Thomas Jefferson called him the Man of the Revolution; to the British he was the Chief Incendiary; Boston knew him as the Old Roman, who, like Cato, believed in the virtues of frugality, hard work and simplicity.

Sam Adams worked untiringly to bring about an independent America. He fought against any infringement of colonial liberties with every skill at his command. It was Adams, who by his writings and his gift of persuasion, his hatred of Tory and aristocratic pretensions, rallied the people of Massachusetts Bay against the Stamp Act. It was he who drafted the call for the Stamp Act Congress, and who won Paul Revere and Joseph Warren to the cause of liberty.

To the dismay of the aristocratic Governor Thomas Hutchinson, Adams managed to turn John Hancock, one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, into an advocate of liberty and a supporter of the Whig faction. Adams well knew the value of John Hancock to a cause. Hancock paid for entertainment, food, and so on, at Whig rallies and outings, and by his generosity to the poor of Boston won a large popular following.

Ruthless, unyielding, Sam Adams was, perhaps, our first publicist. Vernon Parrington wrote of him: "Behind the imposing figure of John Hancock, or the eloquence of John Adams, was certain to be the directing mind of the 'Master of the puppets,' as Thomas Hutchinson sneeringly called Sam Adams." Paul Revere's famous engraving of the Boston Massacre, which we have adapted for our jacket, is an example of how Sam Adams used events to further his goal of an independent America, for this highly exaggerated drawing depicts Adam's version of the "massacre."

Olga Hall-Quest tells the story of the beginnings of the Revolution and of the men who made it with the same lively skill that made her Jamestown Adventure so popular. The excitement of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill are captured anew, as the great figures of eighteenth-century America come to life again.

From the dust jacket