[57]
The Boston Tea Party, a historic demonstration against the British East India Company's tea monopoly over American merchants, took place on December 16, 1773. The British schooner Dartmouth, loaded with tea to be traded subject to the new Tea Act, had previously dropped anchor in Boston harbor. By 9:00 PM, the work of the protesters was done – they had demolished 342 chests of tea worth about ten thousand pounds. The Dartmouth owners briefly retained Adams as legal counsel regarding their liability for the destroyed shipment. Adams applauded the destruction of the tea, calling it the "grandest Event" in the history of the colonial protest movement,[58] and writing in his diary that the dutied tea's destruction was an "absolutely and indispensably" necessary action.[59]

Continental Congress
Member of Continental Congress
John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence depicts the Committee of Five presenting its draft to Congress. Adams is depicted in the center with his hand on his hip.
In 1774, at the instigation of John's cousin Samuel Adams, the First Continental Congress was convened in response to the Intolerable Acts, a series of deeply unpopular measures intended to punish Massachusetts, centralize authority in Britain, and prevent rebellion in other colonies. 