He authored a highly political report on the 1770 Boston Massacre that has been described by historian Francis Walett as one of the most influential pieces of writing that shaped public opinion in the colonies.

During his two years in office, the combination of poor economic conditions and his harsh fiscal policy laid down by his government led to the uprising known as Shays' Rebellion.

[3] James Bowdoin I had a modest inheritance from his parents, but greatly expanded his father's merchant business and land holdings to become one of the wealthiest men in the province.

[8] Bowdoin was instrumental in gaining support in the provincial assembly for an expedition to Newfoundland to observe the 1761 transit of Venus across the sun,[9] and in the same year published a treatise suggesting improvements to the telescope.

[8] In 1785 he published a series of memoirs arguing against Isaac Newton's theory that light was transmitted by "corpuscles", citing both natural observations and Scripture.

His inheritance included major tracts of land, most of which he kept, in present-day Maine as well as in the agriculturally rich Elizabeth Islands off the state's south coast.

[19] Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson acquiesced to Bowdoin's return to the council, reasoning that he was less dangerous there than as an outspoken critic in the lower house.

[21] However, the seat Bowdoin vacated in the assembly was taken by Samuel Adams, another leading political opponent of the royal governors, and Hutchinson was faced with the prospect of opposition on both fronts.

The work was highly critical not only of the governor, but also the behavior of the British Army troops that were stationed in Boston,[16] and is characterized by historian Francis Walett as one of the major propaganda pieces influencing public opinion in the colonies.

[23] Hutchinson's successor, General Thomas Gage, vetoed Bowdoin's reelection to the council in 1774, citing "express orders from His Majesty" that he be excluded from that body.

[25] Bowdoin was again ill in 1775 when the American Revolutionary War broke out, and the family was relocated from British-occupied Boston (which was then under siege by area militia) first to Dorchester, and eventually to Middleborough, where he resided until 1778.

[28] He began to return to public life in 1778, and when Massachusetts wrote its own constitution in 1779, he was president of the convention called to create it, and chairman of the committee that drafted it.

Bowdoin was cast by Hancock supporters as unpatriotic, citing among other things his refusal to serve in the First Continental Congress (even though it was due to his illness).

[31] Bowdoin's supporters, who were principally well-off commercial interests from Massachusetts coastal communities, cast Hancock as a foppish demagogue who pandered to the populace.

Hancock's dilatory responses and refusal to produce an accounting of the college books dragged on for several years, as a result of which Bowdoin orchestrated his censure by the Harvard board of overseers.

[36] Both Bowdoin and Hancock attended the Brattle Street Church, where they competed with each other over the size and quality of the improvements to the building (and even the location of a new one) that they funded.

[39] In 1785, apparently sensitive to rising unrest in western Massachusetts over the poor economy, Hancock offered to resign, expecting to be asked to stay in office.

The gubernatorial race that year was dominated by Bowdoin, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Cushing (who was widely viewed as a stand-in for Hancock but lacked his charisma), and Revolutionary War General Benjamin Lincoln.

Bowdoin and Samuel Adams went after the Hancock-Cushing faction, seizing on the recently established and locally controversial social club (known either as "Sans Souci" or the "Tea Assembly"), at which card play and dancing took place (these activities had previously been banned in socially conservative Boston), as a sign of moral decay that took place under Hancock's term.

[44] These actions, which were combined with a general post-war economic depression and a credit squeeze caused by a shortage of hard currency, wrought havoc throughout the rural parts of the state.

[45] After the legislature adjourned on July 18, 1786, without substantively addressing these complaints, rural Massachusetts protestors organized direct action, and began protest marches that shut down the state's court system, which enforced tax and civil forfeiture judgments and had become a focus of the discontent.

[46][47] Bowdoin issued a proclamation in early September denouncing these actions, but took no overt steps to immediately organize a militia response (unlike governors in neighboring Connecticut and New Hampshire).

[48] When the foreclosure court in Worcester was shut down by similar action on September 5, the county militia (composed mainly of men sympathetic to the protestors) refused to turn out, much to Bowdoin's chagrin.

Fearing a new Revolution, and continuing to ignore the farmers' petitions, Bowdoin and Samuel Adams and their legislature enacted a Riot Act, suspended habeas corpus, and passed a bill that unsuccessfully attempted to address the financial reasons for the protests.

[63] He remained active in his charitable and scientific pursuits in his later years, continuing his leadership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[64] as well as that of the Humane Society.

[68] His son James III donated lands from the family estate in Brunswick, Maine, as well as funds and books, to establish Bowdoin College in his honor.

[39] An orrery constructed by clockmaker Joseph Pope, now in Harvard's science department, includes bronze figures of Bowdoin and Benjamin Franklin that were supposedly cast by Paul Revere.