later said that it contained most of the solid thought of the philosophic writings of the Revolution. It was Otis who aroused John Adams with his speech against the Writs of Assistance and brought him into the newspaper circle, and he was the one patriot whom Governor Hutchinson challenged to a newspaper duel, grimly informing Otis that he had "been cutting out work for him in the papers." [1]
Another brilliant contributor was Josiah Quincy, Jr., who was admitted to the Bar in 1768. When the British soldiers made their appearance in Boston, he published in the Gazette of that year, under the signature of "Hyperion," a series of essays. Joseph Warren's oration on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre in 1772, though he defended the soldiers against the popular feeling, stirred the imagination of the patriots; printed in the Boston Gazette on March 17, 1775, it was copied throughout the colonies.
The part played by his kinsman, John Adams of Braintree, is second only to that of Samuel Adams himself, though the "Statesman of the Revolution "had not the direct hand in either the journalistic or the political divisions that the Boston Adams had. The fire that burned in the mind of John Adams was very often rekindled by the ardor of Sam Adams. It was the literary art that fascinated the man who was to be the second President of the United States; it was the idea, the cause, that inspired the "Father of the Revolution." John Adams' more conservative soul rebelled at the excesses of the newspapers, and yet there is a great tribute to Messrs. Edes and Gill in his dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, which was printed in the Boston Gazette in four numbers, and which, like so many other
- ↑ Tudor, Life of James Otis, 102.
