they are burned we can rebuild
them; but liberty once gone is gone forever," he retorted. And the saying
sounds well, even if it will not stand analysis.

Back near the wall was a man who, when the assembly stood at morning
prayers, showed a half-head above his neighbors. His face was broad, and
he, too, had a profile. His mouth was tightly closed, and during the first
fourteen days of that Congress he never opened it to utter a word, and
after his long quiet he broke the silence by saying, "Mr. President, I
second the motion." Once, in a passionate speech, Lynch turned to him and
pointing his finger said: "There is a man who has not spoken here, but in
the Virginia Assembly he made the most eloquent speech I ever heard. He
said, 'I will raise a thousand men, and arm and subsist them at my expense
and march them to the relief of Boston.'" And then did the tall man, whose
name was George Washington, blush like a schoolgirl.

But in all that company the men most noticed were the five members from
Massachusetts. They were Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Gushing and
Robert Treat Paine. Massachusetts had thus far taken the lead in the
struggle with England. A British army was encamped upon her soil, her
chief city besieged--the port closed. Her sufferings had called this
Congress into being, and to her delegates the members had come to listen.
All recognized Samuel Adams as the chief man of the Convention. His hand
wrote the invitations and earnest requests to come. Galloway, writing to
his friends, the enemy, said: "Samuel Adams eats little, drinks little,
sleeps little and thinks much. He is most decisive and indefatigable in
the pursuit of his object. He is the man who, by his superior application,
manages at once the faction in Philadelphia and the factions of New
England."

Yet Samuel Adams talked little at the Convention. He allowed John Adams to
state the case, but sat next to him supplying memoranda, occasionally
arising to make remarks or explanations in a purely conversational tone.
But so earnest and impressive was his manner, so ably did he answer every
argument and reply to every objection, that he thoroughly convinced a
tall, angular, homely man by the name of Patrick Henry of the
righteousness of his cause. Patrick Henry was pretty thoroughly convinced
before, but the recital of Boston's case fired the Virginian, and he made
the first and only real speech of the Congress. In burning words he
pictured all