quence or acuteness. In 1769, in the suit of James
against Lechmere, he secured the release of a negro
slave two years before the common-law right of
freedom was denned in the English courts by the
decision of the Somerset case. He was esteemed
one of the ablest writers in New England, and de-
fended the doctrines of coercion with force and
learning in the columns of the Tory newspapers.
John Trumbull satirizes him in "McFingal " as
" the summit of newspaper wit," who
" Drew proclamations, works of toil,
In true sublime, of scarecrow style :
With forces, too, 'gainst Sons of Freedom.
All for your good, and none would read 'em."
The papers in the " Massachusetts Gazette," signed "Massaehusettensis," were attributed to him until, more than a generation later, Daniel Leonard, of Taunton, was discovered to have been their author. After Judge Sewall signed an address to Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, his mansion in Cambridge was wrecked by a mob in September, 1774. He fled to Boston, and a few months later took ship for England, where he lived for a short time in London, and afterward mostly in Bristol. His estate in Massachusetts was confiscated under the act of 1779. In 1788 he removed to St. John, New Brunswick, where he resumed legal prac- tice. His wife and the wife of John Hancock were daughters of Edmund Quincy, of Boston. The second Samuel's brother, Stephen, Hebraist, b. in York, Me.. 4 April, 1734: d. in Boston, Mass., 23 July, 1804, was graduated at Harvard in 1761, taught in the grammar-school at Cambridge, and in 1762 became librarian and instructor in Hebrew at Harvard. Two years later he was installed as the first Hancock professor of Hebrew, occupying the chair till 1785. He was an active Whig dur- ing the Revolution, and represented Cambridge in the general court in 1777. His wife was a daugh- ter of Edward Wigglesworth. He published seven Greek and Latin poems in the " Pietas et gratu- latio " (Cambridge, 1761); a "Hebrew Grammar" (1763): a funeral oration in Latin on Edward Holyoke (1760) : an English oration on the death of Prof. John Winthrop (1779): a Latin version of the first book of Edward Young's " Night Thoughts" (1780); " C'armina sacra quse Latine Gneceque condidit America" (1789) ; " The Scrip- ture Account of the Shechinah" (1794); and "The Scripture History relating to the Overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah" (1796). He left a manu- script Chaldee and English dictionary, which is preserved in the library of Harvard college. An- other brother, David, jurist, b. in York, Me., 7 Oct., 1735; d. there. 22 Oct., 1825, was graduated at Harvard in 1755, studied law, and established himself in practice in York in 1759. He was ap- pointed justice of the peace in 1762, and register of probate in 1766. Like his friend and classmate, John Adams, he was an earnest Whig, and was an active patriot from the beginning of the Revolu- tion. He was representative for York in 1776, was chosen a member of the council of Massachu- setts, and was appointed in 1777 a justice of the superior court. From 1789 till 1818 he was U. S. judge for the district of Maine. Stephen's nephew, Jonathan Mitchell, poet, b. in Salem, Mass., in 1748 : d. in Portsmouth, N. H., 29 March, 1808, was brought up in the family of his uncle, and edu- cated at Harvard. He left college to engage in mercantile business, afterward studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practised with success. In 1774 he was appointed register of probate for Grafton county, N. H. Afterward he settled in Portsmouth. In the early part of the Revolution he wrote " War and Washington." a favorite song of the soldiers of the Revolutionary army. He produced other patriotic lyrics, besides paraphrases of Ossian, epilogues, and epigrams. In an " Epi- logue to Cato." written in 1778. drawing a parallel between the characters and events of the Revolu- tion and those of the play, occurs the couplet,
"No pent-up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours."
which Park Benjamin adopted as the motto of his paper, " The New World." His poems, which were mostly the productions of his youth, were collected into a volume (Portsmouth, 1801). Joseph's grand- son, Samuel, jurist, b. in Boston. Mass., 11 Dec., 1757; d. in Wiscassett, Me., 8 June. 1814, was gradu- ated at Harvard in 1776, studied law. was admitted to the bar. and practised in Marblehead, Mass. He was frequently a member of the legislature, was elected to congress for two successive terms, and served from 15 May, 1797. till 10 Jan., 1800, when he resigned on being appointed a judge of the Massachusetts supreme court. In the same year he was a member of the electoral college of Massa- chusetts. He became chief judge in 1813, and died while holding court in Wiscassett. where a monument was erected to his memory by the mem- bers of the bar. The second Stephen's nephew. Jotham, clergyman, b. in York, Me., 1 Jan., 1760; d. in Chesterville, Me., 3 Oct., 1850, was a mason in his youth, and received only a rudimentary edu- cation, yet, after a theological examination in 1798, he was licensed to preach, and on 18 June, 1800, was ordained as an evangelist. From that time till the close of his life he labored as a missionary. He was installed as pastor of the Congregational church in Chesterville on 22 June, 1820, but con- tinued his missionary tours, preaching wherever a few could be gathered together, on week days as well as on Sundays, and organizing many new churches. His ministry extended over a period of fifty years, and in this time he preached four and a half times on an average every week. Plis field was confined chiefly to Maine and parts of New Hampshire and Rhode Island, though his journeys extended into eleven other states and into Ne'w Brunswick. A memoir was published by his son, Jotham (Boston, 1852). The third Samuel's son, Samuel, clergyman, b. in Marblehead. Mass., 1 June, 1785; d. 'in Burlington, Mass.. 18 Feb., 1868, was graduated at Harvard in 1804, studied theol- ogy in Cambridge, and was pastor of the Congre- gational church at Burlington, Mass., from 1814 till his death. He was fond of antiquarian studies, and left a " History of Woburn, Mass., from the Grant of its Territory to Charlestown in 1640 to 1860," which was published, with a memorial sketch, by his brother, Rev. Charles Chauncy Sewall (Boston, 1868). Jotham's cousin, Thomas, physician, b. in Augusta, Me., 16 April, 1786; d. in Washington, D. C., 10 April, 1845, was graduated in medicine at Harvard in 1812, and practised in Essex, Mass., till 1820, when he removed to Wash- ington. In 1821 he was appointed professor of anatomy in the National medical college of Colum- bian university. He began his lectures when the college first opened in 1825, and continued them till his death. He published, among other works, " The Pathology of Drunkenness " (Albany), which was translated into German, and established his reputation as an original investigator in Europe as well as in the United States. Jotham's grand- nephew, Rnf'iis King 1 , author, b. in Edgecomb, Me., 21 Jan., 1814, was graduated at Bowdoin in 1837, and at Bangor theological seminary in 1840. He supplied pulpits in Vermont and Massachusetts,
