“A large Collection of interesting Papers”

In 1843, the London bookselling firm of Thomas Thorpe issued its catalogue of manuscripts for sale, “Upon Papyrus, Vellum, and Paper, in Various Languages.”

Among those items was “A large Collection of interesting Papers, formed by the late George Chalmers, Esq., relating to New England, from 1635 to 1780, in 4 vols. folio, neatly bound in calf, £21.”

Chalmers (1742-1825, shown here) was born in Scotland and at age twenty-one settled in Maryland as a young lawyer. In early 1776 he published Plain Truth, a point-by-point riposte to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. That went over so well that Chalmers soon moved back to Britain.

In 1780 Chalmers published Political Annals of the Present United Colonies from Their Settlement to the Peace of 1763. Or rather, he published the first volume of documents about the colonial governments, tracing the history up to 1688, but never produced the second.

In 1786 Chalmers became a secretary to Britain’s privy council, and he kept that postion for decades. It provided him with the income and access he needed to collect manuscripts and write books and pamphlets about the history of Scotland, Shakespeare, other authors, controversial issues of the day, and much more.

In 1796, as Britain fought Revolutionary France, the government paid Chalmers to write a critical biography of Paine. He issued that under the pseudonym of Francis Oldys, supposedly a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. Otherwise, he focused mainly on British topics, particularly the long history of Scotland.

Nevertheless, Chalmers’s manuscript collection shows that he never gave up on accumulating material about the old North American colonies. After his death, his papers went to a nephew, and two years after that man died in 1841, they were on the market.

Here’s a sample of what the collection included from the Revolutionary years, according to the bookseller’s catalogue:

• Various papers relating to the paper currency in the colonies, 1740-60.
• Account of the dispute at New London, at the burial of a corpse, 1764.
• List of graduates in Harvard College, who have made any figure in the world.
• Part of Mr. Otes’s speech in the general assembly at Boston, in 1768.
• Autograph letter from W. Molineux, relating to the riots at Boston, 1768.
• Letters relating to the seizure of the sloop Liberty, 1768, very curious.
• Information of Richard Silvester, of the speeches of the Boston leaders, 1769.
• Declaration of Nathaniel Coffin to Governor J. [sic] Bernard, on the designs to drive off the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, 1769.
• Key to the characters published in the Boston Chronicle of Oct. 26, 1769, (The Boston patriots characterized.)
• Autograph letter from George Mason, containing an account of the riot and attack of Mr. Mein’s house, 1769.
• Copy of a curious letter from Boston, relating to Franklin’s duplicity, &c. 1769.
• Autograph letters from John Mein and George Mason to Joseph Harrison, concerning the riot at Boston, 1769.
• Papers relating to the outrage on Owen Richards, an officer of the customs at Boston, 1770.
• Copy of a letter from Lord Dartmouth to Dr. Benjamin Franklin, about presenting a remonstrance of the court to the king, 1773.
• Account of the proceedings of Governor Hutchinson, relating to Massachusetts, &c., 52 pages, 1774.
• Account of an attack that happened on His Majesty’s troops, by a number of the people of the province of Massachusetts Bay, 1775.

It looks like Chalmers obtained many of those documents from Joseph Harrison, a Boston-based Customs official, or his estate.

Prof. Jared Sparks (1799-1866) of Harvard College must have seen the bookseller’s listing. He apparently arranged for the college library to buy some of Chalmers’s papers in 1847 while he bought others for himself, leaving them to the library on his death. Thus, the papers listed above are now at the Houghton Library and digitized as part of the university’s Colonial North America project.

Ships, Fire, and Boston’s George Mason

In January 1770, as I mentioned back here, two sea captains were in Boston from Glasgow, trying to commission four new ships.

But because of the non-importation boycott against the Townshend duties, Boston’s business community wouldn’t let those Scotsmen sell the goods they had brought in to pay for those vessels.

On the morning of 20 January the two captains “set out for Newburyport to contract with the Mechanicks there for building their Ships.” Smaller ports didn’t have such strict non-importation movements.

The next morning brought an ominous discovery outside the building close to the Town House:

On Sunday early in the morning, several People observ’d a quantity of Charcoal lying under the Door of Mr. [William] Jacksons Shop, with some Chips that were partly burnt, the intent no doubt was to set his Shop on Fire, tho’ it very Providentially did not Succeed:

Their own Party say it was done by the Torys with a view to bring a Slur on the Characters of the Sons of Liberty, but I leave you to judge Sir, who are in reallity most capable of such a piece of notorious villainy.

Jackson was one of a handful of small merchants still defying the non-importation boycott. That said, trying to burn down his shop, or even just threatening arson by sticking burnt charcoal under his door, was especially ominous. As we learned from the Saga of the Brazen Head, the Jackson braziery (at a previous location) was where the town’s last huge blaze had started.

We don’t know the identify of the Crown informant whom I quoted about the non-importation meetings and other developments last week. But we do know who reported on the charcoal outside the Brazen Head. That man had arrived from Britain in late 1765 and placed this advertisement in the 18 November Boston Post-Boy:

George Mason, Limner, from LONDON, BEgs leave to inform the Public, That he draws Faces in Crayons, from one to two Guineas each; those Ladies and Gentlemen who are pleas’d to employ him, may depend on having a good Likeness. Specimens of his performance may be seen at Mrs Coffin’s Coffee-House, the bottom of King-street.

Neil Jeffares found Mason had advertised similar portraits plus art lessons in London the previous year (P.D.F. download).

Mason advertised again in the Boston Chronicle of June 7-11, 1768, still working out of Rebecca Coffin’s Crown Coffee-House:

George Mason, Limner, begs leave to inform the public (with a view of more constant employ) he now draws faces in crayon for two guineas each, glass and frame included. As the above mentioned terms are extremely moderate, he flatters himself with meeting some encouragement especially as he professes to let no picture go out of his hands but what is a real likeness. Those who are pleased to employ him are desired to send or leave a line at Mrs. Coffins near Green and Russel’s Printing Office and they shall be immediately waited upon.

In January 1769, a couple of months after the arrival of British army regiments, a South End innkeeper named Richard Silvester gave Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson a deposition accusing Samuel Adams, Dr. Benjamin Church, and other Whig leaders of saying and doing treasonous things. I don’t find Silvester’s stories completely convincing, but he also swore that “George Mason the Painter” could vouch for them.

Sometime that year, Customs Collector Joseph Harrison recruited Mason as a direct source of information. There’s no indication of whether Harrison was paying the painter, appealing to his patriotism as a native Briton, or calling on some other connection. But on 20 October Mason began a letter to the Customs official: “In compliance with your request; I now transmit to you, the proceedings that have happen’d in Boston since your departure…” More letters of that sort followed and are now in the Sparks Collection at Harvard.

It’s easy to understand why Customs officers cultivated informants in waterfront towns—so they could stop smuggling and tariff evasion. But Mason the pastel portraitist wasn’t privy to that sort of information. Instead, he, like Silvester and the unnamed informant, reported on Boston’s political developments. That shows how the Boston Customs office wasn’t just trying to enforce the taxes that Parliament had enacted. It was also tracking the political opposition to those taxes, and its men in London, such as Harrison, were trying to influence the Crown response to that opposition.

As for George Mason, he entered the Boston almshouse on 7 June 1773 and died on 21 June.

TOMORROW: Another public meeting.

“In Bedlam’s lofty Numbers discordant Yankies Sing”

On the back of the sheet of paper giving the earliest lyrics of “The New Massachusetts Liberty Song,” which I believe is at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, someone has written another set of verses.

This side is headed “Massachusetts Liberty Song Paradized, April 1770,” which is helpful in showing not only when the parody appeared but also how early the lyrics must have been printed.

The parody of John Dickinson and Arthur Lee’s “Liberty Song” that appeared in 1768 had nothing good to say about the Boston Whigs opposing the royal government, but it treated them as a bunch, not naming names.

Whoever wrote this new parody quickly got personal:

In Bedlam’s lofty Numbers discordant Yankies Sing,
And twang in awful Ditty, God save our Gracious King
May they leave off their Canting, and with Devotion pray,
Have Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Lord on poor America.

Their Patron J——y O—s, that Sage of great renown,
Like Sheep he led the Rabble of this Siditious Town,
The Rostrum then he mounted, where he did loudly pray,
Defend, Defend, Defend my Boys, Defend America.

The initials leave no doubt the target of this verse is “Jemmy” or James Otis. At the time, he was in poor shape after his fight with Customs Commissioner John Robinson. But Otis was still the top enemy of the friends of government.

Next Independent Sammy, a Scribble in the cause,
An Enemy to Britain, to George and to his Laws,
Whose Rebel dictates all the Sons of Liberty obey
The Fools, the Fools, the Fools, the Fools of weak America.

“Sammy” is obviously Samuel Adams, already criticized for wanting to be “Independent.”

The Penman Great Humanus is ready at their call,
To sacrifice his Neighbour the Ministry to mall,
On him they blindly pin their Faith & great Dependance lay,
To purge, to purge, to purge, to purge oppress’d America.

In the Sparks Manuscripts at Harvard is a letter from innkeeper Richard Silvester identifying “Humanus” as a pen name for Dr. Benjamin Church. The doctor was indeed known for his writing, and his profession fits with the verb “purge.”

The puff’d Determinatus the mock-bird of the Throng
With rapture boasts the Power of his loquacious Tongue
Which tickles so the Vulgar they ready Homage pay,
This prating Oracle the pride of dup’d America.

“Determinatus” has long been identified as a pseudonym of Samuel Adams. Harbottle Dorr even appears to have written “S. Adams” atop Determinatus’s letter in the 8 Aug 1768 Boston Gazette. It’s curious, therefore, that this Loyalist writer treats “Determinatus” and Adams as separate newspaper essayists. There must be some confusion somewhere.

Great William their Commander, that Bully in disguize,
That well known bite of Yorkshire and Magazine of Lies,
That truly patriotic Man, who bellows Night and Day,
Confirm’d, Confirm’d, the Knave, the Knave of weak America.

This is definitely William Molineux. Printer John Mein called him “William the Knave” in pamphlets criticizing the non-importation movement in 1769. Molineux had come to Boston from Wolverhampton—not Yorkshire but only about a hundred miles away.

There’s busy Master Aaron, and many Worthies more,
As factious as the Gentry we’ve mention’d just before
Who strive with all their Mimic Might Old England low to lay,
And cry Rebel, Rebel, Rebel, Rebel America.

I’ll take a guess that “busy Master Aaron” is a reference to William Cooper, town clerk. He was brother to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper, just as the Biblical Aaron was brother to Moses. But that’s a guess.

To scourge such disobedience, and crush these Mushroom Lords,
Let British Grenediers gird on their conjuring Swords,
Bra Donald frae, the Highlands, his Muckle Wanger Play
Adieu, Adieu, Adieu, Adieu, to lost America.

(I suspect the parodist meant “Hanger” instead of “Wanger.”)

Speaking so favorably of Scottish Highlanders was very unusual in Boston, even for people who opposed the local Whigs. That might indicate the author of this parody was Scottish himself, like Mein. By April 1770 he had been driven out of Boston by violence and lawsuits, so he had a lot to complain about.

TOMORROW: New lyrics on the eve of war.