The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

by H.W. Brands

So did Thomas Hutchinson, who felt the irony of the situation more immediately, and more painfully, than Franklin. Hutchinson wrote Franklin in November assessing the violence in the various colonies, and noting, from his own experience, that in Massachusetts all doubts of the legitimacy of the mob’s opinions had been forcibly suppressed. “It is not safe there to advance any thing contrary to any popular opinions whatsoever,” Hutchinson said. “Every body who used to have virtue enough to oppose them is now afraid of my fate.” Briefly the violence in Boston had diminished, only to revive from example elsewhere. “The riots at New York have given fresh spirits to the rioters here.” Pointing out that the opponents of the Stamp Act had seized Franklin’s motto from 1754, “Join or Die,” Hutchinson remarked, “When you and I were at Albany ten years ago we did not propose an union for such purposes as these.”