August 14
Dined with 350 Sons of Liberty at the Sign of Liberty Tree in Dorchester. We had two tables laid in the open field by the barn, with between three hundred and four hundred plates, and should have spent a most agreeable day had not the rain made some abatement in our pleasures. Mr. Dickinson, the farmer’s brother, and Mr. Reed, the secretary of New Jersey, were there, both cool, reserved, and guarded all day. After dinner was over and the toasts drank, we were diverted with Mr. Balch’s mimicry. We had also the “Liberty Song,” and the whole company joined in the chorus. This is cultivating the sensations of freedom. There was a large collection of good company. Otis and Adams are politic in promoting these festivals, for they tinge the minds of the people, they impregnate them with the sentiments of liberty. They render the people fond of their leaders in the cause, and averse and bitter against all opposers.
To the honor of the Sons, I did not see one person intoxicated, or near it.
From his diary. Adams referred to the Stamp Act of 1765 in his diary as “that enormous engine, fabricated by the British Parliament, for battering down all the rights and liberties of America.” The following year the Sons of Liberty enlisted his support for their cause, writing to him of their concern for the “melancholy and unsettled state of Great Britain.” They addressed him as “a gentleman well versed in the Constitution of your country,” trusting that he would do his “utmost to oppose all measures detrimental to the welfare of it.”
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