“In what Scenes of Distress and Terror”?

On the afternoon of 6 September, news of the “Powder Alarm” reached Philadelphia, where the First Continental Congress had just started meeting in Carpenter’s Hall.

Of course, that news consisted of the dreadfully exaggerated rumors that had spread through New England after British soldiers had seized gunpowder on the morning of 1 September.

James Duane of New York kept private notes on each day’s session, and he wrote:

N B. During the meeting of the Congress an Express arriv’d to the Jersey Members giving Intelligence that the soldiers had seized the powder in one of the Towns near Boston. That a party was sent to take this; & that six of the Inhabitants had been killd in the Skirmish. That all the Country was in arms down to [blank] in Conneticut. That the Cannon fired upon the Town the whole Night.

Naturally, the Massachusetts delegates were most concerned. Robert Treat Paine wrote in his diary:

About 2 o Clock a Letter came from Israel Putnam into Town forwarded by Expresses in about 70 hours from Boston, by which we were informed that the Soldiers had fired on the People and Town at Boston, this news occasioned the Congress to adjourn to 8 o Clock pm. The City of Phila. in great Concern, Bells muffled rang all pm.

According to Samuel Ward of Rhode Island, the news of “the Troops & Fleets cannonading the Town of Boston &c occasioned an Adjournment to 5 o’Clock P.M.”

John Adams held out hope for better news:

Received by an express an Intimation of the Bombardment of Boston—a confused account, but an alarming one indeed.—God grant it may not be found true.

The next day, Silas Deane (shown above) of Connecticut wrote home to his wife:

An express arrived from N York confirming the Acct. of a rupture at Boston. All is in Confusion. I can not say, that all Faces, gather paleness, but they all gather indignation, & every Tongue pronounces Revenge. The Bells Toll muffled & the people run as in a Case of extremity they know not where, nor why.

As of the morning of 8 September, the Congress was still anxious for news. Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:

When or where this Letter will find you, I know not. In what Scenes of Distress and Terror, I cannot foresee.—We have received a confused Account from Boston, of a dreadfull Catastrophy. The Particulars, We have not heard. We are waiting with the Utmost Anxiety and Impatience, for further Intelligence.

The Effect of the News We have both upon the Congress and the Inhabitants of this City, was very great—great indeed! Every Gentleman seems to consider the Bombardment of Boston, as the Bombardment, of the Capital of his own Province. Our Deliberations are grave and serious indeed.

And Deane wrote:

We are all in the greatest anxiety, that of a most cruel suspence as to the certainty of the Boston rupture, as No fresh intelligence has as yet arrived.

TOMORROW: Fresh intelligence at last.

A Virginian on New York’s Doctors’ Riot

In the spring of 1788 a Virginia planter and retired colonel named William Heth (1750–1807) was in New York, commissioned by his state as a negotiator with the young national government on ceding Virginia’s claims to western lands.

While in New York, Heth witnessed parts of the doctors’ riot that I mentioned yesterday. On 16 April he sent a private letter to the Virginia governor, Edmund Randolph, describing that event:

We have been in a state of great tumult for a day or two past—the causes of which, as well as I can digest them from various accounts, are as follows:

The young Students of Physic have for some time past been loudly complained of for their very frequent and wanton trespasses in the burial ground of this City. The Corpse of a young gentleman from the West Indias was lately taken up, the grave left open, and the funeral clothing scattered about. A very handsome and much-esteemed young lady of good connections was also recently carry’d off. These, with various other acts of a similar kind, inflamed the minds of people exceedingly, and the young members of the faculty, as well as the Mansions of the dead, have been closely watched.

On Sunday last, as some people were strolling by the Hospital, they discovered a something hanging up at one of the windows which excited their curiosity, and making use of a stick to Satisfy that curiosity, part of a man’s arm or leg tumbled out upon them. The cry of barbarity, &c., was soon spread; the young sons of Galen fled in every direction; one took refuge up a chimney. The mob rais’d and the Hospital appartments were ransacked. In the Anatomy-room were found three fresh bodies, one boiling in a kettle and two others cuting up, with certain parts of the two sexes hanging up in a most brutal position.

These circumstances, together with the wanton and apparent inhuman complexion of the room, exasperated the mob beyond all bounds, to the total destruction of every anatomy in the Hospital, one of which was of so much value and utility that it is justly esteemed a great public loss, having been prepared in a way which costs much time and attention and requires great skill to accomplish.

On Monday morning the mob assembled again, and increased thro’ the day to an alarming size. Vengeance was denounced against the faculty in general, but more particularly against certain individuals. Not a man of the profession thought himself safe. An innocent person got beat and abused for being only dressed in black.

Two of the young tribe were unfortunate enough to fall into their hands, but the Mayor [James Duane, shown above] obtained them upon a promise of sending them to gaol—a measure to which in their rage they submitted, not reflecting that sending them to goal would secure them from their violence and resentment, and therefore, as soon as they found themselves thus defeated in their furious intentions respecting their captives, they repaired to the goal and commenced their attack (with all that intemperance and folly which ever marks the conduct of people assembled in that way), vainly endeavouring to break in, when they could do nothing more than break windows, &c., which they will be taxed to repair.

TOMORROW: The jail under attack, and the militia called out.

How Not to Do Counterintelligence

Christopher Marshall (1709-1797) was an Irish-born Philadelphia merchant active in Revolutionary politics, for which he was eventually expelled from his Quaker meeting.

Here’s the entry from his diary on 9 Jan 1776, which begins as Marshall hears some disturbing news about a valet to a member of the Continental Congress—James Duane, shown here courtesy of the New York Public Library. At the time the royal governor of New York, William Tryon, had chosen to move onto a ship in New York harbor for better security:

At breakfast, I was visited by Paul Fooks’s housekeeper, who informed that their boy, Neal, had heard his sister Rosanna Thompson, who lived at [Richard] Bache’s, [state] that James Brattle, servant man to James Duane, one of [the New] York delegates, was employed by Governor Tryon, to collect and send him all the news he could find, on board the Asia, for which he should be well rewarded and also be preferred to some post, in consequence of which, he had written to him, and in particular the day our fleet sailed with their number, &c.

On this information, I called upon some of our Committee at the Coffee-House. Joseph Dean went with me, but could gain nothing. We returned. Then John Bayard went with me to Joseph Reed’s he not at home; thence to see him at the Committee of Safety; not there; thence to the Court-House; found him.

After taking his advice, went to Halls printing-office; took Richard Bache home with us; called his maid; examined her. She seemed confounded, but, on the whole, denied it. From thence to the Coffee-House, where, consulting Major Cox, he joined us two.

We went to the State-House; called out Mr. Duane informed him; he seemed confounded; requested us to attend him to his house. We did. He called his man, examined him; took him up stairs and made search, all to no purpose.

We then went, took him with us to Paul Fooks’s; examined the boy who persisted. We brought the boy back to Duane’s lodgings; sent for the young woman, who, upon seeing her brother, confessed that what he had said was true.

James was called and interrogated, but all to no purpose. Then Major Cox and Mr. Duane took him upstairs again, and while they were employed at that business, he slipped down stairs, out through the yard, and have seen no more of him. Major Bayard and myself waited for them in the parlor. Thus he escaped.

An 1857 volume of Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York says in a footnote:

James Brattle, who had formerly lived with [i.e., was a servant for] Governor Tryon, was at this time servant to James Duane, a member of Congress, whose minutes he was in the habit of purloining, on his master retiring to bed, and afterwards sending them and other information to Governor Tryon. On being discovered he absconded, and was sent to England by his employer.

Among the intelligence Brattle was able to supply was news of the Americans’ top-secret submarine—which was promptly ignored by the Royal Navy.