Page:Lives of the presidents in words of one syllable (1903).djvu/32

 strong, that folks gave in to him at once. He would write, write, and send what he had to say to the press, and all came to know that he was a man of strength in the land.

John Ad-ams was the first man to ask that Wash-ing-ton be put at the head of our troops, and he was, too, one of the first to help get up the Dec-la-ra-tion of In-de-pend-ence.

John Ad-ams was sent to France to ask the French to make a law so that their ports and Eng-land's ports might be free for our goods. He had hard work but what he went for he got.

Ad-ams was chief aid, or Vice-Pres-i-dent, when Wash-ing-ton was made Pres-i-dent, and was with him all the eight years he had to serve. Then, when those years of help were past, the aid, him-self, was made Pres-i-dent, in 1796, with Jef-fer-son for the next post.

Pres-i-dent Ad-ams kept all the aids that Wash-ing-ton had, though some of them did not suit him. Do what he might it was hard to please folks when the times were so bad and rules so new. There were those who rose up and said this thing should not be done and that thing should not be done, and there was much bad talk. But John Ad-ams did what his head and heart told him to do. As late as 1815 he wrote to a friend of one thing he had done that made him glad and he said that if it were on his tomb-stone it would suit him. These are the words;

"Here lies John Ad-ams, who took it on him-self to make peace with France in the year 1800."

It was the wish of John Ad-ams to serve his land well and he did for her the best that could be done at that time. When his work as Chief came to an end, which it did in