Hancock: Igniting the Revolution

As covered in our video: Hancock: The Rise of the Merchant Prince, while remembered today primarily for his John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock’s importance to the American Revolution was vastly more than history tends to give him credit today, including his public protests against the Stamp Act, among others, helping to sway the masses, as well as the Liberty Affair centered around the seizing of his ship and the widely publicized trial after further whipping everyone up.

This all now brings us to the next stage of Hancock’s life and the revolution, when a relatively rapid sequence of events in Massachusetts further inflamed the masses and, finally, ignited the American Revolution.

Our story today begins about a year after Hancock’s seized ship the Liberty was run ashore and burned to cinders by disgruntled colonists. At this point, tensions were still extremely high in the region in no small part thanks to Boston still being host to the British soldiers sent there to keep order in the aftermath of the Liberty Affair. Beyond the obvious reason the colonists wouldn’t appreciate this, the soldiers were also actively competing for jobs with the locals and on top of that were being used to enforce the practice of impressment, wherein men of fighting age were abducted and forced to serve in the Royal Navy.

Needless to say, by the spring of 1770, clashes between soldiers and civilians were on the rise. In one such incident on March 2, an employee at John Gray’s Ropewalk, which made cables for sailing ships, asked a passing soldier “Do you want work?” When the soldier replied that he did, the employee shot back, “Well, then, go and clean my shithouse!” The irate soldier later returned with a dozen comrades and a violent fistfight broke out.

But this was child’s play compared to what was coming next.

Three days later, on March 5, British Army Captain John Goldfinch was walking down King Street when Edward Garrick, a wigmaker’s apprentice, burst out of his shop and declared: “There goes the fellow who hath not paid my master for dressing his hair!” When Goldfinch ignored him and kept walking, Garrick gave chase, insisting to bystanders that Goldfinch owed him money. A nearby British sentry named Hugh White overhead the argument and confronted Garrick, insisting that “[Goldfinch] is a gentleman, and if he owed you anything he will pay for it.” Garrick spat back that “There are no gentlemen left in the regiment,” leading to a violent argument and White striking Garrick with his musket butt, knocking him to the ground.

The commotion soon drew a large crowd, who began taunting White with cries of “Bloody lobster back!” and pelting him with snowballs and chunks of ice.

Fearing for his life, White retreated from his sentry box to the steps of the nearby customs house, loaded his musket, and began waving it about, warning the crowd to stay back. When the crowd only continued to grow and close in, he banged his musket on the customs house door and steps and cried out: “Turn out, Main Guard!”

Meanwhile, a few blocks north, another mob gathered and began pelting a group of soldiers with snowballs, forcing them to retreat into their barracks. This mob had gathered in response to rumours that the British planned to cut down the Liberty Tree, an elm tree in South Boston which had been hung with effigies of people who had supported the Stamp Act. Upon learning of the situation unfolding at the Customs House, this mob, some two hundred strong, began marching towards King Street to join the other, chanting “Let’s away to the Main Guard!” as they went.

News of the rapidly deteriorating situation soon reached Captain Thomas Preston, officer of the day at the Main Guard barracks. Preston faced a difficult dilemma; if he did not act, Hugh White might be killed or severely injured by the mob. But if he intervened, he risked facing down a mob that greatly outnumbered his own forces. Critically for he and his men’s safety, the law forbade him from opening fire on civilians without direct orders from a Magistrate. After vacillating on it, Preston finally made up his mind, rounding up his men with the cry of “Turn out, damn your bloods, turn out!” With fixed bayonets, Captain Preston and seven men marched out of their barracks and pushed their way through the gathering mob to Private White, still trapped on the steps of the Customs House. But when they attempted to march back to the barracks, the mob closed in tighter, pelting them with snowballs, lumps of coal, oyster shells and other missiles. Preston ordered the crowd to disperse, but was ignored.

It was then that Crispus Attucks, 47-year-old mixed race whaler and stevedore, burst from the crowd, grabbed Private Hugh Montgomery’s musket, and knocked him to the ground. Montgomery immediately scrambled to his feet, cried out “Damn you, fire!” and discharged his musket into the crowd. After a short pause – reported by witnesses as anywhere between six seconds and two minutes, the other soldiers also opened fire on the crowd. By the time Captain Preston yelled “Stop firing! Do not fire!” five men lay dead or dying: Crispus Attucks, rope maker Samuel Gray, mariner James Caldwell, apprentice ivory turner Samuel Maverick, and leather worker Patrick Carr. Six others were seriously wounded, including shipwright’s apprentice Christopher Monk, who eventually died of his wounds in 1780.

In the aftermath, future President John Adams, who in our aforementioned video, Hancock: Rise of the Merchant Prince, would defend his boyhood friend John Hancock against the British in the Liberty Affair, would this time seemingly oddly choose the other side. As to why, it was merely the principle of the thing. Adams wanted to make sure the soldiers got a fair trial, and saw the affair as an opportunity to demonstrate that the colonists could conduct themselves properly according to the rule of law, and were worthy of independence and self-government. He thus readily accepted the case, charging a modest fee of only 18 guineas for his extensive services.

Given tensions at the time and very real mob justice rampant, which is why the soldiers were there in the first place, this placed himself and his family at extreme personal risk, as well as, for all he knew at that point, would see his reputation ruined as the man who not only sided with the British, but seemingly murderers. As for his wife, Abigail, Adams would write on March 5, 1773, that his equally principled other half gave him her full support, “That excellent Lady, who has always encouraged me, burst into a flood of Tears, but said she was very sensible of all the Danger to her and to our Children as well as to me, but she thought I had done as I ought, she was very willing to share in all that was to come and place her trust in Providence.”

In the end, after a lengthy trial, the jury took only a few hours to reach a verdict. On December 5, 1770 – exactly nine months to the day after the massacre – all eight defendants were acquitted of murder, while two – Privates Matthew Kilroy and Hugh Montgomery – were convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter. However, Adams was able to spare them imprisonment by invoking something of a loophole known as Benefit of Clergy.

Adams would sum up after the soldiers were acquitted, “The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however… one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.”

Going back to Adams’ childhood friend in John Hancock, while Hancock wasn’t involved the Boston Massacre itself, in the aftermath he lead a committee in demanding Governor Thomas Hutchinson order the removal of the British soldiers in Boston, with Hancock threatening the Governor that if they were not removed, over 10,000 armed colonists would make them leave. And so it was that Boston was finally mostly free of its occupying force, who were sent to Castle William, today Fort Independence, on Castle Island in Boston Harbor.

The good news only got better for the colonists when around this same time, much like had happened when the Stamp Act was repealed as noted in our previous video in this series, the message that most of the Townshend Acts were repealed arrived on one of John Hancock’s ships in April of 1770, with Hancock himself getting to reveal this fact at a town meeting.

Combined with his extremely generous and charismatic nature, as well as the fact that Hancock had sent a number of letters to Parliament protesting the acts, and sent similar letters to many of his extremely wealthy business associates in Britain asking them to put pressure on Parliament to revoke them, and helping to get the soldiers removed from town, let’s just say a more beloved man in Boston you’d be hard pressed to find at this point.

And speaking of being beloved, now at 33 years old and one of the wealthiest people in all of America, Hancock’s Aunt Lydia was set on finding him a suitable wife, though at this point having long been unsuccessful despite countless prominent families she’d had over with their very eligible daughters. Before this, Hancock’s love-life seemingly centered around having courted for nearly a decade the daughter of Captain Joseph Jackson, but he ultimately broke off the relationship for reasons unclear. After this, he also is known to have had a long time mistress in a shop owner at the wharf, one Dorcas Griffith, who allegedly also on the side before and after becoming Hancock’s mistress had a lively alternate trade catering to men of the region with more than just her shop wares. However, the two had some sort of falling out for unknown reasons, though it is speculated to be centered around her support of the British side of things given that when the British left, so did she.

Whatever the case there, Hancock’s Aunt Lydia finally was successful in finding a girl Hancock was interested in marrying in the 23 year old daughter of one of Hancock’s former neighbors as a child in Braintree, Justice Edmund Quincy. Quincy’s daughter, Dorothy, nicknamed “Dolly”, caught Hancock’s eye when Lydia invited her to come vacation with Hancock and her, which went very well and the two were soon affianced.

While all this was happening, Hancock was elected to the Governor’s Council, something that had happened before, but owing to Hancock’s opposition to much of the governing activities, the governor had previously vetoed Hancock’s election. This time, however, in an attempt to woo Hancock over to his side and bury the hatchet, the governor approved it. That said, Hancock himself declined the position, not wanting to so overtly buddy up to the Governor. Also around this time, he was made a Colonel overseeing Boston’s First Corps of Cadets, some of whom by the way would later allegedly take part in the Boston Tea Party.

On the other side of the political conflict, Samuel Adams formed the Boston Committee of Correspondence which, in turn, resulted in the formation of countless more similar local bodies throughout Massachusetts and beyond, in a loose network of groups dedicated to the opposition of various acts of Parliament- with all of these beginning to coordinate their efforts.

Not a good sign for the British government. Who were about to make it all far worse for themselves in an effort to make the British East India Company happy.

As had happened initially with the Stamp Act, Hancock was once again caught in between given the House of Hancock so heavily depended on British trade. Thus, at first, he declined to join the Committee of Correspondence despite how prominent he’d been up to this point in opposing British Parliament efforts. However, when matters began to heat up once again with the revelation that some of the Governor’s private letters had mentioned suspending various liberties of the colonists, as before, Hancock chose to side with the colonists, demanding the governor resign his position.

This all now brings us to the so-called “tea crisis” which the Boston Committee of Correspondence was charged with sorting.

We’ll spare you all the political and mercantile minutiae, but suffice it to say, thanks to rampant smuggling and extremely high taxes on tea in Britain, the British East India Company had a lot of excess tea and couldn’t compete with the prices of smuggled Dutch tea in Britain or the colonies. Further, they were not legally allowed to sell their tea directly to the colonies, increasing prices even more there. That all changed with the Tea Act of 1773. This not only allowed them to sell their tea directly to the colonies, cutting out the middleman in Britain, but the totality of the change in law and reduction of taxes also allowed them to sell it at an even cheaper price than the smuggled Dutch tea in the colonies at the time.

This seemed like a win for everyone, even the colonists who would now be able to get their tea massively cheaper than before legally, and slightly cheaper than they could before with smuggled tea.

But, you see, there were a number of problems with all this from the colonists’ side. First, it was many of their own merchants who were smuggling the Dutch tea in and their prices were now going to be undercut, essentially putting them out of the tea business. On top of that, the Tea Act that enacted all this would in practice give the British a monopoly on tea in the region, with the fear being this would spread to other goods via similar parliamentary action. On top of that, there was, of course, the principle of the thing- that the colonists still were resentful of any such taxes levied against them, particularly with such taxes being used to pay for British officials and soldiers occupying the colonies that the colonists weren’t happy about being there.

Of course, both Parliament and the British East India Company were well aware of the potential negative reaction to all this, and it was even lobbied that they should just get rid of the part of the legislation that taxed the tea as if it was kept, it was thought the colonists would outright reject the tea no matter how cheap they made it. WIthout the tax, this would still all be a major benefit to the British East India Company then as was one of the main points of the legislation. However, Prime Minister Lord North pushed back on this, insisting the tax must be kept in order to help pay for the salaries of the various colonial officials. It was overall hoped, however, given the price would be much cheaper than before, and the tax so low, the colonists would ultimately just accept it.

When this was decided, the British East India merchants were hopeful they could sweep the whole issue of the tax under the rug by just paying it directly in London or in some other clandestine fashion the colonists would not be so overtly aware of, with the tax very much masked in the super cheap price of the tea.

It was not to be, however, and when the colonists got word of the tax and incoming tea, they united against it via the aforementioned Committees.

There was a problem, however. Seven ships containing over 2,000 chests of tea were on their way, bound for Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York.

So how to respond?

A boycott on tea in this case wasn’t deemed sufficient. A greater message needed sent back to Parliament.

And so it was that protestors successfully coerced the tea consignees in Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York to resign their positions, with the tea in Charleston ultimately unclaimed and seized because of it, and the tea in New York and Philadelphia seeing the captains choosing to just return to England without unloading their cargo.

But then we get to Massachusetts, the birthplace of the revolution. There, Governor Hutchinson was determined to not have this happen and made sure the tea consignees refused to yield to the colonists’ demands. It probably helped that two of the consignees were the Governor’s sons. Thus, they did not resign, and were prepared to do their jobs when the tea arrived.

And so it was that when the Dartmouth arrived with its load of tea on November 28, 1773, a meeting was set at Faneuil Hall on the 29th, though because of how many thousands of people showed up, it had to be moved to the Old South Meeting House.

There it was decided that a group of colonists would be in charge of making sure the tea could not be unloaded and to monitor the ship and harbor 24/7. They also entreated the captain of the Dartmouth, James Hall, to simply return back to England, similar to what had happened in New York and Philadelphia. Noteworthy the owner of the Dartmouth and the Beaver which was soon to arrive with more tea was Nantucket, Massachusetts native William Rotch who ultimately was also on board with the plan to simply send the ships back.

The issue, however, was that Governor Hutchinson would not back down, refusing to let Captain Hall leave without first paying the import duty tax, whether he unloaded the cargo or not. There was also the fact that British Admiral John Mantagu had ships just outside the harbor set to intervene if the Dartmouth tried to leave without paying the duty, or if the colonists forced her to leave.

Thus, Captain Hall could not unload his tea thanks to the colonists and he could not return to England without paying the tax. And if he did pay the tax, let’s just say the colonists would not be pleased with their fellow colonist William Rotch or him. A good old fashioned stand-off.

You might at this point wonder why the governor didn’t simply send to Castle William for troops to be dispatched to disband the colonists guarding the docks day and night. Well, the consignees did request this, but the request was denied. Presumably with the Boston Massacre fresh on their minds, they didn’t wish to put their soldiers in close proximity to the now even more enraged colonists.

And, regardless, the Governor felt he was going to win by default.

You see, the law required if the cargo was not unloaded and duties paid within 20 days, the customs officials could confiscate the cargo regardless of what the Captain wanted to do. This would allow Admiral Montagu and soldiers from Castle William to bring ships over and simply take the cargo back to Castle William. From there, at their leisure they could at any time clandestinely sell it to any merchants willing to buy it. This would see the tea successfully unloaded onto American soil no matter what the colonists wanted.

In the interim of the deadline, two more tea ships, the Beaver and the Eleanor, arrived and were subsequently stuck in the same boat… metaphorically speaking.

And so it was that with only a day to spare on the deadline where the tea could be confiscated, roughly 5,000-7,000 people, about 1 in 3 of all humans in Boston at the time, gathered at the Old South Meeting House, with John Hancock moderating the debate.

John Adams would later sum up the state of things at this point as discussed at the meeting, “They could not send it back, the Governor, Admiral and Collector and Controller would not suffer it. It was in their Power to have saved it-but in no other. It could not get by the Castle, the Men of War &c. Then there was no other Alternative but to destroy it or let it be landed. To let it be landed would be giving up the Principle of Taxation by Parliamentary Authority, against which the Continent have struggled for 10 years, it was losing all our labour for 10 years and subjecting ourselves and our Posterity forever to Egyptian Taskmasters — to Burthens, Indignities, to Ignominy, Reproach and Contempt, to Desolation and Oppression, to Poverty and Servitude.”

The Boston Gazette on December 20th would further report of the meeting’s events “…being inform’d by Mr. Rotch [the owner of the Dartmouth and Beaver], that a clearance was refus’d him, they enjoyn’d him immediately to enter a protest and apply to the governor for a pass port by the castle, and adjourn’d again till three o’clock for the same day. At which time they again met and after waiting till near sunset Mr. Rotch came in and inform’d them that he had accordingly enter’d his protest and waited on the governor for a pass, but his excellency told him he could not consistent with his duty grant it until his vessel was qualified. The people finding all their efforts to preserve the property of the East India company and return it safely to London, frustrated by the tea consignees, the collector of the customs and the governor of the province, DISSOLVED their meeting.”

Before the meeting broke up, however, with the continued refusal by the governor, Samuel Adams famously stated, “This meeting can do nothing further to save the country.”

Also famously during all this, when the mood of the masses was seemingly dead set on the destroying the tea, rather than use his popularity and influence to try to dissuade anyone of anything, John Hancock would state, “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes.”

And it was on.

What followed was the then named “Destruction of the Tea”, though today is better known as the Boston Tea Party, in which a group of colonists, some of whom disguising themselves as Native Americans in a symbolic rejection of their British birthrights, boarded the three ships. The aforementioned Boston Gazette news account would describe what happened next,

“A number of brave & resolute men, determined to do all in their power to save their country from the ruin which their enemies had plotted, in less than four hours, emptied every chest of tea on board the three ships commanded by the captains Hall, Bruce, and Coffin, amounting to 342 chests, into the sea! without the least damaged done to the ships or any other property. The masters and owners are well pleas’d that their ships are thus clear’d ; and the people are almost universally congratulating each other on this happy event.”

As to how the individuals got into the holds without doing any damage to the ships, well, the captains had seemingly told their crews not to resist. For example, it was reported that the group that boarded the Beaver, “sent a man to the mate, who was on board, in his cabin, with a message, politely requesting the use of a few lights, and the brig’s keys—so that as little damage as possible might be done to the vessel;—and such was the case. The mate acted the part of a gentleman altogether. He handed over the keys without hesitation, and without saying a single word, and sent his cabin-boy for a bunch of candles, to be immediately put in use.”

It was even reported that after the dumping, the rather polite rebels even took the time to sweep the decks clean, though they were cognisant of the fact that at any time Admiral Montagu and his men could descend upon them, so worked as quickly as they could.

As for Montagu, he was not ignorant of what was happening, and stated he watched the entire thing, even taunting some of those involved. As to why he did nothing, he would justify his actions, or lack thereof, the following day, “I could easily have prevented the Execution of this Plan, but must have endangered the Lives of many innocent People by firing upon the Town.”

In the aftermath, it would be none other than Paul Revere who was dispatched with the message of events by the Boston Committee of Correspondence to inform similar committees in New York. With his message more or less mirroring exactly what was reported in the Boston Gazette the next day, in parts word for word.

Another interesting aside is that there was also a lesser known Destruction of the Tea that occurred in Cape Cod shortly after the Boston tea party. Unlike in Boston, the tea in Cape Cod was successfully delivered and sold, only to see members of the Sons of Liberty track down where it was being stored, after which they destroyed it in March of 1774. Being rather thorough, after this, they found one merchant who’d already purchased some in Davison, Newman and Co. and, dressed as Native Americans again, broke into the tea shop, took the tea to the harbor, and unceremoniously dumped it in.

While all of this might have seemed like an overreaction to what was, after all, much cheaper legal tea, Hancock would write in a letter dated December 21, 1773, “No one circumstance could possibly have taken place more effectively to unite the Colonies than this manouvre of the Tea. It is Universally Resented here and people of all ranks detest the measure.”

John Adams would chime in in his diary on December 17, 1773, “This is the most magnificent Movement of all. There is a Dignity, a Majesty, a Sublimity, in this last Effort of the Patriots, that I greatly admire. The People should never rise, without doing something to be remembered—something notable And striking. This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I cant but consider it as an Epocha in History.”

Adams would also write to one Catherine Macaulay back in London in the aftermath warning, “let me tell those wise Ministers, I would not advise them to try many more such Experiments. A few more such Experiments will throw most of the Trade of the Colonies into the Hands of the Dutch, or will erect an independent Empire in America, perhaps both. Nothing but equal Liberty and kind Treatment can Secure the attachment of the Colonies to Britain…”

It should also at this point be explicitly pointed out that because of the extreme stigma with regards to tea in the aftermath of all this, tea drinking in America sharply dropped in popularity and coffee came to dominate.

Going back to John Hancock, other than his aforementioned words at the final meeting to the crowd, he seemingly did not directly take part in the event as far as history is aware. However, given his extremely prominent position in the opposition, the British were convinced he was behind it, with one officer proclaiming “it was KING HANCOCK and the damn’d sons of liberty.” With this nickname ultimately being adopted by the colonists, even used as a rallying cry of “King Hancock forever!”

One of those who did definitely take part in the Tea Party, Joseph Dyar, was also soon after arrested for boasting about his part in the affair. And on his way back to England after being arrested, he would claim both a British colonel and Admiral Montagu had tried to bribe him to claim that John Hancock had been behind the Destruction of the Tea, though British officials would later deny they ever made such an offer to Dyar, who was ultimately released and sent back to America in October of 1774.

Whatever the case there, back in Britain, Parliament was in an uproar about the event, with Prime Minister Lord North declaring in the House of Commons on April 22, 1774, “The Americans have tarred and feathered your subjects, plundered your merchants, burnt your ships, denied all obedience to your laws and authority; yet so clement and so long forbearing has our conduct been that it is incumbent on us now to take a different course. Whatever may be the consequences, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over.”

Attempting to smooth things over, New York Merchant Robert Murray banded with others and offered to pay for the lost tea, but Lord North rejected their request. And instead Parliament passed a sequence of what would ultimately be dubbed the “Intolerable Acts” as punishment, with three of them directed solely at Massachusetts.

These were: the Boston Port Act- which closed the port until both the colonists paid for the destroyed tea and officials were satisfied with the Boston citizens’ order; the Massachusetts Government Act- removing the Massachusetts charter and making the colony more directly subject to Britain via most colonial government positions now to be appointed by the governor or Parliament or King. This also mostly banned town meetings in all of Massachusetts without governor assent. Finally the Administration of Justice Act- which made it so any royal officials accused of a crime would have their trial now take place in Britain, meaning any witnesses against such officials would have to travel to Britain to testify, thus most any official could now get away with an awful lot without fear of reprisal. On this one, the British government felt that the colonists were no longer capable of giving officials a fair trial, though the colonists fired back that they had done just this with the Boston Massacre despite the extreme tensions at the time.

Regardless of these Acts only leveled at Massachusetts, other colonies didn’t take kindly to Parliament asserting dominance over Massachusetts, ultimately continuing the trend of uniting the colonies together against what was more and more considered not their common homeland, but their common enemy.

It didn’t help that Britain also tacked on the Quartering Act to expand the power of British troops to find housing in the colonies. On this, if suitable housing was not provided for the soldiers by members of the colonies, the soldiers could simply occupy buildings as they pleased, though contrary to popular belief it would seem they were technically only allowed to occupy unoccupied buildings in such a case, not currently occupied private homes as is usually claimed.

Also in response to the Tea Party, General Thomas Gage was assigned to replace Hutchinson as governor. Noteworthy General Gage was a man who once wrote, “America is a mere bully, from one end to the other, and the Bostonians by far the greatest bullies.” And that “democracy is too prevalent in America” and things like town meetings and the like should be abolished to squash it and the rising threat it presented.

Speaking of such town meetings, a few months after the Boston Tea Party, on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1774, John Hancock would continue to assert himself as a leader of the budding rebellion, giving a public speech calling for the colonists to prepare to fight if necessary, stating,

“Security to the persons and properties of the governed is so obviously the design and end of civil government, that to attempt a logical proof of it would be like burning tapers at noonday, to assist the sun in enlightening the world; and it cannot be either virtuous or honorable to attempt to support a government of which this is not the great and principal basis… Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny…the troops of George III. have crossed the wide Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to assist a band of traitors in trampling on the rights and liberties of his most loyal subjects in America… let not the miscreant host vainly imagine that we feared their arms. No; them we despised; we dread nothing but slavery. Death is the creature of a poltroon’s brains; ’tis immortality to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation of our country… That gloomy night, the pale-faced moon, and the affrighted stars that hurried through the sky, can witness that we fear not death…. I conjure you, by all that is dear, by all that is honorable, by all that is sacred, not only that ye pray, but that ye act; that, if necessary, ye fight, and even die, for the prosperity of our Jerusalem. Break in sunder, with noble disdain, the bonds with which the Philistines have bound you.“

Naturally from all this, a few months after his arrival, General Gage would remove Hancock as Colonel of the Boston Cadets on August 1, 1774, though the Cadets did not take this lying down, meeting not long after and voting to disband in protest. After this, they gave their uniforms and equipment to Hancock for safe keeping until they could reform. Although disbanded, some of them would go on to join the revolutionary forces.

In any event, beyond all this, General Gage would also cancel all meetings of the General Court.

But, once again, if you take away people’s legal avenues to resist what they deem injustices, they will simply turn to illegal ways to do the exact same thing.

Thus, the colonists decided if the General Court couldn’t convene, they’d take the first full steps towards overt treason, establishing in October of 1774 the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, with this body completely independent from the British, and with none other than John Hancock as their chosen President. Seeing the writing on the wall for what was coming, among other things, this Congress under Hancock established the first of the minutemen companies that would soon be so critical to the rebellion.

Fast-forward to December of 1774, Hancock was elected to the Second Continental Congress, now serving both there and in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress as President.

And so it was that in April of 1775, Samuel Adams and John Hancock left Boston to attend the Provincial Congress in Concord. Deeming it unsafe to return to Boston afterwards, Adams and Hancock decided to instead stay at Hancock’s brief childhood home in Lexington. And if those two town names of Lexington and Concord put so closely in conjunction to one another are cluing you into that something major was about to go down, you are correct.

With these more overtly treasonous activities taking place, Secretary of State William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, instructed General Gage “to arrest the principal actors and abettors in the Provincial Congress whose proceedings appear in every light to be acts of treason and rebellion.”

Shortly after this, on the night of April 18, 1775, General Gage dispatched a large contingent of soldiers to Concord, instructing them to destroy caches of military supplies the colonists had been storing there, and, while it’s not totally clear today based on written orders that survive, it was rumored they were to go arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Lexington as well. We’ll have more on this in the next installment of this series- Hancock: Revere’s Ride.