The paradoxical and find tragic story of America’s most prominent Loyalist—a man caught between king and country— is the subject of a new book by Professor Bernard Bailyn of Harvard, who won both the Pulitizer and Bankcroft awards in 1868 for an earlier work on the American Revulotion. The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinsion has just been published by Harvard University Press. Our article is made up of excerpts from the first two chapters subtle and fascinating study.
On the night of August 26, 1765, a mob, more violent i han any yet seen in America, more violent indeed than any that would be seen in the entire course of the Revolution, attacked the Boston mansion of Thomas Hutchinson, chief justice and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. Hardly giving Hutchinson and his family time to flee from the supper table into the streets, the rioters smashed in the doors with axes, swarmed through the rooms, ripped off wainscotting and hangings, splintered the furniture, beat down the inner walls, tore up the garden, and carried off into the night, besides £900 sterling in cash, all the plate, decorations, and clothes that had sunived, and destroyed or scattered in the mud all of Hutchinson’s books and papers, including the manuscript of Volume I of his History of the Colony and Province of Massachussets-Bay and the collection of historical papers that he had been gathering for years as the basis for a public archive. I lie determination of the mob was as remarkable as its savagery: “they worked for three hours at the cupola before they could get it down,” (îovernor Francis Bernard reported; only the heavy brickwork construction of the walls prevented their raxing the building completely, “though they worked at it till daylight. The next day the streets were found scattered with money, plate, gold rings, etc. which had been dropped in carrying oM.” Hutchinson was convinced that he himself would have been killed if he had not given in to his daughter’s frantic pleading and (led. He estimated the loss of property at ©2,218 sterling.
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