Lawyer Adams

John Adams was never a wealthy man, and never would be – at least compared to his fellow Founding Fathers like Washington or Jefferson. Or John Hancock or Benjamin Franklin. When he married at 29, he had become reasonably established as an attorney, and modestly able to support a wife and family. 

To maintain and grow his legal practice however, he was required to travel great distances from their home in Braintree. Boston, where most of his clients were, was some ten or twelve miles away. By carriage or horseback, it was nearly a half-day’s ride. Plymouth and Falmouth, Worcester, and even points in what was then Maine, was often two or three days travel.

His professional reputation was growing, as was his purse. 

All this travel brought Adams into regular contact with fellow attorneys, businessmen, clergymen – the cream of Massachusetts Colony. Politics, and a continuing, nagging dissatisfaction about the relationship between the colonies and Great Britain, their Mother Country, was high on the list of conversation topics. 

The formation of clubs, committees, associations and patriotic societies were the unsurprising result when combining distances, attorneys, prominent citizens and political dissatisfaction. John Adams was invited to join several of those societies, which he did. One of those was the Committee of Correspondence, formed for the sole purpose of exchanging news and information among like-minded citizens of Massachusetts’ sister colonies. Letters were written, sent, passed along and hopefully published in various newspapers and gazettes, bridging the great distances with their shared concerns and commonalities.

Vexation and Discontent

Massachusetts had been a hotbed of vexation and discontent since 1765. Great Britain had imposed heavy duties and taxes on its American Colonies in order to help pay for its recent Seven Years War with France (the French and Indian War). There was no representative input in Parliament from the Colonies. The colonies protested; the taxes were rescinded…but other taxes and writs and acts were subsequently enacted. And protested…and ameliorated. And yet another series of duties were imposed. Nothing was being resolved by way of American representation in Great Britain.

In December, 1773, a huge shipload of heavily taxed tea had been sitting in Boston Harbor for a month, with Boston patriots squabbling with royal officialdom in increasingly heated contention. As deadlines neared and no satisfactory conclusion reached, a band of citizens, disguised as natives in blankets and war-paint, boarded the frigate in the darkness of night, hauled up 342 chests of “the bainfull weed,” worth some ten thousand pounds sterling, split the crates open, and tossed everything overboard.

There were consequences. Great Britain closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for. British ships surrounded the the harbor, and nothing could enter or leave, except for necessary food or fuel. All trade was stopped, including much of Boston’s inter-colonial trade. It had a dire effect economically and politically. 

Patriotic citizens in all thirteen colonies were electrified! The Committees of Correspondence had reached a point where face-to-face discussions were warranted. They called for a convention to be held midway – in Philadelphia, the largest and most cosmopolitan city in America. John Adams was one of four citizens chosen to represent Massachusetts.

Joining The Best and Brightest

John Adams was an inveterate diarist all his life, but he was a Puritan, heart and soul. He wrote diligently, not only of events and situations, people and places, but of his never-ending angsts. His diary was often a metaphorical hair-shirt for flogging himself with his perceived failings, foibles, insecurities, shortcomings, and anything that might be considered “human.” 

Once chosen as a delegate, he confided to his diary, “This will be an assembly of the wisest Men upon the Continent, who are Americans in Principle, i.e. against the Taxation of Americans by Authority of Parliament… I feel myself unequal to this business. A more extensive Knowledge of the Realm, the Colonies, and of Commerce, as well as of Law and Policy is necessary, than I am Master of.”

He worried about everything: his companions on the trip, of seeing more of the world than he had ever seen before, and the future of his country. He wrote, “We have not Men, fit for the Times… I feel unutterable Anxiety – God grant us Wisdom, and Fortitude!”

He would need to become acquainted and take the measure of the other delegates. To work cooperatively. It would not be easy for him to learn “the Characters and tempers, the Principles and Views of fifty Gentlemen total Strangers to me.”

Adding to those esoteric fears, was the more mundane concern of underwear. He wrote his wife Abigail, “I think it will be necessary to make me up, a Couple of Pieces of new Linnen [sic]. I am told, they wash miserably… and am advised to carry a great deal of Linnen.”

Abigail Adams duly made her husband some extra pairs of drawers. She also made him a light brown silk vest, so he could keep up appearances in Philadelphia.

And so, on August 10, 1774, along with his cousin Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine and Thomas Cushing, John Adams boarded a fine carriage pulled by four horses, and the Congressional Delegation left for Philadelphia. A parade of some 50 or 60 horsemen rode with them for several miles. Well wishers greeted them, cheering them on. 

He wrote Abigail that in every town all along the way, bells were rung, cannons were fired, and men, women and children crowded “as if it was to see a Coronation.”

But it would be six weeks before Abigail received her first letter, which, when she saw his familiar handwriting, had given her such a rush that “I was not composed enough to sleep till one o’clock.”

Epilogue: John’s fears of inadequacy would come to naught. He measured up very nicely.

Sources:

Butterfield, L.H. (ed) – The Book of Abigail and John – Harvard University Press, 1975

Ellis, Joseph J. – Passionate Sage – W.W. Norton Co., 1993

Gelles, Edith B. – Abigail and John: Portrait of a Marriage – Wm. Morrow, 2009

Levin, Phyllis Lee – Abigail Adams – St. Martin’s Press, 1987

https://founders.archives.gov/about/Adams

https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/diary/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Adams-president-of-United-States