George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[195] house of prayer; and no one more revered the

chap X.} 1764. May.

Christian Sabbath. The austere purity of his life witnessed the sincerity of his profession. He was a tender husband, an affectionate parent, and relaxing from severer cares, he could vividly enjoy the delights of conversation with friends; but the walls of his modest mansion never witnessed dissipation, or levity, or frivolous amusements, or any thing inconsistent with the discipline of the man whose incessant prayer for his birthplace was, that ‘Boston might become a Christian Sparta.’¹

For his political creed, he received and held fast the opinions of the Fathers of New-England, that the colonies and England had a common king, but separate and independent legislatures. When he commenced Master of Arts at Cambridge, he affirmed that ‘it is lawful to resist the Chief Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved;’ and when, in consequence of an act of the British Parliament, overruling the laws of the colony, his father's estate had been unjustly seized, he appeared in defence of colonial supremacy within colonial limits, and by his success gratified alike his filial piety and his love of country.²

He was at this time near two and forty years of age; poor, and so contented with poverty, that men censured him as ‘wanting wisdom to estimate riches at their just value.’ But he was frugal and temperate;