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 wise
measure of calling the town together to deliberate. For nothing short
of 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 have 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 honor to be summoned in my turn, and attended
at the state house with my musket and bayonet, my broadsword 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. Such was the situation of
affairs, when Samuel Adams was reasoning with lieutenant governor
Hutchinson and lieutenant colonel Dalrymple. He had fairly driven
them from all their outworks, breastworks and entrenchments, to their
citadel. There they paused and considered and deliberated. The heads
of Hutchinson and Dalrymple were laid together in whispers for a long
time: when the whispering ceased, a long and solemn pause ensued,
extremely painful to an impatient and expecting audience. Hutchinson,
in time, broke silence; he had consulted with colonel Dalrymple,
and the colonel had authorized him to say that he might order one
regiment down to the castle, if that would satisfy the people. With a
self-recollection, a self-possession, a self-command, a presence of
mind that was admired by every man present, Samuel Adams arose with
an air of dignity and majesty, of which he was sometimes capable,
stretched forth his arm, though even then quivering with palsy, and
with an harmonious voice and decisive tone, said, "if the lieutenant
governor or colonel Dalrymple, or both together, have authority to
remove one regiment, they have authority to remove two; and nothing
short of the total evacuation of the town by all the regular troops,
will satisfy the public mind or preserve the peace of the province."
These few words thrilled through the veins of every man in the
audience, and produced the great result. After a little awkward
hesitation, it was agreed that the town should be evacuated and both
regiments sent to the castle.
After all this gravity it is merry enough to relate that William
Molineaux, was obliged to march side by side with the commander of
some of their troops, to protect them from the indignation of the
people, in their progress to the wharf of embarcation for the castle.
Nor is it less amusing that lord North, as I was repeatedly and
credibly informed in England, with his characteristic mixture of good
humour and sarcasm, ever after called these troops by the title of
"Sam Adams's two regiments."
The painter should seize upon the critical moment when Samuel Adams
stretched out his arm, and made his last speech.
It will be as difficult to do justice, as to paint an Apollo; and
the transaction deserves to be painted as much as the surrender of
Burgoyne. Whether any artist will ever attempt it, I know not.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
_Quincy_, _April_ 23, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
Your letter of the 5th has been received. Your judgment of Mr. Wirt's
biography of my friend, Mr. Henry, is in exact unison with my own.
I have read it with more delight than Scott's romances in verse and
prose, or Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, and other novels.
I am sorry you have introduced me. I could wish my own name
forgotten, if I could develope the true causes of the rise and
progress of American revolution and independence.
Why have Harmodius and Brutus, Coligni and Brederode, Cromwell and
Napoleon failed, and a thousand others? Because human nature cannot
bear prosperity. Success always intoxicates patriots as well as
other men; and because birth and wealth always, in the end, overcome
popular and vulgar envy, more surely than public interest.
The causes of our parties during and since the revolution, would lead
me too far.
You cannot ask me too many questions. I will answer them all
according as strength shall be allowed to your aged and infirm friend,
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
_Quincy_, _May_ 12, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
In my letters to you, I regard no order. And I think, I ought to
make you laugh sometimes: otherwise my letters would be too grave,
if not too melancholy. To this end, I send you Jemmibellero, "the
song of the drunkard" which was published in Fleet's "Boston Evening
Post," on the 13th of May, 1765. It was universally agreed to have
been written by Samuel Waterhouse, who had been the most notorious
scribbler, satyrist and libeller, in the service of the conspirators,
against the liberties of America, and against the administration of
governor Pownal, and against the characters of Mr. Pratt and Mr.
Tyng. The rascal had wit. But is ridicule the test of truth? You
see the bachanalian ha! ha! at Otis's prosodies Greek and Latin;
and you see the encouragement of scholarship in that age. The whole
legion, the whole phalanx, the whole host of conspirators against the
liberties of America, could not have produced Mr. Otis's Greek and
Latin prosodies. Yet they must be made the scorn of fools. Such was
the character of the age, or rather of the day. Such have been and
such will be the rewards of real patriotism in all ages and all over
the world.--I am, as ever, your old friend and humble servant,
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
_Quincy_, _June_ 1, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
No man could have written from memory Mr. Otis's argument of four or
five hours, against the acts of trade, as revenue laws, and against
writs of assistants, as a tyrannical engine to execute them, the next
day after it was spoken. How awkward, then, would be an attempt to
do it after a lapse of fifty seven years? Nevertheless, some of the
heads of his discourse are so indelibly imprinted on my mind, that I
will endeavour to give you some very short hints of them.
1. He began with an exordium, containing an apology for his
resignation of the office of advocate general in the court of
admiralty; and for his appearance in that cause in opposition to the
crown, and in favour of the town of Boston, and the merchants of
Boston and Salem.
2. A dissertation on the rights of man in a state of nature. He
asserted, that every man, merely natural, was an independent
sovereign, subject to no law, but the law written on his heart, and
revealed to him by his Maker, in the constitution of his nature,
and the inspiration of his understanding and his conscience. His
right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully
contest. Nor was his right to his property less incontestible. The
club that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for defence,
was his own. His bow and arrow were his own; if by a pebble he had
killed a partridge or a squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man
or beast, had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an eel,
or a smelt, or a sculpion, it was his property. In short, he sported
upon this topic with so much wit and humour, and at the same time so
much indisputable truth and reason, that he was not less entertaining
than instructive. He asserted, that these rights were inherent and
inalienable. That they never could be surrendered or alienated but by
ideots or madmen, and all the acts of ideots and lunatics were void,
and not obligatory by all the laws of God and man. Nor were the poor
negroes forgotten. Not a Quaker in Philadelphia, or Mr. Jefferson,
of Virginia, ever asserted the rights of negroes in stronger terms.
Young as I was, and ignorant as I was, I shuddered at the doctrine he
taught; and I have all my life time shuddered, and still shudder, at
the consequences that may be drawn from such premises. Shall we say,
that the rights of masters and servants clash, and can be decided
only by force? I adore the idea of gradual abolitions! But who shall
decide how fast or how slowly these abolitions shall be made?
3. From individual independence he proceeded to association. If
it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say, that
men were gregarious animals, like wild horses and wild geese, it
surely could offend no delicacy to say they were social animals by
nature; that they were mutual sympathies; and, above all, the sweet
attraction of the sexes, which must soon draw them together in little
groups, and by degrees in larger congregations, for mutual assistance
and defence. And this must have happened before any formal covenant,
by express words or signs, was concluded. When general counsels
and deliberations commenced, the objects could be no other than
the mutual defence and security of every individual for his life,
his liberty, and his property. To suppose them to have surrendered
these in any other way than by equal rules and general consent, was
to suppose them ideots or madmen, whose acts were never binding. To
suppose them surprised by fraud, or compelled by force, into any
other compact, such fraud and such force could confer no obligation.
Every man had a right to trample it under foot whenever he pleased.
In short, he asserted these rights to be derived only from nature,
and the author of nature; that they were inherent, inalienable,
and indefeasible by any laws, pacts, contracts, covenants, or
stipulations, which man could devise.
4. These principles and these rights were wrought into the English
constitution as fundamental laws. And under this head he went back to
the old Saxon laws, and to Magna Charta, and the fifty confirmations
of it in parliament, and the execrations ordained against the
violators of it, and the national vengeance which had been taken on
them from time to time, down to the Jameses and Charleses; and to
the petition of rights and the bill of rights, and the revolution.
He asserted, that the security of these rights to life, liberty,
and property, had been the object of all those struggles against
arbitrary power, temporal and spiritual, civil and political,
military and ecclesiastical, in every age. He asserted, that our
ancestors, as British subjects, and we, their descendants, as
British subjects, were entitled to all those rights, by the British
constitution, as well as by the law of nature, and our provincial
charter, as much as any inhabitant of London or Bristol, or any part
of England; and were not to be cheated out of them by any phantom of
"virtual representation," or any other fiction of law or politics, or
any monkish trick of deceit and hypocrisy.
5. He then examined the acts of trade, one by one, and demonstrated,
that if they were considered as revenue laws, they destroyed all our
security of property, liberty, and life, every right of nature, and
the English constitution, and the charter of the province. Here he
considered the distinction between "external and internal taxes," at
that time a popular and common-place distinction. But he asserted
there was no such distinction in theory, or upon any principle but
"necessity." The necessity that the commerce of the empire should be
under one direction, was obvious. The Americans had been so sensible
of this necessity, that they had connived at the distinction between
external and internal taxes, and had submitted to the acts of trade
as regulations of commerce, but never as taxations, or revenue laws.
Nor had the British government, till now, ever dared to attempt to
enforce them as taxations or revenue laws. They had laid dormant in
that character for a century almost. The navigation act he allowed
to be binding upon us, because we had consented to it by our own
legislature. Here he gave a history of the navigation act of the
first of Charles 2d. a plagiarism from Oliver Cromwell. This act had
laid dormant for fifteen years. In 1675, after repeated letters and
orders from the king, governor Winthrop very candidly informs his
majesty, that the law had not been executed, because it was thought
unconstitutional; parliament not having authority over us.
I shall pursue this subject in a short series of letters. Providence
pursues its incomprehensible and inscrutable designs in its own way,
and by its own instruments. And as I sincerely believe Mr. Otis
to have been the earliest and the principal founder of one of the
greatest political revolutions, that ever occurred among men, it
seems to me of some importance, that his name and character should
not be forgotten. Young men should be taught to honour merit, but not
to adore it. The greatest men have the greatest faults.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
_Quincy_, _June_ 9, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
I have promised you hints of the heads of Mr. Otis's oration,
argument, speech, call it what you will, against the acts of trade,
as revenue laws, and against writs of assistants, as tyrannical
instruments to carry them into execution.
But I enter on the performance of my promise to you, not without fear
and trembling; because I am in the situation of a lady, whom you knew
first as my client, the widow of Dr. Ames, of Dedham, and afterwards,
as the mother of your pupil, the late brilliant orator, Fisher Ames,
of Dedham. This lady died last year, at 95 or 96 years of age. In one
of her last years she said, "She was in an awkward situation; for if
she related any fact of an old date, any body might contradict her,
for she could find no witness to keep her in countenance."
Mr. Otis, after rapidly running over the history of the continual
terrors, vexations, and irritations, which our ancestors endured from
the British government, from 1620, under James 1st. and Charles 1st.;
and acknowledging the tranquility under the parliament and Cromwell,
from 1648, to the restoration, in 1660, produced the navigation act,
as the first fruit of the blessed restoration of a Stuart's reign.
This act is in the 12th year of Charles 2d. chapter 18, "An act for
the encouraging and increasing of shipping and navigation."
"For the increase of shipping, and encouragement of the navigation
of this nation, wherein, under the good providence and protection
of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of this kingdom, is so
much concerned, be it enacted, that from and after the first day of
December, 1660, and from thence forward, no goods, or commodities,
whatsoever, shall be imported into, or exported out of, any lands,
islands, plantations, or territories, to his majesty belonging or
in his possession, or which may hereafter belong unto or be in
the possession of his majesty, his heirs and successors, in Asia,
Africa, or America, in any other ship or ships, vessel or vessels,
whatsoever, but in such ships or vessels, as do truly and without
fraud, belong only to the people of England or Ireland, dominion
of Wales, or town of Berwick upon Tweed, or are of the built of,
and belonging to, any of the said lands, islands, plantations or
territories, as the proprietors and right owners thereof, and whereof
the master, and three fourths of the mariners, at least, are English;
under the penalty of the forfeiture, and loss of all the goods and
commodities which shall be imported into, or exported out of any of
the aforesaid places, in any other ship or vessel, as also of the
ship or vessel, with all its guns, furniture, tackle, ammunition,
and apparel: one third part thereof to his majesty, his heirs and
successors: one third part to the governor of such land, plantation,
island, or territory, where such default shall be committed, in case
the said ship or goods be there seized; or otherwise, that third
part also to his majesty, his heirs and successors; and the other
third part to him or them who shall seize, inform, or sue for the
same in any court of record, by bill, information, plaint, or other
action, wherein no essoin, protection, or wager of law shall be
allowed: and all admirals and other commanders at sea, of any of the
ships of war or other ships, having commission from his majesty, or
from his heirs or successors, are hereby authorized, and strictly
required to seize and bring in as prize, all such ships or vessels
as shall have offended, contrary hereunto, and deliver them to the
court of admiralty, there to be proceeded against; and in case of
condemnation, one moiety of such forfeitures shall be to the use of
such admirals or commanders, and their companies, to be divided and
proportioned among them, according to the rules and orders of the
sea, in case of ships taken prize; and the other moiety to the use of
his majesty, his heirs and successors."
Section second enacts, all governors shall take a solemn oath to do
their utmost, that every clause shall be punctually obeyed. See the
statute at large.
See also section third of this statute, which I wish I could
transcribe.
Section fourth enacts, that no goods of foreign growth, production
or manufacture, shall be brought, even in English shipping, from any
other countries, but only from those of the said growth, production
or manufacture, under all the foregoing penalties.
Mr. Otis commented on this statute in all its parts, especially on
the foregoing section, with great severity. He expatiated on its
narrow, contracted, selfish, and exclusive spirit. Yet he could not
and would not deny its policy, or controvert the necessity of it,
for England, in that age, surrounded as she was by France, Spain,
Holland, and other jealous rivals; nor would he dispute the prudence
of governor Leverett, and the Massachusetts legislature, in adopting
it, in 1675, after it had laid dormant for fifteen years; though
the adoption of it was infinitely prejudicial to the interests, the
growth, the increase, the prosperity of the colonies in general, of
New England in particular; and most of all, to the town of Boston.
It was an immense sacrifice to what was called the mother country.
Mr. Otis thought, that this statute ought to have been sufficient
to satisfy the ambition, the avarice, the cupidity of any nation,
but especially of one who boasted of being a tender mother of her
children colonies; and when those children had always been so fondly
disposed to acknowledge the condescending tenderness of their dear
indulgent mother.
This statute, however, Mr. Otis said, was wholly prohibitory. It
abounded, indeed, with penalties and forfeitures, and with bribes
to governors and informers, and custom house officers, and naval
officers and commanders; but it imposed no taxes. Taxes were laid
in abundance by subsequent acts of trade; but this act laid none.
Nevertheless, this was one of the acts that were to be carried into
strict execution by these writs of assistance. Houses were to be
broken open, and if a piece of Dutch linen could be found, from the
cellar to the cock loft, it was to be seized and become the prey of
governors, informers, and majesty.
When Mr. Otis had extended his observations on this act of
navigation, much farther than I dare to attempt to repeat, he
proceeded to the subsequent acts of trade. These, he contended,
imposed taxes, and enormous taxes, burthensome taxes, oppressive,
ruinous, intolerable taxes. And here he gave the reins to his genius,
in declamation, invective, philippic, call it which you will, against
_the tyranny of taxation, without representation_.
But Mr. Otis's observations on those acts of trade, must be postponed
for another letter.
Let me, however, say, in my own name, if any man wishes to
investigate thoroughly, the causes, feelings, and principles of the
revolution, he must study this act of navigation and the acts of
trade, as a philosopher, a politician, and a philanthropist.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
_Quincy_, _June_ 17, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
The next statute produced and commented by Mr. Otis was the 15th
of Charles the second, _i. e._ 1663, ch. 7. "An act for the
encouragement of trade."
Sec. 5.--"And in regard his majesty's plantations, beyond the seas
are inhabited and peopled by his subjects of this his kingdom of
England, for the maintaining a greater correspondence and kindness
between them, and _keeping them in a firmer dependance upon it_,
and rendering them yet more beneficial and advantageous unto it, in
the further employment and increase of English shipping and seamen,
vent of English woolen and other manufactures and commodities,
rendering the navigation to and from the same, more cheap and safe,
and making _this kingdom a staple_, not only of the commodities of
those plantations, but also of the commodities of other countries and
places, _for the supplying of them_; and it being the usage of other
nations to keep their plantations trades to themselves."
Sec. 6.--"Be it enacted, &c. that no commodity of the growth,
production or manufacture of Europe, shall be imported into any
land, island, plantation, colony, territory or place, to his majesty
belonging, or which shall hereafter belong unto or be in possession
of his majesty, his heirs and successors, in Asia, Africa or America,
(Tangier only excepted) but what shall be _bona fide_, and without
fraud, laden and shipped in England, Wales, or the town of Berwick
upon Tweed, and in English built shipping, or which were _bona fide_
bought before the 1st of October, 1662, and had such certificate
thereof as is directed in one act passed the last session of the
present parliament, entitled "_An act for preventing frauds and
regulating abuses in his majesty's customs_;" and whereof the
master, and three fourths of the mariners at least are English,
and which shall be carried directly thence, to the said lands,
islands, plantations, colonies, territories or places, and from no
other place or places whatsoever; any law, statute or usage to the
contrary notwithstanding; under the penalty of the loss of all such
commodities of the growth, production or manufacture of Europe, as
shall be imported into any of them, from any other place whatsoever,
by land or water; and if by water, of the ship or vessel also, in
which they were imported, with all her guns, tackle, furniture,
ammunition and apparel; one third part to his majesty, his heirs and
successors; one third part to the governor of such land, island,
plantation, colony, territory or place, into which such goods were
imported, if the said ship, vessel or goods be there seized or
informed against and sued for; or otherwise, that third part also to
his majesty, his heirs and successors; and the other third part to
him or them who shall seize, inform, or sue for the same in any of
his majesty's courts in such of the said lands, islands, colonies,
plantations, territories or places where the offence was committed,
or in any court of record in England, by bill, information, plaint,
or other action, wherein no _essoin_ protection or wager of law shall
be allowed."
Sections 7. 8. 9. and 10. of this odious instrument of mischief and
misery to mankind, all calculated to fortify by oaths and penalties,
the tyrannical ordinances of the preceding sections.
Mr. Otis's observations on these statutes were numerous, and some of
them appeared to me at the time, young as I was, bitter. But as I
cannot pretend to recollect those observations with precision, I will
recommend to you and others to make your own remarks upon them.
You must remember, Mr. Tudor, that you and I had much trouble with
these statutes after you came into my office, in 1770; and I had been
tormented with them for nine years before, _i. e._ from 1761.
I have no scruple in making a confession with all the simplicity
of Jean Jac Rosseau, that I never turned over the leaves of these
statutes, or any section of them, without pronouncing a hearty curse
upon them.
I felt them, as an humiliation, a degradation a disgrace to my
Country and to myself as a native of it.
Let me respectfully recommend to the future orators on the fourth of
July, to peruse these statutes in pursuit of principles and feelings
that produced the revolution.
Oh! Mr. Tudor, when will France, Spain, England and Holland renounce
their selfish, contracted, exclusive systems of religion, government
and commerce? I fear, never.
But they may depend upon it, their present systems of colonization
cannot endure. Colonies universally, ardently breathe for
independence. No man, who has a soul will ever live in a colony,
under the present establishments, one moment longer than necessity
compels him.
But I must return to Mr. Otis. The burthen of his song was "_Writs
of assistance_." All these rigorous statutes were now to be carried
into rigorous execution by the still more vigorous instruments of
arbitrary power, "_Writs of assistance_."