income, but enabled him also to exercise a certain influence over the course of proceedings. The Massachusetts house of representatives consisted at this time of upward of a hundred members, the most numerous assembly in the colonies. Its debates had begun to attract attention, and a gallery was now first erected for spectators. Besides taking a leading part in the debates, it devolved upon Adams to draw the larger part of the papers put forth by the house in its controversies with Bernard and Hutchinson an office for which his fluent and eloquent pen, and the mixture in his character of caution with fire, courage, and decision, admirably fitted him. The following account of Samuel Adams, sketched from the life at the period of his entering the house, is found in the diary of John Adams, under date of Dec. 23, 1765: "Adams is zealous, ardent, and keen in the cause; is always for softness, delicacy, and prudence when they will do, but is stanch and strict and strict and rigid and inflexible in the cause." A previous paragraph had sketched Gray, who afterward joined the tory party, and Thomas Gushing. After a sketch of James Otis, the diary adds: "Adams, I believe, has the most thorough understanding of liberty and her resources in the temper and character of the people, though not in the law and constitution, as well as the most habitual radical love of it, of any of them; also the most correct, genteel, and artful pen. He is a man of refined policy, steadfast integrity, exquisite humanity, fair erudition, and obliging, engaging manners, real as well as professed piety, and a universal good character, unless it should be admitted that he is too attentive to the public and not enough so to himself and his family." Governor Hutchinson—a no less competent ob- server, but who looked at Adams from an en- tirely opposite point of view—gives in the 3d volume of his "History of Massachusetts" substantially the same account. He sets down Samuel Adams as the most artful and insinuating politician he had ever known, and the most successful "in robbing men of their characters and calumniating the servants of the crown." He accuses Mr. Adams of "defalcation" as collector of taxes, the only foundation for the charge being that in a period of general commercial distress he had failed to collect the full amounts levied upon the citizens; and Hutchinson adds, by way of comment, "The benefit to the town from his defence of their liberties he supposed an equivalent to his arrears as their collector." While Adams thus devoted himself to politics, it was chiefly the industry and economy of his wife that supported the family. He had married in 1749 Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Samuel Checkley of Boston. She died in 1757, and in 1764 he married Elizabeth Wells, daughter of an English merchant who had settled in Boston in 1723. Though poor, Adams was incorruptible. It had been proposed to silence him by the gift of some place under government; but Hutchinson in a letter to England declared that such was his "obstinacy and inflexible disposition," that no gift nor office would ever conciliate him. The passage of Townsend's act in 1767, and other acts of parliament which evinced a determination to raise a parliamentary revenue in America by taxes on trade, brought the colonists in a body to the ground that taxes on trade, if designed to raise a revenue, were just as much a violation of their rights as any other tax. Adams took a leading part in urging these views, and the petition of the Massachusetts general court to the king agreed to on this occasion, their letter of instruction to their agent in England, and a circular letter addressed to the speakers of the popular branch of the several colonial assemblies, inviting consultation and mutual cooperation for the defence of colonial rights, were all from his pen. Hutchinson states that as early as 1769, some objections, having been made to a motion pending in a Boston town meeting that it savored of independence, Adams wound up a speech in defence of it with this bold declaration: "Independent we are, and independent we will be." Upon the occasion of the so-called Boston massacre in March, 1770, Samuel Adams was appointed chairman of a committee to wait upon the governor and council with the vote of a town meeting, to the effect that nothing could restore order and prevent blood and carnage but the immediate removal of the regular troops, who, instead of encamping, as had formerly been usual, on the fortified island in the harbor, known as Castle island, had for the last 18 months, to the great annoyance of the inhabitants, been stationed in the town. Adams entered the council chamber at the head of the committee and delivered his message. Col. Dalrymple, the commander of the troops, was present, as was the commander of the ships of war in the harbor. In reply to the vote of the town presented by the committee, Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson disclaimed any authority over the soldiers; to which Adams replied by referring him to that clause in the provincial charter which declared the governor, or in his absence the lieutenant governor, commander-in-chief of all the military and naval forces in the province. After a consultation with Dalrymple, Hutchinson replied that the colonel was willing to remove one of the regiments if that would satisfy the people. "Sir," said Adams, "if the lieutenant governor, or Col. Dalrymplo, or both together, have authority to remove one regiment, they have authority to remove two ; and nothing short of the departure of the troops will satisfy the public mind or restore the peace of the province." The energy of Adams prevailed, and both regiments were sent to the castle. The destruction of the tea attempted to be forced on the colonies, the passage of the Boston port bill and of the bill modifying the Massachusetts charter, and the appointment of Gen. Gage
