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JOHN ADAMS in favor of resting those rights upon the law of nature as well as the law of England ; and after the substance of the resolutions had been agreed upon, he was appointed to put them into shape. In his diary, published in the second volume of his collected works, and his contemporaneous letters written to his wife and published by his grandson, the most trust- worthy and graphic descriptions are to be found of the members and doings of that famous but little known body. The session concluded, Mr. Adams left Philadelphia with no expec- tation, as he said at the time, of ever seeing it again. Immediately on his return to Mas- sachusetts he was chosen by the town of Braintree a member of the provincial con- gress then in session. That congress had already appointed a committee of safety, vest- ed with general executive powers ; had seized the provincial revenues; had appointed gen- eral officers, collected military stores, and taken steps toward organizing an army of vol- unteer minutemen. Governor Gage had issued a proclamation denouncing these proceedings, but no attention was paid to it. Gage had no support except in the five or six regiments which formed the garrison of Boston, a few trembling officials, and a small minority of timid adherents; while the recommendations of the provincial congress had, by the common consent of the people, all the force of law. Shortly after the adjournment of this congress, Adams applied himself to answering through the newspapers a champion of the mother country's claim, who, under the nom de plume of "Massachusettensis," had commenced a se- ries of able and effective papers in a Boston journal, and to whom Adams replied under the signature of " Novanglus." These essays ap- peared weekly during the winter of l774-'5, but were cut short by the battle of Lexington. An abridgment of them was published in Almon's "Remembrancer" for 1775, under the title of " A History of the Dispute with America," and afterward in a separate pamphlet. They have also been twice reprinted entire in America, and are given in the 4th volume of Adams's collected works. Their value consists in the strong contemporaneous view which they pre- sent of the origin of the struggle between the colonies and the mother country, and of the policy of Bernard and Hutchinson as governors of Massachusetts, which did so much to bring that struggle on. Like all Mr. Adams's writ- ings, they are distinguished by a bold tone of investigation, a resort to first principles, and a pointed style ; but, like all his other writings, having been produced piecemeal and on the spur of the moment, they lack order, system, polish, and precision. In the midst of the ex- citement produced by the battle of Lexington which at once brought up the spirit even of the most hesitating patriots to the fighting pitch, and which was speedily followed by the seizure of the fortresses of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and by other similar seizures in other colonies Adams set out for Philadelphia te attend the continental congress of 1775, of which he had been appointed a member. This second congress, though made up for the most part of the same men, was a wholly different body from its predecessor. That was a mere consulting convention. The new congress speedily assumed, or rather had thrust upon it by the unanimous consent of the patriots, the exercise of a comprehensive authority, in which supreme executive, legislative, and in some cases judicial functions were united. In this busy scene the active and untiring Adams, one of whose distinguishing characteristics was his capacity and fondness for business, found am- ple employment, while his bold and pugnacious spirit was not a little excited by the hazards and dignity of the great game in which he had come to hold so deep a stake. Adams had made up his mind that any reconciliation with the mother country was hopeless. The ma- jority of congress were not yet of that opinion. Under the lead of John Dickinson, though against the strenuous resistance of Adams and others, that body voted still another and final petition to the king. Adams succeeded, how- ever, in joining with this vote one to put the colonies into a state of defence, though with protestations that the war on their part was defensive only, and without any intention to throw off their allegiance. Not long after, con- gress was brought up to the point of assuming the responsibility and control of the military operations which New England had commenced by laying siege to Boston, in which town Gage and his troops were shut up, and before which lay encamped an impromptu New England army of 15,000 men, drawn together immedi- ately after the battle of Lexington. Urged by the New England delegates, congress agreed to assume the expense and control of this army. Adams, in his autobiography, claims the honor of having first proposed Washington for the chief command, a concession intended to secure the good will and firm cooperation of Virginia and the southern colonies. Those colonies urged Gen. Lee for the second place in the army, but Adams insisted on giving that to Artemas Ward, then commanding the New England army before Boston. He supported Lee, however, for the third place. Having assumed the direction of this army, provided for its reorganization, and issued bills of credit to support it, congress took a short recess. Adams, returning home, sat in the interval as a member of the Massachusetts council, which, treating the office of governor as vacant, had, under a clause of the provincial charter in- tended to meet such cases, assumed the ex- ecutive authority. On returning to Phila- delphia in September, Adams found himself in hot water. Two confidential letters of his, written during the previous session, had been intercepted by the British in crossing Hudson river, and had been published in the Boston papers. Not only did these letters