JOSEPH WARREN'S OPINION OF GOVERNOR BERNARD, OTIS'S PRINCIPAL
ENEMY.

Governor Bernard's bad temper and bad taste in dealing with the
legislature may justly be ranked among the principal causes which
gradually, but effectually, alienated the affections of the
people of Massachusetts, first from the persons immediately
charged with the government of the province, and finally, from
the royal authority and whole English dominion. "With an
arrogant and self-sufficient manner, constantly identifying
himself with the authority of which he was merely the
representative, and constantly indulging in irritating personal
allusions, he entirely lost sight of the courtesy and respect due
to a co-ordinate branch of the government, and made himself
ridiculous, while he was ruining the interests of the sovereign
whom he was most anxious to serve. Even Hutchinson, as we learn
from the third volume of his History, though he was attached to
the same policy, and favored the same measures, censures the tone
of Bernard's messages as ungracious, impolitic, and offensive."

Popular animosity against Governor Bernard waxed exceedingly
strong during the controversy concerning the circular letter sent
by the Massachusetts Assembly to each House of Representatives in
the thirteen Colonies, in which the Colonies were urged to
concert a uniform plan for remonstrance against the government
policy. Bernard sent advices to England declaring that stringent
measures were imperative. Among those who were particularly
vehement in their denunciation of Bernard's character and conduct
was Joseph Warren, a young physician of twenty-seven years,