JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
Copyright, 1882 and 1898,
By JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
Copyright, 1898,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved.
PREFACE
(p. v)
Nearly sixteen years have elapsed since this book was written. In that time sundry inaccuracies have been
called to my attention, and have been corrected, and it may be fairly hoped that after the lapse of so long a
period all errors in matters of fact have been eliminated. I am not aware that any fresh material has been made
public, or that any new views have been presented which would properly lead to alterations in the substance
of what is herein said. If I were now writing the book for the first time, I should do what so many of the later
contributors to the series have very wisely and advantageously done: I should demand more space. But this
was the first volume published, and at a time when the enterprise was still an experiment insistence upon such
a point, especially on the part of the editor, would have been unreasonable. Thus it happens that, though Mr.
Adams was appointed minister resident at the Hague in 1794, and thereafter continued in public life, almost
without interruption, until his (p. vi) death in February, 1848, the narrative of his career is compressed within
little more than three hundred pages. The proper function of a work upon this scale is to draw a picture of the
man.
With the picture which I have drawn of Mr. Adams, I still remain moderately contented\u2014by which remark I
mean nothing more egotistical than that I believe it to be a correct picture, and done with whatever measure of
skill I may happen to possess in portraiture. I should like to change it only in one particular, viz.: by infusing
throughout the volume somewhat more of admiration. Adams has never received the praise which was his
due, and probably he never will receive it. In order that justice should be done him by the public, his
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
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