“Opportunity of hearing NANCY DAWSON”

As I described yesterday, in late 1768 Boston officials became concerned about the army regiments in town playing music on Sundays.

That music was a normal aspect of changing the guard. The garrison’s main guard was at the center of town, near the Old Brick Meeting-House.

By early December, that dispute nearly led to violence as soldiers chased away local youths who “behaved so as to displease the officer” in charge.

At the end of the year, the town’s highest elected officials complained directly to the officer commanding the four regiments:

Yesterday the Selectmen, waited upon General [John] Pomeroy, to acquaint him that the music of the fife, &c. on the Sabbath, was very disagreeable to the inhabitants, and might have an ill effect upon the younger and more thoughtless part of the community, with respect to the observance of that day; and as they apprehended it contrary to law, they expressed their hopes and desires that it might be omitted for the future, as they had taken notice it had sometimes been in stormy weather…

The selectmen also used the occasion to complain about sentries challenging civilians who passed their guardhouses and stations, as soldiers were ordered to do. Why did a British town at peace need sentries? Mostly to stop men from deserting from the army.  

The selectmen’s request had no effect according to the Whigs’ “Journal of the Times” dispatch for 1 Jan 1769.

The soldiery are obliged, the Lord’s day not excepted, to attend twice or thrice a day at the calling of the rolls. . . . The noise of the fife was this day more general and offensive than it has been upon any Sabbath, since the troops came among us.

But then the “Journal of the Times” didn’t mention military music again for over four months. (Or rather, the writers confined their complaints to a reportedly violent officers’ ball and the 29th Regiment’s black drummers.)

The issue of music on Sundays returned on 15 May:

Yesterday, but before divine service began, part of the town had opportunity of hearing NANCY DAWSON from a most elegant band of music, the French horns certainly were inimitable.—

It is some time since we have had such a Sunday morning’s regale, the drums and fife, being the common entertainment, and ‘tis uncertain to whose taste we owe this: Some think it the fancy of Madam G——m, while others think that the Justice himself conceived it might be an agreeable relief to the wardens under the burthen of their duty.

While fifes and drums were standard instruments for military musicians, many regimental bands had indeed expanded into French horns and oboes.

As for the allusions in that passage, Nancy Dawson (shown above) was a British actress and dancer who died in 1767. The hornpipe titled “The Ballad of Nancy Dawson” became very popular in the British Empire. That melody was also known as “Piss on the Grass,” and is now most easily identified as “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” (Boston’s youth also referred to the boys who dressed in women’s gowns and danced around the effigies during Pope Night processions as “Nancy Dawsons.”)

Finally we come to “Madam G——m” and “the Justice himself.” Dr. Samuel Gillam was a justice of the peace in Surrey, England. In May 1768 he authorized soldiers to disperse a crowd gathered to support John Wilkes, killing six or seven people. Whigs across the Empire viewed that “Massacre at St. George’s Fields” as an example of tyranny. Gillam was even tried for murder, but acquitted.

Earlier in their “Journal of the Times” the Boston Whigs had reported that ”the G——r had nominated and appointed the J—s M——y already noticed in this Journal, as one of his Majesty’s justices of the peace.” That is, Gov. Francis Bernard had made the Scottish-born merchant James Murray a magistrate. The Whigs warned, “the G——r will not now want a Justice Gillam.” In other words, Bernard now had an appointee willing to read the Riot Act and unleash troops on civilians.

The Whigs’ reference to “Madam G——m” and “the Justice himself” thus meant James Murray and his second wife, the former Margaret (Mackay) Thompson. According to Patricia Cleary’s biography of James’s sister, Margaret Murray was known in the family for enjoying the social whirl. That might be why the Whigs dragged her into this little controversy.

TOMORROW: Confrontation in June.