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 When in 1764 and the following years the question of England's right to tax the colonies began to be discussed, Hutchinson, like many of the wealthier and especially of the office-holding classes, took sides with the Parliament. As a lawyer and an officer of the crown, he considered that he had good reasons for his position, and in opposition to James Otis and Samuel Adams he made a sturdy and honest defense of his convictions. But with the development of his loyal opinions all the popularity which he had long enjoyed vanished as if by magic. To the patriots he became the representative of all that they detested in royal tyranny. When the Stamp Act was passed, in 1765, Hutchinson's brother-in-law, Andrew Oliver, was appointed stamp-distributor for Massachusetts. A mob hung Oliver in effigy, totally destroyed one building owned by him, wrecked the contents of his dwelling, and terrified the poor man into resignation. On the rumor that Hutchinson had been instrumental in the passage of the act, the mob, after several minor outrages, finally, on August 26, 1765, broke into his house and thoroughly ransacked it, demolishing all the furniture, and destroying a great amount of valuable historical papers. The manuscript of his History of Massachusetts, from which the narratives in this book are taken, was scattered about the streets, but fortunately was all recovered.

From this time on the dispute between the English Government and the colonists raged almost without interruption, and Hutchinson was the mainstay of the royal cause. In 1769, the governor, Bernard, left the colony for England, and two years later, Hutchinson, who, as lieutenant-governor, had been at the head of affairs in the interval, received his Commission as governor. The ability and obstinacy with which he contested every assault of the patriots upon the king's authority, and the rigor with which be applied all available means for enforcing the royal ordinances, which to the people seemed so despotic, made him the object of the intensest hatred. It was his rigid adherence to the strict letter of the law that prevented the teaships from leaving Boston with their cargoes at the demand of