Portrait of a Patriot: The Major Political And Legal Papers of Josiah Quincy Junior

by Josiah Quincy II, Neil Longley York (Editor), Daniel R. Coquillette

Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744-1775), Boston lawyer and patriot penman, had he lived longer could have been a leader of the new American Republic with a name familiar in most households. In a four-volume series, the Colonial Society of Massachusetts will reprint his major political and legal writings. Editor Neil Longley York provides a significant biographical introduction, followed by Quincy’s Political Commonplace Book, in which the patriot noted down passages from his wide reading in politics and history that he believed relevant to his own times. Thus, readers have an unusual opportunity to enter into the extraordinary mind of a patriot immediately before the Revolution. A new edition of Quincy’s London Journal follows, the record of his last-ditch efforts to stave off the impending conflict by seeking some possible ground for compromise with leading British politicians in the months before the battles at Lexington and Concord. Although the peace mission ultimately failed, the journal provides a fascinating record of how British society and leading figures in the government appeared to a young lawyer from a distant colony.

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 12, 2006

About the author

Josiah Quincy II (1744 - 1775), attorney, "the Patriot", newspaper propagandist, died at sea returning from mission to London.

aka Josiah Quincy, Josiah Quincy Jr. [not to be confused with his son, grandson, and great-grandson, who were all known as Josiah Quincy, Jr.]