ADAMS, SAMUEL, late governor of Massachusetts, eminent for his piety, and one of the most distinguished heroes of the American Revolution, was descended from ancestors highly respectable, and born in Boston on the 27th of September 1722. Having received the rudi ments of a liberal education at the grammar school under the care of a Mr Lovell, he was admitted a student of the university of Harvard in the year 1736. Here he made considerable proficiency in classical learning, logic, and in natural philosophy ; but, as he was designed for the ministry, a profession to which he seems to have been much inclined, his studies were particularly direct ed to systematic divinity. He received the degree of A. B. in 1740, and that of A. M. in 1743. Why he did not assume the clerical character so congenial to his views and habits does not appear. After he had retired from the university, he attempted a concern in the busi ness in which his father had been engaged ; but it was easily seen, that the propensities of his nervous and elevated mind were not turned to the accumulation of property or the charms of wealth. He was however
soon chosen to several public stations in his native town, and in 1765 elected a member of the general assembly of Massachusetts. He was a member of the legislature nearly ten years ; and, while he gave repeated evidence of that political cast of mind which influenced his after conduct, he was the soul which animated that body to its most important resolutions. In 1774 he became a member of the general congress, in which station he remained a number of years. Here he rendered the most interesting services to his country. In this assem bly, where the foundation of the American Revolution was formed, where the principles and systems of government were drawn into discussion, his manly eloquence was never rested with success ; yet vigorous and