on a special mission to the British court, as the representative of the United States, having accomplished the object for which he was sent, returned to America, accompanied by his son, in the year 1817, when he resumed his studies in the Latin college at Boston, and subsequently at Harvard University, where he graduated in 1825. His father was soon afterward elevated to the presidential chair, and Charles Francis removed to Washington, where he received his first lessons in diplomacy through the medium of an appointment on the executive staff. Eventually deciding upon the legal profession as his future scene of action, he entered the office of Daniel Webster, in New Hampshire, where he practised until he was admitted to the Boston bar in 1828, but he has never since been actively engaged as a member of the legal fraternity. In 1829 he became connected by marriage with one of the most influential families of the State, espousing the youngest daughter of Peter C. Brooks, an eminent merchant of Boston, thereby becoming a brother-in-law of Edward Everett. Shortly afterward he entered the Massachusetts Legislature as the representative of Boston, which position he held for upward of two years, and was subsequently transferred to the Senate. His rigid legal training and his practical knowledge of State affairs rapidly paved the way to still more honorable and responsible positions. Having conscientious objections to the policy of the Whig party (with whom he had hitherto been associated), he separated from them, and assumed an independent position in the political arena. His sincerity, active usefulness, and keen intelligence had, however, so forcibly commended him to the good opinion of his fellow-citizens, that in the year 1848 he was selected by the Free-soil party as their candidate for the vice-presidency on the Van Buren ticket. In December, 1859, he was sent to Congress, representing the third Massachusetts district; was appointed member on the most important committees, and was looked up to with respect and confidence by all with whom he was associated. The perilous condition of the country, the virulence of party politics, and the imminence of civil war at this time, brought Mr. Adams at once to the front as the champion of the Republican party; and the memorable harangue which he addressed to the House on May 31, 1860, in vindication of their policy, placed him in the foremost rank of American statesmen, and marked out for him a career which may probably find its climax in the presidential chair. In the interval between the first and second session of the Thirty-sixth Congress, he, in company with Mr. Seward, made a tour of the Northwestern States, strenuously supporting Lincoln's candidature both by his speeches and personal influence, and, when, on the opening of the session, a special committee of delegates from each State was appointed to take into consideration the state of the country, Mr. Adams was unanimously chosen as the

representative for Massachusetts. The result of that convention of delegates was the adoption of a series of resolutions denying the right or power of the free States, individually, or of the United States Government, to interfere with the internal economy of the slave States, or to adopt any coercive or prohibitory measures toward them; which resolutions were accompanied by the draft of a bill for the admission of New Mexico into the Federal Union, leaving the question of the admission or exclusion of slavery to be decided by the Mexican citizens alone; and also amendments to the Constitution embodying the principles contained in the resolutions, so framed that, when passed, they could at once be acted upon, and relieve the country from those dilemmas into which it had been drawn by this vexata quæstio. The amendments were unanimously adopted, but the bill for the admission of New Mexico was rejected. In all these documents, the statesmanship and legal acumen of Mr. Adams were distinctly traceable, whose persistent and courageous advocacy of the non-intervention policy, forbidding the interference of Congress with the local government of individual States (especially in reference to the slavery question), and his reasons for pursuing that course (as given in a speech delivered January 31, 1861), are now a matter of history. Shortly afterward (May, 1861) he succeeded Mr. Dallas as minister to England, and for seven years maintained with unswerving fidelity the honor of his country, and administered the arduous and delicate duties of his high office with such equity and moderation as to secure the cordial approval and hearty encomiums of both British and American citizens. His familiarity with all the intricacies of international law, his conciliatory and yet firm method of treatment of every matter brought under discussion, his high character as a statesman, his genial social qualities, and his inflexible honesty of purpose, won for him the esteem and personal regard of every man who had been brought into official relations with him, or had had an opportunity of watching his conduct. From the year 1868 to 1871 he lived in comparative retirement, declining all active participation in administrative affairs; but, on the ratification by England and America of the Treaty of Washington, he was appointed by the President as arbitrator for America for the settlement of the claims under that treaty; and departed for Geneva, to fulfil the duties devolving upon him, in November, 1871. His principal contributions to literature are: "A Discourse on American Neutrality," delivered before the New York Historical Society, and a number of contributions to the North American Review and the Christian Examiner. He also edited the collected writings and life of his grandfather, published in ten volumes; and for four years edited a daily paper in Boston. It is his intention, we believe, to collect and publish his father's biography and literary productions.