property, in defiance of the laws and contempt of the powers of government established,' as Mr. Hutchinson himself expresses it. Had the Governor seen his way to remaining, however, the step would have further irritated the people; and by hastening to England he secured the opportunity, sought long before, of telling his side of the story viva voce to the Ministry.

[He] embarked on board the Rippon, a man-of-war ordered from Virginia to convey him, and sailed for England. Instead of the marks of respect commonly shown, in a greater or less degree, to Governors upon their leaving the province, there were many marks of public joy in the town of Boston. The bells were rung, guns were fired from Mr. Hancock's wharf, Liberty Tree was covered with flags, and in the evening a great bonfire was made upon Fort Hill.'

This was a sad ending to nine years of laborious and anxious administration; but it may be hoped that some Boston loyalists, in spite of their new masters, had the courage to bid the Governor farewell on that evening of July 31 when he left his pleasant country home near Roxbury, and, accompanied by his son Thomas, with perhaps other members of his family, wended his way to the Castle, to be ready for embarkation on the following day, August 1, 1769. Possibly some staunch friends were with him on the deck of the vessel until the last moment, in whose sympathy he found consolation for sights and sounds which must have jarred upon his feelings, and were of set purpose arranged to aggravate his sorrow in parting, for an indefinite time, from his nearest and dearest.

It may be supposed that Bancroft does not dismiss the Governor without a last volley of strong epithets. He states that Sir Francis quitted the colony having completed his pecuniary arrangements with Hutchinson'—although it is

1 Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., ch. ii. Mr. Hutchinson states that Governor Shute left even more privately than Governor Bernard. The people, indeed, could not insult him because they did not know of his departure; and they abstained from adverse demonstrations when it became public.

DEPARTURE OF SIR FRANCIS

199

tolerably clear that the Assembly had not left him any to complete-and continues: "He was to have sent home whom he pleased," said the Bostonians, apparently in the "Boston Gazette,' "but the die being thrown, Sir Francis Bernard is the rogue to go first."' Next follows a paragraph resuming all the abuse lavished on the Governor, through several chapters of Bancroft's History, for alleged quarrelsomeness, parsimony, avarice, duplicity, treachery, and cowardice.

The dismissal of a Governor, who failed to indulge all the wishes of the people, was not, indeed, unknown in Massachusetts; the residence of several Governors had been shortened in this manner.

It was well known in America [says Mr. Hutchinson] that the surest way for a Governor to keep from hazard of removal was by keeping upon good terms with the people of his Government; and even addresses for the continuance of a Governor, though they always carried with them ground of suspicion, had in many cases been serviceable for that purpose; but there have been times, and this was one, when it has not been possible for a Governor to preserve the favour of the people and the approbation of his own conscience at the same time.

All recent American authors do not write in the tone of Bancroft; there are some able to reason calmly on the events of the Revolution, though undoubtedly from an American standpoint. Of these Hosmer and Gilman are known to me. Gilman says of Sir Francis Bernard:

This Governor's character has been blackened by writers since his day, as it was at the time; but he was apparently an honest supporter of prerogative, and not an unprincipled trickster, as he has been represented. He had education, refinement, and good taste; but he did not know how to govern Massachusetts in a way that would please its citizens.'

And he makes the very obvious remark: 'It is not easy to say, even now, how any man could have filled the place that he held to the satisfaction of Samuel Adams and King

'Gilman, The Story of Boston, xxi., 'In the Grip of the Army.'

George at once,' adding: 'He is credited with having brought about the Revolution by his injudicious management of affairs; but it is probable that the Revolution would not have been greatly retarded by the most judicious Governor that England could have sent to Massachusetts.'

Hosmer's lengthier summary is specially valuable, because he is the biographer and eulogist of Samuel Adams. It runs as follows:

Francis Bernard was an honourable and well-meaning man, and by no means wanting in ability. As with the English country gentlemen in the eighteenth century in general, the traditions of English freedom had become much obscured in his mind. He leaned toward prerogative, not popular liberty, and honestly felt that the New Englanders were disposed to run to extremes that would ruin America and injure the whole Empire. Where among the rural squires or the Oxford scholars of the time can be found any who took a different view? This being his position, no one can deny that during the nine years of his incumbency he fought his difficult fight with courage, persistency, and honesty. He leaned as far as such a man could be expected to lean toward the popular side, showing wisdom in 1763 and 1764, as we have seen, in trying to procure a lowering or abolition of the duties in the Sugar Act, and regarding the Stamp Act as most inexpedient. The best friends of America in Parliament, like Lord Camden, extolled in strong terms his character and good judgment. His refined tastes and good dispositions were shown in his interest in Harvard College. After the fire of 1764 he did what he could from his own library to make good the loss of the books which had been burned; certainly the alumnus in whose youthful associations the plain but not ungraceful proportions of Harvard Hall have become intimately bound may have a kind thought for its well-meaning and much-maligned architect. The accusations of underhand dealing that were brought against him will not bear examination.

. . . The changes he advocated were that the provincial Governments should be brought to a uniform type; the Assemblies he would have remain popular, as before; but for the Council, or Upper House, he recommended a body made up of a kind of life peers appointed by the King. He recommended also that there should be a fixed civil list, from which the King's officers should derive a certain provision, declaring that in the existing state of things it was impossible to enforce in the colonies any unpopular

SIR FRANCIS BERNARD'S CHARACTER

201 law or punish any outrage favoured by the people, since civil officers were mainly dependent on annual grants from the Assembly. For a prerogative man such views were not unreasonable; certainly Bernard had made no pretence of holding others. He was, however, bitterly denounced and insulted.

As the Baronet of Nettleham was borne out to sea that quiet summer evening, amid the pealing bells, the salvoes of cannon, and the glare of the great bonfire on Fort Hill, the populace of Boston, as it were, shouted after him their contumely. Fine Shakespearean scholar that he was, one may well believe that the bitter outbursts of Coriolanus against the common cry of curs, whose breath was hateful as the reek of rotten fens, rose to the lips of the aristocrat. Neither side could do justice to the other.

The student of history knows well that mutual justice and forbearance are in such cases not to be expected. They were the fighters in a fierce conflict, and of necessity bad blood was engendered. A different tone, however, may be demanded at the present time. When a writer, after the lapse of a hundred years, declares, 'He displayed his malignity to the last, and having done his best to ruin the province, and to reap all possible benefit from its destruction, took his departure,' one feels that a well-meaning man is pursued quite too far, and the desire for fair play suggests the propriety of a word or two in his favour.2

This is honourable testimony from an American point of view, though in one respect Hosmer has misunderstood the facts of the case. Sir Francis Bernard inherited the traditions of an old gentleman's family, but he had not been reared in indolence, luxury, or the pride of estate; he had worked his way as laboriously, to say the least of it, as most of his opponents. That he had much sympathy with suffering and toiling humanity in every station is probable from several touches in his life, as well as from the subsequent career of the son who was his constant companion, trained as it were under his own eye; it by no means followed that he should play into the hands of Adams,

3

1 Wells, S. Adams, i. 266, quoted by Hosmer as above. Wells was grandson of Samuel Adams.

" Hosmer, Samuel Adams, ch. ix., 'The Recall of Bernard.'

• The particulars of Sir Thomas Bernard's beneficent career will, as already noted, be found in the subsequent volumes of this family chronicle.

Otis, Hancock, and others of the same stamp; there was no connection between the two ideas.

Moreover, whatever may have been the temptation of the persecuted Governor to indulge in bitter and scornful feelings, it does not appear that such feelings were ever suffered to gain the mastery. In his answer to the petition from the Assembly to the King impeaching his administration, he states that: Having been honoured with His Majesty's approbation of his whole conduct, and with that of the two Houses of Parliament of some principal parts of it, he shall leave it to the Province of Massachusetts Bay to do him justice at their own time.' And he continued firm to this determination; during the remainder of a life blighted and shortened by the deeds of the American revolutionists, it is not on record that he ever spoke otherwise than temperately of their behaviour to himself. Had he sought in Shakespeare's works for lines in which to embody his settled resolution on this subject, he would have selected them, not out of the stinging utterances wrung from Coriolanus by his injuries, but amongst the calm parting words of the betrayed Buckingham:1

Edward, last Duke of the House of Stafford.

2 Henry VIII., Act ii. scene i. In some texts the last line is printed that I cannot take peace with. ..

'Gainst me,