Alexander Hill Everett, an American diplomatist and author, born in Boston, March 19, 1792, died in Canton, China, May 29, 1847. He graduated at Harvard college in 1806 with the highest honors of his class, although he was the youngest of its members, and in 1807 began to study law in the office of John Quincy Adams. He was attached to Mr. Adams's legation at St, Petersburg in 1809-'ll, and after visiting England and France commenced the practice of the law in Boston in 1812. He contributed articles to some of the periodicals of the day, and wrote for one of the Boston journals a series of political papers sustaining the policy of the administration in the war with Great Britain. In 1814 he was secretary of legation to the Netherlands, and on the retirement of Mr. Eustis from that mission in 1818, he was appointed his successor, with the rank of charge d'affaires. During his residence in the Netherlands he was a frequent contributor to the "North American Review," mostly upon subjects drawn from French literature, and prepared a work which was published in 1821 in London and Boston, under the title of "Europe, or a General Survey of the Political Situation of the Principal Powers, with Conjectures on their Future Prospects." This work attracted much attention, and was translated into German, French, and Spanish. In 1822 he published at London and Boston a work entitled "New Ideas on Population," in opposition to the views of Malthus. In 1824 he returned to the United States, and in 1825 was appointed minister plenipotentiary to Spain. While at this post, as the representative of the only government that had then acknowledged the independence of the South American republics, he became the medium of communication between them and their mother country, and their virtual representative.

Here he wrote a work entitled " America, or a General Survey of the Political Situation of the Principal Powers of the "Western Continent, with Conjectures on their Future Prospects " (Philadelphia, 1827; London, 1828), intended as a complement to his former publication on Europe. This was also translated into German, French, and Spanish. He promoted the Spanish studies of Washington Irving, who was an attache of his legation, and also aided Prescott in procuring materials for the history of Ferdinand and Isabella. In 1829 he returned home, and for about five years conducted the " North American Review " as editor and proprietor. He defended in several elaborate papers the policy of a protective tariff, and some articles, in which he reviewed the course and policy of the federal and democratic parties from a historical point of observation, are among his ablest productions. Ho was chosen to the senate of Massachusetts in 1830, and continued a member of that or the other branch of the legislature for the ensuing five years.

He had thus far been a member of the national republican or whig party, and had drafted the address reported by the convention which in 1831 nominated Henry Clay for the presidency; but during the second term of Jackson's presidency, and after the proclamation against nullification, he became an adherent of the administration. In 1836, 1838, and 1840 he was an unsuccessful candidate for congress. In 1840 he was sent by the government upon a confidential mission to Cuba, and passed two months at Havana. In June, 1841, he accepted the office of president of Jefferson college, Louisiana, but declining health soon compelled him to return to the north. He still continued his contributions to periodical literature, and a duodecimo volume of selections from his critical and miscellaneous essays was published in Boston in 1845, and a second series in 1847. A small volume of poems, original and translated, was published by him in New York in 1845. In the same year he was appointed commissioner to China, and set out for his post in July; but on arriving at Rio de Janeiro his infirm health compelled him to return home.

He sailed a second time in 1846, and arrived in Canton, where he was prostrated by disease.