o years, rather than employ
taxed papers to collect their just debts; with a round oath they bound
themselves to it, sealing the pledge, very likely, by sipping another
glass of Madeira. In the defense of just rights, Mr. Livingston and his
conservative friends were willing to sacrifice much: they foresaw some
months of business stagnation, which they nevertheless contemplated with
equanimity, being prepared to tide over the dull time by living in a
diminished manner, if necessary even dispensing with customary bottles
of Madeira at dinner.

Men of radical temperament, having generally less regard for the status
quo, are quick to see ulterior motives back of conservative timidity and
solemn profession of respect for law and order. It was so in the case of
the Stamp Act. Small shopkeepers who were soon sold out and had no great
stock of "old moth-eaten goods" to offer at enhanced prices, rising
young lawyers whose fees ceased with the closing of the courts, artisans
and laborers who bought their dinners (no Madeira included) with their
daily wage--these, and indeed all the lower sort of people, contemplated
the stopping of business with much alarm. Mr. John Adams, a young lawyer
of Braintree and Boston, was greatly interested in the question of the
courts of justice. Were the courts to be closed on the ground that no
legal business could be done without stamped papers? Or were they to go
on trying cases, enforcing the 'collection of debts, and probating wills
precisely as if no Stamp Act had ever been heard of? The Boston superior
court was being adjourned continuously, for a fortnight at a time,
through the influence of Messrs. Hutchinson and Oliver, to the great
and steadily rising wrath of young Mr. Adams. The courts must soon be
opened, he said to himself; their inactivity "will make a large chasm
in my affairs, if it should not reduce me to distress." Young Mr. Adams,
who had, no less than Mr. Oliver, a family to support and children to
provide for, was just at the point of making a reputation and winning a
competence "when this execrable project was set on foot for my ruin as
well as that of America in general." And therefore Mr. Adams, and Mr.
Samuel Adams, and Mr. Otis, and Mr. Gridley, in order to avert the ruin
of America in general, were "very warm" to have the courts open and
very bitter against Messrs. Hutchinson and Oliver whose "insolence and
impudence and chicanery" in the matter were obvious, and whose se