“A Comedy of Three Acts, Never Before Printed”

When I read the broadside seeking money to print William Clarke’s play The Miser: or, The Soldier’s Humour in 1768, I thought the (very few) published interpretations of this artifact were all wrong.

This wasn’t a sincere solicitation for a new play, I theorized. It didn’t really come from Pvt. William Clarke of the 29th Regiment. Elisha Brown didn’t print it, as many bibliographers had guessed. Instead, it was a satire using the format of a play proposal to comment on the recent Manufactory siege. In early 1770 the Boston Chronicle played the same game, running an advertisement for a tragedy called The Witches to criticize the non-importation protests roiling the town.

In the case of The Miser, I theorized, the broadside preserved some jokes that the people of Boston recognized but which are lost to us today. “The SOLDIER’S HUMOUR, A Comedy of Three Acts, As it is acted by his Majesty’s Servants,” had to refer to the actions of the king’s soldiers in town. Pvt. Clarke, named on the sheet, must have made himself notorious in some way. And the last paragraph’s reference to “ELISHA BROWN, at the Manufactory-House,” drove home the joke. After all, it was silly to think that a private soldier would be publishing a three-act comedy in Boston, selling copies through a cloth weaver whose family had just been fighting off the army.

But on 27 Feb 1769, a notice appeared in both Edes and Gill’s Boston Gazette and Green and Russell’s Boston Post-Boy (this version of the text from the latter):

This Day Published,
(Price Eight Pence, covered in blue Paper,)
And sold by Ezekiel Russell, at the New Printing-
Office, a few Doors Northward of Concert-Hall,
Hanover-Street: The
MISER:
Or, The
Soldier’s Humour.
A
COMEDY
Of Three Acts,
Never Before Printed:
By WILLIAM CLARKE, of the 29th Regiment.
Non possum placeto Omnibus.

Ezekiel Russell and his wife Sarah were printers who had no newspaper in pre-Revolutionary Boston but kept busy printing two other things: crowd-pleasing ballads about recent events and whatever authors or sponsors were willing to pay for. Isaiah Thomas, who worked briefly for Ezekiel Russell as a runaway apprentice in 1766, had little praise for the shop’s publications in his history of printing.

But the Russels actually issued a lot of interesting material—they were bold or desperate enough to take chances. Ezekiel Russell was the printer, though not the publisher, of the Censor magazine supporting the royal administration in the early 1770s. The Russells issued Phillis Wheatley’s first proposal for a collection of poems and James Swan’s argument to abolish slavery. They partnered with Joseph Greenleaf when he decided to go into printing. They published the disabled young almanac-maker Daniel George and the female poets Hannah Wheaton and Jenny Fenno.

And the Russells evidently published Pvt. William Clarke’s comedy, The Miser, exactly as proposed in December 1768. Clarke must have raised enough money through Elisha Brown and other people passing out his broadside proposal (no doubt printed at the Russell shop, not in the Manufactory). Maybe the customers were British military gentlemen—that seems more likely than Bostonians investing in an unproduced play by a soldier.

It’s still a mystery how Elisha Brown came to be soliciting advance orders for Clarke. I suspect an important factor is that, just as Clarke was an unusual redcoat with literary ambitions, Brown wasn’t a typical Boston craftsman. I believe the Browns were English by birth, bringing their weaving skills to Massachusetts. Elisha Brown might therefore have been more open to working with a soldier and peddling a play than the sons of Puritans.

Unfortunately, no copies of The Miser are known to have survived. That comedy wasn’t the end of Pvt. William Clarke’s literary ambitions, however, or of his adventures in Boston. It looks like he’ll play a notable role in Serena Zabin’s upcoming book Occupying Boston: An Intimate History of the Boston Massacre.

“An incitement for the Author,” Willilam Clarke

In December 1768, the same month that John Brown advertised for customers at the Manufactory as quoted yesterday, his relative Elisha Brown appeared in another plea for business.

That plea took the form of a broadside, a tattered copy of which is visible courtesy of the Library of Congress. It says:

Boston, December, 1768.

PROPOSALS
For printing by Subscription,
The
MISER:
Or The
SOLDIER’S HUMOUR.
A
COMEDY
Of Three Acts,
As it is acted by his Majesty's Servants.

By William Clarke,
Soldier in His Majesty’s XXIXth Regiment.

Non possum placeto Omnibus.

No more Libels shall in my Works be found,
I’ll gently tickle whilst I probe the Wound.

As this new and ingenious Pamphlet was never before printed (though the Author has been often importuned to grant a Copy of the same) it is hoped it will meet with that Applause from the Publick, the Merit of the Performance so justly deserves, which will be an incitement for the Author further to gratify the Curiosity of his Readers in this Way.

The Price to Subscribers will be Eight Pence, L.M. each Book, which will be nearly printed on a good Type, and fine Paper, and will be covered with blue Paper.

Those Persons who subscribe for Six Books shall have a Seventh gratis.

Subscriptions are taken in by ELISHA BROWN, at the Manufactory-House, and by those Gentlemen who are possessed of these Proposals.

Such a proposal was a standard way of raising money to print something when the author didn’t have the funds to pay up front—basically running a Kickstarter campaign, selling copies in advance. The offer of seven for the price of six was an attempt to interest booksellers in carrying the title.

Several details made this proposal unusual, however. First, it was for publishing a play in a town that banned theater. To be sure, Bostonians read plays, and booksellers sold them. But this was said to be a new play, never before printed, and not a respectable, established drama like Addison’s Cato.

Second, the playwright was a private soldier. The name of “William Clark” appears on the rolls of Capt. Ponsonby Molesworth’s company in the 29th. Many men in that regiment couldn’t sign their own names, and William Clarke had written a three-act comedy. His notice even included a Latin motto and a quotation in verse. Now that Latin, apparently meant to say, “It’s not possible to please everyone,” wasn’t accurate Latin. And half the verse, but only half, came straight from one of John Dryden’s translations of Persius. But Clarke was clearly making a claim to be learned.

Finally, the one man named as collecting money for this endeavor was “ELISHA BROWN, at the Manufactory-House”—one of the cloth weavers who had been forcibly resisting the British army just two months before. Brown’s role was even immortalized on his tombstone in 1785. How had Clarke and Brown gone into business together like this?

In October 1923, the Massachusetts Historical Society took note of this broadside. A short article in its Proceedings titled “An Unpublished Comedy” said that nothing was known about “Clarke and his unpublished comedy. . . . No copy of the pamphlet is known and it is doubtful if the response to the ‘Proposals’ were such as to warrant its printing.”

TOMORROW: But Clarke’s play was published.

“The Soldiers were withdrawn”

On 22 Oct 1768, 250 years ago today, the Boston Whigs had a surprise to report:

This morning we are told that the sheriff [Stephen Greenleaf], whom to carry on the allusion we will call the General, has raised the siege of the Manufactory, with the trifling loss of all his honour and reputation—the troops were withdrawn under cover of the night, and it is hoped as the season is now advanced, that they will be soon ordered into winter quarters at Castle Island; sufficient supplies have however been sent into the Manufactory to serve in case the attack should be renewed

Gov. Francis Bernard explained the action in a report to the Secretary of State in London. First he blamed his Council, but then he acknowledged:

…the building not being immediately wanted, The Soldiers were withdrawn on the Evning of the Second day. Thus this building belonging to the Government & assigned by the Governor & Council for his Majesty’s Use, is kept filled with the Outcast of the Workhouse & the Scum of Town to prevent it’s being used for the Accommodation of the Kings Troops[.]

Thus the big confrontation over the Manufactory came to an end.

To be sure, army sentries remained in the cellar of the building, causing some difficulty for the Brown family of weavers. Those soldiers would not be pulled out until 4 November. John Brown filed his lawsuit against Sheriff Greenleaf on 24 October, and that would linger in the courts for the rest of the year. But the threat to the families inside the Manufactory was over.

Bostonians had stood up against the royal officials’ demands. Those officials shied from going beyond the widely accepted bounds of British law and from provoking violence. The result was that the local Whigs felt they had won a round. So of course they felt encouraged to do it again.

The town retained the memory of that confrontation—in a way. In August 1785, a former overseer of the Manufactory died at the age of sixty-five. The Massachusetts Centinel called him “An honest man—the noblest work of God.” The 15 September Independent Chronicle went on at length about his virtues. And his gravestone in the Granary Burying Ground read:

ELISHA BROWN
of BOSTON.
who in Octr 1769, during 17 days
inspired with
a generous Zeal for the Laws
bravely and successfully
opposed a whole British Regt.
in their violent attempt
to FORCE him from his
legal Habitation.
Happy Citizen when call’d singley
to be a Barrier to the Liberties
of a Continent.

That was, of course, the wrong date for the Manufactory siege.

(Elisha Brown’s gravestone above photographed by Wally Gobetz, via Flickr.)

“His honour the Lieut. Governor, condescended to come”

And speaking of Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson, on 19 Oct 1768—250 years ago today—he entered the conflict over the Manufactory House in Boston.

Even before the regiments arrived, some army officers had scouted that big, province-owned building for use as barracks. On the 14th Regiment’s first night in town, they had gathered outside it before moving to Faneuil Hall. Later, the young printer John Boyle pegged the news “The 29th. Regt. have laid Seige to the Manufactory-House for several days” to 12 October, though he may have set those words down years later and inaccurately.

Everyone knew the army wanted that building, and the royal authorities wanted them to have it. Everyone knew that the people inside, supported by local radicals, wanted to keep possession.

The Boston Whigs wrote in their “Journal of Occurrences” about 19 October:

The people dwelling in the Manufactory House, again secured themselves with bolts and bars. His honour the Lieut. Governor, condescended to come with Sheriff [Stephen] Greenleaf, and to use many arguments and devices in order to effect their removal; but he was plainly told, that it was their opinion and that of others, that they could not be legally turned out of doors in consequence, of the vote of Council, which was not an act of the General Court, and that it surely could not be intended that they should be ousted in any other way; to which his honour replied, that the remaining part of Government had given the order.

The 24 Oct 1768 Boston Gazette reported that this conversation took place with Brown and other people leaning out of the building’s hall windows and calling down to the royal officials. The sheriff also rapped on the east door of the building but got no answer.

In lieu of a warrant, Sheriff Greenleaf read out the minutes of the relevant Council meeting. Brown asked for a copy of that document. The sheriff said he would have to obtain one from the province secretary, Andrew Oliver. But that of course would mean Brown would have to leave the building.

In 1770 the Whigs brought up Hutchinson’s actions on that day, and he replied with a more detailed description of what he did and why:

The governor had for some days been endeavouring to prevail on the council to join with him in providing quarters for the troops: at length, the council advised that a house belonging to the province should be cleared, in part whereof one Mr. [Elisha or John] Brown remained a tenant at sufferance, and into other parts whereof, certain persons, some of them of bad fame, had intruded. The governor had been informed that these people had been instigated to keep possession of the house by force, notwithstanding the advice of council.

On Wednesday the 19th of October, he desired me to go to the house and acquaint the people with the vote or advice of council, and to warn them of the consequences of their refusal to conform to it; and he said he thought it probable they might be prevailed on to remove, and all further trouble would be prevented. The sheriff was directed to attend me.

I went and acquainted Mr. Brown with the determination of the governor and council, and told him that, in my opinion, they had the authority of government, in the recess of the general court, to direct in what manner the house should be improved, and advised and required him to remove without giving any further trouble.

He replied, that without a vote of the whole general court, he would not quit the house.

I told him he made himself liable for the damage which must be caused by his refusal, and he and his abettors must answer for the consequences.

I remember that two persons were in the house, and, whilst I was speaking to Mr. Brown, came into the yard. One of these persons, whose name I afterwards found to be Young, inserting himself in the business, I asked him what concern he had in the affair. His reply was, that he came there as a witness. Nothing material passed further, nor was anything said of my appearing as chief justice.

I returned to the governor, and informed him of the refusal of the people to quit the house; and upon his asking my opinion what was the next proper step, I acquainted him that the superior court was to be held at Cambridge, the Tuesday following, and that I thought it advisable to let the affair rest, and I would then consult with the other justices of the court upon it. I supposed it would rest accordingly, and went the same day to my house in the country [i.e., Milton]…

The man named Young was Dr. Thomas Young, one of the most radical of the Boston Whigs. He had come to Boston from the Albany region in the fall of 1766, attracted by the bigger, more politically active community. According to Harbottle Dorr, he wrote the Boston Gazette’s description of this day. In the next several months Young would rise to the top echelon of the Whigs, one of the two gentlemen seen as closely linked to the crowds in the streets.

It’s striking how the dispute over the Manufactory building was still hinging on a minute point of constitutional law: When the lower house of the General Court was not in session (because the governor had closed it early), could the governor and Council speak for the whole provincial government?

Brown the weaver said no; according to the Gazette, he stated that “his counsel were of the ablest in the province, and he should adhere to their advice be the consequences what they would.” Hutchinson the chief justice (though not a lawyer) said yes, but even then he planned to “consult with the other justices of the court” on how to proceed.

Meanwhile, the Gazette stated, Brown “kept his doors and windows shut.” However, some of the men who worked in the Manufactory cellar decided to “keep one of the lower [window] sashes moveable, to pass from the cellar to the yard.” Perhaps they needed to get to the outhouse.

TOMORROW: The sheriff returns.

“All the Troops Landed under cover of the Cannon”

On the morning on 1 Oct 1768, 250 years ago today, Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf and a deputy started “pressing carts, &c. for the use of the troops.” Boston Whigs indignantly reported that detail to sympathetic newspaper readers in other North American ports.

The Whigs surmised that Greenleaf was borrowing equipment to help the soldiers land from the Royal Navy ships in the harbor. Indeed, that move started in the early afternoon, as described by Deacon John Tudor:

At aboute 1 O’clock Satterday all the Troops Landed under cover of the Cannon of the Ships of War; The Troops drew up in King Street and marched off in a Short time into the Common with Muskets charged, Bayonets fixed (perhaps Expecting to have met with resestance as the Soldiers afterwards told the inhabitants) their Colours flying, Drums beating & museck playing, In short they made a gallant appearance, makeing with the Train of Artillery aboute 800 Men. 

Col. Dalrymple told the Boston selectmen that the troops under his command actually numbered about 1,200. He had heard warnings that the locals might resist their landing with force. As a careful commander, he not only had his men ready with their bayonets but asked the warships to train their artillery on the town. Fortunately, there was no violence.

The 29th Regiment of Foot marched to Boston Common and camped there. The Whigs complained that this was “in hopes of intimidating the magistrates to find them quarters, which they cannot force until the barracks are filled, without flying in the face of a plain act of Parliament.” The selectmen continued to insist that the barracks on Castle William fulfilled the letter of the law even if the London government had been explicit about stationing at least one regiment inside Boston.

The 14th Regiment “had not a sufficient number of Tents,” Col. William Dalrymple told the selectmen. According to the Whigs:

In the afternoon it is said an officer [Lt. David Cooper] from the Col. went to the Manufactory House, with an order from the Governor, and requested Mr. Brown and the other occupiers to remove within two hours, that the troops might take possession; instead of a compliance the doors were barr’d and bolted against them. 

Elisha Brown was a weaver who leased part of the big Manufactory building from the province. He and his family lived inside amongst their looms and spinning wheels. With support from local elected officials, the Browns were determined the stay.

Part of the 59th Regiment of Foot had also come from Halifax, and it found quarters “at Robt. Gordons Stores,” according to merchant John Rowe. That businessman probably leased his property to the army for hard cash. A contingent of the Royal Artillery arrived as well, but it was small enough that no one noted where they bunked.

Late in the afternoon Col. Dalrymple went to the selectmen and “entreated of them as a favor the use of Faneuil Hall for one Regiment to lodge in till Monday following, promissing upon his honor to quit said Hall at that time.” According to Tudor, “about SunSett the 14 Regemt Marched from the Common down to Faneuil Hall.”

But Faneuil Hall was the center of democracy in Boston. It was the site of town meetings and of the town clerk’s and selectmen’s offices. It was the storage place of “a large number of stands of the towns arms” for militia use. Would the selectmen give up that space? Politically, could they?

For about two hours the 14th Regiment stood in the center of town as the night grew cooler. Finally two factors swayed the selectmen:

• “The next day being the Sabbath, on which all confusion should be avoided”
• “the hardship of the Troops must be exposed to while remaining in the open air”

At nine o’clock the troops were allowed into Faneuil Hall to bed down. 

In their newspaper dispatches the Whigs made claimed a moral victory: “Thus the humanity of the city magistrates permitted them a temporary shelter, which no menaces could have procured.”

TOMORROW: Remembering that history this week.

John Hodgson, court transcriber and bookbinder

Here is the advertisement for printer John Fleeming’s most famous publication: the transcript of the trial of soldiers after the Boston Massacre. Fleeming advertised that pamphlet on 27 Dec 1770, though it wasn’t available until 21 January.

The man who transcribed the proceedings was John Hodgson, an immigrant from Scotland like Fleeming. By the end of the trial his hands were so tired that he couldn’t get down Robert Treat Paine’s summary arguments for the prosecution. Some people—Richard Palmes, John Adams—complained that the printed transcript was inaccurate. But trial transcriptions were almost unheard of in America then, and Hodgson created the best record we have of that important event.

Isaiah Thomas later included Hodgson on his list of Boston booksellers, saying he had opened a shop on Marlborough Street (part of the town’s central artery) in 1762:

Hodgson…was bred to bookbinding in Scotland, and became a good workman. He was chiefly employed in this business, but sold a few books. By permission of the court, he took, in short hand, the trial of the soldiers who were concerned in the massacre at Boston, on the evening of the 5th of March 1770.

In the 2 Jan 1764 Boston Evening-Post, Hodgson advertised that he “Binds Books of all Kinds, gilt or plain,” and also “sells Books, Stationary, Plays, &c. &c.”

In October 1765, Hodgson was one of three trustees for the weaver Elisha Brown when he declared bankruptcy in a wave of insolvencies. Three years later, during a dispute over turning the Manufactory into barracks for the British army, Brown and his family defied the royal authorities by refusing to leave that building. By that point Hodgson was working for a bookseller and printer on the other side of the political divide.

According to Thomas, Hodgson “gave up his shop in 1768, and was, afterward, employed by John Mein,” yet another arrival from Scotland. Mein managed a bookstore, and partnered with Fleeming in publishing the Boston Chronicle. He was a loud and cutting opponent of the local Whigs, and in late 1769 a crowd of angry businessmen drove him out of town. Hodgson published one short letter in the 26 October Chronicle about that small riot, supporting Mein.

Eventually Hodgson went back out on his own, announcing in the 30 July 1772 Massachusetts Spy that he had moved into “the shop Mr. John Greenlaw lately improved.” His ad in the 18 Oct 1773 Boston Post-Boy says:

Bookbinding in its various Branches.

JOHN HODGSON
Hereby informs the Public,
That he carries on his Business of Bookbinding at his Shop, near Mr. Philip Freeman, jun. near LIBERTY-TREE.

ANY Orders Gentlemen in Town or Country may choose to favour him with, in the above Branch, he promises to execute as neat as any London Binding, and on the most reasonable Terms.

N.B. Gentlemens Libraries, or a single Book, regilt, cleaned and made look as well as new.—All Orders from the Country shall be strictly attended to.

TOMORROW: John Hodgson and the coming of war.