68 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
mansion—was sacked. Nothing was left but the bare walls and floors, 
even the roof was partly demolished and the ‘trees in the garden broken 
down. The mob carried off £900 sterling in money, beside family 
plate, pictures and furniture, leaving not a single book or paper. Manu- 
scripts that Hutchinson had been collecting for thirty years were scat- 
tered or destroyed. The total loss was over £3,000 sterling. The in- 
stigators of the mob never intended that matters should go to this 
length, and the people in general expressed their utmost detestation 
of the outrage. 
A considerable indemnity for this loss was paid, but the rioters 
were never punished. | 
“You cannot conceive,’ Hutchinson wrote to a friend, “the 
wretched state we are in . . . . On the one hand, it will be 
said, if concessions are made, the Parliament endanger the loss of their 
authority over the Colony; on the other hand, if external force should 
be used, there seems to be danger of a total lasting alienation of affec- 
tion. Is there no alternative? May the infinitely wise God direct you.” 
“ Hutchinson,” says his biographer, “dearly loved the Province, 
believing to the last that the hearts of the people were sound, if only 
‘incendiaries’ would let them alone. Nine-tenths of the Province he 
felt sure now detested violence, but over the whole continent the impres- 
sion was coming to prevail that the Colonies were deprived of English 
liberties. The better sort desired to use lawful means alone in defence 
of those vaguely defined liberties,—the most abandoned only would do it 
per fas aut nefas. Being advised to go to England with his children, 
when they were in semi-concealment at Milton, (his country mansion 
eight miles from Boston,) in reasonable fear of further violence, he 
could not bear the thought of leaving his country while he could do it 
service.” 1 
Hutchinson was now a widower after six and twenty years of 
wedded happiness. His two sons were graduates of Harvard Univer- 
sity and had become enterprising merchants. His daughter Sarah 
became the wife of the son of the Chief Justice, Peter Oliver, who suc- 
ceeded Hutchinson in that high office. His daughter “ Peggy,” the 

1 Another famous Royalist of the times was Timothy Ruggles, one of the 
best lawyers of the province, who possessed a keen sense of humour, an 
instance of which in his college days is recorded. He was one of a number 
of students who had stolen a sign, probably on Hallowe’en night, and car- 
ried it to his room. The proctors were in hot pursuit, but coming to his 
door found that a prayer-meeting was in progress, which, by college rules, 
must not be disturbed. The culprits had placed the sign upon the fire to 
burn, and ‘the unctuous voice ” of Ruggles was heard through the door 
saying, ‘ A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there 
shall no sign be given them.” 
