Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/101

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HUTCHINSON . 93 the inward revelations of the Spirit, the con- scious judgments of the mind, are of paramount authority. Two years after her arrival the strife between her supporters and her oppo- nents broke out into public action. Among her partisans were Vane, Cotton, Wheelwright, and the whole Boston church with the excep- tion of five members, while the country clergy and churches were generally united against her. " The dispute," says Bancroft, " infused its spirit into everything; it interfered with the levy of troops for the Peqnot war ; it in- fluenced the respect shown to the magistrates, the distribution of town lots, the assessment of rates ; and at last the continued existence of the two opposing parties was considered in- consistent with the public peace." The pecu- liar tenets of Mrs. Hutchinson were among the 82 opinions condemned as erroneous by the ecclesiastical synod at Newtown, Aug. 30, 1637; and in November she was summoned before the general court, and after a trial of two days was sentenced with some of her as- sociates to banishment from the territory of Massachusetts, but was allowed to remain du- ring the winter at a private house in Roxbury. It was her first intention to remove to the banks of the Piscataqua, but changing her plan she joined the larger number of her friends, who, led by John Clarke and "William Coddington, had been welcomed by Roger Williams to his vicinity, and had purchased by his recommendation from the chief of the Narragansetts the island of Aqnidneck, subse- quently called Rhode island. There a body politic was formed on democratic principles, in which no one was to be " accounted a delin- quent for doctrine." The church in Boston, from which she had been excommunicated, vainly sent a deputation to the island with the hope of reclaiming her. After the death of her husband in 1642, she removed with her surviving family into the territory of the Dutch. The Indians and the Dutch were then at war, and in an invasion of the settlement by the former her house was attacked and set on fire, and herself and all her family, excepting one child who was carried captive, perished either by the flames or by the weapons of the savages. IN TUinsov John, an English Puritan revo- lutionist, born in Nottinghamshire about 1616, died in Sandown castle, Kent, Sept. 11, 1664. He was a man of family and of good education, and was married at Richmond, July 3, 1638, to Lucy, daughter of Sir Allen Apsley, governor of the tower of London, with whom he sub- sequently settled on his estate at Owthorpe. After the commencement of the civil war he declared for the parliament and was appointed governor of Nottingham castle, which he held until the close of the war. He afterward rep- resented Nottingham in parliament, and, as a member of the high court of judiciary ap- pointed for the trial of the king, concurred in the sentence pronounced on him. The subse- quent course of Cromwell, however, met with the disapproval of Hntchinson. At the res- toration he was comprehended in the general act of amnesty, but was subsequently arrested on a suspicion of treasonable conspiracy, and after a detention of ten months in the tower was removed to Sandown castle, where he died of an aguish fever brought on by confinement in a damp cell. His wife survived him many years, and left a memoir of him, which is valuable as a record of events. It was first published from the original manuscript in 1806 (4to, London), and several other editions have since appeared. HUTt'HIKSOJf, John, an English philosopher, born at Spennithorne, Yorkshire, in 1674, died Aug. 28, 1737. After receiving a careful pri- vate education, he served as steward in several noble families. As riding purveyor of the duke of Somerset, master of the horse, he made a large collection of fossils. In 1724 appeared the first part of his " Moses's Prin- cipia," in which he disputed the Newtonian theory of gravitation. In the second part (1727) he continued his criticisms of Newton, and maintained on Biblical authority the doc- trine of a plenum in opposition to that of a vacuum. From this time one or more of his nncouthly written volumes, containing a sort of cabalistic interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures, appeared annually. His leading idea is that the Scriptures contain the ele- ments of all rational philosophy as well as of general religion. The Hebrew language has not only its literal but its typical sense, every root of it being significant. His philosophical and theological works were published in Lon- don in 13 vols. (1749-'65). HIT ( IIIXSOS, Thomas, governor of the prov- ince of Massachusetts, born in Boston, Sept. 9, 1711, died at Brompton, near London, in June, 1780. He was the son of a merchant of Boston who was long a member of the coun- cil, and graduated at Harvard college in 1727. After engaging without success in commerce, he began the study of law. He represented Boston for ten years in the general court, of which he was for three years speaker. He be- came judge of probate in 1752, was a council- lor from 1749 to 1766, lieutenant governor from 1758 to 1771, and was appointed chief justice in 1760, thus holding four high offices at one time. In the disputes which led to the revo- lution he sided with the British government. The mansion of Hutchinson was twice attacked in consequence of a report that he had written letters in favor of the stamp act, and on the second occasion (Aug. 26, 1765) it was sacked, the furniture burned in bonfires in the street, and many manuscripts relating to the history of the province, which ho had been 30 years in collecting and which could not be replaced, were lost. He received compensation for his losses, but none of the assailants were punished, although the proceedings were de- nounced by resolution in a public meeting. In 1767 he took a seat in the council, claiming