The "Infamas Govener": Francis Bernard and the Origins of the American Revolution

Abstract

The "Infamas GovenerFrancis Bernard and the Origins of the American Revolution. Colin Nicolson. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 2001. 326 pages. $24.00 (hardcover).Francis Bernard served as royal governor of Massachusetts from 1760 to 1769, playing a pivotal role during the years leading up to the Revolution. Colin Nicolson, the editor of the six volumes of Bernard's correspondence and lecturer at the University of Sterling, Scotland, portrays Bernard as an imperial reformer, "caught in the crossfire between Britain and the colonies" (5). Rather than being a tyrant, as his opponents demonized him, he was, according to Nicolson, guilty of underestimating the strength of the revolutionary movement. He was too intent on rigidly upholding the supremacy of Parliament and unwilling to bend even the slightest in the winds of political radicalism. Nicolson argues that Bernard's reports on the political conditions in Massachusetts significantly influenced, if not determined, the policies and actions of the British government toward Massachusetts.Nicolson's meticulously and richly researched political biography emphasizes Bernard's failure to reconcile his loyalty to the British crown with the realities of colonial governance in the 1760s. Bernard sincerely believed that the cure for the antipathies to British rule in Massachusetts could be achieved by strengthening and enforcing the authority of royal officials, by reason if possible, by force if necessary. Nicolson points out that Bernard was tactless in his defense of imperial rule. He specifically asserts that Bernard did not panic in the face of what he viewed as increasing colonial violence. But Nicolson's evidence, drawn heavily from Bernard's correspondence, shows the contrary. Bernard also was unable to convince the "friends of [royal] government" who were the "mainstay of antirevolutionary sentiment in Massachusetts" to support him (112).Bernard served as Governor of the New Jersey province from 17581760. He had early success in resolving the competing demands of London policymakers and vested interests in that province. However, he could not negotiate the more complicated political terrain in the more radical Massachusetts. The Stamp Act riots in Boston appear to be a turning point. According to Nicolson:What Bernard witnessed in August 1765 never left him: his impressionistic accounts of an unstable polity struggling to realize ill-informed directives from London was the single, enduring message in his official correspondence for years to come. Henceforth, Bernard was preoccupied with recovering his dignity and exposing those whom he believed were conspiring against royal government (123).Bernard became a prime target of the radicals' increasing opposition to the Townshend Acts of 1767. The colony's House of Representatives censured Bernard in 1767 and, in the following year, approved a petition calling for his dismissal. The Whigs, led by James Otis and Samuel Adams, focused their polemics on Bernard. Perhaps because he became the symbol of royal tyranny and seemed to have no support anywhere in the colony, he repeatedly asked for help from London in the form of more stringent enforcement of collection of the taxes and, finally, calling for troops to be sent to Boston. He retreated at times to Castle William, a fort in Boston Harbor, and eventually moved five miles out of Boston to Jamaica Plain, then a suburb of the city.The British government relied heavily on Bernard's reports of the events in the colony. Because they respected his judgement, they took him at his word, but Nicolson points out that Bernard's correspondence was flawed for, among other reasons, overstating the extent of violence in the colony, and being unable or unwilling to name those he claimed were intent on insurrection. …