ABSTRACT
As unpopular, even reviled, as Francis Bernard was in most Boston circles before he returned to England in 1769, few could have predicted such an outcome upon his arrival nine years before. He enrolled at the Middle Temple to train as a barrister without taking an Oxford degree, but whatever plans that he had for improving his social station took years to bear fruit. Bernard seemed to be on the hunt for a better-paying, less demanding post, and his quest became urgent in 1765, by which time it was obvious that whatever power base he had in Massachusetts had eroded in the backwash of the Stamp Act crisis. Bernard had wanted troops sent to Boston in the aftermath of riots there in August 1765, but his Council would not support him. Their disagreement widened a political breach that had already opened, so by the time Bernard again sought troops in late 1767 and early 1768, he had little support left.
