BIOGRAPHIA AMERICANA.

ADAMS, SAMUEL, a distinguished statesman and patriot, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, September 27, 1722. His ancestors were very respectable, and among the first settlers of New-England.

In the years 1740 and '43, he graduated at Harvard college, and received the respective degrees of bachelor and master of arts. On the latter occasion, he proposed the following question for discussion: "Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the commonwealth' cannot be otherwise preserved." He maintained the affirmative of this proposition, and thus evinced, at this early period of his life, his attachment to the liberties of the people. Mr. Adams was known as a political writer during the administration of governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, to whom he was opposed, as he conceived the union of so much military and civil power in one man, to be dangerous.

When the stamp act was the subject of conversation, of public resentment, and succeeding tumults, Mr. Adams was one of those important characters who appeared to oppose it every step. Nor were the taxes upon tea, oil, and colours, less odious to the Americans than the stamp act; on this occasion he boldly opposed the right of

Great Britain to tax the colonies, in a remonstrance of some length, which is the first public document we have on record denying the right of the British parliament to tax the colonies without their own

consent.

In consequence of the act of imposing duties in 1767, Mr. Adams suggested a non-importation agreement with the merchants, which was agreed to and signed by nearly all of them in the pro

vince.

At a very early period of the controversy with Great Britain, Mr. Adams suggested the importance of establishing committees of correspondence, and was first adopted by Massachusetts, on a motion of Mr. Adams, at a public town-meeting in Boston. This plan was afterwards followed by all the provinces.

He was afterwards the first to suggest a congress of the colonies.

After every method had been tried to induce Mr. Adams to abandon the cause of his country, he was at length proscribed, in connexion with John Hancock, by a general proclamation issued by governor Gage, June 12, 1775.

In 1774 he was elected a member of the general congress. In 1776, on the 4th of July, he was one of those patriots, who fearlessly subscribed their "lives," their "fortunes," and their "honour," to the immortal Declaration of Independence.)

Our patriots, in their progress to independence, had successfully encountered many formidable obstacles; but in the year 1777, still greater difficulties arose, at the prospect of which some of the stoutest hearts began to falter. At this critical juncture there were but twenty-eight members who attended the congress at Philadelphia. With reference to it Mr. Adams was said to reply, "It was the smallest, but the truest congress they ever had."

In 1779, he was appointed by the state conven

tion, one of the committee to prepare and report a form of government for Massachusetts. At the close of the war he opposed a peace with Great Britain, unless the northern states retained their full privileges in the fisheries.

In 1787 he was chosen a member of the Massachusetts convention, for the ratification of the constitution of the United States. He made several objections to it, which were afterwards removed by its being altered to his wishes.

In 1789 he was elected lieutenant-governor of the state of Massachusetts, and continued to fill that office till 1794, when he was elected governor. He was annually re-elected till 1797, when his age and infirmities induced him to retire from public office. He died October 3, 1803, aged eighty-one years.

The leading traits in the character of Mr. Adams were an unconquerable love of liberty, integrity, firmness, and decision.) Governor Hutchinson, in answer to the inquiry, why Mr. Adams was not taken off from his opposition by an office, writes to a friend in England-" Such is the obstinacy and inflexible disposition of the man, that he never can be conciliated by any office or gift whatever."

To a majestic countenance and dignified manners, there was added a suavity of temper, which conciliated the affection of his acquaintance. Among his friends he was cheerful and companionable, a lover of chaste wit, and remarkably fond of anecdote. His mind was early imbued with piety, as well as cultivated by science.

The independence of the United States of America is perhaps to be attributed as much to his exertions, as to the exertions of any one man.

His writings were numerous, and much celebrated for their elegance and fervour, but they are only to be found in the perishable columns of 'a newspaper or pamphlet.

In 1790 a few letters passed between him and

Mr. John Adams, then vice-president, in which the principles of government are discussed. This correspondence was published in 1800.

ADAMS, JOHN, LL. D. second president of the United States, and a political writer of considerable reputation, was descended from one of the most respectable families who founded the colony of Massachusetts, and was born at Braintree, October 19, 1735.

At an early age he was distinguished for his scholarship, and graduated at Harvard college. He then entered on the study of the law, and in a few years rose to distinguished eminence in his profession.

His first publication was "An Essay on Canon and Feudal Law," a work of considerable merit, learning, and research. He afterwards employed his pen in the cause of his country, which had no little influence in exciting the spirit of the revolution, and in diffusing a general acquaintance of the principles of civil liberty among his fellow citizens. throughout all the colonies.

Such was his high standing for stern integrity and abilities as a statesman and a lawyer, that he was unanimously chosen a member of the first congress, which met at Philadelphia in 1774, and reelected in the following year.

In that august assembly of sages, philosophers, and statesmen, whose deliberations will never cease to reflect their effulgence on the nations of the world, he uniformly stood in the first rank, and bore a distinguished and conspicuous part in all the discussions of that eventful period, which finally ended in a separation of the colonies from Great Britain.

He was one of the first to perceive that a cordial