John Quincy Adams | Page 6

was insignificant, since he
was not quite fourteen years old when he actually found himself
engaged in a diplomatic career. Francis Dana, afterward Chief Justice
of Massachusetts, was then accredited as an envoy to Russia from the
United States, and he took Mr. Adams with him as his private secretary.
Not much came of the mission, but it was a valuable experience for a
lad of his years. Upon his return he spent six months in travel and then
he rejoined his father in Paris, where that gentleman was engaged with
Franklin and John Jay in negotiating the final treaty of peace between
the revolted colonies and the mother country. The boy "was at once
enlisted in the service as an additional secretary, and gave his help to
the preparation of the papers necessary to the completion of that
instrument which dispersed all possible doubt of the Independence of
his Country."
On April 26, 1785, arrived the packet-ship Le Courier de L'Orient, (p.
014) bringing a letter from Mr. Gerry containing news of the
appointment of John Adams as Minister to St. James's. This unforeseen
occurrence made it necessary for the younger Adams to determine his
own career, which apparently he was left to do for himself. He was
indeed a singular young man, not unworthy of such confidence! The
glimpses which we get of him during this stay abroad show him as the
associate upon terms of equality with grown men of marked ability and
exercising important functions. He preferred diplomacy to dissipation,
statesmen to mistresses, and in the midst of all the temptations of the
gayest capital in the world, the chariness with which he sprinkled his
wild oats amid the alluring gardens chiefly devoted to the culture of
those cereals might well have brought a blush to the cheeks of some
among his elders, at least if the tongue of slander wags not with gross
untruth concerning the colleagues of John Adams. But he was not in
Europe to amuse himself, though at an age when amusement is natural
and a tinge of sinfulness is so often pardoned; he was there with the
definite and persistent purpose of steady improvement and acquisition.
At his age most young men play the cards which a kind fortune puts
into their hands, with the reckless intent only of immediate gain, (p.

015) but from the earliest moment when he began the game of life
Adams coolly and wisely husbanded every card which came into his
hand, with a steady view to probable future contingencies, and with the
resolve to win in the long run. So now the resolution which he took in
the present question illustrated the clearness of his mind and the
strength of his character. To go with his father to England would be to
enjoy a life precisely fitted to his natural and acquired tastes, to mingle
with the men who were making history, to be cognizant of the
weightiest of public affairs, to profit by all that the grandest city in the
world had to show. It was easy to be not only allured by the prospect
but also to be deceived by its apparent advantages. Adams, however,
had the sense and courage to turn his back on it, and to go home to the
meagre shores and small society of New England, there to become a
boy again, to enter Harvard College, and come under all its at that time
rigid and petty regulations. It almost seems a mistake, but it was not.
Already he was too ripe and too wise to blunder. He himself gives us
his characteristic and sufficient reasons:--
"Were I now to go with my father probably my immediate satisfaction
might be greater than it will be in returning (p. 016) to America. After
having been travelling for these seven years almost and all over Europe,
and having been in the world and among company for three; to return
to spend one or two years in the pale of a college, subjected to all the
rules which I have so long been freed from; and afterwards not expect
(however good an opinion I may have of myself) to bring myself into
notice under three or four years more, if ever! It is really a prospect
somewhat discouraging for a youth of my ambition, (for I have
ambition though I hope its object is laudable). But still
'Oh! how wretched Is that poor man, that hangs on Princes' favors,'
or on those of any body else. I am determined that so long as I shall be
able to get my own living in an honorable manner, I will depend upon
no one. My father has been so much taken up all his lifetime with the
interests of the public, that his own fortune