28 THOMAS HUTCHINSON 



the leadership of Samuel Adams, as tending inevita- 

 bly toward counter-resistance and strife. Such an 

 attitude was liable to be interpreted as indicating 

 tacit approval of the Stamp Act. At this juncture 

 an unfortunate incident served to direct upon him 

 the rage of the rough populace that swarmed about 

 the wharves and waterside taverns of the busy sea- 

 port. The enforcement of the Navigation Acts had 

 already made much trouble in Boston, and in more 

 than one instance warehouse doors had been barri- 

 caded and the officers successfully defied. Governor 

 Bernard had become very unpopular through his zeal 

 in promoting seizures for illicit trade, which he was 

 supposed to have made quite profitable by his share 

 in the forfeitures. In the ordinary course of business 

 concerning these matters, depositions were made be- 

 fore Chief Justice Hutchinson, and attested by him. 

 In Bernard's reports to the Lords of Trade, such 

 depositions were sometimes sent over to London as 

 evidence of the state of affairs, and were placed on 

 file at the Plantation Office. There it happened that 

 Briggs Hallowell, a Boston merchant, saw some of 

 these documents in which John Rowe and others of 

 his fellow-citizens were mentioned by name as smug- 

 glers. Reports of this reached Boston in the summer 

 of 1 765, on the very eve of the Stamp Act riots. 



The house in which Hutchinson still continued to 

 dwell when in town was his father's home, where he 

 had been born. It stood between Garden Court and 

 Hanover Street, next to the house of Sir Harry Frank- 

 land, in a neighbourhood from which the glory has 

 long since departed. At that time it was probably 

 the noblest dwelling-house in America, for along with 



