ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the politics of friendship-how friendship and politics were mutually reinforcing. It finds that genuine friendship profoundly influenced Sewall’s and Adams’s early political writings. Critical analysis indicates that they commenced political writing in competition with each other, Sewall as an advocate for the government and Adams as a moderate opponent. However, fresh research firmly links these early publications with political machinations. New evidence reveals how Sewall elicited Adams cooperation in a duplicitous scheme to expose the political corruption of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson and blunt the radicalism of leading Whig James Otis Jr. Sewall’s high-risk strategy to advance both his and Adams’s careers threatened to expose Adams. The breach of trust nearly fractured their friendship. Nonetheless, because of their mutual affection, a strong personal dimension to their subsequent political rivalry prevailed.
