Browsing: Legal Papers of John Adams, Volume 2

20. By virtue of 1 Anne, stat. 1, c. 8, §5 (1702), note 13 above. Hutchinson stated that the argument which followed had been called for in part because Samuel Sewall, “the late chief justice, who was in high esteem, had doubts of the legality of such writs.” 3 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, ed. Mayo, 68. JA later concurred as to Sewall's doubts and further stated that the February argument was before that Justice. JA to Tudor, 29 March 1817, 10 JA, Works 247. There is some question whether Sewall in fact had doubts. See Malcolm Freiberg, Prelude to Purgatory: Thomas Hutchinson in Provincial Massachusetts Politics, 1760–1770, p. 13 note (Brown Univ. doctoral dissertation, 1950). Whatever his views, he had died in Sept. 1760, so that he could not have heard the Feb. 1761 argument. See Whitmore, Mass. Civil List 70; Quincy, Reports (Appendix) 409. Since Hutchinson was commissioned as chief justice on 13 Nov. 1760 and took his seat on the bench on 30 Dec., only three days after George II's death was known in Boston, it would seem that JA was also in error in stating that Hutchinson was appointed expressly to decide the writs question in the Crown's favor. See Quincy, Reports (Appendix) 408–411 note.