In eloquence as an advocate he won a place in the front rank, and earned the reputation of being a sound lawyer and a judicious counsellor. This character was not confined to his native state, for in addition to the friendship of men like the Wentworths and Langdons in New Hampshire, he had secured the esteem and respect of Lowell, Adams, Otis, and other well-known legal lights in Massachusetts. Although attached to his profession, he found time to devote to agriculture and manufactures, being one of the early promoters of the latter, establishing cloth and fulling mills in Durham, and succeeding so well that on the authority of John Adams he was worth ten thousand pounds before the Revolution broke out. From his father and mother he inherited a robust constitution, and was blessed with an active, lively disposition. He had a natural taste for military life, but except an occasional bout with the Indians, generally on the defensive, he had, before the Revolutionary War, no actual experience in warfare; but all around him were the veterans of the Indian and French wars, whose descriptions of the campaigns of Louisburg and Quebec aroused all the martial spirit in his fiery nature.
To his historical studies, especially those relating to military movements, he was greatly devoted; and read them to such good purpose that he was able accurately to describe nearly all of the great battles of the world. It was natural, therefore, for him to seek the exercise of arms early; so at the age of thirty-one he held the commission of major in the Colonial militia, and spared no pains to make himself familiar with the duties connected with the position. From the first rumble of discontent, down to the actual outbreak of hostilities, he was one of the most active men engaged in the cause of liberty. His nature and his abhorrence of oppression, two traits transmitted by generations of heroic ancestors, marked his career from the beginning, and his extended influence and popularity marked him early as a leader in the coming contest. With a full realization of what was before him he organized a company numbering eighty-three men in Durham, and associated with him was the gallant young Scammell, who was then a law student in his office. With a knowledge of these facts it is not too much to say, especially when comparing them with the events occurring afterwards, that the “hidden hand” which directed the movements of the patriots in New Hampshire, down to the convening of the First Provincial Congress in July, 1774, was that of the grandson of the Limerick soldier, who, in little less than a century from the broken treaty, was paying with interest the debt due the government which had driven his father to the wilds of America. He was chosen by the First Provincial Congress to represent his province in the Continental Congress, being the first person to represent New Hampshire in that body. Two instances will be sufficient to show his energy and usefulness in that assemblage. On qualifying, he was at once placed on two of the most important committees, of one of which, that upon the grievances of the people, he was chairman.