Adams Papers Digital Edition

Papers of John Adams
Volume 2, December 1773 – April 1775

Front Matter

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Descriptive List of Illustrations

Documents

17 December 1773Dr Sir The Dye is cast: The People have passed the River and cutt away the Bridge: last Night Three Cargoes of Tea, were emptied into the Harbour. Th...

22 December 1773Dr Sir Yesterday, the Governor called a Council at Cambridge. Eight Members met at Brattles. This no doubt was concerted last Saturday, at Neponsit H...

3 January 1774Dr. Sir I Received your last and am to Acknowledge that the Contents of it gave me great pleasure. I have for some time thought it necessary that the...

Articles of Impeachment against Chief Justice Peter Oliver24 February 1774

24 February 1774ARTICLES of Impeachment of High Crimes and Misdemeanors against Peter Oliver, Esq; Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize ...

4 March 1774Dear Sir The Letters you sent for Mrs. Macaulay directed, under Cover, for me, were put into the Post office on Capt Scott's arrival at Dover, and on...

12 March 1774Sir As the Affairs of AMERICA are now agitating in both Houses of the English Parliament, and as it would be a matter of infinite satisfaction to tho...

Report to the General Court on Massachusetts BoundariesMarch—May 1774

1 March 177431 May 1774A State of the Right in Fee, the Inhabitants of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay have to all the Lands, by them not granted, lying West of Connec...

1 March 177431 May 1774The Council of Plymouth, on the 19 day of March 1621, granted to John Mason, their Secretary, a Tract of Land from Neumkeag Naumkeag to Merrimack Rive...

1 March 177431 May 1774In the Journal of the Votes and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Colony of New York begun the 5th January 1773 and ended by Prorogation the...

1 March 177431 May 1774A State of the Title of the Massachusetts-Bay, to Lands between Connecticutt and Hudsons Rivers, at the North West Corner of the Province The particul...

1 March 177431 May 1774 “There is Dutch Plantation in the Latitude of 41 degrees, in a River called by the English Hudsons River, by the Indians called Monahaton; and by the...

1 May 177431 May 17741753. In the year 1753 a Committee of the Council of N York in a Report upon the Petition of Mr. Levingston and others Stated the Facts and arguments ...

9 April 1774Well Brother Paine! How does the Impeachment set upon the stomachs at Middle borough? Cant you steal a Moment in an Evening or Morning to write me a ...

9 April 1774Dr Sir It is a great Mortification to me, to be obliged to deny my self the Pleasure of a Visit to my Friends at Plymouth next Week. But so Fate has ...

25 April 1774Sir I have been so much absent upon the Circuits, since the melancholy news of your sons death that I have had no opportunity to take any notice of i...

25 April 1774To Mr. Alexander Wedderburne. Sir Your Defence of Messrs. Hutchinson and Oliver before the Lords Committee of his Majestys privy Council for Plantat...

14 May 1774Sir I had the Pleasure of receiving your Favour of the twelfth March, Yesterday, for which I thank you. Your Plan of a News Paper to pro­ fess itsel...

Calendar of John Adams' Public Service in Boston18 May – 9 August 1774

18 May 177418 May 1774. Report of the Committee on Proposals for Boston's conduct under the Port Act. No found. printed: Boston Record Commissioners, 18th Repor...

30 May 177430 May 1774. Report of the Committee on Proposals and Ways and Means. No or minutes found. printed: Boston Record Commissioners, 18th Report, p. 176....

17 June 177417 June 1774. Report of the Committee on Ways and Means. No or minutes found. printed: Boston Record Commissioners, 18th Report, p. 176. With John Ad...

19 July 177419 July 1774. Report of the Committee on Ways and Means. No found. printed: Boston Record Commissioners, 18th Report, p. 181. John Adams had returned...

9 August 17749 August 1774. Report of the Committee on Ways and Means. No found. printed: Boston Record Commissioners, 18th Report, p. 187–188. The committee's re...

25 May 1774Boston, 25 May 1774. (M-Ar): 50, p. 520–521. Of the twenty-eight councilors elected by joint ballot of the House of Representatives and outgoing Coun...

26 May 1774Dear Sir I have this moment been enformd that You and a Number of Worthy Gentlemen, have been Honorably negatived, by Our new Governer. I most sincer...

17 June 1774 This House having duly consider'd and being deeply affected with the unhappy Differences which have long subsisted and are increasing between Great-B...

25 June 1774Dr. Sir I am very sorry, I had not the Pleasure of seeing you, after your Return from Salem: as I wanted a great deal of Conversation with you, on se...

27 June 1774 to leys Co declining the lend your kind hI therefore by the Favour of n, before we undertake our Journey upon the Subject of our Commission. What Mea...

28 June 1774Sir We yesterday received your Letter directed to us, with those for Braintree, immediately on the Receipt of it, I went to Mr Cranch's to seek a Con...

29 June 1774Dr Sir I am determined to amuse my self with my Pen, whenever I am at Leisure, that I may not rust, upon the Circuit, and I dont know, who I can writ...

1 June 177430 June 1774 A few Days before the Election in May 1774 Lt General Gage, arrived at Boston Governor of this Province. With a Boston Port Bill a Bill for altering ...

14 July 1774Dear Sir Yours of the 25th. of last month never reached me, till yesterday. It would have given me great pleasure to have seen you when I returned fr...

17 July 1774Dear Sir Among many other agreable Things, which occurr'd to me on my Return from my eastern Circuit, I found your Letter of the fourteenth Instant. ...

19 July 1774Sir This may serve to apologize for so ungenteel a piece of Conduct as the carrying away a Sum of Money (£ 13.8—lawful) which I have received in your...

23 July 1774Dr. Sir You will be Surprised I believe, to receive a Letter from me, upon a Matter which I have so little Right to intermeddle with, as the Subject ...

24 July 1774Dr. Sir In this Retreat I promise myself, much Pleasure from the Letters of my Friends in Boston,: and from none more than from yours. I rely upon it...

25 July 1774Dr Sir There never was I believe, a greater Contrast, than I perceive, between the Noise and Hurry of Queen street, and the Serene Retreat, which I e...

25 July 1774Dear Sir I never recd. nor heard of your letter of the 27th June last, Wrote at Ipswich until the 22d instant. Immediately on the receipt of it I set...

25 July 1774Sir Your Letter was this Day delivered to me in the office. Your obliging thanks for my duty gives me singular Pleasure. Mr. Hill return'd to Boston ...

29 July 1774Sir Nothing could induce me to keep alive the remembrance of an affair which you will easily believe I wish might be forever forgotten, but the consi...

1 August 1774Dear Sir I Received your favor of the 23d. ult. but not til Satterday night as the man who promisd. to give it me forgot it. I am, Sir exceedingly ob...

4 August 1774Dr. Sir I have received from your Father, a Letter dated August the first, in answer to mine. It has been an high Regale to my Benevolent Feelings I ...

8 August 1774Sir Saturday a Man of war arrived with the new accounts. The Governor has summoned the new Council to meet at Salem to day. Reports are various as to...

20 August 1774 In the county of Worcester, the people, at a general meeting, have resolved that no court shall be held there, according to the new regulation of jur...

21 August 1774Dear Sir The great Obligations your Friendship has laid me under would render me inexcusable to neglect any Occasion of paying You my Acknowlegements...

28 August 1774Dr. Sir I received your obliging Letter at New York, and it was peculiarly acceptable to me and my Companions, and of great Use to Us among our Frien...

29 August 1774Dear Sir I wrote you 21st. Inst. which I hope you have receiv'd. The publick Prints of to Day, Which you will doubtless see, have been so satisfactor...

1 August 177431 August 1774 “We must fight, if we can't otherwise rid ourselves of British taxation, all revenues, and the constitution or form of government enacted for us by t...

3 September 1774Dear Sir This Week has been fruitfull of extraordinary Transactions. I will endeavour to give You some Account of them. Tuesday the Superior Court op...

4 September 1774Sir I wrote you a fortnight ago by Mr. Sullivan, since which almost every day has produced some new matter of joy to the friends of Liberty. The proc...

John Adams' Service in the Continental Congress5 September – 26 October 1774

9 September 1774 Whereas since the Accession of the present King, Parliament has claimed a Power of Right to bind the People of the Colonies in North America by Statu...

30 September 1774 Resolved That the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, and the Town of Boston are now Suffering and Struggling in the common Cause of American Freedom...

10 October 1774Sir The Delegates from the Several Provinces in North America, now assembled in Congress, beg Leave to address your Excellency upon Subjects of very ...

14 October 1774 Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British parliament claiming a power of right to bind the people of America by statutes in all cases wha...

11 September 1774Dear Sr A Very long and uninterrupted course of sickness has hitherto prevented me the pleasure of answering your Letters dated Boston June 28 and De...

14 September 1774My Friend I have been so totally taken up, that I dont know whether I have acknowledged your Agreeble Letters or not. They have been of Use as well a...

14 September 1774 The spirit of liberty is amazingly increased, so that there is scarce a tory and hardly a neutral to be found in the country. This province seems rip...

17 September 1774Dear Sir Nothing very material has taken Place here since Mr. Revere left Boston, by whom you will have particular Accounts. The Fortifications at th...

18 September 1774Dr Sir I am to acknowledge the Receipt of your kind Letter, and to thank you for it, and then Seal my Letter. Business, Ceremony, Visits and a thousa...

22 September 1774Dr Sir On my Return from Salem this Afternoon I was gratified with the Receipt of your kind Letter dated at Prince-Town 28th. of last Month. I could ...

23 September 1774 Our enemies, for their own further security, as well as to bring the town into the most complete dependence on the army and navy, spare no labor or p...

24 September 1774Dear Sir Your favor of the first of August I received Yesterday by a private Hand. I most sincerly simpathize with you and the rest of my Brethren in...

26 September 1774Dr Sir Yesterday I had the Pleasure of receiving yours of the fourteenth Instant for which I am very much obliged to you. I receive a greater Pleasur...

26 September 1774Dear Sir Mr. Revere arriv'd late on friday Evening and brought Us your Letters. Each one communicated the animating Intelligence convey'd in them to ...

29 September 1774Dear Sir I wish it was in my Power, to write you any Thing for the Relief of your Anxiety, under the Pressure of those Calamities which now distress ...

1 September 177430 September 1774Gentlemen As I am of the Opinion, that the Subjects of the Massachusetts Bay are without a King, Governor, civil or military Officers; so the People ...

2 October 1774Gentn. yr Families are well Since I wrote you, Jealousies seem to rise higher between the People and the Army. It has been Rumour'd they were about t...

7 October 1774Dr Sir I have just Time to thank you for your Letters by Mr Revere, and all other of your Favours. The Task which lies upon me here is very arduous. ...

15 October 1774 I hear that a letter from one P——s, a clergyman in Connecticut, has been intercepted, and that an attested copy of it is now before our congress. The...

16 October 1774 Having just been informed that Mr. Tudor is going to Philadelphia, I take this opportunity to thank you for the obliging favor of your letter of 29th...

16 October 1774My Dear Sir I Recd yours of the 18th Sepr with A pleasure and satisfaction that render my Negligence in not Answering it before almost Inexcusable. I...

20 October 1774Dear Bror Yours of the 30th. Ult. I Recd, by Mr. Revere. He shew me Also your Cautionary paper, which was needless with respect to Any thing containd...

17 November 1774 Enquire who is the Author? Whether a Sandemanian, a Quaker, or an high Churchman? The Character you give me from an English Writer, of our civil Gove...

John Adams' Service in the First Provincial Congress5–10 December 1774

10 December 1774Cambridge,10 December 1774. printed: Mass. Provincial Congress, Jours., p. 69–72. Prepared by a committee appointed 12 October, originally composed of...

10 December 1774Cambridge,10 December 1774. printed: Mass. Provincial Congress, Jours., p. 73–74. This, the second report on this date of the Committee on the State o...

12 December 1774Dear Sir I received your kind favour 16. Ulto with great Pleasure last Week at Cambridge. I rejoice at the Proofs your City, has given, of her inflex...

16 December 1774Virginia, 16 December 1774. (MHi:Donations to Sufferers by the Boston Port Bill, p. 66); addressed: “To Sam & Jno. Adams Esqrs at Boston”; signed: “J...

17 December 1774Virginia, Chesterfield County, 17 December 1774. (MHi:Donations to Sufferers by the Boston Port Bill, p. 97–98); addressed: “To the Honble Thomas Cus...

19 December 1774Dear Sir It always gives me pleasure to hear of the Existence and Health of my Friend and his Family and more especially to have it from his own hand...

28 December 1774Sir I have had the Honour of receiving from you a Present, in two Volumes of Political Disquisitions. The very polite and obliging manner, in which ...

3 January 1775Dr Sir I have this Moment recd a Line from Mrs. Warren and will in close her Letter to Mrs. Maccaulay, by the first Opportunity. Be pleased to make m...

3 January 1775Madam I remember, that Bishop Burnet in a Letter he once wrote to Lady Rachell Russell the virtuous Daughter of the great Southampton, and unfortunat...

13 January 1775Dear Sir I Wrote to you the 24th of Septr last in answer to your Obliging favor of the first of August, at the same Time I sent you the Second Volume...

15 January 1775My Dear Sir I Admire the Notes and Resolves of the Maryland Convention. They Breath a Spirit of Liberty and Union which does Honour to them and Indee...

21 January 1775 “You have no doubt, long before this time, heard the particulars of the General Congress, and that the court and the country have digested their thou...

The Letters of Novanglus23 January–April 1775

23 January 1775My Friends, A Writer, under the signature of Massachusettensis, has addressed you, in a series of papers, on the great national subject of the presen...

30 January 1775My Friends, I have heretofore intimated my intention, of pursuing the Tories, through all their dark intrigues, and wicked machinations; and to shew ...

6 February 1775My Friends, The history of the Tories, begun in my last, will be interrupted for some time: but it shall be reassumed, and minutely related, in some ...

13 February 1775My Friends, Massachusettensis, whose pen can wheedle with the tongue of king Richard the third, in his first paper, threatens you with the vengeance ...

20 February 1775My Friends, We are at length arrived at the paper, on which I made a few strictures, some weeks ago: these I shall not repeat, but proceed to conside...

27 February 1775My Friends, Such events as the resistance to the stamp act, and to the tea act, particularly the destruction of that which was sent by the ministry i...

6 March 1775My Friends, Our rhetorical magician, in his paper of January the 9th continues to wheedle. “You want nothing but to know the true state of facts, to ...

13 March 1775My Friends, It has been often observed by me, and it cannot be too often repeated, that Colonization is Casus omissus at common law. There is no such...

20 March 1775 Wales was a little portion of the island of Great-Britain, which the Saxons were never able to conquer. The Britons had reserved this tract of land t...

27 March 1775My Friends, Massachusettensis, in some of his writings has advanced, that our allegiance is due to the political capacity of the King, and therefore ...

3 April 1775My Friends, Give me leave now to descend from these general matters, to Massachusettensis. He says “Ireland who has perhaps the greatest possible sub...

10 April 1775My Friends, The cases of Wales and Ireland are not yet exhausted. They afford such irrefragable proofs, that there is a distinction between the crown...

17 April 1775My Friends, We now come to Jersey and Guernsey, which Massachusettensis says “are no part of the realm of England, nor are they represented in parlia...

1 April 177530 April 1775My Friends, Another Clause in the Charter, quoted by this Writer, contains the Power “to make Laws and ordinancies, for the good and Welfare of the s...

30 January 1775Bror. Adams (a Memento for Tyrants as A man has it) Seting before a warm fire totus Solus with a Tankard of honest Cyder on my Rifles hand and as hon...

30 January 1775Sir The very polite introduction to yours of Jan 3d I Consider not only as A Complement far beyond any Merit I can presume to Claim, but as Resulting...

6 February 1775 Resolved, that the Hon. John Hancock Hon. Thomas Cushing Esquires Mr. Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Pain Esquires appointed by the last ...

10 February 1775 “The account you give of an overbearing influence in the house, and the want of feeling and spirit out of it, is of a very serious and melancholy kin...

20 February 1775My Dr. Sir I need not tell you that I was greatly disappointed and Chagrin'd at not seeing you at Cambridge A Member of our Congress. If it was the C...

John Adams' Public Service in Braintree6–15 March 1775

15 March 1775 The Committee appointed the Sixth of March Inst. to prepare a Covenant agreeable to the association of the Continental Congress to be adopted by this...

15 March 1775 The Committee appointed to consider relating to Minute Men offerd their report as follows. The Committee appointed to consider what Encouragement it ...

13 March 1775Trusty and well Beloved I have Read a specimen of Nov Anglus as of this day and am not a little in Raptures with it, should have Rejoyced if Edes & G...

15 March 1775Dr Sir I have had the Pleasure and the Honour of Several Letters from you, and one from an incomparable Satyrist of our Acquaintance, and must own my...

15 March 1775Madam I thought myself greatly honoured, by your most polite and agreable Letter of January the thirtieth; and I ought to have answered it, immediate...

15 March 1775Dear Sir With some difficulty I have Obtained the Inclosed. Some scruples which you have not resolved, and some fears, and Apprehensions from Rumors ...

18 March 1775Sir A sacred regard to the american association on the one hand and an earnest desire not to injure my fellow subjects in Great Britain on the other ...

31 March 1775Bror. Adams I was in hopes you would have just called as you went out of Town, more especially as I Asked the favor I wanted to have troubled you wit...

1 April 1775Sir It is not easy for me to determine whether it be best, to carry the Cause before the Governor and Council as a Court of Chancery or before the Ki...

4 April 1775Dear Sir The interesting Advices we rec'd here on Sunday, and which the Papers will acquaint You, have had almost as great an Effect on People in thi...

4 April 1775Dear Sir At the same time that I make my Gratful Acknowledgment, for the instructive sentiments and Friendly hint, Contained in yours of the 15th Mar...

14 April 1775Dear Sir This covers a Letter, and accompanies a Budle, to our mutual Friend John Adams Esqr, which I received by Capt Lawrence from London, to be fo...

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