John Hancock Sees a Chance to Do a Favor for Thomas Longman

My ears perked up at this announcement from the Colonial Society of Massachusetts:

The Colonial Society is publishing the Papers of John Hancock—which remarkably have never been published! Editor Jeffrey Griffith has been scouring archives and libraries to find copies of Hancock’s letters, and not only will the Colonial Society publish fully annotated editions of Hancock's letters, and make them available on our web-site, Jeffrey Griffith has created this collection of transcriptions, identifying each library which holds the originals.

For example, here’s a letter that the London publisher Thomas Longman sent to Hancock in July 1769:

Mr John Mein of Boston (Bookseller) is Indebted to me a very considerable sum of Money, the greatest part of which has been due near three Years, which upon my remonstrating to Him He has several times promised to make such Remittances as wld be satisfactory, but this He has yet neglected to do, nor now even so much as writes to me by way of appology.

I should therefore be greatly obliged to you if you could recommend a proper Person to me to whom it would be safe to send a power of Attorney & to Act for me in the most adviseable manner in this unfortunate affair. I know your time and attention is at present much taken up in Public Affairs, but as the recovery of this Debt is of great consequence to me, hope you will not deny my request but favour me with your answer by the first opportunity

At the time, Mein was using his Boston Chronicle to shame the Boston Whigs for bringing in goods they’d promised to boycott because of the Townshend duties. While merchants offered different excuses for their shipments (e.g., I didn’t import glass, I imported medicines in glass bottles), that coverage weakened support for non-importation and made Boston look bad to other American ports.

When Hancock received this letter asking who could be a local agent for the Longmans, sue Mein, and seize his property, he must have at least figuratively rubbed his hands in pleasure. He proceeded to do just that, using legal means to shut down the Boston Chronicle while other merchants physically chased Mein out of town.

“The seller is nothing less than a collector of the tax”

Here are some paragraphs from the seventh Letter from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, John Dickinson’s 1767–68 essays arguing against the Townshend duties:

There are two ways of laying taxes. One is, by imposing a certain sum on particular kinds of property, to be paid by the user or consumer, or by rating the person at a certain sum. The other is, by imposing a certain sum on particular kinds of property, to be paid by the seller.

When a man pays the first sort of tax, he knows with certainty that he pays so much money for a tax. The consideration for which he pays it, is remote, and, it may be, does not occur to him. He is sensible too, that he is commanded and obliged to pay it as a tax; and therefore people are apt to be displeased with this sort of tax.

The other sort of tax is submitted to in a very different manner. The purchaser of any article, very seldom reflects that the seller raises his price, so as to indemnify himself for the tax he has paid. He knows that the prices of things are continually fluctuating, and if he thinks about the tax, he thinks at the same time, in all probability, that he might have paid as much, if the article he buys had not been taxed. . . .

The merchant or importer, who pays the duty at first, will not consent to be so much money out of pocket. He therefore proportionably raises the price of his goods. It may then be said to be a contest between him and the person offering to buy, who shall lose the duty.

This must be decided by the nature of the commodities, and the purchaser’s demand for them. If they are mere luxuries, he is at liberty to do as he pleases, and if he buys, he does it voluntarily: But if they are absolute necessaries or conveniences, which use and custom have made requisite for the comfort of life, and which he is not permitted, by the power imposing the duty, to get elsewhere, there the seller has a plain advantage, and the buyer must pay the duty.

In fact, the seller is nothing less than a collector of the tax for the power that imposed it. If these duties then are extended to the necessaries and conveniences of life in general, and enormously encreased, the people must at length become indeed “most exquisitely sensible of their slavish situation.”

That quoted phrase came from Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws.

This letter concluded:

These duties, which will inevitably be levied upon us---which are now levying upon us---are expresly laid FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF TAKING MONEY. This is the true definition of “taxes.” They are therefore taxes. This money is to be taken from us. We are therefore taxed.

Those who are taxed without their own consent, expressed by themselves or their representatives, are slaves. We are taxed without our own consent, expressed by ourselves of our representatives. We are therefore---SLAVES.

Dickinson thus put himself among the American Whigs who equated a lack of full political rights for white men of property with a state of slavery while keeping actual chattel slaves. Unlike most of his countrymen, however, Dickinson did something about that. In 1786 he finished manumitting everyone he had claimed as property.

“The Remains of Captain Daniel Malcom”

On Thursday, 26 Oct 1769, the Boston News-Letter announced:

On Monday last departed this Life, Capt. DANIEL MALCOM, of this Town, Merchant, in the 44th Year of his Age: His Remains are to be interred To-Morrow at half after Three o’clock Afternoon.

The following Monday, 30 October, the Boston Gazette reported:

On Friday last were interred the Remains of Captain Daniel Malcom of this Town Merchant, who died a few Days before in the 44th Year of his Age.

By Means of his honest Industry, he left his Family in good Circumstances. And tho’ this Gentleman was one whom the Nettleham Baronet had stigmatiz’d in his infamous Letters, his Funeral was attended by a long Train of his Fellow Citizens, as a Token of Respect to the Family of one who in his Life was zealously attached to the Liberties of his Country.

The “Nettleham Baronet” was Sir Francis Bernard, the royal governor who had sailed away from Boston a three months earlier. He had mentioned the 1766 stand-off between Malcom and the Customs service in reports to London, and those letters had been leaked back to Boston—which only enhanced Malcom’s local reputation.

In fact, Malcom’s profile was so high that even his grave marker made news, in the 17 November Boston News-Letter:

The following Inscription is on the Grave-Stone of the late Capt. Malcom.

Here lies buried in a Stone Grave 10 feet deep, Capt. DANIEL MALCOM, Merchant, who departed this life October 23d 1769. aged 44 Years.

A true Son of Liberty.
A Friend to the Publick.
An Enemy to Oppression.
And one of the foremost in Opposing the Revenue Acts on America.

That stone, shown above courtesy of Find-a-Grave, stands in the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground.

In addition, there’s a memorial plaque inside Old North Church, as shown here on Vast Public Indifference. That inscription must have been put up years after the captain’s death. It doesn’t use the long s like the gravestone, and it refers to “British Bullets” while in 1769 Bostonians still saw themselves as British.

Daniel Malcom’s widow Ann died the following April, aged only forty.

TOMORROW: Balls for Capt. Malcom.

Two Salaries for Chief Justice Peter Oliver

One of the Massachusetts Whigs’ complaint about Thomas Hutchinson in the 1760s is that he amassed too many offices for himself.

Hutchinson was simultaneously the lieutenant governor, as such a member of the Council, the chief justice of the superior court, and a probate judge.

When Gov. Francis Bernard went home to Britain and Hutchinson became the acting governor, he gave up his judicial posts. Benjamin Lynde seemed like a natural fit for that role—his father, also named Benjamin Lynde, had been chief justice from 1729 to 1745.

After less than two years, however, Lynde resigned. Hutchinson, now governor in his own right, looked for a new chief justice. But first, he appointed his brother Foster to the court.

(Lyndes and Hutchinsons weren’t the only judicial dynasties. In 1772, William Cushing became a third-generation justice.)

Gov. Hutchinson decided to recommend elevating associate justice Peter Oliver (shown above) to the chief position. Oliver had been on the court since 1756. He was a strong supporter of unpopular Crown officials, as he’d shown at the trials of Ebenezer Richardson, Capt. Thomas Preston, and the British soldiers in 1770.

Oliver was also related to Hutchinson by marriage in three different ways. And his own brother Andrew was lieutenant governor. For the Whigs, Hutchinson giving his old jobs to his in-laws didn’t really look like sharing power.

One aspect of royal rule that should seem foreign to us is that Crown officials could keep a lot more of their actions secret from the public. Since the people’s representatives weren’t involved in choosing governors and justices or paying their salaries under the Townshend Acts, why did they need to know?

In July 1772 the Massachusetts General Court demanded that Gov. Hutchinson tell them whether he was getting paid by the Crown. He said he was. Joseph Hawley, a lawyer and representative from Northampton, drafted resolutions condemning this arrangement, but the legislature couldn’t do anything more about it.

It took even more time for the assembly to confirm that the royal government had offered salaries to Chief Justice Oliver and his colleagues. And even then it wasn’t clear the justices would accept that money. That didn’t stop Samuel Adams and the new Boston committee of correspondence from making that their primary complaint to other towns in late 1772.

In early 1773 the General Court tested the system by appropriating £300 to pay Oliver for the previous judicial term and £200 for the associate justices. In June, the newly elected legislature (many of the representatives having been reelected) asked treasurer Harrison Gray if the justices had collected that money. They had taken only half, Gray reported.

Aha! said the legislators. That means the justices were living off the royal government’s tax revenue. At the end of June, the General Court demanded that those men renounce any pay except what it had voted on. This is one of the paradoxical moments in Revolutionary confrontations: Massachusetts politicians demanding to pay government officials they disliked instead of letting the royal government do it. But it was the principle of the thing, you see.

The associate justices agreed that they wouldn’t accept any more royal pay. Chief Justice Oliver didn’t. The next move was up to the Whigs. But according to the provincial charter, they had no role in picking judges. So what could they do?

TOMORROW: John Adams’s bright idea.

“Becoming dependent for their Salaries upon their Crown”

The dispute that led to colonial Massachusetts’s second impeachment action started with the Townshend Acts of 1767.

Parliament imposed new tariffs on a handful of goods, particularly tea. And it said the revenue from those taxes would go to administering the colonies.

The expenses of that royal administration included salaries for the governors in most colonies and for the judges those governors appointed.

In the fallow period of 1771 to early 1773, with no new taxes and no troops on the streets of Boston, Samuel Adams didn’t have many issues to raise, so he highlighted those judicial salaries.

Through Boston’s committee of correspondence, Adams argued that not only had Parliament imposed taxation without representation, but those salaries would insulate judges from local pressure. The colonial legislatures would no longer be able to limit or delay judges’ pay to signal displeasure with their rulings.

On 14 Dec 1772, Cambridge called a town meeting to consider that problem. Most men at that meeting endorsed the Boston committee’s position. But one local big man objected.

William Brattle (shown here) was an old-fashioned type of country gentleman—a little bit of a lawyer, a little bit of a doctor, a little bit of a merchant, a little bit of a farmer. In politics he had become a member of the Council, and in the militia he had risen to the rank of general.

Back in 1765, Brattle had marched at the head of the anti-Stamp Act processions beside Ebenezer Mackintosh. Gov. Francis Bernard saw him as one of his most nettlesome enemies. But Gov. Thomas Hutchinson had apparently won Brattle over to the Crown side, possibly with those militia promotions.

Brattle told his fellow Cambridge citizens that judicial salaries weren’t anything to worry about. He claimed that judges were appointed for life as long as they maintained “good behavior.” Once judges were on the bench, therefore, neither the royal government nor the populace had leverage over them. (He also said that since official word about judicial salaries hadn’t come from London yet, the town shouldn’t vote on the matter.)

After losing that vote, Brattle published his argument in the 31 December Boston News-Letter.

In the 4 Jan 1773 Boston Gazette someone signing “M.Y.” addressed “W.B. Esq.,” asking how he could hold such a position when as a member of the Council he had heard that Gov. Bernard had written to Gov. Hutchinson that judicial salaries were definitely a go. Brattle denied having heard any such letter.

The 11 Jan 1773 Boston Gazette brought a more vigorous response to Brattle from John Adams. Citing various legal authorities, he wrote that judges were appointed “at the pleasure” of the Crown, forcing those men to maintain the approval of the royal government to keep their jobs.

The next week, Adams published another essay saying the same thing, with different sources. And then the week after that. In all, Adams published seven essays to Brattle’s two. By March, even Adams wrote in his diary: “I have written a tedious Examination of Brattle’s absurdities.”

In his diary Adams also claimed that in the town meeting Brattle had said “Mr. [James] Otis, Mr. Adams, Mr. John Adams I mean, and Mr. Josiah Quincy” wouldn’t be able to refute his argument, and that he had later issued a public challenge in the newspapers. I can’t find Brattle doing the latter. But Adams was clearly rankled. He also told his diary in March:

My own Determination had been to decline all Invitations to public Affairs and Enquiries, but Brattles rude, indecent, and unmeaning Challenge of me in Particular, laid me under peculiar Obligations to undeceive the People, and changed my Resolution. I hope that some good will come out of it.—God knows.

Remember the xkcd cartoon, “Someone is wrong on the internet”? That was basically Adams’s reaction.

Those newspaper essays didn’t have much effect. The exchange probably raised Adams’s profile a little and pushed Brattle further into the royal governor’s camp. But the London government had a plan, and all the resolutions passed by all the town meetings in Massachusetts wouldn’t change that.

In February, as John Adams’s essays rolled on, Gov. Hutchinson confirmed that Lord North had ordered the judges paid from the tariffs. The Massachusetts assembly, with Samuel Adams as its clerk and guiding voice, responded:

We conceive that no Judge who had a due regard to Justice, or even to his own Character, would chuse to be placed under such an undue bias as they must be under, in the Opinion of the House, by accepting of and becoming dependent for their Salaries upon their Crown. Had not his Majesty been misinformed with Respect to the Constitution and Appointment of our Judges by those who advised to this Measure, we are persuaded he would never have passed such an Order.

That dig about “misinformed” was how Samuel Adams and his allies were representing the larger situation: Bernard, Hutchinson, and other royal appointees were feeding the government in London false information, and the result were these unjust measures that Massachusetts didn’t deserve.

TOMORROW: Rival salaries.

Lexington and the “subtle, wicked ministerial plan”

Last week I analyzed the accounts of tea burning in Marshfield 250 years ago and concluded that I found no strong evidence for the exact date of this event.

Marshfield was notable for being split between Whigs and Loyalists. It had an Anglican church as well as the Congregationalists. The control of town meeting teetered back and forth between factions. The tea-burning, whenever it happened, wasn’t an official act.

In contrast, the town of Lexington was militantly Whig. Its minister, the Rev. Jonas Clarke, supported that stance. Early on, the town voted to create a committee of correspondence to share news and views with Boston and elsewhere—a litmus test for radicalism.

On 13 Dec 1773, as the crisis over the East India Company cargoes in Boston heated up, Lexington called a town meeting. Charles Hudson’s town histories published the record, and Alexander Cain, author of We Stood Our Ground: Lexington in the First Year of the American Revolution, has shared more exact transcriptions at Untapped History. I drew the quotations that follow from a combination of those sources.

Lexington’s committee of correspondence produced a blistering statement about the Tea Act:

…the Enemies of the Rights & Liberties of Americans, greatly disappointed in the Success of the Revenue Act, are seeking to Avail themselves of New, & if possible, Yet more detestable Measures to distress, Enslave & destroy us.

Not enough that a Tax was laid Upon Teas, which should be Imported by Us, for the Sole Purpose of Raising a revenue to support Taskmasters, Pensioners, &c., in Idleness and Luxury; But by a late Act of Parliament, to Appease the wrath of the East India Company, whose Trade to America had been greatly clogged by the operation of the Revenue Acts, Provision is made for said Company to export their teas to America free and discharged from all Duties and Customs in England, but liable to all the same Rules, Regulations, Penalties & Forfeitures in America, as are Provided by the Revenue Act. . . .

Once admit this subtle, wicked ministerial plan to take place, once permit this tea, thus imposed upon us by the East India Company, to be landed, received, and vended by their consignees, factors, &c., the badge of our slavery is fixed, the foundation of ruin is surely laid; and, unless a wise and powerful God, by some unforeseen revolution in Providence, shall prevent, we shall soon be obliged to bid farewell to the once flourishing trade of America, and an everlasting adieu to those glorious rights and liberties for which our worthy ancestors so earnestly prayed, so bravely fought, so freely bled!

The committee proposed six resolves to steer the town away from this horrible fate. These included:

2. That we will not be concerned either directly or indirectly in landing, receiving, buying, or selling, or even using any of the Teas sent out by the East India Company, or that shall be imported subject to a duty imposed by Act of Parliament, for the purpose of raising a revenue in America.

3. That all such persons as shall directly or indirectly aid and assist in landing, receiving, buying, selling, or using the Teas sent by the East India Company, or imported by others subject to a duty, for the purpose of a revenue, shall be deemed and treated by us as enemies of their country.

Other resolves endorsed everything the Bostonians were doing and condemned the tea consignees, even naming Richard Clarke and the Hutchinson brothers.

After the meeting unanimously approved those statements, someone proposed another:

That if any Head of a Family in this Town, or any Person, shall from this time forward; & until the Duty taken off, purchase any Tea, Use or consume any Tea in their Famelies, such person shall be looked upon as an Enemy to this town & to this Country, and shall by this Town be treated with Neglect & Contempt.

Now they were getting personal.

TOMORROW: What happened next.

“Only the tax on tea retained”

In a conversation earlier this week I shared, and not for the first time, an observation about Lord North’s repeal of the Townshend duties in 1770. Parliament scrapped the duties on everything but tea—yet tea was what accounted for the bulk of the revenue, so it wasn’t that big a change.

That fact had stuck with me since I read this passage in Oliver M. Dickerson’s 1958 article in the New England Quarterly, “Use Made of the Revenue from the Tax on Tea”:

In its original form this act [written by Charles Townshend] included import duties upon glass, white lead, painters’ colors, and paper as well as tea. Total collections on articles other than tea were so unimportant that they were repealed in 1770 and only the tax on tea retained.

Dickerson did more work with Treasury records on American colonial revenue than anyone else in his time, so his remark seemed reliable.

At the same time, I couldn’t help recalling that Dickerson developed a real animus toward the British Customs service, which enforced and collected those tariffs. He revived the Boston Whigs’ accusation that Customs officers had shot at the crowd in King Street in his 1954 paper, “The Commissioners of Customs and the ‘Boston Massacre’,” also published in the New England Quarterly. After 1770, not even the Boston Whigs believed that anymore.

So was Dickerson’s conclusion backed up by data or just his impression? Would his impression be solid? I wanted to see the numbers Dickerson used for his conclusion about the Townshend duties. Unfortunately, the paragraph I quoted above had no citations.

Later in the same paper, however, Dickerson quoted a figure for total collections under Townshend’s revenue act, and then another for “Total reported collections of American taxes from all sources, 1765-1774.” Both those citations pointed to his own book, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, published in 1951.

Luckily, I have a copy. Even more luckily, I remembered where I’d shelved it.

The data pertinent to the passage above appears in Table 11 on page 198: “Tax Collections Under the Townshend Revenue Act at Four Principal Ports, 1768–70, Exclusive of Paper, Continental Colonies Only.”

The totals for Boston and Salem:

• white glass: £684
• green glass: £169
• lead and painters’ colors: £168
• tea: £5,524

The Massachusetts ports thus accounted for about 31% of all money the Customs service collected on the continent from the Townshend duties, and tea was responsible for 84% of that money.

In New York, tea duties brought in 88% of the total. In Philadelphia, 84%. Only in Charleston, which brought in far more highly-taxed green glass and far less tea than the other three ports, did the other commodities come close to reaping as much revenue as tea.

(The Townshend Act also put a tariff on paper. Or, to be exact, papers. Dickerson wrote frankly ahead of this table: “This omits paper, as the task of computing the tax on sixty-seven kinds of paper at forty-three different ports is more difficult than the results justify. The paper duty at best was a nuisance tax and the yield was small.”)

Thus, Dickerson did present data to support his conclusion. In removing most of his predecessor’s import duties in 1770, Lord North kept more than three-quarters of the actual taxation. I don’t know if the American Whigs were privy to those figures at the time, but the situation helps to explain why they weren’t mollified.

“A grateful Sense of your Lordship’s Good-will”

Only a few pieces of correspondence between Baron le Despencer and Benjamin Franklin survive in the Franklin Papers, but they show a developing relationship between the lord appointed to be a postmaster general and one of his deputies for North America.

By June 1770, Franklin could report on details of the baron’s home remodeling: “I am told by Lord Despencer, who has covered a long Piazza or Gallery with Copper, that the Expence is charged in this Account too high; for his cost but 1/10 per foot, all Charges included.”

The first surviving direct letter between the men dates from the next month. In that document Franklin both responded to a political memo from Despencer (now lost) and argued that he should keep his job.

At that time, Franklin was representing the refractory legislatures of multiple North American colonies before Parliament, so he was a voice of opposition to the Townshend Acts. (That after telling London in 1766 and 1767 that Americans would accept such tariffs as an “external tax.”)

On 18 March, Franklin had written to Charles Thomson, encouraging American merchants to keep up their non-importation agreements against the Townshend duties even though Lord North’s government was moving to repeal all but the tax on tea. Critics started to say that an official receiving a salary from the Crown shouldn’t behave that way.

It looked like time for Franklin to shore up support from Despencer, one of his two bosses. On 26 July he wrote with somewhat stiff, genteel formality:

My Lord,

I heartily wish your Lordship would urge the Plan of Reconciliation between the two Countries, which you did me the Honour to mention to me this Morning. I am persuaded that so far as the Consent of America is requisite, it must succeed. I am sure I should do everything in my Power there to promote it. . . .

I have Enemies, as every public Man always has. They would be glad to see me depriv’d of my Office; and there are others who would like to have it. I do not pretend to slight it. Three Hundred Pounds less would make a very serious Difference in my annual Income. But as I rose to that Office gradually thro’ a long Service of now almost Forty Years, have by my Industry and Management greatly improv’d it, and have ever acted in it with Fidelity to the Satisfaction of all my Superiors, I hope my political Opinions, or my Dislike of the late Measures with America (which I own I think very injudicious) exprest in my Letters to that Country; or the Advice I gave to adhere to their Resolutions till the whole Act was repealed, without extending their Demands any farther, will not be thought a good Reason for turning me out.

I shall, however, always retain a grateful Sense of your Lordship’s Good-will and many Civilities towards me, and remain as ever, with the greatest Respect, Your Lordship’s most obedient and most humble Servant

Franklin’s letter combined arguments for fairness and the greater good with some personal flattery—as the British patronage system of the time encouraged.

I don’t see any similar letters from Franklin to the other postmaster general at this time, the Earl of Sandwich. In fact, I don’t see any letters from Franklin to Sandwich at all, nor from Franklin to the previous office-holder, the Earl of Hillsborough.

That might hint that Franklin saw Despencer as his main protector within the British bureaucracy. At the same time, this letter doesn’t suggest a relationship closer than colleagues in government, one man clearly superior to the other.

Franklin did keep his postal service job. In a letter to his sister, Jane Mecom, he stated, “I had some Friends…who unrequested by me advis’d the” government to keep him on; “my Enemies were forc’d to content themselves with abusing me plentifully in the Newspapers, and endeavouring to provoke me to resign.” Was Despencer one of those friends? If so, was Franklin’s letter to the baron truly not a request to stay on? In any event, it worked.

TOMORROW: Warming up.

“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.”

Non-Importation from the Beginning

On 1 Aug 1768, the merchants of Boston agreed to non-importation as a way to pressure London into repealing the Townshend duties.

Their agreement stated:

The merchants and traders in the town of Boston, having taken into consideration the deplorable situation of the trade and the many difficulties it at present labours under on account of the scarcity of money, which is daily decreasing for want of the other remittances to discharge our debts in Great Britain, and the large sums collected by the officers of the customs for duties on goods imported; the heavy taxes levied to discharge the debts contracted by the government in the late war; the embarrassments and restrictions laid on the trade by the several late Acts of Parliament; together with the bad success of our cod fishery this season, and the discouraging prospect of the whale fishery, by which our principal sources of remittances are like to be greatly diminished, and we thereby rendered unable to pay the debts we owe the merchants in Great Britain, and to continue the importation of goods from thence:

We, the subscribers, in order to relieve the trade under those discouragements, to promote industry, frugality, and economy, and to discourage luxury and every kind of extravagance, do promise and engage to and with each other as follows:

That we will not send or import from Great Britain this fall, either on our own account, or on commission, any other goods than what are already ordered for the fall supply.

That we will not send for or import any kind of goods or merchandise from Great Britain, either on our own account, or on commissions, or any otherwise, from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770, except salt, coals, fish-hooks and lines, hemp, duck, bar lead and shot, wool-cards, and card-wire.

That we will not purchase of any factors, or others, any kind of goods imported from Great Britain from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770. That we will not import on our own account, or on commission, or Purchase from any Who shall import from any other colony in America, from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770, any tea, glass, paper, or other goods commonly imported from Great Britain.

That we will not, from and after January 1, 1769, import into the province any tea, paper, glass, or painters’ colours, until the Acts imposing duties on these articles have been repealed.

The Townshend Act actually taxed lead as well, but that was such an important commodity for manufacturing and military defense that this agreement specifically allowed importing it.

There were a lot of disputes in 1769 over other details of that agreement. Did merchants have to follow it to the letter if they adhered to its spirit? What about goods for the army? What about goods that non-signatories in other towns asked someone to ship in? What about, say, books?

Generally the merchants of Boston stuck to these terms, though printer John Mein was happy to point out exceptions, especially any taken by the merchants who promoted the boycott.

As the end of the year 1769, and the end of the formal agreement, approached, the Boston Whigs added pressure on all merchants to renew. In the new year they singled out importers as “obstinate and inveterate Enemies of their Country.” The large public meetings became clear that the elite merchants who had first drawn up the agreement in August 1768 were no longer in charge.

In the spring of 1770, the North American colonies got word that Parliament was repealing the Townshend Act—mostly. The tariff on tea was to remain, and that alone brought in enough revenue to provide salaries for lots of Customs officers and other royal appointees in the colonies.

The merchants of the major ports started to discuss whether they should keep up non-importation, modify the terms, or go back to business as usual. Philadelphians met in April and May 1770 and decided to send a letter to Boston opening up the idea of change. Newport’s merchants went ahead and dropped the boycott in May. New York’s committee of inspection started polling the business community in June and suggested a “General Conference of the Merchants on the Continent” to come up with terms everyone could live with.

Boston’s merchants, or at least a group speaking for them, met on 7 June and declared that any change to non-importation would show “a levity of disposition probably injurious to the common cause.” They pressured the merchants of Portsmouth and Newport to renew their commitments to the boycott.

That campaign was undercut by a letter from London claiming that in the first six months of the year £150,000 worth of goods had been shipped to Boston. A writer in the 14 June Pennsylvania Gazette wrote, “the conduct of the Boston people was not as consistent as could be wished.” Nonetheless, the merchants of Newport rescinded their previous rescinding.

In New York, the merchants’ committee circulated a survey or ballot with one question:

Do you approve of a general importation of goods from Great Britain, except tea and other articles which are or may be subject to a duty on importation, or do you approve of our non-importation agreement continuing in the manner it now is?

Reportedly, most respondents wanted change. The committee sent that news to Philadelphia and Boston, asking for the response of the committees there. Meanwhile, New York’s Sons of Liberty protested any idea of change, but they weren’t in charge as in Boston. Communities around New York also supported continuing non-importation.

On 9 July, the New York committee took these responses in mind and organized a vote, ward by ward. The result was a victory for relaxing the boycott. Immediately the city’s merchants sent orders for everything but tea off on the London packet ship, the Earl of Halifax. Then they sent letters to the other ports, breaking the news. As far as the second-largest port in British North America was concerned, general non-importation was over.

TOMORROW: Boston’s reaction.

Preparing for the Political Season to Reopen

Back in May 1768, the Massachusetts General Court added seven Whig House members involved in the Circular Letter dispute to the Council, which functioned as the legislature’s upper house and an advisory board for the governor.

Gov. Francis Bernard had vetoed six of those seven men.

In May 1769, a new legislature convened and elected those six men to the Council again. On 1 June, Gov. Bernard vetoed them again. He also vetoed five more names, including:

• James Bowdoin of Boston, who had become the leader of the opposition on the Council.
• William Brattle of Cambridge, a militia commander who back in 1765 had led the Boston crowd in a march against the Stamp Act.
• Walter Spooner of Dartmouth, also involved in the Circular Letter argument.

A couple of weeks later, Gov. Bernard moved the whole legislature out to Cambridge. Meeting in Harvard Hall (a building the governor himself had designed, shown above) instead of Boston’s Town House produced even more controversy. The House petitioned the Crown to remove Bernard from office. The legislative session ended in July. Bernard left Massachusetts forever in August.

On 15 Mar 1770, acting governor Thomas Hutchinson called the Massachusetts General Court back into session, once again in Cambridge. He said that he didn’t feel he had the authority to change the venue. There was a lot more arguing about that, as well as about Bernard’s and other officials’ letters to London, the recent Boston Massacre, and more.

Towns held elections for new General Court representatives in May. I discussed the Boston election here. The legislature was due to reconvene on 30 May, once again in Cambridge, and one of the first tasks would be to elect a new Council. The 28 May Boston Gazette shows the Whigs maneuvering to resume the arguments from the previous years.

One Councilor whom Bernard had removed in 1768 and 1769 was James Otis, Sr., but he would be back in the legislature nonetheless:

The Town of Barnstable have made Choice of the Hon. JAMES OTIS, Esq; to represent the Great and General Court the Year ensuing.——It is observable the good old Patriot had 92 Votes out of 101.

Edes and Gill also reported a complaint from the legislature’s unwitting host:

We hear that the Honorable Corporation of Harvard College, from a Regard to the Rights of the People and the good of that Seminary, have lately presented a Remonstrance to his Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, on the General Court’s being summoned to meet at that Seat of Learning, and have also entered a Protest on their Records to present this illegal Measure from being drawn into a Precedent.

The other big political development chronicled in that issue of the Boston Gazette was that Parliament had repealed most of the Townshend duties while keeping the most lucrative one, the tax on tea. What did that mean for the North American non-importation protest against all those tariffs? Merchants in Newport were reportedly shipping in goods already. Committees in Philadelphia and New York were asking what Boston would do.

On 23 May the Whigs had convened another public meeting of “the Trade” in Faneuil Hall, which “VOTED almost unanimously” to “still strictly adhere to the Non-importation Agreement.” The Boston Gazette assured “our Brethren of the other Colonies” that Boston wouldn’t be the first to reopen for regular business.

TOMORROW: Election day in Boston.

“The Committee reserve all the printed Copies”

On Monday, 26 Mar 1770, 250 years ago today, the inhabitants of Boston once again gathered in Faneuil Hall for a town meeting. Technically, this was a continuation of the meeting they had adjourned the week before.

To discourage various sorts of bad behavior, the town elected twelve men, one from each ward, to the office of “Tything Men.” In his dictionary Samuel Johnson defined a tithingman as “A petty police office; an under-constable.”

The town already had a warden and a constable from each ward, enforcing the Sabbath, delivering writs, and otherwise policing public morals. But in this month they apparently needed help.

Notably, colonial Boston never elected tithingmen again. The town had done without them since 1727. Yet the town felt they were important in 1770—perhaps as a belated response to the presence of soldiers, perhaps because with the Massacre people felt a renewed need for the town to look proper.

The committee on how “to strengthen the Non Importation Agreement; discountenance the Consumption of Tea and for employing the Poor by encouraging Home Manufactures” reported that three new ships would be built in town. Those vessels would of course provide for more employment, but how they affected tea and imports is unclear. Nonetheless, that committee’s report “passed in the affermative by a unanimous Vote.”

Later, another committee reported that 212 sellers of tea had signed an agreement “not to sell any more Teas, till the late Revenue Acts are repealed,” and others were willing to agree “if its general.” Bostonians had no way of knowing that over in London the Parliament was already moving to repeal the Townshend duties—except the one that produced the most revenue, the tax on tea.

At this meeting James Bowdoin, Dr. Joseph Warren, and Samuel Pemberton reported that their analysis of “the execrable Massacre perpetrated on the Evening of the 5” was ready for printing. The town responded with an important vote:

whereas the publishing said Narrative with the Depositions accompanying it in this County, may be supposed by the unhappy Persons now in custody for tryal as tending to give an undue Byass to the minds of the Jury who are to try the same—

therefore Voted, that the Committee reserve all the printed Copies in their Hands excepting those to be sent to Great Britain ’till the further orders of the Town

Voted, that the Town Clerk [William Cooper] be directed not to give out Copies or deliver any of the Original Papers respecting the late horred Massacre; till the special order of the Town, or the direction of the Selectmen

The town would send copies of the report to advocates in London and sympathetic British politicians. As this letter shows, William Molineux sent a copy to Robert Treat Paine so he could prepare to prosecute the case. But the town meeting officially kept those books under wraps in America.

On this same date, Josiah Quincy, Jr., told his father why he had agreed to defend Capt. Thomas Preston in court:

I at first declined being engaged; that after the best advice, and most mature deliberation had determined my judgment, I waited on Captain Preston, and told him I would afford him my assistance; but, prior to this, in presence of two of his friends, I made the most explicit declaration to him, of my real opinion, on the contests (as I expressed it to him) of the times, and that my heart and hand were indissolubly attached to the cause of my country; and finally, that I refused all engagement, until advised and urged to undertake it, by an Adams, a Hancock, a Molineux, a Cushing, a Henshaw, a Pemberton, a Warren, a Cooper, and a Phillips.

Two of the three Short Narrative authors had urged Quincy to represent Preston, along with several of the town’s other leading politicians. Molineux, who had worked to build the case against Customs officer Edward Manwaring as being one of the shooters, nonetheless told Quincy to speak for the defense.

To make the town look good, to make any pardons seem unjust, and simply to be fair, the Boston Whigs wanted Capt. Preston, his soldiers, Manwaring, and even Ebenezer Richardson to have fair trials in Massachusetts courts.

And then to be hanged.

“A youth, son to Captain John Gore”

The older boy wounded by Ebenezer Richardson’s shot on 22 Feb 1770 was nineteen-year-old Samuel Gore.

He appears here in his early-1750s portrait by John Singleton Copley, a detail from a painting now at Winterthur. Of course, this when Sammy was still a toddler and Copley was still developing his technique.

In contrast to Christopher Seider, a servant born to poor German immigrant parents, Sammy Gore came from an old New England Puritan family that was rising swiftly in society. The portrait of the kids was one sign of that social ambition, even if the young artist might have done it for practice or in barter for paints.

Sammy’s father John Gore had started as a decorative painter. Specializing in heraldic designs, he developed an upper-class clientele and began to move into that class himself—as a paint merchant, a militia officer, and eventually an Overseer of the Poor, one of the most respected town offices. By 1770 he was considered a gentleman.

Capt. John Gore’s oldest child, Frances, married Thomas Crafts, Jr., another decorative painter. (I suspect he was one of Gore’s early apprentices, but I can’t confirm that.) Crafts became an active member of the “Loyall Nine” who organized the first anti-Stamp Act protests and looked after Liberty Tree. He, too, was rising through militia service and town offices.

Capt. Gore’s first son, also named John, became a dry goods merchant. He married the niece of the Rev. Henry Caner, minister of King’s Chapel. Both John, Jr., and Samuel had tried schooling at the South Latin School, which would have prepared them for Harvard, but decided to drop out for more practical education. Their little brother Christopher (Kit), however, was sailing through the Latin School curriculum.

In August 1769, Capt. Gore, his son John, and his son-in-law Crafts all dined with the Sons of Liberty at Lemuel Robinson’s tavern in Dorchester, as described here. At the time John, Jr., advertised that he was sticking to the non-importation agreement in the cloth he sold from his shop.

Of course, it was hard for a paint merchant to take that stance and stay in business—the Townshend Act put a tariff on painter’s colors. Sammy, training under his father in decorative painting, had a close-up look at that situation. In late January 1770, the Boston Chronicle published Customs house documents revealing that Capt. Gore had paid duties on “4 barrels Painters colours” that had arrived on the Abigail and more goods that had later come on the Thomas.

That revelation might have motivated the family to demonstrate their commitment to non-importation. In the third week of February, the Gores—more probably, Frances Gore and her daughters and perhaps daughters-in-law—hosted a spinning bee at their house on Queen Street. This was a social occasion, but it also showed the women’s support for local manufacturing.

Most spinning bees took place in rural towns, usually in ministers’ houses, with the host accepting the gift of the spun yarn to benefit the poor. Of ten spinning bees that Laurel Thatcher Ulrich counted in and around Boston in 1766-70, the Gores’ was one of only two not in a minister’s home.

Early in its local news roundup, the 26 Feb 1770 Boston Gazette put a strong political spin on the Gores’ event:

One Day last Week a Number of Patriot Ladies met at the House of John Gore, Esq; of this Town, when their Industry at the Spinning Wheel was at least equal to any Instance recorded in our Paper.

It is principally owing to the indefatigable Pains of Mr. William Mollineux; and it will be said to his lasting Honor, that the laudable Practice of Spinning is almost universally in Vogue among the Female Children of this Town; whereby they are not only useful to the Community, but the poorer Sort are able in some Measure to assist their Parents in getting a Livelihood—

The Use of the Spinning-Wheel is now encouraged, and the pernicious Practice of Tea-drinking equally discountenanced, by all the Ladies of this Town, excepting those whose Husbands are Tories and Friends to the American Revenue-Acts; and a few Ladies who are Tories themselves.

By the time that item was published, Sammy Gore had made his own political statement about non-importation by showing up outside Ebenezer Richardson’s house on 22 February. We don’t know if he was among the boys who organized the demonstrations at Theophilus Lillie’s shop or if he threw garbage and rocks at Richardson’s house. But we do know Sammy Gore was close enough to the front of the crowd to be struck by pellets from Richardson’s gun.

The Boston Gazette stated, “A youth, son to Captain John Gore, was also wounded in one of his hands and in both his thighs.” The Boston Evening-Post reported:

Dr. [Joseph] Warren likewise cut two slugs out of young Mr. Gore’s thighs, but pronounced him in no danger of death, though in all probability he will lose the use of the right forefinger, by the wound received there, much important to a youth of his dexterity in drawing and painting.

As it turned out, Samuel Gore would enjoy a long and healthy career as a painter and manufacturer. In the 1830s a Boston barber recalled that he would show young people his scarred fingers and describe how he’d been wounded in the Revolution “with some relish.”

(For more about Samuel Gore’s Revolutionary activities and reminiscences, see The Road to Concord.)

TOMORROW: A grand funeral.

The Great 1770 Quiz Answers, Part 1

Thanks to everyone who puzzled over the Great 1770 Quiz, whether or not you entered answers in the comments!

It looks like the competition is down to John and Kathy since they answered both parts. If I try this again I hope to remember the bunch all the questions in one posting.

In this Age of Google, it’s increasingly easy to find information—as long as one knows how to ask and how to assess sources. That means it’s also increasingly difficult to come up with trivia questions that can’t be answered with a few keystrokes.

This week I’ll share the answers to the questions and point to sources where people could find those answers. So let’s go!

I. Lord North became prime minister of Britain in January 1770. On March 5, the date of the Boston Massacre, what motion did he make in Parliament?

The answer is that on 5 Mar 1770 Lord North stood up and proposed in the House of Commons that Parliament repeal the duties on glass, paper, lead, and painter’s colors instituted by the Townshend Act.

Simply Googling the phrases “Lord North,” “Parliament,” and “March 5, 1770” (each phrase within quote marks, of course) brings up that answer in this essay at History Is Fun.

But of course an online tertiary source should be confirmed, ideally with period references that would pass muster in scholarship. The Annual Register for 1770 describes North’s proposal and the debate next to the date “March 5.”

Notably, that account doesn’t use Lord North’s name. It simply refers to “the government,” which he headed. British printers in this period were still testing the water of reporting Parliamentary debate, so they often didn’t identify speakers by name.

A few years later, however, an anonymous author rewrote the Annual Register into A View of the History of Great-Britain, during the Administration of Lord North, and that book was explicit about Lord North’s action:

One of the first acts of the new minister, was the bringing in a bill [footnote: March 5, 1770] for the repeal of so much of a late act of parliament as related to the imposing of a duty on paper, painters colours, and glass, imported into America; the tax upon tea, which was laid on by the same act, was still continued.

This repeal was made in compliance with the prayer of a petition, presented by the American merchants to the house of Commons, setting forth the great losses they sustained, and the fatal effects produced by the late laws, which for the purpose of raising a revenue in the colonies, had imposed duties upon goods exported from Great-Britain thither.

Both books report that some Members of Parliament proposed repealing the tea tax as well. Again, the names of those politicians don’t appear. But in a 1908 biography Charles A. W. Pownall credited his ancestor, former Massachusetts governor Thomas Pownall, with forcing a vote on that issue. Pownall lost, and the tea tax remained.

All four people who responded to this question—kmjones234, Kathy, Justin C, and John—answered correctly!

II. According to the records of King’s Chapel, which of the following events did NOT occur in that church in early 1770?

• the funeral of Christopher Seider, killed by Ebenezer Richardson
• the funeral of Patrick Carr, killed in the Boston Massacre
• the baptism of Ebenezer Richardson, on trial for killing Christopher Seider
• the marriage of John Murray, representative to the Massachusetts General Court from Rutland

Last November I featured the Colonial Society of Massachusetts’s online publication of the records of King’s Chapel, which inspired this question. The second of those two volumes contains the records on baptisms, marriages, and funerals.

In those webpages we can find mentions of all four of the events listed above: John Murray’s wedding on 24 January, Christopher Seider’s funeral on 26 February (though his name is spelled “Sider”), Patrick Carr’s funeral on 17 March, and Ebenezer Richardson’s baptism on 14 April.

The funerals included processions through the streets, but some religious service evidently took place in King’s Chapel or else they wouldn’t be recorded here. However, the listing for Richardson’s baptism says it took place “In Prison” rather than in the church, so that’s the correct answer.

Richardson’s was an unusual “Adult” baptism in the Anglican church. The man’s birth in 1718 is listed in the records of Woburn’s meetinghouse, indicating that he’d been baptized as an infant there, but in April 1770 he apparently wanted more salvation. Since he was about to go on trial for killing a child and none of the lawyers in Boston wanted to represent him, Richardson evidently felt he could use all the help he could find.

This question may have been too tricky by half because no one got it entirely right, but John noted all four events are in the King’s Chapel records while Kathy discerned that Richardson was in jail.

TOMORROW: Weapons and the legislature.

“Why does not this Man make his Letters publick?”

Thomas Hutchinson wasn’t the first royal governor of Massachusetts to see his letters to officials in London published and pilloried back home. In fact, I think that precedent was a big part of the problem.

One of my big ideas about the American Revolution is that the Townshend Act of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773 wouldn’t have provoked such widespread opposition in North America if the Stamp Act of 1765 hadn’t gone further than either and set the terms for the debate.

The Stamp Act impinged on many aspects of daily life, from getting married to reading a newspaper to suing a neighbor for debt. It was designed to spread out the cost of enjoying the benefits of living in the British Empire. But that also meant a lot of British colonists suddenly felt that they were being taxed by a distant legislature.

The Townshend Act and Tea Act focused on particular commodities as they were shipped from Britain. Sure, most households used tea, glass, and paper, but only the importers were actually taxed. By 1767, however, the troubling idea that Parliament was imposing taxation without representation and that would lead to political slavery had been established in Americans’ minds.

Likewise, the trouble for Hutchinson started when William Bollan (d. 1776), once agent for the Massachusetts Council in London, sent home copies of the correspondence of Gov. Francis Bernard to Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State. The 8 Apr 1769 Boston town meeting, 250 years ago this month, laid out the implications of those documents:

It has been long apprehended that the publick transactions & general State of the Town as well as the Behavior of particular persons have been greatly misrepresented to his Majestys Ministers by some of the principal Servants of the Crown & others here. . . .

These Apprehensions are greatly strengthend by the unexpected favor of a Gentleman of Character in London who has been so kind as to procure & transmit to his Majestys Council of the province certain Letters from Governor Bernard to the Earl of Hillsborough together with one from General [Thomas] Gage to the same noble Lord.

In October 1769 Boston issued An Appeal to the World, largely written by Samuel Adams, analyzing those letters in detail. A footnote stated:

It is remarkable that Governor Bernard, not long before these Letters were made public, expressed to a certain Gentleman, his earnest Wish, that the People of this Province could have a Sight of all his Letters to the Ministry, being assured that they would thereby be fully convinced that he was a Friend to the Province—Indeed he made a Declaration to the same Purpose, in one of his public Speeches to the House of Representatives.

Upon the Arrival of the Letters however, he discovered, as some say, a certain Paleness, and complained of as an Hardship that his Letters, wrote in Confidence, should be expos'd to the View of the Public.—A striking Proof of the Baseness, as well as the Perfidy of his Heart!

It is, of course, very suspicious when an official claims to want to share documents with the public but then does everything in his power to keep them under wraps. Bernard’s letters turned out to be far from complimentary about the people and government of Massachusetts.

That 1769 leak led to Bernard’s departure, so the Massachusetts Whigs and their allies viewed that tactic as a success. On 18 Sept 1770 Stephen Sayre (1736-1818, shown above) made his case to be one of the Massachusetts house’s agents by writing to Adams:

My worthy friend, Mr. Richard Cary, advises me that he has reason to believe that you would not be displeased with such intelligence as I might sometimes give you relative to public affairs. . . . if you wish to know the most secret transactions of your enemies here, I shall be proud of the opportunity to inform you in every particular as soon as matters transpire.

Specifically, Sayre hinted of letters that Hutchinson “wrote before Bernard embarkd for England” which were “oppugnant to the Form of your Govt.”

Adams replied on 23 November and criticized how Hutchinson, newly promoted to governor, was curtailing the legislature:

Could it possibly be imagind that a man who is bone of our Bone, & flesh of our flesh—who boasts that his Ancestors were of the first Rank & figure in the Country, who has had all the Honors lavishly heapd upon him which his Fellow Citizens had it in their power to bestow, who with all the Arts of personal Address professes the strongest Attachmt. to his native Country & the most tender feeling for its Rights. 

In 1773 John Adams criticized Hutchinson in the same terms, as I quoted back here: “Bone of our Bone, born and educated among us!”

Samuel Adams’s 1770 letter to Sayre asked of Gov. Hutchinson, “Why does not this Man make his Letters publick?” Hutchinson was keeping secrets, Adams implied, only because he had a lot to hide. Massachusetts colonists were already primed to hear another story of a royal governor claiming he’d been advocating for the province only to be exposed as denigrating it.

“The Indiscretion of a very few Persons of the lowest Class”

The burning of effigies in New York City on 14 Nov 1768 prompted a strong response from the royal governor of that colony, Sir Henry Moore.

It came in the form of a message to the colony’s legislature one week later, delivered by a deputy secretary named (wait for it) Goldsbrow Banyer:

Some Intimations having been given to the Mayor and Magistrates of this City, in the Course of the Week before last, of a Design to disturb the public Peace, by a Riot; the Zeal shew’d by them on this Occasion, together with the laudable Declaration of the Inhabitants, of their Willingness to assist and support them, in maintaining the Tranquility of the City, gave me Hopes, that nothing of so illegal and dangerous a Tendency, would be attempted: A few ill-disposed Persons have, nevertheless, eluded the Vigilance of the Magistrates, and ventured to execute their Purpose, by exciting a Riot last Monday Evening.

As these turbulent Proceedings, at a Juncture so peculiarly critical, may occasion Imputations injurious to the Colony, I have requested the Magistrates to exert themselves for the Discovery of the Rioters, and with the unanimous Advice of his Majesty’s Council, issued a Proclamation, offering a Reward of Fifty Pounds, to be paid upon the Conviction of the Contrivers, and chief Promoters of this Outrage. And as I have no Doubt of your Readiness to prevent the Mischiefs of a Measure, daring and insolent in itself, previously disavow’d by the Inhabitants, and seemingly calculated to insult the several Branches of the Legislature now sitting; I flatter myself, you will concur with me, in the necessary Steps to prevent the Colony from suffering any Detriment, and by making a proper Provision, enable me to fulfil the Engagements I have entered into for this Service.

In other words, Moore had promised a reward of £50 and was now asking the assembly for £50.

The Massachusetts General Court would have laughed at such a request. But the New York legislature was dominated by large landowners who had worked well with Gov. Moore. The next morning the assembly voted to grant the £50 and respond to the governor’s address with one of its own.

To head the committee writing that address, the assembly chose rookie lawmaker Philip Schuyler (shown above). He returned with the document, and on 23 November the legislators voted on it. The Livingstons and their many allies supported it, so of course their rivals the DeLanceys and three supporters voted against it. Probably the DeLanceys opposed the Whiggish protest that Schuyler’s committee slipped into what otherwise reads like slavish assent:

We his Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the General Assembly of the Colony of New-York, having taken your Excellency’s Message of Yesterday, in our most serious Consideration, beg Leave to assure your Excellency, that, tho’ we feel in common with the Rest of the Colonies, the Distresses occasioned by the new Duties imposed by the Parliament of Great-Britain, and the ill-policed State of the American Commerce; yet, we are far from conceiving, that violent and tumultuous Proceedings will have any Tendency to promote suitable Redress. . . .

It is with Pleasure that we can assure your Excellency, that these disorderly Proceedings, are, as appears to us, disapproved by the Inhabitants in general; and are imputable only to the Indiscretion of a very few Persons of the lowest Class. . . .

Speaker Philip Livingston signed that address on behalf of the assembly. The following afternoon, Gov. Moore told the legislators that “your readiness to support the dignity and authority of government, cannot fail of being attended with the most favorable consequences to the colony, and render abortive any future attempt to disturb the public tranquility.” So everyone was in agreement.

The assembly went back to their chamber, made itself a committee of the whole (so they didn’t have to keep such detailed records), and discussed “proper and constitutional resolves, asserting the rights of his Majesty’s subjects within this colony, which they conceive have been greatly abridged and infringed, by several acts passed by the last parliament of Great Britain.” In sum, most New Yorkers were just as opposed to the Townshend Acts as the Massachusetts Whigs. They just didn’t like riots. Especially riots about some local issue in Boston.

TOMORROW: The reaction back in Boston.