“the long Confinement of her said Husband in close Goal”

Yesterday’s post recounted Hopestill Capen’s plea to be let out of jail, where he was locked up on suspicion of being inimical to the newly independent Massachusetts in August 1776.

That long, religiously based argument, printed as a broadside, didn’t work. So on 22 October his wife Patience took over the case.

It’s possible that, like Benjamin Davis, Hopestill refused to petition the Massachusetts legislature because that would mean recognizing that as a legitimate government authority.

It’s also possible that Patience Capen was willing to argue a position that her husband would not. Or she expected that as a woman she could garner more sympathy than he did.

The Massachusetts Archives displays a digital copy of Patience Capen’s petition to the Council in this online exhibit, albeit captioned with her husband’s name.

Patience Capen acknowledged that her husband handbill hadn’t gone over well:

That altho your Pet[itione]r’s said Husband signed certain Obnoxious Papers, in which he declares he acted from the Principles of his Religion and the Dictates of Conscience, by “Submitting to the Powers that be,” yet he never had in his Heart the least intention of taking up Arms against his country but on the contrary exerted himself and was actually the means of securing and saving the Property and Interest, to a very considerable Value of several of the Inhabitants of Boston, who removed out of Town, and left their Interest & Property exposed to the Ravage and Plunder of our Enemies.

That by means of the long Confinement of her said Husband in close Goal, she and her Children have suffered great Distress

She asked that the authorities release Hopestill so he could get busy “obtaining a support for them”—with the implied threat that the family might soon need public charity. That sort of plea was designed to catch officials’ attention.

On 24 October, Council member Caleb Cushing shared Patience Capen’s petition with the Massachusetts House. Which of course referred the matter to a committee.

American Archives included the transcription of a document datelined “In the House of Representatives, November 25, 1776.” It laid out a plan for Hopestill Capen to be released once he arranged for a bond of £100. However, there’s no sign of that proposal in the official records of the House. I suspect this was a draft that went nowhere.

Hopestill Capen remained in jail.

TOMORROW: Hearing from Hopestill again.