Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub
[graphic]

JOHN ADAMS.

To have been one of those who subscribed their names to such a document as the Declaration of Independence, is of itself a rare felicity; to have been a powerful agent in producing the event which that declaration proclaimed and signalized, is a glory still more distinguished; but to have lived besides to see, at the expiration of half a century, the prosperous condition of the nation thus brought into existence, seems a consummation almost beyond the possibility of nature.

[ocr errors]

JOHN ADAMS, to whom this remarkable favour of Providence has been allowed, was engaged, during the greater part of his life, so actively in public affairs, that the incidents of his career are inseparably blended with the history of the colony which claimed him for her son, and of the nation which honoured him as a father. It is impossible, therefore, to view his course of life, except in connexion with those arduous struggles of freedom against oppression, to which he lent a conspicuous energy, and gave up his whole heart and undivided zeal. He was fourth in descent from Henry Adams, who, according to the quaint inscription on his tomb at Quincy, "took his flight from the dragon Persecution in Devonshire, England, and alighted with eight sons near Mount Wollaston ;" and he was also descended from John Alden, one of that pilgrim-band who first landed on Plymouth

Rock, seeking an asylum for religious and civil freedom among the forests of the new world.

This is truly an illustrious ancestry. The memorable enterprise of those true-hearted adventurers requires no effort of artificial rhetoric to recommend it to our admiration. Were it a circumstance in foreign or in ancient history, we should fix on this achievement as one of the noblest deeds in the annals of the world. It gains in the comparison with whatever history or tradition has preserved of the wanderings and settlements of the tribes of man. Here was a wild continent for the first time effectually explored, a stormy ocean navigated in the winter by men, with their families, who relinquished the scenes endeared to them by all the sacred associations of home; the voluntary exiles of liberty and conscience, for whose sake they endured the severest hardships, in order that their posterity might enjoy the most exalted happiness.

The first settlers of New England were a peculiar race of people. They came with charters from the king, for even in removing to another hemisphere, they did not cast off all fondness for their native land, but anxiously sought to retain the tie of connexion which, by the solemn compact of a charter, and the mutual links of allegiance and protection, they hoped to perpetuate. And as their numbers increased, questions of political right arose between them and the government, from the abuse of whose authority they had intended to withdraw themselves. It seemed a desperate undertaking to subdue the forests of that inhospitable climate, repel the incursions of the neighbouring savages, and contend at the same time with the power of Great Britain on points of constitutional privilege. But their minds and bodies gathered strength from the fearful elements around them; the courageous and active character of the fathers descended upon

their children, and with it also were inherited the same invigorating contests.

Violations of their charters, restraints upon their trade, and frequent collisions with the royal governors sent over to bend them to submission, converted the province of Massachusetts into the scene of an obstinate struggle of intellectual force contending for liberty on one side, and upon the other for arbitrary power.

From the severe discipline of this well fought field of argu'ment, there came forth such men as only a controversy like this could have produced; acute, logical and pertinacious, fitted for the sturdy business of life, and peculiarly capable of waging successfully this controversial warfare against the most accomplished champions of unlimited authority.

This bloodless quarrel had been maintained for a long series of years before the birth of John Adams, which occurred at Quincy, near Boston, on the nineteenth of October, (0. S.,) 1735. His first impressions were therefore received from minds trained in this school, and his own was early imbued with those noble principles of freedom which actuated his whole course, and have secured to him an immortal name.

His worthy father very soon perceiving a strong love of reading, and of knowledge, and marks of great strength and activity of intellect, took proper care to give him every attainable advantage of education.

His boyish studies were prosecuted in Braintree, under Mr. Marsh, a teacher whose fortune it was to assist in forming the minds of several children, destined in manhood to bear an important part in the movements of the revolution. In 1751, he was admitted a member of Harvard college at Cambridge, where he was regularly graduated, four years afterwards. Of his collegiate reputation little is known at present, most of his classmates having preceded him to the

grave; but one of them, the pious and learned Dr. Hemmenway, often spoke of the honesty, openness and decision of character that distinguished him, of which he told many characteristic anecdotes.

After completing his academic course, he repaired to Worcester for the purpose of studying the law, and according to the established usage of New Englaud, began at once to support himself by his own exertions. He taught in the grammar school of that town, and pursued his lucubrations at the same time under the direction of Mr. Putnam, a barrister of eminence. By him he was introduced to the acquaintance of the celebrated Jeremy Gridley, then attorney general of the province, and at the first interview they became friends. Gridley took him into special favour, assisted him with his advice, and proposed him for admission to the bar of Suffolk county.

It is said that Mr. Gridley once led him into a private room, with an air of secrecy, and pointing to a book-case containing treatises on the civil law, said, "there is the secret of my eminence, of which you may avail yourself if you please." The young pleader saw at once the advantage of being well at home in a field of science, then little known to the judges or practitioners, and did not intermit his application to these books till he had made himself master of the principles of the code.

By an expedient very similar to this, Lord Mansfield is known to have added greatly to his reputation; and nothing could have been better calculated to make Mr. Adams appear to advantage at the outset of his professional career, than being thus possessed of a store of legal maxims and illustrations, entirely unrevealed to his competitors.

It was certainly as early in his life as this residence at Worcester, when his thoughts began to turn on general po

« ПредишнаНапред »