country; but though his character and position gave him influence, yet, Dr. Eliot says, he had less political zeal than Otis or Adams or Hancock, and was not esteemed the leader here. He is represented at this time, by John Adams, as inclined to temporize;1 but an incident shows that he could be spirited. "Cushing, last night," Hutchinson says, "on being asked if he was not afraid of a quo warranto against the charter, on account of a refusal of the house to do business, answered, "There had been none since the reign of the Stuarts, and they dared not send one here."

2

Warren, at thirty, moved in the circle formed by these characters, and others not less worthy, enjoying their friendship and respect. He rented the house on Hanover Street, on the site of the present American House, which he occupied during the remainder of his life; and he was a member of the Congregational Church in Brattle Street, of which Dr. Cooper was the pastor. He had (1772) two sons and two daughters. A negro slave made a part of his household, who was perhaps a family servant, whom he took when he hired the house. He was 1 John Adams's Works, ii. 278.

2 Aug. 4, 1770.

8 I am indebted to Dr. S. A. Green for two papers which have the autograph of Warren. Joshua Green owned the house which Warren rented.

"Boston, June 28th, 1770. I the Subscriber having this day purchas'd a Negro Boy of Joshua Green have made the follows: conditions with him vizt. That I will add Ten pounds Lawfull money to be paid in Potter's Ware manufactur'd in this Town, in three years to the Thirty pounds first agreed for if in 8 months from this date I shall think the negro worth the money & if I do not think him worth the additional ten pounds I will reconvey him to sd. Green he returns the two notes I gave him for the negro, one for 17£ & the other for 13£, both of them bearing date herewith. JOSEPH WARREN."

"It is also further agreed that in case of my decease that the withinmention'd negro shall become the property of said Green he delivering up my two notes. JOSEPH WARREN."

in the full circle of medical practice, as is attested by his bills and a portion of his day-book extant.1 His brother John, who had just graduated from Harvard College, was with him as a medical student; and a number of young men pursued their professional studies under his direction.2

In the Ewer Papers, in the archives of the New-England Historic-Genealogical Society, is the following paper, illustrative of the times :

"Boston, April 3, 1770. Received this day from Thomas Fayerweather, Esq., five black men-servants, -Cato, Charleston, Jack, Prince, and Boston,-upon the terms following: We agree to find them meat, drink, clothing, washing, and lodging, &c., and to pay the doctor's bill in case of sickness; as also to make good the loss of either or all of the above-named black men-servants in case of death; and, farther, we agree to allow and pay to the said Thomas Fayerweather, Esq., one shilling 1. money per week for hire of the above-named servants. "Wit. Josh Carnes. Witness our hands,

"BENJ. & JOHN GUDLY."

At this period, there was effort made not merely to abolish the slave-trade, but slavery. The following letter, from Governor Hutchinson to Lord Hillsborough, is instructive and suggestive:

"BOSTON, May, 1771.

"MY LORD, -The bill which prohibits the importation of negro slaves appeared to me to come within His Majesty's instructions to Sir Francis Bernard, which restrains the governor from assenting to any laws of a new and unusual nature. I doubted beside whether the chief motive to this bill, which, it is said, was a scruple upon the minds of the people, in many parts of the province, of the lawfulness, in a merely moral respect, of so great a restraint of liberty, was well founded; slavery, by the provincial laws, giving no right to the life of the servant: and a slave here is considered as a servant would be who had bound himself for a term of years exceeding the ordinary term of human life; and I do not know that it has been determined he may not have a property in goods, notwithstanding he is called a slave.

"I have reason to think these three bills will be again offered to me in another session, I having intimated that I would transmit them to England, to know His Majesty's pleasure concerning them.

"The Rt. Hon. the Earl of HILLSBOROUGH."

"THO. HUTCHINSON.

1 The town of Boston paid Warren a bill, in 1771, for service rendered from May 3, 1770, to May, 1771; one item of which is seven hundred and thirty visits during this period. Ellis Ames, Esq., loaned to me fragments of Warren's daybook, the earliest date in which is Jan. 13, 1771; and the last is Jan. 31, 1775.

2 Dr. Joseph Warren, memorable for patriotism and public virtue, was in full circle of medical practice, and educated a number of young gentlemen to the profession. Thacher's Medical Biography, 24.

Though of marked amiability of character, he was naturally high-tempered, impulsive, and quick to resent an insult: at times he was passionate. One evening, when the British troops were quartered in the town, he was challenged in a burly way by a sentinel, when Warren knocked him down. He could be vehement in the expressions of feeling. On an occasion when his spirit was stirred by the taunts that British officers were uttering on the Americans, he said to William Eustis, subsequently the Governor of Massachusetts, "These fellows say we won't fight: by heavens, I hope I shall die up to my knees in blood!"

I have met with no criticisms on Warren's public conduct, or any accounts of differences between him and the patriots; and the manner in which all his contemporaries refer to him warrants the remark, that those who knew him the best were the most attached to him. Biography is something more than a strain of panegyric; but a warm contemporary panegyric, when supported by the tenor of a life, may be used in making up an estimate of character. The following strain, in an elegy printed about a fortnight after Warren's death, indicates that he attained an enviable reputation as a man and a physician:

In the life-like diary of John Adams, there are glimpses of Warren, as he mingled with his friends, during these two years, in the joys of social life, loving and beloved. Here Warren is seen receiving the future president of the United States at his own table; dining in the historic Hancock House, on Beacon Street, with Cooper, Adams, and others, when they were treated with green tea, which Adams hoped was imported from Holland, but did not know; making one of a party at Samuel Adams's house, where Otis was more than usually social, steady, and rational; meeting with "the Club," a brilliant circle of politicians and divines, among whom were the two Coopers and the Adamses, where he doubtless enjoyed the dispute that arose about wit, in which Dr. Cooper cited the proverb, that "an ounce of mother wit was worth a pound of clergy," and Otis repeated another, -perhaps with feeling,- that "an ounce of prudence was worth a pound of wit;" and dining with "The Merchants' Club," at the Coffee House, who had met here for twenty years.'

I have stated that Warren was a member of two of the political clubs, a select circle of the prominent politicians, and the North-end Caucus. Dr. Eliot says that one of these clubs, "in 1772, agreed to increase their number, and to meet in a large room, invite a number of substantial mechanics to join them, and hold a kind of caucus pro bono publico. They met in. a house near the North Battery, and more than sixty

1 When Josiah Quincy, jun., was requested to defend the British soldiers arrested for firing on the people, he says he refused, " until advised and urged to undertake it by an Adams, a Hancock, a Molineux, a Cushing, a Henshaw, a Pemberton, a Warren, a Cooper, and a Phillips."-Life of Josiah Quincy, jun., 37.

were present at the first meeting. Their regulations were drawn up by Dr. Warren and another gentleman, and they never did any thing important without consulting him and his particular friends. It answered a good purpose to get such a number of mechanics together; and, though a number of Whigs of the first character in the town were present, they always had a mechanic for moderator, generally one who could carry many votes by his influence. By this body of men, the most important matters were decided. They agreed who should be in town offices, in the general court, in provincial congress, from Boston." This caucus met about two years in the house near the North Battery, and then at the Green Dragon Tavern in Union Street. Dr. Eliot was "assured, by some of the most prominent characters of this caucus, that they were guided by the prudence and skilful management of Dr. Warren, who, with all his zeal and irritability, was a man calculated to carry on any secret business; and that no man ever did manifest more vigilance, circumspection, and care." In this the useful instrumentality of the club was organized for more efficient service than ever.

way,

The press continued its high-toned course, though the public mind continued calm. "We have been free from disturbance this winter," Hutchinson wrote in March. "The scurrility of the newspapers has been much as it used to be, and about as much regarded." This apathy in the people, with the divisions among the Whig leaders, led him at times to ignore the steady setting of the current towards doctrines which he held to be fatal, and to build up a hope on things that were really transient. "I am apt enough," he