congress to be convened at Philadelphia, to consult on the general safety of America. This report was received with surprise and astonishment by the administration party. Such was the apprehension of some, that they were apparently desirous to desert the question. The door keeper seemed uneasy at his charge, and wavering with regard to the performance of the duty assigned to him. At this critical juncture, Mr. Adams relieved him, by taking the key and keeping it himself. The resolutions were passed; five delegates, consisting of Samuel Adams, Thomas Cushing, Robert Treat Paine, John Adams, and James Bowdoin, were appointed; the expense was estimated, and funds were voted for the pay ment. Before the business was finally closed, a member. made a plea of indisposition, and was allowed to leave the house. This person went directly to the governor, and in formed him of their high-handed proceedings. The governor immediately sent his secretary to dissolve the assembly, who found the door locked. He demanded entrance, but was answered, that his desire could not be complied with, until some important business, then before the house, was concluded. Finding every method to gain admission ineffectual, he read the order on the stairs for an immediate dissolution of the assembly. The order, however, was disregarded by the house. They continued their deliberations, passed all their intended measures, and then obeyed the mandate for dissolution.

Mr. Adams took his seat in the first continental congress, at Philadelphia, on the fifth of September, 1774, and continued a member of that body, until the year 1781. To trace him through the various important duties which he performed in that long interval, would be to write the history of congress. Assuming, from his unwearied zeal and firm tone of character, much of the same prominence which he had dis

played at home, he became a mover, or important coadjutor in almost all the business of the time. It is incredible, indeed, if the journals of congress be any guide, how various and how numerous were his services, and with what unabated ardour he continued to bestow them to the last. He reminds us of the indefatigable puritans of early days, and indeed in many traits of character he strongly resembled them, who could devote an attention and length of time to the pursuit of their favourite schemes, which seems beyond probability to the less enthusiastic tempers of the present age.

Leaving, therefore, the details of his congressional life, to memoirs more extensive, we shall present the reader with extracts from some of his letters, during this period, which have been preserved. While they sufficiently record the incidents that occurred, they will develop the character of the man, and give us an insight into his individual feelings, more valuable than the collection of facts, which rather belong to general history.

In writing to his friend Richard Henry Lee, from Boston, on the twenty-first of March, 1775, he thus refers to the conduct of the British troops stationed there, ready for the acts of hostility to which they soon afterwards proceeded. "Though the number of the troops are diminished, the insolence of the officers (at least some of them) is increased. In private rencounters, I have not heard of a single instance of their coming off other than second best. I will give you several instances of their behaviour in public. On the sixth instant, there was an adjournment of one of our town meetings, when an oration was delivered in commemoration of the massacre on the fifth of March, 1770. I had long expected that they would take that occasion to beat up a breeze, and, therefore, (seeing many of the officers present before the orator came in,) as moderator of the meeting, I took

care to have them treated with civility, inviting them into convenient seats, &c. that they might have no pretence to behave ill; for it is a good maxim, in politics as well as in war, to put and keep the enemy in the wrong. They behaved tolerably well until the oratión was finished, when, upon a motion made for the appointment of another orator, as usual, they began to hiss, which irritated the assembly to the greatest degree, and confusion ensued; they, however, did not gain their end, which was apparently to break up the meeting, for order was soon restored, and we proceeded regularly and finished the business. I am persuaded, that, were it not for the danger of precipitating a crisis, not a man of them would have been spared. It was provoking enough to the whole corps, that while there were so many troops stationed here, with the design of suppressing town meetings, there should yet be one for the purpose of delivering an oration to commemorate a massacre perpetrated by soldiers, and to show the danger of standing armies; they, therefore, it seems, a few days after, vented their passion on a poor, simple countryman, the state of whose case is drawn up by himself, and sworn to before a magistrate, as you will see by the enclosed; thus you see, that the practice of tarring and feathering, which has so often been exclaimed against, by the tories, and even in the British house of commons, as inhuman and barbarous, has at length been revived by some of the polite officers of the British army, stationed in this place professedly to prevent riots. Some gentlemen of the town waited on the general on this occasion; he appeared to be angry at it, and declared that he knew nothing about any such design; he said that he, indeed, heard an irregular beat of the drum, (for they passed by his house,) but thought they were drumming a bad woman through the streets! This, to be sure, would not have been a riot. The selectmen of

Billarica, an inland town, about thirty miles distant, to which the abused man belonged, have since made a remonstrance to the general, a copy of which is enclosed. The general promised them that he would inquire into the matter, but we hear nothing more about it. Some say that he has lost the command over his officers, and is afraid of displeasing them; how this may be I cannot say."

Mr. Adams was too sagacious not to perceive to what results, conduct such as this would lead; he was one of those, who saw very early that, "after all, we must fight"—and having come to that conclusion, there was no citizen more prepared for the extremity, or who would have been more reluctant to enter into any kind of compromise. After he had received warning at Lexington, in the night of the eighteenth of April, of the intended British expedition, as he proceeded to make his escape through the fields with some friends, soon after the dawn of day he exclaimed, "this is a fine day!" "Very pleasant, indeed," answered one of his companions, supposing he alluded to the beauty of the sky and atmosphere—“I mean,” he replied, "this day is a glorious day for America!" His situation at that moment was full of peril and uncertainty, but throughout the contest, no damage to himself or his country ever discouraged or depressed him.

Impressed with such feelings, and acting under them, he soon perceived the necessity of breaking off all connexion with the mother country, and determining resolutely to support the principles he had adopted. "I am perfectly satisfied," he says, in a letter written in April, 1776, from Philadelphia to a friend in Massachusetts--"I am perfectly satisfied of the necessity of a public and explicit declaration of independence. I cannot conceive, what good reason can be assigned against it. Will it widen the breach? This

would be a strange question after we have raised armies and fought battles with the British troops;-set up an American navy, permitted the inhabitants of these colonies to fit out armed vessels to capture the ships, &c. belonging to any of the inhabitants of Great Britain; declaring them the enemies of the United Colonies, and torn into shivers their acts of trade, by allowing commerce, subject to regulations to be made by ourselves, with the people of all countries, except such as are subject to the British king. It cannot, surely, after all this, be imagined, that we consider ourselves, or mean to be considered by others, in any other state than that of independence. But moderate whigs are disgusted with our mentioning the word! Sensible tories are better politicians. They know, that no foreign power can consistently yield comfort to rebels, or enter into any kind of treaty with these colonies, till they declare themselves free and independent. They are in hopes, by our protracting this decisive step, we shall grow weary of the war, and that for want of foreign connexions and assistance, we shall be driven to the necessity of acknowledging the tyrant, and submitting to the tyranny. These are the hopes and expectations of the tories, while moderate gentlemen are flattering themselves with the prospect of reconciliation, when the commissioners that are talked of shall arrive. A mere amusement indeed! What terms of reconciliation are we to expect from them that will be acceptable to the people of America? Will the king of Great Britain empower his commissioners even to promise the repeal of all, or any of his obnoxious and oppressive acts? Can he do it? or if he could, has he even yet discovered a disposition which evinced the least degree of that princely virtue-clemency?"

In the year that succeeded the declaration of independence, however, the prospects of the country became exceedingly