member of the constitutional congress in 1775. He zealously promoted, and, in 1776, had the honour of signing the declaration of independence. His ultra-democratic convictions led him to oppose the formation of a regular army, as well as to desire that the chief command should, in 1788, be transferred from the great and good Washington to General Gates. In 1789 he was appointed lieutenant-governor, and in 1794, governor, of his native state. In his later years, political experience is said to have rendered his views and sympathies more conservative. His stature was short and slender, forming a contrast to the vigour of his mind; but his aspect was dignified and engaging. He lived throughout in honoured poverty, revered for his public and private virtues, and died in 1808 at the advanced age of eighty-two.—E. M.
ADAMS, Thomas, a minister of the Church of England in the seventeenth century, and the author of various works on religious subjects, some of which are noted for the quaintness of their titles, and their curious strain of figurative discussion. He was officiating at Willington in Bedfordshire in 1614, and at London in 1618, at which time he was chaplain to Sir Henry Montagu, Lord Chief Justice of England. An edition of his whole works was published at London in 1730.—J. A.
ADAMS, Sir Thomas, lord mayor of London in 1645, and renowned for his chivalrous loyalty. He transmitted to Charles II. the sum of £11,000 during his exile, and was made a baronet when sent by the city of London as one of a deputation to congratulate that monarch at the Restoration.
ADAMS, William, an English navigator, born about 1575, at Gillingham, Kent. After receiving instructions at Limehouse naval academy, he in June, 1598, embarked on board the Dutch squadron, under Admiral De Mahn, bound for the Moluccas. In April, 1600, the ship in which he sailed was stranded on a small island dependent on Japan. By his skill in various useful arts he obtained the notice and favour of the emperor, and procured for the Dutch and English important commercial privileges. Two of his letters have been published, giving an account of his adventures, and interesting information regarding Japan.—E. M.
ADAMS, William, a London surgeon, who, after long and special experience in treating diseases of the kidneys, &c., published in 1773 a valuable disquisition on the subject.
ADAMS, William, D.D., master of Pembroke college, Oxford, canon of Gloucester, and archdeacon of Llandaff. He is perhaps chiefly known as a friend for many years of Dr. Samuel Johnson. It has been said that he was his tutor at Pembroke college; but this is not correct, Johnson having left the university the term before Adams was appointed to that office in 1731. He had, however, considerable influence over him; for Bishop Percy of Dromore writes: "I have heard Johnson say that the mild but judicious expostulations of this worthy man (then one of the junior fellows), whose virtue awed him, and whose learning he revered, made him really ashamed of himself." Dr. Adams published an answer to "Hume on Miracles," which Sir James Stenhouse (himself no mean judge) calls "one of the most excellent pieces of controversy extant, and most satisfactory." He was born at Shrewsbury, a.d. 1707; elected fellow of Pembroke college, 1723; tutor, 1731; and master, 1775. Before his appointment to the mastership he was for some time vicar of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury, where he was much respected for his learning, amiable character, and piety. From 1774 till his death he was rector of Counde in Shropshire. He died January 13, 1789, aged eighty-two, and was buried in Gloucester cathedral, where a monument, with a medallion portrait, is erected to his memory.—T. S. P.
ADAMS, Rev. William, M.A., late fellow and tutor of Merton college, and vicar of St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford. His life was short and uneventful, but far from useless. He was the second son of the late Mr. Sergeant Adams, assistant-judge at the Middlesex sessions. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, where he obtained the highest honours, a double-first class in 1836. In the following year he was elected fellow and tutor of Merton college, and was shortly after presented to the vicarage of St. Peter's-in-the-East, in Oxford, nis immediate predecessors having been Dr. Denison the late, and Dr. Hamilton the present, bishop of Salisbury. Here he distinguished himself as an active parish clergyman and an earnest preacher, till the year 1842, when, bathing at Eton, after a day of much excitement and mental exertion, he caught a violent cold, the commencement of an illness which terminated fatally in the winter of 1847-48. He died and was buried at Bonchurch in the Isle of Wight. His reputation as an author rests chiefly upon his "Sacred Allegories," viz.:—"The Shadow of the Cross;" "The Distant Hills;" "The Old Man's Home," and "The King's Messengers." Besides these he published, "The Warnings of the Holy Week," a course of elegant and practical sermons, preached at St. Peter's-in-the-East; and "The Fall of Crœsus, a story from Herodotus; designed to connect the study of history with the doctrine of a superintending Providence."—T. S. P.
ADAMSON, Henry, a Scottish poet of the 17th century, a native of Perth, author of "The Muses Threnodie." Died 1639.
ADAMSON, Patrick, archbishop of St. Andrews during a very stormy period of the Reformed Church of Scotland, a man of brilliant talents and attainments, who, through the allurements of ambition, drew on himself great obloquy and much suffering, was born at Perth in 1536. In the records of the period he is frequently named Patrick Constance or Constantine. He studied at St. Mary's college, St. Andrews, and having embraced the reformed doctrines, he was in 1560 invested with the clerical office, and soon after became minister of Ceres in Fife. As a preacher he was eloquent and impressive, and as a writer of Latin poetry, he was little inferior to Buchanan, Arthur Johnston, or Andrew Melville. About 1565 he quitted his pastoral charge, and, in the capacity of tutor, accompanied James, the eldest son of Sir James Macgill of Rankeilour in Fife, clerk-register, in his travels to France. At the universities of Padua and Bourges he studied civil and canon law; and upon his return to Scotland in 1570, when he married, he vacillated as to the choice of the profession he should follow. Declining the office of principal of St. Leonard's college, St. Andrews, which, before his return, Buchanan had resigned in his favour, he commenced practice at the bar; but, at the urgent request of the General Assembly, he resumed his original profession, and was appointed minister of Paisley. In the contest between the supporters and the opponents of prelacy and royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, Adamson professed a concurrence in the views of Melville, whose society he courted. In 1575 he left his charge at Paisley, on being appointed chaplain to the Regent Morton; in 1577 he was appointed archbishop of St. Andrews, and primate of all Scotland; and though, before being admitted, he declared his adhesion to the principles of ecclesiastical polity contained in the Book of Discipline, few or none of his brethren had any confidence in the sincerity of his professions. Adamson resided some time in England as ambassador from James to Elizabeth, and after his return in 1584, continued to correspond with Archbishop Whitgift, and Dr., afterwards Archbishop, Bancroft. In April, 1586, he was excommunicated by the Synod of Fife for having assumed the office of bishop, and supported the measures of the court for the overthrow of the Presbyterian polity. In 1588 he was formally accused before the Assembly, and his deposition was the result. The unfortunate man, deprived of his emoluments, and neglected even by James, whose policy he had but too zealously promoted, was now left to endure sorrow, privation, and sickness. He even sought and obtained relief for himself and his family from his opponent, Andrew Melville. He was also released by the Synod of Fife from their sentence of excommunication, in compliance with his professedly earnest entreaties, upon his transmitting a subscribed recantation of the views on which he had previously acted. The genuineness of the document is unquestionable, but the sincerity of his submission, and the value to be attached to the recantation, are, from the circumstances under which they were made, still matters of ecclesiastical controversy. He died February 19, 1592. It is pleasant to add, that a beautiful little Latin poem, published in his works, and breathing a spirit of ardent piety, was composed by him a short time before his death. A collected edition of his works, in quarto, was published by his son-in-law, Thomas Wilson, at London, in 1619.—J. A.
ADA´MUS A´NGLICUS, an Englishman by birth, a doctor of theology and professor at Paris. He must have been a Dominican in doctrine, as Petrus Vincentinus names him among the impugners of the immaculate conception of the Virgin.
ADA´MUS CATHANENSIS, a bishop of Caithness in the reign of Alexander II. of Scotland. He was hated by the people of his diocese for his rigour in exacting his tithes, and was burned alive in his own house in 1222. The king avenged his death by the destruction of four hundred persons supposed to have been concerned in the murder.
