MERCY

See also:

• WARREN
• WARREN, GOUVERNEUR KEMBLE (183o-1882)
• WARREN, JOSEPH (1741—1775)
• MERCY WARREN (1728—1814)
• WARREN, MINTON (1850-1907)
• WARREN, SAMUEL (1807-1877)
• WARREN, SIR JOHN BORLASE, BART
• WARREN, WILLIAM (1812-1888)

WARREN (1728—1814)  , American writer, sister of James Otis (q.v.), was born at Barnstable, Mass., and in 1754 married James Warren (1726—1808) of Plymouth Mass., a college friend of her brother . Her literary inclinations were fostered by both these men, and she began early to write poems and prose essays . As member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1766—1774) and its speaker (1776—1777 and 1787—1788), member (1774 and 1775) and president (1775) of the Provincial Congress, and paymaster-general in 1775, James Warren took a leading part in the events of the American revolutionary period, and his wife followed its progress with keen interest . Her gifts of satire were utilized in her political dramas, The Adulator (1773) and The Group (1775); and John Adams, whose wife Abigail was Mercy Warren's close friend, encouraged her to further efforts . Her tragedies, " The Sack of Rome " and " The Ladies of Castile," were included in her Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous (179o), dedicated to General Washing-ton . Apart from their historical interest among the beginnings of American literature, Mercy Warren's poems have no permanent value . In 18o5 she published a History of the American Revolution, which was coloured by somewhat outspoken personal criticism and was bitterly resented by John Adams (see his correspondence, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1878) . James Warren died in ,8o8, and his wife followed him on the 19th of October 1814 . See Elizabeth F . Ellet, Women of the Revolution (1856; new ed., 1900) ; an article by Annie Russell Marble in the New England Magazine (April 1903); Alice Brown, Mercy Warren (New York, 1896) .