dent and speaker of the provincial assemblies and conventions, during times of great turbulence and commotion, in his native state, he was eminently qualified, as well as by his natural dignity of manners, to preside in this great council of the nation.

When the chair of the presidency was offered him, he is said to have received the intelligence with embarrassment and hesitation; which the ingenious malice of some of his enemies wished to be ascribed to a sense of inferiority to the station; for there is no honourable sentiment of virtuous action amongst men, that is not subject to such malicious interpretations. Having passed by regular gradation through the various offices of the state, it is, however, not reasonable to suppose, that he was terrified on this occasion by precipitate elevation; and being already upon the lists of proscription, and living in commerce with dangers, that his emotions were produced by a heartless pusillanimity. Modesty in all men has been esteemed a laudable quality, and being rare in the possession of a statesman, is the more entitled to admiration and applause. Of Washington, it has likewise been remarked, that in receiving the chief command of the army, he discovered an extreme embarrassment of feeling; but we have not heard that this fact has been related in disparagement of his merits.

Many persons were present in this congress of superior age to that of Mr. Hancock, and who, at the same time, were men of pre-eminent abilities. It was, besides, an occasion upon which composure in him who was invested with the principal honours had been little commendable; for rarely, in the vicissitudes of nations, has it happened that interests more sacred have been confided to the infirmity of human wisdom, or a more imposing spectacle been exhibited to human observation.

But the operations of corporate assemblies, however glorious or honourable they may be, it is rarely permitted to adduce in testimony of individual merit; and, in the present instance, Mr. Hancock being excluded from public discussions, and from the deliberations of committees, by the injunctions of his office of presidency, details are inadmissible in the illustration of his character. The common transactions of this assembly, although referred to the most splendid period of his life, must, therefore, be passed without enumeration.

The Declaration of Independence, though signed by all the members of the congress, was accompanied in its first publication by the signature of Mr. Hancock alone; an accidental association, which, although it conferred no special title to praise beyond his colleagues, preoccupied the admiration of the public, and has contributed, in no small degree, to the extension of his fame.

In October of 1777, having for two years and a half sustained the duties of the presidency of congress, Mr. Hancock, wasted by unremitting application to business, and by the severity of the gout, which had rendered his health infirm and precarious, resigned his office; and amidst the felicitations of his countrymen, who vied with each other in demonstrations of respect, retired to his native province.

A convention, about this time, was appointed to frame a constitution for the state of Massachusetts, to which he was elected, and with his usual diligence and fidelity he assisted in their deliberations. On all occasions, he had favoured republican institutions; and, on the present, contended for the limitation of the executive authority.

He was elected, in 1780, governor of the commonwealth; the first who was appointed under the sanction of the new constitution, and derived his power from the suffrages of the VOL. I.-C

people. He was annually continued in that office until the year 1785, when he resigned; and, after an intermission of two years, during which he had been succeeded by Mr. Bowdoin, was re-elected, and remained in the chair until the close of his life.

Hancock had been involved, during the early period of his career, in the perpetual turbulence of the revolution; nor was he permitted, in the conclusion of it, to enjoy the blandishments of tranquillity. The accumulation of debts during the war, and the necessity of a cumbrous imposition of taxes for their diminution, added to the usual depravation of morals or disqualification for civil occupations, consequent to a long suspension of the arts of industry, had filled the community with various griefs and necessities; and had diffused in the country a spirit of insubordination, which threatened for a while the subversion of all order and government.

Associations were first formed amongst the most seditious, to solicit a redress of grievances; a measure which they sanctioned under the example of the late revolution ; in which, bewailing the public distress with bitter and pathetic lamentations, or urging their pretensions with specious and patriotic expressions, the ordinary rhetoric of rebellion, the imprudent and restless citizens were soon allured to their standard ; became the proselytes of their schemes and the associates of their crimes; for the mass of mankind are usually governed by names, and too often sacrifice, with heedless improvidence, both their honesty and felicity to the modulation of agreeable sounds.

The force of this faction, in New England, was estimated at twelve thousand persons. The majority of the people were, especially in Massachusetts, indisposed to the government; and many of them had devised its total subversion. The most violent, some of whom penetrated even into the

sanctuary of the legislature, demanded an abolition of debts and taxes, and an equal distribution of property; which they considered as a just reward of the toils they had encountered in the late war; and by their inflammatory and seditious harangues the whole state was at last embroiled in disorder and insurrection.

The colonies being erected into disconnected republics, of which the institutions were yet recent and unconfirmed, opposed a feeble barrier to the impetuosity of the torrent. The first outrages were exercised against the officers of justice, who by acts of violence, were restrained from the administration of their duties; and depredations were often made upon the property of individuals. The governor, and the general assembly, having used many efforts of conciliation, by temporising expedients, which never fail to increase the insolence of a riotous multitude, finally employed against them four thousand of the militia; and the insurgents being destitute of a head to direct their operations, after a resistance altogether inadequate to the apprehensions they had excited, a few only being killed or wounded, and many made prisoners, were immediately dispersed. They maintained, nevertheless, a dangerous predominance in the state, and riot and disorder still subsisted until the year 1787, when, by the agency of Mr. Hancock, at that time governor, they were finally repressed. The principals, to the number of fourteen, having surrendered, were condemned by the supreme court to suffer capitally for their treason; but were released by the pardon of the governor. This act of clemency was attributed, by some of the more rigid republicans of those times, to a want of energy, nor did it pass without severe animadversion.

At this period of factious disorder, and especially during his competition for the office of governor, Hancock was as

sailed with great virulence and malice by antagonists who were neither impotent in genius nor inconsiderable in numbers. Obloquy is so usual an attendant on human elevation, amidst the various and conflicting passions of republican communities, that to expect exemption from it would discover indeed little depth of understanding, and a very limited experience of human nature; and to ask why Hancock sustained these frequent persecutions in return for his eminent services, would be a vain disquisition. It is to ask, why, in all ages, those who have been most entitled to the veneration of the world, have been persecuted with the most unrelenting malevolence? why Aristides languished in exile, or Miltiades perished in a dungeon?

But the repression of disorder and faction in the state, towards the conclusion of his life, and the salutary diligence of his administration, appeased almost entirely the resentments and animosities which party had excited against him.

His agency in promoting the adoption of the federal constitution is mentioned amongst the objects which most recommended him to esteem amongst his cotemporaries, and which entitle him to the regards of posterity.

An opposition to this system of government existed in many parts of the continent, and, in Massachusetts, the majority of the convention were supposed to disapprove it. Of this assembly, Hancock, who was believed to be averse to the confederation, had been elected president, but by sickness was detained from their deliberations until the last week of the session. He then appeared and voted in its favour; and to his diligence in removing, by appropriate amendments, the apprehensions and objections of many in the opposition, added to his address and authority upon this occasion, is principally ascribed the adoption of the constitution in Massachusetts; and with no greater ornament