Browsing: Diary of John Adams, Volume 2

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Docno: ADMS-01-02-02-0003-0008-0002

Author: Adams, John

Date: 1773-12-18

1773. Decr. 18. Saturday.

J. Quincy met me this Morning and after him Kent, and told me that the Governor said Yesterday in Council, that the People had been guilty of High Treason, and that he would bring the Attorney General on Monday to convince them that it was so—and that Hancock said, he was for having a Body Meeting1 to take off that Brother in Law of his.2

1. That is, a mass meeting, which anyone could attend (including persons from nearby towns), as distinguished from a town meeting. The term is fully explained in Tudor, James Otis, p. 418, note.

2. This can only mean Jonathan Sewall, the attorney general. Sewall's wife was the former Esther Quincy. Hancock was betrothed to her sister Dorothy.

Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2017.
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/