"I am engaged in a famous cause. The cause of King of Scarborough _versus_ a mob that broke into his house and rifled his papers and terrified him, his wife, children and servants, in the night. The terror and distress, the distraction and horror of this family, cannot be described in words, or painted upon canvas. It is enough to move a statue, to melt a heart of stone, to read the story. A mind susceptible of the feelings of humanity, a heart which can be touched with sensibility for human misery and wretchedness, must relent, must burn with resentment and indignation at such outrageous injuries. These private mobs I do and will detest."[33] [33] Letters of John Adams to his wife, Vol. I, pages 12-13. Concerning the Loyalists, he says: "A notion prevails among all parties that it is politest and genteelest to be on the side of the administration, that the better sort, the wiser few, are on one side, and that the multitude, the vulgar, the herd, the rabble, the mob, only are on the other."[34] [34] Letters of John Adams to his wife, Vol. I., page 12. As regards his own actions towards the Loyalists, he writes in his later years as follows: "Nothing could be more false and injurious to me than the imputation of any sanguinary zeal against the Tories, for I can truly declare that through the whole Revolution, and from that time to this, I never committed one act of severity against the Tories."[35] [35] Diary of John Adams, page 413. At the time of the shedding of the first blood at Lexington, Hancock was respondent, in the admiralty court, in suits of the crown to recover nearly half a million of dollars, as penalties alleged to have been incurred for violation of the statute-book. It was fit that he should be the first to affix his name to an instrument which, if made good, would save him from financial ruin. One-fourth of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were bred to trade or to the command of ships, and more than one of them was branded with the epithet of "smuggler."[36] [36] Sabine. Vol. I., page 13. In 1773 John Hancock was elected treasurer of Harvard college. "In this they considered their patriotism more than their prudence." The amount of college funds paid over to him was upwards of fifteen thousand and four hundred pounds, and, like his friend, Samuel Adams, he, too, proved to be a defaulter. For twenty years the corporation begged and entreated him to make restitution. They threatened to prosecute him and also to put his bond in suit, as Adams' was, but it was all of no avail. He turned a deaf ear to their entreaties, and it was only after his death, in 1793, that his heirs made restitution to the college, when a settlement was made, in 1795, in which the college lost five hundred and twenty-six dollars interest. Josiah Quincy, the president of Harvard college, in referring to this matter, says: