Legislature. He was chosen member of the Thirty-fifth, Thirtysixth, and Thirty-seventh Congresses. He was on the Committee on Territories, and subsequently on the Committee on the Conduct of the War. It was in this last responsible position that his influence was especially felt in the progress of the civil war.

THE HON. W. B. WASHBURN AND THE HON. OAKES AMES.

The Hon. William B. Washburn, of Greenfield, quietly met the questions before the House, in the national struggle, with the Christian patriotism which distinguishes him in the walks of private life. By him, in devotion to the country, stands the Hon. Oakes Ames, of North Easton, Massachusetts. Indeed, Massachusetts brain and heart have had no small share in the political and moral conflicts and achievements in the halls of Congress and in the departments of State, as well as in the field of martial strife.

CHAPTER V.

MASSACHUSETTS ABROAD.

Charles Francis Adams, Ambassador to the Court of St. James, London. -John Lothrop Motley, Ambassador to the Court of Austria, Vienna. - Anson Burlingame, Ambassador to Pekin, China.

TH

HE nations of Europe were deeply agitated by the outbreak of civil war in the United States. Monarchs, and the aristocratic classes generally, desired a dismemberment of the Republic. Such a catastrophe would strengthen in the popular mind thedivine right of kings," and secure the throne, and the proud distinctions it fosters, from the sacrilegious hands of the masses, awakening, in the light of American liberty, to the divine right of the people to enjoy freedom regulated by laws of their own making.

The United States, therefore, found little sympathy abroad, excepting among the common people, and the few liberal minds in the higher ranks of society. England was ready in all ways possible, under cover of national law and custom, to aid the leaders of the causeless and unexampled revolt. France occupied a similar position, though more cautiously taken.

In the complications, commercial and political, which would arise among the foreign governments to a great extent (and none could tell how great), it was of the first importance to have able and wise representatives in foreign courts.

Among the ministers to other nations, occupying prominent positions on the Eastern hemisphere, were three Massachusetts

men.

One has been in the mother-country, another in the most despotic nation of Europe, and the third in the Celestial Empire; and, in the glimpse we take of them and their official services, we naturally begin with our minister to England,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

He is a son of the illustrious John Quincy Adams, and was born in Boston, Aug. 23, 1807. When his father represented the

United-States Government at St. Petersburg, in 1809, he accompanied him, and spent six years in the Russian capital, learning to speak fluently, not only the dialect of the country, but also the German and French languages.

In February, 1815, then in his eighth year, he went with his mother in a private carriage, from St. Petersburg to Paris, to meet his father, a journey at any time no trivial undertaking, but then, on account of the disturbed condition of Europe, attended with unusual embarrassments.

On his appointment to a mission at the court of St. James, his father took Charles to England with him, and placed him in a boarding-school. Here he sometimes had personal encounters with his school-fellows in the defence of the honor of his country against the insults of young England. Returning to Boston in 1817, he entered the Latin School, and subsequently Harvard College, graduating in 1825.

The two succeeding years he passed in the Presidential mansion, Washington, which was occupied by his father. He entered the law-office of Daniel Webster, at Boston, two years later; and in 1828 was admitted to practice, but did not devote himself to his profession. Marrying, in 1829, the daughter of Peter C. Brooks, he became brother-in-law of Edward Everett; and, in addition to his own inheritance, the alliance was attended with a fortune to the family. The people of Boston, in 1841, chose him to represent them in the Legislature. The previous year, he had declined the nomination.

Up to this time, his pursuits had been mainly literary. Greek was a special study with him; and the Roman writers, as well as the greatest authors of more recent times, were his constant companions. Actuated by the scholarly impulses of a stu dent, he declined a nomination to the State House of Representa tives in 1841; but his father was so much disturbed by this appar ent shrinking from public duty, that he promised him to accept a second nomination if offered him the following year. After three years' service there, he took his seat in the State Senate. In 1848, the Free-soil party nominated him for the Vice-Presidency. "The Life and the Works of John Adams," his grandfather, is highly creditable to his ability as an author and editor: a similar effort to preserve the annals of his distinguished father is promised. The Letters of John Adams and Abigail Adams were edited by him, with an Introductory Memoir, in 1840, and were received with favor.

He was elected to Congress in 1858; and also a second time, serving one term, until March 4, 1861. He manifested in all Congressional deliberations that statemanship which has always characterized him in his public and official relations. The closing sentences of his speech, Jan. 31, 1861, when the Rebellion was lifting its horrid front, will illustrate his style, and his manner of treating important topics:

When the cry goes out that the ship is in danger of sinking, the first duty of every man on board, no matter what his particular vocation, is to lend all the strength he has to the work of keeping her afloat. What! shall it be said that we waver in the view of those who begin by trying to expunge the sacred memory of the 4th of July? Shall we help them to obliterate the associations that cluster around the glorious struggle for independence, or stultify the labors of the patriots who erected this magnificent political edifice upon the adamantine base of human liberty? Shall we surrender the fame of Washington and Laurens, of Gadsden and the Lees, of Jefferson and Madison, and of the myriads of heroes whose names are imperishably connected with the memory of a united people? Never, never!

For myself, I can only interpose against what seems to me like the madness of the moon the barrier of a single feeble remonstrance; but, in any event, it shall never be said of my share in the action of this hour of danger, that it has been guided by vindictive passions, or narrow considerations of personal or party advantage. I well know what I hazard, among many whose good opinion has ever been part of the sunlight of my existence, in following what I hold to be a higher duty. Whilst at any and at all times I shall labor to uphold the great principles of liberty, without which this grand system of our fathers would seem to be a mockery and a show, I shall equally strive to give no just ground to enemies and traitors to expand the circle of mischief they may do.

Although not very frequently indulging in the profession of a devotion to the Union, which has heretofore been too often associated with a public policy I deemed most dangerous to its safety, I will venture to add, that no man over the boundless extent of our dominion has more reasons for inextinguishable attachment to it than myself. It is inwoven in my affections with the faithful labors in its support of two generations of my race; it is blended with a not inconsiderable personal stake in its continuity; it is mingled with my earnest prayers for the welfare of those who are treading after me; and, more than all these, it colors all my visions of the beneficent spread of republican institutions, as well in America as over the rest of the civilized world.

If, then, so great a calamity as a division be about to befall us, it shall be hastened by no act of mine. It shall come from the wilful passions of infatuated men, who demand it of us, to destroy the great principles for which our fathers struggled in life and in death, to stain our standard with the symbol of human oppression, and to degrade us, in the very hour of our victory,

before our countrymen, before all the nations of the civilized world, and before God. Rather than this, let the heavens fall! My duty is performed.

In 1861, Mr. Adams was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the court of St. James. His personal qualities of mind and character, and the prestige of his name, his father and grandfather having occupied the same high position, gave him influence at once in England. His services during the years of civil war demonstrated the wisdom of the appointment. The more than four hundred pages of printed correspondence between Secretary Seward and Mr. Adams, including that with other State officers, display a marvellous wisdom on the part of both in the management of new, delicate, and difficult questions. Mr. Adams's sagacity, prudence, and firmness were second only to Mr. Seward's in his negotiations with the English Government. The Secretary used the following language in his note to Mr. Adams, June 5, 1862:

The prejudice that we found prevailing in England soon after the civil war began, to the effect that this Government desired to challenge Great Britain to a war for popular effect at home, has been inveterate. It is pleasing, however, to discover that at last the equally prudent and just policy we have so constantly pursued is beginning to be appreciated by the British Government. No one has done more to correct the injurious error referred to than you have done.

Mr. Adams's course against permitting the iron-clads at Laird's to depart on their destructive errand "was distinctly and unreservedly approved." Indeed, whenever he acted officially, he was cordially sustained. The clear statements of mooted points, the exact estimate of what was demanded in the most trying emergency, and the uncompromising firmness in maintaining the honor of the Republic, without exasperating unfriendly feeling, will place the name of Charles Francis Adams among the ablest diplomatists of any country or age. The nation owes him a debt of profound gratitude for his distant yet efficient services during a rebellion which reached even the shores of England.

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY,

The American minister to Austria, was born in Dorchester, Norfolk County, April 15, 1814. He graduated at Harvard College in 1831, and soon afterwards embarked for Europe. Proceeding to Göttingen, Germany, he spent a year there, and, removing to Berlin, was in that city about the same period.