ABSTRACT
Thomas Hutchinson served as acting governor for nearly two years before becoming governor in his own right. He was still in that interim position at the time of the massacre. Hutchinson had once favored imperial reform, even along the lines suggested by Franklin’s 1754 Albany Plan. He did not back every policy that came out of London enthusiastically, as can be seen with his adverse reaction to the Stamp Act. Accused by critics of committing treason against the colony as Hutchinson prepared to leave in 1774, he unrealistically believed that he might return as governor once order had been restored. He would die in exile, no longer a man of Massachusetts and never really an Englishman. This chapter presents Hutchinson’s report to Thomas Gage the day after the massacre.
