In December 1760, or January 1761, Stephen Sewall, Chief Justice died, deeply lamented, though insolvent. My friend Jonathan, his nephew, the son of his brother, who tenderly loved and deeply revered his uncle, could not bear the thought, that the memory of the Chief Justice should lie under the imputation of bankruptcy. At that time bankruptcy was infamous; now it is scarcely disgraceful. Jonathan undertook the administration of his uncle's estate. Finding insolvency inevitable, he drew a petition to the General Court to grant a sum of money, sufficient, to pay the Chief Justice's debts. If my friend had known the character of his countrymen, or the nature of that Assembly, he never would have conceived such a project; but he did conceive it and applied to James Otis, and his father, Colonel Otis, to patronize and support it. The Otis's knew their countrymen better than he did. They received and presented the petition, but without much hope of success. The petition was rejected, and my friend Sewall conceived a suspicion, that it was not promoted with so much zeal, by the Otis's, as he thought they might have exerted. He imputed the failure to their coldness; was much mortified and conceived a violent resentment, which he expressed with too much freedom and feeling in all companies.
Goffe, Hutchinson and all the courtiers soon heard of it and instantly fastened their eyes upon Sewall; courted his society; sounded his fame; promoted his practise, and soon after made him Solicitor General by creating a new office, expressly for him. Mr. Sewall, had a soft, smooth, insinuating eloquence, which gliding imperceptibly into the minds of a Jury, gave him as much power over that tribunal as any lawyer ought ever to possess. He was also capable of discussing before the court, any intricate question of law, which gave him, at least, as much influence there as was consistent with an impartial administration of justice. He was a gentleman and a scholar; had a fund of wit, humour and satire, which he used with great discretion at the bar, but poured out with unbounded profusion in the newspapers. Witness his voluminous productions in the newspapers, signed long J. and Philanthropos. These accomplishments richly qualified him to serve the purposes of the gentlemen, who courted him into their service.
Mr. Sewall soon fell in love with Miss Esther Quincy, the fourth daughter of Edmund Quincy, Esq. an eminent merchant and magistrate, and a grand daughter of that Edmund Quincy, who was eighteen years a Judge of the Superior Court, who died of the small pox in the agency of the province at the Court of St. James's, and whose monument was erected, at the expense of the Province, in Bun-hill-fields, London. This young lady, who was celebrated for her beauty, her vivacity and spirit, lived with her father in this parish, now called Quincy. Mr. Sewall's courtship was extended for several years, and he came up very constantly on Saturdays and remained here until Mondays; and I was sure to be invited to meet him on every Sunday evening. During all these years, there was a constant correspondence between us, and he concealed nothing from me, so that I knew him by his style whenever he appeared in print.
In 1766, he married the object of his affections, and an excellent wife he found her. He was soon appointed Attorney General. In 1768, he was employed by Governor Barnard to offer me the office of Advocate General, in the Court of Admiralty, which I decidedly and peremptorily though respectfully refused.
We continued our friendship and confidential intercourse, though professedly in boxes of politics, as opposite as East and West, until the year 1774, when we both attended the Superior Court in Falmouth, Casco-bay, now Portland. I had then been chosen a delegate to Congress. Mr. Sewall invited me to take a walk with him, very early in the morning, on the great hill. In the course of our rambles he very soon begun to remonstrate against my going to Congress. He said "that Great Britain was determined on her system; her power was irresistible and would certainly be destructive to me, and to all those who should persevere in opposition to her designs." I answered, "that I knew Great Britain was determined on her system, and that very determination, determined me on mine; that he knew I had been constant and uniform in opposition to all her measures; that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon; swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country, was my unalterable determination." The conversation was protracted into length, but this was the substance of the whole. It terminated in my saying to him, "I see we must part, and with a bleeding heart I say, I fear forever; but you may depend upon it, this adieu is the sharpest thorn on which I ever sat my foot." I never conversed with him again 'till the year 1788. Mr. Sewall retired in 1775 to England, where he remained and resided in Bristol.
On my return from Congress in the month of November 1774, I found the Massachusetts Gazette teeming with political speculations, and Massachusettensis shining like the moon among the lesser stars. I instantly knew him to be my friend Sewall, and was told he excited great exultation among the tories and many gloomy apprehensions among the whigs. I instantly resolved to enter the lists with him, and this is the history of the following volume.
In 1788, Mr. Sewall came to London to embark for Halifax. I enquired for his lodgings and instantly drove to them, laying aside all etiquette, to make him a visit. I ordered my servant to announce John Adams, was instantly admitted, and both of us forgetting that we had ever been enemies, embraced each other as cordially as ever. I had two hours conversation with him in a most delightful freedom upon a multitude of subjects. He told me he had lived for the sake of his two children; he had spared no pains nor expense in their education, and he was going to Halifax in hope of making some provision for them. They are now two of the most respectable gentlemen in Canada. One of them a Chief Justice; the other an Attorney General. Their father lived but a short time after his return to America; evidently broken down by his anxieties and probably dying of a broken heart. He always lamented the conduct of Great Britain towards America. No man more constantly congratulated me, while we lived together in America, upon any news, true or false, favorable to a repeal of the obnoxious Statutes and a redress of our grievances; but the society in which he lived had convinced him that all resistance was not only useless but ruinous.
More conscious than ever of the faults in the style and arrangement, if not in the matter of my part of the following papers, I shall see them in print with more anxiety than when they were first published. The principles however are those on which I then conscientiously acted, and which I now most cordially approve.
To the candour of an indulgent nation, whom I congratulate on their present prosperity and pleasing prospects, and for whose happiness I shall offer up my dying supplications to Heaven, I commit the volume with all its imperfections.
JOHN ADAMS.