The man who comes up the stairway furtively, with a manuscript he wants
printed, is in dead earnest; and he has excited the ridicule, wrath or
pity of editors for three hundred years. Such a one was Samuel Adams. His
wife did her own work, and the grocer with bills in his hand often grew
red in the face and knocked in vain.

And yet the keen intellect of Samuel Adams was not a thing to smile at.
Any one who stood before him, face to face, felt the power of the man, and
acknowledged it then and there, as we always do when we stand in the
presence of a strong individuality. And this inward acknowledgment of
worth was instinctively made by John Hancock, the biggest man in all
Boston town.

John Hancock, through his genial, glowing personality, and his lavish
spending of money, was very popular. He was being fed on flattery, and the
more a man gets of flattery, once the taste is acquired, the more he
craves. It is like the mad thirst for liquor, or the Romeike habit.

John Hancock was getting attention, and he wanted more. He had been chosen
selectman to fill the place that his uncle had occupied, and when Samuel
Adams incidentally dropped a remark that good men were needed in the
General Court, John Hancock agreed with him. He was named for the office
and with Samuel Adams' help was easily elected.

Not long after this, the sloop "Liberty" was seized by the government
officials for violation of the revenue laws. The craft was owned by John
Hancock and had surreptitiously landed a cargo of wine without paying
duty.