Details
HUTCHINSON, Thomas (1711-1780), Loyalist, royal governor of Massachusetts. Letter signed ("T. Hutchinson"), as Royal Governor, to the Massachusetts Council and the House of Representatives, Cambridge, 28 May 1772. 1 page, folio, remnants of tipping along edges, creases reinforced on verso.
"AS FAR AS SHALL CONSIST WITH MY DUTY TO THE KING...I WILL CHEERFULLY CONCUR WITH YOU"
"In conformity to the powers and privileges granted by the Royal Charter," Hutchinson tells the Massachusetts legislators, "you have convened at this place in order to the Election of Councillors for the ensuing year; and this business being finished you have now an opportunity of proceeding to the condition of such other public affairs as may properly come before you. In every measure, as far as shall consist with my duty to the King and with the welfare and prosperity of the province, I will cheerfully concur with you. I have nothing in special command from his majesty to lay before you. Most of you are so well acquainted with the usual business of the General Assembly...that I need not particularly point it out to you." The relaxed and complacent tone of this document belies the volatile state of affairs between Governor Hutchinson and his not so loyal subjects. He closes by mentioning the selection of commissioners to settle the boundary between New York and Massachusetts, adding "In the course of the Session I shall, probably, propose to you by Message the consideration of some other public matters for which at present I am not fully prepared."
His subjects gave him far more than he was fully prepared for over the next two years, with their non-importation boycotts, the raucous Boston Tea Party, the closing of the port of Boston in retaliation, then culminating in the bloody explosion of armed rebellion at Lexington and Concord in 1775. Hutchinson fled his native land for English exile, and on 4 July 1776, received an honorary doctorate in civil laws from Oxford.
"AS FAR AS SHALL CONSIST WITH MY DUTY TO THE KING...I WILL CHEERFULLY CONCUR WITH YOU"
"In conformity to the powers and privileges granted by the Royal Charter," Hutchinson tells the Massachusetts legislators, "you have convened at this place in order to the Election of Councillors for the ensuing year; and this business being finished you have now an opportunity of proceeding to the condition of such other public affairs as may properly come before you. In every measure, as far as shall consist with my duty to the King and with the welfare and prosperity of the province, I will cheerfully concur with you. I have nothing in special command from his majesty to lay before you. Most of you are so well acquainted with the usual business of the General Assembly...that I need not particularly point it out to you." The relaxed and complacent tone of this document belies the volatile state of affairs between Governor Hutchinson and his not so loyal subjects. He closes by mentioning the selection of commissioners to settle the boundary between New York and Massachusetts, adding "In the course of the Session I shall, probably, propose to you by Message the consideration of some other public matters for which at present I am not fully prepared."
His subjects gave him far more than he was fully prepared for over the next two years, with their non-importation boycotts, the raucous Boston Tea Party, the closing of the port of Boston in retaliation, then culminating in the bloody explosion of armed rebellion at Lexington and Concord in 1775. Hutchinson fled his native land for English exile, and on 4 July 1776, received an honorary doctorate in civil laws from Oxford.