First of the Hutchinson Letters Published
This episode relates the publication of the Hutchinson Letters, which Benjamin Franklin had leaked to the Speaker of the House in Massachusetts while he was living in London. The leaked letters infuriated and already irritated American audience.
From the Book
A Day in United States History - Book 1
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Greetings, this episode relates the publication of the Hutchinson Letters, which Benjamin Franklin had leaked to the Speaker of the House in Massachusetts while he was living in London. The leaked letters infuriated and already irritated American audience.
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June 29, 1773 - First of the Hutchinson Letters Published
Leaking sensitive government documents is nothing new. Ben Franklin, in an attempt to soothe the heat of the growing American Revolution, ended up fanning the flames instead when he sent a packet of letters written by Boston Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson that he had acquired to colonial leaders.
Thomas Hutchinson (September 9, 1711 – June 3, 1780)
The son of Thomas and Sarah Foster Hutchinson, Thomas was native to Boston Massachusetts. His father was a successful businessperson and active in Boston politics. Thomas enrolled in Harvard and became involved in his father's business, where he was successful. Politically active himself when he gained election to the Boston assembly in 1737, Hutchinson held several elective posts in Massachusetts before his appointment as 1767. He had held several unpopular positions during his terms in his various posts, thus he was not popular with colonial leaders. He cooperated with Benjamin Franklin during his efforts to form a colonial union in 1754. This was during the early, uncertain years of the French and Indian War. His efforts to soothe relations between the colonies and Britain in the 1770's led to misunderstandings. Caught between rebelling colonists and the British government, Hutchinson sent a series of letters to Thomas Whately, a leading member of the British government.
The Letters
In these letters, Hutchinson made a series of serious allegations and proposals about the deteriorating relations between the colonials and British. He sent these letters in early 1773. The letters, in part, suggested that colonial rights might have to be abrogated and that all colonial government posts be placed directly under the control of the British government and taken away from colonial control. The letters contained other assertions that would enrage colonial leadership if made public.
Franklin's Role
Benjamin Franklin had been stationed in Brittan as a representative of the Pennsylvania government in 1757 and had been in London since then. Franklin had grown to love all things British and had watched in dismay as relations between the colonies and Britain. He acquired a packet containing thirteen of the letters in early December 1772. After reading the letters, Franklin understood their inflammatory nature. He sent the letters to Speaker of the Massachusetts assembly Thomas Cushing, asking that they not be published. Cushing, after reading them, had them published anyway, without revealing that it was Franklin that sent them. The first of these letters saw publication on June 29, 1773. The resulting political firestorm would turn Franklin from his role of reconciler between the colonials and British to a revolutionary.
Written in a "this day in history," format, each of the two books in this collection of North American colonial history events includes 366 history stories. The historical collection of tales includes many well-known as well as some little-known events in the saga of the United States. The easy to follow "this day in history," format covers a wide range of the people, places and events of early American history. I is the first book in my series, 366 Days in History Series. Each book includes 366 stories of American history. It is availble, with many of my other titles on gardening, Indiana places and history and United States History, at the Walnut Street Variety Shop in downtown Batesville, Indiana.
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