the Crown, and there is nothing conciliatory in his words or acts. When
the tea was emptied into Boston Harbor it was easily understood that
Adams was the real leader in the action. No one familiar with the life
of the great town meeting man, as Prof. Hosmer likes to call him, can
doubt that he had the essential qualities of an adroit strategist.
Cromwell once locked Parliament out, Adams once locked the Assembly in.
He had secured a majority of the members to vote for a Continental
Congress, but could the resolve be presented and brought to a final vote
before Governor Gage could prorogue the Assembly, as he would use all
speed to do, the instant the first knowledge of the scheme reached his
ears? On the 17th of June, just one year before the Battle of Bunker
Hill, that question was answered. The resolve was offered that day
providing for the appointment of delegates to such a congress. Tory
members at once essayed to leave the hall to dispatch the news to
the governor, but the bolts were fast, and Samuel Adams had the key
in his pocket. Two months later the delegates were on their way to
Philadelphia,--Thomas Cushing, Samuel and John Adams and Robert Treat
Paine.

Events then transpired rapidly. So far, Samuel Adams was almost wholly
alone in the idea of independence, but it was declared by Congress less
than two years later. For more than twenty years longer, Adams continued
in public life, but his greatest work was before the Declaration of
Independence rather than after. There were times when the cause of the
patriots must have fallen through but for the nerve and skill of this
man. Bowdoin, Cushing, Hancock, Otis, and even John Adams could not have
been thoroughly trusted in the last years of the colony to bring affairs
to a successful issue. But Samuel Adams was fitted by intellect and
character, adroitness and courage, tireless energy and by never failing
devotion to the public good, to be the man for the time.