And now Hutchinson approaches the most crucial period of his life. As seen in a previous chapter after the passing of the Stamp Act, and the adoption of the Patrick Henry Resolves, the people grew riotous and treason was talked of openly. The first great riot was on August 14, 1765. In the morning the effigies of Andrew Oliver, the Stamp agent, and Lord Bute the former prime minister, were hung on an elm tree, on the corner of what is now Washington and Essex streets, in the evening they were taken down, carried as far as Kilby street, where a new government building was torn down by the mob, who, taking portions of the wood-work with them, proceeded to Fort Hill, where they burnt the effigies in front of the home of Mr. Oliver and committed gross outrages on his premises which were plundered and wrecked.[113]
On the evening of the 26th the riots recommenced with redoubled fury. Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson, also Chief Justice, the second person in rank in the colony and a kinsman of Oliver, was made a mark for the most unmeasured outrage. The story is best told in the words of the victim in a letter to a friend.
Boston, Aug. 30, 1765.
To Richard Jackson,
My Dear Sir—I came from my house at Milton the 26 in the morning. After dinner it was whispered in the town there would be a mob at night, and that Paxton, Hallowell, the custom house, and admiralty officers' houses would be attacked; but my friends assured me that the rabble were satisfied with the insult I had received, and that I was become rather popular. In the evening, whilst I was at supper and my children round me, somebody ran in and said the mob were coming. I directed my children to fly to a secure place, and shut up my house as I had done before, intending not to quit it; but my eldest daughter repented her leaving me, hastened back and protested that she would not quit the house unless I did. I couldn't stand against this, and withdrew with her to a neighboring house, where I had been but a few minutes before the hellish crew fell upon my house with the rage of devils, and in a moment with axes split down the doors and entered. My son being in the great entry heard them cry 'Dam him, he is upstairs, we'll have him.' Some ran immediately as high as the top of the house, then filled the rooms below and the cellar, and others remained without the house to be employed there. Messages soon came one after another to the house where I was to inform me the mob were coming in pursuit of me, and I was obliged to retire through yards and gardens to a house more remote, where I remained until 4 o'clock, by which time one of the best finished houses in the Province had nothing remaining but the bare walls and floors.
Not content with tearing off all the wainscot and hangings, and splitting the doors to pieces, they beat down the partition walls; and although that alone cost them near two hours, they cut down the cupola or lanthorn and they began to take the slate and boards from the roof, and were prevented only by the approaching daylight from a total demolition of the building. The garden house was laid flat, and all my trees, etc., broke down to the ground. Such ruin was never seen in America. Besides my plate and family pictures, household furniture of every kind, my own, my children, and servants, apparel, they carried off about £900 sterling in money and emptied the house of everything whatsoever, except a part of the kitchen furniture, not leaving a single book or paper in it, and have scattered or destroyed all the manuscripts and other papers I had been collecting for thirty years together, besides a great number of public papers in my custody. The next evening, I intended to go to Milton with my children, but meeting two or three small parties of the ruffians who I suppose had concealed themselves in the country, and my coachman hearing one of them say, 'There he is'! my daughters were terrified, and said they should never be safe, and I was forced to shelter them that night at the Castle.[114]
Governor Hutchinson's House Destroyed by the Mob.
Josiah Quincy, then twenty-one years old, writing in his diary Aug. 27, 1765, says that Hutchinson's life "it is more than probable, was saved by his giving way to his eldest daughter and leaving the house." He described "the coming into court the next day of the stripped Chief Justice, clothed in a manner which would have excited compassion from the hardest heart. Such a man in such a station, thus habited, with tears starting from his eyes, and a countenance which strongly told the inward anguish of his soul,—what must an audience have felt, whose compassion had before been moved by what they knew he had suffered, when they heard him pronounce the following words which the agitation of his mind dictated, "Gentlemen,—There not being a quorum of the Court without me, I am obliged to appear. Some apology is necessary for my dress; indeed, I had no other. Destitute of everything,—no other shirt; no other garment but what I have on; and not one in my whole family in a better situation than myself. The distress of a whole family around me, young and tender infants hanging about me, are infinitely more insupportable than what I feel for myself, though I am obliged to borrow part of this clothing.
"Sensible that I am innocent, that all the charges against me are false, I can't help feeling: and although I am not obliged to give an answer to all the questions that may be put to me by every lawless person, yet I call God to witness—and I would not, for a thousand worlds, call my Maker to witness to a falsehood—I say I call my Maker to witness, that I never, in New England or Old, in Great Britain, or America, neither directly or indirectly, was aiding, assisting or supporting—in the least promoting or encouraging—what is commonly called the Stamp Act; but, on the contrary, did all in my power, and strove as much as in me lay, to prevent it. This is not declared through timidity, for I have nothing to fear. They can only take away my life, which is of but little value when deprived of all its comforts, all that was dear to me, and nothing surrounding me but the most pressing distress.
"I hope the eyes of the people will be opened, that they will see how easy it is for some designing, wicked man to spread false reports to raise suspicion and jealousies in the minds of the populace, and enrage them against the innocent, but if guilty, this is not the way to proceed. The laws of our country are open to punish those who have offended. This destroying all peace and comfort and order of the community—all will feel its effects; and all will see how easily the people may be deluded, inflamed and carried away with madness against an innocent man. I pray God give us better hearts." The Court then adjourned to October 15th.
Why Hutchinson should have fallen into such great disfavor, it is not easy to say. Gordon, a writer of Whig leaning, but a fair minded witness of all that occurred suggests that there were some who still entertaining rancor towards him for doing away with paper money in 1748, for, as we have seen, his position in 1762 on the currency was not popular. Moreover the mob was led on to the house by a secret influence, with a view to the destruction of certain public papers known to be there relating to the grant of the New Plymouth Company on the Kennebec River.[115] Hutchinson himself speaks on having given rise to animosity against him for having taken certain depositions in the interest of government, before him in his character of Chief Justice to which his name was signed. They were purely official acts; for the depositions he had no responsibility whatever, but the unreasoning mass of the people confused him with others. There was nothing in his course at the time of the Writs of Assistance, at which the people needed to feel aggrieved. He was with the people in opposing the external taxes, also in disapproving the Stamp Act. Now that they were imposed, he to be sure thought nothing would answer but submission, but certainly in his declaration here he was nothing like so emphatic as James Otis, who still remained the popular idol. Otis had said in May, "It is the duty of all humbly and silently to acquiesce in all the decisions of the supreme legislature." In private talk he was still more vigorous in his utterances. He said to Hallowell, "That Parliament had a right to tax the Colonies, and he was a d——d fool who denied it and that this people never would be quiet till we had a Council from home, till our charter was taken away, and till we had regular troops quartered upon us."[116] Hutchinson had never expressed his thoughts anywhere near so definitely as this.
The inhabitants of Boston and the Province were generally ashamed of the outrage upon Hutchinson, but the mob still dared to show its hand. Though in the first rush of feeling many of the rioters were sent to jail, they were afterwards set free. The chief actor seems to have been a shoemaker, named Mackintosh, who, though arrested, was presently discharged; Hutchinson declares this was through the interference of men of good position, who feared that a confession from him would implicate them. Hutchinson's demand of the legislature for compensation for the destruction of his home, was at last effectual. He is said to have received £3,194, 17s. 6d., a fair indemnity. The Act had attached to it for a "rider" pardon to all who had taken part in the disturbance connected with the Stamp Act. Bernard hesitated to sign the Act; but was finally induced to do so by his earnest wish to have Hutchinson receive justice. When the Act was sent to England, the King disallowed it; such lawlessness could not be condoned, even that a faithful official might receive his rights. But the money had been paid before the news of the King's displeasure arrived.