Hopkins

At the Albany Congress of 1754, where Benja-
min Franklin was urging his plan of colonial
union, Hopkins and Franklin became firm
friends. After the passage of the Stamp Act
Hopkins was chairman of a committee to draft
instructions to the Providence deputies in the
General Assembly and in 1768 was again chair-
man of a committee to consider the circular letter
addressed to the colonies by Massachusetts. In
the five years preceding the Revolution he was a
member of the Rhode Island General Assembly
and chief justice of the superior court of the col-
ony. When the Rhode Islanders—some of them
his own kinsmen—burned the schooner Gaspee,
Joseph Wanton, governor of the colony, was in-
structed by the Crown to arrest the destroyers
and send them to England for trial, but the Chief
Justice frustrated action by declaring that he
would "neither apprehend" any of the offenders
"by his own order, nor suffer any Executive Of-
ficers in the Colony to do it" (Foster, post, II,
246 and Appendix T). It was in 1774, the year
of the convening of the First Continental Con-
gress at Philadelphia, that Stephen Hopkins in
association with his former political foe, Samuel
Ward, made formal entry upon the national
stage. Although this Congress avoided any dec-
laration looking toward American independence,
Hopkins did not hesitate to say, "Powder and
ball will decide this question" (Foster, post, II,
131). In the Second Continental Congress
(1775) he was a member of a committee charged
with submitting a plan for furnishing the col-
onies with a navy. He was also a member of the
committee for preparing articles of confedera-
tion. On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island had on its
own account renounced allegiance to the King of
Great Britain, and two months thereafter was
framed the American Declaration of Indepen-
dence, which Hopkins signed. His acts in con-
nection with the Articles of Confederation were
the last he performed on the national stage, for
in September 1776 he was compelled- to return
home because of declining health. Between 1776
and 1780 he was locally alert in the cause of in-
dependence, serving as delegate to conventions
of New England states, and in 1777 serving as
a member of the Rhode Island General Assem-
bly.

The tastes of Stephen Hopkins were not only
political; they were literary and scientific as
well. Although he was without systematic edu-
cation he had an insatiable relish for reading
and was influential in establishing, about 1754,
a public subscription library. In 1762 he helped
found the Providence Gazette; and Country
Journal as a patriotic counterpoise to the Loy-

Hopkinson

alist Newport Mercury, or, the Weekly Adver-
tiser, and he contributed to its contents through
a series of years. In its columns were printed
the initial chapters of "An Historical Account
of the Planting and Growth of Providence" (Oct.
20, 1762, and Jan. 12 to Mar. 30, 1765; reprinted
in Rhode Island Historical Society Collections,
vol. II, 1885, and in Massachusetts Historical
Society Collections, 2 ser., vol. IX, 1822) and
"The Rights of Colonies Examined" (Dec. 22,
1764; reprinted in Records of the Colony of
Rhode Island, vol. VI, 1861), which was issued
as a pamphlet the next year and widely reprinted
throughout the American colonies and in Eng-
land. In this latter contribution he attacked such
measures as the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act,
then imminent, on the ground that direct taxa-
tion of an unconsenting people was tyrannous,
and he haltingly expressed the theory of colonial
home rule which was later to find its fullest elab-
oration in the work of John Dickinson. Himself
a merchant in private life he, however, did much
to make Rhode Island a manufacturing center.
He was the first chancellor of Rhode Island Col-
lege (Brown University), founded at Warren
in 1764, and was instrumental in obtaining its
removal to Providence. He was a member of the
Philosophical Society of Newport, having been
admitted early as an out-of-town member, and
in 1769 was concerned in erecting a telescope in
Providence for observing the transit of Venus.
In 1726 he married Sarah Scott, descendant of
Richard Scott, Rhode Island's earliest Quaker.
Seven children were the result of this marriage.
Of his five sons four followed the sea, and three
became masters of vessels. His first wife died in
1753, and in 1755 ^e married Mrs. Anne (Smith)
Smith.

[W. E. Foster, "Stephen Hopkins," R.I.Hist Tracts,
no. 19 (2 pts., 1884) J Edward Field, State of R. L (2
vols., 1902); S. G. Arnold, Hist, of the State of R. I.~
vol. II (1860) ; G. S. Kimball, The Correspondence of
the Colonial Governors of R. L (2 vols., 1902-03) ; The
Narragansett Hist. Reg.t Apr. and July 1885; Essex
Institute Hist. Colls., vol. II (1860) ; Albert Holbrook,
Geneal. of One Line of the Hopkins Family (1881).]

I.B.R.

HOPKINSON, FRANCIS (Oct. 2, 1737-
May 9, 1791), statesman, musician, author, fa-
ther of Joseph Hopkinson [#.z/.], came of good
English stock. His father, Thomas Hopkinson,
migrated from London to Philadelphia about
1731 and took up the practice of law. He rose
rapidly in his profession and held numerous pub-
lic offices, the most important of which was that
of judge of the vice-admiralty for the province.
He was a member of the governor's council and
one of the founders of the American Philosoph-
ical Society, the Library Company, and the Col-

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