“A bayonet wrested from one of the pursuers”

Yesterday I quoted a deposition by a sergeant of the 29th Regiment about his run-in with John Ruddock, justice of the peace and captain of militia in Boston’s North End, 250 years ago this month.

Justice Ruddock was used to getting his way in that neighborhood. He was a big man—probably 300 pounds or more. In September 1766 he told Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf that he was “Unable to Walk far [and] must be Carried in his Chaise.” At that time, Ruddock was rattling off excuses why he couldn’t come help the sheriff and Customs officers search the storehouse of Daniel Malcom for smuggled goods. Because Ruddock was no fan of royal officials.

When the Crown government stationed troops in Boston in 1768, Ruddock was among their most active opponents. He was one of the magistrates who prosecuted Capt. John Willson for allegedly encouraging enslaved Bostonians to revolt. He arrested soldiers for disturbing the peace in both January and February 1769.

Sgt. John Norfolk of the 14th Regiment complained about another such confrontation:

That on or about the 22d. February 1769, in the evening, he heard a great noise in the street; and found it was occasioned by some Soldiers and Inhabitants who were at high words amongst whom was one Ruddock, who said he was a Justice of the peace, and expressed the words, Go fetch my broad sword and Fusee and Damn the Scoundrels, let us drive the Bloody backs to their Quarters, Send for my Company of Men, for I think we are men enough for them.

He the deponent did what was in his power to prevent their Quarreling and in striving to part the Soldiers and Inhabitants Received great abuses from a son of the said Ruddocks who took him by the hair and pulled him into a passage leading into the yard of Said Ruddocks house, shutting the Door upon him, and by repeated blows laid him on the ground quite insensible after he came to himself thay opened the door and kick’d him out of the passage, at the same time they took the opportunity of taking him his side, his Bayonet which he wore (being then a Corporol), and which is now in the possession of said Ruddock who hath refused to return it tho’ properly demanded, both by himself and a Serjeant sent By his Captain for that purpose.

According to Norfolk, Justice Ruddock wasn’t slowed at all by his weight that night. And his son—either John, Jr., or Abiel—yanked him into the family home.

Of course, the justice had his own view of the situation. He thought he was keeping the peace in the face of rowdy military men. Here’s how the Whigs reported the same event for newspapers in other colonies:

As some sailors were passing near Mr. Justice Ruddock’s house, the other night, with a woman in company, they were met by a number of soldiers, one of whom, as usual with those people, claimed the woman for his wife; this soon bro’t on a battle in which the sailors were much bruised, and a young man of the town, who was only a spectator, received a considerable wound on his head; a great cry of murder, brought out the justice, and his son, into the street; when the former who is a gentleman of spirit, immediately laid his hands upon two of the assailants, and called out to one who pretended to be an officer, and all other persons present, requiring them in his Majesty’s name to assist him as a magistrate, in securing those rioters;

instead of this, he was presently surrounded with thirty or forty soldiers, who had their bayonets in their hands, notwithstanding the unseasonable time of night; some of whom endeavoured to loose his hold of the persons he had seized, but not being able to do it, they then made at him with their fists and bayonets; when he received such blows as obliged him to seek his safety by flight;

they struck down a young woman at his door holding out a candle, and followed him and son into the entry-way of his house with their bayonets, uttering the most profane & abusive language, and swearing they would be the death of them both;

upon the first assault given to the magistrate, one of the persons present posted away to the Town-House, and acquainted the commanding officer of the picquet guard, of what was taking place; but it seems the officer did not apprehend himself at liberty to order a party out to secure, or disperse those riotous drunken soldiers.

Due enquiry is making for the discovery of those daring offenders, in order to their being presented to the grand jury, a bayonet wrested from one of the pursuers in the entry, may lead to a knowledge of the owner, and be a means of procuring proof.

The bayonet that the Ruddocks came away with is the link between these two accounts.

On 27 March, the Whigs reported a grand jury had brought charges “against a number of soldiers, for assaulting with drawn cutlasses and bayonets; smiting and wounded [sic], John Ruddock, Esq; one of his Majesty’s justices of the peace, when suppressing a riot at the north part of the town, late at night, in which they were actors.”

As of 21 April the royal judges still hadn’t begun that trial, the Whigs reported, “nor has any thing been done upon it, as we can yet learn.” Norfolk said nothing about being tried, so probably the whole matter dropped, leaving everyone angry.

“A sort of an assembly at Concert Hall”

Yesterday we left the Boston Whigs in mid-December 1768 crowing over the failure of pro-Crown officials and army officers to pull off a dancing assembly.

That triumph didn’t last, however, and on 23 December the Whigs had to report:

It may now be said that the G[overno]r and C[om]m[issione]rs have the last night had a sort of an assembly at Concert Hall;

Never were the gentlemen concern’d more liberal in their invitations, even those ladies who declin’d subscribing, had their cards; the neighbouring towns were reconnoitred for females, and the good natured S——r [Solicitor Samuel Fitch?] of the B[oar]d of C[om]m[issione]rs was so complaisant as to offer to go as far as Salem to bring two damsels from thence; their efforts were finally so successful, as to procure from among themselves and their connections, about ten or twelve unmarried ladies, whose quality and merits have been since related with the spritely humour of a military gallant.—

The ball was opened by Capt. [John] W[illso]n,—a gentleman who has been already taken notice of in this Journal; There was indeed a numerous and blazing appearance of men, but the ladies of all ages and conditions so few, that the most precise Puritan could not find it in his heart to charge said assembly with being guilty of the crime of mixt dancing.—

A sick burn indeed.

At this point the recently arrived music and dance master James Joan was no longer advertising his own events in the home he had dubbed “Music Hall.”

The Deblois family who owned Concert Hall had advertised series of musical performances in previous years:

• Boston Gazette, 23 Sept 1765: “A CONCERT OF MUSICK is propos’d to be carry’d on at Concert-Hall for the ensuing Season. The Articles of Agreement may be seen by applying to Mr. Deblois at Said Hall: If a sufficient Number of Gentlemen subscribers, it will be opened the first Tuesday in October next.”
• Boston News-Letter, 2 Oct 1766: “Public Notice is hereby given, That a Concert of Musick is intended to be opened on Tuesday next, being the 7th of October, to be continued every Tuesday Evening for Eight Months. Any Gentlemen inclining to be Subscribers may know the Terms by applying to Stephen Deblois, at the Concert-Hall in Queen street.”

Stephen Deblois (1699-1778) was a professional musician, father of merchants Lewis and Gilbert Deblois (the latter shown above in a post-evacuation portrait by John Singleton Copley, courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts).

There were no such ads from Concert Hall in the fall of 1767 or 1768. One possibility is that the concerts were so popular that there was no need to advertise them in the newspapers. More likely, the Debloises hadn’t been able to sell enough season tickets in 1766 to make the events worthwhile.

The arrival of the British army regiments in October 1768 changed that. But even then the demand for concerts and balls probably wasn’t big enough to support two series in Concert Hall and Music Hall. Instead, it appears that in 1769 James Joan allied with the Deblois family to offer concerts in their building.

TOMORROW: The night it all went horribly wrong.

Officers versus Watchmen in the Streets of Boston

I’ve remarked a few times on how Boston’s town watchmen and the British army officers sent to the town in the fall of 1768 got into arguments and fights.

Those conflicts were about different forms of government authority, and they were about class deference. In fact, some of the combatants made those arguments explicit, as in this report from the Whigs’ “Journal of Occurrences” on 25 Nov 1768, 250 years ago today:

The town watch has been lately greatly abused and interrupted in their duty by some officers, two of them came to the Town-House watch with swords under their arms, calling them damned scoundrels, forbidding them to challenge officers as they passed, or to give the time of night in their rounds as also from keeping in the watch house, threatening that in such case they would have them in irons, and bring four regiments to blow them all to hell; also telling the watchmen they were the King’s soldiers and gentlemen, who had orders from his Majesty, and they were above the Selectmen who gave them their orders:

Upon another night, others officers came to the dock-watch, one of them with a drawn hanger or bayonet, striking it against the door and asking, whether they thought the times were now as they had been, and that they could stand four regiments; also damning them, and threatening to burn all of us to ashes, and to send us all to hell in one month’s time:—

At another time the south watch was also assaulted, one of the men struck at, and much abused with profane and threatening language.

I happily quoted the first paragraph of that complaint about “the King’s soldiers and gentlemen” in my Dublin Seminar paper about the town watch in the years leading up to the Boston Massacre, published in this volume.

Depending on the individuals, of course, there might have been other factors in those conflicts. Some British officers in their late teens and early twenties might have still been enjoying their wild youth. The watchmen tended to be middle-aged and tasked with keeping the peace. And surprising as it might seem, alcohol might have been involved in some of these incidents.

The same dispatch from the Whigs had other complaints about military officers:

The last evening a gentleman of distinction, seeing an officer of a man of war in the coffee-house, who had two evenings before called out to him in a rude manner, thought proper to ask him why he was thus accosted; upon which the officer desired him to go into a room, for he wanted the pleasure of taking his life; that as he did not suppose him acquainted with the sword, pistols would do; he then called out to the gentleman, will you not fight me? upon which the gentleman desired, and the officer agreed to meet him at his house in the morning, to determine what was to be done; the officer not coming, we hear the gentleman having learned he was a Lieut. of marines, intended a prosecution, but was prevented by his confining himself to his ship.

This report suggests the marine lieutenant was threatening a duel with swords or pistols, but the local “gentleman of distinction” responded with a legal “prosecution” instead—another example of New England culture at odds with the manners of British military gentlemen.

Finally, there were more complaints about Capt. John Willson of the 59th Regiment:

Captain W——n, of the regulars, tho’ bound to his good behaviour for the Negro business, has notwithstanding repeated his offences, by drawing his sword upon some persons the last evening and otherwise abusing them, and we hear complaint has been made to one of our magistrates respecting this affair.

Again, Boston’s civil authorities were trying to keep army officers bound to the local law.

“The Negroes shall be free, and the Liberty Boys slaves”?

As I described back here, on the night of 28 Oct 1768 Capt. John Willson of the 59th Regiment was reportedly heard “to persuade some Negro servants to ill-treat and abuse their masters, assuring them that the soldiers were come to procure their freedoms.”

The next day and again on Monday, 31 October, the Boston selectmen’s official business included “Taking Depositions relative to Capt. Willson & Negros.” Selectman John Rowe’s diary confirmed that “they were all present” for the Saturday discussion.

One result of those meetings was officially that “The Several Constables of the Watch [were] directed by the Selectmen, to be watchful of the Negros & to take up those of them that may be in gangs at unseasonable hours.” Or as the Boston Whigs interpreted it for newspaper readers in other ports:

In consequence of the late practices upon the Negroes of this town, we are told that orders have been given by the Selectmen to the town watch, to take up and secure all such Negro servants as shall be absent from their master’s houses, at an unseasonable time of night.

It’s notable that the selectmen’s directive specified “those of them that may be in gangs” while the report for other colonies referred to “all such Negro servants.” In practice the watchmen probably were stopping all black people, in groups or alone, enslaved or free. Not that there was any real evidence for an incipient uprising.

The selectmen also took action in the court system. The Whigs’ “Journal of Occurrences” reported on 31 October, 250 years ago today:

The following complaint was regularly made this day, viz

to the worshipful Richard Dana and John Ruddock, Esqrs. two of his Majesty’s justice of the peace for the county of Suffolk, and of the quorum.

The subscribers Selectmen of the town of Boston, complain of John Willson, Esq; a captain in his Majesty’s 59th Regiment of foot, a detachment whereof is now quartered in the said town of Boston, under his command, that the said John, with others unknown, on the evening of the 28th day of October current, did, in the sight and hearing of divers persons, utter many abusive and threatening expressions, of, and against the inhabitants of said town, and in a dangerous and conspirative manner, did entice and endeavour to spirit up, by a promise of the reward of freedom, certain Negro slaves in Boston aforesaid, the property of several of the town inhabitants, to cut their master’s throats, and to beat, insult, and otherwise ill treat their said masters, asserting that now the soldiers are come, the Negroes shall be free, and the Liberty Boys slaves—to the great terror and danger of the peaceable inhabitants of said town, liege subjects of his Majesty, our Lord the King, and the great disturbance of the peace and safety of said town.

Wherefore your complainants, solicitous for the peace and wellfare of the said town, as well as their own, as individuals, humbly requests your worship’s consideration of the premises, and that process may issue against the said John, that he may be dealt with herein according to law.

Joshua Henshaw
John Rowe
Joseph Jackson
Sam. Pemberton
John Hancock
Henderson Inches

Boston elected seven selectmen, but only six signed this complaint to the magistrates. Who was the seventh? None other than John Ruddock, one of the magistrates who took the complaint. Bostonians must have known that he’d been in the discussion that led to that legal action before him. But people in other American ports wouldn’t have spotted that maneuver.

The next day, 1 November, the Whigs reported:

In pursuance of a complaint made to Mr. Justice Dana, and Ruddock, relative to Capt. Willson and others, a warrant was issued by those justices for taking up said Willson and bringing him before them, which was delivered to Benjamin Cudworth [1716-1781], a deputy sheriff of the county, who being opposed in the execution of it, applied to the high sheriff [Stephen Greenleaf], who with divers constables went to apprehand him; at first he also met with opposition from one of the officers, but the said Willson soon after surrendered himself to the sheriff, who brought him before the justices at Faneuil-Hall, which was crowded with people; and after the examination of divers witnesses upon oath, the complaint, was so well supported, that the justices ordered him to become bound with sufficient sureties for his appearance at the Superior Court in March next, to what shall then be alledged against him, touching the matters complained of, as also for his good behaviour in the mean time.

Sheriff Greenleaf had tried to seize the Manufactory for the Crown earlier in the month, but here he was taking Capt. Willson before the law. In both cases, Greenleaf was doing his main job to serve legal papers. (He wasn’t a peace officer the way we picture sheriffs in the Old West.)  The magistrates held their hearing in Faneuil Hall, “crowded with people,” which only a couple of days before had been crowded with troops.

John Rowe recorded the 1 November action in his diary, “Capt. Willson was carried before Justice Dana for some Drunken Behaviour & bound over to the Sessions.” Rowe had signed that formal complaint, of course. But privately he referred to Willson’s alleged incitement to bloody rebellion merely as “some Drunken Behaviour.”

As usual, Rowe was playing both sides. He spent part of that evening socializing with James Otis, William Molineux, and other Whiggish merchants and the rest at a gathering with Gen. Thomas Gage, Col. James Robertson, Col. William Dalrymple, Col. Maurice Carr, and other high-ranking army officers.

“They should be able to drive all the Liberty Boys to the devil”

Back on 12 October, I quoted the Boston Whigs’ complaint about Capt. John Willson of the 59th Regiment of Foot keeping a man confined for enticing a soldier to desert.

On the evening of 28 Oct 1768, 250 years ago today, Capt. Willson offered Bostonians a new reason to complain about the royal government’s decision to station troops in their town.

In a dispatch dated the next day, the Boston Whigs declared:

…the most atrocious offence and alarming behaviour was that of a captain, the last evening, who in company with two other officers, endeavoured to persuade some Negro servants [i.e., slaves] to ill-treat and abuse their masters, assuring them that the soldiers were come to procure their freedoms, and that with their help and assistance they should be able to drive all the Liberty Boys to the devil; with discourse of the like import, tending to excite an insurrection.

Depositions are now taking before the magistrates, and prosecutions at common law are intended, the inhabitants being determined to oppose by the law such proceedings, apprehending it the most honourable as well as the most safe and effectual method of obtaining satisfaction and redress; at the same time they have a right to expect that General [Thomas] Gage will not remain an unconcerned spectator of such a conduct in any under his command.—

Here Americans you may behold some of the first fruits springing up from that root of bitterness a standing army. Troops are quartered upon us in a time of peace, on pretence of preserving order in a town that was as orderly before their arrival as any one large town in the whole extent of his Majesty’s dominions; and a little time will discover whether we are to be governed by the martial or the common law of the land.

As a society with slaves, Boston feared the prospect of rebellions—probably not in the form of a town-wide insurrection, since the black population was so relatively small, but within households. White slaveowners remembered examples of people poisoned by servants kept in bondage.

The Boston Whigs also knew that the cities to the south receiving their newspaper dispatches had larger enslaved populations and thus even more fear about those people rebelling. As with the stories of white soldiers scourged on the Common by black drummers, publicizing the case of Capt. Willson would bring them sympathy from other colonies.

[Image above from the 1 Sept 1768 Boston News-Letter via the Adverts 250 Project’s compilation of every newspaper advertisement mentioning slavery in colonial America.]

“A general disposition to desert from the regiments here”

When the Boston Whigs wrote their “Journal of Occurrences” dispatches for newspapers in other American ports, their main theme was how badly the presence of the British troops was damaging the fabric of Boston society.

But an important secondary theme was how stationing those regiments in Boston was also harming the British army, constitution, and state.

In the report dated 12 Oct 1768, 250 years ago today, the Whigs highlighted the desertions by British sailors and soldiers:

The rumor of Castle William being delivered up by the G——r to the King’s troops, arose from his having permitted a number of mariners from the ships of war, to land at Castle Island, six of whom it is said went off in a boat the last night.

Reports of great desertions and a general disposition to desert from the regiments here, which it is said left Halifax under great dejection of spirits; about 21 of the soldiers absconded the last night, and parties from the troops with other clothing, instead of their regimentals, are sent after them.—

Some of the consequences of bringing the troops into this town, in direct violation of the act of Parliament, and disregard to the advice of his Majesty’s Council, instead of quartering them in the barracks on Castle Island, are like to be the scattering proper tutors through the country, to instruct the inhabitants in the modern way of handling the firelock and exercising the men, and also in the various manufactures which the ingenuity and industry of the people of Great Britain have hitherto furnished us with.—

According to Don Hagist of British Soldiers, American Revolution, army records consistently show a rise in desertions just before and just after regiments made a major move. Soldiers may have been reluctant to leave a post where they had forged ties, so they maneuvered to stay behind or to return. Alternatively, they may have noticed that it was easier to desert when commanders were preoccupied, didn’t know the local ground, or couldn’t send anyone back to the old station to hunt men down.

It’s therefore not surprising to see sailors and soldiers releasing themselves from the royal military on their own recognizance in these weeks. It’s startling to see American Whigs talking about how army deserters would make “proper tutors” for the local militia, with an unstated threat underneath. In 1774 and 1775 New England Patriots did indeed recruit soldiers for that purpose and boasted of their militia’s strength. But in 1768 political leaders were trying to tamp down calls for resistance by force.

As this additional item shows:

This night a surgeon of one of the ships of war being guilty of very disorderly behaviour was committed to gaol by Mr. Justice [Edmund] Quincy, as was also a person not belonging to this province, by Mr. Justice [Foster] Hutchinson, on complaint of a soldier, that he had been enticing him to desert; said stranger was first taken and confined by Captain [John] Willson, in the Town House for some time, without warrant or authority from any magistrate—If the oaths of soldiers who are promised 10 guineas for such discoveries, are to be taken as sufficient proof, we know not what proscriptions may take place.

The Boston Whigs thus made a point of blaming “a person not belonging to this province” for encouraging desertion, not a local.

Of course, those Whigs also complained that an army captain had confined that suspect outside of civil authority based on questionable evidence. Worse yet, that confinement happened inside the building that normally housed the provincial legislature, still occupied by troops!

We’ll have to keep a watch on Capt. Willson.

Josiah Quincy for the Defense

Yesterday we left tobacconist John Willson on trial for the murder of a shoemaker named David Murray in 1771. That was on 6 September, slightly less than a month after Murray had turned up dead on the shore of Boston Neck.

The facts weren’t in Willson’s favor. People had seen the two men leave Castle William in a boat together, and Willson didn’t tell a coherent story of what happened. Though there were no witnesses, it seemed pretty clear that the two men had gotten into a fistfight.

The law was also not on Willson’s side. If the jury decided he killed Murray in a fight, British rules of the time didn’t offer much leeway in evaluating whether he deserved to die. He would have had to prove the circumstances of manslaughter or self-defense. There were no prisons as an alternative to the gallows.

Courtroom records from the 1770s are quite sparse, with the exception of the trials that followed the Boston Massacre. But we have Josiah Quincy, Jr.’s speech defending Willson. That appears in Joseph Hawley’s commonplace book, recently digitized by the New York Public Library.

After quoting from a couple of legal authorities, Quincy challenged the jury to live up to those standards since “our crown law is with justice supposed to be more nearly advanced to perfection.”

Finally he addressed the specifics of this case:

One doubt in this case is whether the dec[ease]d. was killed by any man.—another doubt there certainly will be, whether he was killed by the prisoner. But if he was so killed, will any one say that the prisoner was guilty of murder? a Crime at which human nature starts, and which is almost universally punished with death. . . .

It will be said, perhaps, if you are fully convinced, that the prisoner killed the decd[,] every circumstance to justify or excuse such killing must be proved by the prisoner. This no doubt is good law. But here it is impossible; none being present but the prisoner and the decd.

Can it be supposed to be law, reason, or christianity to oblige a prisoner to prove impossibilities, or lose his life? how astonishing to suppose reason so little to prevail at the formation of our laws, and under the formalities of justice, that weak equivocal evidence, nay surmise and suspicion, should ever be thought sufficient proof—for crimes, the most atrocious in their nature, the most deliberate in their commission, and therefore the most improbable, as if it were the interest of the laws and the judges, and for the good of society, not to enquire with charity and candor, but to prove the crimes: as if there was not greater risk of condemning any person when the probability of his guilt is less. . . .

If a man be found suddenly dead in a room, and another be found running out in hast with a bloody sword; the blood, the weapon, the hasty flight, are all the necessary concomitants of such horrid facts.—here are deficient the weapon—the blood on such weapon, and above all the hasty flight. Did the prisoner fly, did he ever attempt to secrete himself?

or In some cases presumptive evidences go far to prove a person guilty, tho there be no express proof of the fact to be committed by him, but then it must be warily pressed (and surely as cautiously believed) so as to convict em. For it is better that 10 guilty persons escape unpunished than one Innocent person should die. &c

The 12 Sept 1771 Boston News-Letter reported the outcome of Quincy’s argument:

At the Superior Court held here, on Friday last, John Willson was tried for the Murder of David Murray, who was found dead on the Neck, mentioned in this Paper of the 15th of August last: The Jury brought in their Verdict, Not Guilty.

Not simply not guilty of murder, but not guilty of all charges.

The fact that Hawley copied Quincy’s argument into his commonplace book suggests that the attorneys of Massachusetts thought it was a remarkable case.

The Life and Death of David Murray

On 10 Apr 1755, shoemaker David Murray and Mary Fitzgerald married at the New South Meetinghouse, having announced their intention the previous October.

Soon afterward, Boston employee Robert Love visited them at their home on Blowers’s Wharf in the South End, according to Cornelia Hughes Dayton and Sharon H. Salinger in their study Robert Love’s Warnings: Searching for Strangers in Colonial Boston.

Over the next fifteen years the Murrays had children, but David remained a journeyman, never doing well enough at making shoes to open his own shop.

Then, on 12 Aug 1771, the Boston Evening-Post carried this item:

Last Thursday Afternoon [i.e., 8 April] David Murray, a Shoemaker belonging to this Town, was found dead on the Beach near the Neck, an some Marks of Violence appearing on several Parts of his Body, and the Jury of Inquest being of Opinion that his Death was occasioned by some violent Blows, one Willson, a Tobacconist, who had been with him in  a Boat to the Castle, and came off with him from thence the Evening before, was taken up and examined, and telling many contradictory Stories relative to the Affair he was the next Day committed to Goal on a strong Suspicion of being the Means of his untimely End.

The indictment accused Willson of beating Murray to death with his fists. Within a month, Willson was on trial for murder. His attorney: Josiah Quincy, Jr.

TOMORROW: Quincy’s plea to the jury.

Sgt. George Marsden of His Majesty’s 59th Regiment

To delve into the British army career of George Marsden, I turned to Don Hagist, author of British Soldiers, American War and other books.

Don checked his thorough records and found that Marsden first arrived in New England in 1768 with the 59th Regiment of Foot in a company commanded by Capt. John Willson. They came to Boston, and local Whigs soon made Capt. Willson notorious for supposedly encouraging slaves to revolt.

As Don told me:

Marsden is on the April 1769 roll for the grenadier company, prepared in Boston. On the October 1770 roll for the company he shows up as being appointed serjeant, but in 1774 he’s a private again.

Unfortunately, the regiment did a lousy job in filing its paperwork, so we don’t know about anything the dates in between except that the regiment was in Nova Scotia from 1769 to 1774. (Marsden’s descendants also understood him as coming through Nova Scotia with the British army, but as an officer during the earlier French and Indian War.)

The fact that Marsden (usually written “Marsdin” in the muster rolls) became a sergeant suggests that his officers saw him as intelligent and dependable. Furthermore, while enlisted men often bounced from private to corporal and back depending on the regiment’s needs, a sergeant usually stayed a sergeant. So what’s the significance of Marsden’s demotion? Had he lost his superiors’ confidence? Did he resent losing that rank? We don’t know.

On 24 July 1774, the 59th Regiment prepared to sail from Nova Scotia back to Boston as part of Gen. Thomas Gage’s build-up of troops. And Pvt. George Marsden was no longer with them.

Don tells me that British regiments often suffered a wave of desertions just before they made a big move. Soldiers might have built ties with locals that they were loath to break, or they might have realized that their officers’ departure meant this was a good chance to make a run for it.

After July 1774 Marsden disappears from all records, as far as I can tell, until he enlisted in Col. James Scamman’s Massachusetts regiment on 19 May 1775. That unit was made up of men from southern Maine and New Hampshire. Marsden’s home was then listed as “Londonderry,” which one later researcher interpreted to mean Londonderry in Ireland. However, that same document listed several other men from Londonderry as well, so it probably referred to Londonderry, New Hampshire. Evidently Marsden had found his way to that town.

Marsden became the Scamman regiment’s adjutant, an administrative post, undoubtedly because of his experience as a sergeant in the British army. A month later came the Battle of Bunker Hill. Marsden’s old regiment, the 59th, was fighting on the British side. Had Marsden been captured, he would almost surely have been recognized, tried as a deserter in arms with the enemy, and executed. Nevertheless, he pushed ahead to the front lines faster than his colonel.

Adj. Marsden testified against Col. Scamman in his court-martial the following month, and I can’t imagine that the regimental meetings were smooth after that. At the end of the year, however, it was clear who prevailed. Scamman was left out of the Continental Army. In contrast, Marsden was commissioned as a Lieutenant in Col. William Prescott’s regiment—i.e., the commander who had actually been in the redoubt on Breed’s Hill was ready to fight alongside him. (Similarly, Ens. Joshua Trafton, who also got on Scamman’s bad side, was offered a lieutenant’s commission and eventually became a captain.)

George Marsden is thus like Thomas Machin, Daniel Box, Andrew Brown—deserters from the king’s army who had been recognized for their skills but barred by the British class system from rising into the officer class. In the Continental Army, Marsden became an officer. In the new republic, he was considered a gentleman. Like Machin and Brown, Marsden or his family retroactively came up with a more genteel history for him in Britain, making him an officer of the king who resigned before the war and wiping out any embarrassment about his having deserted.

TOMORROW: Marsden’s mysterious marriage.