Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/43

ADAMS.ADAMS. all the dormant faculties of Mr. Adams's mind, and from that time he was prominent in all the measures taken to protect the colony from the exactions of the mother country. Fearless in the expression of his honest convictions he wrote at this time: "Be it remembered, liberty must at all hazards be defended; ... we have an indisputable right to demand our privileges against all the power and authority on earth." To Mr. Jonathan Sewall, a friend of his youth who had espoused the Royalist cause, and who urged upon Mr. Adams the hopelessness of entering into a contest with so irresistible a foe as England, he said: "I know that Great Britain is determined on her system; and that very determination determines me on mine. You know I have been constant and uniform in opposition to all her measures. The die is now cast, I have passed the Rubicon; sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, with my country, is my unalterable determination."

At a town meeting held immediately after the announcement of the passage of the Stamp Act he presented a series of resolutions in regard to the measure, which was intended for the instruction of the representatives to the assembly. The resolutions were unanimously adopted, and being published in Draper's paper were adopted by forty other towns in the province for the instruction of their respective representatives. It was at this time that he wrote a number of articles for the Boston Gazette under the title, "An Essay on Canon and Feudal Laws." His aim in writing the papers was not to elucidate the principles of either canon or feudal law, but to hold them up as objects of abhorrence, that Americans might see the conspiracy between church and state for the oppression of the people. He wished to inculcate genuine principles of freedom; to call attention to the truth that the only legitimate foundation for a government is the will and happiness of the people; and to arouse Americans to the assertion and defence of their rights. These papers were re-printed in London under the title: "A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law," and were generally attributed to Mr. Jeremy Gridley, then attorney-general of the province.

In December, 1765, Mr. Adams appeared with Otis and Gridley before the governor and council, to ask for the re-opening of the courts, contending that the Stamp Act was illegal, the colonies having no representative in Parliament. "The Freeman," he said, "pays no tax, as the freeman submits to no law but such as emanates from the body in which he is represented."

In 1768 he moved to Boston, occupying what was known as the "White House" in Brattle Square. Governor Bernard offered him the office of advocate-general, but although ambitious and needing the emoluments of the office, he declined, lest he should hamper his own freedom of action. He would not even accept the appointment of justice of the peace. At the time of the "Boston Massacre" in 1770, notwithstanding his sympathies with the people, he defended Captain Preston and the soldiers under his command. This straightforward manliness did him no harm, and in the same year he was elected to the General Court. His defence of Captain Preston and all the attendant circumstances have been held to be the first critical period of his life. His election to the House of Representatives committed him to a more public adherence to the cause of the people. From this time he was active in all political measures, though he recognized the precarious condition of matters affecting private and public life, and felt that he was surrendering ease and safety. He said: "I consider the step a devotion of my family to ruin and of myself to death. I had devoted myself to endless labor and anxiety, if not to infamy and death, and that for nothing except, what indeed was and ought to be all in all, a sense of duty." When his wife was told his decision, and what peril it might involve, the brave, true-hearted, patriotic woman exclaimed, though with eyes streaming with tears, "You have done as you ought, and I am willing to share in all that is to come, and to place my trust in Providence."

In 1773 Mr. Adams came into direct conflict with Governor Hutchinson. The latter had been foiled in his attempts to tax the colonies without their consent, and this largely through the influence of Mr. Adams, who had drafted a paper on the whole matter and defended it. Hutchinson's letters to the British government had been mysteriously obtained and sent to Boston by Franklin. These letters implicated Hutchinson and Lieutenant-Governor Oliver, in a conspiracy against the liberties of the colonies. John Adams, who had been elected a member of the General Court on May 25 of that year, was present when the letters were read and commented upon. He was influential in carrying the vote to publish them, and in inspiring the address to the king asking for the removal of Hutchinson and Oliver. Mr. Adams is known as the "Father of the American Navy." His earliest efforts in behalf of this important arm of the public service were directed to fitting out vessels of war to protect the seaport towns of New England against English depredations early in the war for independence. Afterwards, when a delegate in Congress, he secured appropriations for the aid of the navy, and as President, on the outbreak of trouble with France, he organized the navy department to take the place of the former board of admiralty. Six frigates, eighteen sloops of war, and ten galleys