Simeon Potter and Rhode Island’s Army of Observation

Capt. Simeon Potter’s appeal to Rhode Island’s top court to overturn the verdict against him for assaulting the Rev. John Usher in 1761 didn’t work, despite having Robert Treat Paine to represent him.

So Potter appealed to an even higher court: the Privy Council in London.

According to Bruce Campbell MacGunnigle, who published the surviving record of this case in the Rhode Island Historical Society’s journal in 2006:

Usher won again, but under the condition that [he] come to England to collect [the judgement]. As Usher couldn’t afford the voyage, Potter never paid a cent.

Clifford K. Shipton likewise reported that Usher never collected any damages.

Capt. Potter continued to command respect in his home town of Bristol because of his wealth. He continued to serve in public offices. Usher continued to be the minister of St. Michael’s Church in the same neighborhood.

In 1772 Potter personally helped to attack H.M.S. Gaspee. When the Crown started an inquiry and found some witnesses, the captain apparently leaned on people to ensure he wasn’t identified. That whole affair seems to have made him only more popular.

At the end of 1774, Rhode Island made Potter the first major general of its militia forces. He looked like the right man to stand up to the Crown. By then people knew he was violent, possessive, and extremely stubborn—but those were pluses. Nobody could make Simeon Potter do what he didn’t want to do.

Come spring, Simeon Potter didn’t want to fight in the Revolutionary War.

On the evening of 19 April, according to American newspapers, Continental Congress delegate Stephen Hopkins wrote to Potter, calling on him to report to Providence in his capacity as major general; “The King’s troops are actually engaged butchering and destroying our brethren in the most inhuman manner, the inhabitants oppose them with great zeal and courage.”

Potter stayed home. In Beggarman, Spy: The Secret Life and Times of Israel Potter, David Chacko and Alexander Kulcsar wrote that Potter “claimed to have received a letter from the commanding general of the Massachusetts Militia telling him that no troops were needed,” but I can’t trace that reference and don’t trust the claim.

By 22 April Rhode Island’s legislature, having sidelined Gov. Joseph Wanton, was voting to form an “army of observation” which might march into Massachusetts. But the government had no one to lead those men.

TOMORROW: Finding a general.

Rhode Island’s “vote for raising men”

As soon as he heard about the shooting at Lexington, James Warren, delegate from Plymouth to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, passed the news on to Patriots in Rhode Island.

On 20 April the elite militia company called the Kentish Guards mustered and marched toward Massachusetts.

Before those men reached the border, a message arrived from Gov. Joseph Wanton (shown here), ordering the unit to stand down.

Four members continued on horseback, three of them being Nathanael Greene and his brothers. But once those men heard that the British troops were back inside Boston and the emergency had passed, they went home to Rhode Island to sort things out.

The colony’s first step came quickly. On 22 April the assembly passed an act to raise 1,500 men

properly armed and disciplined, to continue in this colony, as an army of observation, to repel any insult or violence that may be offered to the inhabitants. And also, if it be necessary for the safety and preservation of any of the colonies, to march out of this colony and join and co-operate with the forces of the neighboring colonies.

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress had also used the phrase “army of observation” in early April, implying a purely defensive force. Once the fighting began, however, it dropped that phrase entirely. Even as the Rhode Island assembly called its new troops an “army of observation,” it was clearly opening the door to sending those men off to help Massachusetts in its war.

Top officials in the colony resisted. Though Gov. Wanton had been crucial to stymieing the Crown’s Gaspee inquiry a couple of years before, he filed a protest against the legislature’s vote. Deputy Governor Darius Sessions joined him along with two members of the Council of Assistants (the upper house), Thomas Wickes and William Potter. On 25 April they declared their opposition to the new army

Because we are of opinion that such a measure will be attended with the most fatal consequences to our charter privileges, involve the Colony in all the horrors of a civil war, and, as we conceive, is an open violation of the oath of allegiance, which we have severally taken upon our admission into the respective offices we now hold in the Colony.

Coincidentally, Rhode Island’s charter called for a new legislative session to start on the first Wednesday of each May. In that spring’s annual election, Sessions, Wickes, and Potter all lost their seats. (Potter would recant and apologize in June, and then return to the Council of Assistants.) Nicholas Cooke became the new deputy governor.

Rhode Island’s freemen reelected Joseph Wanton as governor, but on 2 May he sent a letter to the assembly saying, “indisposition prevents me from meeting you.” Instead he enclosed what Lord Dartmouth, the British Secretary of State, considered a conciliatory offer. Wanton thought that was a more promising route to resolving the crisis. He told the legislators:

The prosperity and happiness of this colony, is founded in its connexion with Great Britain; “for if once we are separated, where shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws and commerce, we must bleed at every vein.”

That passage quoted from John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. (Some authors miss the quote marks and attribute those words to Wanton himself.)

On 5 May the legislative speaker, Metcalf Bowler, tried to force the governor’s hand. He sent a blank commission for an officer in the new army and asked Wanton whether he would sign such a form. The governor replied:

I cannot comply with it; having heretofore protested against the vote for raising men, as a measure inconsistent with my duty to the King, and repugnant to the true and real interest of this government.

At that point the assembly bypassed Gov. Wanton and started treating Nicholas Cooke as the colony’s chief executive. Wanton wouldn’t be officially replaced until November, but he could no longer stand in the way of Rhode Island’s army.

TOMORROW: Finding a general.

Ways to Explore the Gaspee Affair

As long as I’m virtually hanging out in Rhode Island, I’ll share some new links about the Gaspee affair.

Two hundred and fifty years ago last month, local men stormed a Royal Navy schooner that had run aground chasing a suspected smuggler. They shot the schooner’s commander, Lt. William Dudingston, though not fatally. They took the crew captive. And they set fire to the king’s ship.

The follow-up to that event violent dragged on over the next several months, into 1773. As part of the Sestercentennial, the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office has digitized its archive of documents related to the Gaspee. We can browse that collection here.

Most of those documents are the records of the official commission that the London government set up to investigate the matter, headed by Rhode Island governor Joseph Wanton. He wasn’t keen on actually identifying who organized or led the attack on the Gaspee since that group almost certainly included some of the colony’s leading merchants. Much of the official correspondence therefore consists of navy commanders proffering one lead or witness after another, only for the governor and lieutenant governor to wave them off.

The commission papers appear to come to 221 pages. The digital archive includes those pages singly and as a bound batch, an index, transcriptions in English and Spanish, modern audio readings of a couple of witness testimonies, and a complete digital version of William R. Staples’s Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee, compiled in 1845.

Another Sestercentennial Gaspee commemoration can be viewed at the Rhode Island Historical Society’s John Brown Museum in Providence. The exhibit “The Gaspee Legacy: Resistance or Treason?” (called “Resistance of Treason?" on this webpage) includes “more than 15 items from the RIHS collections related to the Affair, including John Brown’s cane engraved with the Gaspee’s name and rumored to be constructed of wood from the Gaspee.”

(You remember what I said about the colony’s leading merchants being behind that attack? John Brown, shown above, was almost certainly one of them. And he and his family don’t seem to have been ashamed of the association.)

The “Gaspee Legacy” exhibit will be on view through the end of 2022.

Earlier this year the Rhode Island Historical Society also cooperated with the Newport Historical Society in announcing a collection of scholarly essays to be titled The Bridge: The Gaspee Affair in Context. I’ve been told by one of the contributing authors that this book has been printed, but there’s still no mention of it on the societies’ websites. When it becomes available to the public, I hope to provide a pointer for ordering copies.

Commemorating the Gaspee Sestercentennial This Week

On the evening of 9 June 1772, 250 years ago this week, a small flotilla of longboats set off from points near Providence, Rhode Island.

They headed for H.M.S. Gaspee, a Royal Navy schooner that had run aground off the coast while chasing a ship suspected of smuggling.

By morning, the commander of that ship, Lt. William Dudingston, was bleeding from two wounds and under the care of a local medical trainee. His crew had been bundled ashore. And the king’s schooner was on fire.

On Thursday, 9 June, Steven Park of Wheaton College will speak about “The Burning of His Majesty’s Schooner Gaspee: An Attack on Crown Rule Before the American Revolution” at the American Revolution Institute in Washington, D.C., and online. The event description says:

On June 9, 1772, a group of prominent Rhode Islanders rowed out to the British schooner Gaspee, which had run aground six miles south of Providence while on an anti-smuggling patrol. After threatening and shooting its commanding officer, the raiders looted the vessel and burned it to the waterline.

Despite colony-wide sympathy for the raid, neither the government in Providence nor authorities in London could let this pass without a response. As a result, a Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by Rhode Island governor Joseph Wanton zealously investigated the incident. Historian Steven Park reveals that what started out as a customs battle over the seizure of a prominent citizen’s rum was soon transformed into one of the sparks that ignited patriot fervor in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War.

The bio attached to that event description comes from the jacket of Park’s book about the Gaspee attack, so it discusses his career and other publications without making clear that book exists. So I’m showing it above with a link to his (our) publisher.

Park is scheduled to speak at 6:30 P.M. Go to this page to sign up for the online feed.

The town of Warwick, Rhode Island, is celebrating the Sestercentennial of the Gaspee attack this weekend, 11–12 June. Here’s the full schedule of 2022 events, which includes:

• Gaspee Days parade on Saturday morning starting at 10:00 A.M.
• Colonial encampment Saturday and Sunday
• ceremonial burning of a ship effigy, Sunday at 4:00 P.M.

This is as much a celebration of local pride in the community today as a commemoration of what happened 250 years ago.

For a thorough round-up of sources and interpretations on the Gaspee affair, check out the Gaspee Virtual Archives. The coding shows how it was created years before this Sestercentennial, but the information is still fresh.

“A man of weak capacity, and little political knowledge”

I hadn’t expected to write a week of postings about the Gaspee affair, even with its sestercentennial coming up next month. But I got intrigued.

One early discussion of the case I came across while looking for sources was in Mercy Warren’s 1805 History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution.

In a section on Rhode Island in 1775, Warren wrote:

It is the nature of man, when he despairs of legal reparation for injuries received, to seek satisfaction by avenging his own wrongs. Thus, some time before this period, a number of men in disguise, had riotously assembled, and set fire to a sloop of war in the harbour. When they had thus discovered their resentment by this illegal proceeding, they dispersed without farther violence.

For this imputed crime the whole colony had been deemed guilty, and interdicted as accessary. A court of inquiry was appointed by his majesty, vested with the power of seizing any person on suspicion, confining him on board a king’s ship, and sending him to England for trial. But some of the gentlemen named for this inquisitorial business, had not the temerity to execute it in the latitude designed; and after sitting a few days, examining a few persons, and threatening many, they adjourned to a distant day.

The extraordinary precedent of erecting such a court among them was not forgotten; but there was a considerable party in Newport, strongly attached to the royal cause. These, headed by their governor, Mr. Wanton, a man of weak capacity, and little political knowledge, endeavoured to impede all measures of opposition, and to prevent even a discussion on the propriety of raising a defensive army.

You’d never know it from the way Warren wrote of events, but Gov. Joseph Wanton had been the primary brake on the Gaspee “court of inquiry” that she decried. He helped to undercut witnesses found by the Royal Navy. He let the Earl of Dartmouth’s confidential instructions out. As chair of that royal commission, he had the most sway over how it dissolved without reaching any significant conclusions.

Two years later, when word of the Battle of Lexington and Concord arrived in Rhode Island, Gov. Wanton indeed refused to approve sending militia regiments north to face the king’s troops. So did deputy governor Darius Sessions, who back in 1772 had helped to alert Samuel Adams and other out-of-colony politicians about the threat of the Gaspee inquiry. For those men, hindering a royal commission was fine; taking up arms against the royal military went too far.

The Rhode Island assembly replaced both Wanton and Sessions by the fall. They never became outright Loyalists, simply retiring from politics. But for Mercy Warren, Wanton’s behavior in 1775 meant he deserved no credit for what he’d done in 1772–73.

“A genuine extract of the letter from Lord Dartmouth”

On 31 Dec 1772, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy, Isaiah Thomas, had a scoop.

Setting type so hastily that he datelined the item “TURSDAY” instead of “THURSDAY,” Thomas presented to the world “a genuine extract of the letter from Lord Dartmouth, to the Governor of Rhode Island, dated Whitehall, September 4, 1772”:

The particulars of that atrocious proceeding (referring to the burning the Gaspee schooner) have by the King’s command been examined and considered with the greatest attention; and although there are some circumstances attending it, in regard to the robbery and plunder of the vessel, which seperately considered, might bring it within the description of an act of piracy; yet in the obvious view of the whole transaction, and taking all the circumstances together, the offence is in the opinion of the law servants of the crown, who have been consulted upon that question, of a much deeper dye, and is considered in no other light, than as an act of high treason, viz. levying war against the King.

And in order that you may have all proper advice and assistance in a matter of so great importance; his Majesty has thought fit, with the advice of his privy council, to issue his royal commission, under the great seal of Great-Britain, nominating yourself and the Chief Justices of New-York, New-Jersey, and the Massachusetts-Bay, together with the Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court established at Boston, to be his Majesty’s commissioners for enquiring into and making report to his Majesty, of all the circumstances relative to the attacking, plundering and burning the Gaspee schooner.

The King trusts, that all persons in the colony will pay a due respect to his royal commission, and that the business of it will be carried on without molestation; at the same time the nature of this offence, and the great number of persons who appear to have been concerned in it make every precaution necessary. His Majesty has therefore for the further support in the execution of this duty, thought fit to direct me to signify his pleasure to Lieutenant-General [Thomas] Gage, that he do hold himself in readiness to send troops into Rhode Island, whenever he shall be called upon by the commissioners for that purpose, in order to aid and assist the civil magistrate in the suppression of any riot or disturbances, and in the preservation of the public peace.

I have only to add upon that head, that his Majesty depends on the care and vigilance of the civil magistrates of the colony, to take the proper measures for the arresting and committing to custody, in order to their being brought to justice, such persons, as shall, upon proper information made before them, or before His Majesty’s commissioners, appear to have been concerned in the plundering and destroying the Gaspee schooner.

It is his Majesty’s intention, in consequence of the advice of his privy council, that the persons concerned in the burning the Gaspee schooner, and in the other violences which attended that daring insult, should be brought to England to be tried; and I am therefore to signify to you his Majesty’s pleasure, that such of the said offenders as may have been or shall be arrested and committed within the colony of Rhode-Island, be delivered to the care and custody of Rear Admiral [John] Montagu, or the commander in chief of his Majesty’s ships in North-America for the time being, or to such officers as he shall appoint to receive them; taking care that you do give notice to the persons accused, in order that they may procure such witnesses on their behalf as they shall judge necessary; which witnesses together with all such as may be proper, to support the charge against them, will be received and sent hither with the prisoners.

In the same issue, Thomas reprinted the “Americanus” essay I quoted yesterday.

Lord Dartmouth’s instructions to Gov. Joseph Wanton—and no one seems to have doubted this long quotation was genuine—validated some of the warnings from Whigs like “Americanus.” The Crown was planning to transport people accused of attacking H.M.S. Gaspee to Britain for trial. The army and navy had orders to help.

At the same time, the secretary of state also reminded Wanton that those defendants should be able to bring along witnesses on their behalf. Not that a long sea voyage and an indeterminate time in London would be convenient for such witnesses. But the ministers in London still wanted to stick to British standards for fair trials—they just didn’t think that would happen with Rhode Island jurors.

Notably, whatever official leaked this confidential letter did so through a printer in Boston, beyond the reach of Rhode Island law. When the Newport Mercury reprinted the letter in the new year, it credited Isaiah Thomas’s Spy.

TOMORROW: Going viral.

“Whether our inalienable rights and privileges are any longer worth contending for”

Before the Revolution, messages between the British secretary of state in London and royal governors were deemed confidential.

Govs. Francis Bernard and Thomas Hutchinson spent a lot of time telling the Massachusetts General Court that no, they wouldn’t share the instructions they had received or their reports back to the ministry. The 1769 publication of Bernard’s letters, leaked by William Bollan, ended his effectiveness.

In Rhode Island, Gov. Joseph Wanton had a different understanding. Elected by the legislature, and he felt he should share the Earl of Dartmouth’s 4 Sept 1772 message about investigating the attack on H.M.S. Gaspee with those legislators and other top officials.

Wanton held those consultations sometime early in December. Details of Lord Dartmouth’s instructions quickly reached the newspapers.

As I wrote before, New England printers had reported on the Gaspee attack in June, but very plainly—a few select facts with minimal commentary. Once news of the royal commission arrived in December, printers started to editorialize.

Then on 21 December Solomon Southwick’s Newport Mercury published a long letter signed “Americanus.” I believe this was the first major newspaper essay addressing the Gaspee case. The writer pulled out all the rhetorical effects:

To be, or not to be, that’s the question: Whether our inalienable rights and privileges are any longer worth contending for, is now to be determined.——Permit me, my countrymen, to beseech you to attend to your alarming situation. . . .

A court of inquisition, more horrid than that of Spain and Portugal, is established within this colony, to inquire into the circumstances of destroying the Gaspee schooner, and the persons who are the commissioners of this new-fangled court are vested with most exorbitant and unconstitutional power.—

They are directed to summon witnesses, apprehend persons not only impeached, but even suspected! And them, and every of them to deliver to Admiral [John] Montagu, who is ordered to have a ship in readiness to carry them to England, where they are to be tried.— . . .

Upon the whole, it is more than probable, it is almost an absolute certainty, that, according to present appearances, the state of an American subject, instead of enjoying the privileges of an Englishman, will soon be infinitely worse than that of a subject of France, Spain, Portugal, or any other the most despotic power on earth: . . .

Ten thousand deaths, by the halter or the ax, are infinitely preferable to a miserable life of slavery, in chains, under a pack of worse than Egyptian tyrants, whose avarice nothing less than your whole substance and income will satisfy; and who, if they can’t extort that, will glory in making a sacrifice of you and your posterity, to gratify their master, the d––l, who is a tyrant, and the father of tyrants and of liars.

Who was “Americanus”? Some have assigned this essay to Samuel Adams, who had used a similar pseudonym in Boston. I doubt that, and not just because this essay started by quoting from [gasp!] the theater. Letters indicate that Adams didn’t know about the Gaspee commission until days after this essay appeared.

According to Neil L. York, the top candidate for Rhode Island’s “Americanus” is chief justice Stephen Hopkins (shown above).

TOMORROW: Dartmouth’s own words.

“The most clement measures shall be adopted towards the Americans”

By the fall of 1772, Rhode Island’s investigations of the attack on H.M.S. Gaspee had run aground as surely as the schooner itself had back on 9 June.

As was standard, Gov. Joseph Wanton had quickly issued a proclamation offering a reward for information—£100, in fact. By July, Adm. John Montagu (shown here) had collected testimony from Aaron Briggs or Biggs, who implicated some prominent merchants.

But Gov. Wanton soon had contradictory testimony from four other people.

James Helme, senior justice in Kings County, told his colleagues that at the October court session he

fully intended to give the affair of burning the said schooner and wounding the lieutenant, in charge to the jury; but having been nearly two months on the circuit, it entirely went out of my mind, when the grand jury was empannelled; and there being no business laid before said jury, they were soon dismissed.

Oops.

However, more was happening in London. In August, the secretary of state for the colonies, Lord Hillsborough, sent to Rhode Island the text of Parliament’s new Dockyards Law. Enacted that spring, it established that destroying a ship in a Royal Navy shipyard was tantamount to treason and subject to capital punishment.

Eventually Crown lawyers agreed that the Dockyards Law didn’t apply since the Gaspee hadn’t been in a naval shipyard when the raiders set fire to it. But Hillsborough’s message told Gov. Wanton how harshly the London government wanted to punish the men who attacked the schooner. (The only person ever executed under the Dockyards Law was James Aitken, alias “John the Painter,” who set fires at the Portsmouth Shipyard in 1777 in sympathy with the American cause.)

For unrelated reasons, in August the Earl of Dartmouth replaced Hillsborough as secretary of state. On 4 September the new minister sent a letter to Gov. Wanton detailing the plan for a royal commission to investigate the Gaspee incident and surrounding conflicts.

Rhode Island’s first report of this commission contained some positive details. The 30 November Newport Mercury shared the news under a 25 September London dateline, emphasizing signs of leniency:

His Majesty… [is] offering his pardon to any of the said offenders (excepting the person who wounded Lieutenant [William] Duddington, & excepting two others who assumed to be sheriffs of the colony, and the Captain or leader of the insurgents) who shall discover any of their accomplices, and also offering rewards for such discovery.

A correspondent informs us, that Lord Dartmouth has signified his determined resolution that the most clement measures shall be adopted towards the Americans.

Furthermore, Gov. Wanton was designated to chair the inquiry commission.

But soon, Rhode Islanders were hearing more ominous details.

TOMORROW: A leak from the legislature.

Rhode Island and the Royal Commission of Inquiry

Yesterday I pointed to the upcoming sestercentennial of the attack on H.M.S. Gaspee, a Royal Navy ship patrolling Narragansett Bay for smugglers.

Some of Rhode Island‘s leading merchants were involved in some way in destroying that ship, including the Browns, the Greenes, Abraham Whipple, and the notorious Simeon Potter.

The organized attackers wounded a British military officer, Lt. William Dudingston, and destroyed a British warship. Some authors, especially from Rhode Island, view it as a prelude or even the first battle of the Revolutionary War. But as I wrote yesterday, it seems significant that this event, for all its bellicosity, didn’t lead to a broader crackdown and war.

One big reason is that the Crown had far less leverage in Rhode Island. That colony was one of only two in North America (the other being Connecticut) where citizens elected their governor via the legislature. In the other colonies, London chose the governor, and usually he arrived with no local allegiances or favors owed.

Furthermore, the Rhode Island legislature chose judges for each year. Elsewhere, the royal government appointed judges for life. And elsewhere those appointed royal governors also appointed sheriffs and justices of the peace.

Rhode Island’s unusual charter left the Crown with only two groups of officials who owed their position and thus their full allegiance to London: the Customs service and the Royal Navy. And of course those arms of government had limited local popularity, as shown by the fact that Rhode Islanders had just burned a naval schooner enforcing the Customs laws.

To investigate the attack, therefore, Lord North’s government set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry. The five officials appointed to it were:

• Peter Oliver, chief justice of Massachusetts.
• Robert Auchmuty, judge of the vice-admiralty court in Boston.
• Daniel Horsmanden, chief justice of New York.
• Frederick Smythe, chief justice of New Jersey.
• Joseph Wanton, governor of Rhode Island (shown above).

The first four men were already strong Loyalists. Wanton wasn’t yet in that camp, and he was also the only man with local knowledge. When Adm. John Montagu used testimony from an indentured servant named Aaron Briggs to demand an investigation of John Brown, Simeon Potter, and others, Wanton responded by collecting evidence that undercut what Briggs said. The commission’s investigation led nowhere.

Royal authorities in Massachusetts and London learned from the frustrations of the Gaspee inquiry and put those lessons into practice after the next big attack—the Boston Tea Party of December 1773. They didn’t wait for local authorities, even the more numerous and powerful Crown appointees, to identify individual malefactors. Instead, Parliament adopted the Boston Port Bill to pressure the whole town, installed a more forceful governor, sent in troops, and eventually tried to rewrite the provincial constitution.

Thus, for the Crown the main lesson of the Gaspee affair was what not to do.

Wanted by Governor Wanton

The official Rhode Island response to the destruction of the Customs sloop Liberty in Newport harbor started even before the ship went up in flames. 

A mob attacked the ship on 19 July. Two days later, this proclamation appeared, as printed in the newspapers: 

By the Honorable
Joseph Wanton, Esquire,
Governor, Captain-General, and Commander in Chief, of and over the English Colony of Rhode-Island, and Providence Plantations, in New-England, in America:

A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas, Charles Dudley, Esq; Collector and Surveyor, and John Nicoll, Esq; Comptroller, of His Majesty’s Customs for the Colony aforesaid, have this Day presented unto me a Memorial, setting forth, That a Number of People on the Nineteenth Instant, in the Evening, being assembled in a riotous and tumultuous Manner, did, with Threats against his Life, compel Captain William Reid, Commander of the Sloop Liberty in the Service of the Revenue, lying in the Harbour of Newport, to order the People who had the keeping and Charge of his Vessel, to come on Shore; after which a Number of Men boarded the said Sloop, and set at Liberty a Sloop brought into this Port by the said William Reid, laden with prohibited Goods and under Seizure, and she was afterwards carried away to the great Prejudice of his Majesty: And that they then proceeded to destroy the said Sloop Liberty, by cutting away her Mast and Rigging, and scuttling her so that she sunk; and burnt her Two Boats:

I HAVE, THEREFORE, thought fit, by and with the Advice of such Members of his Majesty’s Council, as could conveniently be called together, to issue this Proclamation, hereby directing and requiring all the Officers of Justice, in this Colony, to use their utmost Endeavours, to enquire after and discover the Persons guilty of the aforesaid Crimes, that they may be brought to Justice.

Many of the men who had attacked the Liberty on 19 July probably came off Capt. Joseph Packwood’s brig, based in New London, Connecticut. Packwood had sailed out of Narragansett Bay as soon as he could after the riot. The Rhode Island authorities would therefore have had a hard time tracking down those men—if they even really wanted to.

Ten days after this proclamation, the rest of the Liberty burned on Goat Island. That was more likely a local job, but since it took place away from town on a stormy night, there were no witnesses. Gov. Wanton didn’t even bother to use a new proclamation.

COMING UP: A new lead for the Customs office.

Visit Newport in the Summer of 1769, 24 Aug.

On Saturday, 24 August, the Newport Historical Society will host a living-history exploration of “Life During the Burning of H.M.S. Liberty.”

This is the society’s Sixth Annual Living History Event, and its presentations bring in top-notch reenactors from all over New England to explore different events.

Since you’ve read the last three postings, you know all about how what led to the Liberty Customs sloop going up in flames in July 1769, two and a half centuries ago this summer.

The society’s event announcement says:

This one-day event features over 50 costumed historical interpreters who will represent all ages and various stations of life, along with conflicting political viewpoints. Learn and experience aspects of life from 1769 including:

• Discussions from Governor [Joseph] Wanton along with residents who witnessed the burning.
• Meeting merchants and tradespeople impacted by the non-importation agreements.
• Experience a spinning bee presented by Daughters of Liberty at the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House.

Visit stations around Washington Square such as a tavern, school and printer. Much like the Newport Historical Society’s previous summer History Space events, visitors might find themselves in the midst of hostile debates as the living historians recreate the tensions that surrounded this incident which helped to spark the American Revolution.

“Life During the Burning of H.M.S. Liberty” will take place from noon till 5:00 P.M. in Washington Square and at the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House, 17 Broadway.

The program is free to all, but donations to the Newport Historical Society are welcome.

(Photo from a past event in Newport by Sarah Long.)

Redcoats Return to Newport, 17 Nov.

On Saturday, 17 November, the Newport Historical Society, the Redwood Library & Athenæum, and two dozen of the region’s top-notch Revolutionary War reenactors will present a program titled “Redcoats at the Redwood: A 1778 Living History Event.”

The British military occupied Newport, Rhode Island, for years during the Revolutionary War, fending off threats from land and sea. This event focuses on the year 1778. Here’s the event description:

The Redwood Library’s Harrison Room will be transformed into an officer’s club as men from the British army and Royal Navy discuss the latest news and intelligence about the war efforts, in-between relaxing, playing cards and enjoying a few drinks.

Chat with reenactors portraying key figures such as General [Richard] Prescott, Mary Almy, Joseph Wanton Jr. and the newly wed Henrietta Overing Bruce. Other personas will include a printer, a minister, a merchant, officer’s wives, and a local woman who’s courted by a British officer.

Hourly activities range from toasts to games and will include a skit inspired by the Redwood’s history from this time. Visitors can learn about 18th-century newspapers, letters, artwork and military passes, including the pass that was required to leave the island, along with life during the Revolutionary era in Newport.

Spectators can also try a Spy Challenge, collecting intelligence as they chat with the reenactors to learn about the British military plans.

This event is scheduled for 2:00 to 7:00 P.M. at the Redwood Library, 50 Bellevue Avenue in Newport. There is a parking lot beside the building. Admission is free, though donations are welcome.

Recreating the Aftermath of the Gaspee in Providence, 2 June

On Saturday, 2 June, the Rhode Island Historical Society and Newport Historical Society are teaming up for a History Space program exploring the aftermath of the Gaspee Affair of 1772.

As you recall, H.M.S. Gaspee was a Royal Navy ship that patrolled Narragansett Bay for smugglers. On 9 June it ran aground. Local merchants and mariners saw an opportunity, stormed the railings, wounded the commander, and set the Gaspee on fire. (That was the third royal government ship that Rhode Islanders had destroyed in a decade.)

At Saturday’s “What Cheer Day” event at the John Brown House Museum, visitors can chat with reenactors portraying such key figures as Gov. Joseph Wanton, merchant John Brown, innkeeper James Sabin, and Lt. William Dudingston of the Royal Navy (presumably recovering from his chest wound). In a market scenario, street peddlers will hawk their wares while upper-class ladies discuss the political situation over tea.

Family-friendly activities include:

• The Liberty Poll, an interactive scavenger-hunt questionnaire to help officials determine who was responsible for Gaspee’s burning. (Hint: The event’s at John Brown’s house. Though I put more blame for the violence on Simeon Potter.)
• Making traditional crafts such as a beeswax candle or a clay pinch pot to take home.
• Eighteenth-century toys and lawn games.

From noon to 2:00 inside the John Brown House Museum, Prof. Adam Blumenthal of Brown University and Optimity Advisors will present a sneak peek at his work-in-progress, “The Gaspee in Virtual Reality.”

“What Cheer Day” is free and open to the public. It will take place rain or shine on the lawn of the John Brown House Museum, 52 Power Street in Providence. The museum will also be free during its regular open hours on Saturday.

New Study of the Gaspée Incident

The Boston Tea Party of December 1773 produced a forceful response from London: the Boston Port Bill, a new royal governor, army regiments back in town, the Massachusetts Government Act, and other supporting legislation.

To be sure, Bostonians had destroyed more than £9,000 of property belonging to the well-connected British East India Company.

On the other hand, compare that damage to what people in Rhode Island had done over the preceding decade:

• In June 1765, Newporters upset by naval impressment had seized the boat belonging to the Royal Navy warship Maidstone, dragged it to the town common, and set it on fire.
• In July 1769, another Newport crowd saw the unpopular Customs patrol ship Liberty, confiscated the previous year from John Hancock, run aground, so they set it on fire.
• In June 1772, men from Providence and surrounding towns attacked the Royal Navy’s patrol ship Gaspée from rowboats, shooting its commanding officer in the chest. And then, of course, they set it on fire.

According to Rif Winfield’s British Warships in the Age of Sail series, H.M.S. Victory cost £63,176 to build and equip in 1765. So, even though the Victory was a much larger ship than these three, Rhode Islanders did serious damage to the royal government with each ship they destroyed.

But was Newport harbor shut down? Was the colony’s constitution changed? Was anyone brought to trial? No. I suspect the imperial government in London recognized that Rhode Island was a lawless place.

Of course, one might argue that the royal government’s alarm about those mounting attacks, especially the one on the Gaspée, made Parliament more determined to ensure Boston wouldn’t get away with anything of the sort.

The latest title in the Journal of the American Revolution book series is Steven Park’s The Burning of His Majesty’s Schooner Gaspee: An Attack on Crown Rule Before the American Revolution, published this month. It explores that story in depth:

Between the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773—a period historians refer to as “the lull”—a group of prominent Rhode Islanders rowed out to His Majesty’s schooner Gaspee, which had run aground six miles south of Providence while on an anti-smuggling patrol. After threatening and shooting its commanding officer, the raiders looted the vessel and burned it to the waterline.

Despite colony-wide sympathy for the June 1772 raid, neither the government in Providence nor authorities in London could let this pass without a response. As a result, a Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by Rhode Island governor Joseph Wanton zealously investigated the incident. In The Burning of His Majesty’s Schooner Gaspee: An Attack on Crown Rule Before the American Revolution, historian Steven Park reveals that what started out as a customs battle over the seizure of a prominent citizen’s rum was soon transformed into the spark that re-ignited Patriot fervor.

Steven Park, Ph.D., teaches and is the Director of Academic Services at the University of Connecticut’s maritime campus at Avery Point. My copy of his book is on its way to me from Amazon—presuming, of course, that the delivery vehicle doesn’t go through Rhode Island and get set on fire.

John Howland and the Lexington Alarm in Providence

Yesterday I quoted Elkanah Watson’s description of how Providence, Rhode Island, responded to the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

According to Watson, the news arrived on the afternoon of 19 Apr 1775, his militia unit spent the whole night equipping themselves, and they marched off on the morning of 20 April, defying the governor’s proclamation that they not cross the border into Massachusetts.

Watson’s contemporary John Howland, born in October 1757, left his own memoir of that day. He was from a lower class than Watson, apprenticed to a barber instead of a merchant and attached to an ordinary militia unit instead of the Cadets. But Howland grew up to be president of the Rhode Island Historical Society and seems to have been more accurate about important points:

On the afternoon of the 19th of April, 1775, news arrived here that a battle was then going on, as the regulars had marched from Boston into the country. There were four or five boys of us on Mr. Thompson’s wharf, where some hands were unloading a scow load of salt. Mr. Thompson came down and said, “war, war, boys, there is war. The regulars have marched out of Boston; a great many men killed; war, war, boys.” He turned quickly and went up to the street. We all followed, and saw the officers of the companies and many others on the parade before Gov. Bowen’s, seeking intelligence.

Jabez Bowen was never governor of Rhode Island; in 1778 he became deputy governor, and served for several years. But Bowen was a leader of the Providence militia, so it makes sense that people gathered near his house for news.

The drums of the four independent companies beat, and the men paraded as soon as possible. It was sundown, and the officers of the company repaired to Lieut. Gov. [Darius] Sessions, requesting him to give them orders to march towards Boston, as without his orders their authority would cease when they should have passed Pawtucket bridge. He declined doing any thing in the case, having no power out of the colony, or in it, as the Governor [Joseph Wanton] who lived in Newport was above him in authority.

It was then concluded to send an express towards Boston, to know whether the enemy had returned or were yet in the field, and to act or march on further intelligence, orders or no orders. Mr. Charles Dabney, a member of the Cadet company, offered to be the express. A horse was procured and he set off. It was toward noon the next day before he returned, but an express from near the scene of action arrived, stating that the regulars were safe cooped up in Boston.

Before this intelligence arrived here, early in the morning Col. [James] Varnum, with his Greenwich company arrived, but would not stay. They continued their march some miles beyond Pawtucket, when receiving the intelligence they returned here. I viewed the company as they marched up the street, and observed Nathaniel Greene with his musket on his shoulder, in the ranks as a private. I distinguished Mr. Greene, whom I had frequently seen, by the motion of his shoulders in the march, as one of his legs was shorter than the other.

According to Howland, therefore, Varnum’s Kentish Guards were the only Rhode Island company that marched across the colony line on 20 Apr 1775. Watson’s unit, the Independent Company of Cadets, waited for word from their member Dabney about what the situation was. Before noon, Providence received news “that the regulars were safe cooped up in Boston,” so those Cadets probably never marched. Elkanah Watson just wished they had.

Elkanah Watson and the Lexington Alarm in Providence

I previously quoted the part of Elkanah Watson’s Men and Times of the Revolution in which he described his military training as a schoolboy in Rhode Island.

Watson, born in 1758, was still a teenager when the Battle of Lexington and Concord occurred. He was a clerk working for John Brown in Providence. Here’s how Watson described the colony’s response to that news:

The intelligence of the march upon Lexington reached Providence in the afternoon of the 19th of April, 1775. Our five companies flew to arms. The whole population was convulsed by the most vehement excitement. We were unprovided with cartridges, and were compelled to defer our march till morning. I spent the most of that night with many of our company [Independent Company of Cadets under Col. Joseph Nightingale], in running bullets and preparing ammunition.

We mustered early the next morning, and marched for the scene of action. The royal governor, [Joseph] Wanton, issued a proclamation, which was little regarded, interdicting our passing the colony line, under the penalty of open rebellion. Capt. [Nathanael] Green, afterwards the celebrated Gen. Green, with his company of Warwick Greens, and Capt. [James] Varnam, afterwards a revolutionary general, with his Greenwich Volunteers, marched with us at the same time towards Lexington.

We had advanced six miles amid the cries and tears of women, every road we passed enveloped in a cloud of dust from the march of armed men, hastening onward, when an express met us, with the information that the regulars had been driven back into Boston.

Watson misremembered some facts. Greene wasn’t a captain in charge of a company but a private in the company Varnum commanded, the Kentish Guards. The “Warwick Greens” and “Greenwich Volunteers” may just have been bunches of guys in that independent militia company.

Gov. Wanton didn’t issue a proclamation forbidding Rhode Island troops from entering Massachusetts, though Rhode Islanders clearly believed they were taking a risk to do so.

Furthermore, there’s reason to doubt that Watson’s company marched into Massachusetts as he described.

TOMORROW: Another Rhode Islander’s recollections.

Rhode Island Prepares for War

Samuel Ward was one of Rhode Island’s delegates to the First Continental Congress in 1774. There he met John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and other men pushing for a united opposition to the London government’s strictures on Massachusetts.

On 19 Oct 1774, the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for North America, sent a letter to all the colonial governors reporting that the privy council had barred the export of gunpowder and arms to the colonies. In most colonies the governors were royal appointees, and Ward appears to have assumed they’d keep this news to themselves. In Rhode Island and Connecticut, however, the governors were elected by the colonial legislature, and Gov. Joseph Wanton had shared the letter with his fellow politicians.

Ward and his Patriot colleagues saw the cut-off of gunpowder and arms as a clear attempt to limit the colonies’ ability to defend themselves. On 14 December he fired off warnings to Dickinson and to Lee from his home in Westerly. Here’s how his letter to Lee begins:

As it is of the greatest Importance that every Colony should have the earliest Notice of the hostile Intentions of Administration I have enclosed You Copies of Lord Dartmouths Letter & the Order received with it. Our Genl. Assembly immediately ordered Copies of them to be sent to Mr. [Thomas] Cushing to be communicated to the [Massachusetts] provincial Congress. They then ordered the Cannon at [Newport’s] Fort George (which was not tenable) to be sent to Providence where they will be safe and ready for Service, 200 bbls. of Powder, a proportionate quantity of Lead & Flints & several Pieces of brass Cannon for the Artillery Compy. were order’d to be purchased, a Major General (an officer never before chosen in the Colony) was appointed, several independent Companies of light Infantry Fusiliers, Hunters &c were formed, the Militia was order’d to be disciplined & the Commanding Officers empowered to march the Troops to the Assistance of any Sister Colony.

The Spirit & Ardor with which all this was done gave Me ineffable Pleasure and I heartily wish that the other Colonies may proceed in the same spirited Manner for I fear the last Appeal to Heaven must now be made & if We are unprepared We must be undone. The Idea of taking up Arms against Great Britain is shocking but if We must become Slaves or fly to Arms I shall not hesitate one Moment which to chuse for all the Horrors of civil War & even Death itself in every Shape is infinitely prefarable to Slavery which in one Word comprehends every Species of Distress Misery Infamy & Ruin.

Moving cannon to a more secure place, buying weaponry when the London government had just forbade that export, appointing a major general and forming new militia companies, invoking John Locke’s “Appeal to Heaven”—Ward’s Rhode Island was clearly preparing for war in December 1774.