1 TH History, 3:118–19; JHR, 43:231–34. For a valuable cautionary warning that arguments about colonial rights were constantly evolving and always conditioned by audience and circumstance, see Neil L. York, “Defining and Defending Colonial American Rights: William Bollan, Agent,” American Political Thought: A Journal of Ideas, Institutions, and Culture, 3 (Fall 2014): 215–19.

2 TH History, 3:126–27. For the case of the Berkshire rioters, see TH Correspondence, 1:51, 86, 464, 466n, 468, 475–78, 485, 490.

3 TH History, 3:121–23; JHR, 43:229.

4 TH History, 3:121; Nicolson, ‘Infamas Govener,’ pp. 105, 151.

5 Griffin, Townshend Moment, pp. 121–22, 127.

6 JHR, 44:217–33, 241–50.

7 JHR, 44:250–51.

8 JHR, 44:176–78, 188–90, 239–40.

9 Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:323–24.

10 Portrait of a Patriot, 5:611, 613, 617–25.

11 TH Correspondence, 1:488–89.

12 Archer, Enemy’s Country, pp. 82–90; TH History, 3:137–40.

13 Papers of Francis Bernard, 5:110, 154–58.

14 Papers of Francis Bernard, 4: Appendix 4.

15 Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:240–42, 362–76; TH History, 3:140–44.

16 Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:238–39, 253, 257–58.

17 Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, pp. 112–15.

18 Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:290–92; TH History, 3:146–47.

19 Archer, Enemy’s Country, pp. 99–103; TH History, 3:148–52.

20 TH History, 3:153–55.

21 All of the various articles were collected by Oliver M. Dickerson in Boston Under Military Rule, 1768–1769 (Boston, 1936).

22 TH History, 3:163–64.

23 Papers of Francis Bnerard, 5:173–79.

24 Papers of Francis Bernard, 5:9–12; TH History, 3:157–58, 160.

25 Papers of Francis Bernard, 5:20–22; Copies of Letters from Governor Bernard, &c. to the Earl of Hillsborough (Boston: 1769).

26 Papers of Francis Bernard, 5:22–26, 295–303.

27 Letters to the Right Honourable Earl of Hillsborough, from Governor Bernard, General Gage, and the honourable His Majesty’s Council for the Province of Massachusetts-Bay. With an appendix containing divers proceedings referred to in the said letters (Boston: 1769).

28 TH History, 3:168–73.

29 Letters to the Ministry from Governor Bernard, General Gage, and Commodore Hood. And also memorials to the Lords of the Treasury, from the Commissioners of the Customs: With sundry letters and papers annexed to the said memorials (Boston, Edes & Gill, 1769).

30 Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, pp. 121–38.

31 TH History, 3:186–87.

32 Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, pp. 129–30, 139.

1 Israel Williams (see BD) was a resident of Hatfield, Massachusetts.

2 The same act of the legislature that compensated TH for his losses granted a blanket amnesty to all participants in the Stamp Act riots. The act was disallowed by the king-in-council during the spring of 1767, as Williams hoped, but TH and the other sufferers had already been reimbursed for their losses.

3 Joseph Hawley (see BD), in response to TH’s conduct as chief justice in the case of the Berkshire rioters, denounced TH as a person of “unconstitutional principles” on the floor of the House, as TH recounted in more detail in a previous letter to Williams (TH Correspondence, 1: No. 228). Seth Warren was Hawley’s client in the affair of the Berkshire rioters.

4 Hawley was a distant kinsman of Williams. He had a reputation for erratic behavior. TH had previously expressed puzzlement and regret at Hawley’s changed opinion of him.

5 It is unclear which “vile piece” TH believed Hawley had a hand in, unless it was one of several pseudonymous responses to “Philanthrop.” Jonathan Sewall (see BD), the government party’s most skilled polemicist, began publishing letters in the Boston Evening-Post under the pseudonym “Philanthrop” in December 1766. The series, which ran through much of 1767, defended Governor Francis Bernard (see BD) and the government party, sparking a newspaper war with the opposition. Hawley became embroiled in a protracted exchange with “Philanthrop” during the summer of 1767. For Hawley’s letters, see Boston Evening-Post, 6 and 13 July 1767. For a detailed account of the first “Philanthrop” letters, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:310–12.

6 The previous fall the Massachusetts House of Representatives, in an unprecedented action, named Dennys DeBerdt (see BD) its exclusive agent. Before DeBerdt’s appointment, provincial agents needed the approval of both the Council and the governor to represent the province in any official capacity (JHR, 42:182). The House voted to dismiss Richard Jackson (see BD) as provincial agent on 4 December 1766, but the Council did not concur, and the disagreement lay unresolved at the time the legislature was prorogued. The General Court would take up the matter again in the new year.

7 Williams consulted TH about the potential profitability of potash in the spring of 1765 (TH Correspondence, 1: No. 96).

1 John Cushing was referring to the house on Garden Court Street in the North End of Boston, which TH’s grandfather built circa 1690 and turned over to TH’s father in 1703. TH had been riding the judicial circuit, one of his duties for the Massachusetts Superior Court.

2 Joseph Cushing (1711–1767) was a Harvard College graduate of 1731 and a schoolmaster in Scituate. He was appointed justice of the peace in 1762 (Harvard Graduates, 9:38–39).

3 Thomas Clap (see BD) was Cushing’s bitter enemy and a political client of Governor Francis Bernard.

4 Colonel Josiah Edson (1709–1781) was representative from Bridgewater. In 1769, he lost his seat for two years after voting to rescind the Circular Letter. He eventually succeeded Clap as colonel of the 2nd Regiment and judge of the Plymouth Court of Common Pleas in 1771. He was appointed to the mandamus council by General Thomas Gage and left Boston in 1776 with General Sir William Howe’s army (Harvard Graduates, 8:700–07).

5 Translated literally as “under the rose,” but the phrase is generally used in English to denote secrecy or confidentiality.

1 In the fall of 1766, the House of Representatives voted to compensate TH for his losses in the Stamp Act riots but at the same time granted a general amnesty to all participants in the riots.

2 Richard Jackson was almost certainly referring to former Massachusetts agent Jasper Mauduit and current agent for the Massachusetts House of Representatives Dennys DeBerdt. John Smith (1703–1768), a Boston merchant residing in London, was a friend of DeBerdt and an associate in various Dissenting charities (CSM Pubs., 13:309n).

3 Jackson was a religious dissenter. For more about the Dissenting Deputies, see TH Correspondence, 1: No. 3.

4 Mauduit’s brother Israel became a close correspondent of TH, beginning in April 1767.

5 The Massachusetts General Court granted Governor Francis Bernard Mount Desert Island in the district of Maine in 1762. In the fall of 1766, James Otis Jr. convinced the Massachusetts House of Representatives to oppose the confirmation of Bernard’s grant to the island, claiming that Bernard tricked the General Court into believing the island was smaller than it actually was. The matter of the Mount Desert Island grant remained under consideration by the Board of Trade and the privy council until March 1771, when Bernard finally received confirmation of his title (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:358; William E. Sawtelle, “Sir Francis Bernard and His Grant of Mount Desert,” CSM Pubs., 24:197–254).

6 Lord Clive’s military successes in Bengal prompted a parliamentary inquiry into the riches of the East India Company that concluded with an agreement to pay the Crown £400,000 annually, according to the East India Act of 1767. Rumors of a change in the government increased throughout the winter of 1766–1767, as the Earl of Chatham (see BD) spent less time in London on government affairs and more time at his country estate.

7 In May 1766, Bernard vetoed James Otis Jr. as Speaker of the House, as well as six others elected as councilors.

8 Bernard’s speech to the Massachusetts General Court on 3 June 1766 instructed the court to grant compensation to those who suffered during the Stamp Act riots, but many took issue with Bernard’s peremptory tone, including TH. For more on this speech, see TH Correspondence, 1: No. 192. For the speech itself, see Speeches, pp. 81–82.

9 TH Jr. was in London during the summer of 1766 seeking to further his father’s bid for compensation.

1 The Declaratory Act, enacted in March 1766, asserted the right of Parliament to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever.

2 In the summer of 1766, the New York Assembly voted to comply only partially with a request from General Thomas Gage for supplies for British soldiers stationed there, according to the Quartering Act (also known as the Mutiny Act or the Billeting Act) of 1765. Secretary of State Lord Shelburne instructed New York Governor Sir Henry Moore to insist the assembly provide all the requested items, but the assembly refused. Both the 12 January 1767 edition of the Boston Post-Boy and the 15 January edition of the Boston News-Letter carried copies of the messages exchanged by the assembly and Moore (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:301–03; TH History, 3:121–24).

3 Approximately three words are illegible in the MS.

4 The General Court’s session lasted from 28 January to 20 March. The court would not convene again until 27 May, after the annual elections.

5 “M” was most likely Dr. Thomas Moffatt (circa 1702–1787), a Rhode Island physician, whose house in Newport was sacked during the Stamp Act riots. He was eventually made collector of customs at New London, fled to Boston in 1775, and left with the British army in 1776, living out the rest of his life as a pensioner in England (Morgan and Morgan, Stamp Act Crisis, pp. 47–52, 145–48, 301).

1 Peter Oliver (see BD) had four sons, but he was most likely referring to his eldest, Daniel (1738–1768), who had served as a courier for the two men in the past (TH Correspondence, 1: No. 166).

2 Oliver’s wife was Mary (Clarke) Oliver (circa 1713–1775), daughter of William and Hannah (Appleton) Clarke and sister of tea consignee Richard Clarke (see BD).

3 Chambers Russell (see BD) was both a justice of the Superior Court and judge of the vice-admiralty court. He sailed for England in the fall of 1766 but died shortly after his arrival.

4 Attorney General Edmund Trowbridge succeeded to Russell’s place on the Superior Court in March 1767. Trowbridge was succeeded as attorney general by Boston lawyer Jeremiah Gridley, who was appointed to the office on 25 March 1767. When Gridley died the following September, Jonathan Sewall was appointed in his place.

5 On 1 December 1766 in the Boston Evening-Post, Sewall began to publish a series of letters under the pen name “Philanthrop” defending Governor Francis Bernard from attacks in the popular press. For more on the “Philanthrop” articles, see No. 237, above, and Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:310–12.

6 “Mrs. Watson” was Elizabeth Oliver (1735–1767), Oliver’s oldest child, who married George Watson in 1753. She was pregnant with her fifth child when this letter was written, and she subsequently died in childbirth on 19 February.

1 Early in his life, when TH first knew him, Edmund Trowbridge (see BD) adopted the name of his guardian and uncle Colonel Edmund Goffe; later, he resumed his birth name, although TH habitually referred to him as Goffe (CSM Pubs., 5:75).

2 Nathan Cushing (1742–1812) of Scituate was a Harvard graduate who was eventually appointed judge of the vice-admiralty court in 1776 and of the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1790. His father was Deacon Joseph Cushing (1711–1767), whose death John Cushing discussed in No. 238, above. Although Cushing was not immediately appointed a justice of the peace in his father’s place, he was appointed to the post two years later.

3 The abbreviation indicated Cushing’s nemesis Thomas Clap. For Clap’s efforts to secure patronage for his supporters, see No. 238, above.

4 Cushing’s longstanding enmity for Clap only increased when Clap was found guilty of forging a bill for compensation against the government. When Clap appealed the ruling, the case was dropped, but Clap’s already questionable reputation was further sullied. The representative in the General Court was Gideon Vinal (1709–1786), member from Scituate. Colonel Benjamin Lincoln Sr. (1699–1771) of Hingham served as a member of the Council from 1752 through 1769.

1 Governor Francis Bernard opened the session with a short appeal for harmony, but it prompted a lengthy and angry response from the House. Thus began a heated dispute about whether TH, who was no longer an elected member of the Council, had the right to be present, even though he could not participate in debate. See Bernard’s speech to the House, delivered on 28 January 1767 (JHR, 43:224) and the House’s reply, dated 31 January 1767 (JHR, 43:231–34). For Bernard’s full report to Lord Shelburne, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:322–28. For TH’s full account of this dispute, see TH History, 3:126–28.

2 “C” was probably an abbreviation for Cambridge, as TH was most likely referring to Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips (1685–1757), who served under both Jonathan Belcher (see BD) and William Shirley and was a resident of Cambridge. “Bash.” was an abbreviation for Bashaw, a variant of the Turkish title pasha, used figuratively in English to suggest a grandee or a haughty and imperious man (OED). The other uses of the abbreviation “C” in this letter referred to the Council, with the abbreviation “H” used for the House of Representatives.

3 In early December 1766, the House and Council voted to remove Richard Jackson from the Massachusetts agency. Bernard delayed acting on the House’s vote, prompting the House to send him a message on 20 February laying out the reasons for Jackson’s dismissal and inquiring as to its status. Bernard finally acquiesced on 20 March (JHR, 43:307–10, 420; Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:264–67).

4 “J” was probably an abbreviation for Justices. The House voted salaries for all civil officers a week after TH wrote this letter, on 11 February (JHR, 43:268–71). The abbreviation “g” probably stands for governor. Bernard did not adjourn the General Court until 20 March.

5 By “the New England Wilkes,” TH presumably meant James Otis Jr., since John Wilkes himself was then an outlaw in France.

1 “Ass.” was an abbreviation for the assembly, by which TH meant the House of Representatives. The House hired Dennys DeBerdt as its independent agent in November 1766. TH must have expressed concern to Richard Jackson about excerpts from his letters circulating in England, since Jackson’s response, No. 239, above, addressed the topic.

2 TH referred to the House’s response to Governor Francis Bernard’s speech to open the legislative session. The House’s “rude Answer,” as Bernard described it, was dated 31 January 1767 and is found at JHR, 43:231–34. One of the issues raised by the House was TH’s continued presence in Council meetings.

3 “Mr. J” is Jackson, whom the House dismissed as agent twice—once on 5 December 1766 and then again on 5 February 1767 after Bernard ignored the first dismissal (No. 243, above; JHR, 43:250). The “former agent” was presumably William Bollan himself (see BD), who was engaged in a long-running dispute with the House over his accounts. The “last agent” was Jasper Mauduit, whose brother Israel had performed many of the agent’s duties because of Jasper’s illness.

4 TH was probably making a general reference to the poor state of the Massachusetts economy in 1767, but perhaps he was also alluding to the persistent financial woes of Samuel Adams (see BD).

1 For the controversy between Governor Francis Bernard and the General Court over his 5 January speech, see No. 243, above.

2 For the “Philanthrop” articles in defense of Bernard, see No. 241, above.

3 Joshua Otis (1748–1822), son of Captain Joshua and Hannah (Barker) Otis, was sent down from Harvard College in 1765 for profanity. Roland Cushing (1744–1788) was Otis’s classmate at Harvard and the youngest son of John Cushing. Otis’s punishment was later converted to expulsion when he treated the matter with contempt (Harvard Graduates, 17:66).

4 A transport ship bound from Halifax to Quebec put into Boston in late November when bad weather closed the navigation of the St. Lawrence River. On board were elements of the Royal Artillery Train. They were quartered at Castle William until they left for England in May. Because the House had adjourned, Bernard, with the advice of the Council, provided fuel and candles for the troops. When the House reconvened, Bernard, instead of claiming customary usage as the grounds for his action, cited the Quartering Act of 1765. The House, led by James Otis Jr. and spurred on by the example of the New York Assembly, which refused to comply with the Quartering Act, denounced the action of the governor and Council as unwarrantable and unconstitutional (JHR, 43:230, 243; Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:270–72; TH History, 3:122–23).

1 TH appears to be loosely paraphrasing the House’s answer to Governor Francis Bernard’s speech of 31 January 1767, found at JHR, 43:231–34.

2 James Otis Jr., according to Bernard, vowed in 1760 when his father was not appointed a justice of the Superior Court that “he would set the whole Province in a flame, tho’ he perished in the attempt” (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:276).

1 Governor Francis Bernard wrote to Secretary to the Board of Trade John Pownall (see BD) on 18 February 1767. It was his habit to routinely send the proceedings of the General Court to the Board of Trade (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:477). So John Pownall would be a logical recipient of this letter, except for the fact that in No. 386, below, TH appears to be writing to Pownall for the first time.

2 The Massachusetts Charter of 1691 provided for a Council elected by the House, whereas in royal colonies councilors were appointed by the Crown upon the recommendation of the governor. This change finally found its way into law in the Massachusetts Government Act of 1774, one of the Coercive Acts enacted in response to the Boston Tea Party.

1 TH alluded to Governor Jonathan Belcher’s supposed dislike of his lieutenant governor, Spencer Phips. See also No. 243, above.

1 TH’s letter to Richard Jackson of 17 December 1766 was not found, but his letter to Lord Shelburne was TH Correspondence, 1: No. 232. In it, TH expressed the hope that his losses on behalf of the Crown would garner him favor in England in the future.

2 Throughout the winter of 1766–1767, the Earl of Chatham was away from London and uninvolved with governmental affairs, although still technically the head of the government. By March, the Duke of Grafton (see BD) would in effect become head of the government.

3 For Jackson’s dismissal from the Massachusetts agency, see No. 237, above.

4 Jackson’s letter to Governor Francis Bernard was not found.

5 The MS is blotted here.

6 Both Massachusetts and Nova Scotia granted titles to land in the Penobscot region after the expulsion of the French following the French and Indian War. For TH’s account to Jackson of Massachusetts’ claim to the region, see TH Correspondence, 1: No. 74. Governor Hugh Palliser of Newfoundland complained to Bernard of the violent behavior of Massachusetts whalers against the native Esquimaux (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:197). The House’s main concern seemed to be access to the fisheries off the coast. By his own account, House agent Dennys DeBerdt was diligent in pursuing reassurances on this score, as evidenced by his letter to “Boston Merchants,” dated 14 March 1767, in which he stated that he had spoken to both Lord Shelburne and Palliser on this topic. The letter is at CSM Procs., 13:451–52.

7 Jasper Mauduit’s accounts with the General Court from his time as agent still remained unsettled at this time.

8 According to TH’s account, the Piscataqua River was proposed as the eastern boundary of New Hampshire (TH Correspondence, 1: No. 74). Andrew Oliver (see BD), as secretary of the province, would properly receive such a communication.

1 This letter can only have been written between the installation of the gallery in the House of Representatives in January 1767, and Osborne’s death on 27 August 1768. On Friday, 27 February 1767, the House passed a resolution saying “whereas a certain anonymous Extract of a letter had been produced and read in the House” containing the words, “if your Assembly will allow themselves to be led by that absurd ignorant Firebrand, he may bring them into a worse scrape than they can imagine,” it condemned the letter and declared its author “an Enemy to the Province” (JHR, 43:341). A letter writer to the Boston Evening Post on 28 March 1768 (over a year later) identified the “Firebrand” as James Otis Jr., noting how angered he was when the extract was read and how vehemently he had spoken on behalf of condemning the letter.

2 It is not clear which of John Osborne’s four sons from his first marriage to Sarah Woodbury may have witnessed the proceedings in the House: Woodbury (1720-died before 1773), Jeremiah (1723-1768), Samuel (1730-died before 1773), or John (c.1730-1772).

3 In the Book of Esther, Haman, the grand vizier of King Ahasuerus, advised hanging Mordecai and all the Jews in the kingdom, but being outwitted by Queen Esther, herself a Jew, was hanged from the same gallows he built for Mordecai. Thus, Otis, who had anonymously abused others, was himself impugned through similar methods.

4 Osborne’s letter, signed a “Friend of the Province,” was published in the Fleets’ paper, the Boston Evening Post, on Monday, 9 March 1767, not Monday, 2 March as he intended. It calls upon “Paskalos,” a writer of several articles in the Boston Gazette during January (identified by Harbottle Dorr as Joseph Warren but thought by Osborne to be Otis), to provide a single fact justifying his abuse of Francis Bernard. The letter concluded with the words, “If you refuse me this reasonable request, then I and every other man must look upon you and esteem you as a Firebrand, an Incendiary, who would set your country in a blaze to satisfy your ambitious and wicked purposes by the horrid general conflagration.”

5 Jonathan Turner Jr. was not identified.

1 This reference to the poor treatment suffered by the recipient of this letter suggests that it was written to Richard Jackson, who was recently dismissed from the Massachusetts agency. For more on his dismissal, see No. 237, above.

2 TH long believed that a small group of self-interested persons drove the patriot opposition. He and other government party members expected from the British government a stern response to New York’s resistance to the Quartering Act and the increasingly open denials of the supremacy of Parliament made by the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

1 The Council responded to the House on 3 March with a message that said it would not rule on TH’s right to attend its meetings unless TH was determined to “insist upon his right” (JHR, 43:349, 379). See also Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:330.

2 The “gentleman” was not identified, but the only councilors who served for that length of time were Isaac Royall (15 years), Benjamin Lincoln (14 years), and John Erving (13 years). TH would be unlikely to describe Lincoln as “of very good estate” nor Erving, who had often sided with the Boston merchants in their quarrels with the Customs House, as “inoffensive.” Thus, TH probably meant Royall (1719–1781), a wealthy immigrant from the West Indies, a distiller, and a future Loyalist.

1 The General Court convened on 28 January and adjourned on 20 March 1767. During that time, the House quarreled with Governor Francis Bernard about TH’s role on the Council, the provisions of the Quartering Act of 1765, the Massachusetts agency, and Bernard’s putative role in sullying the reputation of Massachusetts fishermen working off the coast of Nova Scotia.

2 James Otis Jr. was the rival candidate for the position. The expansive claims of the Van Rensselaer family, supported by British regulars stationed in Albany, to land located in territory disputed by Massachusetts and New York led to outbreaks of violence along the border in 1766. Imperial authorities urged the establishment of a joint commission to settle the dispute. The Massachusetts House appointed TH as part of its delegation on 12 March 1767 (JHR, 43:379–80). For TH’s account, see TH History, 3:128. Colin Nicolson provides perhaps the fullest account of the Massachusetts side of these disputes in Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:183, 191–96, 200–203, 208–11, 218–19, 221, 259, 261, 306, 335–57, 377–78, 427. See also Sung Bok Kim, Landlord and Tenant in Colonial New York, 1664–1775 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), chap. 7.

3 Bostonians were awaiting the British government’s reaction to the New York Assembly’s refusal to comply fully with the Quartering Act of 1765.

1 The words “ambition and lust of power” were inserted as a reference to TH in the House’s response to Governor Francis Bernard’s speech in a motion brought by Joseph Hawley (See No. 246, above).

2 James Otis Jr. and others characterized TH’s simultaneous holding of many offices as an offense against the separation of powers. TH was lieutenant governor (part of the executive), a member of the Council (the upper house of the legislature), and the province’s chief justice.

1 For the tensions between the New York Assembly and the Crown, see No. 240, above.

2 Charles Pratt (1714–1794), 1st Earl Camden, was lord chancellor in the Earl of Chatham’s ministry. Camden opposed the Declaratory Act, stating that taxation must rest upon the consent of the people given by their representatives.

3 The Duke of Grafton was first lord of the treasury during the Chatham administration, and Lord Shelburne was secretary of state for the southern department. Robert Henley (1708–1772), 1st Earl of Northington, previously lord chancellor, was lord president of the privy council. The legislation under consideration included bills to punish the New York Assembly for its defiance of the Quartering Act of 1765, raise new revenue duties, reinvigorate customs enforcement, and establish a North American civil list that would render royal governors and judges independent of the colonial assemblies that had previously paid their salaries.

4 Pennsylvania, alone among all the colonies, found a way to comply with the Quartering Act without arousing too much local indignation (James H. Hutson, Pennsylvania Politics, 1740–1770 [Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1972], p. 216).

5 The Massachusetts House, once it learned of New York’s resistance to the Quartering Act, challenged the right of the governor and Council to provide supplies for the Royal Artillery Company stranded at Castle William. For the dispute over this matter between Governor Francis Bernard and the House of Representatives, see No. 246, above.

6 Chatham’s ministry contained several members, such as Lords Camden and Shelburne, who had advocated the repeal of the Stamp Act.

7 Former First Lord of the Treasury George Grenville (see BD), the architect of the Stamp Act, would have been the last person the colonists would choose to devise a new constitutional relationship between Parliament and the colonies.

8 The discussion of American affairs culminated in a five-hour debate on 10 April concerning the Massachusetts Indemnity Act, which compensated TH and other sufferers in the Stamp Act riots while granting a blanket amnesty to all the rioters. Several lords strongly condemned the legislation as an infringement on the royal prerogative to grant pardon. Despite the efforts of Shelburne, Grafton, and Camden to palliate such anger, the House of Lords urged the Massachusetts Indemnity Act be struck down, and the privy council consequently issued an order on 13 May voiding the law (Report on a Debate in the House of Lords, [11 April 1767], Franklin Papers, 14:108–09; Bowdoin-Temple Papers, MHS Colls., Sixth Series (1897), 9:81–83).

9 Shelburne in his first letter as secretary of state to Bernard wrote on 13 September 1766 expressing his approval of the governor’s conduct during the Stamp Act riots but urging both him and the General Court to put the Stamp Act riots behind them. Bernard shared the letter with members of the General Court when they convened on 29 October 1766, and the Boston Evening-Post printed the letter on 17 November. For the text of the letter, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:224–25.

10 William Murray (1705–1793), 1st Earl of Mansfield, was one of Britain’s most revered lord chief justices, serving from 1756 to 1788. He was perhaps best known for his ruling in the Somersett Case decreeing that slavery was unsupported by statute in England. He opposed demands for greater colonial autonomy and set limits on freedom of the press in rulings following the Wilkes Affair and the later controversy surrounding the Junius letters. In the debate, Mansfield argued that Bernard had no choice but to sign the Indemnity Act if he wanted to see TH and the other victims of the riots compensated.

11 For Parliament’s investigation into the finances of the East India Company, see No. 239, above.

12 Mansfield was one of the chief participants in the 10 April debate in the House of Lords on the Massachusetts Indemnity Act. Benjamin Franklin (see BD), who attended the debate, wrote about the “great Uneasiness” he felt at the level of “Resentment against the Colonies” expressed by the Lords and noted that the “Word Rebellion was frequently used” (Report on a Debate in the House of Lords, [11 April 1767], Franklin Papers, 14:108–09). Several speakers—including Mansfield—suggested that the Indemnity Act should be disallowed and that the Massachusetts General Court should be punished for invasion of the king’s power to grant pardon (House of Lords Journal [London, 1767–1830], 31:566).

13 The MS is torn.

1 For the dispute between Governor Francis Bernard and the House of Representatives at the opening of the session, see No. 243, above. TH’s letter to Bernard stating he would no longer attend Council meetings is No. 249, above.

2 Bernard delivered TH’s letter to the House on 21 February (JHR, 43:312). The House immediately appointed a committee to consider the issue, naming Thomas Cushing (see BD), James Otis Jr., Samuel Adams, Joseph Hawley, and Samuel Dexter as members. On 23 February, the committee requested that the Council consider the constitutional implications of the lieutenant governor’s role on the Council, stating that TH’s “Claim nearly affects our Charter Rights and Privileges, the Maintenance and Support of which demands the Attention of every Branch of the Legislature” (JHR, 43:315, 324).

3 For the Council’s answer to the House, see No. 253, above.

4 For Richard Jackson’s dismissal as agent for Massachusetts, see No. 237, above. Dennys DeBerdt was appointed special agent for the House of Representatives in November 1766.

5 TH accurately foretold the outcome of the May elections, as government supporters again were defeated at the polls. Bernard later negatived five of the proposed councilors, leaving the Council with just twenty-three members for the coming year.

6 Bernard proposed the idea of a leave as early as late February 1766 in a letter to then Secretary of State Henry Seymour Conway (see BD). In June 1767, Shelburne initially granted Bernard permission to go to England but later withdrew it. For more on Bernard’s efforts to return to England, see No. 258, below.

1 In the spring of 1767, Lord Shelburne determined to remove, at least temporarily, Governor Francis Bernard from Massachusetts. Ostensibly, Bernard was to be recalled to England so that he could report on the province’s situation in person to his superiors, but in truth Shelburne hoped that Bernard’s departure would allow the province to settle its fractious disputes and return to a more cooperative mode of governance. He drew up both a letter of recall for Bernard and the above letter to TH appointing him to govern the province in Bernard’s absence. Shelburne delayed sending the letters, though, and eventually dropped the matter altogether, possibly because the withdrawal of the Earl of Chatham from government affairs left Shelburne in a precarious position within the ministry. News of Bernard’s aborted recall reached Boston during the summer of 1767 (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:339–40; R. A. Humphreys, “Lord Shelburne and a Projected Recall of Colonial Governors in 1767,” American Historical Review 37 [1932]: 269–72).

2 For Bernard’s instructions, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 1:454–95.

1 This reference was TH’s first mention of a “nervous disorder” that afflicted him in the spring of 1767. He apparently sought medical help from Dr. Joseph Warren, since his name appears in a list of Warren’s patients (Joseph Warren Account Books, Vol. 1 [1763–1768], Massachusetts Historical Society).

2 Governor Francis Bernard and TH hoped that the general election in May would restore at least TH and Secretary Andrew Oliver to the Council, but both men lost by even larger margins than they had the previous year. Former councilors Peter Oliver and Edmund Trowbridge (known to TH as “Goffe”) fared even worse.

3 As an example of such assurances, see Dennys DeBerdt to Thomas Cushing, 19 September 1766, in which DeBerdt wrote that Lord Shelburne “desired me to assure your house he had the highest regard for America wished their prosperity & would make it his care to promote it, that you might be perfectly easy about the enjoyment of your just rights & priviledges under the present administration” (CSM Pubs., 13:325–26).

4 The MS is torn here and in instances of brackets below.

5 This claim was presumably made by James Otis Jr. based on DeBerdt’s letter and similar reports.

1 Richard Jackson’s response to this letter is No. 262, below.

2 The MS is blotted.

3 TH’s experiences in London in 1741 taught him not to expect justice at the hands of courtiers.

4 For Parliament’s previous inaction regarding America, see No. 259, above.

5 Governor Francis Bernard attempted to promote a compromise: if the House, following the May elections, would return the four government party men dropped from the Council in 1766 (TH, Andrew Oliver, Edmund Trowbridge, and Peter Oliver), Bernard would consent to the election of four of the councilors he had vetoed the year before (Samuel Dexter, Jerathmiel Bowers, Thomas Saunders, and Joseph Gerrish). The other two Bernard vetoed in 1766 were James Otis Sr. and Nathaniel Sparhawk (1715–1776), a wealthy merchant from Maine. Bernard’s compromise was refused, and the government party men remained off the Council. Consequently, Bernard negatived several Council nominees, including Otis, but he accepted Sparhawk. The removal from the Council of Israel Williams, a close friend and ally of TH, signaled the collapse of the government party in 1767 (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:365–66; TH History, 3:129).

6 The MS is torn here and in the brackets below.

7 For Dennys DeBerdt’s correspondence with the House of Representatives, see No. 259, above.

8 The House had yet to settle the accounts of the province’s three past agents: William Bollan, Jasper Mauduit, and Richard Jackson.

9 Volume 2 of TH History was published later in the summer of 1767 to general acclaim. TH did indeed write about the province’s agents, stating, “If our rights and claims do not appear in the same light to those who judge of them in England, as they do to our selves, we are too apt to attribute it to the want of skill or fidelity in those who appear for us” (TH History, 2:139).

1 Mauduit’s letter was No. 256, above.

2 Latin, translated as “good words.”

3 Many of Dennys DeBerdt’s letters to the members of the Massachusetts House are printed in CSM Pubs., 13:293–461, although none of them contain the cautionary note TH described here.

4 At this point, the manuscript continues in TH’s hand.

5 After the word “terms” the handwriting switches back to WSH.

6 The father was James Otis Sr., and the son James Otis Jr.

7 For Governor Jonathan Belcher’s exclusion of Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips from the Council, see No. 243, above.

8 The case has not been identified.

1 The Chatham administration, formed in July 1766, was a coalition government. Its composition was so notoriously diverse that Edmund Burke ridiculed it as “unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on” (F. G. Selby, ed., Burke’s Speeches on American Taxation, On Concilation with America, and to the Sheriffs of Bristol [London: 1897], p. 50). The situation worsened when Chatham himself withdrew from public affairs because of ill health, leaving his subordinates to quarrel amongst themselves. In March 1767, Chatham left London for an extended period, leaving the Duke of Grafton as the de facto head of the ministry.

2 Among Charles Townshend’s reforms enacted in June 1767 was the establishment of an American Board of Customs. The five-man board, based in Boston, was charged with reforming the North American customs service and strengthening customs enforcement, neither of which was popular in Boston. TH was not named to the board, despite the efforts of both Richard Jackson and Thomas Pownall (Zobel, Boston Massacre, p. 65; Dora Mae Clark, “The American Board of Customs, 1767–1783,” American Historical Review 45 [July 1940]: 777–806).

3 Townshend’s plan called for royal governors and judges to be paid from the revenue collected by the new duties on tea, paint, glass, lead, and paper imported into North America. The money raised from the Townshend duties was relatively small in comparison with the Stamp Act; the real core of Townshend’s legislative program was to strengthen administration in America by eliminating royal officials’ dependence on the assemblies (Griffin, Townshend Moment, pp. 120–21).

4 Robert Nugent (1702–1788), created Viscount Clare in 1767, served as the first lord of trade from 1766 to 1768, (British Establishment 2:654–55). The lord chancellor was Lord Camden.

5 In December 1764, TH asked Jackson to present Lord Kinnoull with a copy of the first volume of TH History (TH Correspondence, 1: No. 86). Jackson’s prediction about Kinnoull returning to a government post proved incorrect.

6 Jackson evidently made a donation of books to the Harvard College Library following the fire of January 1764. For the fire at Harvard, see TH Correspondence, 1: No. 65.

1 By late June 1767, Governor Francis Bernard knew of Lord Shelburne’s aborted plan to recall him to England and install TH in his place, albeit temporarily. Bernard learned of Shelburne’s plan, as TH called it, from Richard Jackson and apparently shared his knowledge with TH (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:380–83). By the time TH wrote this letter to Jackson, Shelburne had abandoned the idea. For the letter Shelburne wrote TH, but never sent, informing him of the change, see No. 258, above.

2 Although Bernard for months had been encouraging the ministry to recall him to England so he could report on the situation in Massachusetts in person and possibly exchange his difficult post for a more lucrative one, he grew alarmed when he learned that he might be recalled in disrepute, with no immediate plans to reassign him to a more advantageous position. The tenor of Bernard’s correspondence with Shelburne changed accordingly, as Bernard sought to convince the secretary of state that his continued presence in Massachusetts was vital to maintaining order (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:382–83).

3 The reference is not clear. TH may have been referring to the House of Representatives’ action appointing Dennys DeBerdt as its own agent and its refusal to pay the salary of a provincial agent approved by the governor and Council. He might also have been alluding to a difference of opinion emerging that summer pitting the governor and Council against the House of Representatives over whether or not Massachusetts should petition for the relaxation of the Currency Act of 1764, which forbade the issuing of more paper money. In the end, the House acquiesced in not making such a petition.

4 Volume 2 of TH History was published in Boston on 9 June.

5 Charles Yorke (1722–1770) served his second term as attorney general under the Marquis of Rockingham.

6 William de Grey (1719–1781), 1st Baron Walsingham, was solicitor general from 1763 to 1766 and attorney general from 1766 to 1771.

7 For Samuel Touchett, see No. 264, below.

8 Grey Cooper (circa 1726–1801) was a lawyer and member of Parliament, as well as secretary of the treasury from 1765 to 1782 (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:185).

1 Samuel Touchett, (circa 1705–1773) originally of Manchester, moved to London in the 1740s. He was a leading textile manufacturer, merchant to the West Indies and Africa, slave trader, insurance broker, and speculator in government loans and naval prizes, as well as a member of Parliament for Shaftesbury in the 1760s in the interest of the Duke of Newcastle. Touchett declared bankruptcy in 1763 but was protected from imprisonment for debt by parliamentary privilege. In 1766, he received a 20,000-acre grant of land in Florida, along Biscayne Bay, the future site of Miami (House of Commons).

2 For TH’s proposed membership on the American Board of Customs, see No. 262, above. The friend might have been Richard Jackson or more likely Charles Paxton, who was in London at the time and did become a member of the American Board.

3 This phrase appears at the top of the page with no mark for position.

4 When the House of Commons took up consideration of the same American Papers the Lords had debated in March, the House suggested the king “confer some Marks of His Royal Favour on those Governors and Officers . . . who distinguished themselves by their Zeal and Fidelity supporting the Dignity of the Crown, and the just Rights of Parliament . . . during the late Disturbances in America.” The Boston Evening-Post reported on the debates on 27 July 1767, but TH was evidently aware of it ten days earlier (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:374).

5 TH was elected instead of James Otis Jr. by a margin of 55–44. For more on this election, see No. 254, above.

1 Dismayed by the chaotic state of the colony in the wake of the Stamp Act riots, Governor Francis Bernard sought a leave of absence in the fall of 1765. The request was denied in early 1766, but Lord Shelburne considered granting it in June 1767 before discarding the idea (see No. 258, above). For Bernard’s attempts to return to England, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 2:391, 399, 401, 417; 3:106, 128, 381, 394.

1 Based on the postscript of No. 263, above, and Thomas Pownall’s 9 September letter to TH (No. 271, below), the unknown recipient of this letter is very likely Pownall.

2 The House of Commons opened debate on 13 May concerning several issues regarding the American colonies: enforcing compliance with the Quartering Act in New York, voiding the Massachusetts Indemnity Act, and enhancing revenue from new duties on paint, tea, glass, lead, etc. In his speech on 15 May, Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend advanced the idea that the new duties would fund an American civil list to provide salaries for royal officers, such as judges, governors, and lieutenant governors, that would render them independent of grants made by their respective legislatures (Griffin, Townshend Moment, p. 126). For more, see No. 262 and No. 264, both above.

3 The Boston town meeting would not adopt any non-consumption measures until 28 October. By “the chief of them” TH probably mean James Otis Jr.

4 The MS is torn here and at instances of brackets below.

1 Although British troops did not arrive in Boston until 1 October 1768, Governor Francis Bernard hinted at the need for troops in the wake of the 1765 Stamp Act crisis but never explicitly urged their deployment. The expectation of harsh retaliatory measures from Parliament stirred continual rumors of the arrival of troops from 1765 until their actual arrival.

2 For “Philanthrop” and his writings during the summer of 1767, see No. 237, above.

1 Pownall seems not to have been party to the latest developments, since Richard Jackson knew as early as 15 July that TH would not be named to the American Board of Customs (see No. 262, above). Benjamin Hallowell (see BD), a fellow victim in the Stamp Act riots, was ultimately appointed a member of that board, although not until after the dismissal of John Temple (see BD) in 1770.

2 “His Excellency” was Governor Francis Bernard, and “Mr. Oliver” was presumably Andrew Oliver, secretary of the province, rather than his brother Peter Oliver, justice of the Superior Court.

1 Charles Paxton was indeed one of TH’s close associates but TH is not known to have ever advocated the dispatch of troops. In TH’s reply to this letter (No. 277, below), he wrote, then crossed out, a sentence explicitly denying having authorized Paxton to make such a statement.

2 On 24 September 1766, Daniel Malcom resisted Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf (see BD) and customs agent William Sheaffe when they attempted to enforce a writ of assistance enabling them to search his warehouse for smuggled goods. The Council discouraged Governor Francis Bernard from sending depositions of the affair to London, but when Judge Chambers Russell of the vice-admiralty court set sail for Britain on 16 October, he carried with him private accounts of the incident. Russell died soon after landing in England, and Bernard wrote to Paxton that he should make sure Russell’s papers were delivered (TH Correspondence, 1: No. 211; Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:232–36, 309).

1 Leonard Jarvis (1716–1770) was a merchant and colonel of the Company of Cadets.

2 Governor Francis Bernard credited Jarvis and the Company of Cadets with preventing another disturbance on 27 August 1765, the night after TH’s house was ransacked in the Stamp Act riots (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:393).

3 The bottom of the MS is torn, and the text was supplied by editors Malcolm Freiberg and Catherine Shaw Mayo, who viewed the MS when it was in better condition. Though at least partially responsible for the disastrous defeat at Cannae in 216 bce, Gaius Terentius Varro rallied the remains of the Roman army and, therefore, received the thanks of the Senate for “not having despaired of the Commonwealth” (Livy, 22:61.14).

1 The forty-one-year-old chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend, died unexpectedly on 6 September 1767 (Griffin, Townshend Moment, p. 139).

2 The Duke of Grafton did not officially become the head of the ministry until October 1768. In the meantime, he presided over a government that was nominally headed by the absent Earl of Chatham.

3 Much of TH’s source material for TH History was lost when his house was looted in the Stamp Act riots, although he did manage to recover some of the province’s original documents he had collected over the years. Volume 2 of TH History was published in Boston on 9 June 1767. The London edition did not come out until December.

4 This phrase was interlined with no mark for position.

5 The long-time secretary to the Board of Trade was John Pownall, brother of former Massachusetts governor Thomas Pownall. Lord Barrington, secretary of war, was Governor Francis Bernard’s uncle by marriage and his patron.

1 In July, TH asked Richard Jackson to distribute copies of TH History, but Thomas Pownall was not among the recipients (No. 263, above). By the same ship, TH also sent a parcel of books to Pownall (No. 265, above). The blank line may indicate the name of the ship’s captain, Lyde.

2 Which “Mr. Cotton” Pownall meant is uncertain, but it was likely John Cotton (1585–1652), the second pastor of the First Church of Boston and a central figure in the Antinomian Controversy, which involved TH’s great-great-grandmother, Anne Hutchinson.

3 Pownall wrote to TH on 8 August regarding his plan to seek TH’s appointment to the American Board of Customs (No. 267, above). The letter from the Duke of Grafton, which Pownall enclosed in this letter to TH, has not been found.

4 In the debate on American matters in Parliament in mid-May, some members advocated suspending the Massachusetts House of Representatives as well as the New York Assembly for noncompliance with the Quartering Act. For Parliament’s deliberations on the New York Suspending Act, see No. 256 and No. 265, both above.

5 For Pownall’s efforts on behalf of Benjamin Hallowell, another victim in the Stamp Act riots, see his 8 August letter to TH (No. 267, above).

1 Jackson was most likely referring to Robert Temple (1728–1782), elder brother of John Temple, the former surveyor general of customs for the northern district. Robert Temple was in London unsuccessfully soliciting a post either as collector of customs at Salem (recently vacated by the dismissal of Governor Francis Bernard’s old confederate James Cockle) or surveyor of the king’s woods. Temple was apparently a friend and near neighbor of Thomas Whately and frequently delivered letters in London for his New England friends (Bowdoin-Temple Papers, MHS Colls., Sixth Series [1897], 9:54–56, 77–78).

2 Thomas Lane of Lane, Son & Fraser, one of TH’s principal London business correspondents, generally handled the payment of his routine expenditures. See TH Correspondence, 1: No. 179.

3 For Sir Harry Frankland, see TH Correspondence, 1: No. 4.

1 Charles Paxton would soon return to Massachusetts to take up his position on the new American Board of Customs. “Miscreants” nearly deprived TH’s readers of the second volume of TH History by scattering his notes and sources in the street during the second Stamp Act riot of 26 August 1765.

2 The MS is torn on the fold of the letter. Material is missing here and at the next instance of brackets. The missing material was supplied by editors Malcolm Freiberg and Catherine Shaw Mayo, who saw the MS when it was not torn.

1 Historian Bernard Bailyn speculated in Ordeal (p. 226, note 9) that the recipient of this letter was Thomas Whately. The deferential language of this draft does indeed suggest TH was writing an unnamed English official, such as Whately, with whom he was pleased to have recently begun a correspondence. The content of the letter also bears striking similarity to TH’s most notorious letter to Whately, dated 20 January 1769, in which he suggested, “There must be an abridgment of what is called English Liberty” (No. 357, below), a phrase he would come deeply to regret when it was published by his patriot enemies in 1773. Both letters speculate on whether or not it is possible for colonists to retain the same rights as subjects residing in Great Britain itself, and the repetition of the word “abridgment” is striking. But, if the placement of this letter here among TH’s correspondence for fall 1767 is correct (see note 2 below), the recipient is unlikely to have been Whately, since TH, in a letter written to William Whately (Thomas’s brother) dated 31 October 1773 (MA 27:566), clearly stated that his first letter to Thomas was written in May 1768. That letter is likely to be No. 315, below, TH to an unnamed correspondent written on 26 May 1768.

Thomas Whately expressed interest in making TH’s acquaintance in a letter to John Temple dated 10 May 1765 (Bowdoin-Temple Papers, MHS Colls., Sixth Series [1897]) should TH make a trip to England he was them contemplating. But the correspondence evidently did not begin until early 1768. References contained within subsequent letters suggest Whately wrote several letters to TH in 1768: 12 February, 23 February, 24 May and 31 July, although none of these letters was found. The first surviving letter from Whately is dated 11 November 1768 (No. 364, below).

2 Bailyn assigns a date of September or October 1770 in Ordeal, but it appears in Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 25, among other letters dated fall 1767. (Such placement cannot be taken as definitive, however, since Vol. 25 is composed of random, loose papers gathered together at some point after they were no longer under TH’s control.) Other internal clues suggest that September or October 1767 is more appropriate, particularly references to the recently passed Townshend Act. TH drew attention to the distinction between external and internal taxes, which had, at least, been one of Charles Townshend’s considerations when drafting the legislation. No one, however, saw much point to such a distinction by 1770 (see note 3, below). TH also specifically mentioned duties on glass, paper, and tea, although by the spring of 1770 all the Townshend duties except that on tea had been lifted. Furthermore, TH wrote in this letter the controversy over colonial rights had been ongoing “for two or three years,” a phrase that accords better with a 1767 date than 1770.

3 In response to the Stamp Act, some patriots, most notably James Otis Jr., made a distinction between internal and external taxes, and the distinction would continue, though perhaps less prominently, to be part of the mix of arguments employed as necessary. The Earl of Chatham added his immense authority by alluding to the distinction in a speech on 14 January 1766, but then later on the same day, in a reply to his critics, he seemed to focus more on a distinction between taxation and legislation (Neil York, “When Words Fails: William Pitt, Benjamin Franklin, and the Imperial Crisis of 1766,” Parliamentary History, 28:347–50). Charles Townshend designed his new program of duties, at least in part, to circumvent the colonial objection to internal taxes. According to another letter Whately wrote in February 1767 to John Temple, Whately continued to believe the distinction useful (Thomas Whately to John Temple, 25 February 1767, Bowdoin-Temple Papers, MHS Colls., Sixth Series [1897], 9:79).

4 TH was slightly misquoting the words of the Magna Carta: “Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut desseisetur de libero tenemento, vel libertatibus, vel liberis consuetudinibus suis, aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur, nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terrae.” The most commonly quoted version of this passage is by Lysander Spooner in his Essay on the Trial by Jury (1852), where he translated the Latin as, “No free man shall be captured or imprisoned or disseised of his freehold or of his liberties, or of his free customs, or be outlawed or exiled or in any way destroyed.”

1 The 17 June letter from Richard Jackson was not found.

2 For TH’s appointment in March 1767 as a commissioner to settle the border dispute between Massachusetts and New York, see No. 254, above. TH and the other commissioners from Massachusetts (William Brattle [see BD] and Edward Sheaffe) began negotiations with the New York delegation at New Haven on 28 September to resolve a boundary dispute that had led to the outbreak of violence at Nobletown in the summer of 1766. Despite TH’s optimism, the question was not resolved until 1773 (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:378). See also, A Conference between the Commissaries of Massachusets-Bay and the Commissaries of New York; at New Haven in the Colony of Connecticut 1767 (Boston: Richard Draper, 1768).

3 The secretary of state was Lord Shelburne.

4 Jared Ingersoll, the stamp distributor for Connecticut, was forced to resign his office at Wethersfield, Connecticut, on 19 September 1765 (TH Correspondence, 1: No. 120).

5 Jackson wrote to TH in July about his concern for TH’s health after learning about TH’s illness in the spring (No. 262, above). In fact, TH suffered a minor relapse while in New Haven (Freiberg, Prelude to Purgatory, p. 173).

6 For TH’s proposed membership on the American Board of Customs and his concerns about juggling his various official positions, see No. 264, above.

7 For the indemnity clause attached to the bill for TH’s compensation, see TH Correspondence, 1: No. 215.

8 Although the Townshend duties included a 3 shilling tax on tea, Parliament established those duties in conjunction with the Indemnity Act of 1767 that repealed a 12 shilling tax on tea paid when it was imported into England. Parliament hoped thereby that British tea would be 9 shillings cheaper when it was re-exported for sale in America and thus more competitive with smuggled Dutch tea.

9 A slight misquotation from Virgil’s Aeneid, Book VI, “hoc opus, hic labor [est],” which freely translates as, “This is the problem, this is the hard task.”

10 By the “Mutiny Act” TH was referring to the Quartering Act of 1765.

11 Even after the Revenue Act of 1766, the direct importation of these items from southern Europe to the colonies was still forbidden. In January 1767, Boston merchants included them in the petition they forwarded to the House’s agent Dennys DeBerdt, but he elected not to present the petition because of the hostile mood in Parliament in March when the petition arrived (Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, pp. 104–06).

12 Although the colonies were not able to buy wine directly from Spain and Portugal, they could import wine from the offshore islands of Madeira and the Canaries at a rate of £7 per tun. TH was suggesting that the price of wine from the offshore islands was so low in Boston that this duty was being widely evaded.

13 TH was probably referring to the Wills Act of 1751, an act prohibiting witnesses to wills from receiving inheritances from that same document (the editors are indebted to Mary Bilder for this information). Previously, practices in the various colonies differed, especially in those colonies that were acquired by conquest and followed different systems of law prior to their addition to the British Empire. During his years as chief justice, TH often returned to the question of how to proceed when colonial practice varied from English statute.

14 The Currency Act of 1751 forbade the emission of paper money by the New England colonies, where depreciation had been particularly acute. The Currency Act of 1764 extended the prohibition to all the North American colonies.

1 The MS is torn here and in instances of brackets below.

2 TH received no compensation for his position as lieutenant governor as long as the governor was resident within the boundaries of the province. His salary from the legislature for his job as chief justice (a post that required extensive travel throughout Massachusetts and Maine) was only £100 per year with perhaps £30 for expenses, and the legislature often held off voting payment when there was a dispute with the Superior Court.

3 TH’s reference to the “late Mr. T” was to the recently deceased chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend.

4 This “Mr. T” referred to John Temple, who was lieutenant governor of New Hampshire as well as a member of the newly constituted American Board of Customs.

5 This material is interlined without mark for position.

6 TH was referring to the Daniel Malcom incident, when on 26 September 1766 Malcom forcibly resisted the sheriff and customs officer who attempted to enforce a warrant to search his warehouse. For the Malcom affair, see No. 268, above.

7 In No. 268, above, William Bollan mentioned hearing Charles Paxton claim in London that he had been authorized by TH to say that the lieutenant governor favored sending British troops to Boston to enforce order. TH denied authorizing such a statement.

8 TH had recently returned from New Haven, Connecticut, where commissioners from Massachusetts and New York met in late September and early October to resolve their disputed boundary. The New Yorkers claimed on the basis of language in their charter that the boundary was not a straight line running due north from the northwestern-most point in Connecticut but instead that the boundary curved, following the course of the Hudson River at a distance of twenty miles to the east. For TH’s false hopes for a resolution to the boundary issue, see No. 275, above.

9 There had been no response from England in over a year to TH’s exclusion from the Council, so he logically assumed the ministry was content with the outcome. He was unaware that Lord Shelburne had written a letter to Governor Francis Bernard on 17 September praising TH and Andrew Oliver as men “of unexceptionable character . . . whose Learning and Ability has been much exerted in the Service of America.” Although Shelburne criticized the Council’s decision to exclude TH, he acknowledged that it was their right to do so. Shelburne’s letter was not received by Bernard until 16 April 1768 (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:407–09).

10 By early fall 1767, the general outline (if not the details) of Charles Townshend’s reforms had reached Boston. The new legislation, especially when combined with the act suspending the New York Assembly for its refusal to comply with the Quartering Act of 1765, prompted a number of letters to the Boston newspapers decrying the impending legislation. Bernard, determined to convince Lord Shelburne that political conditions in Massachusetts were tumultuous, began dispatching copies of these letters as enclosures in his letters to the secretary of state. He marked each with a letter of the alphabet, beginning with “A” on 27 August. By 8 October, he had reached the letter “W” before he broke off the practice. The letters denounced the Townshend program in ringing tones; some went so far as to advocate nonimportation as a device to support New York. George Grenville, who clearly regarded some of the letters as treasonous, moved in the spring of 1768 that Parliament should call for the printers—Edes & Gill of the Boston Gazette—to produce the names of the authors that they might stand trial (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:383–87, 397–99, 403–06, 409–11, 412–14). Harbottle Dorr does not identify the authors of any of these letters in his annotated collection of Boston newspapers (Dorr Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society). Historian Colin Nicolson sees similarities in the styles of James Otis Jr. and the letter signed by “Britannus Americus” in the Boston Gazette on 17 August 1767 (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:387). Josiah Quincy Jr. as “Hyperion” wrote one of the letters Grenville found most offensive, published in the Boston Gazette on 28 September 1767 (Portrait of a Patriot, 4:21–22). Two letters were particularly critical of TH: one by “M. Y.” in the Boston Gazette of 14 September and another by “Civis” in the Boston Gazette of 12 October. The first ridiculed TH’s charge to the grand jury at the March sitting of the Superior Court, when he stated it was essential to a free people that they should be governed by known and certain laws (Portrait of a Patriot, 5:242).

11 TH’s assessment of the state of affairs in New York proved correct. Just before the Suspending Act was to take effect in October, the New York Assembly passed by one vote an appropriation for the supply of British regulars stationed there (No. 286, below; Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:399).

12 Although TH typically reserved the designation “principal demagogue in the province” for James Otis Jr., in this instance he meant Joseph Hawley. Interest in the case of the Berkshire rioters was revived by long articles in the Boston Evening-Post of 6 and 23 July 1767, in which Hawley set forward his version of the matter. TH alluded to the case in his charge to the jury at the August meeting of the court (an obvious response to Hawley’s articles) with remarks that might have particularly offended Hawley. What precisely TH said is unrecorded, since Josiah Quincy Jr., who was transcribing the proceedings, was called out of the room at just the point when TH was alluding to the Berkshire rioters. See Portrait of a Patriot, 5:246. Perhaps Hawley responded as the author of either the “M. Y.” letter in the 14 September edition of the Boston Gazette or the letter by “Civis” in the 12 October edition of the Boston Gazette. At any rate, Hawley was disbarred at the Springfield meeting of the Superior Court and forbidden to appear before it ever again. For Hawley’s disbarment, see No. 277, below.

1 The MS is torn.

2 Thomas Pownall proposed TH as chair of the American Board of Customs, a post TH did not receive. For more about TH’s potential appointment to this post, see No. 267 and No. 271, both above.

3 TH’s “further dabling” included publishing a collection of documents relative to the history of Massachusetts and writing a third volume of TH History that brought the narrative up to his own time. The collection of documents was published in 1769 as TH Original Papers, but the third volume of TH History was not published until 1828, more than forty years after his death.

4 The MS is obscured by tape and barely legible.

5 For TH’s thoughts on increasing imports from Spain, Portugal, and Italy, see No. 275, above.

6 TH was referring to the redemption of the province’s paper money in 1749 and 1750, an action in which TH played an instrumental role. For his efforts to place the province’s currency on a sound footing, see TH Correspondence, 1:8–9.

7 Joseph Hawley became TH’s outspoken critic when the Superior Court fined his client Seth Warren in the matter of the Berkshire rioters. Hawley reopened the issue in the Boston newspapers in the summer of 1767. For the growing antagonism between TH and Hawley, see No. 276, above.

8 The MS is obscured by tape and barely legible.

9 On 28 October, the Boston town meeting, hoping to force the repeal of the Townshend duties, resolved “to take all prudent and legal Measures to encourage the Produce and Manufactures of this Province and to lessen the Use of Superfluities . . . imported from Abroad.” It also appointed a committee to circulate subscription lists among those willing to pledge themselves to a program of non-consumption and sent letters to other towns in the province urging them to do likewise. The broadside the selectmen published stating the meeting’s resolves was published by Edes & Gill (Massachusetts Historical Society, Broadsides, small, 1767, October 28).

10 For the abstract related to Benjamin Hallowell, see No. 267, above.

1 William Burch (see BD) arrived in Boston on 5 November as a member of the American Board of Customs.

2 “Boulefeus” or firebrands was a term TH frequently used to describe James Otis Jr. and other leading patriots. For the “Acts and Resolves” enacted by the Boston town meeting, see No. 277, above.

3 For the lack of response from London regarding TH’s exclusion from the Council, see No. 276, above.

4 Parliament enacted seven resolves in March 1766 in relation to the repeal of the Stamp Act and passage of the Declaratory Act. The fourth resolve recommended to the colonial assemblies that they compensate victims of the Stamp Act riots. These resolves were transmitted to America in the form of letters from Secretary of State Henry Seymour Conway to the colonial governors. Conway’s letter to Governor Francis Bernard was dated 31 March 1766, and Bernard included the contents of the letter in his speech to the General Court on 3 June (TH Correspondence, 1: No. 170 and No. 192). For Conway’s letter, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:134–38.

5 TH’s nephew Nathaniel Rogers (see BD) was to carry the letter to London.

1 Beginning with the letter of “Sui Imperator” in the Boston Gazette on 31 August and culminating with the two pieces by “Hyperion,” also in the Boston Gazette, on 28 September and 5 October, the Boston press was filled with calls for forcible resistance to the Townshend program, including the newly arrived American Board of Customs Commissioners.

2 The abbreviation “GC” stands for General Court.

1 Richard Jackson’s letter to TH praising volume 2 of TH History is No. 273, above.

2 TH initially omitted John Pownall, secretary to the Board of Trade, from his list of persons to be sent a copy of the second volume of TH History. Jackson redirected a copy intended for Charles Townshend (already dead) to Pownall. For TH’s list of recipients for complimentary copies of his book, see No. 263, above.

3 This passage in Latin translates as, “for this occasion.” TH was describing the position of moderator of the town meeting. James Otis Jr. was the moderator of this particular town meeting of Boston.

4 For the efforts of the Boston town meeting to encourage other towns in Massachusetts to participate in the non-consumption movement, see No. 277, above.

5 This passage in Latin translates as “to say what you feel.”

6 The MS is torn.

7 There was apparently some confusion about whether the duties should be collected beginning on or after 20 November.

8 For Governor Francis Bernard’s letter to Jackson, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:394–95. Bernard no longer wished leave to go to England and feared any kind of move to another colonial post would imply a demotion, since few governorships were as lucrative as Massachusetts.

9 The Vice-Admiralty Court Act of 1768 created four court districts in North America (Halifax, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston), whereas previously there had been only one at Halifax. The British government hoped that the vice-admiralty courts, which sat without juries, would be more likely to convict smugglers. This was the first reference TH made in any of his correspondence that he was being considered for such a post. The person who suggested him for the position was not identified.

10 For Townshend’s plan to pay TH a salary as chief justice from the proceeds of the new duties, see No. 271, above.

1 Admiral Sir Edward Hawke (1710–1781) was the victor of the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759, privy councilor from 1766, and first lord of the admiralty from 1766 to 1771.

2 For the Boston town meeting of 20 November, see No. 280, above.

1 An obsolete spelling of “policy” (OED).

2 Francis Bacon (1561–1626), 1st Viscount St. Albans, was an English lawyer, judge, diplomat, politician, and philosopher. He became attorney general and later lord chancellor. Though few of his writings were explicitly historical, he was an early advocate of inductive reasoning and the scientific method.

3 Herodotus (484–425 bce) was sometimes known as “the father of history” because of his efforts to assemble materials systematically and examine them critically while writing his Histories of the origin of the Persian Wars. Thucydides (circa 460–circa 395 bce), Athenian general and politician, has been described as the first “scientific” historian because of his careful weighing of evidence and concern for cause and effect in The Peloponnesian Wars. Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian living in Sicily who wrote sometime between 60 and 30 bce a universal history of the ancient world, Bibliotheca historica, beginning with the mythical origins of civilization through his own times. Velleius Paterculus (19 bce–31 ad) was probably meant here. He wrote a two-volume Compendium of Roman History, which covered the period from the fall of Troy through events of his own lifetime. Lucius Cassius Dio (circa 155–235 ad), consul and historian, was the author of an eighty-volume history of Rome beginning with its legendary founding by Aeneas.

4 Titus Livius was better known as Livy. Publius Cornelius Tacitus (circa 56–117 ad) was a senator and historian. His Histories (only fragments of which survive) cover the civil wars following the Year of the Four Emperors (69 ad) through the death of Domitian in 96 ad. His Annals, also fragmentary, begin with the death of Augustus and end with the death of Nero. Polybius (201–120 bce) was a historian of the Roman Republic. Dionysius (circa 60–circa 7 bce) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric living in Halicarnassus, whose Roman Antiquities describe the history of Rome from its founding through the First Punic War.

1 Volume 2 of TH History was published in London in December 1767. John Huske (1724–1773) was a Boston merchant who removed to England in 1748. He was a member of Parliament from 1763 to 1773, where he spoke frequently on questions of American revenue. Suspected as an advocate—if not the instigator—of the Stamp Act, he was burned in effigy at Boston during the Stamp Act riots. A close political ally of the Townshend family, he was consulted about the new American duties in 1767, even though he held no office in the Chatham administration. His finances often teetered on bankruptcy (House of Commons).

2 Although TH clearly approved of the appointments of Henry Hulton (see BD) and William Burch—the two English appointees to the American Board—it was the local members who would prove more problematic, most especially John Temple (former surveyor general), but also John Robinson (previously the collector at Newport; see BD), and Charles Paxton, one of TH’s oldest friends and a staunch supporter of the government who was not a popular figure on the Boston waterfront.

1 Samuel Shute (1662–1742) was governor of Massachusetts from 1714 to 1727. In TH History, TH refers to Shute’s administration as one of the most turbulent periods in Massachusetts history, second only to the time of the Antinomian Controversy in which his great-great-grandmother was a principal figure. Shute’s notorious antagonist was Elisha Cooke Jr. (1678–1737), leader of the “country” party and principal advocate of a land bank. After Shute attempted to veto the choice of Cooke as Speaker of the House, the battle between the two men morphed into disputes over royal prerogative and the funding of the governor’s salary. TH, a staunch advocate of hard money, found Shute a sympathetic figure (TH History, 2:161–78).

2 Daines Barrington (1727–1800) was a lawyer, antiquary, and naturalist. His brother was Lord Barrington, Governor Francis Bernard’s patron. Shute was their uncle.

3 There were several Sir Robert Throckmortons, but most probably Mauduit meant Sir Robert Throckmorton (circa 1510–1581) who was a lawyer and courtier in the court of Queen Mary. Samuel Haynes (d. 1752) was a historian who spent many years in preparing an edition of the state papers of William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520–1598), Elizabeth’s trusted advisor; Sir Thomas Edmondes (1563–circa 1639) was a courtier and diplomat during the reigns of both Elizabeth I and James I. The reference to Stratford is not clear. Mauduit may have meant Nicholas Stratford (1633–1707), bishop of Chester, a High Churchman and a Tory, but more likely he misspelled the name of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1593–1641), a leading advisor to Charles I and lord deputy for Ireland whose execution was ordered by Parliament according to a Bill of Attainder. He left behind over sixteen volumes of manuscripts. John Thurloe (1616–1668) was secretary of state during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. His vast correspondence is a chief source for the history of the Protectorate.

4 The Protectorate is normally thought of as extending from 1653 to 1659, but since Cromwell did not become lord protector until December 1653 and died in 1658, it might conceivably be described as a four-year period.

5 No August letter from Mauduit to TH has been found, but No. 279, above, written by TH to Mauduit on 7 November, could have been a response to such a letter since it alluded to efforts by Mauduit on TH’s behalf to find him an office suitable to his merits. The sudden death of Charles Townshend in September threw all previous American patronage arrangements into disarray.

6 Lord North (see BD) became chancellor of the exchequer on 7 October 1767 and leader of the House of Commons for the Grafton administration. Mauduit alluded to arrangements for TH’s salary as chief justice to be drawn from the new American civil list, which was to be supported with money generated by the Townshend duties.

7 Jared Ingersoll was indeed appointed judge of the newly established vice-admiralty court at Philadelphia in compensation for the treatment he endured during Connecticut’s Stamp Act protests.

8 Charles Jenkinson (1729–1809) was private secretary to Lord Bute (see BD) in 1760–1761 and was later under-secretary of state for the northern department but was out of office during the Rockingham administration. He served as a member of the Admiralty Board from 1766 to 1767 and the Treasury Board from 1767 to 1773, before holding office as secretary at war from 1778 to 1782.

9 The Townshend duties raised only a fraction of the £40,000 per year that Townshend projected (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:25–28).

10 “Sui Imperator’s” ringing denunciation and calls for resistance to Parliament’s act suspending the New York Assembly, printed in the Boston Gazette on 31 August 1767, prompted George Grenville to insist that Edes & Gill, the printers, divulge the name of the author so that the culprit might stand trial for treason. Shelburne, in a letter to Bernard dated 14 November 1767, condemned “Sui Imperator’s” letter as “tending to alienate, as well as misrepresent, the affections of His Majesty’s North American Subjects, and to interrupt that Harmony and mutual Confidence, which should and I hope will, ever subsist between Great Britain and her colonies,” but suggested that the author’s punishment be left to the Massachusetts General Court (Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:422–24).

11 Mauduit was referring to the nonconsumption agreement endorsed by the Boston town meeting on 28 October 1767.

12 Mauduit expressed similar sentiments about Grenville in No. 256, above, but the patriots continued to view Grenville as an enemy of America.

13 Presumably, Mauduit was referring to the ship that carried the missing letter to America.

14 John Gore (1718–1784), Baron Annaly, was made a privy councilor in 1764 but never became its president. Lord Northington was succeeded as president of the privy council by Granville Leveson-Gower (1721–1803), 2nd Earl of Gower.

15 Mauduit must have had inside knowledge of the changes underway within the ministry. Most of these men would not assume office until 20 January 1768. Thomas Thynne (1734–1796), 3rd Viscount Weymouth, who opposed the repeal of the Stamp Act, replaced Henry Seymour Conway as secretary of state for the northern department (British Establishment, 2:861). Lord Hillsborough (see BD) was appointed to an entirely new position as secretary of state for the American colonies. Those colonies, which had previously been part of the portfolio of the secretary of state for the southern department, thus became their own separate administrative department. Hillsborough had served as president of the Board of Trade from 1763 to 1765 in the Grenville administration. John Montagu (1718–1792), 4th Earl of Sandwich, held numerous important offices throughout his career including first lord of the admiralty and secretary of state for the northern department, but in this change of ministries he became postmaster general. Richard Rigby (1722–1788) was private secretary to the Duke of Bedford; in 1768, he became vice-treasurer of Ireland for the second time and paymaster of the forces (British Establishment, 2:737–39). John Russell (1710–1771), 4th Duke of Bedford, served as first lord of the admiralty, secretary of state for the southern department, and lord president of the privy council. He rose to prominence by opposing the administration of Sir Robert Walpole, negotiated the unpopular Peace of Paris in 1763 while serving in the administration of Lord Bute, and fell from royal favor in 1765. He refused to join the Chatham ministry, but Bedford and his supporters began to cooperate with Grafton after Chatham’s retirement in 1767.

16 Few of the new appointees could be seen as friendly to the colonies. Several voted against repeal of the Stamp Act.

17 Lord North was serving as the chancellor of the exchequer at this time.

18 Mauduit’s alternative source in the Treasury has not been identified.

19 Nathaniel Rogers had evidently arrived in London by the time this letter was written.

1 References elsewhere in his correspondence indicate that TH received two letters dated 30 August 1767: one from William Bollan and one from Thomas Pownall. Neither letter has been found. In his letter to Bollan dated 31 October 1767, TH covered much of the same material that was discussed in this letter. This internal evidence, combined with note 3 below, indicates that this letter was likely addressed to Pownall.

2 Charles Townshend died 6 September 1767. The news of his death arrived in Boston on 21 October and was printed in the Boston Gazette on Monday, 26 October.

3 TH expressed his thoughts about his possible appointment to the American Board of Customs in his letter to Pownall, No. 277, above.

4 John Temple was appointed a member of the American Board of Customs despite also holding the position of lieutenant governor of New Hampshire. Townshend apparently raised TH’s tenure in the same office in Massachusetts as a reason for not appointing him to the board, or at least TH reported this to Bollan in No. 276, above.

5 For Parliament’s resolves regarding compensation for the victims of the Stamp Act riots, see No. 278, above.

6 For Governor Francis Bernard’s changing views on returning to England, see No. 263, above.

7 Thomas Povey was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1702 to 1706. As a general custom, the lieutenant governor became acting governor in the absence of the governor, who, under the circumstances, allowed him half his salary. Since the time TH was appointed lieutenant governor in 1757, he had served only a few stints as acting governor, with the longest being the two months between Governor Thomas Pownall’s departure in June 1760 and Bernard’s arrival in August. The other times were only a few weeks long while either Pownall or Bernard was in Maine, which was technically not out of the province.

8 For the ministry’s lack of response regarding TH’s exclusion from the Council, see No. 278, above.

9 Though difficult to read, the abbreviation was almost certainly “St.” for William Stoughton (1631–1701), the first lieutenant governor under the new charter of 1691 who sat in Council meetings ex officio. In 1693 he was elected a councilor and participated fully in all meetings.

10 William Tailer (1676–1732) was lieutenant governor from 1711 to 1715 after which he served as acting governor for a year. He was again lieutenant governor briefly from 1730 until his death. William Dummer (1677–1761) became lieutenant governor in 1716 and served as acting governor for most of the period from 1723 to 1730.

11 Jonathan Belcher, who was in London at the time of the death of William Tailer in 1732, was successful in securing his own appointment as governor but failed to manage the appointment of Colonel Adam Winthrop (1676–1743) as lieutenant governor. Spencer Phips was appointed instead.

12 Joseph Hawley was a vocal opponent in the House when it objected to TH’s continued presence at the Council table as lieutenant governor after TH failed to win re-election to the Council in 1766 (No. 237, above; TH History, 3:126–27).

13 Mr. Thoms has not been identified. The secretary of the province was Andrew Oliver, who was already a correspondent of Thomas Whately. Whately’s correspondence with both TH and Oliver would form the basis of the 1773 pamphlet Letters Sent to Great-Britain.

1 William Smith Jr. (1728–1793), Yale College 1722, was a lawyer and historian. He joined the Council in 1767 and later became chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1780-1782 under the British occupation. After the Revolution, he emigrated to Canada and became chief justice of Quebec. He was a member of the joint commission to settle the boundary between New York and Massachusetts, in which capacity he became acquainted with TH.

2 Sir Henry Moore (1713–1769) was governor of New York from 1765 to 1769. The controversy over the New York–Massachusetts line was still dragging on, since the two governments were unable to settle their remaining differences. The papers related to this matter that Smith referred to in the above letter were not found.

3 A witenagemot, or witan, was in Anglo-Saxon times the king’s council or advisers and was understood by some to be the antecedent of Parliament. In this instance, it was Smith’s ironic description of the New York Assembly. By “Billeting Act,” Smith means the Quartering Act of 1765.

1 During King George’s War (1744–1748), Massachusetts constructed several forts in the upper Connecticut Valley on land that had been declared part of New Hampshire in 1737.

2 The MS is torn here and in instances of brackets below.

3 In response to Parliament’s passage of the Townshend Act, the Boston town meeting adopted a nonconsumption agreement on 28 October and sent circular letters to the other Massachusetts towns urging them to do the same.

4 Joseph Hawley was a cousin of Israel Williams.

5 Jonathan Sewall, writing under the pseudonym “Philanthrop,” published a letter on the Berkshire rioters, Hawley’s clients, in the Boston Evening-Post of 5 January 1767. Hawley gave his version of the case in the Boston Evening-Post on 6 and 13 July 1767. It is possible that Williams, living in Hatfield, had not seen responses “Philanthrop” made to Hawley in the Boston Evening-Post on 27 July, 3 August, and 10 August.

6 Simeon Strong (1736–1805) was the representative from Hadley.

7 This may be another allusion to Hawley, who was a justice of the peace in Hampshire County (with jurisdiction in Berkshire County) and who had been disbarred by the Superior Court at their Springfield session.

1 TH wrote letters to both Lord Adam Gordon and Israel Mauduit on 13 November 1767, which he asked Rogers to deliver. See No. 278 and No. 279, both above.

2 The conversation evidently took place on Sunday, 27 December. The same material is summarized in Israel Mauduit’s letter to TH, No. 284, above.

3 Although technically Lord Chatham was still the head of the government, in truth the Duke of Grafton was in charge and had been since March 1767. In late 1767, Grafton attempted to shore up the ministry by garnering the support of the Duke of Bedford and his supporters, which required a shuffling of ministerial positions. Mauduit’s letter to TH, No. 284, above, detailed these changes that did not actually take effect until January 1768.

4 George Grenville regarded the letter by “Hyperion” that appeared in the Boston Gazette of 5 October as treasonous. He evidently thought the same about the letter by “Sui Imperator,” see No. 284, above. Henry Seymour Conway, secretary of state during the Rockingham administration, worked to repeal the Stamp Act and opposed Charles Townshend’s revenue program.

5 The nonconsumption agreements adopted by the Boston town meeting had been styled as “resolves” (implying that they were acts of a legislature), which caused considerable misunderstanding in Great Britain.

6 The peer who made this comment has not been identified.

7 Neither Thorpe nor Mrs. Summers has been identified.

8 Townshend was chancellor of the exchequer and presumably used his influence to secure Paxton a seat on the American Board of Customs. The Duke of Grafton, however, was the first lord of the treasury and would have been the ultimate dispenser of patronage.

9 Nathaniel Rogers’ wife was Elizabeth Wentworth Gould (1737–1802), niece of Benning Wentworth (see BD), governor of New Hampshire from 1741 to 1766.

1 Osborne’s description in the postscript of his encounter with the commissioners of customs at Governor Francis Bernard’s house indicates that the letter was written in 1768 and not 1767, since the commissioners did not arrive in Boston until 5 November 1767.

2 Osborne (see BD) was presumably referring to TH’s sister-in-law Grizzell Sanford (see BD).

3 See Luke 13: “Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?” In the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree, the owner of the vineyard has grown exasperated by its lack of fruit, yet the dresser persuades his employer to forbear one more year. The fig tree is generally understood to be a symbol of the unrepentant nation of Israel, which is granted a temporary reprieve by God.

4 The governor’s two sons were Frank and John Bernard (see BD).

5 The MS is torn.

6 Approximately eight words are illegible at this point in the MS, which is partially torn.

7 Most likely Osborne means William Burkitt (1650–1703), Biblical expositor and non-conformist clergyman. “Lucey” has not been identified. Perhaps Osborne intended Richard Sibbes (1577–1635), another Biblical expositor with Puritan leanings.

8 One line of the MS is illegible.

1 The House appointed a committee to consider the state of the province on 30 December 1767, whose members included Thomas Cushing, James Otis Sr. (see BD), Samuel Adams, Joseph Hawley, James Otis Jr., John Hancock (see BD), Edward Sheaffe, Jerathmiel Bowers, and Samuel Dexter. The JHR does not record who was chair of the committee, but by the appellation “chief Boulefeu” TH usually meant James Otis Jr. (JHR, 44:89).

2 For the text of the report, see JHR, 44:241–50.

3 The Boston Gazette, the Boston Chronicle, and the Boston Evening-Post reprinted John Dickinson’s Farmer’s Letters from 21 December 1767 through 29 February 1768.

4 The letter from a member of the New York council is likely No. 286, above.

5 The member was Timothy Ruggles (see BD).

1 The text of the letter to Dennys DeBerdt is printed in JHR, 44:241–50.

2 TH was perhaps alluding to the letter signed “Sui Imperator” published in the Boston Gazette on 31 August 1767, which prompted George Grenville to move on the floor of the House of Commons that the printers be sent for and obliged to disclose the author. TH also might have meant two letters by “Hyperion” published in the Boston Gazette of 28 September and 5 October 1767. “Hyperion” was not, however, a writer from New York but the rising local attorney Josiah Quincy Jr., as indicated in No. 276, above.

3 TH initially suggested that the author of the Farmer’s Letters was Daniel Dulany (1722–1797), an attorney and member of the governor’s council in Maryland. Dulany had written Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in America (1765), at the time of the Stamp Act. Governor Francis Bernard shared this suspicion (see Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:63).

4 The letter to Lord Shelburne, dated 15 January 1768, is printed in JHR, 44:219–24. Shelburne as secretary of state for the southern department would relinquish administrative control of British North America to Lord Hillsborough, the newly created secretary of state for the colonies, on 20 January 1768.

1 James Otis Jr. was the leader, but TH’s prediction was premature: the House later rethought its position and appointed a committee to draft a circular letter to the other colonies on 4 February, with a draft approved 11 February (JHR, 44:236–39). Governor Bernard also interpreted the initial rejection of the idea of a circular letter as a sign of an improving disposition in the House (see Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:86–88).

2 Jackson had not yet been fully paid for his services as agent (JHR, 44:143).

1 Lord Shelburne’s letter is printed at JHR, 44:250–51, but TH’s assessment of the disposition of the House was mistaken. It sent out its Circular Letter urging resistance to the Townshend duties a little over a week later. For TH’s account of these events, see TH History, 3:133–34.

2 TH was presumably referring to the continuing publication of The Farmer’s Letters.

3 Lord Augustus Fitzroy (1716–1741), father of the third Duke of Grafton, was a naval officer and member of Parliament.

1 For Lord Shelburne’s letter, see No. 293, above.

2 TH’s letter to the Duke of Grafton is No. 293, above.

3 “BBs” is an abbreviation for Barbados. Bernard reviewed the various options and his preference in a letter to his patron, Lord Barrington, written on 7 February 1768 (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:92).

4 TH’s previous letter to Jackson was No. 292, above.

5 For the House’s letter to Shelburne, see No. 291, above.

6 The effort of the House to obtain the Council’s consent for payments to its separate agent can be found in JHR, 44:143.

7 The Long Parliament sat during the English Civil War from 1640 to 1648.

1 TH referred to the Townshend Act.

2 Here TH appears to downplay Dickinson’s argument in The Farmers Letter’s expanding colonial objections to all forms of taxation. Francis Bernard, however, was quick to acknowledge the forcefulness of Dickinson’s prose and worry about its impact (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:63–64).

3 For the House’s instructions to its agent, see No. 291, above.

4 For Lord Shelburne’s letter, see No. 293, above.

5 The “firebrand” was James Otis Jr.

6 Ireland had its own Parliament, though legislation required approval from the Irish privy council.

1 A tablet is a small, flat, and comparatively thin piece of stone, metal, wood, ivory, or other hard material, artificially shaped for some purpose; a small slab (OED). In this instance, Rogers meant the two upright supporting pieces of the mantel.

2 Abbreviated “qt.”

3 The interlineation has no mark for position.

4 Rogers was referring to a warrant on the Treasury for TH’s salary as lieutenant governor and chief justice, part of the American civil list paid out of the Townshend duties. Ultimately, the Massachusetts General Court did indeed vote against granting TH a salary as chief justice, even though the money from the Townshend duties was intended to be a supplement, not a substitute, for his salary.

5 The nonconsumption resolves of the Boston town meeting are mentioned in Nos. 265, 277, and 288, above, and the House’s instructions to Dennys DeBerdt are at JHR, 44:241–50.

6 Entrepreneurs in the whale fishery based in the British Isles found it difficult to turn a profit without bounties from Parliament. The legislation, due for renewal in 1768, ran afoul of resentment caused by the colonial nonimportation agreements. Governor Hugh Palliser of Nova Scotia already attempted to exclude colonial whalers and cod fisherman from the Strait of Belle Isle in 1767. (Some members of Parliament sought to retaliate against nonimportation by excluding whalers from the colonies from receiving the bounties.)

7 The Vice-Admiralty Court Act of 1768, enacted on 6 July, created four districts in North America: Halifax, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston. This change was another of Townshend’s reforms.

8 The Nullum Tempus Act, introduced by Sir George Savile (see TH Correspondence, 1: No. 122n), limited the Crown’s right to sue for land to a period of sixty years.

9 William Henry Cavendish Cavendish-Bentinck (1738–1809), 3rd Duke of Portland, had been a member of the Rockingham ministry. James Lowther (1736–1802), 1st Earl of Lonsdale, married the daughter of Lord Bute.

10 Anthony Abdy (circa 1721–1775), baronet, was a member of the Rockingham Whigs. John Montagu (1743–1814) was the son of the Earl of Sandwich. Henry Seymour (1729–1807) was the half-brother of the Earl of Sandwich and a supporter of George Grenville. “Mr. Bennet” was perhaps Charles Bennet (1743–1822), 4th Earl of Tankerville. Henry Temple (1739–1802), 2nd Viscount Palmerston, was a member of the Board of Admiralty who voted against the government in this instance. Sir Fletcher Norton (1716–1789) served as solicitor general in the early 1760s and became a member of the Admiralty Board in 1766; he would be appointed privy councilor in 1769 and Speaker of the House in 1770. Hans Stanley (1721–1780) served on the Admiralty Board from 1759 to 1765, became a member of the privy council in 1762, and was a supporter of Lord North. Jeremiah Dyson (1722–1776) was a member of the Board of Trade during this period and served on the Treasury Board from 1768 to 1774. Richard Rigby (1722–1788) was a political adherent of the Duke of Bedford.

1 Bollan’s public letter was published as a pamphlet, An Epistle from Timoleon to All The Honest Freeholders . . . Whereas The Great Mischief and Danger of Corruption Are Set Forth. . . . (London, 1768). Bollan wrote a second pamphlet on the same subject, also in 1768: Continued Corruption, Standing Armies, and Popular Discontents Considered and the Establishment of the English Colonies in America (London, 1768), but the overlapping content between The Epistle and Bollan’s letter makes clear that it is the “public letter” mentioned here.

2 Peter Oliver and Edmund Trowbridge were fellow justices of the Superior Court. Joseph Lee (see BD) was likely to be the third recipient.

3 Bollan’s letter suggests that he assisted in drafting the bill against bribery in parliamentary elections introduced by Alderman William Beckford early in 1768. The bill would have obliged all newly elected members of Parliament to swear they had not offered any bribes to get elected. After two readings, the bill languished in committee until the session adjourned.

4 The magistrates of the City of Oxford wrote to Thomas Stapleton and Robert Lee, their representatives, offering to re-elect the incumbents if they would pay over £5,600 of debts owed by the corporation. Stapleton and Lee indignantly refused, thanking the magistrates in a public letter for offering to sell them the city but saying “as we never intend to sell you, we cannot afford the purchase.” The magistrates were sent to Newgate Prison on 5 February 1768 where they remained several days before repenting and receiving a severe reprimand from the Speaker of the House of Commons. See Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (London, 1813), 1:213.

5 Francis Bernard, whom Bollan blamed for his dismissal as agent, had been commended by a number of British officials for his firmness during the Stamp Act riots. Much to Bollan’s annoyance, Bernard had acquiesced in Bollan’s dismissal as provincial agent in 1762.

6 The phrase “principiis obsta” translates as “withstand beginnings”—that is, “to oppose a thing from the outset, if you would be successful.” “Qui non . . . videtur?” translated as, “He who does not prevent [a thing] which he can prevent, is considered to do [as doing] it” (Blacks’ Law Dictionary).

7 William Bollan is referring to another pamphlet he had written, The Ancient right of the English Nation to the American fishery; and Its Various Diminutions; Examined and Stated (London, 1764).

8 The public paper has not been identified, but perhaps it was part of the debate surrounding the Whale Fishery Act alluded to in No. 296, above.

1 For Cheseborough, see BD.

2 This letter contains TH’s first mention of changes in the cabinet that took place following the resignation of the Earl of Chatham as prime minister because of ill health.

1 When confronted with Lord Shelburne’s letter commending Francis Bernard for excluding several leading patriots from membership in the Council, the House requested Bernard’s letters to Shelburne describing the Council election. The governor responded that he knew of no letters that would be of use to them, which prompted an angry response from the House (JHR, 44:176–78) that was delivered to him 20 February and reprinted in the Boston Gazette on the following Monday, 22 February.

1 The letter describing Rogers’s arrival was No. 288, above.

2 Mauduit’s letter was No. 284, above.

3 Royal governors were not initially included in the warrants drawn on the funds generated by the Townshend duties, but other Crown officers were.

4 Here, TH correctly predicted the General Court’s response. Once the members of the House learned of the £200 payment drawn from the Townshend duties, they refused to vote any salary to TH at all.

5 TH describes the reception of Shelburne’s letter in No. 294, above.

6 This reference may suggest that No. 299, above, was written to Jackson.

1 The addressee is not specified in TH’s letterbook, but the content indicates that this letter is a response to Mauduit’s letter of 10 December 1767, No. 284, above.

2 Mauduit had complimented TH on the second volume of his History in No. 284, above.

3 For Bernard’s instructions on seditious libels, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 3:422–24. The final sentence of the paragraph pertains to Edes & Gill’s newspaper, the Boston Gazette.

4 TH is noting that the pattern of payment of Crown officers differed from colony to colony. For instance, the attorney general of New York received a salary drawn from the Townshend fund, but the same officer in Massachusetts did not.

1 TH is making a facetious reference to the General Court. For the term “witenagemot,” see No. 286, above.

2 The House’s letters to Secretary of State Lord Shelburne and the Lords of Treasury are at JHR, 44:219–24, 233–36. Such letters and petitions had previously been the act of the entire General Court (the House, Council, and governor acting in concert). Lord Hillsborough, in fact, refused to receive the letter when it arrived. (See Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:142–43.)

3 For this exchange between the House and Governor Francis Bernard, see No. 299, above. The petition for removal of those who had libeled the General Court can be found at JHR, 44:239–40.

4 The councilors vetoed by Bernard in May 1767 were James Otis Sr., Samuel Dexter, Joseph Gerrish, Thomas Saunders, and Jerathmiel Bowers. For Dexter and Bowers, see TH Correspondence, 1: No. 163n and No. 173n, respectively. Joseph Gerrish (1708–1776) was a representative from Newbury who later participated in the Lexington alarm. Thomas Sanders (1729–1774) was a representative from Gloucester and eventually member of the Council in 1769.

5 Speaker Thomas Cushing did indeed provide Bernard with a copy of the House’s letter (JHR, 44:190), but the House also continued to exchange messages with Bernard until he prorogued the legislature on 4 March.

1 Thomas Clap and Cushing were long-standing political opponents.

2 The MS is blotted.

3 Cushing was judge of probate for Plymouth County. In April 1767, he ruled in favor of William Clap, who challenged his father Samuel’s will on the basis of mental incapacity. Samuel Clap Jr., a younger son, appealed Cushing’s decision to the governor and Council, acting as the Supreme Court of Probate for the province. On 2 March 1768, as TH describes, the Council reversed Cushing’s decision (Adams’ Address and Minutes of the Argument, Supreme Court of Probate, 1768, Legal Papers of John Adams 1:248–55).

4 This letter was conveyed by James Warren (1726–1808) of Plymouth, who married Mercy Otis, the sister of James Otis Jr.

5 John Cotton (1728–1775) was deputy secretary of the province and the half-brother of Margaret Sanford Hutchinson (therefore TH’s brother-in-law). He was also register of probate for Suffolk County (Harvard Graduates, 12:114–17).

1 No. 305, below, addressed to Richard Jackson, refers to a previous letter that was most likely this one.

2 The piece in question was written by “True Patriot” and appeared in the Boston Gazette, 14 March 1768. Harbottle Dorr identified Joseph Warren as the author (Dorr Collection, Massachusetts Historical Society). This was the second letter by “True Patriot” sharply criticizing Governor Francis Bernard (see No. 305, below).

1 TH was probably referring to No. 304, above.

2 The abbreviation most likely stood for “despicable” or “desperate.”

3 This was the same article, written by a “True Patriot,” mentioned in No. 304, above. The address of the House of Representatives can be found at JHR, 44:206, 210–11.

4 The “gentleman” of the Council has not been identified.

5 “True Patriot” charged Governor Francis Bernard with “Jesuitical Insinuations” to “induce a worthy Minister of State to form a most unfavorable opinion of the Province in general and some of the most respectable Inhabitants in particular.” The piece concludes with the lines: “If such Men are by God appointed, The Devil may be the Lord’s anointed.” Bernard, who had been urged by Lord Shelburne to prosecute the authors of libelous or seditious newspaper articles as long as he had sufficient evidence and the support of the legislature, asked the Council if they would direct the attorney general to indict the author for libel. The Council was initially sympathetic, but the House claimed no libel had taken place since no particular person had been named and refused to interfere with the “Liberty of the Press” (JHR, 44:210–11; Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:121–24).

6 TH in his charge to the grand jury at the opening of the March session of the Superior Court commented at length on laws governing libel, telling the jury that no particular person needed to be named for a libel to occur as long as the identity of the libeled individual was clearly inferred. He also instructed them that public persons were entitled to protection from libel as well as private citizens. Despite TH’s obvious expectation of an indictment, the grand jury found no bill for libel (Portrait of a Patriot, 5:611, 613, 617–25; Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:112–18, 121–24, 198–200). By including mention of “High Treason,” TH might also have been hoping for an indictment against the unidentified author of the “Sui Imperator” letter from the previous fall. For more on the letters, see Nos. 279 and 284, above.

7 The images represented Customs Commissioner Charles Paxton (see BD) and Inspector General of Customs John Williams, who had arrived at the same time as the commissioners.

8 Several words in this sentence are written in TH’s cipher. The Massachusetts Spy printed this passage thus: “They were very desirous the Governor should write to the General (partly in short hand) for a R.” The letter “R.,” in this instance, would presumably stand for a regiment.

9 Because of the ambiguity of the Earl of Chatham’s speech of 14 January 1766, it is unclear here whether TH means a distinction between internal and external taxes, or, more likely, a distinction between taxation and legislation (Neil York, “When Words Fails: William Pitt, Benjamin Franklin, and the Imperial Crisis of 1766,” Parliamentary History 28 (October 2009), 347–50).

10 A meeting on 1 March of the “Merchants and Traders of Boston” resolved to halt imports beginning on 1 June for a period of eighteen months (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:108–10, 135–39).

11 The interlineation has no mark for position.

12 TH’s sons, Thomas Jr. and Elisha (see BD), refused to subscribe. The initials “R” and “H” in all likelihood stand for John Rowe and John Hancock, both of whom subscribed.

13 The abbreviations probably stand for “Treasury” and “Board of Customs.”

14 The words in brackets are written in the MS in TH’s cipher. Matthew Snider of California State University at Fullerton decoded them for the editors based on the key illustrated in TH Correspondence 1 and other coded passages elsewhere in TH’s letterbooks. Because of the difficulty of TH’s handwriting and the indeterminate nature of some of the symbols in the code, these readings should be treated as highly conjectural.

15 Spelled “extemmely” in MS.

16 The postscript is written sideways in the margin.

1 For TH’s efforts to persuade the grand jury to indict for libel, see No. 305, above.

1 For the putative libel of Governor Francis Bernard and criticism of TH’s efforts to persuade the grand jury, see No. 305, above.

1 For Lord Shelburne’s reproof, see Nos. 293 and 294, above.

2 For the exchange between Governor Francis Bernard and the House of Representatives, see No. 299, above.

3 The interlineation has no mark for position.

4 The House’s 3 March message to Bernard stated that it felt “fully justified in [the] Determination to take no further Notice of it” (JHR, 44:210–11).

5 The interlineation has no mark for position.

6 For TH’s charge to the grand jury and its response, see No. 305, above.

7 The interlineation has no mark for position.

1 Israel Mauduit conveyed a warrant for the supplement to TH’s salary as chief justice, to be drawn from the revenue generated by the Townshend duties.

2 Robert Clive (1725–1774), created Baron Clive in 1762, rose from a clerk in the East India Company to become a major general and governor of Bengal. After Clive amassed a fortune in India, his name became a byword for corruption.

3 TH understood that all Crown officers would be compensated from the revenue generated by the Townshend duties.

4 TH’s reference here is unknown.

5 Mauduit had advocated that TH be awarded additional compensation for his service as chief justice.

6 The reference is unclear in what way TH intended to gratify Benjamin Franklin, who at this time was living in London, serving as agent for both Pennsylvania and Georgia and working with Richard Jackson to advocate the repeal of the Townshend duties in Parliament. Perhaps an honorary degree as suggested by the following paragraph?

7 The ensuing paragraph describes the events aboard John Hancock’s ship Lydia on the night of 9 April 1768. The presence of Daniel Malcom was of particular note since Malcom had forcibly resisted the searching of his own cellar by customs officers in 1766, and in February 1768, just two months before the events TH describes here, Malcom unloaded a cargo of sixty pipes of Madeira in the outer harbor and carried it to town in wagons guarded by men with clubs. See Oliver Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1951), pp. 234–35, and Zobel, Boston Massacre, p. 72.

8 The statute of 7 and 8 William was the Treason Act of 1695. The “Respective Acts” were the Revenue Acts of 1764 and 1766.

9 The 14 of Charles was An Act for the Encouragement of Trade (1663), one of the Navigation Acts.

1 For the warrant specifying TH’s additional stipend, see No. 309, above.

1 The arrival of the pamphlets was discussed in No. 297, above.

2 Bollan had written two earlier pamphlets that touched on the rights of the colonists: Coloniae Anglicanae Illustratae (London, 1762) and A Succinct View of the Origin of Our Colonies. . . (London, 1766).

1 In No. 297, above, Bollan implied that restrictions might be placed on the colonial fisheries in response to the non-consumption resolves.

2 TH’s “favorite” was Governor Francis Bernard, concerning whom Bollan and TH had a sharp difference of opinion (see No. 297, above).

1 The interlineation has no mark for position.

2 The interlineation has no mark for position.

1 Edward Lloyd IV (1744–1796), a planter and merchant of Talbot County, was by reputation one of the richest men in Maryland and served as a delegate from that state to the Confederation Congress in 1783 and 1784. TH had corresponded with him previously as part of his mercantile business (see TH Correspondence, 1:515, 533, 537, 538, 540). See also, Jean B. Russo, “A Model Planter: Edward Lloyd IV of Maryland, 1770–1796,” WMQ 49 [January 1992]:62–88).

2 Mr Chaumiere has not been identified.

1 This material has been interlined vertically in left margin and position marked with an “X.”

2 James Otis Jr. was reminding the House of TH’s £200 warrant to supplement his salary as chief justice (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:172–77).

3 Bernard vetoed the choice of James Otis Sr., Joseph Gerrish, Thomas Saunders, Jerathmiel Bowers, John Hancock, and Artemas Ward for the Council. For more on these negatives, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:166–71.

4 Latin, which when translated means “a vague right or law.”

1 Artemas Ward (1727–1800), of Shrewsbury, graduated from Harvard College in 1748 and eventually served on the Council from 1770 to 1774 and again from 1776 to 1779. He became a lieutenant colonel of militia in 1767 and commanded American forces during the siege of Boston until he was superseded by George Washington. He was one of four major generals in 1775 and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1791 through 1795.

2 James Otis Sr., Joseph Gerrish, Thomas Sanders, and Jerathmiel Bowers were all negatived for seats on the Council, as were Ward and John Hancock. For more on Governor Francis Bernard’s negatives, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:166–71.

3 The MS is torn here and in the next instance of brackets.

4 A straw, rush or twig; hence a thing of little importance (OED).

5 For Lord Shelburne’s letter, see No. 293, above.

6 John Wilkes had recently returned to England, while still officially an outlaw, and was elected a member of Parliament for Middlesex.

7 By “Old O—” TH meant James Otis Sr.

8 “R___n” was not identified

9 John Erving likely received this information through his connection to John Temple, who had extensive political connections in England, or James Bowdoin (see BD) who had married Erving’s daughter. TH was presumably referring to George Scott (d. 1767), a career army officer, who served in the French and Indian War, became the governor of Grenada, and later lieutenant governor of Dominica. He was killed in a duel in 1767.

10 For Lieutenant Governor Thomas Povey, see No. 285, above.

11 The HMS Romney arrived in Boston Harbor on 17 May.

12 Sally was the family’s name for Sarah Hutchinson, TH’s eldest daughter (see BD).

13 Sally’s father-in-law was Peter Oliver Sr.

1 TH mentioned the dearth of letters from Jackson in his letter to Nathaniel Rogers (No. 309, above).

2 In the winter of 1767–1768, the vacancy in Virginia enabled a rearrangement of colonial governors. For Governor Francis Bernard’s possible removal to Virginia, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:155–57.

3 The Native American axe, presented to the British Museum, was previously mentioned in No. 294, above.

1 The Duke of Grafton was first lord of the treasury.

2 For James Otis Jr.’s conduct in the House during this election, see No. 315, above.

3 Before the election, rumors circulated that if TH were restored to the Council, Francis Bernard would accept James Otis Sr. as a member, (Papers of Francis Bernard 4:168).

4 Artemas Ward was backed by Otis Jr. for TH’s place on the Council.

5 Secretary Andrew Oliver lost his Council seat at the same time TH did in 1766.

1 TH described his defeat for a seat on the Council in No. 315, above.

2 TH also described Governor Francis Bernard’s veto of several councilors in No. 315, above.

3 In response to the Massachusetts Circular Letter, Virginia on 15 April generated three petitions: the Petition to His Majesty, the Memorial to the House of Lords, and the Remonstrance to the House of Commons, all protesting against the Townshend Act.

4 Arrangements for correspondence between colonies did not become as regular as TH imagined for another four years (Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, p. 224).

1 TH described the maneuvering in the House over the Council election in No. 315, above.

2 James Otis Jr. convinced the House to nominate Artemas Ward instead of TH. John Chandler III (1721–1800), a principal landowner and probate judge in Worcester County, had been a member of the Council since 1765. Andrew Belcher (1706–1771) was a merchant and member of the Council since 1764. Governor Francis Bernard described Chandler as “a Friend of Government who will be as serviceable in the House” but called Belcher “a Gentleman of no Consequence.” For more on the Council election, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:172–77.

3 This piece appeared in the Boston Gazette on 6 June 1768.

4 Daniel Malcom was present during the Lydia affair as discussed in No. 309, above. The insurance office was most likely that of Nathaniel Barber (1728–1787) who together with Malcom commissioned Paul Revere’s famous “Liberty bowl.” See Jonathan L. Fairbanks, “Paul Revere and 1768: His Portrait and the Liberty Bowl,” in Jeannine Falino and Gerald W. R. Ward, eds., New England Silver & Silversmithing, 1620–1815 (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2001), p. 141.

1 Hewing a broad arrow into the mast would signify the vessel was now the king’s property. Boston merchant and representative John Hancock owned the sloop Liberty, the vessel at the center of this dispute between the customs service and the patriots because of an undeclared shipment of Madeira wine. Customs officials Joseph Harrison (collector of customs), his son Richard Harrison (a customs clerk), Benjamin Hallowell (comptroller of customs), and John Williams (inspector general of customs) would all find themselves or their homes—or both—under attack in the disruptions that followed their attempt to seize Hancock’s ship. For Governor Francis Bernard’s account of the subsequent Liberty riot, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:185–90, 201–5; Archer, Enemy’s Country, pp. 87–90; and Zobel, Boston Massacre, pp. 68–77.

2 The area beneath the Liberty Tree in the South End had become known as Liberty Hall.

3 The Boston Gazette for 20 June 1768 provided an account of the meetings of the Sons of Liberty, first at the Liberty Tree and then at Faneuil Hall, as well as the official town meeting, summoned by the constables, at Old South Meeting House.

4 The petition, principally drafted by James Otis Jr., and Governor Francis Bernard’s response to it were also printed in the Boston Gazette for 20 June 1768. The town’s petition blamed the riot, in part, on press gangs sent out by the Romney during the days just prior. It also criticized the extent of the powers of the commissioners of customs.

5 Customs commissioners Henry Hulton, William Burch, Charles Paxton, and John Robinson moved from the Romney to the Castle on 20 June, where they would seek refuge on several occasions in the future (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:207–12).

6 Governor Francis Bernard’s country house was in Jamaica Plain.

7 Merchants often met casually to do business on the Exchange (the Change), an area of King Street adjacent to the custom house.

8 For a comprehensive treatment of naval impressment in the colonies, see Christopher P. Magra, Poseidon’s Curse: British Naval Impressment and the Atlantic Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

9 Jackson first entered Parliament as a member for Weymouth in December 1762 but was forced to give up that seat in favor of Lord Waltham in 1768. He re-entered Parliament that same year as a member for New Romney, a seat at the disposal of the Treasury. He was, as TH observed, an advocate for “the Col[onies],” but TH believed that like other agents who preceded him, most notably Bollan, the legislature failed to pay him properly for his services.

10 Lack of official recognition in Whitehall limited what Dennys DeBerdt, the agent for the House, could accomplish. TH implies the House was afraid to choose an official provincial agent since he might not be approved by Bernard. Thus, the House was willing to let the Massachusetts side of the border dispute with New York (as described in No. 276, above) go unrepresented in London.

11 Hallowell departed Boston for England on 20 June carrying a collection of papers for the ministry, which would be widely disseminated (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:214).

12 The town’s instructions were printed in the Boston Gazette on 20 June.

13 According to Bernard, such a measure was proposed but did not pass (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:209). The account of the town meeting as printed in Reports of the Records Commissioners of Boston, 16:257–59, makes no mention of such a resolution. William Cooper was the town clerk at the time. The lawyer and member of the Sons of Liberty cannot be positively identified but could well be James Otis Jr., who was moderator of the town meeting in question.

14 Captain John Corner, commander of the Romney, initiated the impressments after his arrival in port on 17 May.

1 For the events surrounding the seizure of John Hancock’s ship Liberty, see No. 321, above.

2 Boston’s instructions to its representatives can be found in BTR, 16:257–59.

3 The committee dispatched by the town to present the petition included Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Dr. Thomas Young, and Daniel Malcom (Zobel, Boston Massacre, pp. 78–80).

1 Governor Francis Bernard sought the use of Faneuil Hall for a celebratory dinner at the time of the annual elections in May but was refused its use because he had invited the commissioners of customs (Henry Hulton, p. 127).

2 The House’s demand to see a copy of Bernard’s letter to Lord Shelburne is first mentioned in No. 299, above.

3 The friend has not been identified but may well have been Richard Jackson himself.

4 John Pownall, secretary to the Board of Trade, was Thomas Pownall’s brother.

5 It is not clear what position Rogers was seeking, perhaps secretary of New Hampshire; see No. 491, below.

6 The desire to “gratify” Dr. Franklin was alluded to in Rogers’s letter No. 309, above, but since TH’s response to that letter was not found, it is impossible to know what Franklin desired.

7 Since the close of the Seven Years’ War, Thomas Secker (1693–1768), archbishop of Canterbury, had advanced a plan for a “purely spiritual” Anglican bishop to be settled in North America to facilitate the ordination of new clergy. Colonial Dissenters, especially in New England, vigorously opposed the plan arguing that it carried an implicit threat to establish the Church of England throughout North America. Although the king himself was favorably inclined, Lord Shelburne (himself friendly to Dissenters) persuaded the other ministers in the fall of 1767 that the plan would only fan the flames of discontent ignited by the Stamp Act (Paul Whitaker, “The Bishop Controversy, the Imperial Crisis, and Religious Radicalism in New England, 1763–74,” NEQ 90 [September 2017], 306–43).

8 The king granted Bernard leave to go to England on 22 June, but he would not receive formal notification until mid-September (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:218).

9 On the political influence of the Duke of Bedford, see No. 284, above. He had been lord president of the council during Grenville’s administration, and a number of Bedford supporters joined the Grafton administration in December 1767, although he himself did not return to power.

10 Rogers apparently believed Dennys DeBerdt, the agent of the House, was ineffectual since he lacked official recognition as a provincial agent.

1 These events are described in greater detail in No. 325, below.

2 Customs Commissioner John Temple was generally at variance with his fellow commissioners and was connected by marriage to James Bowdoin and other leading patriots.

3 TH also describes his recall from the eastern court circuit in No. 325, below.

4 The letter from the Speaker of Virginia’s House of Burgesses appears at JHR, 45:104–7.

5 TH was referring to William Cooper (Boston town clerk), and Samuel Adams (clerk of the House of Representatives).

6 For TH’s charges to the grand jury regarding libel, see No. 305, above.

7 The House’s agent, Dennys DeBerdt, was less successful in pressing the patriot agenda in London than many had hoped.

8 If Bernard left for England, TH as acting governor would be able to throw his support behind an effort to settle Bollan’s account.

9 John Spooner Jr. (1732–1768?) married Margaret Oliver (b. 1740), daughter of Andrew Oliver, in 1762.

10 “Goffe” was Edmund Trowbridge’s assumed name early in life. In this way, TH, as acting governor, would not appear to be the initiator of a settlement with Bollan.

1 TH misjudged the significance of the Massachusetts Circular Letter (see No. 292 and 294, above), perhaps not fully realizing how it would be perceived in England, but Lord Hillsborough persuaded the cabinet to order the House to rescind it. On 15 June, Governor Francis Bernard received Hillsborough’s instructions to prorogue the General Court if it did not rescind the letter. See Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:149–52. Bernard presented the House with the demand on 21 June, occasioning an impassioned speech by James Otis Jr. The House voted not to rescind on 30 June and passed previously drafted responses to Bernard and Hillsborough. The members had begun a petition to the king to remove Bernard as governor before they were dissolved on 1 July (JHR, 45:68–69, 75, 85, 89–94, 98). For the text of the Circular Letter and an overview of its passage, see Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:359–62 and TH History, 3:141–44.

2 Although TH may have belittled any rumor of attacks on Castle William, Bernard certainly thought it was a real possibility (Papers of Francis Bernard, 4:240–41, 244).