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man in the audience, and produced the great result. After a little awkward hesitation, it was agreed that the town should be evacuated and both regiments sent to the castle.
After all this gravity it is merry enough to relate that William Molineaux, was obliged to march side by side with the commander of some of their troops, to protect them from the indignation of the people, in their progress to the wharf of embarcation for the castle. Nor is it less amusing that lord North, as I was repeatedly and credibly informed in England, with his characteristic mixture of good humour and sarcasm, ever after called these troops by the title of "Sam Adams's two regiments."
The painter should seize upon the critical moment when Samuel Adams stretched out his arm, and made his last speech.
It will be as difficult to do justice, as to paint an Apollo; and the transaction deserves to be painted as much as the surrender of Burgoyne. Whether any artist will ever attempt it, I know not.
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
Quincy, April 23, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
Your letter of the 5th has been received. Your judgment of Mr. Wirt's biography of my friend, Mr. Henry, is in exact unison with my own. I have read it with more delight than Scott's romances in verse and prose, or Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, and other novels.
I am sorry you have introduced me. I could wish my own name forgotten, if I could develope the true causes of the rise and progress of American revolution and independence.
Why have Harmodius and Brutus, Coligni and Brederode, Cromwell and Napoleon failed, and a thousand others? Because human nature cannot bear prosperity. Success always intoxicates patriots as well as other men; and because birth and wealth always, in the end, overcome popular and vulgar envy, more surely than public interest.
The causes of our parties during and since the revolution, would lead me too far.
You cannot ask me too many questions. I will answer them all according as strength shall be allowed to your aged and infirm friend,
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
Quincy, May 12, 1818.
DEAR SIR,
In my letters to you, I regard no order. And I think, I ought to make you laugh sometimes: otherwise my letters would be too grave, if not too melancholy. To this end, I send you Jemmibellero, "the song of the drunkard" which was published in Fleet's "Boston Evening Post," on the 13th of May, 1765. It was universally agreed to have been written by Samuel Waterhouse, who had been the most notorious scribbler, satyrist and libeller, in the service of the conspirators, against the liberties of America, and against the administration of governor Pownal, and against the characters of Mr. Pratt and Mr. Tyng. The rascal had wit. But is ridicule the test of truth? You see the bachanalian ha! ha! at Otis's prosodies Greek and Latin; and you see the encouragement of scholarship in that age. The whole legion, the whole phalanx, the whole host of conspirators against the liberties of America, could not have produced Mr. Otis's Greek and Latin prosodies. Yet they must be made the scorn of fools. Such was the character of the age, or rather of the day. Such have been and such will be the rewards of real patriotism in all ages and all over the world.--I am, as ever, your old friend and humble servant,
JOHN ADAMS.
TO THE HON. WM. TUDOR.
Quincy, June 1, 1818.
DEAR SIR,