Mark Cole
During the 1770’s, Hancock was involved in every significant development leading up to the Declaration: the Boston Tea Party, the organization of the minutemen, the financing of the resistance. Indeed, it was often stated that, “Sam Adams wrote the letters to the newspapers, and John Hancock paid the postage.”
He worked tirelessly behind the scenes, but he was not afraid to take a bold public stand, as well. In his famous speech commemorating the Boston Massacre of 1770, Hancock spoke to crowds in Boston, and reminded them never to forget the events of the previous year:
“Let this sad tale of death never be told, without a tear; let not the heaving bosom cease to burn with a manly indignation at the relation of it, through the long tracks of future time; let every parent tell the shameful story to his listening children, till tears of pity glisten in their eyes, or boiling passion shakes their tender frames.”
He then turned his wrath directly on those British soldiers who, in a moment of cowardice and panic, fired a volley into a crowd of civilians:
“Dark and designing knaves, murderers, parricides! How dare you tread upon the earth, which has drunk the blood or slaughtered innocence shed by your hands? How dare you breathe that air, which wafted to the ear of heaven the groans of those who fell a sacrifice to your accursed ambition? — But if the labouring earth doth not expand her jaws; if the air you breathe is not commissioned to be the minister of death; yet, hear it, and tremble! The eye of heaven penetrates the darkest chambers of the soul; and you, though screened from human observation, must be arraigned, must lift your hands, red with the blood of those whose death you have procured, at the tremendous bar of God.”
With words like that, it is little wonder that Hancock would soon be charged with treason and become a wanted man.
Fast forward to April of 1775. After a considerable build up of tension between the royalist military governor of Massachusetts and local independence-minded patriots, martial law was declared and a crackdown on the insurgents was ordered. Hancock and Sam Adams were publicly denounced as traitors and their arrest was ordered. Fortunately for Hancock and Adams, they had been warned by Paul Revere that the British were coming. With a head start, they were able to escape and hide before the arrival of troops.
The governor’s troops then marched to Concord where the colonial militiamen were stockpiling weapons and gunpowder. The militiamen and red coats met. The Battle of Lexington and Concord followed, the “shot heard round the world.”
When the smoke cleared, more than fifty of the colonial militia had been killed. The Crown had declared war on the colonies. What would the response be?
In John Hancock’s mind, the necessary response was obvious.
Because of his certainty of purpose, Hancock was elected President of the Continental Congress. One of his first acts (and obviously his most significant one) was to commission George Washington as the chief military officer of the united army of the colonies.
By the time the delegates met in Philadelphia, Hancock’s bold and famous signature on the Declaration was a mere formality. He had already put his life, fortune and sacred honor on the line in the cause of independence. He likely welcomed the company of the other signers.
Stay tuned for the final installment of Hancock’s story NEXT WEEK!
Get the entire John Hancock’s story, and so much more –
Check out Mark’s book:
Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor: The Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence
