Thomas Hutchinson, descended from one of the most respected families of New England, and the son of an honored merchant of Boston, was now fifty-seven years of age. He was a pupil at the Old North Grammar School, and was graduated at Harvard College, when he entered upon a mercantile life. He was not successful as a merchant. Thus early, however, he evinced the untiring industry that marked his whole career. He had a decided political turn, and, with uncommon natural talent, had the capacity and the ambition for public life. An irreproachable private character, pleasing manners, common-sense views of things, and politics rather adroit than high-toned, secured him a run of popular favor and executive confidence so long that he had now (1769) been thirty-three years uninterruptedly engaged in public affairs; and he confessed to his friends that this concern in politics had created a hankering for them which a return to business-pursuits could not overcome. He had reason to be gratified at the tokens of public approbation. He was so faithful to the municipal interests as a Selectman that the town intrusted him with an important mission to England, which he satisfactorily executed; his wide commercial knowledge, familiarity with constitutional law and history, decided ability in debate, and reputed disinterestedness, gave him large influence as a Representative in the General Court; he showed as Councillor an ever ready zeal for the prerogative, and thus won the most confidential relations with so obsequious a courtier as Bernard; as Judge of Probate, he was attentive, kind to the widow, accurate, and won general commendation; and as a member of the Superior Court, he administered the law, in the main, satisfactorily. He had been Chief Justice for nine years, and for eleven years the Lieutenant-Governor. He had also prepared two volumes of his History, which, though rough in narrative, is a valuable authority, and his volume of "Collections" was now announced. His fame at the beginning of the Revolutionary controversy was at its zenith; for, according to John Adams, "he had been admired, revered, rewarded, and almost adored; and the idea was common that he was the greatest and best man in America." He was now, and had been for years, the master-spirit of the Loyalist party. It Is an anomaly that he should have attained to this position. He had had practical experience, as a merchant, of the intolerable injustice of the old mercantile system, and yet he sided with its friends; he had dealt, as a politician, to a greater degree than most men, with the rights and privileges which the people prized, conceded that they had made no ill use of them, and yet urged that they ought to be abridged; as a patriot, when he loved his native land wisely, he remonstrated against the imposition of the Stamp Tax, and yet he grew into one of the sturdiest of the defenders of the supremacy of Parliament in all cases whatsoever. He exhibited the usual characteristics of public men who from unworthy considerations change their principles and desert their party. No man urged a more arbitrary course; no man passed more discreditable judgments on his patriot contemporaries; and if in that way he won the smiles of the court which he was swift to serve, he earned the hatred of the land which he professed to love. The more his political career is studied, the greater will be the wonder that one who was reared on republican soil, and had antecedents so honorable, should have become so complete an exponent of arbitrary power.
Hutchinson was not so blinded by party-spirit or love of money or of place as not to see the living realities of his time; for he wrote that a thirst for liberty seemed to be the ruling passion, not only of America, but of the age, and that a mighty empire was rising on this continent, the progress of which would be a theme for speculative and ingenious minds in distant ages. It was the vision of the cold and clear intellect, distrusting the march of events and the capacity and intelligence of the people, he had no heart to admire, he had not even the justice to recognize, the greatness that was making an immortal record,—the sublime faith, the divine enthusiasm, the dauntless resolve, the priceless consciousness of being in the right, that were the life and inspiration of the lovers of freedom. He conceded, however, that the body of the people were honest, but acted on the belief, inspired by wrong-headed leaders, that their liberties were in danger; and while, with the calculation of the man of the world, he dreaded, and endeavored to stem, still, with a statesman's foresight, he appreciated and held in respect, the mysterious element of public opinion. He felt that it was rising as a power. He saw this power already intrenched in the impregnable lines of free institutions. Seeking to know its springs, he was a close and at times a shrewd observer, as well from a habit of research, in tracing the currents of the past, as from occupying a position which made it a duty to watch the growth of what influenced the present. His letters, very voluminous, deal with causes as well as with facts, and are often fine tributes to the life-giving power of vital political ideas, from the pen of a subtle and determined enemy.
When the executive functions devolved on Hutchinson, it had been semi-officially announced that the Ministry, wholly out of commercial considerations, intended to propose, at the next session of Parliament, a repeal of a portion of the revenue acts; and the Patriots were pressing, with more zeal than ever, the non-importation agreement, in the hope of obtaining, as matter of constitutional right, a total repeal. To enforce this agreement, the merchants had held a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, adopted a series of spirited resolves, and adjourned to a future day; and Hutchinson's first important gubernatorial decision had reference to this meeting. He had urged the necessity of troops to sustain the authority of the Government. He had awarded to them the credit of preventing a great catastrophe. He had written that they would make the Boston saints as tame as lambs. It was his settled conviction that the Americans never would set armies in the field against Great Britain, and if they did, that "a few troops would be sufficient to quell them." He was now importuned to use the troops at his command to disperse the merchants' meeting at its adjournment. He held that this meeting was contrary to law. He characterized its resolves as contemptuous and insolent, and derogatory to the authority of Parliament. He never grew weary of holding up to reprobation the objects which the merchants had in view. And his political friends now asked him to make good his professions by acts. But he declined to interfere with this meeting. The merchants proceeded to a close with their business. Hutchinson's explanation of his course to the Ministry, on this occasion, applies to the popular demonstrations which took place, at intervals, down to the military crisis. "I am very sensible," are his words, "that the whole proceeding is unwarrantable; but it is so generally countenanced in this and in several of the Colonies, and the authority of Government is so feeble, that an attempt to put a stop to it would have no other effect than still further to inflame the minds of the people. I can do no more than represent to your Lordship, and wait for such instructions as may be thought proper." And he continued to present these combinations of the merchants as "a most certain evidence of the lost authority of Government," and as exhibiting "insolence and contempt of Parliament." But he complains that they were not so much regarded in England as he expected they would be, and that he was left to act on his own judgment. He soon saw pilloried in the newspapers the names of a son of Governor Bernard and two of his own sons, in a list of Boston merchants who "audaciously counteracted the united sentiments of the body of merchants throughout North America by importing British goods contrary to agreement."
The Lieutenant-Governor again kept quiet, as a town-meeting went on, which he watched with the keenest interest, freely commented on in his letters, and which is far too important to be overlooked in any review of these times. William Bollan, the Colonial Agent in London, sent to the popular leaders a selection from the letters of Governor Bernard, General Gage, Commodore Hood, and others, bearing on the introduction of the troops, which were judged to have aspersed the character, affected the rights, and injured the interests of the town. Their publication made a profound impression on the public mind, and they became the theme of every circle. At one of the political clubs, in which the Adamses, the Coopers, Warren, and others were wont to discuss public affairs, Otis, in a blaze of indignation, charged the crown officials with haughtiness, arbitrary dispositions, and the insolence of office, and vehemently urged a town-meeting. One was soon summoned by the Selectmen, which deliberated with dignity and order, and made answer to the official indictment in a strong, conclusive, and grand "Appeal to the World," and appointed, as a committee to circulate it, Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, Richard Dana, Joshua Henshaw, Joseph Jackson, and Benjamin Kent,—men of sterling character, and bearing names that have shed lustre on the whole country. Reason and truth, thus put forth, exerted an influence. Hutchinson felt the force of this. "We find, my Lord, by experience," he advised Lord Hillsborough, October 19, 1769, "that associations and assemblies pretending to be legal and constitutional, assuming powers that belong only to established authority, prove more fatal to this authority than mobs, riots, or the most tumultuous disorders; for such assemblies, from erroneous or imperfect notions of the nature of government, very often meet with the approbation of the body of the people, and in such case there is no internal power which can be exerted to suppress them. Such case we are in at present, and shall probably continue in it until the wisdom of Parliament delivers us from it."
It would be difficult to say what power the people now assumed that belonged only to established authority; they assumed only the right of public meeting and of liberty of discussion, which are unquestionable in every free country; but the ruling spirit of Hutchinson is seen in this fine tribute to the instrumentality of the town-meeting, for he regarded the American custom of corporate presentation of political matters as illegal, and the power of Parliament as sufficient to meet it with pains and penalties. As the committee already named sent forth the doings of the town, they said, (October 23, 1769,) "The people will never think their grievances redressed till every revenue act is repealed, the Board of Commissioners dissolved, and the troops removed."
A few days after this the Lieutenant-Governor was obliged to deal with a mob, which grew out of the meanness of importers, whose selfish course proved to be a great strain on the forbearing policy of the popular leaders. The merchants on the Tory side, among whom were two of Hutchinson's sons, persisted in importing goods; and he writes, with a good deal of pride, as though it were meritorious, that since the agreement was formed these two sons had imported two hundred chests of tea, which they had been so clever as to sell. But such was the public indignation at this course, that they, too, were compelled to give in to the non-importation agreement; and Hutchinson's letters are now severer than ever on the Patriots. He characterizes "the confederacy of merchants" as a very high offence, and the Sons of Liberty as the greatest tyrants ever known. But as he continually predicted a crisis, he said, "I can find nobody to join with me in an attempt to discourage them." He adds, "If any tumults should happen, I shall be under less difficulty than if my own children had been the pretended occasion of them; and for this reason Dalrymple tells me he is very glad they have done as they have." The immediate occasion of the mob was the dealing of the people with an informer on the twenty-eighth of October. They got track of him about noon, and, after a long search, found him towards evening, when they immediately prepared to tar and feather him. It was quite dark. A formidable procession carted the culprit from one quarter of the town to another, and threatened to break the windows of all houses which were without lights. The Lieutenant-Governor summoned such of the members of the Council as were at hand, and the justices of the county, to meet him at the Council-Chamber; he requested Dalrymple to order the force under his command "to be ready to march when the occasion required"; and he "kept persons employed to give him immediate notice of every new motion of the mob." Dalrymple, with a soldier's alacrity, complied with the official request; but the mob went on its course, for "none of the justices nor the sheriff," writes Hutchinson, "thought it safe for them to restrain so great a body of people in a dark evening,"—and the only work done by the soldiers was to protect Mien, the printer, who, being goaded into discharging a pistol among the crowd, fled to the main guard for safety. The finale of this mob is thus related by Hutchinson:—"Between eight and nine o'clock they dispersed of their own account, and the town was quiet."
The intrepid and yet prudent course of the popular leaders and of the people, in standing manfully for the common cause in presence of the British troops, was now eliciting the warmest encomiums on the town from the friends of liberty in England and in the Colonies. The generous praise was copied into the local journals, and, so far from being received with assumption, became a powerful incentive to worthy action. "Your Bostonians," a Southern letter runs, "shine with renewed lustre. Their last efforts were indeed like themselves, full of wisdom, prudence, and magnanimity. Such a conduct must silence every pretended suspicion, and baffle every vile attempt to calumniate their noble and generous struggles in the cause of American Liberty." "So much wisdom and virtue," says a New-Hampshire letter, "as hath been conspicuous in the Bostonians, will not go unrewarded. You will in all respects increase until you become the glory of New England, the pride of British kings, the scourge of tyrants, and the joy of the whole earth," "The patriotism of Boston," says another letter, "will be revered through every age." One of these tributes, from a Southern journal, in the Boston papers of December 18, 1769, runs,—"The noble conduct of the Representatives, Selectmen, and principal merchants of Boston, in defending and supporting the rights of America and the British Constitution, cannot fail to excite love and gratitude in the heart of every worthy person in the British empire. They discover a dignity of soul worthy the human mind, which is the true glory of man, and merits the applause of all rational beings. Their names will shine unsullied in the bright records of Panic to the latest ages, and unborn millions will rise up and call them blessed."
This eulogy on Boston is a great fact of these times, and therefore ought to have a place in a history of them. It was not of a local cast, for it appears in several Colonies and in England; it was not a manufacture of politicians, for it is seen in the private letters of the friends of constitutional liberty which have come to light subsequently to the events; it was not a transient enthusiasm, for the same strain was continued during the years preceding the war. The praise was bestowed on a town small in territory and comparatively small in population. Such were the cities of Greece in the era of their renown. "The territories of Athens, Sparta, and their allies," remarks Gibbon, "do not exceed a moderate province of France or England; but after the trophies of Salamis or Platæa, they expand in our fancy to the gigantic size of Asia, which had been trampled under the feet of the victorious Greeks." No trophies had been gathered in an American Platæa; there had been no great civic triumph; there was no hero upon whom public affection centred; nor was there here a field on which to weave a web of court-intrigue, or to play a game of criminal ambition;—there was, indeed, little that common constructors of history would consider to be history. Yet it was now written, and made common thought by an unfettered press,—"Nobler days nor deeds were never seen than at this time."[2] This was an instinctive appreciation of a great truth; for the real American Revolution was going on in the tidal flow of thought and feeling, and in the formation of public opinion. A people inspired by visions of better days for humanity, luxuriating in the emotions of hope and faith, yearning for the right, mastering the reasoning on which it was based, were steadily taking their fit place on the national stage, in the belief of the nearness of a mighty historic hour. And their spontaneous praise was for a community heroically acting on national principles and for a national cause. Because of this did they predict that unborn millions would hold up the men of Boston as worthy to be enrolled in the shining record of Fame.
As the new year (1770) came in, the people were looking forward to a meeting of the General Court, always a season of peculiar interest, and more so now than ever, for it was certain that the debates in this body would turn on the foremost local subject, the removal of the troops. But the subject was no longer merely local, for it had become a general issue, one affecting not only Boston and Massachusetts, but other towns and Colonies, and the interest felt in the controversy was wide and deep. "In this day of constitutional light," a New-York essay copied into a Boston newspaper runs, "it is monstrous that troops should be kept, not to protect the right, but to enslave the continent." While it was thus put by the journals, the policy was meant to be of this significance by the Ministry; and the letters printed for the first time in this monograph attest the accuracy of the Patriot judgment. On purely local grounds, also, the presence of the troops continued to be deplored. "The troops," Dr. Cooper wrote, January 1, 1770, "greatly corrupt our morals, and are in every sense an oppression. May Heaven soon deliver us from this great evil!" Samuel Adams said, "The troops must move to the Castle; it must be the first business of the General Court to move them out of town"; and James Otis said. "The Governor has the power to move them under the Constitution." Hutchinson endeavored to conciliate the people by making arrangements with General Gage for a removal of the main guard from its location near the Town-House, being informed that this might satisfy the greater part of the members.
Having taken this precaution, Hutchinson was really anxious for a meeting of the General Court. He was in great uncertainty both as to public and private affairs. He knew now that Bernard was not to return, but he did not know who was to be the successor; he conjectured that it might be "that the government was to be put on a new establishment, and a person of rank appointed Governor"; and he confessed that he was "ignorant of the Ministerial plan" as to the Colonies. The Legislature was appointed to convene on the tenth of January. But the November packet from England, happening to make an uncommonly short passage, brought him a peremptory order, which he received on the evening of the third of January, to prorogue the time of the sitting of the General Court; and the journals of the next morning contain his Proclamation, setting forth that "by His Majesty's command" the Legislature was prorogued to the second Wednesday in March. "I guess," Hutchinson writes, "that the Court is prorogued to a particular day with an intention that something from the King or the Parliament shall be then laid before them." "Some of the distant members will be on their journey before the Proclamation reaches them; and if the packet had not had a better passage than common, my orders would have found the Court sitting." As a consequence of this unlooked-for prorogation, the main guard continued to be stationed near the Town-House, until a portion of it played its tragic part on the memorable fifth of March.