The History of the Insurrections, by George Minot

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the newspapers, to excite an idea, in the minds of the people, that the burdens which they laboured under, were occasioned by the abuses of this profession : And, a doctrine was particularly insisted on in one of them, that this class of men ought to be abolished. The electors were therefore conjured to leave them out of publick office, and to instruct their representatives, then about to be chosen for, the year 1786, to annihilate them. This idea communicated itself from very natural causes. The lawyers were odious to debtors as the legal instruments of their distresses. They were also intimately connected with the courts of justice, and in a great measure, under their control: A Clamour against the one, therefore, was a kind of impeachment of the other. The transition from the servants of the courts, to the courts themselves, being easy and direct, the cry, of course, was received and spread with avidity, by those whose intentions were directed at the administration of juctice in general. The flame pervaded the greatest part of the Commonwealth. The lawyers, in most instances, were excluded from the House of Representatives. Among other towns, the capital filled the seat which she had from ancient times, reserved for one of this profession, the seat where Pratt, Thacher, Otis and Adams, had drawn admiration and