“A fine pleasant evening for your Indian caper”?

One of the stories about the Boston Tea Party that I’ve long been skeptical about involved Adm. John Montagu’s remark on the affair to the tea destroyers themselves.

The earliest print appearance of the tale is in Traits of the Tea Party, published in 1835. Benjamin Bussey Thacher wrote that book based on interviews with George R. T. Hewes (shown here) and others.

After describing the destruction of the tea Thacher wrote:

It is remarkable, that all this transaction was carried through in plain sight (and by a fine moonlight too) of the British squadron, which partly lay perhaps less than a quarter of a mile distant from the scene, and at hours when those who belonged to it must have been generally both aboard and awake.

The Admiral, indeed, is believed to have witnessed most of the affair at a much more convenient point, and even to have come ashore for the purpose. When the people marched off, according to Hewes, he shewed himself at the house of a Tory, named Coffin, who lived at the head of the wharf, running up the window, where he sat as they came along, and crying out, “Well, boys, you have had a fine pleasant evening for your Indian caper—havn’t you? But mind, you have got to pay the fiddler yet!”

“Oh, never mind!” shouted Pitts, “never mind, ’Squire! Just come out here, if you please, and we’ll settle the bill in two minutes!”

This raised a shout—the fifer struck up a lively air—the Admiral put the window down in a hurry—and the company marched on.

Hewes identified “Lendall Pitts, a well-known Whig,” as the “commander” or his “division” in the operation.

This type of story that comes up often in nineteenth-century accounts of the Revolution: a British official expressing frustration about Yankee daring and ingenuity, with a Yankee sometimes getting in the last word as well.

It’s a good anecdote. American newspapers started to quote it soon after publication. Many non-fiction authors repeated it. Esther Forbes even used the exchange in her novel Johnny Tremain.

It’s possible Adm. Montagu chose to be in town on the night the Customs department’s deadline for the Dartmouth arrived. But how likely was it that he actually saw men coming off Griffin’s Wharf? How likely was he to have raised a window to tell those men they would have to “pay the fiddler” (suffer the consequences of their action) but do no more? Did Pitts really respond to him like this?

All told, this anecdote seemed too good to be true. It felt like a story made up of what Bostonians imagined royal officials saying and what they wished they could say back.

TOMORROW: Reasons for doubt, and yet…