ber 12, 1798, proclaimed in 1822 constitutional emperor of Brazil; 5. Maria-Francescina, born April 22, 1800, married September 29, 1816, to her cousin Don Carlos Isidor, the present Infant of Spain; 6. Isabella-Maria, born July 4, 1801; 7. Michael, born October 26, 1802; 8. A princess, born February 23, 1803; 9. MariaAnne, born July 25, 1805. From 1792 his majesty governed in the character of regent, in the name of the queen his mother, who was affected with mental alienation. He succeeded her, March 20, 1816, and was crowned at Rio Janeiro, to which place he had retired on the invasion of Portugal by Bonaparte, who, in the hope of seizing his person, lost no time in proclaiming that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign. JOHN ADAMS. At Quincy, in the 91st year of his age, John Adams, late president of the United States of America. Among the remarkable events of the year, of which we have undertaken to relate the history, the death of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, on the fourth of July, is the most important. Indeed, the whole range of history may be appealed to, in vain, to produce an event of equal singularity and interest. The death of either of them, on the fourth of July, would have attracted the public notice, as a very affecting coincidence: the departure of both, on the same day, and that the fiftieth anniversary of independence, comes over the mind, with a sensible impression of something beyond the ordinary We cannot succession of events. resist the feeling, that the good providence, whose interpositions, at the great eras of our history, have ever been devoutly acknowledged, was pleased, at the close of the jubilee of our national existence, in the simultaneous departure of the two great men, who exercised the leading agency in asserting it, to stamp the day, with a perpetual seal of sacredness. This extraordinary event, and the lives and characters of the two great and venerated statesmen, connected with it, have justly been the theme of eelebration, in every part of our country. Its talent and its feelings have been lavishly called forth, to do justice to the exalted and affecting subject. Our humble duty, as chroniclers of the time, calls upon us, also, for an appropriate notice of two such eminent personages, removed under such extraordinary circumstances, at the close of the past year. The elder of them, John Adams, was born in the state of Massachusetts, in that part of the town of Braintree, which has since been erected into the separate township of Quincy, October 19th, (30th,) 1736. He was of one of the oldest families of America, (if any family can be called old, in a young country,)-a family of farmers, mechanics, and yeomen. His ancestor, Henry Adams, emigrated from Devonshire, in England, in 1632, with eight sons, all of whom were married. From one of these sons, John Adams was lineally descended. Samuel Adams, the proscribed patriot, was descended from another of the sons, and was, consequently, a remote kinsman of the deceased president. The father of John Adams, agreeably to a custom not yet extinct in New England, but almost universal a century ago, united the pursuit of a farmer with that of one of the mechanic trades. When his son John had attained the proper time of life, his father proposed to him, either to follow his own trade, and receive, when he should be of age, an establishment on a portion of the family farm; or in lieu of the latter, to receive a college education, and trust to his own resources for a support in life. His son chose the latter part of the alternative, and after the usual preparatory studies, under the care of Mr. Marsh, of Braintree, he entered Harvard college, as a student, in the year 1751. At the time of his decease, he was the second oldest graduate of that institution.* The students at college, at this period, were arranged in their several classes, not alphabetically, but according to the supposed rank or dignity of their parents. John Adams' name stands in the middle of his class. After leaving college, John Adams repaired to Worcester, where he found employment in that occupation, which has been pursued in the interval between college and professional life, by a large majority of the educated men in New England. He taught the grammar school of the town of Worcester, pursuing, at the same time, the study of the law, under the direction of colonel James Putnam, a lawyer of eminence in that place. On his first arrival at Worcester, an inexperienced youth, fresh from college, he wrote a letter to a friend, which shows a comprehension of views, and a forecast, which would have been deemed extraordinary from any one, and which are truly wonderful in a young man, not yet quite twenty years of age. We cannot do justice to the subject, without making an extract from this letter. "Soon after the reformation, a few people came over to this new world, for conscience sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire to America. It looks likely to me; for if we can remove the turbulent Gallicks, [the French in Canada] our people, according to the exactest computation, will, in another century, become more numerous than England itself. Should this be the case, since we have, I may say, all the naval stores of the nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain a mastery of the seas; and then the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us. "Be not surprised that I am turned politician. The whole town is immersed in politics. The interests of nations, and all the dira of war, make the subject of every conversation. I sit and hear, and after having been led through a maze of sage observations, I sometimes retire, and laying things together, form some reflections, pleasing to myself. The produce of one of these reveries you have read above."t * He is preceded on the college catalogue, by the venerable Dr. Holyoke, of Salem, now 99 years old, who took his degree in 1745. + This letter is dated October 12, 1755. After having pursued the study of the law for three years, Mr. Adams was admitted to the bar in 1758. At this time, he removed to his native town of Braintree. His first considerable professional effort was made in a criminal cause, at the Plymouth court. His reputation rapidly increased. By his master, colonel Putnam, he was introduced to the friendship of the celebrated Jeremy Gridley, then attorney general of the province. At the first interview, they became friends. Gridley at once proposed Mr. Adams for admission to the bar of Suffolk, and formed a strong attachment to him. It is related, that soon after his admission to the Suffolk bar, Mr. Gridley led his young friend into a private chamber, with an air of secrecy, and pointing to a book case, said, "sir, there is the secret of my eminence, of which you may avail yourself, if you please." It was a pretty good collection of works in the civil law. While still living at Quincey, and at the age of twenty-four, Mr. Adams was present at Boston, on the argument before the supreme court, respecting writs of assistance, and heard the celebrated and patriotic speech of James Otis, on that subject. The effect of that appeal was not less indelible on the mind of Mr. Adams, than it was powerful and general, at the time, in the community. In the letters published toward the close of his life, after a most interesting account of this cause, and of the argument of Otis, Mr. Adams adds, "I do say, in the most solemn manner, that Mr. Otis' oration against writs of assistance, breathed into this nation the breath of life." In the year 1765, Mr. Adams published in the newspapers, his essay on the canon and feudal law. Being printed without his name, it was ascribed to Jeremy Gridley, whose reputation as a statesman and political writer, was, at this period, above that of any other man in the province.* The object of this work is to show, that our *The following notice of this work is contained in a note in Mr. Everett's "address, in commemoration of Adams and Jefferson." "The copy I possess of this work, was printed by Almon in 1768, as a sequel to some other political pieces, with the following title and preliminary note: "The following dissertation, which was written at Boston, in New England, in the year 1765, and then printed there in the Gazette, being very curious, and having connection with this publication, it is thought proper to reprint it." "The author of it is said to have been Jeremy Gridley, Esq. attorney-general of the province of Massachusetts bay, member of the general court, colonel of the first regiment of militia, president of the marine society, and grand master of the free masons. He died at Boston, September 7, 1767. "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law." This copy formerly belonged to Dr. Andrew Eliot, to whom it was presented by Thomas Hollis. Directly above the title is written, apparently in Dr. Andrew Eliot's hand-writing, "The author of this dissertation is John Adams, Esq." And at the foot of the page is the following note, in the same hand-writing, but marked with inverted commas, as a quotation, and signed T. H. "The Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law is one of the very finest productions ever seen from N. America." "By a letter from Boston, in New England, signed SUI JURIS, inserted in that valuable newspaper, the London Chronicle, July 19, it should seem the writer of it happily yet lives!" T. H. This was said fifty-eight years ago! New England ancestors, in consenting to exile themselves from their native land, were actuated mainly by the desire of delivering themselves from the power of the hierarchy, and from the monarchical and aristocratical political systems of the other continent; and to make this truth bear with effect on the politics of the times. Its tone is uncommonly bold and animated, and its reception was highly flattering, both in America and Europe. The reputation of Mr. Adams was now established as a lawyer, a politician, and especially as a patriot, or a "son of liberty" in the language of the times. With a view to silence him, governor Barnard offered him in 1768, the office of advocate general, in the court of admiralty; an office lucrative at the time, and the sure road to the highest promotion in the colonies. But he promptly declined the offer. Two years after thus declining the favors of the government, he received from the people of Boston, his first political distinction; being elected one of their representatives of the town, in that year. He was from this time forward, acknowledged as one of the most prominent of the popular leaders. His standing in this respect entitles him to the greater credit, for the part, which he took, the same year, as counsel for captain Preston and the soldiers, on their trial for murder, in consequence of the transaction of the 5th of March, 1770. The popular excitement against the defendants was extreme. A word from those, who influenced the counsels of the patriots, would have been sufficient, to set the town and the province in a flame. The defence of captain Preston and his men was however undertaken by John Adams, and his friend Josiah Quincy also, one of the most ardent of" the sons of liberty." Their course on this occasion, and the verdict of acquittal, by a Boston jury, constitute one of the most honorable passages, in the history of our revolution. As a member of the general court, Mr. Adams took an active lead on the popular side. He was upon the committee, who reported the address to the governor, and the protest against the removal of the general court to Cambridge. When the house finally consented to proceed in its business, notwithstanding the refusal of the governor to restore them to Boston, he was one of the minority, who voted against proceeding. He was chairman of the committee, who drew up the answer to the governor's message, relative to the enacting style of the laws; in which, he contended that by omitting the words "in general court assembled," it was intended to reduce the province to the footing of a corporation in England; and open the way for destroying the character of the government. These, however, are but a few of the committees raised upon political questions, of which he was a member. Having, in 1773, rendered himself particularly obnoxious, as the author of a series of essays against the payment of the judges by the crown, Mr. Adams was, when elected counsellor that year, negatived, with two others, by governor Hutchinson; and the same mark of displeasure was repeated the next year, by governor Gage, toward him and eleven others of the counsellors, chosen by the assembly. The essays alluded to, ap peared in the Boston Gazette, signed by the author's name. The time had now approached, when a more extensive union of counsels was required. A general congress of delegates, from all the colonies, having been proposed and agreed to; the house of representatives, on the 17th June, 1774,* elected James Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, as delegates from Massachusetts. This appointment was made at Salem, where the general court had been convened; in consequence of the Boston port bill. While the house was engaged in this important business, the governor having been informed of what was passing, sent his secretary, with a message, dissolving the court. The secretary's approach was anticipated, and the door locked upon him. Unable to enter, he ordered the messenger to go and inform the speaker, that the secretary was at the door, with a message from the governor. The messenger returned and informed the secretary, that the orders of the house were, that the doors should be kept fast; whereupon the secretary read upon the stairs, a proclamation dissolving the general court. The general court adjourned itself, as a provincial congress to meet at Concord; and thus terminated forever, the actual exercise of the political power of England in and over Massachusetts. Of the five gentlemen named above, the four last accepted their appointments and took their seats in congress, the first day of its meeting, September 5, 1774, at Philadelphia. After the appointment of Mr. Adams, as a delegate to the continental congress, and before his departure for Philadelphia, he met the friend of his youth and fellow student, Jonathan Sewall, attorney general of the province; at the session of the court, which they were both attending at Falmouth. In a long and confidential interview, Sewall made a last powerful attempt to shake the resolution of his friend, and deter him from going to the congress. He pictured to him the power of the parent state: "that Great Britain was determined on her system; her power was irresistible; and would be destructive to him, and all those who should persevere in opposition to her designs." To these suggestions, Mr. Adams replied: "I know Great Britain has determined on her system, and that very fact determines me on mine; that he knew I had been constant and uniform in opposition to her measures; that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon-swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country, was my unalterable determination." This was the last meeting of the two friends. The conversation was terminated by Mr. Adams saying to his friend: "I see we must part; and with a bleeding heart, I say, I fear forever. But you may depend upon it, this adieu is the sharpest thorn on which I ever set my foot." It was with these principles and feelings, that Mr. Adams repaired to the congress in Philadelphia, in September, 1774. He was placed on several of the most important committees, particularly on that which stated the rights of the colonies, and prepared the address to the * On the same day, next year, the battle of Bunker hill was fought. |