Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts (1771-1774)

Thomas Hutchinson

Thomas Hutchinson, (1711–1780), American governor of colonial Massachusetts, was the symbol of loyalty to Britain in pre-Revolutionary Boston. His administration was a continuous battle with the Boston radicals. A descendant of Anne Hutchinson, he was born in Boston on Sept. 9, 1711. At the age of 12 he entered Harvard College, which he found unchallenging, and after graduation in 1727, he undertook a lifelong study of New England history. His family had been active in public service, and through his marriage in 1734 to Margaret Sanford he acquired family connections to Massachusetts' Gov. Jonathan Belcher.

The feeling was widespread among well-informed Americans that Thomas Hutchinson had betrayed his country; that for sordid, selfish reasons he had accepted and abetted - even stimulated - oppressive measures against the colonies; that he had supported them even in the face of a threat of armed resistance; and that in this sense his personal actions lay at the heart of the Revolution."
Bernard Bailyn - The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson

Controversy over Thomas Hutchinson's role in the origins of the Revolution continues among historians today. How can one man be considered so controversial 225 years after his participation as the last royal, civlian, colonial governor of Massachusetts?

Hutchinson spent most of his life from 1737 either as Boston's representative in the Massachusetts assembly (he was speaker from 1746 to 1749) or as a councillor in the upper house. He was an expert on paper money and, with Gov. William Shirley, secured convertibility for the colony's currency in 1750; and was Governor of the British North American Province of Massachusetts Bay (1771-74) and . . .

Whose stringent measures helped precipitate colonial unrest and
eventually the American Revolution (1775-83).

The son of a wealthy merchant, Hutchinson devoted himself to business ventures before beginning his public career (1737) as a member of the Boston Board of Selectmen and then the General Court (legislature) of Massachusetts Bay, where he served almost continuously until 1749. He continued to rise in politics by serving as a member of the state council (1749-66), chief justice of the Superior Court (1760-69), and lieutenant governor (1758-71).

Hutchinson was originally in harmony with his colleagues, even attending the Albany Congress of 1754, which projected a plan of union among the colonies. In tribute to Hutchinson's leadership ability, Governor Shirley once called him “prime minister.” However, Hutchinson irritated other colonial leaders, most notably the revolutionary spokesman James Otis, who turned the people of the Colony against him.

"Anyone who observed him at all sympathetically . . . could reasonably have thought he was hounded by avengers of some filial crime. All his conscientious plans for the governorship had failed; his efforts to mobilize the political system to support the government; his strenuous, at times frantic, appeals to England to devise . . . a judicious and comprehensive colonial policy, sensitive both to the fears and desires of the people and to the needs of government, and to enforce the law and order before it took a massive military effort to do so; and finally, his struggle to persuade the great moderate majority of the population of the sheer irrationality and self-destructive nihilism of the extremists' claims and demands. And not only had he failed in all of this, but, in his effort to inject rationality into an increasingly irrational situation,
he -- he, and not the enemies of order -- had been rebuked by the government itself."
Bernard Bailyn - The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson

He was deeply Loyalist and resisted the gradual movement toward independence from the British crown. He was convinced that the rebellious spirit was only the work of such patriot hotheads as Samuel Adams, for whom he developed a deep enmity. Because many Bostonians considered that he had instigated the repugnant Stamp Act of 1765, a mob sacked his splendid Boston residence that year, destroying a number of valuable documents and manuscripts. Barely escaping with his life, the embittered Hutchinson from that time on increasingly distrusted the "common sort" and secretly advised Parliament to pass repressive measures that would emphasize that body's supremacy over the colonies.

The atmosphere in 1770 Boston was too highly charged; the slightest accident could produce a tragedy, and "anything tragical," Hutchinson wrote in January, 1770, "would have set the whole Province in a flame, and maybe spread farther." Yet for all of Hutchinson's caution, the danger kept mounting, and week by week in early 1770 he became increasingly fearful of an explosive encounter between the soldiers and the townsmen, and increasingly insistent that "the greatest care be taken to prevent it."

However, when the Boston Massacre exploded into the hearts and minds of the people on March 5, 1770, and Hutchinson was acting governor at the time, no degree of certainty that he had done everything in his power to prevent it could soften the blow, and he felt impelled to administer the letter of the British law and thus became more and more unpopular.

He wrote to Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies in England, that "the killing of five townsmen by the soldiers, in a scene of great confusion, was without doubt the most catistrophic thing that could have happened."

"Boston is pitched into perfect frenzy," he wrote, "and the Province as a whole is on the edge of civil war."

The morning after the Massacre, the Boston selectmen arranged an emergency meeting with Hutchinson to confront him. They demanded that he order the removal of the troops from Boston, or there would certainly be more "blood and carnage" and "the most terrible consequences to be expected." Hutchinson replied that as lieutenant governor of the Province he held no authority to order out the King's troops, and besides, it was up to them to calm the people. Carrying it further, he informed them that if there were further violence or an attempt to drive the troops out, he would see to it "that everyone abetting and advising would be guilty of high treason."

Seeking a compromise, Lt. Colonel William Dalrymple (Commanding Officer of the British regiments) offered the selectmen "to volutarily relieve the hated 29th Regiment of their command and take them to the Harbor Fort." However, he would leave the 14th Regiment in town but do everything possible to minimize future conflicts with the soldiers and townspeople. Unfortunately, the Colonel didn't realize that he had inadvertently "trapped" Hutchinson into having to make a controversial decision, because now the selectmen were demanding that "if you have the authority to remove one regiment, you have the authority to remove two." They then pressed the Colonel that if Hutchinson would merely express a "desire" to have the troops removed (which effectively reduced the available options Hutchinson had at his disposal) then hundreds of innocent lives and quite possibly the entire future of English-American relations would be saved. This proposal would hang on Hutchinson's willingness to not issue an illegal order, but merely to express his personal wish - a wish that everyone would know would have the force of an order that he sought to avoid giving.

The morning meeting between Hutchinson and the selectmen came to a close with the terms set. However, by mid-day the threat of violence had escalated. In the afternoon session, the selectmen flatly stated that if the troops were not relieved, the people of Boston would revolt and drive them out with the help of the surrounding towns if need be. They also added that if that happened, Thomas Hutchinson "would be responsible and all the blood would be charged to him alone."

Under these circumstances, Hutchinson now believed he was faced with a "general inssurection," and it became increasingly clearer to him that he himself would be seized unless he complied with their demands, or flee to the safety of the station ship or the Castle.

He polled the Council (constitutionally charged with advising their chief executive), and found that although in the morning it was divided in its judgement, it now voted unanimously. The regimental commanders all agreed, as well as the captain of the station ship. Hutchinson had to order the removal of the troops, regardless of whether he had the authority or not. But, through the long afternoon and despite the most intense pressure, he could not come to terms and bring himself to agree. He was holding out alone against the public clamor and the unanimous judgement of every public official he consulted - including the British military commanders.

Hutchinson believed that a decisive turning point had been reached. What was at stake was: nothing less than the British government maintaining its authority in America.

To Hutchinson, removal of the troops from town was no mere technical relocation: they would be too remote to carry out their police duties as they had been assigned. He believed that the crisis of the massacre (the so-called massacre) had itself been deliberately manufactured, to bring about exactly the result that his concession would create. He believed that the brutality of the troops against the Bostonians was fabricated, and that in fact, it was the townspeople who had been the aggressors, not the soldiers. He must have believed that Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty were behind the plot, or at least lurking in the background partly responsible.

Finally, wearily, "under duress," and after considering all of this in his total isolation, he conceded. \

Five days later, the last of the Royal troops left Boston.

John Adams wrote that Hutchinson was "chargeable before God and man with our blood. The soldiers were but passive instruments, were machines, neither moral nor voluntary agents in our destruction . . . You were a free agent. You acted coolly, deliberately, with all that premeditated malice, not against us in particular but against the people in general, which in the sight of the law is an ingredient in the composition of murder. You will hear further from us hearafter."

"Politically weak to the point of debility, supported only by a dwindling band of stubborn loyalists less thoughtful, less liberal than he, hated, feared, condemned throughout the land, he yet continued to believe that somehow the great British ship of state would right itself and he would end his life in peace. And then the furies struck once more, the most savage blow of all, which meant for him the world's end."
Bernard Bailyn - The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson

Now governor, against the advice of both houses of the legislature, in 1773 he insisted that a shipment of imported tea be landed before being given clearance papers; this resulted in the Boston Tea Party, in which dissidents dumped the import into the harbour.

As the years passed and the tension worsened, Hutchinson was finally replaced by General Thomas Gage as military governor in1774. He sailed to England and acted as an adviser to George III and to the British ministry on North American affairs; at that time he counseled moderation. He wrote History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay, 3 vol. (1764-1828).
He died in London on June 3, 1780.

(See Bibliography Below)

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Picture Credit: Massachusetts Historical Society
Authors: Bernard Bailyn; John A. Schutz, University of Southern California; Ronald W. McGranahan (contributing).
Bibliography: Bailyn, Bernard, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (1974); Hutchinson, Thomas, History of Massachusetts-Bay, Vol. III (1764-1828); Encyclopedia Americana (1996); Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (1994-1999).