Lawrence Sweeny, “of most facetious Memory”

In January I introduced the figure of Lawrence Sweeny, New York newspaper carrier of proud Irish descent. He was a loud opponent of the Stamp Act in 1765.

During the Seven Years’ War he reportedly became known as “Bloody News” Sweeny as he shouted out that phrase to sell the latest news. But most New Yorkers seem to have associated Sweeny with humor, though I can’t always tell whether they were laughing more with him or at him.

In the spring of 1770, this broadside appeared around the city:

An
ELEGY,
On the much lamented Death of LAWRENCE
SWEENY, ESQ; of most facetious Memory,
who departed this Life at New-York, upon
Tuesday April 10, 1770.

Ye Yorkers lay aside your jocund Farce
Of Freedom now, and hollow till your hoarse;
For LAWRENCE SWEENY’s Dead to all below,
Look to each Face and read it in their Woe.
Is SWEENY dead? Enquire the sorrowing Throng,
Who cry’d News, News, in Accents loud and strong.
He who was wont to raise the gen’ral Smile,
And for whole Days a World of Cares beguile,
Is now no more. How comes it SWEENY, now,
Has plac’d such gen’ral sadness on the Brow?
’Tis not his fault, replies the Comic Muse.
He never did a Chearful strain refuse;
Nor never did promote Domestic Strife,
But flogg’d Old PROSER, and caress’d his Wife.

See HOUSE, the Dutchman, who but t’other Day,
Did with our Hero, “News Via Boston” Cry;
He also join’d him in the hum’rous Song
Of SAWNEY’S Rant, and GEORGE’S Derry-down.
To Day he Views his Friend a load of Clay,
Frantic he raves, and throws his Songs away.

The Black-Ey’d Virgins, Ladies of the Green,
With streaming Eyes and sable Weeds are seen,
Along the Streets in Solemn Pomp they go
With downcast Looks expressive of their Woe---
Their Patron Dead---Their Patriot close confind---
Pale is their Face and discompos’d their Mind.
To MILLS’s Palace moves the Beauteous Throng,
Where SAWNEY Chears them with a Merry Song,
With Hands uplisted and distorted Eys.
Says he dear Nymphs can I your Grief asswage?

To asswage our Grief is more than Mortal can,
Not you the boldest of the race of Man,
Can chear our Souls or Alleviate our Pain.

SUN, MOON, and STARS with Watery Aspect Shine
And be their choicest Influence New-York, thine,
For Great’s the Loss this City has sustain’d,
And Great’s the Grief of Gen’rous SWEENEY’s Friend.

The 16 April New-York Gazette stated that Sweeny was “as well known in this City as any Man in it, and will be perhaps as much missed.”

The Mysterious Constitutional Courant

Yesterday’s posting introduced Lawrence Sweeny, a New York newspaper carrier. He played a small but significant role in promoting resistance to the Stamp Act in 1765.

In September of that year, after protests against the Stamp Act had erupted in Boston and Newport, a fake newspaper called the Constitutional Courant appeared in New York. It was dated 21 Sept 1765, and said to be “Printed by Andrew Marvel, at the Sign of the Bribe refused on Constitution-Hill, North-America.” The Princeton University library displays its front page.

Isaiah Thomas later wrote that the Constitutional Courant was really printed in Woodridge, New Jersey, by William Goddard (1740-1815). After being trained in New Haven and New York, Goddard had run a newspaper in Providence until that spring, and the next year he tried Philadelphia. Crown officials reported hearing that James Parker (1714-1770) owned that press and, as a postmaster, sent copies to other cities.

The “newspaper” contained three anti-Stamp Act essays signed with three different pseudonyms and a brief mention of the recent change in government in London. Reportedly the established New York printers had turned down those essays because they were too incendiary. Hence the need for a special printing and secrecy.

In an exhaustive article published by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Albert Matthews reported that there were at least two reprints of the Constitutional Courant, presumably from other presses responding to local demand. One of those reprints probably occurred in Boston since the 7 October Boston Evening-Post quoted one essay and told readers, “we hear, it will soon be republished.”

Lawrence Sweeny was one of the people who sold the Constitutional Courant on the streets of New York. According to Thomas, royal officials called him in and demanded to know where that paper had been printed. “Sweeney, as he had been instructed, answered, ‘At Peter Hassenclever’s ironworks, please your honor.’” Peter Hasenclever had come to America in 1764 to manage an extensive iron-manufacturing enterprise in New Jersey.

The masthead of the Constitutional Courant was the first reappearance of Benjamin Franklin’s “Join or Die” snake since 1754, when he created the image to promote colonial cooperation and the Albany Plan. From then on, the snake promoted a united American front against new measures from London instead of against external enemies. Printers pulled out those snake woodcuts again in 1774 as the conflict with London heated up.

“Happy Years to the Sons of LIBERTY”

Since there’s no better time to quote carrier verses about the Stamp Act than now, the sestercentennial of the period when that law remained a hot topic in North American politics, here’s another example.

This one comes from New York and is credited to a well known newspaper seller there—Lawrence Sweeny, not a young apprentice but a grown man from Ireland.

New Year’s
ODE
For the YEAR 1766,
Being actually dictated,
BY
LAWRENCE SWINNEY,
Carrier of News, Enemy to Stamps, a Friend to the Constitution, and an Englishman every Inch.

I AM against the Stamp Act;
If it takes Place, I’m ruined for ever.
C———’s Coach and J———’s House!
Lord Colvil, General Murray!
I’m in Debt to the Doctors,
And never a Farthing to pay.
The Weather is severely cold.
I have the Rheumatism in my Leg,
And but little Hay for my little Horse,
And if Famine should stamp him to Death,
More than half my Fortune in gone!
What shall I say for the Boys of New-York?
Happy Years to the Sons of LIBERTY.

Ding Dong.
Ding Dong.
Long live the KING,
The KING live long.
But the DEVIL may Shoot,
Wicked G————l and B——.

Well, that certainly has the sound of something someone might dictate, especially late at night in a tavern. But what’s it all about?

At the bottom “G————l and B———” are clearly George Grenville and Lord Bute, the prime minister who proposed the Stamp Act and his predecessor who didn’t but still got blamed for it all over North America.

“C———’s Coach” refers to Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden’s coach, fed to a bonfire during New York’s anti-Stamp Act protest on 1 Nov 1765. “J———’s House” refers to the house rented by Maj. Thomas James and torn apart by rioters that night.

“Lord Colvil” must be Adm. Lord Colville, the man in charge of the Royal Navy in North America at that time. He was based in Halifax, not New York, but as the new year began he was threatening to have the navy seize any ship trying to leave harbor without the correct papers.

“General Murray” was Gen. James Murray, governor of Quebec. He doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with the Stamp Act in New York. But his accommodation of the French Canadians—the vast majority of the people he governed—was making him unpopular with the English settlers up in Canada.

The names of Colville and Murray would have been especially resonant for Sweeny since they were both commanders during the recent Seven Years’ War. According to an article in the Magazine of American History in 1877, the news carrier became known as “Bloody News” Sweeny for his habit of shouting out that phrase to sell newspapers during the war.

Finally, Sweeny is studied today as an early example of Irish-American humor and pride. For example, the American Antiquarian Society has featured the New Year’s verse he distributed in 1769, which is proudly and loudly Irish. That makes the 1766 handbill’s phrase “an Englishman every Inch” somewhat problematic. I take that as Sweeny’s claim to all the rights of Englishmen, including not having a Stamp Tax foisted upon you (even though by that year Englishmen had been paying a Stamp Tax for decades).

TOMORROW: Sweeny against the Stamp Act.