Mercy Otis Warren

¨America stands armed with resolution and virtue; but she still recoils at the idea of drawing the sword against the nation from whence she derived her origin...¨

WHO SHE WAS: Mercy Otis Warren was born in 1728 in Barnstable, Massachusetts to a large family that believed in education. She was very close to her brother James Otis who went to Harvard and studied law. He encouraged Mercy to study from the books that he brought home. She became a great writer. 

When Mercy was twenty-six, she married a friend of her brother's named James Warren. He was also a lawyer. They would raise five children. Like her brother, husband, and many of their friends, she felt that the British were taxing the colonies unfairly. Her brother James was even one of the leaders of the protest against the Stamp Act. 

She used her writing ability to promote her belief that the colonists were unfairly taxed by the British. Mercy even wrote a poem after the Boston Tea Party protest happened. It was called "the Squabble of the Sea Nymphs." This poem was first published anonymously in the Boston Gazette. After the War, she published a three volume history of the Revolutionary War. 

WHAT SHE SAID: 

"America stands armed with resolution and virtue; but she still recoils at the idea of drawing the sword against the nation from whence she derived her origin." - Mercy Otis Warren wrote this in a letter to her friend Catherine Macaulay.