ride on horse-back in and out of the city
to bring home the lat-est news. This was a ride of twen-ty-two miles
from the old home at Brain-tree, where Mrs. Ad-ams had gone when her
hus-band went to Con-gress, and I think it took a pret-ty brave and
strong boy to ride all those long miles a-lone.

When John Ad-ams went to France to try and get her aid for A-mer-i-ca,
he took with him his lit-tle boy, then ten years old. It was a rough,
hard trip; for, not on-ly were there fierce winds which lashed the waves
in-to fu-ry, but they were chased by Brit-ish ships, for Eng-land did
not want John Ad-ams to get this help from France. But they reached
Par-is in safe-ty, and lit-tle John was at once put in a French school.
He on-ly stayed for a-bout a year and went back home with his fa-ther
in the spring. Now for three months he was with his moth-er, and then
in No-vem-ber he and some oth-er boys who were placed in his fa-ther's
care, all start-ed for France, where they were to be put in a good
school.

This trip was hard-er than the oth-er one, for the big ship,
"Sen-si-ble," sprang a leak, and af-ter some days of great per-il, they
were glad to go to the near-est land, which was Spain; and now there
was a long, hard trip by land be-fore France could be reached. They had
sailed on Nov. 13th, 1779, and it was not un-til Feb. 5th, 1780, that
the lit-tle par-ty reached Par-is.

For two years now our lit-tle lad was hard at work with his books in
Par-is; then his fa-ther was sent to the Neth-er-lands as A-mer-i-can
Min-is-ter, and he took his lit-tle son there and placed him in a school
in Am-ster-dam; from here he went to the U-ni-ver-si-ty at Ley-den,
where he stayed un-til Ju-ly, 1781.

He was now on-ly four-teen years old; but you see he had been in so
ma-ny lands, that he could speak as the folks did in those strange
lands, and this was a rare thing in those days. In 1781 Fran-cis Da-na,
then the A-mer-i-can Min-is-ter to Rus-sia, need-ing some one to help
him in his work, sent to Ley-den for this young boy. They passed
through Ger-ma-ny on the way to Rus-sia, and here John Quin-cy learned
some-thing of an-oth-er new land. Then, af-ter a year in Rus-sia, he
left Mr. Da-na and stud-ied for a year in Swe-den. The next spring he
went to his fa-ther in Hol-land, and then went to Par-is with him, and
was pres-ent when the trea-ty of peace be-tween Eng-land and A-mer-i-ca
end-ed the War of In-de-pend-ence.

For two years more he