He attributed the opposition of the eastern states to the impolicy of our government in neglecting the navy. He compared them to Achilles, who, in consequence of his being deprived of Briseis, withdrew from the Grecian confederacy. The increase of the navy was a long-nursed theory of his national policy. Had his views been carried out by our country, our nation would now have been mistress of the seas. As it is, we have scarcely armed vessels enough to protect the expanding commerce of our enterprising merchants--a fact that is often tauntingly referred to by Englishmen and has often crimsoned the cheeks of liberal-minded Americans. If all the money that has been expended within the last twenty years in worse than useless legislation and speech-making throughout these United States had been appropriated in building ships of war, our navy would now be larger than that of Great Britain. Add what has gone into the hands of peculators since the formation of our Republic--it would sustain that navy for thirty years. Some of our people have been occasionally a little _too_ free. Soon after his retirement from the presidential chair, Mr. Adams was solicited to become the governor of his native state, which he declined on account of his advanced age. In 1817 he was placed at the head of the list of presidential electors. In 1820 he was elected president of the convention that revised the constitution that he had written forty years previous. The compliment was duly appreciated by him but his infirmities did not permit him to preside. He imparted much counsel and rendered special aid in the revision. This was the last public act of this great man. Two years before this, the partner of his bosom had gone to her final rest--an affliction most keenly felt by him. She was a Christian--to know was to love her. Surrounded by friends who delighted to honor him--his country prosperous and happy--enjoying the full fruition of divine grace which had produced the green foliage of piety through a long life--political animosities buried in oblivion--his now frail bark glided smoothly down the stream of time until the fiftieth anniversary of Independence dawned upon our beloved country. On the morning of the 4th of July 1826, an unexpected debility seized him but no one supposed he was standing on the last inch of his time. He was asked for a sentiment to be given for him at the celebration on that day. "INDEPENDENCE FOREVER," burst from his dying lips, which were the last words he ever uttered with a loud and animated voice. He expired about four in the afternoon without a groan, sigh, murmur or apparent pain, with a full assurance of a happy reception in that brighter world where sin and sorrow never interrupt the peaceful joys of the angelic throng.