topics, and a reprint of his Observations on the Boston Port Bill.

"The chief memorials of Josiah Quincy junior, belonging to this class, were, by his last will, bequeathed to his son, the editor of this work. They have frequently been solicited for publication, but, with the exception of the few extracts, which Gordon made and inserted in the first volume of his History of the American Revolution, no part has before been submitted to the press. They are now given to the general eye, not so much because they belong to that individual, as because his memory, from the circumstances of his life, death, character, and labors, is inseparably identified with the times in which he lived, and with the fortunes of his country.' p. vii.

The family of Quincy commences, on American ground, with Edmund Quincy, who came from England with the Rev. John Cotton, and arrived at Boston, September, 1633. Josiah Quincy junior was of the fourth generation from that venerable head, being the youngest of three brothers, sons of Josiah Quincy of Braintree, Massachusetts, who was the youngest son of Edmund Quincy, grandson of the Edmund first named. This family, in all its branches, and in every generation, has furnished distinguished men, who have, in a high degree, deservedly enjoyed the public confidence, in places of public trust and employment. The first Edmund Quincy was one of the representatives of Boston, to the first General Court held in the colony. His only son, Edmund, who died in 1697, was a magistrate of the county of Suffolk, and lieutenant colonel of the Suffolk regiment. John Quincy, his son, born 1689, was Speaker of the House of Representatives, for many successive years, and afterwards a member of the Council. Edmund, his brother, was, in early life, a representative of Braintree, afterwards member of the Council, and Judge of the Superior Court of Judicature, from 1718 to his death, in 1738. He died of the small pox, in London, being, at that time, agent from Massachusetts, relative to a controversy with New Hampshire, respecting the boundary line between the two provinces. In grateful return for his eminent public services, a grant of one thousand acres of land was made to his heirs, by the General Court, and a monument was erected to his memory, at the place of his interment, in London, (Bunhill-fields,) at the expense of the province.

Josiah Quincy, his youngest son, accompanied his father to England. In 1755 he was employed to negotiate with Pennsylvania and New York, for assistance against the French aggressions on the frontiers. In the execution of this commission he became acquainted with Dr Franklin, with whom, and with other distinguished men of the age, he kept up a correspondence until his death, in 1784, having for many years lived in retirement, on his paternal estate, in Braintree. This estate, now the seat of his grandson, editor of this work, is in Quincy, a town set off from Braintree in 1792. In that town, also, is the paternal estate of John Quincy, above mentioned. It includes Mount Wollaston, the residence, in early times, of Thomas Morton, who was routed from his disorderly establishment by our sturdy ancestors. This estate is now the property of his great grandson, John Quincy Adams, President of the United States.

The subject of this memoir was born in Boston, February 23d, 1744.* He acquired the rudiments of a classical education, we are informed, at Braintree, under the tuition of Mr Joseph Marsh, who was for many years master of a highly respected private school in that town.' We are induced to believe, that his classical studies were merely commenced with Mr Marsh, for, on reference to a list of scholars at Master Lovel's school, in Boston, on which we may be allowed to rely, it appears, that young Quincy entered that celebrated school in 1754, and left it in 1759, when he was matriculated at Harvard College. Of his collegiate and professional studies and acquirements, and the developement of his character at that early period, we have the following information in the Memoir.

'In 1759, he entered Harvard University, where his industry, zeal, and unconquerable thirst for learning, were conspicuous. His taste was refined by an intimate acquaintance with the ancient classics, and his soul elevated and touched by the spirit of freedom they breathe. His compositions during this period also prove, that he was extensively conversant with the best writers of the French and English schools. Above all, the genius of Shakspeare seems to have led captive his youthful imagination. In his writings, quotations, or forms of expression, modelled upon those of that author, perpetually recur. There still exists among his papers, a

* Son of Josiah and Hannah Quincy. His mother was a daughter of John Sturgis Esq. of Yarmouth.

manuscript of the date of 1762, he then being in the junior class of the college, of seventy closely and minutely written quarto pages of extracts from that writer.

'He was graduated in 1763, with unblemished reputation. Three years afterwards, on taking the degree of Master of Arts, he pronounced the English oration, at that time a new thing in the exercises of the University, and considered its highest academic honor. His subject was "Patriotism," and it appears by the periodical publications of the day, that he acquired, both on account of the composition and delivery, great reputation.

From the University, he passed in 1763, into the office of Oxenbridge Thacher Esq. in Boston, one of the most eminent lawyers of the period, and entered upon the study of the law with that intense ardor and industry, which were his distinguishing characteristics. Mr Thacher died in July 1765. Mr Quincy remained in the office during the residue of his student's term, took a general oversight of its concerns, and on entering his professional career, succeeded to an extensive practice, which his talents, diligence, and fidelity, in a great measure, secured to himself. His industry while a student, and during the first years of his profession, is proved by several manuscript volumes, in his own hand, consisting of "Reports of cases and points of law, solemnly adjudged in the Supreme Court of the Province," part of which are original, and part copied from the minutes of eminent lawyers.

'The arguments of Auchmuty, Thacher, Gridley, Otis, Adams, and other distinguished lawyers, with the cases cited, in various important questions, are here abstracted and preserved.' pp. 7-9.

It may be hoped, that the early specimens of Mr Quincy's literary industry, whilst a student, will not be lost. Our printed reports are but of modern date. The persevering labors of Mr Dane have preserved to us several manuscript cases of importance, which would otherwise have slept in oblivion. The volumes compiled by Mr Quincy, of Reports of cases and points of law adjudged in the Superior Court of the Province,' must contain, it may be presumed, much valuable information, and modern lawyers would be gratified by the perusal of the arguments, though merely in abstract, of such men as Auchmuty, Thacher, Gridley, Otis, and Adams.

Mr Quincy was well fitted for his profession by his eminent talents and acquirements, and his distinguished eloquence; adding to these advantages an unremitting industry, and attention to the business intrusted to his care, he soon acquired an extensive degree of practice. His ardent mind,

however, could not remain exclusively devoted to the duties of his profession, during the interesting political questions, which then agitated the country. The course of his studies, his family connexions, the band of eminent patriots with whom he had intimate intercourse, and especially the influences which the conversation and example of such a man as Oxenbridge Thacher, the Gamaliel at whose feet he was brought up, must have exercised, could not but engage him most devotedly in the various public topics of the day. Of this gentleman, the venerable John Adams, in one of his letters, gives an animated portrait.

'From 1758 to 1765, I attended every superior and inferior court in Boston, and recollect not one in which he did not invite me home to spend evenings with him, when he made me converse with him as well as I could, on all subjects of religion, morals, law, politics, history, philosophy, belles lettres, theology, mythology, cosmogony, metaphysics; Locke, Clark, Leibnitz, Bolingbroke, Berkley; the preestablished harmony of the universe, the nature of matter and of spirit, and the eternal establishment of coincidences between them; fate, foreknowledge absolute; and we reasoned on such unfathomable subjects as high as Milton's gentry in pandemonium, and we understood them as well as they did and no better. To such mighty mysteries he added the news of the day, and the tittle-tattle of the town. But his favorite subject was politics, and the impending threatening system of parliamentary taxation and universal government over the colonies. On this subject he was so anxious and agitated, that I have no doubt it occasioned his premature death. From the time when he argued the question of writs of assistance to his death, he considered the king, ministry, parliament, and nation of Great Britain, as determined to new model the colonies from the foundation, to annul all their charters, to constitute them all royal governments, to raise a revenue in America by parliamentary taxation, to apply that revenue to pay the salaries of governors, judges, and all other crown officers, and, after this, to raise as large a revenue as they pleased, to be applied to national purposes at the exchequer in England; and, further, to establish bishops, and the whole system of the Church of England, tithes and all, throughout all British America. This system, he said, if it was suffered to prevail, would extinguish the flame of liberty all over the world; that America would be employed as an engine to batter down all the miserable remains of liberty in Great Britain and Ireland, where only any semblance of it was left in the world.'*

* Letter to Mr Niles, of Baltimore, dated February 13, 1818.

We perceive, in this delineation, the character not merely of an individual, but of the age, in its leading features. There was a free, bold, decisive, manly style of thought and action prevailing, inherited from a hardy, persecuted ancestry, and cherished by our literary, civil, and religious institutions; a temper which could not brook oppression, or abuse of power in any of its forms. The foundations, sustaining the spirit of liberty, were deep, strong, and indelible. The library of Harvard College, by the munificence of the younger Hollis, who did for law and polity what his uncle had done for theology, was stored with the best writers on those subjects, and her sons drank deeply from this well of English undefiled.' Lord Mansfield said once, in debate, alluding to Otis's Essay on the Rights of the Colonies, that he seldom looked into such things; but in another case, about the same time, in a speech which is far more honorable to his memory,* he expresses his enthusiastic admiration of President De Thou's dedication of his history, which he never could read, he said, without rapture. If prejudice could have been dismissed, his heart might have been touched, as was the soul of Chatham, by sentiments and opinions, flowing from lips and pens in an infant country, not inferior to the admired composition of President De Thou.

At the time of the stamp act, and until after its repeal, Mr Quincy was a student in Mr Thacher's office, and doubtless partook of the high excitement which prevailed at that period. His first political essays were two pieces, published in the Boston Gazette, in September or October, 1767, under the signature of Hyperion. This first essay of the young Tyrtæus of the day discovers the strong sensations, with which he viewed the measures, adopted by the parent country in reference to the colonies; and the whole course of his conduct, during the few remaining years of his life, was in harmony with the energetic commencement of his political labors, as evinced in the essays of Hyperion.

At this period the alarming declaration, accompanying the repeal of the stamp act, had begun to be carried into execution by the act for laying duties in the colonies, on paper, glass, painters' colors, tea, &c. with a clause enabling the

* Chamberlain of London, versus Allen Evans, in the House of Lords.