American Rebels

by Nina Sankovitch

  A petition sent to the king of England by the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the spring had included a list of seventeen complaints against Governor Bernard and a request that he be removed from office. The colonists’ seething dislike for Bernard had turned into fury when a number of his private letters to friends in England were published. The letters proved the colonists’ claims that he was distorting the truth of circumstances in the colonies—that he was a “little dirty TALE-BEARER.”1

  The colonists complained in their petition that Governor Bernard “had given a false and highly injurious representation” of the situation in Boston, not only in private letters but in government communications to Parliament and the king: “He has treated our Representative body with contempt.… He has been a principal instrument in procuring a military force.”2

  When the petition was published in full in the press in early June, the public humiliation for Bernard “stung like an adder.”3 Furious and disappointed, Bernard sent his own private request to the king, asking to be relieved of the terrible burden of governing Massachusetts. He wanted to leave the cursed colony just as much as the colonists wanted him gone.

  King George acquiesced to both requests and called Bernard back to England. Church bells rang out in jubilation as his ship left the harbor; Bernard could hear the bells, and then the cannons, fired from Hancock’s Wharf to speed him on his way. The Boston Gazette reported, “Tuesday last embarked on his Majesty’s ship the Rippon, sir Francis Bernard … who for nine years past, has been a Scourge to this Province, a Curse to North America, and a Plague to the whole Empire.”4

  The purpose of the grand party held one week after Bernard’s departure was not only to celebrate his leaving but also to commemorate the 1765 protests against the Stamp Act, seen by many as the start of effective colonial resistance to parliamentary overreach. For Sam Adams, the festivities, which would be attended by hundreds of citizens from Boston and surrounding villages, were also a celebration of just how successful he had been at enlarging the membership of the Sons of Liberty.

  The day’s celebrations began at the Liberty Tree in Boston. Toasts were made and drinks were taken, and then the group, traveling in 139 carriages with John Hancock at the head, moved on to Dorchester, to the grounds of the appropriately named Liberty-Tree Tavern. John Adams met the travelers at the tavern, intent on joining the party and with no regrets for missing court in Taunton.

  On the contrary, he feared that if he were not in attendance, “many might suspect, that I was not hearty in the Cause … whereas none of them are more sincere, and steadfast than I am.”5 He happily “Dined with 350 Sons of Liberty.… We had two Tables laid in the open Field by the Barn, with between 300 and 400 Plates, and an Awning of Sail Cloth overhead.”6

  John Adams sat alongside a crowd of family and friends, including Josiah Quincy Sr. and his son Samuel, who still counted himself as a supporter of the Sons of Liberty, even if he would not call himself one. Sitting close by was the grandfather of Sam’s wife, Henry Hill, who most definitely called himself a Son of Liberty. Josiah Jr. was not present, most likely due to the recurrence of the symptoms of consumption that would continue to plague him into the fall.

  Sam Adams and John Hancock sat next to Joseph Warren and James Otis Jr., with other Massachusetts bigwigs spread out on either side. Paul Revere sat with Benjamin Edes and John Gill, publishers of the Boston Gazette, and other fellow Masons, including Joseph Tyler, John Jeffries, and William Palfrey. Representatives from other colonies were also present at the feast, including Philemon Dickinson, brother of John Dickinson, from Pennsylvania, and Joseph Reed from New Jersey.7

  Many drinking toasts were made that day, more than forty-five in all. Drinking beer and cider and, later, rum, men raised their classes and drank to “Liberty without Licentiousness to all Mankind,” to “A perpetual Constitutional Union and Harmony between Great Britain and the Colonies,” to “the Liberty of the Press.”8

  After the meal, Philemon Dickinson stood up to sing the famous song written by his brother John, titled “The Liberty Song.” Written to the tune of an old British war song, the words were already well-known to the crowd, and even John Adams, a shy singer, joined in singing its refrain: “IN FREEDOM we’re born, and in FREEDOM we’ll live / Our purses are ready, / Steady, Friends, Steady, / Not as SLAVES but as FREEMEN, our Money we’ll give.”9

  Despite the many toasts, John Adams claimed not to have seen “one person intoxicated” and instead felt himself with a group deliberately “cultivating the Sensations of Freedom.” Such feasts are important, Adams decided, “for they tinge the Minds of the People, they impregnate them with the sentiments of Liberty. They render the People fond of their Leaders in the Cause, and averse and bitter against all opposers.”10

  Nothing could dampen the spirit or the resolve of the revelers, not the heavy humidity of the day nor the downpour of rain that inundated the field in the late afternoon. All present were joyous in their cause of liberty and steadfast in their collective commitment to it.

  But there were those in Boston, and throughout Massachusetts, for whom commitment to the cause was turning into more of a burden than they had anticipated. The boycott of British goods, begun in January with much fanfare and support, was taking a financial toll on store owners and shipowners alike. The economics of limited trading hurt just too much; even as John Hancock counseled that “we must live upon our own produce and manufactures,” there were simply not enough goods manufactured or grown locally to substitute for the enormous quantities previously supplied by Great Britain and its colonies around the world.11

  At the end of August, an article in the Boston Chronicle, a newspaper with Loyalist leanings, reported that some merchants were trading British goods in defiance of the boycott to which they had allegedly sworn allegiance. John Hancock’s name was on the list of illicit traders, along with twenty-nine others.

  Hancock immediately issued a statement that he had not undertaken any business in violation of Boston’s nonimportation agreement. He then repeatedly denied the charges to all and sundry and finally published a definitive denial in the press: “This is ONCE FOR ALL to certify to whom it may concern, That I have not in one single instance directly or indirectly deviated from said Agreement; and I now publicly defy all Mankind to the Contrary.”12

  To further prove his commitment to the cause, Hancock publicly criticized his London agents for sending a shipment of goods to Boston despite his directions to the contrary, and he announced that any goods sent from England to the colony for his consignment would be sent back immediately upon arrival. He offered his ships free of charge to any merchant wishing to send goods back to England; supply crates would be provided for those merchants who had already unpacked their wares.

  Hancock had his revenge on the Boston Chronicle, when with great glee and satisfaction, he purchased the debts owed by the paper and foreclosed on its owners. Using John Adams as his attorney, he shut the paper down, selling off its presses, type cases, galley trays, and every other piece of printing equipment. Its chief Whig competitor, the Boston Gazette, was the most likely purchaser of the equipment the Tory paper would no longer need.

  Josiah Quincy Jr., John Adams, and John Hancock all agreed that nonviolent methods were the only legal and viable methods of forcing Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts and remove or reduce the number of troops in Boston—and that the best leverage they had was economic. While they persisted in publishing editorials and letters, bringing lawsuits to force compliance with legal precedent, and submitting petition after petition, they continued to push their fellow colonists to stick to the boycott and hurt the British economy, with the hopes that such pain would finally compel Parliament to repeal the measures imposed on the colonists.

  * * *

  John Adams was asked by his cousin Sam to take on the case of four sailors who had resisted impressment to serve aboard the British frigate Rose. In the course of events, an officer in the Royal
Navy had been killed, and now the sailors were charged with murder. The case would be brought in the Court of Admiralty, under the new measures imposed by the Townshend Acts; that is, the case would be tried without a jury, leaving the determination of guilt or innocence solely to a Crown-appointed judge.

  John set to work, searching “all authorities in civil law, the law of nature and nations, the common law, history, practice, and everything that could have any relation to the subject.”13 And he found exactly what he was looking for: “the only British statute that included the word or idea of impressment.”14 Under that statute, the practice of impressment was expressly prohibited in America. Chief Justice Hutchinson had to concede the point, and the sentence of the five-judge court was unanimous: the sailors were found to have acted in self-defense in fighting against their unjust impressment. All charges were dropped and the men were released.

  The victory in the Rose case brought Adams fame in the colony, accolades from the Sons of Liberty, and an onslaught of young men eager to be his law tutors. John chose two young students and got back to work on cases that would pay fees—unlike the case of the sailors accused of murder, which his cousin Sam had persuaded him to take on for little monetary recompense.

  * * *

  Throughout the summer and fall of 1769, Suky, John and Abigail Adams’ daughter, remained in Braintree under the care of her grandmother. In June 1769, John wrote to Abigail from Falmouth, Maine, where he was appearing in the circuit court: “How long I shall be obliged to stay here, I cant say. But you may depend I shall stay here no longer, than absolute Necessity requires. Nothing but the Hope of acquiring some little Matter for my dear Family, could carry me, thro these tedious Excursions.”

  Missing his family so much, he sent love “to my little Babes” and then asked for news of his youngest, adding, “Cant you contrive to go to Braintree to kiss my little Suky for me?”15

  How Abigail wished that she could do just that, but traveling to the village was no easy task: the road was rough, and the journey, at more than ten miles, was long. First the path wound through Dorchester, then on into Milton, where the Neponset River had to be crossed by ferry; then the path picked up again, but there were more brooks and streams to get over, and rough terrain along the shoreline; then the final stretch down along the coast to arrive in Braintree. The Adams family had no grand carriage or chaise, but only a cart. By the fall of 1769, Abigail was again pregnant; traveling any distance at all became even more arduous.

  Despite the difficulties, Abigail did all she could to stay in close contact with her mother-in-law, Susanna, and her little daughter Suky; she even considered bringing the girl back to Boston. The previous spring, she and John had moved from the house on Brattle Street to a place on Cold Lane by the Mill Pond. The house was neither as neat nor as comfortable as the white house had been, but at least there were no soldiers drilling outside from dawn to dusk, and the air seemed purer close to the pond, the sun brighter as it glinted off the water. But in the end, Suky remained where she was and Abigail continued to rely on whatever messengers she could find to bring her news from Braintree.

  Throughout the fall of 1769, the presence of British troops, armed to the teeth, created an oppressive atmosphere in Boston. John Adams persuaded the Massachusetts legislature to petition Parliament for removal of the cannon and troops. He particularly objected to the positioning of cannons “at the very door of the State House where Assembly is held”16 and argued that “debate of our Assembly must be free … Common decency as well as the honor and dignity of a free legislature will require a removal of those cannon and guards, as well as that clamorous parade which has been daily round our court.”17

  But Parliament refused to answer the petition, and both troops and cannon remained in town; in the harbor, British warships stood at anchor, armed and ready.

  When a trailing comet appeared in the sky over Boston in October, there were many who took it as a bad omen. Ever since a “flaming comet” trailed across the sky in the months leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, Englishmen had called the “comet-star” a “tiding of bitter woe.” King Harold had ignored the prophecy and was killed by an arrow through the eye.18 Many American colonists still carried the fears of their ancestors when it came to heavenly apparitions. They feared now that Parliament would never back down, and that with British troops stationed throughout the town and in the harbor there would be a high price—even a deadly one—for daring to defy Parliament’s decrees.

  * * *

  For months, Josiah Quincy Jr. and Abigail Phillips had been putting off the date of their wedding. The delay was not due to the death of Ned or Josiah’s workload—although he was very busy with “the multiplicity of his professional avocations”—but because his consumption had flared up in the summer and worsened with the fall weather.19 Josiah returned to the care of Dr. Joseph Warren and once again followed the good doctor’s prescribed regime of rest, fresh air, and plenty of good food. Abigail threw herself into nursing her husband-to-be, overseeing his menus and accompanying him to Braintree, where the sea air, fresh fish, and ample supply of vegetables did much to speed his recovery.

  Finally, on October 4, 1769, Josiah and Abigail were married, in a ceremony held in the Old South Meeting House in Boston, where Abigail’s father was a deacon. The party, attended by all the Quincy clan—cousins, aunts, and uncles—was held at the Phillips mansion on Beacon Street. Abigail was radiant that day, her face smiling and bright, her dark hair drawn back and crowned with curls. Her dress was simple, befitting the times, but around her waist she might have fashioned a girdle of fall roses, a custom of the current austerity. Josiah, tall and spare beside her, appeared the picture of good health, his cheeks pink and his eyes bright with joy.

  Abigail knew the true state of Josiah’s health. He would never be free of his affliction and would most likely die young. She had nonetheless chosen him to be her husband. As the attractive daughter of a wealthy man, she had her pick of suitors, but having been raised on the hero-hailing classics of Homer, Milton, and Edmund Spenser, she wanted someone beyond the usual merchant or lawyer, and in Josiah she found her ideal, an almost mythic character of integrity and resolve.

  The two agreed that in having children, not only would the name of Josiah Quincy be carried on, but their shared values of courage, duty, and faith would also be passed on to future generations. As Josiah Jr. wrote to his own father, “Through your watchful care of my education, and your kind munificence, I am out of temptation to the meaner vices, and in that state, which … is the happiest human nature can boast, an independency, save on God and myself, for a decent support through life, and the hope of quitting the stage with that best human standard of true worth, the general approbation of my countrymen.”20

  As a wedding gift, Josiah Sr. gave the couple a bombé chest created by the Needham cabinetmaker Kemble Widmer; the elegant chest of drawers, made of rounded wood and inlaid with intricate borders, cost a small fortune because of its unique shape and intricately decorated surfaces, but it was only the first of many gifts that he would give them. Josiah Jr. gave his new wife a set of eight elegant Chippendale chairs, crafted in Massachusetts out of mahogany; the chairs were upholstered in woven silk from stock imported long before the boycott.

  Abigail presented Josiah with a collection of books that to him constituted a veritable treasure; he had new shelves built in the library on Marlborough Street, anticipating spending many happy hours reading. Josiah was not a passive reader; he scribbled liberally in the margins of his books, recording the thoughts sparked by the text. For him, reading was a joy of discovery and new experiences, adventures made possible and safe for one with such health problems as he had. In reading, he could scale mountains and run rivers without leaving the security of his padded chair.

  But it wasn’t only adventure he sought in reading; it was knowledge. The joy of knowledge, of making connections between the past—ancient Rome, Greece, the empires of Constantinop
le and the Holy Roman Empire—and the present in which he found himself. Beginning a fresh Law Commonplace as a married man, his new journal would become just as filled as his old one had been, with page after page of quotations that he saved for future use—not only legal maxims but also moral ones, taken from sermons, stories, and treatises old and new.

  Once settled in with Abigail on Marlborough Street, Josiah turned his attention back to politics and to securing “the general approbation of my countrymen.”21 A comet trailing across the sky didn’t scare him. As a man of reason, and with his faith in the law, along with his conviction in the justness of the cause of liberty, he would do all that he could to help his fellow colonists in the fight against oppression.

  As he wrote in his journal, quoting Bacon, “‘Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them.’ Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse—but to weigh and consider.”22 Josiah would set himself to weighing and considering, and then to writing. Not only for his legal clients, but for the future of his colony.

  * * *

  On November 7, 1769, Elizabeth Wendell Quincy died in Braintree. Edmund Quincy planned a lavish funeral ceremony—“fit for a Venetian doge”—for his beloved wife.23 Dozens of relatives and friends attended the funeral, including Josiah Jr. and Abigail, Josiah Sr. and his third wife, Anne; Sam and Hannah Quincy; Hannah and Bela Lincoln; Norton Quincy; and John Adams’ mother, Susanna, along with the Reverend Smith of Weymouth and his wife, Elizabeth. Edmund and Elizabeth’s children were there: Dolly, Ned, Henry, Elizabeth, Katy, Sarah, and Esther (along with her husband, Jonathan Sewall).