“Those Letters were not the writings he meant”

When William Story told Thomas Hutchinson in the summer of 1772 that he’d seen some problematic “writings” by the governor, he probably didn’t couch that in the form of a threat.

Rather, Story likely used the language of the patronage system, speaking about loyalty and reciprocal favors as he sought a royal appointment.

But Hutchinson certainly took Story’s words as a threat. In October 1773 he wrote to a correspondent in Britain:

One Story who had been in London…sollicited me for a place that was vacant and upon my declining it he let me know by a letter that he hoped he should not be obliged to make publick the substance & purport of some writings of mine he had seen in London & which I should not like to have known.

We have a third-hand source on the two men’s interaction from the Rev. Ezra Stiles of Newport. On 10 June 1773 the minister recorded a conversation he’d just had with Judge Peter Oliver (shown here), close to Hutchinson by both politics and family. Stiles didn’t get Story’s name correct, and he was a sucker for any good story that confirmed his beliefs, so we can’t rely on everything he wrote down. But this is how he understood the situation:

Mr. Storer of Boston suffered in the Stamp Act 1765 and went home for Redress. The Ministry put him off, till he should obtain Governor Hutchinson’s Recommendation, and indeed it was finally referred to the Governor to provide for him some provincial office. It has not been done.

Mr. Storer to have a Rod over &c. procured 18 Letters of Lt. Gov. [Andrew] Oliver and half a dozen of Governor Hutch. to one of the Secretaries of some of the Ministerial Boards in London, as a specimen of their Correspondence for 15 years past urging and recommending the present arbitrary Government over the Colonies. The Governors Hutchinson and Oliver were last year given to understand that Mr. Storer had them in his power by means of a Collection of these Letters, and that the only Condition of not exposing them was his being provided for. The matter was neglected.

Judge Oliver now here once took occasion to ask the Governor whether there was any Danger &c. when the Gov. said he was under no Apprehensions. The Judge says, he himself apprehended both for Governor Hutchinson and especially for his Brother the Lieutenant Governor who was greatly exasperated in the Time of the Stamp Act.—

Stiles wrote that down as the Massachusetts house was tussling with the governor over the letters but hadn’t yet made them public. Stiles had nonetheless heard correctly that that collection contained a letter from “Mr. [George] Rome of Newport Rh. Isld.”

I wrote about how the Massachusetts Whigs dealt with those documents starting here. Later that June, the house did publish the papers it had received. The collection included six letters from Hutchinson, four from Andrew Oliver, and a handful from other men in their circle. All that correspondence had gone to Thomas Whately, a Member of Parliament who died in June 1772, and then been copied and distributed as part of a push to change Massachusetts’s constitution in 1770.

When Gov. Hutchinson heard about these letters, he naturally thought back to his interaction with William Story the year before. At first he believed the man had brought those letters back from London. But on reflection, the governor realized, the timing didn’t work, in two ways:

• First, people in London suspected that the letters had been purloined from Whately’s brother, executor of his estate. Since Whately died a few weeks after Story set sail for Boston, Story couldn’t have carried out such a theft.
• Second, Hutchinson knew that Story had returned a full year before the letters were published. “I cant trace them in this country farther back than the last Spring,” the governor wrote of those documents. He believed there was no way the Boston Whigs could have sat on that evidence for so long without making a fuss, and in that he was definitely correct.

Furthermore, Story himself started to insist that as for “the Letters which were before the Assembly that he never saw them and they were not brot by him to N. E.” At the end of October Hutchinson wrote to Whatley’s brother:

It has been reported that the original letters which had been wrote by the Lt. Gov. & by me to your late worthy brother were bro’t over here by one Mr. Story. I am desired by the Lt. Gov. to acquaint you that altho Mr. Story gave out that he had seen in London writings of mine yet he has affirmd to me those Letters were not the writings he meant & that he knew nothing of the manner in which they came here.

In sum, Story confirmed that he’d tried to pressure Gov. Hutchinson with the content of some embarrassing letters, but he insisted that he meant some other embarrassing letters.

And the details Stiles wrote down support that. The minister understood Story to have procured six letters from Gov. Hutchinson and eighteen from Lt. Gov. Oliver to “one of the Secretaries of some of the Ministerial Boards.” The documents that came over in the spring of 1773 included only four from Oliver, and Whately hadn’t been a board secretary since 1765. That suggests there were at least two sets of supposedly scandalous letters from Hutchinson and Oliver circulating in London in the early 1770s.

It also looks to me like Story might never have brought back documents at all, just knowledge of documents. Only Stiles wrote that Story had “procured” letters; Hutchinson didn’t say that. The Boston Whigs made no additional disclosures from Hutchinson and Oliver’s correspondence before the war began. Maybe what Story had seen in London seemed minor compared to what the house revealed in June 1773. Maybe enough damage had been done. 

Or maybe Story hadn’t seen any letters at all. He might have only heard about the letters to Whately while he was seeking favors in London, came back to Boston, and added incorrect details while he played a weak hand the best he could. 

[My thanks to John W. Tyler, editor of the Hutchinson letters for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, for some peeks at the governor’s correspondence in late 1773 as he tried to figure out what had happened.]

“My succeeding to the post he holds from the crown”

Almost three years after Nathaniel Rogers died suddenly, he was back in the news.

Rogers was the author of one of the “Hutchinson Letters” that Benjamin Franklin leaked to the Boston Whigs in the spring of 1773.

Gov. Thomas Hutchinson wrote only six of those letters. Another six came from his friends and political allies (four from Andrew Oliver, shown here, and one each from Charles Paxton and Robert Auchmuty), and the last from his nephew, Rogers.

Those letters were collected by Thomas Whately, a Member of Parliament interested in the administration of the American colonies. Many of the writers discussed the challenges of governing Massachusetts, with some hints or recommendations about changing its constitution.

In contrast, Rogers’s letter was all about wanting the job of provincial secretary. It reveals just how such appointments were negotiated in this period, with a lot of discussion about money and little about the public interest or policy.

Boston, Decem. 12th 1768.

My Dear Sir,

I wrote you a few days ago, and did not then think of troubling you upon any private affair of mine, at least not so suddenly; but within this day or two, I have had a conversation with Mr. [Andrew] Oliver, secretary of the province, the design of which was my succeeding to the post he holds from the crown, upon the idea, that provision would be made for governor [Francis] Bernard, and the lieutenant governor [i.e., Uncle Hutchinson] would succeed to the chair, then the secretary is desirous of being lieutenant governor, and if in any way, three hundred pounds a year could be annexed to the appointment.

You are sensible the appointment is in one department [i.e., the Colonial Office], and the grant of money in another [the Treasury, funded by Customs revenue under the Townshend Act]; now the present lieutenant governor has an assignment of £200 a year upon the customs here; he has not received any thing from it as yet, and is doubtful if he shall; he has no doubt of its lapse to the crown, if he has the chair; if then by any interest that sum could be assigned to Mr. Oliver as lieutenant governor, and if he should be allowed (as has been usual for all lieutenant governors) to hold the command of the castle, that would be another £100. This would compleat the secretary’s views; and he thinks his public services, the injuries he has received in that service, and the favorable sentiments entertained of him by government, may lead him to these views, and he hopes for the interest of his friends.

The place of secretary is worth £300 a year, but is a provincial grant at present, so that it will not allow to be quartered on: And as I had a view upon the place when I was in England, and went so far as to converse with several men of interest upon it, tho’ I never had an opportunity to mention it to you after I recovered my illness—I hope you will allow me your influence, and by extending it at the treasury, to facilitate the assignment of the £200 a year, it will be serving the secretary, and it will very much oblige me.——

The secretary is advanced in life, tho’ much more so in health, which has been much impaired by the injuries he received, and he wishes to quit the more active scenes; he considers this as a kind of otium cum dignitate, and from merits one may think he has a claim to it.

I will mention to you the gentlemen, who are acquainted with my views and whose favourable approbation I have had. Governor [Thomas] Pownall, Mr. John Pownall, and Dr. Franklin.—My lord Hillsborough is not unacquainted with it—I have since I have been here, wrote Mr. [Richard] Jackson upon the subject, and have by this vessel wrote Mr. [Israel] Mauduit.

I think my character stands fair—I have not been without application to public affairs, and have acquired some knowledge of our provincial affairs, and notwithstanding our many free conversations in England, I am considered here as on government side, for which I have been often traduced both publickly and privately, and very lately have had two or three slaps. The governor and lieutenant governor are fully acquainted with the negociation and I meet their approbation; all is upon the idea the governor is provided for, and there shall by any means be a vacancy of the lieut. governor’s place.

I have gone so far, as to say to some of my friends, that rather than not succeed I would agree to pay the secretary £100 a year out of the office to make up £300, provided he could obtain only the assignment of £200—but the other proposal would to be sure be most eligible.

I scarce know any apology to make for troubling you upon the subject; the friendship you shewed me in London, and the favourable expressions you made use of to the lieut. governor in my behalf encourage me, besides a sort of egotism, which inclines men to think what they wish to be real. I submit myself to the enquiries of any of my countrymen in England, but I should wish the matter may be secret ’till it is effected.

I am with very great respect and regard, my dear sir,

Your most obedient, and most humble servant,

NATH. ROGERS.

Rogers thus privately lobbied for annual payments to Oliver as lieutenant governor that would be equal to the secretary’s salary and thus make it worthwhile for him to vacate that post. If those arrangements couldn’t work out, Rogers even promised to pay Oliver £100 a year himself until the man (already “advanced in life”) died. These days we’d consider this scheme a kickback, a sinecure, and taxation without representation. In the British patronage system of the eighteenth century, it was common.

Rogers’s planning helps to explain why, despite his Whiggish political philosophy, he accepted the Townshend Act and resisted the non-importation effort to stop it. And his string-tugging worked. When Rogers died, the London government was preparing a commission to make him provincial secretary. Instead, in his absence the job went to Thomas Flucker.

After this letter became public in 1773, the Boston radicals interpreted it as more evidence of the Hutchinson circle scheming to take powerful positions and Customs revenue for themselves. John Adams judged that Hutchinson and Oliver had been among “the original Conspirators against the Public Liberty, since the Conspiracy was first regularly formed, and begun to be executed, in 1763 or 4,” but “Nat. Rogers, who was not one of the original’s,…came in afterwards.”

What Was Really Wrong about the “Hutchinson Letters”

I enjoyed tracking the Massachusetts Whigs’ logical dance as they justified sharing and then publishing the “Hutchinson letters” that arrived from Benjamin Franklin in 1773 along with restrictions on, well, sharing and publishing them. Boston politicians recognized the political power of those documents.

Focusing on that shady side of the story, however, obscures the far more darker claim in that dispute: that everyone should have kept those letters secret. By modern democratic standards, those documents should never have been secret to begin with.

British governments of the period demanded control over information about their workings, with only halting steps toward openness. Before 1770, for example, it was unclear whether it was legal to report in detail about debates in Parliament. Governors, generals, and other public appointees took their correspondence files home with them when they retired. Legislative or public oversight of government officials was weak.

In 1769, William Bollan leaked the official correspondence between Gov. Francis Bernard and the Secretary of State in London, Lord Hillsborough. Those pages described Bernard’s meetings with the Massachusetts Council and dealings with the Massachusetts house, as well as other public events. They made recommendations for Crown policy toward the province, from one unelected official to another. Today we expect such discussions to be conducted with as much openness as possible.

In 1773, Franklin followed Bollan’s example by sending over letters collected by Member of Parliament Thomas Whately, known for his political attachment to George Grenville and his interest in American policy. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson kept repeating that those documents were “private letters,” written before he became governor. But in 1768-1769 he was Lieutenant Governor and Chief Justice of Massachusetts. Hutchinson and Whately had never met and weren’t business partners. Their only reason to write to each other was to share information and views on Massachusetts government.

Whately’s correspondence with Lt. Gov. Andrew Oliver, then provincial Secretary, included discussion of how the Massachusetts constitution should be changed. Oliver’s goal was to insulate the Council from popular pressure—a major concern among eighteenth-century aristocrats (or aristocrats of any period). That goal obviously depended on keeping the people ignorant of such discussions.

We now base our governments on the consent of the governed and the choice of the people, not filtered through a hereditary monarchy and nobility and the excuses people invent to justify such a system. Public knowledge and full access to government information for the public’s representatives are key to making our system work.

It should come as no surprise that I got interested in the “Hutchinson letters” this month because of the current U.S. administration’s attempts to conceal significant public documents. These include the uncensored Mueller report, the Trump Organization tax filings, orders overriding denials of security clearances, the paper trail of Supreme Court candidates, the President’s interference in building a new F.B.I. Headquarters, visitor logs at the White House, and much more.

Some of those attempts to conceal our government’s workings go against legal and legislative precedent. Others violate stated law. In all cases, they undercut our ability as a people to govern ourselves—an ability Americans first won after men working in the imperial capital slipped the Massachusetts legislature documents that royal appointees wanted to conceal.

“If genuine, they must be private Letters”

When we left the Massachusetts General Court on 2 June 1773, members of the lower house had voted overwhelmingly to condemn a collection of letters from Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, Lt. Gov. Andrew Oliver, and others as intended “to overthrow the Constitution of this Government, and to introduce arbitrary Power into the Province.”

The next day, the house chose a committee of nine to prepare a longer response to those letters. At its head were Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, of course. Also on that Thursday, the Massachusetts Spy reported on the house vote—and reported in dire tones about “extraordinary discoveries…which will bring many dark things to light.”

That brought a note to the chamber from Gov. Hutchinson, carried by provincial secretary Thomas Flucker. Hutchinson declared, “I have never wrote any public or private Letter with such Intention…” He asked to see a transcript of the house proceedings. (It had met as a committee of the whole to keep the most serious discussions private.) And he asked to know what letters the legislators were talking about.

That afternoon the house voted to give Hutchinson the dates of the letters “Provided his Excellency will order to be laid before this House Copies of all the Letters of the same Dates written by his Excellency relating to the publick Affairs of this Province.”

The next day was King George III’s birthday. There was a militia parade on the Common and down King Street, with Hancock leading the Cadets, Adino Paddock the artillery train (both units with musical bands), and Henry Knox appearing as a junior officer of the new grenadier company. Cannon were fired in all the town batteries, Castle William, and the navy ships in the harbor.

At noon, Gov. Hutchinson and the Council toasted the king in one chamber of the Town House while the house toasted him in another. In the evening there were fireworks.

On Saturday, the house sent a committee with the dates of the letters and renewed its request for all letters Hutchinson had written on those dates. The governor later called this “a very rude resolve.” It presented him with two possible traps. First, any deviation between the letters that the legislators had and his drafts or copies might be spun as deceptive. Second, the house was asking for more letters than it had on hand.

The Monday newspapers reported on the exchange between the house and the governor. It wasn’t until Wednesday, 9 June, that Hutchinson responded:

I find by the Dates of the Letters with my Signature that, if genuine, they must be private Letters wrote to a Gentleman in London, since deceased; that all, except the last were wrote many Months before I came to the Chair [i.e., while he was still lieutenant governor]; that they were wrote not only with that Confidence which is always implied in a friendly Correspondence by private Letters, but that they are expressly confidential; notwithstanding which, they contain nothing more respecting the Constitution of the Colonies in general than what is contained in my Speeches to the Assembly, and what I have published in a more extensive Manner to the World; and there is not one Passage in them which was ever intended to respect, or which, as I am well assured, the Gentleman to whom they were wrote, ever understood to respect, the particular Constitution of this Government as derived from the Charter.

In those details, Hutchinson was correct. The letters had gone to Thomas Whately, a British official who died in 1772. Hutchinson had spoken openly and at length to the General Court about how colonial legislatures had to be subordinate to Parliament. His letters didn’t recommend changes to the Massachusetts charter—but other letters in the collection did, and by this point people were viewing them all as a whole.

TOMORROW: The question of publication.

“All those parts and fire are extinguished”

On 24 Aug 1767, the British politician Thomas Whately wrote to former boss George Grenville about gossip he’d heard from yet another Member of Parliament, Grey Cooper:

He told me that the Chancellor of the Exchequer [Charles Townshend, shown here] having been not well of a long time, and he observing that he looked still worse a few days ago, he advised Lady Greenwich [Townshend’s wife, made a baroness just days before] to send for a physician;

she at first said that Mr. Townshend’s disorder was only lowness of spirits; but at last called in Sir William Duncan [doctor to King George III], who has pronounced it to be a slow fever of the putrid kind; from which he does not apprehend any danger at present, but says that it is a disorder liable to so many accidents that he cannot answer for the event.

Mr. Townshend yesterday kept his bed, but I believe rather because he was desired than because he was obliged to do so.

The fever turned out to be more dangerous than Dr. Duncan guessed. Two hundred fifty years ago today, Townshend died.

Late that month, Horace Walpole reacted:

But our comet is set too! Charles Townshend is dead. All those parts and fire are extinguished; those volatile salts are evaporated; that first eloquence of the world is dumb! that duplicity is fixed, that cowardice terminated heroically. He joked on death as naturally as he used to do on the living, and not with the affectation of philosophers, who wind up their works with sayings which they hope to have remembered. With a robust person he had always a menacing constitution. He had had a fever the whole summer, recovered as it was thought, relapsed, was neglected, and it turned to an incurable putrid fever.

The Opposition expected that the loss of this essential pin would loosen the whole frame [i.e., bring down the government]; but it had been hard, if both his life and death were to be pernicious to the Administration. He had engaged to betray the latter to the former, as I knew early, and as Lord Mansfield has since declared. I therefore could not think the loss of him a misfortune. His seals were immediately offered to Lord North, who declined them. The Opposition rejoiced; but they ought to have been better acquainted with one educated in their own school. Lord North has since accepted the seals—and the reversion of his father’s pension.

While that eccentric genius, Charles Townshend, whom no system could contain, is whirled out of existence, our more artificial meteor, Lord Chatham, seems to be wheeling back to the sphere of business—at least his health is declared to be re-established; but he has lost his adorers, the mob, and I doubt the wise men will not travel after his light.

Townshend’s program for raising revenue from the American colonies, the Townshend duties, was due to go into effect on 20 November. Now the architect of that policy was gone.

TOMORROW: Assessing Charles Townshend.