“Lurks about the wharves of this city”

Page 3 of William and Thomas Bradford’s Pennsylvania Journal for 13 Oct 1773 included a notice of a meeting of the American Philosophical Society and a proclamation from Gov. John Penn that the Crown had approved two bills the colonial assembly had passed back in March 1772 (a divorce and a naturalization).

In between those items was this announcement:

WHEREAS the infamous EBENEZER RICHARDSON, convicted of PERJURY and MURDER, has, at the instance of his special friend, Charles Paxton, been sent to this city as a pensioner to the —honorable Commissioners at Boston; and in consideration of his many special Services, has by them been rewarded with a quarterly payment, out of the money levied on the Americans, by an Act of Parliament, without their consent:

And whereas the said RICHARDSON, rioting in the spoils of his country, lurks about the wharves of this city, seeking an opportunity to distress the Trade of Philadelphia, and enslave America: And, in order more effectually to answer his vile purpose, has intimately connected himself with a certain T———, a Tide-Waiter here, who publicly declared “he would not only associate with the VILLAIN, EBENEZER, but with the DEVIL himself, if so ordered by the COMMISSIONERS,”

Now it is expected, that all Lovers of Liberty, in this Province, will make diligent search after the said RICHARDSON, and having found this Bird of Darkness, will produce him, tarred and feathered, at the Coffee-House, there to expiate his sins against his country, by a public recantation.

TAR AND FEATHERS.

N.B. The above RICHARDSON appears to be a man of 40 years of age, is about 5 feet 4 or 5 inches high, pretty thick and broad a-cross the shoulders, has a very ill countenance, and down look, [Cain’s Phyz,] mostly wears a flopped hat, a piss burnt cut wig, and a blue surtout coat, with metal buttons.

That’s quite a display of rhetoric. It makes something sinister from Richardson’s job in the Customs service: he “lurks about the wharves,” aims to “distress the Trade,” receives “a quarterly payment” (i.e., his salary). The item links him to “the DEVIL,” “Cain,” and a “Bird of Darkness.” It also contains the only physical description of the man that I’ve seen, not at all flattering. 

This article appears to have been written in Philadelphia by someone not fully familiar with Richardson’s long history in Massachusetts, picking up cues from Boston newspapers. The man was never “convicted of PERJURY,” to my knowledge. Bostonians called him a perjurer, including at the start of the riot at his house, because he’d deceived the public about his child with Kezia Hincher for several crucial months, and because painting him as a habitual liar let them cast doubt on his reports about smuggling and other activity.

The invocation of “TAR AND FEATHERS” is also striking because that public punishment hadn’t shown up in Philadelphia yet. Indeed, many Americans, even Whigs, viewed those incidents as New Englanders going too far. But the next month a broadside warning river pilots against bringing tea into Philadelphia would be issued by “THE COMMITTEE FOR TARRING AND FEATHERING.” (Or “Committee of Taring and Feathering,” as the next paragraph put it, showing the locals behind this threat were still working out details.)

Lastly, this newspaper notice overtly confronts the royal Customs service. It names one of the agency heads in Boston, verges on calling those men “[dis]honorable,” and refers to a local tide waiter by an initial everyone on the Philadelphia waterfront would recognize. That last seems like a clear threat.

TOMORROW: Results.