Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish with my country.

“Sink or swim” frames political commitment as a total wager: there is no safe middle ground. By pairing vivid opposites—live/die, survive/perish—Adams casts loyalty to country as a moral absolute that overrides private interest. The rhetoric also underscores the Revolutionary generation’s awareness that independence was not an abstract ideal but a decision with existential stakes: reputations, property, and lives could be lost if the cause failed. Read as political self-binding, the statement signals resolve meant to stiffen both the speaker’s will and the audience’s courage, turning personal sacrifice into a proof of civic virtue.