f fire! With a promptitude of classical allusion, a
depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a
profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into
futurity, a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all
before him. AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE was then and there born. Every man of an
unusually crowded audience, appeared to me to go away ready to take up
arms against Writs of Assistance."

Speaking on the same subject, on another occasion, John Adams said that
"James Otis there and there breathed into this nation the breath of life."

From that day John Adams was an enthusiast for the independence of his
country.

In 1764 he married Abigail, daughter of the Reverend William Smith, of
Weymouth. The mother of John Quincy Adams was a woman of great beauty and
high intellectual endowments, and she combined, with the proper
accomplishments of her sex, a sweetness of disposition, and a generous
sympathy with the patriotic devotion of her illustrious husband.

In 1765, the British Parliament, in contempt of the discontent of the
Colonies, presumptuously passed the Stamp Act; a law which directed taxed
stamped paper to be used in all legal instruments in the Colonies. The
validity of the law was denied; and while Patrick Henry was denouncing it
in Virginia, James Otis and John Adams argued against it before the
Governor and Council of Massachusetts.

The occasion called forth from John Adams a "Dissertation on the Canon and
Feudal Laws,"--a work, which although it was of a general character in
regard to government, yet manifested democratic sentiments unusual in
those times, and indicated that republican institutions were the proper
institutions for the American People.

The resistance to the stamp act throughout the Colonies procured its
repeal in 1766. But the British Government accompanied the repeal with an
ungracious declaratory act, by which they asserted "that the Parliament
had, and of right ought to have, power to bind the Colonies, in all cases
whatsoever." In the next year a law was passed, which imposed duties in
the Colonies, on glass, paper, paints, and tea. The spirit of
insubordination manifested itself throughout the Colonies, and, inasmuch
as it radiated from Boston, British ships of war were stationed in its
harbor, and two regiments of British troops were thrown in the town, to
compel obedience. John Adams had now become known as the most intrepid,
zealou