His uncompromising policies and harsh tactics in Massachusetts angered the colonists and were instrumental in the building of broad-based opposition within the province to the rule of Parliament in the events leading to the American Revolution.

Appointed governor of New Jersey in 1758, he oversaw the province's participation in the later years of the French and Indian War, and had a generally positive relationship with its legislature.

After returning to England, he continued to advise the British government on colonial matters, calling for hardline responses to ongoing difficulties in Massachusetts that culminated in the 1773 Boston Tea Party.

[4] Bernard's formal education began at Westminster in 1725, and he then spent seven years at Oxford, where Christ Church granted him a Master of Arts in 1736.

He established a good working relationship with New Jersey's assembly, and was able to convince the province to raise troops and funds for the ongoing war effort.

[21] Upset over the snub the younger Otis resigned his post as advocate general (i.e. the Crown's representative, equivalent to a government prosecutor) before the admiralty court, and devoted himself instead to arguing (sometimes pro bono) on behalf of the merchants in defence of their ships.

[19] Bernard's difficulties were compounded when, after the death in late 1760 of King George II, it became necessary to reissue writs of assistance to customs tax collectors.

These writs, which were essentially open-ended search warrants, were judicially controversial and so unpopular that their issuance was later explicitly disallowed by the United States Constitution.

[27] In Massachusetts the provincial assembly issued a circular letter, calling on the other colonies to join it in a boycott of the goods subject to the Townshend taxes.

[28] Bernard was ordered in April 1768 by Lord Hillsborough, who had recently been appointed to the newly created office of Colonial Secretary, to dissolve the assembly if it failed to retract the letter.

"His misguided conviction that the 'faction' had espoused violence as its primary method of opposition, for example, kept him from recognizing the radicals' peace-keeping efforts....Equally dangerous, Bernard's elaborate accounts were sometimes built on insubstantial evidence.

"[31] Warden argues that Bernard was careful not to explicitly ask London for troops, but his exaggerated accounts strongly suggested they were needed.

In the fall of 1767 he warned about a possible insurrection in Boston any day, and his exaggerated report of one disturbance in 1768, "certainly had given Lord Hillsboro the impression that troops were the only way to enforce obedience in the town".

When Bernard left Boston on 1 August, the town held an impromptu celebration, decorated the Liberty Tree, and rang church bells.

[40] His appeals on the matter were at first rejected, but when Lord North became Prime Minister in 1770, the pension was raised, but shortly after replaced by an appointment as commissioner on the Board of Revenue for Ireland, which paid the same amount.

[44] In the Select Letters, which included the essay Principles of Law and Polity which he drafted in 1764, he laid out a point-by-point exposition of his viewpoints concerning imperial governance.

Combined with other uncertainties about where various family members would reside after he received the Irish appointment, the stress of the situation led Bernard to suffer a stroke.

Bernard never believed the difficulties he had in Massachusetts were personal: instead of accepting some responsibility, he blamed his problems on the policies emanating from London that he was instructed to implement.

[51] John Adams wrote that Bernard's "antagonistic reports" of matters in Massachusetts were instrumental in turning British government policymakers against colonial interests.

[52] Bernard's name headed a list drawn up in Massachusetts after the American Revolutionary War broke out of "notorious conspirators against the government", and most of his property there was confiscated.