her. When hailed, she answered with a broadside. John Adams had been
requested to retire to the cockpit, but when the engagement had begun, he
was found among the marines, with a musket in his hands.

The desired treaty with France had been consummated by Dr. Franklin,
before the arrival of John Adams. After that event, Congress decided to
have but one minister in that country, and Dr. Franklin having deservedly
received the appointment, John Adams asked and obtained leave to return
home, after an absence of a year and a half. During that period the
younger Adams attended a public school in Paris, while his leisure hours
were filled with the instructions casually derived from the conversation
of John Adams, and Dr. Franklin, and other eminent intellectual persons,
by whom his father was surrounded. The improvement of the son during his
sojourn abroad is thus mentioned by John Adams, just before his
embarkation on his return to America.

"My son has had a great opportunity to see this country, but this has
unavoidably retarded his education in some other things. He has enjoyed
perfect health from first to last, and is respected wherever he goes, for
his vigor and vivacity both of mind and body; for his constant good humor,
and for his rapid progress in French, as well as in general knowledge,
which, for his age, is uncommon."

John Adams now regarded his public life as closed. He wrote to Mrs. Adams:

"The Congress, I presume, expect that I should come home, and I shall come
accordingly. As they have no business for me in Europe, I must contrive to
get some for myself at home. Prepare yourself for removing to Boston, into
the old house, for there you shall go, and I will draw writs and deeds,
and harangue juries, and be happy."