John Hancock Faces Retribution for Instigating the Boston Tea Party

A famous and milestone document in the life of John Hancock

Hancock was one of the wealthiest men in New England, having inherited a profitable mercantile shipping business from his uncle. London was the hub of trade, not merely for the mother country but the colonies, and he had close ties to England. He lived there for years just prior to passage of the Stamp Act, and his bankers in London were the prominent firm of Hayley and Hopkins.

It would seem logical for such a man to support the powers that be, and Hancock did so initially. However, after the Sugar and Stamp Acts were passed, the young merchant was influenced by the public outrage and fell under the influence of the radical Samuel Adams. Adams became Hancock’s mentor and friend, with Adams always promoting Hancock’s career. When Hancock died, he was Governor of Massachusetts and Adams was his Lieut. Governor. At the funeral, Adams was so stricken with grief that he was overcome and had to be taken away.

Hancock’s name was affixed to virtually all patriot resolutions protesting the Stamp Act, as well as the 1767 Townshend Act, and he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature. Tories, like Governor Thomas Hutchinson, roundly denounced him. And then the British seized his ship Liberty and threatened to prosecute Hancock for smuggling. By 1770, though, Hancock was exhausted with politics and felt that his business needed his attention. He took a less active role in public affairs and tended his neglected business, and saw less of Samuel Adams for awhile. Governor Hutchinson, who had earlier concluded that Hancock’s “ruling passion was a fondness for popular applause,” began to woo him in the hopes he would swing over to the Tory camp. Hancock had much to risk by sticking with the patriots. He lived in a regal style; his Back Bay mansion was unequaled in Boston, and he was a man about town in the finest gold-embroidered clothing. When Adams formed the Boston Committee of Correspondence in November 1772 to advocate colonial rights, Hancock declined to join.

Then came the tea tax, which brought Hancock strongly back into the patriot fold. The American colonies were ablaze with opposition, but in London, it seemed business as usual. In fact, Hancock’s bankers, Hayley and Hopkins, were involved in shipping the tea to the colonies, most specifically to Boston, New York and Philadelphia. The resulting Boston Tea Party on the night of December 16, 1773 was perhaps the seminal event that led to the American Revolution, and though popular lore has Hancock as the lead Indian, but more likely he did not physically take part. However, he approved of the action, and some would say called for the action, reportedly telling the crowd that evening “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes.” British firms like Hayley. and Hopkins suffered losses in the tea affair and worried about further business disruptions due to conditions in Boston. Conditions that Hancock was helping create.

On March 5, 1774, Hancock made the annual speech commemorating the Boston Massacre four years earlier, thereby dispelling any doubt about whose camp he was in. Hancock called the British troops just about every name in the book, from “villainous” to “murderers,” in that dramatic oration: “The Town of Boston, ever faithful to the British Crown, has been invested by a British fleet, the troops of George the third have crossed the Atlantic, not to engage an enemy, but to assist a band of traitors in trampling on the rights and liberties of his most loyal subjects.” News of the Tea Party and Hancock’s role in it, had arrived in London; now word of his inflammatory speech speeded there. The British government and its great commercial interests determined that for both Hancock and Boston, this was the last straw. And business being business, part of the anxiety of Hayley and Hopkins was that Hancock owed them quite a lot of money (almost 11,000 pounds sterling), political affairs were intruding, and Hancock’s revenues were down and he was selling some of his ships.

Autograph Document Signed, Boston, April 21, 1774, adressed to his bankers Hayley and Hopkins, being a bill of exchange for them to pay 200 pounds on his behalf. A bill of exchange was intended to act like a check would today, “Gentlemen, At thirty days sight of this my first bill/second & third of same tenor & date unpaid. Please do pay to Messrs. Joseph Russell & Son or order two hundred pounds sterling & charge without further advice…” Russell, a wealthy merchant and later privateer, endorsed the note over to Bristol merchant Thomas & Griffiths, which was involved in the American trade.

The Hancock Papers on deposit in the Massachusetts Historical Society indicate that, when it arrived in London and was presented, this very bill of exchange was bounced. Hayley and Hopkins refused to pay it.  The book “The House of Hancock” by W.T. Baxter mentions this exact bill of exchange also, saying “Hayley became thoroughly frightened about the huge debt,” especially because the political crisis was hurting American business and some American merchants were delaying remittances as a result.  In July [1774], he took the extreme step of refusing to honor John’s bills; apologetically he wrote [Hancock]: “The unhappy state of American trade is very alarming… and has forced us to the disagreeable Necessity of Suffering some of your bills to go back protested.”

Dishonoring this check was a shot across the bow, a clear warning that the troublemaker Hancock could, and perhaps would, be financially ruined. And taking this action against one of America’s most successful merchants, one prosperous enough to be assumed to be capable of riding out a financial storm, was a message to other American men of substance that they would not be immune from retaliation if the anti-British frenzy continued. Thus, we see in this bill of exchange the personal effect of political dissent in the crisis that preceded the Revolution and an illustration of the truism that the Founding Fathers did indeed risk “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”