CHAPTER XIX. The Spirit of Opposition subsides. Counsels of the Moderate Party. - John Adams retires from the Cause. Otis is jealous of Samuel Adams, and retards Public Measures. — Adams stands alone. — He is opposed by Hancock and Otis, who for a while carry the House. - Painful Position of Adams.— His Brotherly Care for Otis. -Exultation of the Loyalists. He turns to the Press to stem the Tide. He prepares a Protest against holding the Session at Cambridge, and at last secures its Passage in the House. — Hancock and his Party for a while silenced. — Adams drafts a Letter of Instructions from the House to Dr. Franklin. - The Governor denounces Adams as the Director and Principal Incendiary. THERE was an interval of about a fortnight between the prorogation and the May elections for the Legislature. The political heats had subsided, and public affairs were discussed with unusual moderation. Hutchinson, a close observer of every event, says that he had all the respect he could desire. shown him personally, as well as in his public character, "from the most valuable part of the town.' "Perhaps," said Andrew Eliot, "it might be as well not to dispute in such strong terms the legal right of Parliament. This is a point that cannot easily be settled, and had therefore best be touched very gently. It cannot be supposed that the Parliament will give up their right of taxation in express terms; it will be prudence for them never again to exercise it. If the Colonies dispute their right of legislation, which hath always been submitted to, particularly with respect to the regulation of trade, it may raise a new ferment, and may create suspicions that nothing will satisfy but absolute independence. At present, things are very quiet."† These were not the counsels that led to American Independence; but they were entertained by men equally sincere and patriotic * Hutchinson to Col. Williams, April 5, 1771. with Mr. Eliot. James Otis, now a ruin of his former greatness, had a temporary return of reason, and his townsmen readily reinstated him in the political field, where he had once been the leading spirit, but could now only retard and distract the public interests.* John Adams, after a few months' service in the Legislature, had retired from public life, ceasing even to write in the cause, and evidently disgusted with the apparent subsidence of patriotic spirit.† Indignant at the insults to which he had exposed himself in an unsuccessful attempt to secure the election of Samuel Adams as Register of Deeds, he now returned to Braintree, and devoted himself to the practice of his profession. In his Diary, he says: "I have acted my sentiments with the utmost frankness at the hazard of all, and the certain loss of ten times more than it is in the power of the people to give me, for the sake of the people; and now I reap nothing but insult, ridicule, and contempt for it, even from many of the people themselves. "However, I have not hitherto regarded consequences to myself. I have very cheerfully sacrificed my interest and my health and ease and pleasure, in the service of the people. I have stood by their friends longer than they would stand by them. I have stood by the people much longer than they would stand by themselves, But I have learned wisdom by experience. I shall certainly become more retired and cautious; I shall certainly mind my own farm and my own office." Standing alone, Samuel Adams now prepared, with all the powers of his resolute soul, to revive the spirit of opposition, and sustain it in the approaching session. At the annual election on the 7th of May, he had been chosen a member of the Legislature with Hancock, Cushing, and Otis. There would be every difficulty to encounter. The Governor and his friends, seeking to destroy the influence of Adams in the Assembly, witnessed with eager pleasure the * Bancroft, VI. 403. Ibid, II. 259, 260. ↑ John Adams's Works, II. 257, 282. brightening prospects of loyalty, and were sagacious enough to improve an occasion more opportune than any which had presented itself since the commencement of the revenue troubles. The event proved how well founded were their expectations; but their advantage was not to be of long duration, though the patriot cause was indeed for a time. divided against itself. Otis, who was guarded with brotherly care by Samuel Adams, was so irritable and weak as to harbor jealousy of the great influence of his friend, and did not hesitate to place obstacles in the way of success, thereby encouraging a concession to the demands of government.* Cushing lacked the necessary qualifications for an important emergency, and could never aspire to leadership. Hawley, between the sessions, lived far in the interior of the State, but even his presence afforded generally only sound advice on questions of law. Able, sincere, and of spotless character, he was nevertheless unfitted to guide, and his excitable nature wavered between vehemence and despondency.† Hancock, never an adviser or writer, brought to the House, as it proved, qualities calculated rather to impede than advance the principles upon which the public liberties had been built. At this time, Mr. Adams, to influence the inland counties, where the election seemed to be doubtful, wrote a series of articles in the public press, commencing a week prior to the contest and extending to the last week in May. Aware of the efforts of Hutchinson and his satellites to subvert the elections and place their own agents in the Assembly, and of the Governor's plausible professions,‡ he warns his readers against the danger, and points out the inevitable results. On the general condition of public affairs, he says: * Hutchinson, III. 339. Bancroft, VI. 403. Barry, II. 438. On Mr. Adams's "constant guardianship of James Otis," see an article in the Boston Patriot, July 26, and in the Independent Chronicle, July 29, 1826, written by one who had been a friend and contemporary of Samuel Adams. † Bancroft, VI. 118. The name of Hawley does not appear during this session upon any important committee, if he was a member of the House. Bancroft, VI. 402. Compare John Adams's Diary (Works, II. 284). "The troops of the King of Great Britain which occupy Castle William may be viewed in the same light, and are as dangerous to our constitutional freedom, as so many Swiss, French, Spanish, or Russians; because they are not raised, paid, and regulated by our Representatives. And our King has no more right to send those troops into that Castle than he has to send them into Hanover or Portugal, without a previous contract for the purpose. I fear that some of you, known and respected friends to liberty, may be a little surprised at the second assertion. The treatment we have lately received has not yet quite destroyed the affection for Great Britain, and the confidence in her justice, which have permitted certain things to become habitual in this Province, though incompatible with the rights of it. That affection and that confidence is your only ground of surprise; you cannot furnish any other. "I know also that some among us who are to be pitied, and others who are to be despised, will fret and rave. Ignorance in the first, and rapacity in the last, will furnish fuel for anger. This placed, pensioned, or expecting tribe may tell us that the new block-houses upon the western part of Castle Island are built out of love to the Province, especially to the towns of Boston and Dorchester; though if the French king's troops had erected them by his order, it would be readily allowed to proceed from a spirit of jealousy or insult. I cannot make such distinctions. I thank God that I feel so much true loyalty that I can be grieved at the jealousy, and so much true freedom that I can feel resentment at the insult, of this plan of fortification. "Few words are necessary now to express my idea of our proper condition. We are either a State, as entirely independent of Great Britain as any other on earth which makes use of her protection, or we are her free Colonies. In both these cases her conduct towards us should be identically the same. "I have said we live under a government of three branches, Wisdom, Goodness, and Power to execute their resolutions. A man of truly inflexible integrity, Governor Phips, Heaven bless his departed spirit, was of that opinion. "T is true he is now sneered at by shallow-pated sycophancy; but his opinion is not less founded. upon the solid rational principles of the British and similar American Constitution, for the sneers of such. Behold, my dear countrymen, the mystery of government! It was instituted for the happiness of the people. The two representative bodies of Wisdom and Goodness shall point out that happiness. The I, the one individual of Power, shall frustrate their unanimous decisions. Whence does this arise? Either from an abominable vain conceit in this individual that he is possessed of superior wisdom and goodness to these two united bodies, or from the influence of private instructions, received by the way of the Thames, the Seine, or Tiber, from Westminster, Paris, or Rome, 't is of no importance which, or from some other motive equally injurious in its consequences.' The second of this series of articles (that of May 6), which contained a warning against the machinations of the Governor and his friends, Hutchinson sent to Bernard. "Our sons of sedition," he writes, " are afraid of a change of members in many towns, and make a strong effort in the newspapers to prevent it. In this week's paper you see the black art of Adams."† On the 29th of May the General Assembly met at Cambridge, when Adams was, as usual, elected Clerk. He was now unaided by a single member of the Boston delegation on the floor of the House. Loyalty prevailed, and the decided patriots were in a minority. The tone of the Assembly was instantly made manifest. Before proceeding upon the next business in order, a remonstrance on the subject of the removal of the General Assembly back to its original seat was agreed upon. This had now been persisted in for three years, the House having proceeded to business each year under protest. At the session of November, 1770, it will be remembered, the vote on this question was not so unanimous as before. § This year, the loyal sentiment had so far increased, that the House, in April, had been almost equally divided between the friends of government and the opposition. But at the present session there was a balance "An Elector in 1771," in the Boston Gazette, May 20, 1771. † Hutchinson to Bernard, May 10, 1771. Bancroft, VI. 405. John Adams's Diary (Works, II. 263). § See ante, p. 369. |