Mercy Otis Warren

Portrait by John Singleton Copley, 1763

OTHER IMAGES

QUICK FACTS
BORN:
14 September 1728 in Barnstable, Massachusetts
  DIED:
19 October 1814 in Plymouth, Massachusetts
Buried at Old Burial Hill in Plymouth with her husband, James.

AUTHOR OF

Plays

  • The Adulateur, 1772
  • The Defeat, 1772
  • The Group, 1775

History

  • The Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations (3 volumes), 1805

Mercy Otis Warren, American writer, sister of James Otis, was born in Barnstable, Massachussets in 1728. She married James Warren (1726—1808) of Plymouth, a college friend of her brother, in 1754. Her literary inclinations were fostered by both these men and she began writing poems, dramas, and essays.

Because her husband took a leading part in events leading up to, during, and after the American Revolution — as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1766—74) and its speaker (1776—77; 1787—88), as well as a member (1774—1775) and president (1775) of the Provincial Congress — Warren was keenly interested in following its progress.

Her gift of satire was used in her political dramas, The Adulator (1773) and The Group (1775). Abigail Adams, a close friend of Warren’s, approved and encouraged her efforts — as did her husband, John Adams.

Warren’s tragedies The Sack of Rome and The Ladies of Castile, were included in her Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous (1790), dedicated to General Washington. Apart from their historical interest, her poems and dramas are not generally read today. In 1805 she published The Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, a history of the revolution that included personal criticism of John Adams — which he took issue with and bitterly resented.

Surviving her husband by nearly six years, Mercy Otis Warren died on 19 October 1814 at the age of 86.

ADAPTED FROM:
Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911 ed.

The French years provided Franklin’s detractors precisely what they needed: proof that the ur-American was un-American. Franklin was the Founding Father who had come the furthest, which makes him today the most compelling; he was also the Founding Father who traveled the farthest, which in his own century made him the most suspect. Few other homes in Philadelphia sported both Réaumur and Fahrenheit thermometers. The story goes that when Franklin proposed that Congress open its meetings with a prayer, Alexander Hamilton quipped that that body had no need of foreign aid. The story may be apocryphal but the sentiment was real. The expatriate patriot, Franklin was associated in many minds with the dependent chapter of American independence, one better expunged from the record.

Stacy Schiff
A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (2005)