McConville on the Quebec Act at 250, 27 June

Years back, I decided to look into the burning question of whether the Quebec Act of 1774 was one of what American Patriots called the “Intolerable Acts.”

That law wasn’t, after all, directed at Massachusetts, even if the Suffolk Resolves treated the acceptance of Roman Catholicism in a population hundreds of miles away as a serious affront and threat.

The result was discovering that the American Patriots of 1774 didn’t call anything the “Intolerable Acts.” As I wrote in this article, that label surfaced in U.S. history textbooks in the late nineteenth century and was then retroactively embedded in the past.

Nonetheless, the Quebec Act was one of the significant pieces of legislation to come out of Lord North’s government. Years in the making, that law incorporated a large formerly French territory into the British Empire. His Majesty’s government accepted the civil code and religion established under the former regime. The law even expanded the province to include the lands between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

On 27 June, the Congregational Library and Archives will host “The Quebec Act at 250,” an online discussion with Prof. Brendan McConville exploring the significance of how the francophone province was folded into the British North American colonies—and why it made Congregationalists so profoundly uncomfortable.

McConville is Professor of History at Boston University and Director of the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society. He’s the author of These Daring Disturbers of the Public Peace, The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776, and The Brethren: A Story of Faith and Conspiracy in Revolutionary America. He’s always offering provocative ways to look at the American Revolution.

This online event is scheduled to start at 1:00 P.M. It is free. To register and receive the link for that session, go to this page.

“All the English must deliver their Vessels to the French”

The Turks and Caicos Islands lie north of Hispaniola. In the eighteenth century, they were sparsely inhabited, used mostly for harvesting salt.

Like many other Caribbean islands, the Turks were grabbed back and forth by the three main European Atlantic empires of that time: Spanish, French, and British.

And within the British Empire, the Bahamas and Bermuda fought over who should have jurisdiction.

On 15 May 1764, Capt. John Malcom anchored his sloop Friends off the Turks “in order to take in Salt,” according to a story printed in the 13 September Boston News-Letter.

The crew was interrupted a little more than two weeks later:

upon the 1st of June, about 9 o’Clock in the morning, a French Xebeque of 16 Guns, a Snow of 12 and a Sloop of 8 Guns anchored in the Road; a French Ship of War of 64 standing off and on, about a Mile’s distance:

Said Malcom, and other Masters of English Vessels lying there, being eight in Number, were ordered on board the Xebeque; in the mean Time about 250 Soldiers, Marines or Sailors were landed, who, as soon as they got on Shore, set all the Houses on Fire, burnt and destroyed every Thing in them.

Said Malcom, and the other Masters who were put on board the Xebeque, were told, they and all the English must deliver their Vessels to the French, who would be sent out of the Man of War to take possession of them, which he and the rest were immediately obliged to comply with, and by 2 o’Clock the same Day, all the Vessels, French and English (manned with French) got under Sail, and anchored the next Morning at Salt Quay, another Island which they had destroyed, about 24 Hours before Turk’s-Island, in the same Way;

from whence said Malcom, with the other English Prisoners, were sent to Cape François, upon the Island of Hispaniola, where said Malcom was kept Prisoner under a Guard of French Soldiers till the 10th, and then was ordered with his Men on board his own Sloop (which had been plundered of sundry Articles) in order to leave that Place immediately—

Said Malcom further informs us, that a Detachment of Soldiers had been left on Turk’s Island, with all necessary Materials to fortify said Island.

The repeated phrase “said Malcom” makes me wonder if this came from a deposition or other legal testimony the captain gave after returning to Québec.

This was the second, or perhaps even the third, time that Malcom had been held prisoner by the French in the past decade. He must have been getting tired of that.

The Friends had happened to be at “Turk’s-Island” (most likely Grand Turk) when the French came back for the first time in eleven years to reassert their claim to the archipelago. According to this Turks and Caicos history site:

They erected two “pillories” 80 feet tall that rested on large stone bases. One was on Sand Cay and the other at Saunders Pond Beach on Grand Turk. Each had the name of the French Prime Minister and displayed an iron Fleur de Lis.

A Royal Navy sloop reclaimed possession in 1766, presumably when there weren’t any French warships in the area to fight. The French returned in 1778. British Loyalists showed up in 1781. The French returned for most of 1783, fending off a brief attack by Capt. Horatio Nelson, R.N. Finally, the islands were formally assigned to Britain in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

This article appeared in the Boston News-Letter with the dateline “QUEBEC, July 36,” suggesting Richard Draper copied the text from the Quebec Gazette of that date. But I don’t have access to that newspaper since databases are defined by modern national boundaries, not old imperial ones.

It’s therefore possible that John Malcom made more news in Québec City while he was based there. I’ve found one other item reprinted in the Boston press, and it’s a doozy.

COMING UP: The first clubbing.

“The Rout taken by Capts Malcom and Holmes, from Quebec”

Yesterday’s posting brought John Malcom back to Boston in August 1760 after more than eight months as a prisoner of war in French Canada.

On 24 November, the Boston Evening-Post reported that “Capt. Malcom…arrived here last week from Ireland.” That was probably John’s younger brother, Daniel Malcom, but there’s just enough time for John to have made that round trip as a way to get his sea legs back, so I can’t say for certain.

It looks more likely that John returned to trading with a voyage to a different port: Québec!

One might think he’d had enough of that region. But viewed another way, it made sense for John Malcom to start sailing to the British Empire’s new city. In his months in Canada, he probably learned the language, observed the culture, made some contacts.

That first voyage turned out to be harder than he planned. According to the 16 Feb 1761 Boston Evening-Post, Malcom’s sloop Wilmot got iced in on the St. Lawrence River, along with a score of other ships.

Malcom and John Holmes, master of the Sally out of Philadelphia, decided to return by land.

The same issue of the Evening-Post explained:

On the 8th of January they left Quebec in a Sleigh, in company with 12 other Sleighs having Goods for Montreal, and travel’d on a good Road to Trois Rivieres: From thence they went up the River on the Ice, and passing over Sorrell, arrived at Montreal in 2 Days:—

After tarrying there 2 Days they proceeded in their Sleigh to Chamble, St. John’s and Isle au Noix, which they reached in 3 Days more: During this Time the Season was moderate for Winter.—

From the Isle au Noix they travel’d 45 Mile on Lake Champlain in one Day, but the next Morning after going some Miles, finding the Ice grow weak, they left their Sleigh, and went ashore with their Horse and Baggage on the South-East Side of the Lake; it being bad Travelling in the Woods, it was 5 Days and as many Nights before they arrived at Crown Point.—

On their Way they met an Officer with Dispatches for the Governors of Montreal and Quebec; with Accounts of the Death of his late Majesty King George the Second, & of the Accession of his present Majesty King George the Third to the British Throne.—

At Crown Point they tarried one Day, and having procured another Sleigh, they proceeded to Ticonderoga, and over Lake George to Fort George: Thence proceeded to Fort Edward, but the Road not being broke they travelled with only their Horse:—

From Fort Edward they went in a Sleigh to Albany: From whence they came to Town by Land on Monday last the 9th of February.

The captains brought news that Maj. Robert Rogers was on his way to Detroit, another new British possession. That information came from Capt. Jonathan Brewer and other officers in the rangers.

When Malcom and Holmes made this trip, they were traversing a route that just a couple of years earlier had crossed the border between two rival empires. I think that was why the Fleets devoted so much of their newspaper to this account: for their readers, the possibility of traveling or shipping goods over land to Montreal and Quebec really was news.

TOMORROW: John Malcom makes his move.

“Taken on the 6th Day of November last by 9 Frenchmen”

Yesterday we left Capt. John Malcom in mid-1759, plying the route between Boston and the British Empire’s new conquest of Louisbourg, relaying information about developments in the Seven Years’ War.

That war caught up with Malcom in the fall. This is how the Boston News-Letter reported the story on 28 Aug 1760:

In Capt. Gardner came Passenger from Quebec, Capt. John Malcom of this Town, who with one of his Hands was taken on the 6th Day of November last by 9 Frenchmen, as they were endeavouring to get Wood off the Island of St. Barnaby for the use of the Vessel,

who after he was taken was immediately strip’d of all his Cloaths and barbarously used by the Enemy for four Days at that Place, and then obtaining Liberty to go to Quebec, was taken twice in Twenty-eight Days;

He informs that after he arrived at Quebec, he was often threatned to be given to the Indians to be massacred, they thinking him to be a Spy.—

And that on the 14th of November his Sloop, called the Sally, (his Mate being then on board endeavouring to get to Boston,) off of Gaspee, was taken by the Ship Two Brothers, Francis Boucher Commander, mounting 20 Carriage Guns; by which Accidents the said Malcom not only lost his Vessel, but likewise to the amount of near give Hundred Pounds Sterling in Cash, and other Effects, then on board.

Since Gen. James Wolfe’s forces had taken Québec City on 13 Sept 1759, I presume the “Quebec” where Malcom spent months as a prisoner of war was the area around Montréal, still in French hands until September 1760.

On 7 Apr 1760 the Boston Post-Boy reported about a couple of Malcom’s crew in a letter from Col. Joseph Frye at Fort Cumberland (now once again called Fort Beauséjour):

About [30 January] there came in eight Men, one of whom was a New-England Man, one Irishman, and the rest Italians and Spaniards; who inform’d me they Deserted from a French frigate that lay froze in, at the Head of Gaspee Harbour.

The two former belong’d to a Vessel commanded by Capt. Malcom of Boston, who was taken on by the above Frigate, as she was returning from Quebec, where she had been on a Trading Voyage.

As for younger brother Daniel Malcom, on 5 May 1760 he was home in Boston, preparing to sell a 50-ton schooner called the Betsy by auction at Harris’s Wharf.

TOMORROW: Back to trading, back to Quebec?

“Capt. Malcom of this Place, who was taken by a French Privateer”

In the late 1750s, Britain’s cold war with France once again boiled up into a hot war.

That presented dangers for merchant captains like John and Daniel Malcom, as well as opportunities.

In seeking British government assistance years later, John Malcom declared:

I have had thirteen Different Commissions in your Majesty’s Land Service in North America the two last French and Spanish warrs that is Past. I have Serv’d from a Ensign to a Colonel. I have been in all the Battles that was Fought in North America those two warrs that is Past except two and at every Place we Conquerd and Subdued our Enemys to your Majesty.

That’s quite a claim, and he didn’t provide any specifics. Were his “Commissions” in the militia, in a colonial army, as a privateer captain, or even as a contractor?

That vagueness makes it hard to figure out where John Malcom was when his surname appears in Boston newspapers. For example, the 6 Oct 1755 Boston Gazette had a supplement with news of two men missing from “Capt. Malcom’s Company” in Maj. Joseph Frye’s force after the Battle of Petitcodiac in what’s now New Brunswick. What that John Malcom, a relative, or someone with no connection?

The 23 Dec 1756 Boston News-Letter reported that a French schooner had captured a “large Sloop, belonging to Carr and Malcolm,” in Martha Brae Harbour on Jamaica. Was that ship partly owned by John Malcom? Or might that owner have been a merchant from distant Scotland?

Adding to the fog is how John’s younger brother Daniel was also a ship’s captain. The 30 May 1757 Boston Gazette reported this adventure for one of the brothers, but which one?

Thursday last came to Town Capt. Malcom of this Place, who was taken by a French Privateer and carried into Port au Prince, from whence he got to Jamaica, and informs, that just as he came away Advice was receiv’d there, that 18 Sail of French Men of War and Transports, and about 7000 Troops, was arriv’d at Port au Prince, very sickly.

I’m struck by how the Boston press referred to “Capt. Malcom of this Place” as if there were only one. Did that mean that John was serving in an army, so Daniel was the only one commanding a ship? Had one of the brothers moved out of Boston, as John would later do? Or was that just sloppy reporting?

On 4 May 1758 the Boston News-Letter reported:

The ———, Vavason, from New York, and the ———, Malcom, from Boston, for Madeira, are taken and carried into Louisbourg.

Not only was that news item short on details, but it came from London, so it was months old. But it couldn’t have been over a year old and refer to the same capture as the last article.

Fortunately, in the summer of 1758 the British Empire took Louisbourg from the French (again). After that, it’s easier to spot John Malcom.

TOMORROW: Back and forth.

“The pistols were not heard by a single person”

Yesterday I left Edward Rand dead on Dorchester Point. The man who had just killed him in a duel, Charles Miller, Jr., could have been arrested for murder, and their seconds were also open to criminal charges.

After a bare-bones report on the duel, the 16 June Columbian Minerva of Dedham reported:

Miller passed thro this town to the southward, on the morning of the same day, in a coach, attended only by his second.

That second was Lewis Warrington (shown here), a nineteen-year-old midshipman in the U.S. Navy. Warrington was the natural son of Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, son and aide of the commander of French troops during the war.

Back in Dorchester, other people began to arrive on the scene. According to duel chronicler Lorenzo Sabine:

A gentleman who was at Fort Independence at the moment of the duel, and who, with three or four others, immediately after it jumped into a boat and rowed to the Point, informs me, that when he arrived Rand lay dead upon the beach, alone, with an empty pistol near him; that he was gayly dressed; and that he saw Mr. [Ebenezer] Withington of Dorchester (who, as coroner, came with a jury) take Miller’s acceptance of his challenge from his pocket.

This gentleman remarks, that a fishing-vessel was at anchor off the Point, and that some three or four hundred workmen, officers, and soldiers were at the Fort, but that, as far as he was ever able to ascertain, the reports of the pistols were not heard by a single person among them all.

Which should lead us to wonder why a handful of men had jumped into a rowboat immediately after Rand fell dead. I suspect no one wanted to testify to the authorities.

Massachusetts law allowed for those authorities to confiscate Rand’s body and turn it over to a surgeon for dissection. Instead, this profile of Charles P. Phelps, Rand’s business partner, cites his 1857 manuscript autobiography to state that he “was called upon to retrieve his partner’s body and helped to bury him in the Granary burying Ground late that night.”

Sabine (who’s best known for writing the first biographical guide to American Loyalists) went on:

Miller departed Massachusetts on the very day his antagonist fell. He was indicted for murder in the county of Norfolk, but was never tried or arrested. The indictment against him was missing from the files of the court as early as the year 1808 or 1809.

His home, ever after the deed, was in New York, where his life was secluded, though in the possession of an ample fortune. He lived a bachelor. He died in 1829, leaving an only brother.

The New York newspapers said this Charles Miller, formerly of Boston, died “suddenly” at age sixty.

The mercantile firm Charles Miller & Son continued to advertise in Boston newspapers for a couple of years after the younger man’s move. Eventually Charles Miller, Sr., retired to Quincy, where he had been born. In 1815 former President John Adams noted that foxglove (digitalis) had “lately wrought an almost miraculous cure upon our Neighbour Mr Charles Miller.” But the man died two years later, age seventy-five.

Upcoming Revolutionary Events in Newport

The Newport Historical Society is hosting a couple of Revolutionary history events in the next few days.

Wednesday, 6 March, 6:30 to 7:30 P.M.
“Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence”
Shirley L. Green

William and Benjamin Frank joined the integrated Second Rhode Island Regiment in the spring of 1777. That unit saw action along the Delaware River in the defense of Fort Mercer and the battle of Red Bank before falling back with the rest of the army to Valley Forge.

After the Battle of Monmouth, the Frank brothers were transferred into the new and segregated First Rhode Island Regiment, composed of Black and Native American soldiers, including enslaved men promised freedom in exchange for service. This “Black Regiment” fought in the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778. Later the brothers’ paths diverged, and they ended up settling in different countries.

Green based her book Revolutionary Blacks on her family’s oral history, archival research, interviews, and DNA evidence. Her talk is presented by the Battle of Rhode Island Association and the Newport Historical Society. Admission is $20, $15 for society members and people serving in the military. Register through this page.

Saturday, 9 March, 11:00 A.M. to 12:15 P.M.
“Newport’s British Occupation” walking tour
Brandon Aglio

In 1777, seven thousand British and Hessian soldiers invaded Newport, starting a military occupation that lasted for nearly three years. An expert tour guide dressed in an authentic 18th-century British military uniform leads this exploration of the sites and the stories from this trying time.

This event costs $15 for adults, $10 for members of the society and U.S. military, $5 for children ages 5–12. Register through this page.

Massachusetts’s First Impeachment

In 1706, the elected political leaders of Massachusetts were at odds with the appointed royal governor, Joseph Dudley.

There were many bones of contention, but Gov. Dudley looked most vulnerable for being in league with wealthy supporters who traded with the French in Canada even during Queen Anne’s War.

Dudley, a merchant named Samuel Vetch (1668–1732, shown above), and associates used the cover of arranging prisoner exchanges to ship goods, even weapons, to Acadia.

Through a London printer, the Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather published the documents of the case as:

A memorial of the present deplorable state of New-England, with the many disadvantages it lyes under, by the male-administration of their present governour, Joseph Dudley, Esq. and his son Paul, &c.:

Together with several affidavits of people of worth, relating to several of the said governour’s mercenary and illegal proceedings, but particularly his private treacherous correspondence with Her Majesty’s enemies the French and Indians.

To which is added, a faithful, but melancholy account of several barbarities lately committed upon Her Majesty’s subjects, by the said French and Indians, in the east and west parts of New-England.

Elected politicians made up the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, or legislature. Under the colony’s original charter, that body really was a court—in fact, it was the highest court in Massachusetts.

Under the new charter of 1691, however, that legislature’s power was more limited. It no longer chose the governor. It no longer tried cases. But it did have this ill-defined power called “impeachment.”

The legislators decided to use that to get at Gov. Dudley. The lower house would indict his associates, as the House of Commons could, and the upper house, or Council, would try them.

That effort ran into trouble. The charter limited impeachment to a “High Misdemeanor,” not full criminal charges.

Then Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, a member of the Council, advised that the legislature really didn’t have jurisdiction. Sewall might have hoped the case would proceed in his own court, which could treat the behavior as criminal and even impose the death penalty.

Dudley stepped in and urged the Council to proceed anyway with their misdemeanor charge. That upper house found Vetch and his fellow defendants guilty. They weren’t sure what to do next, but eventually a joint legislative committee produced a “bill of punishment” imposing fines and prison time.

Vetch headed to England to argue his case and wield his influence with the imperial government. The privy council ruled the Massachusetts bill invalid, ruling that the General Court had exceeded its authority.

Vetch, having previously run guns to the Acadians, now presented the Crown with a plan to conquer Canada. Then he came back to Massachusetts to lead the invasion. New England Puritans were ready to get behind any plan to attack Catholics, so they went to war behind Vetch in 1710.

As for impeachment, the Massachusetts General Court didn’t try that again until 1774.

TOMORROW: Impeachment resurfaces.

Is That a Phrygian Cap or Are You Just Glad to See Me?

One thing I learned last year and am still working through is that a Phrygian cap isn’t the same as a Liberty Cap, but became the same in the 1790s.

In classical Greek and Roman cultures, the Phrygian cap and Phrygian helmet were markers of someone from greater Anatolia, or in general east of the civilized world. The Phrygian cap was a soft cloth cap with a bulge at the top that flopped forward. Lots of statuary and other artwork from that ancient period used the floppy cap as a sign of exoticism.

The Romans had another type of cloth cap with symbolic meaning: the pileus. Made of felt, it was used in the ceremony of freeing a slave. This cap was conical and symmetric, without that bulge. The pileus thus came to symbolize liberty in general, especially when it was held up by a spear.

That’s how the pileus appears in many eighteenth-century pictures of Liberty, and in British (and British-American) pictures of Britannica, since of course the British constitution provided the most liberty.

William Hogarth caricatured John Wilkes in 1763 as holding a spear and domed cap helpfully labeled “LIBERTY.” Some analyses say contemporaries would have recognized that thing on the spear as a chamber pot, not a cap. I’m not sure, but it definitely doesn’t look like cloth.

The allegorical woman on the masthead ornament of Edes and Gill’s Boston Gazette held a spear and pileus, as did figures on the 1774 and 1781 cuts for Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy.

Paul Revere engraved such figures many more times: on the picture of the Stamp Act repeal obelisk, in the frames around his portraits of Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and so on. When he adapted the London print “Britannia in Distress” into “America in Distress” and “A Certain Cabinet Junto,” he transferred the spear and pileus from Britannia’s arm to America’s.

In those years, the object was called the “Cap of Liberty.” The phrase “Liberty Cap” appeared in American newspapers only once before the Revolutionary War, in a 3 Feb 1774 New-York Journal article signed “An English Yeoman, with his Liberty Cap on.”

When you hold a cloth cap up on a spear, the top doesn’t naturally flop over. All those Liberty Caps are conical or in the shape we’d now call bulletheads. (Bullets were spherical then, remember.)

During the French Revolution, fashion and art merged the Cap of Liberty, the bonnets rouges of a 1675 anti-tax revolt in France, and the Phrygian cap. After a short while, iconographic Liberty Caps were mostly red, and they all had that little bulge flopping over. Even when they were on spears!

(Back when I wrote about rattlesnakes, I found an image of the Continental Congress’s Board of War and Ordnance seal. It showed that the flying snake originally had a rattle, though that detail has disappeared in later U.S. Army redesigns. Now I wonder if the Liberty Cap on that original seal had the bulge of the Phrygian cap, or if that was a later addition. Alas, the image from 1779 is no longer on the web.)

The Return of the Angels at Old North Church

This fall, in addition to archeological work in its crypt, Old North Church had its four carved angels conserved and repaired.

Old North Illuminated explained the origin of these artifacts:

The four Baroque angels date to the 1620s and were likely carved in what is now known as Belgium. It is unknown where they spent their first century. In 1746, however, they were on board a French ship en route to a Catholic Church in Quebec.

During this time period, England and France were almost constantly at war, and one of the ways the war was waged was economic: ships, and their cargo, were fair game. Privateers were legally sanctioned to act like pirates and pillage the ships they captured. British privateer Captain Thomas Gruchy captured the French ship on its way to Quebec and seized its cargo, including these angels.

He and his investors sold most of the goods, but Captain Gruchy, a North End resident, donated the four angels to Old North Church, where he worshiped.

The angels are thus decades older than the church, which is itself one of the oldest buildings in Boston.

Originally all four figures held trumpets, but only two of those instruments survived. Chris Gutierrez of Manzi Appraisers & Restoration also noted “evidence of previous damage that nearly split one of the angels in half,” as well as cracks that had developed over the decades.

Gutierrez and his team cleaned the figures, fabricated two new trumpets, and touched up the painted surfaces to make the two-foot-tall angels look good without hiding their age.

The angel statues returned to their places on the gallery railing in front of the church’s pipe organ in time for the Christmas season.

Learning about the “Oxford Army”

Here’s one more detail about the Locke family, whose retreat to Sherborn in December 1773 I’ve been discussing.

The youngest child was John Locke, born in 1765. He had a peripatetic life after the Revolution, not marrying and moving north to Maine and west to Northampton before his death at age thirty-four.

The family history, Book of the Lockes, also stated he “was a soldier in the Oxford army.”

What the heck was that? I wondered. Most of the references to the phrase that I found went back to the English Civil War, when the college city of Oxford was the military stronghold of the Royalists. But it turns out that Massachusetts hosted its own “Oxford army.”

In the late 1790s the U.S. of A. went through some friction with France, then governed by the Directory. Eventually this low-level conflict was called the “quasi-war.” At the time, however, some people wanted to get ready for real military action.

One product of this period was the U.S. Navy, recommissioned after the Confederation Congress had done away with this form of national military to save costs. The U.S.S. Constitution was one of the frigates launched in that push, and it’s still with us, along with the larger navy.

In May and July 1798 Congress authorized President John Adams to beef up the army as well. One measure increased the still-authorized U.S. Army by over 10,000 men, these new soldiers for a while called the Additional Army. But enough citizens were worried about the army becoming too large that the government needed to assure them with a different approach.

Thus, Congress founded a parallel force of 10,000 men, the Provisional Army of the United States. Later this was superseded by the Eventual Army of the United States, which could be as large as 30,000. This force was authorized to last only as long as the crisis with France—that was the provision or event that defined it.

As further reassurance to the populace, George Washington was brought out of retirement to be the nominal commander of all the U.S. armies. The regular army already had its command structure. But for the new Provisional Army, operational command fell to inspector general Alexander Hamilton. He brought in William North as his adjutant general.

It took a while for the Provisional/Eventual Army to commission officers, so those officers didn’t start recruiting men until May 1799. In the next several months, before Congress decided that peace with France was at hand, that force grew to a little more than 4,000 soldiers. That army had three sites for training: Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in the south and Plainfield, New Jersey, for the middle states.

And the third Provisional Army campsite, for troops hailing for the New England states, was in the Massachusetts town of Oxford.

Jacob Bates Finds New Pastures in Newport

On 25 Oct 1773, two and half centuries ago, the Newport Mercury reported:

Last week Mr. Bates, the famous horseman, arrived in town, from Boston, and ’tis supposed he will perform this week.

Jacob Bates may have planted this item with printer Solomon Southwick, but it’s more tentative than his usual style.

When Bates arrived in New York and then Boston, he took out long advertisements proclaiming his skills, his triumphs in Europe, and exactly when locals would have the fortunate opportunity to see him perform.

But no such advertisements appeared in the Newport newspapers, not even little ones. Was he out of money? Or did he not need to advertise in Rhode Island because there was already plenty of interest in horsemanship—as reflected in this newspaper item?

Southern New England was known for producing horses. Since the late 1600s, Rhode Island’s governors usually listed horses first on their lists of the colony’s exports. The principal market was the sugar islands in the Caribbean, where the animals provided power for planting and refining as well as transportation.

In 1715 the governor of Barbados complained about how French and Dutch colonies had come to rival his island in producing sugar “owing to the great Supplies of Horses they receive from New England.” In 1729 a British merchant claimed that New England captains had told him they didn’t have to pay fees on French islands as long as they arrived with sixty horses. Two years later, British Caribbean planters asked Parliament to forbid the sale of horses outside the empire, but the mainland traders managed to head off that legislation.

Rhode Island was also a center of horse racing. The Rev. James MacSparran wrote in America Dissected (1753) that Rhode Island’s “fine horses…are exported to all parts of English America. They are remarkable for their fleetness and swift pacing, and I have seen some of them pace a mile in little more than two minutes, a good deal less than three.” Eventually these horses would be recognized as Narragansett pacers.

Thus, in moving his equestrian exhibitions from Boston to Newport, Jacob Bates was shifting to a smaller town but perhaps finding more appreciative audiences.

The Real Life and Death of Mrs. Coghlan

Margaret Moncrieffe was born in Scotland in 1762. Her father was army officer Thomas Moncrieffe, who soon became one of Gen. Thomas Gage’s aides in North America. Her wealthy mother died young.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, Margaret was in the New York area while her father was serving as a brigade major inside besieged Boston.

In 1776 Maj. Moncrieffe came to New York with the British expeditionary force, and his teenage daughter became a suspected spy, potential hostage, and all-around headache.

Over the next ten years, Margaret Moncrieffe:

• Fell in love with an American officer—most authors believe that man was Aaron Burr.
• Was sent over to the British in Manhattan.
• Was married to Lt. John Coghlan of the 23rd Regiment of Foot.
• Ran away from her husband to London.
• Became mistress of Lord Thomas Pelham-Clinton.
• Was sent to a convent in Calais.
• Fell in with Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and others in the British political opposition.
• Became mistress to a “Mr. Fazakerley.”
• Became mistress to Lord John Augustus Hervey.
• Became mistress to Capt. Andrew Barnard.
• Became mistress to a “Mr. Giffard.”

Then, in June 1787, the London newspapers reported that Margaret (Moncrieffe) Coghlan had died. The Daily Universal Register, which later became the Times of London, stated she passed away on 4 June “After two days illness…at three o’clock.”

The Gentleman’s Magazine included her in its section “Obituary of Considerable Persons,” with these details: “In Cavendish-street, Portland-squ. … Mrs. Margaret Coghlan, lady of John C. esq; and dau. of Colonel Moncrieffe.”

Seven years later, British readers were presented with Memoirs of Mrs. Coghlan, (Daughter of the late Major Moncrieffe.) Written by Herself and Dedicated to the British Nation; Being Interspersed with Anecdotes of the late American and Present French War, with Remarks Moral and Political.

That book described adventures and affairs extending past 1787 to the date of publication. Among her later lovers was retired general William Dalrymple, who makes most of his Boston 1775 appearances as the British army commander in Boston during the Massacre.

In Revolutionary Ladies (1977), Philip Young guessed that Margaret Coghlan had left some memoirs before she died, but someone—he guessed it was the political writer Charles Pigott—had expanded that document in unreliable ways and arranged for it to be published.

In Revolution Song (2017), Russell Shorto cited documents showing Margaret Coghlan was active after 1787. He concluded that she reported her death to newspapers in order to escape creditors and flee to France. Later she published her memoirs herself in another bid for money. That made Coghlan’s memoirs a more credible historical source—albeit coming from someone dishonest enough to fake her own death.

Last month the Journal of the American Revolution published Jane Strachan’s two-part profile of Margaret (Moncrieffe) Coghlan, from birth through fake death to her last recorded writings, documents begging for support from 1803 and 1805. It’s a thorough discussion of her life and the challenges of sorting out the facts about that life. It’s also quite a ride.

“A Doll of the present mode”

The little stories I’ve told over the last two days about Benjamin Franklin’s and George Washington’s grandchildren raise the question: Did any Founders’ children not have to wait more than twelve months for toys to arrive from France?

Founders Online points me to one lucky child.

On 11 Sept 1785, American diplomat Thomas Jefferson wrote from Paris to John Langdon (1741–1819), president of the Confederation Congress, enclosing a gift:

I beg leave to renew my acquaintance with Miss Langdon by sending her a Doll of the present mode, dressed in Muslin, a mode which prevailing here to an almost total exclusion of silk, has literally and truly starved a great number of people. I add to it a box in which she will find a small gentleman who will teach her a short-handed and graceful manner of going down stairs.

Elizabeth Langdon was born in 1777 and thus about eight years old when Jefferson wrote. She was living in the house her father had commissioned in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (now preserved by Historic New England). 

Unlike the other cases I discussed, Jefferson lucked out in the choice of ship he sent the toys and that letter on. By 7 December, Langdon was able to write back:

Our dear Bets, begs leave to present you with her grateful thanks, for the great honor you have been pleased to conferr on her, in sending such an agreable present: all Companies who come into the house must be entertained with the sight of her doll, and tumbling Gentleman; and she does not fail to confess her obligations to Governor Jefferson.

I’d like to know more about this “tumbling Gentleman” with “a short-handed and graceful manner of going down stairs.”

I wonder if that toy was designed along the same lines as this tumbling man in the collection of the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site. That plaything dates from the mid-1800s, but the design was reportedly around well before then.

(To my surprise, I found that Elizabeth Langdon already made an appearance on this blog. In 1796, eleven years after receiving her toys from Jefferson, she recognized the Washingtons’ escaped slave Oney Judge in Portsmouth.)

“An innocent Baby may become the Victim of strife”

Little Betsy Bache wasn’t alone in waiting a long time for a toy to arrive from France, as related yesterday.

On 15 Apr 1785, Adrienne, the Marquise de Lafayette (shown here), wrote to her husband’s dear friend George Washington:

how happy should I be, to meet with mrs [Martha] Washington, to recall together, all the circumstances of the war, every period of our anguish, and of your glory, and to see our children playing together.

wishing for so happy a moment, anastasie and Georges beg Leave, to send to the two youngest, miss Custis a toilett and a doll that is two play things with which my daughter is more delighted since two months, she is in possession of that she hopes, that her remembrance being some time mingled, with their entertainements, she may obtain some part in their frienship, whose she is so desirous of.

for the eldest miss Custis, we have so exalted an idea, of her reason and gravity, that we have only dared send to her a neeting bag, because she may with it, keep mrs Washington company, because I hear that she Likes this kind of work.

we send master Georges also, an optick with different wiews; but we have been moved by a personal interest, making him this gift. I hope that Looking at it, he will become fond of travelling that his travels will conduct him, into france, and perhaps he may bring you and mrs Washington here.

In that year the eldest of Martha’s grandchildren, Elizabeth Parke Custis, turned nine years old. Martha turned eight, Eleanor six, and little George Washington Parke Custis four. The two eldest lived with their widowed mother while George and Martha Washington were raising the two youngest at Mount Vernon. To the marquise’s credit, she sent something for everyone.

Lafayette himself alerted Washington that those things were on their way, writing the next day: “By mr Ridout’s Vessel my children Have Sent to yours at Mount Venon a few trifles which are very indifferent But may Amuse them two or three days.”

Unfortunately, due to various postal mix-ups, those gifts didn’t arrive at Mount Vernon until May 1786, thirteen months later.

Also to be lamented, we don’t appear to have any letters or other accounts from Mount Vernon describing how the children received those playthings from France.

But there may be a little hint in what Washington learned from watching children in letters he wrote in December 1798. By then two of the Custis sisters had married; settled in Washington, D.C.; and had babies named after them:

• Martha Peter, born in January 1796.
• Eliza Law, born in January 1797.

Meanwhile, Washington was serving as President in Philadelphia. There he often met with Elizabeth Powel, and she promised to help him pick out gifts for his female relatives. On 4 December Washington wrote:

let me tresspass upon your goodness to procure the second edition of the present (on my acct) that you intend for Eliza Law. Without which, a contest (regardless of right—no unusual thing)—in which an innocent Baby may become the Victim of strife.

Three days later Washington told Powel: “Your letter to Mrs Law shall be safely delivered to her and I will endeavor to do the same by the Doll to Eliza.” The doll cost $2.50.

So it looks like Powel told Washington she was going to supply a doll for Eliza Law, and he asked her to buy another for him to give to someone else, who I’m guessing was her older cousin Martha. That way both little girls, and both mothers, would be content.

“Send her a doll not a fine one”

On 16 Sept 1779, Sarah Bache wrote from Philadelphia to her father, Benjamin Franklin, in France with news of his grandchildren:

Willy and our little Black ey’d parrot [Betsy] who I am sure you would be fond of if you knew her, (she is just the age Will was when you came from england, and goes down stairs just like him) both join in love to you, she desires you would send her a doll not a fine one, but one that will bear to be pul’d about with a great deal of Nursing, there is no such things to be had here as toys for Children

Betsy Bache had just turned two.

It took a long time for Sarah Bache’s request to get across the Atlantic and the gift to return. Not until 23 June 1781, when Betsy was well over three and a half, did she receive a present from her grandfather. Her mother wrote:

The things you sent me by C[ap]t. Smith came to hand safe he arrived in Boston, and I got them brought in a Waggon that was comming . . . Betsy was the hapiest Creature in the world with her Baby told every body who sent it

On 1 October, Sally Bache gave birth to another daughter. Her husband reported that they would name this baby Deborah after her grandmother, Franklin’s late wife.

Sarah resumed writing to her father on 19 October, saying:

the Children are delighted with their new Sister, and Betsy has gone so far as to say she loves her better than the Baby that came from France

A few weeks later we find the new Bache baby now nicknamed by her toddler brother, and we catch a last glimpse of that hard-to-find, long-traveled French doll:

Willy, Betsy, Luly Boy and Sister Deby De join in duty the last two names are of Louis’s making, they have just been striping the French Baby and dipping her in a tub of cold water—

(The first letter quoted above can be viewed here, courtesy of the American Philosophical Society.)

“Pray Subscribe for me the Declaration of Independence”

Elbridge Gerry left Philadelphia on 16 July 1776, heading for home in Massachusetts with a pound of green tea.

His fellow Continental Congress delegate John Adams wrote that Gerry was “worn out of Health, by the Fatigues of this station.”

But Adams also wrote that he expected Gerry to enthusiastically inspect the Continental Army and fortifications while traveling through New York, and that’s just what Gerry did.

On Sunday, 21 July, while staying near the King’s Bridge that connected Manhattan to the mainland, Gerry sat down to write a long letter to Adams and his cousin, Samuel Adams.

Gerry wrote of the Continental officers:

they appear to be in high Spirits for Action and agree in Sentiments that the Men’s as firm and determined as they wish them to be, having in View since the Declaration of Independence an object that they are ready to contend for, an object that they will chearfully pursue at the Risque of Life and every valuable Enjoyment.

The area was well fortified, he judged, and the people of New Jersey and New York City enthusiastic about the Patriot cause.

He reported on Adm. Lord William Howe’s interactions with Gen. George Washington, which included rejecting a proposal for a prisoner swap of Philip Skene, Loyalist governor of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, for James Lovell, a Boston Patriot.

Gerry recommended removing Gen. Philip Schuyler from command of the Northern Department. Indeed, he suggested that Schuyler should be “sent to Boston, recalled to answer any Charges that may be brot against him.” With the collapse of the invasion of Canada, “The N England Colonies are warm for the Measure.”

After discussing how to reenlist and resupply the army, Gerry shared an idea for increasing business with the French:

Would it not be a good Measure to propose to the French Court to supply with Grain their Army in the West Indies and to impower them to employ suitable persons in the States for that purpose who shall be supplyed by Congress with Money and Ship it in their own Vessels; Whilst they are to make Returns by allowing Us a Factor in their Kingdom to purchase Arms or other military Stores to a certain Amount who is to be furnished by their Court with Money for that purpose. This would be a speedy Way of coming at Arms and Ammunition, and open a Channel for a Breach with Britain.

Finally, Gerry addressed two political matters. He asked for one of the confidential printed copies of the new draft Articles of Confederation, and he wrote:

Pray Subscribe for me the Declaration of Independence if the same is to be signed as proposed. I think We ought to have the privilege when necessarily absent of voting and signing by proxy.

After Gerry had left Philadelphia, the Congress formally approved creating the handsome handwritten Declaration that we know. If Gerry’s proposal had been adopted, some of those signatures would not have been the delegates’ actual signatures but signatures of their friends for them. Gerry was worried that after voting for independence he’d be left out.

TOMORROW: About Gerry’s signature.

Black Reviews White’s Revolutionary Things

H-Early-America has just shared Jennifer M. Black’s review of Ashli White’s new book, Revolutionary Things: Material Culture and Politics in the Late Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World.

White looks at “the material culture that shaped French, American, and Haitian political contests between 1770 and 1810,” covering “diverse objects such as military clothing, maps, ceramics, wax figures, and politically charged accessories.”

Black writes:

Part 1 examines everyday items that became politically charged due to who procured them, where, how, and why. . . .

Part 2 examines clothing and accessories to show how revolutionary individuals understood, demonstrated, and interpreted their own political alignments and those of others. . . .

Part 3 turns to visual culture, especially maps, prints, and wax figures, to understand how contemporaries shared news about the ongoing revolutions.

The review sums up:

In her focus on the objects’ production, distribution, use, and context, White departs from typical material culture histories of this period, which tend to focus on how certain objects conveyed status or represented cultural and intellectual themes for contemporaries. In this way, White provides a fresh and interesting discussion of these highly politicized objects. But the approach may be somewhat frustrating for material culture scholars accustomed to close readings of particular objects’ attributes and symbolism—there are few of these, and mostly toward the end of the book. . . .

Still, this book makes several important contributions to the extant literature. White’s transnational and comparative focus allows her to isolate racial difference as a factor that shaped individual experience and, for example, affected contemporaries’ reactions to revolutionary violence. . . . Moreover, White’s transnational focus allows her to trace objects that moved across the Atlantic and circulated among varied revolutionaries. Thus, the book is as much a history of material culture in the military as it is about politics and revolutions.

Some of the most knowledgable and diligent researchers into Revolutionary-era material culture I know are reenactors since they literally use the objects of the time or the closest replicas they can make or obtain. It sounds like this book might be useful for exploring the cultural context of those goods and how that changed with events.

Lt. Inman and the Hector

Antoine Vanner at the Dawlish Chronicles website just highlighted how Lt. Henry Inman (1762–1809) of the Royal Navy ended his Revolutionary War.

He was on shore duty in the West Indies in April 1782 and thereby missed participation in the large fleet action, The Battle of the Saintes, off Dominica. This had culminated in a crushing British victory over the French.

In the course of this engagement, the French “74” line-of-battle ship Hector was captured. Though badly damaged in the action she was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Hector. Under the command of Captain John Bourchier (approx. 1755–1819) she was ordered to return to Britain. Henry Inman joined her as First Lieutenant.

Getting the battered HMS Hector seaworthy for the Atlantic crossing involved removal of 22 of her guns and replacement of her masts with shorter ones, presumably so as not to over-strain her hull. Her crew was significantly short-handed, some 300 men, many of whom were invalids. In normal circumstances, a ship of this size would carry a crew of 500 to 700 men and it is therefore obvious that her fighting ability was very seriously impaired. She sailed in late August…

On the evening of September 5th HMS Hector was found by two 40-gun French frigates, L’Aigle and Gloire. These fresh, undamaged vessels quickly perceived HMS Hector’s decrepitude and one placed herself on her beam, and the other on her quarter and began to pour fire into her. Poorly manoeuvrable, HMS Hector was badly placed to avoid several rakings but she returned fire sufficiently to damage both attackers. It was a very creditable performance for a ship so weakly manned and armed. Even so, had the French vessels continued the bombardment from a distance they might have sunk HMS Hector. Instead they made the mistake of attempting to board and their efforts were bloodily repulsed. The action was broken off after six hours and both French ships bore off. . . .

Hector’s survival had been dearly bought. 46 of her crew had been killed or wounded, an especially serious concern when so many of her complement were already invalids. Captain Bourchier had been so badly wounded as to be incapacitated and effective command now passed to the twenty-year-old Henry Inman. The ship herself had been weakened yet further – the hull had sustained more injury, as had the masts, rigging and sails.

It was in this state that HMS Hector was to encounter the massive hurricane that swept through the Central Atlantic on September 17th. Battered by high seas, she lost her rudder and all her masts. Leaks were sprung and incoming water reached a level at which a major portion of the provisions and fresh water was spoiled. Survival now became a matter of continuous pumping, a labour that demanded physical exertion on an open wind and spray-lashed deck which would have been severe for a fit and healthy crew, but almost impossible for one so debilitated.

Go to the Dawlish Chronicles to read about the end of H.M.S. Hector.

“The French in Newport,” 14–15 July

On 14–15 July, the Newport Historical Society will host this year’s edition of “The French in Newport,” a historical reenactment in the heart of the city.

The society’s website explains:

In July 1780, thousands of French troops landed in Newport beginning an occupation that lasted for nearly a year. The presence of this new ally represented a turning point in the American Revolution and the start of the Franco-American Alliance. While French troops played a vital role in American victory at Yorktown in 1781, Newport citizens were far from welcoming upon their arrival. . . .

The French in Newport Event will feature living historians portraying recognizable figures such as George and Martha Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette and the Marquis de Chastellux along with the head of the French army, comte de Rochambeau. Dozens of costumed living historians representing both civilians and French soldiers will discuss the challenges of establishing this new alliance. 

One highlight will be the Museum of the American Revolution’s First Oval Office Project, a hand-sewn replica of Gen. Washington’s sleeping tent, exhibited at Washington Square.

Justin Cherry of Half Crown Bakehouse, resident baker at Mount Vernon, will offer 18th-century baking demonstrations and discuss the food rations available in 1780 Newport.

The Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes & Drums will close the event with a concert.

Here’s the schedule as it stands now.

Friday, 14 July, 11:00 A.M.
Washington Square
Dr. Iris de Rode on the French Efforts to Charm Rhode Island

Friday, Noon
Washington Square
Rochambeau’s Proclamation

Friday, 1:00 P.M.
Washington Square
Dr. de Rode on Tea Traditions

Friday, 2:00 P.M.
Colony House
Dr. de Rode interviews the Marquis de Chastellux

Friday, 3:00 P.M.
Washington Square
Meet the Marquis de Lafayette

Saturday, 15 July, 11:00 A.M.
Colony House
Dr. de Rode interviews the Marquis de Chastellux

Saturday, Noon
Washington Square
The First Cruise of General Washington, a Rhode Island Privateer

Saturday, 1:00 P.M.
Washington Square
Dr. de Rode on Tea Traditions

Saturday, 2:00 P.M.
Colony House
Dr. Matthew Keagle on French Military Uniforms

Saturday, 3:30 P.M.
in front of the Colony House
Fife & Drum Concert by the Middlesex County Volunteers

One appealing feature of this event is that, because most of the events take place outdoors in public parks, they’re free. Now we just have to hope for good weather.