he doubtless inculcated his latinity upon his pupils with the best of motives, though in the worst of manners.

a man of his turn with the politics and population of the town. It was this ward politics, as we would call it nowAt fourteen, the young Adams passed a-days, which gave Adams his knowfrom the hands of this incorrigible cor- ledge and influence at the opening of rector to alma mater at Cambridge. He the Revolution. Some might be led stood well there, and was so favora- afterwards to call him a demagogue, or bly thought of, that when his educa- Samuel the Publican, as they did, but tion was suspended by the failure of he was in a far better school than his his father's business, the college, dis- adversaries for learning the real wishes pensing with his attendance, conferred of the people. Some resemblance may upon him, at the end of the four years, perhaps be seen between this portion the usual diploma. On taking his of his career and the matured schooling master of arts degree three years later, of Patrick Henry, when he also was he maintained as his thesis "the law- unsuccessful in business, and learnt to fulness of resisting the supreme power study men. He does not seem to have of the State, if the commonwealth can- been the best of tax-gatherers; politics not otherwise be preserved." The and pecuniary fidelity or punctuality natural bent of his mind at this time not always running well together. His seems to have been to theology, in business was agitation. As the Revowhich he strongly adhered to the inde- lution approaches, such men are in pendent church government of the Con- request. His cousin, John Adams, gregationalists. He was never diverted takes early note of him in 1763, as one from these early religious principles, of a motley assembly-rulis indigesthough his path of life lay in a different | taque moles he calls it in a trite quodirection from the pulpit. His father's tation from Ovid-the Caucus Club, failure in business was consequent upon the breaking up of a banking scheme of the times, contrived to meet the wants of traders, in which he had encountered responsibility as a stock holder. The bank was put down by Governor Belcher and an act of Parliament, and great was the wrath of the merchants of New England. Adams, who had the wreck of his father's business to manage, was thus early led into opposition to the Government. The business, such as it was, did not succeed, and we next hear of him as city tax-gatherer; a peripatetic vocation well calculated to familiarize

meeting in the garret of Tom Dawes, adjutant of the Boston regiment. "He has a large house, and he has a moveable partition in his garret which he takes down, and the whole club meets in one room. There they smoke tobacco till you cannot see from one end of the garret to the other. There they drink flip, I suppose, and there they choose a moderator, who puts questions to the vote regularly; and select-men, assessors, collectors, wardens, fire-wards and representatives, are regularly chosen before they are chosen in the town."1

1 John Adams' Diary, Life and Works, II. 144.

also an affable and persuasive address, which could reconcile conflicting interests and promote harmony in action. He never, from jealousy, checked the advancement of others; and in accomplishing great deeds, he took to himself no praise. Seeking fame as little as fortune, and office less than either, he aimed steadily at the good of his country and the best interests of mankind. Of despondency he knew nothing; trials only nerved him for severer struggles; his sublime and unfaltering hope had a cast of solemnity, and was as much a part of his nature as if his confidence sprung from insight into the divine decrees, and was as firm as a sincere Calvinist's assurance of his elec tion. For himself and for others, he held that all sorrows and all losses were to be encountered, rather than that liberty should perish. Such was his deep devotion, such his inflexibility and courage, he may be called the last of the Puritans, and seemed destined to raise for his country 'the victory of endurance born." "1

Adams is, however, not much longer to be kept behind the scenes; public affairs are calling him before the people on the stage. When the first news of the stamp tax reached America, he was foremost in opposition. Let Bancroft, who always exhibits the greatest enthusiasm for his character and services, introduce him at this period, as he rises in the Boston town meeting of May, 1764, to assert the charter rights of the colony: "He was at this time near two and forty years of age; poor, and so contented with poverty, that men censured him as 'wanting wisdom to estimate riches at their just value.' But he was frugal and temperate; and his prudent and industrious wife, endowed with the best qualities of a New England woman, knew how to work with her own hands, so that the small resources, which men of the least opulent class would have deemed a very imperfect support, were sufficient for his simple wants. Yet such was the union of dignity with economy, that whoever visited him saw around him every circumstance of propriety. Above The next year he was chosen, by the all, he combined with poverty a stern people of Boston, a representative to and incorruptible integrity. His nature the General Court or Legislature of was keenly sensitive, yet he bore with Massachusetts, to which he was anmagnanimity the neglect of friends and nually reëlected till 1774, a period the malignity of enemies. Already which covers what we may call the famed as a political writer, employing pupilage of American independence. wit and sarcasm, as well as energy It was the formative era, when the of language and earnestness, no one separate workmen were busy in their had equal influence over the popular several States, learning their daily les mind. No blandishments of flattery son, and preparing the different porcould lull his vigilance, no sophistry tions of the commonwealth to be subdeceive his penetration. Difficulties mitted to the fiery furnace of war, and could not discourage his decision, nor danger appall his fortitude He had

1 Bancroft's History of the United States, V. 195-7.

which had dared to attack him, it bit him unexpectedly a second time; he dropped it, and it made its escape. Now, fellow citizens, what think you was the reflection which this trifling circumstance gave birth to in the mind. of the philosopher? It was this: that there is no animal, however weak and contemptible, which cannot defend its own liberty, if it will only fight for it.'"1

afterwards welded into the strong mass as he awoke, and found that he had of the United States. Of these parcel caught in it a small field-mouse. As laborers, none came up to the great he was examining the little animal convention of 1774, at. Philadelphia, with a better resolution than Samuel Adams. He was the marked man of the British authorities, who saw in him the stirrer up of faction; politic and determined; always at his post to confound skeptics, strengthen the feeble minded, and nerve the resolute. When the government in England, hearing so much of the trouble he gave the administration, inquired of Hutchinson why he did not silence him by a place From these exertions, enforced by or pension, he answered, "Such is the his plain Puritan character, Adams obstinacy and inflexible disposition of came to be called the Patriot Samuel the man, that he never can be concili- Adams, an eminent distinction, conated by any office or gift whatever." sidering that his associates in the BosAn anecdote of the easy, agreeable ton representation at the General Court manner, worthy of Franklin, in which were Otis, Cushing, and Hancock. It he sometimes insinuated his conclu- was a time when patriots kept good sions, is related as happening at a town company. When Samuel Adams went meeting, called at the Old South Meet- to the Congress at Philadelphia, he ing House, upon some fresh aggression upon popular rights. "The different orators of the Whig party had in turn addressed the meeting, loud in complaint and accusation, but guarded and cautious in every point which might look like an approach towards treasonable expressions, or direct exhortations to resistance. Adams had placed himself in the pulpit, and sat quietly listening to all their harangues; at length he rose and made a few brief remarks, which he wound up with the following pithy apologue: A Grecian philosopher who was lying asleep on the grass, was suddenly roused by the bite of some animal on the palm of his hand. He closed his hand suddenly

was accompanied by Cushing, his relative John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine. The talking, of which it must be admitted Adams had done his share, was now to be succeeded by action. He had kindled at the quartering of troops at the time of the Boston massacre, and assisted at their removal; he was now to rejoice at Lexington. He was present with the townspeople on the morning of that memorable nineteenth of April, though, wisely retiring with his friend Hancock, he did not share the full perils of the day. "It is a fine day," said he, walking in the

'Biography of Samuel Adams. March, 1814.

"Analectic Magazine,"

field after the day dawned.

1

"Very said "that he was no bigot, and could

pleasant," answered one of his compan- hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety ions, supposing him to be contemplat- and virtue who was, at the same time, ing the beauties of the sky. "I mean," a friend to his country. He was a he replied, "this day is a glorious day stranger in Philadelphia, but he had for America." When General Gage, heard that Mr. Duché deserved that shortly after, issued his proclamation, character, and therefore he moved that offering pardon to the rebels, he special- Mr. Duché, an Episcopal clergyman, ly excepted Samuel Adams and John might be desired to read prayers to the Hancock. Well does John Adams, Congress to-morrow morning." nearly half a century afterwards, ex- When John Adams nominated Washclaim, looking back to the men of that ington to the command of the army, the day: "Mr. Adams was born and tem- motion, to the chagrin of his associate, pered a wedge of steel to split the knot Hancock, was seconded by Samuel of lignum vitæ which tied North Adams; though he was afterwards susAmerica to Great Britain. Blunder-pected of favoring the intrigue in oppoheaded as were the British ministry, sition to the commander-in-chief. they had sagacity enough to discriminate from all others, for inexorable vengeance, the two men most to be dreaded by them, Samuel Adams and John Hancock; and had not James Otis been then dead, or worse than dead, his name would have been at the head of the triumvirate."

He was present at the time of signing the Declaration of Independence, and put his name to that instrument. At the same time he was placed on the responsible committee to prepare a system of articles of confederation. His course in Congress commanded respect, though to some of the members, as Eliot intimates, he seemed to lack breadth of character for a statesman. "He never appeared to so much advantage in Congress as in Faneuil Hall.”

In 1779, he was a member of the

An act of Samuel Adams in the Continental Congress reminds us of its sequel in the proceeding by Benjamin Franklin in the Convention of the Constitution; and, with other incidents of his career, suggests an occasional Massachusetts Convention at Camresemblance between the two Boston sages. It was proposed by Cushing to open the Assembly with prayer, but every one feared to awaken the hostility of his neighbor by the selection of a minister. Even Jay, who had a sincere love for all sacred things, demurred, when Samuel Adams, the representative of Puritanism, rose, and

1 Eliot's Biog. Dict., art. Adams.

bridge for the formation of a State Constitution, and when the new government went into operation, sat in the Legislature as President of the Senate. He had the opportunity of lending a vigorous support to the administration in the affair of Shay's rebellion. When the new Constitution was before the country, he was a member of the State Ratification Convention, where he was considered a leader of the opposition,

but gave in his adhesion with the small For fifty years his pen, his tongue, his majority, on the introduction, by Han- activity, were constantly exerted for cock, of the amendments or Conciliatory his country without fee or reward." Resolutions, as they were called: The Let such be the epitaph, penned by one general current of his politics, however, entitled to write it, of the patriot, threw him among the Anti-Federalists Samuel Adams. of his day, at odds with Washington and his cabinet, leaning to Jefferson, suspicious of the Constitution, and favoring French liberty.

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