“The Idea of seizing a Number of Persons”

Though the first report about the London government’s plan for a special commission to investigate the attack on H.M.S. Gaspee was optimistic, as described yesterday, New England newspapers soon started to spread more alarming rumors.

Isaiah Thomas’s 17 Dec 1772 Massachusetts Spy told readers:

It is currently reported, that two regiments are ordered from New-York to Rhode-Island, to support the trial of persons there suspected, or rather informed against, for being concerned in burning the Gaspee armed schooner.

The Governor and Lieut Governor of this province, two of the appointed Judges, will shortly set out for Newport.

The Lively ship of war is also to sail, on board of which, the Admiral, another of the Judges, is to hoist his flag.

None of those statements turned out to be true. No army troops moved to Rhode Island, though the ministry did alert Gen. Thomas Gage in New York to be alert to requests from that colony.

Neither Gov. Thomas Hutchinson nor Lt. Gov. Andrew Oliver was put on the commission of inquiry. Their relative Peter Oliver, chief justice of Massachusetts, and Vice Admiralty court judge Robert Auchmuty represented Massachusetts instead.

Adm. John Montagu wasn’t a commissioner, either, and he and his flagship remained in Boston harbor for the winter.

Finally, the commission was empowered to investigate the attack, not to try defendants.

The Spy added, “Others say, that these devoted persons [i.e., accused] are to be taken agreeable to a late Act of Parliament, and sent for trial to London!” That complaint was closer to the truth, but the royal commission never managed to identify any likely culprits.

The fake news didn’t stop Whig newspaper writers from preemptively deploring the threat of such proceedings. The Spy’s report ended by complaining:

Can any one hear of…subjecting the inhabitants to trial, without Juries, on matters done within the body of a county, or what is worse, if possible, transporting them beyond the seas, and think himself secure in the enjoyment of his natural and constitutional rights! — How long, O LORD——How long!

Within a couple of days, the Whigs had received more accurate information about the ministry’s plan. Writers narrowed in on the threat of accused men being taken to Britain. The 19 December Providence Gazette, published by John Carter (shown above), said:

In this Situation of Affairs, every Friend to our violated Constitution cannot but be greatly alarmed.—The Idea of seizing a Number of Persons, under the Points of Bayonets, and transporting them Three Thousand Miles for Trial, where, whether guilty or innocent, they must unavoidably fall Victims alike to Revenge or Prejudice, is shocking to Humanity, repugnant to every Dictate of Reason, Liberty and Justice, and in which Americans and Freeman ought never to acquiesce.

Again, that hadn’t happened yet and never would happen, but at last the American Whigs had found the issue to hammer on.

TOMORROW: Leaks and laments.