The purport of this letter, written as long ago as May, 1792, was to give countenance to the favorite charge of the opposition that Washington's cabinet, and of course Adams's, which followed the same policy, was under British influence, and that Thomas Pinckney and his brother C. C. Pinckney, candidates with Adams on the federal presidential ticket, were especially obnoxious to this suspicion. The publication of this letter was followed up by a still more deadly blow in the shape of a pamphlet written and printed and signed by Hamilton, and probably intended by him for private distribution among the federal leaders, but which was made public by Aaron Burr, who had succeeded in possessing himself of some of the proof sheets. This pamphlet had its origin in the same charge against Hamilton of being under British influence, thrown out by Adams in private conversation, and as to which, when written to by Hamilton, he had refused to give any explanation, though when a similar request was made by C. C. Pinckney in consequence of the publication of the letter to Coxe, Adams fully exonerated both him and his brother in a published letter from any suspicion which his letter to Coxe might seem calculated to convey.

Hamilton declared in the conclusion of his pamphlet, that as things then stood he did not recommend the withholding from Adams of a single vote. Yet it was the leading object of his pamphlet to show, without denying Adams's patriotism and integrity, or even his talents, that he had great and intrinsic defects of character which disqualified him for the place of chief magistrate, and the effect which he desired it to have must have been to give C. C. Pinckney the presidency, by causing a certain number of votes to be withheld from Adams. The result, however, of the election was to throw out both the federal candidates. Adams received 65 votes and Pinckney 64, while Jefferson and Burr had 73 each. In the ensuing struggle between Jefferson and Burr Adams took no part. - Immediately on the expiration of his term of office (1801) he left Washington, to which shortly before the seat of government had been removed, without even stopping to be present at the inauguration of Jefferson, against whom he felt a sense of personal wrong, probably thinking he had been deluded by false professions as to Jefferson's views on the presidential chair.

This state of feeling on the part of Adams led to a strict non-intercourse for the next 13 years, though both were much given to letter-writing, and had previously, at least till within a short time before, been on terms of friendly correspondence. The only acknowledgment for his 25 years' services to the nation which Mr. Adams carried with him in this unwelcome and mortifying retirement, was the privilege which had been granted to Washington on his withdrawal from the presidency, and after his death to his widow, and bestowed likewise upon all subsequent ex-presidents and their widows, of receiving his letters free of postage for the remainder of his life. Fortunately for Adams, his thrifty habits and love of independence, sustained during his absence from home by the economical and managing talents of his wife, had enabled him to add to the savings from his profession before entering public life, savings from his salaries enough to make up a sufficient property to support him for the rest of his life in a style of decent propriety and solid comfort, in conformity to his ideas. Almost all his savings he had invested in the farming lands about him. In his vocabulary, property meant land.

With all the rapid wealth then being acquired by trade and navigation, he had no confidence in the permanency of any property but land, views in which he was confirmed by the commercial revulsions of which he lived to be a witness. He was the possessor, partly by inheritance and partly by purchase, of his father's farm, including the house in which he was himself born; but he had transferred his own residence to a larger and handsomer dwelling near by, forfeited by one of the refugee tories of the revolution, and of which he had become the purchaser, where he spent the next quarter of a century. In this comfortable home, acquired by himself, he sought consolation for his troubled spirit in the cultivation of his lands, in books, and in the bosom of his family. Mrs. Adams, to her capacities as a housekeeper, steward, and farm manager, added a brightness and activity of mind and a range of reading, such as fully qualified her to sympathize with her husband in his public as well as his private career.

She shared his taste for books, and, as his published letters to her are unsurpassed by any American letters ever yet printed, so hers to him as well as to others, from which a selection has also been published, show her, though with less of nature and more of formality than his letters exhibit, yet worthy of the admiration and respect as well as of the tenderness with which he always regarded her. To affections strong enough to respond to his, a sympathy equal to ] his highest aspirations, a proud feeling of su- periority and an enjoyment of it equal to his own, she added what is not always found in such company, a flexibility sufficient to yield to his stronger will, without disturbance to her serenity or his, and without the least compromise of her own dignity or her husband's respect and deference for her. While she was not ignorant of the foibles of his character, and knew how to avail herself of them when a good purpose was to be served by it, yet her I admiration of his abilities, her reliance upon i his judgment, her confidence in his goodness, and her pride in his achievements, made her always ready to yield and to conform. His happiness and honor were always her leading object. This union was blessed with children well calculated to add to its happiness.

Mr.

Adams indeed had the misfortune to lose by death, just at the moment of his retirement from office, private grief being thus added to political disappointment, his second son, Charles. He had grown to manhood, had been married and had settled in New York with flattering prospects, but had died under painful circumstances, which his father speaks of in a contemporary letter as the deepest affliction of his life, leaving a wife and two infant children dependent on him. Col. Smith, an officer of the revolution, who had been Adams's secretary of legation at London, and who had married his only daughter, did not prove in all respects such a son-in-law as he could have wished. His pecuniary affairs becoming embarrassed, his father-in-law had provided for him by several public appointments, the last of which was that of surveyor of the port of New York, which position he was allowed to hold till 1807, when he was removed from it in consequence of his implication in Miranda's expedition. Nor did Thomas Boylston Adams, the third son, though a person of accomplishments and talents, fully answer the hopes of his parents.