American Tempest by Harlow Giles Unger Page B

of molasses and other dutiable goods as nondutiable “ships’ stores” or “for personal use by owner.” With armies of burly waterfront workers in their employ, merchant-bankers easily convinced reluctant customs officers that accepting bribes provided both financial security and physical security for their persons, families, and properties. Within a few years, even admiralty judges, who had the last words in deciding whether or not a cargo was dutiable, found many financial advantages to overruling the customs service in favor of Boston’s merchant-bankers.
    There were also social and political advantages to letting ships slip in and out of Boston harbor without official interference. Boston’s leading merchants were political and social leaders who could advance the careers of lesser figures in government—or leave them hopelessly mired in subsistence posts.
    Together, the city’s merchant-bankers were Boston: Thomas Hutchinson, Sr. was a member of the Massachusetts Executive Council, or upper house of the General Court; his son, Thomas, Jr., was a Boston selectman and member of the lower house. The Hutchinsons were direct descendantsof Anne Hutchinson, the religious leader who arrived from England in 1634, only fourteen years after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Daniel Oliver had married royal governor Jonathan Belcher’s daughter and, together with James Bowdoin, another prominent merchant, served on the governor’s Executive Council and as a Boston selectman. Bowdoin also served in the upper house of the General Court. Oliver traced his American roots back to the earliest days of the seventeenth century, whereas Bowdoin’s father had been among the French Huguenots who fled France for America in the late seventeenth century after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and banned Protestantism in France. Thomas Hancock’s grandfather Nathaniel was a minister and one of the early settlers of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Collectively, Boston’s “saints” lived in the city’s most opulent mansions; they owned and occupied the front pews of the Old South Meeting House and sustained it and other Boston institutions financially.
    And, with the exception of the minister’s son Thomas Hancock, they were all men of Harvard, the educational and social institution that conferred the only equivalent of noble rank that America had to offer.
    Founded as a divinity school in 1636, Harvard had broadened its curriculum in the late seventeenth century to adapt to the needs of American mercantile society. Although textbooks were in Latin—and every student admitted to Harvard could read, write, and converse fluently in Latin—the curriculum included Greek and Hebrew along with logic, rhetoric, ethics, metaphysics, and the belles lettres —mostly English prose and poetry of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Harvard emphasized the study of Greek and Hebrew to permit students to read original texts of the Scriptures, including the Aramaic books of the Old Testament and the Syriac New Testament. Some students studied French—the mark of a “Gentleman’s Education”—with a private tutor. The Harvard day began with prayers at five, followed by a bever , or light breakfast, then a study hour at seven and the day’s first lecture (in Latin) at eight—often lasting three hours. Students ate dinner at eleven, followed by a recreation hour and three hours with a tutor, who reviewed the morning lecture and quizzed students until they had ingested the subject matter. Evening prayers followed at five, then supper and a few hours of recreation—smoking, chatting, and, finally, sleep—usually at about nine.
    But above all, Harvard, as the oldest of America’s only three colleges, * taught its sons to lead “their country,” which was synonymous with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in an age when each of the colonies