“The troops of George the third have crossed the 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… 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.”
These are the words of John Hancock spoken during the 1774 Boston Massacre commemoration at Faneuil Hall. While most today only know John Hancock for his name coming to be an expression when referring to one’s signature, it turns out there was good reason his signature was the most prominent on the Declaration of Independence.
Having risen from relatively humble origins to one of the wealthiest men in all of America, with a large part of his fortune depending on trade with Britain, when it was time to take sides, unlike so many of his elite contemporaries in his same boat, he curiously chose to sink his business and side with the rebels. Soon after, he was involved in a massive number of the early efforts against the British, from the Liberty Affair, to the Boston Tea Party, to being the principle reason for Paul Revere’s famous ride. Soon after this he was made President of the Continental Congress with his business and management acumen in that role being a huge reason the rebellion was able to function in the early going. In that role he was also the chief signer of the Declaration of Independence, later nine time governor of Massachusetts, and overall one of the most well known, and popular men in all of America during his lifetime, with at one point his popularity with the masses combined with his extreme wealth seeing the British mockingly nickname him “King Hancock.” Later, this moniker was taken up by the colonists as a term of endearment for the man, and even allegedly a rally cry during the famous battle of Lexington and Concord that kicked off the war. And yet, a funny thing happened after he died. Despite John Hancock being arguably one of the most critical of the revolutionaries in the first half of the affair, and his popularity with the masses of America being almost unparalleled in his lifetime as noted, for a variety of reasons, popular history would very quickly mostly forget the man other than his famous signature. In fact, the first full biography on John Hancock wasn’t even written until the 20th century, and it’s only been in recent decades historians have started to completely re-evaluate his story given the significance of so much that he was involved in, and the rather silly reasons, from a modern perspective, that contributed to him being so quickly dismissed after his death.
As one of the greatest Founding Fathers of them all in John Adams would write a few decades after Hancock passed away, “James Otis, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock were the three most essential characters [in the revolution]; and Great Britain knew it, though America does not. Great and important and excellent characters, aroused and excited by these, arose in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, South Carolina, and in all the other States, but these three were the first movers, the most constant, steady, persevering springs, agents, and most disinterested sufferers and firmest pillars of the whole Revolution.”
With such high praise from a man who himself was arguably in the top 3 of shapers of the budding United States, I think it’s time to get to know the individual he heaped such similar praise on. So without further ado, here now is the largely forgotten story of John Hancock. And we start, with the rise of this Merchant Prince.
Born on January 23, 1737 in a part of Braintree Massachusetts which would become present day Quincy, John Hancock’s life seemed destined to be relatively common. At the time of his birth, Braintree was comprised of only a few dozen families, though notably there was another baby there with Hancock, future President John Adams, who John Hancock’s father baptized only about a year and a half before baptizing his own son. As to those baptisms, Hancock’s father was one Reverend John Hancock Jr, a former Harvard graduate and librarian at that university who became a pastor at the United First Parish Church in Quincy several years before John Hancock was born. As the son and grandson of ministers, it seemed likely that the young boy himself would go on to become a minister, but it was not to be. You see, when he was a mere 7 years old, his father suddenly died at the age of just 41.
With no real means of supporting her family, initially his mother, Mary, and siblings went to live with his grandfather, bishop John Hancock Sr., in Lexington. As a brief aside, this home is where Paul Revere was initially heading to during his famous midnight ride just before the first shots of the American Revolution were fired.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Hancock’s rise and then extremely prominent role in the Revolution likely would have never taken place if not for Bishop Hancock Sr.’s other son, and John Hancock’s uncle, Thomas Hancock.
After leaving home at a mere 14 years old, Thomas initially worked as an apprentice bookseller and indentured servant to one Samuel Gerrish in Boston. Seven years later he had completed his contract, and thereafter opened his own bookstore. Not long after that, he started his own publishing house and later even a paper mill, which all ended up being extremely lucrative as Boston was, at the time, the central hub for publishing among the colonies. From here, Thomas expanded to wholesaling, then commodity bartering, next up investment banking, shipping and beyond, among other things importing or exporting everything from rum, fish, whale oil, and various manufactured goods, over the course of almost three decades building up an extremely prominent mercantile business known as the House of Hancock.
The only problem in all of this was that Thomas and his wife, Lydia, despite many years of marriage, had no children of their own and he was desirous of an heir. Naturally, with John Hancock’s father now dead, an arrangement was struck between the bishop, Mary, and Thomas. Thomas would support John’s mother and siblings and John would be sent to live with Thomas and Lydia at their estate at the top of Beacon Hill, where they would train him up to someday take over the family business, making John the heir of one of the largest fortunes in the colonies.
Naturally, this agreement being extremely beneficial to all involved, the deal was struck and Thomas took John to his home and his training began, first in the still prominent to this day Boston Public Latin School, which in Hancock’s time was already distinguished by such students as Benjamin Franklin, and would ultimately be the school that 5 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence would attend. Hancock would study for five years there before, at the age of 13 in 1750, he took and passed the entrance exams for Harvard, the second youngest in his class. Noteworthy during his time at Harvard, he also met up with one of his former friends who was attending at the same time, John Adams.
Unlike the rigid Adams, however, the young teen Hancock apparently had a reputation as a bit of a partier and drinker while at Harvard, including getting occasionally severely reprimanded for it. But nevertheless, at the age of 17, he graduated and was ready for the next stage of his education, working directly under his uncle at the House of Hancock, both learning business and being shaped into a prominent socialite among the elite. While Hancock had seemingly not taken his studies too seriously at Harvard, relatively speaking, now with his true future profession in sight, his attitudes seemed to shift remarkably, quickly becoming not just a master of finance and business, but reportedly extremely good with negotiation and that side of the business as well, and in general was noted for his extremely charismatic demeanor. John Adams would later write of this and Hancock’s work ethic that he quickly “became an example to all the young men of the town. Wholly devoted to business, he was as regular and punctual at his store as the sun in its course.”
Along the way he also took to being one of the best dressed men in all of America. From his bob wig to his velvet coats and ruffled shirts, down to his silver buckled shoes, he was the picture of an 18th century dandy who would have fit in with the best and most foppishly dressed in the courts of European aristocracy. This fact would somewhat bizarrely shape how history would view him as we’ll get into.
In any event, thanks to the Seven Years War and the House of Hancock’s heavy involvement in that in finance and military supplies on the side of the British, the firm was vaulted to even greater heights. When the conflict was over in 1760, the 23 year old John Hancock was sent to England for about a year on a mission to establish closer ties with various individuals there for the company- a final test for the young man by his Uncle, with his work up to this point exemplary. On this, Thomas wrote to some of his business associates that when John returned, if all went well, he intended to make him a full partner in the firm. As for John, Thomas wrote and advised him to “be frugal of Expenses, do Honor to your Country and furnish Your Mind with all wise Improvements… God Bless you and believe me, Your Loving Uncle.”
Hancock seemingly was blown away by London and all it offered, as well as just its sheer size and extreme populace of over 700,000 people. For reference here, at the time Boston had a mere 15,000 people and the largest city in the colonies, Philadelphia, wasn’t much greater at 19,000. Soaking it up, Hancock traveled around on business both locally in England and to Amsterdam, among other places. He also was there around the time of the coronation of King George III. But when he requested to stay longer to attend the coronation, unfortunately all was not well back home. While the business was prospering to an extreme degree, Thomas had grown ill thanks to occasional severe bouts with gout and some form of nervous disorder. Thus, he denied John’s request to allow him to stay to see the King crowned, and not long after wrote to his company’s countless business associates that he was making John a partner in the House of Hancock, and began the process of stepping back from day to day operations in favor of letting John spearhead things. A little over a year and a half later, on August 1, 1764, Thomas Hancock had a stroke and died.
While Thomas made many philanthropic bequests and deeded his mansion and household slaves to his wife (though noteworthy John Hancock would later free these slaves not long after himself inheriting them after his Aunt’s death), Thomas also left the majority of his fortune to his nephew. As to the size of the estate at this point, this was estimated to be over 70,000 pounds diversified in everything from ships, real estate, interest bearing loans and the like. While there is no good way to translate that amount to modern dollars, for at least one reference point, a few years earlier Thomas Hancock had sold a large estate he owned in Lexington for 476 pounds.
And so it was that the 27 year old John Hancock was now one of the richest men in all of America, head of one of the most prominent firms in the colonies, and fully trained up to vault the House of Hancock to even greater heights. Which he did do at first, but larger concerns soon interrupted all this.
As John Adams would write, “not less than a thousand families were, every day in the year, dependent on Mr. Hancock for their daily bread. Consider his real estate in Boston, in the country, in Connecticut, and the rest of New England. Had Mr. Hancock fallen asleep to this day, he would now awake one of the richest men. Had he persevered in business as a private merchant, he might have erected a house of Medicis… [But] no man’s property was ever more entirely devoted to the public.”
On this, with extremely close business ties in England and otherwise a loyal British subject, at this point everything was set up for Hancock to be a staunch loyalist in the upcoming conflict. Things would begin to shift, however, thanks to a handful of acts put forth by the rather deeply in debt British government, such as the Sugar Act of 1764. This was more or less just an updated version of the Molasses Act of 1733, which was passed not so much to actually collect any taxes on the lucrative Molasses trade in the colonies, but rather to try to kill trade from the French West Indies, at the behest of the plantation owners of the British West Indies. The issue for the colonists is this would also have simultaneously killed such things as their lucrative rum industry. So instead of adhering to the Molasses Act, they simply took to mass smuggling and bribing officials. It worked and nobody was too bothered with the Molasses Act in the end because of it.
The Sugar Act, in contrast, was actually meant to collect revenue, and thus they lowered the tax rate by half from the Molasses Act, and increased provisions and personnel to try to make sure they could collect it. As for why Parliament thought the colonists should be subjected to such a tax, after the Seven Years War, Britain’s national debt had almost doubled as a result, and in the aftermath they’d also decided that they needed to keep a standing army in the colonies of about 10,000 soldiers. But not exactly flush with cash, they needed a way to pay for them, and felt that because the soldiers were, in part, there for the colonists’ protection, they should, in turn, pay for them partially through this tax.
Naturally, the colonists, who generally resented the presence of the British army for various reasons even at this point and wanted them gone, didn’t agree. Further, this tax hit right when something of an economic depression was occuring in the colonies in the aftermath of the Seven Years War.
Then, of course, there was the principle of the thing. Samuel Adams would sum up the colonists’ argument against the Act, “For if our Trade may be taxed why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & every thing we possess or make use of? …If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?”
As a brief aside here, as was alluded to in our previous quote from John Adams about the three most important pillars of the revolution, Samuel Adams is another interesting character oft’ forgotten today who, without whom, there may have been no revolution, with his countless letters and articles published in the newspapers throughout the colonies spurring the masses towards this, among so much else he was involved with in the early going, similar to John Hancock. And, in fact, Samuel Adams is generally credited as being the one to convince John Hancock of the right of the patriot cause in the first place. As to why he’s often forgotten, there are several factors that went into it, but John Adams would ring in hinting at one of the issues- because so much of Samuel Adams’ writings and contributions in this way were lost or not credited to him. This was partially because, for reasons of not wanting to get hung, he published so much anonymously. And with regards to his personal correspondence with so many involved in the revolution, he also had a habit of burning all his letters. This was something John Adams would try to dissuade him from for posterity’s sake, but when he asked Samuel Adams why he burned them given the cost to the historical record and to himself in this, Samuel replied “Whatever becomes of me, my friends shall never suffer by my negligence.” In a nutshell, if the British got their hands on his correspondence, it may not just be Samuel Adams who would hang.
But in any event, going back to the taxes, the water got even hotter with the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, which put a tax on various legal documents and, unlike with smuggling, was mostly impossible to get around as any such legal document not possessing the required stamp wasn’t valid.
Despite the grumblings from the colonists, across the pond, member of parliament Charles Townshend argued more or less that the colonists should get over it, stating “and now will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our Indulgence until they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from heavy weight of the burden which we lie under?”
To which member of Parliament, Seven Years War veteran, and alleged coiner of the term “Sons of Liberty” in this very speech, Colonel Isaac Barré, would respond, “They planted by your care? No! Your oppression planted ’em in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and unhospitable country where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable… They nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of ’em. As soon as you began to care about ‘em, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over ’em, in one department and another… sent to spy out their liberty, to misrepresent their actions and to prey upon ’em; men whose behaviour on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them… They protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, have exerted a valour amidst their constant and laborious industry for the defence of a country whose frontier while drenched in blood, its interior parts have yielded all its little savings to your emolument …. The people I believe are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has, but a people jealous of their liberties and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated…”
Colonel Barré’s warnings, however, were not listened to and Parliament persisted.
Going back to Hancock’s view of all this, while seemingly sympathetic to those opposing these acts and having spoken out against such taxes, Hancock initially attempted to stay mostly neutral in it all, writing, “I am heartily sorry for the great burden laid upon us, we are not able to bear all things, but must submit to higher powers…”
Reflecting his desire to more or less stay out of it, he would also write to the governor when asked of his opinions, “I seldom meddle with Politicks, & indeed have not Time now to Say anything on that head.”
However, when mobs in Boston started targeting wealthy merchants and their homes, he finally had to pick a side, though not the one most in his position did. He not only threw his public support behind the protestors, but helped to fund their efforts too. On the former, for example, proclaiming at the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 in New York, “I will not be a slave. I have the right to the Liberties and Privileges of the English Constitution & I as an Englishman will enjoy them.” Despite the extreme negative impact on his business, he also joined in with countless others in boycotting British goods.
On top of this, he also began writing to his many prominent business associates in England asking them to put pressure on parliament to repeal the act. For one example, he writes,
“Our trade will entirely stagnate for it is the united resolution and determination of the people here not to carry on business under a stamp… I now tell you… you will find it come to pass that the people of this country will never suffer themselves to be made slaves of by a submission to that Damned act. But I shall now open to you my own determinations… it is my invariable opinion that this Act is unconstitutional and cruel, the expense of which we are not able to support; that I have come to a serious resolution not to send one ship more to sea nor to have any kind of connection in business under a stamp… I am determined as soon as I know that they are resolved to insist on this act to sell my stock in trade and shut up my warehouse doors… I am free and determined to be so I will not willingly and quietly subject myself to slavery. We are a people worthy of saving and our trade so much to your advantage worth keeping… on your side… …Thus much I thought to mention to you to let you see some of the ill Consequences of this act, and they are what will greatly affect Great Britain in the End, and Trade once lost is not easily Retrieved… -Your sincere friend but an enemy to the Stamps, John Hancock”
Ultimately their protesting efforts were successful, and the Stamp Act was repealed after only four months.
Important to the story at hand today on John Hancock’s rise in the nation, it wasn’t just repealed, but news of the repeal was brought by one of Hancock’s own ships, leading some to believe that Hancock had played an even more prominent role than he did.
His popularity locally was also boosted when, in the aftermath, he held a massive party for all in the town to celebrate. As reported in a local paper, “John Hancock Esq, who gave a grand and elegant entertainment to the genteel part of the town, and treated the populace with a pipe of Madeira wine, erected at the front of his house, which was magnificently illuminated, a stage for the exhibition of fireworks, which was to answer those of the sons of liberty! At dusk the scene opened by the discharge of twelve rockets from each stage; after which the figures on the pyramid were uncovered, making a beautiful appearance. To give a description of the great variety of fireworks exhibited from this time till eleven oclock would be endless- the air was filled with rockets- the ground with beehives and serpents- and the two stages with wheels of fireworks of various sorts…. At eleven oclock, the signal being given by a discharge of 21 rockets, the horizontal wheel on the top of the pyramid or obelisk was played off, ending in the discharge of 6 dozen of serpents in the air, which concluded the show”
Noteworthy in accounts of the party and aftermath is that none other than Paul Revere gets a mention, having engraved the obelisk.
Thanks to Hancock’s popularity and now openness to become involved in politics for the first time, in May of 1766, he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
His popularity would only rise further with significant continued philanthropy with the local populace, from substantial donations to a variety of local churches, to distributing firewood to the poor in winter, to occasionally abstaining from collecting rent from among his tenants who were struggling, to regular free concerts and entertainment for the community, to public service improvements to the the town Common including walkways, trees, and hundreds of street lamps. He also around this time began serving on dozens of local committees and just in general had a great reputation for being generous to everyone, right down to when a fire broke out in a local bake house, he gave funds to the individuals affected to rebuild. This was something he and his uncle had frequently seemingly done as a matter of course, such as when a fire had previously spread throughout the town in 1760 making many of his tenants and others homeless. The House of Hancock’s response was to distribute a large sum of money among those who were affected to help them recover from the ordeal.
As John Adams would state of Hancock, “If Benevolence, Charity, Generosity were ever personified in North America, they were in John Hancock.”
Not just that, but he also throughout all this became an even bigger employer in the region. As colonial governor Thomas Hutchinson would note, Hancock “…changed the course of his uncle’s business, and built, and employed in trade, a great number of ships, and in this way, by building at this time several houses, he found work for a great number of tradesmen, made himself popular, was chosen selectman, representative, moderator of town meetings, etc.”
On top of this, he was, once again, noted as being extremely charismatic and despite his high station in life, had a strong reputation for treating commoners no differently than he did his fellow elites, something that wasn’t exactly the norm at the time.
Needless to say, despite being among the wealthiest in the Americas at the time, with most of such ilk not exactly always seen in the best light by the masses, John Hancock was an exception. And he was about to get massively more popular outside of his home turf.
You see, still trying to drum up funds from the colonies and seemingly not getting the message with the escalating protests of the previous taxes, Parliament decided to try a different tack and pass a bunch of them in rapid succession, known collectively as the Townshend Acts.
In response, Samuel Adams issued a Circular Letter, making the formal argument that because the colonists were not represented in Parliament, that issuing such taxes on them violated the British Constitution.
In response to this, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Hillsborough, ordered the Massachusetts Court to revoke the letter, to which the Court responded in a landslide vote of 92 to 17 for Lord Hillsborough to shut up and mind his own business- denying his request. In response to that, Governor Francis Bernard went ahead and prorogued the assembly.
Naturally, temporarily taking away the only legal way for the colonists to protest meant they were left with only illegal ways. Unsurprisingly, the situation began to further deteriorate. And John Hancock was about to be at the center of it.
Being one of the largest importers and exporters in the colonies and smuggling being exceedingly common as noted, and even more so now with the additional taxes, the House of Hancock was certainly suspected of smuggling, though no proof was forthcoming. Nevertheless, on April 9, 1768, customs officials boarded one of Hancock’s recently arrived ships, the Lydia, sitting in Boston Harbor. Nothing amiss with that, just doing their job. However, one of the officials, Owen Richards, further attempted to search the hold of the vessel. When Hancock was allerted, and finding that the agents had no writ of assistance authorizing them to search his ship, with their prerogative only to observe what was loaded or unloaded, he and his men forcibly and under arms removed Richards from the hold and made he and his companion remain on the deck only.
As a result of this rough treatment, the officials attempted to take legal action against Hancock, but Attorney General Jonathan Sewall rejected their pleas, noting Hancock hadn’t actually broken any laws here. That said, they then appealed to the Commissioners in England to overrule Sewall, but before a reply could be had on the matter, they’d be satisfied with trying to go after Hancock in a different way. Noteworthy of this first event though, as the customs agents were physically removed from the hold, this is sometimes claimed to be the first physical violence against British officials in the Revolution.
Whatever the case there, let’s just say the masses on the colonist side thought even higher of Hancock after this, not only because he was allegedly smuggling goods to avoid paying the deemed injustice taxes, but essentially giving the finger to the customs agents trying to inspect and catch him at it.
But going back to going after Hancock in a different way- enter the Liberty Affair which, in turn, through a sequence of events partially as a result of it all ultimately lead to the Boston Massacre.
On all this- on May 9, 1768 Hancock’s ship, Liberty, arrived in Boston harbor in the evening carrying a shipment of Madeira wine, Hancock’s personal favorite, only to be inspected the morning after its arrival by customs collectors Joseph Harrison and Benjamin Hallowell who found that about 3/4 of the ship’s hold was empty. While this was suspicious, two other customs agents had been on the ship all night since its arrival and in sworn statements stated that nothing had been taken off the ship. Noteworthy is that these agents were extremely incentivized to reveal any smuggling activity as they would be granted one third of the value of the smuggled goods if they could catch someone doing this. But in this case, with the customs agents claiming nothing was taken off the ship, despite much of the hold being empty, nothing was to be done despite the raised eyebrows. Hancock paid his taxes on what was there and seemingly the matter was resolved.
That is, until about a month later, one of the customs agents who’d been aboard the Liberty all night after its arrival, Thomas Kirk, would claim there had actually been cargo unloaded in the night and the only reason he hadn’t said anything was that the Captain of the ship, John Marshall, had threatened he would be killed if he ever uttered a word about it. He further claimed that while he’d not seen the cargo himself, for about 3 hours of the night in question, he was locked in the steerage, but while there he had, to quote, “heard a Noise as of many people upon deck at Work hoisting out Goods.” As for the other customs official aboard, he allegedly got drunk or otherwise just fell asleep and so could not confirm or deny events. And as for Captain Marshall’s account, well, he had died in the interim, so could not testify.
In a June 22, 1768 news article it was thus reported what happened next, “Wednesday the 17th the Hon. Robert Auchmuty Esq. Judge of Admiralty for this province, decreed the sloop Liberty, seized the 10th of June last, to be forfeited; but the 200 barrels oil, and six barrels tar, which were on board her when seized, were cleared.”
As for this cargo, it had allegedly been put aboard for storage as the warehouses on the wharf were overfull, something that was technically illegal without a permit, but was a common practice in the harbor at the time. Noteworthy, it’s sometimes suggested given the loss of some of the records of the initial charges, that the reason for the seizing of the ship, and why Hancock never got it back, may have been partially for this lack of permit to have these goods aboard. Even though if that was the case, they could have just as well seized most of the ships in the harbor for the same.
Whatever the case there, Hancock was accused of having had the ship illegally unloaded in the night, arrested, and, as noted in the news report, the Liberty impounded. After a bit of wrangling over the matter, Hancock eventually was allowed to put up a £3000 bond to avoid being imprisoned, which was a good thing as the affair would be drug out for many months after.
As for the public response… Well this was the last straw. At the time, the masses were not just upset about the taxes, but also the presence of the relatively recently arrived HMS Romney as its captain, one John Corner, had been impressing colonists to forcibly serve in the British navy, with Corner arguing it was totally fine because he would “not take any belonging to, or married in the province, nor any employed in the trade along shore, or to the neighboring colonies.”
Such a reasonable fellow. Can’t imagine what they were upset about.
Beyond the obvious issues, Captain Corner’s activities were also deterring some merchant vessels from wanting to dock in Boston harbor for fear of losing members of their crews to the British navy via this impressment, and even many locals began avoiding the harbor for similar reasons.
Thus, when the Liberty was being seized and the popular individual in Hancock, who employed countless people in the region as well, was arrested, the gathered crowd witnessing the seizing of the ship were forming into a mob, but ultimately prevented from acting owing to the presence of the Romney and its guns pointed very much at them while all this was happening.
Not able to do anything to stop the seizing of the ship or arrest of Hancock, they instead turned to taking their ire out on local customs officials themselves. One of the customs officials, the aforementioned Joseph Harrison would later testify they swarmed he and his son, “The onset was begun by throwing dirt at me, which was presently succeeded by volleys of stones, brickbats, sticks or anything that came to hand: In this manner I run the gauntlet near 200 yards, my poor son…was knocked down and then laid hold of by the legs, arms and hair of his and in the manner dragged…”
Later that night, the mob convened on his home and, finding him very wisely not there, proceeded to ransack it. They then took Harrison’s pleasure boat, pulled it from the water and burned it in the streets. Harrison, his family, and other customs officials were thus forced to flee and lodge in Castle William, now called Fort Independence, for protection.
The local populace continued to seethe over it all and finally four regiments of Red Coats were eventually dispatched to Boston to keep the peace and protect the British officials in the town. The Journal of the Times would report on October 1, 1768, “At about 1 o’clock, all the troops landed under cover of the cannon of the ships of war, and march into the common, with muskets charged, bayonets fixed, colors flying, drums beating and fifes, & c. playing…”
While this had the desired effect of keeping order in the immediate, in the long term, what was considered more or less an occupying army, most decidedly had the opposite effect of keeping the peace.
Going back to the trial. As mentioned, at the time the government officials were actually incentivized to find Hancock guilty, as in so doing any penalties that would be levied against him would be partially awarded to not just the Crown, but the governor and Hancock’s accusers. On top of this, the trial was to have no jury, and did not allow the defense to cross-exam the witnesses.
In need of a very good lawyer, Hancock turned to his old friend, none other than future U.S. President John Adams, to defend him.
Adams would write of this,
“Mr. Hancock… thought fit to engage me as his Counsell and Advocate; and a painful Drudgery I had of his cause. There were few days through the whole Winter, when I was not summoned to attend the Court of Admiralty. It seemed as if the Officers of the Crown were determined to examine the whole Town as Witnesses. Almost every day a fresh Witness was to be examined upon Interrogatories. They interrogated many of his near Relations and most intimate Friends and threatened to summons his amiable and venerable Aunt… I was thoroughly weary and disgusted with the Court, the Officers of the Crown, the Cause, and even with the tyrannical Bell that dongled me out of my House every Morning…”
Adams’ defense of Hanock centered around a few things. First, by British law conviction based on testimony required more than one credible witness, which the court didn’t have, despite their sincerest efforts interviewing countless individuals. He also argued of the one witness they did have, that any witness who was to benefit from the conviction could not be trusted and that, to quote, “Indigent Persons and Beggars ought to be suspected, because they are easily corrupted.”
Second, that even if it were proved wine or other cargo had been unloaded illegally, the court didn’t have any evidence that Hancock himself was involved in any of it, nor was there any proof he had knowledge of such activities. With Adams writing, “But is the owner Either concerned or assisting in it, if he does not know of it. He may be asleep in his Bed, and not so much as know or dream that any Body is unshipping and landing his Wines. … Can it be proved that Captn. Marshall asked Leave of Mr. Hancock? Can it be proved that Mr. Hancock knew of this Frolick? If he neither consented to it, nor knew of it, how can he be liable to the Penalty?”
Adams further argued that even if it could be proved wine had been illegally unloaded AND that Hancock had complicit in it, seizing the ship and its cargo and then on top of that requiring Hancock to pay a substantial sum if convicted was disproportionate to the crime. Stating, “The Degree of severity in any Poenal Law is to be determined only by the Proportion between the Crime and the Punishment. Treason is justly punished with death because it is an attempt to overthrow the whole Frame of the Government, and the Government can never be overturned without the slaughter of many Hundreds of Lives and the Ruin of many Thousands of Fortunes. If a Man will murder his Fellow subject it seems but equal that he should lose his own Life. But in this Case what is the Crime? Landing a few Casks of Wine. Admitting the Crown to have the clearest Right to the Duties it is but unjustly taking away a small sum of Money from the Crown, and one would think that the forfeiture of £100 would be an equal Punishment for withholding £100 in Duties. But surely the Forfeiture of a whole Cargo of Wines worth Ten Thousand Pounds, for withholding one hundred Pounds in Duties would be a great Disproportion between the Crime and Punishment. To carry it one step further, and subject the ship, as well as Cargo to Confiscation, but above all to subject the Master to £1000, and every Person concerned to a forfeiture of threble value, is such a stretch of security as renders this Act more Penal, than any Statute vs. Rape, Robbery, Murder or Treason.”
Next up Adams vehemently argued that similar offenses in England would allow the defendant a jury trial, something Hancock was not being offered, which, to quote, “degraded [Hancock] below the Rank of an Englishman”.
And that, “I argue, that if We are to be governed by the Rules of the common Law We ought to adopt it as a whole and summon a Jury and be tryed by Magna Charta. Every Examination of Witnesses ought to be in open Court, in Presence of the Parties, Face to Face. And there ought to be regular Adjournments from one Time to another. What other Hypothesis shall we assume? Shall We say that We are to be governed by some Rules of the common Law and some Rules of the civil Law, that the Judge at his Discretion shall choose out of each system such Rules as please him, and discard the rest?”
After many months of apparently daily deliberations, whether via Adams’ arguments or simply that the state perhaps was concerned what would happen if they convicted Hancock with no real evidence, the matter was dropped, with it simply noted in the Court Records of March 25, 1769, “The Advocate General prays leave to Retract this Information and says our Sovereign Lord the King will prosecute no further hereon.” No further explanation was given. Nor is it fully clear why the Liberty was never returned to Hancock, and we’ll get into its interesting fate shortly. Because what she would be put to use for just pissed the colonists off further.
But for now you might be wondering if Hancock actually did have wine smuggled off the ship in the night or ever was involved in smuggling.
Well, in the general case, there has never been any known hard evidence that the House of Hancock under John Hancock took part in smuggling, although as noted it was an extremely common practice at the time and particularly given Hancock’s stance on these taxes and it almost being deemed downright patriotic to smuggle goods under the British official’s noses, it wouldn’t be surprising for one of the biggest importers and patriots in the region to have been involved in such activities. And, indeed, today you’ll find no shortage of claims that Hancock did, even sometimes specific figures like smuggling over a million tons of molasses per year. Although where these figures came from, especially as the smugglers weren’t stupid enough to leave documented evidence of any of it, isn’t clear.
As for this specific case, it’s likewise unclear if Hancock was smuggling wine, and given a letter Hancock had previously sent requesting the wine, it even seems like maybe the hold was mostly empty just because the main point of the wine was for Hancock himself, and any extra for wider sale was just if there was some available. For example, in a letter dated November 12, 1767 Hancock requested the Liberty bring, “Four pipes of the very best Madeira wine that you can possibly procure for my own table. I don’t stand for price, if it be good, I like a rich wine. And if you can ship a pipe of right sterling old madeira, pale and good, you will add it. I like pale wine, but I need say no more than that they are for my own use, and I beg they may be the very best that can be purchased…. I pray distinguish them from any other on board, by some private mark, acquainting me thereof in your letter. I am also to desire you will please to ship me by the same vessel six pipes of good salable Madeira wine for our market…. I would not have them of too inferior quality… You will also ship by my sloop two pipes more of the best madeira, consigned to me… They are for the treasurer of our province and you will please to let them be good… If you or your friends have any wine or freight to ship this way, I should be obligd to you to give my vessel the preference…. and you will please to receive this as a standing order to ship me an annual pipe of the very best Madeira wine…”
Thus, it may well be that they were simply fulfilling his personal request and didn’t have much else to send to fill out the hold. Or maybe they did and he had it all smuggled off.
Whatever the case there, with the help of Samuel Adams writing countless articles for papers throughout the colonies helping to cover the trial and the seeming injustices in it, John Hancock’s fame and popularity continued its meteoric rise among the colonists.
As for the fate of the Liberty, it was initially put up for sale by the British officials, but no one would deign to buy it, so ultimately the Customs Commission fitted it out to be a revenue cutter to patrol for anyone attempting to bypass customs via smuggling. Naturally, the now very ironically named Liberty being used for this incensed people further. And just a few months into its new life as a revenue cutter, on July 19, 1769, the Liberty seized two ships apparently involved in smuggling and brought them into Newport. But once there, the captain of one of those ships, Joseph Packwood, with a mob of disgruntled colonists behind him, decided it was time to put an end to Liberty. As reported in the The Journal of the Times on August 1, 1769, “a number of persons exasperated at the imprudent behavior of the captain and some of his people, went on board her as she lay at anchor, cut the cable, let her drift ashore and then set her on fire.”
With the occupying troops still stationed in Boston to keep order, and the populace of that city seething, this was just the beginning. But Hancock’s name was now on the map as a potential leader of the conflict to come. At this stage, however, almost no one was talking of actual revolution- seemingly just wanting their rights respected. But, soon, everything would change. Stay tuned next week for part two of this documentary series in our upcoming. Hancock: Igniting the Revolution.
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