F.F.V. = "First Families of Virginia"; refers to those families that made their fortune in Virginia in the middle of the 17th century, mostly as tobacco growers; some were refugee cavaliers during and after the English Civil War, including the Randolph and Lee families.
The 13 colonies were generally grouped as New England (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut), the middle colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware), and the South (Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia). Sometimes the South was divided into the Upper South (Maryland and Virginia) and the Deep South (the Carolinas and Georgia). But because Virginia was both the oldest colony and the most populous, it was sometimes considered a region in itself, with four colonies in each of the other three regions.
Gout = a disease found usually in males characterized by inflammation of the joints, usually beginning with the big toe. (See the entries at Dictionary.com.)
In the XVIII century, watches for men were always pocket watches. Wrist watches had been considered lady-like until they became common for men in World War I from the need to keep precise time in artillery firing. The men returning from the war sported wrist watches, and no one would consider a WWI vet to be unmasculine! Beaumarchais, the author of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, created a clock so small it could fit into a lady's ring. He gave one to Mme de Pompadour, and soon he had orders from every lady at the French court!
Tria juncta in uno: Latin for "three joined in one", used here in reference to the three members of the Delaware delegation: Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean, and George Read, ironically, since the latter two didn't agree most of the time. (Used as the motto of the Order of the Bath: may refer to the crowns of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland; or perhaps Great Britain, France, and Ireland, as the British monarchs included the style of "King of France" in their title until 1800; the motto may instead refer to the Trinity; or the three Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity; or, conceivably, the three offices of Christ: prophet, priest, and king. Admiral Nelson was a knight of the Bath, and so the motto appears on his arms. Other famous knights of the Bath include the Duke of Wellington and Lord Kitchener. In Gilbert & Sullivan's H. M .S. Pinafore, Sir Joseph is of that order, as is Captain Corcoran in Utopia, Limited.)
Committee of the whole refers to the whole membership of a legislative house sitting as a committee and operating under informal parliamentary rules, in order to debate a measure that is not fully digested, which would not be possible under the stricter parliamentary rules of the house. The committee of the whole has its own presiding officer, and reports its action in the form of recommendations, which are then acted on by the same body, but under the stricter rules.
Battle of Hastings, 1066, in which England was conquered by William, Duke of Normandy, making Norman French the court language of England instead of Anglo-Saxon, creating a new landowning class (William's followers, whom he called barons), and making England a major player in European wars.
Magna Carta, 1215, Latin for "Great Charter", which King John was forced to sign, agreeing that the Royal power had limits; considered the founding document of English (and hence American) liberties.
Strongbow: Both Gilbert, Earl of Pembroke (died 1148), and his son Richard, Earl of Pembroke, were known as "Strongbow", because of their skill in the use of the Welsh longbow. Richard took the side of King Stephen against the Empress Matilda (who had been designated heiress to the throne by her father, King Henry I [1100-35]) in the civil war lasting most of King Stephen's reign [1135-54]. But toward the end of the war, King Stephen seized his lands, fearing he would switch sides. In the next reign, Henry II [1154-89], son of Matilda, Richard Strongbow conquered much land in Ireland, but yielded it to King Henry and received much of it back again, but as vassal to King Henry. (More info)
Richard Lionheart, king of England, 1189-99, one of the leaders of the third Crusade; failed in his quest to retake Jerusalem; on his return captured by the duke of Austria and held for ransom; considered (not completely deserved) as a model of chivalry.
Francis Drake, English seaman and privateer, ravaged the Spanish Main (1570-72); circumnavigated the globe (1577-80); led expedition against Cadiz, destroying 33 ships and escaping unscathed (1577); as vice-admiral helped to defeat the Spanish Armada (1588) off Gravelines; pursued Armada to north of Scotland; on expedition to West Indies, died aboard his own ship, 1596. Known to the Spanish as El Draque, the Dragon.
Tudors, Stuarts, and Plantagenets: Some of the royal houses of England and Scotland. The Tudors ruled England 1485-1603, the Plantagenets 1154-1485. The Stuarts (spelled Stewart until c. 1543) ruled Scotland 1371-1714 and England 1603-1714.
Spartacus, a Roman gladiator and slave from Thrace; led a slave revolt (B.C. 73-71, the Servile War); defeated Roman armies several times; defeated by Crassus and killed in action. (Pompey didn't want Crassus to have all the glory in the Servile War, so he got involved and captured many of the slaves and had thousands of them crucified.)
Incendiary means "tending to cause fire"; hence, "inflammatory".
A demagogue originally was simply "a leader of the people"; but now it means "one who leads the people by impassioned appeal to emotion or prejudice".
The "Pennsylvania proprietors" really should refer to the Penn family, which began with King Charles II granting Pennsylvania to William Penn. His heirs continued to be the proprietors of the colonies of Pennsylvania and Delaware. After independence was achieved, the legislature of Pennsylvania in the Divestment Act bought out the remaining proprietary rights of the Penn family for £130,000. The last proprietor, John Penn, was allowed to retain their estates and proprietary manors. Adams probably is referring to the upper class of Pennsylvania, which were the descendants of the original Quaker settlers. As a general rule, the Quaker aristocracy, including John Dickinson, were quite satisfied with the Penn proprietorship. Delaware, however, was also owned by the Penn family and had the same governor as Pennsylvania. The people of Delaware were tired of being dominated by Philadelphia, and thus were in favor of independence.
A fribble is a trifle, or thing of no significance, or a frivolous person.
Mark of Cain (Scene 3, p 52) Hancock is referring to the curse laid by the Lord on Cain for murdering his brother Abel (Genesis 4:1-16). By setting colony against colony the new nation would be under a curse. (The mark of Cain actually was for his protection.)
The word flu is first recorded in English in 1832, so Abigail's use in the song is anachronistic. The word influenza, though, came into the English language in the XVIII century.
Quincy (pronounced Kwin-zy) is a family from which Abigail Adams was descended. It was later the name of the town where both John Adams and John Quincy Adams were born.
The Franklin stove is actually a heater, rather than a cooking stove. At the beginning of the XVIII century, people heated their homes by fireplaces, which were fairly inefficient, since most of the heat went up the chimney. Ben Franklin designed a stove, which he called the Pennsylvania Fire Place that was freestanding, and was more efficient. However, his design was flawed, in that he had the smoke go out the bottom, which meant that the stove didn't stay lit long. It was redesigned by David R. Rittenhouse, and called by him the "Rittenhouse Stove". By 1790 it was in wide use, but called ever since the Franklin stove.
The waltz became popular in Germany around the middle of the eighteenth century, but was first introduced in English court balls in 1816, so in 1776, it was certainly a new dance!
The minuet was a slow stately couples pattern dance in triple time popular in the XVII and XVIII centuries, so called because of the short steps of the dance.
The gavotte is a somewhat difficult couples pattern dance in duple time popular from the XVI to the XVIII centuries.
The terms right and left (referring to political alignments) as well as the terms liberal and conservative date from the period of the French Revolution, and thus are anachronistic in 1776.
A half-crown is (now) a demonetized unit in Great Britain worth two shillings and sixpence (2s 6d); a crown naturally was worth 5s, or one quarter pound sterling.
The dollar had not been established as the legal tender in the colonies at the time, but could refer to money in general, but more likely, to the Spanish milled silver dollar, worth 4s 6d (four shillings and sixpence). This was the most common coin in the colonies; the British forbade the importation of gold and silver to the colonies, so there was always a shortage of specie. But the British also demanded payment of taxes in gold and silver, which further infuriated the colonies. In Massachusetts, a (Spanish) dollar was counted as 6 shillings, and in New York, as 8 shillings, which further west became 8 bits. This also meant that a New York pound of account was worth about half of a pound sterling.
French disease = syphilis Syphilis is believed to have originated in the New World, and was probably brought back to Spain on Columbus's voyages. The Spanish then brought it to Italy, and the French picked it up on one of their invasions, which began in 1494. It was called Syphilis, sive Morbus Gallicus (Syphilis, the French Disease), 1530, in a poem by Girolamo Fracastoro (1478?-1553). The French referred to it as the Italian disease, or the disease of Naples, and it has also been called the Spanish disease (by the Italians), the German disease, or the Polish disease (by the Russians).
Trial by jury was an important part of English common law. But in the admiralty courts, there were no juries, which was to prevent the colonial juries from acquitting their friends involved in smuggling.
It is surprising that the colony of North Carolina would bring up fishing rights. The right to fish on the Grand Banks would be far more important to Massachusetts, and was made a part of the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the war for independence.
Antigua (pronounced An-TEE-ga), in the Leeward Islands, was settled by the English in 1632. It is now part of the nation of Antigua and Barbuda.
Barbados was the most valuable of the English sugar islands, more valuable to the English than any of the continental colonies.
Angola is a country which in 1776 was Portuguese West Africa, but the term Angola probably was not used as precisely as it is now, and could refer to the coast, from Namibia north to the Congo.
Guinea is also a country in west Africa, but the term, a corruption of Ghana, referred to the African coast from Gambia to Angola. Sections of the area from the Bight of Benin westward were known to early traders as the Slave, Gold, Ivory, and Grain Coasts.
Ashanti: a region of present-day Ghana (which was known in 1776 as the Gold Coast)
Ibo, or (properly) Igbo, refers to a people of southeast Nigeria. In 1967 they attempted unsuccessfully to secede from Nigeria as the state of Biafra, leading to a bloody civil war (1967-70).
The triangle trade was system used especially by the merchants of Newport, RI. They would purchase molasses from the Caribbean sugar islands (Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, &c), bring it to Newport, where it was distilled into rum. Rum was then taken to the Gold Coast to trade for gold, ivory, and slaves, which were brought to the Caribbean and the southern continental colonies to be sold. Rum produced in Newport (called "Guinea Rum") was especially prized. And the merchants of Newport came to dominate this traffic, far more than Boston, so that the delegates from Rhode Island were as strident as the Carolina delegates about removing the "slavery" clause from the Declaration of Independence.
Matthew 16:26 reads: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
To cross the Rubicon: to take decisive, irrevocable action. In Roman history, in the first Triumvirate, Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus had divided the Roman world between them. Caesar had Gaul, and the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy was the small river Rubicon. The triumvirs were not allowed to bring an army into Italy without the permission of the Senate. So in BC 49, after the death of Crassus, Pompey controlled the Senate, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he said "Jacta alea est": the die is cast; knowing that he was provoking a civil war, a war in which he was eventually victorious and became dictator of Rome. (And I believe Caesar crossed the Rubicon by wading across, so he didn't have to burn the bridge behind him; that would make a mixed metaphor!)
Harvard College, founded in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. The College of William and Mary, founded in 1693, is the second oldest. The premier academic honor society in the US, Phi Beta Kappa, was founded at William and Mary. Both Adams and Jefferson received an honorary doctorate from Harvard. (For reference, Yale College, the third oldest, was founded in 1701, and Princeton, the fourth, was founded in 1746 as the College of New Jersey. The University of Pennsylvania was founded by Benjamin Franklin and others in 1751, and was the first college not founded specifically to train clergy.)