The first subject was suggested to Motley during a residence of several months in St. Petersburg as Secretary to the American Legation (1841–42). This taste of diplomatic life seems not to have been wholly relished. Motley’s wife could not accompany him, and homesickness and a Russian winter conspired to drive him back to America. He gained some knowledge of practical politics by serving a term in the Massachusetts legislature (1849). Neither law, nor diplomacy, nor yet politics, seemed at that time to offer a field in which he could work to best advantage. More and more he was tending towards literature. So absorbed had he become in the history of Holland that he felt it ‘necessary to write a book on the subject, even if it were destined to fall dead from the press.’ He had made some progress when he heard of Prescott’s projected history of Philip the Second. Thinking it ‘disloyal’ not to declare his ambition of invading a part of Prescott’s own domain, he went to lay his plan before the elder historian. Prescott immediately offered the use of books from his library and was in all ways cordial and enthusiastic. It soon became evident that a history of Holland could not be written in America. In 1851 Motley took his family and went abroad, and for the next five years toiled unweariedly among the archives of Dresden, The Hague, Brussels, and Paris. His energy and plodding patience surprised the friends who remembered Motley for a brilliant young man who heretofore had played industriously at work rather than actually worked. ‘He never shrank from any of the drudgery of preparation,’ said his daughter, Lady Harcourt, in after years. The three volumes of _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_ were at length ready for the press. Motley was forced to publish at his own expense. Notwithstanding hostile criticisms, the success was undeniable. The book was immediately translated into French, German, and Dutch. Of two French versions the one published in Paris was edited, with an introduction, by Guizot. The historical series as we have it comprises nine volumes. The works appeared in the following order: _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_, 1856; _History of the United Netherlands_, 1860–68; _The Life and Death of John of Barneveld_, 1874. Motley’s plan included a history of the Thirty Years’ War. But he was not to be granted length of days sufficient for the writing of this ‘last act of a great drama.’ Among many scholastic honors which in the nature of things fell to Motley’s share may be mentioned the conferring of the degree of D. C. L. by Oxford, and the election to full membership in the Institute of France.