ceeded in evolving a very specious, though thoroughly false, argument in favor of his position.

This could not, of course, be suffered to pass in silence; a committee of the House was appointed, charged with the duty of preparing an answer and empowered to call for aid from competent persons, within or without Massachusetts, in framing it.

CHAPTER VI.

REPLY TO THE GOVERNOR-ADAMS APPOINted deleGATE TO THE FIRST CONGRESS.

I'

T is said upon the authority of a single person, that the assistance of Mr. Dulany, of Maryland, and John Dickinson, of Pennsylvania,-both of whom had been prominent in opposition to the stamp act, was solicited by the committee for the service named in the last chapter, and refused; be this as it may, they certainly bore no part in preparing the answer, which was very slow in appearing. When it came, every one at once acknowledged its logical force, clearness, and exhaustiveness. It went to the very root of the question, denying much to the king that had been universally admitted. It denied the right of the monarch of a Christian people to seize the lands of heathen, and grant them at his pleasure; by hypothetically admitting this right, however, it proceeded with the statement that the sovereign, in whom, if not in its aboriginal inhabitants, lay the title to the lands lying within the boundaries of the province, had expressly granted to certain of his subjects the right to occupy and settle the same, under certain restrictions appearing in the language of the grant; this, it was claimed, reduced the question from one of natural right to one of interpretation of the grant, and of the presumption arising from subsequent acts of the colonists, done under its sanction, and countenanced by the king. Among these acts was that of making all laws for the internal government of the province, subject to no restriction, save that they should not be repugnant to the laws of England. This very limitation, under Lord Bacon's rule, would increase the presumptive right of self-government on the part of the colony. For the king to have made a guaranty of the rights of British subjects, as an integral part of a colonial grant, unless those rights were intended to be exercised in that colony, would be an absurdity. If these rights could only be enforced by returning to England, it needed no solemn act of the king to convey them, for they already existed, and to withdraw them was beyond his power. The paper then proceeded to a

review of Mr. Hutchinson's precedents, and less vital arguments; by a clever argumentum ad hominem, it turned against him his own words, embodied in his History of Massachusetts, to prove his disingenuousness.

The effect of this masterly paper was not only to completely rout the governor, but to more than counteract his own argument. Had he been content to allow matters to take their course, the progress of the liberty propaganda must have been slow, but his unwise and ill-considered precipitation of the contest, and his ignominious defeat gave to his enemies a power for which they might long have striven in vain.

The authorship of the answer has been very much questioned and discussed, yet it seems very plain that the facts were fully recognized at the time. As it was by far the most important state document of the prerevolutionary period, it seems proper that the credit for its preparation should be properly bestowed. The facts appear to have been as follows: A committee, which included Samuel Adams and Joseph Hawley, was appointed by the house to frame a reply to the governor's argument. An answer was, in fact, prepared, principally by Mr. Samuel Adams, after the completion of which, Mr. John Adams, though not a member of the house, was called upon for counsel. His autobiography tells much of what

followed:

"When I first met the gentlemen, they had an answer to his excellency's speech already prepared, neatly and elegantly composed, which I then believed to have been written by Samuel Adams, but which I have since had reason to suspect was drawn at his desire and with his co-operation, by my friend, Dr. Joseph Warren. It was full of those elementary principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which have since made such a figure in the world; principles which are founded in nature and eternal, unchangeable truth, but which must be well understood and cautiously applied. It is not safe, at all times, and in every cause, to apply the ratio ultima verum; resort to club law and force of arms. There was no answer, or attempt to answer, the governor's legal and constitutional arguments, such as they were. I found myself in a delicate situation, as you may well suppose. In the first place, the self-love of the composer, who I believed to be Samuel Adams, having then no suspicion of Warren, would be hurt by garbling his infant. In the second place, to strike out principles which I loved as well as any of the people, would be odious and unpopular. We read that West would give five hundred dollars for a red lion, which he painted for a sign post. I, poor as I am, would give as much for a copy of that answer to Governor Hutchinson. But I fear it is lost forever; it may, however, be found hereafter, and I hope it may. We read the answer, paragraph by paragraph. I suggested my doubts, scruples, and difficulties. The committee seemed to see and feel the force of them. The gentlemen condescended to ask my opinion what answer would be

proper for them to report. I modestly suggested to them the propriety of leaving out many of those popular and elegant periods, and of discussing the question, with the governor, upon principles more especially legal and constitutional. The gentlemen very civilly requested me to undertake the task, and I agreed to attempt it. The committee met from evening to evening, and I soon made my report. I drew a line over the most eloquent parts of the oration they had before them, and reduced those legal and historical authorities which appear on the record. It is more than forty years since I have seen any one of those papers which composed the controversy, and I know not how they would appear to the present generation, nor indeed, how they would appear to myself. They stand upon record and were printed together, in a pamphlet, and no doubt in the newspapers. They ought to be looked up, for the effect of them upon public opinion was beyond expectation. The governor's reasoning, instead of convincing the people that parliament had sovereign authority over them in all cases whatsoever, seemed to convince all the world that parliament had no authority over them, in any case whatsoever. Mr. Hutchinson really made a meagre figure in that dispute. He had waded beyond his depth. He had wholly misunderstood the legal doctrine of allegiance. In all great affairs there is always something ridiculous; et malheureusement, j'ai toujours ete trop inclina a saisir les ridicules. I had quoted largely from a law authority which no man in Massachusetts, at that time, had ever read. Hutchinson and all his law counsels were at fault. They dared not deny it, lest the book should be produced to their confusion. It was humorous enough to see how Hutchinson wriggled to evade it. He found nothing better to say than that “it was the artificial reasoning of Lord Coke." The book was Moore's Reports. The owner of it, for alas, master, it was borrowed, was a buyer, but not a reader of books. It had been Mr. Gridley's.".

From this statement it must be very clear that, while Samuel Adams framed the body of the answer, it was his more distinguished kinsman who breathed into it the soul; that, while without his help it might have ranked as a very pretty patriotic declaration, it was the master hand and mind of John Adams which gave it its vital power, and made it, as it is even to-day, a significant argument to the point.

Hutchinson's reply was very lame. He recast his argument, falling back upon the right of eminent domain, to sustain the theory that British subjects, in every part of the world, held their lands from the crown of England, not from the king as an individual, and that an obligation to submit to the authority of the crown was a necessary correlative of such tenure. This was, in effect, to claim that the colonists of Massachusetts were feudatories of the crown, and such argument was equivalent to a desertion of the ground which he had formerly taken. Of course, such vacillation did not strengthen his case. It was, in fact, practically an admission of defeat.