THOMAS HUTCHINSON  (1711-1780)

 

 

Thomas Hutchinson is the man most people love to hate in colonial Boston. And yet, he was a cautious conservative man who played a part in a conservative revolution. He was born in Boston in 1711, a contemporary of Boston-born Benjamin Franklin, whose life would connect with his own on at least two occasions.  Thus, unlike some royal governors, he was an American, a direct descendant of Puritan dissenter Ann Hutchinson.

 

He was a precocious child, entering Harvard at age 13, and graduating before his 16^th birthday (1727). He married Margaret Sanford in 1734. She gave him three sons and two daughters before her death in 1753. In 1737 he began his political career when he became a selectman of the town of Boston.  He rose in the colonial government from selectman  to representative in the Massachusetts legislature. While there, he advocated a currency backed by gold supplied by the British government to compensate the colony for expenses in taking the fortress of Louisburg in 1745. In this way, he gained a reputation for being a sound money man.

 

On the eve of the French and Indian War, Benjamin Franklin proposed that the colonies join in a voluntary union to defend their common interests. Almost simultaneously, the British government put forward the same plan, for the sake of closer authority and supervision of the colonies. In early 1754, seven delegates from seven colonies met in Albany NY.  Although the plan fell through, it set people to thinking about unity, and not just for security. Hutchinson was one of the Mass. delegates to that meeting. Although he would not live to see the recognition of the United States, it is interesting to speculate what he thought of the prospect.

 

In 1758 he became lieutenant governor and, in 1760, Chief Justice of the province. In this capacity, in1761, he presided over the Writs of Assistance trial. These writs or search warrants allowed a customs official to go into any house or ship of any merchant suspected of smuggling. A judge had merely to sign the warrant at the bottom; the rest could be filled in later. The merchant in the case, Thomas Lechmere, was found guilty and had to pay a heavy fine.

 

Whether he knew it or not, Hutchinson now held offices in all three branches of government: executive (lieutenant governor); legislative (the Governor’s Council, of which he was a member, had veto power over the legislature; and the judicial (Chief Justice.)  This, among other things, outraged the colonists, and would lead to one of the central principles embodied in the Constitution—the separation of powers.

 

Because he was not a lawyer, Hutchinson was very cautious, doing everything by the book. Perhaps a more clever thinker would have been able to skirt all the regulations.

This desire not to commit himself  to a cause sometimes led to confusion. During the second Stamp Act riot on August 26, 1765, a mob completely destroyed his house in the North End thinking that he approved the Stamp Act, which he did not. He

recognized Parliament’s right to tax, but thought the act was unwise.

 

In 1769, he became acting governor; in 1771 the last royal governor of Massachusetts. On the night of March 5, 1770, his calm demeanor and dignified presence helped quiet the crowd at the Boston Massacre. In 1773 letters he had written to England were intercepted by Benjamin Franklin (colonial Postmaster General) and published. They served to inflame people against the ministry (Hutchinson called the Massachusetts legislature “that little mock parliament.”)  Under threats by the Boston mob, he left the town in May, 1774. In Great Britain, he served as an adviser to George III on North American affairs. He never returned to his native land.