When the petition for the removal of Hutchinson and Oliver arrived the Government referred it to the Committee of the Privy Council that the allegations might be publicly examined with counsel on either side. The case exerted an intense interest which had been rarely paralleled. No less than thirty-five Privy Councillors attended; among the distinguished strangers who crowded the Bar were Burke, Priestley and Jeremy Bentham, Dunning and Lee, who spoke for the petitioners; they appear to have made no impression; while on the other side Wedderburn, the Solicitor-General, made one of his most brilliant but most virulent speeches, which was received with boundless applause.
After a brief but eloquent eulogy of the character and services of Hutchinson he passed to the manner in which the letters were procured, and turning to Franklin, who stood before him he delivered an invective which appeared to have electrified his audience. "How the letters 'came into the possession of anyone but the right owner's,'" he said, "is still a mystery for Dr. Franklin to explain, and they could not have come into his hands by fair means. Nothing will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of purposes, unless he stole them from the person who stole them. I hope, my Lords, you will brand this man for the honor of this country, of Europe, and of mankind.... Into what country will the fabrication of this iniquity hereafter go with unembarrassed face? Men will watch him with a jealous eye. They will hide their papers from him, and lock up their escritoires. Having hitherto aspired after fame by his writings, he will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters—homo trium literarum. But, he not only took away those papers from our brother, he kept himself concealed, till he nearly occasioned the murder of another. It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest, and most deliberate malice, without horror."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BEFORE THE PRIVY COUNCIL.
He stood there, conspicuous and erect, and without moving a muscle, was compelled to hear himself denounced as a thief, or the accomplice of thieves.
The scene was a very strange one, and it is well suited to the brush or an historical painter. Franklin was now an old man, sixty-seven, the greatest writer, the greatest philosopher America had produced, a member of some of the chief scientific societies in Europe, the accredited representative of the most important of the colonies of America, and for nearly an hour, and in the midst of the most distinguished of living Englishmen, he was compelled to hear himself denounced as a thief or the accomplice of thieves. He stood there conspicuous, and erect, and without moving a muscle, amid the torrent of invective, but his apparent composure was shared by few who were about him. Fox, in a speech which he made as late as 1803, reminded the House how on that memorable occasion, "all men tossed up their hats, and clapped their hands, in boundless delight, at Mr. Wedderburn's speech." The committee at once voted that the petition of the Massachusetts Assembly was "false, groundless, and scandalous and calculated only for the seditious purpose of keeping up a spirit of clamor and discontent in the province." The king and Council confirmed the report and Franklin was ignominiously dismissed from his office of Postmaster.[133] From this time Franklin and his friends had a deep personal grudge against the British Government.
As the autumn deepened Hutchinson interpreted as favorable to himself the symptoms he perceived of the mood of the people. Oct. 16, 1773, he writes, "I now see so great a change in the people wherever I travel about the country, that I have reason to think I shall rather gain than lose by the late detestable proceedings, and my friends express stronger attachments to me than ever." This was only a brief Indian summer of favor before the outbreak, not now distant, of a storm more cold and pitiless than ever, for a crisis was now at hand more threatening than any that had preceded it. As shown in a previous chapter,[133] after the repeal of the Stamp Act in order to pacify the colonists, a duty was placed on tea, and other imports, which the colonists had always admitted to be a valid Act of the Parliament. No revenue probably had ever been expected from it. It was felt that the principle that Parliament might tax must be maintained; the cost of collection was greater than the proceeds. Instead of paying 12d per pound export duty from England, only 3d per pound was to be charged, when imported by the East India Company to the Colonies, thereby making a saving to the colonists of 9d per pound which would make tea cheaper than that smuggled in from the Dutch colonies.[134]
The project of sending the tea, was decided on in May, 1773, and Massachusetts was the Colony where the crisis was to come. The consignees were important persons. Two of them were Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, sons of the Governor, a third was the Governor's nephew Richard Clarke, father-in-law of Copley, the painter, a fourth was Benjamin Faneuil, a nephew of Peter Faneuil, deceased, a fifth Joshua Winslow, also of a memorable family. These held bravely to the task that had been set for them, putting their property and lives in jeopardy until finally they were driven to seek refuge in the Castle. Of those opposed to them Samuel Adams was the chief, followed by Hancock, Bowdoin, Dr. Thomas Young, Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Benjamin Church, Josiah Quincy, John Scollay, and others who lent their hands to action and their heads to counsel. Historic truth also compels the statement that the man put forward to do the disreputable work for them was "Captain Mackintosh" leader of the South End toughs in street fights with the North Enders, leader of the rioters in the destruction of the Governor's home in August, 1765. For his part in that affair he had never been punished, and now seems to have been rather a popular pet. He was styled the "First Captain-General of Liberty-Tree," and managed the illumination, hanging of effigies, etc. Long afterwards, in speaking of the Tea Party he said, "It was my chickens that did the job."[135]
An attempt was made to cause the consignees to resign their commissions under "Liberty Tree;" this they refused to do and in consequence they were mobbed in their houses, windows and doors were smashed and amid a tempest of missiles their lives and persons were in great danger. Hutchinson set himself against the "Sons of Liberty," "his course not showing one sign vacillation from first to last, but throughout bearing the marks of clear, cold, passionless inflexibility."[136]
Another American writer says, "To candid men, the letters he wrote in those days of struggle ought to have interest, as well as the declarations of those who have portrayed him as the disgraced minion of a tyrant."[137] Another writer, referring to his action at this time, says, "We can at this day well afford to mete out this tardy justice to a man, whose motives and conduct have been so bitterly and unscrupulously vilified and maligned as have been those of Thomas Hutchinson."[138]
At last, in December, 1773, three ships laden with tea arrived at Boston, and what followed has been told a thousand times, with all possible elaborations by those who fully sympathize with the tea mob. The cold facts are that "Captain Mackintosh" and "his chickens," disguised as Mohawk Indians, instigated by Samuel Adams, John Hancock[139] and other leading "patriots" flung the whole cargo consisting of 342 chests, into the harbor. In the course of the violent proceedings this year the Council, the militia, and the company of cadets, had been vainly asked to assist in maintaining the law and order. The sheriff was grossly insulted, the magistrates could do nothing, and as usual, the crowning outrage of the destruction of the tea was accomplished with perfect impunity, and not a single person engaged in it was in any way molested, but every soul in Boston knew the penalty must fall, as certain as night follows day. "The news of these events convinced most intelligent Englishmen, that war was imminent, and that taxation of America could only be enforced by the sword. Popular opinion in England, which had supported the repeal of the Stamp Act, was now opposed to further concession, England, it was said, had sufficiently humiliated herself. The claim and the language of the colonial agitators excited profound and not unnatural indignation, and every mail from America brought news that New England at least was in a condition of virtual rebellion, that Acts of the British Parliament were defied and disobeyed with the most perfect impunity, that the representatives of the British Government were habitually exposed to the grossest insults, and reduced to the most humiliating impotence."