30 THOMAS HUTCHINSON 



understood rumours from London wrought their effect 

 upon the mob. On the night of the 26th a bonfire in 

 King Street gathered a crowd together. First they 

 broke into the cellars of the comptroller of customs, 

 and drank freely from the rum and brandy casks 

 stored there. Then a fury for punishing informers 

 .seized them, and they rushed to the chief justice's 

 house. A few blows with broadaxes split the doors 

 and window-shutters, and the howling, cursing rabble 

 swarmed in. Their approach had been heard some 

 minutes before, and Hutchinson had told his children 

 to flee ; but his eldest daughter refused to go without 

 him, and while she was expostulating with him, the 

 doors were broken in. Carrying her in his arms, he 

 fled across the garden to the house of his brother-in- 

 law, the Rev. Samuel Mather, leaving the mob in 

 full possession. Pictures were cut to pieces, mirrors 

 smashed, wearing apparel and silver stolen, and price- 

 less books and manuscripts flung into the street. The 

 halts made from time to time in the well-stocked wine- 

 bins served to keep up and enhance the fury, until 

 before daybreak even the partition walls had been 

 partly torn down, and great breaches had been hacked 

 in the brickwork. By sunrise the crowd had dis- 

 persed, and friendly hands had begun searching for 

 the treasures of the ruined library. The manuscript 

 of the second volume of the history, scattered hither 

 and thither, and drenched in a midnight shower, was 

 picked up and carefully put together by the Rev. 

 Andrew Eliot, so that the author found little difficulty 

 in restoring it, and it was published two years later. 



The next morning, before Governor Bernard could 

 summon the council, a huge town meeting in Faneuil 



