His celebrity grew as his pamphlet circulated. John Adams thought it “a very handsome public paper” that demonstrated “a happy talent for composition.”76 Because of the play of his mind and the formation of his convictions, Jefferson was something of a prophet in the summer and fall of 1774, a figure who, from a mountaintop, looked deep into the nature of things and told his countrymen what he had seen. The Summary View was an act of courage driven by conviction offered to a people in search of a creed.
