to
retrospection concerning fulfilled or neglected duties, judging himself
by a severe standard.

On arriving in London, he found his appointment to the Court of Portugal
superseded by another to the Court of Berlin, with directions not to
proceed on the mission until he had received the necessary instructions.
While waiting for these, an engagement he had formed during a former
visit to England was fulfilled, by his marriage, on the 26th of July,
1797, with Louisa Catharine Johnson, the daughter of Joshua Johnson,
American consul at London; a lady highly qualified to support and to
ornament the various elevated stations he was destined to fill. Mr.
Adams was reluctant to accept the appointment to Berlin, as it had been
made by his father, who had succeeded Washington as President of the
United States. "I have submitted to take it," he immediately wrote to
his mother, "notwithstanding my former declaration to you and my father,
made a short time ago. I have broken a resolution I had deliberately
formed, and that I still think right; but I never acted more
reluctantly. The tenure by which I am for the future to hold an office
of such a nature will take from me the satisfaction I have enjoyed,
hitherto, in considering myself a public servant." To his father he
wrote: "I cannot, and ought not, to discuss with you _the propriety_ of
the measure. I have undertaken the duty, and will discharge it to the
best of my ability, and will complain no further. But I most earnestly
entreat that whenever there shall be deemed no further occasion for a
minister at Berlin I may be recalled, and that no nomination of me to
any other public office whatever may ever again proceed from the present
chief magistrate." His continuance in a diplomatic career had been
repeatedly urged by President Washington. In August, 1795, he wrote to
John Adams, then Vice-President: "Your son must not think of retiring
from the walk he is now in (minister from the United States to Holland).
His prospects, if he pursues it, are fair; and I shall be much mistaken
if, in as short a time as can well be expected, he is not found at the
head of the diplomatic corps, let the government be administered by
whomsoever the people may choose." In a letter dated 20th February,
1797, addressed to Mr. Adams, just before his entrance on the
Presidency, Washington again wrote: "I have a strong hope that you will
not withhold merited promotion to Mr. John Quincy Adams because