250 and Counting

Category: Massachusetts History

  • 250 and Counting: January 29, 1775

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    Cover art for January 29, 1775: portrait of Benjamin Franklin.

    Benjamin Franklin, like many of our Founding Fathers, was interested in repairing the relationship between the Colonies and England, at least early on.

    What’s more, he thought that others in similar positions would be of a similar mind, so he was rather dismayed to learn that this wasn’t the case; in fact, when a sheaf of letters written by Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver made their way into his hands, he was rather dismayed to learn that they were badly misleading Parliament with regard to the situation in the Colonies.

    So Franklin leaked the letters to the Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly, saying they could be read but not copied. But Franklin didn’t heed his own advice: “Three people may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” The letters got out anyway, and they were published in the Boston Gazette a few months later. For his efforts, Franklin was humiliated in a Privy Council hearing and stripped of his title of Postmaster General of the Colonies. On the other hand, this was the event that tipped Benjamin Franklin firmly over to the cause of liberty.

  • 250 and Counting: January 27, 1775

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    Cover Art for January 27, 1775: A portrait of General Gage

    William Legge was the second Lord Dartmouth and the Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1772 to the end of 1775. He was also step-brother to Lord North, who gets a mention in this episode.

    While he was a supporter of the constitutional supremacy that Parliament maintained they held over the Colonies, Lord Dartmouth was also the Colonists’ best hope for some form of reconciliation.

    Dartmouth’s resolve to achieve this reconciliation was damaged by the Boston Tea Party, so by this time he ordered Gage to put some extra pressure on the Colonists. Unfortunately this backfired badly and led to the battles at Lexington and Concord, which we’ll talk about in a future episode. Even after that, however, Legge couldn’t fully support armed coercion against the Americans, and he resigned his post in November, which basically ended his political career.

    Legge was considered by many to be very pious and gentle, to the point where some people called him “the Psalm Singer.” He died in 1801, nearly forgotten. Even his final resting place no longer exists, as it was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II.