us persistence. In the final negotiations for peace,
he persisted against his instructions in making the New England
fisheries an ultimatum, and saved them. In 1783 he was commissioned to
negotiate a commercial treaty with Great Britain, and in 1785 was made
minister to that power. The wretched state of American affairs under the
Confederation made it impossible to obtain any advantages for his
country, and the vindictive feeling of the English made his life a
purgatory, so that he was glad to come home in 1788.

In the first Presidential election of that year he was elected
Vice-President on the ticket with Washington; and began a feud with
Alexander Hamilton, the mighty leader of the Federalist party and chief
organizer of our governmental machine, which ended in the overthrow of
the party years before its time, and had momentous personal and literary
results as well. He was as good a Federalist as Hamilton, and felt as
much right to be leader if he could; Hamilton would not surrender his
leadership, and the rivalry never ended till Hamilton's murder. In 1796
he was elected President against Jefferson. His Presidency is recognized
as one of the ablest and most useful on the roll; but its personal
memoirs are most painful and scandalous. The cabinet were nearly all
Hamiltonians, regularly laid all the official secrets before Hamilton,
and took advice from him to thwart the President. They disliked Mr.
Adams's overbearing ways and obtrusive vanity, considered his policy
destructive to the party and injurious to the country, and felt that
loyalty to these involved and justified disloyalty to him. Finally his
best act brought on an explosion. The French Directory had provoked a
war with this country, which the Hamiltonian section of the leaders and
much of the party hailed with delight; but showing signs of a better
spirit, Mr. Adams, without consulting his Cabinet, who he knew would
oppose it almost or quite unanimously, nominated a commission to frame a
treaty with France. The storm of fury that broke on him from his party
has rarely been surpassed, even in the case of traitors outright, and he
was charged with being little better. He was renominated for President
in 1800, but beaten by Jefferson, owing to the defections in his own
party, largely of Hamilton's producing. The Federalist party never won
another election; the Hamilton section laid its death to Mr. Adams, and
American history is hot with the fires of this ba