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 JOHN ADAMS 85 had longings for distinction. Nothing but want of interest and patronage prevented him from enlisting in the army. Could he have obtained a troop of horse, or a company of foot, he would, so one of his published letters declares, infallibly have been a soldier. After two years' study at Worcester he returned to his father's house in Braintree, and in 1758 commenced life in Suffolk county, of which Boston was the shire town. He gradually in- troduced himself into practice, and in 1764 married Abigail Smith, a daughter of the min- ister of the neighboring town of Weymouth, and whose connections occupied a social posi- tion superior to that of Mr. Adams's own fam- ily. What was still more to the purpose, she was a lady of superior abilities and good sense, and admirably adapted to make him happy. Very shortly after his marriage, the attempt at parliamentary taxation diverted him from law to politics. He promoted the call of a town meeting in Braintree, to instruct the representatives of the town on the subject of the stamp act ; and the resolutions which he presented at this meeting were not only voted by the town, but attracted great attention throughout the province, and were adopted word for word by more than forty different towns. Yet Adams, as appears by his pub- lished diary, was somewhat alarmed at the violence of the mob in destroying the furniture of Oliver, the stamp distributor, and of Gov- ernor Hutchinson, and not a little vexed, as well as alarmed, at the interruption to his own business caused by the refusal of the judges to go on without stamps. He was somewhat con- soled, however, by an unexpected appoint- ment on the part of the town of Boston to be one of their counsel along with Jeremiah Grid- ley, the king's attorney and head of the bar, and James Otis, the celebrated orator, to sup- port a memorial addressed to the governor and council that the courts might proceed with business, though no stamps were to be had. It fell to Adams, as junior counsel, to open the case for the petitioners, and he bold- ly took the ground in which his two seniors, the one from his position, the other from his committals in his recently published book on the "Rights of the Colonies," were prevented from following him that the stamp act was absolutely void, parliament having no right to tax the colonies. Nothing, however, came of this application ; the governor and council de- clined to act, on the ground that it belonged to the judges, not to them, to decide. The repeal of the stamp act soon put an end to the suspension of business, which indeed had only extended to the superior court, the inferior courts going on without stamps. It was on this same occasion that Mr. Adams first made his appearance as a writer in the " Boston Ga- zette." Among other papers of his was a se- ries of four articles, which were republished in a London newspaper, and subsequently in a collection of documents relating to the taxa- tion controversy, printed together in a vol- ume. The papers as originally published had no title; in the printed volume they were called an "Essay on the Canon and Feudal Law." They began indeed with some refer- ence to these subjects, but might with much more propriety have been entitled an "Essay on the Government and Rights of New Eng- land." Mr. Adams's style was formed, as is evident from these pieces, from the moment he began to write. They may be found in his collected works, edited by his grandson^ Mr. Adams's law business continued gradually to increase, and in 1768 he removed to Boston. In that and the next year he was one of the committee to draft instructions to the repre- sentatives of the town a duty which the com- mittee intrusted to him, though he refused to attend and speak at town meetings. In 1770 he was chosen a representative to the general court, notwithstanding he had just before ac- cepted a retainer to defend Captain Preston and his soldiers for their share in what was known as the " Boston Massacre" a defence conducted with success, in spite of the strong prejudices which it had to encounter. Adams's duties as representative interfered greatly with his business as a lawyer, on which he depended for support, and which by this time had grown to be greater than that of any other lawyer in the province. But he entered with his cus- tomary energy upon his new office, becoming the chief legal adviser of the patriot party, and now for the first time an active and conspicu- ous leader among them. Partly perhaps to escape this leadership, and the loss of tune, the labor, and responsibilities which it imposed, as well as to regain his health, which began to suffer, Mr. Adams removed his residence back to Braintree, resigning his seat in the legisla- ture, but still retaining his law office in Boston. A comparative lull in politics for two or three years made his presence in the legislature less indispensable, but still as to all the most im- portant matters of controversy with Governor Hutchinson he was consulted and gave his aid. Indeed, it was not long before he again moved back to Boston, though still resolving to avoid politics and to devote himself to his profession. He wrote soon after a series of letters in a newspaper (republished in his collected works, vol. iii.) on the then mooted question of the independence of the judiciary, and the payment by the crown of the salaries of the judges. Soon afterward he was elected by the general court to the provincial council, but was nega- tived by Governor Hutchinson. The destruc- tion of the tea and the Boston port bill, that followed, soon brought matters to a crisis. These events produced the congress of 1774. Mr. Adams was chosen one of the five dele- gates from Massachusetts, and his visit to Phil- adelphia on this business was the first occasion of his going beyond the limits of New England. In the discussions in the committee on the dec- laration of colonial rights, he took an active part