Founding Fathers: Complete Biographies, Their Articles, Historical & Political Documents. Emory Speer
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The question in the last resort was — whether the town of Boston should become a scene of carnage and desolation or not. Humanity to the soldiers conspired with a regard for the safety of the town, in suggesting the measure in calling the town together to deliberate, for nothing but the most solemn promises to the people, that the soldiers should, at all hazards, be driven from the town, had preserved its peace. Not only the immense assemblies of the people from day to day, but military arrangements from night to night were necessary to keep the people and the soldiers from getting together by the ears. The life of a red coat would not have been safe in any street or corner of the town; nor would the lives of the inhabitants been much more secure. The whole militia of the city was in requisition, and military watches and guards were every where placed. We were all upon a level; no man was exempted; our military officers were our only superiors. I had the honour to be summoned in my turn and attended at the State-house with my musket and bayonet, my broad sword and cartridge box, under the command of the famous Paddock. I know you will laugh at my military figure; but I believe there was not a more obedient soldier in the regiment, nor one more impartial between the people and the regulars. In this character I was upon duty all night in my turn. No man appeared more anxious or more deeply impressed with a sense of danger on all sides than our commander Paddock. He called me, common soldier as I was, frequently to his councils. I had a great deal of conversation with him, and no man appeared more apprehensive of a fatal calamity to the town, or more zealous by every prudent measure to prevent it.”1
Order was finally restored and the civil authorities again assumed their functions. Captain Preston was arrested and brought before the court, charged with giving the order to the regulars to fire upon the citizens; and also the soldiers who committed the outrage. As is uniformly the case, each party was charged with blame by the respective friends of the other. Some inconsiderate citizens had thrown snowballs at the king’s troops, who returned the change in blue pills. The former were imprudent, the latter were revengeful.
Mr. Adams was employed by the accused to defend them. Some of his friends were fearful that it might injure his popularity with the people, whose excitement was still very great. But so ingeniously and eloquently did he manage the case, that Captain Preston and all the soldiers but two were acquitted, and those two were only convicted of manslaughter, and Mr. Adams stood approved and applauded by the citizens, having performed his professional duty to his clients, and at the same time vindicated the rights of the people; the result of being guided entirely by the polar star of moral courage.
The same year he was elected to the legislative body, then called the “General Court,” and was a bold opposer of the arbitrary measures of Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson, who undisguisedly followed the directions of the ministry in violation of the charter of the colony, in all things that were necessary to carry out the plans of the British cabinet, pleading his instructions as an excuse.
Mr. Adams was one of the committee that prepared an address to him, the style of which induces me to think it was penned by him. From the following extract the reader may judge. After vividly portraying the violations of right complained of, the address concludes, “These and other grievances and cruelties, too many to be here enumerated, and too melancholy to be much longer borne by this injured people, we have seen brought upon us by the devices of ministers of state. And we have, of late, seen and heard of instructions to governors which threaten to destroy all the remaining privileges of our charter. Should these struggles of the house prove unfortunate and ineffectual, this province will submit, with pious resignation, to the will of Providence; but it would be a kind of suicide, of which we have the utmost abhorrence, to be instrumental in our own servitude.” A blind obstinacy on the part of the ministers increased the opposition of the people and operated upon them with all the power of centrifugal force, inducing them to refuse obedience to the king’s officers. Alarmed at the boldness of the people of Boston, Governor Barnard had ordered the general court to convene at Cambridge. This was contrary to the charter which fixed its place of meeting at the former place. The members convened but refused to proceed to business unless they were permitted to adjourn to the proper place, to which Lieutenant-governor Hutchinson, who had succeeded Governor Barnard, refused his assent. A war of words and paper ensued, in which the patriots were uniformly victorious. Mr. Adams was a leader of the sharp-shooters and made great havoc among the officers of the crown. They induced the senior member of their council, Mr. Brattle, to enter the field against him with pen in hand. The conflict was short, Mr. Adams put him hors de combat, and showed the people the fallacy of every pretext set up by the hirelings of the ministry. In 1771, Mr. Hutchinson was appointed governor, and the next year consented to the return of the legislative body to Boston as a balm for the wounds he had inflicted. But in this he gained no popularity — it was deemed an involuntary act forced upon him by the popular will, or a mere stratagem to quiet the public mind. There were other sources of complaint. The troops in the castle, that were under the pay and control of the province, had been dismissed and their place supplied by fresh regulars from the mother country: the governor and judges received their salaries from England instead of from the colony, as had always been the usage, thus aiming to render the military, executive and judiciary independent of the people whom they governed, which operated as a talisman to destroy all confidence and affection for these officers on the part of the citizens. The tax on tea was another source of grief that touched more tender chords. Woe unto the ruler that rouses the indignation of the better part of creation. He had better tempt the fury of Mars, or try his speed with Atalanta. Tea soon became forbidden fruit, and several vessel loads were sacrificed to Neptune as an oblation for the sins of ministers and an oblectation for the fishes of Boston harbour. Royal authority increased in insolence, and the patriots increased in boldness. At the commencement of the session of the general court in 1773, Governor Hutchinson sustained the odious doctrine of supremacy of the parliament in his message, which was promptly replied to and denied by the members of that body. A reply was as promptly returned by his excellency, which was prepared with more than usual ability. Mr. Adams, although not a member at that time, was employed to write a rejoinder, which was adopted without any amendment. It paralyzed the pen and closed the mouth of the governor. It was an exposition of British wrongs and American rights so clearly exhibited, that no sophistry could impugn it or logic confront it. So highly was it appreciated by Dr. Franklin, that he had it republished in England and freely circulated. It was a luminary to the patriots and confusion to their opponents.
Shortly after, Mr. Adams was elected to the general court and placed on the list of committees. So vindictive was governor Hutchinson, that he erased his name — an act that recoiled upon himself with redoubled force and aided to hasten the termination of his power in the colony. In less than a year from that time he was succeeded by governor Gage, who was still better calculated to hasten on the revolutionary crisis — because more authoritative and ministerial than his predecessor. With the commencement of his limited administration in 1774, the Boston port bill took effect. The consequences that followed are familiar to the reader. Governor Gage embraced the first opportunity to pay a marked attention to John Adams. His name was placed on the council list at the first session of the legislature, after his excellency assumed the helm of government, who at once placed his indignant cross upon it. He also removed the assembly to Salem. The members proceeded to the preliminary business of the session, and among other things requested the governor to fix a day for general humiliation and prayer, which he peremptorily refused to do. Here again tender chords were touched. The people en masse venerated religion, and an insult upon that or an interruption of its usual and ancient usages, was like adding pitch to a fire already vivid and flaming. The house then proceeded to consider the project of a general Congress, and in spite of an attempt by the governor to dissolve it, the door was locked against his secretary, patriotic resolutions were passed, and five delegates appointed to meet a national convention, one of which was John Adams. So bold had been his course that some of his warmest friends and most ardent admirers advised him to decline his appointment, as the adherents of the crown had already hinted that he evidently aimed at establishing an independent government, which they considered endangered the peace of the country and his life, as the British could and would enforce every measure they chose to adopt. But John Adams had weighed well the subject of rights and wrongs and took his stand within the citadel of MORAL COURAGE, against which the gates of hell can never prevail. He