And there is Gerry, himself among the earliest and the foremost of the loatriots, found, when the battle of Lexington
summoned them to common counsels, by the side of Warren; a man who lived to serve his country at home and
abroad, and to die in the second place in the government.
There, too, is the inflexible, the upright, the Spartan character, Robert Treat Paine. He also lived to serve his country through the struggle, and then withdrew from her councils, only that he might give his labors and his life to his
native State, in another relation. These names, fellow-citizens, are the treasures of the Commonwealth; and they
are treasures which grow brighter by time.
49. It is now necessary to resume the narrative, and to finish with great brevity the notice of the lives of those whose virtues and services we have met to commemorate.
Mr. Adams remained in Congress from its first meeting till November, 1777, when he was appointed Minister to France. He proceeded on that service in the February following, embarking in the frigate Boston, from the shore of his native town, at the foot of Mount Wollaston. The year following, he was appointed commissioner to treat of peace with England. Returning to the United States, he was a delegate from Braintree in the Convention for framing the Constitution for this Commonwealth, in 1780.[1] At the latter end of the same year, he again went abroad in the diplomatic service of the country, and was employed at various courts, and occupied with various negotiations, until 1788. The particulars of these interesting and important services this occasion does not allow time to relate. In 1782 he concluded our first treaty with Holland. His negotiations with that republic, his efforts to persuade the States-General to recognize our Independence, his incessant and indefatigable exertions to represent the American cause favorably on the Continent, and to counteract the designs of its enemies, open and secret, and his successful undertaking to obtain
- ↑ In this Convention he served as chairman of the committee for preparing the draft of a Constitution.
