Without following Mr. Adams’s professional course further, suffice it to say, that on the first establishment of the judicial tribunals under the authority of the State, in 1776, he received an offer of the high and responsible station of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.  But he was destined for another and a different career.  From early life the bent of his mind was toward politics; a propensity which the state of the times, if it did not create, doubtless very much strengthened.  Public subjects must have occupied the thoughts and filled up the conversation in the circles in which he then moved; and the interesting questions at that time just arising could not but seize on a mind like his, ardent, sanguine, and patriotic.  A letter, fortunately preserved, written by him at Worcester, so early as the 12th of October, 1755, is a proof of very comprehensive views, and uncommon depth of reflection, in a young man not yet quite twenty.  In this letter he predicted the transfer of power, and the establishment of a new seat of empire in America; he predicted, also, the increase of population in the Colonies; and anticipated their naval distinction, and foretold that all Europe combined could not subdue them.  All this is said, not on a public occasion or for effect, but in the style of sober and friendly correspondence, as the result of his own thoughts.  “I sometimes retire,” said he, at the close of the letter, “and, laying things together, form some reflections pleasing to myself.  The produce of one of these reveries you have read above.”  This prognostication so early in his own life, so early in the history of the country, of independence, of vast increase of numbers, of naval force, of such augmented power as might defy all Europe, is remarkable.  It is more remarkable that its author should live to see fulfilled to the letter what could have seemed to others, at the time, but the extravagance of youthful fancy.  His earliest political feelings were thus strongly American, and from this ardent attachment to his native soil he never departed.

While still living at Quincy, and at the age of twenty-four, Mr. Adams was present, in this town, at the argument before the Supreme Court respecting Writs of Assistance, and heard the celebrated and patriotic speech of JAMES OTIS.  Unquestionably, that was a masterly performance.  No flighty declamation about liberty, no superficial discussion of popular topics, it was a learned, penetrating, convincing, constitutional argument, expressed in a strain of high and resolute patriotism.  He grasped the question then pending between England and her Colonies with the strength of a lion; and if he sometimes sported, it was only because the lion himself is sometimes playful.  Its success appears to have been as great as its merits, and its impression was widely felt.  Mr. Adams himself seems never to have lost the feeling it produced, and to have entertained constantly the fullest conviction of its important effects.  “I do say,” he observes, “in the most solemn manner, that Mr. Otis’s Oration against Writs of Assistance breathed into this nation the breath of life."[2]