Adams, Samuel

(1722-1803), orator, patriot and agitator, was born in Boston, a second cousin of John Adams, and studied for a time at Harvard College. Unsucce ful in busine and in the office of tax-collector for the town of Boston, he soon began to take an active part in the Boston town-meetings. In 1764 he drew up Boston’s early protest against Grenville’s scheme of taxation. From 1765 to 1774 he was a member for Boston in the House of Representatives of Ma achusetts, in which he was among the foremost in debate sud asa writer of State papers. He was an adroit politician, prudept, yet zealous and in flexible in his love of liberty. He led in the protests against taxation without repre. eentation, and in 1770 secured from Hutch in son the removal of the troops from the city. He instituted the system of town committees of correspondence. From 1774 to 1781 he was a member of the Continental Congre ; he signed the Declaration of Independence, and had an important part in making the Ma achusetts Constitution of 1780. He was in 1781 a member of the Ma achusetts Senate, and in 1788 of the State Convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States. Opposed to some of its provisions, he finally concluded to vote for it, which was of much influence upon others. In the party divisions which soon followed, he was of the Democratic-Republican party. From 1789 to 1794 he was Lieutenant-Governor of Ma achusetts, from 1794 to 1797 Governor. Adams’ public services, of the first importance in the earlier stages of the revolutionary struggle, became le valuable when the tasks of the hour were those of constructive statesmanship and administration, for which he had little talent; but perhaps no one did more to bring about the Revolution. 22