“Landed them on a point of Marsh or Mudland”

Lt. John Bourmaster of the Royal Navy, introduced yesterday, played a crucial role in Gen. Thomas Gage’s expedition to Concord on 18–19 Apr 1775.

Bourmaster’s commander, Adm. Samuel Graves, wrote in his self-serving Narrative report about the navy’s role in that operation:

The Boats of the Squadron, by desire of the General were ordered to assemble along side the Boyne by 8 o’Clock in the Evening, and their Officers were instructed to follow Lieut. Bourmasters Direction. These Boats were to take in the Troops and land them in the Night at Phipps Farm; which being done they marched up the Country.

Bourmaster’s own account appears in his 23 Apr 1775 letter to George Rogers, secretary to Adm. Augustus Keppel. J. E. Tyler published the text of that letter in the William and Mary Quarterly in 1953, and I pointed out the connections to Bourmaster yesterday.

The lieutenant offered details about the first leg of the redcoats’ journey—across the Charles River:

On the 18th Instant between 11 and 12 0 Clock at Night I conducted all the Boats of the Fleet (as well Men a War as Transports) to the back part of Boston where I received the Granadiers and light Infantry amounting to 850 Officers and Men and Landed them on a point of Marsh or Mudland which is overflowed with the last quarter flood;

this Service I presume to say was performed with secrecy and quietness having Oars muffled and every necessary precaution taken, but the watchful Inhabitants whose houses are intermixed with the Soldiers Barracks heard the Troops Arms and from thence concluded that somthing was going on tho they could not conceive how or where directed

in consequence of this conception a light was shown at the top of a Church Stiple directing those in the Country to be on their guard.

The intention of this Expedition was to distroy some Guns and provision which were collected near Concord a Town 20 miles from where the Troops were landed, Colonel [Francis] Smith a Gallant Old Officer commanded this detachment and performd the above service.

Bourmaster’s contemporaries wrote of him as not having wealth or genteel education when he joined the navy. That’s reflected in his writing, which has non-standard spellings (“Men a War,” “Stiple”) and punctuation. To be sure, we’ve got a copy of the original, if not a copy of the copy.

Bourmaster’s account confirms the struggle between the British military and the Boston Patriots over control of information. Just as the lieutenant’s sailors rowed with “Oars muffled,” so did the two men conveying Paul Revere across the same river a little downstream. British officers recognized how the lights from the Christ Church steeple signaled the countryside. They didn’t know the man cued to ride by that signal would play little or no part in raising the alarm.

It’s not clear if Bourmaster knew the objective of the regulars’ march on 18 April or heard about it later, but this is yet another British source saying that goal was the “Guns and provision” in Concord and not Patriot leaders in Lexington.

TOMORROW: Who was to blame.