Henry Hulton and the American Revolution

Henry Hulton was an Englishman who moved to Boston in 1767 as a member of the new American Board of Customs Commissioners. The board was supposed to curtail smuggling and bring greater efficiency to the administration of empire. It failed, and Hulton fled Massachusetts in 1776, joining an exodus of the politically displaced. Hulton eventually wrote a never-published history of the American rebellion as he experienced it. Although his complaints about the "demagogues" who dominated Massachusetts politics echo those made by other Loyalists, Hulton adds another dimension to our understanding. As an Englishman, he could be more detached from the problems of empire than Loyalists who had been driven from their native land. For those interested in the complexities of historical causation, this interpretation provides a telling case study of how an author can combine individual action with deeper forces to explain events. Though not a historical determinist, Hulton did see rebellion as the logical result of American attitudes and behaviors that London allowed to go unchecked for too long. Hulton's history, his letters, and the letters of his sister, Ann, who lived with him outside Boston-