[SEE ENGRAVING.]
This illustrious champion of liberty was born in Roxbury, near Boston, in the year 1741. His father was a respectable farmer, and employed much of his time in raising fruit. He was the person that produced that species of apple called the Warren Russet. The house in which his father resided is still standing, near the centre of the village, in a street which has received his name. One day in autumn, as he was in his orchard, he saw an apple remaining on the top of a tree, which, by its uncommon beauty tempted him to climb the tree to pluck it, but as he was reaching the apple, the branch upon which he stood broke under him, and precipitated him to the ground a lifeless corpse. His youngest son, the late Dr. John Warren, of Boston, then four years old, who had been sent by his mother to the orchard to call him to dinner, met the body borne by two laborers. By this fatal accident the mother of Warren was left a widow, with the charge of four boys, of whom the eldest, Joseph, was then about sixteen years of age. The fidelity with which she executed this arduous trust, is sufficiently attested by the eminent virtues and talents of her children. She lived to a very advanced age at the house in Roxbury, surrounded by the younger members of the family, and reaping in their affectionate attention, the best reward for her exemplary and maternal duties. Joseph commenced his education at the grammar-school of Roxbury, which at that time had great celebrity from the superior attainments of its teachers. At fourteen he entered college at Harvard, and passed his examination with such satisfaction to his preceptors, that drew from them expressions of surprise and admiration. The whole term of his collegiate life was marked by a generous, independent deportment, fine manners, with indomitable courage and perseverance.
In 1759, Warren graduated with the highest honors, and on leaving college, signified his wish to study medicine; this was complied with by his maternal parent, who placed him under the care of a personal friend of his father. His professional studies were alike prosecuted with energy and success.
At the age of twenty-three he established himself at Boston, and commenced the practice of his profession, which he pursued with distinguished success.
He had not been in practice more than two years when the town was threatened with that direful disease, the small-pox, the treatment of which was but little known at that day—it was considered the most dreadful scourge of the human race. This disease continued to rage with the greatest violence, baffling the skill and efforts of many of the most learned of the faculty.
Our young practitioner soon distinguished himself by his successful method of treating that disease, and from that moment was exalted to the highest pinnacle of fame. He stood, week after week, untiringly by the bed of his patient, using the necessary exertions with his own hands. These noble and humane traits, apart from his laborious profession, firmly attached him to the people; he stood high among his older brethren in the profession, and his courtesy and his humanity won the way to the hearts of all—and what he once gained he never lost.
A bright and lasting fame in his profession was now before him, whilst wealth and influence were awaiting his grasp; his exalted talents had secured the conquest it had always been his aim to achieve. But the circumstances in which his beloved country was then placed necessarily directed the attention of Warren from professional pursuits, and concentrated it upon political affairs.
The same superiority of talents and ardor of temperament, which would have given him an easy success in any profession, rendered him more than ordinarily susceptible of the influences which then operated upon the community, and threw him forward into the front rank of the asserters of liberal principles. The fact, however, that men, like Warren, of the finest talents, and in every respect the fairest promise, were among the first to join in the opposition to the measures of the government, shows sufficiently how completely the whole mind of the colonies had given itself up to the cause, and how utterly impossible it was for the ministry to sustain their pretensions by any power that could be brought to bear upon the people of America.
In answer to a letter received from his late preceptor, advising him against any action amounting to rashness, he says, “The calls of my distracted country are paramount to every interest of my own. I willingly leave fame and all its glories to aid in bursting the bonds of tyranny, and giving freedom to a virtuous people.” And in another letter to a friend, who had remonstrated with him on the same cause, he says, “It is the united voice of America to preserve their freedom or lose their lives in defense of it; their resolutions are not the effects of inconsiderate rashness, but the sound result of sober inquiry and deliberation. I am convinced that the true spirit of liberty was never so universally diffused through all ranks and orders of people in any country on the face of the earth, as it is now through all North America.”
No sooner were Warren’s intentions made known, than he was appointed surgeon-general of the army.