William Brattle
Major-General William Brattle (April 18, 1706 – October 25, 1776) was an American politician, lawyer, cleric, physician and military officer who served as the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1736 to 1738. Brattle is best known for his actions during the American Revolution, in which he initially aligned himself with the Patriot cause before transferring his allegiances towards the Loyalist camp, which led to the eventual downfall of his fortunes. The son of a prominent Massachusetts cleric, Brattle graduated from Harvard College in 1722 and eventually inherited the estates of both his father and uncle, making him one of the richest men in the colony. Brattle dabbled in medicine and law before spending the majority of his career as both a politician and a military officer in the colonial militia, serving through two French and Indian Wars and rising to the rank of brigadier-general by 1760. When tensions increased between Great Britain and its American colonies, Brattle initially supported the Patriot side before joining the Loyalist cause after a disagreement over judges' salaries. In 1774, Brattle wrote a letter to Governor Thomas Gage about the state of a gunpowder magazine outside Boston; rising tensions led Gage to order the gunpowder