steel-gray eyes.

[Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE IN 1793.]

Among those closely connected with Adams in the public service, which,
from this time on, became his only thought, were John Hancock and James
Otis. Adams contrasted strongly with both of these men. Hancock was the
richest man in the province and as liberal as he was wealthy. In the
general jubilation that followed the repeal of the Stamp Act, he opened
a pipe of Madeira wine before his elegant mansion opposite the Common,
and so long as it lasted it was freely dispensed to the crowd. The dress
of Hancock when at home is described as a "red velvet cap, within which
was one of fine linen, the edge of this turned up over the velvet one,
two or three inches. He wore a blue damask gown lined with silk, a white
plaited stock, a white silk embroidered waistcoat, black silk
small-clothes, white silk stockings and red morocco slippers." Adams was
in marked contrast with Otis in temperament. The former, always cool and
collected and his words based on deliberate reason, was the extreme of
the other who carried his arguments in a flood of impetuous eloquence.
"Otis was a flame of fire," says Sewall. But although Otis was once
almost the ideal of the people, his erratic tendencies at last unfitted
him for a leader.

One reason of Sam Adams' prestige with the masses was his common and
familiar intercourse with mechanics and artisans. Hancock, Otis, Bowdoin
and Curtis, on account of their wealth and ideas of aristocracy, kept
more or less aloof from the workmen; while Adams, plainly clad and with
familiar but dignified manner, was often found in the ship yards or at
the rope walks engaged in earnest conversation with the homely
craftsmen. Indeed, nothing pleased him more than to be talking with a
ship carpenter as they sat side by side on a block of oak, or with some
shopkeeper in a sheltered fence corner. Most of his writing was done in
a little room in his Purchase Street house where night after night his
busy mind and quill were kept at work on his trenchant letters for the
"Gazette," which were signed with significant nom de plumes in Latin.

The year 1768 was made notable by the arrival in Boston from England of
the 14th and the 29th regiments. The main guard was quartered in King
(now State) Street, with the cannon pointed toward the State House, and
the troops occupied various houses in the vicinity. In the next year the
Governor, Bernard, was recalled, and Thomas