write his insulting letters, but finally resorted again to pamphlets, and when Congress convened, actually presented his case to that body, insanely considering himself under arrest, although there had been no order to that effect. But Congress paid little attention to him, and his unpatriotic ambition was not gratified until the death of General Macomb, several years later. His conduct, from first to last, in his long quarrel with General Gaines, in reference to Macomb, and with the Administration, showed that stubbornness and selfishness were his dominant traits, and that his own ambitious desires and whims were far above all considerations for the peace and welfare of his country. No other conclusion can be reached at this point in General Scott's career. President Adams was driven, as he thought, into a public review of Scott's course, and the whole subject of brevet rank about which Scott was fighting. And his last laborious paper on the subject was so severe in tone that he was induced to suppress its publication, after Peter Force had part of it in type.

On the last day of February, 1829, Mr. Adams wrote in his Diary :

"Three days more, and I shall be restored to private life, and left to an old age of retirement, though certainly not of repose. I go into it with a combination of parties and of public men against my character and reputation, such as I believe was never before exhibited against any man since this Union existed. Posterity will scarcely believe it, but so it is, that this combination against me has been formed, and is now exulting in triumph over me, for the devotion of my life and of all the faculties of my soul to the Union, and to the improvement, physical, moral, and intellectual, of my country. The North assail me for my fidelity to the Union; the South, for my ardent aspirations of improvement. Yet,bate I not a jot of heart and hope.' Passion,

prejudice, envy, and jealousy will pass. The cause of Union and of improvement will remain, and I have duties to it and to my country yet to discharge."

On the 4th of March, while the inaugural ceremonies were going on, Mr. Adams coolly rode from his temporary residence in the suburbs of Washington, through the city, and in the course of the day received calls from many of his political friends. In the course of a few days he was so engaged in reading and writing that he was little concerned about the change in his position. The visits of friends became more numerous day by day, and among the old ones came a host of others who in amaze and indignation suddenly found themselves, without cause, turned out of place under the new Administration.

A new order of things was coming to pass. The old Cabinet was soon dispersed, and Mr. Clay was already the avowed enemy of General Jackson, and the candidate of the new Whig party for the Presidency. Mr. Barbour's stay in England was quite short, General Jackson removing him to make place for a much less able man. John McLean was at the outset retained in Jackson's Cabinet, and the Postmaster-General, for the first time in the history of the Government, advanced to a Cabinet officer. But McLean refusing to be instrumental in the new turn in affairs directing good men to give way in minor positions to the President's voracious followers, was put in the vacant judgeship in which the Senate had refused to confirm Mr. Crittenden.

While preparing to leave Washington, Mr. Adams allowed Persico, the artist, to take a cast for a bust of him. Whether or not, like most public men, he

considered this a part of his duty to his country, he was always ready to have his picture taken. On the 11th of July, 1829, Mr. Adams wrote in his Diary, at Quincy :

"I have no right to hope or expect so well of the future as I can think of the past. My life for the public is closed, and it only remains for me to use my endeavors to make the remainder of it useful to my family and my neighbors, if possible. To this I am directing my purposes, for which I find a great deficiency of energy. I pray that it may be supplied me from above."

CHAPTER XXVI.

OCCUPATIONS AT QUINCY – GATHERING LAURELS — THE PHILOSOPHER AND POET-DECLINES TO BE A FOSSIL AND RE-ENTERS PUBLIC LIFE.

OTWITHSTANDING the unusual way in which

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dents to his successor, his conduct was regarded as so much modified by palliatory circumstances that it was soon dropped as a subject of public comment. Even in the South he was not without eulogists.

Of him the "Georgia Constitutionalist" uttered these sentiments

"Mr. Adams is said to be in good health and spirits. The manner in which this gentleman retired from office is so replete with propriety and dignity, that we are sure history will record it as a laudable example to those who shall hereafter be required by the sovereign people to descend from exalted stations. It was a great matter with the ancients to die with decency, and there are some of our own day whose deaths are more admirable than their lives. Mr. Adams's deportment in the Presidency was lofty and proud; but the smile with which he throws aside the trappings of power, and the graceful propriety with which he takes leave of patronage and place, are truly commendable."

There had been already too much in his career to suffer him to pass into oblivion, and however quiet and unassuming his retreat, it was not possible for him to become obscure by a life of inactivity. Mr. Adams had scarcely settled down to pass the rest of his days

at Quincy, as he supposed, when he entered upon various literary projects and other pursuits congenial to his tastes. He devoted several hours a day to gardening, and pursued with critical exactness his plans and experiments for raising seedling trees. He amused himself, or squandered his time, in the resumption of his old Latin readings and studies; and began, with some earnestness, to prepare the material for a complete memoir of his father. But all this quiet work could not dispel his interest in public affairs.

He was now an old man in the common way of speaking, but his ambition had been strong to rise to eminence in political station, and this ambition had not deserted him yet. The false and foolish doctrine that there is nothing beyond the Presidency but a heroshrine, that the life of an ex-President is an anomalous one, that having reached the pinnacle there is nothing in all the world he can or should do but receive the adulations of his countrymen, was established too late for Mr. Adams. With its existence he had no sympathy. He was never so miserable, perhaps, as at this very period, when he thought all work in which his hands so much delighted had been forever taken away. It was still his principle, as much as at any moment of his life, that he should not decline any service put upon him by his countrymen, no matter what it might be. With him the degree of honor never stood above the utility of the service. Inactivity fretted his restless spirit. To him life had no idle, no humorous side. If he suffered from the asperities of political and personal controversies, he also found delight in them. He was naturally a controversialist. He took up his pen in

the spirit of a gladiator, and centered his interests and