If this statement is well-founded, and the name ot its author affords a reasonable guaranty that it is so, the world of historical literature will be taught by it, how much the personal character of Samuel Adams has been unduly eulogized ; and every careful reader will also be taught by that new revelation, how much the Clerk of the House of Representatives, in Colonial Massachusetts, while he was only an employe of the House, presumed to dictate, in matters of legislation, during that critical period; with how much of insincerity the leader of the excited people, in that Colony, acted, in all that he said and did, before that people and in their behalf ; and, in connection with the recognized " art " and duplicity with which the leaders in New York were, also, then conducting, or endeavoring to conduct, the political affairs of the Continent, how little of real personal integrity, of unqualified unselfishness, and of unalloyed patriotism, really controlled or even existed among those, in Massachusetts and New York, who, sensibly or insensibly, were, at that time, conducting the Continent in open insurrection, toward a successful rebellion.
The letters of disapproval and discouragement,
1 Address sent by the Boston Committee to every Town in the Province, dated "'Boston, June 8, 1774," re-printed in Force's American Archives, Fourtli Series, i., 397.
- Funn of a C'wcnani, sent to every Town in j\[iissachusettt, by the Committee ill Boston, with tlie above-mentioned Address, Section let.
3 Richard Frothingham of Cliarlestown, in his Uise of the Kejitiblic 0/ the I'liited States, Boston : 1872, 323, whose words are as ft>llows :