Government had on foot a scheme to demand a tribute from the Colonies. On
invitation of a committee, possibly appointed by Adams, Adams was
requested to draw up instructions to the Representatives in the Colonial
Legislature. Adams did so and the document is now in the archives of the
old State House at Boston, in the plain and elegant penmanship that is so
easily recognized. This document calls itself, "The First Public Denial of
the Right of the British Parliament to tax the Colonies without their
Consent, and the first Public Suggestion of a Union on the part of the
Colonies to Protect themselves against British Aggression."

The style of the paper is lucid, firm and logical; it combines in itself
the suggestion of all there was to be said or could be said on the matter.
Adams saw all over and around his topic--no unpleasant surprise could be
sprung on him--twenty-five years had he studied this one theme. He had
made himself familiar with the political history of every nation so far as
such history could be gathered; he was past master of his subject.

However, when he was forty years of age his followers were few and mostly
men of small influence. The Calkers' Club was the home of the sedition,
and many of the members were day-laborers. But the idea of independence
gradually grew, and, in Seventeen Hundred Sixty-five, Adams was elected a
member of the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature. In honor of his writing
ability, he was chosen clerk of the Assembly, for in all public gatherings
orators are chosen as presidents and newspapermen for secretaries. Thus
are honors distributed, and thus, too, does the public show which talent
it values most.

On November Second, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-two, on motion of Adams, a
committee of several hundred citizens was appointed "to state the Rights
of the Colonies and to communicate and publish them to the World as the