CHAPTER II.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS STUDIES LAW--HIS PRACTICE--ENGAGES IN PUBLIC LIFE--APPOINTED MINISTER TO THE HAGUE.
After leaving the University, young Adams entered the office of Theophilus Parsons, who was then in the practice of law at Newburyport, and who afterwards for so many years filled with dignity and ability the office of Chief Justice of Massachusetts.
Adams completed the usual term of professional study, and then commenced the practice of the law in Boston.

It may encourage some who are oppressed by the difficulties attending initiation in the profession, to know, that during the first and only four years of John Quincy Adams' practice, he had occasion for despondency.
"I had long and lingering anxieties, (he afterwards said,) in looking forward, doubtful even of my prospects of comfortable subsistence, but acquiring more and more the means of it, till in the last of the four years, the business of my profession yielded me an income more than equal to my expenditures." But the country and the age had claims on John Quincy Adams, as well as on his father, for higher duties than "making writs," and "haranguing juries," and "being happy." The American Revolution, which had been brought to a successful close, had inspired, throughout Europe, a desire to renovate the institutions of government.

The officers and citizens of France who had mingled in the contest, had carried home the seeds of freedom, and had scattered them abroad upon soil quick to receive them.

The flame of Liberty, kindled on the shores of the Western Continent, was reflected back upon the Old World.

France beheld its beams, and hailed them as a beacon-light, which should lead the nations out from the bondage of ages.