“Once cut for the Simples, but never cured”?

I can easily recognize some of the Revolutionary Bostonians being lampooned as “Characters” in a supposed “Tragi-comic Farce” announced in the 8 May 1770 Nova Scotia Chronicle, but not others.

For example:

Samuel Plunder, a Senator, formerly a Receiver of the Tribute of the Parish, Master of the black Art, can cheat without a Mask of Honesty, supported by Contribution, and the Votes of a Mobb.

That’s Samuel Adams, whom political opponents often criticized for his performance as a tax collector in the early 1760s.

And “Charles Spiritual, Guide and Protector of the Junto,” surely meant the Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncy, minister of the First Meeting and a close ally of the Boston Whigs.

But does that make “Samuel Tubb, private Chaplain to Simple John,” the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper, minister of the Brattle Street Meeting that included John Hancock, already called “John Dupe”?

That seems almost certain, but right after “Samuel Tubb” comes “John Simple, a mighty Coxcomb, very important and bigg with Nothing, well known for the Drubbings he has received.” So is “Simple John” in one sentence different from “John Simple” in the next? This “John Simple” doesn’t resemble Hancock, but who is he?

Speaking of Hancock, that “John Dupe” is called “remarkably melancholy on his Loss of Lady Beaver.” A couple of months earlier, on 22 February, the printer John Boyle wrote in his journal:

Married, Mr. Henderson Inches, Merchant, to Miss Sally Jackson, Daugh. Of Joseph Jackson, Esq.—Mr. John Hancock hath paid his addresses to Miss Jackson for about ten years past, but has lately sent her a Letter of Dismission.

So was Sarah Jackson (1739–1771), shown above, courtesy of the Huntington) “Lady Beaver”? If so, does that let us interpret this entry among the characters:

Alderman Hemp, Son of the transported Cobler, well known for his great Judgment as a Politician, Chief of the grand Committee, by his wond’rous Capacity has cut off John Dupe’s Pretensions to Miss Beaver.

Henderson Inches (1726–1780) was a selectman (“Alderman”?) and active on merchants’ committees. He was born in Dunkeld, Scotland, and his father, Thomas Inches, brought the family to Boston when Henderson was a child. The town meeting voted to make Thomas Inches a sealer of leather for several years in the 1730s, so was he indeed involved in making shoes? But what might “transported” have meant? And why the name “Hemp,” which first made me think of ropemaker and selectman Benjamin Austin?

And as for profiles like these:

Edward Shallow, Friend and Neighbour to Squire Lemon, once cut for the Simples, but never cured, Carrier of Intelligence, full freight’d with Absurdities.

William the Gunner, or the one ey’d Philosopher, Brother to Shallow, formerly kept a chop House in one of the Danish Islands.

William Homer, Esq; the Jew, famous for his Treatise on Cuckoldom, well known for his Humanity and publick Spirit.

I’m at a loss.

TOMORROW: Did John Mein write this article?

“Arms (deliver’d by the Inhabitants in April 1775)”

On 27 Apr 1775, Boston’s selectmen and designated committee members delivered to the royal governor, Gen. Thomas Gage, “the return made to them by the constables of the town relative to the delivery of arms in their respective wards.”

In other words, the count of how many weapons people had turned over to town officials in exchange for being allowed to leave the besieged town.

The next day, one member of that committee, former selectman Henderson Inches, left Boston and went to where the Massachusetts committee of safety was meeting in Cambridge. He brought the same data:

Mr. Henderson Inches, who left Boston this day, attended, and informed the committee, that the inhabitants of Boston had agreed with the general, to have liberty to leave Boston with their effects, provided that they lodged their arms with the selectmen of that town, to be by them kept during the present dispute, and that, agreeably to said agreement, the inhabitants had, on yesterday, lodged 1778 fire-arms, 634 pistols, 973 bayonets, and 38 blunderbusses, with their selectmen.

In 1900, Boston published an inventory of these weapons with the owners’ names attached (and somewhat different figures from Inches’s). The date on this record is 24 April, the first full day after the town voted to start collecting weapons, but that process took three days at least. It’s notable that this count of weapons “in the Town House” includes guns owned by the town itself. 

Recently Caitlin G. DeAngelis reported finding another inventory of “Arms (deliver’d by the Inhabitants in April 1775) in the Town House Chambers,” dated 1 March 1776, as the British military was slowly preparing to depart. (That process sped up considerably a few days later.) This list comes from Francis Green’s file submitted to the Loyalists Commission, preserved in the British National Archives, series AO 13 (Massachusetts). The photo above from DeAngelis shows the totals, including a note that most of the weapons were in poor repair.

Over the last twenty years I’ve mentioned the published list in a few history forums, hinting that it might provide useful data for a study of gun ownership in occupied Boston. The Green list, which differs slightly in what’s counted and in the totals, could add to that data. No one’s taken up that challenge so far.

The publications that discuss Gage’s demand that Bostonians lodge their firearms with the town are by and large those arguing that a significant factor in the American Revolution was the royal government’s attempts to confiscate individuals’ guns, with implications for modern political conflicts.

Now I’ve written a book about the competition between Gage’s government and the Patriot underground for artillery pieces in 1774 and 1775. I argue that was a precipitating factor in how the war began. But I don’t see evidence for a similar conflict over muskets, pistols, and other individually owned and operated weapons.

Gen. Gage arrived in Boston in May 1774. The “Powder Alarm” in September made both sides shift to military preparations. Samuel Dyer tried to assassinate two British officers with pistols in October. A small British army squad and the New Hampshire militia exchanged fire at Fort William and Mary in December. And at no time before 19 April 1775 did Gage try to confiscate people’s muskets or pistols.

Only after the war had started, the redcoats had suffered hundreds of casualties, and thousands of militiamen were besieging his base did Gen. Gage seek to disarm the civilians all around him. Until then, he’d respected private property and the province’s militia law. And even after he took this step to protect his soldiers from an armed uprising, Gage asked elected town officials to collect and store the weapons, not his army or appointees. This was a wartime measure, not a peacetime policy.

COMING UP: The bargain collapses.

“Upon the inhabitants in general lodging their arms in Faneuil-hall”

On 22 Apr 1775, with the Massachusetts militia besieging the king’s soldiers inside Boston, many townspeople wanted to get out of the way.

Gen. Thomas Gage, army commander and royal governor, had his own priorities: forestalling any citizen uprising against those soldiers.

Gage had approached Boston’s selectmen to start discussions on avoiding discontent and unrest. Those officials seized the opening to talk about letting people leave town.

In addition to five of the seven selectmen (John Hancock and Oliver Wendell had left Boston earlier in the month before fighting broke out), the town appointed four men to communicate with the governor. They were all established businessmen with political experience:

• James Bowdoin, a member of the Council, firm Whig, and, therefore, longtime headache for Govs. Francis Bernard and Thomas Hutchinson. He was, however, wealthy and learned, thus undeniably respectable. Also, though Bowdoin might excuse violence after the fact, he didn’t encourage it beforehand.
• Ezekiel Goldthwait (shown above), insurance broker, registrar of deeds, and veteran of other political offices, including Boston town clerk. While calling himself a Whig, Goldthwait was more centrist than most in that party and maintained friendly relations with the royal governors. Some people even called him a Tory.
• Henderson Inches, a Boston selectman voted out earlier in the decade for not pushing as hard on the Massacre orations as the voting public wanted, but still in the Whig party.
• Edward Payne, wounded in the Boston Massacre while standing peacefully on his front steps—but he chose not to sue about it. 
• Alexander Hill, a warden and fireward often chosen to audit the town’s accounts. Though he had been put on the town’s committee of correspondence, Hill was rarely involved in protests and debates over imperial issues.

In sum, these were gentlemen whom the governor couldn’t dismiss or treat with suspicion.

It’s a sign of the emergency situation that the town met on Sunday, 23 April. Indeed, Hill’s job as warden had been to ensure that people didn’t conduct business on the Sabbath. But these were desperate times.

The record published in the 26 June Boston Gazette continued:

Sabbath morning ten o’clock, April 23, 1775.

The town met according to adjournment.

The said committee made a verbal report. Whereupon it was desired that the committee would withdraw and reduce their report to writing, which was accordingly done, and is as follows, viz.

The committee appointed by the town to wait upon his excellency General Gage, with a copy of the two votes passed by the town yesterday in the afternoon; report, that they being read to him by the committee, and a long conference had with him upon the subject matter contained in the said votes, his excellency finally gave for answer, that upon the inhabitants in general lodging their arms in Faneuil-hall, or any other convenient place, under the care of the Selectmen, marked with the names of the respective owners, that all such inhabitants as are inclined may depart from the town, with their family’s and effects; and those who remain may depend upon his protection. And that the arms aforesaid at a suitable time would be return’d to the owners.

Most men in Boston, as in other towns, were required by law to drill with the militia and therefore owned firelocks. Gen. Gage didn’t want those guns used against his soldiers. He also didn’t want people to take their weapons out of town, join the besieging force, or arm fighters in that force.

On the other hand, the province had just gone through several months of Patriots complaining that they had the right—indeed, the obligation—to amass weapons, gunpowder, and other military supplies. Bostonians couldn’t participate much in that arming of the countryside, being under army occupation, but they supported it. Would they give up their means of self-defense?

TOMORROW: The townspeople’s expectations?

Boston’s Town Meeting on the Fourth Day of the War

As quoted yesterday, on 3 Apr 1775 the Boston town meeting voted to continue their work by adjournment on 17 April.

By that date, town clerk William Cooper had slipped out of town with the official records. Also unavailable were Samuel Adams, chosen moderator of that meeting, and selectman John Hancock.

I’ve found no record of a notice that Bostonians would not meet that day, nor indication that they tried. The following day, Gen. Thomas Gage set his plan for the Concord expedition in motion, and the day after that the province was at war.

The first indication of another town meeting appeared in Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy, newly moved to Worcester, on 3 May. After a detailed account of the first day of fighting, that paper stated:

It is now thirteen days since Boston was entirely shut up. The Sunday after the battle there were but two or three religious assemblies that met in Boston. In the Forenoon there was a town meeting, at which a Committee, consisting of the Select-Man, were chosen to wait upon General Gage, in order to get permission for the inhabitants to remove out of town with their effects.

A more detailed and apparently more accurate account appeared in the Boston Gazette on 26 June. This report used the legal formula of Boston’s other town meetings, and it’s clear the selectmen were involved, so this appears to meet all the criteria to be an official meeting.

Boston, ff. At a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston legally warned, on Saturday the Twenty second day of April, A. D. 1775.

The Hon. JAMES BOWDOIN, Esq [shown above]; was chosen Moderator.

The Moderator informed the town that the present meeting was in consequence of an interview between his excellency General Gage and the Selectmen, at his desire, and mentioned the substance of the conversation that pass’d; and also that the Selectmen with the advice and assistance of a number of gentlemen had prepared several votes, which they thought it might be proper for the town to pass—And which in conjunction with the assurances that had been given to his excellency by the selectmen, they apprehended from the interview aforesaid, would be satisfactory to his excellency——

Whereupon,
The Hon. James Bowdoin, Esq; Ezekiel Goldthwait, Esq; Mr. Henderson Inches, Mr. Edward Paine, Mr. Alexander Hill, together with the selectmen, viz. John Scollay, Esq; Mr. Timothy Newell, Mr. Samuel Austin, Thomas Marshall, Esq; & Mr. John Pitts, were appointed a committee to consider of this important matter, and were desired to report as soon as may be.

The said Committee made report, and after some debate, the two following votes passed unanimously, viz.

His excellency General Gage in an interview with the selectmen, having represented that there was a large body of men in arms assembled in the neighbourhood of this town, with hostile intentions against his majesty’s troops stationed here, and that in case the troops should be attacked by them, and the attack should be aided by the inhabitants of the town, it might issue in very unhappy consequences to the town.

For prevention whereof, his excellency assured the selectmen, that whatever might be the event of the attack, he would take effectual care, that the troops should do no damage, nor commit any act of violence in the town; but that the lives and properties of the inhabitants should be protected and secured, if the inhabitants behaved peaceably; and the selectmen in behalf of the town engaged for the peaceable behaviour of the inhabitants accordingly:

In confirmation of which engagement—Voted,
That as the town have behaved peaceably towards the troops hitherto, they hereby engage to continue to do so; and the peace officers, and all other town officers, are enjoined, and the magistrates, and all persons of influence in the town, are earnestly requested to exert their utmost endeavors to preserve the peace of the town:

The Town at the same time relying on the assurances of his excellency, that no insult, violence or damage shall be done to the persons or property of the inhabitants, either by the troops or the kings Ships, whatever may be the event of the attack his excellency seems to apprehend; but of which attack we have no knowledge or information whatever, as all communication between the town and country has been interrupted by his excellency’s order, ever since the collection of the body aforesaid.

Whereas the communication between this town and the country both by land and by water is at present stop’d by order of his excellency General Gage, and the inhabitants cannot be supplied with provisions, fuel and other necessaries of life; by which means the sick and all invalids must suffer greatly, and immediately; and the inhabitants in general be distress’d, especially such (which is by much the greatest part) as have not had the means of laying in a stock of provisions, but depend for daily supplies from the country for their daily support, and may be in danger of perishing, unless the communication be opened:

Therefore, Resolved,
That a committee be appointed to wait on his excellency General Gage, to represent to him the state of the town in this regard, and to remind his excellency of his declarations in answer to addresses made to him when the works on the neck were erecting, viz. “That he had no intention of stopping up the avenue to the Town, or of obstructing the inhabitants or any of the country people coming in or going out of the town as usual;” that “he had no intention to prevent the free egress and regress, of any person to and from the town, or of reducing it to the state of a garrison; that he could not possibly intercept the intercourse between the town and country;” that “it is his duty and interest to encourage it; and it is as much inconsistent with his duty and interest to form the strange scheme of reducing the inhabitants to a state of humiliation and vassalage, by stopping their supplies,”—

Also, to represent to him, that in consequence of these repeated assurances of his excellency, the fears and apprehensions of the inhabitants, had generally subsided, and many persons who had determined to remove with their effects, have remain’d in town, whilst others largely concern’d in navigation, had introduced many valuable goods, in full confidence of the promised security:

That the Town think his Excellency incapable of acting on principles inconsistent with honor, justice and humanity, and therefore that they desire his excellency will please to give orders for opening the communication, not only for bringing provisions into the town, but also, that the inhabitants, such of them as incline, may retire from the town with their effects without molestation.

The same Committee were appointed to wait upon the General with the foregoing votes.

Then the meeting was adjourned to Sabbath morning, ten o’clock.

The town was reminding Gen. Gage of all the promises he’d made in the preceding months of keeping life as normal as possible. Of course, now there was a besieging army outside (“a large body of men in arms assembled in the neighbourhood”). How would the general respond?

TOMORROW: Sunday meeting.

William Molineux and “the legality of the proceedings”

On the morning of 18 Jan 1770, Boston’s Whigs thought that Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson’s sons, Thomas, Jr., and Elisha, had agreed to put their inventory of imported tea into the hands of the committee enforcing the non-importation boycott.

That would be a big win for the radicals who were pushing non-importation as a way to oppose the Townshend duties. It looked like their big public meeting in Faneuil Hall had worked.

But then the Hutchinsons shifted. According to an anonymous Crown informant, “This morning Trucks were sent down by the committee to the Governors house to bring up the Tea, but the sons by this time had alter’d their mind and refused delivering it up.”

Back in Faneuil Hall, the Whigs were continuing the previous day’s meeting by adjournment—“and the number was larger than before,” the Boston Gazette claimed. Around noon they heard about the Hutchinsons’ new stance. Other merchants were already defying the committee. This trend had to be stopped.

The radical leader William Molineux read a motion condemning the Hutchinsons and other merchants defying the boycott:

by this their unjustifiable and perfidious conduct, [they] have forfeited all confidence, esteem and favour, from the Merchants & others their fellow-citizens and countrymen,…[and] have acted in conjunction with placemen, pensioners, and other tools and dependants, upon a firm and settled plan to entail upon the present and future generations, BONDAGE, MISERY and RUIN.

The “Body of the Trade” approved that language unanimously.

The meeting then turned to appointing a committee to “orderly and decently repair” to those importers’ shops, read the resolution, and demand that they turn over their goods. And things got heated.

In 1770 Josiah Quincy, Jr. (shown above), was a rising young lawyer from Braintree. Just three months before, he  had married Abigail Phillips, daughter of the meeting moderator, William Phillips. Quincy was usually a strong advocate for Whig policy. But this afternoon he saw danger. According to that Crown informant:

[Quincy] stood up and declared that their going in a Body to the Lieut. Governors house to demand the Goods from his Sons was an Act of high treason and that the Hutchinsons whose name they had long had reason to dread had laid this trap in order to ensnare them.

Confronting the Hutchinsons at their father’s house was legally different from how Molineux had led men to the shop of William Jackson the day before, Quincy warned. Lt. Gov. Hutchinson was now the acting governor, and thus the representative of the king in Massachusetts. Confronting him in a crowd was tantamount to open rebellion against the Crown.

Other men at the meeting disagreed:

M[olineu]x and [Samuel] Adams insisted on the legality of the proceedings: the former observing that he could compare the Signers of the Non Importation agreement to nothing but a flock of sheep, six of whom had broke out of the fold, and that he was sorry to say that unless these were brought back all the rest were ready to follow their example, that they seem’d to wish for an opportunity—

[Town clerk William] Cooper next spoke as follows, that the people of New England had all along taken the lead, and should they now give up their name which had hitherto been highly esteem’d, not only throughout the Colonies but throughout the whole world, would be for ever detested & abhorred—

Quincy still persisted in his opinion, and offered to support what he had said by the best authorities in the Law—also appealing to Justice [Richard] Dana & Mr. [James] Otis; the former gave no answer, the latter made a speech upon the occasion, but no body could understand from what he said whether he condemned or approved of the measure—

M[olineu]x at last seem’d to give up the point of Law but insisted be that as it would, that as there was no other way of getting redress they ought therefore to prosecute their scheme—

Doctor [Thomas] Young next spoke to the follg. effect, that such people as counteracted the general measures should be depriv’d of existence, and that it was high time for the People to take the Govermt. into their own hands, to whom it properly belong’d.

The most aggressive Whigs thus insisted on confronting the Hutchinsons in the name of the people, whatever the legal niceties. But they still needed support from wealthy merchants and officials to look as respectable as possible. And those gentlemen were wary.

Quincy’s speech seem’d to alarm almost every person of the meeting insomuch that it was with the utmost difficulty they could get any person to serve on the committee to go to the Lt. Governors house—several persons were voted by the populace but declined acting: amongst these were John Hancock and Henderson Inches. Philips and Otis also at first refused but were afterwards perswaded to accept—

M[olineu]x who little expected this opposition, and finding matters likely to go against him, stood up upon a Bench an exclaim’d to the following effect, is this the way I am to be serv’d; I am surprised, greatly surprised to see you Gent. so backward, for my part I could spend the last Drop of my blood to save the liberties of my Country; but as I find those very People who were bound to support me now about forsaking me, I will no more interest myself with your Affairs; and jump’d down from the Bench on which he stood seemingly in a violent aggitation declaring he would go home, and he did not know what might be the consequences, insinuating that he would cut his throat:

Molineux had trouble distinguishing his own interests from the public good. This made him throw himself into what he thought were worthwhile causes. It also meant he took any opposition or obstacle to those causes as personal affronts, as on this afternoon. And he was apparently willing to suggest he might kill himself.

TOMORROW: Everybody calm down.

“Otis indulged himself in all his Airs”

So far I’ve been discussing the affray between Customs official John Robinson and Boston politician James Otis, Jr., in the context of larger politics—the non-importation campaign in Boston, and the leaks of royal government documents from London.

But personal factors might have been even more important in how events unfolded. For those I turn to the diary of John Adams.

The day after Robinson and Otis had their private conversation over coffee was Sunday, 3 Sept 1769, and Adams wrote:

Heard Dr. [Samuel] Cooper in the forenoon, Mr. [Judah?] Champion of Connecticutt in the Afternoon and Mr. [Ebenezer] Pemberton in the Evening at the Charity Lecture.

Spent the Remainder of the Evening and supped with Mr. Otis, in Company with Mr. [Samuel] Adams, Mr. Wm. Davis, and Mr. Jno. Gill. The Evening spent in preparing for the Next Days Newspaper—a curious Employment. Cooking up Paragraphs, Articles, Occurences, &c.—working the political Engine!

Otis talks all. He grows the most talkative Man alive. No other Gentleman in Company can find a Space to put in a Word—as Dr. Swift expressed it, he leaves no Elbow Room. There is much Sense, Knowledge, Spirit and Humour in his Conversation. But he grows narrative, like an old Man. Abounds with Stories.

The next day, Monday, Adams and his social club met at the home of Dr. James Pecker (1724-1794). This club often talked about politics, though Pecker was a mild Loyalist. Adams wrote:

Spent the Evening at Dr. Peckers, with the Clubb. Mr. Otis introduced a Stranger, a Gentleman from Georgia, recommended to him by the late Speaker of the House in that Province.

Otis indulged himself in all his Airs. Attacked the Aldermen, [Henderson] Inches and [Samuel] Pemberton, for not calling a Town meeting to consider the Letters of the Governor, General, Commodore, Commissioners, Collector, Comptroller &c.— charged them with Timidity, Haughtiness, Arbitrary Dispositions, and Insolence of Office.

But not the least Attention did he shew to his Friend the Georgian.—No Questions concerning his Province, their Measures against the Revenue Acts, their Growth, Manufactures, Husbandry, Commerce—No general Conversation, concerning the Continental Opposition—Nothing, but one continued Scene of bullying, bantering, reproaching and ridiculing the Select Men.—Airs and Vapours about his Moderatorship [of town meetings], and Membership, and [Thomas] Cushings Speakership.—There is no Politeness nor Delicacy, no Learning nor Ingenuity, no Taste or Sense in this Kind of Conversation.

We can see Otis’s concern about the documents from London here, but Adams said he didn’t show a concern for the larger struggle. What’s more, Adams, who generally admired Otis, was really put off by how he was dominating all conversations with his stories and criticism of other Whigs.

Otis’s modern biographers, such as John J. Waters, have noted earlier moments when he acted irrationally, when his political pronouncements shifted suddenly and surprised his allies. Otis may have been dealing with bipolar disorder, and in this early September going through a period of manic behavior. Which casts a different light on what he did the next day.

TOMORROW: The paragraphs they cooked up.

The Rise of John Adams, Boston Lawyer

Between the Liberty riot and the controversy over the Circular Letter, I had to neglect another significant Revolutionary development in June 1768: the entrance of John Adams into Boston politics.

Adams grew up in Braintree and returned to that town to establish his family and legal career. Because of how the Massachusetts Superior Court traveled from county to county, he visited Boston regularly. He had clients there, and he was friends with such significant figures as his cousin Samuel Adams and rising Crown supporter Jonathan Sewall. But for most of the 1760s Adams was a country lawyer, and he liked it that way.

Adams’s earliest public writing was an essay in the 14 Mar 1763 Boston Evening-Post signed “Humphrey Ploughjogger.” Writing in a rustic dialect, Adams lamented the political quarrels in Boston. A second “Ploughjogger” essay said that raising hemp was more important than factional politics. Adams responded to himself in the 18 July Boston Gazette using more genteel language and the new pseudonym “U,” agreeing that agriculture was more productive than arguing in the newspapers.

In August 1765 Adams sent the Gazette a long essay on the history of British law that Edes and Gill printed in installments with no title or signature. When Thomas Hollis republished that essay in London, he titled it A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law. That work drew Adams closer to the political issues of the day, but he was still viewing them from a distance.

In September 1765 stamped paper arrived in Boston, producing a crisis point. Adams made his first direct contribution to the Patriot political argument by drafting his town’s instructions to its General Court representative to resist the Stamp Act. As toned down by Adams’s neighbors, the “Braintree Instructions” were printed in Boston newspapers. Contrary to what Adams wrote decades later, they didn’t really stand out from or influence the instructions from other towns. But that document did draw Adams into formal politics, and in 1766 he became one of Braintree’s selectmen.

In early 1768, Adams decided to move into Boston to advance his legal career. According to his not-always-reliable autobiography:

My Friends in Boston, were very urgent with me to remove into Town. I was afraid of my health: but they urged so many Reasons and insisted on it so much that being determined at last to hazard the Experiment, I wrote a Letter to the Town of Braintree declining an Election as one of their Select Men, and removed in a Week or two

He rented a white house on Brattle Street for himself, Abigail, their two children (Nabby and John Quincy), and servants.

The events of June 1768 yanked Adams into Boston politicking. First, on 6 June he was put on a “Committee of the Sons of Liberty” who initiated a correspondence with John Wilkes, the London radical leader.

A few days later came the Liberty seizure and riot. A long town meeting channeled the energy of that uproar into formal political actions. On 15 June, Adams was named to a seven-man committee to instruct Boston’s representatives to the General Court about how to respond. The other members were Dr. Joseph Warren, Richard Dana, Dr. Benjamin Church, John Rowe, Henderson Inches, and Edward Payne. Much later, Adams recalled:

I was solicited to go to the Town Meetings and harrangue there. This I constantly refused. My Friend Dr. Warren the most frequently urged me to this: My Answer to him always was “That way madness lies.” . . . Although I had never attended a Meeting the Town was pleased to choose me upon their Committee to draw up Instructions to their Representatives

Now those representatives were:

• James Otis, Jr., moderator of that town meeting.
• Samuel Adams, on a committee that had just drafted a resolution against the Liberty seizure for the town.
• John Hancock, an interested party in the Liberty case.
• Thomas Cushing, speaker of the house and a moderate only by Boston standards.

Those men really didn’t need instructions about how to vote. Rather, the instructions were meant for public consumption.

John Adams is credited as the main author of the document that his committee delivered on 17 June. However, he drew on the draft from his cousin’s committee, and his colleagues had input into the final wording of the instructions. Adams later wrote, “there is nothing extraordinary in them of matter or Style, they will sufficiently shew the sense of the Public at that time.” The document protested the Townshend Act, the Liberty seizure, and the impressment of sailors. Boston’s political leaders liked the result enough to ask Adams to draft the next set of instructions in the spring of 1769.

Also in 1768, Hancock, who had known Adams since they were both boys in Braintree, hired him to contest the Liberty seizure in court. It’s not clear when Adams took up that case because the records are spotty. He may have filed Hancock’s first legal responses in July, and he definitely handled the proceedings in Admiralty Court in November. With the Whigs sending one-sided dispatches about the case to newspapers in other ports, the Liberty seizure became a widely reported American grievance, and Adams became one of Boston’s most prominent attorneys.