“Some low dirty arts made use of privately”

Soon after Thomas Cushing read James Warren’s letter sneering at him and Robert Treat Paine, as discussed back here, he received more bad news from Massachusetts.

On 15 Dec 1775 the assembly, with Warren presiding as speaker, listed its choice of “Five Gentlemen to represent this Colony in the Continental Congress…until the last Day of December next”:

the Hon. John Hancock, Esq; Hon. Samuel Adams, Esq; Hon. John Adams, Esq; Hon. Robert Treat Payne, Esq; and Elbridge Gerry, Esq

The Council approved that choice on 18 Jan 1776.

Cushing was out of the Congress, replaced by Gerry of Marblehead, a more aggressive Patriot and an ally of the Adamses. That tipped the balance of Massachusetts’s delegation from moderate to radical for the coming year.

Cushing returned to Massachusetts and took up duties as a member of the Council, then meeting in the Edmund Fowle house in Watertown. He wrote two letters to Paine in February:

At the Election of Delegates for the Congress for the year 1776, we were both struck at. I must refer you to Mr. Hancock for a state of the Votes upon this occasion as I sent them to him; Endeavors have been used to hurt us both in our Influence at Court, by those whom I need not mention as their names & characters are well known to you; It seems we are not men to suit their Turn. We are not subservient enough, we do not pay an implicit obedience to their Sovereign Dictates. . . .

I am sinsible attempts were made to dismiss you as a Delegate. I could never learn the particular objections that were urged against you. The ostensible reason was that it was best to make some alteration annually at least of two of the members; with respect to me, they urged, I should be wanted in the County of Suffolk & that my presence there could not be dispensed with; with respect to you It was said you was appointed a judge of the Superior Court & it was necessary you should be in the province; however with respect to both of us there were, as I am Informed, some low dirty arts made use of privately with some of the new members insinuating that we were timid cautious irresolute & so not fit to answer their purpose in the present day. However I have endeavoured to vindicate your Character & have said what I thought was just & proper with respect to your Conduct at the Congress, & you may depend upon the Continuance of my Freindship.

Cushing’s political career was far from over. He still wielded considerable power in Massachusetts as a leader on the Council, and he was still allied to the province’s most popular politician.

TOMORROW: The words of Chairman Hancock.