John Adams (_Works_, ii. 507; ix. 617) said of _Common Sense_ that it embodied a "tolerable summary of the arguments for independence which he had been speaking in Congress for nine months", and which Mahon (vi. 96) has called "cogent arguments" "in clear, bold language;" but Adams deemed unwise some of its suggestions for the governments of the States, and to counteract their influence he published anonymously his _Thoughts on Government_ (Philadelphia, 1776; Boston, 1776; often since, and also in _Works_, iv. 193; ix. 387, 398), which he says met the approval of no one of any consideration except Benjamin Rush. He added his name to the second edition, and records that it soon had due influence upon the Assemblies of the several States, when about this time they adopted their constitutions. Adams's views were first embodied in a letter to R. H. Lee, Nov. 15, 1775 (_Works_, iv. 185; Sparks's _Washington_, ii., App.). What seems an anonymous reply from a native of Virginia—that colony being then engaged in framing a constitution—was _An address to the Convention of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia_, which was an attempt to counteract the tendency to popular features in government, which Adams had inculcated. It is in Force, 4th ser., vi. 748, and was written by Carter Braxton (Hildeburn's _Issues of the press in Pennsylvania_, Philad., 1886, no. 3,340). [Illustration: CHARLES THOMSON. From Du Simitière's _Thirteen Portraits_ (London, 1783). Cf. also _Heads of illustrious Americans_ (London, 1783). There is a portrait in the gallery of the Penna. Hist. Society. Scharf and Westcott's _Philadelphia_ (i. 274, 275) gives his likeness and a view of his house, and another picture of the house is in Brotherhead's _Signers_ (1861, p. 113). Cf. Lossing's _Field-Book_, ii. 267, and Potter's _Amer. Monthly_, vi. 172, 264, vii. 161.] Adams also wrote an amplified statement of some of his views to John Penn, of North Carolina, which is given in John Taylor's _Inquiry into the principles and policy of the Government of the United States_ (1814), and in Adams's _Works_, iv. 203.