It was in the year 1741 that the Boston Cadets came into existence as the governor’s body-guard. It was earlier, that Thomas Hancock, who had married the daughter of Henchman, the bookseller, by whom he was indoctrinated with the principles of successful trade, built the stone mansion on Beacon Hill which John Hancock, his nephew, later made more famous.[274] It was in this time of commercial distress that, according to Bennett, an observer, the reputation of the ladies of Boston suffered if they went to a dancing-assembly lately set up; but they could drive about with their negro footmen, and “neglect the affairs of their families with as good a grace as the finest ladies in London.” And when the finest lady in Boston, his Excellency’s wife, was buried in 1736, we read of the horses of the hearse covered with broadcloth and escutcheons, and of other parade and adornment, which gave tradespeople something to do and money to earn. Artisans needed then more than now such adventitious help. [Illustration: BENJAMIN POLLARD. This likeness of one of the first captains of the Boston Cadets follows an original by Blackburn in the gallery of the Mass. Hist Society. It was Pollard who received Shirley on his return from Louisbourg. _Mem. Hist. Boston_, ii. 119. He died in 1756. Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, i. 498, xvi. 390; _Catal. of the Cabinet_, no. 76.] Not a hatter might make as many hats as he would, because he injured by so much the trade of the English hatter, and Parliament interdicted (1732) any such rivalry. The poor man paid dear for his molasses, because Parliament compelled the merchant to buy it of the English sugar islands, instead of the French colonies in the West Indies.[275] He paid more for his rum, because Parliament protected the English distillers. The merchant smuggled and had no pangs of conscience; and what smuggling could do was very likely shown in the stately mansion that Thomas Hancock built.[276] Can we wonder that the new country did not attract as many settlers as it might; that town rates in Boston increased from £8,600 in 1738 to £11,000 in 1741, and the polls fell off from 3,395 to 2,972; and that Sam. Adams, graduating at Harvard in 1740, took for his Commencement part the inquiry, “Whether it be lawful to resist the superior magistrates, if the Commonwealth cannot be otherwise preserved?”