The Cantos Project - LXIV

LXIV

To John’s bro, the sheriff, we lay a kind word in passing
Cromwell was not prudent
nor honest
nor laudable.
Prayer: hands uplifted
Solitude: a person, a NURSE
plumes: is she angel or bird, is she a bird or an angel?
ruffled, rumpled, rugged ... wings
looks down
and pities those who wear a crown
meaning (query) George, Louis or Frederick?
Beautiful spot, am almost wholly surrounded by water
wherein Deacon (later General) Palmer
has surrounded himself with a colony
of glass-blowers from Germany
come to undertake that work in America, 1752,
his lucerne grass
whereof 4 crops a year, seed he had of Gridley of Abingdon
pods an odd thing, a sort of ramshorn of straw
about 70 bushel of 1/4th an acre of land
his potatoes
sub conditione fidelitatis
is it known that Oliver ever advised to lay internal taxes upon us?
or solicited office of stamps?
to be dragged through the town only in pageantry
to be burnt on a hill, and his house broken open ...
but has not the Lieutenant Governor
a near relation etc/
a son etc/
in one family etc/
BY 40 towns, verbatim, their instrument
to their representatives Sam Adams has taken some paragraphs
Stamp Act spread a spirit from Georgia
to New Hampshire
with honour, more inquisitive as to their liberties
even the lowest
Your courts are shut down, justice VOID
I have not drawn a writ since the 1st of November
if this authority be once recognized
ruins America
I must cut down my expenses.
For my ruin as well as America’s ...
To renounce under tree, nay under the very branch
where they hang’d him in effigy ...
UNANIMOUS for Gridley, Jas Otis, J. Adams
pray that the Courts may be opened
(original of this is preserved)
If what I wrote last night
recall what Lord Bacon
wrote about laws ... invisible and correspondences ...
that parliament
hath no authority
to impose internal taxes upon us.
Common Law. 1st Inst. 142
Coke, to the 3rd Inst. Law is the subject’s birthright
Want of right and of remedy are all one.
CONSTRUED that no innocent
may by literal construction be
damaged actus
legis nulli facit injuriam
Governor in council as supreme court of probate
... by more ravenous sort of ambition
or avarice ...
avoid as the plague
tendency of the act to reduce the body of people
to ignorance, dependence and poverty
religious bigots
the worst of men, colonies
becomes a fashionable study ... and will probably
stare more and more for some time. Ipswich Instructions
right to tax selves,
rather as allies than as subjects
FIRST settlement not a national act
and not at expense of the nation
nor made on land of the Crown
waddled through snow driving my cattle to water
Shutting courts equals abdication of throne
for entering a vessel at Louisburg
and taking away
10 barrels of
rum
Pitt vs/ Grenville, and for the repeal of the act
Parliament takes as Representative and not Legislative
authority
But Thatcher got him indicted for barratry
And he came near to conviction. Goffe grew warm
and said Eaton’s character
was as good as any man’s at the bar
punch wine bread cheese apples pipes and tobacco
Thursday oated at Martin’s
when we saw five boxes of dollars
going in a horse cart to Salem for Boston
FOR England, said to contain about $18,000
lopping and trimming
walnut trees, and for felling of pines and savins
An irregular misshapen pine will darken
the whole scene in some places
case between negro and owner. At same time a craving man
(Hutchinson)
at Dr Tuft’s where I found fine wild goose on the spit
and cranberries in the skillet
to the White House in Brattle St.
office lucrative in itself but new statutes
had been passed in Parliament
J. Q. A. born July eleventh
duty on glass incompatible
with my ideas on right, justice and policy
between negro and owner engaged Mr Hawley’s attention
100 towns, one week’s notice
about 10 o’clock troops began landing under cover of the cannon
of the ships, without molestation
Oct. 1st.
Population of Boston retrograde during 25 years
that preceded this
was now not above 16,000
During my absence on circuit
as Byles said ‘Our grievances red-dressed’
under my windows in the square
drum, fife, and in evening violins, songs
flutes of the serenaders, that is, Sons of Liberty
as well at the extravagance of the populace,
deceptions to which they are liable,
suppression of equity, when thoroughly heated
my drafts will be found in the Boston Gazette for those years ‘68, ‘69
a cargo of wines from Madeira
belonging to Mr Hancock
without paying customs
painful drudgery I had in his cause:
as to this statute my client never consented
Mr Hancock never consented, never voted for it himself
nor for any man to make any such law
whenever
we leave principles and clear propositions
and wander into construction we wander into a wilderness
a darkness wherein arbitrary power
set on throne of brass with a sceptre of iron ...
Suspended, in fact, only after Battle of Lexington
which ended all such prosecutions
Mt Wollanston, seat of our ancestors
from
East chamber every ship sloop schooner and brigantine
Three hundred and fifty were under the Liberty Tree,
a young buttonwood,
and preparing the next day’s paper, cooking up paragraphs,
articles, working the political engine
MORNING at Brackett’s upon case of a whale ...
that I had imported from London the
only complete set of British Statutes
then in Boston or, I think, in the whole
of the Colonies, and in that work a statute
whose publication they feared, an
express prohibition of empressment
expressly IN America which statute they intended to
get repealed
and did succeed 1769 toward the end of December so doing.
About 9 o’clock in evening, supposed to be signal of fire
men in front of the barracks and baker’s boy afore mentioned
Mr Forest known then as the ‘Irish infant’
tears streaming over his face
‘for that very unfortunate man, Captain Preston
in prison
wants council and can get none, Mr Quincy
will serve if you will
Mr Auchmuty declines unless you will engage’
‘But he must be sensible that this wd/ be as important a case
as was ever tried here or in any country....
not expect me to use art, sophistry, prevarication’
Upon which he offered me a retaining fee of one guinea
which I accepted
(Re which things was Hutchinson undoubtedly scro-
fulous ego scriptor cantilenae
Ez. P)
Bringing it in all to 10 guineas
for Preston and 8 for the sojers
(But where the devil this brace of Adamses sprung from!
(Oxenbridge Thatcher ... dangers from intemperate heats
BUT in Connecticut every family has a little manufactury house
and make for themselves things for which they were used
to run into debt to the merchants.)
Cited Beccaria
He went out and saddled my horse and bridled him
‘as a man of liberty, I respect you
‘and from here to Cape Cod you won’t find ten men amiss’
nihil humanum alienum
This landlord, a high son
and has on his sign:
Sons of Liberty served here ...
When he came away he took view of the comet
... to roll and cool themselves and feed on white honeysuckle
our horses had got out of compound.
SUBILLAM
Cumis ego occulis meis
sleeping under a window: pray for me,
withered to skin and nerves tu theleis respondebat illa
apothanein; pray for me gentlemen
my prayers used to be answered, She prayed for deliverance
110 years of age, and some say she is over that
Anemonie, at Nantasket; non vi sed saepe legendo
Severn Ayres of Virginia, Mr Bull, Mr Trapier of S. Carolina
Chas Second’s time was tax voted in Carolina
Hemp seed cd/ be brought here, mulberry does well in our climate
When people of Europe have been insidiously deprived
of their liberties
which wd/ render jurors mere ostentation and pageantry
green tea, from Holland I hope, but dont know,
... recovered at Braintree, pruned by me, grown remarkably
pines better for lopping
STOOD by the people much longer than they wd/ stand
by themselves.
1771 make potash and raise a great number of colts
which they send to the West Indies for rum
Splendours of Hartford and Middletown
just as we got there
Indian pudding pork greens on the table
One party for wealth and power
at expense
of the liberty of their country
wars, carnage, confusion
not interested in their servitude
I am, for all I can see, left quite alone
13th, Thursday
landlady great grand daughter of Governor Endicott
new light, continually canting ...
said Indian preacher: Adam! Adam when you knew
it wd/ make good cider!
Mrs Rops, fine woman
very pretty and very genteel
Tells old stories of witchcraft, paper money and
Governor Belcher’s administration
Always convinced that the liberties of the country
had more to fear from one man (Hutchinson)
than from all other men whatsoever
which have always freely and decently uttered
Rich seldom remarkable for modesty, ingenuity or humanity
‘Is mere impertinence a contempt?” asked Mr Otis
I said there was no more justice left in Britain than hell
Hutchinson is etc.
Moore’s Reports, for the book was borrowed; its owner
a buyer, not a reader of books
for it had been Mr Gridley’s
N/Y/ state has done partially
22; Monday (this was 1773)
Hutchinson’s letters received
Oliver, Moffat, Paxton and Rome
for 1767, ‘8, ‘9
avaricious, ambitious, vindictive
these were the letters that Franklin got hold of
Bone of our bone, educated among us,
serpent and deputy serpent
that Sir John Temple procured them
God knows how or from whom
Gentle rain last night and this morning
Hutchinson sucking up to George IIIrd.
falsehood in Rome’s letters quite flagrant
Col. Haworth
attracted no attention until
he discovered his antipathy to a cat
Three cargoes Bohea
were emptied, this is but an attack upon property
I apprehend it was necessary, absolute, indispensable
irregular recourse to original power
IMpeachment by House before Council
said shd/ be glad if constitution cd/ carry on
without recourse to higher powers unwritten ...
Says Gridley: You keep very late hours!
End of this Canto.

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