HANCOCK, JOHN, American statesman: b. Braintree, Mass., 23 Jan. 1737; d. Quincy, Mass., 8 Oct. 1793. He was graduated at Har vard College in 1754, but shortly after entered the counting house of an uncle, on whose death in 1764.he received a fortune of 180,000. After 1766 he was several times elected to the Massa chusetts General Court. It was the seizure of his sloop, the Liberty, that occasioned the riot in 1768, when the royal commissioners of cus toms narrowly escaped with their lives. After the so-called "Boston in 1770, he was a member of the committee to demand of the royal governor the removal of the troops from the city, and at the funeral of the slain delivered an address which greatly offended the governor, who now endeavored to seize the per sons of Hancock and Samuel Adams. Both were members of the Provincial Congress at Concord and later of that at Cambridge, and Hancock was president of each. This arrest is said to have been one of the objects of the expedition to Concord which led to the first battle of the Revolution after which Gage offered pardon to all the rebels except these two, °whose offences," he added, are of too fla gitious a nature to admit of any other constder ation but that of condign punishment.'" In 1775
Hancock was chosen president of the Conti nental Congress, and in 1776 signed the Decla ration of Independence. He resigned from the presidency in 1777 but was a member of the Congress until 1780 and again in 1785-86. With rank of major-general, he commanded the Massachusetts forces in the Rhode Is land expedition, in 1780 was a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, and under that constitution was in 1780 chosen first governor. To this office, with an interval of two years (1785-87) he was annually re-elected till his death. His last important office was as president of the convention in 1788 on the adoption of the Federal Constitution. Han cock was a man of strong common sense and great decision of character, of polished man ners, easy address, affable, liberal and chari table. His personal vanity and his jealousy were at times conspicuous, bathe was a sincere patriot and of much ability. John Adams said of him: "He was by no means a contemptible scholar or orator. Compared with Washington, General Lincoln or Knox, he was Consult Brown, A. E., 'John Hancock: his Book' (1898) ; Sears, Hancock the Pic turesque Patriot' (1912).