Title: April 3d. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Z. tells me, that Jona. Rawson is malicious and cruel as well as conceited. He spights Edd. Quincy and his whole Family. He says that the whole family was prodigal and extravagant, and that he borrowed Money and bought Goods upon Credit, but two days before he housed himself, when he knew that he never should pay, which was no better than Stealing.—Tis fraud. Tis Cheating, Tis Knavery, Tis Villany.— Oh he longs to see Quincys Daughters out at service. It would please him to see them, washing and serving Dishes, Washing Clothes, &c. Why should not they work as well as Mrs. Liddy and I? We are more honourably descended than they!—He longs to hear that Milton select men have warned him out of that Town. He himself was very urgent to have young Edd. warned out of Braintree, when he first came to live with his Father, but never could get a Majority of the select men of his Mind. He hopes that the Church in Milton will refuse him their Communion. He hears that some Members are uneasy and talk of objecting to his partaking there, and he wishes they would. He was extremely glad to hear, that Mr. Quincy failed of getting Clerk of the General Court. He heard he was a Candidate, and disappointed, and was rejoiced at it. A fine story, that he who wanted discretion to manage his own private Affairs, who rushed headlong to Bankruptcy and Destruction should be intrusted with public affairs. That he who would lye and Cheat, at such a Rate, should stand in public Place.
       Thus he seems to wish that poor Mr. Quincy should be excluded from all public Trust, that he should be expelled from any Town that he should move into, be excommunicated from the Church, brought to beg his Bread or be maintained by the Town, and his Daughters bound out sent out to service as Kitchen Maids. This is Malice, Tis Rage, Tis Cruelty, ’Tis Persecution. Tis Hell and the Devil—and by all Probability the Provocation to this Excess of Malevolence, which would strip them of all the means of life temporal and eternal, is a Loss of about forty shillings old Tenor by Mr. Quincy, some way or another. These are dreadful sentiments. This is a woful Temper.
       He, and his Brother Josiah, and all the rest of the Family, are very proud of their Descent from Mr. Rawson, an ancient secretary of this Province. Secretary Rawson was his great Grandfather. His father was a tippling, silly old fellow like David Bass, and if his Grandfather was of a like Character, the Dishonour of descending from such a father and Grandfather must have taken away all the Honour of descending from an honorable great Grand father.
       Tis vain and mean to esteem oneself for his Ancestors Merit. But he is very avaricious, and very ambitious and excessively vain. Vain of his Descent, his Estate, his Knowledge, his sense, his public Employments, that of Select Man, that of Commissioner of Bankruptcy &c., and of his public Capacity and spirit,—ambitious of public Trust as a select Man, a Representative, a Commissioner &c. And besides all these, he is brutally uncivil and rude in Company. He is an impetuous bauler, a rough, unpolished, ill bred Clown and Coxcomb. These are the Properties of one of the favourites of Braintree.
       Is Lawrence to be Styled a Yeoman? or not. For the Negative these Things are to be considered.—1St. Bayley in his Dictionary, defines Yeomen to be the first Degrees of the Commons, Freeholders, who have land of their own, and live on good Husbandry. Sir T. Smith defines a Yeoman to be a free born Englishman, who may lay out of his own free Land in Yearly Revenue, to the sum of 40s.
       Now Lawrence is not most certainly one of any of the first degrees of the Commons. He is a poor, low, inferiour sort of Man, to be ranked only among Labourers, and the meanest of the People. He is certainly no freeholder, he has no Land of his own, and he does not live at all upon Husbandry. And if it should be admitted that he was a free born Englishman, according to the first Part of Sir Thos. Smiths Definition, yet he does not answer the last Part of it, for he cannot lay out of his own free Land, in Yearly Revenue to the sum of 40s., for he is not the owner of one foot of Land in the World.
       I find in 23: H. 6. 15. Abridgment of the Statutes, title Parliament ss. 29. None shall be a Knight of the Shire, which standeth in the Degree of a Yeoman or Under.—By this statute therefore it appears that there are Degrees, or at least a Degree under that of a Yeoman.
       In Sheppard’s Abridgment, Title Name.—So of Commons there be Degrees as Knights, Esquires, Gentlemen, Citizens, Yeomen and Burgesses of several Degrees.—Here Burgesses are a Rank below Yeoman.
       Is Lawrence a Yeoman?
       For the affirmative these Things are to be considered.—
       What was the precise meaning of the Word Yeoman in the ancient Saxon or Teutonic Languages, I cannot say. And whether this Title was or was not in ancient times, most usually given to Land Holders, to Country farmers, is not worth while to inquire, because it is not material to the present Question.—For
       It is certain, that in the modern Language both of Courts and History’s, all Persons under the Degree of Gentlemen are styled Yeomen. The Gentry and Yeomanry of England comprehend all Degrees of Men from the King to the Beggar, in History, and in the modern Lawbooks a Yeoman is defined to be an ordinary common man.
       In Strange’s Reports—It is settled over and over again, first that a Trader may be sued by the Addition of his Degree, as that of Yeoman e.g. and the Writ shall not abate unless he pleads another degree. Another Defendant pleaded that he was a Lime merchant, and not a Yeoman. Plaintiff demurred, and the Court held, that every Man be he a trader or not a Trader, has a Degree by which he may be denoted. And that if the Defendant had shewn himself to be a Degree higher than a Yeoman, that would have abated the Writ, but not otherwise.
       In modern Cases, Defendant pleaded that he was a Farmer and not a Yeoman. The Plaintiff demurred, and it was held, that if the Defendant is not a Gentleman he must be a Yeoman i.e. an ordinary or common Person.

       Besides I find it said in some Dictionaries that the Saxon Word from whence Yeoman is drawn signified a Shepherd. Now a Man may be a shepherd without being a Landholder, and the Word which answers this in the teutonic Language signified a common man. Now every common man is not a Landholder.
       But all these Criticisms are Trash and trifling for it is settled Practice in this Court, in Conformity to the late Practice at Home, to call every one of these lower sort of People, who are not Gentlemen and whose Occupation is not known, Yeoman. I have heard common soldiers, styled Yeomen in Indictments, soldiers belonging to the Train who had no Land. I have known a Multitude of Instances where Defendants in civil Actions in this Court, have been called Yeomen, who never owned an Inch of ground in their Lives. But this Man has a better Right to this Addition, for he was born a Yeoman according to this Definition, i.e. a Land holder, and he owned when this Note was given a good farm, a farm worth £3000.
       Query. Is Labourer an Addition of Degree or Mistery? A Labourer is one that has no Trade or Art or Mistery, but it is an Occupation.
       It would be worth while to describe all the Transformations of J.Q.’s flatery.—Yet there is always a salvo, which shews his Deceit and Insincerity.
       If Mr. Adams should become in 2 or 3 Years, one of the most eminent Lawyers in the County, and remove to Boston, there you would find persons, who have Daughters to dispose of, who have Knowledge of the World, and Prudence enough to look out the most thriving best Characters, for Matches to their Daughters. Twenty such Men would have their Eyes upon You; would dress out their Daughters to the best Advantage, contrive Interviews, lay schemes and presently, some one more beautiful, or sensible, or witty or artful, than the rest will take you in. We shall see you, in spight of your Phylosophy, and Contempt for Wife and Mistress and all that, sighing, and dying with Love. [Here, under a specious Pretext of Raillery for my boasted, and affected, Indifference to Ladies, he is insinuating or would make me believe that he designed to insinuate, that I am likely to be the ablest Lawyer on the stage, in 2 or 3 Years, that 20 Gentlemen will Eye me for a Match to their Daughters, and all that. This is the flattery. Yet, in truth he only said, if Mr. Adams should become &c. so that if his Consequences should never take Place, Oh I never expected they would, for I did not expect you would be eminent.—Besides, if he was to speak his real sentiments, I am so illbred, unpolished &c. that I never shall succeed with ladies or the World &c. &c.]
       The same Evening, I shew him, my Draught of our Licensed Houses and the Remarks upon it. Oh he was transported! he was ravished! He would introduce that Plan at the sessions, and read the Remarks, and say they were made as well as the Plan by a Gentleman to whom their could be no Exception—&c. He saw an Abstract of the Argument for and against Writts of Assistants—and crys did you take this from those Gentlemen as they delivered it? You can do any Thing! You can do as you please! Gridley did not use that Language. He never was Master of such a style! It is not in him—&c.
       I will lay 100 Guineas, that before 20 Years, you will raise the Fees of the Bar 3 fold. If your Eloquence should turn out equal to your Understanding, you will. I know you will!
       You have Ld. Bolinbroke by heart! With one cursory Reading you have a deeper Understanding of him and remember more of him, than I do after 3 or 4 Readings, or than I should have after 10 Readings.
       With all your Merit, and Learning, and Wit and sense and Spirit, and Vivacity, and all that.—
       These are the bold, gross, barefaced Flatteries that I hear every Time I see that Man. Can he think me such a Ninny as to be allured and deceived by such gross Arts? He must think me vastly vain, silly, stupid, if he thinks to impose on me, if he thinks I cant see the Deceit. It must be deceit. It cannot be any Thing else.
       Gray v. Paxton. Otis drew a Writ vs. Paxton for Money had and received to the Use of the Province. Prat pleaded in Abatement, That, altho the suit was brot in Greys Name, altho Gray was Plantiff, Yet no Promise was alledged to have been made to Gray. The Defendant is alledged to be indebted to the Province, for Money received to the Provinces Use, and to have promised to pay it to the Province. Yet the Province is not Plantiff. It is Gray vs. Paxton, but it should have been the Province of the Massachusetts Bay v. Paxton.
       The Treasurer and Receiver General has not a Right ex Offido, to demand, sue for and recover all Monies that are due to the Province. No more than a Noblemans Steward has to sue for and Recover the Demands of the Nobleman: No more than the Cashier of the Bank of England, has to sue for and Recover all Monies due to the Bank of England. A steward may sue but not in his own Name, he must sue in the Name of his Master. The Cashier may sue, but not in his own Name, he must sue in the Name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. A Corporate Body is one Person in Law and may sue or be sued, and There is an Instance, before the Court, this Term, in your own Dockett, of a suit brot by a Town, the Town of Dorchester vs. A.B. &c. There is a special Law of this Province, which impowers sentence unfinished


Title: [April 1761]
From: Adams, John
To:

      April 3d. 1761.

       Z. tells me, that Jona. Rawson is malicious and cruel as well as conceited. He spights Edd. Quincy and his whole Family. He says that the whole family was prodigal and extravagant, and that he borrowed Money and bought Goods upon Credit, but two days before he housed himself, when he knew that he never should pay, which was no better than Stealing.—Tis fraud. Tis Cheating, Tis Knavery, Tis Villany.— Oh he longs to see Quincys Daughters out at service. It would please him to see them, washing and serving Dishes, Washing Clothes, &c. Why should not they work as well as Mrs. Liddy and I? We are more honourably descended than they!—He longs to hear that Milton select men have warned him out of that Town. He himself was very urgent to have young Edd. warned out of Braintree, when he first came to live with his Father, but never could get a Majority of the select men of his Mind. He hopes that the Church in Milton will refuse him their Communion. He hears that some Members are uneasy and talk of objecting to his partaking there, and he wishes they would. He was extremely glad to hear, that Mr. Quincy failed of getting Clerk of the General Court. He heard he was a Candidate, and disappointed, and was rejoiced at it. A fine story, that he who wanted discretion to manage his own private Affairs, who rushed headlong to Bankruptcy and Destruction should be intrusted with public affairs. That he who would lye and Cheat, at such a Rate, should stand in public Place.
       Thus he seems to wish that poor Mr. Quincy should be excluded from all public Trust, that he should be expelled from any Town that he should move into, be excommunicated from the Church, brought to beg his Bread or be maintained by the Town, and his Daughters bound out sent out to service as Kitchen Maids. This is Malice, Tis Rage, Tis Cruelty, ’Tis Persecution. Tis Hell and the Devil—and by all Probability the Provocation to this Excess of Malevolence, which would strip them of all the means of life temporal and eternal, is a Loss of about forty shillings old Tenor by Mr. Quincy, some way or another. These are dreadful sentiments. This is a woful Temper.
       He, and his Brother Josiah, and all the rest of the Family, are very proud of their Descent from Mr. Rawson, an ancient secretary of this Province. Secretary Rawson was his great Grandfather. His father was a tippling, silly old fellow like David Bass, and if his Grandfather was of a like Character, the Dishonour of descending from such a father and Grandfather must have taken away all the Honour of descending from an honorable great Grand father.
       Tis vain and mean to esteem oneself for his Ancestors Merit. But he is very avaricious, and very ambitious and excessively vain. Vain of his Descent, his Estate, his Knowledge, his sense, his public Employments, that of Select Man, that of Commissioner of Bankruptcy &c., and of his public Capacity and spirit,—ambitious of public Trust as a select Man, a Representative, a Commissioner &c. And besides all these, he is brutally uncivil and rude in Company. He is an impetuous bauler, a rough, unpolished, ill bred Clown and Coxcomb. These are the Properties of one of the favourites of Braintree.
       Is Lawrence to be Styled a Yeoman? or not. For the Negative these Things are to be considered.—1St. Bayley in his Dictionary, defines Yeomen to be the first Degrees of the Commons, Freeholders, who have land of their own, and live on good Husbandry. Sir T. Smith defines a Yeoman to be a free born Englishman, who may lay out of his own free Land in Yearly Revenue, to the sum of 40s.
       Now Lawrence is not most certainly one of any of the first degrees of the Commons. He is a poor, low, inferiour sort of Man, to be ranked only among Labourers, and the meanest of the People. He is certainly no freeholder, he has no Land of his own, and he does not live at all upon Husbandry. And if it should be admitted that he was a free born Englishman, according to the first Part of Sir Thos. Smiths Definition, yet he does not answer the last Part of it, for he cannot lay out of his own free Land, in Yearly Revenue to the sum of 40s., for he is not the owner of one foot of Land in the World.
       I find in 23: H. 6. 15. Abridgment of the Statutes, title Parliament ss. 29. None shall be a Knight of the Shire, which standeth in the Degree of a Yeoman or Under.—By this statute therefore it appears that there are Degrees, or at least a Degree under that of a Yeoman.
       In Sheppard’s Abridgment, Title Name.—So of Commons there be Degrees as Knights, Esquires, Gentlemen, Citizens, Yeomen and Burgesses of several Degrees.—Here Burgesses are a Rank below Yeoman.
       Is Lawrence a Yeoman?
       For the affirmative these Things are to be considered.—
       What was the precise meaning of the Word Yeoman in the ancient Saxon or Teutonic Languages, I cannot say. And whether this Title was or was not in ancient times, most usually given to Land Holders, to Country farmers, is not worth while to inquire, because it is not material to the present Question.—For
       It is certain, that in the modern Language both of Courts and History’s, all Persons under the Degree of Gentlemen are styled Yeomen. The Gentry and Yeomanry of England comprehend all Degrees of Men from the King to the Beggar, in History, and in the modern Lawbooks a Yeoman is defined to be an ordinary common man.
       In Strange’s Reports—It is settled over and over again, first that a Trader may be sued by the Addition of his Degree, as that of Yeoman e.g. and the Writ shall not abate unless he pleads another degree. Another Defendant pleaded that he was a Lime merchant, and not a Yeoman. Plaintiff demurred, and the Court held, that every Man be he a trader or not a Trader, has a Degree by which he may be denoted. And that if the Defendant had shewn himself to be a Degree higher than a Yeoman, that would have abated the Writ, but not otherwise.
       In modern Cases, Defendant pleaded that he was a Farmer and not a Yeoman. The Plaintiff demurred, and it was held, that if the Defendant is not a Gentleman he must be a Yeoman i.e. an ordinary or common Person.

       Besides I find it said in some Dictionaries that the Saxon Word from whence Yeoman is drawn signified a Shepherd. Now a Man may be a shepherd without being a Landholder, and the Word which answers this in the teutonic Language signified a common man. Now every common man is not a Landholder.
       But all these Criticisms are Trash and trifling for it is settled Practice in this Court, in Conformity to the late Practice at Home, to call every one of these lower sort of People, who are not Gentlemen and whose Occupation is not known, Yeoman. I have heard common soldiers, styled Yeomen in Indictments, soldiers belonging to the Train who had no Land. I have known a Multitude of Instances where Defendants in civil Actions in this Court, have been called Yeomen, who never owned an Inch of ground in their Lives. But this Man has a better Right to this Addition, for he was born a Yeoman according to this Definition, i.e. a Land holder, and he owned when this Note was given a good farm, a farm worth £3000.
       Query. Is Labourer an Addition of Degree or Mistery? A Labourer is one that has no Trade or Art or Mistery, but it is an Occupation.
       It would be worth while to describe all the Transformations of J.Q.’s flatery.—Yet there is always a salvo, which shews his Deceit and Insincerity.
       If Mr. Adams should become in 2 or 3 Years, one of the most eminent Lawyers in the County, and remove to Boston, there you would find persons, who have Daughters to dispose of, who have Knowledge of the World, and Prudence enough to look out the most thriving best Characters, for Matches to their Daughters. Twenty such Men would have their Eyes upon You; would dress out their Daughters to the best Advantage, contrive Interviews, lay schemes and presently, some one more beautiful, or sensible, or witty or artful, than the rest will take you in. We shall see you, in spight of your Phylosophy, and Contempt for Wife and Mistress and all that, sighing, and dying with Love. [Here, under a specious Pretext of Raillery for my boasted, and affected, Indifference to Ladies, he is insinuating or would make me believe that he designed to insinuate, that I am likely to be the ablest Lawyer on the stage, in 2 or 3 Years, that 20 Gentlemen will Eye me for a Match to their Daughters, and all that. This is the flattery. Yet, in truth he only said, if Mr. Adams should become &c. so that if his Consequences should never take Place, Oh I never expected they would, for I did not expect you would be eminent.—Besides, if he was to speak his real sentiments, I am so illbred, unpolished &c. that I never shall succeed with ladies or the World &c. &c.]
       The same Evening, I shew him, my Draught of our Licensed Houses and the Remarks upon it. Oh he was transported! he was ravished! He would introduce that Plan at the sessions, and read the Remarks, and say they were made as well as the Plan by a Gentleman to whom their could be no Exception—&c. He saw an Abstract of the Argument for and against Writts of Assistants—and crys did you take this from those Gentlemen as they delivered it? You can do any Thing! You can do as you please! Gridley did not use that Language. He never was Master of such a style! It is not in him—&c.
       I will lay 100 Guineas, that before 20 Years, you will raise the Fees of the Bar 3 fold. If your Eloquence should turn out equal to your Understanding, you will. I know you will!
       You have Ld. Bolinbroke by heart! With one cursory Reading you have a deeper Understanding of him and remember more of him, than I do after 3 or 4 Readings, or than I should have after 10 Readings.
       With all your Merit, and Learning, and Wit and sense and Spirit, and Vivacity, and all that.—
       These are the bold, gross, barefaced Flatteries that I hear every Time I see that Man. Can he think me such a Ninny as to be allured and deceived by such gross Arts? He must think me vastly vain, silly, stupid, if he thinks to impose on me, if he thinks I cant see the Deceit. It must be deceit. It cannot be any Thing else.
       Gray v. Paxton. Otis drew a Writ vs. Paxton for Money had and received to the Use of the Province. Prat pleaded in Abatement, That, altho the suit was brot in Greys Name, altho Gray was Plantiff, Yet no Promise was alledged to have been made to Gray. The Defendant is alledged to be indebted to the Province, for Money received to the Provinces Use, and to have promised to pay it to the Province. Yet the Province is not Plantiff. It is Gray vs. Paxton, but it should have been the Province of the Massachusetts Bay v. Paxton.
       The Treasurer and Receiver General has not a Right ex Offido, to demand, sue for and recover all Monies that are due to the Province. No more than a Noblemans Steward has to sue for and Recover the Demands of the Nobleman: No more than the Cashier of the Bank of England, has to sue for and Recover all Monies due to the Bank of England. A steward may sue but not in his own Name, he must sue in the Name of his Master. The Cashier may sue, but not in his own Name, he must sue in the Name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. A Corporate Body is one Person in Law and may sue or be sued, and There is an Instance, before the Court, this Term, in your own Dockett, of a suit brot by a Town, the Town of Dorchester vs. A.B. &c. There is a special Law of this Province, which impowers sentence unfinished

   Probably Zabdiel Adams, JA’s cousin.

   The following semidetached entries may have been written at any time between 3 April and mid-May, though one of them, as indicated below, seems to have been inserted as late as July.

   Doubtless Col. Josiah Quincy.

   First bracket in MS; closing bracket supplied.

   That is, JA’s sketch map of tavern locations, which is reproduced in this volume; see entry of 29 May 1760 and note, above. CFA, who mentions the map without reproducing it, prints a passage of JA’s accompanying comment which no longer appears on or with the map, as follows:

            “N.B. Place one foot of your dividers at Eb. Thayer’s house, and extend the other about one mile and a half, and then sweep a circle; you will surround eight public houses, besides one in the centre. There is vastly more travelling and little less business in Milton, Dorchester, and Roxbury, where public houses are thinly scattered, than there is in Braintree; and why poor Braintree men, who have no virtue to boast of, should be solicited with more temptations than others, I can’t imagine. This, I will say, that whoever is in fault, or whatever was the design, taverns and dramshops have been systematically and scandalously multiplied in this town; and, like so many boxes of Pandora, they are hourly scattering plagues of every land, natural, moral, and political, through the whole town” (WorksThe Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Boston, 1850–1856; 10 vols., 2:123, note)

          .

   This is the only reference in the Diary to the celebrated argument before the Superior Court in Feb. 1761 concerning the legality of writs of assistance. In his Autobiography JA furnished from memory a longer account of what he called the first incident in a “Contest ... to which I could foresee no End.” Many of the details in his later account (printed by CFA in JA, WorksThe Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Boston, 1850–1856; 10 vols., 2:124, note), repeated with variations and additions in his letters to William Tudor, 1817–1818, were questioned and corrected by Horace Gray in a learned appendix on writs of assistance in Quincy’s ReportsJosiah Quincy Jr., Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, between 1761 and 1772, ed. Samuel M. Quincy, Boston, 1865., 1865, p. 395–540; see especially p. 408–409; 414, note; 469, note. From some of the language used in the present Diary entry (“an Abstract of the Argument for and against Writts of Assistants”), it would appear that JA showed Col. Quincy his original hasty notes taken during the hearing. These survive as a single large folded sheet with nine pages covered by writing among JA’s legal papers (Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 185; printed in JA, WorksThe Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Boston, 1850–1856; 10 vols., 2:521–523, and more literally, with full annotation by Horace Gray, in Quincy, ReportsJosiah Quincy Jr., Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, between 1761 and 1772, ed. Samuel M. Quincy, Boston, 1865., p. 469–482). On the other hand, as Professor Gipson has pointed out, no one could possibly have praised the “style” of these crabbed notes, and it is therefore possible and even probable that JA had already written up his notes of Gridley’s argument for the writs and Otis’ and Thacher’s arguments against them in a discursive form intended to circulate among friends and other interested persons. At any rate, a writtenup version did circulate some time afterward, if not immediately, for variant texts of such a version appeared in newspapers and in lawyers’ commonplace books, and JA acknowledged the authorship of one portion (Otis’ speech) that was eventually printed in George Richards Minot’s Continuation of the History of the Province of Massachusetts, Boston, 1798–1803, 2:91–100. See also JA, WorksThe Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Boston, 1850–1856; 10 vols., 2:523–525; Samuel A. Green’s remarks on the textual history of Otis’ speech in MHS, Procs.Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections and Proceedings., 2d ser., 6 (1890–1891): 190–196; Lawrence H. Gipson, “Aspects of the Beginning of the American Revolution,” Amer. Antiq. Soc., Procs., 67 (1957): 23, note; Joseph R. Frese, “James Otis and Writs of Assistance,” NEQNew England Quarterly., 30:496–508 (Dec. 1957). Fortunately it is possible to defer any attempt to reconstruct the text of JA’s longer version (of which no MS in his hand has been found) with at least some hope that more evidence may come to light.

   This detached entry appears to be out of place chronologically, since it reports part of Benjamin Prat’s plea in abatement of the writ in the case of Gray v. Paxton, tried in Suffolk Inferior Court, July 1761. This was a famous case, with marked political overtones. Harrison Gray (1711–1794) was provincial treasurer and receiver-general; Charles Paxton (1707–1788) was a commissioner of customs in Boston (Stark, Loyalists of Mass.James H. Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution, Boston, 1910., p. 34–336, 318–319). The action grew out of Paxton’s practice of charging his costs for secret informers entirely against the King’s (that is to say, the Province’s) one-third share of the value of goods forfeited under admiralty court decisions, while the Governor and the informer each got their full thirds. As a result of a petition from a number of merchants and after much bickering between the House of Representatives and Governor Bernard, the General Court in Jan. 1761 authorized Treasurer Gray to sue Paxton for the alleged deficiencies (more than £357). Much discussed during the spring, the case came on in the Inferior Court in July, and Paxton lost. The Superior Court in its August term supported Prat’s plea in abatement and reversed the decision. A new action, Province v. Paxton, was thereupon brought in the Inferior Court, Jan. 1762, and judgment was again rendered against Paxton. He again appealed, and, to use Bernard’s words, “pursuant to the direction of all the Judges the jury found for the defendant [Paxton],” Feb. 1762. The records of the two cases, with full commentary, are printed by Samuel M. Quincy in Appendix II to Quincy, ReportsJosiah Quincy Jr., Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Superior Court of Judicature of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, between 1761 and 1772, ed. Samuel M. Quincy, Boston, 1865., p. 541–552. It is to Chief Justice Hutchinson’s role in the two cases on appeal that JA refers so bitterly in his Diary for 30 Dec. 1765: “Who has made it his constant Endeavor to discountenance the Odium in which Informers are held?” &c.


Title: [Draft of a Letter to the Boston Gazette, May 1761.]
From: Adams, John
To:

       I am myself an Inhabitant of Boston, and have I think an honest affection for the Town, and a sincere Concern for its Honour: for which Reason I cannot reflect upon the late prevailing Humor of attributing our own follies to the Country without Regret. The late Engagement in your Paper, between two litigating Scribblers, about the Clergy of this Town, and their lawdable Conduct, at the late Installment, forsooth was between two Country laymen: and many other Pieces lately published have been in Country Characters; young Gentlemen from the Country, old Batchellers in the Country &c. This is merely fathering our own natural Children on other Men who are more chaste. Such Pieces, every Man who reads them knows, are the Productions of idle fellows in this Town—Persons who have no Business, of more Consequence, to employ their Time and Thoughts, and who happen to grow vain enough in their own Imaginations, to prize highly their own Wit and Talent. Whereas the good People in the Country, whom in Journeys which I often take I have pretty carefully observed, are more dilligent and attentive to their own Business, and much less conceited of their sense and Learning. Besides any Man may observe in these Pieces, a Temper, and Manners quite remote from the honest simplicity and natural, and habitual Benevolence of a Countryman. Tis really doing Injustice to the Country to impute to it such uncandid, illiberal Productions, but no Wonder these Grubstreet Garreteers are guilty of this Injustice when, I am sorry to say it, a like Kind is committed by almost all orders of the Town, in many other affairs of much more Consequence.
       The affair of Taxes has been a common Place Topic of Complaint against the Country, among all Ranks of Men in this Metropolis for many Years. Our Gentry has given frequent Invitations, to the Country Representatives, and to other Country Gentlemen, who had Acquaintance here, to Entertainments. The Productions of every Element and Climate were assembled, and the nicest Art and Cookery employed to regale them. The furniture of our Houses and Tables were proportionably rich and gay. Our Persons were cloathed in silks and Laces and Velvet, and our Daughters especially blazed in the rich vestments of Princesses. At the same Time the poor Gentlemen were scarcely able to walk the streets, for the Multitude of Chariots, or to hear themselves speak for the rapid Rattling of Hoofs and Wheels. (Wits and Wags may laugh at my Discription, but Foppery ought to be described in Bombast.) These Appearances at the Churches, assemblies, Concerts, Private Houses and streets, gave the Country an opinion, either that Boston was vastly rich or vastly extravagant, and they dared not, by any public speech or Conduct suppose the latter least they should give offence to us, who had treated them even with assiduous Complaisance and Hospitality.
       They endeavoured to Settle the Proportion of public Burdens, (and how should they do otherwise) according to the best Proofs they could procure of Wealth and Ability: And altho People in the Country were obliged to wear Homespun threadbare, eat salt Pork and Beef, drink Cyder and small Beer, and turn every stone, and save every Penny to pay their Taxes, and did it chearfully too: yet we in Boston never would pay ours, without Grumbling, and cursing Country folks, and Country Representatives.
       Well, the Country Gentlemen desirous to do Justice, harkened to our Complaints, and set themselves to discover as well as they could, who was and who was not able to support the Pomp they every day saw. They asked our own Representatives and other, the most sensible Inhabitants of the Town, and no better Method was to be found than the Valuation Act. But, this, instead of quieting extinguishing only enflamed our Discontent. “What we cry? We obliged to tell upon Oath how much we are worth? must not we drink Madeira, eat in silver and China? Ride in our Chariots? Go to Concerts and assemblies? and let our sons and Daughters spend a few Guineas a Week at Cards without telling the assessors, and having it recorded that we are in Debt for all this, and £10, 000 worse than nothing! Oh these vile shoe string Representatives.”
       We have not in short the Ingenuity of common Debauchees, who will often confess their own folly, in getting Claps and daily Drams, has given them the Hectick: But we are determined to take no shame to ourselves, but charge the natural and unavoidable Consequences of our own Imprudence on the Country. The Country, it is true, is not an unexceptionable Example of Wisdom. Many Things are running Wild. Many simptoms begin to appear, that threaten their Happiness, their Morals, Health, Properties and Liberties, in a very melancholly manner: But even these simptoms are produced, in a great Measure by the inconsiderate Politicks of this Town.—Give me Leave to mention a very flagrant Instance out of a Multitude.
       If you ride over this whole Province you will find, that, alltho Taverns are generally too numerous, they are not half so numerous in any one County, in Proportion to the Numbers of People and the Necessity of Business and Travellers, as in this. In most Country Towns, in this County, you will find almost every other House, with a sign of Entertainment before it. If you call, you will find Dirt enough, very miserable Accommodation of Provision and Lodging, for your self and your Horse. Yet if you set the Evening, you will find the House full of People, drinking Drams, Phlip, Toddy, Carrousing, swearing, but especially, plotting, with the Landlord, to get him, at the next Town Meeting an Election, either for select man or Representative. Thus the Multiplicity of these Houses, by dividing the Profits, renders the Landlords careless of Travellers, and allures the poor Country People, who are tired with Labour and hanker after Company, to waste their Time and money, contract Habits of Intemperance and Idleness, and by degrees to loose the natural dignity and freedom of Inglish Minds, and confer those offices, which belong by Nature and the spirit of all Government to Probity and Honesty, on the meanest and weakest and worst of human Characters.
       A good deal of this has happened, as I believe, partly from what I have seen and partly from credible Information, in the Country: But who is most to blame! The Court of Sessions has made such Rules for itself, that the Country Justices can seldom attend. The select Men of the several Towns, have been so often disappointed, that they are discouraged. Some Houses to my Knowledge have been licensed which never had any Approbation from any select Man. Other Persons have been licensed whom the select Men have found by Experience, and certified to be, guilty of Misrule, and therefore unfit. Others have been recognized for seven Years together without any Approbation from the select Men, thro that whole Time. Nay a Man has been recognized, tho the select Men certifyed good Reasons for not approbating him—that he was very intemperate, had poor Accommodations, and was subject to fits of Caprice if not Delirium, that made it dangerous to come near him: and altho it was proved, that the same Man, in one of those fits, had but a few days before, Stabbed another, with apparent Design and great Danger of Murder.
       Now I agree, that Ambitious Spirits in the Country, who have little Honour, will soon see, that such Houses must be favoured, and multiplied, to promote their own designs, and therefore Retailers and Taverners are generally in the Country Assessors, or select Men, or Representative or Esquires: But are not we more to blame. Are not some of our Justices, Importers of Mollasses? are not others Distillers? and are not all of them fond of a lawful Fee? In short it is owing wholly to Boston Justices, that those Houses have been so shamefully multiplied, in the Country, multiplied so that decent Entertainment for a Traveller is no where to be had.
       The Freedom of Censure is a Matter of great Consequence under our Government. There are certain Vices and follies, certain Indecencies of Behaviour, beneath the Inspection and Censure of Law and Magistracy, which must be restrained and corrected by Satyr. And for this Reason, every Piece of just Ridicule in public or private bestowed on any foppery wrong or foolish Conduct, gives me great Pleasure, even altho I am myself the Object. From the same Principle I was glad to see some Animadversion on the late inconsistent Conduct of the Ministers of this Town. And nothing but sacerdotal Impudence, and Ecclesiastical Pride, can account for the surly, revengeful Manner in which those Pieces have been received.


Title: [May 1761]
From: Adams, John
To:

      Draft of a Letter to the Boston Gazette, May 1761.

       I am myself an Inhabitant of Boston, and have I think an honest affection for the Town, and a sincere Concern for its Honour: for which Reason I cannot reflect upon the late prevailing Humor of attributing our own follies to the Country without Regret. The late Engagement in your Paper, between two litigating Scribblers, about the Clergy of this Town, and their lawdable Conduct, at the late Installment, forsooth was between two Country laymen: and many other Pieces lately published have been in Country Characters; young Gentlemen from the Country, old Batchellers in the Country &c. This is merely fathering our own natural Children on other Men who are more chaste. Such Pieces, every Man who reads them knows, are the Productions of idle fellows in this Town—Persons who have no Business, of more Consequence, to employ their Time and Thoughts, and who happen to grow vain enough in their own Imaginations, to prize highly their own Wit and Talent. Whereas the good People in the Country, whom in Journeys which I often take I have pretty carefully observed, are more dilligent and attentive to their own Business, and much less conceited of their sense and Learning. Besides any Man may observe in these Pieces, a Temper, and Manners quite remote from the honest simplicity and natural, and habitual Benevolence of a Countryman. Tis really doing Injustice to the Country to impute to it such uncandid, illiberal Productions, but no Wonder these Grubstreet Garreteers are guilty of this Injustice when, I am sorry to say it, a like Kind is committed by almost all orders of the Town, in many other affairs of much more Consequence.
       The affair of Taxes has been a common Place Topic of Complaint against the Country, among all Ranks of Men in this Metropolis for many Years. Our Gentry has given frequent Invitations, to the Country Representatives, and to other Country Gentlemen, who had Acquaintance here, to Entertainments. The Productions of every Element and Climate were assembled, and the nicest Art and Cookery employed to regale them. The furniture of our Houses and Tables were proportionably rich and gay. Our Persons were cloathed in silks and Laces and Velvet, and our Daughters especially blazed in the rich vestments of Princesses. At the same Time the poor Gentlemen were scarcely able to walk the streets, for the Multitude of Chariots, or to hear themselves speak for the rapid Rattling of Hoofs and Wheels. (Wits and Wags may laugh at my Discription, but Foppery ought to be described in Bombast.) These Appearances at the Churches, assemblies, Concerts, Private Houses and streets, gave the Country an opinion, either that Boston was vastly rich or vastly extravagant, and they dared not, by any public speech or Conduct suppose the latter least they should give offence to us, who had treated them even with assiduous Complaisance and Hospitality.
       They endeavoured to Settle the Proportion of public Burdens, (and how should they do otherwise) according to the best Proofs they could procure of Wealth and Ability: And altho People in the Country were obliged to wear Homespun threadbare, eat salt Pork and Beef, drink Cyder and small Beer, and turn every stone, and save every Penny to pay their Taxes, and did it chearfully too: yet we in Boston never would pay ours, without Grumbling, and cursing Country folks, and Country Representatives.
       Well, the Country Gentlemen desirous to do Justice, harkened to our Complaints, and set themselves to discover as well as they could, who was and who was not able to support the Pomp they every day saw. They asked our own Representatives and other, the most sensible Inhabitants of the Town, and no better Method was to be found than the Valuation Act. But, this, instead of quieting extinguishing only enflamed our Discontent. “What we cry? We obliged to tell upon Oath how much we are worth? must not we drink Madeira, eat in silver and China? Ride in our Chariots? Go to Concerts and assemblies? and let our sons and Daughters spend a few Guineas a Week at Cards without telling the assessors, and having it recorded that we are in Debt for all this, and £10, 000 worse than nothing! Oh these vile shoe string Representatives.”
       We have not in short the Ingenuity of common Debauchees, who will often confess their own folly, in getting Claps and daily Drams, has given them the Hectick: But we are determined to take no shame to ourselves, but charge the natural and unavoidable Consequences of our own Imprudence on the Country. The Country, it is true, is not an unexceptionable Example of Wisdom. Many Things are running Wild. Many simptoms begin to appear, that threaten their Happiness, their Morals, Health, Properties and Liberties, in a very melancholly manner: But even these simptoms are produced, in a great Measure by the inconsiderate Politicks of this Town.—Give me Leave to mention a very flagrant Instance out of a Multitude.
       If you ride over this whole Province you will find, that, alltho Taverns are generally too numerous, they are not half so numerous in any one County, in Proportion to the Numbers of People and the Necessity of Business and Travellers, as in this. In most Country Towns, in this County, you will find almost every other House, with a sign of Entertainment before it. If you call, you will find Dirt enough, very miserable Accommodation of Provision and Lodging, for your self and your Horse. Yet if you set the Evening, you will find the House full of People, drinking Drams, Phlip, Toddy, Carrousing, swearing, but especially, plotting, with the Landlord, to get him, at the next Town Meeting an Election, either for select man or Representative. Thus the Multiplicity of these Houses, by dividing the Profits, renders the Landlords careless of Travellers, and allures the poor Country People, who are tired with Labour and hanker after Company, to waste their Time and money, contract Habits of Intemperance and Idleness, and by degrees to loose the natural dignity and freedom of Inglish Minds, and confer those offices, which belong by Nature and the spirit of all Government to Probity and Honesty, on the meanest and weakest and worst of human Characters.
       A good deal of this has happened, as I believe, partly from what I have seen and partly from credible Information, in the Country: But who is most to blame! The Court of Sessions has made such Rules for itself, that the Country Justices can seldom attend. The select Men of the several Towns, have been so often disappointed, that they are discouraged. Some Houses to my Knowledge have been licensed which never had any Approbation from any select Man. Other Persons have been licensed whom the select Men have found by Experience, and certified to be, guilty of Misrule, and therefore unfit. Others have been recognized for seven Years together without any Approbation from the select Men, thro that whole Time. Nay a Man has been recognized, tho the select Men certifyed good Reasons for not approbating him—that he was very intemperate, had poor Accommodations, and was subject to fits of Caprice if not Delirium, that made it dangerous to come near him: and altho it was proved, that the same Man, in one of those fits, had but a few days before, Stabbed another, with apparent Design and great Danger of Murder.
       Now I agree, that Ambitious Spirits in the Country, who have little Honour, will soon see, that such Houses must be favoured, and multiplied, to promote their own designs, and therefore Retailers and Taverners are generally in the Country Assessors, or select Men, or Representative or Esquires: But are not we more to blame. Are not some of our Justices, Importers of Mollasses? are not others Distillers? and are not all of them fond of a lawful Fee? In short it is owing wholly to Boston Justices, that those Houses have been so shamefully multiplied, in the Country, multiplied so that decent Entertainment for a Traveller is no where to be had.
       The Freedom of Censure is a Matter of great Consequence under our Government. There are certain Vices and follies, certain Indecencies of Behaviour, beneath the Inspection and Censure of Law and Magistracy, which must be restrained and corrected by Satyr. And for this Reason, every Piece of just Ridicule in public or private bestowed on any foppery wrong or foolish Conduct, gives me great Pleasure, even altho I am myself the Object. From the same Principle I was glad to see some Animadversion on the late inconsistent Conduct of the Ministers of this Town. And nothing but sacerdotal Impudence, and Ecclesiastical Pride, can account for the surly, revengeful Manner in which those Pieces have been received.

   This is the last of JA’s series of letters on the evils of taverns; see entry of 29 May 1760 and note, above. Though clearly intended for publication in the Boston Gazette (see the following note), no printing has been found.

   “The late Engagement in your Paper” alludes to a controversy arising from a news item in the Boston Gazette, 2 March 1761, describing the installation of Rev. Alexander Cumming as co-pastor with Dr. Joseph Sewall of the Old South Church in Boston a week earlier. The “Entertainment” provided for the “honourable and reverend Guests” was so “very sumptuous and elegant,” the notice said, that it had to be held in several houses. “And it is concluded, that many poor People were the better for what remained of so plentiful and splendid a Feast; such as was hardly ever known among us on a similar Occasion.” In the following issue, 9 March, an anonymous writer who described himself as a country layman declared these proceedings “disgusting” to himself and discreditable to the Congregational ministry. He called attention to resolves that a convention of ministers had themselves adopted two years earlier, disapproving “Feasting, Jollity and Revelling” on such occasions, and pointed out that Joseph Sewall had issued the resolves over his own name as moderator of the convention. On 6 April the Gazette carried a rejoinder from another “country layman,” who ventured the opinion that the guests had enjoyed only the “moderate refreshment” to which any Christian is entitled. The dispute spun itself out until 11 May, when the first writer got the last word by describing the fare in detail, his informant (he said) having been one of the guests:

           “There were six tables, that held one with another 18 persons, upon each table a good rich plum pudding, a dish of boil’d pork and fowls, and a corn’d leg of pork, with sauce proper for it, a leg of bacon, a piece of alamode beef, a leg of mutton with caper sauce, a piece of roast beef, a roast line [loin] of veal, a roast turkey, a venison pastee, besides chess cakes and tarts, cheese and butter. Half a dozen cooks were employed upon this occasion, upwards of twenty tenders to wait upon the tables; they had the best of old cyder, one barrel of Lisbon wine, punch in plenty before and after dinner, made of old Barbados spirit. The cost of this moderate dinner was upwards of fifty pounds lawful money.”

   An Act for Enquiring into the Rateable Estates of this Province, passed 31 Jan. 1761, required all persons to list on oath their real and personal property for the purpose of a new tax assessment (Acts of 1760–1761, ch. 24; Mass., Province LawsThe Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols., 4:422–423).

   In an earlier and very fragmentary draft of this essay, just preceding the present draft in the MS, the foregoing sentence reads: “But this threw new fuel into the unquenchable furnace of Boston Passions.” There is reason to believe that this alternative draft was once longer but was later removed from the paper booklet; see note 8, below.

   Earlier draft reads: “Oh these vile shoe string Country Representatives.”

   The words “Country” and “County” in this sentence (and frequently elsewhere in JA’s early Diary) are indistinguishable as written by JA. In transcribing, one can only go by the sense of the passage.

   MS: “Plip.”

   The present paragraph is separated by an interval of space from the foregoing text. In the margin is written “Beg.,” (i.e. “Begin”), which together with the substance indicates that this paragraph was an alternative opening for the essay. It may, however, have been intended as the beginning of the now largely missing draft; see note 4, above.


Title: June 11th. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       I have been for a Week or fortnight engaged in a Project. Have remarkably succeeded hitherto. Mr. Niles approved in all Things. Major Crosbey approved in all Things. Deacon Palmer approved in all Things. They have given under their Hands a very full and handsome Character and Recommendation of my Brother—much more ample than I expected. They have really Spoken in Hyperbole. They have expressed themselves with Warmth. I expected only a signification of their Consent and Approbation, but they have expressed themselves with Zeal. I ought to consider these Credentials gratefully, as a strong Instance of friendship, and take the first Opportunity of making some Return. Mr. N. has the worst opinion of Thayers Morals. He detests the base Methods of Debauchery, and Lying, and Duplicity, that he has been in. P. despizes him.

       But scheming seldom has success. I expect to come off but second best after all. I expect that Thayer will hear of my Design, and in order to defeat it, continue in the office himself. If he should, I shall be pretty well. Intrigue, and making Interest, and Asking favors is a new Employment to me. I’m unpractised in Intrigues for Power.
       I begin to feel the Passions of the World. Ambition, Avarice, Intrigue, Party, all must be guarded.
       My fears of failing are at last vanished. The scheme succeeded in all Things, and is compleated. Boylston is constituted, commissioned, sworn, and this Day, undertaken to officiate. Now a new Train of Anxieties, begins to take Place. Fears of imperfect services, imperfect and false Returns, voluntary and negligent Escapes, miscalculations, Want of strength, Courage, Celerity, Want of Art and Contrivance &c. Rashness, Indolence, Timidity, &c.
       The Project was so well planned, that success seemed certain. Every Party, all the Justices recommended. Two other Gents of his Acquaintance, men of Honour and figure. G. concurred and urged, and dropped Hints if not Anecdotes, vs. the old one. Hints were dropped to him by others that I should employ Constables and so deprive him of his Profits. So that his Interest, his Vanity, his Honour, were all touched. It cost me much Pains, at least 2 Journeys to Boston, one to Mr. Niles’, one to Germantown, one to Mr. Bullards, and Majr. Crosbeys. The Writing of a long Bond. The solicitation of Credentials, of sureties and of the office. More solicitation procured it. And altho it was not much disguised or concealed, yet it was so silently conducted that I believe the grand Adversary never once suspected it. All the Wiles and Malice of the old serpent would have been employed against it, if it had been known or suspected. But there was one Particular of mere Luck, to which we were much indebted—vizt. the Complaint of Cudworth against T. That unfriendly, unbrotherly, unneighbourly, as well as rash and unmannerly, Spurning of the Execution, and then sending it to Gould, where it was lost, gave the great Man an ill opinion of his sub. and made him more willing and ready, at my solicitation, to constitute another, and even without consulting Thayer.


Title: June 20th. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       I have latterly arose much earlyer than Usual. Arose at five and at 6 O’clock, instead of 8 and 9. The Mornings are very long, and fine opportunities for Study. They are cool and pleasant. But I have not improved my Time, properly. I have dozed and sauntered away much of my Time. This morning is very fine. The clear sky, the bright sun, the clean Groves and Grass, after so fine a Rain are very pleasant. But the Books within this Chamber have a much better Title to my Attention than any of the rural scenes and objects without it. I have been latterly too much in the World, and too little in this Retreat. Abroad, my Appetites are solicited, my Passions inflamed, and my Understanding too much perverted, to judge wisely of Men or Things. But in this Retreat, where neither my Senses nor Appetites nor Passions are excited, am able to consider all Things more coolly, and sensibly. I was guilty of rash and profane Swearing, of rough and indecent Virulence vs. the Characters of Goffe, J. Russell, Lieutenant Governor, &c. Not but that there have been Faults in their Characters and Conduct, that every honest Man ought to resent.


Title: Saturday June 20th. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       I have been interrupted from Reading this Institute ever since Feby. Amidst the Dissipations of Business, Pleasure, Conversation, Intrigue, Party &c. what mortal can give Attention to an old latin Institute of the Cannon Law? But it is certainly worth while to proceed and finish it, as I have already been 2/3 thro it.


Title: July 7th. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Dined at Deacon Hills, with Sam Quincy and his Bride, and with Mr. Cushing a Representative of Salisbury. Cushing seems a fair minded Countryman. Some free and friendly Conversation passed between Henry Hill and his father, about Advancement, and stock and setting up, and giving £1000 a Year. Henry said You ought to give me £1000 a Year or 10,000 right out, and then I maintain myself. You must give me Money or learn me to get it, or why did you make me? I’le go back again, &c.
       Drank Tea, at Major Nobles, with Coll. Quincy, Deacon Whittemore, and the Man who is sued to this Court. I’ve forgot his Name. All in Consultation about defending their Lands in the Eastward.


Title: [July 1761]
From: Adams, John
To:

      July 7th. 1761.

       Dined at Deacon Hills, with Sam Quincy and his Bride, and with Mr. Cushing a Representative of Salisbury. Cushing seems a fair minded Countryman. Some free and friendly Conversation passed between Henry Hill and his father, about Advancement, and stock and setting up, and giving £1000 a Year. Henry said You ought to give me £1000 a Year or 10,000 right out, and then I maintain myself. You must give me Money or learn me to get it, or why did you make me? I’le go back again, &c.
       Drank Tea, at Major Nobles, with Coll. Quincy, Deacon Whittemore, and the Man who is sued to this Court. I’ve forgot his Name. All in Consultation about defending their Lands in the Eastward.

   Samuel Quincy had married Hannah Hill of Boston, 16 June 1761 (Salisbury, Family-MemorialsEdward E. Salisbury, Family-Memorials: A Series of Genealogical and Biographical Monographs, New Haven, 1885; 2 vols. and 1 portfolio., 1:358).


Title: Augt. 1st.
From: Adams, John
To:

       I am creating Enemies in every Quarter of the Town. The Clarks hate. Mother Hubbard, Thayer, Lamb, Tirrell, J. Brackett. This is multiplying and propagating Enemies, too fast. I shall have the Ill-Will of the whole Town.
       Daniel White, Moses Adams.—This will not do.
       Daniel Prat vs. Thos. Colson.—This Action was brot by Plaintiff vs. Colson as Administrator, on the Estate of Mr. Bolter, for Non-Performance of a Covenant of Indenture. Prat was a poor, fatherless Child and his Mother Unable to provide for him, bound him an Apprentice to Mr. Bolter. He was then under 10 Years of Age, and so was bound for Eleven Years, and some odd Months. In Consideration of this very long and unusual Term of Apprenticeship his Master covenanted to teach him to read, write and Cypher, and to teach him the Trade of a Weaver. But we contend complain that he never taught us either to read, write or Cypher, or to weave. Call the Proof.
       The Law, Gentlemen, is extreamly tender and indulgent to such Actions as these. For such is the Benignity and Humanity of the English Constitution that all the weak, and helpless, and friendless Part of our Species are taken under its Peculiar Care and Protection. Women, Children, and Especially Widows and fatherless Children, have always, from the Compassion of the Law peculiar Priviledges and Indulgences allowed them. Therefore as a poor, fatherless, and friendless Child the Law would allow great Indulgence and Lenity to this Plantiff.
       But he is to be favoured for Another Reason. Because the English Law greatly favours Education. In every English Country, some sort of Education, some Acquaintance with Letters, is necessary, that a Man may fill any station whatever. In the Countries of slavery, and Romish superstition, the Laity must not learn to read, least they should detect the gross Impostures of the Priesthood, and shake off the Yoke of Bondage. But in Protestant Countries and especially in England and its Colonies, Freedom of Enquiry is allowed to be not only the Priviledge but the Duty of every Individual. We know it to be our Duty, to read, examine and judge for ourselves, even of ourselves what is right. No Priest nor Pope has any Right to say what I shall believe, and I will not believe one Word they say, if I think it is not founded in Reason and in Revelation. Now how can I judge what My Bible justifies unless I can read my Bible.
       The English Constitution is founded, tis bottomed And grounded on the Knowledge and good sense of the People. The very Ground of our Liberties, is the freedom of Elections. Every Man has in Politicks as well as Religion, a Right to think and speak and Act for himself. No man either King or Subject, Clergyman or Layman has any Right to dictate to me the Person I shall choose for my Legislator and Ruler. I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any Man judge, unless his Mind has been opened and enlarged by Reading. A Man who can read, will find in his Bible, in the common sermon Books that common People have by them and even in the Almanack and News Papers, Rules and observations, that will enlarge his Range of Thought, and enable him the better to judge who has and who has not that Integrity of Heart, and that Compass of Knowledge and Understanding, which form the Statesman.
       Memorandum. To ask Seth Copeland, whether his Father White has a Copy of his Fathers Will? How came Eb. White possessed of that old Deed to his father, and how came Tho’s White to have it? and whether he Tho’s White has a Copy of that Deed. And Query of whom Capt. Thayer bought his share of the Landing? and of whom Holbrook bought his share of the Landing? And whether the Beech and Flatts, where Thayers and Holbrooks Wharffs now are, ever belonged to Tho’s White the Testator.


Title: [August 1761]
From: Adams, John
To:

      Augt. 1st.

       I am creating Enemies in every Quarter of the Town. The Clarks hate. Mother Hubbard, Thayer, Lamb, Tirrell, J. Brackett. This is multiplying and propagating Enemies, too fast. I shall have the Ill-Will of the whole Town.
       Daniel White, Moses Adams.—This will not do.
       Daniel Prat vs. Thos. Colson.—This Action was brot by Plaintiff vs. Colson as Administrator, on the Estate of Mr. Bolter, for Non-Performance of a Covenant of Indenture. Prat was a poor, fatherless Child and his Mother Unable to provide for him, bound him an Apprentice to Mr. Bolter. He was then under 10 Years of Age, and so was bound for Eleven Years, and some odd Months. In Consideration of this very long and unusual Term of Apprenticeship his Master covenanted to teach him to read, write and Cypher, and to teach him the Trade of a Weaver. But we contend complain that he never taught us either to read, write or Cypher, or to weave. Call the Proof.
       The Law, Gentlemen, is extreamly tender and indulgent to such Actions as these. For such is the Benignity and Humanity of the English Constitution that all the weak, and helpless, and friendless Part of our Species are taken under its Peculiar Care and Protection. Women, Children, and Especially Widows and fatherless Children, have always, from the Compassion of the Law peculiar Priviledges and Indulgences allowed them. Therefore as a poor, fatherless, and friendless Child the Law would allow great Indulgence and Lenity to this Plantiff.
       But he is to be favoured for Another Reason. Because the English Law greatly favours Education. In every English Country, some sort of Education, some Acquaintance with Letters, is necessary, that a Man may fill any station whatever. In the Countries of slavery, and Romish superstition, the Laity must not learn to read, least they should detect the gross Impostures of the Priesthood, and shake off the Yoke of Bondage. But in Protestant Countries and especially in England and its Colonies, Freedom of Enquiry is allowed to be not only the Priviledge but the Duty of every Individual. We know it to be our Duty, to read, examine and judge for ourselves, even of ourselves what is right. No Priest nor Pope has any Right to say what I shall believe, and I will not believe one Word they say, if I think it is not founded in Reason and in Revelation. Now how can I judge what My Bible justifies unless I can read my Bible.
       The English Constitution is founded, tis bottomed And grounded on the Knowledge and good sense of the People. The very Ground of our Liberties, is the freedom of Elections. Every Man has in Politicks as well as Religion, a Right to think and speak and Act for himself. No man either King or Subject, Clergyman or Layman has any Right to dictate to me the Person I shall choose for my Legislator and Ruler. I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any Man judge, unless his Mind has been opened and enlarged by Reading. A Man who can read, will find in his Bible, in the common sermon Books that common People have by them and even in the Almanack and News Papers, Rules and observations, that will enlarge his Range of Thought, and enable him the better to judge who has and who has not that Integrity of Heart, and that Compass of Knowledge and Understanding, which form the Statesman.
       Memorandum. To ask Seth Copeland, whether his Father White has a Copy of his Fathers Will? How came Eb. White possessed of that old Deed to his father, and how came Tho’s White to have it? and whether he Tho’s White has a Copy of that Deed. And Query of whom Capt. Thayer bought his share of the Landing? and of whom Holbrook bought his share of the Landing? And whether the Beech and Flatts, where Thayers and Holbrooks Wharffs now are, ever belonged to Tho’s White the Testator.

   The several semidetached entries that follow may have been written any time from 2 Aug. to 9 Sept. 1761.


Title: Septr. 10th. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Spent Evening at Zabs with the Parson.
       Wibirt. I have seen a Picture of Oliver Cromwell, with this Motto under it—

          Careat successibus opto
          Quisquis ab Eventu, facta notanda putat.

         I pray that he may want success, who thinks that Deeds are to be estimated from their Event, their success. Oliver was successful but not prudent nor honest, nor lawdable nor imitable.

       A certain Romish Priest had five young Nuns, committed to his Charge, i.e. he was appointed the Confessor to them. And after a while they all five proved with Child by him. He was summoned into the spiritual Court, to answer to the Charge of Fornication. The Judge told him he was charged with a criminal Correspondence with all five of the Nuns that had been entrusted to his Care. The Priest replies, Quinque mihi tradidit Dominus Talenta, Et Ecce alia quinque super lucratus sum.—The Judge was so well pleased with his Confession that he said Remittuntur tibi Peccata tua, Abi in Pace.


Title: [September 1761]
From: Adams, John
To:

      Septr. 10th. 1761.

       Spent Evening at Zabs with the Parson.
       Wibirt. I have seen a Picture of Oliver Cromwell, with this Motto under it—

          Careat successibus opto
          Quisquis ab Eventu, facta notanda putat.

         I pray that he may want success, who thinks that Deeds are to be estimated from their Event, their success. Oliver was successful but not prudent nor honest, nor lawdable nor imitable.

       A certain Romish Priest had five young Nuns, committed to his Charge, i.e. he was appointed the Confessor to them. And after a while they all five proved with Child by him. He was summoned into the spiritual Court, to answer to the Charge of Fornication. The Judge told him he was charged with a criminal Correspondence with all five of the Nuns that had been entrusted to his Care. The Priest replies, Quinque mihi tradidit Dominus Talenta, Et Ecce alia quinque super lucratus sum.—The Judge was so well pleased with his Confession that he said Remittuntur tibi Peccata tua, Abi in Pace.

   From Ovid’s Heroids, according to CFA (JA, WorksThe Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, ed. Charles Francis Adams, Boston, 1850–1856; 10 vols., 2:132, note).

   It is impossible to tell from the MS whether or not the diarist intended to attribute to Parson Wibird the facetious story told in the paragraph that follows. See Matthew, 25:20.


Title: Octr. 17th. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Read in Justinian and Lancelot.


Title: Octr. 18th. 1761. Sunday.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Arose at 6. Read in Popes Satyrs. Nil Admirari &c. I last night read thro, both of Dr. Donnes Satyrs versifyed by Pope. Was most struck with these Lines

          Bear me some God! Oh! quickly bear me hence
          To wholsome solitude the Nurse of sense
          Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled Wings
          And the free soul looks down to pitty Kings.

       Prayer! A postulant—Hands uplifted, and Eyes. A very proper Prayer for me to make when I’m in Boston. Solitude is a Personage, in a clean, wholsome Dress, the Nurse and Nourisher of sense. Contemplation a Personage, prunes, picks, smooths. Is she an Angell or a Bird—ruffled, rumpled, rugged, uneven, tumbled. Free soul, not enslaved, unshackled, no Bondage, no subjection, looks down, pitties George, Louis, Frederick, Phillip, Charles, &c.
       Among the numberless Imperfections of human Nature and society, there is none that deserves to be more lamented, because there is none that is the source of greater Evils, than the Tendency of great Parts and Genius, to imprudent sallies and a Wrong Biass. If We move back, thro the History of all ages and Nations, we shall find, that all the Tumults, Insurrections, and Revolutions, that have disturbed the Peace of society, and spilled oceans of Blood, have arisen from the giddy Rashness and Extravagance of the sublimest Minds. But in those Governments where the People have much Power, tho the best that can be found, the Danger from such spirits is the greatest of all. That unquenchable Thirst of superiority, and Power which, in such Governments, inkindles the Lust of Popularity, often precipitates Persons of the Character I describe, into the wildest Projects and Adventures, to set the World aware of their Parts and Persons, without attending to the Calamities that must ensue. Popular orators are generally opposite to the present Administration, blaming public Measures, and despizing or detesting Persons in Power, whether wise or foolish, wicked or upright, with all their Wit, and Knowledge, merely to make themselves the Idols of a slavish, timid People, who are always jealous and invidious of Power and therefore devoted to those that expose, ridicule or condemn it. Eloquence that may be employed wisely to persuade, is often employed wickedly to seduce, from the Eloquence of Greece and Rome down to the rude speeches of our American Town Meeting. I have more charity, than to believe, that these orators really intend an Injury to their Country; but so subtle are our Hearts in deceiving ourselves, we are so apt to think our own Parts so able and capable and necessary to the public, that we shall richly repair, by our Capacity in public station any Mischiefs we occasion in our Way to them. There is perhaps a sincere Patriotism in the Hearts of all such Persons; but it must be confessed, that the most refined Patriotism to which human Nature can be wrought, has in it an alloy of Ambition, of Pride and avarice that debases the Composition, and produces mischievous Effects.
       As unhappy and blamable as such Persons are, the general Method in Use among Persons in Power of treating such spirits, is neither less unhappy, or blamable or hurtful. Such Minds, with a wise and delicate Management, may be made the ornaments and Blessings: but by an unskilfull and rough Usage, will be rendered desperate and therefore the Worst Blemishes and Plagues of their Country.
       I therefore who am setting up for the Monitor of all future Legislators, a Character for which by my great Age, Experience, Sense and Learning I am well qualified, hereby advise the orator, to guard himself and his Country, against the Danger to which his Passions expose both, and the Man in Power, instead of thwarting, and insulting and over bearing a Person who perhaps is full as wise and good as he, to soothe and cool and soften by a mild obliging Behaviour, and a just Attention to the former.
       You have given me a fee. Now this Action may possibly bear 3 several Constructions.
       1st. It might be considered as an Engagement in your suit vs. Cranch.
       2d. It might be considered as an Engagement to give you, the Offer of my service in all Causes, before I should engage in favour of any other Person vs. you.
       3. It may be considered, for aught I can say, merely as a sop for Cerberus, to hinder in short to silence me in this Case, to bearly to prevent my engaging on the other side, and to secure me as an Under Worker to fetch and carry, prepare Evidence &c.
       Now I frankly tell you, when I accepted a fee from you, I accepted it in the second sense And in that alone. And I will tell you my Reasons. I had often heard you say that you once gave Mr. Prat a retaining fee, and you explained yourself thus—a fee not to engage for to be on your side in all Causes if you desired it, and not to engage against you, without first letting you know it. And you said further that whenever any Cause happened, after you gave that fee, you again engaged him &c. Another Reason was some time since when you apprehended a Dispute with Deacon Palmer you told me you desired me if any Person should apply to me against you that I would not engage without letting you know it, and if upon such Information you did not offer me more than the other Party had, I should be at Liberty to engage for him. And you then subjoined, to secure You to this, I will give you a retaining fee if you will take it. By the Way I then made this objection. “For another Person I may be employed to conduct the Cause but you can never entrust a Cause in the Hands of your Son and me, and to employ me in Conjunction with another, in Neglect of your Son, would not do.” You answered Yes, I should have the Conduct of the Causes for it was not proper a son should argue a Cause for his father. Another Reason was you offered the fee to me as a retaining fee before you said one Word of any Particular Cause. Neither of Mr. Cranchs 3 suits, nor any Eastern Claims, nor Deacon Palmers Account nor any other Cause was mentioned to me, til after you had put the fee into my Hand, and with it you said if any Person shall apply to you against me, dont you engage till You let me remainder missing
       Tuesday Night. Col. Q. If that House was builded in 1755 before my first Wifes Death &c. &c. I am the most lost to all sense of Truth that ever Man was.


Title: [October 1761]
From: Adams, John
To:

      Octr. 17th. 1761.

       Read in Justinian and Lancelot.

      Octr. 17th. 1761.

       I began Lancelotts Institute last Jany., and have read no farther than Liber 3. Titulus 8. De Exceptionibus et Replicationibus.

   This entry, the second so dated, is from D/JA/4, JA’s journal of studies.

      Octr. 18th. 1761. Sunday.

       Arose at 6. Read in Popes Satyrs. Nil Admirari &c. I last night read thro, both of Dr. Donnes Satyrs versifyed by Pope. Was most struck with these Lines

          Bear me some God! Oh! quickly bear me hence
          To wholsome solitude the Nurse of sense
          Where Contemplation prunes her ruffled Wings
          And the free soul looks down to pitty Kings.

       Prayer! A postulant—Hands uplifted, and Eyes. A very proper Prayer for me to make when I’m in Boston. Solitude is a Personage, in a clean, wholsome Dress, the Nurse and Nourisher of sense. Contemplation a Personage, prunes, picks, smooths. Is she an Angell or a Bird—ruffled, rumpled, rugged, uneven, tumbled. Free soul, not enslaved, unshackled, no Bondage, no subjection, looks down, pitties George, Louis, Frederick, Phillip, Charles, &c.
       Among the numberless Imperfections of human Nature and society, there is none that deserves to be more lamented, because there is none that is the source of greater Evils, than the Tendency of great Parts and Genius, to imprudent sallies and a Wrong Biass. If We move back, thro the History of all ages and Nations, we shall find, that all the Tumults, Insurrections, and Revolutions, that have disturbed the Peace of society, and spilled oceans of Blood, have arisen from the giddy Rashness and Extravagance of the sublimest Minds. But in those Governments where the People have much Power, tho the best that can be found, the Danger from such spirits is the greatest of all. That unquenchable Thirst of superiority, and Power which, in such Governments, inkindles the Lust of Popularity, often precipitates Persons of the Character I describe, into the wildest Projects and Adventures, to set the World aware of their Parts and Persons, without attending to the Calamities that must ensue. Popular orators are generally opposite to the present Administration, blaming public Measures, and despizing or detesting Persons in Power, whether wise or foolish, wicked or upright, with all their Wit, and Knowledge, merely to make themselves the Idols of a slavish, timid People, who are always jealous and invidious of Power and therefore devoted to those that expose, ridicule or condemn it. Eloquence that may be employed wisely to persuade, is often employed wickedly to seduce, from the Eloquence of Greece and Rome down to the rude speeches of our American Town Meeting. I have more charity, than to believe, that these orators really intend an Injury to their Country; but so subtle are our Hearts in deceiving ourselves, we are so apt to think our own Parts so able and capable and necessary to the public, that we shall richly repair, by our Capacity in public station any Mischiefs we occasion in our Way to them. There is perhaps a sincere Patriotism in the Hearts of all such Persons; but it must be confessed, that the most refined Patriotism to which human Nature can be wrought, has in it an alloy of Ambition, of Pride and avarice that debases the Composition, and produces mischievous Effects.
       As unhappy and blamable as such Persons are, the general Method in Use among Persons in Power of treating such spirits, is neither less unhappy, or blamable or hurtful. Such Minds, with a wise and delicate Management, may be made the ornaments and Blessings: but by an unskilfull and rough Usage, will be rendered desperate and therefore the Worst Blemishes and Plagues of their Country.
       I therefore who am setting up for the Monitor of all future Legislators, a Character for which by my great Age, Experience, Sense and Learning I am well qualified, hereby advise the orator, to guard himself and his Country, against the Danger to which his Passions expose both, and the Man in Power, instead of thwarting, and insulting and over bearing a Person who perhaps is full as wise and good as he, to soothe and cool and soften by a mild obliging Behaviour, and a just Attention to the former.
       You have given me a fee. Now this Action may possibly bear 3 several Constructions.
       1st. It might be considered as an Engagement in your suit vs. Cranch.
       2d. It might be considered as an Engagement to give you, the Offer of my service in all Causes, before I should engage in favour of any other Person vs. you.
       3. It may be considered, for aught I can say, merely as a sop for Cerberus, to hinder in short to silence me in this Case, to bearly to prevent my engaging on the other side, and to secure me as an Under Worker to fetch and carry, prepare Evidence &c.
       Now I frankly tell you, when I accepted a fee from you, I accepted it in the second sense And in that alone. And I will tell you my Reasons. I had often heard you say that you once gave Mr. Prat a retaining fee, and you explained yourself thus—a fee not to engage for to be on your side in all Causes if you desired it, and not to engage against you, without first letting you know it. And you said further that whenever any Cause happened, after you gave that fee, you again engaged him &c. Another Reason was some time since when you apprehended a Dispute with Deacon Palmer you told me you desired me if any Person should apply to me against you that I would not engage without letting you know it, and if upon such Information you did not offer me more than the other Party had, I should be at Liberty to engage for him. And you then subjoined, to secure You to this, I will give you a retaining fee if you will take it. By the Way I then made this objection. “For another Person I may be employed to conduct the Cause but you can never entrust a Cause in the Hands of your Son and me, and to employ me in Conjunction with another, in Neglect of your Son, would not do.” You answered Yes, I should have the Conduct of the Causes for it was not proper a son should argue a Cause for his father. Another Reason was you offered the fee to me as a retaining fee before you said one Word of any Particular Cause. Neither of Mr. Cranchs 3 suits, nor any Eastern Claims, nor Deacon Palmers Account nor any other Cause was mentioned to me, til after you had put the fee into my Hand, and with it you said if any Person shall apply to you against me, dont you engage till You let me remainder missing
       Tuesday Night. Col. Q. If that House was builded in 1755 before my first Wifes Death &c. &c. I am the most lost to all sense of Truth that ever Man was.

   There is little or no clue to the date of the three detached entries which follow and which conclude the entries in D/JA/7. One can only suppose they were written soon after the present entry, but because of variations in ink and intervals of blank space in the MS this is by no means certain.

   This entry is a draft of another essay probably intended for a newspaper and probably incomplete as it now stands. No printing has been found.

   MS: “sool.”

   Reading uncertain; the final word may actually be crossed out and the sentence thus left incomplete.

   This draft letter to an unidentified legal client (probably Col. Josiah Quincy) is badly scrawled and at some points barely legible.

   Thus in MS.

   Hannah (Sturgis) Quincy, Col. Josiah Quincy’s first wife, died in 1755, but the allusion to “that House” is obscure.


Title: Novr. 10th. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Another Year is come round, and I can recollect still less Reading, than I could last Novr. The Increase of my Business, within 12ve months, has been nothing. I drew fewer Writs last October Court than I drew the October Court before, tho I drew an uncommon Number at both.—Yet I have advanced a few Steps. Have procured my Brother, his office, abated Nathan Spears Writ, Battled it with Capt. Thayer at Majr. Crosbeys, recovered of Jo. Tirrell for Lambard, recovered of Lawrence for Tirrell, abated Kings Writ, conducted the Petition vs. Taverns. All These Things have been done in one Year. Besides have bought some Books &c. but have read but little Law.
       This morning I have been Reading Archbp. Sharps sermon, To the Upright there ariseth Light in the Darkness. His Character of the Upright man, &c. Same day read a Number of his sermons in his first Volume. He is a moving, affectionate Preacher—devotional, more than Tillotson, but not so moral.


Title: Novr. 14th. 1761.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Brother Quincy and I were Sworn, before the Superiour Court. It is now more than five Years since I began the study of the Law. And it is about three Years, since I was sworn at the Inferiour Court.


Title: Novr. 20th. 1761. Monday.
From: Adams, John
To:

       This day removed to my Chamber, and made a Fire. The Forenoon was Spent in Conversation with Zab, in walking to Dr. Turners, and up Pens Hill, and this afternoon in Conversation with Grindal Rawson and Zab at Mrs. Marshes. Yet I have caught several snatches of Reading and Thinking, in Blackstone, Gilbert &c. But I, as usual, expect great Things from this Chamber, and this Winter.


Title: [November 1761]
From: Adams, John
To:

      Novr. 10th. 1761.

       Another Year is come round, and I can recollect still less Reading, than I could last Novr. The Increase of my Business, within 12ve months, has been nothing. I drew fewer Writs last October Court than I drew the October Court before, tho I drew an uncommon Number at both.—Yet I have advanced a few Steps. Have procured my Brother, his office, abated Nathan Spears Writ, Battled it with Capt. Thayer at Majr. Crosbeys, recovered of Jo. Tirrell for Lambard, recovered of Lawrence for Tirrell, abated Kings Writ, conducted the Petition vs. Taverns. All These Things have been done in one Year. Besides have bought some Books &c. but have read but little Law.
       This morning I have been Reading Archbp. Sharps sermon, To the Upright there ariseth Light in the Darkness. His Character of the Upright man, &c. Same day read a Number of his sermons in his first Volume. He is a moving, affectionate Preacher—devotional, more than Tillotson, but not so moral.

   This and the two following entries are from JA’s journal of studies, D/JA/4, and conclude the entries in that booklet except for a single one made eleven years later (21 Nov. 1772, q.v.).

   JA owned a collection of the very popular Works of John Sharp, Archbishop of York, in 7 vols., London, 1754 (Catalogue of JA’s LibraryCatalogue of the John Adams Library in the Public Library of the City of Boston, Boston, 1917.).

      Novr. 14th. 1761.

       Brother Quincy and I were Sworn, before the Superiour Court. It is now more than five Years since I began the study of the Law. And it is about three Years, since I was sworn at the Inferiour Court.

   “Upon a motion made by Jeremy Gridley Esqr. the Oath of an Attorney by the province Law prescribed was administred to Messrs. Samuel Quincy and John Adams in Order to their practising in this Court” (Superior Court of Judicature, Records, 1760–1762, p. 239). For the attorney’s oath, adopted in 1701, see Province LawsThe Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols., 1:467. In his Autobiography JA merged his admission as an attorney in the Superior Court with his admission as a barrister the following year.

      Novr. 20th. 1761. Monday.

       This day removed to my Chamber, and made a Fire. The Forenoon was Spent in Conversation with Zab, in walking to Dr. Turners, and up Pens Hill, and this afternoon in Conversation with Grindal Rawson and Zab at Mrs. Marshes. Yet I have caught several snatches of Reading and Thinking, in Blackstone, Gilbert &c. But I, as usual, expect great Things from this Chamber, and this Winter.

   This entry fixes the date of JA’s fitting out and establishing himself in his law office in the house now known as the John Quincy Adams Birthplace, which he had inherited from his father (see entry of 24 Oct. 1762, note) and which the Savils must by now have vacated. The law office was in the southeast room on the ground floor and JA opened a new doorway into it from the street. During the 19th century the doorway was boarded over but it has since been restored. See Waldo C. Sprague, The President John Adams and President John Quincy Adams Birthplaces, Quincy, 1959 (unpaged).


Title: June 5th. 1762.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Rode from Bass’s to Secretary Olivers, in Company with Judge Oliver. The Judge soon opened upon Politicks. Says he, Major Stock-bridge informs me, that Coll. Ruggles makes a very good Speaker. He has behaved to universal approbation.
       Soon afterwards, the Judge said, I never knew so easy an Election in my Life. Some of the Bar interest themselves, very much in the Matter. One Gentleman has interested himself most infamously, advanced that to be Law in the House which is not Law.—That the Judges cant set in the House of Commons is certain because there is an Act of Parliament against it. But the Judges may set and vote in the House of Lords—i.e. they may if they are Peers. Ld. Mansfield—think he dont set and vote.—How can the Bar expect Protection from the Court, if the Bar endeavours to bring the Court into Contempt. He is forever abusing the Court. He said not long since in the Representatives Room, that take all the superiour Judges and every Inferiour Judge in the Province, and put them all together and they would not make one half of a Common Lawyer.
       I said upon this “That was a distracted Speech. It is a pitty, that Gentleman was not better guided. He has many fine Talents.” The Judge replyed quick, I have known him these 20 Years and I have no opinion of his Head or his Heart. If Bedlamism is a Talent he has it in Perfection.

       He will one Time say of the Lieutenant Governor, that he had rather have him than any Man he knows, in any one office, and the next Hour will represent him as the greatest Tyrant, and most despicable Creature living.
       I have treated him with as much Friendship as ever I did a stranger in my Life, and he knows very well how he has treated me. I blush even to think of what he has said to me.
       I have him in the Utmost Contempt. I have the Utmost Contempt of him. I had as live lief say it to him as not. I have the Utmost Contempt of him.
       I have been twelve Years concerned in the Executive Courts, and I never knew so much ill Usage, given to the Court by all the Lawyers in the Province put it all together for all that Time, as I have known him give in one Term.
       The origin of all his Bustle is very well known. I heard a Gentleman say he would give his oath, that Otis said to him if his father was not made a Judge, he would thro the Province into flames if it cost him his Life. For that one Speech, a Thousand other Persons would have been indicted.


Title: [June 1762]
From: Adams, John
To:

      June 5th. 1762.

       Rode from Bass’s to Secretary Olivers, in Company with Judge Oliver. The Judge soon opened upon Politicks. Says he, Major Stock-bridge informs me, that Coll. Ruggles makes a very good Speaker. He has behaved to universal approbation.
       Soon afterwards, the Judge said, I never knew so easy an Election in my Life. Some of the Bar interest themselves, very much in the Matter. One Gentleman has interested himself most infamously, advanced that to be Law in the House which is not Law.—That the Judges cant set in the House of Commons is certain because there is an Act of Parliament against it. But the Judges may set and vote in the House of Lords—i.e. they may if they are Peers. Ld. Mansfield—think he dont set and vote.—How can the Bar expect Protection from the Court, if the Bar endeavours to bring the Court into Contempt. He is forever abusing the Court. He said not long since in the Representatives Room, that take all the superiour Judges and every Inferiour Judge in the Province, and put them all together and they would not make one half of a Common Lawyer.
       I said upon this “That was a distracted Speech. It is a pitty, that Gentleman was not better guided. He has many fine Talents.” The Judge replyed quick, I have known him these 20 Years and I have no opinion of his Head or his Heart. If Bedlamism is a Talent he has it in Perfection.

       He will one Time say of the Lieutenant Governor, that he had rather have him than any Man he knows, in any one office, and the next Hour will represent him as the greatest Tyrant, and most despicable Creature living.
       I have treated him with as much Friendship as ever I did a stranger in my Life, and he knows very well how he has treated me. I blush even to think of what he has said to me.
       I have him in the Utmost Contempt. I have the Utmost Contempt of him. I had as live lief say it to him as not. I have the Utmost Contempt of him.
       I have been twelve Years concerned in the Executive Courts, and I never knew so much ill Usage, given to the Court by all the Lawyers in the Province put it all together for all that Time, as I have known him give in one Term.
       The origin of all his Bustle is very well known. I heard a Gentleman say he would give his oath, that Otis said to him if his father was not made a Judge, he would thro the Province into flames if it cost him his Life. For that one Speech, a Thousand other Persons would have been indicted.

   First entry in D/JA/8, a stitched gathering of leaves in a paper cover evidently added later and docketed by CFA: “Paper book. No. 8.” At some unknown time this booklet strayed from the Adams Papers and was returned with an accompanying letter from Charles P. Greenough to CFA2, 2 July 1913, saying: “I found the enclosed among my papers and it occurred to me that you might be interested. I can’t for the life of me remember where and when I got it.” Three days later CFA2 sent on the estray with a note to Worthington C. Ford at the MHS, remarking that “The whole thing is very mysterious and very unpleasant.” (Greenough was a Boston autograph collector. The letters here quoted are in the Adams Papers, Fourth Generation.)

   The present booklet contains only a handful of scattered entries dating from June to Dec. 1762. Little documentation survives to fill the seven-month gap between the last preceding Diary entries and the beginning of D/JA/8, and very little either to fill the gaps in the latter. In the spring JA was concerned with the sale by the town of its South Commons (see Braintree Town RecordsSamuel A. Bates, ed., Records of the Town of Braintree, 1640 to 1793, Randolph, Mass., 1886., p. 383–384, 386). By fall he was actively courting Miss Nabby Smith of Weymouth (see his letter of 4 Oct. 1762, Adams Papers). He was also much occupied this year with improving the property he had inherited from his father in 1761 (see entry of 24 Oct., below).

   Peter Oliver, Harvard 1730, a judge of the Plymouth co. Court of Common Pleas since 1747 (later chief justice of the Superior Court of Judicature and an eminent loyalist), was a younger brother of Andrew Oliver, secretary of the Province (Sibley-Shipton, Harvard GraduatesJohn Langdon Sibley and Clifford K. Shipton, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Boston, 1873– ., 8:737–763).

   The dash in this sentence has been supplied to clarify it. Oliver is discussing the election of a speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the session that had begun on 26 May. Though James Otis Sr. was unanimously elected to succeed himself in this office, he declined to serve because “his living at such a Distance rendered his constant Attendance very uncertain.” Thereupon Timothy Ruggles was nominated and elected (Mass., House Jour.Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts [1715– ], Boston, reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1919– . (For the years for which reprints are not yet available, the original printings are cited, by year and session.), 1762–1763, p. 5). The account of this incident in Sibley-Shipton, Harvard GraduatesJohn Langdon Sibley and Clifford K. Shipton, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge and Boston, 1873– ., 9:207–208, confuses Otis Sr. with Otis Jr. But of course it was the younger Otis who Oliver thought had “interested himself most infamously” in attempting to block Ruggles’ election on the ground that judges ought not to sit in the House. (Ruggles was chief justice of the Worcester Court of Common Pleas.)

   Oliver’s observations, though not in quotation marks, no doubt extend through the end of this entry.

      June 8th. 1762.

       Went to Taunton Court. To the Land of Leonards. Three Judges of the Common Pleas of that Name, each of whom has a Son, who was bred at a Colledge.
       The Honl. George Leonard, the first Justice, seems to me arbitrary. He committed two old Gentlemen who were near 80 Years old, to the Custody of an officer, only for speaking loud, when they were both deaf and not conscious that they did speak loud. A Check, a Reproof, an Admonition, would have been enough.
       He was unwilling that the sessions should adjourn for an Hour to take the Verdict of the Jury, in a Tryal upon a Presentment of a Riot, but would have had that Jury kept together all Night, till the Court should set again next Morning. No other Court in the Province, Superiour nor Inferiour, would have thought of keeping that Jury up.
       He broke in most abruptly upon Bob Paine. He did not think it was right to run out against the Kings Witnesses. For his Part He did not love to hear it.—Three or four Times over—&c. Thus the hauty Tyrant treats the County.
       I lodged the first Night at Corsmans Crossmans, the second at Major Leonards of Rainham and the third at Captn. Cobbs with Paine. I dined the first day I was there wednesday at Captn. Cobbs with Coll. Otis and Paine, and the second at Coll. Whites. Drank Tea once at Coll. Whites with the three young Leonards, George, Zeph. and Daniel, and I spent two Evenings at Cobbs with Coll. Otis, and Paine. And I rode from Taunton to Milton, with Coll. Otis. He is vastly easy and steady in his Temper. He is vastly good humoured and sociable and sensible. Learned he is not. But he is an easy, familiar Speaker. He gave me many Anecdotes both of his Law and Politicks.

   Daniel Leonard, Harvard 1760, attorney, loyalist, and author of the “Massachusettensis” papers, 1774–1775, to which JA replied over the name “Novanglus.” On the Leonards and their circle (including a number of the persons mentioned here), see Ralph Davol, Two Men of Taunton, Taunton, 1912, passim.


Title: Aug. 15th. 1762.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Reading, Thinking, Writing—have I totally renounced all three? Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis. Yesterday I found in some of Crafts Books of Heraldry, a Coat of Arms given by Garter, King at Arms, about 130 Years ago, to one William Adams of the Middle Temple, Counsellor at Law. It consists of Three Martlets sable, on a Bend between two O’s—bezants.
       Jus et Libertas. Jus suum cuique tribuatur. Ope summâ, et alacri Studio, Leges accipite.


Title: [August 1762]
From: Adams, John
To:

      Aug. 15th. 1762.

       Reading, Thinking, Writing—have I totally renounced all three? Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis. Yesterday I found in some of Crafts Books of Heraldry, a Coat of Arms given by Garter, King at Arms, about 130 Years ago, to one William Adams of the Middle Temple, Counsellor at Law. It consists of Three Martlets sable, on a Bend between two O’s—bezants.
       Jus et Libertas. Jus suum cuique tribuatur. Ope summâ, et alacri Studio, Leges accipite.