In the summer of 1772, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson announced that he and all superior court judges would no longer need or accept the payment of their salaries from the Massachusetts legislature because the Crown would henceforth assume payment drawn from customs revenues. The following December, spurred on by Boston radicals, the town of Cambridge condemned the attempt to make the judges’ salaries payable by the royal exchequer as a violation of their ancient liberties and practices. At the Cambridge meeting, however, General William Brattle defended the crown’s assumption of the judges’ salaries and issued a challenge to all.
