Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/129

 SAMUEL ADAMS 109 as governor at the head of an army, brought things to a crisis. As Gage entered the har- bor of Boston, May 13, 1774, a, town meeting at which Adams presided was in session, as- sembled to take the port bill into considera- tion, news of which had just arrived. At the June meeting of the general court a continen- tal congress was proposed to assemble at Phila- delphia, to which the representatives appointed five delegates, of whom Adams was one ; and Gage having thereupon suddenly dissolved the court, the patriots immediately began to organ- ize a distinct government of their own. Trans- ferred thus to Philadelphia, and from the Mas- sachusetts general court to a continental con- gress, Adams began now to act on a broader scene. His first act was one of conciliation. He was himself a strict Oongregationalist, and the recent attempts to extend Episcopacy in America, and the controversy thence arising, had produced a good deal of feeling. A motion by one of the Massachusetts delegates to open the proceedings of the congress with prayer was opposed by Mr. Jay, one of the delegates from New York, on the ground that as there were in that body Episcopalians, Quakers, Ana- baptists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, they would hardly be able to join in the same act of worship. Thereupon " Mr. Samuel Adams arose" so wrote John Adams in a letter to his wife describing the scene "and said he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue who was at the same time a friend to his country i He was a stranger in Philadelphia, but he had heard that Mr. Duch6 deserved that character, and there- fore he moved that Mr. Duche, an Episcopal clergyman, might be desired to read prayers to the congress." The motion passed, and Duche, at that time the most popular preacher in Philadelphia, appeared the next morning and officiated with great unction. He acted as chaplain to congress for several sessions, but when the British occupied Philadelphia he abandoned the cause of his country, and even had the impudence to write Washington a let- ter exhorting him to the like piece of treachery. Adams's motion, however, was very well timed. It not only pleased the Episcopalians, a power- ful body in New York and predominant at the south, but it also secured for the moment Duch6 himself, whpse example was not without its effect upon others. In this congress and those which followed, Adams, who continued a mem- ber for eight years, took an active, decided, and influential part. No one man, perhaps, did so much as he to put the revolution in motion, and to bring about the separation from the mother coufftry, to which, indeed, Gen. Gage bore testimony in excepting him, along with Hancock, from his offer of pardon in case of submission. In administrative talents, how- ever, he was not so conspicuous ; and the line of policy which he supported in congress was rather graduated to accord with the feelings, sentiments, and sometimes the prejudices of the people, than always calculated to meet the actual exigencies of affairs. Together with John Adams he took an .active part in the for- mation of the state constitution of Massachu- setts, adopted in 1780. He was a very influ- ential member of the Massachusetts convention called in 1788, to consider the federal consti- tution; and though opposed to many of its features, he was finally persuaded, along with Hancock, to give it his support, in considera- tion of certain proposed amendments, of which several were afterward adopted. This decision of the question, so far as Massachusetts was concerned, was of the greatest moment, in- volving in it the action of other states, and in fact the fate of the new government. The next year Adams was chosen lieutenant gov- ernor of Massachusetts, which office he held till 1794, when he was chosen governor as Hancock's successor. He was a warm ad- mirer of the French revolution, and in national politics leaned decidedly to the republican or Jeffersonian party. It was this circumstance, no less than his increasing age and infirmities,- that induced him in 1797, the federal party being predominant in Massachusetts, to decline serving longer as governor, and to retire to private life. A highly characteristic portrait by Copley, which hangs appropriately in Fan- euil Hall, has transmitted his features to us. Memorials of his life and service are to be found scattered through the writings of John Adams, who in his old age exerted himself to recall public attention to his colleagues of the revolutionary times. Sullivan, in his "Familiar Letters on Public Characters," de- scribes Samuel Adams as "of common size, muscular form, light blue eyes, fair complexion, and erect in person. He wore a tie wig, cocked hat, and red cloak. His manner was very serious. At the close of his life, and even from early times, he had a tremulous motion of the head, which probably added to the solemnity of his eloquence, as this was in some measure associated with his voice. Having in- herited no fortune, and being without a pro- fession, he was, almost down to the close of his life, without resource except in the salaries and emoluments of office, never large, and only eked out by the industry and economy of his wife. Yet those who visited his house found nothing mean or unbecoming his station, since he knew how to combine decency, dignity, and propriety with a small expenditure. At a lat* period of his life he obtained a competency, but only by a very afflicting event the death of his only son, of the same name with himself, who, having graduated at Harvard college in 1771, had studied medicine with Dr. Joseph Warren (the famous general), had served as a surgeon through the revolutionary war, and re- turning home with a broken constitution, had died in 1788. The avails of his claims for ser- vices in the army gave his father a competency in his declining years. In one respect in- deed in many, but we can here refer only to