“The only two Gentlemen of the Town who have visited Lieut. Hawkshaw”

Alongside Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw’s declaration of what he’d said about the first shots of the war, quoted yesterday, Lt. Col. William Walcott collected a signed statement from two gentlemen inside Boston.

That undated document is also in the Thomas Gage Papers at the Clements Library. It says:

Mr. Lewis Gilbt. De Blois & Doctor Byles who were the only two Gentlemen of the Town who have visited Lieut. Hawkshaw since his being brought into Boston, both declare That,

Neither of Them had any the least Conversation with Lt. Hawkshaw upon the Subject of the affair of Wednesday last the 19th. April; & particularly that They nor Either of them ever heard Lt. Hawkshaw say that the King’s Troops had fired first upon the Country People

Gibert Deblois
Mather Byles

Gilbert Deblois (shown above, in a portrait made by John Singleton Copley a few years later) was a Loyalist merchant. Evidently Col. Walcott didn’t know him well enough to distinguish him from his brother Lewis.

The Rev. Dr. Mather Byles was one of the few Congregationalist ministers in Massachusetts siding with the royal government.

These two witnesses were thus inclined to be more friendly to the army and Gen. Thomas Gage than the average Bostonian. But what Patriot would be admitted to Lt. Hawkshaw’s sick chamber?

In an article for Common-place, Edward M. Griffin asked, “Could anyone believe that when Byles and Deblois had visited him [Hawkshaw] they simply passed the time in pleasant conversation without ever discussing the previous week’s armed confrontation between British troops and rebellious locals?”

I think the state of Hawkshaw’s health does make that plausible. He probably felt weak, had trouble speaking, and expected to die soon. I can imagine a scenario in which the lieutenant was renting a room from Deblois, who could think of nothing more helpful than bringing in the Rev. Dr. Byles to provide religious comfort. And the men kept their conversation brief.

When Edmund Quincy wrote that Hawkshaw “Call’d Several Credible persons to him & told ’em as a dying man…that the first Action of ye Whole at L. was done by the Kings troops,” he said that he’d heard that from “Capt. [John] Erving, at his house yesterday,” and that Erving said it was “proved to him at ye No: End yesterday to be real.”

The British mercantile economy ran passing on rumors like that because hard information was so hard to come by. In this case, Quincy or Erving or both were probably sucked in by wishful thinking. Or perhaps some Patriot propagandist thought it would be effective to attribute a confession to an officer on his deathbed.

So far as I can tell, no newspapers or other sources outside Boston picked up on the rumor about Hawkshaw, though Salem printer Ezekiel Russell did learn about his life-threatening wound. Perhaps the documents that Lt. Col. Walcott collected helped to quash the whispers. Perhaps they were so wispy to start with (who were these “Several Credible persons”?) that they dissipated on their own.

As I wrote before, Lt. Hawkshaw proved more durable. He recovered. In November 1777 he attained the rank of “Captain Lieutenant and Captain” as officers in the 5th moved up because another captain had “died of his wounds.” A year later, Hawkshaw was promoted to full captain in place of Capt. John Gore, the officer he had first spoken to on the evening of 19 April when he was brought back, bleeding, to Boston.

“He Lieut. Thos. Hawkshaw did affirm this to be the Fact & Truth”

On 23 Apr 1775, Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw of the 5th Regiment was lying near death.

He’d been shot through the throat during the Battle of Lexington and Concord. He’d lost a lot of blood, not only from that wound but from supposedly therapeutic bleeding. He was suffering spasms of pain. He had trouble swallowing pain relief, much less solid foods.

And his commander-in-chief, Gen. Thomas Gage, had just intercepted a letter from justice Edmund Quincy to the Patriot leader John Hancock saying Hawkshaw had been heard saying that British troops had fired first and started the war.

Hawkshaw’s regimental commander, Lt. Col. William Walcott, and other officers came to speak to him. They went away with this document, now in Gage’s papers. It said:

Boston, 23d. April 1775

Lieut. Thos. Hawkshaw of the 5th: Regt. of Foot, declares in the most solemn Manner to Lt. Col. Walcott, in the Presence of Capt. Smith & Lieut. Ben. Baker All of the same Regimt.,

That, he, Lieut. Thos. Harkshaw, never did say to any Person whatsoever, that, the King’s Troops gave the first Fire upon the People of this Country in the Affair which happened between the said Troops & the said Country People on Wednesday last the 19th. April;

that, so far from knowing or believing that the Troops were the first who fired, he, Lieut. Thos. Harkshaw, knows & believes that the Country People did fire first upon His Majesty’s Troops, & that he Lieut. Thos. Hawkshaw did affirm this to be the Fact & Truth to Lt: Col. [Francis] Smith of the 10th: Regt. of Foot who commanded the Grenadiers & Light Companies, upon the Spot, and that he, Lt. Thos. Harkshaw, did again upon his being brought into Boston, make the same Declaration to Capt. [John] Gore of the 5th. Regt. of Foot, That, to the best of his Knowledge & Belief, the Country People fired first upon His Majesty’s Troops.

Thomas Hawkshaw
Lieut 5th Regt. Foot

Wm: Walcott, Lt: Col. 5th. Foot.
John Smith Capt: 5th. Foot
Ben Baker, Lt. & Adjt. 5th. Foot

The regiment contained lieutenants named Benjamin Baker and Thomas Baker, so they used first names to sort out those men. The handwriting of the document looks like Walcott’s.

The detail about Hawkshaw telling Lt. Col. Smith (shown above) that the provincials in Lexington had fired first suggests the lieutenant was on or near the common during that shooting while Smith was still back with the grenadiers.

However, the document doesn’t add any detail about what Hawkshaw actually heard or saw there, and Gage was collecting such detail from other officers at this time. That makes me think Hawkshaw had passed on what he’d heard from other officers. (If Hawkshaw turns out to have been a light-infantry officer, then that’s off.)

In any event, from his sickbed Lt. Hawkshaw was insisting that he’d consistently blamed the provincials for shooting first.

TOMORROW: Corroborating witnesses.

“Lt. Hawkshaw yesterday near expiring thro. his bad wounds”

During the British army withdrawal on 19 Apr 1775, Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw of the 5th Regiment was shot in the side of his face.

As recorded by his regiment’s surgeon, blood gushed from his nose and mouth as well as his wound. Some of the affected tissue became inflamed. He had trouble swallowing.

People thought Lt. Hawkshaw was lying on his deathbed. And according to legal and popular understandings of the time, that meant he couldn’t lie in another way. After all, a person wouldn’t utter a falsehood just before meeting his maker, right?

Or, as a legal maxim quoted in 1700s reference books said: Nemo moriturus præsumitur mentiri. A dying person is not presumed to lie.

Usually that “dying declaration” doctrine allowed testimony from a dead victim that would otherwise be ruled out as hearsay. Thus, Patrick Carr’s doctors could report his remarks about the soldiers holding back before the Boston Massacre in 1770. To discredit such strong evidence, Samuel Adams had to resort to sneering that Carr “in all probability died in the faith of a roman catholick.”

The same thinking made “deathbed confessions” convincing. In the case of Lt. Hawkshaw, word went around that as his life slipped away he blamed the army for starting the war. Justice of the peace Edmund Quincy wrote to John Hancock on 22 April:

Here they say & swear to it all round, in excuse of ye Regulars, proceeding at Lexinton—that they were attack’d first & I doubt not many oaths of Officers & men are taken before J. G—ley [Justice Benjamin Gridley], to confirm it—but among others who contradict ’em—Lt. Hawkshaw yesterday near expiring thro. his bad wounds——Call’d Several Credible persons to him & told ’em as a dying man—that he was obliged in Conscience to confess—that the first Action of ye Whole at L. was done by the Kings troops—wr. they killd & wounded eight men—but doubtless you have sufficient proof of ye Fact & every Circumstance attending near at hand— . . .

Capt. [John] Erving, at his house yesterday Gave me ye Account of Hawkshaws Confesso.-proved to him at ye No: End yesterday to be real

As discussed here, Quincy gave that letter to Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr., who slipped it to Gen. Thomas Gage. Which meant Lt. Hawkshaw’s commander read that he was contradicting the official army line.

TOMORROW: A quick response.

“The blood continued to dribble, for two days after”

In 1805, Henry St. John Neale published the second edition of his Chirurgical Institutes, Drawn from Practice, on the Knowledge and Treatment of Gun-shot Wounds.

In another book Neale identified himself as “formerly surgeon to the Duke of Northumberland’s regiment, of fifth battalion of infantry, and the Royal Hospital at Chatham.”

The Duke of Northumberland was previously Earl Percy, colonel of the 5th Regiment. The 1781 Army List names Neale (rendered as “St. John Neill”) as surgeon of that regiment, appointed November 1780. He may have previously been a surgeon’s mate, or he may have drawn from his predecessors’ accounts of what they did earlier in the war.

Chirurgical Institutes contains a description of Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw’s condition and treatment by the 5th’s medical staff after he was wounded on 19 Apr 1775.

Neale’s section labeled “History of the wound of the gallant Captain Hawkshaw.” reported:

The most remarkable wound in the neck, which happened during the American war, was that of Captain Hawkshaw, of his Majesty’s 5th regiment of infantry, This gallant officer was wounded in the neck, by a musquet ball, which entered the coraco hyoideus muscle, on the right side, passing through and through behind the gullet, which it grazed in its passage.

The sufferings of that brave soldier, in the course of his cure, is far above my abilities to express, which he bore with the greatest fortitude. The instant after he received his wound, the blood gushed out in torrents from his mouth and nostrils, and the wound also bled profusely. At first it was feared that the large blood vessels had suffered, but they fortunately escaped from the blow: although the ball had passed within a hair’s breadth of the COROTID ARTERIES.

An external dilatation [stretching] was soon made, as much as the situation of the parts would admit, a soft dressing applied, and as soon as was possible, his neck covered with an emollient poultice. Soon after he was bled copiously, although he had lost a large quantity from the wound, and the blood continued to dribble, for two days after, from his mouth and nostrils.

In the evening he had a clyster [enema], and towards bed time, a few drops of laudanum, which was got down with great difficulty. He spent a restless night, and as we were fearful of a hæmorrhage, a surgeon was constantly with him. The next day all his powers of deglutition [swallowing] were impeded, so that he could scarcely get down fluids into his stomach, which was contrived to be conveyed through a small tube by suction: and the same method was used for his anodyne [painkiller] at night. The second and third night was something better than the first, but attended with considerable spasms at intervals.

On the third morning the dressings were removed, which came off with ease, from the suppuration which had taken place, and the wound dressed with warm balsamic digestives. The inflammation of the surrounding parts, was very considerable, which had communicated to both the larynx and pharynx.

From the third to the twentieth day, matters went on (all circumstances attending this extraordinary wound being considered) as well as could be expected. He was supported solely by fluids, which he sucked down through the small tube above mentioned, for the space of thirty days, sometimes cows milk, at other times panada [bread soup], with now and then a spoonful of wine.

About the end of this period, he was enabled to swallow spoon meat, but was reduced to great weakness. The peruvian bark [quinine] was now administered copiously, and in three weeks more he was enabled to get down solid food.

In another fortnight his wound was perfectly healed, and in every respect he was restored to his pristine health, to the great joy of all who were acquainted with the great merit of this brave officer.

Thomas Hawkshaw was a lieutenant when he was wounded, but he was promoted to be a captain-lieutenant in the 5th Regiment in November 1777 and then captain in November 1778. Neale probably knew him by that rank. There was certainly no other officer named Hawkshaw in the regiment.

It’s striking how these eighteenth-century military surgeons decided that a patient who just had blood gushing from his mouth, his nostrils, and a wound in his neck really needed to be “bled copiously.” And it’s a testament to Lt. Hawkshaw’s constitution that he survived.

TOMORROW: A deathbed admission?

“Wounded in the cheek, and it is tho’t will not recover”

Lt. Thomas Hawkshaw went out of Boston with his soldiers in the 5th Regiment of Foot on 19 Apr 1775.

He came back wounded. The always helpful Lt. Frederick Mackenzie recorded that Hawkshaw was wounded on the cheek.

Almost half a century later, provincial militiaman Joseph Thaxter recalled this rumor:

Lieutenant Hawkstone, said to be the greatest beauty of the British army, had his cheeks so badly wounded that it disfigured him much, of which he bitterly complained.

That looks like a memory of Lt. Hawkshaw. But I can’t find any British source inside Boston that includes a handsome lieutenant’s lament. That’s the sort of thing fellow officers would be likely to mention or remember.

If Hawkshaw was indeed handsome, that might be why Bostonians remembered him being at disputes and couldn’t identify the other officers with him. That might also make it more appealing for Patriots to imagine him grieving his lost beauty.

I don’t think Thaxter is a reliable source here. Not only did he recall the lieutenant’s name imperfectly, but he described the man being wounded at Concord’s North Bridge, and he wasn’t. Hawkshaw was probably hit between Lexington and Charlestown.

Ezekiel Russell’s “A Bloody Butchery, by the King’s Troops” broadside offered readers outside Boston another significant detail:

Lieutenant Hawkshaw was wounded in the cheek, and it is tho’t will not recover.

For at least the first week, many people expected the lieutenant to die.

By 6 May, that medical prognosis had improved. David Greene wrote from Boston of “Hawkshaw, of the 5th, badly wounded, but like to recover.”

TOMORROW: How bad was Lt. Hawkshaw’s wound?

“This Hawkshaw drew his sword upon us”?

Last week I wrote about some letters entrusted to Dr. Benjamin Church on 21–22 Apr 1775 which ended up in the files of Gen. Thomas Gage.

We have evidence that Gage or his staff actually read those letters for the intelligence they contained—because they got someone in trouble.

Thomas Hawkshaw was a lieutenant in the 5th Regiment of Foot, having served at that rank since 1771. He was involved in or witness to several conflicts in the first months of 1775.

In late January, Don Hagist reminded me, Lt. Col. George Maddison presided over an army court of inquiry into the actions of Lt. William Myers of the 38th. Myers testified that on 20 January two local men had baited him by calling, “The General was a Rascal” and even “The King was a Rascal.” After Myers “knocked down the man who had spoke in this manner,” the town watch showed up, bringing on a bigger confrontation.

Lt. Hawkshaw was among the witnesses in that inquiry. So, however, were more than twenty other army officers, a former army officer, seven enlisted men, two watchmen, and two civilians. That inquiry ended without apparent action on 28 January.

Four days later, on 1 February, Benjamin Alline and Philip Bass filed a complaint to Lt. Col. William Walcott of the 5th about Lt. Hawkshaw. According to Bass, he was escorting a young woman south of Liberty Tree about 9:30 P.M. the previous night, and Hawkshaw and another officer accosted them. After that confrontation, Bass went to an apothecary for a cut on his arm.

Lt. John Barker wrote in his diary for that day: “Lieut. H–ks–w of the 5th put under Arrest for having been concerned in a Riot yesterday evening, in which an Inhabitant was much wounded by him; it is supposed He will be brought to a Court Martial.”

Hawkshaw insisted, however, that he’d been in bed by 9:00 P.M. There’s no record of a formal army inquiry, so perhaps he found witnesses to confirm that and the locals had to let the matter drop.

Years back Prof. Gene Tucker of Temple University sent me transcriptions from the reminiscences of a Revolutionary War veteran named Samuel Cooper (1757-1840). He recounted several anecdotes about conflicts in Boston, but the details don’t match contemporaneous accounts, suggesting that Cooper was working with secondhand knowledge and faulty memory.

One incident stands out because Cooper said he was personally involved in it:

A party of young men, consisting of Benj. Eustis, his brother Geo[rge]., Jno. Cathcart, Ben Hazzard, Tim Green, Jim Otis, & myself had assembled about 9 o[’]cl[oc]k in the even[in]g at the corner of one of the streets, when we were approached by several officers, among them was a Lt. Hawkshaw of the 5th. We were comm[an]d[ed]. to disperse & go home & on our declining to do so this Hawkshaw drew his sword upon us but he had hardly time to raise it before he was disarmed by some of our party & the sword broken over his head; the rest of his associates withdrew.

Cooper didn’t specify when this happened, and frankly I doubted it happened as he described. In some of these fights an officer might lose his sword, as Ens. Henry King did in the January fracas. But this quick Yankee triumph sounds too good to be true, and no other report matches it.

Lt. Hawkshaw seems to have been very visible during those months in Boston. People complained about him by name while not identifying other officers who were with him. Or possibly Hawkshaw had become unpopular with the locals because of his testimony in the Myers inquiry, so people were eager to cast blame on him. But he was never brought to a court-martial.

In early April the lieutenant testified in the army inquiry about the dispute between his regimental commander, Lt. Col. Walcott, and Ens. Robert Patrick, discussed here.

And then came the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

TOMORROW: Shot in the face.

“No Carriage from L. & if there was—no permiso. to pass”

On 22 Apr 1775, three days after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Boston merchant and magistrate Edmund Quincy sat down to write a letter to John Hancock.

Quincy wasn’t just a colleague of Hancock in the Boston Patriot movement. He was also the father of Dorothy Quincy, Hancock’s fiancée (shown here).

Earlier that month, Dorothy had taken the family carriage out to Lexington and then used it to flee with Lydia Hancock from the regulars on 19 April. That left her father stuck inside Boston as the siege began.

Justice Quincy wrote to Hancock:

Dear Sir,

Referring you to a Ltr. wrote the 8th. currt: [i.e., of this month] I’m now to enclose you one I had this day out of [ship captain John] Callihan’s bag:—32 days fro. Lond: into Salem pr young Doct. [John] Sprague—who tells me [captain Nathaniel Byfield] Lyde sail’d 14 days before them wth. Jo. Quincy Esq & other passengers—that some of ye Men of War & transports sail’d also before Callihan. As to ye times [?] at home—ye Doctr. is little able to inform us—youl probably have Some papers via Salem.—————

As to my Scituation here ye unexpected extraordy. event of ye 19th: of wch. Ive wrote my thots—) now & for days past impedes my leaving town[.] No Carriage from L[exington]. & if there was—no permiso. to pass ye lines—The people will be distress’d for fresh provisions—in a Short time—

The Govr: & Genl.—is very much concern’d about ye Provl. troops without—wch. probably will be very numerous ’ere long if desired—Dorchester hill—I’m just now told, is possess’d by our provls—& I hope its true, for Ive reason to believe, ye Genl. had ye same thing in Contemplation——

Here they say & swear to it all round, in excuse of ye Regulars, proceeding at Lexinton—that they were attack’d first & I doubt not many oaths of Officers & men are taken before J. G—ley [Justice Benjamin Gridley], to confirm it—but among others who contradict ’em—Lt. [Thomas] Hawkshaw yesterday near expiring thro. his bad wounds——Call’d Several Credible persons to him & told ’em as a dying man—that he was obliged in Conscience to confess—that the first Action of ye Whole at L. was done by the Kings troops—wr. they killd & wounded eight men—but doubtless you have sufficient proof of ye Fact & every Circumstance attending near at hand—

my advice is that the Whole Matter—be forwarded at ye province expence or otherwise wth. the Greatest dispatch—that so your Advices may be in London as early as GG’s——

If the people of G:B: are not under a political Lethargy—The Account of ye late Memorable Event, will excite them to consider of their own Close Connexion wth. America; and to Suppose at length, that ye Americans especially N. Englanders will act as they’ve wrote, & engag’d—A Blessed Mistake our prudent G[ag]e has indeed made, & ye Sensible part of his Officers & Soldiers own it—& are vastly uneasie—

I had been at L— days to pay my real regards to yr. good Aunt & Dolly—but wn. we shall have ye passage clear I dont [know] we are in hopes of effecting soon. But ye Gl. is really intimidated & no wonder wn. he hears of 50.000 men &c.—Much is Confess’d of ye intripedity of ye provinls. Im much Surpriz’d to hear that the Regulars abt. 1700—were drove off & defeated by near an Equal Corps only.—

Capt. [John] Erving, at his house yesterday Gave me ye Account of Hawkshaws Confesso.-proved to him at ye No: End yesterday to be real, he also says that from all he can gather from ye Circumstances of the people of Gt. Bn. they are by this day in a State of fermentation—if we could be so happy, as to get speedily home, the necessary advices—I doubt not a Flame would soon appear—& ere its quench’d, may it burn up ye heads of the Accursed Faction fro. whence ye present British Evils spring

Genl. Gage is thrown himself into great perplexity—Ld. Percy is a thorn in his side & its said has menaced him Several times, for his late imprudence—a Good Omen

I cant nor ought I to add, but my best regards—& Love respectively & that I am
Dr. Sir Your most affecto: Friend
& H. Servt.
Ed. Quincy

youl excuse erro. for Ive not time to correct em

There are a lot of interesting bits of intelligence in this letter—Gen. Thomas Gage hoping to seize the heights of Dorchester, Col. Percy criticizing his Concord mission, Lt. Hawkshaw saying the British soldiers had fired first. Quincy urged Hancock and his colleagues to send the Patriot side of events to London as quickly as possible.

How did John Hancock respond to seeing this letter? In fact, he never saw it.

TOMORROW: Diverted mail.

The Drama of Dr. Byles

Also in the new Common-place is Edward M. Griffin’s dramatically written article about the experiences of the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles (shown here). Byles was the Boston Congregationalist minister closest to the royal government—yet he also remained in Boston after the British evacuation.

“A Loyalist Guarded, Re-guarded, and Disregarded: The Two Trials of Mather Byles the Elder” identifies this moment as crucial to how the Patriot public came to view Byles:

Within four days after the battle [of Lexington and Concord], this rumor swirled through Boston: the king’s troops admitted firing first. Lieutenant [Thomas] Hawkshaw had said so to the elder Reverend Mather Byles and the Boston merchant Gilbert Deblois.

Hawkshaw, an officer of Hugh Earl Percy’s 5th Regiment of Foot, scoffed at the rumor, issuing a sworn statement that “the Country People” had fired first, but on the streets of Boston, residents muttered about a cover-up. Hadn’t the lieutenant privately said otherwise to Byles and Deblois? Pressed on the issue, Byles and Deblois, each a prominent citizen and a Loyalist supporter of the Crown, responded with their own sworn declaration that they, “the only two Gentlemen of the Town, who have visited Lieut. Hawkshaw since his being brought into Boston, both declare that, neither of them had the least Conversation with Lt. Hawkshawe upon the Subject of the Affair of Wednesday last the 19th April; + particularly, that They nor Either of Them ever heard Lt. Hawkshaw say that the King’s Troops had fired first upon the Country People.”

Hawkshaw had been wounded on the road near Lexington. Could anyone believe that when Byles and Deblois had visited him they simply passed the time in pleasant conversation without ever discussing the previous week’s armed confrontation between British troops and rebellious locals? But the two gentlemen swore that they had not asked about the first shot. And that put Mather Byles Sr. in the thick of it.

Of course, Patriots already disliked how close Byles was with royal officials, and his insistence on not discussing politics took on new meaning in a highly political time.

The long article has some glitches. The Loyalist judge Peter Oliver coined the term “black Regiment” for James Otis’s clerical supporters; that wasn’t Otis’s own term. Thomas Crafts was not sheriff of Suffolk County when he bellowed the Declaration of Independence out the State House window; he was helping the sheriff, the more soft-spoken William Greenleaf.

More important, the article retells many amusing anecdotes about Byles—and there are a lot of those stories because Byles was such a big personality and known for his jokes. But some of those tales were recorded decades after all the supposed witnesses had died. Griffin not only accepts them without question (at least in this online format), but also elaborates on them in dramatic detail. See, for example, his retelling of the encounter between Byles and Col. Henry Knox in March 1776. Do we really know all that?