In the Boston town-meeting in May, almost as soon as the news had arrived, the American view of the case was very clearly set forth in a series of resolutions drawn up by Samuel Adams. This was the first of the remarkable state papers from the pen of that great man, who now, at the age of forty-two, was just entering upon a glorious career. Samuel Adams was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1740. He had been reared in politics from boyhood, for his father, a deacon of the Old South Church, had been chief spokesman of the popular party in its disputes with the royal governors. Of all the agencies in organizing resistance to Great Britain none were more powerful than the New England town-meetings, among which that of the people of Boston stood preëminent, and in the Boston town-meeting for more than thirty years no other man exerted so much influence as Samuel Adams. This was because of his keen intelligence and persuasive talk, his spotless integrity, indomitable courage, unselfish and unwearying devotion to the public good, and broad sympathy with all classes of people. He was a thorough democrat. He respected the dignity of true manhood wherever he found it, and could talk with sailors and shipwrights like one of themselves, while at the same time in learned argument he had few superiors. He has been called the "Father of the Revolution," and was no doubt its most conspicuous figure before 1775, as Washington certainly was after that date. This earliest state paper of Samuel Adams contained the first formal and public denial of the right of Parliament to tax the colonies, because it was not a body in which their people were represented. The resolutions were adopted by the Massachusetts assembly, and a similar action was taken by Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. The colonies professed their willingness to raise money in answer to requisitions upon their assemblies, which were the only bodies competent to lay taxes in America. Memorials stating these views were sent to England, and the colony of Pennsylvania sent Dr. Franklin to represent its case at the British court. Franklin remained in London until the spring of 1775 as agent first for Pennsylvania, afterward for Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia,--a kind of diplomatic representative of the views and claims of the Americans. [Sidenote: The Virginia Resolutions, 1765.]