EDITORIAL APPARATUS

    Editorial policy has aimed to preserve the integrity of manuscripts by printing them in full (except where noted) and depicting their content as accurately as possible with limited editorial intervention.

    Whenever possible, autograph out-letters and in-letters have been used as authoritative texts—the actual manuscripts upon which the transcripts are based. When the receiver’s copy (RC) or its duplicate were not extant, contemporary copies were substituted from the preserved record in the receiver’s or author’s letterbook (RLbC and LbC). In the absence of a letterbook, the transcript was based on a copy of an original made by a third party; printed versions were used in the last resort—contemporary imprints (PC) taking precedence over modern imprints and transcriptions.

    Bernard’s letters to the secretaries of state were his primary means of communication with the British government. He wrote regularly to the secretary of state for the Southern Department, whose portfolio included the American Colonies, and also, from 1768, to the newly-created secretary for the American Colonies. Bernard usually wrote out his own letters to the secretaries of state in a fine, easy to read script. FB commenced numbering his out-letters at the beginning of 1767 (although No. 522 is labeled “No. 0”). He started the sequence at No. 1 each year. His letters to Shelburne reached No. 29 in 1767 and No. 9 in early 1768 and began afresh with the first letter to Shelburne’s successor Hillsborough. The letters to Hillsborough ended at No. 37 in 1768 and No. 13 in 1769. In-letters from the secretary of state were numbered in sequence regardless of the year, reaching No. 11 before Shelburne left office and No. 27 by the time FB returned to England in 1769.

    Ministers probably read every one of Bernard’s holographs before passing the letters to their clerks so copies could be made and the originals filed. Letters to the earl of Halifax, Henry Seymour Conway, and the earl of Shelburne are in CO 5/755-CO 5/757; letters to the earl of Hillsborough, the first American secretary, are in CO 5/758. The secretaries’ clerks were not required to keep a minute-book (as was the case with clerks attached the Board of Trade and the Board of Admiralty); nor did they did maintain correspondence entrybooks (either a ledger or letterbook); however, correspondence that the secretary of state referred to other departments (that is, the Treasury, the Privy Council, the Admiralty, the War Office, and the Board of Trade) can usually be traced in the administrative record of these departments.

    The filing system for original incoming letters was thorough, by the standards of the day. The secretary of state’s clerks routinely endorsed in-letters on the back leaf of the letter when folded (usually its last verso page) thus providing a convenient docket for filing. A date of receipt was written at the top, sometimes with one or two lines summarizing the letter’s subject matter; a filing reference was added at the bottom. For example, Bernard’s letter to the earl of Hillsborough of 26 Dec. 1768 (ALS, RC) is endorsed “Governor Bernard (No. 37) R 24th: Feby 1769. B.9.” The first figure, “No. 37”, indicates that this letter was the thirty-seventh that Bernard had sent to Hillsborough in 1768. “R” prefaces the date of receipt and “B.9.” is the bundle of correspondence in which the letter was filed. The numbering of letters was established by the earl of Shelburne in 1766, but the docketing procedure was operational before then. Bernard’s letters were later re-bound but the original ordering of materials in the collections was preserved, more or less. The letter to Hillsborough is now contained in a bound volume of papers, CO 5/758, with a modern folio reference, ff 38-39.

    In the aftermath of the Stamp Act Crisis, colonial governors were required to communicate directly with the secretary of state in all matters. Bernard continued to send copies to the Board of Trade, but with one important difference: the addressee was the secretary of state, not the Board. For example, the Board’s file copy of Bernard’s letter to Hillsborough of 26 Dec. 1768 is in CO 5/893, ff 92-94; it is a letter handwritten by a clerk and signed by the governor (dupLS, RC). I have catalogued it not as a distinct item of correspondence but as a variant of the original letter in CO 5/758. This particular manuscript was laid before a meeting of the Board of Trade on 6 Dec. 1769 (JBT, 13: 35) and subsequently endorsed by a clerk in the Plantation Office: “Boston Decr. 26. 1768 Govr Bernard (No 37) Dup Reced Read Decr: 6. 1769. N.n. 28.”

    Several people were involved in the composition of the original letters and papers authored by Bernard. Bernard himself wrote out the majority of his out-letters: not only the originals going to the secretary of state and to the Board of Trade, but also the duplicates and the triplicates of these letters that were conveyed separately. He also made letterbook copies of much of this material. Yet he was also heavily reliant on clerks to make letterbook copies of routine correspondence and prepare copies of out-letters for dispatch. In the period covered by the first volume of The Bernard Papers, Bernard employed three secretaries, whose identities are unknown and who are labeled simply as clerk no. 1, clerk no. 2, and clerk no. 3; some seven different scribes were detected between 1760 and 1763. In the period covered by the second volume of The Bernard Papers, 1764 to 1765, thirteen different people (including several unknown clerks) contributed to Bernard’s letter-books, although the governor wrote about half the entries himself. In the period covered by this third volume, 1766 to 1767, the governor’s letterbooks were maintained by six different scribes. But the hired clerks (including the mysterious clerk No. 1, who had been with Bernard since 1758) scribed just 6 per cent of entries. Bernard may have dispensed with his clerks, perhaps thinking them a security risk after suspecting his enemies of trying to open his correspondence (although there is no hard evidence about this). In any case, Bernard undertook much of the letterbook copying himself (some 48 percent of entries) or entrusted it to his sons. His second son, John Bernard (26 Jan. 1745-25 Aug. 1809) scribed 39 per cent. The third son, Thomas Bernard (27 Apr. 1750-1 Jul. 1818), produced about 6 per cent of the entries and did not start clerking for his father on a regular basis until the summer of 1767, shortly after graduating from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Thereafter, Thomas was the governor’s personal assistant and amanuensis, roles which he continued to fulfill when he returned to England with his father in Aug. 1769, leaving John, his other siblings, and his mother behind in Boston.

    In transcribing manuscripts for The Bernard Papers, the authoritative texts were systematically compared with the extant variants composed by the clerks. Substantive differences in content were rare. Contemporary emendations to letterbook copies (LbC) were usually incorporated in the fair versions dispatched and received (RC). Major differences between the variant texts are discussed in the endnotes and source notes, and an editorial comment clarifies scribal involvement. Near-contemporaneous transcripts and modern versions are listed only when cited or discussed.58

    Transcripts are presented in chronological order, according to the first given date. Non-epistolary enclosures follow the covering letter, while letters that were themselves enclosures have been placed in sequence by date. With letters bearing the same date, out-letters take precedence over in-letters (unless the out-letter is a reply to the in-letter); thereafter, out-letters are sorted by the likely order of composition (for which Bernard’s letterbooks provide a rough guide); date of receipt has been used to sort in-letters; the remainder have been sorted alphabetically by correspondent. Transcripts have been allocated numbers in a sequence than runs across the series of published volumes, in this volume beginning with No. 426.

    Editorial practice is to show the whole text plus any substantive emendations made by the author—the person(s) on whose authority a document was prepared or under whose signature it was sent—and by any clerk who drafted or copied the document. (Noncontemporaneous annotations on manuscripts have been excluded). Obvious slips of the pen have been ignored. When the source note reports “minor emendations not shown,” the editor is referring to corrections of oversights and grammatical errors made by the scribe or author of the manuscript that have no bearing on the meaning of the text or the author’s perceived intention. Generally, original emendations, including scribal corrections, are reconstituted when this might help to illuminate authorial intention or when the additions suggest ambiguity or invite alternative interpretations: the representations follow the editorial apparatus set out in Table 1.

    Grammar and spelling were transcribed with limited modernization. Orthographical idiosyncrasies have been retained, save for the kind of transparent mistakes mentioned above. Abbreviations, contractions, and terminal punctuation (and its absence) follow the manuscript, as does capitalization (when the writer’s intention can be determined) and the underlining of dates. Emphasis is rendered in italics. Superscripts have been preserved but with all accompanying punctuation lowered to the line. Accidentally conjoined words have been separated. Eighteenth-century spelling, such as “highth” for “height,” is readily understood; however, instances confusing to the reader are clarified by an interpolation or an endnote. Original forms have been reproduced, such as the ampersand (&) and the thorn (“y” for “th”), but not the long “s.” Confusing punctuation in numbers has been silently corrected, with period separators being replaced by commas (thus “20.000” becomes “20,000”). Where symbols are used in the original to indicate pounds sterling, they are lowered to the line, and silently corrected to “£ s. d.” Clarification on currency and monetary values is provided in endnotes.

    The layout of the transcripts has preserved some common features of manuscripts and standardized others. The location and punctuation of salutations and datelines have been preserved, but placed in one line; the addressee’s name is at the end of the closure (where it usually is) and above the postscript regardless of its location in the manuscript. Original lineation has not been retained but paragraphing sequencing has. Epigraphs, foreign language phrases, and postscripts have been formatted. Closures have been centered, except those running-on from the last sentence of a letter. Tabulated information is presented in a form as close to the original as possible. Quotation marks placed at the beginning of every line of quoted material have been silently relocated to the beginning and end; block quotations have been indented. Flourishes have been omitted, as have brackets in dockets and closures. All transcripts have been given a caption; original titles have been transcribed and placed with the main body of text except entrybook titles, which are given in the notes.

    The source note at the end of each transcript provides information about the provenance and location of the authoritative text. Table 2 is a list of descriptive acronyms used to indicate the typology of authoritative texts. The acronyms representing manuscript collections and archives are explained in the List of Abbreviations, above. (Pagination, folio, and volume descriptors have been provided only when required in following the citation style recommended by the repository). Where possible, the source note provides some clarification as to the processes of composition and preservation, noting among other things differences in handwriting styles, the extent of authorial emendation, and the location of variant texts. Endorsements added by the recipient confirming receipt and dockets added by the sender have been transcribed in accordance with editorial method. These are not enclosed in quotation marks but are easily recognizable since they are prefixed with “endorsed” or “docket” and offset from the editor’s comments. When Bernard marked a letter with “r” he meant “received” and with “a” “answered.” Extant enclosures are briefly described, and should be assumed to be manuscript copies (usually third-party copies) unless otherwise indicated. Relevant historical and administrative information is provided at the end of the source note. Guidance is given as to where to find any replies and rejoinders. The order of discussion varies, according to the requirements of each transcript.

    Endnotes to source notes follow in sequence those for the transcript. Endnotes aim to clarify obscurities in the transcript and direct the reader to additional material. Cross-references to transcripts published in this volume are indicated by bold numerals, thus, No. 426. Citations of manuscripts not printed in this volume direct the reader to the authoritative version; in many cases there is only one extant manuscript; source text typology is included where it may help the reader. “Not found” is used to signal the absence of a manuscript.

    Appendix 5 is a list of Bernard’s extant correspondence for the period covered by this volume. This list is an interim calendar. The information has been checked as fully and thoroughly as all the other material printed in this volume; it is possible, however, that some typological classifications may change, if further handwriting analysis can identify the clerks who scribed the copies. Any such revisions will be reported in the Calendar volume.

    Acts of the English, Irish, Scottish, and British parliaments are cited according to regnal year, with dates where appropriate, and with modernized titles; the index provides both the dates and a short-title. Provincial legislation is not normally calendared by regnal year but by date, although Bernard’s contemporaries used regnal codes when referring to historic acts.

    Biographical information is provided at the first mention of a person in the correspondence; rare sources are cited but standard reference works are not.59 Online directories and newspaper collections proved to be particularly useful.60 Francis Bernard is referred to throughout as “FB” and Thomas Hutchinson as “TH”.

    I have tried to record information and transcribe manuscripts as accurately as possible, but it is inevitable that there will be errors in a project of this scale. I am grateful to everyone who has helped me to correct them, and I take full responsibility for those that remain.

    TABLE 1 EDITORIAL SYMBOLS

    Additions (insertions, interlineations, and substitutions) are marked with carets “^”at the intended location. When it is necessary to distinguish different hands or differentiate between insertions and substitutions the following will be used: ↑roman↓.

    • Bold type or heavily-inked letters are set in bold.
    • Canceled text is shown in strikethrough font.
    • Confusing passages are described “thus in manuscript” in an endnote.
    • Conjectured readings for illegible material that can be inferred from the source text are in [roman text within square brackets]; there is a question mark before the closing bracket if there is considerable doubt as to the accuracy of the reading, [roman?].
    • Editorial interpolations have been italicized and placed in square brackets, [editor’s comment].
    • Ellipses signify material that is either illegible or missing. The number of suspension points corresponds to the number of missing letters or numbers, e.g. [. . .] for three letters missing. Missing words are rendered thus, [_ _ _].
    • Emphasis is conveyed by italics and double underlining by small capitals.
    • Lacunae are represented by [blank].
    • Passages marked for deletion are indicated by <angled brackets>.
    • Underlining in authorial tables, numbers, dates, and punctuation has been retained.

    TABLE 2 SOURCE TEXT TYPOLOGY

    The first set of acronyms in table 2 describes the nature of the authoritative text on which the transcript is based. The second set categorizes documents by their administrative history and preservation.

    ADft

    Author’s Draft Manuscript.

    AL

    Autograph Letter (text in the hand of the author, but unsigned).

    ALS

    Autograph Letter Signed (text and signature in the hand of the author).

    AMs

    Autograph Manuscript (text in the hand of the author but unsigned).

    AMsS

    Autograph Manuscript Signed (text and signature in the hand of author).

    Dft

    Draft

    dup/trip

    duplicate/triplicate

    extract

    An extract of a source text.

    L

    Letter (text not in the hand of the author and unsigned).

    LS

    Letter Signed (text not in the hand of the author but signed by the author).

    Ms

    Manuscript.

    MsS

    Manuscript Signed.

    précis

    A summary.

    noted

    A documentary record of the existence of a nonextant source text.

    Prt

    Contemporary Printed version of manuscript.

    AC

    Author’s Copy (loose file or bound copies usually found in a personal collection).

    Copy

    Third Party Copy.

    LbC

    Author’s Letterbook or Entrybook

    PC

    Published Copy.

    RbC

    Recordbook Copy.

    RC

    Receiver’s Copy.

    RLbC

    Receiver’s Letterbook Copy.
     

    ENDNOTES

    1 For biographical details and a fuller political history, see Colin Nicolson, The ‘Infamas Govener’: Francis Bernard and the Origins of the American Revolution (Boston, 2001).

    2 No. 192, Bernard Papers, 2: 328.

    3 Born on 26 Jul. 1752, Shute Bernard died on 5 Apr. 1768 after “a short Illness of four days.” Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser, 11 Apr. 1768. The year of death was given wrongly as 1767 in Nicolson, The ‘Infamas Govener’, 151.

    4 Sophie Elizabeth Napier Higgins, The Bernards of Abington and Nether Winchendon: A Family History, 4 vols. (London, 1903), 2: 240-244.

    5 John Osborne to TH, Boston, 1 Jan. 1767, Mass. Archs., 25: 137, in Hutchinson Transcripts, 1: 125-126.

    6 Bernard Papers, 2: 60, 69, 210-211.

    7 Ibid., 2: 59, 69.

    8 John Temple (1731-98) had been surveyor-general of Customs for the Northern District since 1761 before his appointment to the American Board of Customs Commissioners in 1767. Temple was an able, if hot-headed administrator, but his appointment likely owed much to his family’s connections to the English aristocracy. That year he also married a daughter of Boston merchant James Bowdoin, and four years later was removed from the Customs Board following several altercations with the other commissioners.

    9 Bernard Papers, 2: 216, 486, 502-504, 488.

    10 No. 329, Bernard Papers, 2: 212-213.

    11 Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) had been in England between 1757 and 1762, representing the Pennsylvania legislature, and returned to London in 1764, remaining there until 1775. Richard Jackson (1721/2-87) was a barrister and MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis between 1762 and 1768; trusted by Franklin, Jackson was also FB’s personal business agent and served as province agent for Connecticut (1760–70), Pennsylvania (1763–69), and Massachusetts (1765–66). Thomas Pownall (1722-1805), the older brother of John Pownall, had been governor of Massachusetts, 1757-60. Thereafter, he was commissary of the British forces stationed in the German states; in 1765 he married a rich widow and two years later entered Parliament as MP for Tregony, Cornwall. His popular treatise on colonial affairs, The Administration of the Colonies, first published in 1764, elicited FB’s interest, the pair having known each other for several years. He was widely credited with knowledge of colonial affairs and, living in London, was regularly consulted by Franklin, Jackson, and Britons and Americans alike. Bernard Papers, 2: 481n1, n3.

    12 Thomas Hutchinson (1711-80), lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, 1760-69; chief justice, 1760-69; acting governor, Aug. 1769-Jan. 1771; and the last civilian governor, 1771-74. FB’s account of the riot of 26 Aug. 1765 is in No. 384, Bernard Papers, 2: 337-345.

    13 Nicolson, The ‘Infamas Govener’, 109-138.

    14 George Montague-Dunk (1716-71), the second earl of Halifax, was Grenville’s secretary of state at the Northern Department, 14 Oct. 1762-Aug. 1763, and at the Southern Department, Aug. 1763-Jul. 1765. He returned to the Northern Department on 22 Jan. 1771 in the administration of Lord North. For the letters on the riots that FB sent to Halifax see Nos. 384 and 388, Bernard Papers, 2: 337-345, 351-354, and the source note to No. 368 on pp. 305-306.

    15 George Grenville (1712-70) had not been a popular prime minister with King George III, and his resignation on 10 Jul. 1765 predated the surge in opposition to the Stamp Act in the American Colonies. He spent his remaining political years on the opposition benches of the House of Commons. He spoke forcefully and memorably (if not always sensibly) on American affairs: notably on 17 Dec. 1765, when he compared American resistance to the Jacobite Rebellion, and on 7 Feb. 1766, when he asserted the Stamp Act should be enforced (even if that meant military conflict). J. V. Beckett and Peter D. G. Thomas, “Grenville, George (1712–1770),” ODNB-e (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11489, accessed 18 May 2012).

    16 Charles Watson-Wentworth (1730-82), the second marquess of Rockingham, had no experience of high office when he accepted the king’s invitation to form a ministry, on 10 Jul. 1765. Having spent several years in opposition, with the duke of Newcastle and William Pitt, Rockingham was anxious to bring Pitt into the new ministry in a leadership role. He relented when persuasion failed to move Pitt, and embraced office with the full support of Newcastle and his other political friends. Rockingham’s time as first lord of the Treasury proved difficult, however, not least because of the Stamp Act Crisis. Pitt’s presence would have strengthened the administration, and bolstered the government’s parliamentary majorities in the face of strong criticism of its handling of American affairs. Opposition came principally from three factions: the supporters of George Grenville, the former prime minister; the friends of John Russell (1710–71), the fourth duke of Bedford; and the king’s friends, an amalgam of court appointees and officeholders, whose royal patron, George III, soon lost confidence in his new prime minister. On leaving office on 30 Jul. 1766, Rockingham led a professedly loyal and principled Whig opposition to the administrations of William Pitt (as the earl of Chatham) and the duke of Grafton, forsaking the lure of court patronage, yet the marquess was not above co-operating with his erstwhile foes, the Grenvillites and the Bedfordites. S. M. Farrell, “Wentworth, Charles Watson-, second marquess of Rockingham (1730-1782),” ODNB-e (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28878, accessed 16 May 2005); Paul Langford, The First Rockingham Administration, 1765-1766 (Oxford, 1973).

    17 Henry Seymour Conway (1721-95) was a professional soldier and field marshal, with a parallel political career. He had been an MP since 1741 and on several occasions evinced a liberal political temperament: notably, he voted against the government on the use of general search warrants during the first Wilkes controversy of 1763 (for which the king dismissed him from his regimental command); rumors of a homoerotic relationship with political writer and MP, Horace Walpole (1717-97) probably originated with Grenville’s supporters. Conway was a reluctant recruit to Rockingham’s cabinet, as secretary of state for the Southern Department, though his credentials appealed to the American colonists: he had voted against the introduction of the Stamp Act and was an early advocate of its repeal. Historians once assumed that Conway’s military background left him predisposed to using regulars to enforce imperial law; he certainly reminded FB and the colonial governors that they had such an option, but neither he nor the cabinet seriously considered a military solution. No. 405, Bernard Papers, 2: 385-387. Conway was probably less suited to his role as leader of the House of Commons, in which capacity he introduced the bills for repealing of the Stamp Act and bringing in the American Declaratory Act. Rockingham moved Conway to the secretariat of the Northern Department on 23 May, a position he continued to occupy in the Chatham administration until 20 Jan. 1768. Thereafter, Conway’s political career was in opposition, but in 1782 he was brought into the cabinet of the Rockingham–Shelburne ministry as commander-in-chief of British forces. Clive Towse, “Conway, Henry Seymour (1719–1795),” ODNB-e (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6122, accessed 18 May 2012).

    18 See John L. Bullion, “British Ministers and American Resistance to the Stamp Act, October-December, 1765,” WMQ 49 (1992): 89-107.

    19 John Pownall (1724/5-95) was secretary to the Board of Trade, 1745-68, and undersecretary of state at the American Department, Jun. 1768-Aug. 1772.

    20 No. 418, Bernard Papers, 2: 431.

    21 The best account of the Rockingham’s administration’s response to the Stamp Act Crisis remains Peter D. G. Thomas, British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution, 1763-1767 (Oxford, 1975), 133-184.

    22 See John Philip Reid, Constitutional History of the American Revolution: the Authority to Tax (Madison, Wis., 1987); idem, Constitutional History of the American Revolution: the Authority to Legislate (Madison, Wis., 1991).

    23 Jackson to TH, London, 3 Mar. 1766, Mass. Archs., 25: 64, in Hutchinson Transcripts, 1: 67; Conor Cruise O’Brien, Edmund Burke (London, 1997), 50-55; Paul Langford, et al., eds., The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, 9 vols. (Oxford, 1981), 2: 45-52.

    24 No. 405, Bernard Papers, 2: 386.

    25 James Otis Jr. (1725-83), representative for Boston, 1761-69 and 1771. In some of his letters, FB’s mention of “madness” alluded to the progressive mental illness that effectively ended Otis’s political career by the early 1770s.

    26 Isaac Barré (1726-1802) was a veteran of the French and Indian War and MP for Chipping Wycombe, 1761-74; he was author of the phrase “Sons of Liberty” adopted by colonial radicals, a prolific speaker in the House of Commons, and Shelburne’s mouthpiece and leader in that chamber.

    27 John Adams (1735-1826) of Braintree was one the province’s most able lawyers, first coming to prominence as counsel for the town of Boston during the Stamp Act Crisis. He only briefly held political office before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, gaining patriotic distinction primarily through his political writings and contributions at the Continental Congress in 1774 and 1775.

    28 Jonathan Sewall (1729-96) was appointed province attorney general in Nov. 1767.

    29 Jonathan Sewall and John Adams had been friends since 1758, and their relationship is central to understanding the newspaper debate in 1775 between Adams’s “Novanglus” (in the Boston Gazette, 23 Jan.-17 Apr. 1775) and “Massachusettensis” (Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser, 12 Dec. 1774-3 Apr. 1775), which pseudonym Adams supposed Sewall had adopted. While Daniel Leonard [1740-1829] was the actual author, Sewall probably advised Leonard and may have written some of the letters.

    30 Samuel Adams (1722-1803) was a representative for Boston between 1765 and 1774, and a leading Patriot whose political career continued beyond the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

    31 John Mein had arrived from Scotland in 1764 and opened a stationery and printing business. His Boston Chronicle, 1767-70, lampooned leading Whigs and during the nonimportation crisis printed damaging revelations about Whig merchants breaking the boycott of British imports.

    32 William Wildman Barrington (1717-93), second Viscount Barrington and Amelia Bernard’s cousin, was MP for Plymouth and had a long career as a government minister; he was secretary at war between 1755 and 1761 and 1765 and 1778.

    33 William Pitt (1708-78), the first earl of Chatham, had been leader of the Whig coalition with the duke of Newcastle between 1757 and 1761 that led Britain to victory on the Seven Years’ War. But his second time as prime minister, 1766-1768, blighted by illness, proved an unhappy experience.

    34 For example, “Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman in London to His Friend in America, Dated Jan, 30. 1766,” Massachusetts Gazette, 8 May 1766. The extract gave Pitt’s famous line that “this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies,” taken from The Celebrated Speech of a Celebrated Commoner ([London], 1766). The exact words of Pitt’s influential speech(es) of 14 Jan. 1766 are unknown, but a recent examination by Neil Longley York makes the convincing suggestions that Pitt (a) clearly declared that Parliament had no authority to tax the Americans (since taxes were a gift), and (b) made a distinction between “internal” taxes (on transactions) and “external” taxes (on articles of trade). Both propositions were subsequently adopted by the American Whigs in protesting the Townshend Duties. Neil Longley York, “When Words Fail: William Pitt, Benjamin Franklin and the Imperial Crisis of 1766,” Parliamentary History 28 (2009): 341-374, esp. 343-345.

    35 Andrew Oliver (1706-74) was province secretary from 1756 to 1770, and had been a councilor since 1746 before his non-election in 1766. Peter Oliver (1713-91) was a Superior Court justice, 1756-72, and a councilor, 1759-66. Edmund Trowbridge (1709-93) was attorney general, 1749-67, and a councilor, 1764-66.

    36 Timothy Ruggles (1711-95) was a country lawyer and farmer and a brigadier-general of provincial forces during the French and Indian War. He represented Hardwick, Worcester Co., for sixteen legislative years bar one until 1770; he was also Speaker of the House in 1762-63.

    37 William Petty (1737-1805), second earl of Shelburne, was president of the Board of Trade for five months in 1763 and secretary of state at the Southern Department, 30 Jul. 1766-21 Oct. 1768. He relinquished responsibility for colonial affairs on 21 Jan. 1768, when they were taken over by the new American Department under the earl of Hillsborough.

    38 No. 385, Bernard Papers, 2: 346.

    39 No. 397, ibid., 369

    40 Farrell, “Wentworth, Charles Watson-, second marquess of Rockingham.”

    41 See note 34.

    42 John Cannon, “Petty, William, second earl of Shelburne and first marquess of Lansdowne (1737–1805),” ODNB-e (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22070, accessed 2 Mar. 2012). Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne, Afterwards First Marquis of Lansdowne, With Extracts From His Papers and Correspondence, 2 vols. (London, 1912).

    43 The office of secretary at war was first established in 1660, but secretaries at war were rarely admitted to the cabinet. They were primarily concerned with the administration of the armed forces, although Barrington made numerous contributions to policymaking during his lengthy stay in office, for which see Tony Hayter, An Eighteenth Century Secretary at War: The Papers of William, Viscount Barrington ([London)], 1988). The office of secretary at war was abolished in the armed forces reforms of 1855. The previous year saw the re-establishment the office of secretary of war with a single portfolio, having been paired with responsibility for the British colonies since 1801. Since the creation of the latter office in 1794, secretaries of war were cabinet ministers whose principal concerns were strategy, foreign policy, and the operations of the armed forces; the post was discontinued in 1964. PRO: War Office and Predecessors, 1660-1938, WO 25; War Office: Secretary-at-War, Out-letters, WO 4.

    44 See Bernard Papers, 2: 40n1.

    45 John Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 1766-1768 (London, 1956), 20-67, quotation at 12.

    46 Charles Townshend (1725-67). See Peter D. G. Thomas, “Townshend, Charles (1725–1767)”, ODNB-e (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27619, accessed 16 Jun. 2012).

    47 The best accounts of the introduction of the Townshend Duties are Peter D. G. Thomas, The Townshend Duties Crisis: The Second Phase of the American Revolution, 1767-1773 (Oxford, 1987), 36-50, quotation at 30-31.; Brooke, Chatham Administration, 90-95, 132-135.

    48 John Husk(e) (1724-73) was born at Portsmouth, N.H., where his father (a man of humble origins) was chief justice of the province. Husk made his name in British politics as Charles Townshend’s secretary and political manager. He was elected MP for Maldon in 1763 and 1768, but his career ended in disgrace after he was accused of stealing up to £40,000 from Townshend, and he fled to Paris in 1769 where he died. He was never popular in Boston, where his intervention in American affairs during the Stamp Act Crisis was probably misunderstood. Jonathan Spain, “Huske, John (1692?–1761),” ODNB-e (http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14262, accessed 30 May 2012); Bernard Papers, 2: 402n13.

    49 Charles Townshend Papers, box 8/25, MiU-C; Extracts from Parliamentary Papers on the Stamp Act, 1764-1765, RH4/99 (ibid., box 37/22).

    50 Extract of FB to Conway, 19 Jul. 1766. The annotation on the docket is a comment upon FB’s request for “special instructions how to conduct myself” in the matter of persuading the Massachusetts assembly to pass a compensation act. Charles Townshend Papers, box 8/25/36.

    51 Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 147.

    52 Cannon, “Petty,” ODNB-e.

    53 Neil Longley York, Henry Hulton and the American Revolution: An Outsider’s Inside View (Boston, 2010), 47; Henry Hulton, A List of the Officers of the Customs in North America distinguishing such as are absent, [London], 28 Jan. 1766, House of Lords Library. A list published in the Boston Evening Post, 9 Apr. 1770, multiplied actual salaries and fees by a factor of ten.

    54 Benjamin Edes (1732-1803) and John Gill (1732-1785) were co-proprietors of the Boston Gazette.

    55 Cannon, “Petty,” ODNB-e.

    56 Chatham’s letter to the king of 14 Oct. 1768 requesting leave to resign followed correspondence with the duke of Grafton announcing his intention to resign as Lord Privy Seal. The king tried vainly to persuade Chatham to remain, rightly fearing that his departure would precipitate further resignations and further threaten the stability of the government of which Grafton had been de facto leader since Chatham’s incapacity. While the government led by Grafton after Chatham’s resignation offered continuity, it was a distinct administration in its own right. Sir John Fortescue, ed., The Correspondence of King George III From 1760 to December 1783, 6 vols. (London, 1927), 2: 57-58. Brooke, Chatham Administration, 382-383.

    57 Wills Hill (1718-93), the first earl of Hillsborough in the Irish peerage and baron Harwich in the British peerage (and later marquess of Downshire) was the first secretary of state for the American Colonies, 21 Jan. 1768-15 Aug. 1772.

    58 George Chalmers, “Papers relating to New England, 1643-1786,” Sparks MS 10, MH-H; John Almon, A Collection of Interesting, Authentic Papers, relative to the Dispute between Great Britain and America; shewing the causes and progress of that misunderstanding, from 1764 to 1775 (London, 1777); Barrington-Bernard.

    59 Standard biographical directories include: Mark Mayo Boatner, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (New York, 1966); Joseph Foster, ed., Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886, 4 vols. (Oxford and London, 1888); Edward. A. Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts: Their Memorials, Petitions and Claims (London, 1930); David E. Maas, ed. and comp., Divided Hearts: Massachusetts Loyalists, 1765-1790: A Biographical Directory (Boston, 1980); Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, eds., The House of Commons, 1754-1790, 3 vols. (London, 1964); John A. Schutz, ed., Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court (Boston, 1997) (hereafter LMGC); Search & ReSearch Publishing Corp, Early Vital Records of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to About 1850 (Wheat Ridge, Conn., 2002); John L. Sibley, Clifford K. Shipton, Conrad Edick Wright, Edward W. Hanson, eds. Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University [title varies], 18 vols. to date (Cambridge, Mass., 1873-); James H. Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution (Boston, 1910); Nancy S. Voye, Massachusetts Officers in the French and Indian Wars, 1748-1763 (microfiche, Boston, 1975).

    60 American National Biography Online (New York, 2005-, at http://www.anb.org); Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (Toronto, 2003-, http://www.biographi.ca); Newsbank Inc. America’s Historical Newspapers. Archive of Americana. Early American Newspapers Series 1, 1690-1876 (2008-, available via subscription at GenealogyBank.com, http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/newspapers/); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online (London, 2004-2006, http://www.oxforddnb.com) (hereafter ODNB-e). The British Army Lists, published annually since 1740, are not online, but Worthington C. Ford, British Officers Serving in America, 1754-1774 (Boston, 1894) is available at the Internet Archive.com. Also useful is J. C. Sainty, et al., eds., Officeholders in Modern Britain, 1660-1870, 11 vols. (London, 1972-2006), available at British History Online (via http://www.british-history.ac.uk/catalogue). Contemporary almanacs and court-registers are accessible through Eighteenth Century Collections Online, published by Gale Cengage Learning (http://find.galegroup.com/ecco/). For example, The Court and City Kalendar: or, Gentleman’s Register, for the year 1766 . . . (London, 1765)