Essay on Thomas Hutchinson Biography is published for informational purposes only. The free papers are not written by our writers, they are contributed by users, so we are not responsible for the content of this free sample paper. If you want to buy a quality Essay on Essay on Thomas Hutchinson Biography at affordable prices please use our essay writing services offered by EssayEmpire.

Statesman and historian Thomas Hutchinson was the last civilian royal governor of Massachusetts (1770-74) before the Revolutionary War (1775-83). Born in Boston, he won election to the colonial assembly in 1736 and rose to become speaker in 1747. By 1749 his administrative abilities had made him known to friends and foes alike as the "prime minister" for Governor William Shirley. That year, he persuaded the legislature to use British reimbursement for Massachusetts's capture of Louisbourg during King George's War (1744-48) to fund a stable currency based on silver. Immediately before the French and Indian War (1754-63) broke out, he and Benjamin Franklin were the two leading delegates at the Albany Congress (1754), where their proposal for a colonial union--wherein a North American parliament and British governor-general would handle matters of defense--was approved by the delegates but rejected by colonial assemblies and the British parliament.

Hutchinson's 1760 appointment as chief justice of Massachusetts by Governor Francis Bernard (at the time Hutchinson was also serving as lieutenant governor) brought cries of multiple office holding and charges that he favored imperial tyranny, chiefly from a rival faction headed by James Otis, Sr., and his son, James Otis, Jr. The younger Otis won election to the assembly from Boston and soon became head of the opposition. On the bench, Hutchinson played into his opponents' hands by supporting customs officials who acquired general search warrants, or writs of assistance, which enabled them to seize merchants' illegal cargoes. When Parliament proposed the Stamp Act (1765), Hutchinson's refusal to oppose it in public--although he wrote a powerful tract decrying the measure that he circulated privately to influential Englishmen--provoked rumors that the law was his personal idea. When he did not deny this rumor to a mob that menaced his house on August 26, 1765, he had to flee for his life. A crowd of poorer and working Bostonians, who for years had resisted his elitist policies, then destroyed his splendid mansion.

Hutchinson cemented his position as a supporter of British authority by refusing to open Massachusetts's courts when the required stamps were not distributed, and by supporting the unpopular customs commissioners sent to Boston in 1767. Yet he was not the tyrant many claimed: He refused to authorize the use of troops in 1768 to crush the opposition since he thought this action would end the rule of law and the balance between British rule and colonial rights he was desperately trying to restore. He also ordered British troops out of Boston following the Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770), rather than risk the potential all-out confrontation that might have followed. Hutchinson served as acting governor of Massachusetts from August 2, 1769, to March 14, 1771, whereupon he was appointed governor in his own right. When ships bearing tea from the East India Company anchored in Boston Harbor in 1773, he played the key role in ensuring that they were not, as in every other colony except Georgia, forced to return to England. With British warships for support, he ordered the cargoes brought to port under their guns and planned to unload the tea (which he was sure the people would buy due to its low price). But he failed to consider that some Bostonians might take more forceful action, and he was surprised by the Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773).

When Britain responded with the Coercive Acts (1774), altering the Massachusetts government, Hutchinson realized his usefulness was at an end. Replaced as governor by General Thomas Gage, he went to England hoping to reconcile the two sides. However, just as the revolutionaries blamed him for supporting British power, the British condemned his failure to use troops and his underestimation of the protesters' strength. He died in London on June 3, 1780.

Hutchinson's powerful writings--"A Dialogue Between a European and an American Englishman" and his three-volume history of Massachusetts (still the single most important source for the colony's history)--show that he was neither weak nor arbitrary. Instead, he had hoped to restore the balance between British authority and colonial rights that he was sure was responsible for the liberty and order 18th-century Massachusetts enjoyed. A sincere lover of Anglo-American liberty as he understood it, Hutchinson is now generally appreciated by scholars for his keen insights into how the stubborn behavior of both contending parties led to a revolution neither desired.

Bibliography:

1) Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974);

2) William Pencak, America's Burke: The Mind of Thomas Hutchinson (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1982).

Free essays are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can order a term paper, research paper or custom TOPIC at our site which offers professional essay writing services. Get your high quality custom paper at relatively cheap prices. EssayEmpire is the best solution for those who seek help in essay writing related to TOPIC and other relevant topics.