Title: Octr. 23rd. 1762.
From: Adams, John
To:

       At my Swamp. Saw several Ginger Bushes. They Grow in Bunches like Willows and Alders, in low Grounds, between Upland and Meadows. They grow Eight feet high, and about an Inch thro at the Butt. They have Bark of a dark Colour, speckled over with little, white rough Spots, near the Ends of the Bows Boughs they branch out into a Multitude of little Sprigs. The Bush I saw had shed all its Leaves. All over the Branches and sprigs, are little fresh Buds at this season. It has a spicy Taste. The Spriggs and Buds and Bark have a spicy Taste.
       Tirrell has cleared away all the Trees and Bushes, Willows, Alders, Arrow Wood, Dog Wood, Briars, Grape Vines, Elms, Ashes, Oaks, Birches, &c. that grew upon the Brook and burned them.


Title: Octr. 24th. 1762.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Before sunrise. My Thoughts have taken a sudden Turn to Husbandry. Have contracted with Jo. Tirrell to clear my swamp and to build me a long string of stone Wall, and with Isaac Tirrell to build me 16 Rods more and with Jo Field to build me 6 Rods more. And my Thoughts are running continually from the orchard to the Pasture and from thence to the swamp, and thence to the House and Barn and Land adjoining. Sometimes I am at the orchard Ploughing up Acre after Acre and Planting, pruning Apple Trees, mending Fences, carting Dung. Sometimes in the Pasture, digging stones, clearing Bushes, Pruning Trees, building Wall to redeem Posts and Rails, and sometimes removing Button Trees down to my House. Sometimes I am at the old swamp, burning Bushes, digging stumps and Roots, cutting Ditches, across the Meadow, and against my Uncle, and am sometimes at the other End of the Town, buying Posts and Rails, to Fence against my Uncle and against the Brook, and am sometimes Ploughing the Upland, with 6 Yoke of oxen, and planting Corn, Potatoes, &c. and digging up the Meadow and sowing onions, planting cabbages &c. &c.
       Sometimes I am at the Homestead running Cross Fences, and planting Potatoes by the Acre, and Corn by the two Acres, and running a Ditch along the Line between me and Field, and a Fence along the Brook against my Brother and another Ditch in the Middle from Fields Line to the Meadow. Sometimes am Carting Gravel from the Neighboring Hills, and sometimes Dust from the streets upon the fresh Meadow. And sometimes plowing, sometimes digging those Meadows, to introduce Clover and other English Grasses.


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

      October 22nd. 1762.

       Spent last Monday in taking Pleasure, with Mr. Wibird. Met him in the Morning at Mr. Borlands, rode with him, to Squantum, to the very lowest Point of the Peninsula, next to Thompsons Island, to the high steep Rock, from where the Squaw threw herself, who gave the Name to the Place. It is an hideous Craggy Precipice, nodding over the Ocean forty feet in hight. The Rocks seem to be a vast Collection of Pebbles, as big as hens Eggs, thrown into melted Cement, and cooled in. You may pull them to Pieces with your Fingers, as fast as you Please.
       Various have been the Conjectures of the Learned, concerning this sort of Rocks. Upon this Part of the Peninsula, is a Number of Trees, which appear very much like the Lime Tree, of Europe, which Gentlemen are so fond of Planting in their Gardens for their beauty.
       Returned to Mr. Borlands, dined, and after noon rode to Germantown, where we spent our Evening. Deacon Palmer shewed us his Lucern, growing in his Garden, of which he has cutt, as he tells us, four Crops this Year. The Deacon had his Lucern seeds of Mr. Green-leaf, of Abington, who had his of Judge Oliver. The Deacon watered his but twice this summer, and intends to expose it uncovered, to all the Weather of the Winter for a fair Tryal, whether it will endure our Winters or not. Each of his four Crops had attained a good Length. It has a rich fragrance for a Grass. He shewed us a Cut of it, in “Nature displayed,” and another of St. Foin, and another of Trefoil. The Cut of the Lucern was exact enough. The Pod in which the seeds are is an odd Thing, a kind of Rams horn or straw.
       We had a good deal of Conversation upon Husbandry. The Deacon has about 70 Bushells of Potatoes, this Year on about 1/4 of an Acre of Ground.
       Trees of several sorts considered. The wild Cherry Tree. Bears a Fruit of some Value. The Wood is very good for the Cabinet-Maker, and is not bad to burn. It is a tree of much Beauty. Its leaves and Bark are handsome, and its shape.—The Locust, good Timber, fattening to soil, by its Leaves, Blossoms &c. Good Wood, quick growth, &c.—The Larch Tree. There is but one in the Country, that in the Lieutenant Governors Yard at Milton. It looks somewhat like an Evergreen but is not. Sheds its Leaves.
       I read in Thompsons Travels, in Turkey in Asia, mention of a Turpentine called by the Name of the Turpentine of Venice, which is not the Produce of Venice but of Dauphinè, and flows from the Larch Tree. It is thick and balsamic and used in several Arts, particularly that of Enameling.

   On the legend from which the neck of land still known as Squantum (forming the eastern shore of the mouth of the Neponset River) was supposed to have derived its name, see Pattee, Old Braintree and QuincyWilliam S. Pattee, A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, with a Sketch of Randolph and Holbrook, Quincy, 1878., p. 20, note.

      Octr. 23rd. 1762.

       At my Swamp. Saw several Ginger Bushes. They Grow in Bunches like Willows and Alders, in low Grounds, between Upland and Meadows. They grow Eight feet high, and about an Inch thro at the Butt. They have Bark of a dark Colour, speckled over with little, white rough Spots, near the Ends of the Bows Boughs they branch out into a Multitude of little Sprigs. The Bush I saw had shed all its Leaves. All over the Branches and sprigs, are little fresh Buds at this season. It has a spicy Taste. The Spriggs and Buds and Bark have a spicy Taste.
       Tirrell has cleared away all the Trees and Bushes, Willows, Alders, Arrow Wood, Dog Wood, Briars, Grape Vines, Elms, Ashes, Oaks, Birches, &c. that grew upon the Brook and burned them.

      Octr. 24th. 1762.

       Before sunrise. My Thoughts have taken a sudden Turn to Husbandry. Have contracted with Jo. Tirrell to clear my swamp and to build me a long string of stone Wall, and with Isaac Tirrell to build me 16 Rods more and with Jo Field to build me 6 Rods more. And my Thoughts are running continually from the orchard to the Pasture and from thence to the swamp, and thence to the House and Barn and Land adjoining. Sometimes I am at the orchard Ploughing up Acre after Acre and Planting, pruning Apple Trees, mending Fences, carting Dung. Sometimes in the Pasture, digging stones, clearing Bushes, Pruning Trees, building Wall to redeem Posts and Rails, and sometimes removing Button Trees down to my House. Sometimes I am at the old swamp, burning Bushes, digging stumps and Roots, cutting Ditches, across the Meadow, and against my Uncle, and am sometimes at the other End of the Town, buying Posts and Rails, to Fence against my Uncle and against the Brook, and am sometimes Ploughing the Upland, with 6 Yoke of oxen, and planting Corn, Potatoes, &c. and digging up the Meadow and sowing onions, planting cabbages &c. &c.
       Sometimes I am at the Homestead running Cross Fences, and planting Potatoes by the Acre, and Corn by the two Acres, and running a Ditch along the Line between me and Field, and a Fence along the Brook against my Brother and another Ditch in the Middle from Fields Line to the Meadow. Sometimes am Carting Gravel from the Neighboring Hills, and sometimes Dust from the streets upon the fresh Meadow. And sometimes plowing, sometimes digging those Meadows, to introduce Clover and other English Grasses.

   Deacon John Adams had died 25 May 1761. Under his Will, which was proved 10 July 1761 (copy in Adams Papers, Wills and Deeds), JA received a smaller bequest than his younger brothers because he had been given “a Libberal Education.” He did, however, come into possession of substantial property: the cottage occupied by Dr. Savil and now known as the John Quincy Adams Birthplace, a barn, and 10 acres of adjoining land, together with some 30 acres of orchard, pasture, and woodland elsewhere in the town. His brother Peter Boylston inherited the Deacon’s homestead (the John Adams Birthplace) and a larger farm, which in 1774 JA consolidated with his own (JA, notes on the copy of his father’s Will in Adams Papers). As the present entry suggests, the young farmer’s improvements to his property began promptly, and though there were long intervals when public office kept him away from his farm, they ended only with his death.


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

       The Cause of Jeffries Town Treasurer of Boston and Sewal and Edwards and several others being suits for the Penalties arising by the Law of the Province for building and covering those Buildings not with slate nor Tile but with shingles.
       Mr. Gridley made a Motion that those Actions should be dismissed because the Judges were all Interested in the Event of them. Two of the Judges vizt. Wells and Foster Hutchinson, being Inhabitants of Boston, and the other two vizt. Eliakim Hutchinson and Watts, having real Estates in that Town, to the Poor of which those Penalties are appropriated. After a long Wrangle, as usual when Trowbridge is in a Case, the Court determined to continue the Action, that Application might be made to the Governor and Council for Special Judges. Wells and Foster declining to set, and Watts too.
       The Case of a Witness was mentioned in the Argument. A Witness cannot depose, when he is interested. A Juryman may be challenged who is interested. But Persons belonging to Corporations, are allowed for the Necessity to testify, in Cases where those Corporations are interested. And Jurymen and Judges belonging to this Province sat in the Case of Gray and Paxton, tho interested, for the Necessity.
       This Motion Mr. G. said could not be reduced to a Written Plea. He could not plead to the Jurisdiction of the Court. The Court of Common Pleas had undoubted Jurisdiction of the Cause but the Judges could not set because interested. Their Honours were not the Court of Common Pleas but the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. The Court of Common Pleas was a Body Politic, an invisible system, a frame in the Mind, a fiction of the Law. The President and Fellows of Harvard Colledge are not H.C.
       The Case in Strange was produced, in which Ld. Raymond went off the Bench, the Parish of Abbots Langley in which his Lordship lived being interested. An order of 2 Justices for the Removal of a Pauper, confined by the Sessions was carried to B.R. by Certiorari.
       Authorities from Hobarts and Cokes Reports were produced, to shew the Tenderness of the Law for this Maxim that a Man shall not be Judge in his own Cause, and that an Act of Parliament vs. natural Equity as that a Man should be judge in his own Cause would be void.
       Mem. After the Court had given Judgment Mr. Gridley moved for a Minute of the Reasons of the Judgment. Wells said the Court was not accountable to the Bar for their Reasons. But Otis said the Courts at Home never refused their Reasons for any Judgment when the Bar requested them. Because if the Bar are left ignorant of the Reasons the Court go upon, they will not know how to advise and direct their Clients. And after some Debate, the Clerk was ordered to minute the Reason for the Continuance, which was that three of the Judges apprehended themselves interested and so not a Court competent to try the Cause.
       G. contended that if the Court should continue the Causes, they could not refuse setting on the Tryal, because, an Imparlance was a Judicial Act, and so an Assumption of Jurisdiction. Foster Hutchinson said that Dismissing the Actions would be a Judicial Act, as much as Continuing.


Title: Novr. 30th. 1762.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Last Thurdsday Night, at Cranch’s Wedding, Dr. Tufts, in the Room where the Gentlemen were, said We used to have on these Occasions, some good Matrimonial stories, to raise our spirits. The story of B. Bicknal’s Wife is a very clever one. She said, when she was married she was very anxious, she feared, she trembled, she could not go to Bed. But she recollected she had put her Hand to the Plow and could not look back, so she mustered up her Spirits, committed her soul to God and her Body to B. Bicknal and into Bed she leaped—and in the Morning she was amazed, she could not think for her Life what it was that had scared her so.
       P. told a story of Elisha Marsh No. 2. when he was first married.
       Quere. The Humanity, The Utility, the Policy, the Piety of the sanguinary Laws against Robbery and Stealing.


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

      November 5th. 1762.

       The Cause of Jeffries Town Treasurer of Boston and Sewal and Edwards and several others being suits for the Penalties arising by the Law of the Province for building and covering those Buildings not with slate nor Tile but with shingles.
       Mr. Gridley made a Motion that those Actions should be dismissed because the Judges were all Interested in the Event of them. Two of the Judges vizt. Wells and Foster Hutchinson, being Inhabitants of Boston, and the other two vizt. Eliakim Hutchinson and Watts, having real Estates in that Town, to the Poor of which those Penalties are appropriated. After a long Wrangle, as usual when Trowbridge is in a Case, the Court determined to continue the Action, that Application might be made to the Governor and Council for Special Judges. Wells and Foster declining to set, and Watts too.
       The Case of a Witness was mentioned in the Argument. A Witness cannot depose, when he is interested. A Juryman may be challenged who is interested. But Persons belonging to Corporations, are allowed for the Necessity to testify, in Cases where those Corporations are interested. And Jurymen and Judges belonging to this Province sat in the Case of Gray and Paxton, tho interested, for the Necessity.
       This Motion Mr. G. said could not be reduced to a Written Plea. He could not plead to the Jurisdiction of the Court. The Court of Common Pleas had undoubted Jurisdiction of the Cause but the Judges could not set because interested. Their Honours were not the Court of Common Pleas but the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. The Court of Common Pleas was a Body Politic, an invisible system, a frame in the Mind, a fiction of the Law. The President and Fellows of Harvard Colledge are not H.C.
       The Case in Strange was produced, in which Ld. Raymond went off the Bench, the Parish of Abbots Langley in which his Lordship lived being interested. An order of 2 Justices for the Removal of a Pauper, confined by the Sessions was carried to B.R. by Certiorari.
       Authorities from Hobarts and Cokes Reports were produced, to shew the Tenderness of the Law for this Maxim that a Man shall not be Judge in his own Cause, and that an Act of Parliament vs. natural Equity as that a Man should be judge in his own Cause would be void.
       Mem. After the Court had given Judgment Mr. Gridley moved for a Minute of the Reasons of the Judgment. Wells said the Court was not accountable to the Bar for their Reasons. But Otis said the Courts at Home never refused their Reasons for any Judgment when the Bar requested them. Because if the Bar are left ignorant of the Reasons the Court go upon, they will not know how to advise and direct their Clients. And after some Debate, the Clerk was ordered to minute the Reason for the Continuance, which was that three of the Judges apprehended themselves interested and so not a Court competent to try the Cause.
       G. contended that if the Court should continue the Causes, they could not refuse setting on the Tryal, because, an Imparlance was a Judicial Act, and so an Assumption of Jurisdiction. Foster Hutchinson said that Dismissing the Actions would be a Judicial Act, as much as Continuing.

   From the names of the judges mentioned in the next paragraph it is clear that this case was tried in the Suffolk Inferior Court.

   Bancus Regis or King’s Bench.

      Novr. 30th. 1762.

       Last Thurdsday Night, at Cranch’s Wedding, Dr. Tufts, in the Room where the Gentlemen were, said We used to have on these Occasions, some good Matrimonial stories, to raise our spirits. The story of B. Bicknal’s Wife is a very clever one. She said, when she was married she was very anxious, she feared, she trembled, she could not go to Bed. But she recollected she had put her Hand to the Plow and could not look back, so she mustered up her Spirits, committed her soul to God and her Body to B. Bicknal and into Bed she leaped—and in the Morning she was amazed, she could not think for her Life what it was that had scared her so.
       P. told a story of Elisha Marsh No. 2. when he was first married.
       Quere. The Humanity, The Utility, the Policy, the Piety of the sanguinary Laws against Robbery and Stealing.

   Richard Cranch married Mary Smith 25 Nov. 1762.

   This could be either Robert Treat Paine or, less likely, Joseph Palmer.


Title: Decr. 28th. 1762.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Mr. Cranch last fryday night discovered some Instances of his skill at a Bargain. He agreed to give Greenleaf £120 old Tenor for his Chaise. The Chaise is old, the Leather damnifyed thro careless Usage, the Wheels almost ruined, the spokes being loose &c., but G. asked that Price and he could not beat him down, he could not ask him to take less, because G. was poor, and it would look like Ungenerosity or Narrowness of Purse to desire it for less. This he was headstrong enough to do, against the Parsons repeated and enforced Advice. But a worse Instance of his Tameness and Credulity happened afterwards. G. offered him his Horse, told him the Horse stood him in £10 L.M. and was an excellent Horse in the Harness tho unpleasant in a saddle. Cranch believed every Word he said, and was so secret about his Bargain, that he would not make it before me, who was then at his House but he must finish it, abroad, without Questioning the Horses Virtues or Abilities, or asking any Questions about the Price. He is to give £50 for the Horse. I would not give £10, for he is dull and lean, and weak, looks meanly and goes worse.—Thus the Man was fairly cheated in Jockey language out of £50, in one Hour. Besides his Buying the Horse was a Piece of ridiculous Foppery, at this Time. He had no Occasion for one. He cannot use one much this Winter, and it will cost him 3 Times so much as that Horse is worth to keep him till spring.
       Miserably bubbled by his own Vanity and Credulity.


Title: Boston. Decr. 30th.
From: Adams, John
To:

       At Goldthwaits office, spent 1/4 of an Hour with Lt. Govr. Hutchinson. The first thing he said was a Question to Goldthwait, what was the Date of the Earlyest Records of the County Court? Goldthwait answered 1670. His Honor replyed there were County Courts for 40 Years before that—and said he wanted to settle something in his own Mind, concerning the origin and Constitution of the Courts. That Adultery was punished with death, by the first settlers, and many other offences were made capital, that are not now so. That Commissioners were sent over by King Charles in 1665, to enquire into the Constitution of the Colonies, tho their Authority was not owned. Goldthwait said, there were a great many odd Entries. One of a Prosecution of a Man for taking 6d. for an Horse, a Braintree man too, as unjust and unrighteous. His Honor told of a Record of a Woman condemned, for Adultery, because a Man had debauched her when she was drunk, and of another of a Boy imprisoned for a Capital Tryal for some of their trifling capital Crimes, stealing from his Master or something, which Boy was liberated by the Commissioners of 1665.
       The story of Prats Death was told. His Honor said it would be a Loss to his family. He was in a fair Way to have raised it. But the New Yorkers will be glad of it.—This to be sure was Familiarity and Affability! But Goldthwait cringed down, and put on the timid, fawning face and Air and Tone.


Title: Braintree Feby. 1st. 1763. Tuesday.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Last Thurdsday afternoon, rode to Germantown, and there stayed at my friend Cs. till the last Night. Four Nights, and four days. Those 2 families well deserve the Character they hold of friendly, sensible, and Social. The Men, Women and Children, are all sensible and obliging.
       Mem. The notable Anecdote of Coll. Josa. Quincy. The Hydrostatical Experiment. And the other of Mrs. Lincoln, equally curious and instructive. The Pinching, and the Sprinkling, &c.
       Mem. The other Anecdote of Mr. Erving. He has prophesyed so long, and with so much Confidence that Canada would be restored to the French that, because he begins to see his Predictions will not be fullfilled, he is now straining his Invention for Reasons, why we ought not to hold it. He says, the Restoration of that Province can alone prevent our becoming luxurious, effeminate, inattentive to any Danger and so an easy Prey to an Invader. He was so soundly bantered, the other day in the Council Chamber, that he snatched his Hat and Cloak and went off, in a Passion.

       Mem. The other of a Piece sent to Fleet to be printed, upon the Unfitness of Mr. Mauduit to represent this Province, at the british Court, both in Point of Age and Knowledge. He is as that Writer says 70 Years old, an honest Man but avaricious, a Woolen Draper, a mere Cit, so ignorant of Court and public Business, that he knew not where the public offices were, and that he told Mr. Bollan, that he was Agent for New England. He says that all the other Agents laugh at this Province, for employing him. And that all Persons on that Side of the Water are surprized at us. That the Considerations on the present German War, were written by a Person unknown, who hired or persuaded Mr. Mauduitt to father it.
       Observation. The Character of Aunt Nell, exemplified. Mrs. Eunice told us the Catastrophe of two of her Teeth, she broke them out at Table in Company, and to avoid exposing her self, swallowed them.
       I spent an Evening at Mrs. Palmers. Mrs. Eunice was very sociable, she had the lead all the Evening. Gave us History’s of her Journeys with her Brother, to Connecticutt, to Barnstable, Plymouth, Middleborough, Norton, &c. Descriptions of Seats and Roads, and Thicketts, Characters of Persons, of both sexes, and the hospitable offices of strangers, &c., and above all the Tittle, Tattle of the Town of Taunton, what Families Visit, and what not. The little female Miffs, and Bickerings. Dr. Mclnsters McKinstrys, McWaters’s, Fales, &c. &c.
       The Temper and Habits of stale Virginity, are growing upon her. She is talkative. Query, whether envious, sullen and passionate? She is no slanderer. She is tender of Characters and gives Merit its due Praise. The History of her Loves is curious, but not uncommon.
        or Di. was a constant feast. Tender feeling, sensible, friendly. A friend. Not an imprudent, not an indelicate, not a disagreeable Word or Action. Prudent, modest, delicate, soft, sensible, obliging, active.

          Where all was full, possessing and possest
          no craving Void left Aching in the Breast.

       Books, we read 5 Sermons in Dr. Shirlock Sherlock, and several Chapters in the Inquiry into the origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the beautiful. The Chapter upon Sympathy, they all disapprove. The Author says we have a real Pleasure, in the Distresses and Misfortunes of others. Mem. To write a Letter to Sewal or Quincy, or Lowell on the subject of that Chapter.

       I employed however, too little of my Time in Reading and in Thinking. I might have spent much more. The Idea of M. de Vattell indeed, scowling and frowning, haunted me.
       Q. Do we take Pleasure in the real Distresses of others? What is my Sensation, when I see Captn. Cunningham, laid up, with the Gout, and hear his plaintive Groans? What are the feelings of the Women, at Groanings? What is my feeling when I hear of an honest Mans loosing a ship at Sea? What when I hear sentence unfinished


Title: Feby. 11th. 1763.
From: Adams, John
To:

       Probate of Mr. Edwards’s Will, Coram Governor and Council. John Edwards, one of the Heirs at Law of Samuel Edwards, appealed from the Decree of the Judge of Probate, 1st. because said Saml. at the Execution of said Writing and long after was not, nor for a long time before had been of a sound and disposing Mind and Memory, but was non Compos.
       Quaere. What is an Insanity, in Law? that disqualifies to make testament? and whether Saml. Edwards was so insane. Woods Inst. Page 336. Those who have not a sound, perfect and disposing Memory, for it is not sufficient that the Testator hath a Memory. 6. Rep. 23. Lunaticks in their Lucid Intervals may.
       Dissertation on the word “perfect.” A perfect Memory exists not—i.e. a Memory retentive of every Idea that ever was in the Mind. Nor is the Man who has the strongest Memory always the fittest to make a Will. For the observation is very common that Men of the strongest Memories have not always the soundest Judgments. The Memory of Xerxes or of Caesar is not necessary to make a Will.
       2nd. of James.
       Our Case. I promise to pay A or order. I have paid A. and now I must pay the order too.


Title: Boston Feby. 1763.
From: Adams, John
To:

       This day learned that the Caucas Clubb meets at certain Times in the Garret of Tom Daws, the Adjutant of the Boston Regiment. He has a large House, and he has a moveable Partition in his Garrett, which he takes down and the whole Clubb meets in one Room. There they smoke tobacco till you cannot see from one End of the Garrett to the other. There they drink Phlip I suppose, and there they choose a Moderator, who puts Questions to the Vote regularly, and select Men, Assessors, Collectors, Wardens, Fire Wards, and Representatives are Regularly chosen before they are chosen in the Town. Uncle Fairfield, Story, Ruddock, Adams, Cooper, and a rudis indigestaque Moles of others are Members. They send Committees to wait on the Merchants Clubb and to propose, and join, in the Choice of Men and Measures. Captn. Cunningham says they have often solicited him to go to these Caucas, they have assured him Benefit in his Business, &c.
       Proprietors of Wrentham v. Metcalf.
       2 Levinz. Scroaggs Scroggs C.J. It ought not to be a general Rule, that Members of Corporations shall or shall not be a Witness. But where the Interest is inconsiderable they may.
       Thatcher. It is a Rule that the Heir apparent shall not tho a Remainder man shall be admitted because the last has no present Interest. A Guardian shall not be a Witness in Cause for his Ward because he is Party to the suit.

       Auchmuty. Proprs. Worcester v. Gates, the Inhabitants of Worcester were Admitted on Argument.


Title: Feb.
From: Adams, John
To:

       This Action of Trover is an Innovation, one of the new and subtle Inventions in Derogation of the Common Law, that my Lord Coke has treated with so much righteous severity. It is in its Effects and Consequences subversive of all real Actions. It will destroy one of the strongest securities of our landed Property, the Rule that all real Titles shall be tryed in the County where the Land lies. That it may be employed as an Instrument of endless Vexation to the poor People who live in distant Counties, who has the Honor of being the first Inventor I know not, but I hope your Honors will crush it as the illegitimate Production of a wanton Hour.
       It is true that, an incidental Question about a local Matter, may be decided, in the Tryal of a transitory Action—and it is equally true that, a Question may be tryed incidentally, by a Court that has no direct and original Jurisdiction of that Question. Multa conceduntur, per obliquum quse non conceduntur de directo. But this is never suffered but in Cases of Necessity—where Justice cannot be done without it. And This Necessity seems to have been the sole Foundation of my Ld. Holts Opinion in the Case of Brown and Hedges. His Opinion was that an Incidental Question about the Title of Land should not bar the Plaintiff, because if it should, a Man might commit Wastes and Trespasses in Ireland, then take his flight to England and Escape Justice, for no Proscess from any Court in Ireland could run into England: Remedy must be sought in England or no where. But in these Cases there is no such Necessity. Actions may be brought in the County where the Lands lie, with the same Ease, and with much better Probability of fair and just Decision than out of them.
       Dream of Mr. Pratt. He was seated on a Rock, in the Middle of the Sea, and reflecting on his Journey to N. York, leaving his family &c, when the Clouds began to rise from all Quarters of the Horison, and soon thickened and blackened over his Head. The Thunders began to roar And the Lightnings to flash. At last, the Clouds opened and a glorious Luminary, in the shape of an Angel, made its Appearance and addressed Mr. Prat in these Lines

          Why mourns the Bard? Apollo bids thee rise,
          renounce the Dust, and Claim thy native skies.

       Minutes of Dr. Marshes Testimony.
       I was sent for. Mr. Edwards knew me, asked after my Health, and called me by my Name.
       Afterward he gave me, by Word of Mouth the Minute of his Will. He said he intended to give his Wife, the Improvement of his whole Estate during Life. The Thought it seems came into his Mind of giving her the Improvement during her Widowhood, or while she remained his Widow and bore his Name, but that Thought he had Memory and Judgment enough to disapprove, and ordered it be given her for Life.
       And after his Wifes Decease, he ordered his Estate to be divided equally between his own and his Wifes nearest Relatives.
       And when he was asked, who he intended to make his Executors, he replyed you two, looking to his Brother Edwards and his Wifes Brother Smith who were then present.
       The Degrees of Insanity, are infinite from the wildest symptoms of fury, when nothing but Chains can withold the Patient from doing Violence to himself or others, down to some fits of Passion, or some irrational Pangs of Affection. There is perhaps, in every human Mind, in some appearance or another, some Spice or Degree of Madness. The Hero that murders millions to sate his Revenge or Ambition, may surely by the soundest Understanding be denominated a Madman. Yet Alexander, or Charles of Sweeden had no doubt, a sufficient soundness of Mind to dispose of an Estate by Will. Nor can a perfect Memory be demanded. A perfect Memory cannot be believed to exist. Even Xerxes and Caesar, who remembered every face and Name in their Armies, had not perfect Memories.

       Swift v. Vose.
       Hobarts Reports, 134. Weaver * and Ward. Skirmishing. No Justification only Excuse, unless Utterly without fault or Negligence.
       1. Strange, 596. Underwood v. Hewson. Defendant was uncocking a Gun, and the Plaintiff was standing to see it, it went off and wounded him, and at the Tryal it was held might maintain Trespass.
       Thatcher.—
       * Lords of Council’s order to skirmish.
       Tilt Turnament. Masters of Defence &c.
       Mem. Case of Ideot, Lunatick &c. answerable in Trespass tho not criminal.
       Affectation runs thro the whole Man. His Air, his Gate, his Tone, his Gestures, his Pronunciation. There is no Steadiness of Eye or Feature.
       Fitch’s Countenance is not Steady. He has a look of Jealousy, and of Diffidence. He has a look of Conceit, affectation, Suspicion, and Diffidence. His swell. His Puff. Gridley has a stedy and fixed face. His face is expressive. When he smiles, his whole face is lighted up. His Lips do not shew a smile when his Brows are frounding, and his Eye complaining. The Brow, the Eye, the Lips and the Voice all alike affected together.
       Trowbridge. Oh says Mr. G. They object and say a ——. The officer he informs—why In that Case—redendo singula singulis.—Well—now—
       To all young gentlemen between 10 and 20—
       Many of the great sages, Phylosophers and statesmen, ancient and modern, have thought that the most effectual Exertion of their Talent Indulgence of the Benevolence for Mankind was by contriving and recommending to youth, Plans of Education and study, to train them early to right Habits of Thinking and of Acting, both for their own private Happiness as well as for the Tranquility, Wealth, Grandeur and Glory of their Country. I who have as much Benevolence, as any Sage, whatever, and Talents enough to advize my own young Countrymen, beg leave to advize them, (lest any one should suffer for want of such Advice tho I must own it is generally well understood that they by all Means, avoid every Appearance of Regard to any of those Properties, formerly respected under the Name of Wit, Humour, sense, Learning, Temperance, Justice, Industry,
       The Cyropedia of Xenophon, and the Treatises of Milton and Lock upon Education, tho they might, (Longitude and Latitude considered) be well enough, are yet manifestly useless, at this Time and in this Place. There is it must be confessed, a natural faculty in the human mind (whether it sprang from the Protoplast or any other source I leave to Metaphysitians), that distinguishes between true and false, fair and foul, Virtue and Vice &c—Now the great Aim of the abovementioned Writers on Education was to cultivate this faculty into the most delicate and exquisite Discernment: But believe me, This faculty is become in the Revolution of human Things not only useless, but destructive: believe me, the young man who is silly and obstinate enough to see and to say he sees, one spark of Parts or Virtues in Bluster and his followers e.g. shall with all the Benefactors to a man, be pronounced both a fool and a Knave: shall be opposed and abused on all occasions: e. contra if he sees, and says he sees, one fault, folly, Rashness, Indiscretion, Vice &c. in the same Persons or their Conduct, they and theirs will pronounce the same heavy sentence upon him. It is exactly so with the other side—if you have not a thourough Contempt for the Head and Detestation of the Heart of Bluster and all his followers, you are at once a seditious fellow, have no sense or Probity at all.
       So that the 1st Principle in Provincial Education is to extinguish, stiffle, this most useless, troublesome, pernicious faculty, called the moral sense, and cultivate a total and absolute Indifference to Virtue and to Vice: In spight of natural Aversions press to your Bosom, with unbounded Confidence and Affection, the man who is of your side, after you have chosen any side, tho he may be prostitute and abandoned, destitute of every natural or moral Excellence.
       Edwards’s Will.
       Godolphins orphans Legacy. Part 1. C. 8. Page 23.
       2. Such as are Mad Persons can make no Testament during the time of their Insanity of Mind, no not so much as ad Pios Usus. Nay the Testament made at such a Time shall not be good, tho afterward the Party recover his former Understanding; howbeit, if such Lunatick Persons have any Lucida Intervalla, or Intermissions then during the Time of such Freedom from the Lunacy they may make their Testaments betwixt the fitts. And here note, that every Person is presumed to be of perfect Mind and Memory, untill the Contrary be proved. So that he that objecteth Insanity of Mind, must prove the same, for which quotation breaks off thus in MS
       C. 21.

       Same Page 65. But regularly by the Laws and Customs of England, two Witnesses, without Exception, are requisite for the due Proof of a Testament and two are sufficient.
       Swinbourne 77th. Page 78. Unless the Testator were besides himself but for a short Time and in some Peculiar Actions and not continually for a long space as for a Month or More, &c.
       78. It is a hard and difficult Point to prove a Man not to have the Use or Understanding of Reason. And therefore, it is not sufficient for the Witnesses to depose that the Testator was mad or besides his Wits: unless they render a sufficient Reason to prove this their Deposition as that they did see him do such Things or heard him speak such Words as a Man having Reason would not have done or spoken.
       78. lower down. If some Witnesses do depose that the Testator was of perfect Mind and Memory and others depose the Contrary, their Testimony is to be preferred which depose that he was of sound Memory, as well for that their Testimony tendeth to the favour And Validity of the Testament, as for that the same is more agreable to the Disposition of Nature, for every man is a Creature reasonable.
       79. But if in the Testament there be Mixture of Wisdom and Folly it is to be presumed that the same was made during the Testators Frensy, insomuch that if there be but one Word sounding to Folly, it is presumed that the Testator was not of sound Mind.
       Godolphin. Page 24. For it is a very tender and difficult Point to prove a Man not to have the Use of his Reason and Understanding; therefore it is not sufficient for the Witnesses to depose that the Person was mad, unless they render upon Knowledge a sufficient Reason therefor. Neither is one Witness sufficient to prove a Man mad, nor two in Case the one depose of the Testators Madness at one Time and the other of his Madness at another.
       But in Contrary Depositions, those Witnesses are to be preferred, which depose that the Testator was of sound Memory: And if he Used to have Intervals of Reason and it be not certainly known, whether the Testament were made in or out of his fits of Lunacy; if no Argument of frenzy or folly can be collected by the Testament, it shall be presumed to be made during the Intermissions of the Lunacy, and so adjudged to be good.
       One foolish Word may frustrate the Validity of the whole.
       But if a Man who is of good and perfect Memory maketh his Will, and afterwards by the Visitation of God, he becomes of Unsound Memory (as every Man is for the most Part, before his death) this Act of God shall not be a Revocation.
       Dr. Groenvelt v. Dr. Burrell &c. Ld. Raymond 252.
       The Judge will not permit him to have a Copy of the Record if there was probable Cause of the Indictment.
       There must be Evidence of express Rancour and Malice, for Innocence is not sufficient where it contains scandal or the Party has been imprisoned.
       To be of sound and perfect Memory, is to have a reasonable Memory and Understanding to dispose of his Estate with Reason. 25.
       The Testators mind is the Testaments chief Essential.
       Regularly, the Law will presume every man to be of sound Mind and Memory, and will cast the Onus Probandi on him who asserts the Contrary; which is but consonant to the Presumption of Nature itself.


Title: [February 1763]
From: Adams, John
To:

      Braintree Feby. 1st. 1763. Tuesday.

       Last Thurdsday afternoon, rode to Germantown, and there stayed at my friend Cs. till the last Night. Four Nights, and four days. Those 2 families well deserve the Character they hold of friendly, sensible, and Social. The Men, Women and Children, are all sensible and obliging.
       Mem. The notable Anecdote of Coll. Josa. Quincy. The Hydrostatical Experiment. And the other of Mrs. Lincoln, equally curious and instructive. The Pinching, and the Sprinkling, &c.
       Mem. The other Anecdote of Mr. Erving. He has prophesyed so long, and with so much Confidence that Canada would be restored to the French that, because he begins to see his Predictions will not be fullfilled, he is now straining his Invention for Reasons, why we ought not to hold it. He says, the Restoration of that Province can alone prevent our becoming luxurious, effeminate, inattentive to any Danger and so an easy Prey to an Invader. He was so soundly bantered, the other day in the Council Chamber, that he snatched his Hat and Cloak and went off, in a Passion.

       Mem. The other of a Piece sent to Fleet to be printed, upon the Unfitness of Mr. Mauduit to represent this Province, at the british Court, both in Point of Age and Knowledge. He is as that Writer says 70 Years old, an honest Man but avaricious, a Woolen Draper, a mere Cit, so ignorant of Court and public Business, that he knew not where the public offices were, and that he told Mr. Bollan, that he was Agent for New England. He says that all the other Agents laugh at this Province, for employing him. And that all Persons on that Side of the Water are surprized at us. That the Considerations on the present German War, were written by a Person unknown, who hired or persuaded Mr. Mauduitt to father it.
       Observation. The Character of Aunt Nell, exemplified. Mrs. Eunice told us the Catastrophe of two of her Teeth, she broke them out at Table in Company, and to avoid exposing her self, swallowed them.
       I spent an Evening at Mrs. Palmers. Mrs. Eunice was very sociable, she had the lead all the Evening. Gave us History’s of her Journeys with her Brother, to Connecticutt, to Barnstable, Plymouth, Middleborough, Norton, &c. Descriptions of Seats and Roads, and Thicketts, Characters of Persons, of both sexes, and the hospitable offices of strangers, &c., and above all the Tittle, Tattle of the Town of Taunton, what Families Visit, and what not. The little female Miffs, and Bickerings. Dr. Mclnsters McKinstrys, McWaters’s, Fales, &c. &c.
       The Temper and Habits of stale Virginity, are growing upon her. She is talkative. Query, whether envious, sullen and passionate? She is no slanderer. She is tender of Characters and gives Merit its due Praise. The History of her Loves is curious, but not uncommon.
        or Di. was a constant feast. Tender feeling, sensible, friendly. A friend. Not an imprudent, not an indelicate, not a disagreeable Word or Action. Prudent, modest, delicate, soft, sensible, obliging, active.

          Where all was full, possessing and possest
          no craving Void left Aching in the Breast.

       Books, we read 5 Sermons in Dr. Shirlock Sherlock, and several Chapters in the Inquiry into the origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the beautiful. The Chapter upon Sympathy, they all disapprove. The Author says we have a real Pleasure, in the Distresses and Misfortunes of others. Mem. To write a Letter to Sewal or Quincy, or Lowell on the subject of that Chapter.

       I employed however, too little of my Time in Reading and in Thinking. I might have spent much more. The Idea of M. de Vattell indeed, scowling and frowning, haunted me.
       Q. Do we take Pleasure in the real Distresses of others? What is my Sensation, when I see Captn. Cunningham, laid up, with the Gout, and hear his plaintive Groans? What are the feelings of the Women, at Groanings? What is my feeling when I hear of an honest Mans loosing a ship at Sea? What when I hear sentence unfinished

   First entry in “Paper book No. 9” (our D/JA/9), a stitched gathering of leaves containing a few entries in Feb. 1763, a draft of a newspaper article that could not have been written before late June 1763, and some undated entries. The entries are not in chronological order in the MS.

   This booklet contains the only Diary entries surviving for the year 1763. Fragmentary lists of JA’s legal cases show that his practice was rapidly expanding, at least in the lower courts, and this year too he began to write with some frequency for the Boston newspapers. His surviving correspondence for 1763 is virtually all with Miss Abigail Smith of Weymouth.

   The Cranches and Palmers. Mrs. Palmer was a sister of Richard Cranch.

   In April 1762 the House voted to remove William Bollan, who had been Provincial agent in London since 1746 but was disliked by the Otises and others as a Churchman and a son-in-law of former Governor Shirley. He was replaced by Jasper Mauduit, a London woolen merchant and dissenter. Mauduit was dependent on his brother Israel, author of the tract mentioned in the text, for assistance, but their friends in Massachusetts failed to obtain a stipend for Israel as associate agent. The correspondence in Jasper Mauduit... 1762–1765 (MHS, Colls.Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections and Proceedings., 74 [1918]) makes clear the sentiments and maneuvers of all parties in this petty but complex affair. See also 15 Aug. 1765, below.

   Unidentified.

   Mistress (Miss) Eunice Paine.

   One would like to believe that this refers to Abigail Smith, sister of the recently married Mary (Smith) Cranch. In the letters they exchanged at this time both Abigail and JA used the fanciful name Diana for her. But the preceding initial, which may be “H,” cannot be explained.

   A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, by Edmund Burke, was published anonymously in London, 1757.

   John Lowell, Harvard 1760, of Newburyport, trained or still training in the office of Oxenbridge Thacher for the bar; later a member of the Continental Congress and a federal judge.

      Feb. 5th. 1763.

       Memorabilia of this Week.
       The Bar agreed upon these 4 Rules.
       1st. That the Clerk call the Plain tiff, and if any Body answer, except the Plaintiff or some sworn Attorney, his Power be demanded, and no general Power in such Case be admitted.
       2dly. That no Attorneys Fee be taxed for the future where the Declaration was not drawn by the Plaintiff himself, or some sworn Attorney.
       3dly. That no attendance be taxed, unless the Party attend personally, or by some sworn Attorney.

       4. That no Attorney be allowed to Practice here unless sworn in this Court or in the superiour Court.
       Mr. Gridley read these Rules to the Court as unexceptionable Regulations, agreed upon by the Bar. Mr. Otis arose and said he had the Credit of the Motion, but he never had moved for any such Rules as these, for they were vs. the Province Law, vs. the Rights of Mankind, and he was amazed that so many wise Heads as that Bar was blessed with could think them practicable, and concluded that he was for one, entirely against them. And said that all schemes to suppress Petty fogger’s must rest on the Honor of the Bar. Foster Hutchinson asked why then was the Court troubled with the Motion? Judge Watts said if the Bar was not agreed the Court could do nothing. And at last they determined to consider till April.
       Thus with a whiff of Otis’s pestilential Breath, was this whole system blown away.
       But the Barr was in a great Rage!
       Thatcher said to Kent, Auchmuty and me, “whoever votes for him to be any Thing more than a Constable let him be Anathema maranatha. I pamphleteer for him again? No. Ile pamphleteer against him.
       Kent damned him and said he had been abused by him personally, in such a manner as he never would forgive, unless he made him more satisfaction, than he imagined was in his Power.
       Thatcher moved, that in the Cards to be sent to the Judges, the Expression should be “The Bar, exclusively of Mr. Otis, invites,” and Auchmuty, Kent, Gridley and I, as well as Thatcher voted for it.
       Auchmuty and Fitch were equally warm. They talked about renouncing all Commerce or Connection with him. Gridley talked about treating him dryly and decently.
       Auchmuty said, the two Principles of all this were Popularity, and Avarice.
       He made the Motion at first to get some of these Under strappers into his service. He could not bear that Quincy and Auch. should have Underworkers and he none. And he objected to the Rules, to save his Popularity, with the Constables, Justices Story and Ruddock &c. and Pettyfoggers of the Town, and with the Pettyfoggers that he uses as Tools and Mirmidons in the House.
       Mr. G. said he went off to avoid a Quarell, for he could not bear it. Such Tergiversation, such Trimming, such Behaviour.
       K. and Auch. said they had born with his Insolence thinking him honest, tho hot and rash and passionate, but now he appeared to act against his Conscience.

       Recipe to make a Patriot
       Take of the several Species of Malevolence, as Revenge, Malice, Envy, equal Quantities, of servility, fear, fury, Vanity, Prophaneness, and Ingratitude, equal Quantities, and infuse this Composition into the Brains of an ugly, surly, brutal Mortal and you have the Desideratum.
       The Life of Furio.
       In Croatia. His Descent. Education, at school, Colledge, at the Bar. Historians relate that he was grossly slandered, by a story of a Bastard on a Negro, his Wrath at Plymouth, at Boston he Heads the Trade, brings Actions, fails, is chosen Representative, quarrells with Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Council, House, Custom house officers, Gentlemen of the Army, the Bar, retails prosody, writes upon Money, Province sloop.

   The Suffolk co. Inferior Court of Common Pleas.

   It is not clear whether this and the following squib on Otis were composed or merely copied by JA. The second has the appearance of being notes for a satirical piece to be developed more fully.

      Feby. 10th. 1763.

       Belcher v. Hunt. This is an Action of Trover, for converting shingles to Hunts Use. The shingles were cutt upon Land which Jonathan White claims and has possessed for 20 Years.
       There is a Question to be determined by the Court previously to the Tryal of his Action, vizt. whether a Title to Land can be given in Evidence, in the Tryal of these Actions of Trover.
       Multa conceduntur per Obliquum quae non conceduntur de directo. 6. Rep. 47. Debitum et Contractus sunt nullius Loci. 2. Inst. 231.

      Feby. 11th. 1763.

       Probate of Mr. Edwards’s Will, Coram Governor and Council. John Edwards, one of the Heirs at Law of Samuel Edwards, appealed from the Decree of the Judge of Probate, 1st. because said Saml. at the Execution of said Writing and long after was not, nor for a long time before had been of a sound and disposing Mind and Memory, but was non Compos.
       Quaere. What is an Insanity, in Law? that disqualifies to make testament? and whether Saml. Edwards was so insane. Woods Inst. Page 336. Those who have not a sound, perfect and disposing Memory, for it is not sufficient that the Testator hath a Memory. 6. Rep. 23. Lunaticks in their Lucid Intervals may.
       Dissertation on the word “perfect.” A perfect Memory exists not—i.e. a Memory retentive of every Idea that ever was in the Mind. Nor is the Man who has the strongest Memory always the fittest to make a Will. For the observation is very common that Men of the strongest Memories have not always the soundest Judgments. The Memory of Xerxes or of Caesar is not necessary to make a Will.
       2nd. of James.
       Our Case. I promise to pay A or order. I have paid A. and now I must pay the order too.

   At this point in the MS appears the draft of JA’s essay, signed “U.,” which was printed in the Boston Gazette, 18 July 1763. The draft is printed below under that date, following the other entries in this booklet, all of which were undoubtedly written earlier than the essay even in its draft form.

      Boston Feby. 1763.

       This day learned that the Caucas Clubb meets at certain Times in the Garret of Tom Daws, the Adjutant of the Boston Regiment. He has a large House, and he has a moveable Partition in his Garrett, which he takes down and the whole Clubb meets in one Room. There they smoke tobacco till you cannot see from one End of the Garrett to the other. There they drink Phlip I suppose, and there they choose a Moderator, who puts Questions to the Vote regularly, and select Men, Assessors, Collectors, Wardens, Fire Wards, and Representatives are Regularly chosen before they are chosen in the Town. Uncle Fairfield, Story, Ruddock, Adams, Cooper, and a rudis indigestaque Moles of others are Members. They send Committees to wait on the Merchants Clubb and to propose, and join, in the Choice of Men and Measures. Captn. Cunningham says they have often solicited him to go to these Caucas, they have assured him Benefit in his Business, &c.
       Proprietors of Wrentham v. Metcalf.
       2 Levinz. Scroaggs Scroggs C.J. It ought not to be a general Rule, that Members of Corporations shall or shall not be a Witness. But where the Interest is inconsiderable they may.
       Thatcher. It is a Rule that the Heir apparent shall not tho a Remainder man shall be admitted because the last has no present Interest. A Guardian shall not be a Witness in Cause for his Ward because he is Party to the suit.

       Auchmuty. Proprs. Worcester v. Gates, the Inhabitants of Worcester were Admitted on Argument.

   Thomas Dawes, a bricklayer and militia officer, lived in Purchase Street, which ran eastwardly off Sumner close to the South End wharves (Thwing Cat.). This was therefore the South End “caucus”; see note 5, below.

   Presumably a relative of Samuel Adams, whose mother was born Mary Fyfield—a name spelled in a great variety of ways. JA frequently used “Uncle” or “Aunt” for an older person vaguely related to himself.

   This is the first mention in the Diary of Samuel Adams the politician, with whom JA was to be closely associated for a dozen or fifteen years to come despite sharp temperamental differences between the two men. JA and Sam Adams had the same great-grandfather, the 1st Joseph Adams of Braintree, son of Henry Adams the immigrant. Sam Adams’ grandfather was John, a younger brother of JA’s grandfather, the 2d Joseph of Braintree (Bartlett, Henry Adams of SomersetshireJ. Gardner Bartlett, Henry Adams of Somersetshire, England, and Braintree, Mass.: His English Ancestry and Some of His Descendants, New York, 1927., p. 58).

   James Cunningham, glazier and militia officer; his wife was JA’s Aunt Elizabeth (Boylston) Cunningham (NEHGRNew England Historical and Genealogical Register., 7 [1853]: 147, 149; scattered Cunningham papers in MHi).

   The foregoing description, though only hearsay, is so vivid as to have become famous. According to William Gordon, writing before 1788, the Boston “caucuses” had been long established by 1763. “More than fifty years ago, Mr. Samuel Adams’s father, and twenty others, one or two from the north end of the town, where all the ship business is carried on, used to meet, make a caucus, and lay their plan for introducing certain persons into places of trust and power. When they had settled it, they separated, and used each their particular influence within his own circle” by distributing ballots for the candidates agreed upon, &c. (The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America, London, 1788, 1:365, note). Thus Sam Adams in some measure inherited his influence in these local political associations, the equivalent of ward clubs today, and at the time this Diary entry was written he was beginning to use that influence to fan the sparks of protest against royal authority into what became organized rebellion. The best account of the Boston caucuses, which were soon to emerge as the Sons of Liberty, is in Esther Forbes, Paul RevereEsther Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, Boston, 1942., p. 119 ff.; see also John C. Miller, Sam Adams, Pioneer in Propaganda, Boston, 1936, passim. More detailed study of their membership and activities is still needed.

   Elsewhere in the note cited above, William Gordon remarked that the terms caucus and caucusing were commonly used in Boston, “but my repeated applications to different gentlemen have not furnished me with a satisfactory account of [their] origin.” There is still no satisfactory account though numerous explanations have been proposed. John Pickering, who compiled the first collection of Americanisms, suggested that since the meetings Gordon described were held where “ship-business [was] carried on,” the word caucus “might be a corruption of Caulkers, the word meetings being understood,” and he found that this was a common opinion in Boston and Salem (A Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases ... Peculiar to the United States of America, Boston, 1816, p. 57). Whether correct or not, Pickering’s explanation is certainly more plausible than that preferred by the latest authority, the Dictionary of Americanisms, namely that caucus derives from medieval Latin caucus, after Greek kaukos, a drinking vessel.

   The early spellings of the word render this learned explanation extremely doubtful. Before Gordon’s History no example spelled in the form that became standard in the 19th century has been found. Both the Dictionary of AmericanismsMitford M. Mathews, ed., A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, Chicago, 1951. and the earlier Dictionary of American English cite the form “West-Corcus in Boston” from the Boston Evening Post, suppl., 19 Aug. 1745, but the former authority rather surprisingly considers it probably “without significance.” To the contrary, it would seem to be very significant, since a little later the caucus clubs were closely associated with districts of the town. The next recorded use is in a letter from Oxenbridge Thacher in Boston to Benjamin Prat in New York, without date but certainly written in 1762: “we daily see many of your predictions accomplished respecting the connections and discords of our politicians, corkusmen, plebeian tribunes, &ca., &ca.” (MHS, Procs.Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections and Proceedings., 1st ser., 20 [1882–1883]:48). In the present double use by JA both spellings are clearly “Caucas” in the MS, though “corrected” by CFA in printing the Diary. Two other early examples are worth citing. In the satirical song on James Otis entitled “Jemmibullero,” published in the Boston Evening Post, 13 May 1765, this line appears: “And Jemmy’s in the CAUCAS, and Jemmy’s in the REPS.” In a letter to James Warren, 22 Dec. 1773, JA wrote: “Yesterday, the Governor called a Council at Cambridge. Eight Members met at Brattles. This no doubt was concerted last Saturday, at Neponsit Hill Governor Hutchinson’s residence in Milton, where Brattle and Russell dined, by Way of Caucass I suppose” (MHi: Warren-Adams Coll.). In the only text of this letter by JA that has been published, the spelling is regularized to “caucus” (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., 9:334).

   Defendant’s name omitted in MS, but this case, an action of ejectment in Suffolk Superior Court, Feb. term, 1763, is reported more fully 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. 36–37.

      Feb.

       This Action of Trover is an Innovation, one of the new and subtle Inventions in Derogation of the Common Law, that my Lord Coke has treated with so much righteous severity. It is in its Effects and Consequences subversive of all real Actions. It will destroy one of the strongest securities of our landed Property, the Rule that all real Titles shall be tryed in the County where the Land lies. That it may be employed as an Instrument of endless Vexation to the poor People who live in distant Counties, who has the Honor of being the first Inventor I know not, but I hope your Honors will crush it as the illegitimate Production of a wanton Hour.
       It is true that, an incidental Question about a local Matter, may be decided, in the Tryal of a transitory Action—and it is equally true that, a Question may be tryed incidentally, by a Court that has no direct and original Jurisdiction of that Question. Multa conceduntur, per obliquum quse non conceduntur de directo. But this is never suffered but in Cases of Necessity—where Justice cannot be done without it. And This Necessity seems to have been the sole Foundation of my Ld. Holts Opinion in the Case of Brown and Hedges. His Opinion was that an Incidental Question about the Title of Land should not bar the Plaintiff, because if it should, a Man might commit Wastes and Trespasses in Ireland, then take his flight to England and Escape Justice, for no Proscess from any Court in Ireland could run into England: Remedy must be sought in England or no where. But in these Cases there is no such Necessity. Actions may be brought in the County where the Lands lie, with the same Ease, and with much better Probability of fair and just Decision than out of them.
       Dream of Mr. Pratt. He was seated on a Rock, in the Middle of the Sea, and reflecting on his Journey to N. York, leaving his family &c, when the Clouds began to rise from all Quarters of the Horison, and soon thickened and blackened over his Head. The Thunders began to roar And the Lightnings to flash. At last, the Clouds opened and a glorious Luminary, in the shape of an Angel, made its Appearance and addressed Mr. Prat in these Lines

          Why mourns the Bard? Apollo bids thee rise,
          renounce the Dust, and Claim thy native skies.

       Minutes of Dr. Marshes Testimony.
       I was sent for. Mr. Edwards knew me, asked after my Health, and called me by my Name.
       Afterward he gave me, by Word of Mouth the Minute of his Will. He said he intended to give his Wife, the Improvement of his whole Estate during Life. The Thought it seems came into his Mind of giving her the Improvement during her Widowhood, or while she remained his Widow and bore his Name, but that Thought he had Memory and Judgment enough to disapprove, and ordered it be given her for Life.
       And after his Wifes Decease, he ordered his Estate to be divided equally between his own and his Wifes nearest Relatives.
       And when he was asked, who he intended to make his Executors, he replyed you two, looking to his Brother Edwards and his Wifes Brother Smith who were then present.
       The Degrees of Insanity, are infinite from the wildest symptoms of fury, when nothing but Chains can withold the Patient from doing Violence to himself or others, down to some fits of Passion, or some irrational Pangs of Affection. There is perhaps, in every human Mind, in some appearance or another, some Spice or Degree of Madness. The Hero that murders millions to sate his Revenge or Ambition, may surely by the soundest Understanding be denominated a Madman. Yet Alexander, or Charles of Sweeden had no doubt, a sufficient soundness of Mind to dispose of an Estate by Will. Nor can a perfect Memory be demanded. A perfect Memory cannot be believed to exist. Even Xerxes and Caesar, who remembered every face and Name in their Armies, had not perfect Memories.

       Swift v. Vose.
       Hobarts Reports, 134. Weaver * and Ward. Skirmishing. No Justification only Excuse, unless Utterly without fault or Negligence.
       1. Strange, 596. Underwood v. Hewson. Defendant was uncocking a Gun, and the Plaintiff was standing to see it, it went off and wounded him, and at the Tryal it was held might maintain Trespass.
       Thatcher.—
       * Lords of Council’s order to skirmish.
       Tilt Turnament. Masters of Defence &c.
       Mem. Case of Ideot, Lunatick &c. answerable in Trespass tho not criminal.
       Affectation runs thro the whole Man. His Air, his Gate, his Tone, his Gestures, his Pronunciation. There is no Steadiness of Eye or Feature.
       Fitch’s Countenance is not Steady. He has a look of Jealousy, and of Diffidence. He has a look of Conceit, affectation, Suspicion, and Diffidence. His swell. His Puff. Gridley has a stedy and fixed face. His face is expressive. When he smiles, his whole face is lighted up. His Lips do not shew a smile when his Brows are frounding, and his Eye complaining. The Brow, the Eye, the Lips and the Voice all alike affected together.
       Trowbridge. Oh says Mr. G. They object and say a ——. The officer he informs—why In that Case—redendo singula singulis.—Well—now—
       To all young gentlemen between 10 and 20—
       Many of the great sages, Phylosophers and statesmen, ancient and modern, have thought that the most effectual Exertion of their Talent Indulgence of the Benevolence for Mankind was by contriving and recommending to youth, Plans of Education and study, to train them early to right Habits of Thinking and of Acting, both for their own private Happiness as well as for the Tranquility, Wealth, Grandeur and Glory of their Country. I who have as much Benevolence, as any Sage, whatever, and Talents enough to advize my own young Countrymen, beg leave to advize them, (lest any one should suffer for want of such Advice tho I must own it is generally well understood that they by all Means, avoid every Appearance of Regard to any of those Properties, formerly respected under the Name of Wit, Humour, sense, Learning, Temperance, Justice, Industry,
       The Cyropedia of Xenophon, and the Treatises of Milton and Lock upon Education, tho they might, (Longitude and Latitude considered) be well enough, are yet manifestly useless, at this Time and in this Place. There is it must be confessed, a natural faculty in the human mind (whether it sprang from the Protoplast or any other source I leave to Metaphysitians), that distinguishes between true and false, fair and foul, Virtue and Vice &c—Now the great Aim of the abovementioned Writers on Education was to cultivate this faculty into the most delicate and exquisite Discernment: But believe me, This faculty is become in the Revolution of human Things not only useless, but destructive: believe me, the young man who is silly and obstinate enough to see and to say he sees, one spark of Parts or Virtues in Bluster and his followers e.g. shall with all the Benefactors to a man, be pronounced both a fool and a Knave: shall be opposed and abused on all occasions: e. contra if he sees, and says he sees, one fault, folly, Rashness, Indiscretion, Vice &c. in the same Persons or their Conduct, they and theirs will pronounce the same heavy sentence upon him. It is exactly so with the other side—if you have not a thourough Contempt for the Head and Detestation of the Heart of Bluster and all his followers, you are at once a seditious fellow, have no sense or Probity at all.
       So that the 1st Principle in Provincial Education is to extinguish, stiffle, this most useless, troublesome, pernicious faculty, called the moral sense, and cultivate a total and absolute Indifference to Virtue and to Vice: In spight of natural Aversions press to your Bosom, with unbounded Confidence and Affection, the man who is of your side, after you have chosen any side, tho he may be prostitute and abandoned, destitute of every natural or moral Excellence.
       Edwards’s Will.
       Godolphins orphans Legacy. Part 1. C. 8. Page 23.
       2. Such as are Mad Persons can make no Testament during the time of their Insanity of Mind, no not so much as ad Pios Usus. Nay the Testament made at such a Time shall not be good, tho afterward the Party recover his former Understanding; howbeit, if such Lunatick Persons have any Lucida Intervalla, or Intermissions then during the Time of such Freedom from the Lunacy they may make their Testaments betwixt the fitts. And here note, that every Person is presumed to be of perfect Mind and Memory, untill the Contrary be proved. So that he that objecteth Insanity of Mind, must prove the same, for which quotation breaks off thus in MS
       C. 21.

       Same Page 65. But regularly by the Laws and Customs of England, two Witnesses, without Exception, are requisite for the due Proof of a Testament and two are sufficient.
       Swinbourne 77th. Page 78. Unless the Testator were besides himself but for a short Time and in some Peculiar Actions and not continually for a long space as for a Month or More, &c.
       78. It is a hard and difficult Point to prove a Man not to have the Use or Understanding of Reason. And therefore, it is not sufficient for the Witnesses to depose that the Testator was mad or besides his Wits: unless they render a sufficient Reason to prove this their Deposition as that they did see him do such Things or heard him speak such Words as a Man having Reason would not have done or spoken.
       78. lower down. If some Witnesses do depose that the Testator was of perfect Mind and Memory and others depose the Contrary, their Testimony is to be preferred which depose that he was of sound Memory, as well for that their Testimony tendeth to the favour And Validity of the Testament, as for that the same is more agreable to the Disposition of Nature, for every man is a Creature reasonable.
       79. But if in the Testament there be Mixture of Wisdom and Folly it is to be presumed that the same was made during the Testators Frensy, insomuch that if there be but one Word sounding to Folly, it is presumed that the Testator was not of sound Mind.
       Godolphin. Page 24. For it is a very tender and difficult Point to prove a Man not to have the Use of his Reason and Understanding; therefore it is not sufficient for the Witnesses to depose that the Person was mad, unless they render upon Knowledge a sufficient Reason therefor. Neither is one Witness sufficient to prove a Man mad, nor two in Case the one depose of the Testators Madness at one Time and the other of his Madness at another.
       But in Contrary Depositions, those Witnesses are to be preferred, which depose that the Testator was of sound Memory: And if he Used to have Intervals of Reason and it be not certainly known, whether the Testament were made in or out of his fits of Lunacy; if no Argument of frenzy or folly can be collected by the Testament, it shall be presumed to be made during the Intermissions of the Lunacy, and so adjudged to be good.
       One foolish Word may frustrate the Validity of the whole.
       But if a Man who is of good and perfect Memory maketh his Will, and afterwards by the Visitation of God, he becomes of Unsound Memory (as every Man is for the most Part, before his death) this Act of God shall not be a Revocation.
       Dr. Groenvelt v. Dr. Burrell &c. Ld. Raymond 252.
       The Judge will not permit him to have a Copy of the Record if there was probable Cause of the Indictment.
       There must be Evidence of express Rancour and Malice, for Innocence is not sufficient where it contains scandal or the Party has been imprisoned.
       To be of sound and perfect Memory, is to have a reasonable Memory and Understanding to dispose of his Estate with Reason. 25.
       The Testators mind is the Testaments chief Essential.
       Regularly, the Law will presume every man to be of sound Mind and Memory, and will cast the Onus Probandi on him who asserts the Contrary; which is but consonant to the Presumption of Nature itself.

   MS: “Tiller”—a curious inadvertence.

   The foregoing notes, like those in the following paragraph, evidently relate to the case of Gardiner v. Purrington, in Suffolk Superior Court, Feb. term, 1763; see 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. 59–62. The single other case that has been dated among the further detached legal notes below, that of Swift v. Vose, was settled in the same session of the same court (Superior Court of Judicature, Minute Book 79). These circumstances would seem to warrant dating this whole series of legal notes as Feb.–March 1763.

   Benjamin Prat was appointed chief justice of New York in March 1761; JA describes in his Autobiography how the members of the bar “waited on” Prat to Dedham when he left for his new post.

   Fragmentary draft of an essay intended for publication; no printing has been found. The figures in the salutation are illegible and have been guessed at; they are possibly “20” and “30.” The first sentence, though much rewritten, is still defective.

   Sentence breaks off thus in the MS, and a short interval of space follows, but the ensuing paragraphs appear to belong to the same draft.

   The dash has been inserted in this sentence to clarify it.

   JA’s own copies of the works cited here and below in connection with the Edwards will case are among bis books in the Boston Public Library: John Godolphin, The Orphan’s Legacy: or, A Testamentary Abridgement...., 4th edn., London, 1701; Henry Swinburne, A Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills, 5th edn., London, 1728.

   Here and in the following paragraphs JA is again quoting from Godolphin’s Orphan’s Legacy.


Title: [Draft of an Essay on Agriculture in the Boston Gazette, 18 July 1763.]
From: Adams, John
To:

       Among the Votaries of Science, and the numerous Competitors for Fame and Estimation, Utility seems to have been remarkably neglected. The Utmost subtlety of Wit, and all the labours of pertinacious Industry have been employed by Mathematicians to demonstrate little, unimportant Geometrical Niceties, or in searching for Demonstrations of other Propositions, which there is not the least Probability will ever be found. Philosophers have employed the Advantages of great Genius, Learning, Leisure, and Expense, in examining and displaying before the World, the formation of Shells, and Pebbles, and Insects, in which Mankind are no more interested, than they would be in a laborious Disquisition into or sage Conjectures about the Number of sands in the Moon or of Particles in the solar system. Many learned Pens are employed, much Time spent and much Mischeif and Malevolence occasioned, by Divines about Predestination, the Original of Evil, and other abstruse subjects, that having been to no good Purpose under learned Examination so many Centuries may by this Time be well enough concluded unfathomable by the human Line.
       But all this while, Agriculture, the Nursing Mother of every Art, Science, Trade and Profession in civilized society, has been most ungratefully despized. It has been too much so in Europe, but infinitely more so in America, and perhaps not the least so in the Massachusetts Bay.
       With Advantages of Soil, and Climate, that few Countries under Heaven can presume to boast, will any intelligent Person believe, we do not raise our own Bread? Capable as we are of making easily and at a very small Expence many very wholesome, palatable, and delicate Liquors, will it be believed that we send abroad every Year, at a very great Expence, for others that are unwholesome, disagreable and indelicate?
       When it is in our Power, without any Difficulty, to raise many other Commodities, enough not only for our own Consumption, but for Exportation, will it be credited without surprize, that we send every Year, allmost the whole Globe over, to import such Commodities for our own Use?
       Yet all these Facts, incredible as they would seem to some worthy People, are indisputably true. But it cannot long continue to be true. The sources of our Wealth are dried away. And unless we seek for Resources, from Improvements in our Agriculture and an Augmentation of our Commerce, we must forego the Pleasure of Delicacies and ornaments, if not the Comfort of real Necessaries, both in Diet and Apparell.
       The Intention of this Paper then is to intreat my worthy Countrymen who have any Advantages of Leisure, Education, or Fortune to amuse themselves, at convenient opportunities, with the study, and the Practice too, of Husbandry. Nor let the narrow Circumstances of others who have Power to think and Act, discourage them from exerting their talents in the same Way, for

          haud facile emergunt, Quorum Virtutibus, obstat
          Res angusta Domi—

         with all its Truth and Pathos, has done more Mischief in the World by soothing the Pride and Indolence of Genius, than it ever did good, by prompting the rich and Powerfull to seek the solitary Haunts of Merit to amplify its sphere.
       In making Experiments, upon the Varieties of soils, and Manures, Grains and Grasses, Trees, and Bushes, and in your Enquiries into the Course and operation of Nature in the Production of these, you will find as much Employment for your Ingenuity, and as high a Gratification to a good Taste, as in any Business or Amusement you can chuse to pursue. The finest Productions of the Poet or the Painter, the statuary or the Architect, when they stand in Competition with the great and beautiful operations of Nature, in the Animal and Vegetable World, must be pronounced mean and despicable Baubles. The Mathematician, the Philosopher, the Chymist, and the Poet may here improve every Branch of their favorite sciences to the Advancement of their Health, the Increase of their Fortunes, and the Benefit of their Country.
       But if I might descend without Presumption or offence to Particulars, I would recommend both the Theory and Practice of Husbandry, to Divines and Physicians, more than to any other orders. For the former having more Leisure and better opportunities for study than any Men, will find this an agreable Relaxation from the arduous Labours of their Profession, an excellent Exercise for the Preservation of their Health, a means of supplying their families, with many Necessaries, at a trifling Expence that might otherwise cost them dear; and an excellent Example of Ingenuity, and Industry, removing many Temptations of Vice and Folly to the People under their Charge. Besides that their Acquaintance with the sciences subservient to Husbandry, will give them great Advantages, and in the Prosecution of such Enquiries, they will find their sentiments Exalted, their Ideas of divine Attributes displayed in the scenes of Nature, improved, and their Adoration of the great Creator and his Providence increased.
       Physicians have many Advantages not only of the World in general, but of other liberal Professions. The Principles of those sciences which subserve more immediately their peculiar occupation are at the same Time the Foundation of all real and rational Improvements in Husbandry. Necessitated as they are to much Travel and frequent Conversations, with many sorts of People, they might, for their own Amusement and Diversion, remark the Appearances of Nature, and store their Minds with many useful observations, which they might communicate among their Patients, without the least loss of Time or Interruption to the Duties of their Profession.
       These observations were occasioned by a late Piece in your Paper, signed H.P.—Who was the Author of that Piece, what were his Intentions, in Writing, whether to do good or to do Evil, and why he chose that manner of conveying his Thoughts to the public, it concerns not me to enquire. His professed design is not only good but important. There is no subject, less understood, or less considered perhaps, by Men in general, in this Province, even of the liberal Professions, than the Theory of Agriculture. And the Writer, who should direct with success the Attention of inquisitive Minds, to that Branch of Learning, whether he intended to befriend the public or to blow it into flames, would certainly be the Occasion of much public Utility.
       The particular subject which that Writer has chosen to recommend to the Consideration of the Province, promises, more fairly than any other, private Profit to the farmer and the Merchant, public Benefit to the Province, or perhaps Provinces in general, as well as to Great Britain, the Parent and the Protector of them all; whose society of Arts and &c. have discovered their kind concern for us, as well as their wise Care for their native Country, by offering Praemiums and Encouragements, for the Raising of this Commodity in New England as well as many other Ways. It is said that, “a Thousand Weight to an Acre is an ordinary Crop of Hemp.” And it has been said too, by good authority, that “an Acre of Land well tilled will produce a Tun Weight” and that “a Tun of it, is worth sixty Pounds lawful Money.” It is said also that “several hundred Thousand Pounds worth of foreign Hemp, are yearly expended in New England.” And it is said too, that “Hemp may be raised on dreigned Lands,” and that “if we can raise more than to supply our own Occasions we may send it Home.”
       It was not without good sense, then that Mr. Plough Jogger undertook to recommend this Plant to the Enquiries of the Curious, the Tryal of Husbandmen, the Encouragement of Statesmen and the Industry of the Laborious.

       Give me Leave therefore to do myself the Honour, to claim the Merit with my Countrymen and their Posterity, of seconding without the least sneer or Banter, Mr. Ploughjogger, in his Attempt to introduce and recommend this subject so important to the Consideration and Industry of my fellow Countrymen, the Inhabitants of New England in General, and of this Province in Particular.
       Hemp is a Plant of great Importance in the Arts and Manufactories, as it furnishes a great Variety of Threads, Cloths, and Cordage. It bears the nearest Resemblance and Analogy, to Flax, in its Nature, the Manner of its Cultivation, and the Purposes to which it serves. It must be annually sown afresh. It arises, in a little space of Time, into a tall, slim, shrub, with an hollow stem. It bears a small round seed, filled with a solid Pulp. Its Bark is a Tissue of Fibres, joined together with a soft substance, which easily rots it. There are two Kinds of Hemp, Male and Female. The Male only bears the seed, and from that seed arises both Male and Female.
       The seed should be sown in the Month of May, in a warm, sandy, rich soil. They begin to gather it about the first of August, the female being soonest Ripe. The Proofs of its Ripeness, are the alteration of the Colour of its leaves to Yellow, and its stalks to white. It must be pulled up by the Roots, and then bound in Bundles. The Male should stand 8 or 10 days in the Air, that the seed may ripen, which they afterwards get out, by cutting off the Heads and threshing or beating them. It must then be watered by laying it about a Week in a Pond, in order not to rot the Bark. I say a Pond, tho a Brook would be better if it did not give the Water an unwholesome Quality. After it is taken out and dryed the woody Part of the stem must be broken from the Bark which covers it, by crushing it in an Instrument called a Brake, beginning at the Roots. After it has been sufficiently broken, the small shivers must be swingled out, as we swingle Flax. When this is done it must be beat on a Block or in a Trough, with an Hammer or with Beetles, till it becomes soft and Pliable. When it has been well beaten, it must be heckled, or passed thro a toothed Instrument, like the Clothiers Comb, to seperate the shorter Tow, from that which is fit to be spun.
       This is a very short Answer to Mr. Plough Joggers Inquiries, but if he or any other Person has a Curiosity to see a more particular Account of this Plant, (and give me leave to tell him and them there is not an Herb from the Cedar in Lebanon, to the Hyssop in the Wall, that can be studied to more Advantage) let them consult the Compleat Body of Husbandry, Chambers’s Dictionary, the Praeceptor and Nature delineated.

       To conclude Let the World in general consider, that the Earth, and the seas and the Air, are to furnish all Animals, with food and Raiment; that mere animal strength, which is common to Beasts and Men, is not sufficient to avail us of any considerable Part of the bountiful Provision of Nature; that our Understandings, as well as our Arms and feet, must be employed in this service. And Let the few who have been distinguished by greater intellectual Abilities than Mankind in general, consider, that Nature intended them for Leaders of Industry. Let them be cautious of certain Airs of Wisdom and superiority by which some Gentlemen of real sense and Learning, and Public spirit, giving offence to the common People, have in some Measure defeated their own benevolent Intentions. Let them not be too sparing of their Application or Expence, lest failing of visible Profit and success they expose themselves to Ridicule and rational Husbandry itself to Disgrace among the common People. Human Nature is not so stupid or so abandoned, as many worthy men imagine, and even the common People, if their peculiar Customs and Modes of thinking are a little studied, are not so ungrateful, or untractible, but that their Labours may be conducted, by the Genius and Experience of a few, to very great and useful Purposes. U.


Title: [July 1763]
From: Adams, John
To:

      Draft of an Essay on Agriculture in the Boston Gazette, 18 July 1763.

       Among the Votaries of Science, and the numerous Competitors for Fame and Estimation, Utility seems to have been remarkably neglected. The Utmost subtlety of Wit, and all the labours of pertinacious Industry have been employed by Mathematicians to demonstrate little, unimportant Geometrical Niceties, or in searching for Demonstrations of other Propositions, which there is not the least Probability will ever be found. Philosophers have employed the Advantages of great Genius, Learning, Leisure, and Expense, in examining and displaying before the World, the formation of Shells, and Pebbles, and Insects, in which Mankind are no more interested, than they would be in a laborious Disquisition into or sage Conjectures about the Number of sands in the Moon or of Particles in the solar system. Many learned Pens are employed, much Time spent and much Mischeif and Malevolence occasioned, by Divines about Predestination, the Original of Evil, and other abstruse subjects, that having been to no good Purpose under learned Examination so many Centuries may by this Time be well enough concluded unfathomable by the human Line.
       But all this while, Agriculture, the Nursing Mother of every Art, Science, Trade and Profession in civilized society, has been most ungratefully despized. It has been too much so in Europe, but infinitely more so in America, and perhaps not the least so in the Massachusetts Bay.
       With Advantages of Soil, and Climate, that few Countries under Heaven can presume to boast, will any intelligent Person believe, we do not raise our own Bread? Capable as we are of making easily and at a very small Expence many very wholesome, palatable, and delicate Liquors, will it be believed that we send abroad every Year, at a very great Expence, for others that are unwholesome, disagreable and indelicate?
       When it is in our Power, without any Difficulty, to raise many other Commodities, enough not only for our own Consumption, but for Exportation, will it be credited without surprize, that we send every Year, allmost the whole Globe over, to import such Commodities for our own Use?
       Yet all these Facts, incredible as they would seem to some worthy People, are indisputably true. But it cannot long continue to be true. The sources of our Wealth are dried away. And unless we seek for Resources, from Improvements in our Agriculture and an Augmentation of our Commerce, we must forego the Pleasure of Delicacies and ornaments, if not the Comfort of real Necessaries, both in Diet and Apparell.
       The Intention of this Paper then is to intreat my worthy Countrymen who have any Advantages of Leisure, Education, or Fortune to amuse themselves, at convenient opportunities, with the study, and the Practice too, of Husbandry. Nor let the narrow Circumstances of others who have Power to think and Act, discourage them from exerting their talents in the same Way, for

          haud facile emergunt, Quorum Virtutibus, obstat
          Res angusta Domi—

         with all its Truth and Pathos, has done more Mischief in the World by soothing the Pride and Indolence of Genius, than it ever did good, by prompting the rich and Powerfull to seek the solitary Haunts of Merit to amplify its sphere.
       In making Experiments, upon the Varieties of soils, and Manures, Grains and Grasses, Trees, and Bushes, and in your Enquiries into the Course and operation of Nature in the Production of these, you will find as much Employment for your Ingenuity, and as high a Gratification to a good Taste, as in any Business or Amusement you can chuse to pursue. The finest Productions of the Poet or the Painter, the statuary or the Architect, when they stand in Competition with the great and beautiful operations of Nature, in the Animal and Vegetable World, must be pronounced mean and despicable Baubles. The Mathematician, the Philosopher, the Chymist, and the Poet may here improve every Branch of their favorite sciences to the Advancement of their Health, the Increase of their Fortunes, and the Benefit of their Country.
       But if I might descend without Presumption or offence to Particulars, I would recommend both the Theory and Practice of Husbandry, to Divines and Physicians, more than to any other orders. For the former having more Leisure and better opportunities for study than any Men, will find this an agreable Relaxation from the arduous Labours of their Profession, an excellent Exercise for the Preservation of their Health, a means of supplying their families, with many Necessaries, at a trifling Expence that might otherwise cost them dear; and an excellent Example of Ingenuity, and Industry, removing many Temptations of Vice and Folly to the People under their Charge. Besides that their Acquaintance with the sciences subservient to Husbandry, will give them great Advantages, and in the Prosecution of such Enquiries, they will find their sentiments Exalted, their Ideas of divine Attributes displayed in the scenes of Nature, improved, and their Adoration of the great Creator and his Providence increased.
       Physicians have many Advantages not only of the World in general, but of other liberal Professions. The Principles of those sciences which subserve more immediately their peculiar occupation are at the same Time the Foundation of all real and rational Improvements in Husbandry. Necessitated as they are to much Travel and frequent Conversations, with many sorts of People, they might, for their own Amusement and Diversion, remark the Appearances of Nature, and store their Minds with many useful observations, which they might communicate among their Patients, without the least loss of Time or Interruption to the Duties of their Profession.
       These observations were occasioned by a late Piece in your Paper, signed H.P.—Who was the Author of that Piece, what were his Intentions, in Writing, whether to do good or to do Evil, and why he chose that manner of conveying his Thoughts to the public, it concerns not me to enquire. His professed design is not only good but important. There is no subject, less understood, or less considered perhaps, by Men in general, in this Province, even of the liberal Professions, than the Theory of Agriculture. And the Writer, who should direct with success the Attention of inquisitive Minds, to that Branch of Learning, whether he intended to befriend the public or to blow it into flames, would certainly be the Occasion of much public Utility.
       The particular subject which that Writer has chosen to recommend to the Consideration of the Province, promises, more fairly than any other, private Profit to the farmer and the Merchant, public Benefit to the Province, or perhaps Provinces in general, as well as to Great Britain, the Parent and the Protector of them all; whose society of Arts and &c. have discovered their kind concern for us, as well as their wise Care for their native Country, by offering Praemiums and Encouragements, for the Raising of this Commodity in New England as well as many other Ways. It is said that, “a Thousand Weight to an Acre is an ordinary Crop of Hemp.” And it has been said too, by good authority, that “an Acre of Land well tilled will produce a Tun Weight” and that “a Tun of it, is worth sixty Pounds lawful Money.” It is said also that “several hundred Thousand Pounds worth of foreign Hemp, are yearly expended in New England.” And it is said too, that “Hemp may be raised on dreigned Lands,” and that “if we can raise more than to supply our own Occasions we may send it Home.”
       It was not without good sense, then that Mr. Plough Jogger undertook to recommend this Plant to the Enquiries of the Curious, the Tryal of Husbandmen, the Encouragement of Statesmen and the Industry of the Laborious.

       Give me Leave therefore to do myself the Honour, to claim the Merit with my Countrymen and their Posterity, of seconding without the least sneer or Banter, Mr. Ploughjogger, in his Attempt to introduce and recommend this subject so important to the Consideration and Industry of my fellow Countrymen, the Inhabitants of New England in General, and of this Province in Particular.
       Hemp is a Plant of great Importance in the Arts and Manufactories, as it furnishes a great Variety of Threads, Cloths, and Cordage. It bears the nearest Resemblance and Analogy, to Flax, in its Nature, the Manner of its Cultivation, and the Purposes to which it serves. It must be annually sown afresh. It arises, in a little space of Time, into a tall, slim, shrub, with an hollow stem. It bears a small round seed, filled with a solid Pulp. Its Bark is a Tissue of Fibres, joined together with a soft substance, which easily rots it. There are two Kinds of Hemp, Male and Female. The Male only bears the seed, and from that seed arises both Male and Female.
       The seed should be sown in the Month of May, in a warm, sandy, rich soil. They begin to gather it about the first of August, the female being soonest Ripe. The Proofs of its Ripeness, are the alteration of the Colour of its leaves to Yellow, and its stalks to white. It must be pulled up by the Roots, and then bound in Bundles. The Male should stand 8 or 10 days in the Air, that the seed may ripen, which they afterwards get out, by cutting off the Heads and threshing or beating them. It must then be watered by laying it about a Week in a Pond, in order not to rot the Bark. I say a Pond, tho a Brook would be better if it did not give the Water an unwholesome Quality. After it is taken out and dryed the woody Part of the stem must be broken from the Bark which covers it, by crushing it in an Instrument called a Brake, beginning at the Roots. After it has been sufficiently broken, the small shivers must be swingled out, as we swingle Flax. When this is done it must be beat on a Block or in a Trough, with an Hammer or with Beetles, till it becomes soft and Pliable. When it has been well beaten, it must be heckled, or passed thro a toothed Instrument, like the Clothiers Comb, to seperate the shorter Tow, from that which is fit to be spun.
       This is a very short Answer to Mr. Plough Joggers Inquiries, but if he or any other Person has a Curiosity to see a more particular Account of this Plant, (and give me leave to tell him and them there is not an Herb from the Cedar in Lebanon, to the Hyssop in the Wall, that can be studied to more Advantage) let them consult the Compleat Body of Husbandry, Chambers’s Dictionary, the Praeceptor and Nature delineated.

       To conclude Let the World in general consider, that the Earth, and the seas and the Air, are to furnish all Animals, with food and Raiment; that mere animal strength, which is common to Beasts and Men, is not sufficient to avail us of any considerable Part of the bountiful Provision of Nature; that our Understandings, as well as our Arms and feet, must be employed in this service. And Let the few who have been distinguished by greater intellectual Abilities than Mankind in general, consider, that Nature intended them for Leaders of Industry. Let them be cautious of certain Airs of Wisdom and superiority by which some Gentlemen of real sense and Learning, and Public spirit, giving offence to the common People, have in some Measure defeated their own benevolent Intentions. Let them not be too sparing of their Application or Expence, lest failing of visible Profit and success they expose themselves to Ridicule and rational Husbandry itself to Disgrace among the common People. Human Nature is not so stupid or so abandoned, as many worthy men imagine, and even the common People, if their peculiar Customs and Modes of thinking are a little studied, are not so ungrateful, or untractible, but that their Labours may be conducted, by the Genius and Experience of a few, to very great and useful Purposes. U.

   This draft appears in the middle of D/JA/9, between entries dated in Feb. 1763, but it could not have been written before late June since it was evoked by a piece signed “Humphrey Ploughjogger” in the Boston Evening-Post, 20 June 1763. There is the strongest ground for believing that JA himself wrote this and the other Ploughjogger pieces that appeared in that paper this year, namely his own testimony, and that, accordingly, he was carrying on a dialogue with himself in the two leading Boston papers (though the draft itself shows that he first intended the present essay for the Evening Post rather than the Boston Gazette, where it eventually appeared). The question of his authorship of Ploughjogger’s mildly facetious essays, all of them written in rustic dialect and phonetic spelling anticipating the school of Artemus Ward, cannot and need not be gone into here, but see JA to CA, 13 Feb. 1792 (MHi), and also a list of JA’s writings compiled by his nephew William Smith Shaw, in the CFA Miscellany (Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 327).

   The draft as it stands in the Diary is very rough and has a number of additions at the end, some of them keyed into the text by asterisks and some not. It could hardly have been rationalized at all if a printed text had not been found which shows the order of the material as JA finally wished it. The present text follows that final order, but only a few of the many differences in phrasing between the draft and the newspaper version have been noted.

   In the newspaper text JA added at this point: “without enquiring into the Truth of the Observation, that the Lawyers among us, are the most curious in Husbandry, which, if true, is unnatural and accidental.”

   The newspaper text reads, instead: “These Reflections have been occasion’d, by a late Piece in the Evening-Post, signed Humphrey Ploughjogger.” The piece referred to appeared in the issue of 20 June and begins: “I arnt book larnt enuff, to rite so polytly, as the great gentlefolks, that rite in the News-Papers, about Pollyticks. I think it is pitty, they should know how to rite so well, saving they made better use ont. And that they might do, if they would rite about something else.” Ploughjogger then suggests a fresh topic. “What I’me ater is, to get some great larnt gentleman, who has been to Old Ingland, and knows how they raise Hemp there, and can read books about it, and understand urn, to print in your News, some direckshon, about it, that we may go to trying, for we cant afford to run venters, by working, may be, a month and then have nothing come of it for want of working right.”

   Bracketed words supplied from the newspaper text for a blank in MS.