Boston, July 1, 1819.
[ERRATA].
| PAGE. | LINE. | |
| [24] | 26 | from the top, for procreations, read procurations. |
| [32] | 14 | from the top, for terms read terrors. |
| 18 | from the bottom, read more after much. | |
| [44] | 9 | from the top, for their read these. |
| [55] | 20 | from the top, for shewing read knowing. |
| [69] | 1 | from the bottom, for articles read artifices. |
| [100] | 12 | from the top, for knew read know, and for know read knew. |
| [100] | 2 | from the bottom, for amity read anxiety. |
| [120] | 7 | from the bottom, dele-suo. |
| [120] | 6 | from the bottom, for compact read conquest. |
| [240] | 8 | from the bottom, for expected read respected. |
[PREFACE.]
JONATHAN SEWALL was descended from Mitchills and Hulls and Sewalls, and I believe Higginsons, i. e. from several of the ancient and venerable of New England families. But, as I am no genealogist, I must refer to my aged classmate and highly esteemed friend Judge Sewall of York, whose researches will, one day, explain the whole.
Mr. Sewall's father was unfortunate; died young, leaving his son destitute; but as the child had discovered a pregnant genius, he was educated by the charitable contribution of his friends, of whom Dr. Samuel Cooper was one of the most active and successful, among his opulent parishoners. Mr. Sewall graduated at college in 1748; kept a Latin school in Salem, till 1756, when Chambers Russell, of Lincoln, a Judge of the Supreme Court and a Judge of Admiralty, from a principle of disinterested benevolence, received him into his family; instructed him in law; furnished him with books and introduced him to the practise at the bar. In 1757 and 1758, he attended the Supreme Court in Worcester, and spent his evenings with me in the office of Colonel James Putnam, a gentleman of great acuteness of mind, and very extensive and successful in practise, and an able lawyer; in whose family I boarded and under whose auspices I studied law. Here commenced between Mr. Sewall and me, a personal friendship, which continued, with none but political interruptions, till his death. He commenced practice in Charlestown, in the County of Middlesex, I, in that parish of the ancient town of Braintree, now called Quincy, then in the County of Suffolk, now of Norfolk. We attended the Courts in Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, and Concord; lived together, frequently slept in the same chamber, and not seldom, in the same bed. Mr. Sewall was then a patriot; his sentiments were purely American. To James Otis, who took a kind notice of us both, we constantly applied for advice in any difficulty, and he would attend to us, advise us, and look into books for us, and point out authorities to us, as kindly as if we had been his pupils or his sons.
After the surrender of Montreal in 1759, rumours were every where spread that the English would now new model the Colonies, demolish the charters and reduce all to royal governments. These rumours I had heard as often as he had. One morning I met him, accidentally, on the floor of the old Town House. "John" said he, "I want to speak with you;" he always called me John, and I him Jonathan, and often said to him, I wish my name were David. He took me to a window seat and said; "these Englishmen are going to play the devil with us. They will overturn every thing. We must resist them and that by force. I wish you would write in the Newspapers, and urge a general attention to the Militia, to their exercises and discipline, for we must resist in arms." I answered, "All this I fear is true; but why do you not write yourself? You are older than I am; have more experience than I have, are more intimate with the grandees than I am, and you can write ten times better than I can." There had been a correspondence between us, by which I knew his refined style as well as he knew my coarse one. "Why," said Mr. Sewall, "I would write, but Goffe will find me out and I shall grieve his righteous soul, and you know what influence he has in Middlesex." This Goffe had been Attorney General for twenty years, and commanded the practise in Middlesex and Worcester and several other Counties. He had power to crush, by his frown or his nod any young Lawyer in his County. He was afterwards Judge Trowbridge, but at that time as ardent as any of Hutchinson's disciples, though he afterwards became alienated from his pursuits and principles.