On one occasion, the President expressed to Mr. Adams his astonishment at the malignancy of the reports which some newspapers were circulating concerning him, and asked in what motives they could have originated. Mr. Adams replied, that the motives did not lie very deep; that there had been a spirit at work, ever since he came to Washington, very anxious to find or make occasions of censure upon him. That spirit he could not lay. His only resource was to pursue his course according to his own sense of right, and abide by the consequences. To which the President fully assented. While these events were agitating the political world, Mr. Adams was called to lament the death of his mother, dear to his heart by every tie of affection and gratitude. His feelings burst forth, on the occasion, in eloquent and touching tributes to her memory. "This is one of the severest afflictions," he exclaimed, "to which human existence is liable. The silver cord is broken,--the tenderest of natural ties is dissolved,--life is no longer to me what it was,--my home is no longer the abode of my mother. While she lived, whenever I returned to the paternal roof, I felt as if the joys and charms of childhood returned to make me happy; all was kindness and affection. At once silent and active as the movement of the orbs of heaven, one of the links which connected me with former ages is no more. May a merciful Providence spare for many future years my only remaining parent!" The policy of the friends and enemies of Mr. Monroe's administration was developed by the debates in the House of Representatives on the Seminole war, and the spirit of intrigue began to operate with great publicity. Some of the Western friends of Mr. Adams proposed to him measures of counteraction, on which he remarked: "These overtures afford opportunities and temptations to intrigue, of which there is much in this government, and without which the prospects of a public man are desperate. Caballing with members of Congress for future contingency has become so interwoven with the practical course of our government, and so inevitably flows from the practice of canvassing by the members to fix on candidates for President and Vice-President, that to decline it is to pass a sentence of total exclusion. Be it so! Whatever talents I possess, that of intrigue is not among them. And instead of toiling for a future election, as I am recommended to do, my only wisdom is to prepare myself for voluntary, or unwilling, retirement." On the same topic, in February, 1819, he thus expressed himself: "The practice which has grown up under the constitution, but contrary to its spirit, by which members of Congress meet in caucus and determine by a majority the candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency to be supported by the whole meeting, places the President in a state of undue subserviency to the members of the legislature; which, connected with the other practice