“They were much insulted by the people”

Yesterday we left William Jackson on the road from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Boston, having reached the town of Newburyport on 11 April 1776.

Jackson and dozens of fellow Loyalists had been captured aboard the brig Elizabeth while trying to sail to Halifax with the rest of the British evacuation fleet.

Most of the king’s army, and most of the Loyalists inside Boston, had managed to get away. Which meant popular anger about those people focused on the prominent few remaining—like Jackson.

In Newburyport, an angry crowd surrounded the tavern where the captives were eating, objecting to how they were riding in carriages. Carriages that Jackson, ship captain Peter Ramsey, and the others had hired.

Jackson later recounted:

we sent for the Committe of safety to Appease them, but all to no purpose, finding our selves in such a situation we comply’d, the Committe not thinking it safe they Appointed a Guard of five Men and Obliged us to pay the Expence the rest of the Journey,

as soon as we came out of the Inn we received Blow’s, mud, stones, Eggs, and every other abuse and proceeded to Boston being 40 miles on foot

In Salem, the lawyer William Pynchon (1723–1789) wrote in his diary:

Wm. Jackson, merchant, and others, with some regular soldiers, went thro’ Salem on foot for Boston, under guard; ’t is said they were much insulted by the people (it must be presumed to be the rabble) at Newburyport, in their way hither; that Jackson was stopped and obliged to leave his carriage, and walk on foot from Newbury to Salem, and thence to Boston

Pynchon then said: “in Newbury street he was stopped again and obliged, after his hat was knocked off, to fall on his knees and beg pardon of the mob and of the Country, and to say whatever was required of him.” At first I thought that might be a reference back to the streets of Newbury, but the placement suggests this story described when Jackson reached Newbury Street in Boston’s South End. Jackson himself didn’t specify such an incident.

Fellow gentlemen—merchants, professionals, landowners—sympathized with Jackson for coming under fire from crowds of poorer citizens. On 16 April, Isaac Smith, Sr., wrote to John Adams from Salem:

You have heard of Bill Jackson’s being taken. He received some Insult on the road which am sorry for and lamented by all, persons of any consequence. He is in Boston goal, but I dont learn he has behavd any way Ill att Boston dureing the seige.

Indeed, Jackson’s letter complained that after reaching Boston:

we was again carried to Wartertown 9 miles before the late Councill and being each seperately ask’d a few Question’s and not properly Examined was sent back to Boston and committed on a supposed Crime of being concern’d with Crean Brush denied the Use of pen Ink and paper and Candle light not suffer’d to speak to any one but in presence of the keeper whare we have been ever since 13th April

That accusation must have been especially galling to Jackson since one month before he’d been trying to stop Crean Brush from taking away Cyrus Baldwin’s goods.

TOMORROW: In the Boston jail.