Josiah Quincy II

Josiah Quincy II Josiah Quincy Jr or [ kwɪnzi ] ( born February 23, 1744 Boston, † April 26, 1775 at sea ) was an American lawyer and supporters of independence.

He was the son of Josiah Quincy I ( 1709-1784 ). After studying at Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1763, he was successful as a lawyer in his hometown.

He wrote under the pseudonym of Hyperion in 1767 two articles for the local newspaper, in which he inveighed Boston Gazette sharply against British taxation and other colonial regulations. A further article was followed in September 1768, the last of his published under Hyperion products followed in February 1770 in which he to calling his fellow citizens, " denounce the way society deals with those who contaminate trade, poison their luxury goods, not to satisfy their greed for money and whose suppression should not be tolerated ". He was instrumental in the atmosphere that ultimately led to the so-called Boston Tea Party, and thus ushered in the American Revolution. Together with John Adams, he took over following the American revolt to defend Captain Thomas Preston and the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre and cared for their acquittal.

In 1774 he published one of his most important writings, the Observations on the Act of Parliament, which is commonly referred to as the " Boston Port Bill" and includes seminal philosophical and legal bases for American politics.

In the same year he was sent to negotiate to England. On the way home he died shortly before the return still at sea of tuberculosis.

His son Josiah Quincy III (1772-1864), Mayor of Boston, a member of the House of Representatives, and president of Harvard University, was writing his biography ( " Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Jr. ," Boston, 1825).