Independence

  11. Philip Davidson, Propaganda and the American Revolution, 1763–1776 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1941), 150–52; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, 1764–1776 (New York, 1966), 232–33.

  12. The depositions taken following the fighting can be found in Am Archives 4th series, 2:489–502. The quotations are from pages 489, 490, 491, 493, 494, and 495.

  13. “Intercepted Letters of the Soldiery in Boston,” April 28, 1775, Am Archives 4th series, 2:440–41.

  14. James Warren, “To the Inhabitants of Great Britain,” April 26, 1775, Am Archives 4th series, 2:487–88.

  15. Robert S. Rantoul, “The Cruise of the ‘Quero’: How We Carried the News to the King,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 36 (1900): 5–18; Fred Junkin Hinkhouse, The Preliminaries of the American Revolution as Seen in the English Press, 1763–1775 (reprint, New York, 1969), 188; Troy Bickham, Making Headlines: The American Revolution as Seen Through the British Press (DeKalb, Ill., 2009), 71–72.

  16. Lee to Lee, May 10, 1775, LDC 1:337; Richard Caswell to William Caswell, May 11, 1775, ibid., 1:339–40; Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, May 12, 1775, ibid., 1:345–46; JA to AA, May 8, 1775, AFC 1:195; DGW 3:329n.

  17. JA to AA, May 8, 1775, AFC 1:195.

  18. Caesar Rodney to Thomas Rodney, May 11, 1775, LDC 1:344.

  19. JCC 2:11–44; GW to Fairfax County Committee, May 16, 1775, PGWC 10:364.

  20. BF to Galloway, May 8, 1775, PBF 22:33; editor’s note, ibid., 22:32–33n; Galloway to Joseph Verplanck, June 24, 1775, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 21 (1897), 483; Newcomb, Franklin and Galloway, 281–84; Eliphalet Dyer to Joseph Trumbull, May 18, 1775, LDC 1:357. Galloway’s account of his meeting with BF can be found in Peter O. Hutchinson, ed., The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq … (London, 1883–86), 2:237–38.

  21. Silas Deane, Diary, May 16, 1775, LDC 1:351.

  22. Milton E. Flower, John Dickinson: Conservative Revolutionary (Charlottesville, Va., 1983), 23; JA, Diary, August 31, September 12, 1774, September 15, 1775, DAJA 2:117, 133, 173.

  23. Dickinson to Samuel Dickinson, January 18, March 8, April 22, August 15, 1754, January 21, 1755, in H. Trevor Colbourn, ed., “A Pennsylvania Farmer at the Court of King George: John Dickinson’s London Letters, 1754–1756,” in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 86 (1962): 252, 257, 259, 268, 278, 421; Dickinson to Mary Cadwalader Dickinson, May 25, August 1, 1754, ibid., 86:275, 276.

  24. Jack Rakove, Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America (Boston, 2010), 6. The quotation can be found in Flower, John Dickinson, 38.

  25. John Dickinson, A Speech, Delivered in the House of Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania, May 24, 1764, in Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of John Dickinson (Philadelphia, 1895), 1:22–23, 24, 34; Newcomb, Franklin and Galloway, 88; editor’s note, PBF 11:194n; Flower, John Dickinson, 38; David L. Jacobson, John Dickinson and the Revolution in Pennsylvania, 1764–1776 (Berkeley, Calif., 1965), 9.

  26. Joseph Galloway, The Speech of Joseph Galloway (London, 1765), 28; Newcomb, Franklin and Galloway, 89; Jacobson, John Dickinson and the Revolution in Pennsylvania, 17–19.

  27. Pennsylvania Assembly: Petition to the King, May 23, 26, 1764, PBF 11:199–200; Dickinson, A Speech, Delivered in the House of Assembly, in Ford, Writings of John Dickinson, 1:21–49; Joseph Galloway, Speech, in Answer to the Speech of John Dickinson, Esq. (1764), in Charles Evans, American Bibliography (Chicago, 1903–59). See the Early American Imprint Series (Readex Microprint, 1955–69), Evans, no. 9671.

  28. BF, Preface to The Speech of Joseph Galloway, Esq., [August 1764], PBF 11:271–311. BF’s quote can be found on page 296.

  29. John Dickinson, A Reply to a Piece called The Speech of Joseph Galloway, Esquire (1764), in Ford, Writings of John Dickinson, 1:77–132; John Dickinson, An Answer to Joseph Galloway (1764), ibid., 1:137–40; Joseph Galloway, To the Public, September 29, 1764, Early American Imprint Series, Evans, no. 9674. The Dickinson quotes can be found in A Reply, pages 78, 81, 94, 102, 110, and 121–22.

  30. Quoted in Ernest H. Baldwin, “Joseph Galloway, the Loyalist Politician,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 26 (1902): 186.

  31. Newcomb, Franklin and Galloway, 90; Flower, John Dickinson, 42.

  32. Jacobson, John Dickinson and the Revolution in Pennsylvania, 23.

  33. Newcomb, Franklin and Galloway, 94, 98–100.

  34. Flower, John Dickinson, 43–62; Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1953), 108–9, 115.

  35. John Dickinson, An Address to the Committee of Correspondence in Barbados (Philadelphia, 1766), in Ford, Writings of John Dickinson, 1:251–76.

  36. Quoted in Flower, John Dickinson, 64, and Jacobson, John Dickinson and the Revolution in Pennsylvania, 58.

  37. Flower, John Dickinson, 58, 64–65.

  38. See Thomas R. Adams, ed., American Independence: The Growth of an Idea: A Bibliographical Study of the American Pamphlets Printed Between 1764–1776 Dealing with the Dispute Between Great Britain and Her Colonies (Providence, R.I., 1965).

  39. Flower, John Dickinson, 69, 76; Jacobson, John Dickinson and the Revolution in Pennsylvania, 43, 69; Adams, American Independence, 39; Peter D. G. Thomas, The Townshend Duty Crisis: The Second Phase of the American Revolution, 1767–1773 (Oxford, 1987), 77; The Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth: American Papers (reprint, Boston, 1972), 2:235; Benjamin Franklin, Preface to John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer, May 8, 1768, PBF 15:111–12; JA, Diary, August 14, 1769, DAJA 1:341–42.

  40. Carl F. Kaestle, “The Public Reaction to John Dickinson’s ‘Farmer’s Letters,’ ” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 78 (1968): 323–59. The quotations are from Flower, John Dickinson, pages 67 and 70.

  41. John Dickinson, “A Song for American Freedom,” July 1768, in Ford, Writings of John Dickinson, 1:425.

  42. [John Dickinson], Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (Philadelphia, 1768), in Ford, Writings of John Dickinson, 1:406. The quotations can be found on pages 312, 328, 348, 364, 386, 397, 400, and 404.

  43. Flower, John Dickinson, 76–99. On Josiah Quincy’s comments on Fairhill, see “Journal of Josiah Quincy, January 1773,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 49 (1916): 473.

  44. John Dickinson, Two Letters on the Tea Tax, November 1773, in Ford, Writings of John Dickinson, 1:457–63. The quotes are on pages 461 and 462.

  45. John Dickinson, “Letters to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies” (May 1774), in Ford, Writings of John Dickinson, 1:469–501. The quotes are on pages 498–99.

  46. Dickinson to Quincy, October 28, 1774, LDC 1:251; Dickinson to Arthur Lee, April 29, 1775, ibid., 1:331–32.

  47. Dickinson to Arthur Lee, April 29, 1775, LDC 1:331–32; Dickinson to Josiah Quincy Jr., October 28, 1774, ibid., 1:251; Dickinson to Cushing, December 11, 1774, ibid., 1:264; Dickinson to Samuel Ward, January 29, 1775, ibid., 1:303; John Dickinson, “Notes for a Speech in Congress,” [May 23–25?], 1775, ibid., 1:379.

  48. Quoted in Flower, John Dickinson, 66.

  49. The preceding paragraphs on Dickinson’s speech draw on his “Notes for a Speech in Congress,” [May 23–25?], 1775, LDC 1:371–82.

  50. Samuel Ward, Diary, May 15, 1775, LDC 1:351; Silas Deane, Diary, May 16, 1775, ibid., 1:351; JCC 2:53.

  51. Silas Deane, Diary, May 16, 1775, LDC 1:352.

  52. JA to Warren, May 21, 1775, PJA 3:11.

  53. Merrill Jensen, The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763–1776 (New York, 1968), 605–6.

  54. James Kirby Martin, Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered (New York, 1997), 60–72; Willard Sterne Randall, Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor (New York, 1990), 92–108; John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York, 2007), 38–39.


  55. Connecticut Delegates to Jonathan Trumbull Sr., May 31, 1775, LDC 1:422–23; Connecticut Delegates to William Williams, May 31, 1775, ibid., 1:423; Hancock to the New York Provincial Congress, June 1, 1775, ibid., 1:429; JCC 2:64–65, 73–75.

  56. Silas Deane, Diary, May 23, 1775, LDC 1:371.

  57. Dickinson, “Notes for a Speech in Congress,” [May 23–25], 1775, LDC 1:371–82, 386–90; John Dickinson’s Notes of Debates, May 23–25, 1775, ibid., 1:390–91; John Dickinson’s Proposed Resolutions, [May 23–25], 1775, ibid., 1:383–86.

  58. Dickinson’s Notes of Debates, [May 23–25], 1775, LDC 1:390; JA to James Warren, July 24, 1775, PJA 3:89; JA, Autobiography, DAJA 3:314.

  59. Silas Deane, Diary, May 23, 24, 1775, LDC 1:371, 401.

  60. JCC 2:64–66.

  CHAPTER 6: “PROGRESS MUST BE SLOW”: JOHN ADAMS AND THE POLITICS OF A DIVIDED CONGRESS

  1. JA to AA, July 23, 1775, AFC 1:253.

  2. JA to Warren, September 30, 1775, PJA 3:3:172; William Bradford to James Madison, June 2, 1775, in William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (Chicago, 1962–91), 1:149. SA and Lee are quoted in Gordon S. Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin (New York, 2004), 156.

  3. BF to Jonathan Shipley, July 7, 1775, PBF 22:96; BF to Joseph Priestley, May 16, 1775, ibid., 22:44; BF to Burke, May 15, 1775, ibid., 22:41.

  4. BF to Hartley, October 3, 1775, PBF 22:217; BF to Shipley, July 7, 1775, ibid., 22:94–95.

  5. BF to William Strahan, July 5, 1775, PBF 22:85. BF never sent this letter, but there can be no doubt that his harsh tone accurately reflected his outlook in July 1775.

  6. Quoted in Wood, Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, 159.

  7. JA to AA, July 23, 1775, AFC 1:253.

  8. Esmond Wright, Franklin of Philadelphia (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 238.

  9. John Ferling, A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic (New York, 2003), 10–12, 15.

  10. BF, Proposed Articles of Confederation, [on or before July 21, 1775], PBF 22:122–25, 120–22n.

  11. John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York, 2007), 37.

  12. James Warren to JA, May 7, June 11, 1775, PJA 3:3–4, 24; DAJA 3:321; Jerrilyn G. Marston, King and Congress: The Transfer of Political Legitimacy, 1774–1776 (Princeton, N.J., 1987), 144–45; George Athan Billias, Elbridge Gerry: Founding Father and Republican Statesman (New York, 1976), 58; LDC 1:432–33n.; Robert Treat Paine to Elbridge Gerry, June 10, 1775, ibid., 1:477; Cushing to Joseph Hawes, June 10, 1775, ibid., 1:470.

  13. New York Delegates to the New York Provincial Congress, June 3, 1775, LDC 1:442–43; Philip Schuyler to Samuel Springer, June 3, 1775, ibid., 1:444.

  14. JA to Moses Gill, June 10, 1775, PJA 3:21; SA to Warren, June 10, 1775, LDC 1:468.

  15. DAJA 3:321–23; JCC 2:89–93, 96–97.

  16. Thomas Cushing to James Bowdoin Sr., June 21, 1775, LDC 1:530; Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, June 16, 1775, ibid., 1:494; Eliphalet Dyer to Jonathan Trumbull Sr., June 16, 1775, ibid., 1:496; Dyer to Joseph Trumbull, June 17, 1775, ibid., 1:499–500; Hancock to Gerry, June 18, 1775, ibid., 1:507; JA to AA, June 17, 1775, AFC 1:215–16; Benjamin Rush to Thomas Rushton, October 29, 1775, in L. H. Butterfield, ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush (Princeton, N.J., 1951), 1:92.

  17. On Adams’s youth and his choices, see, JA, Autobiography, DAJA 3:253–61; JA to Jonathan Sewall, February 1760, PJA 1:41–42; John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (reprint, New York, 2010), 9–17; and John Ferling, Setting the World Ablaze: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the American Revolution (New York, 2000), 5–7, 20–21.

  18. On JA’s courtship of AA, and her background, see Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage (New York, 2009), 1–19.

  19. JA, Autobiography, DAJA 3:294; JA to AA, June 29, 1774, AFC 1:113. On Adams’s struggles and eventual ascent as a lawyer, see Daniel R. Coquillette, “Justinian in Braintree: John Adams, Civilian Learning, and Legal Elitism, 1758–1775,” in Law in Colonial Massachusetts, Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications, 62 (1984): 359–418; L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller Zobel, eds., Legal Papers of John Adams (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 1:lii–xciv; Ferling, John Adams, 25–38; Ferling, Setting the World Ablaze, 25–27, 54–59.

  20. [John Adams], “Instructions to Braintree’s Representatives Concerning the Stamp Act,” September–October 1765, PJA 1:132–43; [John Adams], “Clarendon to Pym,” January 13–27, 1766, ibid., 1:155–69; [John Adams], “Replies to Philanthrop, Defender of Governor Bernard,” December 9, 1766–February 16, 1767, ibid., 1:174–210.

  21. JA, Autobiography, DAJA 3:289–91; 1:271, 274, 342, 352; 2:55, 74.

  22. JA, Autobiography, DAJA 1:342.

  23. JA, Autobiography, DAJA 3:292–94; PJA 1:238n; Hiller B. Zobel, The Boston Massacre (New York, 1970), 32, 41, 49, 214, 217–21.

  24. JA, Autobiography, DAJA 1:339n, 3:294.

  25. JA to Hezekiah Niles, February 13, 1818, in WJA 10:285–86; JA to William Tudor, June 1, 1817, July 9, 1818, ibid., 10:259, 327; JA to Tudor, November 16, 25, December 7, 1816, Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 1954–59, microfilm edition, reel 123; JA to Sheldon Jones, March 11, 1809, ibid., reel 118; JA to TJ, July 15, 1813, July 9, 1818, in Lestor J. Cappon, ed., The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1961), 2:237, 594; JA, Diary, March 22, 1773, DAJA 2:80; JA, Autobiography, ibid., 3:293–94; JA to Benjamin Rush, February 27, 1805, May 1, 21, 1807, in John A. Schutz and Douglass Adair, eds., The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805–1813 (San Marino, Calif., 1966), 35–36, 80, 88; Bernard Bailyn, ed., Pamphlets of the American Revolution, 1750–1776 (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), 23–30. See also Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthmen: Studies in the Transmission, Development, and Circumstance of English Liberal Thought from the Restoration of Charles II Until the War with the Thirteen Colonies (New York, 1959); John Howe, The Changing Political Thought of John Adams (Princeton, N.J., 1966), 15, 17–19, 43; Zoltan Haraszti, John Adams and the Prophets of Progress (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), 192; Ferling, Setting the World Ablaze, 82–84.

  26. JA, Diary, October 19, 1777, DAJA 2:64.

  27. JA, Diary, October 23, 30, 1772, DAJA 2:72, 74.

  28. JA to Warren, December 17, 1773, April 9, 1774, PJA 2:1–2, 83; JA to James Burgh, December 28, 1773, ibid., 2:206; DAJA 2:85–86.

  29. JA, Autobiography, DAJA 3:282, 307.

  30. JA, Autobiography, DAJA 3:308–9; 2:156; Ferling, Setting the World Ablaze, 95.

  31. JA to Shelton Jones, March 11, 1809, in Adams, Works of John Adams, 9:612; JA to William Tudor, March 29, 1817, ibid., 10:245; JA to AA, February 9, 1799, Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 1954–59, microfilm edition, reel 393; JA to François Adrian Van Der Kemp, April 18, 1815, ibid., reel 322; JA, Diary, April 26, 1779, DAJA 2:362–63; TJ to James Madison, January 30, 1787, May 25, 1788, PTJ 11:94–95; 13:201–2. On the height of eighteenth-century male colonists, see Kenneth L. Sokoloff and George C. Villaflor, “The Early Achievement of Modern Stature in America,” Social Science History 6 (1982): 435–81; John Ferling, “Soldiers for Virginia: Who Served in the French and Indian War?” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 94 (1986): 312–23.

  32. JA to AA, May 25, 29, June 2, 10, 23, July 8, 12, September 26, 1775, AFC 1:206, 207, 208, 213, 226, 243, 285; JA to James Warren, May 21, 1775, PJA 3:11.

  33. Lewis E. Braverman and Robert D. Utiger, “Introduction to Thyrotoxicosis,” in Lewis E. Braverman and Robert D. Utiger, eds., Werner and Ingbar’s The Thyroid: A Fundamental and Clinical Text (Philadelphia, 1991), 645–57; Sidney Werner, “History of the Thyroid,” ibid., 3–5; Robert Volpe, “Graves’ Disease,” ibid., 648–50; Peter C. Whybrow, “Behavioral and Psychiatric Aspects of Thyrotoxicosis,” ibid., 865; Harry B. Burch, “Ophthalmopathy,” ibid.,
536–52; Vahab Fatourechi, “Localized Myxedema and Thyroid Acropachy,” ibid., 553–58; Jeffrey D. Bernhard, “The Skin in Thyrotoxicosis,” ibid., 696–700; Leslie J. De Groot et al., The Thyroid and Its Diseases (New York, 1984), 2–42, 136–44; Rene Mornex and Jacques L. Orgiazzi, “Hyperthyroidism,” in Michael De Visscher, ed., The Thyroid Gland: Comprehensive Endocrinology (New York, 1980), 279–91, 306–17; Brita Winsa et al., “Stressful Life Events and Graves’ Disease,” Lancet 338 (December 14, 1991): 1475–79; Paul J. Rosch, “Stressful Life Events and Graves’ Disease,” ibid., 324 (September 4, 1993): 566–67; A. Horsley, “On the Function of the Thyroid Gland,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 33 (1985): 5; Robert Volpe, “Autoimmune Thyroid Disease,” Hospital Practice 19 (1984): 141–43; Marjorie Safran and Louis E. Braverman, “Thyrotoxicosis and Graves’ Disease,” ibid., 20 (1985): 34–36; S. G. Dortman, “Hyperthyroidism: Usual and Unusual Causes,” Archives of Internal Medicine 137 (1977): 995–96 See also John Ferling and Lewis E. Braverman, “John Adams’s Health Reconsidered,” William and Mary Quarterly 55 (1998): 83–104.

  34. JA to Warren, June 27, 1775, PJA 3:49.

  35. John Ferling, “ ‘Oh that I was a Soldier’: John Adams and the Anguish of War,” American Quarterly 36 (1984): 258–75.

  36. JA to AA, May 26, June 10, 1775, AFC 1:206, 214.

  37. George W. Corner, ed., The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush: His Travels Through Life Together with His Commonplace Book for 1789–1813 (Princeton, N.J., 1948), 140.

  38. Editor’s notes, PJA 3:7–9, 156–58; 4:17–20.

  39. Joseph Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams (New York, 1993), 42–43; David F. Hawke, Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly (Indianapolis, Ind., 1971), 164–65; G. S. Rowe, Thomas McKean: The Shaping of a Republican (Boulder, Colo., 1978), 164–65; TJ, “Character Sketches,” in Saul K. Padover, ed., The Complete Jefferson (New York, 1943), 900, 904; Carol Berkin, Jonathan Sewall: Odyssey of an American Loyalist (New York, 1974), 142.