“Having made Seizure of a Sloop named the Sally”

As I’ve been relating, July of 1769 was not a good month for the royal Customs service in New England.

On 19 July, a Newport mob had ruined the Customs patrol ship Liberty after threatening its captain and crew. The next day, with no armed vessel to stop them, sailors “rescued” a sloop named Sally that the Liberty had seized. The captain of another ship detained at the same time, the brig Thames, successfully demanded that his vessel be released for lack of evidence.

On 25 July, a smaller mob in New London beat up one Customs officer and intimidated others. And on 31 July, the hull of the Liberty caught fire and burned to the waterline, rendering it beyond repair.

It took a while for the Commissioners of Customs in Boston to respond, but in August they made a move. On 14 August this advertisement appeared in the Newport Mercury:

WHEREAS William Reid Commander of the Sloop Liberty, employed in the Service of his Majesty’s Customs, having made Seizure of a Sloop named the Sally, Edward Finker Master, belonging to New-London, loaded with a Cargo of prohibited Goods, carried the same into the Harbour of Newport, Rhode Island, where a great Number of People, riotously and tumultuously assembled together, in the Evening of the 19th of July last, and having, by Force and Arms, attacked and secured the said Captain Reid and his Men, and taken Possession of both Vessels; they set Fire to, and sank the Liberty, and carried off the Sloop Sally:

For the apprehending, and bringing to condign Punishment, the Persons concerned in this daring and atrocious Outrage, The Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs do hereby promise a Reward of One Hundred Pounds Sterling, to any Person or Persons who shall inform against any of the Offender or Offenders (except Nathaniel Shaw, Joseph Packwood and —— Angel;) to be paid on his or their Conviction.

By Order of the Commissioners,
RICHARD REEVE, Sec’ry.

This advertisement and Capt. Reid’s report to the head office referred to the captain of the Sally as Edward Finker. However, other sources make clear his name was Edward Tinker. A handwriting error, or had he given the authorities a false name?

As for the other men named in the ad, Nathaniel Shaw, Jr., was the owner of the Thames and the Sally. Joseph Packwood was captain of the Thames. James Angel or Angell worked for Shaw as a captain after 1774; at this time he might have been a mate. The parenthetical phrase with their names is placed ambiguously, but I think the commissioners meant those three were ineligible for the reward since they had carried out the crime.

As good bureaucrats, the commissioners also set out to close the books on the Liberty project. On 4 September, this ad ran in the Boston Evening-Post:

All Persons who have any Demands for Stores, Carpenter’s Work, Provisions, &c. upon Account of the Sloop Liberty, lately employed in the Service of his Majesty’s Customs, are hereby desired to send in their Accounts forthwith to Messrs. Green & Russell, Printers at Boston. Sept. 2. 1769,

Green and Russell were the printers of the Boston Post-Boy, which got the bulk of the Customs office printing business—at least until John Mein came to town. It’s striking that they were collecting bills for work on the Liberty rather than the Customs staff, but probably more artisans felt safe walking into their print shop than into the Customs house on King Street.

According to Joseph R. Frese’s article, in all the Customs service paid £980 to fit out the Liberty as a patrol vessel, plus £371 for “maintenance.” To be sure, most of that money went to shipwright Robert Hallowell, brother of Customs Commissioner Benjamin Hallowell.

Then the Customs service caught a break—and a ship. The 11 September Boston Evening-Post reported:

We hear from Norwich, that last Wednesday se’nnight a small Sloop was seized there by Duncan Stewart, Esq; Collector at the Port of New London, upon information that it was the same Sloop lately seized by Capt. Reid, in the Sloop Liberty, and carried into Newport, and thence rescued.

The Customs service had the Sally in custody again.

TOMORROW: Nathaniel Shaw wanted his sloop back.

New London’s Liberty Riot

Newport, Rhode Island, wasn’t the only New England town that saw disturbances connected to the Customs sloop Liberty in July 1769. There was also violence in New London, Connecticut.

In fact, the whole affair started with action off New London. Treasury Department documents that Joseph R. Frese cited in this article from the Colonial Society of Massachusetts reveal more details than I knew last week.

On the morning of 16 July, Capt. William Reid of the sloop Liberty stopped two vessels in Long Island Sound about three miles from the New London lighthouse. One was the brig Thames, commanded by Joseph Packwood. The other was the sloop Sally, commanded by Edward Tinker. Both those ships were based in New London, but the Thames was nominally sailing from Haiti to New York.

As some New England newspapers reported, Reid suspected that Packwood had unloaded some of his Haitian rum and sugar onto Finker’s sloop so it could be landed secretly on the Connecticut coast and the Customs department couldn’t collect duties on it. Then he’d deliver the rest in New York.

Reid put his own men onto the brig and sloop and led the little fleet into Newport. Packwood, Finker, and most of their crewmen had to make their way home in boats. Soon after Packwood landed, he and the owner of the Thames, Nathaniel Shaw, Jr., set out for Newport. We know what happened there on 19 July. By the next day, the Liberty was wrecked, the Thames released for lack of evidence, and the Sally illegally “rescued.”

Back in New London, the waterfront crowd went hunting for the local Customs officers whom they held responsible for those seizures. Deputy Collector John Miller and Comptroller Thomas Moffatt reported that on 24 July “several People” threatened a tidesman named Barnabas Willson. They wrote, “on this occasion We said what We then thought was proper to him & took such steps as inclined Us to hope and beleive that no mischief would happen to him, but We were mistaken if not deceived.” Dr. Moffatt had been the victim of mobbing during Newport’s Stamp Act riots, so he should have known better.

Whatever “steps” those officials took, it wasn’t enough for Willson’s sake. In “the twilight of the Evening of the 25th,” the crowd came looking for him again, as well as another tidesman named John Bloyd. The Customs officers wrote of Bloyd:

not finding him at home they suspected he was in the House of Mr Collector [Duncan] Stewart where they repaired and demanded him but being denied and refused admittance by a Maid Servant from the Window of an upper Chamber they broke forcibly into the House search’d every where and found him on the House top, from which they led him through the Street near the Episcopal Church and there questioned him concerning the Information given to Captain Reid and chiefly about some Rum seized & afterwards stolen at East Haddam a year and a half ago then they dismised him without further Injury

The crowd turned back to Willson. That man himself later told justice James Murray of Boston:

they seized this Deponent Drag’d him thro’ the Streets, strip’d him of his Cloaths, tied him to a sign Post (having cut off his Hair) and then gave him Thirty two severe lashes with a Whip.

By then it was “about Eleven OClock at night.” Some of the rioters went to find Thomas Dare, the Customs office surveyor—a social step up from the tidesmen. Those men took Dare to the place where they had tied up Willson. They “questioned him concerning the late seizure and seemd disposed to Use him very roughly, but were prevented by the Interposition of some who either rescued or beg’d him off.”

Finally, the New London crowd attacked the top local Customs official symbolically, the same way Bostonians had done in June 1768 and Newporters had done a few days before. The men

repaired to Mr Stewart’s Wharf seized the Boat hauld her ashore hoisted her sails with all Appurtenances except the Iron Ballast which they threw on shore, then drag’d her in triumph to a rising ground near the Town where they burnt her, on the Morning of the 26th very early

That makes a total of four burned boats, with the Liberty itself still to come.

Miller and Moffatt reported that “poor Willson set out on foot for Boston who can inform your Honors more exactly of this Mob and of what has been said and done to him.” In Boston, Willson testified to Justice Murray and reported to the Commissioners of Customs, who gave him £2.5 for his troubles.

Surveyor Thomas Dare “thought it best to retire for the present,” his colleagues reported, though by the end of 27 August they expected him to “return here this day and We have some assurance that he will not be insulted.”

TOMORROW: The Customs service strikes back.

“They must be Sent directly, or by God, I should never See the Morning”

Last week I guessed that the Boston Chronicle’s 24 July 1769 account of Newport’s Liberty riot reflected the perspective of William Reid, commander of that sloop for the Customs Commissioners.

It turns out we have Capt. Reid’s description of the event in his own words, preserved and published in Connecticut. Dated 21 July 1769, Reid testified:

On the Evening of the 19th Inst. between Seven & Eight OClock, as I was going down the Long Wharfe to go on Board the Sloop Liberty, A Vessell then under my Comand, employed in the Service of the Revenue, I was, of a sudden, surrounded by a great Number of Men, some of which seized hold of me,

upon asking what they wanted I was answered that I was a Damn’d Rascal, & that they had now caught me, I asked what I had done to any of them, they Answered that I had Seised many of their Vessels & by God I should now pay for all,

the first Person that I knew in the Mob was Jos: Packwood, Master of the Brigantine Thames, A Vessell which I had detained, he told me that some of my People, on Board of the Brigantine had used him very Ill,

soon after Nathl. Shaw, Owner of Brigantine Thames came up to me, & told me that I had not five minutes to Live, if I did not order Two Frenchmen on shore, which was then on Board of the Sloop Liberty, that I had taken out of the Sloop Sally, a Vessell then under Seisure,

I told them I had no design in keeping those Frenchmen, & that they should come on Shore, provided the Mob would not hurt them, which they declared they would not, they were brought on shore,

the Sd. Packwood then mentioned to the Mob that John Carr second Mate of the Liberty had used him ill & had ordered the People on Board of the Liberty to prevent his going on Shore in the Brigantine’s Boat, by Firing at him, & further said, that they did fire at him, & that he wanted them to be brought ashore to be delivered up to a Magistrate,

the Mob, then with Threats of Violence, against my Life, Insisted, that I should Order Said Carr & John Freeman Pilot to be brought to Justice,

I proposed to send them on Shore in the Morning, but was answer’d they must be Sent directly, or by God, I should never See the Morning,

being in this Defenceless condition, I found myself under the Necessity of Complying with every thing they had a Mind, to propose, & accordingly ordered them on Shore,

as Soon as they came the Sd. Packwood again Addressed himself to the Mob & told them there was another Mate, that had fired at him, from on Board the Sloop Sally,

The Mob ordered that he might be bro’t also, which was accordingly done.

I desired that they would let me go on Board of the Liberty, & that if there was any Person on Board, which had been guilty of any Indiscretion, I would deliver him up to Justice directly.

They told me I should not go off the Wharf Alive nor any of my People, if I attempted to go, & insisted, that there was another Man on Board, which was concerned in firing at Capt Packwood, & that they would have him on Shore likewise, they then Man’d two Boats, one of which put off to go on Board to search for the aforesd. Man,

[Joseph] Adams then Comanding Officer on Board of the Liberty, called to me, to know, if they should go on Board,

as I thought to refuse, their going on Board, would perhaps exasperate the Mob to some Acts of Violence against the Sloop Liberty I told him to permit them which he did,

the Boat then returned with Two of the Men, that went in her, & one of mine, the Mob then seemed more Satisfied,

I asked them again to let me go on Board my Vessell, which they refused. But told me I might go to my Lodgings, about 11 oClock, I got clear of the Mob & went directly to Charles Dudley Esqr. Collr. of His Majesty’s Customs for his Assistance who advised me to apply to the Govr. [Joseph Wanton] which I did by Letter requesting His Honor to use his Authority in preventing the further Violence of the Mob, against the Sloop Liberty, & the two aforementioned Vessels.

About four O’clock in the Morning, as soon as I thought the Mob was disposed, I went to go on Board of the Sloop Liberty, But found her cut from her Anchors, & laying on Shore, with her mast cut away by the Deck, her Sails & Rigging all Cut to pieces. Two of her Guns, all her Swivels & small Arms, hove over Board her Bottom Scuttled, her two Boats Burn’d, my Cabbin tore all to Pieces, & all my Furniture Cloaths Papers & every thing belonging to me Destroyed.

Duncan Stuart and Thomas Moffatt, the top two Customs officials in New London, had the number-three man, surveyor Thomas Dare, carry Reid’s testimony to Hartford. They wanted William Pitkin, governor of the colony, to help in prosecuting Shaw and Packwood.

According to the governor’s files, “Govr Pitkin gave a general prudent Answer to the foregoing Matters, that entirely satisfied the Officers of the Customs at New London.” Which suggests he didn’t help that much, but the Customs officials had little opportunity to appeal because Pitkin died on 1 October.

(The picture above shows Gov. Pitkin’s grave, as photographed by Lori for Find-a-Grave. It’s quite wordy. It describes Pitkin as “Zealous and bold for the Truth, Faithfull in Distributing Justice, Scattering away Evil with his Eye…”)

COMING UP: The Customs service strikes back.

Wanted by Governor Wanton

The official Rhode Island response to the destruction of the Customs sloop Liberty in Newport harbor started even before the ship went up in flames. 

A mob attacked the ship on 19 July. Two days later, this proclamation appeared, as printed in the newspapers: 

By the Honorable
Joseph Wanton, Esquire,
Governor, Captain-General, and Commander in Chief, of and over the English Colony of Rhode-Island, and Providence Plantations, in New-England, in America:

A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas, Charles Dudley, Esq; Collector and Surveyor, and John Nicoll, Esq; Comptroller, of His Majesty’s Customs for the Colony aforesaid, have this Day presented unto me a Memorial, setting forth, That a Number of People on the Nineteenth Instant, in the Evening, being assembled in a riotous and tumultuous Manner, did, with Threats against his Life, compel Captain William Reid, Commander of the Sloop Liberty in the Service of the Revenue, lying in the Harbour of Newport, to order the People who had the keeping and Charge of his Vessel, to come on Shore; after which a Number of Men boarded the said Sloop, and set at Liberty a Sloop brought into this Port by the said William Reid, laden with prohibited Goods and under Seizure, and she was afterwards carried away to the great Prejudice of his Majesty: And that they then proceeded to destroy the said Sloop Liberty, by cutting away her Mast and Rigging, and scuttling her so that she sunk; and burnt her Two Boats:

I HAVE, THEREFORE, thought fit, by and with the Advice of such Members of his Majesty’s Council, as could conveniently be called together, to issue this Proclamation, hereby directing and requiring all the Officers of Justice, in this Colony, to use their utmost Endeavours, to enquire after and discover the Persons guilty of the aforesaid Crimes, that they may be brought to Justice.

Many of the men who had attacked the Liberty on 19 July probably came off Capt. Joseph Packwood’s brig, based in New London, Connecticut. Packwood had sailed out of Narragansett Bay as soon as he could after the riot. The Rhode Island authorities would therefore have had a hard time tracking down those men—if they even really wanted to.

Ten days after this proclamation, the rest of the Liberty burned on Goat Island. That was more likely a local job, but since it took place away from town on a stormy night, there were no witnesses. Gov. Wanton didn’t even bother to use a new proclamation.

COMING UP: A new lead for the Customs office.

Captain Reid versus Captain Packwood

Yesterday I shared an official description of the confrontation in Newport, Rhode Island, over the Customs ship Liberty on 19 July 1769.

By “official” I mean that the town’s Whig leadership supplied that text to the Newport Mercury. They sent similar letters to sympathetic printers in Providence and Boston. Naturally, their account put the crowd’s assault on royal property in the best possible light.

Some newspapers printed less favorable accounts. For example, the 24 July Boston Chronicle reported that the brig and sloop seized two days before the riot weren’t just random ships. Capt. William Reid of the Liberty had “information” that Capt. Joseph Packwood had shifted “brandy, wine, &c.” from his brig onto the sloop so that it could be landed secretly. He therefore stopped both ships, sent away their crews, and had his own men sail them to Newport.

The Chronicle also provided more details about Capt. Packwood’s return to his brig while it was in Customs department custody:

On the Wednesday following, Capt. Packwood went on board the brig to get his cloaths to be washed, and asked for his sword, all which, the commanding Officer on board refused to deliver him; but which, after some altercations, he took possession of and put into the boat, and was rowing on shore, when the people on board the brig hailed the sloop Liberty, and told the Commanding Officer, (Capt. Reid not being on board) that Capt. Packwood had used them very ill, and desired him to bring the boat too,

on which some person on board the Liberty fired a musket with a brace of balls at Capt. Packwood, one of which went but a few inches over his head, and the other over the heads of some people standing on the wharf, they afterwards attempted to fire a swivel, but it only flashed, and Capt. Packwood pushed on shore.

[Let me point out this is yet another period description of a musket being loaded with “a brace of balls,” or two balls.]

By this time a number of people assembled, who with Capt. Packwood went in search of Capt. Reid, whom they soon met in the street, when they demanded the reason of the insolent behavior of his people?

Capt. Reid told them that he was ignorant of the affair, was extremely sorry for what had happened, that he would deliver up the people who had fired, to be punished according to law; and proposed to go himself on board and fetch them on shore:—This the people would not permit, but insisted on his going to hail the sloop and ordering them to be immediately sent on shore.——

This was complyed with, and a boat was sent off for them, which soon returned with two of the sloop’s hands, but the people declaring these were not the persons who had fired; the boat was sent on board a second time, and brought two others, but these likewise being declared not to be the persons, the board was again sent off and brought some others, till there were only two left on board belonging to the sloop; soon after which, some people who had tarried on board the sloop, cut her cables and ran her on shore, threw the guns overboard, cut away the mast, rigging, &c. and scuttled her:

I suspect some of this account came ultimately from Capt. Reid since it reflects well on him—justified in his seizures, blameless for the crew’s shots at Packwood, powerless to stop the mob. In contrast, the Whigs’ letter complained that “no Proof appeared against the Brig” and that Reid “had never condescended to exhibit his Commission to the Governor of this Colony.”

Both reports depict the Newporters as trying to enforce local law against the Customs ship sailors. That’s similar to the conflict going on in Boston over whether British soldiers had to obey local watchmen and magistrates. But in the Chronicle that demand for the rule of law seems more like a smokescreen to move sailors off the Liberty until it had only a couple of defenders.

TOMORROW: The final fate of the Liberty.

The Second Liberty Riot

I’ve been focused on events 250 years ago this week in Boston, but it’s time to look in on other events in New England.

You may recall how in June 1768 the Customs office in Boston confiscated John Hancock’s sloop Liberty on charges of smuggling wine. That produced a riot against Customs officials, which strengthened the royal government’s decision to station troops in Boston. Months later, the government’s Admiralty Court prosecution against Hancock collapsed.

That didn’t mean he got his sloop back, though. Following the law, Customs officials had put the Liberty up for auction. The winning bid came from…the Commissioners of Customs. Soon the sloop was armed and patrolling out of Narragansett Bay to catch smugglers.

On 10 July 1769 the Newport Mercury reported:

We hear the Liberty Sloop, which sail’d a few Days past on a Cruise, has taken a Prize; but of what Nation, or whither bound, we have not learn’d; but imagine her to belong to some of the North-American Colonies, as the whole N–v–l Force of h–s B—t——c M——y seems to be principally aim’d against those Colonies, notwithstanding they are inhabited by the best Subjects that ever serv’d a King; most remarkable for Loyalty and yielding Obedience to every just and constitutional ACT of Parliament.

The captured brig was out of New London, Connecticut, under the command of Joseph Packwood. According to the 24 July Boston Chronicle, it had just come “from Hispaniola with a cargo of molasses and sugar on board.” The 21 July New London Gazette claimed that Packwood was headed for New York and seized in Long Island Sound.

The same day, the Liberty also seized a sloop, “where belonging and from whence, unknown, having on board brandy, wine, &c.” The New London Gazette said the Customs men left “most of the crew adrift in a leaky old canoe” and sailed away with that sloop.

Two weeks later, the Newport Mercury had more to say:

LAST Monday Morning the 17th Instant [i.e., of this month], the armed Sloop Liberty, commanded by Capt. William Reid, arrived here and bro’t in a Brig and a Sloop belonging to Connecticut, taken in the Sound, without this Colony, on Suspicion of the Brig’s having done some illicit Act, & that the Sloop had contraband Goods on Board; but as no Proof appeared against the Brig, she reported her Cargo at the Custom House here;—

and on Wednesday, no Prosecution having been enter’d against either of them, Capt. Packwood went on Board his Brig in Order to get his Sword and some necessary Apparel, which the Commanding Officer on Board, (one of the Liberty’s Men) refused to let him bring away, and tis said, offer’d him Violence; which reduced Capt. Packwood to the necessity of drawing his Sword, to force his Way into his Boat, whereupon the Officer call’d to the Liberty’s People to fire on Capt. Packwood as he was going ashore, which they did, and a Brace of Balls, tis suppos’d, went very near but did not hurt him; they then attempted to fire several more Guns upon him, which happily all snapped or flashed and cou’d not be discharged.

This Attempt at Violence by the Liberty’s People, whose Commander had never condescended to exhibit his Commission to the Governor of this Colony, so enraged a Number of Persons, that, the ensuing Evening, having met Capt. Reid on the Long-Wharf, they obliged him to send for his Men on Shore, in Order to discover the Man who first fired at Capt. Packwood; upon which Capt. Reid sent for all his Hands except his Mate, afterwards a Number of Persons, unknown, went on Board the Liberty, sent the Mate away, cut her Cables and let her drive ashore at the Point, where they cut away her Mast, scuttled her, and carried both her Boats to the upper Part of this Town and burnt them.—

While this Affair was transacting, the Sloop suspected of having contraband Goods on Board made her Escape; and the Brig has since received her Papers and sail’d last Friday.

Arthur A. Ross’s A Discourse, Embracing the Civil and Religious History of Rhode-Island (1838) said that the crowd which took the Liberty’s boats dragged them

up the Long-wharf, thence up the Parade, through Broadstreet, at the head of which, on the Common, they were burned.— Tradition says, that, owing to the keel of the boats being shod with iron, such was the velocity of their locomotion, as they passed up the Parade, that a stream of fire was left in the rear, of several feet in length.

Meanwhile, the Liberty itself was sitting grounded out on a point in the harbor. 

COMING UP: Lightning strikes?