Plenipotentiary to Great Britain.
His first duty was, in connection with Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin, to
negotiate a treaty of commerce, in which business he again met the
same three British Commissioners by whom the negotiations at Ghent had
been conducted, of whose abilities the government appeared to
entertain a better opinion than the Marquis of Wellesley had
expressed. This negotiation had been brought so far towards conclusion
by his colleagues before his own arrival that Mr. Adams had little to
do in assisting them to complete it. This little having been done,
they departed and left him as Minister at the Court of St. James. Thus
he fulfilled Washington's prophecy, by reaching the highest rank in
the American diplomatic service.

Of his stay in Great Britain little need be said. He had few duties of
importance to perform. The fisheries, the right of impressment, (p. 099)
and the taking away and selling of slaves by British naval officers
during the late war, formed the subjects of many interviews between
him and Lord Castlereagh, without, however, any definite results being
reached. But he succeeded in obtaining, towards the close of his stay,
some slight remission of the severe restrictions placed by England
upon our trade with her West Indian colonies. His relations with a
cabinet in which the principles of Castlereagh and Canning
predominated could hardly be cordial, yet he seems to have been
treated with perfect civility. Indeed, he was not a man whom it was
easy even for an Englishman to insult. He remarks of Castlereagh,
after one of his first interviews with that nobleman: "His deportment
is sufficiently graceful, and his person is handsome. His manner was
cold, but not absolutely repulsive." Before he left he had the
pleasure of having Mr. Canning specially seek acquaintance with him.
He met, of course, many distinguished and many agreeable persons
during his residence, and partook of many festivities, especially of
numerous civic banquets at which toasts were formally given in the
dullest English fashion and he was obliged to display his capacity for
"table-cloth oratory," as he called it, more than was agreeable to
him. He was greatly bored by these solemn and pompous feedings. (p. 100)
Partly in order to escape them he took a house at Ealing, and lived
there during the greater part of his stay in England. "One of the
strongest reasons for my remaining out of town," he writes, "is to
escape the fre