y according to the character and circumstances
of a people, always keeping in mind the "peace and good order" of the
particular community as the prime object. In all such matters reasonable
men would seek enlightenment not in the Utopias of philosophers but in
the history of nations; and, taking a large view of history, the history
more particularly of the British Empire and of Massachusetts Bay,
it seemed to Mr. Hutchinson, as it seemed to John Locke and to Baron
Montesquieu, that a proper balance between liberty and authority had
been very nearly attained in the British Constitution, as nearly
perhaps as common human frailty would permit. The prevailing "thirst
for liberty," which seemed to be "the ruling passion of the age,"
Mr. Hutchinson was therefore able to contemplate with much sanity and
detachment. "In governments under arbitrary rule" such a passion for
liberty might, he admitted, "have a salutary effect; but in governments
in which as much freedom is enjoyed as can consist with the ends of
government, as was the case in this Province, it must work anarchy and
confusion unless there be some external power to restrain it."

In 1771, Thomas Hutchinson was perfectly convinced that this passion for
liberty, during several years rising steadily in the heads of the most
unstable part of the population, the most unstable "both for character
and estates," had brought Massachusetts Bay to a state not far removed
from anarchy. Not that he was unaware of the mistakes of ministers. The
measures of Mr. Grenville he had regarded as unwise from every point
of view. In behalf of the traditional privileges of the
colonies--privileges which their conduct had well justified--and in
behalf of the welfare of the Empire, he had protested against these
measures, as also later against the measures of Mr. Townshend; and of
all these measures he still held the same opinion, that they were unwise
measures. Nevertheless, Parliament had undoubtedly a legal right other
rights in the political sense, Mr. Hutchinson knew nothing of to pass
them; and the passing of legal measures, however unwise, was not to his
mind clear evidence of a conspiracy to establish absolute despotism
on the ruins of English liberty. Mr. Hutchinson was doubtless
temperamentally less inclined to fear tyranny than anarchy. Of the
two evils, he doubtless preferred such oppression as might result from
parliamentary taxation to any sort of liberty the attainment of which