II THE OUTBREAK OF WAR, 1775 Though mainly social and economic forces brought the revolution to the stage of open warfare, a Massachusetts politician had so used these forces that both his friends and enemies thought the blame or the honor to be his. Samuel Adams began to desire independence as early as 1768. From that time it was his unwearying effort to keep alive the opposition to the British ministry. For years he sought to instil in the minds of rising youths the notion of independence. His adroit mind, always awake and tireless, toiled for but one end; and he was narrow-minded enough to be a perfect politician. Two opposing views could never occupy his mind at the same time. For sharp practices he had no aversion, but he used them for public good, as he saw it, and not for private gain. He was a public servant, great or small, from his earliest manhood--as inspector of chimneys, tax-collector, or moderator of town-meetings. He was ever a failure in business; in politics, shrewd and able. The New England town-meeting was the theatre of his action;[77] he directed the Boston meetings, and the other towns followed. His tools were men. He was intimate with all classes, from the ship-yard roustabouts to the ministers of the gospel. In the canvass and caucus he was supreme. Others were always in the foreground, thinking that theirs was the glory. An enemy said that he had an unrivalled “talent for artfully and fallaciously insinuating” malice into the public mind. A friend dubbed him the “Colossus of debate.” He was ready in tact and cool in moments of excitement; his reasoning and eloquence had a nervous simplicity, though there was little of fire, and he was sincere rather than rhetorical. Adams was of medium stature, but in his most intense moments he attained to a dignity of figure and gesture. His views were clear and his good sense abundant, so that he always received profound attention. Prematurely gray, palsied in hand, and trembling in voice, yet he had a mental audacity unparalleled. He was dauntless himself, and thus roused and fortified the people. Nor were his efforts confined to the town-meeting, for he was also a voluminous newspaper writer. He showed no tolerance for an opponent, and his attacks were keenly felt. “Damn that Adams. Every dip of his pen stings like a horned snake,” cried an enemy. Thus he went on canvassing, caucusing, haranguing, and writing until the maddened Gage attempted to seize him and the munitions of war which he and his fellow-politicians had induced the colony to collect. Concord and Lexington and the pursuit into Boston were the results.