York,[16] 29 June, 1774.
I have a great deal of leisure, which I chiefly employ in scribbling,
that my mind may not stand still or run back, like my fortune. There is
very little business here, and David Sewall, David Wyer, John Sullivan
and James Sullivan, and Theophilus Bradbury, are the lawyers who attend
the inferior courts, and consequently, conduct the causes at the
superior.
I find that the country is the situation to make estates by the law.
John Sullivan, who is placed at Durham in New Hampshire, is younger both
in years and practice than I am. He began with nothing, but is now said
to be worth ten thousand pounds lawful money, his brother James allows
five or six or perhaps seven thousand pounds, consisting in houses and
lands, notes, bonds, and mortgages. He has a fine stream of water, with
an excellent corn mill, saw mill, fulling mill, scythe mill, and others,
in all six mills, which are both his delight and his profit. As he has
earned cash in his business at the bar, he has taken opportunities to
purchase farms of his neighbors, who wanted to sell and move out farther
into the woods, at an advantageous rate, and in this way has been
growing rich; under the smiles and auspices of Governor Wentworth, he
has been promoted in the civil and military way, so that he is treated
with great respect in this neighborhood.[17]
James Sullivan, brother of the other, who studied law under him, without
any academical education (and John was in the same case), is fixed at
Saco, alias Biddeford, in our province. He began with neither learning,
books, estate, nor anything but his head and hands, and is now a very
popular lawyer and growing rich very fast, purchasing great farms, etc.,
and a justice of the peace and a member of the General Court.
David Sewall, of this town, never practices out of this county; has no
children; has no ambition nor avarice, they say (however, _quaere_). His
business in this county maintains him very handsomely, and he gets
beforehand.
Bradbury, at Falmouth, they say, grows rich very fast.
I was first sworn in 1758. My life has been a continual scene of
fatigue, vexation, labor, and anxiety. I have four children. I had a
pretty estate from my father; I have been assisted by your father; I
have done the greatest business in the province; I have had the very
richest clients in the province. Yet I am poor, in comparison with
others.
This, I confess, is grievous and discouraging. I ought, however, to be
candid enough to acknowledge that I have been imprudent. I have spent an
estate in books. I have spent a sum of money indiscreetly in a lighter,
another in a pew, and a much greater in a house in Boston. These would
have been indiscretions, if the impeachment of the Judges, the Boston
Port Bill, etc., etc., had never happened; but by the unfortunate
interruption of my business from these causes, those indiscretions
became almost fatal to me; to be sure, much more detrimental.
John Lowell, at Newburyport, has built himself a house like the palace
of a nobleman, and lives in great splendor. His business is very
profitable. In short, every lawyer who has the least appearance of
abilities makes it do in the country. In town, nobody does, or ever can,
who either is not obstinately determined never to have any connection
with politics, or does not engage on the side of the Government, the
Administration, and the Court.[18]
Let us, therefore, my dear partner, from that affection which we feel
for our lovely babes, apply ourselves, by every way we can, to the
cultivation of our farm. Let frugality and industry be our virtues, if
they are not of any others. And above all cares of this life, let our
ardent anxiety be to mould the minds and manners of our children. Let us
teach them not only to do virtuously, but to excel. To excel, they must
be taught to be steady, active, and industrious.