On the return to Boston, the legislature was in session and the assembly authorized him to transmit the settlement to Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State, at once, without formally laying it before them. They trusted him entirely. Hutchinson with some pride declared that "no previous instance of a like confidence of our Assembly in a Governor can be found in Massachusetts history."[128] This transient favor, and trust, aggravated for him the force of the blow he was so soon to receive. How bitter the home coming of Hutchinson was, the following extract from a letter to Sir Francis Bernard, the late Governor will show: [128] Hutchinson His. Vol. III., p. 391, 392. June 29, 1773. "After every other attempt to distress me they have at last engaged in a conspiracy which has been managed with infinite art, and succeeded beyond their own expectation. They have buzzed about for three or four months a story of something that would amaze everybody as soon as the elections were over, it was said in the House something would appear in eight and forty hours, which, if improved aright, the Province might be as happy, as it was fourteen or fifteen years ago. These things were spread through all the towns of the Province, and everybody's expectations were raised. At length upon motion the gallery was ordered to be cleared and the doors shut. Mr. Samuel Adams informed the House that seventeen original letters had been put in his hands, written to a gentleman in England by several persons from New England, with an intention to subvert the constitution. They were delivered to him on condition that they should be returned, not printed, and no copies taken. If the House would receive them on these terms, he would read them. They broke through the pretended agreement, printed the resolves, and then the letters, which effrontery was never known before. The letters are mere narratives which you well know to be true, as respects remarks upon the Colonies, and such proposals as naturally follow from the principles which I have openly avowed; but by every malversation, which the talents of the party in each House, could produce they have raised the prejudices of the people against me, and it is generally supposed all the writers were concerned in one plan, though I suppose no one of them ever saw or knew the contents of the letters of any others unless by accident." After three weeks spent, the House resolved to address the King, to remove the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.[129] The name of the person to whom the letters were written was erased from all of them, but they appear to be all Mr. Thomas Whatley's six from the Governor, four from the Lieutenant-Governor, one from Rogers, and one from Auchmuty and the remainder from Rhode Island and Connecticut. [129] M. A. His. Vol. XXVII., p. 502, etc.