As governor of colonial Massachusetts between 1760 and 1769, Francis Bernard was charged with shoring up British imperialism during the first period of sustained American opposition to the authority of the King-in-Parliament. The documentary record of the middle years (1766 and 1767) of Bernard's troubled administration reveals a governor at odds with his American charges and discomfited by the knowledge that his British masters did not appreciate his predicament.

As a commentator on the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765-66, Governor Bernard was a candid and self-effacing narrator with a...

Governor Francis Bernard's historical reputation rests on his role in pushing the American colonists toward revolution. Bernard was the kind of government official without whom revolutions might not occur: A thwarted modernizer, despairing of metropolitan inertia and resentful of local power shifts that undermined his own authority, he sought and found retribution in a hostile portrayal of his opponents and critics. In 1768, the colonists and their governor vied to control information flowing to London. But it was Bernard who triumphed in the war of information, convincing the British...

British Regulars marched into Boston at midday on Saturday 1 October 1768. For weeks there had been rumors that the landing would be resisted. But by four in the afternoon the two regiments were parading on the Common without incident. The troops were there to deter rioters, cow radicals, and support the civil government. There was no revolt to crush. No one expected war in 1769, but it was no longer unthinkable to Bostonians living alongside British soldiers or to British politicians discussing the allegedly treasonable activities of Bostonians. Their differences hinged on what Francis...