When the war of 1812 was over, Mr. Lowell knew that the overloaded markets of Europe and India would pour their cotton and other goods into the United States. He therefore went to Washington in the winter of 1816, and after overcoming much opposition, obtained a protective tariff for cotton manufacture. "The minimum duty on cotton fabrics," says Edward Everett, "the corner-stone of the system, was proposed by Mr. Lowell, and is believed to have been an original conception on his part. To this provision of law, the fruit of the intelligence and influence of Mr. Lowell, New England owes that branch of industry which has made her amends for the diminution of her foreign trade; which has left her prosperous under the exhausting drain of her population to the West; which has brought a market for his agricultural produce to the farmer's door; and which, while it has conferred these blessings on this part of the country, has been productive of good, and nothing but good, to every other portion of it." At Mr. Lowell's death he left a large fortune to his four children, three sons and a daughter, of whom John Lowell, Jr., was the eldest. Like his father, John was a successful merchant; but as his business was carried on largely with the East Indies, he had leisure for reading. He had one of the best private libraries in Boston, and knew the contents of his books. He did not forget his duties to his city. He was several times a member of the Common Council and the Legislature of the State, believing that no person has a right to shirk political responsibility. In the midst of this happy and useful life, surrounded by those who were dear to him, in the years 1830 and 1831, when he was thirty-two years of age, came the crushing blow to his domestic joy. His wife and both children died, and his home was broken up. He sought relief in travel, and in the summer of 1832 made a tour of the Western States. In the autumn of the same year, November, 1832, he sailed for Europe, intending to be absent for some months, or even years. As though he had a premonition that his life would be a brief one, and that he might never return, he made his will before leaving America, giving about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars--half of his property--"to found and sustain free lectures," "for the promotion of the moral and intellectual and physical instruction or education of the citizens of Boston." The will provides for courses in physics, chemistry, botany, zoölogy, mineralogy, the literature of our own and foreign nations, and historical and internal evidences in favor of Christianity.