The “Doctrine of Projectiles” and Other Doctrines

On 10 Aug 1775, the Newburyport schoolmaster John Vinal wrote out the text of a new advertisement to appear in the next day’s Essex Journal and succeeding issues.

That was nearly four months into the war, and Vinal’s ad reflected that situation:

AT a Time when our Enemies are endeavouring our Ruin it is highly proper to qualify ourselves in the best Manner we can to defend our injured Country:

And as the Doctrine of Projectiles, or Art of GUNNERY is of such Importance that no Person should undertake the Direction of any Piece of Ordnance without a competent Knowledge of it, the Want of which has proved fatal to many:

The Subscriber therefore proposes to instruct those who may incline to attend four Afternoons in a Week, from five to seven o’Clock, or from eleven to one A.M. [sic] in the above Art at a very moderate Price

JOHN VINAL.

N.B. The Subscriber received his Knowledge of the above Art from a Gentleman who was an Engineer in the British Army the whole of the last War.

Newbury Port, August 10th, 1775.

In April and October 1776 Vinal went back to advertising private lessons for the “youth of both sexes” in the standard school subjects, not gunnery.

Vinal was also a warden of St. Paul’s, the town’s Anglican church, founded in 1711. On 16 July 1776 he, fellow warden Joseph Cutler, and eight vestrymen gave this letter to their minister, the Rev. Edward Bass (1726–1803):

Rev’d Sir;—

The Representatives of the United Colonies in America, having in Congress declared s’d colonies free and Independent States, and disavowed all Allegiance to the King of Britain and the service of the Church to which we belong, prescribing certain prayers, &c., to be used for s’d King, his Family & Government, We find ourselves under the necessity of requesting you to omit in your use of the Service all Prayers, Collects, or Suffrages which relate to the King, Royal Family, or Government of Great Britain, both as we would avoid great Inconsistency and as we value the welfare of the church, being assured that without such omission the Existence thereof would immediately cease.

Most of Boston’s Anglican clergymen had left with the British military, and others in Massachusetts were keeping a low profile. Bass had to worry about local opinion, his congregation, his sacred oaths—and his salary.

TOMORROW: A special collection.