ing most of the remarkable state-papers of that period of fierce agitation. In the controversies first with Gov. Bernard, then with his successor, Hutchinson, Samuel Adams was always foremost. On the passage of the Townshend acts in 1767, Adams wrote the petition of the Massachusetts legislature to the king, the letter of instructions to their agent in England, and the circular letter addressed to the other colonies, inviting their aid in the defence of the common rights of Americans. The king was especially enraged by this circular letter, and Gov. Bernard was directed to order the legislature to rescind it under penalty of instant dissolution. After several days' discussion the legislature, by a vote of 92 to 17, refused to rescind. This obstinacy had much to do with the decision of the British government to send troops to Boston in the hope of overawing the people of that town. On the morning after the famous “massacre” of 5 March, 1770, Mr. Adams was appointed chairman of a committee to communicate the votes of the town-meeting to the governor and council. More than 5,000 persons were present at the town-meeting, which was held in the old South meeting-house, and all the neighboring streets were crowded. Lieut.-Gov. Hutchinson, with the council, and Col. Dalrymple, commander of the two regiments, sat in the old state-house at the head of King street. When Adams presented the demand of the town-meeting that the soldiers should be removed to the castle in the harbor, Hutchinson at first disclaimed any authority in the matter; but Adams reminded him that as acting governor of Massachusetts he was commander-in-chief of all troops within the province. Hutchinson consulted a while with Dalrymple, and at length replied that the colonel was willing to remove one of the regiments in order to appease the indignation of the people. The committee, led by Adams, returned to the church with this message, and as they proceeded through the crowded street, Adams, bowing to right and left, passed along the watchword, “Both regiments or none!” When the question was put to vote in the church, 5,000 voices shouted, “Both regiments or none!” Armed with this ultimatum, Adams returned to the state-house and warned Hutchinson that if he failed to remove both regiments before nightfall he did so at his peril. Hutchinson was as brave and as obstinate as Adams, but two regiments were powerless in presence of the angry crowd that filled Boston, and before sunset they were removed to the castle. These troops were ever afterward known in parliament as the “Sam Adams regiments.”
In 1772 the government ventured upon a step that went further than anything that had yet been done toward driving Massachusetts into rebellion. It was ordered that the judges, holding their offices at the king's pleasure, should henceforth be paid by the crown and not by the colony. This act, which aimed directly at the independence of the judiciary, aroused intense indignation. The judges were threatened with impeachment if they should dare to accept a penny from the crown. Mr. Adams now had recourse to a measure that organized the American revolution. The people of Boston, in town-meeting, asked Hutchinson to convene the legislature to decide what should be done about the judges' salaries. On his refusal, Adams proposed that the towns of Massachusetts should appoint “committees of correspondence” to consult with each other about the common welfare. Such a step was strictly legal, but it virtually created a revolutionary legislative body, which the governor could neither negative, dissolve, nor prorogue. Within a few months eighty towns had chosen their com- mittees of correspondence, and the system was in full operation. Hutchinson at first scoffed at it. for he did not see to what it was leading. The next spring Dabney Carr, of Virginia, moved that intercolonial committees of correspondence should be formed, and this was soon done. But one more step was needed. It was only necessary that the intercolonial committees should assemble in one place, and there would be a continental congress speaking in the name of the united colonies, and, if need be, superseding the royal governments. By such stages was formed the revolutionary government that declared the independence of the United States and administered the affairs of the new nation until 1789. It was Samuel Adams who took the first step toward its construction, though the idea had been first suggested in 1765 by the great preacher Jonathan Mayhew. In order to provoke the colonies to assemble in a continental congress, it was only necessary that the British government should take the aggressive upon some issue in which all the colonies were equally interested. The sending of the tea-ships in 1773 was such an act of aggression, and forced the issue upon the colonists. The management of this delicate and difficult affair, down to the day when Massachusetts virtually declared war by throwing the tea into the harbor, was entirely in the hands of the committees of correspondence of Boston and five neighboring towns, with the expressed consent of the other Massachusetts committees and the general approval of the country. In this bold act of defiance Samuel Adams was from first to last the leading spirit. He had been the first of American statesmen to come to the conclusion that independence was the only remedy for the troubles of the time; and since 1768 he had acted upon this conviction without publicly avowing it. The “Boston tea-party” made war inevitable. In April, 1774, parliament retorted with the acts for closing the port of Boston and annulling the charter of Massachusetts. This alarmed all the colonies, and led to the first meeting of the continental congress. In this matter the other colonies invited Massachusetts to take the lead, and the work was managed by Mr. Adams with his accustomed shrewdness and daring. When the legislature met at Salem, 17 June, 1774, in conformity to the new acts of parliament, he locked the door, put the key into his pocket, and carried through the measures for assembling a congress at Philadelphia in September. A tory member, feigning sudden illness, was allowed to go out, and ran straight to the governor with the news. The governor lost no time in drawing up the writ dissolving the legislature, but when his clerk reached the hall he found the door locked and could not serve the writ. When the business was accomplished the legislature adjourned sine die. It was the last Massachusetts legislature assembled in obedience to the sovereign authority of Great Britain. The acts of April were henceforth entirely disregarded in Massachusetts.
Samuel Adams and his cousin John were delegates to the first continental congress. They knew that Massachusetts was somewhat dreaded and distrusted by the other colonies, especially by Pennsylvania and New York, on account of her forwardness in opposing the British government. While there was genuine sympathy with her situation, there was at the same time great reluctance to bringing on a war. The rigid puritanism of Massachusetts was also held in disrepute. Samuel Adams felt it necessary to be conciliatory, and it was easy for him to be so, for he was large-minded and full of tact. A motion to open the proceedings
