John Adams was received at the Hague as American Minister, 19th April, 1782. In his despatch to Secretary Livingston, 16th May, 1782, he wrote: “How shall I mention another gentleman, whose name, perhaps, Congress never heard, but who, in my opinion, has done more decided and essential service to the American cause and reputation, within these last eighteen months, than any other man in Europe?” Then, after describing him as “beyond all contradiction one of the greatest historians and political characters in Europe, … possessed of the most genuine principles and sentiments of liberty, and exceedingly devoted by principle and affection to the American cause,” our minister announces: “His pen has erected a monument to the American cause more glorious and more durable than brass or marble. His writings have been read like oracles, and his sentiments weekly echoed and reëchoed in gazettes and pamphlets.”[565] And yet these have passed out of sight. First in time was an elaborate work in French, purporting to be translated from the English, which appeared at Utrecht in 1778, entitled, “History of the Founding of the Colonies of the Ancient Republics, adapted to the present Dispute of Great Britain with her American Colonies.”[566] Learning and philosophy were elevated by visions of the future. With the representation of the Colonies in Parliament, he foresees the time when “the influence of America will become preponderant in Parliament, and _able, perhaps, to transfer the seat of empire_ to their country, and so, without danger and without convulsive agitation, render this immense continent, already so favorably disposed by Nature to that end, the theatre of one of the greatest and freest governments that have ever existed.”[567] Then indulging in another vision, where French emigrants and Canadians, already invited to enter the Confederacy, mingle with English colonists, he beholds at the head of the happy settlements “men known for their superior genius, their politics friendly to humanity, and their enthusiasm for liberty,” and he catches the strains of ancient dramatists, “whose masterpieces would breathe and inspire a hatred of tyrants and despots.” Then touching a practical point in government, he exclaims: “The human species there would not be debased, outraged by that odious and barbarous distinction of nobles and plebeians, as if anybody could be more or less than a man.” And then again: “Could not that admirable democracy which I have so often pleased myself in tracing be established there?”[568] This was followed in the same year by another publication, also in French, entitled “Impartial Observations of a True Hollander, in Answer to the Address of a self-styled Good Hollander to his Countrymen.”[569] Here there is no longer question of Colonial representation in Parliament, or of British empire transferred to America, but of separation, with its lofty future:--