Hutchinson's letters had in some manner
become independent of their contents. So awake were the people to
the danger of being deceived, that whatever the Governor now said
or ever had written was taken to be but the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Meanwhile, the attention of all patriots was diverted from the
letters to a far more serious matter; and when, on December 16,
1773, a cargo of the East India Company's tea, consigned among
others to Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, was thrown into Boston
harbor, the great crisis, which Samuel Adams had done so much to
make inevitable by virtue of thinking it so, was at last a
reality. It was a limitation of Thomas Hutchinson's excellent
administrative mind that lie was wholly unaware of this crisis.
In February of the next year, finding that "a little discreet
conduct," or indeed any conduct on his part, was altogether
without good effect, the Governor announced that he had "obtained
leave from the King to go to England." On the 1st of June,
driving from his home to the foot of Dorchester Heights, he
embarked on the Minerva and arrived in London one month later. It
was his expectation that after a brief absence, when General Gage
by a show of military force should have brought the province to a
reasonable frame of mind, he would return and assume again the
responsibilities of his office.
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