LXIV

 

  1. To John’s bro, the sheriff, we lay a kind word in passing
  2. Cromwell was not prudent
  3. nor honest
  4. nor laudable.
  5. Prayer: hands uplifted
  6. Solitude: a person, a NURSE
  7. plumes: is she angel or bird, is she a bird or an angel? 
  8. ruffled, rumpled, rugged ... wings
  9. looks down
  10. and pities those who wear a crown
  11. meaning (query) George, Louis or Frederick?
  12. Beautiful spot, am almost wholly surrounded by water
  13. wherein Deacon (later General) Palmer
  14. has surrounded himself with a colony
  15. of glass-blowers from Germany
  16. come to undertake that work in America, 1752,
  17. his lucerne grass
  18. whereof 4 crops a year, seed he had of Gridley of Abingdon
  19. pods an odd thing, a sort of ramshorn of straw
  20. about 70 bushel of 1/4th an acre of land
  21. his potatoes
  22. sub conditione fidelitatis
  23. is it known that Oliver ever advised to lay internal taxes upon us?
  24. or solicited office of stamps?
  25. to be dragged through the town only in pageantry
  26. to be burnt on a hill, and his house broken open ...
  27. but has not the Lieutenant Governor
  28. a near relation etc/
  29. a son etc/
  30. in one family etc/
  31. BY 40 towns, verbatim, their instrument
  32. to their representatives Sam Adams has taken some paragraphs
  33. Stamp Act spread a spirit from Georgia
  34. to New Hampshire
  35. with honour, more inquisitive as to their liberties
  36. even the lowest
  37. Your courts are shut down, justice VOID
  38. I have not drawn a writ since the 1st of November
  39. if this authority be once recognized
  40. ruins America
  41. I must cut down my expenses.
  42. For my ruin as well as America’s ...
  43. To renounce under tree, nay under the very branch
  44. where they hang’d him in effigy ...
  45. UNANIMOUS for Gridley, Jas Otis, J. Adams
  46. pray that the Courts may be opened
  47. (original of this is preserved)
  48. If what I wrote last night
  49. recall what Lord Bacon
  50. wrote about laws ... invisible and correspondences ...
  51. that parliament
  52. hath no authority
  53. to impose internal taxes upon us.
  54. Common Law. 1st Inst. 142
  55. Coke, to the 3rd Inst. Law is the subject’s birthright
  56. Want of right and of remedy are all one.
  57. CONSTRUED that no innocent
  58. may by literal construction be
  59. damaged actus
  60. legis nulli facit injuriam
  61. Governor in council as supreme court of probate
  62. ... by more ravenous sort of ambition
  63. or avarice ...
  64. avoid as the plague
  65. tendency of the act to reduce the body of people
  66. to ignorance, dependence and poverty
  67. religious bigots
  68. the worst of men, colonies
  69. becomes a fashionable study ... and will probably
  70. stare more and more for some time. Ipswich Instructions
  71. right to tax selves,
  72. rather as allies than as subjects
  73. FIRST settlement not a national act
  74. and not at expense of the nation
  75. nor made on land of the Crown
  76. waddled through snow driving my cattle to water
  77. Shutting courts equals abdication of throne
  78. for entering a vessel at Louisburg
  79. and taking away
  80. 10 barrels of
  81. rum
  82. Pitt vs/ Grenville, and for the repeal of the act
  83. Parliament takes as Representative and not Legislative
  84. authority
  85. But Thatcher got him indicted for barratry
  86. And he came near to conviction. Goffe grew warm
  87. and said Eaton’s character
  88. was as good as any man’s at the bar
  89. punch wine bread cheese apples pipes and tobacco
  90. Thursday oated at Martin’s
  91. when we saw five boxes of dollars
  92. going in a horse cart to Salem for Boston
  93. FOR England, said to contain about $18,000
  94. lopping and trimming
  95. walnut trees, and for felling of pines and savins
  96. An irregular misshapen pine will darken
  97. the whole scene in some places
  98. case between negro and owner. At same time a craving man
  99. (Hutchinson)
  100. at Dr Tuft’s where I found fine wild goose on the spit
  101. and cranberries in the skillet
  102. to the White House in Brattle St.
  103. office lucrative in itself but new statutes
  104. had been passed in Parliament
  105. J. Q. A. born July eleventh
  106. duty on glass incompatible
  107. with my ideas on right, justice and policy
  108. between negro and owner engaged Mr Hawley’s attention
  109. 100 towns, one week’s notice
  110. about 10 o’clock troops began landing under cover of the cannon
  111. of the ships, without molestation
  112. Oct. 1st.
  113. Population of Boston retrograde during 25 years
  114. that preceded this
  115. was now not above 16,000
  116. During my absence on circuit
  117. as Byles saidOur grievances red-dressed
  118. under my windows in the square
  119. drum, fife, and in evening violins, songs
  120. flutes of the serenaders, that is, Sons of Liberty
  121. as well at the extravagance of the populace,
  122. deceptions to which they are liable,
  123. suppression of equity, when thoroughly heated
  124. my drafts will be found in the Boston Gazette for those years ‘68, ‘69
  125. a cargo of wines from Madeira
  126. belonging to Mr Hancock
  127. without paying customs
  128. painful drudgery I had in his cause:
  129. as to this statute my client never consented
  130. Mr Hancock never consented, never voted for it himself
  131. nor for any man to make any such law
  132. whenever
  133. we leave principles and clear propositions
  134. and wander into construction we wander into a wilderness
  135. a darkness wherein arbitrary power
  136. set on throne of brass with a sceptre of iron ...
  137. Suspended, in fact, only after Battle of Lexington
  138. which ended all such prosecutions
  139. Mt Wollanston, seat of our ancestors
  140. from
  141. East chamber every ship sloop schooner and brigantine
  142. Three hundred and fifty were under the Liberty Tree,
  143. a young buttonwood,
  144. and preparing the next day’s paper, cooking up paragraphs,
  145. articles, working the political engine
  146. MORNING at Brackett’s upon case of a whale ...
  147. that I had imported from London the
  148. only complete set of British Statutes
  149. then in Boston or, I think, in the whole
  150. of the Colonies, and in that work a statute
  151. whose publication they feared, an
  152. express prohibition of empressment
  153. expressly IN America which statute they intended to
  154. get repealed
  155. and did succeed 1769 toward the end of December so doing.
  156. About 9 o’clock in evening, supposed to be signal of fire
  157. men in front of the barracks and baker’s boy afore mentioned
  158. Mr Forest known then as the ‘Irish infant’
  159. tears streaming over his face
  160. ‘for that very unfortunate man, Captain Preston
  161. in prison
  162. wants council and can get none, Mr Quincy
  163. will serve if you will
  164. Mr Auchmuty declines unless you will engage’
  165. ‘But he must be sensible that this wd/ be as important a case
  166. as was ever tried here or in any country....
  167. not expect me to use art, sophistry, prevarication’
  168. Upon which he offered me a retaining fee of one guinea
  169. which I accepted
  170. (Re which things was Hutchinson undoubtedly scro-
  171. fulous ego scriptor cantilenae
  172. Ez. P)
  173. Bringing it in all to 10 guineas
  174. for Preston and 8 for the sojers
  175. (But where the devil this brace of Adamses sprung from!
  176. (Oxenbridge Thatcher ... dangers from intemperate heats
  177. BUT in Connecticut every family has a little manufactury house
  178. and make for themselves things for which they were used
  179. to run into debt to the merchants.)
  180. Cited Beccaria
  181. He went out and saddled my horse and bridled him
  182. ‘as a man of liberty, I respect you
  183. ‘and from here to Cape Cod you won’t find ten men amiss’
  184. nihil humanum alienum
  185. This landlord, a high son
  186. and has on his sign:
  187. Sons of Liberty served here ...
  188. When he came away he took view of the comet
  189. ... to roll and cool themselves and feed on white honeysuckle
  190. our horses had got out of compound.
  191. SUBILLAM
  192. Cumis ego occulis meis
  193. sleeping under a window: pray for me,
  194. withered to skin and nerves tu theleis respondebat illa
  195. apothanein; pray for me gentlemen
  196. my prayers used to be answered, She prayed for deliverance
  197. 110 years of age, and some say she is over that
  198. Anemonie, at Nantasketnon vi sed saepe legendo
  199. Severn Ayres of Virginia, Mr Bull, Mr Trapier of S. Carolina
  200. Chas Second’s time was tax voted in Carolina
  201. Hemp seed cd/ be brought here, mulberry does well in our climate
  202. When people of Europe have been insidiously deprived
  203. of their liberties
  204. which wd/ render jurors mere ostentation and pageantry
  205. green tea, from Holland I hope, but dont know,
  206. ... recovered at Braintree, pruned by me, grown remarkably
  207. pines better for lopping
  208. STOOD by the people much longer than they wd/ stand
  209. by themselves.
  210. 1771 make potash and raise a great number of colts
  211. which they send to the West Indies for rum
  212. Splendours of Hartford and Middletown
  213. just as we got there
  214. Indian pudding pork greens on the table
  215. One party for wealth and power
  216. at expense
  217. of the liberty of their country
  218. wars, carnage, confusion
  219. not interested in their servitude
  220. I am, for all I can see, left quite alone
  221. 13th, Thursday
  222. landlady great grand daughter of Governor Endicott
  223. new light, continually canting ...
  224. said Indian preacher: Adam! Adam when you knew
  225. it wd/ make good cider!
  226. Mrs Rops, fine woman
  227. very pretty and very genteel
  228. Tells old stories of witchcraft, paper money and
  229. Governor Belcher’s administration
  230. Always convinced that the liberties of the country
  231. had more to fear from one man (Hutchinson)
  232. than from all other men whatsoever
  233. which have always freely and decently uttered
  234. Rich seldom remarkable for modesty, ingenuity or humanity
  235. ‘Is mere impertinence a contempt?” asked Mr Otis
  236. I said there was no more justice left in Britain than hell
  237. Hutchinson is etc.
  238. Moore’s Reports, for the book was borrowed; its owner
  239. a buyer, not a reader of books
  240. for it had been Mr Gridley’s
  241. N/Y/ state has done partially
  242. 22; Monday (this was 1773)
  243. Hutchinson’s letters received
  244. Oliver, Moffat, Paxton and Rome
  245. for 1767, ‘8, ‘9
  246. avaricious, ambitious, vindictive
  247. these were the letters that Franklin got hold of
  248. Bone of our bone, educated among us,
  249. serpent and deputy serpent
  250. that Sir John Temple procured them
  251. God knows how or from whom
  252. Gentle rain last night and this morning
  253. Hutchinson sucking up to George IIIrd.
  254. falsehood in Rome’s letters quite flagrant
  255. Col. Haworth
  256. attracted no attention until
  257. he discovered his antipathy to a cat
  258. Three cargoes Bohea
  259. were emptied, this is but an attack upon property
  260. I apprehend it was necessary, absolute, indispensable
  261. irregular recourse to original power
  262. IMpeachment by House before Council
  263. said shd/ be glad if constitution cd/ carry on
  264. without recourse to higher powers unwritten ...
  265. Says Gridley: You keep very late hours!
  266. End of this Canto.