[Sidenote: =Samuel Adams the pen of the Revolution=]
=85. Samuel Adams.= While Patrick Henry was stirring the feelings of
the people by his fiery eloquence, Samuel Adams was stirring them by
strong arguments in his writings, to oppose the acts of king and of
Parliament.
[Sidenote: =A student=]
Samuel Adams was born in Massachusetts (1722). While he loved school
and books he cared very little for spending his time in outdoor
amusements. At eighteen Samuel was graduated from Harvard College. His
parents hoped that he would be a minister, but he began to study law.
His mother was so opposed to his becoming a lawyer that he gave up the
study and turned to business. He set up in business for himself, but,
like Patrick Henry, soon lost all. He next went into business with his
father, but in that, too, he failed. Finally Samuel Adams turned to
politics.
[Illustration: SAMUEL ADAMS
_From the original painting by John Singleton Copley, representing
Adams in 1771, now hanging in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston_]
[Sidenote: =Early love for politics=]
While a student in Harvard he had debated the question whether it was
right to resist the king to save the country from ruin. He took an
active part in debating clubs and very soon began to write for the
newspapers, encouraging resistance. He never hesitated to take what he
thought the right side of any question.
[Sidenote: =Why Adams opposed the Stamp Act=]
Speaking before a meeting of Boston people, Samuel Adams boldly
declared that if England could tax the business of the colonies, then,
"why not tax our lands and everything we possess or make use of?" Such
taxes, he said, would make the colonists slaves.
In a short time the people of Boston were reading in the papers the
fiery resolutions and the still more fiery speech of Patrick Henry.
Samuel Adams seized his pen and also began to pour hot shot into the
Stamp Act.
[Sidenote: =How he opposed the Stamp Act=]
The Boston people elected him to be their representative in the
Massachusetts Assembly. More and more he took the lead in the movement
against the Stamp Act. He went about the shops, into the stores,
wherever he found people to listen to him.
He helped them form a society, called the Sons of Liberty, which
destroyed the hated stamps as soon as they arrived. He talked with the
merchants, and they signed a pledge not to buy any more goods from
England until the Stamp Act was repealed. At this the British merchants
felt the loss of trade and joined in the cry against the Stamp Act.
=86. The Tea Tax.= We have seen that Parliament, after the Stamp Act
was repealed, passed the famous Tea Act. The Americans were angry
again, and the Sons of Liberty declared that no tea should be landed.
The merchants took the pledge again to buy no more English goods, and
patriotic women began to make tea out of the leaves of other plants.
[Sidenote: =Samuel Adams writes the "Circular Letter"=]
Samuel Adams again sharpened his pen, and wrote the famous old
"Circular Letter," which urged all the colonies to unite and stand
firm in opposing the tax on tea. This letter made King George very
angry, but Samuel Adams only wrote the more.
[Illustration: SAMUEL ADAMS WRITING THE FAMOUS CIRCULAR LETTER]
Night after night as the people passed his window they saw by his lamp
that he was busy with his pen, and said to one another: "Samuel Adams
is hard at work writing against the Tories." People in England and
America who took the king's side in these disputes were called Tories.
[Sidenote: =Conflicts between people and soldiers=]
The king now sent two regiments of soldiers to Boston to force the
people to pay the Tea Tax. There were frequent quarrels between the
soldiers and the people. One evening in a street quarrel the soldiers
killed three men and wounded eight others (1770). Immediately the
fire bells rang and great crowds of angry people filled the streets.
The next day they filled to overflowing Faneuil Hall, the "Cradle of
Liberty." A still larger meeting in the Old South Church cried out that
both regiments of soldiers must leave town.
[Sidenote: =Samuel Adams and the people drive the soldiers out of
Boston=]
Adams and other leaders were sent to the king's officers to tell them
what the people had said. Before the governor and the general, backed
by the king's authority and by two regiments, stood plain Samuel Adams,
with only the voice of the people to help him.
The governor, unwilling to obey the demand of the people, said he would
send one regiment away. But Samuel Adams stood firm, and said: "Both
regiments or none!" The governor finally gave up, and Samuel Adams, the
man of the people, was a greater leader than ever before.
The king now tried to trick the Americans into paying the tax by making
tea cheaper in America than in England, but leaving on the tax. But the
people everywhere declared that they did not object to the price, but
to the tax.
[Sidenote: =The tea ships guarded while town meetings are held=]
=87. The Boston Tea Party.= When the ships carrying this cheaper tea
arrived in Boston, Samuel Adams set a guard of armed men to keep the
tea from being landed.
[Illustration: THE BOSTON MASSACRE]
Town meeting followed town meeting. On December 16, 1773, the greatest
one of all was held. Early that morning hundreds of country people
started for Boston. They found the shops and stores closed and people
standing on the street corners talking earnestly.
At ten o'clock the people met in the Old South Church, and voted that
the tea should never be landed. They also sent the owner of the ships
to the governor for permission to take the tea ships out of the harbor.
[Illustration: THE BOSTON TEA PARTY ABOARD THE TEA SHIP IN THE HARBOR]
[Sidenote: =Permission to return tea denied=]
In the afternoon still greater crowds pushed and jammed into the seats,
aisles, and galleries of that famous church. Samuel Adams was chairman.
He made a speech. Other leaders spoke. One stirred the audience by
asking "how tea would mix with salt water." Evening came, and candles
were lighted. The owner of the tea vessels returned and said the
governor would not give him the permission.
[Sidenote: =The Boston Tea Party=]
Immediately Samuel Adams arose and said: "This meeting can do nothing
to save the country!" In a moment the war whoop of the "Mohawks"
sounded outside. The crowd rushed out and found the people following
a band of men disguised as Indians down where the tea ships lay at
anchor. The "Mohawks" went on board, brought up the boxes of tea, broke
them open, and threw the tea into the sea.
[Sidenote: =Paul Revere's first ride=]
That very night Samuel Adams sent fast riders to carry the news to
the country towns. The next day, with letters to the leaders in other
colonies in his saddlebags, Paul Revere, the great courier of the
Revolution, started on his long ride to New York and Philadelphia.
As he went from town to town and told the story of the Tea Party the
people cheered him, spread dinners for him, built bonfires, and fired
cannon. He saw thousands of people gather in New York and Philadelphia,
and heard them declare that they would stand by Boston.
[Sidenote: =Boston Port Bill=]
Boston soon needed help, for the king and Parliament passed a law that
no ship could enter or leave Boston Harbor, and another which forbade
town meetings. Other hard laws were also passed, and an army was sent
to Boston to force the people to obey them.
=88. The First Continental Congress.= We have seen a call go forth for
a Congress at Philadelphia (1774). The Massachusetts legislature chose
Samuel Adams and his cousin, John Adams, with two others to go to the
Congress.
[Illustration: ASSEMBLY ROOM IN CARPENTER'S HALL
_Here met the first Continental Congress of the colonies_]
[Sidenote: =Strange visitors=]
But Samuel Adams was very poor and could not afford to dress in a style
suited to meet the rich merchants of New York and Philadelphia and the
great planters of the southern colonies. One evening while the family
was at tea, in came the most fashionable tailor of the town to take
his measure. Next came a hatter, and then a shoemaker. In a few days a
new trunk at his door told the story, for in it were a suit of clothes,
two pairs of shoes, silver shoe buckles, gold knee buckles, a cocked
hat, a gold-headed cane, and a fashionable red cloak. What proof of the
people's love for their neighbor!
[Illustration: CARPENTER'S HALL, PHILADELPHIA]
[Sidenote: =Poor but loyal=]
Although Samuel Adams was a very poor man, George III did not have
offices enough to bribe him or gold enough to buy his pen. Several
times the king's officers had tried to do both, but they did not
succeed.
[Sidenote: =What Samuel and John Adams saw on the way to Philadelphia=]
In a carriage drawn by four horses, the delegates to Congress were
escorted by their friends right by the king's soldiers. The people of
the large towns met them, escorted them, rang bells, fired cannon,
feasted them at banquets, and talked of the Congress.
[Sidenote: =New and noble friends=]
At New York Samuel Adams and his friends were kept nearly a week. Many
persons in carriages and on horseback came out to welcome them to
Philadelphia, the city of William Penn. People were anxious to see the
man who had written the "Circular Letter," who had driven the king's
regiments out of Boston, who had planned the Tea Party, and whom the
king could not bribe. Here, in Carpenter's Hall, for the first time,
he met George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee, of
Virginia, Christopher Gadsden, who was called the "Samuel Adams of
South Carolina," and many other noble men who became his life-long
friends.
[Sidenote: =Other colonies to help Boston=]
Soon Paul Revere came riding into Philadelphia with the news that the
patriots of Boston were in danger of being attacked by the British. The
Congress immediately declared that if the British made war on Boston,
it was the duty of every colony to help her people fight. It now looked
as if war might come at any moment.
[Illustration: PAUL REVERE ALARMING THE MINUTEMEN
_The old Hancock House, where, guarded by the minutemen, Samuel Adams
and John Hancock lay sleeping when Paul Revere rode by, still stands in
Lexington_]
[Sidenote: =Minutemen=]
When Congress was over, Samuel Adams hastened home to help form, in
all the Massachusetts towns, companies of minutemen ready to fight
at a moment's warning. The next spring the news got out that British
soldiers were going to Concord to destroy the powder and provisions
collected there by the minutemen, and also to capture Samuel Adams
and John Hancock and send them to England to be tried for treason.
Paul Revere agreed to alarm the minutemen the moment the soldiers left
Boston.
[Sidenote: =Alarming the minutemen=]
=89. Paul Revere's Midnight Ride.= Standing by his horse across the
river from Boston, one April evening, waiting for signals, Paul Revere
saw two lanterns flash their light from the tower of the Old North
Church. He mounted and rode in hot haste toward Lexington, arousing
the sleeping villages as he cried out: "Up and arm, the regulars are
coming!" Soon he heard the alarm gun of the minutemen and the excited
ringing of the church bells. He knew the country was rising.
At Lexington minutemen who guarded the house where Samuel Adams and
John Hancock were sleeping ordered Revere not to make so much noise.
"You will soon have noise enough," he shouted. "The regulars are
coming!" And he rode on toward Concord.
[Sidenote: =The first conflict of the minutemen=]
=90. The Battle at Lexington and at Concord Bridge.= As the British
soldiers reached Lexington at sunrise, April 19, 1775, the captain of
the minutemen gave the command: "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless
fired upon. But if they mean to have war, let it begin here!" A bold
speech for a captain of only about sixty men when facing as brave
soldiers as Europe had ever seen! The minutemen stood their ground till
seven were killed and nine wounded--nearly one third of their number.
Then they retreated.
[Sidenote: =The retreat of the British=]
The British pushed on to Concord. But the minutemen, now coming from
every direction, made a stand at Concord Bridge. Their musket fire was
so deadly that the British started back, running at times to escape
with their lives. At Lexington they fell upon the ground, tired out
with the chase the minutemen gave them, and were met by fresh troops
from Boston.
[Sidenote: =Many redcoats fall=]
Soon the British soldiers were forced to run again, for minutemen by
hundreds were gathering, and they seldom missed their aim. From behind
rocks, trees, fences, and houses they cut down the tired redcoats.
Nearly three hundred British soldiers were killed or wounded before
Boston was reached that night.
[Sidenote: =Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775=]
=91. The Battle of Bunker Hill.= Day and night for weeks minutemen from
other New England colonies, and even from as far south as Virginia,
marched in hot haste to Boston. The British general soon found his army
in Boston entirely cut off from the mainland. He resolved to fortify
Bunker Hill, but what was his surprise to wake one morning (June
17) and find the Americans under Colonel Prescott already building
breastworks on the hill.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL]
[Sidenote: =Three fierce charges=]
That afternoon three thousand picked troops, in solid columns and with
bayonets gleaming, marched up the hill to storm that breastwork. "Don't
fire till you can see the whites of their eyes!" said the commander of
the minutemen. On came the lines of red, with banners flying and drums
beating. From the breastworks there ran a flame of fire which mowed the
redcoats down like grass. They reeled, broke, and ran. They rested.
Again they charged; again they broke and ran. They were brave men, and,
although hundreds of their companions had fallen, a third time the
British charged, and won, for the Americans had used up their powder,
and they had no bayonets. More than one thousand British soldiers fell
that day. The Americans did not lose half that number. But among the
killed was brave General Joseph Warren.
[Sidenote: =Adams and Hancock on the way to the second Congress=]
=92. The Second Continental Congress.= Just as the British were
marching into Lexington on that famous April morning, Samuel Adams,
with John Hancock, was leaving for Philadelphia, where Congress was to
meet again. As he heard the guns of the minutemen answer the guns of
the regulars, Adams said to Hancock: "What a glorious morning is this!"
The members from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York were escorted
across the Hudson to Newark, New Jersey, and entertained at a great
dinner, with speeches. Near Philadelphia a large procession of armed
men and carriages met and escorted them into the city, where bells told
of their coming.
When this Congress met, Samuel Adams seconded the motion of his cousin,
John Adams, that George Washington, of Virginia, be made the general of
all the American troops. He saw his own neighbor, John Hancock, made
president of the Congress.
[Sidenote: =Samuel Adams among the first to favor independence=]
=93. The Declaration of Independence.= For more than a year Samuel
Adams worked hard to get the Congress to make a Declaration of
Independence. Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, introduced a motion into
the Congress for independence. The Declaration was made, July 4, 1776,
and Samuel Adams, as a great leader of the Revolution, had done his
work.
But, with other noble men, he still labored with all his powers, in
Congress and at home, to help America win her independence.
[Sidenote: =Governor of Massachusetts=]
After independence had been won, Samuel Adams still served his state,
and was elected governor of Massachusetts only a few years before his
death, which occurred in 1803, at the age of eighty-one.
[Illustration: AN OLD QUILL PEN]