Browsing: Diary of John Adams, Volume 2

1. From JA's loose sheets of minutes of debates (D/JA/22A). In the MS these undated notes follow minutes of debates on Galloway's plea for a plan of union (Debates, 28 Sept., above), but their physical location is a very doubtful {p. 155} clue to their date. The question of including the “Canada Bill” (Quebec Act) among the colonists' grievances was repeatedly debated, but the parallels in substance and even in phrasing between the present rough notes and Duane's Notes tentatively assigned by Burnett to 17 Oct. strongly suggest that both pertain to the same day's debate. See JCC , 1:66; Burnett, ed., Letters of Members , 1:77–79. It seems likely that JA's notes are the heads of his own arguments exclusively, but Duane's summary of JA's speech is too meager and cryptic to make this conjecture certain.

1. Quakers.

2. On this day the Association of the Colonies, or nonimportation and nonexportation agreement, was read in Congress and signed by the members, including JA ( JCC , 1:75–81, 127–128 [Nos. 2–5], and facsimile of the Association as signed, in pocket of back cover of that volume).

1. On this day Congress approved an “address to the people of Great-Britain” and a “memorial to the inhabitants of the British Colonies”; and Galloway, McKean, JA, and Hooper were named “a committee to revise the minutes of the Congress” ( JCC , 1:81–101). The committee to prepare an address to the King also reported, but its report was recommitted; see entry of 11 Oct. and note, above.