Who Should Pay for Mr. Molineux’s Cannon?

I’m at last getting to the original purpose of the 3 Feb 1775 petition to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress’s committee of safety that I’ve been discussing.

All four men who signed the petition were delegates to the provincial congress that started meeting in Cambridge on 1 February. After explaining that their towns had undertaken to mount and equip eight iron cannon obtained by William Molineux inside Boston in the fall of 1774, they wrote:

Since which the late Congress held [in] Cambridge have Agreed to to [sic] provide Warlike Stores, &c, at the Expence of the province

Wherefore the Inhabitants of Said towns think it Reasonable that the Expence of equiping Said Cannon for Service Should be borne in the Same manner as other Supplys and Desire yould Consider the matter & act thereon [as] you Shall think proper

In other words, this petition is rather similar to what sometimes seems like the majority of correspondence among towns and other governmental bodies in colonial New England—trying to get someone else to pay for something.

This example wasn’t about poor people needing relief or roads having to be mended, but about preparation for war. Yet the principle was the same. As long as the provincial congress was going to spend money on weapons, shouldn’t it also cover “the Expence of equiping Said Cannon for Service”?

The committee of safety actually met at Ebenezer Stedman’s tavern in Cambridge that day and came to some decisions about the provincial artillery. However, the only specific actions placed on the committee’s records involve the four brass cannon hidden at Lemuel Robinson’s tavern in Dorchester. (Yes, those are the Four Stolen Cannon at the center of The Road to Concord.)

The men of Watertown were hoping for a positive response to the petition. On 6 February, the town meeting voted “that the Committe appointed to mount ye great Guns do not Compleat the Same till after the Congress Rises.” On 11 February the congress took up the question of how its committees should handle military supplies, but four days later it decided to defer that decision until the next session at Concord in late March. On 20 February, the Watertown voters gave up waiting and decided “that the Committe appointed to mount the Great Guns Compleat the Same as Soon as may be.”

The delay and uncertainty had consequences. As of 21 February, committee of safety member Dr. Benjamin Church secretly reported to Gen. Thomas Gage, “Gun Carriages are making at Water Town by McCurtain—an Irishman, who has fallen out with the Select Men there, as he will not permit them to be taken away untill the Cash is forthcoming.”

It’s not clear to me who came up with the necessary cash. But starting on 23 February, the joint committee of safety and supplies became more involved in managing the nascent artillery force. It appointed officers and divvied out guns.

Among other things, the committee directed “That eight field pieces, with the shot and cartridges, and two brass morters with their bombs, be deposited at Leicester,” just west of Worcester, with militia colonel Joseph Henshaw. Those might be the same eight cannon that the towns of Watertown, Concord, Lexington, and Weston had been working on, or they might be eight other cannon. There were dozens being quietly moved around Massachusetts in those months.

TOMORROW: Ready for war?

A Matter “of too small importance to be noticed”

Here’s another snapshot of the situation in Massachusetts in September 1774, from the records of the Worcester Convention.

The Whigs were trying to stop all court proceedings under the Massachusetts Government Act to communicate their belief that law violated the constitution. A court clerk in Worcester County, Samuel Paine (1753-1807), was continuing to issue summons for jury duty, and the convention demanded an explanation.

On 21 September, the convention read this message from Paine:

To the several gentlemen of the committees of correspondence for the county of Worcester, now convened in Worcester,

Gentlemen:—

I thought I gave you all the satisfaction, relative to my issuing the warrants, at your last meeting, which could reasonably be expected: still, you have demanded of me more. As I considered myself, in that matter, as acting merely officially, and, as such, had no right to judge of the propriety or impropriety of the act of parliament, and my issuing the warrants gave the people, who were the only judges, an opportunity to determine for themselves whether they should be complied with or not, upon this representation, I hope I shall stand fair in the eye of my countrymen.

Should not this be a sufficient excuse for me, you must know, gentlemen, that I was regularly appointed clerk of the peace for this county, by the justices, in September last, and, as the said justices of the court of general sessions of the peace, as well as the inferior court of common pleas for this county, whose servant I am, on the sixth day of September current, did give assurance to the body of the people of this county, then assembled at Worcester, that they would not endeavor to put said act in execution, so, gentlemen, I give you the same assurance.

Your devoted servant,
SAMUEL PAINE.

The convention voted that that letter was “not satisfactory” and turned it over to a committee composed of Joseph Henshaw (1727-1794) of Leicester, Timothy Bigelow (1739-1790) of Worcester, and Ephraim Doolittle (d. 1802 at an old age) of Petersham. After “some time,” those men came up with this recommendation:

The letter appears to have been written by a young man, who, by his connections, has lately started into the office of clerk of the sessions and inferior court, through the indulgence of the bench of justices. The letter is affrontive to the convention, and in no respect answers their reasonable requisitions.

Considering the person who wrote it, the committee are of opinion, it is of too small importance to be noticed any further by the convention, and therefore recommend, that said letter be dismissed, and the person treated with all neglect.

Oh, snap!