Hutchinson Letters Affair
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The Hutchinson Letters Affair was a 1772 incident that increased tensions between the American colonies and the British government.
By December 1772 Americans relationship with Britain was already strained after the Sugar, Stamp, Quartering, Declaratory and Townshend Acts. At that time, Benjamin Franklin, who was living in England, anonymously received a packet of letters. In these letters, Thomas Hutchinson, the royal Governor of Massachusetts, had written the British government requesting more troops to fight American rebels. Franklin, believing that his friends in Boston should know this information, sent the letters to them on the condition that they not publish or circulate them. However, the content of the letters was published in the Boston Gazette in June 1773.
Bostonians were outraged and forced Hutchinson back to England and the British government was infuriated about the leaking of confidential information and demanded to know who leaked the letters. In December 1773, the government had accused three innocent people leaking the documents. To protect them, Franklin admitted his guilt and he was reprimanded in January 1774. Later that year, Franklin left England for America to help write the Declaration of Independence.[1]
[edit] Contents of the Letters
Letter to Commodore John Gambier - Commanding Officer of the Royal Naval Station at Halifax, NS:
To Commodore Gambier
Boston, June 30, 1772.
Dear Sir,
... Our last ships carried you the news of the burning of the Gaspee schooner at Providence. I hope if there should be another like attempt, some concerned in it may be taken prisoners and carried directly to England. A few punished at Execution Dock would be the only effectual preventive of any further attempts...
Thos. Hutchinson
Letter to Thomas Pownall - Successful Administrator in the Colonies for England. Served as lieutenant governor of Province of Massachusetts Bay, governor of South Carolina, secretary to the governor of New York and lieutenant governor of New Jersey:
To Secretary Pownal
Boston, August 29, 1772.
Dear Sir,
I troubled you with a long letter the 21st of July. Give me leave now only to add one or two things which I then intended, but, to avoid being too tedious, omitted. People in this province, both friends an enemies to government, are in great expectations from the late affair at Rhode Island of burning the King's schooner, and they consider the manner in which the news of it will be received in England, and the measures to be taken, as decisive. If it is passed over without a full inquiry and due resentment, our liberty people will think they may with impunity commit any acts of violence, be they ever so atrocious, and the friends to government will despond, and give up all hopes of being able to withstand the faction. The persons who were immediate actors are men of estate and property in the colony. A prosecution is impossible. If ever the government of that colony is to be reformed, this seems to be the time, and it would have a happy effect on the colonies which adjoin to it. Several persons have been advised by letters from their friends that as the ministry are united, and the opposition at an end, there will certainly be an inquiry into the state of America, the next session of Parliament. The denial of the supremacy of Parliament and the contempt with which its authority has been treated by the Lilliputian assemblies of America can never be justified or excused by any one member of either house of Parliament....
Thos. Hutchinson
Letter to Samuel Hood, Esq. - British admiral:
To Samuel Hood, Esq.
Boston, September 2, 1772.
Dear Sir,
Captain Linzee can inform you of the state of Rhode Island colony better than I can. So daring an insult as burning the King's schooner, by people who are as well known as any who were concerned in the last rebellion and yet cannot be prosecuted, will certainly rouse the British lion, which has been asleep these four or five years. Admiral Montague says that Lord Sandwich will never leave pursuing the colony, until it is disenfranchised. If it is passed over, the other colonies will follow the example.
Thos. Hutchinson
