him an ample competency. Two years later he was returned to Congress by the district in which he lived, and which he continued to represent until his death. Having been chosen merely on account of his determined resistance to secret societies, his position was independent of party politics, and correspondingly strong. He stood for the office of governor, and then for that of senator, of Massachusetts, but was on both occasions defeated by Davis. As chairman of the committee on manufactures, he strove to devise a middle policy in regard to tariffs, but his greatest effort at this period—perhaps the greatest service of his whole political life—was in connection with the abolition of slavery. In every form which the question took, he was the bold and determined advocate of abolition, gradually gathering an influential party around him, and so preparing for the triumphs, most of which have been won since his death. He himself witnessed, in 1845, the abolition of the "gag-rule," restricting the right of petition to Congress on the subject of slavery, which he had persistently opposed during the nine years it was in force. He died of paralysis on 23d February 1848, having been seized two days previously while attending the debates of Congress. Adams wrote a number of works, which are now of little importance. The style is fluent, but has none of the vigour and elegance of his father's. During his whole lifetime he kept a very voluminous journal, some portions of which have been published.
ADAMS, Richard, M.A., divine. Two contemporaries of the same name are frequently confounded with each other. The more eminent was son of the Rev. Richard Adams, rector of Worrall, in Cheshire. The family records seven clergymen of the Church of England in succession. The present worthy was born at Worrall, but the loss of the registers leaves the date uncertain. It is usually, but erroneously, stated, that he studied at Cambridge University. He was admitted a student of Brazenose College, Oxford, March 24, 1646, and became a fellow, having proceeded through the usual degrees. It was at Brazenose he formed his life-long friendship with John Howe, who had a profound veneration for Adams. In 1655 he was appointed to the rectory of St Mildred's, Bread Street, London—John Milton being a parishioner. From this he was ejected by the Act of Uniformity of 1662. Thereupon he continued his ministry as opportunity offered, and at length was settled as pastor of a congregation in Southwark. This Richard Adams is a typical example of the consistent and meek labourers of the early and struggling period of Non-conformity. His holy and beautiful life inspired Howe's noblest eloquence in his funeral sermon. He died in a ripe old age, on 7th Feb. 1698. His principal literary work is his contribution of annotations on Philippians and Colossians to Pool's celebrated Annotations. Along with Veal he edited the works of Charnock.(a. b. g.)
ADAMS, Samuel, American statesman, born at Boston, Sept. 27, 1722, was second cousin to John Adams. He studied at Harvard, but, owing to his father's misfortunes in business in connection with a banking speculation,—the "manufactory scheme,"—he had to leave before completing his course, and to relinquish his intention of becoming a Congregational clergyman. He received his degree, however, and it is worthy of note, as showing the tendency of his political opinions, that his thesis was a defence of the affirmative reply to the question, "Whether it be lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved?" The failure of the banking scheme above referred to, in consequence of the limitations imposed by English law, made Adams still more decided in his assertion of the rights of American citizens, and in his opposition to Parliament. He gave up his business, in which he had little success, and became tax-collector for the city of Boston, whence he was called by his political opponents, "Samuel the publican." In all the proceedings which issued at last in the declaration of independence Adams was a conspicuous actor. He took part in the numerous town meetings, drafted the protest which was sent up by Boston against the taxation scheme of Grenville (May 1764); and, being chosen next year a member of the general court of Massachusetts, soon became one of the leaders in debate. Upon his entry into the House he was appointed clerk, and had thus much influence in arranging the order of business and in drawing up papers. Attempts were more than once made by the English governor to win him over by the offer of a place, but Adams proved inflexible. His uncompromising resistance to the British Government continued; he was a prominent member of the continental Congress at Philadelphia, and was one of those who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He was a member of the convention which settled the constitution of Massachusetts, and became president of its Senate. From 1789 to 1794 he was lieutenant-governor of the State, and governor from 1794 to 1797, retiring in the latter year partly on account of age, but partly also because the Federalists were then in the ascendant, and he himself was inclined to the Jefferson or Republican party. He died on the 3d Oct. 1803. In an oration on American independence, delivered in Philadelphia, 1st Aug. 1776, Adams characterises the English as "a nation of shopkeepers." The oration was translated into French, and published at Paris; and it is therefore not unlikely that Napoleon's use of this phrase was not original.
ADAMS, Thomas—"the prose Shakspeare of Puritan theologians," as Southey named him—has left as few personal memorials behind him as the poet himself. The only facts regarding the commonplaces of his biography are furnished by epistles-dedicatory and epistles to the reader, and title-pages. From these we learn that he was, in 1612, "a preacher of the gospel at Willington," in Bedfordshire, where he is found on to 1614, and whence issued his Heaven and Earth Reconciled, The Devil's Banquet, and other works; that in 1614-15 he was at Wingrave, in Buckinghamshire, probably as vicar, and whence a number of his works went forth in quick succession; that in 1618 he held the preachership at St Gregory's, under St Paul's Cathedral, and was "observant chaplain" to Sir Henrie Montague, the Lord Chief-Justice of England; that during these years his epistles show him to have been on the most friendly terms with some of the foremost men in state and church; and that he must have died before the Restoration of 1660. His "occasionally" printed sermons, in small quartos, when collected in 1630, placed him beyond all comparison in the van of the preachers of England. Jeremy Taylor does not surpass him in brilliance of fancies, nor Thomas Fuller in wit. His numerous works display great learning, classical and patristic, and are unique in their abundance of stories, anecdotes, aphorisms, and puns. He was a Puritan in the church, in distinction from the Nonconformist Puritans, and is evangelically, not dry-doctrinally, Calvinistic in his theology. His works have been recently collected by Drs Joseph Angus and Thomas Smith (3 vols. 8vo, 1862). (a. b. g.)
