The Bostonian Society; WGBH Forum Network; Mercy Otis Warren: Muse of the Revolution

The subject of this evening's lecture and dramatization is Mercy Otis Warren. Today this remarkable woman may not be as well-known as her more famous brother, James Otis, or her friends, John and Abigail Adams, but she, herself, was a noted poet, a playwright, a scholar, and an historian, and she was just as much of a patriot as her more famous contemporaries. She was truly a woman ahead of her time. This evening, Warren will be brought to life by the well-known actors, Barbara Delorey and Patrice Hatcher who, in addition to being related in their offstage lives, will portray Warren at different points in time, in her ninth decade and in her 50s, respectively, but more about that later. In addition, we're fortunate to have with us Nancy Rubin Stuart, the author of 'Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation' to be published, appropriately enough,

on July 4th of this year by Beacon Press. Stewart is the author of five previous books on women, including 'The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox,' for which she was presented the non-fiction award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors in 2005. Ms. Stuart is a contributor to The New York Times and to many other national magazines and is a board member of the Women Writing Women's Lives Seminar for the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In 2005 she received a William Randolph Hearst fellowship from the American Antiquarian Society to support research on her current book on Mercy Otis Warren, about which she'll speak to us this evening. Please join me in welcoming Nancy Rubin Stuart. [applause] Thank you very much for your kind words and for inviting me here. Before we begin I would

like to thank my editor, Gayatri Patnaik, who is sitting right here from Beacon Press, and who has been an endless support for the writing and research of this book. And, of course, my family and friends have also been behind me on this. I want to talk to you a little bit about something that I guess we all think about today and that is America's dependence on foreign products. A rapidly precipitating, declining economy and depreciating currency, resulting today, resulting, anyway, in the soaring price of gold, and then, inflation. We've been hearing a lot about that of late and the skyrocketing -- skyrocketing cost of corn and wheat. What about the shameful neglect of our soldiers and our veterans in our recent wars? Does this sound familiar? Well,

perhaps we're thinking about "it's 2008," but oddly enough, these words were spoken over 220 years ago by the woman of the evening, Mercy Otis Warren. The conditions were very much uncannily the same then as they are at this moment in time. Well, without further ado, I'm going to pass the baton to Mercy Otis Warren who will tell you, going back even further than 220 years ago, how all of this began, this great democratic experiment called the American Revolution. My scribbling consist of many things.

?_______? The writing of poems ?______? and also ... pen and even mightier than the sword and other cartoons ?_____? My present home is in Plimouth town. Here, my five sons ?_____? And I have never been in the house of ?_____? better if that could be home where Mr. Warren could farm land and where I do my scribblings. My early years in Barnstable were not of the ordinary. My father, being the oldest, was a man of intellectual habits and he encouraged awareness of his children as he included them in discussions and debates of subjects political, newsworthy

at the table and the fireside. An unusual man of his time, He taught culture for its own sake. My two older brothers were educated for the law at Harvard and I was permitted to join them at studies that were not necessary. I was able to read Virgil and Homer in translation. Well, Jimmy had to plow through the volumes in the original language. I've read the work of Pope, Dryden, Milton, Shakespeare and Raleigh. Our conversations and discussions of the ancients were a constant delight [inaudible] Do not mistake, however, that my womanly attributes were

neglected and as first daughter at 13, I soon developed into a competent house wife and skillful needlewoman. There's always awareness of family and domestic chores. I have five boys educate and trained. and a beloved friend who is not always been able to be at my side. In the end when I When I take up my pen, it is as the needle to a hole. It nearly directs itself toward Jay Warren, powerful magnet the center of the earth to my early wishes and the star that attracts my attention. [long pause] Now lest you think my younger years were about work and study. There's a story you may have heard in

Barnstable with 4 daughters like the Otis family there were parties and there was a country dance with brother Jemmy was playing the violin and suddenly in the midst of the music, Jemmy forgot to play the violin And he suddenly stopped, waved the instrument in the air and cried out, "So Orpheus fiddled and so danced ?____?" and he danced out of the garden. and lost himself. So we turned it into a game of hide-and-seek. It was such a fun day. Later times we would often confound people by simply just getting up and walking out. My dear brother was a patriot. He was an amazing orator with the abilities of a skilled debater.

Sorely injured and his mind wavering, his life became very, very tragic. I can say no more about him. I have been honored to have correspondence from many names that may be familiar to you: Mrs. Abigail Adams, Abigail's sister, Mrs. Shaw, Mrs. Hannah Winthrop, Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Washington, Mrs. Hancock and Mrs. Macauley, and from Mrs. Hannah Winthrop I heard the fear of the following Lexington Concord, of the atrocities she had seen, the mangled bodies of [unintelligible], women and children fleeing Charlestown. She had told the meeting of the father with a cart, looking for his murdered son and picking up his neighbors who had fallen in battle.

And thus it all began. [long silence] Time has passed. The year 1810. More than a half a century since the great events past. These days I do little else but

sit quietly in my elbow chair and think back on friends and family and the events of the past. It was was in the house on Liberty Square back in the 1760s that there was a great deal of discussion among the men, those of interest in intelligence, the concerns about what was happening in communication with the mother country. There was a weariness that things would soon come to a head.

It was in those gatherings at our fireside that the first plans were made for a committee of correspondants. I sorely miss the intellect of those of a very special stamp who gathered around on those days. It was then that I began my writing and Oh, the pen, indeed, is mightier than the sword. And when you cannot take a sword to your enemy, to criticize them in a satirical manner is a very, very sure alternative. And this I did, in drama. Oh, I never saw a play enacted upon the stage.

That wasn't important. What was meant for us to be read, and people did read. I've had a great deal of encouragement from a dear friend, Mr. John Adams, he and his dear wife, Abigail, meant so much to me over the years. And he did encouraged me to write The Squabble [unintelligible] of the Sea Nymphs was pretty much originating with Mr. Adams. His suggestion was that I put it into poetry, which I did. I could feel that he might have done it himself, but he has always, always encouraged me, that encouragment that has meant so much. I started keeping a series of

events in writing, these have eventually become a history of the late encounter. Not with blood and gore of that, although that did not seem appropriate to me, but putting a particular emphasis upon the people and the events that I knew so well. And that I had written about through the years. A weapon that pen is while still my words were helping me to track all that I wanted to encounter. It was said that whatever the subject,

whatever the event, ask Mercy. She will put it into poetry. One event I did not put into poetry, however. As times changed, fashioned changed, manners and mores changed, and politics changed, and in this new country of ours, we evolved a Constitution. However, although the Federalists were very, very enthusiastic about it, they wanted the superiority and the strength of a central government. I felt that they were lax, and I did compose a thesis.

It was published under the name of a Columbian patriot much more readily received than a writing of a woman. At one point it was thought that the author of this, the Columbian patriot who was my dear friend, Aldrich Gary, it was your dear friend, Mrs. M. Warren. Oh, you have heard me talk of politics before. I sometimes like to think that the fondest memories in one's old age are of family and friends. And the first that comes to mind,

of course, Mr. James Warren. I remember him as a sandy haired young man of wit and humour and intelligence. A man who was never afraid of an intelligent woman. We had five sons. The first born was James, sorely wounded in a battle- sea battle with the [unintelligble] He lost a leg. ?___? began as a teacher ?___? He has come home now and is with me in my loneliness for my beloved

husband. It's two years since. My second son was Winthrop, a young man of great beauty and grace, he spent a great deal of time in Europe in anticipation on an ambassadorship. which did not materialize. He had problems, served as a merchant and other things, as an officer in the army. His company was annihilated in the Ohio. My third son, Charles, was always rather [unintelligible] and seeking that strength in the

tropical sun he did go to Spain and there he grieved his loss. Henry, my fourth son, he married, he married the Winslow girl, Mary. We called her Polly. And they had given me a wonderful grandchildren and then most particularly, one granddaughter named Marcia. And, of course, I did pick up my pen and write for her an alphabetical maxim explaining the beauty within. My youngest son is George, of [unintelligible] up north as a planter, farmer. He was active in the politics of this

township and he to is gone. But I am blessed to have young James with me. He is my eyes; he is my emanuensis, so he keeps me abreast of all that is always been important to me. And my history has been published! as well as a collection of my poetry including 2 dramas. At last [unintellible] we got a [unintellible] to do a dear friend, General George Washington. It's been a long life. It's been a very interesting one, and

I sincerely hope that my words will always meet with aprobation, and that you will remember your dear friend, Mrs. Mercy Warren. [applause] [ Miscellaneous mechanical sounds] Voice of Nancy Rubin Stewart: We

have some technical difficulties that people in the 18th century didn't have, somehow or other. You know, I want to thank Patrice and Barbara for their lovely performance and, you know, it's been said by Thomas Sewell, an Englishman some time ago, there are only two ways that history is reflected accurately. One is anonymously and one is posthumously. And thank you for your interpretations. I'll try to do my best here with the posthumous, but not anonymous interpretation. Well, how did this all begin? I think, hopefully, you can see everything here. This all began when Mercy's father, James Otis, who was a landowner, a gentleman farmer, a judge in the county of Barnstable, the father of

13 children, 7 of whom survived, decided that because he didn't go to college, although his older brothers did, and of course the college was Harvard, that his sons would go. And so he determined that his sons would go. Not Mercy, of course, girls weren't allowed to be educated; that eventually changed. Anyway, she loved her father, was always very close to him. As she grew older and showed an interest in books and probably badgered her father knowing Mercy, he eventually allowed her to be tutored, along with her older brother. Her mother, Mary Allyne we know much less about (Mary All- A L L Y N E) like, was of actually Mayflower stock. Also, we don't know much about her, she had 13 children as I say. She- she suffered a lot of losses many of the children died as infants and Mercy was expected, as a as a good colonial woman, young girl, being the

oldest daughter of this brood to participate from a very young age in domestic chores and tasks. Her mother was often in child bed, recovery, then the children were sick -- many of them died -- and so Mercy really had to do a great deal from a very early age. They were a wealthy family probably, one of the wealthiest families in Barnstable. We know, for instance, they had a tall case clock- very unusual for that era. We're talking, Mercy was born September 14th 1728, so we're talking very early. That's the old style calendar. I'm not too good at translating all those numbers into what the date would be but it's about 10 days later or some such. In any case we don't know much about her mother. We know that Mercy was dutiful in her- Mercy wrote about all her relatives, especially around an occasion, whether it be a marriage or a death. The mother is strangely silent. She's just written a very dutiful thing about how her- her children

must call her blessed. You know that her friends mourned her passing but really, that's all. Historians think her mother may have been depressed. And of course who wouldn't be if you lost 6 of your 13 children. As I say the Otises were very wealthy, they owned huge tracts of land. They had an enormous farm. Mercy's father was an attorney, self-taught, never went to college, and was often really on the circuit from an early age. He even, later in life, when John Adams, much younger of course, would actually ride with him on the circuit. And John Adams would say he's congenial and he's personable but educated, he is not. In any case this was a drawing that somebody finally excavated of the original Otis Mansion House, and it is quite splendid; had a central sweeping staircase, a beautiful mahogany furniture, a

staff of servants both who worked in the house and on the farm in Barns- West Barnstable, off of Route 6A. If you've taken that kind of back road to the Cape. It's also called the Old King's Highway. Today, this just a marker like a stone marker you wouldn't even notice, hard by the Great Marsh that indicates the Otis homestead. But this is the one picture that we do have of it. And of course there are some descriptions. This is Mercy's older brother, the famous one, who just across the hall- Harvard educated, became an attorney, fiery, independent James- James "The Patriot" Otis. A prominent Boston attorney who was the first one to speak out against the British government and the first one who declaimed for over 4-and- a-half hours here (and we won't keep you that long I promise tonight) 4 and a half hours over there that taxation without representation is tyranny. And the young John Adams, probably about 10, 10 or 12 years younger,

sat there and scribbled notes, fascinated before these judges of the Massachusetts Superior Court. And it was then that John Adams scribbled- and it was then- later he scribbled it was then the child of Independence was born. This is in 1861. Anyway, Mercy loved her older brother. She was- admired his learning, his erudition, his scope, his intelligence, and he was really her role model for much of their early part of their life. In Barnstable, they were educated by their uncle, who happened to be the minister of the West Parish Church, that church or meeting house, really, it stood for both, of course, still stands today, it's one of the oldest meeting houses in New England. The rooster vane on top, you've noticed the vane here that's been- weathervane that's taken down from the top of this tower as they renovate the tower here at the Old State House. This weather vane dates from somewhat later, about 10

years later. I think Sarah Nelson, the Director of Programs, told me that this one is about 1710, something like that- 13? OK. 1713. Well we know 1719 is when this one first went up and again by then we've gotten into animals. The rooster, allegedly the rumor has it, sitting on that ball within that ball is smuggled British rum. That's the rumor, anyway. Mercy was educated by her uncle the minister of the West Barnstable Parish. That's the parsonage. It's only about, I'd say, maybe a half a mile from their own- their home, and the parsonages, as you can see is a picture that I took some time ago, is still standing today. Now we've talked a lot about gender cards in this recent Democratic primary. And Mercy did play her own gender card at this time. She could not go to college. The gender card she played happened to be Whist or Lou, and this was something

she learned to do. They were sophisticated family, the Otises. They had many European goods and really many European habits. And of course, what she was expected to do was cook and make soap and candles and, and do needle work and marry and bear children. The chimneypiece, usually a very intricate piece of needlework over a chimney, we don't have her's, we have her sister's, we don't know what happened to her's, but we do have Mercy's extraordinary card table. And here it is. It is at Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth. If you've ever been there, it's quite an extraordinary piece of work and very sophisticated. So we know that card-playing was something that was considered a passtime that was even approved, even for a puritanical or puritanical, let me say, evolved family like the Otises, worldly family. The portrait of Mercy Otis Warren was painted around 1863. She is portrayed here -- she's still quite young -- by

of course, Copley. It's hanging at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. By the way, there's been a lot of conjecture about that dress. Mercy, after all, lived in Plymouth. Plymouth was not exactly high fashion Boston, and even though she was a very wealthy matron, many curators have noted that this dress has appeared in other Copley pictures, so we think that sometimes for certain women, he used this particular dress. Well, she succeeded in marrying James Warren. You've heard both Mercies, here, today talk about James. Conjecture- historians think perhaps it was an arranged marriage. Both- his father was the Sheriff- High Sheriff of Barnstable County. Her father, the two fathers did a lot of business together over the years, but from Mercy's letters, we see that she was deeply in love with him,

referred back to the early years of a marriage or when she first met him, you know, as the pole star, he was the compass, she was the needle that would always point to the compass, that he was true north, I guess. Anyway, he was a congenial, a brilliant Harvard-educated gentleman farmer, High Sheriff of Plymouth County after his father died. And this painting also is at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, although you probably won't see it on exhibit. They lived in this house at first, this was the Warren homestead. He's of Mayflower descent. Mercy and her husband are vaguely related through a Mayflower connection. This house is still standing, of course, it's been renovated many, many times. It is in Plymouth. It was a farm overlooking the Eel River, in fact, it's quite near the Plimouth Plantation. It's the other side of the Eel River, in fact. And it actually goes back further- there's a whole other wing which probably led to a barn and so on and 2

historically-minded women, sisters, now maintain this house. I had the privilege of going through it, and it's a wonderful antique. Believe it or not, this is their grand house, the Warrens, in Plymouth, and it's amazing to me this is in downtown Plymouth, and about 100 years ago it was converted to a commercial building. It's been many things. It's been a school, it's been shops. In fact I believe Patrice has a- has a shop in that, now. But this was their grand home. It had been Governor Winslow's home many years before that. And they- the Warrens, the young Warrens of Mercy and her husband, needed a place in town, not out at the farm three miles away because, first of all, James Warren had to be there, he was the sheriff and the court was there. But it's an interesting building to go through today and you might, while you're there, come to Patrice's shop. This is what it looked like about 100 years ago. I can't go back any further. I'm sorry, but you do see the sign on it, which I think the owner

now, is he not putting that sign back on? Yeah. Yes I'm sure, than this. I'm sure of that. I think you know this gentleman. Well, John Adams knew, of course, James Otis, but he also came to the courts in Plymouth as a circuit lawyer, and he met and became friendly with James Warren and was entranced with, with Mercy's intelligence, her literary abilities. And she would host what became- Abigail of course, a bit later, but she soon became a friend of Mercy's, also and there- I've plowed through and have in in the book many many letters between them. They're quite wonderful. They became close friends, but to come back to John Adams, John was always fascinated with Mercy's literary abilities, and she would be serving dinner or whatever else she was serving, drinks, I suppose, of some sort, beer and ale and stout and

flip and other- other things, as well as a meal, to the Sons of Liberty and she would participate in the discussions, which for a woman was highly unusual and not really looked upon beyond certain radical circles, as something appropriate for a woman to do. Abigail, as I say, was a close friend. We all know about Abigail: outspoken, brilliant, bold. Around 1775, as you know things had heated up to a fare-thee-well, and so we had not only British occupations and all kinds of taxes starting back with James Otis protesting taxation without representation in 1761 and going through the the Sugar Act and then the Stamp Act, and the Townsend Act, and the Intolerable Acts. It goes on and on, as you know. I'm not going to review that tonight, but here is Boston. Boston, of course, the soldiers, the British soldiers, have

long since occupied, they've been, certainly the Boston massacre a few years before this, so things have heated up to a fare-thee-well. And of course, then you had to just come back to this. I don't have a picture or even a map for Lexington and Concord but you all know about that in April of 1775 and then the battle of Bunker Hill. Now Mercy writes, preceding the Battle of Bunker Hill, this terrible ominous feeling she has. She is in Plimouth. She knows there are troops in the countryside, she's hearing terrible rumors and having dreams is a wonderful letter that's reproduced in the book about this fear she has the night of the very eve of the beginning of the violence at Bunker Hill. The Edmon Fowle House, you may or may not be familiar with, in Watertown, is where the Provincial Congress which her husband, James, now finds himself elected president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, is now headquartered. Now they didn't own the

house. Of course this is a renegade, a rump Congress. You know, all of them can be convicted of treason. They've rented it from a man named Edmund Fowle. The House has since been moved a few block blocks away, it's preserved, but this is where they all lived, at least people like James, who was the president. There was a chamber where they all met, the executive committee, and there are other places nearby where some of the other representatives met. But these are Sons of Liberty. These are the Committee of Safety. These are representatives of the Revolution and James Warren basically lived there. Mercy's husband for about a year-and-a-half. Mercy was not happy about this. You and I can go down to Plymouth very easily by car, Traffic depending, but for Mercy, 35 miles over country roads often, by the way, she wrote, she grew up in a farm, she knew how to ride horseback. Often by the way historians have surmised probably

rode herself after the first journey or two, and did this regularly, to serve as her husband's private secretary. Her 5 sons, 4 them anyway, one was at Harvard by then, being left with servants as she rode back and forth and would stay a few days. She became the reporter for John Adams who was now in Philadelphia, who wanted to know. Her husband had no time to deal with writing to John Adams so she did a lot of this and some very colorful and touching incidents of what happened. This is what it looked like, the Edmund Fowle House, of course, it's been restored. The Watertown Historical Society will in fact, open, or is, has opened, or is about to open the renovated Edmund Fowle House and they've done a lot of fascinating work on some of the rooms. This is the room where probably the rump, The Executive Committee of the rump Congress met. Now it wasn't all peaches and cream. Many famous people stayed there: George Washington, Benjamin

Franklin, certainly Sam Adams, another friend, many, many other people, Henry Knox, and so on, but things didn't always go just so easily. This is a letter of complaint from the person who owned the house that there had been many inconveniences because a lot of the furniture had been broken up and there'd been all kinds of ruckus about probably too much beer and ale and flip and things like this that went on sometimes late at night. So it's a wonderful letter of complaint about that. Well you've seen some of the political cartoons downstairs and this one of course is is was generated for poor England which is, as you can see, being destroyed by these disgusting American savages. Many many. And here's the poor lion who is also being attacked. And then on the other side we have the American side of this which you've seen some of those downstream is even better where America is is is being besieged

by this oppressive, tyrannical British authority. Now I should mention and the James Otis, James the Patriot, Otis and her own father, hated Hutchison because for many reasons political reasons because James Otis, Senior, never got the position ultimately that he wanted. And this became a cause celebre throughout Hutchison's reign. Well Hutchison owned a country house in Milton Massachusetts high on a hill. And so after the Revolution, many years later, it was the satisfaction of Mercy and her husband to buy Hutchison's country house. And from somewhere around 1780 to 1780 9, 88, 89. they lived in this lovely home overlooking Boston Harbor from that hill a farm and a hill and a mansion house. And we don't have the house anymore. It's no longer standing it was torn down in the 19th, late 19th century. This is one of the

few pictures we have on a great satisfaction from Mercy who had really grown up sort of in the shadow of the hated Hutchison and the ultimate victory that they could live in that house. Well, both Barbara and Patrice mentioned the five sons; this is son number 2. This is favorite son number 2 who was a bit of a scoundrel, probably involved in black market profiteering. Just the thing that Mercy and her husband hated the most. They were god fearing early patriots who believed in honesty and thrift and simplicity and fairness to all. And this was the handsome son whom they doted on who, as I say, was probably involved in profiteering. He did die tragically ended up in debt. He had to go to war. ? OF THE? with Washington, actually in the western borders and he died in Ohio in a terrible Indian massacre.

But that's another story. I think you know this gentleman again I want to come back and tell you a little about him. John Adams thought Mercy was great. He said she knew of no poetic genius like her in America. He called her a genius repeatedly. He told her that he thought women made the greatest politicians. Now Abigail and Mercy had many many letters. Abigail, of course, asked Mercy if she would participate in a petition in response to Abigail's letter, 'Remember the Ladies,' the famous one in which she asks John Adams to please give the ladies the vote. Mercy did not respond to that but oddly enough, John Adams, of course, made a joke of the whole thing and said well you know, they weren't going to do that. That they weren't going to be tyrannized by the petticoat of women but Mercy he wrote almost in the same breath that women were wonderful made wonderful politicians. You know, when I started this book I was going to

call it, 'Dare I say More?' If you remember ?Guy treat? my editor. And because Mercy continually writes to John Adams, her mentor, and says, "Well is it OK for a woman to say this? Will I get in trouble?" Of course her names were never on any of the things she wrote; anti-British plays that were popular and plagiarized and recopied and read and coffeehouses and read aloud and put newspapers. Mercy's name was never on them. But then later when she started writing political treatises, she kept asking John Adams, who had encouraged her to write, "Is it OK for me to say this? Dare I say more?" and he'd say of course it's your if anyone can do this, you can because you're is such a marvelous writer but when push came to shove, later on in life, when they separated for political reasons, John Adams had a very different attitude to this now full-grown, mature woman writer. We'll come to that in a minute but here he is. As you can see, this is much later on when he's

been in various government posts overseas, negotiating for the peace. And then afterwards in in England and France. Of course he had obtained many millions of dollars or Gilders from the Dutch government to help with the Revolution. Well, as I say, well by 1790, Mercy had finally published poems. Her collection of poems and 2 plays in her own name! After many years of writing this is a great accomplishment. This is I've never seen this I've seen facsimiles but I think this is a copy of the original. Funny things were happening by 17:7, 1788, not only the conditions I mentioned the beginning of this talk but because of the terrible economic situation and the revolt of citizens here in Massachusetts and Shay's Rebellion because of the bankruptcy of many of the farmer veterans, high taxes here

and for other reasons, there was an enormous push by Congress to create a federal government. Now when the Constitution -- the draft of the Constitution -- was ratified it was sent around for ratification, Mercy wasn't happy about it. She felt that the voice of the common man wasn't represented, that tyranny, there was a tendency for tyranny. She became very upset and she wrote as I believe Barbara said a Columbian patriot 'Observations on the New Constitution,' in which she critiques the constitution and she faults it for not protecting the rights of the common man. This is very upsetting to her. She eventually creates a treatise, "A Columbian Patriot," as it's all it's known. 19 different points. But among them were a push for a declaration in a bill of rights, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, trial by jury, in both civil

and criminal cases, checks and balances against the executive branch of government so that there would by the judicial and the legislature of legislative branches and again, of course, she is not credited. Of course we hear about George Mason. We hear about Madison proposing and being the architects of the Bill of Rights and this very influential pamphlet, 'A Columbian Patriot,' 15 hundred copies circulated through many states is credited to Elbridge Gerry for 150 years until 1 of Mercy's scholarly descendants unearths the letter which proves she had had written it. In any case, things heat up in the 1790s. There are the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. OK. Mercy writes to Katherine McCauley and said in one hand we need a strong federal government. But on

the other hand, had not her husband and her allies and the son who who became a crippled veteran of the Revolution, had they not struggled for the rights of all men? So this is the big debate between states' rights, individuals' rights and the necessity for a federal government, a strong, united government that will not become the plaything, as Washington said, the sport of European nations. Ok. Merci's worried, she says once a ruler, and I'm going to quote directly, "establishes arbitrary power, certain unjust restrictions may take place, among them an ominous quote 'imprimature' on the press, designed to silence an injured and oppressive people,"end Quote. Well, things get even worse by the 1790s, 98, when her old buddy, John Adams, her mentor, passes the Alien and Sedition Acts, OK, which basically gives

enormous power to the executive and the right to deport anyone suspected of being enemies of the state and anyone who speaks out against the government in any press. Many members of the press were put in jail, so the whole kind of system disappears. Well, this becomes very bitter. The two of them grow apart as Abigail is kind of caught in the middle. They are kind of very stiff letters between Abigail and Mercy, Abigail and Washington, Mercy back in Plymouth, having left Hutchison mansion after the financial fiascos of the 1780s, stopped the wheels of government. The Anti-Federalists cartoon kind of says it all. Well, time goes on Mercy is losing her eyesight, has been doing it ever since she had a smallpox inoculation 20 years earlier but now, in her 70s and into her 80s, really, is almost blind. Her son, James, as Barbara has depicted, the one who has one leg,

becomes her secretary and he helps her complete her life's work. She's been working on this history. She's been collecting manuscripts, information, interviewing people, asking other people she knows for information, as the Revolution went on and into the post-war era. This is called, 'The History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution.' and finally finally finally in 18 05 she, probably believing, as I said at the beginning of this talk, that you know, the only way to tell history truthfully is either anonymously or posthumously, and thinking before this, maybe she could just wait till after she she died and that her family would have it published, anyway. Finally, you know, she's in her late 70s and it is published in three volumes -- it's twelve hundred pages -- and there are reproductions of it today, one of which are used in writing this book. It is written by a woman, there are a couple of snitty reviews of it, one

of them saying if it didn't have the taint of womanhood, it might be OK. Takes John Adams two years to read it. He's now ex-vice president or former president, and this is the man who encouraged her to write, encouraged her to write the Revolution, to write the history back 30 years before, the man who admired her as one of the poetic, *the* poetic genius of America, when he reads it, he explodes because she calls him a monarchist and other things which is common knowledge in which he has been called in Congress and in the press and and that he didn't, she didn't credit him with every single thing that happened in the Revolution. And if you want a good laugh, I encourage you to read one of the chapters in this book because I've taken the argument. He writes her in a very hot August of 18 0 7, 10 blistering 25-page letters, by hand, in which he tells all the things he did and why aren't they in there and she should correct her additions.

And she should get this changed. And she writes back to him 6 letters and she's now in her 80s and she's beginning to be ?raising? and she's recoiling. And she said, "Well, apparently you better write your own and make sure that you put yourself center stage and that you credit yourself as the only person who did anything for this Revolution," and he's finally he writes back. It's very funny. I'll just give you one more line from it -- It's very funny material -- He writes back, "Your 30 first chapter, Madam, is like mustard after dinner." And she writes back, "Well, better it be mustard after dinner than vinegar and Niger. So it's just really, there's these 2 ancient elderly people, almost Greek, who are clashing, but they're doing so with their pens. They don't talk for five years. But of course, John Adams also wasn't talking to Thomas Jefferson that time and it's only finally in, I think, around, let me just get that date right. It's, yes, it's 1812.

Mercy is 82 years of age, OK, and John Adams is in his mid-seventies where they finally reconcile. Mercy dies in 1814 but not until she's had wonderful reconciliation with Abigail. They exchange hair in locket's and pearl rings, including with John Adams, there are letters that go back and forth. Mercy takes care of, as she used to take care of Abigail's children, they would sometimes switch off children. She also takes care of the Adams grandchildren. It's very very moving, what happens at the end, and Mercy, when she dies, even though she's a woman, she's one of the few people left, one of the few, she isn't a signer but she's one of the she's an icon, a matriarch. People revere her now. Of course, we now have had a whole generation of women writers who can write in their own name by them.

This is all de rigueur and she's just revered as this antiquarian statue figure. So it's appropriate that, OK, she's forgotten for a long time, she's mentioned in a few books including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony's book on the history of women, a hundred years later, almost a hundred years later, but it's appropriate that in the 21st century, at the beginning of the 21st century, in Barnstable at the county courthouse, there finally is dedicated by members of the DAR and local women and other clubs, finally a statue is erected on the other side of the lawn. It's quite an impressive 19th century courthouse. Her brother, Jemmy James, the Patriot, Otis, is on the left side so the women have finally and the town of Barnstable, I have to give them credit, Have her on the right side and this is a picture of her statue in the dedication. She's holding up the Bill of Rights. Just want to show you a couple more pictures taken of her.

Just in closing, I want to remind you of one of the most moving and, I think, relevant, things that she wrote at the end of her history. She said that, "If peace and unanimity are to be cherished and the equalization of liberty and the equity and energy of law maintained by harmony and justice, the present representative government may stand for ages, a luminous monument of Republican -- and by this, she means Jeffersonian Republican -- (OK or Jeffersonian Republican-Democrat, which is the party opposite the Federalist -- wisdom, virtue and integrity." This is my favorite quote though: "The principles of the Revolution ought ever to be the pole star of the Statesman, respected by the rising generations and the advantages bestowed by Providence should never be lost by negligence, indiscretion, or guilt. The people may again be reminded that the elective franchise is in their own hands, that it not,

ought not, to be abused either for personal gratifications or the indulgence of partisan acrimony." Thank you for listening. It's been a real pleasure and thank. Thank you, Mercy, Mercy Warren. Mercy had very strong feelings about women. She thought they should be educated which they hadn't

been in her lifetime. She felt that women had a special place in a marriage and in their home and that they should have an equal voice. She nurtured untold numbers of women and mentored them. We have some anonymous letters she's written. I think everything that Mercy did was an example to other people, especially as she grew older. Did you have another question. Yes. [inaudible question] No it's not a brother. The name is the same. He is a very, very distant relative. Joseph Warren you're thinking about. Yes, and there's a famous painting of him dying at Bunker Hill. He was a fabulously devoted doctor and

was right up there where he shouldn't have been and the generals were trying to keep him back or sort of boosting the soldiers on and became a target. It's not a relative. Yeah. and he was voted the first president of the Provincial Congress. He died and her husband who had declined that that was somewhat older, then became president. Yeah but they're not related. I know I was confused about that in the beginning of the research, as well. Thank you. Other questions? [inaudible question]Yes Yes, there were many things, um- One of them is the traditional picture of Mercy as the stern, kind of flag-waving, stuffy, Puritan kind of woman who was always upholding the bedrock of American values. But she's not really like that at all. That's her exterior. Her writing is very neoclassical, not the treatises and

not her satire on the Boston Tea Party, but her writing is her earlier plays are very, you have to decode them, almost the way you do Shakespeare. But they're really written about characters, people that were real people that given funny names like 'Mrs. Flourish,' or 'Simple,' or 'Hate-all,' I mean, and they're real characters. So that was because when you read them, cold, they're they're pretty tough for us in written in neoclassical Alexander Pope style and we don't always translate them too easily, so I haven't reproduced them very much in the book. Another thing that that surprised me greatly is this is a woman with a very large heart. She's not this stuffy, although she comes off that way sometimes. She is a very deeply caring woman she cares about her husband and five sons and her friends; she's an enormous collection of friends. Horseback, of course, is hard to go see your friends all the time but certainly letter

writing friends. She's very devoted to people, she's very caring and that steely outer surface is the formal 18th century way of presenting things. Certainly she's emulating what men did. But underneath it is is a real womanly heart. Thank you. Yes. [inaudible question] A number of other women. Janet Montgomery in New York. The widow of Montgomery, the hero died in Montreal, Quebec. I'm sorry. There it's a loose cadré. Daughters of Liberty is a name that is given obviously in reflection of Sons of Liberty but also during the domestic homespun spitting contests that went

on right here in Boston Common in many places in reaction to, "Let's not import British silks and wool's," so Daughters of Liberty is mentioned many many times and in all of the newspapers. But beyond that there's no real organization, the way there, by virtue of women being home and childbearing and child caring and they didn't get out as much except through letters. Thank you it's been lovely.