against me has been formed and is now exulting in triumph (p. 215)
over me, for the devotion of my life and of all the faculties
of my soul to the Union, and to the improvement, physical, moral,
and intellectual of my country."

Melancholy words these to be written by an old man who had worked so
hard and been so honest, and whose ambition had been of the kind that
ennobles him who feels it! Could the curtain of the future have been
lifted but for a moment what relief would the glimpse have brought to
his crushed and wearied spirit. But though coming events may cast
shadows before them, they far less often send bright rays in advance.
So he now resolved "to go into the deepest retirement and withdraw
from all connection with public affairs." Yet it was with regret that
he foretold this fate, and he looked forward with solicitude to the
effect which such a mode of life, newly entered upon at his age, would
have upon his mind and character. He hopes rather than dares to
predict that he will be provided "with useful and profitable
occupation, engaging so much of his thoughts and feelings that his
mind may not be left to corrode itself."

His return to Quincy held out the less promise of comfort, because the
old chasm between him and the Federalist gentlemen of Boston had been
lately reopened. Certain malicious newspaper paragraphs, born of (p. 216)
the mischievous spirit of the wretched Giles, had recently set afloat
some stories designed seriously to injure Mr. Adams. These were,
substantially, that in 1808-9 he had been convinced that some among
the leaders of the Federalist party in New England were entertaining a
project for separation from the Union, that he had feared that this
event would be promoted by the embargo, that he foresaw that the
seceding portion would inevitably be compelled into some sort of
alliance with Great Britain, that he suspected negotiations to this
end to have been already set on foot, that he thereupon gave privately
some more or less distinct intimations of these notions of his to
sundry prominent Republicans, and even to President Jefferson. These
tales, much distorted from the truth and exaggerated as usual, led to
the publication of an open letter, in November, 1828, addressed by
thirteen Federalists of note in Massachusetts to John Quincy Adams,
demanding names and specifications and the production of evidence. Mr.
Adams replied briefly, with dignity, and, consideri