“They understood he was not the person intended”

One of the minor but telling disagreements between Josiah Quincy, Jr., and the government ministers he met in London in November 1774 involved the new lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Oliver.

After meeting with Quincy, the secretary of state, Lord Dartmouth, described their conversation to former governor Thomas Hutchinson.

Among other things Quincy warned that the people of Massachusetts were strongly opposed to the new Council, appointed by writs of mandamus from London rather than elected. Specifically, he said:

the new Counsellors were in general persons the most exceptionable to the Province, of any which could have been pitched upon, and only one whom the people were satisfied with, which was the Lt. Governor, and he by chance, for they understood he was not the person intended, but that the name of the Ch. Justice was mistaken.

That new appointee, Thomas Oliver, was only in his forties and had not been active in politics before. Massachusetts Whigs suspected that the government in London really meant to name Chief Justice Peter Oliver to succeed his late brother, Andrew Oliver (shown above). Or at least that bureaucrats believed Thomas Oliver was a member of the same family.

I thought the same thing, and said so, in presentations about the “Powder Alarm,” in which Thomas Oliver played a central role. There just didn’t seem to be any other explanation for how the man attracted any attention in London.

But then John W. Tyler, who’s busy editing the Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, alerted me to a 29 Mar 1774 letter, to be published in an upcoming volume. In that dispatch to Lord Dartmouth, Gov. Hutchinson discussed candidates to replace Andrew Oliver. William Browne of Salem preferred a seat on the bench. Hutchinson’s next choice was Customs Commissioner William Burch. The provincial secretary, Thomas Flucker, might be persuaded to exchange his hard job for an easier one with a slightly smaller compensation.

And then:

There is a gentleman of the same name with the late Lieut. Governor but of another family Thomas Oliver Esq. of Cambridge, now Judge of the Provincial Court of Admiralty which he must quit in case of his appointment. He has a handsome Estate, is a very sensible man & very generally esteemed. He is Cousin German to Mr. [Richard] Oliver the Alderman and City Member [of Parliament]. I know not how the Alderman stands affected to Government but this Gentleman has been steady in his opposition to all the late measures and I think the Administration in case of the absence of the Governor may be safely trusted with him.

Thus, when the secretary of state appointed Thomas Oliver to be Massachusetts’s new lieutenant governor, he had heard about the man and knew he wasn’t part of the same family.

How did Lord Dartmouth respond to Josiah Quincy suggesting the new lieutenant governor was nothing but a big mistake? According to Hutchinson, “Ld. D. interrupted him here and said it was strange the people of N.E. should suppose the Ministry so inattentive as not to ascertain the names of the persons they appointed.”

Quincy doesn’t seem to have recognized that that was a polite aristocratic way of telling him he was talking through his hat.

As with so many of these conversations, Quincy’s outlook was so far away from how the ministers saw things, and all the men were so certain about their beliefs, that they were speaking past each other.

TOMORROW: A failure of communication.

Evacuation Day Lecture Now Online

I’ve put “The End of Tory Row,” my Evacuation Day talk for Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters, online at YouTube.

Because this was an online talk, I loaded my PowerPoint up with more graphics. I hope those survive my clicking while speaking, the Zoom recording, and finally the compression for YouTube.

One thing I said in the talk is that no one could figure out why the Crown chose Thomas Oliver to be Massachusetts’s new lieutenant governor in 1774. At forty years old, he was hardly a senior figure among supporters of the royal government, and he hadn’t been active in politics. The best explanation seemed to be, I said, that bureaucrats in London got him mixed up somehow with the family of his predecessor, Andrew Oliver.

After the talk, John W. Tyler, currently editing The Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, sent me the text of Gov. Hutchinson’s letter to the Earl of Dartmouth on 29 Mar 1774. That document shows that I wronged Thomas Oliver—at least one person in Massachusetts thought he could be a capable lieutenant governor.

This letter shows that after Andrew Oliver’s death Hutchinson sent four names of possible stand-ins to the Secretary of State’s office. The governor wanted someone who could back him up, not knowing that he would soon be superseded by Gen. Thomas Gage.

The four names Hutchinson proposed were:

• William Browne of Salem. As of 29 March, he asked to be considered for a seat on the Massachusetts Superior Court instead, and was indeed appointed to that bench just in time for the courts to be shut down.
• William Burch, a Customs Commissioner born in England and based in Massachusetts since 1767—Hutchinson’s top choice.
• Thomas Flucker, the provincial secretary.
• Thomas Oliver.

About the last, Hutchinson wrote:

There is a gentleman of the same name with the late Lieut. Governor but of another family Thomas Oliver Esq. of Cambridge, now Judge of the Provincial Court of Admiralty which he must quit in case of his appointment. He has a handsome Estate, is a very sensible man & very generally esteemed. He is Cousin German to Mr. [Richard] Oliver the Alderman and City Member. I know not how the Alderman stands affected to Government but this Gentleman has been steady in his opposition to all the late measures and I think the Administration in case of the absence of the Governor may be safely trusted with him.

Lord Dartmouth’s office thus had a little information about Thomas Oliver and knew that he wasn’t from the same family as Andrew and Peter Oliver. His distant cousin Richard Oliver was about to speak out against the Boston Port Bill in Parliament, but the government didn’t hold that against Thomas.

Hutchinson was anxious to have a lieutenant governor in place because if he died, became ill, or left the province without one, the power of acting governor would fall to the Council, led by its senior member, and the Council was more and more ranged against him. Again, Hutchinson didn’t know that in August that elected Council would be replaced with one appointed from London.

Thus, I was mistaken in saying no one in Massachusetts considered Thomas Oliver to be lieutenant governor material. He was at the bottom of Hutchinson’s short list, but he was on the list.

“The affair of breaking Mr. Hulton’s Windows at Brookline”

Yesterday we left Henry Hulton under attack in his home in Brookline.

Hulton, one of the five Commissioners of Customs for North America appointed in London, had been woken on the night of 19 June 1770 by a man claiming to have a letter for him. He wrote later that he “slipt on my breeches and waistcoat,” grabbed his sword, and went to a window.

After a brief exchange, Hulton slammed down the window on the man’s hand. Then that man and others stationed all around the house beat in the first-floor windows with clubs.

Hulton wrote:

The family immediately rose in the greatest consternation, and Mrs. H opening the Window shutter in her room had a large stone thrown at her which happily missed her. Imagining the people would break into the house, and seek to murther me I ran to the Servants’ room at the head of the back Stairs with my sword in my hand, leaving two Servant Men at the bottom.

The commissioner’s servants included both white and black people, the latter almost certainly enslaved. And those were his ground-floor defense against the mob. Also in the household were Hulton’s wife Elizabeth; their two children, Thomas and Henry, Jr., both under the age of three; and his sister Ann.

Ann Hulton wrote the next month:

I could imagine nothing less than that the House was beating down, after many violent blows on the Walls and windows, most hideous Shouting, dreadful imprecations, and threats ensued. Struck with terror and astonishment, what to do I knew not, but got on some Clothes, and went to Mrs. H.’s room, where I found the Family collected, a Stone thrown in at her window narrowly missed her head. When the Ruffians were retreating with loud huzzas and one cryd he will fire—no says another, he darn’t fire, we will come again says a third—Mr. and Mrs H. left their House immediately and have not lodged a night since in it.

Her brother recalled the men outside “swearing, ‘dead or alive, we will have him.’” Eventually, though, that crowd left, and Henry and Elizabeth Hulton “retired to a Neighbour’s house till daylight, and passed the following day at Mr. John Apthorp’s at little Cambridge,” now Brighton. (That house may have survived into the early 1900s as one of the houses on the John Duncklee estate.)

Ann wrote:

The next day we were looking up all the Pockit Pistols in the house, some of which were put by, that nobody could find ’em and ignorant of any being charged, Kitty was very near shooting her Mistress, inadvertently lets it off. The bullets missed her within an inch and fixed in a Chest of Drawers.

A fellow Customs Commissioner, William Burch, learned of the attack and moved with his wife to Castle William (shown above). After hearing about that, Henry “came home the following morning, and carried the Children and part of the family from Brooklyn to the Castle,” arriving on 21 June. They squeezed into the quarters reserved for the governor with the other commissioners, lower Customs officers, and their relatives and servants.

Back in Brookline, locals discussed who had carried out the attack. Ann Hulton reported:

And for the honour of the Township we lived in, I must say, the principal People, have of their own accord taken up the affair very warmly, exerting their endeavors to find out the Authors, or perpetrators of the Villainy.

They have produced above twenty witnesses, Men in the Neighborhood who were out a Fishing that night, that prove they met upon the Road from Boston towards my Brother’s House, Parties of Men that appeared disguised, their faces blacked, with white Night caps and white Stockens on, one of ’em with Ruffles on and all, with great clubs in their hands. They did not know any of ’em, but one Fisherman spoke to ’em, to be satisfied whether they were Negroes or no, and found by their Speech they were not, and they answered him very insolently. Another person who mett them declares, that one of ’em asked him the way to Mr. H’s house, and another of ’em said he knew the way very well.

After all, you may judge how much any further discovery is likely to be made, or justice to be obtained in this Country, when I tell you that the persons who were thus active to bring the dark deed to light, were immediately stop’d and silenced, being given to understand (as I’m well informed) that if they made any further stir about the matter, they might expect to be treated in the same manner as Mr H. was. However, so much is proved as to clear Mr H. from the charge of doing himself the mischief, one would think.

On 21 June, acting governor Thomas Hutchinson issued a proclamation describing the assault on the Hultons’ house and offering a £50 reward for identifying the perpetrators. The 25 June Boston Post-Boy and 28 June Boston News-Letter printed that proclamation in full. The 25 June Boston Evening-Post reported on it. The Boston Gazette ran one sentence saying that Hulton’s windows had been “broke by Persons unknown” with no mention of the reward.

On 4 October, the News-Letter said, a sea captain returned from London with word that news of the violence on 19 June—the carting of Patrick McMaster and the mobbing of the Hulton house—“Causes great Uneasiness among our Friends at Home.” With the Boston Massacre trials coming up, the Massachusetts Whigs were under pressure to prove that their society was law-abiding. At the time, the Hultons were still living at the Castle for their own safety.

“Copies of which are lately come over here”

On 20 Jan 1769, William Bollan, the Massachusetts Council’s agent—i.e., lobbyist—in London, sent urgent copies of seven letters to the senior member of the Council, Samuel Danforth.

Six of those letters were from Gov. Francis Bernard (shown here), the seventh from Gen. Thomas Gage. They described the period late in 1768 after British army regiments had arrived in Boston and local authorities were stubbornly refusing to help house them. The legislature had Edes and Gill print those letters for public consumption in April.

As Massachusetts Whigs saw it, that leak revealed how Bernard had held them up to the ministry as disloyal troublemakers even as he was promising that he spoke up for their interests. None of the Whigs were really shocked; back in May 1768 a Boston Gazette writer had said that Bernard “writes double Letters, pro and con, to be used as Occasion serves.” Nevertheless, the Whigs acted like this was a huge betrayal.

The governor's stretched credibility was torn to bits. He was already wishing for an easier, more lucrative post than Massachusetts, so he asked to be recalled to Britain for consultations. Bernard sailed away at the start of August.

Meanwhile, on 21 and 23 June, Bollan sent more documents from London. This batch included earlier letters from Gov. Bernard and dispatches from the Commissioners of Customs about all the opposition they faced in Boston, including the Liberty riot of July 1768. There were even a few anonymous letters describing Boston town meetings. Those arrived in mid-August.

That leak was what prompted James Otis, Jr., to seek out some of the Customs Commissioners. When Otis finally sat down with Commissioner John Robinson over a private “dish of coffee” on Saturday, 2 September, he explained he was responding to “the Board’s memorials to the Treasury, copies of which are lately come over here.”

According to Robinson, Otis demanded to know if he or the other Commissioners had represented him “as a rebel and a traitor” in their reports. Robinson said he couldn’t recall mentioning Otis by name at all.

The men then went back and forth over protocol. After Otis said that Commissioner William Burch had just declined to answer any questions at all, Robinson chided him for approaching the officials separately. “Why did you not apply to us as a Board, as your business is altogether official?”

Otis answered: “We might have had some altercation, which might have been construed an insult upon you as a Board, which I was determined to avoid.” What sort of “altercation” he imagined is unclear. Otis then went on to criticize things Bernard had written about him years before.

“That is your own business,” Robinson recalled saying. “I have nothing to do with it,--you and I have always been in different Boxes,---and though we might disagree in politics it is no reason that we should think ill of one another as Men,-----and I never had a bad opinion of you and a Man.”

Otis insisted, “I annually take the oath of allegeance to my King, and am resolved to clear my character.”

“If you think that I have done you any injury,” Robinson said, "I am ready to give you the satisfaction you have a right to expect from a Gentleman.”

Otis asked about remarks by “The old fellow [Joseph] Harrison the Collector,” which Robinson declined to answer. Then Otis declared, “I have been used very ill, and I am determined to have justice.”

Robinson closed the conversation, as he recalled it, by repeating his promise “to give you the satisfaction you have a right to expect from a Gentleman.” That was the language of honor. Was it also the language of dueling?

COMING UP: James Otis in a mood.

“He wanted a free conversation with us”

After his fight with James Otis, Jr., became a big deal, Customs Commissioner John Robinson published his version of what had led up to it. That account was dated 7 Sept 1769 and appeared in Green and Russell’s Boston Post-Boy four days later.

According to Robinson, on Friday, 1 September, he arrived at the Board of Customs’s meeting room in Concert Hall about 10:30 A.M. and was told that Otis had come by that morning and asked to speak to him and a fellow Customs Commissioner, Henry Hulton. After Hulton came in, the two men sent “Green the Messenger”—probably Bartholomew Green—to find Otis.

About 11:00, Otis arrived at the door with Samuel Adams. The board’s secretary invited him in, but he declined. The two Commissioners went to the door, and Robinson said:

Your servant, Gentlemen; pray what is your business with us?----

Mr. Otis answered, that he wanted a free conversation with us:

I replied, It is necessary that we should first know upon what business, Will you not walk into a room Gentlemen?

He answered, that his business was of such a nature, that it could not be transacted in our own houses, and he could not mention it until he met us: and he proposed, that each of us should bring with him a friend, and he would bring a friend with him.

I then asked him, whether his business was official?

He answered, he did not understand what I meant by official:

I replied, does it relate to us as Commissioners?

He said, it is related to his character, he wanted a free conversation with us on that subject, and that he was to meet Mr. [William] Burch [another Customs Commissioner] at the coffee-house the next morning at seven o’clock.

I answered, that as I lived in the country, I did not know whether I could attend at that time, and Mr. Hulton [who lived in Brookline] said the same in respect to himself.

Mr. Otis then said any other time will do.

We answered, we would see him at a convenient opportunity, and then parted.

I share that all to show the genteel, even arch, tone of the interaction, and to suggest how frustrating it must have been to figure out what Otis was on about. It’s notable that he didn’t have a particular beef with Robinson—he was making the same approach to three of the five Commissioners. (Of the remaining two, John Temple was a political ally of the Whigs and Charles Paxton a longtime foe, so Otis probably didn’t see approaching them as worthwhile.)

The next morning, Robinson decided he’d go to the coffee house at the same time as Burch, but he arrived late, closer to 7:30, and found Burch coming out. He and Otis ended up alone in a back room sharing a “dish of coffee.” [Because you need some kind of caffeine for a breakfast meeting.]

Finally Otis got to his grievance. In Robinson’s recollection he said:

I am informed that I have been represented to government by your Board, as a rebel and a traitor, and I have two or three questions to put to you, that I think, as a gentleman, I have a right to an answer, or at least to ask. The first is, whether your Board as Commissioners, Gentlemen, or in any other manner, ever represented me in that light, in any of their memorials or letters to the Treasury.

There had been another leak from London, and Otis was taking things personally.

TOMORROW: The Customs Commissioners’ reports.

“The Devil and the Crown” at Faneuil Hall, Nov. 4

On Saturday, 4 November, Faneuil Hall will host a reenactment of the Boston town meeting I described yesterday, setting up a non-importation boycott against the Townshend duties.

Meanwhile, in the surrounding marketplace volunteers will reenact an outdoor public demonstration against the royal officials who came to Boston to collect those duties. That protest took place on 5 Nov 1767.

Boston 1775 readers will recognize the Fifth of November as when Boston youths enjoyed raucous processions, with giant effigies representing the British Empire’s Catholic enemies and the political scapegoats of the day.

By coincidence, on 5 Nov 1767 three new Customs Commissioners, including Henry Hulton, William Burch, and the already unpopular Charles Paxton, disembarked from London. Lord George Sackville, later Secretary of State Germain, described how that worked out:

They landed on the 5th of November, and the populace were then carrying in procession the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender, in order to commit them to the flames in honour of Protestantism. Mr. Paxton’s name being Charles, it was fixed in large letters upon the breast of the Devil, and these figures met the Commissioners at the water side and were carry’d before them without any insult through the streets, and whenever they stopped to salute an acquaintance, the figures halted and faced about till the salutation was over, and so accompany’d them to the [Lieutenant] Governor [Thomas] Hutchinson’s door…

The combined reenactment will be called “The Devil and the Crown.” Here’s the full schedule:

11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M.
Goods for Your Master, Taxes for Your King
Come try your luck as a young apprentice in this colonial marketplace game. Whether you buy, barter, or smuggle, the goal’s the same: bring all your goods back to your employer and get promoted! This drop in program is best for ages 6-10, Faneuil Hall, Education Space, basement.

1:00 to 4:30 P.M.
Talk of the Town
Meet reenactors portraying Bostonians of different social classes in Samuel Adams Park, directly in front of Faneuil Hall, and learn about why they are protesting the new laws.

2:30 and 4:00 P.M.
Revolutionary Town Meeting: Stand Up! Speak Out!
Join a lively meeting to debate Boston’s response to the hated Townshend Acts. Character cards are available. Free, 30 minutes, Faneuil Hall, Great Hall, second floor.

4:30 P.M.
Procession
Join a rowdy street protest and process around Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market to the Old State House.

5:30 to 6:30 P.M.
Museum Open House
Dive into Boston’s Revolutionary past and explore the galleries inside the Old State House. Admission is free to all.

The program will thus explore the formal politics of a town meeting and the informal politics of the street, the economy of transatlantic trade and the choices of local consumers, particularly women. (Recall how the list of goods that Bostonians were supposed to boycott included a lot of women’s garments and household items.)

This reenactment is being organized through Revolution 250, the coalition of local organizations commemorating the sestercentennials of events in Massachusetts leading up to the break with Britain. In this case, the sponsoring organizations are Boston National Historical Park, Minute Man National Historical Park, The Bostonian Society, and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

I started pushing for this event last year, saying that Revolution 250 shouldn’t miss the anniversary of a big political event involving giant puppets. But Jim Hollister of Minute Man Park really got the wagon rolling, along with such dedicated reenactors as Niels Hobbs, Matthew Mees, Ruth Hodges, and many others. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime anniversary!

“With a Writ of Assistance”

In a footnote for his contribution to The Era of the American Revolution (1939), Oliver M. Dickerson quoted the American Commissioners of Customs appointing an officer for the port of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1772. The original document was filed with the Treasury Office in London.

To All People to Whom These Presents Shall Come

We the Commissioners for managing and causing to be Levied His Majesty’s Customs and other Duties in America Do hereby Depute and Impower George Roupell Esqr. to be Collector of the Customs at Charles Town South Carolina and to do and perform all things to the said Service or Office or Employment belonging. In virtue whereof He hath power to enter into any Ship Bottom, Boat or other Vessel and also in the daytime with a Writ of Assistance granted by his Majesty’s Superior or Supreme Court of Justice and taking with him a Constable, Head-borough or other Public Officer next inhabiting, to enter into any House, Shop, Cellar, Warehouse or other place whatsoever not only within the said Port but within any other Port or place within our Jurisdiction there to make diligent Search and in case of resistance to break open any Door, Trunk, Chest, Case, Pack, Truss or any other Parcel or package whatsoever for any Goods, Wares, or Merchandizes, prohibited to be exported out of or imported into the said Port, or whereof the Customs or other Duties have not been duly paid: And the same to Seize to His Majesty’s use and to put and secure the same in the Warehouse in the Port next to the Place of Seizure.

In all which Premises He is to proceed in such manner as the law directs.

Hereby praying and requiring all and every His Majesty’s Officers and Ministers and all others whom it may concern, to be aiding and assisting to Him in all things as becometh.

Given under our hands and Seal at the Custom House, Boston this seventh day of April in the Twelfth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King George the Third and in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Two.

Signed, Wm. Burch Hen. Hulton Chas. Paxton

The writ of assistance was basically an open-ended search warrant, not tied to specific evidence or specific cases. And because of that generality, the Customs Commissioners actually had a hard time getting them issued by colonial courts outside of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Dickerson’s article is full of examples of how other colonies’ high courts managed not to issue such writs without coming right out and defying the Crown: they asked for more clarification, lost the paperwork, &c.

Tonight I’ll be discussing the history of this legal controversy as part of a panel at the Old State House in Boston on American search and seizure laws. No need for a special document to get in—this session is free and open to all.