ABSTRACT
So anxious were town leaders that they not lose the battle for public opinion to Hutchinson and his supporters that they rushed Additional Observations into print before they had even seen A Fair Account. The recriminations printed there went well beyond the criticisms expressed in the original Short Narrative. Town leaders once again blamed the customs commissioners for much of what had befallen Boston. They opened with John Robinson’s oceanic dash for London, charging that Robinson left in secret and effectively abandoned his post. The other commissioners too had left their posts while pretending that the people of Boston made it too dangerous for them to perform their duties. Having made their threat, town leaders closed with an appeal to the king to see that the people of Massachusetts were his faithful subjects.
