nd
touched by all their incentives to lofty action--to forbear this request."

These complimentary appeals were well deserved by Mr. Adams, and show most
emphatically the high position he occupied in the esteem and confidence of
the entire House of Representatives, on becoming a member thereof. But,
with the modesty of true greatness, it was painful to him to hear these
encomiums uttered in his own presence. He arose, and begged the House, in
whatever further action it might take upon the subject, to refrain from
pursuing this strain. "I have been most deeply affected," he said, "by
what has already passed. I have felt, in the strongest manner, the
impropriety of my being in the House while such remarks were made; being
very conscious that sentiments of an opposite kind might have been uttered
with far more propriety, and have probably been withheld in consequence of
my presence."

Mr. Adams carried with him into Congress all his previous habits of
industry and close application to business. He was emphatically a hard
worker. Few men spent more hours in the twenty-four in assiduous labor. He
would take no active part in any matter--would engage in the discussion
of no topic--and would not commit himself on any question--until he had
sounded it to its nether depths, and explored all its ramifications, all
its bearings and influences, and had thoroughly become master of the
subject. To gain this information no toil was too great, no application
too severe. It was in this manner that he was enabled to overwhelm with
surprise his cotemporaries in Congress, by the profundity of his
knowledge. No subject could be started, no question discussed, on which he
was not perfectly at home. Without hesitation or mistake, he could pour
forth a stream of facts, dates, names, places, accompanied with
narrations, anecdotes, reflections and arguments, until the matter was
thoroughly sifted and laid bare in all its parts and properties, to the
understanding of the most casual observer. The tenacity and correctness of
his memory was proverbial. Alas, for the man who questioned the
correctness of his statements, his facts, or dates. Sure discomfiture
awaited him. His mind was a perfect calendar, a store-house, a mine of
knowledge, in relation to all past events connected with the history of
his country and his age.

In connection with his other exemplary virtues, Mr. Adams was prompt,
faithful, unwearied, in the discharge of all his public