“Hang Together” on the Restoration Stage

Yesterday I alluded to a Professor Buzzkill podcast as my spur to look for the statement “We must hang together or separately” in a letter by the Virginia politician Carter Braxton.

That same episode from 2022 stated that the “hang together” wordplay can be traced further back to “John Dryden’s 1717 book, The Spanish Fryar, where it is referred to as a ‘Flemish proverb.’”

Dryden (1631–1700) produced his play The Spanish Fryar, or The Double Discovery in 1681, and it was reprinted often after that. In Act IV, Scene 1, one character says, “I’ll not hang alone, Fryar,” and Friar Dominick eventually replies, “in the Common Cause we are all of a Piece; we hang together.”

Dryden wasn’t the only playwright to play on the phrase “hang together” in 1681, however. Aphra Benn (1640–1689, shown here) wrote this exchange in The Round-Heads; Or, The Good Old Cause (Act III, Scene 1):

Fleet. My Lords and Gentlemen, we are here met together in the Name of the Lard———

Duc. Yea, and I hope we shall hang together as one Man—a Pox upon your Preaching. [Aside.

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Samuel Johnson chose Dryden over Benn to demonstrate the use of “hang together” in his dictionary.

As for Professor Buzzkill’s remark about a “Flemish proverb,” I can’t find any mention of that phrase in three early editions of Dryden’s Spanish Fryar. Perhaps that was an annotation by the editor of a later edition based on the 1717 text. Or perhaps separate references to a “hang together” saying got muddled together.

It would be striking if the “hang together” witticism came from another language because double meanings of that sort are often hard to translate. Indeed, the Rev. E. O. Haven’s 1869 textbook on Rhetoric uses Edouard Laboulaye’s unsuccessful attempt to render the saying (credited to Benjamin Franklin) in French as evidence for his warning “Puns usually Untranslatable.”

Be that as it may, the idea that a “Flemish proverb” was the seed of this American quotation has taken hold and now appears several places—all apparently after 2022. I welcome any earlier reference.

TOMMOROW: A post-Revolutionary reference.

“The most profitable Business he could at present Employ himself about”

Here’s another transcribed letter from the Papers of John Hancock.

Thomas Cushing, having been replaced as a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress in favor of Elbridge Gerry, was back home in Massachusetts as a member of the Council.

On 4 Apr 1776, less than a month after the British military evacuated Boston, Cushing wrote to Hancock:

Some time before you wrote to me concerning Your Brother [Ebenezer Hancock], I had not been unmindful of him, I saw him at Watertown & he told me he should like to be Employed if possible in that town in writing for the Council or House, as he should in that Care be near his family & could often Visit them, I accordingly made Enquiry after some Employ of this Sort for him & sspoke to divers Members of the Council & it appeared to me that there would soon be an opening for him –

a few days ago I saw him at Boston and told him what you hard wrote me concerning him & what prospect I thought there was of his being Employed, he told me he was oblidged to me, but it would not suit him & tarry at Watertown now as the Town of Boston was again retured to its Inhabitants, that he had found all his goods & merchandize were safe and in good Condition, that he determined to return to Boston & that he apprehended that the most profitable Business he could at present Employ himself about was in attending to the Sale of his Goods, in which I think he judged wisely. I give you joy that his Goods are Safe

John eventually got Ebenezer the job of a deputy paymaster of the Continental Army. As a result, Ebenezer sometimes had huge sums of silver money from France under guard in his Boston home.

Ebenezer Hancock’s house in downtown Boston is now on the market. It’s being promoted as John Hancock’s house because the older brother owned it, but he’d inherited a lot of property in Boston. Ebenezer, who had received a smaller bequest from their uncle, ran into business reverses and went bankrupt in 1769. According to W. T. Baxter’s article on Ebenezer’s bankruptcy, John helped him out with “rent-free premises.”

Eventually, Baxter noted, the property flowed the other way. Gov. Hancock died intestate, so Ebenezer inherited a third of his fortune, including the stone mansion on Beacon Hill.

A Hero of Lake George

The Battle of Lake George on 8 Sept 1755 probably involved fewer than 3,500 men, a little more on the British side than the French. Each commander reported that his force had faced a much larger foe, however.

Each commander also reported inflicting more casualties than his force suffered, and more casualties than the rival commander reported. In fact, it seems impossible to pinpoint the number of dead and wounded.

Both sides lost leaders, however. On the French side, Baron Dieskau was wounded and captured, and Canadian commandant Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre was killed. The British lost Col. Ephraim Williams and Mohawk ally Hendrick Theyanoguin. Among the provincial officers who died of their wounds was Capt. William Maginnis of New York.

Gen. William Johnson was wounded early in the fighting near Lake George and had to sit out the rest of the battle. Not that he mentioned the last detail in his report to the Crown. Nor did he name Col. Phineas Lyman as the officer who took over and completed that part of the fight. But of course Johnson portrayed the battle as a great victory for Britain.

It probably was a British victory, though limited and costly. Crown forces could now move safely from Fort Lyman to Lake George, and the lakefront was clear enough to build another fort there.

But that clash was an even bigger win for William Johnson, Britain’s liaison to the Iroquois and new provincial general. He was made a baronet, thus Sir William Johnson. Eventually Benjamin West painted Johnson nobly sparing a French officer from attack by a Native warrior, as shown above.

The new baronet returned the king’s favor, renaming the nearby landmarks for the royal family: Lac du Saint-Sacrement became Lake George after George II, Fort Lyman became Fort Edward after one of the king’s grandsons (another slight for Phineas Lyman), and the new fort was dubbed Fort William Henry after the king’s younger son and another grandson. Since the territory remained in British hands, those names prevail.

As the senior (and surviving) British captain in the last part of this battle, Nathaniel Folsom enjoyed some of that glory. He rose within the New Hampshire military establishment, ranked as a colonel within a couple of years. Folsom’s businesses in Exeter prospered.

In 1774 the province chose Nathaniel Folsom as a representative to the First Continental Congress, alongside John Sullivan. His son, Nathaniel, Jr., participated in the first raid on Fort William and Mary that December. Decades later a veteran named Gideon Lamson stated (using military titles the men acquired later):

At nine, Colonel [John] Langdon came to Stoodley’s and acquainted General Folsom and company with the success of the enterprise,—that General Sullivan was then passing up the river with the loaded boats of powder and cannon.

Folsom took charge of one barrel of gunpowder removed from the fort.

Given Nathaniel Folsom’s success in the last war, his support for the Patriot resistance, and his activity in the New Hampshire Provincial Congress, it’s no surprise that that body voted to make him commander of the province’s troops on 21 Apr 1775. The legislators reaffirmed that decision on 23 May.

The problem was that no one had checked with the officer who was actually leading the New Hampshire troops around Boston.

TOMORROW: Stark divide.

“We march’d into the camp & told the army what we had done”

I’ve been quoting Capt. Nathaniel Folsom’s account of his New Hampshire troops’ fight against a French and Indian force south of Lake George in the late afternoon of 8 Aug 1755.

He continued with lively detail:

After being closely engaged for about three quarters of an hour, they kill’d two of our men & wounded several more on our left wing, where they had gain’d a great advantage of us.

Which, with our being very much tired and fatigued, ocсаsioned us to retreat a little way back; but finding by our retreat we were likely to give the enemy a greater advantage we rallied again in order to recover the ground we had lost, and thinking that if we quitted the ground we should loose our greatest advantage, about fifteen or twenty of us ran up the hill at all hazard. Which we had no sooner done but the enemy fired upon us vigorously; & then, seeing us coming upon them (we being charg’d & they discharg’d) they run & gave us the ground.

Whereupon we all shouted with one voice and were not a little encouraged. In this skirmish Ensign Jonathan Folsom [the writer’s brother] was shot through the shoulder & several others wounded. At every second or third discharge during the engagement we made huzzas as loud as we could but not to be compar’d to the yells of our enemies, which seem’d to be rather the yellings of devils than of men.

A little before sunsetting I was told that a party of the Yorkers were going to leave us, which surpris’d me. I look’d & saw them in the waggon road with packs on their backs. I went to them & asked where they were going. They said to Fort Edward. I told them they would sacrifice their own lives & ours too. They answer’d they would not stay there to be kill’d by the damn’d Indians after dark but would go off by daylight.

Capt. [John] Moore and Lieut. [Nathaniel] Abbott & myself try’d to perswade them to tarry, but to no purpose till I told them that the minit they attempted to march from us I would order our New Hampe. men to discharge upon them. Soon after which they throw’d off their packs & we went to our posts again.

Upon my return to my tree, where I had fought before, I found a neat’s tongue (as I tho’t) and a French loaf, which, happening in so good a season, I gave myself time to eat of; & seeing my lieut. at a little distance, much tired & beat out, I told him if he would venture to come to me, I would give him something to comfort him. He came to me & told me I was eating a horse’s tongue. I told him it was so good I tho’t he had never eat anything better in his life.

I presently saw some Yorkers handing about a cagg of brandy, which I took part of & distributed amongst the men. Which reviv’d us all to that degree that I imagin’d we fought better than ever we did before.

Between sunsett and the shutting in of daylight we call’d to our enemies: told them we had a thousand come to our assistance; that we should now have them imediately in our hands; and thereupon made a great shouting & beat our drums. Upon which they drew off upon the left wing, but stood it on the front & right wing till daylight was in & then retreated & run off.

Then we begun to get things ready to march to the lake, when Providence sent us three waggon horses upon which we carry’d in six wounded men; made a bier & carried one on, lead some & carry’d some on our backs. We found six of our men kill’d & mortally wounded so that they dyed in a few days, and fourteen others wounded & shot through their cloaths, hatts, &c. With much difficulty we persuaded the Yorkers to go with us to the lake.

In about an hour after the battle was over we march’d & sent two men forward to discover who were inhabitants at the lake. Who met us and told us all was well. Whereupon we march’d into the camp & told the army what we had done. As soon as they understood by us that we had drove the enemy off & made a clear passage for the English between forts, the whole army shouted for joy, like the shouting of a great host.

That was the third part of the Battle of Lake George. The French forces had won the first stage with their ambush of the British column heading south to Fort Lyman (Edward). But pressing that attack brought out the larger British force camped at Lake George, and the Crown won the second stage. Then Capt. Folsom, Capt. William Maginnis of New York, and other provincials came up behind the French fighters who had fallen back and started this third and smallest stage.

TOMORROW: Who won?

“Ye most vilolent Fire Perhaps yt Ever was heard of in this Country”

Yesterday we left Capt. Nathaniel Folsom of New Hampshire and Capt. William Maginnis of New York leading their provincial companies north from Fort Lyman (soon renamed Fort Edward) on the afternoon of 8 Sept 1755. They were headed to Gen. William Johnson’s camp at Lake George, a distance of at least fifteen miles.

That morning, French forces had successfully ambushed a British column that had tried to come the other way. The column’s commanders were killed, leaving Lt. Col. Nathan Whiting of Connecticut and Lt. Col. Seth Pomeroy of Massachusetts in charge.

Pomeroy’s diary, published by the Society of Colonial Wars in New York in 1926, offers a vivid description of what happened:

we this Morning Sent out about 1200 men near 200 of them our Indians went Down ye Rhode toward ye Carrying pla[ce] got about 3 miles they ware ambush’d & Fir’d upon By ye Franch and Indians a number of ours yt war Forward Return’d ye Fre & fought bravely but many of our men toward hind Part Fled

ye others being over match’t ware oblig’d to fight upon a Retreet & a very hansom retreet they made by Continuing there fire & then retreeting a little & then rise and give them a brisk Fire So Continued till they Came within about 3/4 of a mile of our Camp

there was ye Last Fire our men gave our Enenies which kill’d grate numbers of them Sean to Drop as Pigons yt put ye Ennemy to a Little Stop

they very Soon Drove on with udanted Corage Doun to our Camp

ye Regulars Came rank & File about 6 abrest So reach’d near 20 rods In Length Close order the Canadans & Indians Took ye Left wing Hilter Scilter down along Toward the Camp

they had ye advantage of the ground Passing over a hollow & rising a note within gun Shot then took Trees & Logs & Places to hide them Selves-we made ye best Shift we Could for battrys to get behind but had but a few minuts to do It in

Soon they all Came within Shot ye regulars rank & file they Came towards yt Part of ye Camp whare we had Drew 3 or 4 Field Peaces ye others towards the west Part of ye Camp there I Placed my Self Part of Coll. [Timothy] Ruggles & of our Rigement a long togater

the Fire begun between 11 & 12 of ye Clock and Continued till near 5 afternoon ye most vilolent Fire Perhaps yt Ever was heard of in this Country In any Battle then we beat ’em of ye ground

we Took ye French General wounded

That general was Jean-Ardman, Baron Dieskau. He’d been shot four times and declared that the last wound was mortal. But in fact he survived as a prisoner of war in Britain until 1763 and then at home another four years.

Meanwhile, Folsom and Maginnis were moving north. According to Folsom’s March 1756 letter to the Rev. Samuel Langdon, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1904, Capt. Maginnis neglected to send out “advance guards” to prevent an ambush and moved too slow besides.

(Maginnis might have countered that for all of Folsom’s claim that he and his officers were hungry to enter the fight, they’d managed to beat the Yorkers back to Fort Lyman and then lagged them in returning to face the enemy.)

Toward the late afternoon:

Captain McGennes and company started nine Indians, who run up the wagon road from us, upon which Captain McGennes stopt. I, seeing them halt (being on a plain) ordered our men to move forward and pass by them. As soon as I came up with McGennes, I asked the reason of his stopping, which he told me was the starting of the Indians.

I then moved forward and we ran about 80 rods and discovered a Frenchman running from us on the left. Some of us chased him about a gunshot, fired at him, but, fearing ambushments, we turned into the wagon road again and traveled a few rods, when we discovered a number of French and Indians about two or three gunshots from us.

Then we made a loud huzza and followed them up a rising ground and then met a large body of French and Indians, on whom we discharged our guns briskly, till we had exchanged shots about four or five times.

When I was called upon to bring up the Yorkers, who I thought had been up with us before but finding them two or three gunshots back, I ordered them up to our assistance. And though but a small number of them came up, we still continued the engagement and soon caught a French lieutenant and an Indian, who informed us that we had engaged upward of 800.

Folsom said his force consisted of “but 143 men”—leaving out the 90 Yorkers, of course.

TOMORROW: Endgame.

“We should go to the assistance of our friends at the lake”

Nathaniel Folsom (1726-1790) came from an old and prominent New Hampshire family. He was a merchant and owner of a sawmill and shipyard.

Early in the French and Indian War, Folsom became a captain in the New Hampshire provincial regiment. His company was stationed at Fort Lyman, soon to be renamed Fort Edward, on the Hudson River.

On the morning of 8 Sept 1755, having heard shots in the night, Col. Joseph Blanchard told Folsom to send out a scouting party. Folsom dispatched Lt. Jeremiah Gilman, a relative, with some troops. According to a letter the captain wrote in March 1756, those men “marched up between Hudson’s River & the waggon road that leads to Lake George about two miles and a half, where they discovered one [Jacob] Adams lying by the waggon road, dead & scalp’d, & several waggons almost burnt up.”

After hearing this news, Col. Blanchard sent out Capt. Folsom with fifty men. They found signs of a large force of Natives and French in the area. Furthermore, “while we were tying up the dead man to carry him into the fort we heard the discharge of a great gun at the lake & soon after the continual report of others.”

This was the start of the Battle of Lake George, specifically the attack by that French force later called the “Bloody Morning Scout.” Gen. William Johnson had sent troops and supplies from his camp at the lake south toward Fort Lyman with a warning about the enemy being in the area, but that enemy had set up an ambush. The Crown commanders, Col. Ephraim Williams of Stockbridge and Mohawk leader Hendrick Theyanoguin, were both killed. Their remaining men withdrew toward their camp, with the French forces in pursuit.

As William R. Griffith recreated events in The Battle of Lake George (2021), Capt. Folsom returned to Fort Lyman with news that a battle was under way to the north. Shortly after noon, Col. Blanchard sent him back out with a larger force of New Hampshire men, augmented by a company of New Yorkers under Capt. William Maginnis.

Folsom’s own account from 1756 presents himself and his men as acting more aggressively and independently than that:

I call’d together our officers to advise whether we should go to the assistance of our friends at the lake whom we suppos’d to be engaged in battle; upon which officers & souldiers unanimously manifested their willingness to go. At that instant I was told that there were more men coming, who were presently with us. They were a company of the York regiment, who, when detached at Fort Edward, were commanded by Capt. McGennes.

I told him our army was attack’d at the lake, that we had determined to go to their assistance & ask’d him to go with us. Upon which he answer’d that his orders were to come to that spot, make what discoveries he could, return & make report. I told him that was my orders, but that this being an extraordinary case I was not afraid of being blamed by our superr. officers for helping our friends in distress. Whereupon he turn’d & ordered his company to march back again.

I then told our officers that as our number was so small—but, as it were, a handfull—I tho’t it most adviseable to return to the fort and add to our number & then proceed to the lake. We march’d, soon overtook the Yorkers & ran by them a little distance, where we met near fifty of our own regiment running towards us.

I ask’d, “What tidings?” They said they tho’t we had been engag’d & that Coll. Blanchard had sent them to our assistance.

Whereupon we imediately concluded to go to the lake; but not having orders therefor, as before hinted, I despatch’d Lieut. [Richard] Emery with some few men with orders to go to the fort and to acquaint Coll. Blanchard with what we had discover’d and of our design to go to the lake.

Meanwhile Capt. McGennes marched forward. We followed for about two miles but as I tho’t they marched too slow & kept out no advance guard (by means of which we might be enclos’d in the ambushments of the Canadeans) I propos’d to our New Hampshire men to go by them. But one of our officers told me he tho’t it not best to go before the Yorkers for that he was more afraid of them than of the enemy.

We might presume that officer was afraid of being accidentally shot from behind, but clearly there was a rivalry between the two colonies’ forces.

TOMORROW: Engaging the enemy.

“Capt. Potter answered that he would share none”

Rhode Island actually began its military build-up back in December 1774, as detailed in a letter from former governor Samuel Ward that I quoted back here.

At that time the colony appointed its first ever major general: Simeon Potter (1720–1806).

Potter was a militia colonel, representative of the town of Bristol in the colonial assembly, and veteran privateer captain.

Indeed, Potter had already helped to lead one attack on the British military: while several fellow merchants supported the assault on H.M.S. Gaspee in 1772, he actually commanded one of the boats.

Now in fact, Potter’s most successful privateering haul came in 1744 not from attacking enemy ships but from raiding a poorly defended settlement in French Guyana that hadn’t even heard the empires were at war.

According to one of his captives, he sailed away with:

seven Indians and three negroes [none previously enslaved], twenty large spoons or ladles, nine large ladles, one gold and one silver hilted sword, one gold and one silver watch, two bags of money, quantity uncertain; chests and trunks of goods, etc., gold rings, buckles and buttons, silver candlesticks, church plate both gold and silver, swords, four cannon, sixty small arms, ammunition, provisions, etc.

Father Elzéar Fauque reported that the looting included “tearing off the locks and the hinges of the doors, particularly those which were made of brass,” before burning everything to the ground.

Potter’s lieutenant Daniel Vaughan testified in 1746 that at Suriname

Capt. Potter put a Quantity of sd. Merchandize up at Vendue on board a Vessel in the Harbour and purchased the most of them himself and ship’t them to Rhode Island on his own account; then said Sloop Sailed for Barbadoes on wch. passage the men demanded that Capt. Potter would Share the Money taken, according to the Articles, to which Capt. Potter answered that he would share none until his Return for all the Men were indebted to the Owners more than that amounted to and Swore at and Damn’d them threatning them with his drawn sword at their Breasts, which Treatment Obliged the Men to hold their Peace and when said Sloop arrived at Barbadoes Capt. Potter without consulting the Men put part of the afore mentioned Effects into the Hands of Mr. Charles Bolton and kept the other part in his own Hands and Supply’d the Men only with Rum and Sugar for their own drinking, and further this Deponent saith that Capt. Potter refusing to let the men have their Shares and his Ill Treatment of them by beating them occasioned about twenty-four to leave the Vessel whose Shares Capt. Potter retained in his Hands

Simeon Potter came home to Bristol a rich man. A few years later, in 1747, the peninsula that contained that town was shifted from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, making Potter one of the richest men in the small colony.

Potter launched various maritime businesses: a ropewalk, a distillery, a wharf, a store, and so on. He invested in slaving voyages to Africa. By the 1770s he owned more enslaved people than anyone else in Bristol. According to a nephew, Potter declared, “I would plow the ocean into pea-porridge to make money.”

In those years, Potter’s neighbors recognized his status by electing him to the legislature and to militia commands, and he was happy with the power.

TOMORROW: A fighting man.

“The Continental Barracks on Noddle’s Island”

As soon as the siege of Boston ended, the Massachusetts government moved to fortify Noddle’s Island and other spots in Boston harbor.

On 6 Apr 1776, the lower house of the General Court formed a “Committee for fortifying the Harbour of Boston” and told those members

immediately to take a View of Noddle’s-Island, and report to this Court what Time it will probably take a Regiment, consisting of Seven Hundred and Twenty-eight Men, to perform the Business of Fortifying said Harbour.

Twelve days later the house empowered that committee

To purchase on the best Terms they may be had, eight Hundred Feet of the Continental Barracks (provided their Cost, with the Expence of removing and rebuilding them, shall in the Opinion of the Committee, be less than the Value of new ones) and cause them to be removed to, and re-built on Noddle’s-Island

The Council approved that plan the next day. Until John Hancock took office as an elected governor in 1780, the Council would serve as both the upper house of the legislature and the executive branch of the state government, carrying out legislative policies.

The barracks were assembled on Jeffries’s Point, the southwestern corner of the island. It looks like that building housed provincial soldiers while they built the harbor fortifications, but not year-round.

Those barracks were put to another use in 1780, after French warships started arriving in Boston harbor. That summer Thomas Chase, the state’s deputy quartermaster general, wrote to the Council:

The Commanding Officer of the French Troops has applyed to me for a Hospital for the sick, and as there is Continental Barrack on Noddles Island, suitable for that purpose, and as Mr. [Henry Howell] Williams owns the Soil, and I suppose he will make Objection to their going into Barracks, I pray your Honors would be pleased to give Orders that they shall not be molested in said Barracks.

Chase’s colleague from the “Loyall Nine” fifteen years earlier, John Avery (shown above), had become the state secretary. He reported this action by the Council on 15 July:

Read & Ordered — that Col. Thomas Chace, D.Q.M.G., be, and hereby is directed to take Possession of the Continental Barracks on Noddle’s Island for the Use of the sick Soldiers on Board the Ship Le isle de France, arrived this morning from France, belonging to his most Christian Majesty.

The local historian William H. Sumner, having accepted family lore that Gen. George Washington had given Henry H. Williams barracks from Cambridge before leaving New England in April 1776, concluded that these barracks converted into a hospital must have been a second building. But, as I wrote yesterday, there’s no evidence for such a grant. Nor any mention of multiple barracks on Noddle’s Island.

Furthermore, Chase didn’t write about Williams as having a home on the island, only as protective of his “Soil” there. Chase clearly expected Williams to interfere with turning the barracks into a hospital for the French, so the state explicitly approved his plan. That action suggests the Patriot government still didn’t trust Williams to cooperate with the war effort.

TOMORROW: Where was Henry Howell Williams during the war?

Revisiting the Spies of 1775

I recently spoke in the Acton 250 series of talks on the start of the Revolutionary War.

My topic was “The Spies of 1775,” reeling off stories of disparate people drawn into intelligence-gathering efforts on both sides of the siege lines around Boston.

Since I didn’t want to go back over the spies at the center of The Road to Concord, I talked about:

• Henry Knox
• William Jasper
• Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr.
• Benjamin Thompson
• Julien-Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir et Loyauté
• Rev. John Carnes
• Thomas Machin
• Mary Wenwood
• John Skey Eustace

The Acton Exchange just reported on the event:

Speaking to a capacity audience in the Francis Falkner Hearing Room on March 31, author and historian John L. Bell related a fascinating story of the spies used by the commanders on both sides of the conflict. While many informants chose to provide information due to loyalty to their cause, others were primarily driven by money, property, revenge, or self-promotion.

Acton 250 television has now posted its video recording of the event, neatly edited to remove evidence of some technical difficulties.

And here’s a postscript to that evening. On Friday I participated in the conference “1775: A Society on the Brink of War and Revolution” hosted by the Concord Museum and organized by the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society and and the Massachusetts Historical Society.

That program included Iris de Rode from the University of Virginia presenting on “French Observers of Early American Unrest: How Lexington and Concord Shaped France’s Entry into the American Revolution.” Among other people she discussed Bonvouloir, one of the spies I’d described in Acton, so I gossiped with her afterwards.

Bonvouloir and his companion, the Chevalier d’Amboise, were in London in the late summer of 1775. A British government agent pumped them for information. The Frenchmen described witnessing “the Affair of Lexington, and the Affair of the 17th [Bunker Hill].” They claimed to have met “Putnam and Ward.”

But Dr. de Rode said that there’s no evidence of similar reports in French government sources. Even though Bonvouloir lobbied to become his government’s agent to the American rebels, which would make his experience with the war relevant, he doesn’t appear to have told those stories to the French ambassador to pass on to the Foreign Ministry. So she thinks he was just talking through his no doubt fashionable hat.

The British intelligence service was definitely shadowing Bonvouloir in London, and he was definitely involved in a secret mission to Philadelphia at the end of 1775. So he fits into a talk on spies. But whether he was in New England in 1775 is in question. I must consider the possibility that in London he engaged in a disinformation campaign—not to help the Americans or the French but to make himself look more important.

“Merely a private individual traveling for curiosity”

As recounted yesterday, over champagne Julien-Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir divulged to a British secret agent that he’d been meeting with the French ambassador to Britain, the Comte de Guines.

The young Frenchman had just come from Massachusetts, where war had broken out months before. He offered to be a liaison between the French government and the American rebels.

De Guines consulted by letter with the Foreign Minister of France, the Comte de Vergennes (shown here—that letter is reproduced and translated in B. F. Stevens's Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America, 1773-1783). The two officials agreed to send Bonvouloir back to North America as their own secret agent.

The terms were:

• De Guines and Bonvouloir agreed the young man would present himself as “a merchant of Antwerp,” then part of the Austrian Netherlands.
• The French government would pay Bonvouloir a “salary of two hundred louis.”
• Bonvouloir couldn’t tell his family what he was up to, not even “His brother, an officer in the Lyons regiment, [who] was in London at the time.”

The mission was just as restricted. Bonvouloir was to meet with delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, but he couldn’t confirm that he was an emissary of the French government and he couldn’t make any promises of aid. According to the historian Edwin Erle Sparks, he could “assure the American leaders that France had no intention on Canada”—though of course a promise from “merely a private individual traveling for curiosity” carried no weight.

The whole episode reads very much like a modern spy novel—not an Ian Fleming type but the more cynical sort like John Le Carré’s The Looking-Glass War. Bonvouloir was hungry to make his mark, to rise above his status as a younger, disabled son sent off to the colonies, to do something for his country. His government took advantage of that eagerness.

Almost a year later, on 16 June 1776, De Guines wrote another letter to Vergennes about Bonvouloir. By this time the British royal authorities in America were hunting for him. His French government contacts weren’t sure how to get him off the continent, or whether it would be worth it. De Guines had to prod Vergennes into authorizing the payment of another year of salary as promised. The ambassador planned to ask Bonvouloir’s brother to write to him via Québec, but he assured the minister “he and his brother are always liable to be disavowed if any inconvenience should result from their action.”

Not aware of that future, in October 1775 Bonvouloir sailed for Philadelphia “in the ‘Charming Betsy,’ Captain John Farmer.” That information comes from another document in the Earl of Dartmouth’s papers—evidence that the British government was already tracking this operation.

I plan to return to Bonvouloir later in the year, around the 250th anniversary of his meetings in Philadelphia.

“Some Vin de Champagne produced the desired effect”

I’ve been quoting from the report of a British secret agent on his—or possibly her—conversations with Julien-Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir and the Chevalier d’Amboise at their hotel in London in the summer of 1775.

Those were aristocratic Frenchmen who had spent a few weeks in New England. Based on that deep knowledge, they told their acquaintance that all the fighting in Massachusetts could be settled:

Lastly, that it appears to them both, the Americans had no settled, regular, well digested plan, that there exists among their Chiefs more Jealousy than unanimity: that many of the Settlers, and mostly all the Commercial people of Substance, begun to be tired of the present situation, and that they (the two french Officers) thought it probable Government would fall on Methods to disunite them, which if employed with success, would necessarily facilitate a reconciliation.

The agent thought there was more to find out, though. These two Frenchmen were happy to talk about the British colonists in New England, but what about their own secrets? What were they really up to?

The agent used a time-honored method: “stimulating the pride of Monsieur Le Comte de Beauvouloir in the moment that some Vin de Champagne produced the desired effect on his prudence.” The powerful combination of alcohol and flattery.

Bonvouloir then divulged that “he had had two Audiences of Le Comte de Guines,” the French ambassador to the British government (shown above). He boasted “that his Excellency had made him great offers of Service and had asked him twice to dinner.” As the younger son of a French nobleman, disabled enough that his military appointments were basically honorary, Bonvouloir yearned for recognition from such an important official.

The agent told whichever British Secretary of State he or she worked for (probably the Earl of Rochford though the report survives in the papers of the Earl of Dartmoouth):

My Opinion is that the two french Officers are at this Instant in the Service of the Rebel Americans, and are paid by them; that they came over either with proposals to the Courts of France and Spain, or some other Commission in the American Interests, and that they intend to return to their Employers by means of some English Ship.

In fact, there’s no surviving evidence that anyone in New England had even noticed Bonvouloir and D’Amboise, much less sent them to Europe with “proposals to the Courts of France and Spain.”

The situation was quite the reverse. Bonvouloir was trying to become an emissary of his own government.

TOMORROW: Diplomatic missions.

“Some of which they themselves were witness to”

As described yesterday, an agent for the British government “pumped” Julien-Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir and the Chevalier d’Amboise at their hotel in London in the summer of 1775.

The two Frenchmen had recently arrived from New England, and they had a lot to say about the rebel army there.

Some of the claims the agent set down were wildly false: “That there are at least 200 french amongst the Troops of the Rebels, who acted as Artillerists and Engineers, which numbers may be augmented since they came away.”

The British agent was particularly eager to report support from European powers: “Seven french Ships, masked under English Colours came into different ports with Ammunition &c.”; “the Americans expected French and Spanish Officers and Engineers, also Powder &c.” Perhaps Bonvouloir and D’Amboise told him what they sensed he wanted to hear.

On the other hand, other reported remarks from the Frenchmen matched the situation more closely, albeit filtered through aristocratic eyes:

6. That the Rebel Officers in general are perfectly ignorant of their business, and they esteem them men of very moderate, or rather mean parts,—but the private men are well trained to the handling of Arms, and remarkably well armed, particularly in the Articles of Firelocks and Bayonets.

7. That they saw the Fortifications on the Posts of Roxbury and Cambridge and also the Park of Artillery the Rebels have in the neighbourhood of the last place consisting of Canons, Mortars and Howitzers, concerning the quality of which they do not agree—Le Comte de Beauvouloir says,—they are equal in quality and Bore to those employed in Europe, and he only found them defective in the Article of the Carriages, which he said are of a bad Construction.—his friend the Engineer (whom I heard called Le Chevr d’Ambroise) held the Artillery rather cheap in general, but perticularly the Mortars which are small.—they both agreed that the Rebels were in want of Ammunition, particularly of powder, and insinuated that they might be greatly distressed by being Canonaded from Posts well chosen and properly fortified.

Bonvouloir reported the militant mood of the New England population in early 1775, though again he came up with a strange anecdote for it:

10. That the common people in America have been worked up to a pitch of enthusiastick phrensy that is beyond conception, and such was their Confidence (when they came away) that they were convinced His Majesty’s Troops would be entirely defeated, and driven on board the Ships in less than two Months, and indeed the Rebel Chiefs employed every Art to keep up their Spirit and enforce such Ideas, some of which they themselves were witness to, such as making their own people put on English Regimentals and come into the Camp in the Character of Officers and Soldiers deserting from His Majesty’s Troops, and one Man personated a Member of Parliament.

There’s no evidence from this side of the Atlantic to support those stories—no plans to impersonate British soldiers, no report of seeing a Member of Parliament on the ground.

In sum, like a lot of raw intelligence, this report was a mix of fact and fabulism.

TOMORROW: Bonvouloir makes his move.

“Employing every art and all the Address I am Master of”

Here’s another glimpse of espionage in 1775.

That summer, Julien-Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir, younger son of a French nobleman, and the Chevalier d’Amboise arrived in London on a ship from New England.

They aroused the suspicions of the British government. On 5 August John Pownall, Secretary to the Board of Trade, wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the colonies:

The Lodgers at the Hotel in Watling Street have been watched & pumped by a discreet & proper person employed by Lord Rochford, they proved to be as stated in the Letter you left with me, French officers from the West Indies, by the way of North America; they do not conceal that they have been in [Israel] Putnams Camp, but they speak of him and his troops in a most despicable Light, and say that but for their advice they would have made an Attempt that would have ruined them—if this is true I don’t think we are much obliged to the Gentlemen—

they further say that there is at least 200 able Officers & Engineers of all countrys now here endeavouring to get passages to North America—

a few days ago the Society at the Hotel was increased by the addition of a french officer from France, who got out of his Chaise at Westminster Bridge took a Hackney Coach, and went both to the Spanish and French Embassadours—in a few days we shall probably know more and be able to judge what is fit to be done.

The Earl of Rochford (shown above) was Britain’s other Secretary of State, with responsibility for continental Europe.

This document seems less valuable for its secondhand content about America than for its hints about intelligence methods in London. The Frenchmen were “watched,” “pumped,” and trailed. The new arrival switched vehicles before visiting embassies but didn’t manage to shake his trackers.

Lord Dartmouth’s files also contain a unsigned report headed “Intelligence.” which states:

What I have been able to collect from the two French Officers by employing every art and all the Address I am Master of, amounts to what follows:—

1st. That they have been over great part of the American Continent, particularly at Philadelphia, at New York, Rhode Island, and New England, which with their stay in and about Boston, would have required more time to perform than the three Months they say they remained in America.

2d. That they are particularly acquainted with Putnam and [Artemas] Ward,—the first they represent to be a good natured Civil and brave old Soldier—but a head strong, ignorant and stupid General—Ward they hold indeed very cheap.

[3d.] That they were both in person at the Affair of Lexington, and from circumstances they cited, I am induced to think that they were present at the Affair of the 17th [i.e., Bunker Hill].

4. That they were courted by the Rebels to stay amongst them, and were offered forty Pounds / Month each, of pay—they say they did not think such Offers solid, nor did they like the paper Currency. . . .

I suspect the claim to have been “in person at the Affair of Lexington” meant Bonvouloir and D’Amboise were present in eastern Massachusetts during the militia alarm on 19 April, not that they were in Lexington itself on that early morning. Still, adding two aristocratic Frenchmen to the mix of people in New England at the outbreak of war is intriguing.

TOMORROW: Pumping M. Bonvouloir.

The Plain Language of the Alien Enemies Act

In 1798 the U.S. Congress, caught up in the possibility of war against France (then under the Directory government), passed a series of controversial laws.

The Naturalization Law made it harder for immigrants to become citizens of the U.S. of A. by increasing the number of years a person had to live in the country before applying. This was repealed in 1802.

The Act Concerning Aliens (distinguished as the Alien Friends Act) empowered the President to jail or deport any non-citizen who he determined was “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” This expired after two years.

The Sedition Act criminalized combining to oppose government measures and criticizing the U.S. government, House, Senate, or President. The John Adams administration deployed this law against Jeffersonian politicians and printers. It expired in 1800.

The Alien and Sedition Acts were strongly opposed at the time. They led to Jeffersonian victories over Federalists. Since then, historians and legal scholars have almost universally treated these laws as a Bad Thing.

The fourth of those laws from 1798 remained on the books, however: the Act Respecting Alien Enemies. It didn’t have an expiration date. Instead, its language limits the circumstances under which a President can invoke it.

The Alien Enemies Act empowers a President to act only

whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government

If “any foreign nation or government” is in a “declared war” with the U.S. of A. or has made a “predatory incursion,” then the federal government can jail and deport that country’s male citizens aged fourteen or older. The U.S. Constitution further vests the power to declare war in Congress, not the executive branch.

Last week the White House illegally invoked the Alien Enemies Act to justify deporting hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador even though there’s no declared war against Venezuela nor any invasion by Venezuela.

In place of the law’s actual conditions, the White House claimed that the Tren de Aragua criminal gang and Venezuela amount to something it calls “a hybrid criminal state.” (It didn’t address how in 2023 the Venezuelan government deployed 11,000 soldiers to break up a Tren de Aragua stronghold.) The White House also claims that illegal migration by individuals, in unspecified numbers, is the equivalent of a government-led invasion.

In some ways, the President is an expert on criminal states. He’s a convicted felon, facing additional federal and state charges, adjudicated as liable for sexual assault, and bound by multiple legal settlements for fraud. But that experience in crime doesn’t give this President the legal power to invoke a statute contrary to its provisions.

The executive branch then further demonstrated its lawlessness by ignoring a judicial order to stop flying people out of the country until the legal issues can be decided.

The Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela shows the danger of allowing a coup plotter—in this case, Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez after 1992—to take political office. Coup plotters by definition don’t respect elections and the rule of law. Venezuela is now only nominally republican, actually authoritarian (as is El Salvador). But Venezuela isn’t in declared war against or invading the U.S. of A., as the Alien Enemies Act stipulates. It’s not the only criminal state in this story.

Identifying John Adams’s Mystery Correspondent

Sometime in 1778, John Adams, on his first diplomatic mission for the U.S. of A., passed on a bunch of reading material to Edmé Jacques Genet, director of the French Foreign Ministry’s bureau for translation.

Genet was assembling items for Affaires de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique (Affairs of England and America), a surreptitious propaganda effort by the French government. (This Genet was the father of Edmond-Charles Genet, the French diplomat whose activities in America irked George Washington while Adams was Vice President.)

Among the material that Adams turned over was the 1775 volume of The Remembrancer, a round-up of the year’s news published in London by John Almon. And in that book Adams discovered a couple of letters he had written himself:

Looking over the Remembrancer, for the Year 1775, found to my Surprize, having never seen this Remembrancer before, two Letters from a Gentleman in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, to his Friend in London, one dated Feb. 10 1775 and the other Jany 21. 1775. They are found in Pages 10.11 and 12 of the Remembrancer for that Year.

Genet never had those letters translated, but many American authors have reprinted the two letters from The Remembrancer, not knowing who wrote them.

Accepting Adams’s claim, the editors of the John Adams Papers included those two letters from early 1775 in their 1977 volume of his correspondence. At the time they lamented, “he failed to mention the intended recipient.”

One clue might be that the letters were published as sent “to his Friend in London” as opposed to “to a Gentleman in London.”

The answer started to become clear when scholars spotted the second of those letters in the Gilder Lehrman Collection. Adams’s correspondent was the British historian Catharine Macaulay. His exchange with her went on longer than previously recognized.

There appear to be some unanswered questions still. The letter published with the date of 10 Feb 1775 (250 years ago today) was actually dated 28 Dec 1774. Did Almon assign the February date from when that text was published in a British newspaper?

That full letter was published in 2020 in The Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay. The part that appeared in The Remembrancer was just part of the complete text.

Finally, the letter that Almon dated to 21 Jan 1775 isn’t part of the Macaulay Papers, at the Gilder Lehrman Institute or published. It’s possible that Adams sent it to someone else in London. But he knew hardly anyone there, and there’s no hint in The Remembrancer or Adams’s letter to Genet that the two letters went to different people. So probably the missing letter went to Macaulay but just hasn’t been found.

Judging by the 10 February/28 December letter, that 21 January letter probably:

• contained more material than Almon printed.
• wasn’t dated 21 January.

Reading the Map of Rhode Island with Andrew Middleton

In December, Andrew Middleton went viral on Bluesky. This was unknown territory for him—ironic, since he’s an expert on maps.

Middleton had written: “Hi. I’m Andrew. I own New England’s oldest map store because last year I moved across the country after an old guy retired and gave it to me Willy Wonka-style. Visit my store in Rhode Island. www.mapcenter.com.”

The Map Center not only sells maps, atlases, and related products, but offers research, classes, and connections to cartographers around the country.

I’m going to link to Middleton’s online presentation “Eight Interesting Aspects: Narragansett Bay and the Invention of Rhode Island” at Pixeum.

Built around Charles Blaskowitz’s 1777 chart “Topographical Chart of the Bay of Narraganset,” this online offering is somewhere between a video and a slide show.

Pointing out details on the chart, Middleton shows how to read it as Royal Navy officers did:

These numbers (or soundings) measure the depth of the channels in fathoms (a fathom is about six feet). The water needed to be deep enough for British warships.

While Blaskowitz fills in the topography around the islands and coasts, he leaves places farther inland blank.

The Navy only cared about the places from which those pesky American rebels could fire on their ships: high ground close to the water.

Perhaps because he’s come from California, Middleton can tease Rhode Islanders for their fondness for this map. It was, he points out, created to facilitate an invasion by the British military! He recommends a French rip-off instead.

“I fear Great Brittain will find it difficult to subdue an extensive Continent”

Back in 2008, Heritage Auctions sold a letter from Richard Lechmere (1727–1814) commenting on the first month of the Revolutionary War.

Lechmere was a wealthy merchant, a King’s Chapel vestryman, and a steady supporter of the royal government. The ministers in London had named him to the mandamus Council in 1774. He took that office even though it meant leaving his estate in east Cambridge and moving into Boston.

It’s interesting, therefore, that Lechmere’s letter surfaced in a collection of papers owned by Henry Seymour Conway (1721–1795), a British Member of Parliament and sometime minister who usually opposed stringent measures against the colonies. While Lechmere was a clear “Tory” by Massachusetts standards, in London he might have been among the moderate Whigs who agreed that something had to be done about the colonial resistance but didn’t want the response to be too harsh.

Of course, the outbreak of war has a way of changing people’s outlooks. In this letter Lechmere wrote:

Blood must be shed, before the Colonies can be brought [to s]ubmission is sufficiently prov’d by the Event of 19 April, [it is] my opinion that large quantities must be spilt before the Continent can be reduc’d and indeed I think it a doubtfull matter, whether it can be ever be effected[.]

the Corsicans without resources gave the french a great deal of trouble by retiring into the Interior Country[.] if they were able to do there under those disadvantages, I fear Great Brittain will find it difficult to subdue an extensive Continent, full of people United in the same cause and abounding with every necessary to defend themselves, if they pursue the same method, as the Corsicans, which I believe to be their plan, and especially while Government move[s] so slow, as to give them time, from discipline, to become good soldiers,

we still remain Blockaded and the Rebels are fortifying every pass and Defile in the neighbourhood of the Town, they have strong and extensive lines at Cambridge and Batteries upon the Hills about Charelstown that command the Roads there[.]

Later Lechmere discussed the British military’s attempts to raid the countryside, starting in September 1774 with the “Powder Alarm”:

The Troops have been unsuccessful in a very late Attempt they have made (except removing the powder at Charlestown) by some means or other, the Rebels got intelligence of their intentions, as soon as the scheme is laid, and with their usual industry find means to prevent their Executing it, 250 Troops were sent to [Salem] to secure some Cannon, they got intellig[ence]…Revmo’d the Cannon, and pulled up the Drawbridge...

Yesterday they [the troops] went to Hingham with an Arm’d s[ch]ooner several Sloops and a number of Boats with thirty…Soldiers) to fetch away about 90 Tons of Hay, from an Island about 500 yards form the shore, the Rebels came down to the shore, fired upon them, wounded one or two men, and oblig’d them to return without the Hay...

That description of actions in the harbor matches the skirmish over Grape Island on 21 May. Together with other mentions of things that had happened, and lack of mentions of things that would happen later, that allowed Heritage to date this letter on 22 May 1775.

TOMORROW: Lechmere’s thoughts on Gov. Gage.

(The photo above shows, courtesy of Find a Grave, the memorial plaque for Richard and Mary Lechmere in Bristol Cathedral, where they are buried.)

“On peut tromper quelques hommes…”

According to Quote Investigator, the fourth volume of the Encyclopédie, issued in 1754 by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert (shown here), contained this line:

…on peut tromper quelques hommes, ou les tromper tous dans certains lieux & en certains tems, mais non pas tous les hommes, dans tous les lieux & dans tous les siécles.

Those same lines had appeared (with an older spelling) in Jacques Abbadie’s Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne, published in 1684.

A modern English translation of those words is:

One can fool some men, or fool all men in some places and times, but not all men in all places and in all ages.

In the 1880s, some campaigners for Prohibition in America started to quote a different version:

You can fool all the people part of the time, or you can fool some people all the time, but you cannot fool all people all the time.

In our culture, certain historical figures are magnets for unattributed quotations: Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Dorothy Parker. For folksy political wisdom, Abraham Lincoln is one of those quote magnets. (As opposed to sober political wisdom, often attributed to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or another Founder.)

Because of that phenomenon, within just a few years authors and speakers were crediting Lincoln with that saying about fooling some of the people all of the time. Nothing of the sort appears in any of his writings, nor in any memoir about him until decades later.

Instead, that piece of wisdom has its roots in the French Enlightenment.

The Triumph of the Suffolk Resolves

Aside from rhetoric, the Suffolk County resolutions of 9 Sept 1774 differ from the Middlesex County resolutions of 31 August in some significant ways.

The Suffolk convention included the Quebec Act among its complaints:

the late act of parliament for establishing the Roman Catholic religion and the French laws in that extensive country, now called Canada, is dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America.

In Philadelphia Samuel Adams was taking steps to dispel his image as a religious zealot, but it was still quite acceptable to be anti-Catholic. Indeed, fighting “popery” was an element of British patriotism.

New grievances arose in just the few days between the two conventions. The Suffolk Resolves complained about how “it has been recommended to take away all commissions from the officers of the militia”—a suggestion from William Brattle that became public on 1 September. Also about “the fortifications begun and now carrying on upon Boston Neck”—Gen. Thomas Gage’s response to the militia mobilization on 2 September.

The Middlesex convention urged people not to cooperate with the court system under the Massachusetts Government Act. The Suffolk convention went further to endorse non-consumption of goods from Britain, as the Solemn League and Covenant promoted:

That until our rights are fully restored to us, we will, to the utmost of our power, and we recommend the same to the other counties, to withhold all commercial intercourse with Great-Britain, Ireland, and the West-Indies, and abstain from the consumption of British merchandise and manufactures, and especially of East-Indies, and piece goods, with such additions, alterations, and exceptions only, as the General Congress of the colonies may agree to.

Probably the most important difference between the Suffolk Resolves and the output of all the other Massachusetts county conventions, before and after, was the connection with that “General Congress,” or First Continental Congress.

The Massachusetts delegates to the Congress presented the Middlesex Resolves to the Congress on 14 September. The Congress’s bare-bones record says simply that they “were read.”

Dr. Joseph Warren, the man who drafted the Suffolk resolutions, had Paul Revere carry a copy to the Massachusetts delegates in Philadelphia. Revere left Boston on 11 September and arrived on the 16th, also bringing more solid news about the state of the province after the “Powder Alarm.”

On 17 September, the Congress heard the Suffolk Resolves and then unanimously voted to endorse them. Rumors of British military action had alarmed delegates the week before. They could have criticized the Massachusetts Patriots for overreacting and heightening the tension further. But instead in this resolution they praised the province’s “firm and temperate conduct.”

The Congress had the entire text of the Suffolk Resolves and the Suffolk convention’s message to Gov. Gage entered into its records, and had secretary Charles Thomson send the text to the Pennsylvania Packet to the reprinted.

John Adams called the 17th “one of the happiest Days of my Life.” Thomas Cushing wrote home to Dr. Warren:

They highly applaud the wise, temperate and spirited Conduct of our People. . . . These Resolves will, we trust, support and comfort our Friends, and confound our Enemies.

Warren in turn had that letter printed in the 26 September Boston Gazette. The message was clear: This Congress was adopting Massachusetts’s cause.

“Newport baker Godfrey Wainwood purchased Robert”

At Small State, Big History, Robert A. Selig recently discussed slave sales in Newport, Rhode Island, during and at the end of the Revolutionary War.

As Selig notes, just before the war the small colony had started to move away from importing enslaved people. (Rhode Island merchants were still entirely free to transport captives elsewhere, though.)

In “Newport’s Last Slave Auction: Rochambeau’s Prizes,” Selig writes of cases like this:

According to court documents, the slave named Robert who initiated the legal proceedings ran away from his owner in early in 1781, leaving behind his enslaved mother and father. Robert hailed from Port Royal in Caroline County, Virginia . . . .

Perhaps Robert and the others thought that their chances of securing freedom would improve by boarding a French vessel but it is more likely that they mistook the French vessel for a British ship. Either way, boarding the French vessel did not mean freedom but rather more years in slavery. Destouches brought the slaves to Newport—where based on a 1774 Rhode Island law forbidding the importation of slaves they should have been freed.

Destouches was probably unaware of that law but Rhode Island and Newport authorities should have been and thus should have prohibited the sale. They did not. Maybe they did not want to annoy their “illustrious ally.” . . .

On 13 June the sale went ahead as planned. After trading bids with Henry Sherburne, Newport baker Godfrey Wainwood purchased Robert for 170 Spanish silver dollars . . .

In 1789 a dispute arose over the length of the contract Robert was supposed to work for Wainwood; Wainwood claimed nine years, Robert claimed seven years. After lengthy legal proceeding it was in the fall of 1791 that Robert was finally “[wrested] from the iron grasps of despotism and [restored] to the capacity of enjoying himself as a man.”

Mention of the Newport baker Godfrey Wainwood immediately caught my eye.

Wainwood was the man who turned in his ex-wife for trying to send a ciphered letter into Boston in the summer of 1775, setting off the investigation that unmasked Dr. Benjamin Church as a paid British agent.

A German-speaking immigrant, Wainwood managed to establish himself solidly in Newport. Purchasing an enslaved man reflected growing wealth.