honest openness in this affair, and noble negligence of any inconveniencies that might arise to yourself in this essential service to our injured country.' " To another friend I wrote of the same date, July 25th, what will show the apprehensions I was constantly under of the mischiefs that might attend a breach from the exasperated state of things, and the arguments I used to prevent it, viz. "I am glad to see that you are elected into the council, and are about to take part in our public affairs. Your abilities, integrity, and sober attachment to the liberties of our country, will be of great use at this tempestuous time, in conducting our little bark into a safe harbour. By the Boston news-papers there seem to be among us some violent spirits, who are for an immediate rupture. But I trust the general prudence of our countrymen will see, that by our growing strength we advance fast to a situation in which our claims must be allowed; that by a premature struggle we may be crippled and kept down another age; that as between friends every affront is not worth a duel, and between nations every injury is not worth a war, so between the governed and the governing, every mistake in government, every encroachment on rights is not worth a rebellion: 'tis, in my opinion, sufficient for the present, that we hold them forth on all occasions, not giving up any of them, using at the same time every means to make them generally understood and valued by the people; cultivating a harmony among the colonies, that their union in the same sentiments may give them greater weight; remembering withal that this Protestant country (our mother, though of late an unkind one) is worth preserving, and that her weight in the scale of Europe, her safety in a great degree, may depend on our union with her. Thus conducting, I am confident, we may within a few years, obtain every allowance of, and every security for, our inestimable privileges, that we can wish or desire.” His answer of December 31st, is, "I concur perfectly with you in the sentiments expressed in your last. No considerate person, I should think, can approve of desperate remedies, except in desperate cases. The people of America are extremely agitated by the repeated efforts of administration to subject them to absolute power. They have been amused with accounts of the pacific disposition of the ministry, and flattered with assurances that upon their humble petitions all their grievances would be redressed. They have petitioned from time to time; but their petitions have had no other effect than to make them feel more sensibly their own slavery. Instead of redress, every year has produced some new manoeuvre, which could have no tendency but to irritate them more and more. The last measure of the East India Company's sending their tea here, subject to a duty, seems to have given the finishing stroke to their patience. You will have heard of the steps taken at Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, to prevent the payment of this duty by sending the tea back to its owners. But as this was found impossible at Boston, the destruction of the tea was the consequence. What the event of these commotions will be God only knows. The people through the colonies appear immoveably fixed in their resolution, that the tea duty shall never be paid; and if the ministry are determined to enforce these measures, I dread the consequences: I verily fear they will turn America into a field of blood. But I will hope for the best." I am told that administration is possessed of most of my letters sent or received on public affairs for some years past. Copies of them having been obtained from the files of the several assemblies, or as they passed through the post office. I do not condemn their ministerial industry, or complain of it. The foregoing extracts may be compared with those copies; and I can appeal to them with confidence, that upon such comparison these extracts will be found faithfully made. And that the whole tenor of my letters has been, to persuade patience and a careful guarding against all violence, under the grievances complained of, and this from various considerations, such as that the welfare of the empire depended upon the union of its parts, that the sovereign was well disposed towards us, and the body of this nation our friends and well-wishers; that it was the ministry only who were prejudiced against us; that the sentiments of ministers might in time be changed, or the ministers themselves be changed; or that if those chances failed, at least time would infallibly bring redress, since the strength, weight and importance of America was continually and rapidly increasing, and its friendship of course daily becoming more valuable, and more likely to be cultivated by an attention to its rights, The newspapers have announced, that treason is found in some of my letters. It must then be of some new species. The invention of court lawyers has always been fruitful in the discovery of new treasons: and perhaps it is now become treason to censure the conduct of ministers. None of any other kind, I am sure, can be found in my correspondence. The effect of the governor's letters on the minds of the people in New England, when they came to be read there, was precisely what had been expected, and proposed by sending them over. It was now seen that the grievances, which had been go deeply resented as measures of the mother country, were in fact the measures of two or three of their own people; of course all that resentment was withdrawn from her, and fell where it was proper it should fall, on the heads of those caitiffs, who were the authors of the mischief. Both houses took up the matter in this light. The council resolved that [This piece is wanting.] and the house of representatives agreed to the following resolves, reported by the committee appointed to consider the letters, viz. "The Committee appointed to consider certain Letters laid before the House of Representatives, reported the following Resolves." Tuesday, June 15th, 1773. Resolved, That the letters signed Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, now under the consideration of this house, appear to be the genuine letters of the present governor and lieutenant governor of this province, whose hand-writing and signatures are well known to many of the members of this house: And that they contain aggravated accounts of facts, and misrepresentations; and that one manifest design of them was to represent the matters they treat of in a light highly injurious to this province, and the persons against whom they were written. "Resolved, That though the letters aforesaid, signed Thomas Hutchinson, are said by the governor in his message to this house of June 9th, to be 'private letters written to a gentleman in London, since deceased,' and 'that all except the last were written many months before he came to the chair;' yet that they were written by the present governor, when he was lieutenant governor and chief justice of this province; who has been represented abroad, as eminent for his abilities, as for his exalted station; and was under no official obligation to transmit private intelligence and that they therefore must be considered by the person to whom they were sent, as documents of solid intelligence: and that this gentleman in London to whom they were written, was then a member of the British parliament, and one who was very active in American affairs; and therefore that these letters, however secretly written, must naturally be supposed to have, and really had, a public operation. : "Resolved, That these 'private letters' being written with express confidence of secrecy,' was only to prevent the contents of them being known here, as appears by said letters; and this rendered them the more injurious in their tendency, and really insidious. "Resolved, That the letters signed Thomas Hutchinson, considering the person by whom they were written, the matters they expressly contain, the express reference in some of them for 'full intelligence' to Mr. Hallowell, a person deeply interested in the measures so much complained of, and recommendatory notices of divers other persons, whose emoluments arising from our public burdens must excite them to unfavourable representations of us, the measures they. suggest, the temper in which they were written, the manner in which they were sent, and the person to whom they were addressed, had a natural and efficacious tendency to interrupt and alienate the affections of our most gracious sovereign King George the Third, from this his loyal and affectionate province; to destroy that harmony and good-will between Great-Britain and this colony, which every friend to either would wish to establish; to excite the resentment of the British administration against this province; to defeat the endeavours of our agents and friends to serve us by a fair representation of our state of grievances; to prevent our humble and repeated petitions from reaching the royal ear of our common sovereign; and to produce the severe and destructive measures which have been taken against this province, and others still more so, which have been threatened. "Resolved, As the opinion of this house, that it clearly appears from the letters aforesaid, signed Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, that it was the desire and endeavour of the writers of them, that certain acts of the British Parliament, for raising a revenue in America, might be carried into effect by military force; and by introducing a fleet and army into this his Majesty's loyal province, to intimidate the minds of his subjects here, and prevent every constitutional measure to obtain the repeal of those acts, so justly esteemed a grievance to us, and to suppress the very spirit of freedom. "Resolved, That it is the opinion of this house, that as the salaries lately appointed for the governor, lieutenant governor, and judges of this province, directly repugnant to the charter, and subversive of justice, are founded on this revenue; and as these letters were written with a design, and had a tendency to promote and support that revenue, therefore, there is great reason to suppose the writers of those letters were well knowing to, suggested and promoted the enacting said revenue acts, and the establishments founded on the same. "Resolved, That while the writer of these letters signed Thomas Hutchinson, has been thus exerting himself, by his secret confidential correspondence,' to introduce measures destructive of our constitutional liberty, he has been practising every method among the people of this province, to fix in their minds an exalted opinion of his warmest affection for them, and bis unremitted endeavours to promote their best interests at the court of Great Britain... "Resolved, as the opinion of this house, That by comparing these letters signed Tho. Hutchinson, with those signed And. Oliver, Cha. Paxton, and Nath. Rogers, and considering what has since in fact taken place conformable thereto, that there have been for many years past measures contemplated, and a plan formed, by a set of men born and educated among us, to raise their own fortunes, and advance themselves to posts of honor and profit, not only to the destruction of the charter and constitution of this province, but at the expense of the rights and liberties of the American colonies. And it is further the opinion of this house, that the said persons have been some of the chief instruments in the introduction of a military force into the province, to carry their plans into execution; and therefore they have been not only greatly instrumental in disturbing the peace and harmony of the govern→ ment, and causing and promoting great discord and animosities, but are justly chargeable with the great corruption of morals, and all that confusion, misery, and bloodshed, which have been the natural effects of the introduction of troops. "Whereas, for many years past, measures have been taken by the British administration, very grievous to the good people of this province; which this house have now reason to sup pose, were promoted, if not originally suggested by the writers of these letters; and many efforts have been made by the people to obtain the redress of their grievances: Resolved, "That it appears to this house, that the writers of these letters have availed themselves of disorders that naturally arise in a free government under such oppressions, as arguments to prove, that it was originally necessary such measures should have been taken, and that they should now be continued and increased. 1 "Whereas in the letter signed Cha. Paxton, dated Boston Harbour, June 20, 1768, it is expressly declared that unless we have immediately two or three regiments, 'tis the opinion of all the friends of government that Boston will be in open rebellion.' "Resolved, That this is a most wicked and injurious representation, designed to inflame the minds of his majesty's ministers, and the nation; and to excite in the breast of our sovereign, a jealousy of his loyal subjects of said town, without the least grounds therefor, as enemies of his majesty's person and government. "Whereas certain letters by two private persons, signed T. Moffat and G. Rome, have been laid before the house, which letters contain many matters highly injurious to government, and to the national peace: Resolved, That it has been the misfortune of this government, from the earliest period of it, from time to time, to be secretly traduced and maliciously represented to the British ministry, by persons who were neither friendly to this colony, nor to the English constitution. "Resolved, That this house have just reason to complain of it as a very great grievance, that the humble petitions and remonstrances of the commons of this province are not allowed to reach the hands of our most gracious sovereign, merely because they are presented by an agent, to whose appointment the governor, with whom our chief dispute may subsist, doth not consent; while the partial and inflammatory letters of individuals who are greatly interested in the revenue acts, and the measures taken to carry them into execution, have been laid before administration, attended to, and determined upon, not only to the injury of the reputation of the people, but to the depriving them of their invaluable rights and liberties. "Whereas this house are humbly of opinion, that his majesty will judge it to be incompatible with the interest of his crown, and the peace and safety of the good people of this his loyal province, that persons should be continued in places of high trust and authority in it, who are known to have with great industry, though secretly, endeavoured to undermine, alter, and overthrow the constitution of the province. "Therefore, "Resolved, That this house is bound in duty to the king and their constituents, humbly to remonstrate to his majesty, the conduct of his excellency Thomas Hutchinson, esq. governor, and the honourable Andrew Oliver, esq. lieutenant governor of this province; and to pray that his majesty would be pleased to remove them for ever from the government thereof." M Upon these Resolutions was founded the following Petition, transmitted to me to be presented to his majesty.1 VOL. I. See Appendix, No. 7. 2 C |