year 1753 he served constantly in public offices, up to the
year 1764 he had scarcely been a success. His patrimony had largely
disappeared; further, as tax-collector he stood, with his associates,
indebted to the town for nearly ten thousand pounds. The reason for this
is not clear; the fact has been used to his disadvantage by Tory
historians, the first of them being Hutchinson, who calls the situation
a "defalcation." But in order to feel sure that the state of affairs
was justified by circumstances, we need only to consider that in the
same year Adams was chosen by the town on the committee to "instruct"
its representatives, and a year later was himself made a legislator.
From that time on, his influence in Boston and Massachusetts politics
steadily grew.

His political sentiments were never in doubt. In his "instructions" of
1764 are found the words: "If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape
without our having a legal representative where they are laid, are we
not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State
of tributary Slaves?"[19] Throughout the Stamp Act agitation he was
active in opposing the new measures. He was found to be ready with his
tongue, but especially so with his pen. For this reason he was
constantly employed by the town and the Assembly to draft their
resolutions, and some of the most momentous documents of the period
remain to us in his handwriting. When at last, at the beginning of 1768,
some one was needed to express the opinion of Massachusetts upon the
Townshend Acts, Samuel Adams was naturally looked to as the man for the
work.

He drafted papers which were, one after the other, adopted by the
Massachusetts Assembly. The first was a letter of remonstrance,
addressed to the colony's agent in London, and intended to be made
public. It protested, in words seven times revised by the Assembly,
against the proposed measures. Similar letters were sent to members of
the ministry and leaders of English opinion. Another letter was
addressed to the king. Of the success of this, Adams apparently had
little hope, for when his daughter remarked that the paper might be
touched by the royal hand, he replied, "More likely it will be spurned
by the royal foot." The final one of these state papers was a circular
letter addressed to "each House of Representatives or Burgesses on the
continent." This expressed the opinion of Massachusetts upon the new
laws, and invited discussion. That not