On break, he visited Falmouth, Massachusetts (today known as Portland, Maine) where he connected with an old friend, Jonathan Sewall, who was still the Attorney General of Massachusetts. Sewall, who was a fierce loyalist, begged Adams to reconsider his decision to attend the First Continental Congress.
“Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish, with my country…You may depend upon it.” Sewall reminded Adams of the redoubtable army and navy the British had at their disposal, and did his best to convince Adams that British power was irresistible. In a series of letters printed anonymously in the Boston Gazette, John Adams warned readers that if they allowed the British Parliament to trample their rights, they would meet the same fate as the Irish-in a state of subjugation, and compelled to live on potatoes and water. In the months that followed, the Americans would take such ominous warnings to heart as they started to prepare for war. In Concord, provincial militiamen started to gather arms and gunpowder in preparation for a confrontation with the British Army. On April 19, 1775, the day of reckoning came. Receiving reports that the colonists were hoarding arms in order to supply a provincial army of rebels, General Thomas Gage dispatched approximately seven hundred redcoats to Concord. In the early morning hours of April 19, Captain John Parker and a collection of militiamen blocked their way at Lexington Green, where the first battle of American Revolution unfolded. No one was certain who fired the first shot, but by the end of the day, nearly four thousand Massachusetts militiamen had encircled the British regulars, and chased them back to Boston where they surrounded the town by land. While there were other delegates who believed in Adams’ vision, delegates such as John Dickinson were opposed to such belligerent overtones.
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