Book Description

Providing readers with the unusual opportunity to enter into the extraordinary mind of a patriot in the period immediately preceding the Revolution, the Portrait of a Patriot series presents the major papers of the Boston lawyer and patriot penman Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744-1775). In this, the third of five volumes, we meet Quincy as a rising member of the Massachusetts bar and a member of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, making a tour of the Southern colonies to assess the depth of commitment to the patriot cause there. While cautious of the political leanings of his hosts, Quincy was clearly dazzled by the opulence and sophistication of late-eighteenth-century Charleston society. As he traveled northward, he continued to record candid observations on Southern manners, womenfolk, and the institution of slavery in his journal, thus creating a unique portrait of American society on the eve of the American Revolution.