1. In JA’s hand. Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 185.

2. Presumably a reference to the Act of 15 Jan. 1743, c. 18, §1, 3 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 37, which appears at p. 33 of a volume supplementary to the Temporary Acts and Laws (Boston, 1763), entitled The Acts Contained in this Book were ordered to be left out of the last Impression of Temporary Laws and printed by themselves (Boston, 1763). The section provided that all doubts or controversies concerning which town was liable for a pauper’s support, or whether a pauper’s condition was sufficiently “necessitous” to entitle him to relief, “shall be determined by the justices of the court of general sessions of the peace, in the county to which such poor person doth belong; and the said justices are hereby fully authorized and impowered fully to determine the same, upon application to them made for that purpose.”

3. A reference to Bodfish et al. v. Selectmen of Barnstable, SCJ Rec. 1747–1750, fol. 3 (Barnstable, July 1747), an appeal from an order of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace for Barnstable County in June 1747, directing the appellants to pay to the selectmen £2 17s. 6d., which the latter had advanced to one Thomas Haddeway, an indigent person. The appeal was dismissed with costs of £3 2s. 6d, to the selectmen. The proceeding was probably one against the relatives of the indigent, who were liable for his support under the provision next cited by Otis (note 4 below). That Act was apparently construed as giving the justices sitting in sessions jurisdiction in such matters without regard to their powers under the Act of 1743, cited in note 2 above. See Tomlin’s Petition (1735), Records of the Court of General Sessions of the Peace for the County of Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1731 to 1737 133 (Worcester, Mass., ed. F. P. Rice, 1882); Petition of Southboro (1737), id. at 177. Any doubt that this procedure was correct was removed by Act of 12 June 1764, c. 2, 4 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 705.

4. The reference is to the Act of 16 Nov. 1692, c. 28, §9, 1 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 67–68, which appears at Acts and Laws, Of His Majesty’s Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England 21 (Boston, 1759). The section, which is set out at length in No. 25, note 2, provided that a person who had been in a town for three months without being warned out, should be considered “the proper charge of the same in case through sickness, lameness, or otherwise they come to stand in need of relief, to be born by such town, unless the relations of such poor impotent person in the line or degree of father or grandfather, mother or grandmother, children or grandchildren be of sufficient ability; then such relations respectively shall relieve such poor person in such manner as the justices of the peace in that county where such sufficient persons dwell shall assess.”

5. These were the principal areas of the General Sessions’ administrative jurisdiction. See Act of 1 Nov. 1692, c. 18, §5, 1 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 52 (Sessions to determine paternity and order father to pay maintenance of bastard; see No. 28); Act of 19 Feb. 1757, c. 18, 3 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 1001 (appeal to Sessions on damages for highway land-taking); Act of 4 Feb. 1734, c. 14, 2 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 834 (Sessions may award damages for town’s refusal to allow a private way); Act of 7 June 1698, c. 2, 1 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 311, as amended by Act of 4 July 1734, c. 2, 2 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 711 (Sessions may order removal of structures encroaching on highways; see No. 33, note 7); Act of 4 Nov. 1692, c. 26, §§1, 2, 1 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 62 (Sessions may order town to provide and maintain a minister and charge inhabitants; see Parsons’ Petition [1732], Worcester Sessions Records 47); Act of 14 Nov. 1706, c. 9, 1 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 597 (Grand jury to present delinquent towns to Sessions. If towns do not comply with Sessions’ orders, General Assembly will provide minister). As to the last two acts, see No. 37, note 2.

6. Literally, the summit of the law. Here used in the sense of a legal subtlety or technicality that carries a rule to an extreme beyond even strict application. Black, Law Dictionary description begins Henry C. Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, 4th edn., St. Paul, 1951. description ends .

7. The Act of 16 June 1699, c. 1, §1, 1 A&R description begins The Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, ed. Ellis Ames, Abner C. Goodell, et al., Boston, 1869–1922; 21 vols. description ends 367, established the justices of the peace for each county as the Court of General Sessions “impowred to hear and determin all matters relating to the conservation of the peace, and the punishment of offenders, and whatsoever is by them cognizeable according to law, and to give judgment and award execution therein.” The act provided in §3, p. 368, “That it shall and may be lawful for any person agrieved at the sentence of the justices in any court of general sessions of the peace, to make his appeal from such sentence (the matter being originally heard and tryed in said court) unto the next court of assize and general goal delivery to be held within or for the same county, there to be finally issued,” if the appellant gave security, and filed reasons of appeal and copies of the sentence appealed from and the evidence with the clerk of the court to which the appeal was taken.

8. Probably Coke, Littleton description begins Edward Coke, First Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England;or, Commentarie upon Littleton, 2d edn., London, 1629. description ends 39a: “Judgement. Judicium quasi juris dictum, the very voice of Law and Right, and therefore, Judicium semper pro veritate accipitur. The ancient words of Judgment are very significant, Consideratum est, &c., because that Judgment is ever given by the Court upon due consideration had of the Record before them.” Compare id. at 168a, 226a. Otis may mean that in the absence of statute providing an appeal the court is bound by the record.