delegate from Braintree in the
Convention for framing the Constitution of this Commonwealth, in
1780.[10] At the latter end of the same year, he again went abroad in
the diplomatic service of the country, and was employed at various
courts, and occupied with various negotiations, until 1788. The
particulars of these interesting and important services this occasion
does not allow time to relate. In 1782 he concluded our first treaty
with Holland. His negotiations with that republic, his efforts to
persuade the States-General to recognize our independence, his incessant
and indefatigable exertions to represent the American cause favorably on
the Continent, and to counteract the designs of its enemies, open and
secret, and his successful undertaking to obtain loans on the credit of
a nation yet new and unknown, are among his most arduous, most useful,
most honorable services. It was his fortune to bear a part in the
negotiation for peace with England, and in something more than six years
from the Declaration which he had so strenuously supported, he had the
satisfaction of seeing the minister plenipotentiary of the crown
subscribe his name to the instrument which declared that his "Britannic
Majesty acknowledged the United States to be free, sovereign, and
independent." In these important transactions, Mr. Adams's conduct
received the marked approbation of Congress and of the country.

While abroad, in 1787, he published his "Defence of the American
Constitutions"; a work of merit and ability, though composed with haste,
on the spur of a particular occasion, in the midst of other occupations,
and under circumstances not admitting of careful revision. The immediate
object of the work was to counteract the weight of opinions advanced by
several popular European writers of that day, M. Turgot, the Abbe de
Mably, and Dr. Price, at a time when the people of the United States
were employed in forming and revising their systems of government.

Returning to the United States in 1788, he found the new government
about going into operation, and was himself elected the first
Vice-President, a situation which he filled with reputation for eight
years, at the expiration of which he was raised to the Presidential
chair, as immediate successor to the immortal Washington. In this high
station he was succeeded by Mr. Jefferson, after a memorable controversy
between their respective friends, in 1801; and from that period his
manner of lif