Abigail Adams: Letter to Thomas Boylston Adams

Glossary

• anathemas denunciations
• bantling a young child
• be called to quit you die
• calumny hostilities
• Chronicle a London newspaper that ran from 1757 to 1823
• Dr. Priestley a prominent minister and family friend
• emoluments benefits
• landed estate inherited lands
• making quotations of detached sentences quoting things out of context
• Poet Shakespeare
• seignours a term, used here in a derogatory fashion, for midlevel nobility under the feudal system of medieval times
• a true republican a genuine supporter of government by the people under the authority of the law, rather than a hereditary monarchy
• to prove from scripture that “there is no God” a reference to Psalm 14:1
• vociferating speaking loudly