BROWNE, William, loyalist, of Massachusetts, born 27 February, 1737; died in England, 13 February, 1802. He was a grandson of Governor Burnet, was graduated at Harvard in 1755, and was many years a representative of Salem and a colonel of the Essex County militia, he was one of the seventeen rescinders of 1768, and was a judge of the superior court in 1773-'4. Prior to the revolution he enjoyed great popularity. In 1774 a committee of the Essex County convention waited on him to express the grief of the county at his exertions to carry out acts of parliament calculated to ruin and enslave his native land. He had retired to London as early as May, 1776. He was included in the banishment act of 1778, and his extensive landed estates were confiscated. The English government made him governor of Bermuda in 1781, which office he retained until 1790.