t
length yielded to the seductions of ambition and avarice, and became an
object of popular hatred instead of being, as he had many years been, a
popular idol. He had sown the seed of which he was now reaping the
fruits.

It is not surprising that, under such circumstances, Governor
Hutchinson's health should become impaired and his spirits depressed,
and that he should seek relief from his burdens and vexations by a visit
to England, for which he applied and obtained permission, and which
proved to be the end of his government of Massachusetts; for General
Gage was appointed to succeed him as Governor, as well as
Commander-in-Chief of the King's forces in America.

In reviewing the last few months of Mr. Hutchinson's government of
Massachusetts, it is obvious that his ill-advised policy and mode of
proceeding--arising, no doubt, in a great measure, from his personal and
family interest in speculation in the new system of tea trade--was the
primary and chief cause of those proceedings in which Boston differed
from New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston in preventing the landing of
the East India Company's tea. Had the authorities in the provinces of
New York and Pennsylvania acted in the same way as did the Governor of
Massachusetts, it cannot be doubted that the same scenes would have been
witnessed at Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York as transpired at
Boston. The eight resolutions which were adopted by the inhabitants of
Philadelphia, in a public town meeting, on the 8th of October, as the
basis of their proceedings against the taxation of the colonies by the
Imperial Parliament, and against the landing of the East India Company's
tea, were adopted by the inhabitants of Boston in a public town meeting
the 3rd of November. The tea was as effectually prevented from being
landed at the ports of New York and Philadelphia as it was at the port
of Boston, and was as completely destroyed in the damp cellars at
Charleston as in the sea water at Boston.[324]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 318: The resolutions adopted by a meeting of the inhabitants
of Philadelphia, on the 18th of October, 1773, afford a specimen of the
spirit of all the colonies, and the model of resolutions adopted in
several of them, even Boston. They were as follows:

"1. That the disposal of their own property is the inherent right of
freemen; that there can be no property in that which another can, of
right, take from us without our consent; that the