Sea Captains Export Pope Night to Virginia

The diary of Nicholas Cresswell, published in a new edition this year, describes the spread of New England’s Pope Night tradition to the Potomac. This is Cresswell’s entry for 6 Nov 1775:

News that the Kings Ships had burned Falmouth in New Hampshire [actually modern Portland, Maine].

Some New England Masters [i.e., captains] of Vessels that lye here being the Anniversary of the Gunpowder plot, Had the Pope, Lord North, [Francis] Barnard, [Thomas] Hutchinson and the Devil, burned in Effigy, after Carting them through the town with Drums & Fifes.

Even six months after the war had begun, Patriots still saw their enemy as the politicians around George III rather than the king himself. Cresswell, a recent emigrant from England and a Loyalist, must nonetheless have found this celebration disquieting.

Ironically, while these New Englanders were bringing their Pope Night tradition to Virginia, a Virginian was doing his best to tamp down the same celebration in the Continental Army camps around Boston—for political reasons.

Nicholas Cresswell Tries to Keep Quiet

Yesterday I quoted how Nicholas Cresswell, prospective emigré from Derbyshire to Virginia, responded to hearing the Continental Congress’s Resolves of 1774. He kept his anger private, recording it in his diary. (The original manuscript is in the collections of Colonial Williamsburg.)

Cresswell’s journal continued on 2 November, the next day:

Writing to my Friends at home. Obliged to put the best side outwards and appear a little Whigifyed as I expect my letters will be oppened before they get to England.

3rd Saw the Independent Company [militia] exercise. The Effigy of Lord North [shown above in person, courtesy of the U.K. Prime Minister’s office] was Shot at, then carried in great parade into the town and burned.

4th And 5th Wrote to Mr. Champion. It is very hard as I cannot write my real sentiments.

6th Sunday Went to a Presbyterian meeting these are a set of Rebellious soundrels nothing but Political discourses instead of Religious Lectures.

Despite his vow to be cautious, Cresswell got in trouble with local Patriots. In March 1775 some letters home in which he “freely declared my sentiments upon the present Rebellion” were opened by the Alexandria Committee of Safety. At around the same time he left for the Ohio Valley, scouting for land.

When Cresswell returned to Alexandria in October, there was a full-blown civil war going on up around Boston. Another part of the Continental Army was invading Canada. Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, had taken to the water. And that local Committee of Safety summoned Cresswell for questioning.

On 31 October he wrote: “Understand I am suspected of being what they call a Tory (that is a Friend of my Country) and am threatened with Tar, Feathers, Imprisonment and the Devil knows what. Curse the Scoundrels.” Three days later he declared, “Determined to talk about the times as little as possible and slip away as soon as I can get an opportunity.”

That resolve lasted for...over a week. On 9 November, Cresswell reported:

At diner had a long Dispute with Doctor Jackson about the Origins of the present proceedings. I believe he was employed to draw me into a political dispute. I proceeded with great caution and timerrity. Most of the company agreed that I had the better of the argument. But never so much embarrased in my life.

For the next two years Cresswell repeated the same pattern: promising himself that he wouldn’t argue politics, then letting his real feelings out—often after drinking. He kept trying to find a way to leave for home, but of course the colonies were at war with Britain, and he didn’t have a lot of cash to spend. At the same time, American officials grudgingly recognized that Cresswell wasn’t working for the Crown; he was just a visitor from England with poor timing.

The new edition of Cresswell’s diary has the dates “1774-1781” in the title. However, he [***SPOILER***] managed to get out of America in 1777, and stopped keeping the journal at that point. He went back to the notebook a few years later to record his marriage, and then settled into the life of an English country gentleman.

“The Seeds of Rebellion Are Allready Sown”

In the spring of 1774, Nicholas Cresswell was a gentleman from Derbyshire in his early twenties who had long dreamed of visiting America. In fact, though he hadn’t told his parents (who still bankrolled him), he even wanted to move to the New World. But Cresswell arrived to look for frontier land just as the Massachusetts Government Act and Boston Port Bill were widening the split between the North American colonies and the government in London.

Cresswell kept a journal about that trip as he watched the colonies split from his native country. That cranky account was first published in 1924. This year Harold B. Gill, Jr., and George M. Curtis offered a new edition titled A Man Apart: The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1781.

Cresswell made his initial base near Alexandria, Virginia. He met George Washington, who didn’t leave a big impression at first; the early part of the diary barely mentions that planter and militia colonel. But later, when Washington appeared to have a good run as commander of the Continental Army after the Battle of Trenton, Cresswell wrote about dining at Mount Vernon and devoted several pages to describing the man. Despite fiercely opposing the rebellion, Cresswell found Washington personally impressive.

Here’s a taste of the first part of the book, as Cresswell starts to grasp the extent of American anger at the government in London on 1 Nov 1774:

This evening went to the Tavern to hear the Resolves of the Continental Congress read[,] A petition to the Throne and an address to the people of Great Britain. Both of them full of Duplicity and false representation. I look upon them as insults to the understanding and Dignity of the British Sovereign and people. Am in hopes their petitions will never be granted.

I am sorry to see them so well received by the people and their sentiments so universally adopted, it is a plain proof that the seeds of rebellion are allready sown and have taken very deep root, but am in hopes they will be eradicated next summer.

I am obliged to act the Hypocrite and extol these proceedings as the wisest productions of any assembly on Earth. But in my heart I Despise them and look upon them with contempt.

TOMORROW: How well did Nicholas Cresswell do at acting “a little Whigifyed”?