*

den is able, patriotic, sensible, and cheerful; Ward, honorable, conscientious, and benevolent; Randolph,† large and well-looking. Edward Rutledge, ‡ good-natured, but conceited, and "a perfect Bob-o-Lincoln," plumes himself on having studied at the Temple, and travelled; he is young and sprightly; speaks through his nose, much as a Yankee sings; is uninteresting in conversation, and unnatural in debate. Richard Henry Lee, ‡ tall and spare, is a deep thinker, and a masterly man, able and inflexible, a scholar, a gentleman, and of uncommon eloquence. Gerry, ‡ ardent in his love of country, never hesitates to promote the boldest measures consistent with prudence. Dickinson § appears a mere shadow, and with a visage of the hue of ashes; is modest, and of excellent heart; makes calls in his coach with four horses. "Johnny," said his mother, "you will be hanged; your estate will be forfeited and confiscated: you will leave your excellent wife a widow, and your charming children orphans, beggars, and infamous." Thomson- the Secretary, and the "Sam. Adams of Philadelphia" is a gentleman of family, fortune, and character, and about to marry a lady of wealth. Houston is inexperienced, but of zeal and good sense. Galloway || is learned, but a cold speaker; Zubly,|| a doctor of divinity, well read, and with pretensions as a linguist; Duché,|| the chaplain, whose form of prayer moved all hearts, and whose eloquence was the praise of every tongue. Sherman, clear-headed, and sound in judgment, speaks often and long, but heavily and clumsily, standing bolt upright,

* Called by some "the John Adams of the South." † President of the First Congress.

A signer of the Declaration of Independence. As regards Edward Rutledge, Patrick Henry called him the most elegant speaker in the First Congress.

Mr. Adams's great opponent in the discussions on the question of Independence.

All these fell off and became Loyalists. Galloway and Duché went to England, where the one figured as a political writer, the other as a preacher. Zubly's defection might have been anticipated as early as the Congress of 1775, in which he said in debate: “A republican government is little better than a government of devils."

¶ A signer of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson remarked of Sherman, that "he never said a foolish thing in his life"; and Macon, that "he had more common sense than any man I ever knew."

"rigid as starched linen," and with his hands clasped before him. Chase is violent and boisterous in debate, and "tedious upon frivolous points."

This is all off-hand limning, very certainly, and no doubt Mr. Adams had reason, subsequently, to modify some of his opinions. But the general accuracy of the pictures which he drew of men and manners will not be questioned, we suppose, by persons who are well informed as to the leading personages and events of the second half of the last century. These sketches of such characters in Boston, in New York, and in Congress, as well as the mention of the sectional jealousies that prevailed, of the personal quarrels and alienations that existed among Whigs of high position in the civil and military line, at home, and among those who were employed abroad on embassies of the last importance to the Whig cause, show clearly, were there no other sources of information, that the prominent men of the Revolutionary era were great and good, little and bad, mingled, just as elsewhere in the annals of our race. Those of lofty virtue, like William III. of England, were compelled by the necessities of their condition to employ as instruments persons whom they knew or believed to be mere mercenaries, who would fall off and join the opposite side the moment that interest should seem to require; and, like William, they appeared oblivious of this fact, simply because, under the circumstances, it was sound policy to be blind, forgetful, and ignorant.

We do not care, of all things, to be thought to want appreciation of our countrymen, and especially of those who broke the yoke of colonial vassalage; nor, on the other hand, do we care to imitate the writers of a late school, and treat the great and the successful actors in the world's affairs as little short of divinities, and as exempt from criticism. In speaking of men who have left their impress upon their age, something, we own, is due to the dignity of history; but something, too, is due to the dignity of truth. The bandaged eyes and the even scales, we apprehend, are as fit emblems for the student as for

* A signer of the Declaration of Independence. He became Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. At the instigation of John Randolph he was impeached, but was acquitted.

the judge; and so, upon the evidence, and upon the law of progress, we say that we are not to look for as great intellectual development, or for as high civilization, among bound or even emancipated British colonists, as, after the lapse of two generations, exists around us, and in Anglo-Saxon countries everywhere.

We have devoted much space to these volumes, because of their value in throwing light upon the period to which they relate. As we open the fourth volume, we meet the celebrated papers of Novanglus, in reply to the able Tory writer Massachusettensis. Until late in life, Mr. Adams supposed that the latter was Jonathan Sewall, his personal friend, but finally yielded to the evidence in favor of Daniel Leonard, † another Loyalist, for whom he had "nearly an equal regard." Novanglus was immediately reprinted in an abridged form in Almon's Remembrancer; was translated in Holland, in 1782, while Mr. Adams was there soliciting an alliance for his country; was reprinted a second time in England, two years later, and finally in Boston, in 1819, with Massachusettensis and a Preface.

If, among the essays of the Revolutionary era, there be another which displays so thorough knowledge of the elementary principles of government and of the true relations between the rulers and the ruled, or so solid legal learning, or so able reasoning upon the issues immediately involved, as this, we confess that it has escaped our research. But yet its style is by no means to be commended; and its principal design was to defend the state of things which existed prior to the attempts of the ministry, and of the "junto" here, to remodel colonial institutions, and those of Massachusetts especially. Mr. Adams argues that the scheme of "regulating" was in fact an attack, an unjustifiable encroachment, which, if consummated, would deprive the colonists of their liberties; and, in the course of the discussion, he presses this point to the ex

* Nine years ago, the writer of this article stated his views somewhat at large on this subject, in these pages. See North American Review, Vol. LXVI. p. 426.

† Of Taunton, Mass. He loved show, and lived in a style which few barristers could support. He was included in the banishment and conspiracy acts, became Chief Justice of the Bermudas, and died in London in 1829.

*

treme doctrine, that the Whigs would resist, "if the constitution of the Massachusetts had been altered as much for the better as it is for the worse," on the ground that Parliament had no "right to make any alteration at all,” — with the assertion, that the "patriots of this Province desire nothing new," wishing "only to keep their old privileges," that, attached to their charter and to their constitution, they were laboring to prevent their overthrow, and that they had been "allowed for one hundred and fifty years to tax themselves, and govern their internal concerns as they thought best." On the other hand, he admits in the most express terms, and in various places, the power of Parliament to regulate colonial commerce, and even to impose duties for that purpose, while once we have these remarkable words: "The acts of trade and navigation might be confirmed by provincial laws, and carried into execution by our own courts and juries, and in this case illicit trade would be cut up by the roots for ever." These rapid outlines embrace, we think, a fair view of the argumentative parts of Novanglus; and, as the concluding number was sent to press only two days before the shedding of blood at Lexington, we are to consider it as an authorized exposition of the avowed sentiments of the Whig leaders. single word of comment upon two points. to regulate trade, as distinguished from a This was the very hinge of the dispute. never solved, because it was unsolvable. The alleged distinction was a fallacy. Another position of Mr. Adams is equally fallacious, namely, that there was a real difference between a duty laid and collected at the port of exportation, and one laid and collected at the port of importation; which he states in reply to Massachusettensis, as regards the duty on tea, which was reduced from a shilling paid in England, to the "three-pence" the pound, to be collected here. In either case, the duty was a part of the price to consumers, and of consequence, in the reduction of duty, the commodity was to

What was a duty duty for revenue? It was a question

The Whigs generally conceded this. Franklin, in his examination in the House of Commons, thrice admitted the power of Parliament to impose duties to regulate commerce; and he said that he had never heard any "objection" to the exercise of such power, that the Americans had "never disputed" it.

be nine-pence the pound cheaper; while, as to the principle of "taxation" so earnestly resisted, what possible difference was there between a tax levied in London and one laid in Boston, so long as a "tax" was laid at one place or the other? In all these matters, the Whigs were in toils from which the sword alone could release them. But as members of the human family, they were right. They contended for free commerce; for liberty to buy where they would, and to sell where they could; and to this they were entitled by the organic law of the social state, whatever the enactments of the statute-book.* Again we do not very well understand why, when the first charter had been revoked, and that which Mr. Adams so ably and zealously defended had been accepted in its stead, and acted under for more than eighty years, there had not been a fatal admission against his argument in this particular.

When we commenced reading the documents of the Revolution, our home was on the eastern frontier. Across the border, we saw in wonder, that Tories of Massachusetts, and graduates of her University, with others who had been banished from the old thirteen, were chief supporters of the same colonial system. We saw first, and for some years, that system as the Whigs broke from it, and well did we mark its workings; for we fancied that we were actually living in ante-Revolutionary times. Next, we beheld important changes and modifications, and, finally, its essential abandonment by the mother country. It was so abominable, we could but be amazed that our fathers have left on record so few and so feeble complaints against it. As we studied it, we did not hesitate to declare. to the colonists of our acquaintance, that it might have answered possibly for the nations conquered by heathen Rome; but that, without a single element of human brotherhood, it ought never to have been revived by the European powers that sought dominion in America, and that, at all events, its

* As connecting Novanglus with the scenes in which Mr. Adams was soon the great actor, it is of interest to remember that one fourth of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had been bred merchants or shipmasters; that more than one of them bore the stigma of free-trader or "smuggler"; and that, as late as the battle of Lexington, prosecutions were pending against Hancock, the President of Congress, to the extent of the whole of his large fortune, for daring, in violation of the acts of Parliament, to carry on a free commerce with interdicted parts of the world.