The Life and Public Service of Samuel Adams Volume One

538 Pages·2013·37.66 MB·English

THE
LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES
OP
SAMUEL ADAMS,
BEING
A NARRATIVE OF HIS ACTS AND OPINIONS, AND OF HIS AGENCY
IN PRODUCING AND FORWARDING THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
EXTRACTS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE, STATE PAPERS,
AND POLITICAL ESSAYS.
BY
WILLIAM/f." WELLS
VOL.
I.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1865.
INTRODUCTION
An eminent statesman has said, that a "Life of Samuel
Adams is the one niche remaining to be filled in American
biography." It will not be questioned that, considering his
entire self-devotion to the welfare of his countrymen, to-
gether with the oblivion which has enshrouded all but his
mere name, an attempt at restoration is as much a necessity
to those who revere virtue and exalted patriotism as it is a
duty we owe to his memory.
"If," wrote John Adams, in 1819, "the American Eevolution
was a blessing, and not a curse, the name and character of Samuel
Adams ought to bepreserved. Itwill bear a strict and critical ex-
A
amination even by the inveterate malice of his enemies. syste-
matic course has been pursued for thirty years to run him down.
His merits and services and sacrifices and sufferings are beyond
all calculation."
Circumstances have for many years prevented the pro-
duction of a work, to write which completely, it has been
asserted, would be to repeat the story of the Revolution.
And it is perhaps better that it has been so long deferred.
With the additional facts which time has brought to light,
/it is likely that inaccuracies in a book written forty years
/ ago might now be discovered. Placed nearer to the statue,
the biographer would not have clearly discerned its true
VI INTRODUCTION.
proportions ; its contour and character are more correctly
\een from a distance.
As early as 1815, the late Samuel Adams Wells com-
menced gathering, from various sources, the papers of his
grandfather, with the view to publication. The enterprise
,
was based on a profound veneration for the man, and an
/intelligent appreciation, enhanced by family tradition, of
' his great services. It was pursued at intervals until he had
prepared a history of the Revolution up to the year 1777,
!
ofwhich a few chapters had been printed, when the death
ofthe writer put an end to the work. Not long afterwards,
the papers passed into the hands of the Hon. George Ban-
'<
croft, for whose History they have supplied valuable mate-
rial. To the genius, love of truth, and discriminating
judgmentofthat historianis greatly due the increasing lus-
(
tre which time is shedding on the name ofSamuel Adams.
If at any time before the Declaration of Independence
the Revolution had proved a failure, Samuel Adams would
probably have been the first victim on the scaffold. All
contemporary evidence goes to show that, as the " Arch
Manager" and " Chief Incendiary," on him at least must
have fallen the royal vengeance. While,then,the righteous
principle of the Revolution is admitted, and posterity has
reaped the benefits resulting from its successful achieve-
ment, it is but justice that his part in the great drama
should be ascertained. The study and research inseparable
from Bancroft's literary labors left no reason to hope that
he could devote the attention necessary to a biography em-
bracing such a succession ofevents; and it seemed as if the
longer the work was delayed the less likelihood there was
INTRODUCTION. Vll
that it would ever be begun. Scarcelyrealizing the require-
ments for an undertaking which, properly, could only be
warranted by a position of literary leisure, the author,
though distrustful as to his own fitness, determined to apply
to Mr. Bancroft for access to the Adams papers, which had
then lain many years in the historian's library. Permission
was promptly given, and they were carefully gleaned, while
their proprietor facilitated the design with kind advice and
direction.
But this acquisition only showed how much remained to
be done, and that hardly the threshold of the work had
been crossed. American history had to be read and reread,
/until a proper understanding could be gained of its relation
to the political course of Adams. Town records, files of
old newspapers, pamphlets, and circulars were to be exam-
ined and compared, public archives in different States and
in the London State Paper Office consulted, and the col-
lections of antiquarian and historical societies patiently
searched. Interviews were sought with aged persons who
had known Samuel Adams, or had lived near him but in
;
nearly every instance time had effaced all recollection of
particular events. The last of the preceding generation
who had witnessed his public career had passed away, and
with them much of the fund of interesting reminiscence
and anecdote always so valuable in illustrating character.
Only brief and imperfect sketches could be found in ency-
clopaedias and biographical dictionaries, in some his very
name being omitted; and the story had to be created out
of fragments gathered here and there. The course of
Adams has thus been followed through the leading events
Vlll INTRODUCTION.
—
^of the Revolution, sometimes his action ascertained every
—
month in the year, and this is as close an approach to
continuity as is now possible. The careful tracing of some
.(thread of evidence, both by correspondence and personal
investigation, oftentimes ended in total disappointment, or,
at best, afforded the material for only a few lines.
When, by reason of unavoidable delays and constant de-
mands upon the time of the author in an editorial capacity,
/ five years had been expended, he was disposed to transfer
what he had collected to any gentleman whose scholarly
attainments and leisure would be better adapted to weaving
it into a biography worthy the character and times to be
treated. The whole was arranged in chronological order,
with notes and references, ready for a comparatively speedy
completion; but time passed on, and it was plain that if the
work was to be finished, it must be by the hand that be-
gan it. And perhaps such a narration could appear at no
/time more appropriately than at the commencement of the
great centennials of the Revolution, and when treason has
just been defeated in an attempt to overthrow the goodly
heritage of freedom which the subject of these memoirs
toiled so long and arduously to secure. The example pre-
sented by his disinterested desire for the advancement of
his country, his incorruptible integrity and republican sim-
plicity of character, cannot be entirely thrown away, how-
ever imperfectly delineated.
Care has been taken not to lose the individuality of
the man in a too copious account of general events but
;
rather to keep sight of him at all times, and only briefly
depart from his immediate actions when such digression
INTRODUCTION. IX
would tend to illustrate the central figure. The correspond-
/ ence, pamphlets, state papers, and controversial essays with
/ the Loyalist writers, which would be included in a complete
collection ofhis works, while exhibiting the immensity and
\ importance of his labors, would furnish matter for many
volumes but the publication ofthem seemed to be inconsis-
;
tent with the original design, which has been to condense
* the material into as narrow a compass as the subject would
admit. Thus, in order to confine the work within ordinary
/limits, only extracts in most cases have been given from his
\writings. These are silent evidences of his amazing indus-
try, his courage, ceaseless vigilance, and wise statesmanship,
and his cheerfulness and fortitude amid disasters. They
display his early championship of Colonial rights long prior
, :
to the taxation disputes; his positive principles at the dawn-
ing ofthe Revolution; his far seeing, yet prudent measures
for effecting a separation from the mother country, when
,
redress of grievances was evidently hopeless his ingenious
s ;
and gradual direction ofpublic opinion into an habitual con-
templation ofIndependence his master agency in carrying
;
that measure in the Congress of 1776 his Congressional
;
services during the war; his hopes and anxieties for the
young republic after the peace ; and his deep solicitude for
the preservation of the National Union when, towards the
close ofthe century,whilehewas GovernorofMassachusetts,
partisan strife had assumed a bitterness scarcely paralleled
in any country. The intention, in fine, has been to repre-
sent him as he appeared to those who personally knew him,
— —
i friends and enemies, to show the great space he filled
in the Revolution, and to disclose, by means of his own
X INTRODUCTION.
private letters and trustworthy contemporary evidence, the
measures hy which he aided so largely in accomplishing
American liberty.
A portion only remains of the manuscript papers left by
the patriot. Soon after his death, they were placed by his
executors in the keeping of Benjamin Austin, Esq., who in-
tended to write the Life of Adams ; but finding that the
preparation of the work would occupy more time than he
had expected, and believing that the proper period had not
then arrived for their publication, he renounced the task,
and they passed from hand to hand, and laid neglected for
some years in the possession of those who knew not their
value, and were careless as to their preservation. Before
attention had been directed to it, inroads upon the most
precious were made sometimes by the descendants of Mr.
;
Adams's correspondents seeking memorials of their ances-
tors at others, by persistent autograph hunters, who were
;
allowed unrestricted liberty to carry off the most illus-
trious signatures ; and. to the ravages of time should be
added their destruction by children, and, more vexatious
still, by an ignorant servant, who used no inconsiderable
portion to kindle fires. There is also reason to believe
that letters were abstracted early in the present century
by persons interested in their suppression. It was now
that Mr. Samuel Adams Wells, as above stated, became
aroused to the importance ofpreserving what remained, and
carefully collected all that could then be recovered. How
extensive they must once have been, even after Samuel
Adams himself had destroyed such as his thoughtfulness
for others forbade him to preserve, may be inferred from
INTRODUCTION. XI
the fact that, in 1804, as recorded by a member of the
family, trunks and boxes were filled, and shelves around the
walls of the garret piled high with letters and documents,
many of them in the handwriting of the late Governor.
There yet remain his original rough drafts of celebrated
state papers ofthe Revolution,prior to the war, some entire,
and of others only the fragments. The paternity of num-
bers of these, as well as of political essays of that period,
has, until the appearance of Bancroft's later volumes, been
—
claimed for one and another of his contemporaries, a
natural, but unfortunate, consequence of Samuel Adams's
entire disregard for the honors of authorship. The royal
Governors in their secret letters to the Ministry, now first
published, have in some measure compensated for this by
repeatedly denouncing him as the author. The accuracy
of their information, which was probably furnished by hired
spies orLoyalists in the Legislature,is attestedbysuch ofhis
original compositions as have been preserved in manuscript.
The collection of letters as they now exist, together with
others more recently discovered, embraces a correspondence
with the principal characters of the Revolution, including
Joseph Warren, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington,
Samuel Cooper, James Warren, James Otis, Paul Revere,
James Lovell, General Roberdeau, J. Pickering, Elbridge
Gerry, Dr. Cotton Tufts, the Count de Vergennes, James
Sullivan, Governor Trumbull, Judge Marchant, Peter Tim-
othy, Richard Henry Lee, John Dickinson, Stephen Sayre,
John Wilkes, Arthur Lee, John Langdon, Samuel Mather,
Joseph Hawley, PresidentWeare, Benjamin Kent, Jonathan
Scollay, Governor Ward, Dennys Deberdt, John Hancock,
John Lowell, Colonel Barrd, General Burgoyne, James
Xll INTRODUCTION.
Smith, John Morin Scott, George Read, Christopher Gads-
den, Israel Putnam, Thomas McKean, William Lee,Thomas
Jefferson, General Howe, Silas .Deane, Noah Webster, the
Chevalier de la Lucerne, General Alexander Macdougal,
General Gates, Thomas Young, Josiah Quincy, Richard
Jackson, John Pitts, Judge Bryan, John Winthrop, S. P.
Savage, Dr. Chauncy, Governor George Clinton, General
.Greene, Governor Thomas Johnson, General John Sullivan,
General John Fellows, James Bowdoin, The Baron de Steu-
ben, Thomas Chittenden, Charles Thompson, Stephen Hop-
kins, Benjamin Church, Roger Sherman, Thomas Paine,
and various prominent friends of liberty in England, with
/
whom Adams maintained an anonymous correspondence,
{
some ofthem furnishing him with secret information. Au-
tograph letters to or from most, of these have been saved,
—
in some instances, probably, all that ever passed be-
tween the writers, but oftener only small portions. In
connection with Revolutionary occurrences, they form an
intelligible key to his life, extending through the heroic age
ofAmerica, and exhibit the secret springs of his most im-
portant political actions.
The author is under lasting obligations to several mem-
bers of historical and other literary societies, who have
interested themselves in procuring copies of records and
papers which were beyond his reach, and have cheerfully
responded to troublesome queries, involving an expenditure
oftime and attention which in some instances could ill be
spared. The continual use of data thus furnished is the
best evidence how indispensable it has proved.
W. V. w.
Boston, December, 1865.