Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 2

9. In the second Novanglus letter JA said that Grenville “chose to get the revenue into the exchequer, because he had hungry cormorants enough about him in England whose cooings were more troublesome to his ears, than the croaking of the ravens in America.” After reading this letter, Samuel Swift told JA that the word “cooings” was inappropriate; see Swift to JA, 30 Jan. 1775, below. Apparently Swift's letter provoked JA's note to the printer.