“Without the Privelege of Pen, Ink, Paper or Candle”

In April 1776, Watertown was the seat of Massachusetts’s government.

Though people could now go into Boston, that town was still reeling from the siege. Plus, there was smallpox.

So the Massachusetts General Court stayed in Watertown—the assembly in the town’s meeting-house and the Council in an upper chamber of Edmund Fowle’s house (now headquarters of the Historical Society of Watertown, shown here).

Under the provincial charter, because the governor and lieutenant governor were absent (both driven away by the war), the Council exercised executive power.

That’s why, on 12 April, James Otis, Sr., as senior member of the Massachusetts Council, signed this order to imprison five genteel Loyalists captured aboard the brig Elizabeth:

To the Keeper of the Goal at Boston, in the County of Suffolk—Greeting—

You are hereby directed and commanded to take into your Custody Crean Brush, William Jackson, Peter Ramsey, Edward [K]eighley, and Richard Newton, lately taken in their flight from Boston in attempting to carry away from thence under the protection of the British fleet, large Quantities of Goods Wares & Merchandizes, the Rightful Property of the Inhabitants of that town, and having joined themselves with the Fleet & army employed against the united Colonies of America—

and you are commanded to confine the said Crean Brush William Jackson & Peter Ramsen [sic], each in an apartment by himself, without the Privelege of Pen, Ink, Paper or Candle, and not suffer them, or either of them to converse with any person whatever, unless in your hearing, and for the better Security of the said Crean Brush you are further ordered & commanded to put him into Handcufts immediately—

And them and each of them safely keep, ’till the further Order of the Major part of the Council, or they be otherwise discharged by due Course of Law—Hereof fail not at your Peril.

Two days later, Maj. John Grizzage Frazer, as assistant quartermaster for the Continental Army, wrote to Gen. George Washington to say that those men were now locked up. Brush was “in Irons.”

Frazer also passed on the news that on 12 April “8 british seamen” had made off with the cutter from H.M.S. Renown, one of the Royal Navy ships still hovering in the outer harbor, and got into Boston. Those defectors were much more welcome than the Loyalists who had tried to leave.

TOMORROW: Free William Jackson!

“They were much insulted by the people”

Yesterday we left William Jackson on the road from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Boston, having reached the town of Newburyport on 11 April 1776.

Jackson and dozens of fellow Loyalists had been captured aboard the brig Elizabeth while trying to sail to Halifax with the rest of the British evacuation fleet.

Most of the king’s army, and most of the Loyalists inside Boston, had managed to get away. Which meant popular anger about those people focused on the prominent few remaining—like Jackson.

In Newburyport, an angry crowd surrounded the tavern where the captives were eating, objecting to how they were riding in carriages. Carriages that Jackson, ship captain Peter Ramsey, and the others had hired.

Jackson later recounted:

we sent for the Committe of safety to Appease them, but all to no purpose, finding our selves in such a situation we comply’d, the Committe not thinking it safe they Appointed a Guard of five Men and Obliged us to pay the Expence the rest of the Journey,

as soon as we came out of the Inn we received Blow’s, mud, stones, Eggs, and every other abuse and proceeded to Boston being 40 miles on foot

In Salem, the lawyer William Pynchon (1723–1789) wrote in his diary:

Wm. Jackson, merchant, and others, with some regular soldiers, went thro’ Salem on foot for Boston, under guard; ’t is said they were much insulted by the people (it must be presumed to be the rabble) at Newburyport, in their way hither; that Jackson was stopped and obliged to leave his carriage, and walk on foot from Newbury to Salem, and thence to Boston

Pynchon then said: “in Newbury street he was stopped again and obliged, after his hat was knocked off, to fall on his knees and beg pardon of the mob and of the Country, and to say whatever was required of him.” At first I thought that might be a reference back to the streets of Newbury, but the placement suggests this story described when Jackson reached Newbury Street in Boston’s South End. Jackson himself didn’t specify such an incident.

Fellow gentlemen—merchants, professionals, landowners—sympathized with Jackson for coming under fire from crowds of poorer citizens. On 16 April, Isaac Smith, Sr., wrote to John Adams from Salem:

You have heard of Bill Jackson’s being taken. He received some Insult on the road which am sorry for and lamented by all, persons of any consequence. He is in Boston goal, but I dont learn he has behavd any way Ill att Boston dureing the seige.

Indeed, Jackson’s letter complained that after reaching Boston:

we was again carried to Wartertown 9 miles before the late Councill and being each seperately ask’d a few Question’s and not properly Examined was sent back to Boston and committed on a supposed Crime of being concern’d with Crean Brush denied the Use of pen Ink and paper and Candle light not suffer’d to speak to any one but in presence of the keeper whare we have been ever since 13th April

That accusation must have been especially galling to Jackson since one month before he’d been trying to stop Crean Brush from taking away Cyrus Baldwin’s goods.

TOMORROW: In the Boston jail.

William Jackson “shipt on board the Brig Elizabeth”

When I started to look at the Continental capture of the brig Elizabeth in early April 1776, I didn’t expect to find so much drama and mystery in the Wheaton family.

I thought they’d be a one-day diversion before I got back to the main storyline, following the other Loyalists on that ship—those sent to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Instead, the Wheatons’ story took me right through Patriots Day. But now I’m returning to the others—which also means resuming the Saga of the Brazen Head!

On 6 July 1776, the brazier William Jackson wrote to the Continental Congress, describing his experience of trying to evacuate Boston. His letter started with a bunch of special pleading about not intending to be political when he signed two documents that marked him as a Loyalist. Mind you, that was five years after he’d put himself among the “Enemies of their Country” for not signing the Boston Whigs’ non-importation agreeement.

Eventually Jackson got to his escape narrative:

General [William] How’s quiting this Town in so short a time as he did must of Consequence be attended with the utmost Confusion and gave no one time to settle his thoughts what to do with themselves or property, but the past unhappy situation we had been in this Town I finally concluded to take the Opportunity to go to Halifax their to have tarried or gone from thence to England untill the unhappy disputes whare settled leaving my Property behind,

but upon the proceedings of Mr. [Crean] Brush takeing away the property of the people of this Town as you will see by the copy of paper’s accompanying this which I have related to the Hon’ble Councill of this Province [Massachusetts], I then alter’d my mind and concluded to carry my Goods with me which I shipt on board the Brig Elizabeth being Twenty-Six packages

on the Passage was taken by three of the United Colony Vessell’s and brought in Portsmouth New Hampshire

The Congress had appointed the merchant Joshua Wentworth (1742–c. 1809) as its agent in that port. His job included using the admiralty court to “condemn” captured ships, then selling them and their cargo for the benefit of the government and the mariners who’d made those captures. Wentworth’s house—since expanded, moved, and restored—appears above.

Upon my landing your agent Mr Wentworth Inform’d me he must Examine my Baggage as also what Money and Paper’s I had, from the former he has detain'd about £35- LMy [lawful money] and from the latter five setts of Bills of Exchange amounting to £100- stirlg payeable to my self Only,

after he Examined my Baggage had his leave to carry it with me but haveing no Acquaintance in the Town accepted his Offer of his store, and haveing tarried one day upon Parole the next morning the Master [Peter Ramsey] and two other passenger’s and my self haveing provided Carriadge’s at our own Expence and being attended by a Man sent with us by Mr. Wentworth we set of for head Quarter’s,

but upon our reaching Newbury Port about 20 miles whare we stopt to refresh our selves the popular Assembled and swore we should not ride and threatened to destroy the Carriadge

This was the anti-Loyalist sentiment I wrote about yesterday.

TOMORROW: Escape from Newburyport.

“With an Irony which inflamed their resentments”

As Crean Brush was seizing linen and woolens for the British military in March 1776, some of the wealthy merchants who owned that cloth complained to Gen. William Howe’s headquarters.

Brush responded with a memo to Gen. James Robertson, who was overseeing the evacuation:

if any Articles were removed which did not answer the description [in Howe’s order] the Parties are only to blame they being repeatedly called on to declare the Contents of each which they obstinately refused—

These People your Memorialist are irritated against him but your Memorialist begs leave to assure your Honor he is fully able to prove that his Conduct toward them was governed with politeness coolness & moderation

true it is that when attempts were made to engage his attention in tedious dissertations on Magna Charta & the rights of British Subjects with intent to retard him in the execution of his Office he did interrupt such Harangues & with an Irony which inflamed their resentments complimented them on their Eloquence which had in Town Meetings been so successful as to throw all America into confusion but that I was upon Business which I was determined to execute without interruption—

The Goods I received from the Stores were taken on board & stowed away with all the care & attention my peculiar Situation would possibly admit and I solemnly aver that from the 5th to the 13th March my own Assiduity was so great that I did not in any one Night allow Myself more than two Hours Sleep…

With the help of his assistants plus “two boys and a man” on board the Elizabeth, Brush managed to pack that brig. Some of Cyrus Baldwin’s goods went onto the Minerva.

At some point Brush’s assistants—Charles Blasquet, Richard and John Hill, and David Cunningham—appear to have asked what arrangements he’d made to get them and their families out of Boston. To his credit, he didn’t just ask what arrangements they’d made for themselves. Instead, Brush recognized that they’d “neglected their own Concerns to serve Government at my request.”

Crean Brush hustled those men and their families onto the Elizabeth into “a small space between Decks.” He later told Gen. Howe they had all brought their own provisions so they “cannot be the least convenience to any Person on board.” Basically, he asked for forgiveness instead of permission.

Brush’s memos to Robertson and Howe, published in the Naval Documents of the American Revolution, document the hurry and disorder of the evacuation. He was managing goods that merchants had asked him to store, goods that he’d seized from Patriots who had left Boston, the cloth that he’d been commissioned to keep out of rebel hands, and his own property. And he was trying, at least on paper, to keep these all separate and safely stored.

Conflict continued even on the Elizabeth. Brush had loaded nineteen barrels of flour on board, on “Major Hutchinsons orders”—I think this was Maj. Frances Hutcheson of the 60th Regiment, the army paymaster. Brush told Robertson:

the second Barrell which was opened I sent for some [flour] which when discovered by Mr [Caleb] Wheaten he imperiously flourished [his sword] over me while in Bed & told me he was surprized at the assurance I dared to shew in giving directions to have any,

Upon which I told him he was an insignificant inpertinent Puppy.

Captain [Peter] Ramsey at that instant came in declared he would not hear one word of the occasion which provoked me to use the words I have mentioned but that if I uttered three words more he would send me Prisoner on board the Commodore—

While dealing with such quarrels, Capt. Ramsey got the Elizabeth out of Boston harbor with the rest of the evacuation fleet by the end of March.

And on 2 April three American schooners captured the ship.

TOMORROW: In custody.

“The Continental Arm’d Schooner Hancock, Came up, and Gave me a Broadside”

Last week I recounted the Loyalist evacuation of Boston as tragedy. This week I’m retelling it as farce.

Capt. John Manley was the first American naval hero of the Revolutionary War, lauded for capturing several British supply ships in the fall of 1775.

After that success, Manley was made commodore with authority over other armed ships launched under Gen. George Washington’s authority. (Soon that little fleet would become part of the Continental Navy.)

In the spring of 1776 Manley was commanding the Hancock, Capt. Daniel Waters the Lee, and Capt. John Ayres the Lynch. They patrolled the waters off Cape Ann.

On 2 April, 250 years ago today, those three schooners spotted a 140-ton brigantine named the Elizabeth. It had sailed out of Boston with the evacuation fleet but fell behind.

Months later, the captain of the Elizabeth, Peter Ramsey, described the action this way:

on or about the 21st of March A D 1776 in Boston in the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay your Deponent then and there received verbal orders from Admiral [Molyneux] Shuldham to go On Board said Brigantine Elizabeth and take the Charge of her and Navigate her to Halifax,

and on Friday the 29th of said March Between the Hours of three & four oClock P M I came to Sail with said Brigantine under Convoy of His Majestys Ship Niger, and Sabbath Evening about six or seven oClock I parted from said Convoy, and proceeded on my Voyage to Halifax,

and about Four or Five oClock P M on the next Tuesday following Commodore John Manly in the Continental Arm’d Schooner Hancock, Came up, and Gave me a Broadside, and I Returned the Fire with Small Arms, Capt Danl Waters in the Continental Arm’d Schooner and Capt John Ayres in the Continental Arm’d Schooner Came up when I struck to the Commodore,

and your Deponent then saw no other vessel besides the before mentioned, and your Deponent in said Brigantine was Brot by the Commodore and Capt Waters into the River of Piscataqua

That was the harbor for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Ramsey’s testimony was necessary to resolve disputes over who could claim the value of his vessel and its cargo.

Because there was a lot of cargo.

TOMORROW: On board the Elizabeth.