Hawley, Adams, Gridley, and Otis, Attorneys at Law

Going back to the newly digitized Joseph Hawley Papers at the New York Public Library, one noteworthy item is Hawley’s commonplace book.

A commonplace book was a notebook in which a (usually) gentleman copied out passages from books or documents that he found interesting, thoughts he wanted to explore, and other material. For example, Hawley’s starts with “Thoughts on various Subjects” and extracts from Cicero “of the Principles of the Stoics.”

Then comes something very meaty for historians of the Revolution: a summary of Jeremiah Gridley’s argument for the Crown in the February 1761 writs of assistance case, followed by the much longer rebuttal from James Otis, Jr. (shown here).

Late in life, and resentful of all the attention Patrick Henry and Virginia were getting, John Adams argued that that court case was the real beginning of the American Revolution. “Then and there the Child Independence was born,” he told William Tudor in 1817. Not coincidentally, almost all the information we have about that event was supplied by John Adams, sometimes with an extra helping of courtroom drama.

Hawley’s commonplace book contains, I understand from Mark Boonshoft’s essay at the Junto blog, the most complete rendering of those arguments to survive. Adams probably wrote out those texts from his notes between the argument in February and 3 Apr 1761, when he showed a copy to Col. Josiah Quincy. Compared to his later description, they are less dramatic but more reliable, though still a long way from a true transcript.

Interestingly, Adams’s own manuscript of these arguments doesn’t exist. Instead, he gets credit for having written the textual ancestor of several overlapping versions that do survive, including Hawley’s. On 29 Apr 1773 the Massachusetts Spy printed Otis’s speech, sparking more interest in it. That August, the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence sent the Gridley and Otis arguments to the Connecticut legislature. Joseph Hawley was on that committee, so that’s probably how he got to make a copy of his own.

How Hutchinson Learned Latin and French

This is Thomas Hutchinson writing in the third person about himself as a young man:

When he left College [1727] he went into his father's counting house, and became a Merchant Apprentice, from 17 years to 21. He saw how much he had neglected his studies at College, and applied to his schoolmaster, (…whose tuition he was under about five years), and desired he would allow him to spend two or three evenings in a week in going over some of the Latin Classicks, which he readily consented to. In a short time he acquired a relish for the Latin tongue, which he never lost.

Soon after he put himself under M. [Andrew] Le Mercier, the French Minister, and then began to learn the French tongue; but Monsieur [Louis] Langloiseier, arriving at Boston soon after, in Gov. [William] Burnet's family, & Mr [John Henry] Lidius of Albany, who had lived and married in Canada, and Mr [Peter] Chardon, a young gentleman of fortune from London, being also in Boston, a French Club was formed, of which the three gentlemen above named were members, and Mr [Jeremiah] Gridley, the Lawyer, Mr Jo[seph]. Greene, [John] Lovell, and two or three more New England young gentlemen were members, & the whole conversation was to be in French.

In these ways he acquired a competent knowledge of the Latin & French, accustoming himself to reading authors in both languages, and at length he found very little difficulty in either.

Le Mercier, a native of Caen educated in Geneva, was minister of the Huguenot church in Boston, which faded after his death. Eventually that building on School Street became the town’s first Catholic church.

As Hutchinson noted, Langloiserie arrived in Boston with the new governor in 1728, but left for London on the sudden death of his patron. He came back, opened a French school in 1730, and started tutoring Harvard students in the language in 1733.

Lydius was a Dutch-born dealer in western lands, not always equipped with legal titles.

Chardon was a merchant of Huguenot ancestry whose name remains in New Chardon Street.

Gridley, Green, and Lovell were all New England-born Englishmen like Hutchinson, learned and upper-class. Gridley became the province’s leading lawyer and leader of the Freemasons. Greene was a merchant also known for his satirical verse. Lovell was the master of the South Latin School for decades.

Of these men, all who survived until the Revolution became Loyalists. (Well, Lydius was already in Britain in 1776, either seeking to validate his land claims or hiding out from the many people who had bought deeds from him.)

In a Boston Courtroom, 250 Years Ago Today

On 23 Feb 1761, two and a half centuries ago, James Otis, Jr. (shown here), and Oxenbridge Thacher stood before the top court of Massachusetts and argued that the colonial government did not have the constitutional power to grant the Customs service a “writ of assistance.” Representing the government in what is now the Old State House was Attorney General Jeremiah Gridley, who had trained both his opponents.

Otis and Thacher’s clients were the import merchants of Boston. At best, those men comprised a narrow special interest. At worst, they were a bunch of privileged whiners trying to stymie the lawful authorities’ power to curb their habitual smuggling.

Otis himself had worked for the royal government not long before, as Advocate General in the Vice Admiralty Court. He switched sides, everyone acknowledged, at least in part because the new governor, Francis Bernard, had not given his father the judicial appointment that the previous governor had promised.

A writ of assistance was general and open-ended. Having received one, Customs officials did not need to provide evidence of what smuggled goods they were looking for and where. And a writ of assistance lasted until the king died—which is why the writs issued under George II (1683-1760) were no longer valid.

Young lawyer John Adams took notes on the case, which survive in sketchy form, and afterward wrote out a more detailed and dramatic abstract of the event. That quoted Otis making this case against the writ:

In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed “to all and singular Justices, Sheriffs, Constables, and all other officers and subjects;” so, that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the King’s dominions. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant; if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner also may control, imprison, or murder any one within the realm.

In the next place, it is perpetual; there is no return. A man is accountable to no person for his doings. Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him.

In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, may enter all houses, shops, &c. at will, and command all to assist him.

Fourthly, by this writ not only deputies, &c., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one’s house. A man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege.

Having invoked class privilege against “menial servants,” Otis went on to warn, “This wanton exercise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion of a heated brain.” Loyalists complained that Otis did have an overheated brain, and by the end of the decade he actually had a mental breakdown. But the writs of assistance case had started an argument that eventually led to American independence.

TOMORROW: The outcome and results of the Massachusetts writs of assistance case.