arassed, dependent, in their power." It was indeed
under great difficulties, during these years when Massachusetts was
almost without annals, that Samuel Adams labored to make Brutuses of the
men of Boston.

So far deserted by his friends, Samuel Adams might never have succeeded
in overcoming these difficulties without the assistance presently
rendered by his enemies. Of those who were of invaluable aid to him in
this way, Thomas Hutchinson was one. The good Governor, having read his
instructions, knew what his duties were. One of them manifestly was to
stand in defense of Government; and, when Government was every day being
argumentatively attacked, to provide, as a counter-irritant, arguments
in defense of Government. Imagining that facts determined conclusions
and conclusions directed conduct, Mr. Hutchinson hoped to diminish the
influence of Samuel Adams by showing that the latter's facts were wrong,
and that his inferences, however logically deduced, were therefore not
to be taken seriously. "I have taken much pains," he says, "to procure
writers to answer the pieces in the newspapers which do so much mischief
among the people, and have two or three engaged with Draper, besides a
new press, and a young printer who says he will not be frightened, and I
hope for some good effect."

The Governor had read his instructions, but not the mind of Samuel
Adams or the minds of the many men who, like the Chief Incendiary, Were
prepared "to cultivate the sensations of freedom." Perhaps the only
"good effect" of his "pieces" was to furnish excellent theses for Samuel
Adams to dispute upon, which he did with unrivaled shrewdness each week
in the "Boston Gazette" under the thin disguise of Candidus, Valerius
Poplicola, or Vindex. To this last name, Vindex, Mr. Hutchinson thought
there might appropriately have been added another, such as Malignus
or Invidus. And indeed of all these disputative essays, in the Boston
Gazette or in Mr. Draper's paper, one may say that the apparent aim was
to win a dialectic victory and the obvious result to prove that ill will
existed by exhibiting it.

Thomas Hutchinson's faith in the value of disputation was not easily
disturbed; and after two years, when it appeared that his able
lieutenants writing in Mr. Draper's newspaper were still as far as
ever from bringing the controversy to a conclusion, he could no longer
refrain from trying his own practiced hand at an argument--which he did
in a car