Providing readers with the unusual opportunity to enter into the extraordinary mind of a patriot immediately before the Revolution, the Portrait of a Patriot series presents the major papers of the Boston lawyer and patriot penman Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744-1775). In volume 2 of the series we are introduced to Quincy's Legal Commonplace Book; the companion of his Political Commonplace Book from volume 1, the Legal Commonplace Book illustrates the systematic program of reading through which aspiring young lawyers learned their trade in colonial New England. In the accompanying introduction, coeditor Daniel R. Coquillette explains how the system of legal apprenticeship worked in Boston and contends that the level of legal argument practiced in Massachusetts prior to the Revolution was much less provincial than previously assumed. Volume 2 also includes a new transcription of the journal Quincy kept on a 1773 trip to the southern colonies undertaken on behalf of the Boston Committee of Correspondence to assess the depth of commitment to the patriot cause there, in which Quincy comments tartly on southern manners, womenfolk, and the institution of slavery.

Providing readers with the unusual opportunity to enter into the extraordinary mind of a patriot immediately before the Revolution, the ""Portrait of a Patriot"" series presents the major papers of the Boston lawyer and patriot penman Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744-1775). In volume 2 of the series, we are introduced to Quincy's ""Legal Commonplace Book""; the companion of his ""Political Commonplace Book"" from volume 1, the Legal Commonplace Book illustrates the systematic program of reading through which aspiring young lawyers learned their trade in colonial New England. In the accompanying introduction, coeditor Daniel R. Coquillette explains how the system of legal apprenticeship worked in Boston and contends that the level of legal argument practiced in Massachusetts prior to the Revolution was much less provincial than previously assumed. Volume 2 also includes a new transcription of the journal Quincy kept on a 1773 trip to the southern colonies undertaken on behalf of the Boston Committee of Correspondence to assess the depth of commitment to the patriot cause there, in which Quincy comments tartly on Southern manners, womenfolk, and the institution of slavery.

Successful Boston lawyer, active member of the Sons of Liberty, and noted political essayist, Josiah Quincy Junior (1744-1775) left a lasting impression on those he met--for his passion in the courtroom as well as his orations in the Old South Meeting House, and for his determination to live fully, despite being afflicted with a disease that would cut his life short. Gathered in this, the sixth and final volume of the Quincy Papers, are Quincy's surviving correspondence, his essays for the Boston press written between 1767 and 1774, and his 1774 pamphlet "Observations, " which was the culmination of his thinking and writing about the problem of balancing imperial authority and colonial liberty. He represented, as well as any of his longer-lived contemporaries, the difficulty of protesting British policy without turning on Britain itself, the uneasy blending of reasoned political discourse with a desire to denounce perceived injustice, and the quest to find a peaceful solution and yet reserve the right to use force if all else failed. In his attempt to define and defend American rights, he borrowed as readily from classical sources as modern, drawing on a rich philosophical and legal tradition that served him well throughout his public life. He well understood the power of the ideas that he mustered for political debate. That understanding also shows through in Quincy's other writings, from his law commonplace book and Latin legal maxims (in volume 2) to the journal of his 1773 southern journey (in volume 3) to his still-cited reports for cases argued in the Massachusetts Superior Court from 1761 to 1772 (in volumes 4 and 5).

This last volume stands as a companion piece to the first. There, Quincy's political ideas are discussed and traced, in part through Quincy's political commonplace book, compiled between 1770 and 1774. Here, readers can follow how Quincy expressed those ideas in the newspaper pieces and pamphlet that became an essential part of the debate over rights in the empire. Here too can be found his deep concern, expressed in letters from London to his beloved wife, Abigail, that he serve Massachusetts--"my country," as he called it--well, that he give his last full measure of devotion, if necessary, to the patriot cause.

Distributed for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts

Providing readers with the unusual opportunity to enter into the extraordinary mind of a patriot in the period immediately preceding the Revolution, the Portrait of a Patriot series presents the major papers of the Boston lawyer and patriot penman Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744-1775). In this, the third of five volumes, we meet Quincy as a rising member of the Massachusetts bar and a member of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, making a tour of the Southern colonies to assess the depth of commitment to the patriot cause there. While cautious of the political leanings of his hosts, Quincy was clearly dazzled by the opulence and sophistication of late-eighteenth-century Charleston society. As he traveled northward, he continued to record candid observations on Southern manners, womenfolk, and the institution of slavery in his journal, thus creating a unique portrait of American society on the eve of the American Revolution.