Original subtitles

Four generations of one family.

Their lives and causes reveal 150 years of American history.

In my 67th year, having been the object of much misrepresentation,

for my children I commit these memoirs to writing.

And to them and their posterity, I recommend those moral sentiments and

thoughts which at all hazards and by every sacrifice I have endeavored to

preserve through life.

Good boy.

1758. Young John Adams.

Born in the colony of Massachusetts.

Harvard graduate.

sometimes schoolmaster, would -be lawyer, a faithful subject of the

crown.

His soon -to -be sovereign, George of Hanover, Prince of Wales, heir to the

throne of England, an earnest, not -too -bright young man, anxious to succeed at

the job he was born to, that of being a king.

Sovereign and subject, separated by 3 ,000 miles of ocean and

chasms of birth, breeding, wealth, and privilege.

Neither knows that they are embarking on a collision course.

Gridley will see you.

Briefly.

Mr. Adams.

Mr. Gridley.

On my desk.

You do not know me, sir. However, you are acquainted with Mr. Putnam, with

I've been carrying law on the country. What do you want of me?

Sir, I need a patron who will recommend me to the bar in Boston.

Why come to me?

You admit I don't know you.

Why, scarcely no... Putnam?

I have no lawyer friends here who can testify to my learning.

They told me you would not be influenced by a man's connections, but by his

qualities. How long did you say you'd studied the law? I've been Mr. Putnam's

clerk for three years.

Did you read Latin? Indeed.

The last Latin I read was Justinian's Institutes.

Where did you find that work?

I have no copy in these colonies but my own.

I borrowed a copy from the Harvard College Library.

I was a student there.

Studying what?

Theology. And why did you abandon that worthy pursuit?

I had developed certain doubts.

About God? No, sir.

About my fitness for the pulpit.

So then you settled on the law.

No, sir. I taught school for a while. Yes?

I found I lacked the patience to instruct the young.

And what makes you think you are now fit for the law?

Practice law in these colonies.

A man is the oratory of a preacher and the patience of a country schoolmaster.

Law here is not like law in England.

Here you must be a man of all work. You must know your con law, your civil law,

your admiralty law.

Do the duty of solicitor, counsellor, attorney, scrivener. Here, take these.

For all that, there are 300 hungry lawyers right here in Boston.

Well, sir, I hope to practice law in the village where I live.

Good lawyers are needed there.

In Braintree, every spring, men's passions thaw out and heat up after a

hard winter.

I've seen such greed, such vanity, such anger that only murder could come of it.

Yet those untamed beasts, roaring and blustering, are brought under control in

the courthouse by the law.

Have you read your Pufendorf?

Pufendorf? No, I can't... A terrible lack in you.

Of course, you've studied Cook's Institutes. Indeed, I have just finished

reading an abridgment.

An abridgment of Cook?

You read the father of our English common law in little snippets. Well,

is difficult to obtain Cook's complete works here in Massachusetts. They can be

imported from London.

You don't squander your resources and women and drink. Mr. Gridley, I believe

have lived a moral and temperate life. At Harvard?

That citadel of riot and dissipation. Sir, I have resolved to marry without a

stain upon my name or my conscience.

Does that satisfy you? No, sir, it does not.

Not if you mean to marry at all.

Nothing ruins a young lawyer's prospects so much as an early marriage,

distractions, children, end of study, the constant pursuit of riches.

A young man should follow the law as a great end in itself.

Not for gain.

That is impossible with a wife.

Unless you happen to come of a wealthy family.

No, sir. My father is a farmer.

I will inherit his house and some land, but nothing more.

Indeed, I know how difficult it shall be.

I'm prepared to work the farm to keep myself alive.

But I mean to be a lawyer.

Sir. You've detained me far too long, Mr. Adams.

I'm due in court now. Mr. Gridley.

I have ridden half this day to meet you, hoping that you would test my knowledge

of the law in my skilled languages.

Mr. Gridley!

Mr.

Gridley, you cannot leave without testing me.

Mr. Adams, I am certain you own a few weary Latin quotations and a dog -eared

Greek grammar.

As for your possession of legal knowledge, I have no doubt you read too

too quickly, and understood none of it.

No, sir, I cannot recommend you to the bar for your learning.

A bridge must so crook indeed.

However, if you appear in court early tomorrow, I will present you to be sworn

at the bar.

But why?

I admire the way you handled my books.

You held them gently with the respect due the record of our laws.

Any man can be passionate about knowledge, only a rare few can be tender

it. Indeed, I have high hopes for you.

Once you have read your puffendorf...

Thank you, my friend.

Sam Adams!

What brings you to Brainstream? I came as soon as I received your message in

Boston. I didn't write for you.

Exactly. That's the message I received.

Why have I not heard from Cousin John in months?

Have you been ill?

I'm never ill here in Brainstream.

Then why this silence?

Perhaps your fingers are too sore from your legal labors to write.

But your ass looks strong enough for a trip to Boston. Don't dissemble with me,

Sam. You know very well why I can never go to Boston again.

You think me so brazen to parade my failures there?

What failures?

Surely it's all over Boston.

Field versus Lambert?

No.

My Uncle Field gave me my first case here.

He brought his neighbor Lambert to law to prevent Lambert's cow from grazing on

his property.

I drew up a writ so hastily I failed to put in the name of the county. The case

was thrown out by the court.

John, one case means nothing. But it was more than one case, Sam. The very next

month, I defended a client accused of selling an old horse under false

pretenses.

I did not fully understand the case. The courtroom was a scene of absolute

confusion. Both parties raging at one another.

I committed oversights and omissions.

And as I argued before the judge... Yes?

The horse died of old age.

Forgive me, John.

I'm sure you'd have won the case had the horse lived.

Sam, I would have lost the case had the horse been a colt.

Here I am, a true lawyer, sworn before the bar, losing cases to pettifoggers.

Men with no training at all.

The only cases I can get here now are those which should be settled by a fist

fight.

I'm a failure.

No, John.

Merely a lunatic.

This comes from living alone too long.

I'd go mad here in six days with no one to argue politics but the poultry.

The only cure for you is to leave this farm for a while. But go to Boston? What

if I met Mr. Gridley and he asked me about my problem? I'm not suggesting

Boston. Weymouth will do.

Your friend Dick Cranch wishes you to dine with him at the home of his

Miss Smith. I believe you know her father, Parson Smith?

That crafty old snob, I'd rather stay at home.

Grant swears his fiancée has two charming sisters.

More reason not to go. I cut a poor figure among the ladies.

Nonsense. It's true, Sam.

I've fallen into a fearful habit whenever I meet one. I become silent and

forbidding. Or what is worse, I affect wit.

I begin to shrug my shoulders and distort my face like a village fool.

John, if you don't think you're good enough to dine with the Parsons and his

daughters, I won't.

Argue your going.

To our most gracious king, George III.

George III.

Well,

Mr. Cratch, what did you make of our new king's speech?

I was very favorably impressed, sir.

And you, sir?

Mr. Adams?

I like the manner in which he declared himself a friend of liberty.

I trust he will protect his subject's rights.

Do you truly think so, Mr. Adams?

I strive to speak only when I have considered what I will say, Miss Smith.

Well, I would choose to wait before I would praise our new king.

Abigail!

Until such time as we can speak as well of his deeds as he speaks of his

intentions.

Pray forgive her, Mr. Adams. I fear our nabby is subject to these fits of

opinion. It comes from a frail constitution and a too indulgent father.

More wine, Mr. Adams.

It's evident, Mr.

Adams, that these parish lands were deeded to my parsonage in perpetuity.

Now, for the north precinct of Weymouth to press a claim to them appears to be

plain theft.

I'm sure I don't know, parson. Well, you're a lawyer. You must have some

opinion. I would first have to read the deeds myself. Excellent. I'll fetch

them. But I'm no expert on property law.

Parson.

I trust... I trust your father runs no risk of losing his lands, Miss Smith.

Don't despair for him, Mr. Adams.

This dispute over the parish lands has been going on for 50 years.

We don't settle matters in haste here in Weymouth.

My friend Cratch and your sister would seem to be the great exception.

I understand they will marry shortly.

Yes, we are happy for them.

He is a good man, and they are in love.

I am myself insensitive to such feelings.

Surely you don't consider love a weakness.

In a poor man, it is a folly.

But Richard is not poor. I understand he owns a thriving business. I was

speaking of myself.

Ah.

I've noticed you do that quite often.

Do you think me vain, Miss Smith?

According to the great poet, self -love but serves to wake the virtuous mind.

You read Pope?

Aside from Shakespeare, there is no poet I so admire.

How extraordinary.

They're my favorites as well.

Pray let us end this talk of poets. Father becomes quite cross if I discuss

books with strangers.

But why?

Parton's daughter is supposed to quote her Bible. Anything more is ostentation.

Were you my daughter, Miss Smith, I would take great pride in your prodigy.

Mr. Adams, if you are only ten years my senior, were you my father, you would be

the prodigy.

Excuse me.

Mr. Adams, how have you time for your farm and the law?

Well, I've none too many clients, Miss Smith.

The one who interests me the most is the apprentice to a weaver.

When he signed his papers, his master promised to teach him to read.

Now the master has refused to honor his part of the bargain.

But what need has a weaver's boy with reading?

Elizabeth, how can you ask that?

Can a man live as a man in this world if he has denied his education?

Indeed, Miss Smith.

Our English constitution is grounded on the right of every man to think and act

for himself.

How else can he judge his government if he is kept ignorant of its acts?

Only by reading.

In his Bible and in his newspaper, will he enlarge his range of thought?

Deny him an education, and all of us will suffer.

Our liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.

And they declared in favor of the apprentice in less than five minutes.

pleased you came by to tell us this news.

I was passing through, Weymouth, and I thought I would study your father's

while I'm here.

Ah. They are inside with father Smith The plain truth

is I came today in hope of seeing you alone I Am alone

I Would be

less than candid if I did not say that you've made a most favorable impression

on me Thank you

Of all the women I've met, you appear to be the most honest, the least capable

of craft or guile, and I admire that.

It is always easy to admire qualities in others which we possess ourselves.

Oh, Miss Smith, I would not have you think me better than I am.

I fear I lack that virtue of speaking plainly that I find in you.

Oh, I doubt that you... You must hear me out.

I want your friendship more than any in this world, but you must know what I am.

You will remember when I last spoke with your father, how I told him that I

hated great estates and fame and that I was content with the simple things of

nature.

Yes?

I lust after fame.

I dream of making a great name in the world.

Mr. Adams, you need not tell me this.

Moreover, you will recall when we spoke of the love between my friend Cratch and

your sister.

How I claim to be insensible to such passions.

You did sneer most marvelously.

Oh, that was not my sneer.

No?

That was Gridley's sneer.

Gridley's sneer?

A great lawyer I met in Boston. I studied his sneer in the hope of

respect.

Pray, Mr. Adams, where did you study your silence?

Silence? Indeed, that icy silence.

It often makes me tremble with the disapproval it implies.

Well, that silence is my own.

But the point I wish to make, Miss Smith, is that I am most susceptible to

passion.

Ever since I was a boy, I have struggled with my amorous disposition.

Pray understand, I have always won that struggle. Mr. Adams, I wish to be your

friend, not your confessor. You must know what I am. I have a dread of

I would rather tell you my failings than have you discover them from others.

I trust I have sufficient judgment of my own not to depend on the world's gossip

for opinions.

I feared perhaps you had heard things about me and your cousin Hannah.

I said I do not listen to gossip.

How splendid you are.

Of course, if you wish to tell me about it, I can scarcely prevent you from

doing so.

Well, she wheedled me into a courtship, I fear, and when I failed to propose,

she put it about that she had jilted me.

Would you rather have it said that you jilted her?

Oh, no.

No.

I will not deny that she disturbed my sleep.

But I soon discovered she did not want me as much as another suitor to add to

her collection.

Then it is not true that you proposed to her. Indeed it is not.

Though I cannot say what might have been if her cousin Esther had not broken in

on us one evening.

That I was saved from an early marriage, one that would have led me into

obscurity.

Oh, I doubt that a man of your learning would meet such a fate.

My learning?

Miss Smith, I have set myself up as a scholar to impress you.

No doubt you think I spend all my days in study. Well, that is hardly true.

No? Yesterday, I wasted an entire morning reading.

Ovid's Art of Love.

And what time was not consumed that way, I squandered and... dreaming.

And hunting and chatting with my neighbor.

Mr. Adams, are you trying to tell me that you are human?

Miss Smith, you do not know how human I am.

Mary, Mr. Adams.

Has he made you an offer?

No, but he will.

Abigail, you cannot.

Mother, why not?

Do you know something that would prevent my accepting him? Indeed.

You've been a frail girl all your life. You're not suited to the hardships of a

farmer's wife.

Mr. Adams is a lawyer, Mother. A small distinction.

Well, that will not always be the case.

Nabby, your grandfather was Colonel Quincy, one of the most distinguished

Massachusetts.

Your father, though a country parson, is admired by everyone, even in Boston.

And your sister's just married a man in a fair way of business.

We had greater hopes for you.

I have none greater than Mr.

Adams. What, pray tell, do you see in the man?

Surely not his manner.

Why, he is so stiff and awkward.

I blush for him.

His conversation lacks all the ease and politeness that marks a gentleman. And

worst of all, he changes his mood more often than he changes his clothes.

Mother, he loves me.

Well, so would any young man who knew you.

But I do not want the love of any young man.

Nor would I have it if I did.

Mother, look at me. I am not a beauty like Elizabeth.

Nor am I pert and lively as Mary is.

I have some small learning of my own and no dowry.

Indeed, I have all the qualities to make a spinster, save one.

Mr. Adams loved me.

Oh, dear.

I cannot bear the thought of your living in such poverty.

Why?

In summer, a farmhouse is stifling.

And if the heat does not sicken you, the horseflies will plague you in your own

rooms.

In the winter, the cold slips through the cracks in the walls. Mother, that

means nothing to me.

Married to a country liar, you'll be looked down on by every butcher's wife

Boston. Mother, mother, please.

I shall marry Mr. Adams if he asks me.

Indeed, I shall marry Mr. Adams if he does not ask me.

Girl.

Abigail, will you say something?

What would you have me say?

That my company gives you pleasure. How can I take pleasure in the company of a

man who arrives with such a miserable expression?

Damn it, Abby. What do you expect when you command my whole attention?

I ramble about my farm all day, gazing and gaping, thinking only of you.

If I open a law book, my imagination carries me to this house.

Even at my... Prayers, I think, only of you.

And in bed.

Mr. Adam, please, in bed. My fancy evokes a thousand scenes of delight,

such desires I cannot gratify.

This adds to my natural misery a thousandfold.

Poor Mr. Adam.

It would all be tolerable if I felt I could honorably ask your father for your

hand.

Is there some impediment?

Well, aside from my poverty, there's my character.

You know I'm vain, fretful, jealous, quick to anger. Mr. Adams, I will marry

you, but on one condition.

Yes? That you allow me to discover your faults for myself.

It is not as though I were perfection. Indeed, I have faults as well.

I know.

What?

I know that you have faults.

Well... If you find some failing in me, then you must let me know, so I may

study to correct it.

Well, my dear, since you ask me to catalog your faults, there is the way in

which you sit.

Indeed. Yes, you hang your head like a bulrush.

You do not sit erect as you ought.

It makes you appear far too short for a beauty.

At last.

Another imperfection is that of walking with the toes forward.

I believe this is commonly called parrot -toed.

It is the reverse of a noble air and sublime deportment.

And what is worse, you obstinately persist in sitting with your legs

This ruins the figure and injures the health.

It springs, I fear, from too much thinking.

You should endeavor to learn to sing.

Your voice is as harsh as the screech of a peacock.

Thus have I given a faithful portrait of all your spots.

Nearly two years have I studied for more, but they are not to be discovered.

All the rest is bright and luminous.

It was a splendid wedding, Mr. Adams.

Indeed, Mrs. Adams.

Was it necessary for the refreshments to be served in the second -best china?

Mr. Adams, that had nothing to do with you.

Father will conceal his wealth from the parish so they may not be hindered from

making contributions to the church.

He did not conceal it when your sister married my friend Cratch.

Then the very best china was used.

Moreover, at their wedding, he preached a sermon on the joys of married love.

At our wedding, he spoke of the sufferings of parents.

Oh, in every way, our wedding was less than that of your sister and my friend.

Mr. Adams, you are wrong.

Surely you noticed my mother.

Well, one could hardly overlook her for the sniveling and the storm of tears.

Indeed. At our wedding, Mother cried twice as much as she did when my sister

married Mr. Cran.

Ha ha ha.

Do you like it?

Oh, yes.

It is a fine house.

Well, it may not be as elegant as your father's parsonage, but no man disputes

my right to this house.

It was clearly left me by my father.

I've had the floors newly painted for you.

This is my office.

Here.

This is where I work on my law cases.

I've started a small library of my own. You'll find all of Pope and most of

Shakespeare. You can entertain yourself with reading while I'm away.

Away?

Well, Abby, I told you I must ride out after the circuit court.

How else will I get enough law cases to support us?

Will that be soon?

Not for weeks.

Those are your pots and kettles.

If you find anything lacking, you must tell me.

I see nothing lacking.

I had a girl come from the village today and dust the bedroom properly.

Come, I'll show you.

The clothes that your mother sent over have all been put away in the chest.

Oh, that stupid girl.

I told her to shut the window when she left. Now she's let in all the night

I trust that you do not sleep with the window open.

It's ruinous to the health.

Oh, I understand.

This is for you.

Thank you.

A gift from my past life.

Pray open it.

My first primer.

It may serve to teach our sons one day.

In Adam's fall, we sinned all.

I know this will never serve to teach our son.

Why not? It served me well enough.

Our sons must learn that an Adams never falls.

Though he occasionally stumbles.

This... This toy... My father gave me.

Oh, I treasured it.

See how it still draws?

The steel is powerless to resist its pull.

I understood the force of a magnet the day we met.

Didn't you?

Indeed.

But one thing I still do not know, Abby.

Which of us is the steel and which the magnet?

These late acts of Parliament serve to divest us of our essential rights and

liberties.

Let it therefore be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes

and parliaments, but the original rights of all Englishmen.

Rights and liberties.

Liberties and rights.

Native -born Americans chafe under taxes imposed by a Parliament in which they

have neither voice nor vote.

Let it therefore be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes

and parliaments, but the original rights of all Englishmen. Sam, I believe I

know what I wrote.

So you admit having written it now. I knew at once the sentiments were yours

your friend John Hancock recognized your style. Well, I could not stand by in

silence and watch Parliament tax us in this manner. That tax is inconsistent

with the whole spirit of our English law. Is it you, Mistress Abbey, who

this tongue -tied fellow into a cicero?

What do you expect of Braintree's new selectmen?

You see, Sam, if you don't speak out loud and clear at the village meetings,

you're hooted down to your seat. We lack your Boston manners here at Braintree.

And we lack your legal skills in Boston.

John, you don't think this business has ended with this stamp tax?

Others will follow, with men like Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson selling

the Crown. Well, that was no reason for that Boston rabble to loot his home and

destroy his property.

Which only proves why you must move to Boston.

John, would you leave the cause of resistance in the hands of such a rogue

myself? Sam, Sam, try to understand. We are happy here.

And if your duty lies in Boston?

Neither Abby nor I can tolerate the noise of your Boston crowds.

To say nothing of the stench of the streets.

But to take my babies there would be to risk their lives. John, you would not

only survive in Boston, but you would thrive there.

Your only... Your only seeking pretext to keep from doing what must be done.

Well, you've already admitted I did a service with my article.

Yes, unfortunately, when you did not sign it, some people thought that Mr.

Gridley wrote it. Well, then I'm honored.

Mr. Gridley.

Mr. Gridley is a great lawyer.

You'd allow him to steal your glory?

Sam, I have no glory to steal, Abigail.

Only some peace of mind, and I refuse to allow you to rob me.

Now to your health.

A safe journey home.

I trust you saw through his wiles, my dear. That Sam is a crafty fellow.

I saw no craft in what he said.

What, all that talk about Gridley having written my article in the Gazette?

It was an effort to play upon my vanity.

How could he, John? You are the least vain of men.

Abby, do you think Gridley might have put it about that he wrote that article?

Mind, I wouldn't care, but...

John, perhaps we should move to Boston.

What, give up our tranquility here for the noise and quarrels of that city?

I am not that tranquil here in Braintree.

I thought you loved this farm.

I do.

But your legal work carries you as far away as Maine.

You're gone for days on end.

Some nights I feel I cannot bear the loneliness.

In Boston, perhaps you might find enough work to keep you at home.

Yes, that's possible.

Then you ask this for both of us.

Yes.

Well, I will consider what you say.

I could be of service to the people there.

Indeed, Boston is the center of all our struggles with the crown.

It may well be my duty to move there.

Abby, I ask you, what is the true end and purpose of this move to Boston?

Indeed, what is the real object of all my labors?

Am I only grasping at money or scheming for power?

Mrs. Adams, am I seeking my own prestige or the welfare of my country?

Pray, madam, have you no opinion?

Mr. Adams, I am not a seer.

Ask me again in two years' time, and perhaps I will be better able to answer.

A

new

dwelling, a new beginning.

But old injustices remain.

Kings, insulated from the furies and frustrations of subjects, give with one

hand, take with the other.

King George's treasury needs gold.

What better source than the American colonies?

What better way than a tax?

And another, and another.

The Crown claims that it seized your ship because you smuggled a cargo of

into Boston without paying the new tax.

Well, did you, Mr. Hancock? It's a wicked tax, and you know it, John.

avoids paying it. Did you smuggle the wine, John? That is not the case in

question, Mr. Adams. I was neither tried nor convicted of smuggling, and yet

they confiscated my ship.

So I have no rights as an English subject. So you smuggled the wine.

Thanks to you, Mr. Adams.

Sir. Indeed, it was John Adams who taught me to steal bluebird eggs from

nests of their jealous mothers when we were boys in Braintree.

Those early lessons have sharpened my skill in dealing with the Crown's

officers. Indeed, I believe I owe my entire good fortune to him.

I had understood that your good fortune came from a rich uncle who left you his

great fortune.

Abby, Hancock is jesting with you.

Forgive me, Mr. Hancock. I seem to lose what little humor I have as my time

draws near. Well, Abigail, I know that women convicts will plead their bellies

to gain pardons in court, but I expected a better defense from you.

Then I shall have to hire you with my lawyer.

No, madam, I need all his services for myself and my quarrel with the crown.

Ah,

you're a lucky man, John.

I envy you.

Envy me?

Why, you have a thousand friends in Boston for every man who will consent to

know me. Yeah, but a rich man never knows if he's loved for himself or for

riches. Now, I confess, even at our meetings at the Sons of Liberty, I

wonder if I'm liked for my politics or for my pocket. Well, that's easily

solved. Give all your money away.

Come, you're not serious.

Neither are you.

Now, let's waste no tears on the velvet woes of the rich.

Oh, damn it, Mr. Adams. I don't know why I contend to deal with you. You're no

gentility at all. None.

I'm a country boy, as you are.

And that's why you deal with me.

Come, now, let's study the case of you. Don't strain your eyes on all that

falderal. My defense is my right as an Englishman.

I say I cannot be taxed without my consent.

Ah, yes.

Taxation without representation.

The battle cry of every tight -fisted merchant who refuses to pay lawful duty

the crown.

Who can seriously contend that a tax on wine or paint puts our dearest rights in

jeopardy? How else is the mother country to pay her armies, which protect our

homes from the French menace?

Now, most of our countrymen are content with dutiful relations to the crown.

But Mr. Hancock feels that he is free to obey only those laws which do not touch

his pockets.

Among the hardships which attend this statute, we must never forget that it

made without our consent.

My client, Mr. Hancock, never voted for it himself, nor did he vote for any man

to make such a law for him.

Mr. Sewell has told you that the crown...

may interpret the law as it sees fit.

A generous parent who needs not consult with us her children.

But we are not infants.

We are free men.

The crown would delude us with shadows instead of substances.

The crown would make treasons where the law has made none.

The crown has never charged my client, Mr. Hancock, with any crime, yet it has

interpreted the law so that it could confiscate his property.

And whenever we leave principles and clear positive laws and wander after

interpretations, we are soon lost in the wild regions of imagination and

possibility where arbitrary power sits upon her brazen throne and governs with

an iron scepter.

It is a hardship not to be endured.

The doctor stopped by this morning.

He said she's a very weak baby for such a cold winter.

How goes Mr. Hancock's case?

It goes on forever. I swear that case cannot be won or lost.

I suspect the Crown's attorney will drop it for lack of evidence.

If only there was some end to this cold.

Oh, my dear, we will look back fondly on this winter in our old age.

Imagine us sitting by the fire in Braintree, me reading, you puffing on

pipe.

I pray all we do remember of this winter is the cold.

Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of

God... As a little child, he shall not enter therein.

And he took the little children up in his arms, put his hands upon them,

and blessed them.

There was a fine note of condolence that Cousin Sam wrote.

Did you read it?

Abby, far better you wept than to keep this silent grief.

Susanna is gone, but God in his mercy has seen fit to bless us. Do you think

grief is any less because I carry another child inside?

Try to remember what your father said.

She is with God.

It's a small coffin.

I have never seen so small.

I do believe in God.

I know he is just and merciful.

I do believe there is a meaning and purpose in her death.

But God willing, John, I pray I never understand it.

Yes, but if you let me have the lobster cheap, I'll cook it.

The honor and dignity of a free legislature demands that the offensive

and cannon be removed from our city.

The crown must end that clamorous parade which has been daily around the

courthouse since the arrival of the troops.

Make it clear. We won't pay for the quartering of the troops.

An inquiry must be made into the repeated offenses and violences

the soldiery against the...

Bloody soldiers opened fire on a group of patriots at King Street. Murdered

all, men and boys. It's a freaking massacre.

No. No, I'll go. God knows what's at foot.

Yes? Sir, I'd like to speak with Mr. Adams if I may.

It's in the way of business.

Come in.

I'm Adams. What do you want?

My name is James Forrest.

I'm the customs house agent in King Street.

Where the massacre took place?

No massacre, sir.

Honest defense.

Defense? When soldiers fire on unarmed citizens?

Well, you hear the rest of the story, sir.

Captain Preston asked me to... Who's Preston? Commander of the troops. He

meant to fire on the mob, sir. He was provoked.

If a mob came after you with stones and curses, wouldn't you try to protect

yourself? Well, why do you bring me this story?

You're a lawyer.

One of the best.

Well, surely there is Tory counsel more sympathetic to your friend's case.

They're afraid to defend him. They fear the wrath of the mob, sir.

My God, the last thing an accused man should lack in a free country is

As God's my judge, I believe him an innocent man.

He didn't mean to fire on the mob. They left him no choice. There's a time when

a man is forced to do what he hates.

I know that, sir.

I will take his case.

Thank you, Mr. Adams.

That's all he wants. No, it's not. He wants his wretched life.

I will try to save it if I can.

Do I seek my own prestige or justice for those men?

No matter what the motive is called, I am certain I will bring us to ruin and

contempt.

Then why do you take this case?

Why? So that we may prove that law and justice are held higher than politics in

Boston.

So you take the case for Boston?

No.

For John Adams.

My unyielding vanity, Abby.

It has defeated me again. Glory at all costs.

If I can win this case before a Boston jury, I will marry to a marble bust on

the annals of the law.

How will I look crowned with Laurel?

I admit my nose may not be properly Roman, but with a little help from

sneer...

I wish that were the true reason.

I've learned to live with my own vanity, but... What?

Tonight, you saw the face of that mob in the street.

A wild beast, raging for violence, revenge, eager to overthrow the rule of

law to satisfy its own rage.

I hated that face.

Because I fear that it was mine.

I take this case so that I may bury that beast.

I'm John Adams. I am counsel to the accused.

Let it not be said George of England was a callous man, rather ill -informed,

badly advised, and thus unaware that his troops had fired upon his people,

or that John Adams, out of respect for the law, not the soldiers' cause, would

defend them.

An ironic service to the crown, since Adams soon would become a leader of the

rebellion which would cost King George the brightest jewel of his empire.