Page:British Weights and Measures - Superior to the Metric, by James W. Evans.djvu/23

Rh starting out on a great career for themselves, sought to disentangle themselves from all old-world nations. Still, they had carried with them across the Atlantic, the English language, English laws, English customs and weights and measures.

The severance of political ties with the mother country resulted in many internal commercial changes. There came the decimalisation of the coinage. Then was entrusted to a Committee the task of investigating the various systems of weights and measures in existence, with a view to the acceptance of the best. This resulted in what has been termed "the most glowing eulogy of the British system ever written."

The report of the Committee, presented in 1821 to Congress, was penned by John Quincey Adams, then, and for all time, one of the foremost men in the history of the congeries of States forming the mighty confederation of the Western Hemisphere. The year in which Adams wrote was, in point of time, very close to events which had an inﬂuence in increasing the feeling of Americans against all things British—the incidents of the war of 1812-15. However, the fury of the storm left no cloud upon the keen intellect of Adams when he set himself the task of dispassionately examining the merits of rival systems. It is said that he approached the proposal to adopt the metric system with an enthusiastic desire for a common system of weights and measures for all nations. Analysing the question, and his words have not since been improved upon, he said—"The French metrology, in the ardent and exclusive search for an universal standard from nature, seems to