FRANCIS DANA was a native of Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard University, where he was graduated in the year 1762. He studied the profession of the law, and was among the first to espouse the cause of the Colonies in resisting the aggressions of the mother country. In a letter to General Washington, dated Philadelphia, April 1st, 1776, Mr John Adams speaks of him in the following

terins.

"The bearer of this letter, Mr Francis Dana, is a gentleman of family, fortune, and education, returned in the last packet from London, where he has been about a year. He has ever maintained an excellent character in his country, and a warm friendship for the American cause. He returns to share with his friends in their dangers and and their triumphs. I have done myself the honor to give him this letter, for the sake of introducing him to your acquaintance, as he has frequently expressed to me a desire to embrace the first opportunity of paying his respects to a character so highly esteemed, and so justly admired throughout all Europe, as well as America. Mr Dana will satisfy you, that we have no reason to expect peace with Great Britain."

Mr Dana returned to Massachusetts and was chosen a delegate to Congress in December of the same year,

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though he did not take his seat in that body till the November following. This station he filled till September, 1779, when he was appointed Secretary to Mr John Adams, the Minister Plenipotentiary for negotiating a treaty of peace and a treaty of commerce with Great Britain. He went to Europe with Mr Adams, and resided with him in Paris, and a short time in Holland. On the 20th of June, 1780, he was commissioned to negotiate a loan in Holland, provided Mr Adams should be prevented by other business from attending to it. As Mr Adams undertook the negotiation, Mr Dana did not enter upon this commission.

On the 19th of December, he was elected by Congress to be Minister resident in Russia, with authority to accede to the convention of the neutral and belligerent powers for protecting the freedom of commerce and rights of nations, and also to negotiate a treaty for this purpose. He received his commission and instructions in Paris, and after spending a short time in Amsterdam and Berlin, he arrived at St Petersburg towards the end of August, 1781. Here he applied himself with zeal and activity to the objects of his mission, but the policy of the Russian Court was at that time such, as to prevent its recognizing the independence of the United States, or receiving publicly a Minister from that government. In his private capacity, Mr Dana was treated with due consideration, and was promised that, after the signature of the definitive treaty at Paris, he should be admitted to an audience of the Empress, and received in his public character, as Minister from the United States. Meantime his continued ill health had induced him to solicit from Congress permission to return home, which was granted.

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He sailed from St Petersburg in a ship bound for Boston, where he arrived in December, 1783.

Mr Dana was a member of the Convention at Annapolis, and of the Convention of Massachusetts for ratifying the Constitution of the United States. In this latter body he took an able and decided stand in favor of the Constitution. He was afterwards for many years Chief Justice of the State of Massachusetts, and died in 1811, at the age of sixtyseven years.

Mr Adams having left Paris the 27th of last month, to visit the Low Countries, I do myself the honor of forwarding to your Excellency two packets, the one containing his letters to you from No. 89 to 99 inclusive, and two private letters from a gentleman in London to him, the other containing letters numbered in their order from No. 1 to 10, inclusive. I shall also forward to your Excellency, if the bearer can take them, all the newspapers we have on hand. The whole will be committed to the care of Captain Jones, who will sail in the Ariel.

Had I been apprized less suddenly of the time of Captain Jones' departure, I should also have sent translations of the declarations of the Courts of Copenhagen and Stockholm to the belligerent powers, conforming to that of the Empress of Russia, relative to the commere of the neutral powers, and the armed neutrality. These declarations are in the "Suite des Nouvelles d'Amsterdam," of