Joseph Hawley, an American revolutionist, born in Northampton, Mass., in 1724, died March 10,1788. He graduated at Yale college, and practised law at Northampton. At the time of the disputes between Great Britain and America, he took a prominent part in advocating the cause of the colonies. "We must fight," he wrote to the delegates of Massachusetts, " if we cannot otherwise rid ourselves of British taxation. The form of government enacted for us by the British parliament is evil against right, utterly intolerable to every man who has any idea or feeling of right or liberty." He was several times elected a member of the council, but declined, preferring to occupy a seat in the state legislature, of which from 1764 to 1776 he was an influential member. From a violent opposer of the ecclesiastical measures of Jonathan Edwards, whose removal from Northampton he had been active in effecting, he became his warm advocate, and in 1760 wrote a letter deploring his part in the affair.