Henry Hulton was an Englishman who moved to Boston in 1767 as amember of the new American Board of Customs Commissioners. The board was supposed tocurtail smuggling and bring greater efficiency to the administration of empire. Itfailed, and Hulton fled Massachusetts in 1776, joining an exodus of the politicallydisplaced. Hulton eventually wrote a never-published history ofthe American rebellion as he experienced it. Although his complaints about the"demagogues" who dominated Massachusetts politics echo those madeby other Loyalists, Hulton adds another dimension to our understanding. As anEnglishman, he could be more detached from the problems of empire than Loyalists whohad been driven from their native land. For those interested in the complexities ofhistorical causation, this interpretation provides a telling case study of how anauthor can combine individual action with deeper forces to explain events. Thoughnot a historical determinist, Hulton did see rebellion as the logical result ofAmerican attitudes and behaviors that London allowed to go unchecked for too long. Hulton's history, his letters, and the letters of his sister, Ann,who lived with him outside Boston--all of which are reproduced here--provide anunusual glimpse into the onset of the Revolution in Massachusetts. Hulton washimself an intriguing figure, an Englishman seeking to secure fame and fortuneabroad, first in Germany, then on the island of Antigua, then again in Germany, witha stop in London before ambition took him back across the Atlantic, this time toMassachusetts. He would end his days a retired gentleman living in the Englishcountryside, frustrated by his experiences on both sides of the Atlantic butdetermined to teach his five sons the lessons about life that he learned andrecorded in this history.Distributed for the Colonial Society ofMassachusetts