History Camp Discussion about the Outbreak of War, 6 Feb.

This Thursday, 6 February, at 8:00 P.M. Samuel A. Forman and I will appear live on the History Camp Author Discussion feed, talking about the Battle of Lexington and Concord with Lee Wright and Mary Adams and taking audience questions.

Sam is the author of Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty. He shared a great deal of his research for that book on his Joseph Warren website.

Sam and I are both members of the board of The Pursuit of History, Inc., the non-profit organization that organizes History Camp, these online author discussions, and the Pursuit of History Weekends, including the upcoming look at “The Outbreak of War” on 3–6 April. So we’ll talk about those things, too. 

One of the overlaps between my book and Sam’s is Dr. Joseph Warren’s 10 Feb 1775 letter to Samuel Adams, kept at the New York Public Library. It gives a vivid picture of the tension inside redcoat-occupied Boston 250 years ago:

We were this Morning alarmed with A Report that A Party of Soldiers was sent to Cambridge with Design to disperse the [Massachusetts Provincial] Congress many here believed it was in Consequence of what was Yesterday published by their Order, I confess I paid so much Regard to it as to be sorry I was not with my Friends and Altho, my Affairs would not allow of it I went down to the Ferry in a Chaise with Dr. [Benjamin] Church both determined to share with our Brethren in any Dangers that they might be engaged in but we there heard that the Party had quietly passed the Bridge on their Way to Roxbury up[on]. which we returned Home.

I have spent an Hour this Morning with Deacon [William] Phillips and am concerned that our Existence as a free People absolutely depends in acting with Spirit & Vigor, the Ministry declare our Resolution to preserve our Liberty and the common People there are made to believe we are a Nation of noisy Cowards, the Ministry are supported in their Plan of answering us by Assurances that we have not Courage enough to fight for our Freedom, even they who wish us well dare not openly declare for us lest we should meanly desert ourselves and leave them alone to content with Administrations, who they know will be politically speaking, omnipotent if America should submit to them,

Deacon Phillips Dr. Church and myself are all fully of Opinion that it would be a very proper Step should the Congress order A Schooner to [?] be sent Home with an accurate State of Facts, or it is certain that Letters to and from our Friends in England are intercepted, and every Method taken to prevent the People of Gt. Britain from gaining a Knowledge of the true State of this Country— I intended to have consulted with you had I been at Cambridge to Day on the Propriety of A Motion for that Purpose—but must defer it untill to Morrow—

One thing however I have upon my Mind which I think ought to be immediately attended to—the Resolution of the Congress published Yesterday greatly affects one [Obadiah] Whiston who has hitherto been thought firm in our Cause but is now making Carriages for the Army—He assisted in getting the four Field Pieces to Colo. [Lemuel] Robinson’s at Dorchester, where they are now, He says the Discovery of this will make him,—and He threatens to make the Discovery, perhaps Resentment and the Hope of gain may together prevail with him to act the Traitor—

Dr. Church and I are clear that it ought not to be one Minute in his Power to point out [to] the General [Thomas Gage] the Place in which they are kept but that they ought to be removed without pray do not omit to obtain proper Orders concern’g them

Whiston the blacksmith was cut out of the Patriot organization; eventually he left Boston as a Loyalist in March 1776. The committee of safety convinced Robinson to turn over those “four Field Pieces” so they could be moved further from Boston—out to Concord, in fact. However, since Dr. Church was or would soon be in Gage’s pay, the general tracked them out to that town. 

After war did break out, one of Dr. Warren’s first actions as head of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress was to assemble an account of the first battle from the Patriot perspective and send it by specially hired ship to London, just as this letter proposed.

This letter is one of many documents that show the Massachusetts Patriots making plans to respond to a British army action. Of course, every bit of military preparation convinced Gov. Gage that those men were planning an armed rebellion.

Back when Sam and I were writing our books, we had to go to New York to see that letter. Now it’s been digitized for anybody to read (though searching for it is still a challenge).

“Voted to proceed to the Business of the Meeting”

On 23 Jan 1770, as described yesterday, the Bostonians meeting about non-importation in Faneuil Hall received a letter from acting governor Thomas Hutchinson declaring their gathering to be illegal and ordering them to disperse.

In response, those men “unanimously voted to proceed to the Business of the Meeting.” Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf asked moderator William Phillips for a written message to take back to the governor. The meeting came up with this note, addressed to the sheriff:

It is the unanimous Desire of this Body, that you inform his Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, that his Address to this Body has been read and attended to, with all that Deference and Solemnity which the Message and the Times demand; and it is the unanimous Opinion of this Body, after serious Consideration and Debate, that this Meeting is warranted by Law: And they desire you to inform his Honor, that they had determined to keep Consciences void of just Offence towards God and towards Man.

In Smugglers and Patriots, John W. Tyler stated that letter was written in the fine hand of John Hancock (shown above). The previous week, he shied from leading a crowd to the governor’s house. Now Hancock was ready to stand at the front of the movement.

Before leaving, Greenleaf made sure to tell the people he wanted “to be considered in the Light only of the Bearer of his Honor’s Letter.” In other words, Hutchinson stood alone, his show of authority ending in a resounding defeat.

The “Body of the Trade” then proceeded through a series of votes. In response to accusations that someone had tried to burn down the store of importer William Jackson, the meeting offered a £100 reward for the arsonist. A further resolution suggested that an enemy of the community—Harbottle Dorr suggested it was Jackson himself—had planted the evidence of that crime.

Another resolution asked people “totally to abstain from the use of Tea upon any pretence whatever” since tea accounted for “the greatest Part of the Revenue” from the Townshend duties.

But the main business of the meeting was about naming and shaming the shopkeepers who were still defying the non-importation committee.

The first group was the merchants Jackson, Theophilus Lillie, John Taylor, and Nathaniel Rogers. The meeting deemed them “obstinate and inveterate Enemies of their Country, and Subverters of the Rights and Liberties of this Continent.” It declared that people should respond by “withholding not only all commercial Dealing; but every Act and Office of common Civility” from them. The resolution went on for a long time. You can read it here in the Boston Gazette.

Then the meeting turned to a second group of defiant businesspeople:

• John Bernard, a grown son of the departed governor, Francis Bernard.
• James and Patrick McMaster, brothers from Scotland who had set up as “factors,” or wholesalers, in Boston.
• Ame and Elizabeth Cumings, sisters from Concord who had opened a shop to support themselves; their late parents had also come from Scotland.
• John Mein, printer from Scotland, still in hiding at Castle William after a fight with merchants back in October.

Most of those people were “strangers in this Country,” the meeting declared. They had “in the most insolent manner too long affronted this people, and endeavoured to undermine the liberties of this country.” Invoking Biblical language (Isaiah 51:1), the gathering declared “that they deserve to be driven into that obscurity, from which they originated, and to the hole of the pit from whence they were digged.”

The next day, Lt. Gov. Hutchinson wrote to Lord Hillsborough, the Secretary of State, about his attempt to stop the meeting. He said he’d spoken with Phillips, his Council, and the town’s justices of the peace about how such meetings would lead to “high treason,” but no one had agreed with him. He acknowledged his letter had failed to disperse the crowd. But Hutchinson insisted that “it made them more anxious to restrain all disorders.”

In the coming weeks, we’ll see how that worked out.

An Order from the Governor: “seperate and disperse”

At ten o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, 23 Jan 1770, Boston’s “Body of the Trade” resumed meeting in Faneuil Hall. William Phillips was once again in the moderator’s chair.

The painter George Mason was present, not because he supported non-importation but because he was reporting on developments for Customs Collector Joseph Harrison. Mason wrote that the meeting

began with reading a long Letter from Philadelphia address’d to Mr. [John] Hancock, the purport of it was, that they generally adher’d to the non-importation Scheme. Extracts from this Letter has since been Publish’d in Edes & Gills Paper, but they have thought proper to omit the most material part, this was a proposal for a General Congress from all the Committees on the Continent

That would have been something like the Stamp Act Congress of 1765. It never happened. Instead, men in Faneuil Hall voted unanimously to have other parts of the letter published.

The gathering then took up the business of how to condemn four merchants who still refused to cooperate with the boycott: William Jackson, Theophilus Lillie, John Taylor, and Nathaniel Rogers. According to Mason, the proposed language went so far as to say, “those Gentlemen had commited hostilities against their Country, and were no aliens to the Commonwealth”—i.e., they were traitors.

In the midst of that pleasant discussion, Sheriff Stephen Greenleaf arrived with messages from Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson (shown above in his youth). The previous week, Hutchinson had surprised Phillips by saying that he would tell his sons to cooperate with the non-importation committee. Once he could no longer be accused of trying to protect his own kin, the acting governor felt he had more freedom to exercise his authority. So how was he bringing the hammer down?

First, Hutchinson told Phillips, “I send you a Paper herewith, and I expect from you that you forthwith cause it to be read.” Instead of obeying that instruction, the meeting “appointed a Committee of three Gentlemen, to peruse the Paper.” Only after that committee deemed the acting governor’s message worthwhile did Phillips read it to the whole crowd, exhibiting little deference to the authority of the Crown.

Hutchinson had written:

To the PEOPLE assembled at Faneuil-Hall.

I should be culpable if I should any longer omit to signify to you my Sentiments upon your Proceedings. Your assembling together for the Purposes for which you profess to be assembled, cannot be justified by any Authority or Colour of Law. Your going from House to House and making demands of the delivery of Property, must strike the People with Terror from your great Numbers, (even if it be admitted that it is not done in a tumultuous Manner) and is of very dangerous Tendency.

Such of you as are Persons of Character, Reputation and Property, expose yourselves to the Consequences of the irregular Actions of any of your Numbers who have been assembled together, altho’ you may not approve of them, and altho’ it may be out of your Power to restrain them.

Therefore as the Representative of his Majesty, who is the Father of his People, I must from a tender Regard to your Interest caution you: And as cloathed with Authority derived from his Majesty, I must enjoin and require you without Delay, to seperate and disperse, and to forbear all such unlawful Assemblies for the future, as you would avoid those Evils to which you may otherwise expose yourselves and your Country.

The governor of Massachusetts thus declared this gathering illegal and ordered the men inside Faneuil Hall to disperse. At the time there were still two regiments of the British army patrolling the town, answerable to Crown officials.

TOMORROW: The meeting’s response.

An “Extraordinary Proposal” from Lt. Gov. Hutchinson

The political prospects of non-importation veered wildly back and forth in the middle of January 1770.

As I’ve been tracing, the month opened with the town’s initial public agreement not to import goods from Britain expiring, a few shopkeepers openly defying the boycott, and some wealthy merchants decidedly lukewarm on it.

Of the top merchants on the original non-importation committee, rumors said that John Hancock and John Barrett had become “cool in the cause.” Thomas Cushing and Edward Payne had “deserted” it. John Rowe had trimmed his sails so much he was dining with Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson.

To regain control, the town’s political organizers called a big public meeting, taking the movement away from the merchants and bringing in the wider public. In a show of popular support, hundreds of men massed outside one of the importers’ shops. At the end of 17 January, the acting governor’s sons, Thomas Hutchinson, Jr., and Elisha Hutchinson, told representatives of the meeting that they were once again willing to cooperate.

Just one day later, however, the Hutchinsons were back to being defiant. Their father told the crowd in the king’s name to disperse from outside his house. The people then visited six other importers, but they all refused to yield their goods. That evening, supporters of the royal government thought the boycott would soon fall apart.

But then the acting governor shifted his stance. On the morning of 19 January, according to a Crown informant, Hutchinson sent for William Phillips, the moderator of those public meetings (shown above), and a member of the merchants’ inspection committee. He “told them that upon consideration he was now ready to make his Sons deliver up to the Committee what they had in their store and the Cash for the part they had sold.”

The Crown source, who appears to have been reporting to Customs Collector Joseph Harrison, called the acting governor’s change an “extraordinary proposal,” a “sudden and unexpected step” that “struck every person with astonishment.” According to that observer:

it was well known that the most zealous partizans of the faction had given up all hopes of carrying their point the Night before, and that their only intention of meeting this day was to pass a few resolves to publish in the Newspapers as a justification of their Conduct to the other Collonies.

The informant might overstate how little hope the top Whigs had felt, but the governor’s cooperation was still an overnight reversal.

Bernard Bailyn’s Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson says nothing about this moment, which would soon be overshadowed by many other events of 1770. The best analysis seems to be in John W. Tyler’s Smugglers and Patriots.

It looks to me like Lt. Gov. Hutchinson felt that honor required his sons to cooperate with the non-importation committee for two reasons. First, Thomas, Jr., and Elisha had reached some sort of agreement on 17 January to turn over their tea. Their father reviewed the notes of that discussion. I suspect he felt that the young men were now duty-bound to stick to those terms.

Second, the acting governor knew he was vulnerable to charges of conflict of interest. If he took any steps to support the town’s importers, the Whigs could complain he was abusing his office to benefit his sons. Indeed, Hutchinson had invested a large chunk of money in his sons’ business. By taking Thomas, Jr., and Elisha out of the dispute, Lt. Gov. Hutchinson later explained, he had more leeway to protect the remaining importers.

Of course, the immediate effect the Hutchinsons’ cave-in was that the other importers got nervous. They saw the acting governor and his well-connected sons yielding to the Whigs. It was all very well for Lt. Gov. Hutchinson to say he would support them more strongly now—but would he really? Meanwhile, the “Body of the Trade” in Faneuil Hall continued to grow, amounting to “more than Twelve Hundred Persons” on 19 January, according to the Boston Gazette.

That morning, Nathaniel Cary sent the public meeting a letter to say he was turning over his imported goods to the committee. Late in the day Benjamin Greene followed suit. Deacon Phillips had moved quickly to take the Hutchinsons’ tea inventory. That left only four importers still in defiance: William Jackson, Theophilus Lillie, John Taylor, and Nathaniel Rogers.

The “Body of the People” and their leaders recognized victory. They quickly accepted those merchants’ offers and adjourned the meeting until Tuesday.

COMING UP: The battle rejoined.

Confrontation at Governor Hutchinson’s House

When we left the “Body of the Trade” in Faneuil Hall yesterday, Whig leader William Molineux had just threatened to storm out of the meeting and kill himself.

Molineux wanted to lead the body to Thomas Hutchinson’s mansion in the North End (shown here) and confront the lieutenant governor’s sons, Thomas, Jr., and Elisha, about their plan to leave the non-importation agreement.

Josiah Quincy, Jr., warned that marching on the acting governor’s house was tantamount to treason. Molineux’s radical colleagues disagreed, but the rich merchants and town officials—even John Hancock—were still reluctant. Or maybe they just disliked Molineux’s confrontational approach.

Molineux’s dramatic gesture was met by an equally dramatic response from the radical Dr. Thomas Young, according to a Crown report now in Harvard’s Houghton Library:

Dr. Young call’d out stop Mr. M[olineu]x stop Mr. M[olineu]x for the love of God stop Mr. M[olineu]x. Gentlemen, If Mr. M[olineu]x leaves us we are forever undone, this day is the last dawn of liberty we ever shall see.

Mr. M[olineu]x was upon this prevail’d upon to return and the following Persons agreed to serve on their Committee vizt. Mr. M[olineu]x Deacon [William] Phillips, [James] Otis, S[amuel]. Adams and Saml Austin—

That group was still mostly politicians, not merchants, but they were all upper-class. And they weren’t going alone.

about 1/2 past 2 o’Clock the above persons attended by upwards of 1000 people of much the same stamp of those who waited upon [William] Jackson the day before, set out for the Lt. Govr’s house, when they came before the door the Lt. Govr. open’d one of his Windows and ask’d of them what they wanted;

M[olineu]x replied that it was not him but his Sons that they desired to see—

the Lt. Govr. addressing himself to the whole spoke to the following purport, Gent. do you know that I am the representative of the King of Great Britain the greatest monarch on earth, and in his name require you to desperse—

Which is of course the exact thing that Quincy had warned could happen. But Molineux wasn’t deterred.

about this time his Sons came also to the window when M[olineu]x read to them the vote No. 1 and the demand which immediately follows it [as quoted yesterday]—

the Sons answer’d that they had nothing to say to them—

the Lt. Govr. asked for a Copy of the vote but was told by M[olineu]x that he was intrusted with only the original and was not at liberty to give a copy.

That document could, of course, have been evidence in a trial.

The Lt. Govr. also observ’d to Otis that he was greatly surprised to see him there, who cou’d not be ignorant of the illegality of such proceedings, and further added that he had there in his Eye six or seven People who had been accessory to the pulling down of his house—

That was back in August 1765 during the Stamp Act riots. Hutchinson, who was also a historian, never forgot.

The crowd retired from that house but visited the other defiant importers: Jackson, Nathaniel Cary, Benjamin Greene, Theophilus Lillie, John Taylor, and the governor’s nephew Nathaniel Rogers. They “receiv’d no satisfactory answer from any one of them.” Most didn’t even open their doors. Lillie said that “he had nothing left but his Life, which he would deliver up if they pleas’d.”

Molineux and the “Body of the Trade” seemed to be stymied. According to the Crown informant:

This Evening the friends of Government thought they had gain’d a compleat victory, and numbers of the most considerable Merchts. in the British trade who had hitherto been silent could not help publickly declaring that they now hoped they were releas’d from their bondage as they were convinced should the Hutchinsons, Jackson, and others mention’d before, stand out for a few days that great numbers would join them

Was this the end of non-importation?

TOMORROW: A private deal.

“The whole Body consisting of about 1000 Men”

On 16 Jan 1770, the Boston Whigs circulated handbills for a new public meeting about non-importation. In Faneuil Hall, no less.

The town’s merchants had launched the non-importation boycott back in 1768, as a response to the Townshend duties, and kept it going all through 1769. However, this meeting wasn’t confined to the merchants—i.e., the men who traded with other ports.

Instead, the gathering on 17 January was open to “the Body of the Trade,” or everyone doing business in Boston. The Whigs’ Boston Gazette said the merchants needed to be “properly supported in their generous, self-denying and patriotic agreement,” so the meeting included “all others who were concerned in or connected with trade.”

The wealthy merchants were now well outnumbered by shopkeepers and craftsmen. A Crown informant attended and reported “the meeting was very numerous, but consisted chiefly of the lower sett of people.” Basically, this event was a town meeting without the name or official sanction—and with double the normal attendance because of public interest.

Business proceeded as in a town meeting. The first act was to elect a moderator: William Phillips, a respected merchant, deacon, and staunch Whig.

The meeting then heard from the “Committee of Inspection” set up to police the boycott. Those men reported that five merchants “had open’d and sold a part of their Goods which they had agree’d to keep in their Stores till the general importation should take place”: John Taylor, Theophilus Lillie, William Jackson, Nathaniel Cary, and Nathaniel Rogers. All five importers declined invitations to join the gathering.

If those men wouldn’t come to the meeting, the body decided, the meeting would go to them. According to the informant, whose report is now among the Sparks Manuscripts at Harvard:

[William] M[olineu]x was chose the person to speak in behalf of the whole. . . . the whole Body consisting of about 1000 Men of the very refuse of the town march’d from Faniuel Hall up King Street to the Shop of Mr. Jackson—they were headed by their chairman Phillips, Jonathan Mason & H[enderson]. Inches both select men, Wm. Dennie & Wm. M—x—

Jackson had previously shut his doors but spoke to them from an upper window. M—x demanded that he should open his doors and admit him and som other Genl. to take possession of his Goods, which he said they had an undoubted right to—

Jackson answer’d that he would not open his door at present nor give up his Goods.

M—x then spoke to him as follows, Sir, do you know that I am at the head of 2000 Men, and that it is beneath the dignity of this committee to be parlied with in the street; and then turn’d about and march’d in the same procession with his retinue to Faniuel Hall as he came from it.

Well, that was productive. I should mention that William Jackson was calling out a window above his hardware shop at the Sign of the Brazen Head.

Meanwhile, back in Faneuil Hall a committee was dealing with good news from acting governor Thomas Hutchinson’s sons, Thomas, Jr., and Elisha, who imported tea:

Capt. [Nathaniel] Greenwood a mast maker at the Northend came into the meeting and told them that he was just come from Mr. Hutchinsons who had authoriz’d him to tell them that they were ready to deliver up what Tea remain’d in their Store, and the cash for what was sold—a committee was immediately order’d to wait on them and take their answer in writing—

The Whigs were excited about the Hutchinsons’ cooperation, “it being universally believ’d that if they stood out [i.e., stopped defying the non-importation movement] all the others would follow their example.”

The Crown informant identified the main speakers at this meeting as “M—x their general, Dr. [Thomas] Young, [Samuel] Adams & two or three others”—radical Whigs rather than merchants. (Molineux had been a merchant, but these days he was making his money mostly by managing properties for Charles Ward Apthorp of New York while running a publicly subsidized spinning and weaving enterprise.)

The informant concluded, “The Sons of Liberty were this evening in high spirits at the victory gain’d over the Hutchinsons.” But “it is said Jackson, Lillie & Taylor sent a message to the Hutchinsons finding fault with their promising to submit to the committee, and at the same time acquainting them that they were determined to stand out.”

TOMORROW: Confrontation in the North End.

President Washington in Sickness and in Lexington

Having spent many autumn days outdoors meeting lots of American citizens, on 26 Oct 1789 President George Washington…got sick.

He wrote in his diary:

The day being Rainy & Stormy—myself much disordered by a Cold and inflamation in the left eye, I was prevented from visiting Lexington (where the first blood in the dispute with G. Britn.) was drawn. . . . in the Evening I drank Tea with Govr. [John] Hancock & called upon Mr. [James] Bowdoin on my return to my lodgings.

(The President’s encounters with Gov. Hancock will be the focus of T. H. Breen’s talk at the Cambridge Forum next Wednesday evening.)

According to the editors of the Washington Papers, the President might have been suffering from the “widespread epidemic of respiratory ailments” spreading in the central and southern states. In fact, Washington and his retinue may have carried the virus north. Certainly a lot of the people who had crowded onto the Boston streets to see him came down with a big, and local newspapers began to refer to the “Washington influenza.”

Washington eventually made it to Lexington, visiting the town on his swing south after seeing New Hampshire.

Thursday 5th. About Sun rise I set out, crossing the Merimack River at the Town over to the Township of Bradford and in nine Miles came to Abbots Tavern in Andover where we breakfasted, and met with much attention from Mr. [William] Philips President of the Senate of Massachusetts, who accompanied us thro’ Bellarika to Lexington, where I dined, and viewed the Spot on which the first blood was spilt in the dispute with great Britain on the 19th. of April 1775.

The President dined at William Munroe’s tavern, now a museum of the Lexington Historical Society (shown above).

In 1917, the Journal of American History published “A Young Woman’s Sprightly Account of Washington’s Visit to Lexington in 1789,” said to be written by Munroe’s daughter Sarah. It looks like a total fake. But sprightly.

Letters from Gen. Phillips to Gen. Heath Up for Bid

After my mention of the Convention Army yesterday, Boston 1775 reader Christopher Hurley alerted me to the auction on 1 November in Marlborough of six letters related to those prisoners of war.

The Skinner auction house describes the lot as:

Six Letters…dated April through October 1778, from Major General William Phillips to Major General William Heath written from Cambridge, Massachusetts, relating to conditions, clothing, and monetary needs for the Convention Army surrendered after the battle of Saratoga.

Unfortunately, the auction house’s online description doesn’t give the dates for those letters or offer other details on their contents.

Gen. Phillips (1731-1781) became the highest-ranking officer in the Convention Army after Gen. John Burgoyne was paroled and sailed for home. (To confuse matters a little, there was a prominent Boston merchant and politician with the name William Phillips, whom I also mentioned last week.)

Meanwhile, Gen. William Heath (shown above) had been named American military commander of the region. He thus had responsibility for finding housing and supplies for all those prisoners, treating them humanely but also making sure they didn’t disrupt local life too badly. The low point came when a young American sentry shot and killed a British officer for venturing too far from camp.

As a result, Phillips and Heath exchanged a lot of letters in 1778. Each man probably kept a copy of his own letters, at least the most important ones, so there were two parallel collections. And neither appears to have survived intact.

The Massachusetts Historical Society became the guardian of the William Heath Papers in 1859. However, when the society published a third volume of transcriptions in 1905, its editor stated:

In spite of the enormous mass of papers preserved by General Heath it is certain that many documents, some of them of considerable importance, had disappeared before the collection came into the possession of Mr. [Amos A.] Lawrence [around 1838], as stated in the preface to the second part of the Heath Papers.

A striking illustration of this occurs in connection with the controversy, in 1778, between General Heath and General Phillips of the Convention troops. In General Heath’s Memoirs and in our previous volume are numerous letters bearing on the subject, and it was supposed by the Committee that in one or the other place would be found everything of interest or importance relating to it; but in the “Report on American Manuscripts in the Royal Institution of Great Britain,” issued in London at about the same time as our volume [in 1904], are a number of letters printed or calendared from copies sent over to England, of which neither originals nor copies now exist in the Heath Papers. They contain no new facts, but they should not be overlooked in any thorough study of the episode of the Convention troops; and it is not easy to see how they could have been lost, except through carelessness after the death of General Heath.

The Boston Public Library has one letter from Heath to Phillips dated 7 April, apparently Heath’s draft. The Gilder-Lehrman Collection has two more, dated 9 June and 1 August.

Three letters from Phillips to Heath, dated 23 April, 14 May, and 16 July, are part of the Lloyd W. Smith Collection at Morristown National Historical Park, according to Robert P. Davis’s 1999 biography of Phillips.

Which means multiple institutions might like to add this batch of correspondence to their collections.

Revolutionary Book Talk at Old South, 30 Oct.

On Thursday, 30 October, the Old South Meeting House will host a book talk by Alex Myers, author of the novel Revolutionary.

As the event announcement explains, that book is the fictionalized story of

Deborah Samson, a woman who disguised herself as a man, joined the Continental Army (as Robert Shurtliff), and participated in the final battles of the Revolutionary War.

This meticulously researched debut novel brings to life the true story of Deborah’s struggle against a rigid colonial society and her harrowing experience on the front line. The author, who was raised as Alice and came out as transgender while a student at Phillips Exeter Academy, is a descendant of Deborah Samson.

Join us to hear Mr. Myers’s insights into both the social world of colonial New England, and his own creative process of merging history and fiction.

(The Phillips who founded Phillips Exeter, John Phillips (1719-1795), was a brother to the merchant and politician William Phillips I mentioned yesterday. Their nephew Samuel started Phillips Andover.)

For Myers’s talk, the doors will open at 6:00 P.M. for Old South members and fifteen minutes later for non-members. Since the place can seat hundreds, everyone will get a seat, but members will have a chance to be up front. Myers will sign copies of Revolutionary after his talk.

“In consequence of the past misconduct”

On 5 May 1772, the North End Caucus decided to support four men as Boston’s representatives to the Massachusetts General Court, or provincial legislature: Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and William Phillips. The next day, as I noted two days ago, the town met and elected those four men.

That slate omitted James Otis, Jr., who had represented Boston for most terms since the early 1760s and led the opposition to Gov. Francis Bernard most of that time. But since a coffee-house brawl in September 1769, people had come to see Otis as unreliable and mentally unstable.

William Phillips (1722-1804) had held many town offices over the years, including selectman and moderator of town meetings. The North End Caucus, and the men of Boston, no doubt saw him as a dependable guardian of their interests in the General Court.

So that settled the question of representation, right? Not that year. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson was maneuvering to separate Hancock from the influence of Samuel Adams and even dreamed of making him an ally. It looks like Hutchinson let it be known that if the legislature elected Hancock to the Council, or upper house, he wouldn’t veto that selection, as he and his predecessor had done in the past. That would open up another representative’s seat.

On 19 May, the North End Caucus gathered one day before another town meeting. The main items of that meeting’s agenda were instructions for the town’s new representatives and the school budget. But the caucus took up another motion:

Voted—unanimously—That in consequence of the past misconduct of —— —— Esq. this body will oppose his appointment to any office of trust of the town.

Both surviving transcriptions of the caucus’s records omit that person’s name, but I suspect it was James Otis. There were many gentlemen the North End Caucus didn’t think would be good representatives for the town, but Otis was the only one I can picture them discussing as a serious possibility if another seat in the General Court opened up soon. Caucus members wanted to forestall any thought of returning Otis to office. Boston had tried that once already, and it hadn’t worked out well for anyone.

The General Court assembled at the end of the month. As things turned out, Hancock was elected to the Council, Hutchinson approved his name, and then Hancock declined to take the seat. He stayed in the House, closer to the voters whose approval he enjoyed, and there was no need for a special election to replace him.

There are no records of a North End Caucus meeting between May 1772 and March 1773, so we don’t know how its members reacted to Samuel Adams’s controversial proposal for a standing committee of correspondence in November 1772. They probably supported it, given their usual positions. The town’s selectmen and representatives were lukewarm on the idea at best, and Adams needed the support of town-meeting diehards to get it through.

Otis was named chairman of that prominent committee, which seems like a contradiction of this caucus’s vote in May. However, there were twenty other members, and the meeting specifically assigned the responsibility of drafting its first three reports to Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, and Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr. Otis’s role was limited to presenting those essays to the town meeting on 20 November—the last formal political responsibility granted the man who had once been the most powerful elected official in Massachusetts.

Looking for Loyalists in All the Wrong Places?

At All Things Liberty: The Journal of the American Revolution, Elizabeth M. Covart has contributed a series of articles on the interpretation of Loyalism in Boston’s Harborfest activities this year.

Among the sites Liz visited was the Old South Meeting House, which encourages visitors to help reenact the debate over the issues raised by the new tea tax of 1773. That church was the site of huge protest meetings in November and December, with thousands of people showing up to express their opposition to landing the tea and paying the tax. How many people showed up in 1773 to support the new Crown policy? Practically no one.

Our best source on the actual discussions at the tea meetings is a memo titled “Proceedings of ye Body respecting the Tea,” which L. F. S. Upton published in the William & Mary Quarterly in 1965. It was written by someone present at the tea meetings in November and December 1773. Similar reports in the same handwriting are marked “Colman,” suggesting the observer was Benjamin or William Colman, either way a cousin of Massachusetts Attorney General Jonathan Sewall.

The end of this report listed the eight “chief Speakers at the Meetings”: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Thomas Young, Josiah Quincy, William Phillips, William Cooper, and William Molineux. Those men cover the political spectrum from radical Whig to deeply committed Whig. There was not much debate.

The tea meetings at Old South in late 1773 were not official town meetings, though they were conducted along similar lines. They were special meetings called to protest the tea tax. No one had to attend. Some friends of the royal government probably saw going to those meetings as lending them legitimacy that they didn’t deserve. Others might have gone and found the anti-tea sentiment so strong that they kept from speaking out.

The Colman report described just a few future Loyalists speaking at these meetings, and in limited ways. On 30 November Stephen Greenleaf, sheriff of Suffolk County, came in with a letter from Gov. Thomas Hutchinson (also father of two tea importers), “requiring him to read a Proclamation for them to disperse.” He read that proclamation to “a confused Noise and a general Hissing.” And then the gathering voted to ignore it. Greenleaf evidently went away again. He lost his job as sheriff in independent Massachusetts (his younger brother William took over), but he never left Boston.

John Singleton Copley also appeared. But he didn’t argue that loyalty to the British Empire should outweigh local economic needs, or that the principle of “no taxation without representation” could be safely bent for a small tax on one imported product. Instead, he came to the meeting as a representative of his new wife’s family, the Clarkes, who had imported a lot of the tea. He just asked for a guarantee of their safety if they returned to town, as the people had demanded. Later he returned to say that the tea consignees “thought it not prudent and would serve no valuable Purpose to appear at the Meeting.” Copley went away, apparently satisfied with his job as a go-between. He would sail to Britain the next year and live there for the rest of his life.

Francis Rotch, whose family owned the Dartmouth, was in and out of the meetings a lot. But he didn’t argue for the necessity of obeying Parliament’s laws, or the value of paying taxes for public services, or the divine right of kings. The Rotches were Quakers from Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and they kept out of Boston politics. Francis Rotch simply pleaded with the crowd not to do things that would cause his ship to be damaged or confiscated. Rotch spent the war in London, thus qualifying as a Loyalist, but in these meetings he spoke from a neutral perspective as a man caught in the middle.

John Timmins appeared as agent for the cargo on the Beaver and briefly promised that he wouldn’t unload the tea. Timmins also moved to England during the war.

Finally, there was John Rowe, wealthy merchant and part-owner of the Eleanor. Some people in the crowd identified him as “a good Tory” when he arrived. So what arguments did he make?

he expressed his Sorrow that any Vessel of his should be concerned in bringing any of that detestable and obnoxious Commodity, (Tea)” and seeing the Audience were pleased with what he had said, he proceeded and among other Things he asked, “Whether a little Salt Water would not do it good, or whether Salt Water would not make as good Tea as fresh.” And when he had done speaking and at several other Expressions in his Speech, the People testified their Applause by Shouting Clapping etc.

The report author heard crowd members saying quietly that “Mr. Rowe had now become a good Man and they should soon make all the Rest of the Tories turn to their Side as Mr. Rowe had done.”

Rowe went home that night and wrote bitterly in his diary but didn’t record his own words. Clearly he had been cowed by the people, or perhaps just eager for their approval. And in fact he managed to last out Bostonians’ distrust to remain in town through the war, eventually even becoming a representative to the Massachusetts General Court.

If the reenactments of the tea meetings followed that record as a script, the audience wouldn’t hear Loyalist political arguments. In Rowe’s case, we’d be hard put to distinguish his words from those of the most radical Whigs. (Indeed, Bostonians remembered Rowe as being the first to publicly raise the possibility of getting rid of the tea into the ocean. That may have helped his political career.)

I think Old South does good work by making sure visitors are exposed to a debate on the issues surrounding the tea in 1773. That can’t happen unless someone speaks up in favor of the British government. That viewpoint is all the more valuable in being less familiar to most modern Americans, and thus more effective at making us think in new ways. But in providing a forum for the Loyalists’ political positions, today’s Old South is offering a much broader spectrum of voices than people heard in that same space in late 1773.