tion of a
necessary absence at the close of the year 1776, to recruit his health.

The business of preparing articles of war for the government of the army
was deputed to a committee composed of Adams and Jefferson; but
Jefferson, according to Adams' account, threw upon him the whole burden,
not only of drawing up the articles, which he borrowed mostly from Great
Britain, but of arguing them through Congress, which was no small task.
Adams strongly opposed Lord Howe's invitation to a conference, sent to
Congress, through his prisoner, General Sullivan, after the battle of
Long Island. He was, however, appointed one of the committee for that
purpose, together with Franklin and Rutledge, and his autobiography
contains some curious anecdotes concerning the visit. Besides his
presidency of the board of war, Adams was also chairman of the committee
upon which devolved the decision of appeals in admiralty cases from the
State courts. Having thus occupied for nearly two years a position which
gained for him the reputation, among at least a few of his colleagues,
of having "the clearest head and firmest heart of any man in Congress."

He was appointed near the end of 1777 a commissioner to France, to
supercede Deane, whom Congress had concluded to recall. He embarked at
Boston, in the Frigate Boston, on February 12th, 1878, reaching Bordeaux
after a stormy passage, and arrived on April 8th at Paris. As the
alliance with France had been completed before his arrival, his stay was
short. He found that a great antagonism of views and feelings had arisen
between the three commissioners,--Franklin, Deane, and Arthur Lee, of
whom the embassy to France had been originally composed. As the recall
of Deane had not reconciled the other two, Adams devised, as the only
means of giving unity and energy to the mission, that it should be
intrusted to a single person. This suggestion was adopted, and in
consequence of it, Franklin having been appointed sole embassador in
France, Adams returned home.

He arrived at Boston just as a convention was about to meet to form a
State constitution for Massachusetts, and, being at once chosen a member
from Braintree, he was enabled to take a leading part in the formation
of that important document. Before this convention had finished its
business he was appointed by congress as minister to treat with Great
Britain for peace, and commerce, under which appointment he again sailed
for France in 1779, in th