No. 50
Hampstead, Dec. 3. 1770
Dear Sir,
As I am now packing up duplicates of my former Letters, you may expect some fresh news: but I have none to send you. The present suspence between peace & War has put a Stop to all lesser Businesses & the reformation of your Government among the rest. If there is War, that certainly will not proceed; and if it is peace I much doubt whether it be revived. The Silence of the two Houses, upon that Subject, in their Addresses, & of my Lord N in his Speech upon the Address makes it probable that there is a disposition to drop that Business. If it is so, it will be a great Dissappointment to many People: whether it will be so to the writer of a Letter I mentioned in my former is here a Matter of Doubt.1 Be it as it will, I am satisfied that all Persons who are Parties to the defeating this Purpose, will repent of it before it is long. I have no Interest in it myself & I wish as well to the Province as any one in it.
The Ministry carry every thing before them; upon the last trying Question the Numbers in one house were 55.21; in the other 225.101.2 All the Dependence of the Opposition is upon a War; & therefore they labour hard to drive Government into it. But the best Opinion is in favor of Peace. The Ministry was offered 60,000 Seamen by the Opponents but accepted only 40,000.
Having received Advice that the Tweed got to New York on Octr 18 & was to sail for Boston3 immediately, I reckon that Lady B will probably be at Portsmouth within this Week; & therefore shall set out for it tomorrow without waiting for Advice of her Arrival. When I come back I shall be able, possibly, to write to you to more Purpose. The Commissions are all ready & will go this Week.
I am Sir &c.
His Excellcy Govr Hutchinson
1. There are two contemporaneous sets of the Massachusetts Council’s legislative records. One was kept in Boston and is in Council Legislative Records, 1692–1774, 24 vols., GC3–1701x, vols. 23–28, M-Ar. The other was sent to London: Council in Assembly, Massachusetts, 1760–1774, CO 5/820-CO 5/828, and CO 5/830–833. This project utilizes the London copies, for it was this set that was prepared for and consulted by ministers and officials.
2. The Council’s record books are Council Executive Records, 1760–1774, CO 5/823, CO 5/827, and CO 5/829. There is also a set of nineteenth-century transcripts in Council Executive Records, 1692–1774, 13 vols. [vols. 2–14], GC3–327, M-Ar.
3. The Thomas Gage Papers were being reorganized when this volume was in preparation.
4. A second edition was published in 1774 with a variant title and additional papers. Select Letters on the Trade and Government of America; and the Principles of Law and Polity, Applied to the American Colonies. Written by Governor Bernard, at Boston, In the Years 1763, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Now first published: To which are added The Petition of the Assembly of Massachuset’s Bay against the Governor, his Answer thereto, and the Order of the King in Council thereon (London: T. Payne, 1774). It was reprinted in Boston by Cox and Berry and advertised for sale on 27 Oct. 1774.
1. See Bernard Papers, 4: 22; 5: 38–39.
2. Thomas Bernard accompanied his Boston friend Isaac Smith Jr. (1749–1829) on a Grand Tour of France, leaving England in late Jun. 1771 and perhaps returning c. Feb. 1772 after FB’s stroke (No. 896). The last out-letter of his father’s that he copied into the letterbooks is dated 25 May (BP, 8: 168–169). FB continued to correspond but copies of only three further letters have survived. Nicolson, The ‘Infamas Govener’, 212; Isaac Smith Jr. to Isaac Smith Sr., Paris, 15 Jul. 1771, Smith-Carter Papers, MHS.
3. The family probably moved out of the mansion at Jamaica Farm and took up residence at the “Cherry House” near Boston. Cato was also a coachman and taught to read in c. 1769 by fifteen-year-old Amelia Bernard. Cato saved her younger sister Julia from drowning when the HMS Tweed, on which the family were returning to England, was caught in a storm. Whether Cato was a free servant or slave is uncertain, though the latter is more likely. He is variously described as the family’s “black man” by Julia and the governor’s “Servant” and “his Man” in a newspaper article, common euphemisms for enslaved personal attendants. The subject of the article was FB’s intervention on behalf of “Cato, his Servant” and Cato’s “concubine” following a dispute with one Abraham Munroe, “a free Negro” and “orderly Householder” with whom Cato and his partner were lodging. When evicted by Munroe, Cato (who “reckoned himself of the Better sort among the blacks”) sought the assistance of FB, who brought a writ of trespass against Munroe that prompted protracted “Arbitration” and was settled by Munroe, agreeing to pay compensation, presumably to avoid a court case and secure his release from prison. The incident occurred in 1766 and the article wrongly declared Cato “since dead.” “J. M.,” Boston Gazette, 16 Dec. 1769; excerpts from Julia’s memoir in Mrs. Sophie Elizabeth Napier Higgins, The Bernards of Abington and Nether Winchendon: A Family History, 4 vols. (London, 1903–04), 2: 216–217.
4. At thirteen, Julia was sent to school in Berkhamstead, Herts., and both her and Frances’s (25 Jul. 1757–1821) reminiscences of family life are extracted in Higgins, The Bernards, 2: 204–305 and passim.
5. Following the enclosure of Nettleham manor and parish in 1776, Bernard appears to have purchased land from the bishop for his will indicates he raised a mortgage of £761. He also had a mortgage on Jamaica Farm, Roxbury, Mass., of £900 and mortgages on Beresford’s Buckinghamshire estates of £940. The will of Sir Francis Bernard, 23 Sept. 1778, Spencer Bernard Papers: D/SB/J/158.
6. See Bernard Papers, 5: 11–13.
7. See Peter D. G. Thomas, The Townshend Duties Crisis: The Second Phase of the American Revolution, 1767–1773 (Oxford, 1987), 207–208; Nicolson, The ‘Infamas Govener’, 210, 214.
8. Knox quoted in “Report on the correspondence of William Knox, relating mainly to American affairs, 1757–1808, and to Ireland, 1767–1784,” in Great Britain. Historical Manuscripts Commission. The American Revolutionary Series: British Accounts of the American Revolution, ed. George A. Billias (Boston, 1972), 257. William Knox (1732–1810) was undersecretary state to Hillsborough from Jun. 1770 to Aug. 1772 and served under his successors until the closure of the Colonial Department in 1782. John Pownall (1724/25–95), a former secretary to the Board of Trade, was senior to Knox, and served as undersecretary to the American secretaries from Jun. 1768 to Apr. 1776, before appointment as commissioner of Excise. Wills Hill (1718–93), the first earl of Hillsborough in the Irish peerage, was the first secretary of state for the American Colonies, 21 Jan. 1768–15 Aug. 1772.
9. Thomas, Townshend Duties Crisis, 207–208; Leland J. Bellot, William Knox: The Life and Thought of an Eighteenth-Century Imperialist (Austin, 1977), 110, 124.
10. Leonard Woods Labaree, William Bradford Willcox, and Barbara Oberg, et al. eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 37 vols. (New Haven, 1959–2008), 16: 9.
11. TH’s description of the “fit” in No. 900 is dated 30 Mar. 1772 — too late to be of use in dating the onset of FB’s illness. No. 896, however, indicates that by 1 Feb. 1772 FB was recuperating at Bath, attended by his daughter Jane. Thomas Bernard indicates FB suffered a “paralytic stroke” while at Lincoln settling the Beresford estate and was able to travel after “‘six weeks’.” All of this suggests the stroke occurred c. 21 Dec. 1771. Thomas Bernard, Life of Sir Francis Bernard (n.p., 1790), 204–206.
12. TH to FB, Boston, 23 Feb. 1773. Mass. Archs., 27: 456.
13. While Knox does not state Pownall was present his presence can be inferred from Knox noting that the Boston Port Act, 14 Geo. 3, c. 19 (31 Mar. 1774), was “the step proposed by Pownall to have been taken.” Knox in The American Revolutionary Series: British Accounts of the American Revolution, 257. Pownall’s summary is in Peter O. Hutchinson, The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, 2 vols. (London, 1883), 1:183.
14. There is no such “Plan” among FB’s own papers. Catalogue searches failed to locate any file copies among Hillsborough’s state papers in TNA: CO 5, or his private papers in the Downshire Papers at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, or in Lord North’s American papers in the British Library. North (Sheffield Park) Papers: correspondence and papers of Frederick, 2nd Earl of Guilford, together with miscellaneous earlier and later family papers; 1600–1814, n.d. Add MS 61860–61876.
15. An act for the better regulating the government of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, 14 Geo. 3, c. 45 (1774). See also Peter D. G. Thomas, Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, 1773–1776 (Oxford, 1991), 63–65.
16. FB sat for John Singleton Copley (1753–1815) in 1767, according to a recent entry in the Catalog of American Portraits. He brought the portrait with him to England. Object UNL00710, the Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (https://npg.si.edu/portraits/research/search). FB likely gifted the portrait to Christ Church, where it now hangs, upon receiving an honorary degree in 1772, which is why the portrait has been misdated 1772 in the frontispiece to previous volumes of the Bernard Papers. (Copley did not arrive in London until July of 1774, and in September embarked on a nine-month tour of Europe.) There are two portraits of Bernard at Nether Winchendon House: an undated copy of the Copley painting and another of FB as a young man from the time of his marriage to Amelia Offley in 1741. The fourth known portrait was hanging in Harvard College in Oct. 1768 when it was vandalized by intruders who cut out the heart of the “heartless” governor, as Jane Kamensky relates, in protest at the arrival of British troops in Boston. It was subsequently repaired and restored by Copley. The original artist may have been Joseph Blackburn (1725–85), to whom is attributed an undated portrait of FB, of which only an x-radiograph is extant in the collections of the Harvard Art Museums (https://hvrd.art/o/346510). See Jane Kamensky, A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley (New York, 2016), 144–145; Albert Matthews, The Portraits of Sir Francis Bernard (Boston: The Club of Odd Volumes, 1922).
17. Hutchinson, Diary and Letters 1: 195 312, 469, 471, 533.
18. Ibid., 469, 471, 533.
19. Ibid., 2: 17, 46, 72, 169, 224.
20. Hutchinson, Diary and Letters, 2: 318–319; Higgins, The Bernards, 2: 331. J. Worth Estes, “Dropsy.” Chapter. in The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, ed. Kenneth F. Kiple, (Cambridge, 1993), 689–696. Thomas Bernard’s published account is less dramatic than that which he related to TH: his father “expired without a groan in the arms of four of his children.” Life of Sir Francis Bernard, 207.
21. For a description of the property based on the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, 130: 178, see John T. Hassam, “The Confiscated Estates of Boston Loyalists,” Procs. MHS, 2d ser., 10 (1895): 162–185.
22. The Will of Sir Francis Bernard, 29 Sept. 1778, Spencer Bernard Papers, D/SB/J/158; Probate of the will of Sir Francis Bernard, 10 Jul. 1779, PROB 11/1055, ff 5–8; Epitome of deeds to be executed on the sale of the late Sir Francis Bernard’s Winchendon and Nettleham Estates, to Mr. [Richard] King, [1783 or 1784?], Spencer Bernard Papers: D/SB/J/251. On his children’s lives and careers see Nicolson, The ‘Infamas Govener’, 236–237; Higgins, The Bernards, vols. 2 to 4 passim.
23. John Adams to Abigail Adams, 17 Jun. 1780, in Robert J. Taylor, Mary-Jo Kline, Gregg L. Lint, et al., eds., Papers of John Adams, 20 vols. to date (Cambridge, Mass., 1977–), 3: 367.
1. George Chalmers, “Papers relating to New England, 1643–1786,” Sparks MS 10, MH-H; John Almon, A Collection of Interesting, Authentic Papers, relative to the Dispute between Great Britain and America; shewing the causes and progress of that misunderstanding, from 1764 to 1775 (London, 1777).
2. Standard biographical directories include: Mark Mayo Boatner, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (New York, 1966); Joseph Foster, ed., Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715–1886, 4 vols. (Oxford and London, 1888); Edward A. Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts: Their Memorials, Petitions and Claims (London, 1930); David E. Maas, ed. and comp., Divided Hearts: Massachusetts Loyalists, 1765–1790: A Biographical Directory (Boston, 1980); Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, eds., The House of Commons, 1754–1790, 3 vols. (London, 1964); John A. Schutz, ed., Legislators of the Massachusetts General Court (Boston, 1997); Search & ReSearch Publishing Corp, Early Vital Records of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to About 1850 (Wheat Ridge, Conn., 2002); John L. Sibley, Clifford K. Shipton, Conrad Edick Wright, Edward W. Hanson, eds. Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University [title varies], 18 vols. to date (Cambridge, Mass., 1873–); James H. Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution (Boston, 1910); Nancy S. Voye, Massachusetts Officers in the French and Indian Wars, 1748–1763 (microfiche, Boston, 1975).
3. American National Biography Online (New York, 2005–, at http://www.anb.org); Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (Toronto, 2003–, http://www.biographi.ca); Newsbank Inc., America’s Historical Newspapers. Archive of Americana. Early American Newspapers Series 1, 1690–1876 (2008–, available via subscription at GenealogyBank.com, http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/newspapers/); Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online (London, 2004–2006, http://www.oxforddnb.com) (hereafter ODNB-e). The British Army Lists, published annually since 1740, are not online, but Worthington C. Ford, British Officers Serving in America, 1754–1774 (Boston, 1894) is available at the Internet Archive.com. Also useful for establishing dates of British government appointments is the authoritative J. C. Sainty, et al., eds., Officeholders in Modern Britain, 1660–1870, 11 vols. (London, 1972–2006), available at British History Online (via http://www.british-history.ac.uk/catalogue). Contemporary almanacs and court-registers are accessible through ECCO. For example, The Court and City Kalendar: or, Gentleman’s Register, for the year 1766 . . . (London, 1765).
1. 12 Sept.
2. Amelia Bernard (née Offley), [c. 1719–26 May 1778], FB’s wife.
3. William Wildman Barrington (1717–93), Viscount Barrington, was Amelia Bernard’s cousin, MP for Plymouth, and secretary at war in the duke of Grafton’s administration (from 14 Oct. 1768 until the duke’s resignation on 30 Jan. 1770), then held the same position until 1778 in Lord North’s administration (formed 28 Jan. 1770, serving until 27 Mar. 1782).
4. Middlesex Journal, 2–5 Sept., 5–7 Sept., 7–9 Sept., and 9–12 Sept., 1769; Public Advertiser, 7 Sept. 1769.
5. No. 802.
1. The House of Representatives’ petition to the King for FB’s removal, dated 27 Jun. 1769, was presented by the House’s London agent Dennys DeBerdt (d.1770) on 14 Sept. (according to No. 801). See Appendix 7, Bernard Papers, 5: 359–362. The copy that the House clerk Samuel Adams provided FB has not survived, though it was probably that version FB used when charting his vindication in Appendix 2 rather than Hillsborough’s personal copy or those printed in the British newspapers. The Privy Council hearing commenced on 28 Feb. 1770 (for which see Appendices 2 and 3).
2. Appendix 2.
1. Thomas Hutchinson (1711–80): elected to the Council, 1749–65; lieutenant governor, 1758–71; governor, 1771–74; chief justice of the Superior Court, 1760–71. TH’s first letter to FB as acting governor described how Boston’s nonimportation agreement (drawn up in Aug. 1768) was being more rigorously enforced. Merchant committees were visiting nonsubscribers and persistent importers, including TH’s sons, whom John Hancock (1737–93) had denounced for having imported and stored “large quantities of Tea” since the onset of the boycott. FB’s information in this letter that Hancock was still importing tea and other “English Goods” was potential ammunition for the provincial government, whose advocate John Mein was exposing violations of the agreement by Hancock and other Whig merchants in his Boston Chronicle. However, FB fails to mention that Hancock’s vessels Lydia and Paoli had left Boston prior to the merchants deciding on 26 Jul. to continue the boycott indefinitely until the tea duty was repealed. They also agreed to refuse consignments of goods, including tea, previously ordered. TH to FB, Boston, 8 Aug. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 361–362; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 202–305. TH continued to update FB and Hillsborough on the nonimportation dispute, for which see John W. Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots: Boston Merchants and the Advent of the Revolution (Boston, 1986), 116–121, and Hancock at p. 126.
2. James Scott (d.1809), captain of the Lydia. He married Hancock’s widow, Dorothy Quincy Hancock, in 1796.
3. FB had consistently recommended that revenue raised from the Townshend duties be applied to a colonial civil list. Yet, when discussing remonstrances against the Townshend Acts prepared by the House of Representatives in early 1768, he had evinced some sympathy for colonial objections to tax revenues not being expended in America. No. 581, Bernard Papers, 4: 71. FB’s criticism of Townshend’s “ill concerted Scheme” echoed his ex post facto denunciation of Grenville’s Stamp Act following encountering sustained opposition. Having met with Grafton, the prime minister, on 8 Sept., FB was probably aware that the government was not yet committed to repealing any of the acts and was likely to retain the tea duty. See discussion in Peter D. G. Thomas, The Townshend Duties Crisis: The Second Phase of the American Revolution, 1767–1773 (Oxford, 1987), 148–154.
4. TH had reported having met briefly with two visitors* from Virginia and Maryland, whose “principal business” was to warn the Boston Sons of Liberty that the Southern colonies disapproved “their conduct” in “contemplation [of] any thing more than the repeal of the Duties. upon paper glass &ca.” TH to FB, Boston, 8 Aug. 1769.
* Benjamin Ogle (1749–1809) was the son of Samuel Ogle (c. 1694–1752) proprietary governor of Maryland (1731–42 and 1746–52) and a future governor of the state of Maryland (1798–1801); Ralph Wormeley (1744–1806), a Virginia planter and politician.
5. For details of the House’s petition see No. 800n1 and for FB’s vindication see Appendix 2.
6. Andrew Oliver (1706–74) was province secretary from 1756 to 1771; John Pownall (1724–95) was under-secretary of state for the Colonies, 1768–70.
7. The plural “s” is indistinct.
8. TH enclosed copies of Boston newspapers in a letter of 8 Aug. 1769, Mass. Archs, 26: 361–362 and Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 302–304. He continued sending FB the newspapers he requested in No. 801. There is a file of fifteen newspapers in NWHMC including ten issues of the Boston Gazette, 22 Jan.–24 Dec. 1770; four issues of the Massachusetts Gazette: and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, 19 Jul.–1 Oct. 1770; and the New York Journal Supplement, 10 Jan. 1770.
9. TH to FB, 15 Nov. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 406; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 406.
10. TH to FB, Boston, 27 Nov. 1769, BP, 12: 157–160; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 421–422.
1. There is no extant letter from TH to FB dated 17 Sept., the next in the series being that of 20 Sept. Since “Letter” is rendered in the singular, the reference is likely a scribal error for TH’s letter of 11 and 17 Aug., in Mass. Archs., 26: 363. In this letter, TH reported the return to Boston of Capt. James Scott, who brought with him copies of correspondence laid before Parliament in January and transmitted to Boston by the Massachusetts Council’s agent, William Bollan. The letters were published in September as 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 and Gill, 1769). Hereafter Letters to the Ministry (1st ed.). For the publication history see Bernard Papers, 5: xxivn8, 36–37, 57n118–119.
2. TH to FB, Boston, 30 Nov. to 6 Dec. 1769, Mass., 26: 410, 414; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 424–425.
1. Francis Bernard Jr. (27 Sept. 1743–20 Nov. 1770), FB’s eldest son. None of Frank’s letters to his father have survived.
2. Town of Boston.
3. Thus in manuscript.
4. Editorially supplied.
5. Smudged here and below.
6. TH to FB, Boston, 14 Nov. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 405; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 403–404. There were two Boston physicians named Perkins: Dr. John Perkins (1698–1780) and Dr. Nathaniel Perkins (1715–99). Dr. John Perkins is more likely to have treated Frank Bernard (No. 803) having been TH’s physician, but there is no mention of his having done so in his extant papers held by Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University: Observations Medical & Chirurgical by John Perkins, 1724–1774, B MS b64.2, (Colonial North America at Harvard Library: https://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HMS.COUNT:25642084?n=227); Account Book of John Perkins, 1727–1771, B MS b64.3, ibid. (https://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HMS.COUNT:25757217); Account book of John Perkins, 1744–1780, B MS b64, ibid. (https://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HMS.COUNT:27331735). Accessed 27 Jun. 2020. Dr. Nathaniel Perkins, a Harvard graduate (1734), had organized smallpox inoculation during the 1764 outbreak.
7. TH to FB, Boston, 10 Jan. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 429; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 27–30. Probably Charles Pelham of Newton, who Lady Bernard later recommended to TH for a commission as a justice of the peace. Higgins, The Bernards, 2: 222.
8. TH to FB, 1 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 450; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 93.
1. Possibly Capt. James Scott.
2. The “deposition” of Sampson Toovey, Salem, 27 Sept. 1764, Boston Gazette, 12 Jun. 1769. Benjamin Lynde Jr., (1700–81) had been a justice of the Superior Court since 1745; Col. Benjamin Pickman (1708–73) was a wealthy Salem merchant and father to Benjamin Pickman Jr. (1740–1819).
3. Editorially supplied.
4. John Mein, bookseller and printer of the Boston Chronicle, was mobbed in King Street on 28 Oct. having satirised leading Whigs and exposed merchants’ evasions of the nonimportation agreement. See Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, 121–138.
5. The affidavits of Sampson Toovey, Salem, 27 Sept. 1764, T 1/429, ff 205–206. Enclosed in John Temple to the Board of Customs Commissioners, Boston, 3 Oct. 1764, T 1/429, ff 202–204, for which see Bernard Papers, 2: 485–487.
1. No. 608, Bernard Papers, 4: 149–152.
2. No. 743, Bernard Papers, 5: 202–204.
3. FB omitted to mention that Pownall had previously intimated that the British government was also considering confirming the Mount Desert Island grant of 1762, which FB had long requested. Ibid.
4. See source note to No. 806.
5. Appendix 1, Bernard Papers, 1: 471.
6. Bernard Papers, 5: 303.
1. Scribal error.
2. TH to FB, Boston, 8 Sept.1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 374; TH to FB, 11 Sept., ibid., 375. The other letter may have been that of 20 Sept., ibid., 377–378. See also Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 328–331, 338–340.
3. Trans: “When all is uncertain, save yourself,” a proverb commonly attributed to Seneca. For example, “Cum omnia in incerto sint, fave tibi, & crede quod mavis” was an opening epigraph to Charles Blount, The Two First Books of Philostratus, concerning the life of Apollonius Tyaneus . . . (London, 1680). The proverb as given here by FB, together with a loose rendition in English (“Since all things are uncertain, indulge thyself”), are inscribed on a stone slab at the gardens of Stowe House, Buckinghamshire, Eng., the stately home of Richard Grenville-Temple (1711–79), the second earl Temple. The slab marks the site of the “Sleeping Parlour,” a garden temple on whose walls the epigraph was originally inscribed. The building was demolished by the time FB toured Buckinghamshire in the fall of 1769; whether he visited the Stowe estate at the time is unknown but it is possible FB was recalling the actual inscription as seen on the stone slab rather than adapting any popular translation of Seneca’s Moral Epistles (Sen. Ep. 13.13), such as by L’Estrange (1764).* “Ergo spem ac metum examina, et quotiens incerta erunt omnia, tibi fave; crede quod mavis” in Gummere (1917): trans.: “Accordingly, weigh carefully your hopes as well as your fears, and whenever all the elements are in doubt, decide in your own favour; believe what you prefer.”; cf. L’Estrange (1764): “Examine the Hope, and the Fear; and, where Things are uncertain, favour yourself, and believe that which you had rather come to pass” (Sen. Ep. 11). When construed, Seneca’s original phrasing proffered optimism as a salve for TH’s anxiety in whether to succeed FB as governor. For in his letter of 8 Sept., TH had ironically offered a Ciceronian proverb, “Cedant arma togae” (Cic. Off. 1.77 [“Yield, ye arms, to the toga”]), to suggest that for future governors “it will be just the reverse.” Mass. Archs., 26: 374.**
* National Trust, Heritage Records: Site of the Temple of Sleep, (Sleeping Parlour), Stowe Landscape Garden (https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA130405,k accessed 24 Apr. 2019); https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Sleeping_Parlour_site_-_Stowe_Gardens_-_Buckinghamshire%2C_England_-_DSC06997.jpg. FB and Lady Bernard brought TH and his daughter Margaret to visit Stowe on 11 Aug. 1774, and, to TH’s disappointment, FB refused Lord Temple’s offer of accommodation in preference to a “villainous” local inn. The connections between the Bernard and Grenville-Temple families were consolidated by election of FB’s sixth son Scrope Bernard (1 Oct. 1758–18 Apr.1830) as MP for Aylesbury, Bucks., in 1789, a constituency under the influence of George Nugent-Temple-Grenville (1753–1813), first Marquess of Buckingham and nephew of the second earl Temple. Hutchinson, Diary and Letters of Hutchinson, 1: 514–515.
** Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales Volume I Books I-LXV, trans., Richard M. Gummere (1917; Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1961), 80–81, Perseus Digital Library (http://catalog.perseus.org/catalog/urn:cite:perseus:author.1270) and Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/adluciliumepistu01sene/page/80); Roger L’Estrange, Seneca’s Morals by Way of Abstract . . . (1678; London, 1764) (https://archive.org/details/senecasmoralsby00lesgoog/page/n353); M. Tullius Cicero, De Officiis. With An English Translation, trans. Walter Miller (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1913), Perseus Digital Library (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0474.phi055.perseus-eng1:1.77).
4. Oliver’s letter has not been found but may be that referred to in No. 815. Sir Henry Moore (1713–69), governor of New York since 1765, died on 11 Sept. following a sixteen-day illness. His death prompted TH’s speculation on the rotation of governors around the provinces and rumors that William Franklin (1730–1813), governor of New Jersey, might supersede him in Massachusetts. TH to FB, Boston 20 Sept. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 377–378; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 338–340.
5. Here FB personalizes a well-known passage from Horace (Hor. Od. 1.14) to convey his determination to avoid becoming the architect of his own misfortune. Trans: “O luckless bark, will new waves force you back to sea? What are you doing? Make the haven yours.” Cf. to Conington’s translation: “O luckless bark! new waves will force you back/ To sea. O, haste to make the haven yours!” Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace, trans. John Conington. (London, 1882), Perseus Digital Library (http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0893.phi001.perseus-eng1:1.14).
6. Richard Jackson (1721/2–87), the MP for New Romney, 1768–84, and province agent for Connecticut, had previously acted as FB’s business agent.
7. TH replied with two letters both dated Boston, 10 Jan. 1770, one of which was marked private and in which he expressed full confidence in the “care” FB exercised on his behalf. Mass. Archs., 26: 428–429.
8. Barrington to FB, Beckett, 18 Oct. 1769, BP, 12: 153–156.
9. Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 151–152.
1. TH to FB, Boston, 8 Sept.1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 374, and 11 Sept., ibid., 375; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 328–331.
2. Meaning “in passing”.
3. Massachusetts Bay.
4. Smudged but legible.
5. TH to FB, Boston, 10 Jan. 1770, No. 2, Mass. Archs., 26: 429; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 27–30.
1. Joseph Harrison, the collector of customs at Boston, carried copies of TH to FB, Boston, 26 Aug. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 368–369; Boston, 4 and 5 Oct. 1769, ibid., 383–384; 6 Oct. 1769, ibid. 387. See Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 317–318, 348–349, 357.
2. It was commonly assumed that Townshend’s tea duty benefitted the East India Company by permitting drawbacks on inland duties levied in Great Britain; this enabled the company to sell tea at 9d per pound cheaper in America. See Max Farrand, “The Taxation of Tea, 1767–1773,” The American Historical Review, 3 (1898): 266–269. Further assistance came with the Tea Act, 13 Geo. 3 c. 44 (1773) which gave the company a monopoly on tea exports to the American Colonies and further drawbacks on British import duties.
3. Obscured in the letterbook gutter.
4. By mid-summer 1769, FB’s son, John Bernard, and TH’s sons, Thomas Hutchinson Jr., and Elisha Hutchinson, were among twelve merchants and shopkeepers steadfastly refusing to abide by Boston’s nonimportation agreement. They were shamed as “enemies” to their country in the Boston Gazette of 14 Aug. But while the Hutchinsons subsequently agreed to comply with the boycott (without signing), John Bernard, TH noted, was determined not to submit until “the last extremity” when “his person must suffer”. TH to FB, Boston, 4 and 5 Oct. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 384; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 348–349.
5. TH to FB, [1 Feb. 1770], Mass. Archs., 26: 438; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 60–61.
1. The earl of Hillsborough.
2. Annotation in manuscript: “//”. TH had urged FB to communicate under “the seal of secrecy” his insights on British politics and dealings with such as Benjamin Franklin (n4 below). TH to FB, Boston, 4 and 5 Oct. 1769., Mass. Archs., 26: 383–384; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 348–349.
3. The first parliamentary act FB is referring to is the Bubble Act, which subjected joint-stock companies to regulation by royal charter: an act for better securing certain powers and privileges intended to be granted by His Majesty by two charters for assurance of ships and merchandizes at sea, and for lending money on bottomry; and for restraining several extravagant and unwarrantable practices therein mentioned, 6 Geo. 1, c. 18 (1719). The second act FB mentions extended the Bubble Act’s provisions to the American Colonies: an act for restraining and preventing several unwarrantable schemes and undertakings in His Majesty’s Colonies and Plantations in America, 14 Geo. 2, c. 37 (1740). TH had hinted that, when suppressing the Massachusetts Land Bank, the 1740 act invoked a medieval statute of praemunire to intimidate anyone who might seek to act under any law that challenged or purported to thwart Crown authority. According to the 1740 act, convicted transgressors were liable to legal penalties applicable to “common and publick Nuisances” and “moreover . . . further Pains, Penalties and Forfeitures, as were ordained and provided by the Statute of Provisions and Premunire, made in the sixteenth Year of the Reign of King Richard the Second [16 Ric. 2, c. 5 (1392)].”* Faced with losing their estates, TH offered “I think even at this day few people would run the risque of incurring the penalty whatever principles they profess.” TH to FB, Boston, 26 Aug. 1769, Mass. Archs. 26: 368–369; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 317–318. FB would have been aware of the 1741 act from its citation in his royal instructions concerning the trade laws, though evidently doubted the legality of using it to prosecute signatories to the colonial nonimportation agreements (Bernard Papers, 1: 477). This brief discussion indicates FB and TH were trying to identify punitive measures short of treason law that Lord North’s administration might deploy against the colonists.
* John Raithby, ed., The Statutes at Large of England and of Great-Britain: from Magna Carta to the Union of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, 20 vols. (London, 1809), 9: 733.
4. “Dr F” is Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), the recipient of honorary doctorates from several American and British universities. Franklin was concurrently agent for Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. TH had requested FB’s opinion of Franklin’s “plan for America” and whether or not he expected “to restore government in America merely by concessions,” by which he meant repealing the Townshend duties. TH to FB, Boston, 17 Nov. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 407; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 408. FB carried to Franklin a letter from TH intimating that FB would seek to “acquaint” him with developments in Boston. TH supposed FB and Franklin might work together to persuade ministers to repeal the Townshend duties, hoping that “some allowances will be made” for the recent undue influence exerted by Boston’s radical faction. When Boston embarked on nonimportation unilaterally in Aug. 1768 its merchants anxiously monitored developments in Philadelphia and New York, fearing their commercial rivals might steal an opportunity to supplant them in transatlantic commerce. New York adopted nonimportation in the autumn and Philadelphia in Feb. 1769. Colonial merchants were keen to end the general boycott upon learning from correspondents in England that the North administration was considering a repeal of the Townshend duties. Franklin assured the Philadelphia merchants that was the case in July. Following partial repeal in Mar. 1770, efforts to end nonimportation (dutied tea excepted) in all three ports culminated in New York abandoning the boycott on 9 Jul., Philadelphia on 22 Sept., and Boston on 11 Oct. Benjamin Franklin to the Committee of Merchants in Philadelphia, London, 9 Jul. 1769, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 16: 174; TH to Benjamin Franklin, Boston, 29 Jul. 1769, ibid., 181–182; Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, 139–169.
1. No. 809.
2. Possibly William Pollock formerly clerk to Secretary of State the earl of Egremont, 1759–63.
3. Punctuation obscured in the letterbook gutter.
4. No. 806.
5. William Franklin, the son of Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read Rogers (c. 1708–74), was governor of New Jersey from 1763 to 1776. The “opinion” in New York was that Franklin would be appointed to succeed Moore. With his father in London capable of lobbying on his behalf, it was a logical presupposition; FB’s certainty that no such appointment would be forthcoming might reflect Hillsborough’s thinking on the matter. TH to FB, Boston, 20 Sept. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 377; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 338.
6. FB had discussed these matters in No. 806.
7. In his letter to FB of 20 Sept., TH had alerted FB that William Kellogg, agent for the settlers of Nobletown within the New York boundary line, was prepared to travel to England to press their case for the right of occupation to land purchased from the Stockbridge Indians from which they had been evicted by the Van Rensselaer family claiming prior title. The dispute can be followed in Nos. 487 and 488, Bernard Papers, 3: 191–196.
8. On 15 Jul., a few weeks before his departure, FB had prorogued the General Court until 10 Jan. 1770. Hillsborough instructed TH to continue the prorogation until March pending further “Guidance and direction,” and it did not meet until 15 Mar. 1770. Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, 4 Nov. 1769, CO 5/758, ff 200–201; JHRM, 46: 89.
9. The phrase imperium in imperio meant state within a state and was commonly used by TH and other anti-revolutionaries to denigrate Whig and Patriot arguments for extensive legislative self-government, claiming they sought a constitutional aberration — a division of sovereignty between Parliament and the colonies. In his letter of 20 Sept., TH proffered “never” having “a clear idea of an Empire of Commerce distinct from civil government” and linked the nonimportation movement to the merchants’ aspirations to escape the commercial restrictions of the mercantilist system. TH was making a general observation about “several late writers” who were “fond” of the idea, but in reply FB seems to suppose TH was referring to a particular (unidentified) “Writer.” One possibility is the anonymous author of a reform-minded pro-government pamphlet (attributed to William Knox) who advocated removing port duties on imports to the colonies and restrictions on colonial manufacturing. The Present State of the Nation; particularly with respect to its trade, finances, &c. &c. addressed to the King and both Houses of Parliament (Dublin, 1768), 73–76.
10. See No. 826. TH had urged Crown salaries for the province attorney general and advocate general of Vice Admiralty, as FB himself had long recommended. At FB’s request, Boston lawyer Samuel Fitch (1724–99) deputized for Jonathan Sewall (1729–96) as advocate general of the Vice Admiralty Court at Boston, whose jurisdiction covered New England, when Sewall opened his commission as judge of the Vice Admiralty Court at Halifax, with jurisdiction over Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. TH appointed Fitch advocate general subject to confirmation by the Admiralty Board. Also mentioned: Sir Edward Hawke, (1705–81), first lord of the Admiralty since 1766 and Admiral of the Fleet, 1768–71; Philip Stephens (1723–1809), first secretary of the Admiralty, 1763–95.
11. In 1768, FB had offered John Adams (1735–1826) the opportunity to replace Jonathan Sewall as advocate general of the Vice Admiralty, following Sewall’s elevation to the bench of that court. Adams, one of the most able barristers in the province, had represented John Hancock and his men in a long-running trial for smuggling that Sewall’s prosecution team abandoned in Mar. 1769. In June, Adams successfully defended Michael Corbet and three other sailors tried for the murder of Lt. Henry Panton RN, of HMS Rose. (See Bernard Papers, 5: 302n15.) Dissatisfied by Sewall’s overall performance, the commissioners of the American Board of Customs favored Adams for the position, regardless that Adams had no expertise in admiralty law. Adams’s Whig sympathies prompted TH to warn he would be a “very dangerous” appointee. TH to FB, Boston, 20 Sept. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 377; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 338. For further discussion see Colin Nicolson and Owen Dudley Edwards. Imaginary Friendship in the American Revolution: John Adams and Jonathan Sewall (New York and London, 2019), 88–90.
1. Punctuation and text obscured in the letterbook gutter here and below.
2. William Murray (1705–93), first earl of Mansfield and Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench since 1756.
3. John Pownall and the earl of Hillsborough.
4. Andrew Oliver, the province secretary of Massachusetts.
5. TH to FB, 28 Feb. to 2 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 450–451; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 92–95
6. See Bernard Papers, 5: 20–26; Neil L. York, “Defining and Defending Colonial American Rights: William Bollan, Agent,” American Political Thought, 3 (2014): 197–227.
7. TH to FB, Boston, 20 Sept. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 377–378; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 338–340.
1. Possibly Capt. David Smith, noted to have cleared the Boston Custom House “for London” in Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, 23 Nov. 1769.
2. TH to FB, Boston, 14 Nov. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 405; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 403–404. Capt. Davies of the ship Thomas bound for London, noted in the Boston Chronicle, 16–20 Nov. 1769.
3. Capt. James Bruce had brought word of FB’s arrival in England. TH to FB, 15 Nov. [1769], Mass. Archs., 26: 406; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 406.
4. Editorially supplied.
5. Lady Bernard returned to Jamaica Plain Farm c. 5 Oct. 1769, as noted in TH to FB, Boston, 17 Nov. 1769; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 412. The reason for her absence is unknown but she may have been visiting “Cherry House” near Boston to where she later moved. For identification of Dr. Perkins see No. 803n6.
1. TH’s letter of 20 Nov. provided notice of the merchants’ intention to challenge the legality of customs officers’ fees and to push for a provincial law to regulate Customhouse fees. Mass. Archs., 26: 407. FB’s letter of 19 Sept. is No. 801.
2. TH’s account of this interesting anecdote is likely based on Andrew Oliver’s “first hand” report. See the discussion in No. 815n5.
3. 10 Jan. 1770.
4. Sylvester Gardiner (1707–86), a physician by occupation, was also a wealthy land speculator and chairman of the Kennebec Company.
5. John Hancock and William Palfrey (1741–80), Boston merchants. In reply, John Wilkes claimed “Governor Bernard is looked on with horror by all true Englishmen.” Wilkes to Palfrey, King’s Bench Prison, 27 Sept. 1769, PCSM, 34 (1937–42), 415.
6. Probably James Bowdoin (1726–90), Temple’s father-in-law.
1. No. 804. TH to Benjamin Pickman Sr., [Boston], 22 Nov. [1769], Mass. Archs., 26: 407–408. TH enclosed a copy of Pickman’s reply.
2. Editorially supplied here and below to assist reading.
3. The Boston merchants’ committee wrote their counterparts at Salem on 10 Nov. seeking support to extend nonimportation until the American revenue acts of 1764 and 1766 were repealed in addition to the Townshend Revenue Act of 1767. Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, 136. A copy of the letter was enclosed in TH to the earl of Hillsborough, Boston, 1 Dec. 1769, CO 5/759, ff 1–2, and on receipt an entry book made in CO 5/768, ff 54–57.
4. The indictment that Attorney General Jonathan Sewall was determined to reject (by declaring nolle prosequi) reflected popular anger at the presence of the British troops. Thomas Gage (1719–97) was commander in chief of the British Army in North America. Previous volumes of the Bernard Papers give Gage’s birthdate as 1721: the correction follows the updated finding aid to the Thomas Gage Papers, MiU-C. (https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsead/umich-wcl-M-341gag?id=navbarbrowselink;view=text). Samuel Hood (1724–181) was commander of the North Atlantic Station. Richard Dana (1700–72) was a Boston lawyer and Son of Liberty. The four named commissioners were Henry Hulton (1732–91), the senior commissioner, William Burch (d.1794), Charles Paxton (1704–88), and John Robinson (d.1783). A few letters by Gage, Hood, and the commissioners of Customs were included in the second batch of FB’s correspondence, Letters to the Ministry (1st ed.). On 18 Oct., the town of Boston voted that FB, Gage, Hood, and four commissioners (having excluded Temple) should be prosecuted for libel against the town. Reports of the Record Commissioners of Boston, 16: 299–300. They “maliciously, wilfully and falsely,” intended to “misrepresent and libel, slander, and defame the Council, the town of Boston, and the people of the province” in order to procure a military “Tyranny.” Suffolk County, Superior Court of Judicature, [Draft] Indictment of Sir Francis Bernard, Boston, 21 Nov. 1769, MH-H: American Revolution MSS, bMS AM 1704.18 (16).
5. John Hely-Hutchinson (1724–94) was a leading Irish politician with whom, in 1768, TH opened correspondence on family history (although there was no direct genealogical link). For TH’s discussion of his family connections to Hely-Hutchinson see his letter to Soame Jenyns of 4 Dec. 1769 in Mass. Archs., 26: 412 and Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 429–430. Soame Jenyns (1704–87), an MP since 1741 and a member of the Board of Trade since 1755, had been a staunch critic of the Americans during the Stamp Act Crisis. TH and FB would have been aware of his anonymously authored pamphlet. The Objections to the Taxation of our American Colonies, by the Legislature of Great Britain, Briefly Consider’d (London, 1765). Jenyns’s second wife was Elizabeth Grey, his first cousin.
6. No. 802.
7. Grand Jury.
8. Joseph Harrison was collector of Customs at Boston. Benjamin Hallowell (1724–99) was comptroller of Customs at Boston, 1764–70, and a commissioner of Customs from 1771. Their depositions concerning the Liberty riot of 10 Jun. 1768, during which they had been roughed up by protesting crowds, were published in Letters to the Ministry, 91–93. Hallowell’s examination by the Treasury on 21 Jul. was subsequently published in A Third Extraordinary Budget of Epistles and Memorials between Sir Francis Bernard of Nettleham, Baronet, some Natives of Boston, New-England, and the present Ministry; against N America, the True Interest of the British Empire, and the Rights of Mankind ([Boston]: [Edes & Gill], [1770]), 2–4. Commissioner John Temple had been in dispute with his colleagues since the spring of 1768. He did not attend Board meetings for weeks at a time, and TH suspected him of aiding the Boston Whigs through his father-in-law James Bowdoin. See No. 813.
9. FB had accused John Temple of writing anti-government satires with his brother-in-law James Fenton, a British army officer. Bernard Papers, 5: 211. Thomas Flucker (1719–83) was a former member of the Governor’s Council.
10. Bernard Papers, 2: 205.
11. Three days earlier TH informed FB of Temple’s impending departure for England, intimating that an unnamed “gentleman” requested of TH a loan of £500 to give “B—n” (probably James Bowdoin). See No. 813.
1. FB’s letters have not been found, but Oliver’s replies of 15 and 19 Nov, are extracted in Hutchinson, Diary and Letters of Hutchinson, 1: 21–22. Oliver intimated that he and FB’s friends, including Robert Auchmuty, had recently dined in “cordial remembrance of you” and that Lady Bernard was currently “very well.” Abraham Dupuis (d.1777) was a hardware merchant of 60 Gracechurch Street, City of London, and correspondent of the Boston merchant Richard Clarke (1711–95).
2. Rutland, Worcester Co., Mass.
3. Negotiations to settle the boundary line had opened in 1767. See Bernard Papers, 3: 378.
4. Left marginalia: the entire paragraph is marked by a red vertical line. The passage “I fell . . . . purpose of which was this” is faintly underlined in pencil and is probably non-contemporaneous.
5. Capt. James Hall anchored the Paoli near the Boston Lighthouse and waited a week or so for a favorable wind to carry him into port. Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, 23 Nov. 1769. Hall carried a letter from the House of Representatives’ agent Dennys DeBerdt (1694–1770) to Thomas Cushing (1725–88), the Speaker of the House. Also present at the meeting described by Oliver was Samuel Adams (1722–1803), the House clerk. Oliver’s recollection of the discussion faithfully conveys the meaning of the offer DeBerdt made in his letter of 30 Sept. although he did not use the phrase “power of Attorney”: “if you could prove any Act of oppression he has been guilty of, by which you can lay an Action of damage, he is accountable for the same, & it might not be amiss to bring him before a Jury, & in order to do it you must give me proper Powers.” DeBerdt offered to transmit the opinion of “eminent” counsel on whether FB could be prosecuted for damages. He had already “employ’d a person to procure” more of FB’s letters, he wrote on 18 Sept., after delivering the House of Representatives’ petition to the King for FB’s removal. At this stage DeBerdt did not expect to be called to defend the petition before the Privy Council. FB may have been Hillsborough’s “Tool,” but he had the minister’s ear, DeBerdt had warned Cushing on 1 Jun. Dennys DeBerdt’s letters to Thomas Cushing, from London, are in Albert Matthews, “Letters of Dennys DeBerdt,” PCSM, 13 (1910–11): 290–461: 1 Jun. 1769, at 375; 18 Sept. 1769, 380; 30 Sept. 1769, 381.
6. Cushing had previously indicated which letters DeBerdt should regard as “private” correspondence whereas DeBerdt was less particular.
7. DeBerdt had already indicated his willingness to act in concert with the Council’s agent, William Bollan. DeBerdt to Cushing, 18 Sept. 1769, “Letters of Dennys DeBerdt,” 380.
8. The decline of James Otis (1725–83) is usually dated to his fight with commissioner of Customs John Robinson in September, when Robinson struck him on the head with his cane. Oliver also suggests Otis was jealous at the rising generation of barristers, including Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744–75), but pre-eminently John Adams, now the busiest of them all. See also L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel, eds., Legal Papers of John Adams, 3 vols. (Boston, 1965), 1: lix.
9. Leading Boston merchant John Hancock and five of his men were prosecuted for smuggling goods from the Liberty, but the trial was abandoned by the prosecution in Mar. 1769. Capt. John Marshall died on 10 May 1768, the day after the group landed the cargo brought in by the Liberty, master Nathaniel Barnard. Capt. Daniel Malcom (d.1769) had controversially resisted customs officers’ inspections of his warehouse. See Legal Papers of John Adams, 2: 173–209; Bernard Papers, 4: 141, 188.
10. Editorially supplied.
11. William Burnet Brown was the grandson of former colonial governor William Burnet (1688–1729); Andrew Oliver Jr. (1731–99); Col. John Murray (1720–94), a wealthy landowner, was Rutland’s representative in the assembly and a future Loyalist.
12. No. 831.
1. TH to FB, Boston, 23 Oct. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 393; also, two letters to FB dated 27 Oct. 1769 including the account of Frank Bernard’s illness, in ibid., 395–397, and Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 374–376.
2. Obscured in the gutter of the binding.
3. The Stamp Act Congress, which met at New York between 7 and 25 Oct. 1765.
4. This point of discussion had been prompted by TH’s comments that New Yorkers were hoping for an American parliament modelled on Ireland’s (whereby Irish legislation required prior Crown approval and was subject to British parliamentary supremacy). New Yorkers’ interest in Ireland was probably fueled by a newspaper extract from [Joseph Priestly], The Present State of Liberty in Great Britain and her Colonies (London, 1769), wherein Ireland was deemed never to have been subject to “direct taxes” by the British parliament. In New-York Gazette, or Weekly Post-Boy, 9 Oct. 1769. TH thought an American parliament was an “absurd” idea, being both impractical and politically risky. Opposition to the war-time colonial union that he had proposed to the colonial governors at Albany in 1754 (which proposal he now regretted) had revealed provincial distrust of intercolonial government. Moreover, any form of intercolonial convention merely presented radicals with a forum to foment resentment of Great Britain. TH to FB, Boston, 27 Oct. 1769; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 374–375. FB’s opposition to an American legislature was consistent with his earlier advocacy of American representation in the Parliament of Great Britain, in “Principles of Law and Polity” (1764), Bernard Papers, 2: 476–481.
5. An Appeal to the World; or a Vindication of the Town of Boston from many false and malicious Aspersions (Edes & Gill: Boston, 1769; repr. J. Almon: London, 1770). While usually attributed to Samuel Adams, the “Vindication” was authored by a town committee appointed on 4 Oct. 1769: Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, James Otis, Joseph Warren, Richard Dana, Joshua Henshaw, Joseph Jackson, and Benjamin Kent. It provided detailed commentary on the second batch of the Bernard Letters series, Letters to the Ministry (1st ed.). Reports of the Record Commissioners of Boston, 16: 303–305.
6. FB’s scheme found fruition in 1774 as Select Letters.
7. TH to FB, Boston, 28 Feb., 1 and 2 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 450–451; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 92–95. For Richardson’s conviction for murder and subsequent pardon see Legal Papers of John Adams, 2: 396–411.
1. No. 816.
2. Richard Jackson.
3. Smudged.
4. No. 819.
5. No. 661, Bernard Papers, 4: 271–276.
6. TH to FB, 28 Feb. to 2 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 450–451; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 92–95. The earl of Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, CO 5/758, ff 218–219. The controversy can be followed in Donald C. Lord and Robert M. Calhoon, “The Removal of the Massachusetts General Court from Boston, 1769–1772,” The Journal of American History, 55 (1969): 735–755.
1. No. 817.
2. Michael Francklin (1733–83) was lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, having been acting governor since 1766, and husband to Susannah Boutineau, the daughter of Boston merchant James Boutineau. William Dalrymple (1736–1807) was lieutenant colonel of the 14th Regiment of Foot and commanding officer of the troops stationed in Boston since 1768. William Evelyn (1723–83) was colonel of the 29th Regiment of Foot and MP for Helston, 1767–74 and 1780–81.
1. Nos. 817 and 819.
2. This sentence indicates FB approved the partial repeal of the Townshend duties, having accepted in No. 808 that repeal of all the duties including tea was unlikely.
3. TH to FB, Boston, 28 Feb., 1 and 2 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 450–451; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 92–95.
1. This annotation indicates the first in the series of letters to TH written since the turn of the year, which practice he continued until No. 831.
2. The third session of the thirteenth Parliament of Great Britain opened on 9 Jan. 1770 and closed on 19 May.
3. The “Member . . . expelled” was John Wilkes (1725–97), a controversy that preoccupied North’s administration as well as Grafton’s and of interest to American Whigs. See Bernard Papers, 5: 195–196.
4. For the administration: Peregrine Bertie (1714–78), third duke of Ancaster; John Murray (1732–1809), fourth earl of Dunmore and governor of New York, 1770–71; Basil Feilding (1719–1800), sixth earl of Denbigh; William Talbot (1710–82), first earl Talbot and a privy councilor and lord steward of the Household since 1761; George Fermor (1722–85), second earl of Pomfret; Samuel Sandys (1695–1770), first Baron Sandys; Augustus Fitzroy (1735–1811), third duke of Grafton, first lord of the Treasury and leader of the House of Lords since 1766, and prime minister, 1768–70; William Murray (1705–93), first earl of Mansfield and lord chief justice of England, 1756–88; John Montagu (1718–92), fourth earl of Sandwich and postmaster general, 1768–71; Thomas Thynne (1734–96), third viscount Weymouth and secretary of state for the Southern Department, 1768–70. For the opposition: William Pitt (1708–78), first earl of Chatham and former prime minister; George Cholmondeley (1703–70), third earl of Cholmondeley; William Petty (1737–1805), second earl of Shelburne and secretary of state for the Southern Department, 1766–68; Richard Grenville-Temple (1711–79), second earl Temple; Charles Pratt (1714–94), first earl of Camden and Lord High Chancellor, 1766–70; Charles Lennox (1735–1806), third Duke of Richmond; George Lyttelton (1709–73), first Baron Lyttelton.
5. Punctuation obscured in the gutter of the binding.
6. The third amendment doubtless raised FB’s expectations that Parliament would undertake an extended debate on American affairs, as the Lords address to the King promised, for it offered a “serious Consideration” of “the Causes of the Discontents which prevail in so many . . . Dominions” before highlighting John Wilkes’s “Incapacity” to represent the electors of Middlesex following his expulsion from the House of Commons. HLJ, 32: 395. Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16: 643.
7. Dittography preserved.
8. Thus in manuscript.
9. Refers to Lord Chatham.
10. Wilkes’s friends and the Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights organized a petitioning drive of MPs through 1769 and 1770 to overturn Wilkes’s expulsion and collected around 60,000 signatories. G. D. H. Cole and Raymond Postgate, The Common People, 1746–1946 (1938; 4th ed., 1966; repr. 1968), 102–104.
11. Meaning ridiculed. OED.
12. The second instance of “without” is probably a slip of the pen.
13. The plural “s” is erased from “Assertions”. “Col B” is Isaac Barré (1726–1802), a veteran of the French and Indian War and MP for Chipping Wycombe, 1761–74. “Lord N” is Frederick North (1732–92), the second earl of Guilford and MP for Banbury, 1754–90. North had been a lord commissioner of the Board of Trade, 1759–1765, a privy councilor since 1766, chancellor of the Exchequer in Grafton’s administration since 1767 and leader of the House of Commons since 1768. He became prime minister on 28 Jan. 1770.
14. “Lord B” is Norborne Berkeley (1718–70), Lord Botetourt, governor of Virginia since 1768. Botetourt had assured the Virginia House of Burgesses that Parliament had no intention of laying “further Taxes” on the Americans and was committed to repealing the Townshend duties on glass, paper, and painter’s colors. In reply, the House proffered what the governor termed a “kind and affectionate” address. The “strange Expressions” to which FB alludes in Botetourt’s speech of 7 Nov. 1769 probably concern Botetourt’s gratuitous certitude that no future administration would “undo” the compromise. The speech and address were printed in British newspapers, including the General Evening Post, 19–21 Dec. 1769 and 9–11 Jan. 1770. See also John P. Kennedy, ed., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1766–1769 (Richmond, Va., 1906), 226–227, 233–234.
15. John Manners (1721–1770), the marquess of Granby, was commander in chief of the British Army and master-general of the Ordnance, from which positions he resigned after criticizing the government over Wilkes’s expulsion.
16. By “Son” FB probably meant “client” for the third duke of Richmond had no legitimate male heirs.
17. John Dunning (1731–83), MP for Calne since 1768 and solicitor general of England, 1768–70; Hugh Percy (1714–86), first duke of Northumberland and a privy councilor since 1762.
18. The King’s speech to Parliament of 9 Jan. was printed in the London Gazette, 6–9 Jan. 1770, and the Lords’ minority protest in the London Evening Post, 9–11 Jan. 1770.
19. Having opposed the government over its determination to expel Wilkes from Parliament, Camden’s support of Chatham’s recent attack on the ministry prompted King George III to demand his dismissal as lord chancellor on 17 Jan. 1770. ODNB-e.
20. Charles Yorke (1722–70) had been an MP since 1747 and represented the University of Cambridge, 1768–70. He was also a former solicitor general.
21. The petition of the London merchants trading with America prayed for the repeal of the Townshend duties. It was presented on 6 Feb. 1770 and considered by the House of Commons on 5 Mar. with a motion by Lord North to repeal the duties except that on tea. HCJ: 32: 664–665, 750–751.
22. Parliament was not dissolved until 1774.
23. At BP, 8: 43–44.
24. George Montagu (1737–88), fourth duke of Manchester; George William Coventry (1722–1809), sixth earl of Coventry; Francis Hastings (1729–89), tenth earl of Huntingdon and groom of the stole since 1761–70.
25. George William Hervey (1721–75), second earl of Bristol, was lord privy seal, 1768–70, in succession to Chatham, and was replaced by the earl of Halifax in Feb. 1770. Granville Leveson Gower (1721–1803), earl Gower, had been lord privy seal, 1755–57, but did not obtain an appointment to high office. Mansfield remained Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. Lord High Chancellor Camden was briefly succeeded by Charles Yorke, who died on 20 Jan. 1770, thereafter by a commission of three judges, 1770–71. Edward Thurlow (1731–1806), MP for Tamworth, 1768–70, succeeded Dunning as solicitor general, 1770–71, and thereafter was promoted to attorney general.
26. The debates described in this letter are best followed in Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16: 642–729, which reprints a “short sketch of the Debates in the Upper Chamber, January 10, 1770” from the Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle, 40 (Jan. 1770), 3–4.
27. Peter D.G. Thomas, John Wilkes: A Friend to Liberty (Oxford, 1996), 101–109, 159–176; Worthington C. Ford, “John Wilkes and Boston,” Procs. MHS, 3d ser., 47 (1913–1914): 191–220.
1. Nos. 806 and 807.
2. TH received a £200 annual salary as chief justice paid from the Townshend duties.
3. The contractions refer to the duke of Grafton, Lord Hillsborough, and Andrew Oliver.
4. Lords Hillsborough and Barrington.
5. Thomas Bradshaw (1733–74) was a junior secretary to the Treasury, 1767–1770, and was appointed a lord commissioner of the Treasury in 1772, while also MP for Saltash, 1768–74.
6. Frank Bernard had been appointed naval officer at Boston jointly with Benjamin Pemberton in 1764. See Bernard Papers, 2: 210–211.
1. That is, selected.
2. The chief clerk of the court.
3. No. 719, Bernard Papers, 5: 134–139; John P. Reid, Constitutional History of the American Revolution. Vol. 4: the Authority of Rights (Madison, Wisc., 1986), 49–59.
1. No. 820.
2. In No. 820, FB had indicated Yorke’s hesitancy to accept appointment as Lord High Chancellor until pressed personally by the King on 17 Jan. Yorke, no friend of the Americans, had been in reluctant opposition since 1766, and, while long desiring the highest office in the English judiciary, he had little to gain by joining the duke of Grafton’s decaying ministry. His sudden death three days later gave rise to rumors of suicide, but FB’s account of Yorke’s demise is consistent with that provided by FB’s lawyer Leverett Blackbourne in a letter to the deceased Lord Chancellor’s wife Mrs. Agneta Yorke. ODNB-e.
3. The commission served from 21 Jan. 1770 to 23 Jan. 1771. Henry Bathurst (1714–94) had been a judge of the Court of Common Pleas since 1754 and became Lord High Chancellor when the commission was dissolved. Sir Sidney Stafford Smythe (1705–78) was a baron of the Court of the Exchequer and was raised to chief justice of that court in 1772. Sir Richard Aston (1717–78) was a justice of the Court of the King’s Bench. Sir John Eardley Wilmot (1709–92) was chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas, 1766–71.
4. Sir John Cust (1718–70) had been MP for Grantham since 1743 and Speaker of the House of Commons since 1761. His successor as Speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton (1716–89), the member for Guildford, had been attorney general in the Grenville administration, 1763–65. His election as Speaker on Monday 22 Jan., proposed by Lord North, was by 237 votes to 121. HCJ, 32: 613.
5. The opposition was led by William Dowdeswell (1721–75), MP for Worcestershire, 1761–75. North’s decisive intervention followed a series of speakers for the government: “And that the judgment of this House, declared in the Resolution of 17th of February last, ‘That John Wilkes, esq. having been in this session of parliament expelled this House, was, and is, incapable of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament,’ was agreeable to the said law of the land, and fully authorised by the law and custom of parliament.” See Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16: 785–799, quotation at 797.
6. The two “Parties” in the cabinet were the allies of Grafton’s patron Lord Chatham, and the friends of the duke of Bedford, who were staunch critics of the Americans; the “intimate Friend” was likely Lord Camden, who leaned toward compromise on American taxation and disagreed with Grafton over Wilkes’s expulsion from Parliament.
7. Having accepted the King’s invitation to form a ministry on 28 Jan., North became First Lord of the Treasury on 6 Feb. 1770, serving until his resignation on 1 Apr. 1782.
8. Barré, a prominent friend to the American colonists, had roundly criticised FB in recent parliamentary debates. See Bernard Papers, 5: 18–19. On 31 Jan., Barré quipped of Grafton’s resignation that “nothing in his office, became him like the quitting of it.” Lord North, he mischievously averred, would need to take up the seals for all the high offices of state in the absence of suitable candidates. North “replied with great spirit and good humour” to Barré’s jest by proffering him one of the vacancies. Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16: 805–806.
9. Newspaper reporters risked prosecution if they defied government restrictions on notetaking in Parliament and the reporting of parliamentary debates. Printed debates were often reconstructed from memory though on occasion newspapers controversially printed extracts of parliamentary papers. (See No. 829.) FB could easily have based his précis of the proceedings discussed in this letter on one or more newspaper accounts, such as that in the London Evening Post, 3–6 Feb. 1770 (which identifies “L[or]d S[an]d[wic]h” rather than then earl of Denbigh as Camden’s accuser).
10. Correction to dittography.
11. See Thomas, Townshend Duties Crisis, 160–179.
12. TH to FB, Boston, 27 Jan. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 434–435; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 56–57.
1. Philip Stephens to FB, [Admiralty Office], 7 Mar. 1770, ADM 2/1057, f 347.
1. Missing word supplied.
2. An act for establishing a Naval Office, and for ascertaining of the fees (passed 28 Jun. 1701), Acts and Resolves, 1: 472–473.
3. Benjamin Pemberton (1697–1782) was appointed Boston’s naval officer in 1734. In 1764, he negotiated with FB to renew his commission jointly with FB’s eldest son Frank. See Bernard Papers, 1: passim.
4. FB may be referring to the provincial legislation of 1692 and 1701 pertaining to the Naval Office printed in the Boston Gazette, 4 Dec. 1769, for which see below n8 and No. 828.
5. Not found and probably never sent, for FB’s time and attention were preoccupied with the Privy Council hearing scheduled for 28 Feb.
6. No specific action on the matter of fees was undertaken by the Privy Council, but a royal instruction effective from 1771 introduced a local residency requirement for naval officers and collectors of customs. Leonard Woods Labaree, ed., Royal Instructions to British Colonial Governors, 1670–1776, 2 vols. (London, 1935), 2: 761.
7. Observations On Several Acts of Parliament, Passed in the 4th, 6th, and 7th Years of his present Majesty’s Reign . . . (Edes & Gill: [Boston], 1769; repr. G. Kearsly and J. Almon: London, 1770). The pamphlet did not directly advocate the abolition of the Naval Office among the many grievances discussed, including the cumbersome documentation and several fees administered by the Customhouse.
8. An act for the encouragement of Trade . . ., 15 Car. 2, c. 7, sect. 8 (1663): “persons importing . . . into . . . the Plantations . . . shall deliver to the Governor . . . or to such Person or Officer as shall be by him thereunto authorized and appointed . . . their Names and Surnames, and a true Inventory of all . . . Goods or Commodites . . . imported.” Owen Ruffhead, ed., The Statutes at Large: from Magna Charta, to the end of the last parliament, 1761, 8 vols. (London, 1763), 3: 269.
9. Robert Auchmuty (1724–88), judge of the Vice Admiralty Court at Boston.
10. Nathaniel Taylor (1734–1806) had been the deputy naval officer at Boston since 1755 and was a future Loyalist, banished from the state in 1778.
11. George L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, 1660–1754, 2 vols. (New York, 1912) 1: 267–268.
12. Jones, Loyalists of Massachusetts, 272–273.
13. No. 313, Bernard Papers, 2: 153.
14. No. 298, ibid., 2: 117; Plantation Trade Act, 7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22, sect. 4 (1695); Labaree, Royal Instructions, 2: 760–762.
15. An act for establishing a Naval Office (passed 2 Jul. 1692) and disallowed by the Privy Council on 22 Aug. 1695. Acts and Resolves, 1: 34–35; an act for establishing a Naval Office, and for ascertaining of the fees (passed 28 Jun. 1701), ibid., 1: 472–473.
16. Customs Act, 5 Geo. 3, c. 45 (1765).
17. However, there is no record of Pemberton ever petitioning the House of Representatives on this matter.
18. Nos. 298 and 340, Bernard Papers, 2: 117–118, 239.
19. The front page of the Whig Boston Gazette for 4 Dec. 1769 carried the 1701 provincial act, another of 1716 for regulating the Customhouse fees, and an extract of Parliament’s Customs Act of 1765.
1. No. 824. Taylor’s letter of 31 Dec. 1769. not found.
2. An act for the encouragement of Trade, 15 Car. 2, c. 7, sect. 6 (1663).
3. FB’s phrasing incorrectly equates the governorship with the General Court (by eliding the province legislature). He was probably thinking of the revocation of the colonial charter of government (1629) in 1684 upon the establishment of the Dominion of New England, which entailed the abolition of the General Court in 1686 before reinstatement in 1692 by the Province Charter (1691).
4. An act for establishing a Naval Office, passed on 2 Jul. 1692 but disallowed by the Privy Council on 22 Aug. 1695. Acts and Resolves, 1: 34–35.
5. William Stoughton (1631–1701), lieutenant governor and acting governor of Massachusetts from 1694 to 1699.
6. An act for establishing a Naval Office, and for ascertaining of the fees (passed 28 Jun. 1701), Acts and Resolves, 1: 472–473.
7. The 1701 act was not a verbatim copy of the 1692 act as FB implies. The first section of the 1701 act provided for the establishment of naval offices in “every seaport” in the province and included a table of fees; the second section detailed penalties for officeholders’ fraud. The first section of the 1692 act named the ports and the second itemized fees. FB’s misapprehension does not appear to undermine the logic of his argument concerning the sovereignty of imperial law.
8. Plantation Trade Act, 7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22 (1695).
9. Indistinct scribal emendation.
10. An act stating the fees of the Customhouse officers within this province (passed 20 Jun. 1716), Acts and Resolves, 2: 44–45.
11. No. 298, Bernard Papers, 2: 116–118.
12. According to No. 829.
1. No. 824.
2. Lord North.
3. The division followed prior business scheduled for Monday 12 Feb. to debate the land tax and supply bills for the government. The votes mentioned by FB were not recorded in the official journal. HCJ, 32: 696–697; HLJ, 32: 441–442. There is a brief account in Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16: 830–831.
4. As FB’s comment implies, the merchants trading with the Americas were more interested in the resumption of trade that the constitutional and political arguments for repealing the Townshend duties. But their petition provided opportunity for Parliament to debate repeal. By mid-February, ministers were confident of winning a majority for partial repeal of what FB here calls the “3 Articles” (the duties on paper, glass, and painter’s colours) leaving the tea duty untouched as a marker of parliamentary supremacy. Thomas, Townshend Duties Crisis, 169–172.
5. By “Islands” FB meant the British colonies in the West Indies and the Bahamas. The “some talk” to which FB refers doubtless touched upon punitive measures that might be taken against those colonies whose merchants had advanced nonimportation. When the House of Commons’ address to the King of 9 Jan. 1770 urged action against the nonimportation associations, colonial observers and agents feared legislation specifically outlawing these combinations. On Wednesday 21 Feb., Lord North proposed collecting information on the associations, and ministers subsequently drafted a restraining bill without presenting it. Thomas, Townshend Duties Crisis, 167.
6. “It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.” William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 5.5.2383–2385. This was a favorite disparaging epithet of FB’s (used previously in No. 563, Bernard Papers, 3: 400).
7. The Lords’ minority protest concerned Chatham’s defeated motion of 2 Feb. — that the House of Commons’ proceedings in disqualifying John Wilkes were “illegal and unconstitutional” (discussed in No. 824). This protest is in Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16: 820–823. The second protest of the same day was against a resolution condemning the House of Lords for interfering in the business of the House of Commons. Ibid., 16: 823–828. Both protests were printed in the Middlesex Journal, or Chronicle of Liberty, 6–8 Feb. 1770, funded by William Beckford, Lord Mayor of London, MP for the City of London, and forthright supporter of Wilkes. The printer of the Middlesex Journal, William G. Edmunds, reputedly absconded to avoid arrest. The defiance and prosecution of the subsequent publisher and editor, John Wheble, was one of several cases that prompted the government’s revision of prohibitions on newspaper reporting of parliamentary debates in 1771. See Peter D. G. Thomas, John Wilkes: A Friend to Liberty (Oxford, 1996), 123–131.
8. Possibly a letter dated 2 Feb. 1770 (not found).
1. FB to John Murdoch, Pall Mall, 24 Dec. 1769, BP. 8: 33–34. John Murdoch (1709–76) was a partner in the Glasgow mercantile firm of Cochrane, Murdoch & Co. engaged in the Virginia tobacco trade and slave trade. Walter Logan, a fellow Scot, and the comptroller of customs at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, was Murdoch’s nephew. His acquaintance with FB likely derives from his residency at Roxbury, Mass., prior to taking up his position at Perth Amboy in 1766. Correspondence with Murdoch’s partner and brother-in-law Andrew Cochrane (1692/93–1777) suggests Logan was being pursued by creditors in the colony and was also seeking a more profitable position elsewhere. Logan probably arranged Murdoch’s intercession with FB (for there is no other obvious connection between FB and the Glasgow “tobacco lords,” although FB probably knew of Cochrane’s service as the city’s lord provost). Declaring Logan “an honest worthy Man,” FB promised Murdoch he would do what he could to assist. In the first instance, he proposed that Sir Thomas Miller (1717–89), Lord Barskimming and Lord Chief Justice of Scotland, 1766–88, contact the first lord of the Treasury to obtain Logan’s extended leave of absence from his customs post. Logan was eventually permitted to return to Roxbury, where he provided support to Lady Bernard and the ailing Frank Bernard. FB, meanwhile, endeavored to help find him another government post (No. 856). FB to Andrew Cochrane, Hampstead, 5 Nov. 1770. BP, 8: 135–137.
1. Both letters from TH to FB were dated Boston, 10 Jan. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 428–429; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 27–30.
2. Thus in manuscript.
3. Marginalia: The section “I heartily wish . . . Expediency” is marked by a line and annotated “S”. From “Intrest” to the end of the letter is in Thomas Bernard’s handwriting.
4. Before departing Massachusetts, FB prorogued the General Court to 10 Jan. 1770. (See No. 797, Bernard Papers, 2: 308–310.) Instructions from Hillsborough permitted TH to continue the prorogation until 14 Mar. and allowed him the option of summoning the assembly to a place outside of Boston (as FB had done in the summer of 1769) without also requiring he publicly disclose the ministry’s rationale. As FB suggested in No. 572, TH justified calling the General Court to Cambridge as fulfilling royal instructions. Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, 4 Nov. 1769, CO 5/758, ff 200–201; JHRM, 45: xi-xiii.
5. Lord North.
6. No. 829.
7. On Tuesday 19 Feb., the House resolved to form a committee of the whole the next day to consider annual supply bills to the King. The other principal order of business, to which FB also refers, concerned the House report on the state of the nation. A dispute over procedural issues between the Speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton, and members, arose in consideration of a resolution of 17 Feb. concerning the Wilkes affair and occasioned two divisions. The first division rejected (by 243 noes to 174 yeas) an amended motion to vote on all “complicated” questions put to the House. The point of contention was not the House rule to divide in such cases, but an opposition amendment appearing to limit divisions to questions where members were purportedly prevented from “giving . . . free Assent or Dissent.” The House was then free to consider the two parts of the resolution: the first part, which stated that the House’s jurisdiction in electoral matters was bound by law and custom, carried in the affirmative; the second part, that the expulsion of John Wilkes was lawful, was resolved following a division (with 237 yeas and 159 noes) thus sustaining the government’s position on the issue. HCJ, 32: 710.
8. Thomas Bernard.
9. Dennys DeBerdt, petition to His Majesty in Council, London, 28 Feb. 1770, PC 1/3142. See Appendix 3n2.
10. Not found. However, it is possible FB was referring to the date of receipt of an earlier letter from Oliver. Oliver’s letter of 3 Dec. 1769 (No. 815) contained an anecdote of an overheard conversation between Thomas Cushing and Samuel Adams concerning Dennys DeBerdt’s offer to bring a civil suit against FB. The story was subsequently used by Hillsborough in his interrogation of DeBerdt at the Privy Council hearing of 28 Feb. pertaining to the Massachusetts House of Representatives’ petition for FB’s removal. See Appendix 3n16.
11. See n7 above.
1. Relocated from a line below the salutation.
2. 28 Feb. 1770. See Appendix 3 and n2 for DeBerdt’s petition.
3. William de Grey (1719–81), attorney general of England Wales, 1766–71, and Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas, 1771–80.
4. Copy of the Complaint of the House of Representatives of Massachuset’s-Bay against Sir Francis Bernard: With Sir Francis Bernard’s Answer. Now depending before His Majesty in Council (London, 1770). This was probably the version printed for TH. FB did not in fact publish the “whole Case” to which he refers here. See Appendix 2 source note and n40.
5. The superscripts represent “contradicente” and “pro”. The government noes of 262 were sufficient to defeat the opposition motion of 28 Feb. (not 26 Feb.) for a request to the King for an account of the civil list expenses between 5 Jan. 1769 and 5 Jan. 1770. HCJ, 32: 735.
6. Scribal correction.
7. Nothing had changed substantively from FB’s earlier assessment in No. 829.
8. TH to FB, Boston, 28 Apr. 1770, Mass. Archs., 25: 396–397; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 191–195.
9. Thomas, Townshend Duties Crisis, 171–172; HCJ, 32: 750–751.
1. No. 833.
2. No. 773, Bernard Papers, 5: 263–265.
3. The tea duty remained in place but such discussions with the East India Company would eventually produce the Tea Act, 13 Geo. 3 c. 44 (1773) which licensed the company to trade directly with North America and allowed a drawback on any export duties levied in Britain. These preferences effectively granted the Company a monopoly on legal exports of tea. American merchants’ concerns about the act’s monopolistic tendencies are summarized in Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, 311–312n46.
4. William Beckford (1709–70) was MP for the City of London, 1754–70, and its mayor, 1769–70.
5. Thomas Pownall (1722–1805), former governor of Massachusetts, 1757–59, was MP for Tregony, Cornwall, 1767–74. He moved the repeal of all the Townshend duties to achieve an “entire reconciliation with America.” His lengthy speech is in Cobbett, Parliamentary History, 16: 611–621.
6. Alexander MacKay (1717–89) was colonel of the 65th Regiment of Foot in Boston until its withdrawal in the summer of 1769; promoted to major general, he was also MP for Sutherland, 1761–68.
7. This was not bluster for Mackay had previously complained of one soldier in the 14th Regiment of Foot being legally “sold” into a three-year indenture for nonpayment of a fine treble the value of the goods he was convicted of stealing. Hiller Zobel, The Boston Massacre (New York, 1970), 136–137.
8. FB’s friends Lord Barrington and Welbore Ellis “were not for taking off the tax at all; as they saw no probability that this would quiet North America . . . [and] therefore were for putting this Act in execution absolutely.” Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16.
9. HCJ, 32: 750–751.
10. Boston Evening-Post, 30 Apr. 1770.
11. TH to FB, Boston, 28 Apr. 1770, Mass. Archs., 25: 396–397; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 191–195.
12. The account of the debate in Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16: 852–874, is an edited version of the “Debates of a Political Club” (i.e., Parliament) in London Magazine: Or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer, 39 (May 1770), 232–240. For Pownall’s speech in favor of repealing the tea duty see Cobbett, op. cit., 855–870.
1. Not found.
2. Lewis Deblois (1727–99) a Boston merchant and future Loyalist, and Capt. James Scott.
3. 4 Mar.
4. The discussions concerned provision for Oliver to succeed TH as lieutenant governor. See also No. 867.
1. No. 834. James Scott, master of the Lydia, arrived in Boston six weeks after departing London, bringing news of FB’s hearing and Parliament’s recent debates on the Townshend Revenue Act. Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, 26 Apr. 1770. Copies of the London Magazine’s reports of Parliament’s January debates were printed in the Boston Chronicle, 23–26 Apr. 1770.
2. William Bollan (1705–82), the agent for the Massachusetts Council, had previously petitioned the House of Commons as a resident of Boston, acting in the interests of the Council but not as their formal spokesman. That petition was submitted on 26 Jan. 1769 after the Commons refused to consider a petition received from the “major part” of the Council.* Bollan’s second petition, presented on 5 Mar. 1770 (before the Commons debated the repeal of the Townshend duties), resurrected the issues raised by the Council and recounted to MPs a now familiar attack on the principle and propriety of directly taxing the Americans. But Bollan also requested a hearing before the House in order that he might “defend the Rights and Interest” of Massachusetts and promised to provide additional “necessary Information.” The petition was ordered to “lie upon the Table,” meaning that it was left available for the members’ consideration, although the official journals do not record any further discussion. Bollan was likely angling to excoriate FB publicly, given he had furnished the Boston radicals with copies of FB’s official letters. But in truth all members were anticipating some opportunity to discuss the repeal later in the day and were less concerned by the particulars of Bollan’s case than by American taxation. See Bernard Papers, 5: xxiv, 14–16, 51n43; HCJ, 32: 745–746. Little is known of William Bollan’s early life in England, though he strongly identified with Boston. The birth date given here (1705) follows Thomas R. Adams the bibliographer, who read Bollan’s many pamphlets, rather than Bollan’s biographers (c. 1710). Thomas R. Adams, “The British Pamphlets of the American Revolution for 1774: A Progress Report,” Procs. MHS, 3d. ser., 81 (1969): 31–103.
* The House divided on a motion to include it in a forthcoming debate on American correspondence. William Bollan to Samuel Danforth, Henrietta Street [London], 30 Jan. 1769, Appendix 2, Bernard Papers, 5: 320–323.
3. William Beckford.
4. See Appendix 3.
5. The earl of Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, 24 Mar. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 53–54; Order of His Majesty in Council, Court at St. James’s, 14 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 25: 556–560.
6. George Grenville (1712–70) followed Thomas Pownall (for whom see No. 834) in the Commons debate of 5 Mar. on repealing the Townshend duties. While Grenville accepted the Stamp Tax was “injudicious in the mode” of raising American revenue, he defended its “salutary” purpose and attacked the Grafton-Chatham administration for lacking an American “plan” when its Revenue Act of 1767 reignited American opposition to parliamentary taxation. He dismissed North’s proposal for partial repeal of the Townshend duties as an ineffective mode of silencing American colonists who had already challenged the principle of parliamentary taxation; neither, he averred, would “total repeal” restore the nation’s “dignity.” Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England, 16: 870–871.
1. Thomas Preston (1722–98), an Irish-born captain in the 29th Regiment of Foot, was arrested shortly after the killings, along with eight of the soldiers under his command. All were subsequently tried for murder (see No. 842).
2. Scribal error for “confusion”.
3. For these proceedings see CO 5/829, ff 22–24; Zobel, Boston Massacre, 208–209.
4. Josiah Quincy (1710–84), whose sons Samuel Quincy (1734–89) and Josiah Quincy Jr. (1744–75) were counsel for the prosecution and defence respectively in the subsequent trials of the British soldiers accused of murder.
5. In addition to Province Secretary Andrew Oliver, TH mentions Benjamin Caldwell (1739–1820), captain of HMS Rose, c. 1768–75; Lt. Col. William Dalrymple of the 14th Regiment of Foot and the senior commanding officer in Boston, and Lt. Col. Maurice Carr (1730–1813) of the 29th Regiment of Foot; Judge Robert Auchmuty and the commissioners of the American Board of Customs.
6. See Bernard Papers, 5: 304.
7. Since these words are capitalized and rendered in the singular, TH is likely referring to the governor’s office; however, this could have been a scribal error for “Magistrates” by which TH may have intended justices of the peace.
8. The ink of this sentence is partially obscured by tape markings.
9. John Robinson (d.1783), one of the commissioners of the American Board of Customs.
10. Soldiers of the British garrison at New York incited a riot on 19 Jan. 1770 (known as the Battle of Golden Hill) after taking down the local Whigs’ liberty pole. Boston Gazette, 19 Feb. 1770.
11. Oliver’s personal thoughts on the night’s “Terrible” events can be followed in his letter to Benjamin Lynde, Boston, 6 and 7 Mar. 1770, MHS: Oliver Papers. Oliver was in confinement recuperating from gout when he wrote that the disturbances in the streets outside “painted in my Imagination all the Horrors of a civil War.”
1. “Ch–” is the earl of Chatham, who was referring to Lord Camden’s dismissal from the office of Lord High Chancellor. See No. 820n19. Also mentioned: Hugh Hume-Campbell (1708–94), third earl of Marchmont.
2. Thus in manuscript.
3. The first motion, recounting Chatham’s words, was “That the late Lord Chancellor was dismissed for giving his Vote in this House.” The second motion, approved in the affirmative, was “To resolve, That nothing has appeared to this House to justify that Assertion.” The “main Question . . . rejected,” to which FB refers, was a motion for an address to the King requesting civil list accounts for Jan. 1769 to Jan. 1770; instead, the Lords approved a request for accounts of the debts on the civil list for 1762–1763 and 1765–1766, with corresponding accounts of arrears and cash in hand. HLJ, 32: 476.
4. The “remonstrance” of the Lord Mayor, Alderman, and Livery of the City London of 14 Mar. 1770 indulged in the conspiratorial rhetoric that came to define the petitioning of English reformers as it did colonial Whigs. In this case, the topic of complaint was the government’s interference in the Middlesex elections, acting through Parliament to deny John Wilkes a seat in the House Commons (see No. 820). The remonstrance highlighted the “secret and malign influence” of “successive” ministers behind measures that “deprived . . . people of their dearest rights” won in rebellion against King Charles I’s ship money tax and King James II’s “dispensing power.” The historical allusions purposively unsettled parliamentarians when calling for the immediate dismissal of the King’s “evil ministers.” The key point was that the sitting Parliament was “corruptly subservient to the designs of your Majesty’s ministers.” Adopted in a Common Council meeting attended by 3,000 livery men (representing twelve ancient crafts’ and trades’ guilds), the remonstrance was then delivered by a procession headed by the Lord Mayor. The King received it but with acknowledgement of its personally “disrespectful” tone and deprecation of Parliament, alleging in reply its advancement of “irreconcilable” unconstitutional principles requiring his intervention in Parliament’s business. The King’s response, however, prompted Edmund Burke on the opposition benches to warn that it too might attract “severe . . . animadversion.” Cobbett, Parliamentary History, 16: 869–895; HCJ, 32: 798–799.
5. Sir Edward Blackett (1719–1804) the MP for Northumberland, 1768–75; Sir Thomas Clavering (1719–94) had been an MP since 1753 and represented Durham County between 1768 and 1790. Clavering’s earlier denunciation (15 Mar.) of the London remonstrance and his speech of 19 Mar. are in Cobbett, Parliamentary History, 16: 874, 895.
6. FB correctly reported that the first resolve of Monday 19 Mar. condemned the London remonstrance for its “highly unwarrantable” questioning of the legitimacy of the current Parliament, and the second resolve considered the remonstrance an “unwarrantable and dangerous . . . Abuse of the Right of Subjects to petition the King.” HCJ, 32: 810. William Dowdeswell had spoken in defence of London’s legal right to petition, but it was reported that the “majority” of speakers, while upholding the right of petition, advanced that the remonstrance contained material that could be construed as false and treasonable, and thus “highly punishable”. Among the several speakers was Lord Barrington who animadverted upon a Catilinarian conspiracy to raise the “poor people” against “law and allegiance.” Cobbett, Parliamentary History, 16: 895–899.
7. This sentence misreports events. In fact, the recorded division is 94 yeas and 248 noes on a motion for the House to adjourn, which would have negated a previous motion to address the King. Immediately thereafter the Commons resolved to deliver a loyal address to the King expressing the House’s “extreme Concern and Indignation” at the London remonstrance (with Clavering and Blackett joining Lord North and other government men in a committee to prepare the address). HCJ, 32: 813.
8. The London remonstrance was perhaps the most controversial of numerous petitions presented from public meetings throughout England during 1769 and 1770 and attracting some 38,000 signatures. Wilkes’s tranche of supporters campaigned for his restoration to the House of Commons. Additionally, the Society of the Bill of Rights pursued a broader agenda for the reform of Parliament and enquiries into both the St. George’s Fields Massacre of 1768 and the conduct of justices of the peace in Middlesex County. London’s call for the dissolution of the “corrupt” current Parliament energized radicalism in the English counties, where support for colonial Americans was much less pronounced. See H. T. Dickinson, Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain (London, 1977), 211–220; George Rudé, Wilkes and Liberty: A Social Study of 1763 to 1774 (Oxford, 1962), 105–148.
9. This sentence and the recipient’s name are in FB’s handwriting.
10. Agreement with the Commons was reached “After long Debate.” HLJ, 32: 495.
11. FB’s exuberant remembrance of being in the presence of royalty hints at vicarious identification, as if his own troubles in Massachusetts sprang from legislators misconstruing his gubernatorial overtures, when acting as the King’s representative, because they lacked genuine loyalty to the sovereign. The King’s reply to Parliament:
“I return you My Thanks for this very loyal and dutiful Address. It is with great Satisfaction that I receive from My Parliament so grateful an Acknowledgement of My tender Regard for the Rights of My Subjects. Be assured that I shall continue to adhere to the true Principles of our excellent Constitution, from which I cannot deviate without justly forfeiting the Affections of a Free People.” HLJ, 32: 498.
1. TH had informed FB that his own sons, Elisha and Thomas, hitherto persistent importers, had conceded to the demands of the merchants’ committee to store their goods (albeit in their own premises rather than a public store under the merchants’ supervision) until the nonimportation agreement ended. Meanwhile, as a handful of other importers held out (including John Bernard, TH omitted to mention) an extralegal assembly known as the Body of the Trade demanded the Hutchinsons surrender their goods. The Body began visiting the recalcitrant importers in turn en masse — sparking ten days of “Commotion” TH noted with some understatement. When the Council and magistracy refused to break up the crowds, TH assured the importers he would call upon the British troops at Castle William if needed. In fact, as John Tyler related, TH personally faced down a crowd of townspeople and merchants that visited his home on 18 Jan., rightly concluding determined leadership might divide merchants anxious about escalating violence. TH to FB, Boston, 27 Jan. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 434–435; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 56–57; Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, 143–147. The “Spirited Message” to which FB refers is TH’s letter to the “People assembled at Faneuil Hall,” Boston, 23 Jan. 1770, CO 5/759, f 44, enclosed in TH to the earl of Hillsborough, Boston, 24 Jan. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 36–37, received on 7 Mar.
2. The initials are for “Lord Hillsborough” and “Lord North”.
3. Order of His Majesty in Council, Court at St. James’s, 14 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 25: 556–560, enclosed in the RC (not extant) of the earl of Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, 24 Mar. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 53–54. TH acknowledged receipt in a letter to FB of 8 Jun. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 498–499; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 256–257.
4. The others were Robert Melville (1723–1809), governor of Grenada, 1763–71: complaint dismissed 5 Jan. 1770; and, possibly, Cadwallader Colden (1688–1776), lieutenant governor of New York and acting governor, 1761–75: matter resolved on 10 Nov. 1769. APC, 5: 215–216, 221–228.
5. TH to FB, Boston, 8 Jun. 1770.
1. Probably Ebenezer Symmes who was admitted to the Boston Marine Society in 1771. Capt. Symmes arrived in Boston in the second week of May. Essex Gazette, 15 May 1770.
2. The “grand Dinner” at the Mansion House discussed in No. 838.
3. Lord North’s motion was carried 208 to 75. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England, 16: 924–926.
4. John Pownall.
5. TH had requested Richard Jackson, the former province agent for Massachusetts, to “suspend” his earlier request to take out the governor’s commission, were he to be offered the position, but without explaining why in a letter of 8 Sept. 1769. Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 330.
6. Lord Hillsborough and John Pownall.
7. FB is referring to Andrew Oliver’s projected role as lieutenant governor to TH.
1. No. 840.
2. On 4 Apr. Hillsborough “acquainted” the Board of Trade that the King had approved TH’s succession to the governorship of Massachusetts and requested that a commission with instructions be drafted accordingly. These were approved on 11 Apr. and confirmed by the Privy Council on 27 Apr. JBT, 13: 183–184; APC, 5: 556.
3. No. 822.
4. Nathaniel Rogers, a nephew of TH, died of a seizure c. 9 Aug. 1770. Thomas Flucker succeeded Andrew Oliver as province secretary on 12 Nov. 1770 upon Oliver’s appointment as lieutenant governor.
5. The Rhode Island assembly resolved on 2 Jun. 1769 to permit prosecutions of customs officers taking fees in excess of advertised rates in “special” sittings of the province courts (instead of scheduled meetings). It also required any person succeeding an officer “removed” from his position to meet all costs for the restoration and installation of confiscated moveable assets attached to the office. While the act did not explicitly assert an illegal authority to dismiss customs officers (which authority rested with the Treasury), FB and TH construed such an implication in the act’s treatment of “removed” officers. John Russell Bartlett, ed., Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England, 10 vols. (Providence, R.I., 1856–1865), 6: 586–588. TH had kept FB informed of the merchants’ determination to hold customs officers to account by citing provincial authority to set fee rates under an act of 1701, which FB had previously disputed. In a letter to FB of 20 Nov. 1769, TH intimated that William Molineux had threatened to sue any customs officer who demanded fees exceeding advertised rates. Mass. Archs., 26: 407. FB had a vested interest in the matter, fearing that the merchants might use legal loopholes to deny paying fees to the Naval Officer, his eldest son Frank (No. 828).
6. TH to FB, Boston, 8 Jun.1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 504; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 256–257.
7. See No. 340, Bernard Papers, 2: 236–242; Nos. 807 and 822 above.
1. Commissioners of Customs John Robinson had left Boston on 16 Mar., ostensibly to attend to “private Matters” but carrying No. 837 and TH’s official report of the Boston Massacre. (TH to Hillsborough, Boston, 12 Mar. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 59–60). Robinson arrived not on 26 Apr. but on 21 Apr. according to the dockets that British clerks added to documents received from him. (I am grateful to John W. Tyler for this information.) Robinson and the Boston collector, Joseph Harrison, testified at the Privy Council’s inquiry into the “State of the Disorders, Confusions and Misgovernment . . . in Massachusetts Bay.” Among other incidents, he recalled the “Discipline” of Bostonians during the Liberty riot of Jun. 1768 wherein the protestors’ call to “Arms” prompted the commissioners’ retreat to the safety of Castle William. His most damning evidence, however, concerned the commissioners’ rupture with John Temple arising from Temple’s connections with Boston Whigs, even in the wake of the Massacre. APC, 5: 252–254.
2. The second page of the newspaper, its columns bordered in black ink, lamented the “melancholy Demonstration of the destructive Consequences of quartering Troops among Citizens in a Time of Peace.” It alleged that Capt. Thomas Preston had expressly “commanded” the soldiers “to fire” on the crowd, whereupon the soldiers “continued the fire” until “7 or 8” people were killed (in fact, five were killed or mortally wounded). Preston’s order was not established as legal fact in the subsequent court trials. Boston Gazette, 12 Mar. 1770.
3. FB himself had previously drawn comparison between the failings of local authorities in Boston in 1765 and Edinburgh in 1736 to prevent mobs engaging in civil disorder, though in the more violent latter case Capt. John Porteous of the city guard was lynched while awaiting trial for killing protestors. The violence had been triggered by a respite for Porteous issued by the British government. It was several months before the trials of Preston, the soldiers, and others accused of murder came before the Massachusetts Superior Court, and TH fretted Preston might suffer Porteous’s fate upon receiving orders from Hillsborough to respite Preston’s sentencing should he be found guilty of murder. TH probably never doubted Preston was an “innocent man”. Bernard Papers, 3: 441; Zobel, Boston Massacre, 231; TH to FB, Boston, 30 Oct. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 48; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 324.
4. While imprisoned Capt. Preston quickly penned a “Case” exonerating his claim the soldiers “fired without orders” and dispatched copies to Lords Hillsborough, Barrington, and senior military officers. FB was probably aware of the “Case” when writing No. 842. Preston was acquitted of murder following trial (Rex v Preston, between 24 and 30 Oct. 1770), as were eight soldiers in a separate trial (Rex v Wemms et al., 27 Nov. to 5 Dec.) of whom two were found guilty of manslaughter; four civilians were also acquitted (12 to 14 Dec.). The trials can be followed in Zobel, Boston Massacre, while the propagandizing of the Boston Whigs and the provincial government should be explored in Neil Longley York, The Boston Massacre: A History with Documents (New York, 2010), with Preston’s “Case” at 109–113; Peter Messer, “‘A Scene of Villainy Acted by a Dirty Banditti, as must Astonish the Public’: The Creation of the Boston Massacre.” New England Quarterly, 90 (2017): 502–39; and Eric Hinderaker, Boston’s Massacre (Cambridge, Mass., 2017).
1. No. 842.
2. 2 May 1770.
3. Lord Shelburne.
4. Following the Commons resolution of 26 Apr., the Privy Council examined a tranche of official correspondence from 1767 to 1770, including many of FB’s letters, and on 26 Jun. conducted an inquiry to the situation in Boston. See No. 849n3.
5. FB had evidently been reading the accounts printed and circulated by both sides. The Boston Gazette’s account of the Massacre in the issue for 12 Mar. was reprinted in the London Public Advertiser, 28 Apr. 1770. Also of note is the collection of depositions compiled by lawyer Frances Maseres and Lt. Col. William Dalrymple, A Fair Account of the Late Unhappy Disturbance At Boston in New England . . . (Printed for B. White: London, 1770). This pamphlet was intended to supplement (with information more favorable to the troops) the depositions collected by the Boston Whigs for publication in A Short Narrative of The Horrid Massacre in Boston, perpetrated in the evening of the fifth day of March 1770 (Edes and Gill: Boston, 1770; repr. W. Bingley, London, 1770). Authorship was established by Alexandra Bush, digital production assistant at the MHS, https://www.masshist.org/object-of-the-month (accessed 18 Feb. 2020). See also No. 849n13.
6. Scribal correction: first written as “is”.
7. Thus in manuscript: perhaps the scribe intended read “do and the commanding officer”.
1. FB’s memorial has not been found.
2. Referring “again” to New Yorkers’ acquisitiveness, FB was probably recalling the long-running and sometimes violent disputes that had erupted on the borderlands of New York and Massachusetts in 1766, for which see No. 487, Bernard Papers, 3: 191–193 and passim.
3. Annotation: a single horizontal line with seven forward-slanting vertical cross-marks follows “Water”; its purpose is unknown.
4. Ruth Owen Jones, “Governor Francis Bernard and his Land Acquisitions,” Historical Journal of Massachusetts, 16 (1988): 121–139, at 128–130; George P. Anderson, “New Hampshire Land Grants to Boston Men,” PCSM, 25 (1922–23), 33–38; FB to John Pownall, Boston, 6 Sept. 1766, No. 499, Bernard Papers, 3: 219.
1. TH to the earl of Hillsborough, Boston, 27 Mar. 1770, Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 156–159.
2. The earl of Hillsborough had written TH on 14 Apr. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 55–56.
3. TH had negotiated the withdrawal of the British soldiers from the town following the killings.
4. Scribal correction unclear.
5. The proposal for an “enquiry” was made on 26 Apr. when the Privy Council were already collecting documentary evidence for the inquiry that would commence on 26 Jun. See No. 849n3.
6. On 9 May, the House of Commons debated the King’s speech of 9 Jan. 1770 and considered a motion to condemn recent “Disorders” in “several” American colonies for being “prejudicial” to commerce with Great Britain and “destructive to Peace and Prosperity.” The opposition rallied to defeat the question then forced a series of motions calculated to undermine the North administration’s American policy for continuing the suspension of the New York assembly, persisting with direct taxation, and pursuing investigations of treason and misprisions of treason (all initiated by previous administrations). The division to which FB refers was a motion claiming “Inconsistent” royal instructions to governors were a “principal Cause of the . . . [late] Disorders,” that was defeated by 199 (government) votes to 79. HCJ, 32: 970.
7. The identity of this person is unknown, though evidently familiar to TH.
8. Bailyn, Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, 161–168. TH acknowledged receipt of his commission in a letter to Hillsborough of 9 Mar. His governorship formally commenced when the commission was published on 14 Mar. Mass. Archs., 27: 128–129.
1. TH had updated FB on Massachusetts politics but did not provide any further advice on the question of his accession to the governorship. TH to FB, 12 Apr. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 466; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 170–171. See also No. 845.
2. Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, 14 Apr. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 55–56.
3. Thus in manuscript.
4. Both FB and TH were concerned that any respite for Preston might trigger violence, see No. 842. TH received his orders to respite Preston in the event of a conviction about 26 Jun. Hillsborough to TH, 26 Apr. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 133–134; Zobel, Boston Massacre, 353n56.
5. FB had consistently negatived the election of any more radicals to the Council, given his difficulties in working with longstanding Whig members. TH now changed tactics by accepting the election of nine councilors previously had been vetoed by FB, although he continued to refuse the radical Jerathmeel Bowers (1717–99) of Swansea and John Hancock of Boston.
6. Richard Jackson was counsel to the Board of Trade from Apr. 1770 to May 1782. FB may have misunderstood the nature of Jackson’s appointment, which was primarily to provide legal advice rather than manage the Board’s financial affairs, although some oversight of accounting might have been expected.
1. No. 846.
2. Scribal error.
3. TH to FB, 20 Nov. 1769, Mass. Archs., 26: 407; Hutchinson Correspondence, 2: 414–415.
4. The “brother” was John Pownall and the “Gentleman” Thomas Pownall (as confirmed by No. 849). TH had previously alerted FB to gossip by a town minister that Rev. Samuel Cooper (1725–83) had been corresponding with an MP “who you know.” The particular item of news that interested TH was the “Gentleman” urging that the boycott be continued, arguing that returning ordered goods to Britain would have a financial impact ten times the actual value of goods shipped. Such rumors may have been unfounded, though deniability came easily to Thomas Pownall in a letter to Cooper:
that I, particularly, [and Benjamin Franklin also] wrote this special advice, that the sending back a few of the goods imported contrary to the Associations, would have more effect in Great Britain, than a hundred resolutions not to import, however firmly adhered to, — and that, in consequence of this advice, those goods which have come back were returned.
TH to FB, Boston, 19 May 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 485, and in Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 233; Thomas Pownall to Samuel Cooper, London, 11 Jul. 1770, quoted in Frederick Griffin, Junius Discovered (Boston, etc., 1854), 274–275.
5. TH to FB, Boston, 15 Sept. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 1–3.
1. TH to FB, Boston, 28 Apr. 1770, Mass. Archs., 25: 396–397; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 191–195. Ebenezer Bridgham (b.1745) was a Boston merchant and future Loyalist, and son of James Bridgham (1706/7–76), minister of Brimfield, Mass., and Mary (Goldthwait) Bridgham (1724–74).
2. In 1764, FB appointed Thomas Goldthwait (1718–79) commander of Fort Pownall and truckmaster for the local Indian trade. Both were provincial offices: the commander was appointed by the governor, the truckmaster normally by the House of Representatives, which also funded the garrisoning of the fort. While Goldthwait remained in command, the House elected as truckmaster John Preble (or Prebble) (1742–87), the son of Goldthwait’s local rival Jedidiah Preble (1707–84), who had commanded the fort between 1759 and 1763. JHRM, 46: 118. See No. 320, Bernard Papers, 2:177–178.
3. Pownall’s letter has not been found but it probably covered Hillsborough’s letter of 6 Jul. 1770 concerning, inter alia, Goldthwait’s dismissal as truckmaster. CO 5/759, ff 206–208.
4. Scribal correction: first written as “expected” before erasure of “ed”.
5. The letter has not been found.
6. TH to FB, Boston, 15 Sept. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 1–3.
1. TH to FB, 22 May 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 491–492; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 238–241.
2. Probably No. 848.
3. The meeting of the Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council on Plantation Affairs on 26 Jun. 1770 commenced with a reading of a report authored by John Pownall titled “State of the Disorders, Confusions and Misgovernment which have lately prevailed and still continue to prevail, in the province of the Massachusets Bay.” FB gave evidence in person on 27 Jun., following other witnesses. See Appendix 4. APC, 5: 246–264.
4. His Majesty’s order-in-council, the Court at St. James’s, 6 Jul. 1770, CO 5/26, ff 119–120. The RC has not been found. Under the terms of the order, Hillsborough was authorized to garrison Castle William with British regulars and the Royal Navy North Atlantic station was relocated from Halifax to Boston. Parliament, TH would have learned, was also to consider the state of the province. The Privy Council did not address matters FB hoped it might (specifically reforming the Governor’s Council and calling the assembly to account) which Hillsborough nonetheless urged him to discuss with TH (No. 850). However, the Privy Council manifestly accepted the portrayal of disorderly activities set forth in the official correspondence of FB, TH, and the commissioners of Customs. Their several letters discussed, inter alia: “seditious and Libellous publications”; illegal rescues of seized goods and property; the “illegal and unwarrantable” proceedings of the Boston town meeting of 13 Jun. (following the Liberty riot) and of 12 Sept. 1768 (when anticipating of the arrival of British troops); the Convention of Towns of 22 Sept. 1768; the nonimportation combinations; the “Declarations and Doctrines” of the House of Representatives; and the “Disposition” of the Council to “adopt” and “concur” in “Illegal” proceedings.
5. Hillsborough provided a summary of the Privy Council inquiry in his letter to TH of 6 Jul. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 206–208; His Majesty in Council to the Lords of Admiralty, 7 Jul. 1770, ibid., f 209. FB suspected Hillsborough might unsettle TH by baldly stating the acting governor’s patent “Inability” to prevent the “Disorders” so troubling to the British. Hillsborough nonetheless permitted TH to use this information for whatever purpose he saw fit, though he was not to make the order public. In this respect, the order-in-council gave TH some ammunition for private discussion were he to appeal to trustworthy moderate Whigs to abandon the radicals.
6. TH received the King’s orders to withdraw the provincial garrison on 8 Sept. The Council, he observed, were “all struck” upon hearing the order-in-council. TH to FB, Boston, 15 Sept. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 1–3; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 366–367.
7. Scribal correction: “alone” erased.
8. Scribal correction: first written as “you”.
9. Pownall’s letter of 6 Jul. 1770 has not been found, but Hillsborough, in his letter of 7 Jul., proposed that TH should reinstate Goldthwait if he had already removed him from command. Replying to FB, TH intimated he “never had it in my thoughts” to remove Goldthwait and did not anticipate further problems since John Preble had yet to assume the truckmaster’s office. TH to FB, Boston, 15 Sept. 1770. See No. 848.
10. “Govr P” is Thomas Pownall. See No. 847n4.
11. FB did not address this matter in subsequent letters.
12. Enclosure not found.
13. The actual incident is unmentioned in any of the published depositions nor, curiously, in secondary sources covering TH’s arrival at the Massacre site. One possible source is Jonathan Mason who claimed to be “standing near his Honor the Lieut. Governor” when TH confronted Capt. Preston about his “right to fire” without civil authorization. Zobel, Boston Massacre, 205–207; Bailyn, Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, 157–163; Neil Longley York, “Rival Truths, Political Accommodation, and the Boston ‘Massacre,’” Massachusetts Historical Review 11 (2009): 57–95; York, Boston Massacre, 27; Hinderaker, Boston’s Massacre, 25–27, 29–33; A Fair account of the late unhappy disturbance at Boston in New England . . . extracted from the depositions that have been made concerning it by persons of all parties; with an appendix containing some affidavits and other evidences . . . (London, 1770); A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, perpetrated in the evening of the fifth day of March, 1770 (Boston, 1770: repr. New York, 1849), 89 (for Mason).
1. Nos. 847 and 848.
2. For clarification see No. 849n4–5.
3. Probably a letter from John Pownall of 16 Jul. 1770 (not found).
4. Jane Bernard’s scribal contribution ceases here; the remainder of the letter is in Thomas Bernard’s handwriting.
5. TH to FB, Boston, 20 Oct. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 40–42; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 424–426.
6. Ibid.
1. Not found.
2. Thus in manuscript.
3. Annotation on p. 109 in Thomas Bernard’s hand: “for No 35 see Letter [b . . . . . d] next to 37.”
1. TH to FB, Boston, 1 Jun. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 496–497; Boston, 8 Jun. 1770, ibid., 498–499; Boston, 8 Jun. 1770, ibid., 504; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 250–252, 255–257.
2. Meaning rejected or discarded, OED.
3. TH explained his rationale for exercising more restraint than FB in the governor’s power of veto over elected councilors. Like FB, he continued to reject Whigs Hancock and Bowers, but was encouraged by the election of “three or four very moderate men” — and named George Leonard Jr. (1729–1819), James Gowen (c. 1715–81), and James Humphrey (1711–98). Leading friends of government, moreover, Timothy Ruggles and John Worthington, urged TH to reconsider some of the Whigs previously rejected, if only because there was no prospect of ever restoring the government officers and judges the House had voted out in 1766; the “new moderate men was considered as a Compromise.” TH to FB, 1 Jun. 1770.
4. Hillsborough to TH, 26 Apr. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 133–134. The RC has not been found.
5. Gage was concerned by a rumor that the town of Boston had purchased in London four thousand military caps to accoutre its own body of men. TH to FB, Boston, 8 Jun. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 504.
6. Thus in manuscript. It is possible FB is referring to “both” TH and Andrew Oliver, but the muddled syntax is more likely a scribal error.
7. No. 853.
1. The fortifications on Fort Hill were long disused, but TH had alerted FB to a “suspicion” that the town intended selling this common land to a private buyer to prevent the Crown establishing any future works on the site. TH to FB, Boston, 1 Jun. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 496–497; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 250–252.
2. Scribal correction: first written as “is”.
3. TH to FB, Boston, 15 Sept. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 1–3; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 366–367.
1. TH had alerted FB to rumors of a plot by William Molineux and other radicals to resist any future landings of British troops, should their withdrawal from the town to Castle William be reversed. Boston, 2 Jul. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 351. FB received the letter on Saturday 4 Aug.
2. Boston Gazette, 16 Jul. 1770.
3. The township grant passed the House on 4 Apr. and received the governor’s assent on 26 Apr. 1770. JHRM, 46: 129–130; Acts and Resolves, 18: 446–447.
4. Despite Lord Gower’s intimation about FB’s petition (Appendix 1.2), the Mount Desert land grant was not confirmed by the Privy Council until 28 Mar. 1771. The delay had been due to uncertainty over the Massachusetts-Nova Scotia boundary. Resolution of the boundary problem in theory also enabled confirmation of the provincial township grants along the Penobscot River; but further delay, and then postponement, was probably due to British discussions on the possibility of separating Sagadahoc territory from Massachusetts and erecting a new province. See No. 277, Bernard Papers, 2: 70–71; TH to the earl of Hillsborough, Boston, 22 Jan. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 98–101.
5. The postscript is in FB’s hand.
6. No. 24 was TH to FB, Boston, 17 Jun. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 506; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 366–367. No. 26 was dated 2 Jul. 1770, ibid., 515.
1. William Story (1720–99). Story’s promissory note to FB was for a loan to purchase land in the New Hampshire grants (as FB indicates in the fourth paragraph of this letter). See also No. 528, Bernard Papers, 3: 304.
2. Harrison Gray (c. 1711–94), province treasurer since 1753.
3. Charles Viner, A General Abridgment of Law and Equity. Alphabetically digested under proper Titles, with Notes and References to the whole, 23 vols. (Aldershot, 1742–53; 2d ed. in 24 vols., London, 1791–94). 4: 241–267. The section on bills of exchange refers to the responsibilities of the endorser at 246–247. “Popplewell’s Dictionary of Trade” has not been identified with certainty. One possibility is Malachy Postlethwayt, The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce: with large additions and improvements, adapting the same to the present state of British affairs in America . . ., 2 vols., (3d ed.; London, 1766).
4. TH to FB, Boston, 17 Oct. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 25–26.
1. Lord Barskimming, Lord Chief Justice of Scotland, 1766–88.
2. Correspondence not found.
3. FB to Andrew Cochrane, Hampstead, 5 Nov. 1770. BP, 8: 135–137.
1. Commanded by Capt. George Collier, HMS Tweed had sailed into Portsmouth, Eng., in April ostensibly to transport New York’s new governor, Lord Dunmore, to America; it did not depart until 30 Aug. and arrived at New York on 18 Oct. The Tweed’s next stop was Boston, to collect Lady Bernard for the return journey to England, but it did not leave port until 9 Nov. TH reported later that the delay was due to Dunmore’s insistence that the captain join him in “feastings.” Inevitably, bad winter weather disrupted the journey to Boston and the Tweed did not arrive until 7 Dec.; she finally set sail for England on 25 Dec., arriving at the Spithead on 1 Feb. 1771 after a very difficult voyage (as described in No. 882). Understandably, FB was irritated by the apparent insouciance of rookie transatlantic traveler Dunmore. I am grateful to Dr. Stuart Salmon for identifying the sailing times in the New-York Journal, 18 Oct. 1770; Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, 7 Dec. 1770; TH to FB, Boston, 30 Nov. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 60–62.
2. Commodore James Gambier (1723–89) had been recently appointed commander of the Royal Navy’s North Atlantic Station, which position he held only until Aug. 1771. He was promoted to rear admiral during the American Revolutionary War.
3. George Collier (1738–95) received a commissioned in the Royal Navy in 1754 and commanded HMS Tweed in 1770–71, thence rising to command of the North American station in 1779 and, after the American War, to rear admiral and vice admiral.
4. 16 Aug.
5. Grey Cooper (d.1801), secretary to the Treasury, 1765–82.
6. No draft paper has been found. Commissioner John Robinson’s testimony to the Privy Council was instrumental in undermining the government’s confidence in John Temple, whose position on the American Board of Customs was given to Benjamin Hallowell in 1771. APC, 5: 252–254.
7. FB’s articulation of British sovereignty repudiated any notion that parliamentary supremacy in the American Colonies could be circumscribed by colonial rights deriving from the royal charters of government, whereas the colonists, meanwhile, were crafting arguments for legislative self-government resting on charter rights. See John P. Reid, Constitutional History of the American Revolution: Vol. 1. The Authority of Rights (Madison, Wisc., 1986), 66, 159–168.
8. TH to FB, Boston, 5 Nov. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 50.
1. Authorial correction: the plural “s” is erased.
2. Authorial correction: the plural “s” is erased.
3. “Govr. to be created a Baronet at publick expense and have leave to come home with allowances equal to Govr. till otherways provided for.” No. 743, Bernard Papers, 5: 243.
4. Not cancelled or erased.
1. Thomas Oliver (1733/34–1815) a prominent member of the Cambridge gentry and future lieutenant governor.
2. Probably Walter Logan, who acted for FB in other personal business (No. 873).
3. The Anglican Christ Church, Cambridge, built in 1760–61.
4. See No. 860.
5. “A Society of Observation,” Boston, 25 Aug. 1770, in Boston Gazette, 27 Aug. 1770. See also No. 23, Bernard Papers, 1: 68.
1. See No. 859.
2. FB is reckoning distances from his home at Jamaica Farm, Roxbury.
3. The three fellow members of Christ Church, Cambridge, mentioned in this letter were Thomas Oliver (see No. 859), David Phipps (c. 1724–1811), and Joseph Lee (c. 1703–1806), who was also the church warden.
1. Respectively, letters from TH to FB dated 24 Jul., 26 Jul., 30 Jul., 4 Aug., and 12 Aug. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 519–521, 523, 529–531, 534–535; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 310–311, 315–316, 324, 327–329, and 337–338. FB probably sent a separate acknowledgment of receipt but there is no mention of having done so in his or TH’s letterbooks.
2. No. 852.
3. Robert Hallowell (1739–1816) was appointed comptroller of the Boston Custom House in succession to his brother Benjamin Hallowell (who had been appointed to the American Board of Customs).
4. Thomas Flucker’s commission to succeed Andrew Oliver as province secretary is dated 12 Nov. 1770. Oliver succeeded TH as lieutenant governor in Mar. 1771, his appointment having been considered by the King on 10 Oct. 1770 (No. 864) and delayed pending confirmation of TH’s governor’s commission.
5. Foster Hutchinson (1724–99), brother of TH, was appointed a justice of the Superior Court on 21 Mar. 1770.
6. Probably a copy of Thomas Goldthwait to TH, Fort Pownall, 7 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 25: 361–365. Goldthwait’s comment on the lack of “order” among settlers — about “800 families” — was of interest to FB in respect of his advocacy for a new province of Sagadahoc. “The people ^are in general^ settled of their own heads & not under ye Gentlemen whom the Townships were granted . . . & for the most part ^have^ considered themselves out of the reach of . . . the Massachusetts government.” (p. 363).
7. TH’s letter to Hawke of 14 Aug. 1770 was enclosed in TH to FB, Boston, 12 Aug. 1770.
8. FB had proposed his son John for the office of registrar of the Vice of Admiralty nearly two years previously (No. 861), while TH favored John Cotton (1728–76), deputy to the province secretary and joint register of probate for Suffolk County with William Cooper (1720–1809). The position was in the patronage of the first lord of the Admiralty, Sir Edward Hawke.
1. In Oct. 1770, the Boston merchants ended the general boycott of British goods but continued sanctions on dutied tea. By then, New York and Philadelphia had already voted to give up general nonimportation also. See Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, 159–169.
2. TH had recounted a conversation with Province Secretary Andrew Oliver in which he proposed a “number of persons of rank going through the Colonies as Commissioners” to ascertain opinion, along lines he had previously suggested to FB. (Four or five members of Parliament would meet with each of the lower houses of the colonial assemblies to gather formal answers to a “set of proper Queries” concerning British-American relations which would subsequently inform Parliament’s deliberations.) Oliver warmed to the idea, given that “Independence is more and more the aim” of the colonists, whereupon TH indirectly chided FB for not doing more to promote his plan to ministers (though in fact he had not explicitly requested that FB convey the proposal). TH to FB, Boston, 26 Jul. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 523; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 315–316.
3. TH opened the second session of the General Court on 25 Jul. with a lengthy harangue for the House of Representatives to proceed to business and abandon their protest at being summoned to assemble outside of Boston (over the objections of many members “afraid” of Samuel Adams and the Whigs, TH had noted). TH to FB, Boston, 4 Aug. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 530–531, and Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 327–329; JHRM, 47: 58–61. TH sent FB a copy of the House’s defiant refusal and his rejoinder for which see JHRM, 47:63–71, 73–78.
4. The “good” outcome may be mock sanguinity, likely alluding to the opportunity the fire provided FB to restock Harvard library from his personal collection. See No. 300, Bernard Papers, 2: 121–122.
5. Dittography here and below.
1. No. 861.
2. TH to Sir Edward Hawke, Boston, 14 Aug. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 535–536.
3. The Massachusetts Naval Office. See No. 827.
1. TH to FB, Boston, 28 Aug. and 29 Aug. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 540–542, 544–545; Hutchinson Correspondence 3: 349–350, 353.
2. Nos. 860 and 861.
3. As construed, the quotation left the colonists on the brink of a precipice doing nothing to save themselves from certain ruin: “ridebit monitor non exauditus, ut ille/qui male parentem in rupes protrusit asellum/ iratus: quis enim invitum servare laboret?” Hor. Epistles, I.20.16. Trans: “Your monitor, from whom you turned away your ear, will then have his laugh, like the man who in anger pushed his stubborn ass over the cliff: for who would care to save an ass against his will?” Horace, Satires. Epistles. The Art of Poetry, trans. by H. Rushton Fairclough (Cambridge, Mass., 1926; at https://www.loebclassics.com/view/horace-epistles/1926/pb_LCL194.389.xml, accessed 24 Feb. 2020), 338–339. The moral of self-help was underlined by the proverbial fable of Hercules and the wagoner or cowherd, who first hesitated to put his shoulder to the wheel of his mired cart.
4. Samuel Adams, Rev. Samuel Cooper, William Molineux (c. 1713–74), and Thomas Young (1731–77). TH had identified the radical quartet as being at the head “the Mob who threaten all who import.” TH to FB, Boston, 28 Aug. 1770.
5. Meaning, as often as required, OED.
6. Nathaniel Rogers, a nephew of TH’s, died of a seizure in Aug. 1770.
7. TH’s indecision in accepting the governorship necessarily prevented any such advertisement in the London Gazette.
8. Turtle feasts were occasions for gluttony and drunkenness but the exoticism of the dish and the notion of “feasting” transcended class distinctions, even for FB here as he contemplates the opportunity being able to dine with the English nobility. Turtle feasts “universalized palates, equalized experience, and edified the masses — in short, turtle permitted ‘Inferiors’ access to the rudiments of the upper class.” Ileana Baird and Christina Ionescu, Eighteenth-Century Thing Theory in a Global Context: From Consumerism to Celebrity Culture (Abingdon and New York, 2013), 199.
9. TH to FB, Boston, 26 Dec. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 83–88.
1. Probably Dr. John Perkins (1698–1780). See No. 803n6.
2. Referring to diarrhea.
1. Not found.
2. See Nos. 865 and 873, but letters from Logan predating 5 Nov. 1770 have not been found.
3. Probably Boston physician John Perkins. See No. 803n6.
4. Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, 8 Nov. 1770. This letter corrects the date of death (20 Nov. 1770) given in the family history and followed by Nicolson, The ‘Infamas Govener’, 210. Higgins had suggested Frank Bernard was buried alongside his younger brother Shute at King’s Chapel, Boston. Logan’s letter to FB (No. 873) confirms the brothers were buried in adjacent plots, but Shute Bernard (b. 26 Jul. 1752) did not die in Boston but in Cambridge on 5 Apr. 1768. The Bernards, 2: 225.
1. Not found. Carried by Capt. Jacobson, who often sailed the Boscawen.
2. Deposition of Andrew Oliver, Boston, 13 Mar. 1770, in A Fair Account of the Late Unhappy Disturbance At Boston, 25–27.
3. See No. 835.
4. Probably the anonymous authors of the Fair Account, Francis Maseres and Lt. Col. William Dalrymple (Oliver’s “Friend”), for which see No. 843. If that is the case, then the “Stranger” would have been Maseres (1731–1837), a lawyer, scholar, and attorney general of Quebec between 1766 and 1769 before returning to London.
5. See Zobel, Boston Massacre, 213.
6. Proceedings of His Majesty’s Council of the province of Massachusetts-Bay: relative to the deposition of Andrew Oliver, Esq; secretary of the said province, concerning what passed in Council in consequence of the unhappy affair of the 5th of March 1770 (Edes and Gill: Boston, 1770), 3, 6.
1. Deposition of Andrew Oliver, Boston, 13 Mar. 1770, in A Fair Account of the Late Unhappy Disturbance At Boston, 25–27. For discussion see the source note to No. 867.
2. Royal Tyler (1724–71), who had been a member of the Council since 1764.
3. Annotation before “P.S.”: “x”, probably an incomplete cross-reference. Jane Bernard’s postscript commences here.
4. Thus in manuscript for “confidential”.
1. TH to FB, Boston, 5 Nov. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 50.
2. Authorial correction but first written form illegible.
3. A “hectic” was a fever often associated with the onset of “consumption,” that is tuberculosis. OED.
4. The idea that a childhood head injury was the root cause of Frank’s erratic behavior in adulthood persisted in family history, notwithstanding the possibility of infection or disease as raised in No. 803. Higgins, The Bernards, 1: 219, 2: 225.
1. Regardless of what measures were adopted, TH warned, the “gr[a]nd difficulty will be to c[a]rry it to eff[e]ct” in the face of popular opposition. TH to Hillsborough c. 15 Oct. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 22–23. Another letter to Hillsborough of 9 Oct. predicted “violent opposition” to any royal Council. See Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 400–408, at 404.
2. Plural “s” erased.
3. No. 864.
4. The privileges of the City of London Corporation were revoked by King Charles II in 1683 but restored by Parliament in 1690. See John Noorthouck, “Appendix: Statute of William and Mary, confirming the Privileges of the Corporation,” in A New History of London Including Westminster and Southwark (London, 1773), 860–863, available at British History Online (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/new-history-london/pp860-863, accessed 26 Feb. 2020).
5. TH to FB, Boston, 26 Dec. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 87.
6. [The earl of Dartmouth], [A List of Massachusetts Royal Councilors], [1774], Dartmouth Papers, American Papers: D(W)1778/II/314.
1. Sir Jeffery (also “Jeffrey”) Amherst (1717–97), commander in chief of the British Army in North America, 1758–63.
2. Major John Phillips (1712–97), commander of the Castle William garrison since 1759, had wept when relinquishing command to the British. TH named Phillips and Sergt. William Salisbury as objects of his “compassion” for having lost their “comfortable living” they were struggling to provide for their families. TH to FB, Boston, 28 Sept. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 6–8; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 376.
3. No such memorial has been found.
1. The earl Hillsborough and John Pownall. TH had alerted FB to the Boston radicals’ acquisition of copies of official letters from London and speculated that Stephen Sayre (1736–1818) and Dennys DeBerdt, rather than William Bollan, had obtained them from an MP or parliamentary clerk. The most recent batch mentioned here included “a large number of letters” by Col. William Dalrymple and Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden, and “one or more” of TH’s. TH to FB, Boston, 22 Sept. 1770. Mass. Archs., 27: 8.
2. The cause of TH’s agitation was probably the proposed reform of the Council (see 178n1). Also, the town was reeling from the domination of “Profligate Characters” in “both . . . religion and morality.” TH to the earl of Hillsborough, Boston, 29 Jun. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 512–513.
3. No. 871.
4. Grenville died on 13 Nov. 1770, the same day as the opening of the new session of Parliament.
1. Not found.
2. Logan’s idiosyncratic symbol “^.” represents ordinal numbers.
3. See No. 859.
4. John Bernard.
5. “TO BE LETT. A pleasant Seat, with fifty Acres of Land, four Miles distant from Boston: having every Accommodation requisite for a Gentleman of Fortune. For further Particulars enquire of the Printer.” The Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, 11 Oct. 1770.
6. Ezekiel Prince (1727–1802), a Boston notary and insurance broker.
7. Commodore Joshua Loring (1716–81) had commanded British ships operating in the Great Lakes during the French and Indian War. He had lived in Jamaica Plain since 1752. His fine home (today known as the Loring-Greenough mansion) dates from c. 1760. Nathaniel Hatch (1723–80) was clerk of the Massachusetts Superior Court and in 1771 was appointed a justice of the Suffolk County inferior court.
8. The phrase “Administration . . . risqué” is repeated at the beginning of f 61v.
1. Unidentified. The last extant letter to TH is dated 15 Nov. 1770.
2. The division is recorded in the Commons’ journals only, for 22 Nov. 1770, when the government defeated by 225 noes to 101 yeas an opposition motion to obtain from the King copies of official correspondence pertaining to the Falklands dispute. HCJ, 32: 23.
3. Scribal correction for “Bostons”.
1. John Bernard was Massachusetts’s naval officer responsible for clearing incoming and outgoing vessels.
2. William Gale of Boston, a later business partner. On his return, Gale carried correspondence from FB to TH and John Bernard* — probably the four letters from his father dated Aug. 1770 whose receipt John Bernard acknowledged in No. 866. *Noted in TH to FB, Boston, 23 Apr. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 153–154.
3. TH to FB, Boston, 10 May 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 166.
1. The news of Preston’s acquittal on murder charges was brought to London by the schooner HMS Halifax, Capt. Glassford. The notice, dated Whitehall 8 Dec., was the leading article in the London Gazette, 4–8 Dec. 1770, and printed widely in British periodicals.
2. The earl of Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, 11 Dec. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 333–334.
1. This line in TH’s hand.
2. James Boutineau (1710–78) was a Boston merchant and future Loyalist whose intercession may have been prompted by Sewall. David Lisle (d.1775) had provided Sewall with confidential information when the commissioners of Customs questioned his willingness to prosecute smugglers. Lisle was suspended pending investigation by the Treasury but evidently reinstated and remained solicitor to the Board until his death. Bernard Papers 4: 309–312; Nicolson and Edwards, Imaginary Friendship in the American Revolution, 87–88. “Franklyn” is probably Michael Francklin, lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia.
3. Editorially supplied to aid reading.
4. Samuel Fitch succeeded Sewall as advocate general of the Vice Admiralty Court for New England on 24 Nov. 1769. ADM 2/1057, f 330.
5. Scribal correction.
1. The first letter (not found) was written c. late 1770, following the death of Pemberton’s first partner Francis Bernard Jr., or early 1771.
2. John Bernard, who, with Pemberton, jointly succeeded to the Naval Office. FB’s letter to Taylor is No. 880.
1. Taylor’s letter not found.
2. John Bernard.
3. Scribal error for “Affliction”.
1. These are shutters fixed to ships’ portholes to prevent the ingress of water. OED.
2. Lady Bernard and FB were reunited at their rented home in Hampstead on 7 Feb. She had travelled with Amelia (aged sixteen years), William (fourteen), Frances Elizabeth (aged thirteen), Scrope (twelve), Julia (eleven), Cato (the family’s “black man”), Lady Bernard’s maid Hannah, and chaperoned the sixteen-year-old daughter of one Col. Martin. Lady Bernard, the girls, and the maid shared the captain’s cabin (with Capt. Collier’s cot curtained off) and an adjacent cordoned sleeping area; the boys slept either side of a canon and Col. Martin and Cato elsewhere. The delay in HMS Tweed’s delayed departure from Boston is explained in No. 857n1. Julia Bernard provides a dramatic retelling of the storms they endured about twelve days out, echoing FB’s account: when the water burst through the shutters of the cabin Capt. Collier and Hannah were swept out of the room into the dining area and Cato rescued Julia from drowning. Afterward some of the sailors pilfered some of the family’s clothes from the broken luggage and Lady Bernard “did not leave” her room. The vessel nearly foundered on breakers at the Needles, off the Isle of Wight, on the approach to Portsmouth. The family reunion was marred by an outbreak of measles that carried off the young Miss Martin, nursed by Jane Bernard at the family’s Hampstead home. See the extract of Julia’s memoirs printed in Higgins, The Bernards, 2: 227–231.
3. Thomas Whately (c. 1728–72) was appointed a lord commissioner to the Board of Trade in Jan. 1771. Henry Howard (1739–79), the twelfth earl of Suffolk, was appointed secretary of state for the Northern Department on 12 Jun. 1771 (with Whately also appointed to serve as under-secretary) which position he held until his death. Suffolk brought stability to the North administration, for his predecessors — earls Sandwich and Halifax — served for four weeks and five months, respectively. Alexander Wedderburn (1733–1805) was another Grenvillite who became a formidable member of North’s administration (despite having opposed the government line on Wilkes’s exclusion from Parliament); he was appointed solicitor general in Jan. 1771 and served until 1778.
4. TH to FB, Boston, 8 Apr. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 145–146.
1. No. 877.
2. No. 870.
3. On 26 Feb. 1768, FB consented to two grants to House agent Dennys DeBerdt (originally voted in 1765 and 1766) and another to province agent Jackson worth £500. JHRM, 44:197; Acts and Resolves, 17: 289. See Bernard Papers, 3: 374. TH had refused a further grant of £750 to DeBerdt’s executors (for services rendered between 1767 and 1770) and a grant of £300 to Council agent William Bollan (for 1769–70). JHRM, 47: 127.
4. FB’s memorial not found.
5. Benjamin Franklin was elected agent for the House of Representatives on 24 Oct. 1770.
6. The House and Council tried to assign responsibility for the Indian trade to the Speaker, which TH vetoed, thus leaving the appointment of truckmaster undecided and Goldthwait continuing in position (as well as being commander of the fort). TH to the earl of Hillsborough, Boston, 31 May 1772, CO 5/760, ff. 152–153. See No. 908.
7. Richard Silvester (b.1706), a former sailor in the Royal Navy, was an innkeeper and informant. FB’s intervention may have secured him employment as a landwaiter at the Boston Custom House. See No. 732, Bernard Papers, 4: 167–171; Jones, Loyalists of Massachusetts, 261.
8. The earl of Hillsborough to TH, Boston, Whitehall, 11 Feb. 1771, CO 4/760, ff 7–8. The Board did not begin preparation of TH’s instructions and commission until 4 Apr., following his appointment as governor. JBT, 13: 182–186.
9. TH to FB, Boston, 23 Apr. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 153–154.
1. Georg Friederich Händel (1685–1759) and Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713). FB is probably referring to Handel’s Overtures from all his Operas and Oratorios set for the Harpsicord [sic.] or Organ (London: John Walsh, c. 1760) and an edition of Corelli’s popular Twelve Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 (1714) for the violin.
2. The paragraph is marked for deletion and scored through. It has been restored to show the original cancellations and interlineations. The amended paragraph that follows was written by Thomas Bernard on an interleaved sheet.
3. George Harland Hartley, an organist in Boston from 1763 to 1771. Harris has not been identified.
4. Robert Calef, captain of the London Packet.
1. TH had requested a plan in deference to FB’s “skill” in such matters. TH to FB, Boston, 22 Dec. 1770, Mass. Archs., 27: 82–83.
2. Manuscript torn here and below.
3. Supplied to aid reading.
4. A device for moving the doors.
5. TH to FB, 10 May 1771, Boston, Mass. Archs., 27: 163.
6. TH to FB, Boston, 8 Jul. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 191–192.
1. Scribal error. For No. 58 see No. 887.
2. See No. 878.
3. TH doubted whether any of the current Council and friends of government generally would accept a commission to a royally appointed upper chamber, though he assured FB that he was now in favor of progressing with the reform without “delay” if only to satisfy the demands of the friends of government that Parliament be seen to condemn “our past conduct.” He related the “homely Expression” of Col. John Chandler of Worcester, a former councilor and sheriff, that “If Parliament don’t give us a flogging we shall be as rampant as ever.” TH to FB, Boston, 23 Jan. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 103–105.
4. TH had sought FB’s assistance to secure a valuable contract for partners John Green and Joseph Russell as printers and stationers to the American Board of Customs, TH to FB, Boston, 3 Feb. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 110–111. Green and Russell, proprietors of the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser, had performed such services for the provincial government during FB’s governorship, in the process losing jobs previously commissioned by the Whig-dominated House of Representatives as well as private publishing. While the Customs Board continued to call on Green and Russell for printing jobs, from Apr. 1768 stationery was supplied by John Mein and John Fleeming, booksellers and printers of the Boston Chronicle. “Green has behaved extremely well,” TH observed, despite losing his only reliable source of income as stationer to the Board. The Board subsequently offered Mein and Fleeming a contract for both printing and stationery, but which was delayed on account of the existing printing contract with Green and Russell. Treasury records indicate payments to Mein and Fleeming of £819 for stationery between 1768 and 1771, and to Green and Russell of £1,931 for printing between 1767 and 1775. These sums were also likely to cover political writing, given that Mein worked in tandem with the Board’s officials to undermine the merchants’ nonimportation campaign via the Boston Chronicle. O. M. Dickerson, “British Control of American Newspapers on the Eve of the Revolution,” New England Quarterly, 24 (1951): 453–468; TH to FB, Boston, 3 Mar. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 309.
5. Grey Cooper, secretary to the Treasury, 1767–82.
6. TH had requested that his nephew Samuel Mather be considered a replacement in waiting to the secretary to the American Board of Customs, Richard Reeve. TH to FB, Boston 30 Jan. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 109.
7. John Robinson (1727–1802), junior secretary to the Treasury, 1770–82, and Grey Cooper, the senior secretary.
8. TH had requested FB consult his London agent William Palmer about purchasing a “light Coach . . . second hand not too much worn” capable of being pulled by a two-horse team on Massachusetts’s country roads. TH to FB, Boston 7 Feb. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 116.
9. 9 Apr.
10. Lord Mansfield. The Lord Mayor of London was Brass Crosby (1725–93), a Wilkite MP for Honiton since 1768. He was briefly imprisoned for defending London printers who had ignored prohibitions on publishing parliamentary debates.
1. TH had recently written two letters, dated 8 and 23 Apr. 1770. Mass. Archs., 27: 145–146, 153–154. In the latter, TH had requested FB show Hillsborough an article printed in the Boston Gazette, 22 Apr. 1771, being “shocked at the impudence” with which parliamentary authority was being impugned. He was likely referring to the series of articles by “Johannes in Eremo,” a pseudonym of Rev. John Cleaveland (1722–99), of Ipswich, Mass.
2. The “business at the Treasury” concerned TH’s desire to thwart John Mein’s appointment as printer to the American Board of Customs, for which see No. 886n4. The “old Woman” is a jocular allusion to Anne Hutchinson (1591–1643), TH’s great-great grandmother, whose Antinomian views, initially propagated in gatherings of Boston women, sparked religious controversy in the early years of the Puritan colony and led to her banishment. The “Letter” FB refers to was an anonymously authored paper (not found) left at TH’s house accusing TH of “crimes.” TH believed the “Letter” was “hatched at one of those Meetings of the holy Sisters which you have heard of such as [Benjamin] Pembertons wife used to frequent.” The paper he supposed coauthored by “a ghostly father.” The contents mentioned one Spear, who had been “charged” with treason (but not prosecuted) for utterances at Fort Hill, probably on the eve of the arrival of troops in Oct. 1768 or soon afterward (and certainly before FB’s departure the following Aug.). TH to FB, Boston, 25 Feb. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 122–123.
3. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7.20–21. Trans.: “I see the better way and approve it, but I follow the worse way.” The “worse way” in this situation was supporting war with Spain to the detriment of colonial reform.
4. TH had asked his agent in London, William Palmer (probably of the merchant company Thomas Palmer & Co.) to consult with FB on the purchase of a second-hand “light Coach” suited to Massachusetts’s rough country roads. It must be fashionable and “genteel,” he told FB, but not “plain” or “too much worn.” TH to FB, Boston, 7 Feb. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 116. It is surprising why TH did not commission New England’s leading chaisemaker, Adino Paddock, who crafted a four-horse coach for FB and was renowned for improving coaches according to English fashions. Importing a second-hand vehicle may have been cheaper, but TH offered Lady Frankland’s coach as a model of style — and perhaps also as an ironic allusion to his own capacity for political survival.
Lady Frankland had a colorful history. Born Agnes Surriage (1726–83) she was a teenage tavern maid in Marblehead when she met Charles Henry Frankland (1726–68), the collector of Boston, becoming his mistress then his wife. Frankland succeeded to a baronetcy and, with considerable inherited wealth, in 1756 purchased one Boston’s finest mansion houses, in Garden Court near TH’s house. Lady Frankland’s fame, however, rested on helping to rescue her husband during the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, when the coach in which he was traveling was buried during an eruption. She was the subject of numerous romantic stories. English writer Arthur Quiller-Couch opened her life-story with the ominous lines: “A coach-and-six, as a rule, may be called an impressive Object. But something depends on where you see it.” Lady Good-For-Nothing: a Man’s Portrait of a Woman (London and New York, 1910), 11; Malcolm Freiberg, “Frankland, Agnes Surriage,” in Notable American Women, A Biographical Dictionary: 1607–1950, 3 vols., eds. Edward T. James, Janet W. James, and Paul S. Boyer (Cambridge, Mass. 1990). 1: 661–662; Carl Bridenbaugh, The Colonial Craftsman (New York, 1950), 90.
1. Editorially supplied to aid reading.
2. British merchant bankers Lane, Son & Fraser. FB is probably referring to senior partners Thomas Fraser and Thomas Lane (c. 1707–84). Also mentioned is Boston merchant Richard Lechmere (1727–1814).
1. Letter not found.
2. A Latin proverb deriving from Virgil and Horace. Trans: “times favorable for speaking.”
3. FB’s attempted intercession with Hillsborough may have been prompted by James Cockle himself. FB had promised the former customs officer an inquiry to clear his name and refute accusations of fraud and corruption levied by the then surveyor general of Customs, John Temple, which had led to his dismissal in 1764 and blemished FB’s reputation. Pownall’s expression of sympathy for Cockle did not entail any obligation and was perhaps indicative of his own exasperation with Temple following Temple’s estrangement from fellow commissioners of the American Board of Customs. FB to James Cockle, Boston, 8 Jul. 1769, BP, 8: 5; see also No. 326, Bernard Papers, 2: 203–208.
1. Not found.
2. Relocated from top of page.
1. Jane Beresford (c. 1702–Nov. 1771) was FB’s maternal cousin and the widow proprietor of Nether (or Lower) Winchendon house and manor, covering some 122-acres and situated near Aylesbury, Bucks., England. FB had been her executor and chief beneficiary since 1762. Upon her death, he received the bulk of her moveable estate and heritable property (houses with lands and buildings) in Buckingham parishes (Lower Winchendon manor, Upper Winchendon, and Cuddington) and in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. Mrs. Beresford had exercised guardianship of FBand Amelia Bernard’s older daughters during their parents’ American sojourn. She left Jane Bernard dressing plate, diamond jewelry, a legacy of £1,000, and £30 annuity. Frances Elizabeth received a legacy of £500, effective on her twenty-first birthday, and an annuity of £20 until then. The will of Jane Beresford, 10 Feb.1772, PROB 11/974, ff 367–368. See also references in Bernard Papers, 1: 42n3.
2. FB’s letter to Barrington has not been found.
3. Joseph Redington and R. A. Roberts, eds., Calendar of Home Office Papers of the Reign of George III, 1760–1775, 4 vols. (London, 1878), 3: 407, 638–639; 4: 310; Journals of the House of Commons of the Kingdom of Ireland, 1641–1782, 23 vols. (Dublin, 1761–82), 15 (1771–72): 112, 214; Thomas Bartlett, “Viscount Townshend and the Irish Revenue Board, 1767–73,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature, 79 (1979): 153–75; Patrick A. Walsh, “The Fiscal State in Ireland, 1691–1769,” The Historical Journal, 56 (2013): 629–656.
1. See No. 891n3. Sir William Mayne (1722–94) was a merchant with family estates in Ireland and a member of the Irish Parliament, 1761–76.
2. FB had evidently informed Pownall of Jane Beresford’s death and bequests.
3. Viscount Townshend to the earl of Rochford, 11 Dec. 1771, Calendar of Home Office Papers, 3: 336–337.
1. Capt. Andrew Gardner often sailed in the brig New Swallow.
2. Col. Thomas Goldthwait.
3. Goldthwait’s letter has not been found but TH’s reply urged Goldthwait to refrain from suing John Bernard for damages. TH to Thomas Goldthwait, Boston, 31 Jan. 1771, Mass. Archs., 27: 289.
4. Editorial interpolations here and below are to assist reading.
5. Punctuation added here and below to aid interpretation.
6. TH to FB, Boston, 29 Jan. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 286–287.
1. That is to say, reside in England while holding office.
1. The appointment was probably that of a clerk in the “commissary of musters” as suggested by Thomas Bernard’s biographer and a draft of No. 925. The duties were not so onerous as to interrupt his private study of the law, and the annual salary, TH noted, was £200. This figure seems rather high if Barrington expected Thomas to realize £60 per annum after paying a deputy. (No. 894) James Baker, The Life of Sir Thomas Bernard (London, 1819), 4–6; Hutchinson, Diary and Letters of Hutchinson, 1: 313.
1. Scribal correction: “suspended” overwritten.
2. Scribal correction: first written form illegible.
3. Scribal correction: “of” erased and overwritten.
4. Editorially supplied here and below to aid reading.
5. Scribal correction: “is” overwritten.
1. Not found.
2. Editorial additions here and below to aid interpretation.
3. Relocated from top of page.
4. TH to FB, Boston, 10 May 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 334.
5. TH to FB, Boston, 27 Jun. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 353–354.
1. Thereafter, William Story acted as FB’s occasional business agent.
2. TH to FB, Boston, 25 Aug. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 374.
3. William Palfrey to John Wilkes, [Boston, 23–30 Oct. 1770], in George M. Elsey, “John Wilkes and William Palfrey,” PCSM, 34 (1937–1942), 424.
4. For example, in August Franklin drafted but did not publish an essay critical of Hillsborough for contributing to the “Misunderstanding with the Colonies” titled “On the Conduct of Lord Hillsborough,” Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 19: 216.
5. TH to FB, Boston, 27 Jun. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 353–354.
6. TH to FB, Boston, 4 Feb. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 292.
7. TH to FB, Boston, 25 Feb. 1773, Mass. Archs., 27: 459.
1. William Bernard (27 May 1756–1776), FB’s fifth son.
2. Barrington to FB, Cavendish Square, 20 Mar. 1772, BP, 12: 251–252.
1. James Gambier, the commander of the Royal Navy’s North American Station, was a friend to TH.
2. Not found.
3. TH to FB, Boston, 29 May 1772 (not sent), Mass. Archs., 27: 340–341.
4. TH to FB, Boston, 27 Jun. 1772, ibid., 353.
5. TH to FB, Boston, 22 Aug. 1772, ibid., 373.
1. There were “major” food riots in England during 1772 and 1773, triggered by rising grain prices and suppliers’ restrictive practices. John E. Archer, Social Unrest and Popular Protest in England, 1780–1840 (Cambridge, 2000), 28.
1. Not found but probably addressing the question of FB’s pension.
1. FB’s letters to TH of c. Mar.–Jun. 1772 have not been found.
2. Not found.
3. With the Massachusetts’s assembly refusing to make additional provision for the judges, Hillsborough intimated that Lord North “entirely concurs with me” in the present desirability of instituting Crown salaries for the Superior Court judges, albeit (to limit costs, probably) to fewer than the current bench of four puisne justices and the chief justice. Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, 6 Jun. 1772, CO 5/761, f 91, and DAR, 5: 112–113. Nonetheless, Hillsborough, with the King’s approval, subsequently directed the Treasury that a full provision should be made for all the justices and law officers (as indicated in the source note above). Hillsborough to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, Whitehall, 27 Jul. 1772, CO 5/145, f 60, and DAR, 5: 145.
4. TH to Hillsborough, Boston, 27 Apr. 1772, CO 5/761, f 85, and DAR, 5: 77–78. The son mentioned would have been John Bernard, who was returning to Boston.
5. The petition to the King was reported on 15 Jul. but not printed in the House Journals. A further petition to the King was delivered to House agent Franklin in Mar. 1773. JHRM: 49: 120, 286. Thomas Cushing to Benjamin Franklin, Massachusetts, 15–[23] Jul. 1772, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 19: 208.
6. On 10 Jul., the House of Representatives adopted six resolves protesting the governor’s Crown salary as an infringement of the assembly’s constitutional powers under the Province Charter to check the executive. TH replied four days’ later with a long and detailed defence of the Crown’s prerogatives and governor’s independence that encapsulated both his and FB’s thinking on their office’s constitutional position in relation to popular criticism for defending imperial authority.
. . . if a Governor departs from his own Judgment and Conscience, is he not highly Criminal, and will not the House of Representatives which compels him to it, be at least equally guilty with him?
I am sensible, that when all other Exceptions to this Representation of your Constitution are taken away, you will ask what Security have we then against the Oppression of a Governor? The Answer is obvious: The Law and the Constitution are your Security, if we departs [sic] from them, there is a Power superior to him, to which he is accountable for his maleAdministration [sic]. This is all the Redress which can consist with the Nature of a Subordinate Government.
JHRM, 49: 105–108, 127–132, quotation at 131.
7. The House of Representatives had requested that two articles of Governor Jonathan Belcher’s royal instructions be revoked: these concerned the governor’s obligation to withhold assent to provincial legislation introducing bills of credit pending Privy Council approval, and that the Governor and Council assume all responsibility for accounting and auditing such bills. The Privy Council report of 10 May 1733 was printed in the House Journals. JHRM, 11: 275–279.
8. Trans: “far from Jove,” in effect meaning above reproach.
9. Manuscript torn here and below.
10. Not found.
11. The idea of annexation sprang from long-running border disputes with New Hampshire and New York, as TH mentions in his letter to Hillsborough of 15 Jul. CO 5/761, f 168, and DAR, 5: 144–146.
12. Thomas, Townshend Duties Crisis, 212, 232, 234–235.
1. Dittography corrected: “and drawn Bills”.
2. Editorially supplied here and below.
3. TH to FB, Boston, 27 Jun. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 353–354.
1. There is an indistinct symbol prefixing the carrier information.
2. Possibly John Atkinson (1742–1823), a British merchant who located to Boston in 1770 and a business partner of another English-born Boston merchant, Richard Smith.
3. This refers to one of the four Elam brothers from a Quaker family in Leeds, Yorkshire, involved in the American trade importing cotton and tobacco and exporting manufactures, especially textiles; most likely Samuel Elam (d.1797) who traded from London. Richard G. Wilson, Gentlemen Merchants: The Merchant Community on Leeds, 1700–1830 (Manchester and New York, 1971), 243.
1. Editorially supplied to aid reading.
2. Higgins, The Bernards, 2: 226.
1. Identification is difficult given the prevalence of the “Turner” name in vital records and genealogies. Judging by TH’s comment about the deputy naval officer’s age, this John Turner may have been born in Salem in 1709 to Maj. John Turner II (d.1742) and Mary Kitchen Turner. The Turners were prominent merchants (and proprietors of Salem’s House of Seven Gables), and TH’s depiction of the deputy’s financial situation seems inconsistent with the family’s wealth and status. However, John Turner III reputedly squandered much of the family’s wealth before and during the war. This is probably the John Turner who became a Loyalist addresser. Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1620–1850, AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001–2016 (https://www.americanancestors.org/DB190/rd/7792/366/140904089) accessed 1 Jul. 2020; Stark, Loyalists of Massachusetts, 131.
1. This line in TH’s handwriting.
2. Not found.
3. See Nos. 905, 906, and 907.
4. John Bernard.
5. On the appointment of the truckmaster at Fort Pownall see No. 883n6.
6. Sewall’s letter to FB has not been found but the matter is discussed in TH to FB, Boston, 30 Jan. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 288.
7. This “affair” was John Robinson’s caning of James Otis at the British Coffee House on 5 Sept. 1769, and Otis’s lawsuit for compensation. In Aug. 1772, the Suffolk Inferior Court awarded Otis damages of £2,000 plus legal costs. Otis declined the damages declaring that gentlemanly honor had been satisfied by the ruling and that Christian duty required he forgive Robinson, on condition Robinson meet costs of £112. With Robinson in England, his father-in-law James Boutineau acted as his attorney. William Tudor, The Life of James Otis, of Massachusetts . . . (Boston, 1823), 503–505.
8. Duncan Stewart (1732–93), the collector of Customs at New London, Conn., had been mentioned by TH as a candidate for appointment to the American Board of Customs. TH to John Robinson, Boston, 25 Oct. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 399.
9. Edge of manuscript torn.
10. William Legge (1731–1801), second earl of Dartmouth. He was appointed Secretary of State for the Colonies on 15 Aug. 1772 and served until 10 Nov. 1775. In his first letter to Dartmouth, TH provided addressed the future of the “Eastern Country” of Maine and the growing discontent at the institution of judges’ salaries. TH to the earl of Dartmouth, Boston, 23 Oct. 1772, CO 5/895, ff 3–4.
11. The Boston town meeting of 28 Oct. protested the “fatal consequences” pending the institution of judges’ Crown salaries and by a “vast majority” demanded to know if he had yet received “any advice” on the matter. TH refused to divulge any information from his official correspondence, prompting (unanimous) formal petitions in rejoinder requesting he summon the General Court to consider the issue. Report of the Record Commissioners of Boston, 18: 89–93. TH reported on the proceedings in a letter to Dartmouth of 30 Oct. 1772, CO 5/761, ff 236–241.
12. Scribal correction.
13. The anonymous letter addressed “To the King,” George III, alluded to Stuart tyranny. Massachusetts Spy, 10 Sept. 1772, printed by Isaiah Thomas (1749–1831)
14. John Phillips was appointed Fort Major of Castle William in a commission issued by Gen. Thomas Gage, New York, 10 Oct. 1772, NHi: Gilder Lehrman Collection, GLC01412.53.
15. It is uncertain to which of his three sons TH is referring.
1. James Otis Jr.
2. Joseph Greenleaf (1720–1810) had been dismissed as a justice of the peace on 10 Dec. 1771 after refusing a summons to appear before the Governor and Council to answer allegations of writing anti-government papers for the Massachusetts Spy under the pseudonym “Mucius Scævola.” Young and Molineux were also dismissed.
3. See No. 903.
4. Hillsborough to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, Whitehall, 27 Jul. 1772, CO 5/145, f 60, and DAR, 5: 145.
5. TH to Hillsborough, Boston, 27 Apr. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 322.
6. Perhaps an abbreviation for “probable”.
7. Report of the Record Commissioners of Boston, 18: 92–93.
1. Sampson Salter Blowers (1742–1842).
2. Probably Smith & Atkinson (No. 905).
3. TH to the earl of Dartmouth, Boston, 11 Nov. 1772, CO 5/895, ff 7–8.
4. TH to John Bernard, Boston, 11 Nov. 1772, Mass. Archs., 27: 407.
5. John Bernard and William Gale to Messrs. Lane, Son & Fraser, Boston, 30 Jun. 1785. MHS: Misc. Bound. The £1,000 loan is mentioned in the will of Sir Francis Bernard. See Introduction n14.
1. The pamphlet mentioned is The Speeches of His Excellency Governor Hutchinson to the General Assembly of the Masssachusetts-Bay. At a Session begun and held on the Sixth of January, 1773. With the Answers of His Majesty’s Council and the House of Representatives Respectively . . . (Boston: Edes and Gill, [1773]).
2. The reply has not been found, though FB continued to correspond with TH (as indicated in TH to FB, Boston, 19 Apr. 1773, Mass. Archs., 27: 481–482).
3. Relocated from top of page.
4. JHRM, 59: 38–143, 229–241.
1. Thus in manuscript.
2. That is, self-destructive.
3. Editorially supplied to aid interpretation.
4. This is a reference to the theft and publication of Hutchinson’s letters earlier that summer. Copy of Letters sent to Great-Britain by His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, the Hon. Andrew Oliver, and Several other Persons (Edes and Gill: Boston, 1773). As he indicates, FB was roused to anger by the resolves of the House of Representatives of 16 Jun. 1773 condemning TH for correspondence intended “to Excite the Resentment of the British Administration against” Massachusetts. JHRM, 50: 59.
1. Not found.
2. Thus in manuscript.
1. Peter Oliver (1713–91) of Middleborough was appointed chief justice in 1772 having been a Superior Court justice since 1756 and a councilor between 1759 and 1766 (when he, the lieutenant governor, the province secretary, and the attorney general were defeated in the Council election). See No. 469, Bernard Papers, 3: 151–154.
2. Samuel Danforth (1696–1777) of Cambridge was the most senior councilor by virtue of length of service, having been first elected in 1739, and had acted as “president” of the Council when meeting separately from the governor during the spring and summer of 1769.
3. There is an indistinct mark preceding the name which might be a correction: two horizontal lines crossing the slant of a half-finished tick. Isaac Royall (1719–81) of Medford was a wealthy merchant and slaveholder — and probably the richest member of the current Council. He had been elected councilor every year since 1752 and often sided with the Whigs against FB.
4. John Erving (1692–1786), a Boston merchant, was the oldest serving councilor; first elected to the Board in 1754 he was again elected in 1774 on account his Whig sympathies, though he, like Danforth and Royall, was more to open to political overtures from TH than more radical councilors James Bowdoin and James Pitts, and eventually became a Loyalist.
5. Harrison Gray (1711–94), another moderate Whig, was province treasurer between 1753 and 1774, and elected to the Council between 1761 and 1772. He joined radicals in protesting the arrival of British troops in 1768. But TH now considered Gray along with William Brattle “firm friends to government.” TH to FB, Boston, 29 May 1772, Mass. Archs. 27: 341.
6. James Russell (1715–98) of Charlestown had been a councilor since 1761. In 1770 he joined Gray in “very zealously” criticizing the House of Representatives for refusing to proceed to business in protest at the relocation of the General Court from Boston to Cambridge. TH to FB, Boston, 17 Jun. 1770, Mass. Archs, 26: 506.
7. William Brattle (1706–76) of Cambridge had been ejected from the Council in 1766 after one year’s service but was returned between 1770 and 1773. A prominent critic of FB since the Stamp Act Crisis and an ally of James Bowdoin, Brattle broke with the Whig party when, during the controversy surrounding the institution of Crown salaries for judges, he debated judicial tenure and independence with John Adams. Brattle’s letters are in the Boston Gazette, 18 Jan. 1773, and the Massachusetts Gazette; and Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser, 18 Jan. 1773. The debate with Adams can followed in Papers of John Adams, 1: 23–273; for discussion see Richard A Ryerson, John Adams’s Republic: The One, the Few, and the Many (Baltimore, 2016), 100–114.
8. Thomas Flucker (1719–83) of Charlestown was elected to the Council between 1761 and 1768 and succeeded Andrew Oliver as province secretary on 12 Nov. 1770.
9. Jeremiah Powell (1720–83) was a Whig when elected to the Council between 1766 and 1772, and again in 1774. He subsequently was president of the Massachusetts Senate.
10. Israel Williams (1709–88) of Hatfield, Hampshire Co., a powerful figure in Western Massachusetts, was elected to the Council, 1760–66, but rarely attended meetings in Boston though a staunch friend of government.
11. Timothy Paine (1730–93) of Worcester was a councilor from 1763 to 1769 when he, Ropes, Flucker, and Worthington was turned out by large majorities — “the only Men remaining of Disposition & Ability to serve the Kings Cause,” FB lamented. No. 780, Bernard Papers, 5: 280.
12. John Chandler (1721–1800) was a wealthy landowner of Worcester whose family was intermarried with the Paine and Putnam families and who together dominated local offices. He was elected to the Council, 1765–67, following in the footsteps of his long-serving father.
13. Nathaniel Ropes (1726–74) was elected to the Council between 1761 and 1768 and appointed a justice of the Superior Court on 15 Jan. 1772.
14. John Worthington (1719–1800), a lawyer of Springfield, Berkshire Co., was elected to the Council in 1767 and 1768.
15. Edmund Trowbridge (1709–93) was elected to the Council in 1764 and 1765, and a justice of the Superior Court, 1767–74.
16. Timothy Woodbridge (c. 1709–74) of Stockbridge was elected to the Council between 1771 and 1773.
17. George Leonard Jr. (b.1729) was elected to the Council between 1770 and 1774. TH had been hopeful of winning Leonard over to the government side, though he and other newly elected councilors had “kept but just enough in with . . . [TH’s] Enemies.” TH to FB, Boston, 1 Jun. 1770, Mass. Archs., 26: 496; Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 250–252. His father, George Leonard Sr., and Benjamin Lynde may have been the “steady assertors of the rights of the King’s Government” who resigned their Council seats in 1776 in disappointment that “Government was not [being] supported by some means or other.” No. 521, Bernard Papers, 3: 521.
18. Timothy Ruggles (1711–95) of Hardwick was a prominent friend of government and Speaker of the House in 1762 and 1763.
19. Scribal error for “Foster”. Foster Hutchinson (1724–99), brother of TH, was appointed a justice of the Superior Court on 21 Mar. 1770 following Benjamin Lynde’s elevation to chief justice.
20. William Cushing (1732–1810) was appointed a justice of the Superior Court on 15 Jan. 1772. He became chief justice of Massachusetts in 1777 and a justice of the US Supreme Court in 1789.
21. Isaac Winslow (1709–90), a Boston merchant and resident of Roxbury, later served on the mandamus Council. Another Loyalist of the same name and Sandemanian sect, often designated, “Isaac Winslow Jr.” (1743–93), was a Boston distiller and friend to William Pepperrell. See Nicolson and Scott, “‘A Great Calamity’.”
22. Richard Clarke (1711–95) was a Boston merchant and tea consignee for the East India Company.
23. Joseph Green (b.1705) was a Boston distiller.
24. William Vassall (1715–1800) was a wealthy West Indies planter and Cambridge resident.
25. James Boutineau (1710–78), a Boston merchant.
26. Jonathan Simpson (1712–95), a Boston merchant, had been a persistent importer between 1768 and 1770.
27. Thomas Hutchinson Jr. (1740–1811), eldest son of TH.
28. Joseph Lee (c. 1703–1806).
29. Thomas Oliver (1733/34–1815) was appointed lieutenant governor following Andrew Oliver’s death in Mar. 1774.
30. Andrew Oliver (1731–99), the eldest son of the province secretary, had been a justice of the Essex County inferior court since 1761. An amateur scientist, he reputedly was the only member of the extended Oliver family to remain in Massachusetts during the Revolution. Jones, Loyalists of Massachusetts, 222.
31. William Brown (1737–1802) was another justice of the Essex County inferior court (appointed in 1766). He was one of the seventeen rescinders who condemned the Massachusetts Circular Letter of 1768.
32. John Murray (1720–94), an Irish immigrant, was a wealthy landowner by the 1770s and had represented Rutland in the House of Representatives since 1751.
33. George Watson (1718–1800), a merchant, was an influential local politician in Plymouth County.
34. Abijah Willard (1724–89) was a veteran of the Louisburg campaign of 1745 and the French and Indian War. His military experience provided useful to the British commissariat during the Siege of Boston.
35. Josiah Edson (1709–78/81?), a farmer, was another military veteran and rescinder.
36. Nathanial Ray Thomas (b.1731) subsequently led the Marshfield Loyalists in organising a military defence with British support in advance of military hostilities at Lexington and Concord. See Nicolson, “‘McIntosh, Otis & Adams Are Our Demagogues’,” 113.
37. [The earl of Dartmouth], [A List of Massachusetts Royal Councilors], [1774], Dartmouth Papers, American Papers: D(W)1778/II/314.
38. FB’s exclusion of Loring might derive from Loring’s disagreement with FB’s agent Walter Logan over the leasing of Jamaica Farm. See No. 873.
39. The lists FB presented Dartmouth were more extensive than those previously submitted to Hillsborough in 1769 when anticipating legislation to reform the Council. No. 736 enclosing Nos. 737 and 738, Bernard Papers, 5: 185–192.
40. “Mr Hutchinson would probably recommend him [Lee] for Lieut. Governor, as he always advises with him.” The earl of Dartmouth, [A List of Gentlemen Proposed for the Massachusetts Council], [1774], Dartmouth Papers, American Papers: D(W)1778/II/314.
41. Nicolson and Scott, “‘A Great National Calamity’.” 128–130.
1. John Bernard (26 Jan. 1745–25 Aug. 1809), FB’s second son, succeeded his elder brother Frank as joint naval officer with Benjamin Pemberton. While the Naval Office was in the patronage of the governor their occupants had never sat in the Council; nepotism is the only explanation for FB wishing to secure his son’s membership.
2. Robert Auchmuty (1724–88) was a trusted adviser to FB and judge of the Vice Admiralty Court of New England since 1768.
3. Jonathan Sewall (1729–96) was the province attorney general, 1767–75, and since 1770 had been judge of the Vice Admiralty Court at Halifax.
4. Edward Winslow (1745–1815) was the naval officer for Plymouth and the son of local grandee Edward Winslow (1714–84) (who was collector for the port). He subsequently played a significant role in the Revolutionary War as muster master general for the Loyalist regiments.
5. Francis Waldo (1728–84) had been collector of Falmouth since 1757 and had prospered from land speculation by the time of the Revolution. He was brother-in-law to Thomas Flucker.
6. John Vassall (1738–97). His Cambridge mansion, completed in 1759, is now The Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.
7. FB may have confused the London merchant William Palmer with Thomas Palmer (1743–1820), a friend to William Pepperrell. The Palmers had slave plantations in Surinam and Jamaica and estates at Wanlip Hall, England, and were linked by marriage to other Massachusetts slaveholding families with West Indies estates — the Pepperrells and the Royalls. Virginia Browne-Wilkinson, Pepperrell Posterity (privately printed, 1982).
8. William Pepperrell (1746–1818). The baronetcy conferred on his father William Pepperrell (1696–1759) for commanding the provincial forces that captured Louisburg in 1745 was revived for him in 1774 in advance of his nomination to the royal Council.
9. Richard Lechmere (1727–1814).
10. Robert Hooper (1741–1814), one of Massachusetts’s most prosperous merchants, had never been elected to the Council.
11. Probably Joseph Lee who later signed Marblehead’s farewell address to TH of 2 Jun. 1774.
12. Stephen Greenleaf (1704–95) of Boston, sheriff of Suffolk County since 1757.
13. David Phips (1724–1811) of Cambridge, sheriff of Middlesex County since 1764.
14. Oliver Partridge (1712–92) of Hatfield, Hampshire Co., a prominent landowner and county sheriff since 1740.
15. Richard Saltonstall (1732–85) of Salem, a staunch friend of government and one of the rescinders. He had been sheriff of Essex County since 1766.
1. It is possible FB suffered transient ischemic attacks following his stroke in early 1772 as well as the recurrent epileptic fits that TH reported in 1775. While continuing to rely on family scribes, FB himself wrote other letters in early 1774 (Nos. 918 and 919) without displaying any obvious physical impairment, although by the summer TH found FB “more altered by a paralitick shock than . . . expected.” Hutchinson, The Diary and Letters of Hutchinson, 1: 195; 488.
2. Dr. John Smith (1721–97) was a Scottish-born anatomist and chemist. He was Oxford University’s Savilian professor of geometry from 1766, and first physician of the Radcliffe Infirmary.
3. No. 896.
4. Editorially supplied.
5. On a ten-day visit to London in late November and early December, FB lodged with TH who reported that he was awarded an annual pension of £800 and Lady Bernard £400. Hutchinson, Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, 1: 313. A total of £1,200 seems unlikely since FB was seeking the restoration of a pension of £600 (No. 821) that would have been suspended while he received a salary from the Irish Revenue Board. When the pension was restored in 1774, it was accounted for in the civil list of Ireland. Calendar of Home Office Papers, 4: 308.
1. Not found.
2. Probably a reference to an account of the Boston Tea Party of 16 Dec. 1773. News of the event reached London by 19 Jan., with TH’s official report arriving on 27 Jan. TH may have sent FB an extract of this letter. TH to the earl of Dartmouth, Boston, 17 Dec. 1773, CO 5/763, ff 23–24, and DAR, 6: 256. Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, 27, 29.
1. “Child” was probably a partner in Child’s Bank of London; Ross has not been identified.
2. Smudged.
3. Manuscript torn.
1. Editorially supplied here and below to aid reading.
2. John Calef (1725–1812) had been elected representative for Ipswich, Essex Co. in 1764–65 and 1768, and was reviled in the town and beyond as a “rescinder.” In 1774, Calef’s Ipswich neighbors demanded he abjure the Coercive Acts for being “unconstitutional and unjust.” “The Belief & Confession of John Calef, Esq; of Ipswich,” Boston Evening-Post, 24 Oct. 1774. He fled Ipswich for Penobscot in 1777 and in 1779 aided a British expedition to establish a military base in Penobscot. He was working as a British army surgeon at Fort George when the Americans mounted a major but unsuccessful expedition to dislodge the British and Loyalists.
3. Bernard Papers, 1: 14, 35n41, and No. 216, ibid., 369–372; 1771; JBT, 12: 58, 63, 100; APC, 4: 614; 6: 369–371.
4. Bernard Papers, 2: 3–4, and No. 314, ibid., 154–160.
5. JBT, 13: 384–387.
6. In 1780, Dr. Calef presented the settlers’ petition again desiring that, having taken an oath of loyalty, Sagadahoc be recognized as a province “separate” from Massachusetts. APC, 5: 484. See Robert W. Sloan, “New Ireland: Men in Pursuit of a Forlorn Hope, 1779–1784,” Maine Historical Society Quarterly, 19 (1979): 79–90.
1. No. 921.
2. Thus in manuscript; perhaps he meant to write “[intending] to propose”.
3. The Provincial Congress met at Salem, Concord, and Cambridge during the fall and winter of 1774, and reconvened at Cambridge on 1 Feb. 1775.
4. Thus in manuscript.
5. Thus in manuscript.
1. Jones, Loyalists of Massachusetts, 198. Charles Steuart (1725–97) was a Scottish-born merchant resident in Virginia and the surveyor of Customs for the Middle District before his appointment in 1767 as cashier to the American Board of Customs. While Steuart was in England on business, James Somerset, an enslaved African whom he had purchased in Boston, attempted to escape — triggering a legal action to secure his freedom. The case culminated in Lord Mansfield’s celebrated ruling of 22 Jun. 1772 that slavery was not “allowed or approved” in English common law, a decision that effectively ended slavery in England. Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499. His role as cashier is discussed in Colin Nicolson, “‘McIntosh, Otis & Adams are our Demagogues’: Nathaniel Coffin and the Loyalist Interpretation of the Origins of the American Revolution,” Procs. MHS, 3d. ser. 108 (1996): 72–114. For his part in the Somerset case see Steven M. Wise, Though the Heavens may Fall: The Landmark Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery (Cambridge, Mass.: 2004).
1. Annotation at bottom right omitted: “turn over”.
2. Bucks. Archs. wrongly attributes authorship to Thomas Bernard. Thomas Bernard is the third party mentioned, being present at his father’s death and the only other living son of FB then resident in England. John Bernard was at Mount Desert Island. William Bernard, commissioned a lieutenant in the British Army (according to Lord Barrington), had drowned in the English Channel in 1776 while escaping a Royal Navy troop transport that had caught fire; Francis Jr. and Shute had died in Boston. Hutchinson, Diary and Letters of Hutchinson, 2: 27.
1. According to the draft of this letter, Barrington secured Thomas’s appointment as a commissary “of Musters.” This would have been a civilian position in the Commissary General of Musters office devoted to maintaining payrolls for the British Army.
2. In 1774, when she was twenty-six years old, Jane married FB’s executor Charles White, a Lincoln barrister and twenty years her senior. Higgins, The Bernards, 2: 273.
1. Supplied from variant text. Manuscript torn here and below.
2. Closing quotation marks supplied. No. 193, Bernard Papers, 1: 329–330.
3. Manuscript torn here and below.
4. No. 248, Bernard Papers, 1: 436–437.
5. Bernard Papers, 1: 181–182.
6. Philip Sharpe signed the order-in-council to the Board of Trade, Court at St. James’s, 13 Dec. 1769, CO 5/893, f 161; JBT, 13: 158–161; APC, 5: 220–221.
1. Sched. I: “Journal of the House 1768, pa 68, 72, 75, 94, 95, 96. Journal 1769 pa 36; Boston Gazette, Sep 4, 1769.” The imprint of the Journals of the House of Representatives FB was using is unknown, but the references correspond with the page sequence in the modern facsimile edition, JHRM, 45: 68–69, 72, 75, 95–96, 148. The dispute over rescinding can be followed in FB’s letter to Hillsborough of 25 Jun. to 1 Jul. 1768 (No. 638, Bernard Papers, 4: 220–230).
2. Copy of the Complaint: “1. From his first Arrival here, he has in his Speeches and other public Acts treated the Representative Body with Contempt.”
3. Sched. I: “Extracts of the journals of the House 1761 a 1765 Sch. 1.” FB probably listed these extracts in an appendix to Sched. I. They are printed in Select Letters, 116–124. Sched. IV: “Gr Bernard to Secy Conway Nov 25 1765” (for which see No. 414, Bernard Papers, 2: 419–422).
4. Copy of the Complaint: “2. He has in his public Speeches charged both Houses of the General Assembly expressly with Oppugnation against the Royal Authority; declaring that they had left Gentlemen out of the Council only for their Fidelity to the Crown.”
5. Sched. I: “Journals 1765, 6, 7, 8, 9” (i.e. 1765–1769), for which see JHRM, vols. 41–45; Sched. II: “A List of Gentlemen of the Council of Massachusets Bay who have been turned out of the Council since the Repeal of the Stamp Act.”
6. Copy of the Complaint: “3. He has from Time to Time indiscretely and wantonly exercised the Prerogative of the Crown, in the repeated Negative of Councellors of an unblemished Reputation, and duly elected by a great Majority; some of them by the unanimous Suffrage of both Houses of Assembly.”
7. Sched. I: “Earl of Shelburne, Sept 17 1767”; Sched. III contained a fuller extract of the same letter in which Shelburne justified the governor’s negativing power as a constitutional check on the assembly’s influence and which he deemed “more peculiarly” necessary for the return of “Tranquility” in British-colonial relations. See No. 566, Bernard Papers, 3: 407–409.
8. Copy of the Complaint: “4. He has declared that certain Seats at the Council Board shall be kept vacant, ‘till certain Gentlemen who are his Favorites shall be re-elected.”
9. Sched. I: “Govr Bernards Letter to the Secy of State ^Earl of Shelburne^ feb 21 1767.” This was not extracted in Sched. II. See No. 535, Bernard Papers, 3: 331–335.
10. Copy of the Complaint: “5. He has unconstitutionally interfered with and unduly influenced Elections, particularly in the Choice of an Agent for the Colony.”
11. Richard Jackson was appointed province agent by the General Court on 24 Jan. 1765 and dismissed on 5 Feb. 1767. See No. 331, Bernard Papers, 2: 217–223; No. 542, ibid., 3: 345–351.
12. Copy of the Complaint: “6. He has abruptly* displaced divers Gentlemen of Worth, for no apparent Reason, but because they voted in the General Assembly with Freedom and against his measures.”
*HoR in PC 1/3142: “very abruptly.”
13. Copy of the Complaint: “7. He has in an unwarrantable Manner taken upon himself the Exercise of Your Majesty’s Royal Prerogative, in granting a Charter for a College; contrary to an express Vote of the House of Representatives, and without even asking the Advice of Your Majesty’s Council.”
14. FB suspended the charter to establish Queen’s College in Apr. 1762. See Nicolson, The ‘Infamas Govener’, 80.
15. Copy of the Complaint: “8. He has practised sending over Depositions to the Ministry, privately taken against Gentlemen of Character here, without giving the Persons accused the least Notice of his Purposes and Proceedings.”
16. Sched. I: “Earl of Hillsborough to Govr Bernard feb 20 1769” (for which see No. 745, Bernard Papers, 5: 207–209). The passage extracted in Sched. III concerned royal instructions to FB to procure “the fullest Information” possible on treason and misprisions of treason since 30 Dec. 1767, and to supply Hillsborough with the names of those “most active.”
17. Copy of the Complaint: “9. He has very injuriously represented Your Majesty’s loving Subjects of this Colony, in general, as having an ill Temper prevailing amongst them; as disaffected to Your Majesty’s Government, and intending to bring the Authority of Parliament into Contempt. And, by such false Representations, he has been greatly instrumental, as this House humbly conceived, in exciting Jealousies, and disturbing that Harmony and mutual Affection which before happily subsisted, and we pray God may again subsist between Your Majesty’s Subjects in Great Britain and America.”
18. Punctuation supplied to aid reading.
19. FB to the earl of Halifax, Boston, 10 Nov. 1764 (No. 315, Bernard Papers, 2: 161–167).
20. Sched. I itemized nine documents: letters to the secretaries of state from FB highlighting colonial disorders and letters to FB from the secretaries of state praising his conduct. Listed in the order given: the earl of Hillsborough’s letter to FB of 23 Jan. 1768, extracted in Sched. III (see No. 582, Bernard Papers, 4: 76–78); “Govrs Letters passim,” which may have been a folder of those extracts listed in “Memoranda of Letters to the Secry of State upon the weakness of Government in 1765, 6, 7,” BP, 12: 281–284; FB to the earl of Halifax, 10 Nov. 1764; Henry Seymour Conway to FB, St. James’s, 31 Mar. 1766, extracted in Sched. III (No. 462, Bernard Papers, 3: 134–138); the earl of Shelburne to FB, Whitehall, 17 Sept. 1767, extracted in Sched. III (No. 566, ibid., 407–409); FB’s letters to Conway of 25 Nov. 1765 and 25 Jan. 1766, extracted in Sched. IV (No. 414, ibid., 2: 419–422, and No. 437, ibid., 3: 77–81); letters from members of Parliament to FB dated 15 Mar. and Apr. 1766 in Sched. III (but whose authors have not been identified).
21. Copy of the Complaint: “10. He has, in his Letters to one of Your Majesty’s Ministers, unjustly charged the Majority of Your Majesty’s faithful Council in the Colony with having avowed the Principles of Opposition to the Authority of Parliament, and acted in Concert with a Party from whence such Opposition originated.”
22. Sched. I: “Govr Letters published by the Council with obs[ervatio]ns f[oli]o.” This was probably a folder of commentaries on Letters to the Ministry (repr.), but which has not been found.
23. Copy of the Complaint: “11. He has also, in his Letter to another of Your Majesty’s Ministers, falsely declared that a Plan was laid, and a Number of Men actually inrolled in the Town of Boston, to seize Your Majesty’s Castle William, in the Harbour of the same, out of Your Majesty’s Hands.”
24. Sched. I: FB to the earl of Hillsborough, Boston, 16 Sept. 1768, extracted in Sched. IV (see No. 681, Bernard Papers, 4: 318–324); and, only “if necessary,” FB to Hillsborough of “8 [9] Sept. 1768” which was “too long” to be copied out, he noted in Sched. IV. See No. 672, Bernard Papers, 4: 295–300. The “intelligence” to which FB alludes in the letter of 16 Sept. 1768 included an eye-witness account of the military preparations discussed at the Boston town meeting of 12 Sept., for which see Bernard Papers, 4: 322. For an evaluation of the alleged plan to seize Castle William see ibid., 35–36.
25. Copy of the Complaint: “12. Such Representations of the State and Circumstances of this Colony, from a Gentleman of the highest Trust in it, will of Necessity be received with full Credit, till they are made to appear false. And in Consequence thereof, Your Majesty’s true and loyal Subjects have suffered the Reproach as well as other Hardships of having a Military Force stationed here, to support Your Majesty’s Authority, and the Execution of the Laws; which Measure has been approved of by Your Majesty’s Two Houses of Parliament, as appears in their Resolutions, that the Town of Boston had been in a State of Disorder and Confusion; and that the Circumstances of the Colony were such as required a Military Force for the Purposes above-mentioned.”
26. Sched. I: “Papers laid before parliament.” For a discussion of the American papers, including FB’s correspondence, laid before Parliament on 28 Nov. and 7 Dec. 1768, and 20 and 25 Jan. 1769, see Bernard Papers, 5: 11–13, with lists in n32–38 at 50–51.
27. Copy of the Complaint: “13. Having been a principal Instrument, as we apprehend, in procuring this Military Force, Your Majesty’s said Governor, in an unprecedented Manner, and as though he had designed to irritate to the highest Degree, ordered the very Room which is appropriated for the Meeting of the Representatives of the General Assembly, which was never used for any other Purpose, and where their Records are kept, to be employed as a Barrack for the Common Soldiers: and the Centinels were so posted as that Your Majesty’s Council and the Justices of the Courts of Common Law were daily interrupted, and even challenged, in their proceeding to the Business of their several Departments.”
28. Sched. I: “Copy of Govr Bernards Letters printed 8vo pa 35.” This probably refers to Letters to Hillsborough (1st. ed), which at p. 35 includes General Thomas Gage’s account of discussions with the Boston selectmen and Council to find billets for the British troops in his letter to the earl of Hillsborough, Boston, 31 Oct. 1768. The “Commanding Officer” of the regiments with whom FB liaised at the time was Col. William Dalrymple. Sched. I also cites Hillsborough’s letter to FB, Whitehall, 30 Jul. 1768 containing the “King’s special orders” on the deployment of British soldiers at Boston and FB’s obligations to work with their commanding officers and the Council to secure them “Accommodation”, extracted in Sched. III. See No. 661, Bernard Papers, 4: 271–276.
29. Copy of the Complaint: “14. He endeavoured, contrary to the express Design of an Act of Parliament, to quarter Your Majesty’s Troops in the Body of the Town of Boston, while the Barracks provided by the Government at the Castle within the Town remained useless: and, for Purposes manifestly evasive of the said Act, he unwarrantably appointed an Officer to provide Quarters for the Troops, otherwise than is therein prescribed.”
30. Sched. I: FB’s letters to Hillsborough of 30 Jul. 1768 (op. cit.), plus others dated 23 and 24 Sept., 1 Oct., 5 and 6 Oct., and [1?] Nov. See No. 686, Bernard Papers, 4: 331–337; Nos. 694, 700, 706, ibid., 5: 63–68, 79–82, 96–101. Also, “Copy of the refusal of Justices [of Boston, 24 Oct. 1768]”, enclosed in No. 706; Journal of the House of Representatives of 7 Jul. 1769, containing the resolves of 29 Jun. 1769. FB cited resolutions 8 to 10 in which the House condemned the “Establishment of a Standing Army” in the province (for which see JHRM, 45: 57–58).
31. Copy of the Complaint: “15. After having dissolved the General Assembly at a most critical Season, and while they were employed in the most necessary and important Business,† he arbitrarily refused to call another for the Space of Ten Months, and until the Time appointed in the Royal Charter for the calling a General Assembly, against the repeated and dutiful Petitions of the People.”
*HoR in PC 1/3142: “General Court”. †HoR in PC 1/3142: “important Business of the Colony.”
32. Sched. I: the earl of Hillsborough to FB, Whitehall, 22 Apr. 1768, extracted in Sched. III (for which No. 608, Bernard Papers, 4: 149–152); Journals of the House of Representatives for 1768, “pa 68, 72, 75, 85, 86, 88, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96,” referring to deliberations on FB’s instructions that he request the House to rescind the vote approving its circular letter to the colonial assemblies of 11 Feb. 1768: the pages reference the messages exchanged by FB and the House between 21 and 30 Jun. and the vote refusing to rescind (for which JHRM, 45: 68, 72, 75, 88–96). Also cited in Sched. I, Hillsborough to FB, Whitehall, 12 Oct. 1768, extracted in Sched. III (No. 702, Bernard Papers, 5: 85–86).
33. Copy of the Complaint: “16. It appears by his Letters to the Earl of Hillsborough, Your Majesty’s Secretary of State, that he has endeavoured to overthrow the present Constitution of Government in this Colony, and to have the People deprived of their invaluable Charter Rights, which they and their Ancestors have happily enjoyed under Your Majesty’s Administration, and those of Your royal Predecessors.”
34. Sched. I: “Gov’ Bernards Letters 1765 a[nd] 1769 passim” (and extracted in FB’s several schedules).
35. Copy of the Complaint: “17. By the Means aforesaid, and many others that might be enumerated, he has rendered his Administration odious to the whole Body of the People, and has entirely alienated their Affections from him, and thereby wholly destroyed that Confidence in a Governor, which Your Majesty’s Service indispensably requires.”
36. Supplied from Select Letters. Manuscript torn here and below.
37. Sched. I: “Letters from Secries of State III 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 12.” This refers, in order given, to the extracts in Sched. III of Shelburne’s letters to FB of 13 Sept. 1766 (No. 501, Bernard Papers, 3: 224–225) and 17 Sept. 1767 (No. 566, ibid., 407–409), Conway to FB, 31 Mar. 1766 (No. 462, ibid., 134–138); Hillsborough’s letters to FB dated 11 Jul., 15 Nov., 24 Dec. 1768, and 4 Jan. 1769 (Nos. 653, 712, 722, 727, ibid., 4: 254–255; ibid., 5: 115–118, 142–143, 153–154).
38. The engrossed version received by the Privy Council is filed alongside FB’s “Answer” in PC 1/3142.
39. Sched. I: “References to the Answer of Sir Francis Bernard,” BP, 12: 179–182; Sched. II: “A List of Gentlemen of the Council of Massachusets Bay who have been turned out of the Council since the Repeal of the Stamp Act,” ibid., 183–186; Sched. III: “Extracts of Letters from Secretaries of State,” ibid., 187–198; Sched. IV: “Extracts of Letters from Govr Bernard,” ibid., 199–202. These are the “Proofs” to which FB alludes in No. 833.
40. Copy of the Complaint of the House of Representatives of Massachuset’s-Bay against Sir Francis Bernard: With Sir Francis Bernard’s Answer. Now depending before His Majesty in Council (London, 1770). There are copies in Yale Univ. Library and PC 1/3412. TH may have arranged for reprinting in Boston, for there are two extant imprints based on the London edition according to Thomas R. Adams, American Independence, The Growth of an Idea: A Bibliographical Study of the American Political Pamphlets Printed Between 1764 and 1776 Dealing with the Dispute Between Great Britain and Her Colonies (Providence, R.I., 1965), 63. The first imprint (15pp), advertised for sale on 10 May 1770, can be accessed at ECCO. This version has been used for annotating Appendix 2. The second imprint (16pp) appended the Lords of the committee of the Privy Council’s report exonerating FB and is available at MHS: The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr Jr., 4 vols., 3: 643 (http://www.masshist.org/dorr/volume/3/sequence/684). Textual differences between the Copy of the Complaint and the RC of the House of Representatives’ petition in PC 1/3142 mainly concern punctuation, orthography, and the use of the definite article: substantive differences have been noted, however.
1. This is a dating error, for, on 18 Sept., FB wrote Hillsborough that he had been “informed” the petition had been “presented.” No. 800.
2. In fact, DeBerdt delivered three petitions to the Privy Council (not two as FB suggests) requesting additional time to collect evidence. The first was on 13 Nov. 1769, four weeks after he presented the House of Representatives’ petition for FB’s removal. He also dispatched a series of letters urging Speaker Cushing in Boston to furnish evidence of FB’s guilt (in addition to the governor’s recently published letters). Matthews, “Letters of Dennys DeBerdt,” 380–397. (See also No. 815n5.) DeBerdt’s second petition, dated 17 Jan., was presented in the absence of any “Proofs” arriving from Cushing. and asked for a delay of “some Months.” His third petition, presented on 28 Feb., asked for a postponement of “seven Months.” (According to FB in No. 831, the third petition was “delivered” c. 20 Feb.) All three petitions are filed in PC 1/3142.
3. FB, petition to the Lords of the Committee of [the] Council [for Plantation Affairs], 24 Feb. 1770, PC 1/3142.
4. Granville Leveson (1714–94), second earl Gower and Lord President of the Privy Council; Robert Hay-Drummond (1711–76), Lord Archbishop of York; Charles Douglas (1698–78), third duke of Queensberry; Anthony Ashley Cooper (1711–71), fourth earl of Shaftesbury; Francis Dashwood (1708–81), eleventh baron le Despencer; Thomas Hay (1710–87), ninth earl of Kinnoull; Hugh Hume-Campbell (1708–94), third earl of Marchmont; Samuel Sandys (1695–1770), first Baron Sandys; Richard Rigby (1722–88) had been an MP since 1745 and master of the rolls since 1759 and was paymaster general of the armed forces, 1768–82; Sir John Eardley Wilmot (1709–92), Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 1766–71. Of the other committee members, Barrington was FB’s patron and Hillsborough a political friend, while Welbore Ellis (1713–1802) was a personal friend (Bernard Papers, 1: 432n5). Lords Hay-Drummond, Queensberry, Kinnoull, and Marchmont were aristocratic Scottish politicians, while Rigby and Dashwood were notable critics of the Americans during the Imperial Crisis.
5. Annotation: “x”. Footnote: “x One of the Lords of the Privy Council.” Dft: “Lord President.”
6. Dft: “Mastr of ye Rolls.”
7. Dft: “Ld: Prest.”
8. Dft: “Lord. Prest:”
9. Israel Mauduit (1708–87), a London merchant and writer on American affairs whose brother Jasper Mauduit (1696?–1772) was the agent for Massachusetts, 1762–65.
10. “A petition, which was delivered to the King, on the 14th of September, by Denny’s de Berdt, Esq; Agent for the house of Representatives of the Massachusetts-bay,” The Scots Magazine, 1 Sept. 1769. It is possible this information was supplied to FB by one of the Scottish lords on the plantations committee. Publication of the House’s petition for FB’s removal (27 Jun. 1769)* was most likely arranged by the Virginian Arthur Lee (1740–92), a medical graduate of the University of Edinburgh and a London-based lawyer. Dr. Lee’s “Junius Americanus” pseudonym paid homage to the unidentified “Junius” who was a controversial critic of the Grafton and North administrations (see Bernard Papers, 5: 10–11). Lee’s letters were published in the Wilkite Middlesex Journal and the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, then reissued as a pamphlet: The Political Detection; or, the Treachery and Tyranny of Administration, Both at Home and Abroad, Displayed in a Series of Letters Signed Junius Americanus (London, 1770). The letters addressing the earl of Hillsborough (19 Jul. 1769 to 16 Feb. 1770) exhibited Americans’ Wilkite tendency linking colonial affairs and domestic politics in their criticism of ministerial policies, and some limited familiarity with Massachusetts politics (pp, 1–24). The letters addressing FB of 25 Oct., 3 Nov., 15 Nov. 1769 provided a close reading of FB’s correspondence published in Letters to The Ministry (1st ed.), (pp. 24–41). That of 19 Dec., to which FB alluded to in the committee hearing, paraphrased the House of Representatives’ petition for his removal, averring that FB’s gubernatorial “crimes” were of “too deep a dye to admit of being exaggerated” (p.44).
You have charged the people of your Province with outrageous opposition to Government, and contempt of all legal authority; and you are, yourself, an instance of the injustice of the charge.
Lee daringly accused him to trying to “re-act” Boston’s own St. George’ Fields’ massacre with the British soldiers he had acquired from Hillsborough (p. 45). “Junius Americanus’s” next letter to FB appeared on 9 Mar. four days after the Boston Massacre (of which they remained unaware for several weeks); ironically, Lee quoted verbatim extracts of the Boston selectmen’s earlier request that FB release his official correspondence to establish what “facts” lay behind ministers’ rationale to dispatch soldiers (pp. 49–50).** A final letter of 15 Mar. likened FB’s hearing before the Privy Council to a “trial” whose verdict was never in doubt when his accusers’ were denied sufficient time to collect the necessary evidence (pp. 57–64). Through Jan. 1770, “Junius Americanus” also addressed “The People of England,” and in reviewing American “Grievances” despaired of the “despotic” and “arbitrary” measures of the current government which left Massachusetts a “marked object of ministerial vengeance” (p. 105). FB probably did not respond in print, though he had “been called” into debate by “Junius Americanus.” On 1 Nov. 1770, Lee was appointed deputy to province agent Benjamin Franklin. JHRM, 47: 125.
*Appendix 6, Bernard Papers, 5: 359–362.
** No. 741, ibid., 196–198.
11. Dft: “Ld: Prest:”
12. Dft: “Ld Marchmont.”
13. Dft: “Ld Marchmont.”
14. Dft: “Master of ye Rolls.”
15. Dft: “Ld Hillsborough.”
16. Hillsborough’s question was on supply by FB, who had been alerted by Andrew Oliver to DeBerdt’s correspondence with Thomas Cushing. Oliver recounted a conversation purporting to indicate DeBerdt having requested a “power of Attorney” to arrange counsel in order to prosecute FB on behalf of the province. DeBerdt did not use the term “power of Attorney” when writing Cushing — it originates with Oliver’ — though it accurately conveys the meaning of DeBerdt’s reported intention. See No. 815n5.
17. Dft: “Arch Bishop of York.”
18. Dft: “Ld Ch. Just. Wilmot.”
19. Dft: “Ld. C. J. Wilmot.”
20. Dft: “Ld. C. J. Wilmot.”
21. Dft: “Ld Prest:”
22. Dft: “Ld. Prest.”
23. Dft: “Ld: Prest.”
24. Dft: “Ld. Prest.”
25. Dft: “Ld Hillsboro’.”
26. Dft: “Ld. Hillsboro’.”
27. Dft: “Ld: Prest:”
28. Dft: “Ld: Prest:”
29. Meaning “lacked.”
30. Dft: “Ld: Prest:”
31. Dft: “Then”.
32. William de Grey.
33. Thus in manuscript.
34. APC, 5: 211–214.
35. Report of the Lords of the Committee of the [Privy] Council on Plantation Affairs, 7 Mar. 1770, PC 1/3142.
36. The earl of Hillsborough to TH, Whitehall, 24 Mar. 1770, CO 5/759, ff 53–54; Order of His Majesty in Council, Court at St. James’s, 14 Mar. 1770, Mass. Archs., 25: 556–560.
1. See No. 533, Bernard Papers, 3: 324–325.
2. Appendix 1, ibid, 4: 359–362.
3. See JHRM, 44: 217–253.
4. No. 623, Bernard Papers, 4: 185–190.
5. No. 630, ibid., 201–205.
6. The Old South Church, 13 Jun. 1768.
7. East India Goods Act, 6 Anne, c. 37 (1707).
8. See No. 638, Bernard Papers, 4: 220–230.
9. Obscured in the letterbook gutter.
10. No. 660, Bernard Papers, 4: 266–270.
11. Nine queries were raised and answered by “Clericus Americanus” (the Rev. John Cleaveland of Ipswich) as to Americans’ right to attend the Convention of Towns and their liberty to petition the King. Boston Gazette 5 Sept. 1768. See discussion in No. 681, Bernard Papers, 4: 318–324.
12. See No. 669, ibid., 4: 290–292.
13. BP, 8: 127, “states it”.
14. BP, 8: 208. FB’s copy omits text quoted from the proceedings of the Boston town meeting in CO 5/765, ff 137–140, and instead refers readers to a contemporary printed version, “Vide Boston Gazette of the 19th Septemr: 1768, No 703, at the mark no 1.”
15. The quoted extract from the declaration and resolves of the Boston town meeting, 13 Sept. 1768, has been indented and the quotation marks have been removed. The notes below indicate substantive differences between the manuscript in CO 5/765 and the authoritative modern version in Report of the Record Commissioners, 16: 261–262. The declaration and resolves are omitted from FB’s copy which refers readers to the Boston Gazette, 19 Sept. 1768: “Vide as before Nos: 2 and 3”, BP, 8: 208.
16. Report of the Record Commissioners, 16: “Individuals”.
17. Celebrated as the “Bill of Rights,” drawn up in 1688 and enacted by the Parliament of England in 1689, an act declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown, 1 Will. & Mary, c. 2. This act is cited throughout the extract.
18. A form of feudal land tenure.
19. Report of the Record Commissioners, 16: this line omitted.
20. Annotation: a line inserted here with a corresponding “x” in the right margin.
21. Annotation: line marking the end of the passage.
22. Annotation: from “choice . . . require” the paragraph is enclosed in parentheses and marked with “x” in the left margin.
23. Annotation: parentheses marking the passage “And . . . Time” with an “x” in the right margin.
24. Report of the Record Commissioners, 16: following “News-papers”: “and also that a Number of Copys be struck off & sent to the several Towns in this Province p [by] Expresses. Voted, that the Thanks of the Town be given to the Honble. James Otis Esq. the Moderator. Then the Meeting was dessolved.” Paragraphing has not been preserved in this quoted extract.
25. Annotation: an “x” in the left margin. Substantive differences are noted with the transcript of the contemporary broadside published as Appendix 13, Bernard Papers, 4: 400–401. The circular was omitted from FB’s copy, which refers readers to the Boston Gazette, 19 Sept. 1768: “Vide as before No 4.”
26. No. 608, Bernard Papers, 4: 149–152 at 150.
27. Appendix 13: interlineation omitted.
28. Annotation: marginal “x” and a closing parenthesis on p. 147 which may correspond to the annotations in note 15 above.
29. BP, 8: 210, “it may not be improper to refer to that letter.” No. 681, Bernard Papers, 4: 318–324.
30. Of 13 Jun. 1768 discussed above.
31. BP, 8: 211, “most effectually promote”.
32. Thomas Cushing and Samuel Adams.
33. Annotation: parentheses enclosing text from “instantly” to “committing.”
34. See Nos. 686, 690, and 691, Bernard Papers, 4: 331–337, 347–353.
35. BP, 8: 213, “will appear” for “are related”.
36. BP, 8: 215, “the pretence they set up”.
37. BP, 8: 215, “resolutions before”.
38. See Appendices 4 and 5, Bernard Papers, 5: 329–358.
39. On 8 Feb. 1769, the Commons approved the Lords’ resolutions of 15 Dec. that Massachusetts had defied imperial authority in several respects, as discussed in Bernard Papers, 5: 11–13. HCJ, 32L 185–186.
40. BP, 8: 217, “just censure”.
41. BP, 8: 218, “were held”.
42. BP, 8: this clause omitted.
43. Annotation: this paragraph is marked by an “x” in the margin and, with the three following paragraphs, enclosed in parenthesis.
44. See No. 779, Bernard Papers, 5: 274–279.
45. Annotation: “x” in margin and closing parenthesis mentioned in n31 above.
46. The second of three resolves adopted. JHRM, 45: 138.
47. BP, 8: 222, “hence”.
48. The resolves were passed on 29 Jun. 1769, then “read and corrected” on 7 Jul. and ordered to be “entered” in the House Journals. JHRM, 45: 168–172.
49. BP, 8: 223, “upon”.
50. Annotation: a passage in this paragraph is marked by “x” in the margin and enclosed in parenthesis, “that . . . accused.”
51. BP, 8: 225, this word omitted.
52. BP, 8: 227, “It must however be observed that tho’ the firmness of”.
53. BP, 8: 227, “has in some degree checked”.
54. BP, 8: 227, “yet he represents”.
55. BP, 8: 227, “Shadow of Power without the Council whose Advice or Consent he has never been able to obtain to any proposal”.
56. BP, 8: 227, “with”.
57. BP, 8: 228, “and by the message from the Assembly to the Lieutenant Governor, and his Answers thereto”. The full instructions to the Boston representatives of 15 May 1770 are in Reports of the Record Commissioners, 18: 26–32. For the message and reply see JHRM, 46: 139, 178–181.
58. The appendix lists FB’s correspondence with the secretaries of state for the American Colonies (Conway, Shelburne, and Hillsborough) unless otherwise indicated. Enclosures have been indented, though not all such lines are indented in the entry book.
59. Nos. 21 to 25 in the series of FB’s letters to the earl of Shelburne are printed as Nos. 562, 563, 565, 567, and 569, Bernard Papers, 3: 397–401, 403–406, 409–414.
60. No. 575, ibid., 424–425.
61. No. 454, ibid., 120–121.
62. No. 493, ibid., 204–205.
63. FB’s letters to Shelburne Nos. 504 and 537, ibid., 3: 232–236, 338–340; and to Hillsborough, No. 656, ibid., 4: 259–261.
64. Appendices 2 and 3, ibid. 4: 363–372.
65. No. 480, ibid., 3: 175–182. The brackets indicate this letter is an exception to the series of letters from FB to Shelburne continued by the use of ditto.
66. FB to Shelburne, Nos. 533 and 535, ibid, 322–328, 331–335.
67. No. 521, ibid., 284–291.
68. No. 589, ibid., 4: 98–99.
69. Appendix 1, ibid., 359–362.
70. No. 600, ibid., 129–134.
71. No. 601, ibid., 135–139.
72. No. 549, ibid. 3: 364–367; No. 616, ibid., 4: 166–171.
73. Nos. 623, 630, 632, ibid., 4: 185–190, 201–205, 207–212.
74. Petition of the Boston town meeting to FB, Boston, 14 Jun. 1768, No. 629, ibid., 199–200.
75. No. 659, ibid., 265–266.
76. No. 681, ibid., 318–324.
77. Nos. 686 and 690, ibid., 331–337, 347–351.
78. Nos. 694, 700, 703, and 706, ibid., 5: 63–68, 79–82, 86–90, 96–101.
79. Appendices 3, 4, and 5, ibid., 325–358.
80. Nos. 779, 792, and 797, ibid., 274–279, 295–303.
81. John Pownall indicated he had prepared the report on the instruction of the earl of Hillsborough, when transmitting the report to the clerk of the Council in waiting (Philip Sharpe), in a letter dated Whitehall, 21 Jun. 1770, CO 5/765, f 116.
82. FB’s comment to TH on the eve of the inquiry “that the Measures which will be taken with your people promise to be such as will probably be effectual, and restore Government & good order” (No. 847) hints at personal involvement. Cf. Peter D.G. Thomas’s account which minimizes FB’s role in the inquiry by failing to acknowledge his contribution to Pownall’s “formidable dossier”. Townshend Duties Crisis, 192–193.
83. APC, 5: 257–259. The original document is Report upon a State of the Disorders, Confusion and Misgovernment which have prevailed in His Majesty’s Province of Massachusetts Bay, Council Chamber, Whitehall, 6 Jul. 1770. PC 1/60/9.
1. The Charter of the Province Massachusetts Bay, 7 Oct. 1691, Acts and Resolves, 1: 1–20.
2. Editorially supplied.
3. The legislation to regulate the provincial courts followed previous acts of 1692 that were disallowed by the Privy Council of England. An act for grand jurors serving at the quarter sessions of the peace, and punishing defaults of jurors’ attendance (passed 8 Mar. 1694–95); an act for holding of courts of general sessions of the peace, And ascertaining the times and places for the same (passed 16 Jun. 1699); an act for the establishing of inferior courts of common pleas in the several counties of this province (passed 15 Jun. 1699); an act for the establishing a superior court of judicature, court of assize and general goal delivery within this province (passed 26 Jun. 1699) Acts and Resolves, 1: 193–194, 367–372.
4. Thus in manuscript.
5. The acts mentioned are 7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 32 (1695); 8 & 9 Will. 3, c. 10 (1696); 3 Geo. 2, c. 25 (1729); 24 Geo. 2, c. 18 (1750). Copies of the first two acts are in John Raithby, ed. Statutes of the Realm: Vol.7, 1695–1701 (1820), 148–151, 201, at British History Online (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol7). For the acts of George II see Owen Ruffhead, Statutes at Large from the Third Year of the Reign of King George the Second to the Twentieth Year of King George the Second. Vol. 6 . . . (1769), 25–29, 45.
6. Knox in The American Revolutionary Series: British Accounts of the American Revolution, 257.
7. A comment dated 11 Feb. 1771 — that “a Bill for that Purpose had been prepared” — implies that FB considered the Draft Act or a revised version of it was ready for presentation (No. 883).
8. An act for the better regulating the government of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England. (14 Geo. 3, c. 45, royal assent 20 May 1774); Knox in The American Revolutionary Series: British Accounts of the American Revolution, 257.
1. Thomas Oliver (1733/34–1815). The date of Thomas Oliver’s appointment as lieutenant governor in Mar. 1774 has never been accurately established.
2. Thomas Flucker (1719–83).
3. Peter Oliver (1713–91).
4. Foster Hutchinson (1724–99).
5. Thomas Hutchinson Jr. (1740–1811).
6. Harrison Gray (1711–94).
7. Samuel Danforth (1696–1777).
8. John Erving Jr. (1727–1816) and George Erving (1736–1806), who had been appointed a justice of the peace on 2 Dec. 1767. FB seems confused as to which of the Ervings assisted the tea consignee: it was George not John Jr. But it was John Jr. not George who was invited to join the royal Council along with his father, who refused to take the oath of office.
9. Timothy Ruggles (1711–95) was president of the Stamp Act Congress that met in New York 7–24 Oct. 1765. Ruggles denounced the Congress’s proceedings, for which he was subsequently censured by the Massachusetts House of Representatives. See C. A. Weslager, The Stamp Act Congress: with an Exact Copy of the Complete Journal (Newark, NJ, 1976), 149–154. He was the sole opponent of the House’s resolution of 26 Feb. 1768 to give preference to native manufactures over British. JHRM, 44: 198–199.
10. Joseph Lee (c. 1703–1806).
11. Isaac Winslow (1709–90).
12. Israel Williams (1709–88) was a rescinder having been returned as Hatfield’s representative in 1768, and thereafter in 1769, 1771, and 1772.
13. George Watson (1718–1800), whose daughter was married to Elisha Hutchinson. Watson and other local dignitaries, including John Winslow and Thomas Foster, organized the Plymouth Protest of 13 Dec. 1773, a subscription signed by forty townspeople condemning the town meeting for adopting six days earlier a set of resolves supporting Boston’s stand against the Tea Act and proscribing any local people who handled dutied tea. The protesters, on the other hand, specifically repudiated the legitimacy of “every measure which has a tendency to introduce anarchy, confusion, and disorder into the state.” While they failed to overturn the town’s resolves, the Plymouth protesters encouraged friends of government elsewhere in the province. Massachusetts Gazette; and the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1773.
14. Nathanial Ray Thomas (b.1731). The Marshfield Resolves of 31 Jan. 1774 condemned the Boston Tea Party as “illegal and unjust, and of a dangerous tendency” likely to provoke British retribution. Boston Gazette, 7 Feb. 1774.
15. Timothy Woodbridge (c. 1709–74). Thomas Whately was the intended recipient of some of TH’s recently published private letters.
16. William Vassall (1715–1800) and John Vassall (1738–97).
17. James Russell (1715–98). Russell’s name is in Dartmouth’s handwriting.
18. Joseph Green (b.1705).
19. James Boutineau (1710–78).
20. Andrew Oliver (1731–99), who in 1752 married Mary Lynde, dau. of Benjamin Lynde Jr. and wife Mary.
21. Josiah Edson (1709–78/81?).
22. Interlineation in Dartmouth’s handwriting. George Bethune, Boston merchant and Loyalist; Abijah Willard (1724–89).
23. Richard Lechmere (1727–1814). His father was Thomas Lechmere (d.1766) who was replaced as surveyor general of Customs for the Northern District by John Temple in 1761.
24. Joshua Loring (1716–81).
25. John Worthington (1719–1800).
26. The unnumbered list of names that follows was added to the verso page of the last manuscript page by Dartmouth, presumably as a continuation (since Ruggles’s name appears in both the main list and the appendix, from which it is has been deleted); together both lists constitute a full complement of thirty-six councilors.
27. Timothy Paine (1730–93).
28. William Pepperrell (1746–1816).
29. Jeremiah Powell (1720–83).
30. Jonathan Simpson (1712–95).
31. John Murray (1720–94).
32. Daniel Leonard (1740–1829).
33. William Brown (1737–1802).
34. Richard Saltonstall (1732–85).
35. Thomas Palmer (1743–1820).
36. Edward Winslow (1745–1815); Isaac Royall (1719–81).
37. Robert Hooper (1741–1814).
38. Russell’s and Willard’s names are in cancelled text above.
39. There are notable differences. In the list of thirty-four nominees, Richard Clarke was included but the entry was scored through, thus acknowledging Clarke’s determination not to serve in the royal Council. Daniel Leonard is accurately described as having been “with the Liberty People, but is coming off from them, and is now one of the Dissentients.” Those whose names are ticked, were subsequently included in Dartmouth’s list of thirty-six, printed here. Others with crosses against their names were excluded from the list of thirty-six or subsequently deleted: Auchmuty, Saltonstall, and Sewall (on account of their other official commitments), J. Vassall and E. Winslow; Hooper and Pepperrell were crossed but included in the list of thirty-six along with Lee (both ticked and crossed).
40. TH’s comments pertain to appointing a lieutenant governor following Andrew Oliver’s death. TH to Dartmouth, Boston, 29 Mar. 1774, CO 5/763, ff 160–163, and calendared in DAR, 7: 73.
41. JBT, 13: 393–396; APC, 5: 393.
42. Thomas Gage to the earl of Dartmouth, Salem, 27 Aug. 1774, in Albert Matthews, “Documents Relating to the Last Meetings of the Massachusetts Royal Council, 1774–1776,” PCSM, 32 (1933): 450–504, at 470–472.
1. The numbers are located in the left margin of the letterbook page; some are not accompanied by a period.
2. No. 401, with discussion of Treasury proceedings, Bernard Papers, 2: 376.
3. Grey Cooper transmitted Oliver’s correspondence and enclosures: “4” to “7.”
4. Andrew Oliver to Thomas Whately, Boston, 2 Sept. 1765, T 1/439, f 73 (ALS, RC). The enclosures in item “5” included No. 383, Bernard Papers, 2: 336.
5. Andrew Oliver to Thomas Whately, Boston, 20 and 23 Aug. 1765, T 1/439, ff 71–72 (ALS, RC). For discussion see Bernard Papers, 2: 376.
6. This is an error for the minutes of the Council meeting of 21 Aug. 1765 enclosed in No. 373, Bernard Papers, 2: 317.
7. Enclosed in “12” and “13.”
8. The representation was dated 17 Jan. 1765 and enclosed in “16”.
9. Enclosed in “18” and “19.”
10. The Board’s representation enclosed copies of FB’s correspondence on the first Stamp Act riot of 14 Aug. 1765. See Nos. 368 and 373. Bernard Papers, 2: 301–307, 315–318, with discussion of the Board of Trade’s reception of FB’s letters at 305–06, 317.
11. This representation enclosed copies of FB’s correspondence on the second Stamp Act riot of 26 Aug. 1765. See letters to the earl of Halifax (which were original versions of letters sent to the Board), Nos. 384 and 388, ibid., 337–345, 351–354, with discussion of their reception at 342, 353.
12. Enclosed “21” to “22.”
13. Enclosures included Nos. 403 and 409, Bernard Papers, 2: 380–382, 395–403.
14. Enclosed “31” to “33.” See No. 315, ibid., 161–167.
15. Enclosed “35.” For an original version of the same letter sent to the Board of Trade see No. 368, ibid., 301–307.
16. See No. 382, ibid., 334.
17. Enclosed “37.” For an original version of the same letter see No. 373, ibid., 315–318.
18. Enclosed “40” and “41”. See No. 384, ibid., 337–345.
19. No. 388, ibid., 351–354.
20. Enclosed “44” to “46.” See No. 397, ibid., 367–372.
21. Enclosed “49” to “51.”
22. See No. 405, ibid., 385–387.
23. Enclosed “55.” See No. 361, ibid., 284–288.
24. See No. 368, ibid., 301–307.
25. Enclosed “58” to “60.” See No. 373, ibid., 315–318.
26. See No. 382, ibid., 334.
27. See No. 383, ibid., 335–336.
28. For an original version see No. 384, ibid., 337–345.
29. Enclosed “63.” For an original version see No. 388, ibid., 351–354.
30. See No. 389, ibid., 355–356.
31. Enclosed “66.” For an original version see No. 397, ibid., 367–372.
32. See No. 400, ibid., 375.
33. See CO 5/891, ff 300–301 (ALS, RC).
34. See No. 402, Bernard Papers, 2: 377–380.
35. See No. 403, ibid., 380–382.
36. See No. 407, ibid., 390–393.
37. Enclosed “73” to “75.” See No. 409, ibid., 395–403.
38. Enclosed “77 to 78.” See No. 414, ibid., 419–422.
39. Enclosed “80” to “82”. See No. 421, ibid., 440.
40. See No. 420, ibid., 434–438.
41. See No. 422, ibid., 441.
42. Enclosed “84”. See No. 423, ibid., 442–444.
43. Enclosed “86” and “87”. See No. 424, ibid., 444–446.
44. See No. 415, ibid., 422–426.
45. See No. 416, ibid., 426–430.
46. Enclosed “97” and “98”. See No. 433, ibid., 3: 65–68.
47. See No. 434, ibid., 69–70.
48. Enclosed “100” and “101”. See No. 431, ibid., 59–63.
49. John Freemantle (c. 1700–66), secretary to the Board of Customs.
50. See No. 478, ibid., 171–173.
51. Enclosed “106” and “207”. See No. 484, ibid., 186–187.
52. See Appendix 1.1, ibid., 431–440.
53. Appendix 1.2, ibid., 441–447.
54. Enclosed “109” and “110”. See No. 508, ibid., 242–247.
55. See No. 513, ibid., 257–259.
56. See No. 462, ibid., 134–138.
57. See No. 501, ibid., 224–225.
58. See No. 521, ibid., 284–291.
59. Enclosed “117” to “120.” See No. 533, ibid., 322–328.
60. Enclosed “123.”
61. See No. 581, ibid., 4: 71–76.
62. See No. 585, ibid., 85–86.
63. For the RC see CO 5/757, f 24.
64. See No. 603, Bernard Papers, 4: 142–143.
65. Enclosed “132.” See No. 589, ibid., 98–99.
66. See Appendix 1, ibid., 359–362.
67. Enclosed “134” to “140.” See No. 593, ibid., 112–118.
68. See No. 608, ibid., 149–152.
69. Richard Phelps, undersecretary of state to the earl of Hillsborough, the secretary for the American Colonies.
70. See Appendix 2, ibid., 363–268.
71. See No. 596, ibid., 121–124.
72. Enclosed “150” and “151.” See No. 600, ibid., 129–134.
73. HL: HL/PO/JO/10/7/413. See No. 601, Bernard Papers, 4: 135–139
74. Possibly “Printed Account of the associations at Boston and the proceedings of consequence thereof,” HL: HL/PO/JO/10/7/413.
75. See Appendix 3, Bernard Papers, 4: 373–374.
76. See No. 622, ibid., 181–184.
77. The correct date is 8 Jul. 1768. Enclosed “158.”
78. See Appendix 3, Bernard Papers, 4: 369–372.
79. See No. 653, ibid., 254–255.
80. See No. 623, ibid., 185–190.
81. Enclosed “164” to “166.” See No. 630, ibid., 201–205.
82. Copies of correspondence of 12 and 13 Jun. 1768. See Nos. 625–628, ibid., 192–198.
83. Enclosed “168” to “171.” See No. 632, ibid., 207–212.
84. See No. 629, ibid., 199–201.
85. See Appendix 6, ibid., 377–378.
86. Enclosed “184.” See No. 661, ibid., 271–276.
87. Attorney generals of England, Sir Edward Northey (in office 1710–18) and Dudley Ryder (1737–54) and solicitor general and John Strange (1737–42).
88. See No. 633, ibid., 213–214.
89. Enclosed “188” and “189.” See No. 638, ibid., 220–230.
90. See No. 646, ibid., 242–246.
91. Contemporary underlining of “1763” indicating an error.
92. Enclosed “195.” See No. 656, ibid., 259–261.
93. Enclosed “197.” See No. 654, ibid., 255–257.
94. Of 7 Jul. 1768. See Appendix 11, ibid., 392–396.
95. See No. 656, ibid., 259–261.
96. See No. 679, ibid., 313–315.
97. Enclosed “203” to “205.” See No. 660, ibid., 266–270.
98. See Nos. 652, 655, and 659, ibid., 253–254, 257–258, 265–266.
99. See No. 663, ibid., 277–280.
100. See No. 664, ibid., 280–282.
101. Enclosed “209.” See No. 668, ibid., 288–290.
102. See No. 702, ibid., 5: 85–86.
103. See No. 672, ibid., 4: 295–300.
104. Enclosed “213” to “215.” See No. 681, ibid., 318–324.
105. Dated 14 Sept. 1768. See Appendix 13, ibid., 400–401.
106. See No. 686, ibid., 331–337.
107. Enclosed “218” to “221.” See No. 690, ibid., 347–351.
108. Enclosed “223.” See No. 691, ibid., 352–353.
109. Enclosed “225.” See No. 694, ibid. 5: 63–68.
110. Enclosed “227.” See No. 698, ibid., 75–77.
111. Enclosed “229” and “230.” See No. 700, ibid., 79–82.
112. Enclosed “232.” See No. 712, ibid., 115–118.
113. Marginalia “20 Jany 1769”. See No. 703, ibid., 79–82.
114. Enclosed “247.”
115. Dated Boston, 27 Oct. 1768. See Appendix 1, ibid., 5: 315–319.
116. Enclosed “250” to “254.” See No. 706, ibid., 96–101.
117. Enclosed “256.” See No. 708, ibid., 103–108.
118. See No. 722, ibid., 142–143.
119. See No. 709, ibid., 107–109.
120. See No. 711, ibid., 111–114.
121. See No. 727, ibid., 153–154.
122. See No. 717, ibid., 128–130.
123. See No. 718, ibid., 130–133.
124. Enclosed “274.”
125. Enclosed “276” and “277.”
126. William Reid, captain of HMS Liberty; Josias Lyndon (1704–78), governor of Rhode Island 1768–69.
127. Joseph Wanton (1705–80), governor of Rhode Island, 1769–75. The customs officers were probably Charles Dudley, the collector, and John Nicoll, the comptroller.
128. Benjamin Caldwell (1739–1820), captain of HMS Rose, c. 1768–75.
129. Item “294” announced to colonial governors the British government’s intention to repeal the Townshend duties, except that on tea, for which see No. 773, Bernard Papers, 5: 263–265. “295” reported the continued enforcement of Boston’s boycott of imports of dutied tea and enclosed items “296” to “299.”
130. Enclosed items “301” to “303.”
131. Enclosed items “305” to “308.”
132. Enclosed “313.”
133. Enclosed in “316.”
134. The sequence of items in the “List of Papers” generally follows the order of presentation recorded in the Lords’ journals.
135. Records of the House of Lords, 1451–2016. Parliamentary Archives of the UK. London (https://archives.parliament.uk/); C. M. Andrews, ed., Guide to the Manuscript Materials for the History of the United States to 1783 in the British Museum, in Minor London Libraries, and in the Libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. (Washington, 1908).
136. HLJ, 31: 235–239. HL: American Papers (A) No. 1–No. 34, 14 Jan. 1766, HL/PO/JO/10/7/202; American Papers (B) No.1–No.13, 14 Jan. 1766, HL/PO/JO/10/7/203; American Papers (C) No.1–No.6, 14 Jan. 1766, HL/PO/JO/10/7/204; American Papers (E) No.1–No.10, 14 Jan. 1766, HL/PO/JO/10/7/206. For discussion see Bernard Papers, 3: 13.
137. HLJ, 31: 258, 263, 300, 302, 308. Copies of these items have not been located in the UK Parliamentary Archives.
138. HL: American Papers, 12 Mar. 1767, HL/PO/JO/10/7/243. Files for the other dates have not been found. See Bernard Papers, 3: 18, 258.
139. HLJ, 32: 182–184, 192–193. HL: American Colonies Box 1, 28–30 Nov. 1768, HL/PO/JO/10/7/286; American Colonies Box 2, 28–30 Nov. 1768, HL/PO/JO/10/7/287; American Colonies Box 3, 28–30 Nov. 1768, HL/PO/JO/10/7/288. See Bernard Papers, 5: 11–14.
140. HLJ, 32: 229. The Lords’ file copies have not been found but copies of six of FB’s letters were privately transmitted to Boston where they were published. See Bernard Papers, 5: 20–27.
141. HLJ, 32: 566, 571–572, 582. File copies not found.
142. HLJ, 34: 58–61, 70. HL: American Papers (2), 7 Mar. 1774, HL/PO/JO/10/7/407; American Papers (3), 7 Mar. 1774, HL/PO/JO/10/7/408.
143. HLJ, 34: 113. Nos. 480, 533, 535, 601, 616, and 779, Bernard Papers, 3: 175–182, 322–328, 331–335; 4: 135–139, 166–171; 5: 274–279.
144. HLJ, 34: 124–136.
145. The letterbook version of Appendix 4 (in BP, 8: 182–228) was published in Barrington-Bernard, 264–294, with the editor’s comments on Sparks at p. 264. There are similarities with the handwriting in Board of Trade Entry Books (CO 5/221), but certainty is elusive in this matter. The most likely scribe is John Tutte (d. 1775), chief clerk in the Office of Trade and Plantations.
146. Equally, this means the copyist could have been working any time after 1776 when the printed volume of the 1774 debates was published (HLJ, 34).
147. This detailed explanation revises an earlier comment that the “List of Papers” was ostensibly an “updated version” of “State of disorders . . . in America.” ‘The Infamas Govener,’ 222.
148. On 7 Mar. 1774, the government laid before Parliament documentation relevant to the Boston Tea Party, including official correspondence from TH and testimony from witnesses. HLJ, 34: 58–61.
1. Charles Hopkins (not “Hopkinson” as Thomas Bernard wrote in the letterbook copy) had been under-treasurer of the Middle Temple since 1752 and had written to invite FB to become a master of the bench. FB entered the Middle Temple in 1733 and was called to the bar in 1737. After initial hesitation — probably concerning the nature of his responsibilities — FB was admitted on 26 Jan. 1770. In 1779, he was appointed a reader, one of two executive officers responsible for governance of the Middle Temple. J. Bruce Williamson, ed., Bench Book Being a Register of Benchers of The Middle Temple From the Earliest Records to the Present Time . . .(2d ed., London, 1937), 181–182.
2. For other contemporary printings in Britain and New England see Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 80. I am grateful to John W. Tyler for information on the reprints of TH’s letters.
3. While this letter does not identify FB as the recipient, TH’s annotation indicates it was “No. 17” in his series of out-letters to FB; No. 16 is dated 3 May and No. 18, 11 May.
4. For other contemporary printings see Hutchinson Correspondence, 3: 256.
5. For other contemporary printings see ibid., 271.
6. John Greene was an English proctor, previously hired by FB, who represented Joseph Dowse, the collector of Salem, in recovering half the costs of an appeal that Dowse had brought in the High Court of Admiralty following a failed prosecution in the American vice admiralty courts. FB, as governor, was entitled to a one-third share of any successful prosecutions but was not liable for any costs of those that failed.