The Trials of Thomas Careless

This weekend I made my debut at Small State, Big History, an online journal devoted to the history of Rhode Island.

My article, titled “Thomas Careless of the Royal Navy: Tried for Murder in Newport, Court-Martialed for Tossing a Block Islander,” grew from the series of Boston 1775 postings from May 2017 about how Midshipman Thomas Careless went on trial for killing Newport man Henry Sparker. This month has brought the sestercentennial of that trial.

There are a couple of Boston connections to that Rhode Island story. First, the Boston Chronicle had the most detailed report on what led Careless to stab Sparker. Rhode Island newspapers withheld some information, ostensibly to protect the integrity of the trial but perhaps also to maintain the colony’s respectability.

Second, the Royal Navy vessel on which Careless was serving, H.M.S. Senegal, was one of the warships that brought British troops to Boston in the fall of 1768. In fact, we discovered that the best period pictures of that ship were produced by Christian Remick and Paul Revere (as shown above) while the Senegal and the rest of that fleet lay in Boston harbor.

The Small State, Big History article also contains another story about Thomas Careless that I hadn’t found when I wrote my 2017 postings. He returned to Rhode Island during the war—and got in trouble again!

In connection with this article, I’m scheduled to appear on Bruce Newbury’s “Talk of the Town” show on WADK (1540 AM) in Newport on Monday morning shortly after 10:00 A.M. to talk about Sparker, Careless, and what their fatal encounter says about the American Revolution.

Small State, Big History comes from a team led by Christian M. McBurney, author of Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island, Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott, and The Rhode Island Campaign: The First French and American Operation of the Revolutionary War, among other history books. Its weekly articles cover the whole range of the colony and state’s history, from founding to recent politics.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s a recording of my conversation with Bruce Newbury of WADK, starting off the hour after news.]

“Trial, for the supposed Murther of Henry Sparker”

On 3 June 1768, three Royal Navy officers went on trial in Newport, Rhode Island, for stabbing a local shoemaker named Henry Sparker.

That killing the previous month had reportedly caused an angry crowd to threaten to lynch the officers. Later chroniclers tied that tension to the political turmoil in America since the Stamp Act, but ordinary friction between the navy and civilian sailors, particularly over impressment, might have played a bigger role.

Oliver Arnold, the colony’s attorney general, prosecuted the case. Joseph Russell presided as chief justice, and the other judges that year were Metcalf Bowler, William Greene, Nathaniel Searle, and Samuel Nightingale. (Unlike in the Massachusetts system, Rhode Island superior court judges were elected for short terms instead of appointed for life by the Crown.) I don’t know who represented the defendants.

On 6 June 1768, the Newport Mercury reported on the trial:

Last Friday, at the Superior Court, held here, Mr. Robert Young, Mr. Thomas Carless, and Mr. Charles John Marshall…had their Trial, for the supposed Murther of Henry Sparker. The Jury, consisting of Gentlemen of Capacity and undoubted Reputation, having heard the Case plead, with the Evidences and Circumstances attending the unhappy Affair, went out, and in a few Minutes returned to their Seats, and declared the Prisoners not Guilty, the Verdict being to the entire Satisfaction of the Court; and accordingly the Prisoners were immediately and honourably discharged.—

N.B. Mr. Dexter, the other Person wounded, is now almost recovered: His Evidence was greatly in Favour of the Prisoners.

The Mercury printer, Solomon Southwick, clearly tried to present that outcome as just, emphasizing the jurors’ respectability and speed. A month before, a report had suggested that Philip Dexter “could not long survive”; this story insisted he was “now almost recovered.” It’s not clear whether Dexter testified that he didn’t think the officers were really guilty or whether his description of his own actions that night revealed that he had been the aggressor—as a report in the Boston Chronicle certainly suggested.

Actual court records may say more about this case. The newspapers don’t even state which officer was accused of fatally wounding Sparker, but nineteenth-century historians said that was Midshipman Careless.

According to Capt. John Henry Duncan’s diary, published in The Naval Miscellany, in 1776 Midn. Thomas Careless was assigned to the Eagle. That ship carried Adm. Richard Howe to North America as he came to take over the war. Unlike most of his fellow midshipmen, Careless never rose to the rank of captain.

Careless’s captain back in 1768, Thomas Cookson, died in November 1775—not in the war but at age sixty-five in London. His son George, then fifteen years old, had already entered the Royal Navy, but Lord North sent him instead to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich instead, and he became an officer in the Royal Artillery in 1778. He fought through the wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France and ended his military career as a general.

“A supposed murder committed on the body of one Henry Sparker”

Yesterday I quoted from the 9 May 1768 Boston Chronicle about a fatal dispute in Newport, Rhode Island.

That same day, Solomon Southwick of the Newport Mercury (his house shown here) ran his first report about the same event:

On the Night following [another event], between 11 and 12 o’Clock, as Mr. Henry Sparker, Shoe-Maker, of this Town, and Mr. Philip Dexter of Providence, being in Company with some of the People belonging to his Majesty’s Sloop Senegal, now in this Harbour, commanded by Capt. [Thomas] Cookson, a Difference happened between them, which ended in a very tragical Manner; Sparker being run almost thro’ the Body, with a Sword, as ’tis supposed; by which he died in about an Hour after; and Dexter received a Stab in his right Side, and had his head very much cut and mangled, by which his Life is still in Danger.

The Senegal’s Men concerned in this unhappy Affair are Mr. Robert Young, Mate, Mr. Thomas Careless, and Mr. Charles John Marshall, Midship-men; who are now confined in his Majesty’s Jail in this Town, and are to have their Trial on the first Monday in June next. As yet it seems to be a little uncertain who were the first Aggressors in this melancholy Event, the Particulars must therefore be deferred till after the Trial.

The June trial date was notable in itself. Ordinarily the colony’s superior court wouldn’t have convened until September. But on 4 May, the day after the arrest of the three naval officers, the Rhode Island legislature convened and approved

An Act empowering the justices of the superior court of judicature, court of assize and general jail delivery, to meet and hold a special court, for the trial of Thomas Careless, Charles John Marshall and Robert Young, officers on board His Majesty’s ship of war, the Senegal, now lying at anchor in the harbor of Newport, who stand committed to His Majesty’s jail, in Newport, for a supposed murder committed on the body of one Henry Sparker, in the night time, on Tuesday, the 3d day of this instant May.

The stated reason for not waiting until September was that “His Majesty’s service, by their detention in jail until that time, may greatly suffer.”

The Newport Mercury report differs in some notable ways from what the Boston Chronicle stated the same day. Most significantly, the local newspaper identified the dead man as shoemaker Henry Sparker instead of a “Dutchman” (Dutch or German?) named Nichols. It said the other American in the fight, Philip Dexter, was from Providence rather than a Newport sailor. It said that Robert Young was a mate, not merely a midshipman, on H.M.S. Senegal. Presumably these details are more reliable than the report printed off in the neighboring colony.

On the other hand, the Newport Mercury said much less about the “melancholy Event” itself than the Massachusetts paper. There was no mention of the dispute starting at “a house of ill fame” or description of how the violence developed. Southwick left out Sheriff Joseph G. Wanton’s difficulty in securing the three officers from an angry, defiant crowd. Some of those omissions might be due to how the local readership had already heard a lot about the killing over the preceding week. But the Mercury was also making its home base look better.

On 3 June, exactly one month after the fatal fight, attorney general Oliver Arnold prosecuted Young, Careless, and Marshall on the charge of murder.

COMING UP: Well, of course I was going to break here, wasn’t I?

“About midnight a fray happened at a house of bad fame”

On 3 May 1768, a man was killed in Newport, Rhode Island.

This is how the 9 May Boston Chronicle reported the incident:

We hear from Newport, that on Tuesday the 3d inst. about midnight a fray happened at a house of bad fame there, between some of the officers of the Senegal man of war on that station, one Nichols a Dutchman a shoemaker, and one Dexter a sailor, both belonging to Newport.—

It began in the house with high words, during which Dexter put out the candle, and a scuffle ensuing one of the officers had his nose cut off, then Nichols and Dexter went away, and the people belonging to the man of war, went to a doctor’s—

Soon after their departure, it is said, Dexter having changed his dress, came back to the house with a club stuck with nails, threatening to search it, but on being answered they were not there, after some time departed, they however unluckily met again in the street, came to blows, when Nichols and Dexter were both run through the body—the Dutchman immediately ran home, called out that he was a gone man, and died in a few minutes. Dexter was alive when the post came away, but, it was thought could not long survive.

Next day an application being made to Capt. [Thomas] Cookson, of the Senegal, he expressed much sorrow for what had happened, accompanied the sheriff [Joseph G. Wanton] on board his ship, and delivered up his officers to the civil authority; a vast concourse of people attended their landing, and threatened to dispatch them; but by the prudent management of the sheriff, they were safely conducted to the court house, followed by the croud, where they were examined, and afterwards committed to gaol.

During the examination, several of the croud behaved with such indecency to the judges, that they ordered the sheriff to carry them to gaol, but the mob prevented him from putting their orders in execution.

There was no overt political aspect to this dispute. But, according to Wilkins Updike’s Memoirs of the Rhode-Island Bar (1842), it “excited an intense interest growing out of the exasperated state of animosity existing between this country and Great Britain, respecting the Stamp act.” So the mob threatened to lynch the naval officers and defied their own judges.

Or did they? This account of the killing contained a serious inaccuracy: the name of the dead man. So how many of the other details didn’t reach the Boston press intact?

TOMORROW: The report from Newport.