Part 37

In 1761, Mr. Adams attained the rank of barrister and rose to eminence in his profession. In 1764, he married the accomplished Miss Abigail, the daughter of the Rev. William Smith, who participated with him in the changing scenes of life for fifty-four years. The following extract from a letter written by her to a friend, after the commencement of the revolution, will exhibit the strength of her mind and the patriotic feelings of the ladies at that eventful era.

“Heaven is our witness that we do not rejoice in the effusion of blood or the carnage of the human species—but, having been forced to draw the sword, we are determined never to sheathe it—_slaves to Britain_. Our cause, sir, I trust, is the cause of truth and justice, and will finally prevail, though the combined force of earth and hell should rise against it. To this cause I have sacrificed much of my own personal happiness, by giving up to the councils of America one of my nearest connexions, and living for more than three years in a state of widowhood.”

When the stamp act was passed, the fire of indignation against lawless oppression rose in the bosom of Mr. Adams to a luminous flame. He at once became a public man, and entered into a defence of chartered rights and rational freedom. He published an “Essay on the Canon and Feudal Law,” which placed him on a lofty eminence as an able and vigorous writer. Its raciness penetrated the joints and marrow of royal power as practised, and the parliamentary legislation as assumed. He traced the former law to its original source—the Roman clergy—by them subtlely planned, extensively exercised and acutely managed, to effect their own aggrandizement. He then delineated the servile dogmas of the latter, that made each manor the miniature kingdom of a petty tyrant. He then drew a vivid picture of their powerful but unholy confederacy, by which they spread the mantle of ignorance over the world, drove virtue from the earth, and commenced the era of mental obscurity. He then explored the labyrinthian mazes of the dark ages, portrayed the first glimmerings of returning light, travelled through the gigantic struggles of the reformation amidst the bloody scenes of cruel persecution, and finally placed his readers upon the granite shores of New England, where, for a century, liberty had shed its happy influence upon the sons and daughters of freemen, unmolested by canons or feuds. That liberty was now invaded, and, unless the tyranny that had already commenced its desolating course was arrested in its bold career, slavery would be the consequence. This is the syllabus of a pamphlet of over forty pages, written in a strong, bold and nervous style.

From that time forward Mr. Adams became a leading whig. He became associated with Samuel Adams, Quincy, Otis and other kindred spirits, all much older men, but not more zealous in the cause than him. The repeal of the odious stamp act and the removal of Mr. Grenville from the ministry was the result of the labours of the patriots in 1765. A delusive calm ensued in parliamentary and ministerial proceedings, openly avowed. Mr. Adams was among those who watched closely the signs of the times. Governor Barnard occasionally showed the cloven foot, and his officers put on airs that were far from being agreeable to the yeomanry of the country. Festering wounds occasionally became irritated, and no balm was found that restored them to perfect soundness.

In 1766 Mr. Adams removed to Boston, and at the end of two years had become so conspicuous and had displayed so much talent that the governor thought him worth purchasing. The lucrative and honourable office of advocate-general in the court of admiralty was offered to him, which was deemed a sufficient bribe to allure him. In this the governor found himself mistaken. Moral courage was the firm basis on which this devoted patriot stood. He spurned the royal harness, glittering with gold, with as much disdain as the wild horse of the prairie looks upon a moping mule.

In 1769 he was one of the committee appointed by the citizens of Boston to propose instructions for their representatives in the legislative body, which were highly spiced with free principles, and were very unsavoury to the royal governor. Many of his measures were severely censured, particularly that of quartering the mercenary soldiers in the town. He was unbending in his purposes, and the people determined on maintaining their rights. The consequences were tragical. On the fifth of March, 1770, an affray occurred between the military and citizens, in which five of the latter were killed and others wounded. The following description of the scene that ensued is from the pen of Mr. Adams, the present subject of this memoir.

“The people assembled first at Faneuil Hall and adjourned to the old South Church, to the number, as was conjectured, of ten or twelve hundred men, among whom were the most virtuous, substantial, independent, disinterested and intelligent citizens. They formed themselves into a regular deliberative body, chose their moderator and secretary, entered into discussions, deliberations and debates, adopted resolutions and appointed committees. Their resolutions in public were conformable to every man in private who dared express his thoughts or his feelings—‘that the regular soldiers should be banished from the town at all hazards.’ Jonathan Williams, a very pious, inoffensive and conscientious gentleman, was their moderator. A remonstrance to the governor, or governor and council, was ordained, and a demand that the regular troops should be removed from the town. A committee was appointed to present this remonstrance, of which _Samuel Adams_ was chairman.

“This was a delicate and dangerous crisis. The question in the last resort was—whether the town of Boston should become a scene of carnage and desolation or not. Humanity to the soldiers conspired with a regard for the safety of the town, in suggesting the measure in calling the town together to deliberate, for nothing but the most solemn promises to the people, that the soldiers should, at all hazards, be driven from the town, had preserved its peace. Not only the immense assemblies of the people from day to day, but military arrangements from night to night were necessary to keep the people and the soldiers from getting together by the ears. The life of a red coat would not have been safe in any street or corner of the town; nor would the lives of the inhabitants been much more secure. The whole militia of the city was in requisition, and military watches and guards were every where placed. We were all upon a level; no man was exempted; our military officers were our only superiors. I had the honour to be summoned in my turn and attended at the State-house with my musket and bayonet, my broad sword and cartridge box, under the command of the famous Paddock. I know you will laugh at my military figure; but I believe there was not a more obedient soldier in the regiment, nor one more impartial between the people and the regulars. In this character I was upon duty all night in my turn. No man appeared more anxious or more deeply impressed with a sense of danger on all sides than our commander Paddock. He called me, common soldier as I was, frequently to his councils. I had a great deal of conversation with him, and no man appeared more apprehensive of a fatal calamity to the town, or more zealous by every prudent measure to prevent it.”[G]

[G] For the further proceedings, see Samuel Adams and John Hancock.

Order was finally restored and the civil authorities again assumed their functions. Captain Preston was arrested and brought before the court, charged with giving the order to the regulars to fire upon the citizens; and also the soldiers who committed the outrage. As is uniformly the case, each party was charged with blame by the respective friends of the other. Some inconsiderate citizens had thrown snowballs at the king’s troops, who returned the change in blue pills. The former were imprudent, the latter were revengeful.

Mr. Adams was employed by the accused to defend them. Some of his friends were fearful that it might injure his popularity with the people, whose excitement was still very great. But so ingeniously and eloquently did he manage the case, that Captain Preston and all the soldiers but two were acquitted, and those two were only convicted of manslaughter, and Mr. Adams stood approved and applauded by the citizens, having performed his professional duty to his clients, and at the same time vindicated the rights of the people; the result of being guided entirely by the polar star of moral courage.

The same year he was elected to the legislative body, then called the “General Court,” and was a bold opposer of the arbitrary measures of Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson, who undisguisedly followed the directions of the ministry in violation of the charter of the colony, in all things that were necessary to carry out the plans of the British cabinet, pleading his instructions as an excuse.

Mr. Adams was one of the committee that prepared an address to him, the style of which induces me to think it was penned by him. From the following extract the reader may judge. After vividly portraying the violations of right complained of, the address concludes, “These and other grievances and cruelties, too many to be here enumerated, and too melancholy to _be much longer borne_ by this injured people, we have seen brought upon us by the devices of ministers of state. And we have, of late, seen and heard of _instructions_ to governors which threaten to destroy all the remaining privileges of our charter. Should these struggles of the house prove unfortunate and ineffectual, this province will submit, with pious resignation, to the will of _Providence_; but it would be a kind of suicide, of which we have the utmost abhorrence, to be instrumental in our own servitude.” A blind obstinacy on the part of the ministers increased the opposition of the people and operated upon them with all the power of centrifugal force, inducing them to refuse obedience to the king’s officers. Alarmed at the boldness of the people of Boston, Governor Barnard had ordered the general court to convene at Cambridge. This was contrary to the charter which fixed its place of meeting at the former place. The members convened but refused to proceed to business unless they were permitted to adjourn to the proper place, to which Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson, who had succeeded Governor Barnard, refused his assent. A war of words and paper ensued, in which the patriots were uniformly victorious. Mr. Adams was a leader of the sharp-shooters and made great havoc among the officers of the crown. They induced the senior member of their council, Mr. Brattle, to enter the field against him with pen in hand. The conflict was short, Mr. Adams put him _hors de combat_, and showed the people the fallacy of every pretext set up by the hirelings of the ministry. In 1771, Mr. Hutchinson was appointed governor, and the next year consented to the return of the legislative body to Boston as a balm for the wounds he had inflicted. But in this he gained no popularity—it was deemed an involuntary act forced upon him by the popular will, or a mere stratagem to quiet the public mind. There were other sources of complaint. The troops in the castle, that were under the pay and control of the province, had been dismissed and their place supplied by fresh regulars from the mother country: the governor and judges received their salaries from England instead of from the colony, as had always been the usage, thus aiming to render the military, executive and judiciary independent of the people whom they governed, which operated as a talisman to destroy all confidence and affection for these officers on the part of the citizens. The tax on tea was another source of grief that touched more tender chords. Woe unto the ruler that rouses the indignation of the better part of creation. He had better tempt the fury of Mars, or try his speed with Atalanta. Tea soon became forbidden fruit, and several vessel loads were sacrificed to Neptune as an oblation for the sins of ministers and an oblectation for the fishes of Boston harbour. Royal authority increased in insolence, and the patriots increased in boldness. At the commencement of the session of the general court in 1773, Governor Hutchinson sustained the odious doctrine of supremacy of the parliament in his message, which was promptly replied to and denied by the members of that body. A reply was as promptly returned by his excellency, which was prepared with more than usual ability. Mr. Adams, although not a member at that time, was employed to write a rejoinder, which was adopted without any amendment. It paralyzed the pen and closed the mouth of the governor. It was an exposition of British wrongs and American rights so clearly exhibited, that no sophistry could impugn it or logic confront it. So highly was it appreciated by Dr. Franklin, that he had it republished in England and freely circulated. It was a luminary to the patriots and confusion to their opponents.

Shortly after, Mr. Adams was elected to the general court and placed on the list of committees. So vindictive was governor Hutchinson, that he erased his name—an act that recoiled upon himself with redoubled force and aided to hasten the termination of his power in the colony. In less than a year from that time he was succeeded by governor Gage, who was still better calculated to hasten on the revolutionary crisis—because more authoritative and ministerial than his predecessor. With the commencement of his limited administration in 1774, the Boston port bill took effect. The consequences that followed are familiar to the reader. Governor Gage embraced the first opportunity to pay a marked attention to John Adams. His name was placed on the council list at the first session of the legislature, after his excellency assumed the helm of government, who at once placed his indignant cross upon it. He also removed the assembly to Salem. The members proceeded to the preliminary business of the session, and among other things requested the governor to fix a day for general humiliation and prayer, which he peremptorily refused to do. Here again tender chords were touched. The people _en masse_ venerated religion, and an insult upon that or an interruption of its usual and ancient usages, was like adding pitch to a fire already vivid and flaming. The house then proceeded to consider the project of a general Congress, and in spite of an attempt by the governor to dissolve it, the door was locked against his secretary, patriotic resolutions were passed, and five delegates appointed to meet a national convention, one of which was John Adams. So bold had been his course that some of his warmest friends and most ardent admirers advised him to decline his appointment, as the adherents of the crown had already hinted that he evidently aimed at establishing an independent government, which they considered endangered the peace of the country and his life, as the British could and would enforce every measure they chose to adopt. But John Adams had weighed well the subject of rights and wrongs and took his stand within the citadel of MORAL COURAGE, against which the gates of hell can never prevail. He had resolved to nobly perish in defending the liberty of his country, or plant the standard of freedom on the ruins of tyranny.

At the appointed time he repaired to the city of Philadelphia and took his seat in that assemblage of sages whose wisdom has been sung by the ablest poets, applauded by the most eloquent orators, and admired by the most sagacious statesmen of the two hemispheres. On reading the proceedings of the American Congress of 1774, Lord Chatham remarked, “that he had studied and admired the free states of antiquity, the master spirits of the world—but that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity and wisdom of conclusion, no body of men could stand in preference to this congress.”

Mr. Adams, for whom his friends felt so much anxiety for fear his ardour might lead him to rashness, was as calm as a summer morning, but firm as the granite shores of his birth place. With all his ardent zeal he was discreet, prudent and politic. He was the last man to violate constitutional law, and the last man to submit to its violation. He kept his helm hard up and ran close to the wind, but understood well when to luff and when to take the larboard tack, and when to take in sail. His soundings were deep and his calculations relative to future storms were truly prophetic. He was one of the few that believed the ministry would induce the king and parliament of the mother country to remain incorrigible, and that petitions would be vain, addresses futile, and remonstrances unavailing. That this Congress adopted the proper course to pursue, he was fully aware—that dignity might grace the cause of the people and justice be honoured. The following extract from a letter written by him at a subsequent period, shows his, and the conclusions of others at that time.

“When Congress had finished their business as they thought, in the autumn of 1774, I had with Mr. Henry before we took leave of each other some familiar conversation, in which I expressed a full conviction that our resolves, declarations of rights, enumeration of wrongs, petitions, remonstrances, addresses, associations and non-importation agreements, however they might be accepted in America and however necessary to cement the union of the colonies, would be waste water in England. Mr. Henry said, they might make some impression among the _people_ of England, but agreed with me that they would be totally lost upon the _government_. I had just received a short and hasty letter, written to me by Major Joseph Hawley of Northampton, containing ‘a few broken hints,’ as he called them, of what he thought was proper to be done, and concluding with these words, ‘_after all we must fight_.’ This letter I read to Mr. Henry, who listened with great attention, and as soon as I had pronounced the words:—‘_after all we must fight_’—he raised his hand and with an energy and vehemence that I can never forget, broke out with—‘by G—d I am of that man’s mind.’ * * * * *

The other delegates from Virginia returned to their state in full confidence that all our grievances would be redressed. The last words that Mr. Richard Henry Lee said to me when we parted, were ‘we shall infallibly carry all our points. You will be completely relieved—all the offensive acts will be repealed, the army and fleet will be recalled and Britain will give up her foolish project.’ Washington only was in doubt. He never spoke in public. In private he joined with those who advocated a non-exportation, as well as a non-importation agreement. With _both_ he thought we should prevail—with either he thought it doubtful. Henry was clear in one opinion, Richard Henry Lee in an opposite opinion, and Washington doubted between the two.”

Here is exhibited a striking picture of the minds of these four great men, which appears to have escaped the notice of the several writers that I have consulted. Adams and Henry, drawing their conclusions from the past, the present and the future, diving into the depths of human nature and grasping, at one bold view, all the multiform circumstances that hung over the two nations, concluded truly, “_after all we must fight_.” They concluded that the confidence inspired in the ministers by the overwhelming physical force of Great Britain, would prevent them from relaxing the cords of oppression, and that the independent spirit of the hardy sons of Columbia would not be subdued without a struggle. Lee, naturally bouyant, his own mind readily impressed by reason and eloquence, did not reflect that inflated power, when deluded by obstinacy and avarice, is callous to all the refined feelings of the heart, is deaf to wisdom and blind to justice. He was as determined to maintain chartered rights as them, but did not scan human nature as closely. Washington, deep in reflection and investigation, his soul overflowing with the milk of human kindness, did not arrive as rapidly at conclusions. In weighing the causes of difference between the two countries, reason, justice and hope on the one side, power, corruption, and avarice on the other, held his mind, for a time, in equilibrio. He plainly perceived and pursued the right, and fondly but faintly hoped that England would see and pursue it too. He was as prompt to defend liberty as either of the others.

On his return, Mr. Adams was congratulated by his anxious friends upon the prudent course he had pursued, and was re-elected a member of the ensuing Congress. During the interim his pen was again usefully employed. Mr. Sewall, the king’s attorney-general, had written a series of elaborate and ingenious essays, maintaining the supremacy of parliament and censuring, in no measured terms, the proceedings of the whigs. Under the name of “Novanglus,” Mr. Adams stripped the gay ornaments and gaudy apparel from the high-varnished picture that Mr. Sewall had presented to the public, and when he had finished his work, a mere skeleton of visible deformity was left to gaze upon.

The attorney-general was made to tremble before the keen cuts of the falchion quill of this devoted patriot. So deep was his reasoning, so learned were his expositions, and so lucid and conclusive were his demonstrations, that his antagonist exclaimed, as he retired hissing from the conflict, “he strives to hide his inconsistencies under a huge pile of learning.” The pile proved too huge for royal power, and was sufficiently large to supply the people with an abundance of light. The supremacy of parliament was an unfortunate issue for ministers. It left the sages of liberty in a position to hurl their arrows freely at _them_, without denying the allegiance of the colonists to the _king_. The British cabinet worked out its own destruction, if not with fear and trembling, it was with blindness and disgrace—a disgrace arising from the grossest impolicy and injustice, if not to say ignorance and infatuation. They were entirely mistaken in the people of America—they awoke the wrong passengers.