Revolutions need organizers and nations need Founders before armies take to the fields.  For the United States one such organizer and founder was John Hancock.  Heir to the House of Hancock established by his childless uncle, he turned his inheritance into a trading empire that supported his public life.  Beginning as a most unlikely revolutionary, British taxation and other policies drove him into rebellion.  During his lifetime from 1737 to 1793, his service as financier, member and President of the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention and Governor of Massachusetts put Hancock in contact with many American leaders of his age.  George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and others, make their appearances in this biography.

Expanding from Boston retailer to wholesaler to intercolonial commodity trader made colonial problems, such as the lack of a common currency, personal for Hancock. Purchase of interests in two privateers in the War of Jenkins’ Ear and sales to British expeditions in that, King George’s War in the 1740s and the French and Indian War engorged the House of Hancock with war profits.

Though still a loyal British subject, Hancock could see that “The heavy taxes on the Colonies will be a great damp to Trade”. Other colonial merchants such as Connecticut distiller Jared Ingersoll and Massachusetts attorney James Otis were more strident in their responses to the increased tax burden.  Successive enactments of the Stamp and Townsend and Tea Acts drew Hancock into opposition.

A turning point for Hancock came in the invitation to address the citizens of Boston on Massacre Day, March 5, 1774.  Looking “every inch an aristocrat” and summoning his power of oratory, Hancock seized leadership of the American Revolution in Massachusetts.  Calling on all patriots to arm themselves and prepare to “fight for [your] houses, lands, wives, children…liberty and God” so that “those noxious vermin will be swept forever from the streets of Boston” cemented Hancock’s position.   In specific terms he urged Massachusetts town to organize militias and “be ready to take the field whenever danger calls and made the first call for “a general union among us…and our sister colonies.”  Noting “Much has been done by the committees of correspondence” he suggested “a general congress of deputies from the several houses of assembly…on the continent, as the most effectual method of establishing such a union.”

Though the main purposed of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride was to warn Hancock and Sam Adams to evacuate Concord to avoid capture by oncoming British troops, Hancock was, thereafter, mostly distant from the sounds of war.  Reports of battlefield victories and defeats are mainly presented to show their effect on Congress.  Defeat at Quebec and rumors of New York succession motivated Congress to authorize Washington to attack Boston.  Victory at Trenton was a morale booster and Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga left the Revolution in control of most of the north and substantial portions of the South.

War History Network members will appreciate this work for several reasons. First is the introduction to this crucial personality in the road to victory in the Revolution.  In addition are the accounts of the issues and events in which Hancock participated.  Instrumental in the Colonial response to the Stamp and Townsend Acts and Tea tax, Hancock set the stage on which he and other colonial leaders would play their parts.   Readers of this volume will come to understand that, rather than proceeding in unison, the Revolutionary movement was cloven by disagreements over policy and means and personal rivalries.

Author Harlow Giles Unger has woven the tale of an extraordinary life into history of the Revolutionary era. I recommend “John Hancock: Merchant King and American Patriot” to readers seeking an interesting biography and a journey through the backstage of the Revolutionary War.