John Hancock , livre ebook

John Hancock
John Hancock

Merchant King and American Patriot
H ARLOW G ILES U NGER

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
New York • Chichester • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2000 by Harlow Giles Unger. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
Frontispiece art is courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Unger, Harlow G.
John Hancock : merchant king and American patriot / Harlow Giles Unger.
    p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-33209-7 (alk. paper)
1. Hancock, John, 1737–1793. 2. Statesmen—United States—Biography.
3. United States. Declaration of Independence—Signers—Biography. 4. United States. Continental Congress—Presidents—Biography. 5. United States—Politics and government—1775–1783. 6. Massachusetts—Politics and government—1775–1783. I. Title.
E302.6.H23 U53 2000
973-3′092–dc21                                                                                                                                                           99-057092
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my dear friends Kathleen and Ronald Potier and, as always, to my son, Richard
Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Chronology
 
Introduction
   1   The Boy on Beacon Hill (1737–1750)
   2   The Merchant King (1724–1750)
   3   The Merchant Prince (1750–1764)
   4   Of Stamps and Taxes (1764–1765)
   5   “Mad Rant and Porterly Reviling” (1765)
   6   A Hero by Circumstance (1765–1768)
   7   “Idol of the Mob” (1768–1770)
   8   “Tea in a Trice” (1770–1773)
   9   High Treason (1774–1775)
10   President of Congress (1775–1776)
11   Founding Father (1776)
12   President of the United States (1776–1777)
13   A Model Major General (1777–1780)
14   His Excellency the Governor (1780–1785)
15   Hancock! Hancock! Even to the End (1785–1793)
 
Epilogue
Notes
Selected Bibliography of Principal Sources
Index
List of Illustrations

Maps
Boston
Boston, its harbor and environs, 1775
Illustrations
John Hancock and his famous signature
“Bishop” John Hancock
Thomas Hancock
Hancock House on Beacon Hill
Hancock House, in Harper’s Weekly
Lydia Henchman Hancock
Harvard College
John Hancock, young merchant king
James Otis
Samuel Adams
British troops drill on Common below Hancock House
Dr. Joseph Warren
John Adams
Thomas Hutchinson
Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre
Dorothy (Dolly) Quincy
Boston Tea Party
Paul Revere
Hancock-Clarke House (manse at Lexington)
Benjamin Franklin
Gen. George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
Battle of Bunker Hill
King George III
The Signing of the Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence
James Warren
Governor and Mrs. John Hancock
View of Boston, 1789
Acknowledgments

I COULD NOT have produced this book without the enthusiastic and generous help of a host of skilled editors, librarians, researchers, and friends. Chief among these were my editor, Hana Umlauf Lane, senior editor at John Wiley & Sons, and my friend and agent, Edward Knappman, of New England Publishing Associates. My sincerest thanks, too, to Diane Aronson and her colleagues—especially Chuck Antony, copyeditor—at John Wiley & Sons for the wonderful work they did in copyediting and preparing this book for publication. The beautiful design and typeface choice are the work of Sona Lachina of Lachina Publishing Services. Bravo. I also want to thank Maia Keech and her colleagues at the Library of Congress; Joann Huddleston, Corporate Archives, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company; Douglas Southerd, librarian at the Bostonian Society; William Faucon, curator of manuscripts, and R. Eugene Zepp, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library; Louise Jones, librarian at the Yale Club of New York City; and the staff at the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, and the Boston Athenaeum. Many friends also helped me with this book by responding to my inevitable calls for help, as they always do, with cheer and personal support. They included Eleanora von Dehsen, in New York; Francis Everett and Richard Everett III, in Boston; Randi Ladenheim Gil, in New York; Carol Kneeland, in Pawling, New York; Douglas Kneeland, at Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania; Tracie Byrd, American Paintings and Sculpture, Yale University Art Gallery, in New Haven; Carol Haines, Concord Museum, Concord, Massachusetts; Andre Mandel, in Paris, France; and Kathleen Potier and Ronald Potier, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and I owe especial thanks to my patient friend (and cousin) Joshua Mostkoff Unger, who not only helped simplify my work with his guidance in computer operations but contributed some research material and was always ready to respond to my every call for help. To everyone: thank you.

Boston, 1814. A virtual island, Boston is connected to the mainland by narrow Boston Neck. Hancock Wharf is on the upper right, above Long Wharf. Although not depicted, Hancock House stood above and overlooking the Common. Griffin’s Wharf, the site of the Boston Tea Party, can be seen protruding below Fort Hill, near the large letter N in BOSTON. ( Bostonian Society )
Chronology

1724
Thomas Hancock founds House of Hancock.
1737
January 12. John Hancock born in Braintree, Massachusetts.
1744
Uncle Thomas “adopts” JH; takes him to Boston as heir to House of Hancock.
1754
JH graduates from Harvard. French and Indian War (Seven Years War) begins.
1759
British crush French at Quebec.
1764
Thomas Hancock dies. JH inherits House of Hancock.
1765
British pass Stamp Act. JH protests.
1766
Parliament repeals Stamp Act. JH hailed as hero; elected to legislature.
1767
British pass Townshend Acts. Hancock leads merchant boycott of British goods.
1768
British seize Hancock sloop Liberty; send troops to Boston. JH tried as smuggler.
1770
Boston Massacre. Parliament repeals Townshend Acts.
1773
Boston Tea Party.
1774
JH leads Boston revolution. Parliament passes Coercive Acts. First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia; declares rights to “life, liberty and property.”
1775
Revolutionary War begins. Continental Congress names JH president. British victory at Bunker Hill. JH marries.
1776
British evacuate Boston. JH signs Declaration of Independence, July 4, and becomes first president of the United States; named commander of Massachusetts militia. British occupy New York. House of Hancock liquidated. First child, Lydia Henchman Hancock, is born.
1777
Americans crush Burgoyne at Saratoga. France recognizes U.S. independence. Daughter, Lydia, dies.
1778
JH ends his presidency. French join war. Son, John George Washington Hancock, is born. General Hancock’s militia defeated at Newport. JH salvages French military alliance.
1780
JH elected first Massachusetts governor.
1781
Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown. Revolutionary War ends.
1783
Treaty of Paris ratified, April 15. Britain recognizes U.S. independence.
1785
JH resigns as governor.
1786
Shays’s Rebellion in Massachusetts.
1787
Son dies in accident. Governor Bowdoin sends militia to crush Shays’s Rebellion. People demand Hancock’s return; reelect him governor. Constitutional Convention opens in Philadelphia.
1788
JH assures ratification of Constitution; proposes nine Conciliatory Amendments as Bill of Rights.
1789
Washington elected president. First Congress convenes. JH reelected governor.
1793
October 8. John Hancock dies in Boston at fifty-seven.
Introduction

J OHN H ANCOCK did not set out to be a rebel, let alone found a new nation. He was quite happy with the old one, which had made him rich and powerful—the head of one of North America’s largest mercantile empires and all but certain to become the first Lord Hancock. Hancock loved wealth. He reveled in it. He adored all the foppish trappings it could buy: the fashionable wigs, frilled shirts, silk and velvet jackets and breeches—and the shoes with silver or gold buckles that sparkled as he strode along Boston’s Hancock Wharf. He envisioned a monumental estate in Britain to go with his title—a castle, perhaps, or even a palace, overlooking an expanse of formal French gardens and a wide allée of meticulously shaped plane trees . . .
There simply was no doubt about it: John Hancock was the least likely man in Boston to start a revolution.
Then, in a series of arrogant miscalculations, Parliament tried to refill the English treasury’s empty war chests by dipping its collective hands into John Hancock’s pockets and those of other colonial merchants and planters. Gradually and reluctantly, the colonists turned against king and country. Hancock and the oth