ABSTRACT
Peter Oliver was a prominent lawyer and justice in colonial Massachusetts. He was related to one of the most powerful families in the colony's royal government in the middle of the eighteenth century. Oliver was a staunch loyalist who opposed resistance to British imperial reforms in the 1760s and 1770s and personally despised such celebrated patriot leaders as Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Having been a very visible target for the patriots, Oliver fled the colonies on the eve of the Declaration of Independence. After a brief stay in Halifax, he spent the rest of his days in exile in London, where he found that many native Britons looked down upon even the most elite British colonists. Before the war had even ended, he wrote a first-hand account of the coming of the Revolution entitled “Origins & Progress of the American Rebellion.” His frustration, anger, and bitterness could be found on every page as he spent his remaining years trying to make sense of how his world had been turned upside down by a revolution he tried desperately to stop.
