But all these disappointments were more than made good by the oldest son, John Quincy Adams, who subsequently to his recall from the diplomatic service abroad, into which Washington had introduced him, and in which his father (urged to it by a letter from Washington) had promoted him, was chosen one of the senators in congress from Massachusetts. - All consolations, domestic or otherwise, at Mr. Adams's command, were fully needed. Never did a statesman sink more suddenly, at a time too when his powers of action and inclination for it seemed wholly unimpaired, from a leading position to more absolute political insignificance. His grandson tells us that while the letters addressed to him in the year prior to March 1, 1801, may be counted by thousands, those of the next year scarcely number a hundred, while he wrote even fewer than he received. Nor was mere neglect the worst of it. He sank, loaded with the jibes, the sneers, the execrations even of both political parties into which the nation was divided.

It is easy to see now that hardly any degree of union or skill on the part of the federalists, a minority from the beginning and only sustained from the first by the name of Washington and the talent and activity of the inferior leaders, could have prevented the ultimate triumph of the other party. But, as is usual with contemporaries, the disposition then was to explain everything by the skill or luck of individual movements, and a large portion of the most active leaders of the federal party were inclined to hold Adams personally answerable both for the breach in their ranks and for their subsequent overthrow. At the same time, the other party, identifying him with all the measures most obnoxious to them, especially the alien and sedition laws, long continued to use his name as a sort of synonyme for aristocracy, longing after monarchy, bigotry, tyranny, and oppression in general. Especially were they enraged at the passage by the last congress, just before the close of his and their term of office, of a new judiciary act, or rather at Adams's presuming to till up with federalists the twenty-three new judicial offices, besides attorneys, marshals, and clerks, created by this act.

These nominations, stigmatized as "midnight appointments," were assailed, as well as he who made them, by every term of party reproach; nor did the now triumphant republicans rest until, unable to reach these appointees in any other way, they had stripped them of their offices by repealing the act. Though Adams was far more of a speculative philosopher than any of his contemporaries in the field of American politics, except Jefferson, he was by no means philosopher enough to submit with patience to the obloquy with which he was new visited. In the agony of his heart he sat down to defend himself with his pen, at least before the tribunal of posterity. He had been in the habit of keeping, during intervals of his life, a diary or journal, large and very valuable extracts from which appear in the 2d and 3d volumes of his collected works. He now set himself to writing an "Autobiography" and a reply to Hamilton's pamphlet. But though he wrote with great facility and force, neither his eyes, which were weak, his hand* which trembled so as to make the mechanical labor of writing disagreeable, nor yet his habits or his temperament, were favorable to the labor of correction, condensation, and arrangement; and he presently abandoned both those works, though some selections from the "Autobiography" have been published by his grandson by way of filling gaps in his diary.

Eight years later, when time had somewhat healed over these wounds, they broke out with new malignancy by reason of renewed attacks upon him by the federalists on account of his son John Quincy Adams having abandoned the federal party, and the disposition evinced by the father to sustain the policy of the administration, rather than that of the federalists, in the disputes which finally terminated in war with Great Britain. Hitherto the Jeffersonian or democratic party had possessed in Boston as its sole newspaper organ "The Chronicle," a very violent paper, of which the staple in times past had been abuse of John Adams as an aristocrat and a monarchist, and the author of the alien and sedition laws. To represent and express the sentiments of a new cohort, which with the years 1806 and 1807 came in Massachusetts to the support of Jefferson, under the leadership of John Q. Adams, a new paper was established called the "Boston Patriot," to which both John Q. Adams and his father became contributors. In the earliest numbers of this paper, John Adams printed (and it may be found in the 9th volume of his collected works) "The inadmissible Principles of the King of England's Proclamation of Oct.

; 10, 1807, considered," being an examination and refutation of the English doctrine of im-pressment as applied to British subjects. Very soon, however, he dropped these topics of the day, and reverted to the past. The old charge having been anew brought up against him by some of the federalist papers, of personal mo-tives in setting on foot the mission to Eranco in 1799, he took up that subject in a series of letters to the " Patriot " - also printed in his collected works, vol. ix.- into which he incor-porated much of the material collected for his answer to Hamilton. These letters are a valu-able contribution to the history of that inter-esting period, and can hardly fail to be regarded as a complete vindication of Adams's policy and conduct on that occasion - at least if we allow that the immediate welfare of the nation was to be consulted, rather than any supposed prospective interest of any political party. From this beginning Mr. Adams went on to a history especially of his diplomatic ca-reer, into which he introduced many valuable documents in his possession. These publications, interrupted and again commenced from time to time, extended over a space of three years.