is a Town Meeting, no sort of regard
being had to any qualification of voters, but all the inferior people
meet together; and at a late meeting the inhabitants of other towns who
happened to be in town, mixed with them, and made, they say themselves,
near 3000,--their newspapers say 4000, when it is not likely there are
1500 legal voters in the town. It is in other words being under the
government of a mob. This has given the lower part of the people such a
sense of their importance that a gentleman does not meet with what used
to be common civility, and we are sinking into perfect barbarism....
The spirit of anarchy which prevails in Boston is more than I am able to
cope with." The instigators of the mob, it was well known, were certain
artful and self-seeking demagogues, of whom the chief had formerly been
dames Otis; but in late years Mr. Otis, "with his mob-high eloquence,"
had given way to an abler man, Samuel Adams, than whom, Mr. Hutchinson
thought, there was not "a greater incendiary in the King's dominion,
or a man of greater malignity of heart, [or one] who less scruples any
measure however criminal to accomplish his purposes."

The letter, undated and undirected, in which Thomas Hutchinson
pronounced this deliberate judgment on Samuel Adams, was probably
written about the time of his accession to the Governorship; that is to
say, about the time when Mr. Johnson, the Connecticut Agent, was writing
to Wedderburn that "the people seem to grow weary of altercations," and
that "a little discreet conduct on both sides" would perfectly restore
cordial relations between Britain and her colonies. In the way of "a
little discreet conduct," even a very little, not much was to be hoped
for from either Governor Hutchinson or Samuel Adams in their dealings
with each other. Unfortunately, they HAD dealings with each other:
in the performance of official functions, their incommensurable and
repellent minds were necessarily brought to bear upon the same matters
of public concern. Both, unfortunately, lived in Boston and were likely
any day to come face to face round the corner of some or other narrow
street of that small town. That reciprocal exasperation engendered by
reasonable propinquity, so essential to the life of altercations, was
therefore a perpetual stimulus to both men, confirming each in his
obstinate opinion of the other as a malicious and dangerous enemy of
all that men hold dear. Thus it was that during the year