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ADAM. 



ADAMS, JOHN. 



Mr. R. Adam did not retain the appointment of architect to the 

 king more than four or five years, for he resigned it on being returned 

 to parliament for the county of Kinross in 1763. This latter circum- 

 stance however does not appear to have interrupted his professional 

 avocations, for we find that he continued to be actively engaged in 

 business down to the period of his death, which took place in March 

 1792. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the south transept of 

 which is a tablet to his memory. 



As an architect Mr. Adam displayed an original and independent 

 mind ; for it required in hU day no small degree both of originality 

 and independence to break through the trammels which had been 

 imposed upon architecture. This Adam did nevertheless, and though 

 the result was that he became a mannerist, after a very peculiar and 

 not very elevated or classical style of his own, the effect on English 

 architecture was on the whole good. With Mr. Adam we believe ori- 

 ginated the idea of giving to a number of unimportant private edifices 

 the appearance of one imposing structure, by external architectural 

 arrangements ; and he certainly has the credit of having carried this 

 principle extensively into effect in several of the instances we have 

 mentioned. 



ADAM (Sculptors). There were three brothers of this name, who 

 all enjoyed some reputation as sculptors in France in the early part 

 of the last century. They were the sons of a sculptor named Jacob- 

 Sigisbert Adam, who lived at Nancy. The eldest, Lambert-Sigisbert, 

 was born there in 1700, and made his first appearance at Paris in 

 1719. After remaining in that city for four years, he gained the first 

 prize in the Academy, and proceeded to Rome on a pension allowed 

 him by the king. Here he spent about ten years, and among other 

 works furnished the design which was adopted by Clement XII., one 

 of sixteen which were presented for the intended fountain of Trevi. 

 Tha offers of the French government then induced him to return to 

 Paris. On the 25th May 1737 he was admitted a member of the 

 Academy, and he was afterwards appointed professor in that institu- 

 tion. The two best known of this sculptor's productions are a group 

 of Neptune and Amphitrite, which he executed for the basin of Nep- 

 tune at Versaille, and on which he spent five years; and a figure of 

 St. Jerome, originally intended for the Hospital des Invalides, but now 

 placed in the church of St Roch at Paris. They are fair specimens 

 of the French school of that age, which however was one of the 

 least brilliant periods in the history of modern art. Adam published 

 in 1754 a work entitled ' Recueil de Sculptures Antiques Grecques et 

 Romaines." He died in 1759. Nicolas Sebastian, the next brother, 

 was born in 1705. He came to Paris at the age of IS, and went to 

 Rome in 1726, where, two years after, he obtained one of the prizes 

 at the Academy of San Luca. Having remained there for nine years, 

 he returned to Paris ; and after some time was also, like his elder 

 brother, received into the Academy. Among the designs which he 

 produced was one for the Mausoleum of the Cardinal de Fleury. His 

 two principal works were a tomb for the wife of King Stanislaus of 

 Poland, and his Prometheus chained to the Rock (which has been 

 commonly assigned by mistake to his elder brother). For the latter 

 work he had an offer from the King of Prussia of 30,000 francs ; but 

 he declined accepting it, on the ground that the sculpture belonged to 

 his own sovereign, for whom it had been at first intended. He died 

 in 1778. The third brother, Franeois-Gaspard, was born in 1710. 

 He made his way, like his elder brother, to Rome, and also on his 

 return from Italy fixed his residence in Paris. He worked for some 

 years at Berlin, in the service of the King of Prussia, and died at 

 Paris in 1795. (Biographie Univeridle.) 



ADAMS, JOHN, a distinguished American statesman. He was 

 born in the town of Braintree, near Boston, in Massachusetts, on the 

 1'Jth October 1735, of a family which bad come from England at the 

 first settlement of the colony. At the usual age he was sent to Har- 

 vard College, in the neighbouring town of Cambridge ; after leaving 

 which, he proceeded to study the law, and was in due time called to 

 the bar. He soon raised himself in the profession which he had thus 

 chosen to great reputation and extensive practice. In 1765, when the 

 first opposition of the people of America was excited by the Stamp 

 Act, Mr. Adams took an active part in those measures of constitutional 

 opposition which eventually forced the repeal of that obnoxious statute. 

 An offer of the lucrative office of Advocate-General in the Court ol 

 Admiralty, made to him the following year by the Crown, with the 

 view of detaching him from the popular cause, was instantly rejected. 

 Ho was one of the select men, or state-representatives, deputed by 

 the several towns of the province, who in 1770 met in convention at 

 Boston, on the announcement of the intention of the British govern- 

 ment to station a military force in that town, in order to control the 

 populace, exasperated by the new Act imposing duties on glass, paper, 

 tea, ice., which had been passed in 1767, and by the other measures 

 which indicated a determination in the mother-country to maintain 

 at least the principle of her late aggression. Soon after this however 

 Mr. Adams gave a proof both of his intrepidity and of the modera- 

 tion which was associated with his zeal, by undertaking the defence 

 of Captain Preston and his men, who, on the 5th of March 1770 had 

 killed several of the people of Boston in a riot a transaction which 

 used to pass under the name of the Boston massacre. He delivered a 

 very powerful speech on this occasion, when the jury acquitted all 

 the prisoners of murder, and only found two of them guilty of man 

 moo. DIV. VOL. L. 



slaughter. To the honour of his countrymen, the part he had tbua 

 taken did not diminish his popularity or influence ; and he continued, 

 during the remaining first years of the struggle, to exert himself con- 

 spicuously in the front rank of the friends and supporters of the 

 colonial cause. In 1773, and again in 1774, he was returned by the 

 House of Assembly a member of the Council of the State ; but on 

 both occasions the governor, General Gage, put his negative on the 

 nomination. The latter year however he was elected one of the four 

 representatives from the province of Massachusetts Bay to the General 

 Congress, which met at Philadelphia on the 26th of October, and 

 which, among other proceedings, entered into a resolution to suspend 

 the importation of British goods ; and he was also a member of the 

 second assembly of the same nature, held some time after, which took 

 measures to enrol the people in an armed national militia. In 1775 

 be was offered the appointment of Chief Justice of his State ; but 

 this he declined, feeling that he could better serve his country in 

 another sphere. It had already become evident to many indeed that 

 the contest with Great Britain must finally be decided by the sword ; 

 and Adams seems to have been one of the first who adopted this con- 

 viction. He was accordingly one of the chief promoters of the Decla- 

 ration of Independence, passed on the memorable 4th of July 1776. 

 The motion was made by Mr. Lee of Virginia, and seconded by Mr. 

 Adams ; who, along with Mr. Jefferson, was appointed the sub-com- 

 mittee to prepare the declaration. It was actually drawn up by Mr. 

 Jefferson. In November 1777 Mr. Adams proceeded to Paris as a 

 Commissioner from the United States to that court ; and after remain- 

 ing for a short time in France returned to America, when he was 

 elected a Member of the Convention for preparing a new constitution 

 for Massachusetts. In 1780 he was sent by the United States as their 

 ambassador to Holland; from which country, about the end of 1782, 

 he proceeded to France, to co-operate with Dr. Franklin and his brother 

 commissioners in the negociations for peace with the mother country. 

 In 1785 he was appointed the first ambassador from the United States 

 to Great Britain ; and he had his first audience with his Majesty in 

 that character on the 2d of June. He remained in England till 

 October 1787. In 1789, when Washington was elected President of 

 the Union, Mr. Adams was elected Vice-President, and he was re- 

 elected to the same office in 1793. In 1797, on the retirement of 

 Washington, he was chosen President ; but he failed to be re-elected 

 on the expiration of his first term of four years, his competitor, Mr. 

 Jefferson, who had also been opposed to him on the former occasion, 

 having a majority of one vote. The general tone of the policy of 

 Adams had been opposed to that of the democratic party, which was 

 represented by Jefferson ; but he does not appear to have given com- 

 plete satisfaction to the other great party whose leading principles he 

 espoused. On failing in being re-elected President, he retired from 

 public affairs to the quiet of his country residence at Quincy ; 

 declining, although nominated, to stand candidate at the next annual 

 election for the governorship of Massachusetts. The rest of his life 

 he spent in retirement. For some years before his death his health 

 had become extremely feeble, and at last little more remained of the 

 once active and eloquent statesman than the mere breath of life. In 

 this state he was when the morning arrived of the 4th of July, 1826, 

 the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Awakened 

 from sleep by the ringing of bells and other rejoicings of that grand 

 jubilee, the venerable patriot was asked if he knew the meaning of 

 what he heard. " Oh, yes," he replied, the glow of old times seeming 

 to return to him for a moment, " It is the glorious 4th of July ! 

 God bless it God bless you all ! " Some time after he said, " It is 

 a great and glorious day, adding, after a pause apparently of deep 

 thought, " Jefferson yet survives." These were the last words he was 

 heard to utter. About noon he became alarmingly ill, and at six in 

 the evening he expired. The same day also terminated the career of 

 Jefferson, his fellow-labourer in laying the foundations of the inde- 

 pendence of their common country, and afterwards his successful 

 rival. Except for a short time, however, these two distinguished men 

 were friends throughout life. Mr. Adams was the author of a work 

 first printed in 3 vols. 8vo., in 1787, while ho was in this country, 

 under the title of ' A Defence of the Constitution and Government of 

 the United States,' but afterwards remodelled and reprinted in 1794, 

 with the new title of a ' History of the Principal Republics of the 

 World.' It is designed to serve, by an ample induction from history, 

 as a vindication of the federal principles of the American Constitu- 

 tion, an attachment to which, indeed, has always been considered the 

 distinctive characteristic of this statesman and his party. 



ADAMS, JOHN, sometimes called 'the Patriarch of Pitcaim's 

 Island.' When H.M.S. ' Bounty ' was seized by a part of her crew, 

 in April, 1789, John Adams was one of the mutineers. He had not 

 been previously aware of the intentions of the ringleader, Christian, 

 and was in his hammock when the mutiny broke out, where he 

 remained until the distribution of arms among the men, when he 

 joined the rest, and assisted in keeping watch over the officers on 

 deck, while Captain Bligh was secured below. [Buon.] After Bligh 

 and those who adhered to him had been set adrift in an open boat, 

 the cry was raised " Huzza for Otaheite !" and the 'Bounty' shaped 

 tier course accordingly. Provisions having been obtained there, the 

 mutineers sailed for the island of Toobooai, on which they intended 

 to settle; but the hostility of the natives preventing this, they 



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