“The Sight of me seemed to enrage the People”

Yesterday we left Jared Ingersoll on 19 Sept 1765 in the middle of a circle of five hundred club-bearing men on horseback in Wethersfield, Connecticut. (That’s the handsome Wethersfield meeting-house, built in 1761, and burying-ground in the photo.)

For anyone following these sestercentennial posts, it should come as no surprise what those men wanted Ingersoll to do: resign from his job collecting the Stamp Tax. He insisted that he had “always declared that I would not exercise the Office against the general Inclinations of the People.” Which those men were no doubt attempting to express.

Ingersoll went on to say that he “had given Orders to have the stamp’d Papers stopt at New-York” and not shipped to him in New Haven unless the colonial legislature would “plainly shew their Minds and Inclination to have the stampt Paper brought into the Colony.” He also warned the crowd “that the Governor, would have Power and Instructions to put in another if I should be removed” from office.

That led to this open-air exchange, as Ingersoll reported it a few days later:

They said, Here is the Sense of the Government, and no Man shall exercise that Office.

I askt if they thought it was fair that the Counties of Windham and New-London should dictate to all the rest of the Colony?

Upon this one said, It don’t signify to parly—here is a great many People waiting and you must resign.

I said I don’t think it proper to resign till I meet a proper Authority to ask it of me; and added, What if I won’t resign? what will be the Consequence?

One said Your Fate.

Upon which I looked him full in the Face and said with some Warmth, MY FATE you say.

Upon which a Person just behind said, The Fate of your Office.

I answered that I could Die, and perhaps as well now as another Time; and that I should Die but once.

Upon which the Commandant (for so, for Brevity sake, I beg Leave to call the Person who seemed to have the principal Conduct of the Affair) said we had better go along to a Tavern (and which we did) and cautioned me not to irritate the People.

Ingersoll went to the tavern but didn’t refrain from irritating people. Instead of dismounting, he told the men that they should tell him all they had to say and he’d ride on to Hartford. “They said No, You sha’n’t go two Rods from this Spot, before you have resigned; and took hold of my Horse's Bridle.” Though Ingersoll “was told repeatedly that they had no Intentions of hurting me or my Estate; but would use me like a Gentleman,” he understood that was on condition that he cooperate. So he got off his horse and went into the tavern with the crowd leaders.

In the discussion that followed, Ingersoll perceived a gap between those designated spokesmen and the men outside:

Upon the whole, This Committee behaved with Moderation and Civility, and I thought seemed inclined to listen to certain Proposals which I made; but when the Body of the People come to hear them they rejected ’em, and nothing would do but I must resign.

While I was detained here, I saw several Members of the Assembly pass by, whom I hailed, acquainting them that I was there kept and detained as a Prisoner; and desired their and the Assembly’s Assistance for my Relief. They stopt and spoke to the People; but were told they had better go along to the Assembly where they might possibly be wanted. Major [Elihu] Hall also finding his Presence not altogether agreeable, went away; And Mr. [Yale] Bishop, by my Desire, went away to let the Governor and Assembly know the Situation I was in.

After much Time spent in fruitless Proposals, I was told the People grew very impatient, and that I must bring the Matter to a Conclusion; I then told ’em I had no more to say, and askt what they would do with me?

They said they would carry me to Windham a Prisoner, but would keep me like a Gentleman.

I told them I would go to Windham, that I had lived very well there, and should like to go and live there again.

This did not do. They then advised me to move from the front Window, as the Sight of me seemed to enrage the People. Sometimes the People from below would rush into the Room in great Numbers, and look pretty fierce at me, and then the Committee would desire them to withdraw.

Ingersoll and the committee spent three hours in this sort of back-and-forth. Finally the militia leader Ingersoll called the Commandant came up to warn “that he could not keep the People off from me any longer; and that if they once began, he could not promise me where they would end.”

TOMORROW: Where they ended.

“About Five Hundred Men, all on Horseback, and having white Staves”

When Boston 1775 last left Connecticut stamp agent Jared Ingersoll, he’d been hanged and burned in effigy in half a dozen towns, a crowd had surrounded his New Haven home, and he’d promised not to carry out the Stamp Act if it proved unpopular. Which, frankly, it already appeared to be.

On 10 September, Ingersoll wrote a long letter to the Connecticut Gazette pointing out that he owed his post to the recommendation of London alderman Barlow Trecothick, known as a friend to American interests. Both he and Trecothick had argued against the Stamp Act. So surely they couldn’t have conspired to pass that law just to enrich themselves, right?

Again, when the measure of making ye Appointments in America was thus general [i.e., non-partisan], & come into as generally, will any body think that any one of the persons concerned Imagined he betrayed his Country by falling in with the measure? Perhaps at this time, when popular rage runs so very high, some may think the friends of America mistook their own & their Countrys true Interest, when they listened to these overtures, but who can think their intentions were ill?

And wasn’t it better for American colonists if other Americans collected the tax, rather than some appointee from Britain?

That didn’t convince Ingersoll’s opponents. An item in the 16 Sept 1765 Boston Gazette referred to him as “Gared Negrosoul,” rhetoric sinking low enough to cause collateral damage.

Ingersoll hoped that the Connecticut legislature could give him some cover before symbolic violence gave way to real damage. In yet another long letter, written 23 September, he reported:

Having received repeated and undoubted Intelligence of a Design formed by a great Number of People in the eastern Parts of the Colony to come and obtain from me a Resignation of the above mentioned Office, I delivered to the Governor [Thomas Fitch], on the 17th, at New-Haven, in his way to meet the General Assembly at Hartford on the 19th, a written Information, acquainting him with my said Intelligence, and desiring of him such Aid and Assistance as the emergency of the Affair should require. On the 18th I rode with his Honour and some other Gentlemen, Members of the Assembly, in hopes of being able to learn more particularly the Time and Manner of the intended Attack.

About eighteen Miles from hence, on the Hartford Road, we met two Men on Horseback with pretty long and large new made white Staves in their Hands, whom I suspected to be part of the main Body. I accordingly stopt short from the Company, and askt them if they were not in pursuit of me, acquainting them who I was, and that I should not attempt to avoid meeting the People. After a little Hesitancy they frankly owned that they were of that Party, and said there were a great Number of People coming in three Divisions, one from Windham through Hartford, one from Norwich through Haddam, and one from New-London, by the way of Branford, and that their Rendezvous was to be at Branford on the Evening of the 19th, from thence to come and pay me a Visit on the 20th. These Men said they were sent forward in order to reconnoitre and to see who would join them.

I desired them to turn and go with me as far as Mr. [Yale] Bishop’s the Tavern at the Stone House, so called [in Meriden]. One of them did. Here I acquainted the Governor and the other Gentlemen with the Matter; and desired their Advice. The Governor said many Things to this Man, pointing out to him the Danger of such a Step, and charging him to go and tell the People to return Back; but he let the Governor know, that they lookt upon this as the Cause of the People, & that they did not intend to take Directions about it from any Body.

Ingersoll wrote that he feared those men would go to New Haven, the local militia would turn out as “an Opposition to their Designs,” and “some Lives might be lost.” Given that the people of New Haven had already turned out against him, that looks like wishful thinking. In any event, he decided to meet the crowd at Hartford. But he also sent a letter to his family in New Haven “that they and my House might be put in a proper state of Defence and Security.”

On Thursday, 19 September, Ingersoll proceeded toward Hartford with his host and legislator Elihu Hall of Wallingford.

we went on together until we come within two or three Miles of Weathersfield, when we met an advanced Party of about four or five Persons. I told them who I was, upon which they turned, and I fell into Conversation with them, upon the general Subject of my Office, &c.

About half a Mile further we met another Party of about Thirty whom I accosted, and who turned and went on in the same Manner.

We rode a little further and met the main Body, who, I judge, were about Five Hundred Men, all on Horseback, and having white Staves, as before described. They were preceded by three Trumpets; next followed two Persons dressed in red, with laced Hats; then the rest, two abreast. Some others, I think, were in red, being, I suppose, Militia Officers.

They opened and received me; then all went forward until we came into the main Street in the Town of Weathersfield, when one riding up to the Person with whom I was joined, and who I took to be the principal Leader or Commandant, said to him, We can’t all hear and see so well in a House, we had as good have the Business done here; upon this they formed into a Circle, having me in the Middle, with some two or three more, who seemed to be the principal Managers, Major Hall and Mr. Bishop also keeping near me.

I began to speak to the Audience, but stopt and said I did not know why I should say any Thing for that I was not certain I knew what they wanted of me…

Which by this point seems remarkably obtuse.

TOMORROW: A parley in Wethersfield.