The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-16 00:00:00

Two Celebrated Americans.

The following interesting particulars in regard to
Mr. Adams and Mr. Peabody we take from a
review of the " Leisure Hour," in the last number
of the Anglo-American Times
_ _

The July number contains three articles—besides others
of general interest—of especial interest to Americans.
Firstin place and in importance is one on "American In-
dependence." This article brings prominently to the
front two of the chief actors in the great events which
gave birth to the United States as an independent nation,
George 111. and John Adams.
John Adams was the first American ambassador
despatched to St. James's, and he came as one of .the most
prominen of his countrymen who had led in the war
against the king. He was presented on the first of June,
1785, by Lord Carmarthen. It was the Minister's inten-
tion to deliver his credentials silently and to retire, but he
was induced to alter his mind. Probably few gentlemen
could have been placed in a more embarrassing position.
He stood before the king invested with the privileges of
an ambassador, representing a nation which but a short
time before were rebel colonies against the very monarch
he then addressed, and he himself a leader in what the
king considered a wicked rebellion against his lawful
authority. But John Adams was equal to the occasion.
He was not there to hurl any defiance at the monarch
whose yoke they had just shaken off ; he was there as a
minister of peace to reknit the fraternal bonds, and- to bind
the two nations in commerce and good-will. The ap-
pearance of a Minister" he said, "from the United States
to your Majesty's Court will form an epoch in tho history
of England and America. I think myself more fortunate
than all my fellow citizens in having the distinguished
honour to be the first to stand in your Majesty's royal
presence in a diplomatic character, and I shall esteem my-
self the happiest of men if I can bo instrumental in re-
commending my country more and more to your Majesty's
royal benevolence, of restoring an entire esteem, confi-
dence, and affection, or, in other words, the old good-nature
and the old good-humour between people who, though
separated by an ocean and under different Governments,
have the same language, a similar religion, and kindred
blood."

Mr. Adams appears to have been much affected as he
spoke, and his visible agitation moved the king who re-
plied :—" Sir, the circumstances of this audience aro so
extraordinary, the language you have now held is so ex-
tremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered are
so justly adapted to the occasion, that I not only receive
with pleasure the assurance of the friendly disposition of
the United States, but that I am glad the choice has fallen
upon you to be their Minister. I wish you, sir, to believe,
and that it may be understood in America, that I have done
nothing in the late contest but what I thought myself in-
dispensably bound to do by the duty I owe to my people.
I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent
to the separation, but the separation having been made,
and having become inevitable, I have alwayssaid, as I now
say, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the
United States as an independent power."

Mr. Adorns appears to have formed a high opinion of
George 111. as an accomplished gentleman, and as a good
man in his domestic relations. But he speaks of him as
frittering away his time in the little things of life, as weak
in the great affairs of society and government, as wedded
to his own opinion and obstinate in adhering to it.
The age justified George 111. in the course ho pursued
with regard to the colonies, but We who have inherited
the woes of his weak, obstinate, and foolish policy, feel
little inclination to regard the memory of this monarch
pointwith theth e
kinlengi e nwca
sy
wrong. He was wrong in principle, displayed in this article. On every
ho was wrong in practice, he was wrong in estimating his
powers of coercion, and he was wrong in his opinion as to
what the separation would lead. By his doggedness he
forced on America the decisive course of independence,
entailed on his people a fratricidal war of seven years, ending
Xi 11129
,u 4,0 disastrous
d dedfeeadt, tan expenditure of 50,000 men, and
to the National debt. But, worse still,
he left the memories of cruel acts and bloody wars.. Ho
a
sowed the seed which has produced such years of bitter-
ness, which has taught the American people to regard
England as their foe, and France as their friend. Nor
can his memory be shielded from the effects of these fatal
blunders by ascribing them to the age in which he lived.
Hear what Chatham said : —" All attempts to impose servi-
tude on such men, to establish despotism on such a
mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal ; '
and Chatham's words wore termed by the king "a tempest
of sedition."

Mr. Rutledge, commissioned by Congress to meet Lord
Howe, said " that England would derive greater alvan-
tages from an alliance with the colonies as independent
States than she had hitherto done, and enjoy a greater
share of American commerce." There were leading states-
men both in England and America who foresaw the whole
results, but their opinions were scouted and themselves
termed traitors. -For the result then of this most dis-
astrous chapter of British history George 111. stands pro-
minently forth as responsible, and no amount of family
virtues, pleasing anecdotes, and accomplished small-talk
can ever gild the fatal page.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS,
our present Minister at this Court, is the grandson of the
bove John Adams. The interval between John Adams's
etirement from public life and his grandson's advent on
he stage was worthily filled by the son of the former and
ether of the latter. Both the father and grandfather of
Charles Francis were born at Braintree, Massachusetts.
Both attained to the dignity of President of the United
States, and both represented their country at the Court of
St. James's. It is seldom that in successive generations
three men so distinguished have sprung from one line,
and it is the more remarkable in a country constituted like
the Union, where family influence has none of that over-
whelming weight that attaches to it in Europe.
Charles Francis was born at Boston on the 18th August,
1807. In 1821 he entered Harvard College, where ho
graduated, and in 1829 he married a young lady of his
native State. He was elected for the House of Repre-
sentatives by Massachusetts from 1841-43, and became
a member of the Senate during 1844-5. In 1848 he was
defeated for the Vice-Presidency of the United States. Ho
took his seat in the Federal Congress in 1859 for his
r ative State, but on President Lincoln's assuming the
Government he was nominated Minister to Great Britain.
The events which followed are too recent to be for-
gotten, but neither the people of this country nor of his
own will fully know the quick-sands through which he has.
had to steer, the delicate and intricate navigation, till
most of us are in our graves.
The choice of a Minister under such circumstances
was a matter of first-rate importance to the interests of
both countries. The folly of some of the loading journals
of England, was equalled only by that of some of the lead-
ing statesmen, and the difficulties of Mr. Adams's position
were increased to an inconceivable degree, by the ungene-'
roux and grossly
ignorant opinions put forward authorita-
tively as those of this nation. These views, though only
held by a powerful section of the Upper Ten Thousand,
servelto create and keep.alive the most bitter feelings of

irritation throughout the Union. There can be no ques-
tion that the Times relieves a large number of John Bulls
from all trouble of thinking on political matters ; but,
worse still, it relieves a considerable section of the English
Press; and the crudest and most erroneous ideas are found
circulating from journal, to journal; all taken as sound
doctrine and undoubted fact, though all having but one
source, the opinion of a writer in the Times. If it were
possible for the Times to be ashamed of anything, it would
bo ashamed of the series of articles put forth during the
rebellion ; ono gross tissue of errors, every statement
wrong, every prophecy disproved by time. But all these
added to the difficulties Mr. Adams had to overcome.
That gentleman may rest assured that the day is not far
distant, when the full value of the service he has rendered,
not only to the country ho represents, but to that also to
which he is accredited, will be freely acknowledged by
two grateful nations.