ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the first close reading of the debate between Novanglus and Massachusettensis, exploring its personal dimension. Conducted between actual friends conducted under cover of pseudonyms, Novanglus enabled Adams with an opportunity to revisit constitutional issues and propose a radical, reformist agenda. He crafted Novanglus with Sewall in mind as though an imaginary friend. Because of Adams’s emotional connection with his adversary, Novanglus became an intellectual tour de force. Sewall’s Loyalism he took to be a betrayal of Whig principles espoused in friendship with Adams. The debate, as it developed, concealed personal dialogue between the actual authors, communicating not in person but through print, and constituted an important channel of communication between the British and the Patriots. With actual courtrooms closed to them, these lawyers might have indulged in courtroom drama on the printed page. But the issues addressed by Massachusettensis in the first eight letters were more political than legal, the politics of fear culminating in talk of treason that pushed Novanglus toward fundamental constitutional reform.
