the wishes of the Cabinet, and in order to "terminate the
Administration in harmony with itself." The only seriously unpleasant
occurrence was the treachery of Postmaster-General McLean, who saw fit
to profess extreme devotion to Mr. Adams while secretly aiding General
Jackson. His perfidy was not undetected, and great pressure was (p. 206)
brought to bear on the President to remove him. Mr. Adams, however,
refused to do so, and McLean had the satisfaction of stepping from his
post under Mr. Adams into a judgeship conferred by General Jackson,
having shown his impartiality and judicial turn of mind, it is to be
supposed, by declaring his warm allegiance to each master in turn.

The picture of President Adams's daily life is striking in its
simplicity and its laboriousness. This chief magistrate of a great
nation was wont to rise before daybreak, often at four or five o'clock
even in winter, not unfrequently to build and light his own fire, and
to work hard for hours when most persons in busy life were still
comfortably slumbering. The forenoon and afternoon he devoted to
public affairs, and often he complains that the unbroken stream of
visitors gives him little opportunity for hard or continuous labor.
Such work he was compelled to do chiefly in the evening; and he did
not always make up for early hours of rising by a correspondingly
early bedtime; though sometimes in the summer we find him going to bed
between eight and nine o'clock, an hour which probably few Presidents
have kept since then. He strove to care for his health by daily
exercise. In the morning he swam in the Potomac, often for a long (p. 207)
time; and more than once he encountered no small risk in this
pastime. During the latter part of his Presidential term he tried
riding on horseback. At times when the weather compelled him to walk,
and business was pressing, he used to get his daily modicum of fresh
air before the sun was up. A life of this kind with more of hardship
than of relaxation in it was ill fitted to sustain in robust health a
man sixty years of age, and it is not surprising that Mr. Adams often
complained of feeling ill, dejected, and weary. Yet he never spared
himself, nor apparently thought his habits too severe, and actually
toward the close of his term he spoke of his trying daily routine as
constituting a very agreeable life. He usually began the day by
reading "two or three chapters in the Bible with Scott's and Hewlett's
Commen