t body voted still another and final petition to
the king. However, Adams succeeded in joining with this vote one to put
the colonies into a state of defence, though with protestations that the
war on their part was for defence only, and without revolutionary
intent. Not long after this congress was brought up to the point of
assuming the responsibility and control of the military operations which
New England had commenced by laying siege to Boston, in which town
General Gage and his troops were caged, and before which lay an
impromptu New England army of 15,000 men which the battle of Lexington
had immediately brought together. Urged by the New England delegates,
congress agreed to assume the expense of maintaining this army. John
Adams was the first to propose the name of George Washington for the
chief commander; his desire being to secure the good-will and
co-operation of the southern colonies. The southern colonies also urged
General Lee for the second place, but Adams insisted on giving that to
Artemas Ward, he, however, supported Lee for the third place. Having
assumed the direction of this army, provided for its reorganization, and
issued letters of credit for its maintenance, this congress took a
recess. Adams returned home, but was not allowed any rest.

People who really have ability are never allowed to remain idle; the
fault is not in others, but in us. No sooner had Mr. Adams arrived home
than his Massachusetts friends sent him as a member to the State
council. This council had, under a clause of the provincial charter
intended to meet such cases, assumed the executive authority, declaring
the gubernatorial chair vacant. On returning to Philadelphia in
September, Adams found himself in hot water. Two confidential letters of
his, written during the previous session, had been intercepted by the
British in crossing the Hudson river, and had been published in the
Boston papers. Not only did those letters evince a zeal for decisive
measure which made the writer an object of suspicion to the more
conservative of his fellow-members of Congress, but his reference in one
of them to 'the whims, the caprice, the vanity, the superstition, and
the irritability of some of his colleagues,' and particularly to John
Dickinson as 'a certain great fortune but trifling genius,' made him
personal enemies by whom he was never forgiven.

But, though for a moment an object of distrust to some of his
colleagues, this did not save