6 THOMAS HUTCHINSON 



purest patriotism : and we need only to divest our- 

 selves for the moment of the knowledge of subsequent 

 events which in their day none could foresee ; we 

 need only to put ourselves back, in imagination, into 

 the circumstances amid which their opinions were 

 formed and their actions determined, in order to do 

 justice to the deep humanity that was in them. We 

 may dissent from their opinions, and disapprove their 

 actions as heartily as ever; but it is our duty, as stu- 

 dents of history, to take our stand upon that firm 

 ground where, freed from the fleeting passions of a 

 day, true manliness may be taken for its worth. 



Among the American loyalists of the Revolutionary 

 period there is perhaps none who has had such hard 

 measure as Thomas Hutchinson. It may be doubted 

 if any other American in high position, except Benedict 

 Arnold, has ever incurred so much obloquy. But to 

 couple these two names, even for a moment, is gross 

 injustice to the last royal governor of Massachusetts. 

 Alike for intellectual eminence and for spotless purity 

 of character, there have been few Americans more 

 thoroughly entitled to our respect than Thomas 

 Hutchinson. It is sad indeed, though perfectly natu- 

 ral, that such a man should have had to wait a hundred 

 years before his countrymen could come to consider 

 his career dispassionately, and see him in the light in 

 which he would himself have been willing to be seen. 

 Let us take a brief survey of the personal history of 

 this man ; and as he belonged to a family distinguished 

 in both the Old World and the New, let us begin with a 

 glance at his ancestry. 



In the English literature of the seventeenth century 

 there are few books more charming than the memoirs 



