of his baptism:

"The house at Mount Wollaston has a peculiar interest to me, as the
dwelling of my great-grandfather, whose name I bear. The incident which
gave rise to this circumstance is not without its moral to my heart. He
was dying, when I was baptized; and his daughter, my grandmother, present
at my birth, requested that I might receive his name. The fact, recorded
by my father at the time, has connected with that portion of my name, a
charm of mingled sensibility and devotion. It was filial tenderness that
gave the name. It was the name of one passing from earth to immortality.
These have been among the strongest links of my attachment to the name of
Quincy, and have been to me, through life, a perpetual admonition to do
nothing unworthy of it."

It cannot be doubted that the character of the person from whom, in such
affecting circumstances, he derived an honorable patronymic, was an object
of emulation. John Quincy was a gentleman of wealth, education, and
influence. He was for a long time Speaker of the House of Representatives
in Massachusetts, and during many years one of His Majesty's Provincial
Council. He was a faithful representative, and throughout his public
services, a vigorous defender of the rights and liberties of the Colony.
Exemplary in private life, and earnest in piety, he enjoyed the public
confidence, through a civil career of forty years' duration.

The American Revolution was rapidly hurrying on during the infancy of John
Quincy Adams. In 1769, the citizens of Boston held a meeting in which they
instructed their representatives in the Provincial Legislature to resist
the usurpations of the British Government. John Adams was chairman of the
committee that prepared these instructions, and his associates were
Richard Dana and Joseph Warren, the same distinguished patriot who gave up