Description:

1774 LONDON EDITION OF 'THE LETTERS OF GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON...'
Rare and important imprint: THE LETTERS OF GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON, AND LIEUT. GOVERNOR OLIVER, &c. PRINTED AT BOSTON. AND REMARKS THEREON. WITH THE ASSEMBLY'S ADDRESS, AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LORDS COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL. TOGETHER WITH THE SUBSTANCE OF MR. WEDDERBURN'S SPEECH RELATING TO THOSE LETTERS. AND THE REPORT OF THE LORDS COMMITTEE TO HIS MAJESTY IN COUNCIL, bound with: 'PROCEEDINGS ON THE ADDRESS OF THE ASSEMBLY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, TO REMOVE HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNOR AND LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR (London: J. Wilkie), 1774. Together 74pp. 8vo., disbound and untrimmed, in fine to very fine condition. The Hutchinson letters affair was an incident that increased tensions between the colonists of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and the British government prior to the American Revolution. In June 1773, letters written several years earlier by Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver, who were governor and lieutenant governor of the province at the time of their publication, were published in a Boston newspaper. The content of the leaked letters was propagandistically claimed by Massachusetts radical politicians to call for the abridgement of colonial rights, and the affair served to inflame tensions in Massachusetts, where the implementation of the 1773 Tea Act was met with resistance that culminated in the Boston Tea Party in December 1773. The response of the British government to the publication of the letters served to turn Benjamin Franklin, one of the principal figures in the affair, into a committed patriot. Bostonians were outraged at the content of the published letters, burning Hutchinson and Oliver in effigy on Boston Common. Acts of protest took place as far away as Philadelphia. The Board of Trade dismissed Franklin from his post as colonial Postmaster General and dismissed the petition for Hutchinson's removal as 'groundless' and 'vexatious'. Parliament then passed the so-called 'Coercive Acts', a package of measures designed to punish Massachusetts for the Tea Party. Hutchinson was recalled, and the Massachusetts governorship was given to the commander of British forces in North America, Lieutenant General Thomas Gage. Hutchinson left Massachusetts in May 1774, never to return, and Andrew Oliver suffered a stroke and died in March 1774.

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August 15, 2024 10:00 AM EDT
Elkton, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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