Thomas Hutchinson (governor) - Governor of Massachusetts - Letters Affair and Tea Party

Letters Affair and Tea Party

The Massachusetts debate reached a pitch in 1772 when Hutchinson, in a speech to the assembly, argued that either the colony was wholly subject to Parliament, or that it was effectively independent. The assembly's response, authored by John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Joseph Hawley, countered that the colonial chartered granted autonomy. In England the colonial secretary, Lord Dartmouth, insisted that colonial agent Benjamin Franklin demand that the Massachusetts assembly retract its response. Franklin had acquired a packet of letters, written in the late 1760s by Hutchinson and other colonial officials, from which he concluded that Hutchinson and Oliver had mischaracterized the situation in the colonies, and thus misled Parliament. Believing that wider knowledge of these letters would focus colonial anger away from Parliament and at those who had written the misleading letters, Franklin sent the letters to Thomas Cushing, the speaker of the Massachusetts assembly, in December 1772. He insisted to Cushing that they not be published or widely circulated. He specifically wrote that they should be seen only by a few people, and that he was not "at liberty to make the letters public." The letters came into the hands of Samuel Adams, then serving as the clerk of the Massachusetts assembly, who engineered their publication in June 1773. Franklin's belief was only partially vindicated: the publication of the letters unleashed a torrent of vitriol against Hutchinson, but did nothing to lessen opposition to Parliamentary policy: instead the opposition saw the letters as confirmation of a conspiracy against their rights. The letters were reprinted throughout the colonies, and Hutchinson was burned in effigy in places as far off as Philadelphia in the uproar.

Hutchinson's letters, written between 1767 and 1769 to Thomas Whately, a retired former leading member of the British government, included the observation that it was impossible for colonists have the full rights they would have in the home country, essentially requiring an "abridgement of what are called English liberties". He made no specific proposals on how the colonial government should be reformed, writing in a letter that was not among those published, "I can think of nothing but what will produce as great an evil as that which it may remove or will be of a very uncertain event." Letters by Andrew Oliver, in contrast, specifically proposed that the governor's council, whose members where then elected by the assembly with the governor's consent, be changed to one whose members were appointed by the crown.

Although much of what Hutchinson wrote in the letters was not particularly new, Samuel Adams masterfully manipulated the contents and implications of some of the statements by Hutchinson and Oliver to suggest they were conspiring with officials in London to deprive the colonists of their rights. Hutchinson was defended in print by provincial attorney general Jonathan Sewall, who claimed that Hutchinson was not actually expressing desired changes in the state of affairs, but ruminating instead on possible consequences of present conditions.

The Massachusetts assembly drafted a petition to the Board of Trade demanding Hutchinson's removal from office, and Hutchinson, concerned with the effect the letter publication and the assembly petition would have in London, requested permission to come to England to defend himself. The letter authorizing his return did not reach Boston until November 1773, too late for him to depart that year; his request and the assembly's petition would not be heard until early 1774.

In the meantime, Parliament had repealed most of the Townshend taxes (excepting only the one on tea), and passed the Tea Act, which authorised the British East India Company to ship tea directly to the colonies, eliminating colonial merchants from its supply chain and undercutting the prices of smuggled Dutch tea. This caused colonial merchants all over the North American colonies to organise opposition to the deliveries of the company's tea. In Massachusetts the arrival of ships carrying tea in November 1773 brought about a crisis, since duties were to be paid on dutiable cargo within twenty days of a ship's arrival. Hutchinson and his sons were among the businessmen to whom the company had consigned its tea, although Hutchinson disclaimed any official role in the choice of consignee. Other cargo was unloaded from the ships, but armed protestors patrolled the docks to ensure the tea was not landed. Hutchinson took a hard line, refusing to allow the tea ships to leave the harbour despite city-wide protests that the tea be sent back to England and insisting that the duty be paid and the tea landed. When the twenty day deadline arrived on December 16, protestors (some in Indian disguise) boarded the ships that night and dumped the tea into the harbour.

Hutchinson justified the hardline stance that contributed to the crisis by claiming it was his duty as governor to uphold the revenue laws, while American opponents such as James Bowdoin observed that he could have just as easily refused to accept the tea when it was clear that popular sentiment would make it impossible to land the tea, and British critics complained that he should have asked the British troops in Boston to intervene. After it became known that other tea ships sent to North America had turned back, Hutchinson continued to justify his actions in letters to England, anticipating hearings on the matter once he arrived there.

When the Board of Trade met to consider the assembly's petition to recall Hutchinson, it also discussed the tea party. Franklin, as colonial agent, was forced to listen to a barrage of criticism, and was dismissed as colonial postmaster general. The assembly's petition was dismissed as "groundless" and "vexatious", but Hutchinson's request for leave was granted. In May 1774 General Thomas Gage arrived in Boston to take over as governor, and to implement the "Coercive Acts" Parliament had passed as punishment for the tea party. Hutchinson, believing he would only be away from Massachusetts temporarily, sailed for England on 1 June 1774.