ory
members at once essayed to leave the hall to dispatch the news to
the governor, but the bolts were fast, and Samuel Adams had the key
in his pocket. Two months later the delegates were on their way to
Philadelphia,--Thomas Cushing, Samuel and John Adams and Robert Treat
Paine.

Events then transpired rapidly. So far, Samuel Adams was almost wholly
alone in the idea of independence, but it was declared by Congress less
than two years later. For more than twenty years longer, Adams continued
in public life, but his greatest work was before the Declaration of
Independence rather than after. There were times when the cause of the
patriots must have fallen through but for the nerve and skill of this
man. Bowdoin, Cushing, Hancock, Otis, and even John Adams could not have
been thoroughly trusted in the last years of the colony to bring affairs
to a successful issue. But Samuel Adams was fitted by intellect and
character, adroitness and courage, tireless energy and by never failing
devotion to the public good, to be the man for the time.

When America had become a Republic, and Adams had returned from Congress
to his native town, he served as presiding officer of the Senate, then
as lieutenant governor, and, upon the death of Hancock, governor, to
which office he was several times chosen by the people. He died in 1803,
and his dust lies to-day in the old Granary Burying Ground, close by the
common grave of the four victims of the Boston Massacre.

The statue in bronze now standing in Adams Square is noble in design,
and appropriate for situation. It is in almost the busiest position of
the great city, and daily across its shadow pass tens of thousands of
mechanics and artisans--the class of men with whom Samuel Adams used to
love to hold intercourse. The Old State House and Faneuil Hall are only
a stone's-throw distant from the statue, but the face is not looking in
the direction of either; it is turned directly toward the visible shaft
of granite on Bunker Hill--the monument which marks the first great
battle in the struggle for that Independence toward which, in all his
labors for so many years, the eyes of Samuel Adams were ever turned.

[Footnote 1: For the reproduction of the above portrait and the two
following views of the Old State House, we are indebted to the courtesy
of Messrs. Ticknor & Co., the well-known Boston publishers.--Ed.]

[Footnote 2: Samuel Adams. By James K. Hosmer, 1 vol., 442 pp. American
S