Thomas Hutchinson: The Last Royal Governor

Thomas Hutchinson served Massachusetts for thirty years as a jurist, historian, lieutenant governor, and finally royal governor. He believed that Parliament had the authority to legislate for the colonies but that it had been unwise and provocative in exercising it. He tried to prevent a confrontation. His own private letters, leaked to colonial leaders by Benjamin Franklin in 1773, were used to argue he was an enemy of colonial liberty. He went into exile in 1774. His diary and letters and his three-volume History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay are in institutional archives.

Hutchinson's political position was not a defense of parliamentary tyranny. He believed that Parliament had legal authority over the colonies and that challenging that authority would lead to a confrontation neither side could win. He argued for repeal of the Stamp Act on practical grounds. He opposed the Townshend duties as provocative. He repeatedly advised London that the colonial situation required careful handling.

This letter and others like it were obtained by Benjamin Franklin in London and sent to colonial leaders in Massachusetts. Franklin instructed that they not be published. They were published immediately. The phrase abridgement of English liberties became the centerpiece of the colonial case that Hutchinson was working against the interests of Massachusetts. The letters produced a formal petition to the Crown for his removal.

Hutchinson's governorship ended over the question of tea. He refused to allow the tea ships to leave Boston harbor without paying duty, because he believed allowing them to leave would set a precedent for nullifying parliamentary acts. The Sons of Liberty destroyed the tea on December 16, 1773. Hutchinson reported the event to London and recommended firm response. Parliament passed the Coercive Acts.

Hutchinson sailed for England in June 1774, expecting to return after a brief consultation with the ministry. He never did. He settled in London, advising the ministry on American affairs, and began writing his diary. He watched the war from London and died there in June 1780, before it ended.

The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, compiled from original documents in the possession of his descendants and published in two volumes in 1883 and 1886, is confirmed at the Internet Archive in full, public domain. It covers his years in England from 1774 to his death in 1780. Bernard Bailyn's 1974 study of Hutchinson, based on his papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, argued that Hutchinson was not a villain but a tragic figure: a man whose commitment to law and constitutional order led him to positions that made him appear an enemy of liberty to the people he had spent his career serving.