Mercy Warren / Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams

Mercy Otis Warren

Mercy Warren was perhaps the first woman to stake out her place as a political writer of the American Revolution. She was an important voice for change and had communicated with many of the leaders in the quest for American independence. (The following exchanges appear as written correspondence between Mercy Warren and Abigail Adams.)

Abigail Adams: 'Tis a pity that Braintree and Plymouth are so distant from each other. I would sorely like to visit with you in person and learn your way of thinking.

Mercy Warren: We do have this means of communicating by post.

Abigail: I have learned that you are a poet as well as a playwright. Wherever can you find the time with so busy a household?

Mercy: I might be able to survive without speaking but not without letting my thoughts lead my pen across a virgin sheet of paper. That would surely mean my demise. I gladly borrow time from any of my responsibilities in order to write.

Abigail: When you have urged John Adams to move forward quickly with his ideas to change conditions that England has placed on us, how does he respond?

Mercy: Mr. Adams tells me I must be patient. Changes that may prejudice the welfare of the Crown may take a very long time. When negotiations break down then violence may follow. Surely it must be a great trial of patience and philosophy to be so long separated from the companion of your heart and from the father of your little flock. Forgive me if I sound like a wiser, slightly superior adviser. Patience, fortitude, public spirit, magnanimity, and self-denial were called for, though I myself in candor, could not claim these sublime qualities. As you know, it had been only a short time past when I urged my own husband to resign his commission as a general rather than serve outside New England and James Warren complied.

Abigail: I had it in my heart to dissuade John from going away again and I know I could have prevailed, but our public affairs at the time wore so gloomy an aspect that I thought if ever his assistance was wanted, it must be at a such a time. I therefore resigned myself to suffer some anxiety and many melancholy hours for this year to come. I wish I could have your quiet nature and assurance that good will be the ultimate result of our present frustrations. Is it that you are a full decade older and wiser than I?

Mercy: When I was a child, my brother James would accuse me of being the most agitated and impatient of mortals. Perhaps the passage of time does calm one’s spirit.

Abigail: I have read your poem about the dumping of the boxes of tea in Boston harbor. Your poems are difficult for me but this one I fully understood:

                                              The heroes of the Tuskeraro Tribe

                                              Who scorn alike, a fetter, or a bribe

                                               In order ranged, and waiting freedom’s nod

                                               To make an offering, to the Watry God. 


In the year and a half of her husband's absence, Abigail's distress had been worse than she had ever anticipated or, she was certain, than anyone could ever realize. "Known only to my own heart is the sacrifice I have made, and the conflict it has cost me," she had confided to her sister Elizabeth in the first weeks of his absence. "I wish a thousand times I had gone with him," she later told a friend. For the first time in fourteen years of marriage she had had to face an entire winter on her own.

"How lonely are my days. How solitary are my nights," she had written to John in a letter.