“One Harris is lately come from Bermuda”

Here’s a story I ran across in preparing my History Camp Boston 2024 presentation on the British colonies beyond the thirteen represented at the Second Continental Congress.

As I’ve written about before, at a council of war in Cambridge on 3 Aug 1775 Gen. George Washington learned that the Continental Army had only 38 barrels of gunpowder in reserve and not, as he’d thought based on previous reports, more than 400 casks.

That crisis produced some wild schemes for obtaining gunpowder quickly. The council endorsed the idea of a raid on Nova Scotia, which was soon abandoned but led to a couple of other enterprises: the army launching the schooner Hannah and the ships transporting Col. Benedict Arnold’s force from Newburyport to Maine.

The next day, Washington set a somewhat less wild idea in motion with a letter to Gov. Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island:

I am now, Sir, in strict Confidence to acquaint you that our Necessities in the Articles of Powder & Lead are so great as to require an immediate Supply—I must earnestly intreat you will fall on some Measures to forward every Pound of each in the Colony which can possibly be spared—

It is not within the Propriety & Safety of such a Correspondence to say what I might upon this Subject: It is sufficient that the Case loudly calls for the most strenuous Exertions of every Friend of his Country and does not admit the least Delay—No Quantity however small is beneath Notice, & should any arrive I beg it may be forwarded as soon as possible—But a Supply of this kind is so precarious not only from the Danger of the Enemy but the Oppy of purchasing that I have revolved in my Mind every other possible Chance & listned to every Proposition on this Subject which could give the smallest Hope—

Among others I have had one made which has some Weight with me as well the General Officers to whom I have proposed it. One Harris is lately come from Bermuda, where there is a very considerable Magazine of Powder in a remote Part of the Island, & the Inhabitants well disposed not only to our Cause in General, but to assist in this Enterprize in particular:

We understand there are two armed Vessels in your Province commanded by Men of known Activity & Spirit: One of which it is proposed to dispatch on this Errand with such other Assistance as may be requisite: Harris is to go along as the Conductor of the Enterprize & to avail ourselves of his Knowledge of the Island but without any Command:

I am very sensible that at first View this Project may appear hazardous, & its Success must depend upon the Concurrence of many Circumstances but we are in a Situation which requires us to run all Risques—No Danger is to be considered when put in Competition with the Magnitude of the Cause & the absolute Necessity we are under of increasing our Stock—Enterprizes which appear chimerical often prove successful for that very Circumstance

The general concluded that letter: “Since writing the above Col: [Elisha] Porter has undertaken to assist in the Matter or to provide some suitable Person to accompany Harris to you who will communicate all Circumstances to you.”

TOMORROW: Who was “One Harris”?