fortnight at a time, through the influence of Messrs. Hutchinson
and Oliver, to the great and steadily rising wrath of young Mr.
Adams. The courts must soon be opened, he said to himself; their
inactivity "will make a large chasm in my affairs, if it should
not reduce me to distress." Young Mr. Adams, who had, no less
than Mr. Oliver, a family to support and children to provide for,
was just at the point of making a reputation and winning a
competence "when this execrable project was set on foot for my
ruin as well as that of America in general." And therefore Mr.
Adams, and Mr. Samuel Adams, and Mr. Otis, and Mr. Gridley, in
order to avert the ruin of America in general, were "very warm"
to have the courts open and very bitter against Messrs.
Hutchinson and Oliver whose "insolence and impudence and
chicanery" in the matter were obvious, and whose secret motives
might easily be inferred. Little wonder if these men, who had
managed by hook or crook to get into their own hands or into the
hands of their families nearly all the lucrative offices in the
province, now sought to curry favor with ministers in order to
maintain their amazing ascendancy!

When the Stamp Act was passed, all men in America had professed
themselves, and were thought to be, Sons of Liberty. Even Mr.
Hutchinson had declared himself against ministerial measures. But
scarce a month had elapsed since the law was to have gone into
effect before it was clear to the discerning that, for all their
professions, most of the "better sort" were not genuine Sons of
Liberty at all, but timid sycophants, pliant instruments of
despotism, far more intent upon the ruin of Mr. Adams and of
America in general than any minister could be shown to be. For
the policy of dispensing with activities requiring stamped