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JOHN ADAMS AUTOGRAPH NOTE ON A LEGAL BILL REGARDING JOHN HANCOCK AND THE LIBERTY AFFAIR. ADAMS, JOHN. 1735-1826. Autograph Endorsement Signed ("John Adams") at the foot of a bill for legal services rendered and addressing Hancock's "affair at the admiralty" (Adam's defense of Hancock in the affair of the Liberty),
25 October 2022, 10:00 EDT
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JOHN ADAMS AUTOGRAPH NOTE ON A LEGAL BILL REGARDING JOHN HANCOCK AND THE LIBERTY AFFAIR.
ADAMS, JOHN. 1735-1826. Autograph Endorsement Signed ("John Adams") at the foot of a bill for legal services rendered and addressing Hancock's "affair at the admiralty" (Adam's defense of Hancock in the affair of the Liberty), crossed out, signed by Adams to the verso beneath his note of receipt, dated December 21, 1771, 310 x 190 mm, 2 pp, on the first leaf of a bifolium, accounts from March 1769 to January 1772.
JOHN ADAMS NOTE ON THE LIBERTY AFFAIR ON A PAGE OF ACCOUNTS FOR LEGAL SERVICES RENDERED TO JOHN HANCOCK.
The Townshend Acts of 1767-8, asserting the British government's "right" to tax the colonies, created heightened tensions in Massachusetts, Boston in particular. In May of 1768, John Hancock found himself tangled in lawsuit over taxation with the British commissioners in Sewall v. Hancock, known popularly as the "Liberty Affair," which would play an important role in igniting the conditions that exploded into the Boston Massacre of 1770. Hancock, a merchant and, according to the Crown, a smuggler, imported a shipment of Madeira wine aboard his ship the Liberty. The commissioners, already at odds with Hancock, suspected him of smuggling most of his shipment from the Liberty without paying the custom, and, emboldened by the recent arrival of the 50-gun HMS Romney in Boston harbor, the crown seized the Liberty as it was being reloaded. As the Liberty was towed to join the Romney, 3000 townspeople, fed up with the Commissioner's unjust acts, formed an angry mob, which ultimately resulted in the seizing of the customs' officer's own ship from the harbor which was reduced to ashes beneath the Liberty Tree. The resulting legal proceeding against Hancock, in which he was represented by John Adams, would drag on before being dismissed in 1769, although the Liberty was not returned. Meanwhile, the simmering anger of the colonists against unjust British rule would continue to grow, culminating with the Boston Massacre in 1770, and eventually the Revolution. See Wroth & Zobel, The Legal Papers of John Adams, vol 2, Cambridge: 1965, pp 173-193, footnote 32.
JOHN ADAMS NOTE ON THE LIBERTY AFFAIR ON A PAGE OF ACCOUNTS FOR LEGAL SERVICES RENDERED TO JOHN HANCOCK.
The Townshend Acts of 1767-8, asserting the British government's "right" to tax the colonies, created heightened tensions in Massachusetts, Boston in particular. In May of 1768, John Hancock found himself tangled in lawsuit over taxation with the British commissioners in Sewall v. Hancock, known popularly as the "Liberty Affair," which would play an important role in igniting the conditions that exploded into the Boston Massacre of 1770. Hancock, a merchant and, according to the Crown, a smuggler, imported a shipment of Madeira wine aboard his ship the Liberty. The commissioners, already at odds with Hancock, suspected him of smuggling most of his shipment from the Liberty without paying the custom, and, emboldened by the recent arrival of the 50-gun HMS Romney in Boston harbor, the crown seized the Liberty as it was being reloaded. As the Liberty was towed to join the Romney, 3000 townspeople, fed up with the Commissioner's unjust acts, formed an angry mob, which ultimately resulted in the seizing of the customs' officer's own ship from the harbor which was reduced to ashes beneath the Liberty Tree. The resulting legal proceeding against Hancock, in which he was represented by John Adams, would drag on before being dismissed in 1769, although the Liberty was not returned. Meanwhile, the simmering anger of the colonists against unjust British rule would continue to grow, culminating with the Boston Massacre in 1770, and eventually the Revolution. See Wroth & Zobel, The Legal Papers of John Adams, vol 2, Cambridge: 1965, pp 173-193, footnote 32.