Birthplace of U. S. President John Adams, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Photograph taken by me, August 2005.
In 1761, Adams began to feel his first patriotic stirrings. A new king had taken the throne in England and a new writ of assistance had to be approved by the Massachusetts Colony's Superior Court. However the writs contain a general search warrant. For years ships docking in Boston had smuggle items, especially molasses. The colonists feared the lose of profits from smuggling. The colonists decided to fight the writs. One of the two lawyers hired by the colonists was John Otis. In his argument against the writs, Otis included the line, "A man's home is his castle." Otis defeated the Crown's lawyers, or at least the colonists thought so. The Superior Court, fearing that colonists believed that they won the case, stalled and wrote to London for assistance.
John Adams was present for the whole trial. Adams thought that Otis rose like a flame of fire. By the end of the trial, Adams was ready to join the Patriot's cause. Later that year, John's father passed away. With his father's passing, John gained a place in the Braintree Town Meeting. This was the beginning of John's political career. Among John's first political accomplishments were to bar amateurs from practicing law and to appoint his brother as deputy sheriff. Adams became a respected man in Braintree and was looked upon as a reliable citizen of the town.
"Dissertation On Canon and Feudal Law."
In 1765, Adams began to publish a series of newspaper essays entitled, "Dissertation On Canon and Feudal Law." The news of the Stamp Act became public before he had finished his essays. Therefore, Adams used his final essay as a forum to attack the Stamp Act. The town of Braintree selected John Adams to write a protest against the Stamp Act. John hesitated but was assured by his cousin, Sam Adams, that it would bring John some notoriety in Boston. John was less sure, in his diary he poured out his anguish. John wrote that first to become a successful lawyer he had to deal with poverty, few friends to help him, and now the Stamp Act conspired to ruin law practice.
John's protest writing did bring him some notoriety. Samuel Adams invited John to attend the meetings of the Caucus Club. The Caucus Club was a political organization in which Deacon Adams was a member. John was impressed with the meeting and the smoky room filled with the future revolutionaries. On February 22, 1766, the British House of Commons repealed the Stamp Act. It took three months for the news to reach Boston. The repeal of the Stamp Act reduced much of the anti-parliament fever in Boston. Adams was able to return to his law practice and his budding political career.In 1769, Adams won his first noticeable case. Adams succeeded in having charges on wine smuggling dropped against his client. Who was Adam's client? None other than the richest man in Boston, John Hancock. On March 5, 1770, both Adams' career and America's changed in an instant.
The Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the act of British soldiers firing into a mob of Boston citizens. When the smoke had cleared, five citizens of the mob were dead, including Crispus Attucks. The captain of the troops was Thomas Preston. After the troops had stop firing, Captain Preston noticed a Boston citizen walking directly up to soldiers. The citizen, Benjamin Burdick told Captain Preston, "I want to see some faces that I may swear to another day." Captain Preston, realizing that there would soon be a trial, answered, "Perhaps, sir, you may."
'The John Adams Bideford'
Anti-British fever
The next morning John Adams was in his law office in Boston. The anti-British fever in Boston was rampant. Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty were already calling the event the Boston Massacre. Paul Revere turned out an engraving that depicted Captain Preston ordering the troops to fire at point blank range on a defenseless crowd. To help calmed the mobs, Governor Hutchinson ordered that the soldiers arrested and promised the crowds that a trial would be held. That afternoon in Faneuil Hall a meeting of the Sons of Liberty demanded that all British must be removed from Boston.
James Forrest, a successful merchant and staunch Tory, brought a message to Adams. With tears streaming down his cheeks, Forrest explained that the message was from Captain Thomas Preston. Captain Preston was in jail and needed legal council. Forrest had spoke to several other lawyers and none of them would take the case. Captain Preston asked if Adams would take the case. Adams and another young lawyer, Josiah Quincy accepted Captain Preston request.
The soldiers faced arraignment in September. Captain Preston and his eight men pleaded innocent. Preston's men had petitioned that they were following Preston's orders and they should all be tried at one time. The court denied the petition and ordered that Captain Preston should stand trial first. Captain Preston's trial began on October 24, 1770. By the standards of the time, the trial would be a long one. It was the first criminal trial in Massachusetts to last longer than one day! The jury selection favored the defendant. Of the fist seven jurors, only two were from Boston. The last five were all Tories. In addition to the favorable jury, the defendant had reason for hope. During the summer the thirst for blood by the town's residents had weaken.
The prosecution
The prosecution began its case by trying to prove that even if Captain Preston did not give the order to fire, he did have time to give the order, "Recover!" However, most of the witness testimony was confusing and conflicting. Benjamin Burdick, the citizen who took a hard look at the soldiers for this trial, admitted that he had carried a sword that evening. Burdick was prepared to cut off the head of any solider who threatened to stab him with a sword. The crown prosecutors rested their case on the second day. John, leading the defense, called twenty-two witnesses in one day. A merchant claimed he had his hand on Preston's shoulder and did not hear Preston give the order to fire. Three black witnesses, two slaves and a freeman, gave testimony that they did hear any order to fire. They also testified that the crowd pelted the soldiers with snowballs.
After breaking for Sunday, on October 30, 1770, the jury declared a verdict of not-guilty. Preston wrote to General Gage praising the skill of his lawyers. In his diary, John Adams, noted that Captain Preston had not taken the time to thank his lawyers personally. The trial of the soldiers began in December. Josiah Quincy wanted to put the town on trial, trying to prove that there was a premeditated plot to drive the British soldiers out of Boston. When Adams heard of this, he threatened to quit the case. Adams' threat worked, Quincy rescheduled his witnesses. Adams and Quincy were able to prevent any Boston resident from serving on this trial's jury. Quincy presented many witnesses that presented the case that soldiers acted in self defense. It was up to John Adams to offer the final summation of the case.
No tolerance for any mob
In disagreement with Sam Adams, John had no tolerance for any mob, even when the mob was on John's side. John tried to recreate what it was like to face the mob for those jurors that have never seen one. Adams reminded the jury that everyone who joined in an illegal assembly was guilty of every crime a mob might commit. However, he claimed that the mob on March 5 was provoked due to despotism of the government. Adams was not finished when the court adjourned for the day at 5:00 P.M. The next morning, Adams described that the mob was "a motley rabble of saucy boys, Negroes, and mulattos, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars...shouting and hazing and threatening life...whistling, screaming, and rending an Indian yell... throwing every species of rubbish the could pick up in the street."
Adams told the jurors to put themselves in the place of the soldiers. Robert Treat Paine summed the crown's case. It was a very uninspiring performance. The jury was out for two and a half hours before coming to a verdict. Of the eight soldiers, only two were found guilty, Matthew Kilroy and Hugh Montgomery. The next week the two soldiers were sentenced to have their thumbs branded. The soldiers were sent back to their regiment. As the regiment was set to sail to New Jersey, Hugh Montgomery confessed to his lawyers that he had shouted on that fateful night, "Damn you, fire!"