![]() ![]() ![]() Much hinges, for Dayton and Salinger, on the legal niceties of “warning out.” Rooted in a variety of historical European practices for making sure that newcomers did not overwhelm a town’s capacity for poor relief, warnings came to serve a unique role in Massachusetts (and eventually in other New England colonies). ![]() The result is an extraordinarily evocative and deeply insightful account of ordinary people on the move, cycling in and out of an important colonial city at a critical moment in its history-and in the history of the British Empire and the Atlantic World. Cornelia H. Dayton and Sharon V. Salinger make the most of Love’s meticulous record-keeping, combining rigorous social and legal history techniques with graceful prose. He recorded the names of every “stranger” he encountered, along with their backstories, occupations, physical descriptions, and future plans. Robert Love’s job was to warn newcomers “in his Majesty’s name” to “depart this town of Boston” within fourteen days (p. Robert Love’s Warnings begins not with an overarching question but with an exceptionally evocative document: the personal logbook, supplemented by copies he made for the town clerk, of Boston’s leading “warner” during nine eventful years (1765-74) between the end of the Seven Years’ War and the beginning of the American Revolution. ![]()
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