CHAP. XLV.} 1770. Oct. |
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protest, entered on an inquiry into the state of the
Province with a view to a radical redress of its grievances.”
1 At the same time Hutchinson, with whom Hillsborough was interchanging private letters, sent word, that ‘no measure could have been pitched upon more proper than the possession of the harbor of Boston by the King's troops and ships,’ as a mark of royal resentment, and a preparation for further measures.2 Conspiring3 with fiercer zeal than ever against the liberties of his native country, he advised not a mere change of the mode of electing the Council, but ‘a bill for the vacating or disannulling the Charter in all its parts, and leaving it to the King to settle the Government by a royal Commission.’
Yet as Hillsborough and the King seemed content with obtaining the appointment of the Council, Hutchinson suppressed his misgivings, considered how the change could be carried into effect, and forwarded lists from which the royal councillors were to be named.
‘If the kingdom,’ said he, ‘is united and resolved, I have but very little doubt, we shall be as tame as lambs.’
He presented distinctly the option, either to lay aside taxation as inexpedient, and to wait till the Colonies should submit from weariness;—a policy against which all his letters protested;—or to deal with the
1 Bradford's State Papers, 257, 258. Hutchinson to Hillsborough, 9 October, 1770.
2 Hutchinson to Lord Hillsborough, Private, Boston, 26 October, 1770. Hillsborough's private letters are missing.
3 The authorities are, Hillsborough to Hutchinson, 3 October, 1770; Hutchinson to Hillsborough, 8 October, 1770; Same to Same later in October, in Hutchinson's Mss. III. 22, 23, and printed in the Remembrancer for 1776, i. 158; Hutchinson to Sir Francis Bernard, 20 October, 1770; Hutchinson's private letter to Hillsborough, 26 October, 1770, II. 181; Hutchinson to an official person not named, I suppose Secretary Pownall, 22 Oct. 1770, and other letters.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
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