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Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 2
Docno: ADMS-06-02-02-0003
Recipient: Adams, John
Date: 1774-01-03
From James Warren
[dateline] Plymo. Jany. the 3d. 1774
[salute] Dr. Sir
I Received your last and am to Acknowledge that the Contents of it gave me great pleasure.1 I have for some time thought it necessary that the People should strike some Bold
stroke and Try the Issue. They have long enough Submitted to Oppressions and Insults
following one another in A rapid Succession without finding any Advantage. They have
now Indeed passed the River and left no retreat and must therefore Abide the Consequences.
What those will be seems to be the great matter of Speculation and as People are determined
by Reason or by the frightful List of Scarecrows and Bugbears (mentioned in your last
and which are Employed on this Occasion) their speculations will differ. As your Judgment
will be regulated by the first I should be glad to hear it. I think the Ministry have
one way at least to avoid the necessity of Advancing or retreating at this time and
that is by laying the Blame of the whole on their own and East India Compy. officers
who have drove the People to this desperate step. And this, Justice and Truth (Company
they have not been used too), will Countenance them in. In what proportion this Blame
is to be laid to Each may be Adjusted Among them and if they quarrel in the settlement
of that Matter we may Avail ourselves of the old Proverb. I Admire Doanes reasoning
and if he was not Assisted by the Author of the Letter in the Methodical Arraignment
of his Propositions I think he reasoned better on this, than any other Occasion. I
made good Use of your Letter without mentioning the Authors Name to Encounter the
Tory Bugbears and Allay the frigh[t]ful Apprehensions they had raised in some minds Otherwise firm. I Congratulate you
on the Union of Sentiment and Spirit prevailing through the Continent,2 which makes even our Toric Protestors hang their Ears, and may in Time Affect the
Obdurate Heart and Inveterate Resolution of H——n himself especially when he finds
himself forsaken by a Tryon.3 The recantation made in Boston by one of our Protestors has sickend some Others.
Divers of them Intending to Boston last week are still at Home. I am Inclined to think
many or several Others here will follow his Example, tho' great Pains are taken to
prevent it.4 I am Obliged to write in A great Hurry the Bearer haveing determind to go sooner
this Morning than I Expected. I can therefore only Add that Mrs. Warren Joins in Com• { 7 } pliments and Regards to Mr. and Mrs. Adams and that I am with great Sincerity Your
Friend and Humb. Servt,
[signed] Jas. Warren
RC (Adams Papers); addressed: “To John Adams Esqr. att Boston p favr. Mr. Croswell.”
3. Gov. William Tryon of New York, yielding to popular pressure that had intensified
with the news of the Boston Tea Party, allowed tea intended for his province to be
returned to England (Benjamin W. Labaree, The Boston Tea Party, N.Y., 1964, p. 155).
4. On 7 Dec., the Plymouth town meeting adopted resolutions endorsing the Boston resolves
of 1 Dec. concerning the importation of taxed tea. Warren himself was a member of
the Plymouth committee which drafted these resolves. At a town meeting on 13 Dec.,
Edward Winslow presented a “Protest” signed by forty Plymouth residents who objected
to the whig resolves of the preceding week. (The resolutions of 7 Dec. and the “Protest”
of the 13th are printed in Massachusetts Gazette, 23 Dec.) The Boston Gazette of 27 Dec. carried the statement of Barnabas Hedge, one of the signers of the Plymouth
“Protest,” disassociating himself from the document and its “gross Reflections” upon
the Boston town meeting and admitting his “great Error” in having signed the “Protest.”
For a further comment on the motives of the Plymouth protesters, see “Cornelius Nepos”
in the Boston Gazette of 10 Jan. 1774.
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/
http://www.masshist.org/apde2/