The Eve of the Revolution; A Chronicle of the Breach with EnglandBecker, Carl L. (Carl Lotus)
History
The Eve of the Revolution; A Chronicle of the Breach with England
Becker, Carl L. (Carl Lotus)
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783
From the days of Anne Hutchinson, Boston never lacked clubs; and the
Caulkers' Club was the prototype of many, rather more secular and
political than religious or transcendental, which flourished in the
years preceding the Revolution. John Adams, in that Diary which tells us
so much that we wish to know, gives us a peep inside one of these clubs,
the "Caucus Club," which met regularly at one period in the garret of
Tom Dawes's house. "There they smoke tobacco till you cannot see from
one end of the garret to the other. There they drink flip, I suppose,
and there they choose a moderator who puts questions to the vote
regularly; and selectmen, assessors, collectors, wardens, fire-wards,
and representatives are regularly chosen before they are chosen in
the town. Uncle Fairfield, Story, Ruddock, Adams, Cooper, and a rudis
indigestaque moles of others are members. They send committees to wait
on the merchants' club, and to propose and join in the choice of men
and measures." The artist Copley, in the familiar portrait by which
posterity knows Samuel Adams, chose to represent him in conventional
garb, on a public and dramatic occasion, standing erect, eyes flashing
and mouth firm-set, pointing with admonitory finger to the Charter of
Massachusetts Bay--a portrait well suited to hang in the Art Museum or
in the meeting place of the Daughters of the Revolution. A different
effect would have been produced if the man had been placed in Tom
Dawes's garret, dimly seen through tobacco smoke, sitting, with coat
off, drinking flip, in the midst of Uncle Fairfield, Story, Cooper, and
a rudis indigestaque moles. This was his native habitat, an environment
precisely suited to his peculiar talent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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