON DAVILA.1

THIS dull, heavy volume, still excites the wonder of its author, first, that he could find, amidst the constant scenes of business and dissipation in which he was enveloped, time to write it; secondly, that he had the courage to oppose and publish his own opinions to the universal opinion of America, and, indeed, of all mankind. Not one man in America then believed him. He knew not one and has not heard of one since who then believed him. The work, however, powerfully operated to destroy his popularity. It was urged as full proof, that he was an advocate for monarchy, and laboring to introduce a hereditary president in America. J. A. 1812.

I.

Felix, quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum.

"THE French nation, known in antiquity under the appellation of the Franks, were originally from the heart of Germany. In the declension of the Roman Empire, they inhabited a country in the north, along the river Rhine, situated between Bavaria and Saxony, which still preserves the name of Franconia. Having

1 Henrico Caterino Davila. Dell' Istoria delle Guerre civili di Francia. This Italian writer, at one time so popular, has never been much known in America. He treats of a period of French history, perhaps more suggestive of reflection than any other, scarcely excepting the latest, and has the further merit of writing from personal observation of men and things. His work, of which fifteen thousand copies are said to have been sold in a single year, has been many times republished in the original, and has been repeatedly translated into French, Spanish, and English. The French translation in the library of Mr. Adams, which, judging from numerous marginal notes, he seems to have used in composing these Discourses, was made by the Abbé Mallet, and printed in three volumes, quarto, in 1757, nominally at Amsterdam, but really at Paris. An English translation, by W. Aylesbury, Esq., printed in folio, and published in London in the year 1647, is also in his library, but it does not seem to have been much consulted.

Davila is a courtly and catholic historian; but Lord Bolingbroke, in his fifth letter on the Study of History, recommends him very strongly as a writer equal in many respects to Livy, a recommendation which would have more authority, if it were not coupled with praise of Guicciardini, as superior to Thucydides; and Bayle, whilst finding fault with some of his statements, testifies to his substantial accuracy.