ugnacity, imprudence, and want of self-control; for he
was intelligent, shrewd, high-spirited, and quick-sighted. The
diplomatists could not stand before his blunt directness, and he
generally carried his point by eloquence and audacity. His presence was
commanding, and he impressed everybody by his magnetism and brainpower.
So Congress, in 1785, appointed him minister to Great Britain. The King
forced himself to receive Adams graciously in his closet, but afterwards
he treated him even with rudeness; and of course the social circles of
London did the same. The minister soon found his position more
uncomfortable even than it had been in Paris. His salary, also, was too
small to support his rank like other ambassadors, and he was obliged to
economize. He represented a league rather than a nation,--a league too
poor and feeble to pay its debts, and he had to endure many insults on
that account. Nor could he understand the unfriendly spirit with which
he was received. He had hoped that England would have forgotten her
humiliation, but discovered his error when he learned that the States
were to be indirectly crushed and hampered by commercial restrictions
and open violations of the law of nations. England being still in a
state of irritation toward her former colonies, he was not treated with
becoming courtesy, and of course had no social triumphs such as Franklin
had enjoyed at Paris. Finding that he could not accomplish what he had
desired and hoped for, he became disgusted, possibly embittered, and
sent in his resignation, after a three years' residence in London, and
returned home. Altogether, his career as a diplomatist was not a great
success; his comparative failure, however, was caused rather by the
difficulties he had to surmount than by want of diplomatic skill. If he
was not as successful as had been hoped, he returned with unsullied
reputation. He had made no great mistakes, and had proved himself
honest, incorruptible, laborious, and patriotic. The country appreciated
his services, when, under the new Constitution, the consolidated Union
chose its rulers, and elevated him to the second office in the republic.

The only great flaw in Adams as Vice-President was his strange jealousy
of Washington,--a jealousy hardly to be credited were it not for the
uniform testimony of historians. But then in public estimation he stood
second only to the "Father of his Country." He stood even higher than
Hamilton, between whom