Browsing: Legal Papers of John Adams, Volume 1

102. See Nos. 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 45–49 . The continuing increase in JA's practice the following year brought the unhappy comment from James Otis that he had “become the Sport of the young Gentlemen of the Bar, and he was greatly mortified on looking over the Entries this present term of the superior Court [Aug. 1769] to find he had but 4 when the youngest Quincy had 9 and John Adams had 60.” Andrew Oliver to Governor Bernard, 3 Dec. 1769, 12 Bernard Papers 163–164, MH, printed in Quincy, Reports (Appendix) 464. The Minute Book and JA's docket for this term (Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 184) show that he was indeed engaged in sixty civil actions, as well as in three criminal cases.