“The effigy of a man who had been honoured by his country”

On 1 Nov 1765, New York had its first classic Stamp Act protest. This was the day the law was supposed to take place, and many other North American colonies had already seen such political disturbances.

James McEvers’s preemptive resignation as a stamp master meant that New Yorkers hadn’t had a good target for their demonstrations. Until, that is, Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden made it clear that as the highest royal authority in the colony he would try to enforce the new law.

As reported in the Boston Post-Boy, reprinting news from New York, the anti-Stamp demonstration on 1 November followed the usual lines:

About 7 o’clock in the evening two companies appeared, one of them in the fields, where a moveable gallows was erected, on which was (suspended the effigy of a man who had been honoured by his country with an elevated station, but whose public conduct supposed to aim at the introduction of arbitrary power, and especially in his officiously endeavouring to enforce the Stamp Act, universally held by his Majesty’s faithful and loyal subjects in America, to be unconstitutional and oppressive) has unhappily drawn upon himself the general resentment of his country.

The figure was made much to resemble the person it was intended to represent. In his hand was a stamped paper, which he seem’d to court the people to receive;—at his back hung a drum, on his breast a label, supposed to allude to some former circumstances of his life. By his side hung, with a boot in his hand, the grand deceiver of mankind, seeming to urge him to perseverance in the cause of slavery.

According to other sources, the label identified the effigy as “The Rebell Drummer of 1715,” suggesting that Lt. Gov. Colden had supported the Stuart Pretender’s uprising that year. Colden had in fact been back in Britain as a young physician in 1715; he had even gotten married there. According to him, however, he had “carried above 70 Volunteers into Kelso” to support the Hanoverian forces under Lord Jedburgh. It appears men of Scottish descent like Colden remained vulnerable to accusations of Jacobite disloyalty, even fifty years later.

Back to the New York protest:

While the multitude gathered round these figures, the other party with another figure representing the same person, seated in a chair, and carried by men, preceeded and attended by a great number of lights, paraded through most of the public streets in the city, increasing as they went, but without doing the least Injury to any house or person. They proceeded in this order to the coach-house at the fort, from whence they took the Lieut. Governor’s coach, and fixing the effigy upon the top of it, they proceeded with great rapidity towards the fields.

About the same time the other party was preparing to move to the fort, with the gallows as it stood erect on its frame, and lanthorns fix’d on various parts of it. When the two parties met, and every thing was in order, a general silence ensued, and proclamation was made that no stones should be thrown, no windows broken, and no injury offered to any one,—and all this was punctually observed.

The whole multitude then returned to the fort, and though they knew the guns were charged, and saw the ramparts lined with soldiers, they intripidly marched with the gallows, coach, &c. up to the very gate, where they knocked, and demanded admittance, & if they had not been restrained by some humane persons, who had influence over them, would doubtless have taken the fort, as I hear there were 4 or 500 seamen, and many others equally intrepid, and acquainted with military affairs.

But as it seems no such extremities were intended, after they had shewn many insults to the effigy, they retired from the fort gate to the bowling green, the pallisades of which they instantly tore away, marched with the gallows, &c. into the middle of the green, (still under the muzzles of the fort guns) where with the pallisades and planks of the fort fence, and a chaise and 2 sleys, taken from the governor’s coach house, they soon reared a large pile of wood round the whole, to which setting fire, it soon kindled to a great flame, and reduced the coach, gallows, man, devil, and all to ashes.

All classic anti-Stamp demonstrations involved burning an effigy like that. By adding four of Colden’s vehicles to the fire, the crowd got more fuel. But they hadn’t destroyed anyone’s house.

TOMORROW: Yet.

A Preemptive Resignation from New York’s Stamp Agent

After Parliament enacted the Stamp Act in early 1765, Treasury Department officials asked London alderman Barlow Trecothick for recommendations about which American gentleman to appoint as stamp agent for each colony.

Trecothick had started out working for the rich Boston merchant Charles Apthorp, married an Apthorp daughter, and then settled in London as a merchant doing business with North America and the Caribbean. He had argued against the Stamp Act, so officials hoped that other opponents of the law would accept his choices as fair.

The stamp agents would have to be reliable for the imperial government, of course. Trecothick figured it would help if they were established in American business or legal circles. And since selling the stamped paper and stamps would bring in a steady income, he wanted to reward his own connections—that’s just how the Empire worked.

For New York he chose the merchant James McEvers (1705-1768, shown here). McEvers was another brother-in-law of Charles Ward Apthorp, whose move from Boston to New York in the early 1760s turned out to be a major blow to Boston’s economy.

Everything seemed to be going along fine until the newspapers brought word of the demonstration and riot in Boston on 14 August. Twelve days later, McEvers wrote to Jared Ingersoll in Connecticut about his correspondence with the Treasury Department’s “Secretary to the Stamp-duties”:

I rec’d a Letter from John Brettel Esq. Forwarded by you, Inclosing a Bond to Execute for the Due Performance of the Office of Stamp Master for this Province, which I Readely Did (and Return’d it per the Last Paquet that Sail’d from hence) as there was then Little or no Clamour here about it, and I Immagin’d I Should be Able to Transact it; but since Mr. [Andrew] Olivers Treatment att Boston has Been Known here and the Publication of a Letter from New Haven, the Discontent of the People here on Account of the Stamp Act Publickly Appears, I have Been Threaten’d with Mr. Olivers Fate if not Worse, to Prevent which I have Been under a Necessity of Acknowledgeing I have Wrote for a Resignation which I have Accordingly Done, and have Been Inform’d you have Done the Same, of Which I Beg you’l Advise me, and if you have not should be Glad to Know how you Purpose to Act, as it may be some Government to me in Case I Cant Procure a Release.

On the same day McEvers also wrote to Trecothick, explaining that he wanted to be relieved of the office.

The New York merchant worried that backing out would cost him respect in London, but local Whigs insisted that he would benefit in America. A letter from New York published in the 6 Sept 1765 Pennsylvania Gazette said:

We congratulate our Countrymen upon the late Resignations of the Stamp Officers - ------ and especially the Friends and Well wishers of the Gentleman appointed to that Office in this City. The Number of his Friends and Well wishers, which was considerable before, is greatly increased by this Resignation; which has entirely cleared his Character from the Imputation of joining in the Design to enslave his Country; for we are well assured, as his Appointment was without his Solicitation or Knowledge, so his Resignation was voluntary, and not the Effect of any Menace or Disturbance, nothing of which has yet appeared in this Place.

Thus, the 14 August demonstration and riot in Boston not only caused Massachusetts’s stamp agent to resign, but also inspired the New York stamp master to do the same.