Mercy Otis Warren - Revolutionary Writings and Politics

Revolutionary Writings and Politics

Warren formed a strong circle of friends with whom she regularly corresponded, including Abigail Adams, Martha Washington and Hannah Winthrop, wife to John Winthrop. In a letter to Catherine Macaulay she wrote: "America stands armed with resolution and virtue; but she still recoils at the idea of drawing the sword against the nation from whence she derived her origin. Yet Britain, like an unnatural parent, is ready to plunge her dagger into the bosom of her affectionate offspring." Through their correspondence they increased the awareness of women's issues, were supportive, and influenced the course of events to further America's cause.

She became a correspondent and adviser to many political leaders, including Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and especially John Adams, who became her literary mentor in the years leading to the Revolution. In a letter to James Warren, Adams wrote, "Tell your wife that God Almighty has entrusted her with the Powers for the good of the World, which, in the cause of his Providence, he bestows on few of the human race. That instead of being a fault to use them, it would be criminal to neglect them."

Prior to the American Revolution, in 1772, during a political meeting at the Warren's home, they formed the Committees of Correspondence along with Samuel Adams. Warren wrote "no single step contributed so much to cement the union of the colonies". Since Warren knew most of the leaders of the Revolution personally, she was continually at or near the center of events from 1765 to 1789. She combined her vantage point with a talent for writing to become both a poet and a historian of the Revolutionary era. All Mercy Otis Warren’s work was published anonymously until 1790. She wrote several plays, including the satiric The Adulateur (1772). Directed against Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts, the play foretold the War of Revolution.

In 1773, she wrote The Defeat, also featuring the character based on Hutchinson, and in 1775 Warren published The Group, a satire conjecturing what would happen if the British king abrogated the Massachusetts charter of rights. The anonymously published The Blockheads (1776) and The Motley Assembly (1779) are also attributed to her. In 1788 she published Observations on the New Constitution, whose ratification she opposed as an Anti-Federalist. Mercy Otis Warren is among the most influential writers of the Revolutionary war.