Diary of John Adams, volume 2
1774-06-20
At Piemonts in Danvers, bound to Ipswich. There is a new, and a grand Scene open before me—a Congress.
This will be an assembly of the wisest Men upon the Continent, who are Americans in Principle, i.e. against the Taxation of Americans, by Authority of Parliament.
I feel myself unequal to this Business. A more extensive Knowledge of the Realm, the Colonies, and of Commerce, as well as of Law and Policy, is necessary, than I am Master of.
What can be done? Will it be expedient to propose an Annual Congress of Committees? to Petition.—Will it do to petition at all?—to the K
What will such Consultations avail? Deliberations alone will not do. We must petition, or recommend to the Assemblies to petition, or—
The Ideas of the People, are as various, as their Faces. One thinks, no more petitions, former having been neglected and despized. Some are for Resolves—Spirited Resolves—and some are for bolder Councils.
I will keep an exact Diary, of my Journey, as well as a Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress.1
On 13 May Gen. Thomas Gage arrived in Boston to relieve Gov. Hutchinson and to enforce the “Coercive Acts,” passed by Parliament as punishment for the destruction of the tea; Hutchinson sailed for London on 1 June, the day the Boston Port Act went into effect (Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, ed. Mayo, 3:329). On 25 May the new General Court met, and JA was once again elected by the House a member of the Council, only to be negatived, with twelve others, by Gage next day (Mass., House Jour.
, May–June 1774, p. 6–7). On instructions from the crown, Gage adjourned the legislature from Boston to Salem, 7 June (same, p. 8). Ten days later the Journal records: “Upon a Motion, Ordered, that the Gallaries be clear'd and the Door be shut,” and a committee on the state of the Province reported that “in Consideration of the unhappy Differences” between Great Britain and the colonies, “it is highly expedient and necessary that a Meeting of Committees from the several Colonies on this Continent be had on a certain Day, to consult upon the present State of the Colonies and the Miseries to which they are reduced by the Operation of certain Acts of Parliament respecting America” (same, p. 44). The House adopted these recommendations in virtually the same language and proceeded to elect “a Committee on the Part of this Province, to consist of five Gentlemen, any three of whom to be a Quorum,” to meet with “Committees or Delegates” from the 97other colonies at Philadelphia or any other suitable place on 1 Sept. Those chosen were James Bowdoin, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, JA, and Robert Treat Paine; £500 was appropriated for their expenses; and Gage immediately, but too late, dissolved the General Court (same, p. 44–45).