“The General would be glad to confer with you”

Yesterday I started to profile Elisha Porter, as of July 1775 Hadley’s representative in the Massachusetts General Court and militia colonel.

Porter helped fellow lawyer Joseph Hawley of Northampton write this letter to the Continental Congress waxing eloquent on the need for more gunpowder:

Were you now in the Continental Army which invests Boston, it would beget unutterable vexation and torment in your hearts, to behold so large a body of so active brave men as that army consists of, insulted by the fire and blaze of the enemy’s cannon and mortars from their lines, ships, and floating batteries; and the same brave men, although possessed of divers good pieces of great ordnance, and willing, at any hazard, to improve them, yet wholly restrained from returning any fire of the kind, lest, by so doing, their little stock of gunpowder should soon be exhausted, and they reduced to the fatal necessity of laying down their arms or flying into the woods, leaving their houses to be burnt, their fields wasted; in short to give up and abandon the just claims of all America, and in effect to resign themselves and the lives of all the children of liberty in this whole Continent, to the arbitrary pleasure of a haughty Administration, instigated and influenced by enraged tories of our own breeding.

I couldn’t resist quoting that sentence, as transcribed by Peter Force.

In mid-July, Porter made a trip to New York, seeking “2 hhds Flints & 10 Tons Lead,” as the general wrote. He returned on 2 August, having succeeded in arranging for ”80,000 Flints & eight Tons of Lead.”

The next day, a council of war disclosed how little gunpowder the army had. Joseph Reed (shown above), Gen. George Washington’s military secretary, sent Porter a quick note:

If you could spare Time to ride down to Head Quarters this Afternoon the General would be glad to confer with you on a Matter of some Importance which you mentioned to him on your Return from New York

Porter made the short trip from Watertown to Cambridge. Later that day Washington wrote to Rhode Island governor Nicholas Cooke about the urgent need for gunpowder and the possibility of obtaining it from Bermuda, as quoted here. He concluded:

Col: Porter has undertaken to assist in the Matter or to provide some suitable Person to accompany [William] Harris to you who will communicate all Circumstances to you.

Porter personally carried that letter to Cooke. There was a brief glitch when they lost track of Harris, a sea captain who was continuing to shuttle among American ports. On 11 August, Cooke sent Porter back to Washington with a letter.

Gov. Cooke had already expressed his position: reports suggested that Bermudans were inclined to sell that powder to Continental forces, so there was no need to send a ship to the island, and besides Rhode Island didn’t have the resources for such a mission, anyway.

TOMORROW: The general’s response.

“They gave Information of the Powder”

As I quoted back here, on 3 Aug 1775 Gen. George Washington wrote to Gov. Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island asking him to send all available gunpowder and lead.

Washington also urged the governor to dispatch one of the colony’s armed ships with a man named Harris to Bermuda to seize more gunpowder.

As I wrote yesterday, I think Harris was a Connecticut-based sea captain named William Harris.

Cooke wrote back promptly on 8 August. His responses were:

• Rhode Island didn’t have that much gunpowder and lead left, and needed all it had.
• The colony couldn’t spare either of its armed sloops.
• There wasn’t enough money available to buy the gunpowder in Bermuda.
• Washington’s agent, Elisha Porter, “can hear nothing of Harris…but is greatly apprehensive that he is fallen into the Hands of the Enemy.”

But aside from those details, Cooke was eager to cooperate with the general’s plans.

I believe Capt. Harris had gone on to New York. The 10 August issue of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer reported that the Customs office had just cleared “Bittern, Harris,” to sail for “Rhode-Island.”

On 11 August, Cooke told Washington that Harris was back in Providence. And he had news to share about that powder in Bermuda:

Since my last to you Mr [Samuel] Ward One of the Delegates hath returned from the Congress. He informs me that some of the Bermudians had been at Philadelphia soliciting for Liberty to import Provisions for the Use of the Island. They gave Information of the Powder mentioned in your Letter to me, and were of Opinion it might be easily obtained. They were told by the Delegates that every Vessel they should send to the Northward with Powder should be permitted to carry Provisions to the Island. Whether their Situation will not probably prevent them from bringing the Powder I submit to your Excellency.

Gov. Cooke sent that letter back to Cambridge with Porter.

TOMORROW: The general’s operative.

“Arrived here a Sloop from Bermuda”

As I quoted yesterday, on 4 Aug 1775 Gen. George Washington wrote to the governor of Rhode Island about what he’d heard about Bermuda from a man he called “One Harris.”

The editors of The Revolutionary Correspondence of Governor Nicholas Cooke identified Harris as “Captain Benjamin Harris,” but I don’t see what they based that on. I can’t find other mentions of Benjamin Harris in connection with Rhode Island or Bermuda.

I found clues in newspapers pointing in another direction. Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer for 15 June reported: “sloop Bittern, Harris, [cleared for] Bermuda.” And on 27 July: “Bittren, Harris, Bermuda” was among the inward entries, the only one from that island. The 31 July New-York Gazette reported that sloop as “Brittain, W. Harris.”

In addition, the 24 July New-York Gazette reported:

Friday Night last [i.e., 21 July] arrived here a Sloop from Bermuda: By Letters from thence we learn, that the Inhabitants of that Island are greatly alarmed at the present Situation of publick Affairs, being under the most dismal Apprehensions of Starving; to prevent which they have passed a Law, that no Provisions should be sent off the Island at any Rate whatsoever; and were about dispatching a Vessel to Philadelphia, to request the Honourable the Continental Congress to take their Case into their most serious Consideration.

That was reprinted in the 27 July New-York Journal and from thence in the 2 August Massachusetts Spy and the 3 August New-England Chronicle.

Thus, we have a ship’s captain named “W. Harris” arriving from Bermuda on a ship named something like the Bittern, probably bringing political news, in time to make his way to Gen. Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge with an offer.

Another clue about Harris appears in Gov. Cooke’s 8 August response to Washington saying that he didn’t know where the man was. Washington’s agent Elisha Porter was “bound as far as New-London to endeavour to meet with him,” indicating that people perceived Harris as most likely to surface in New London, Connecticut.

That took me to my favorite smuggling merchant, Nathaniel Shaw of New London. His letter book shows he employed two captains named William Harris in the early 1770s. He wrote sometimes of William Harris, sometimes William Harris, Jr., and most often simply ”Harris.”

The 10 May 1771 New-London Gazette reported among the ships cleared out of that harbor “Sloop Bittren, Harris [to] New York.” On that same say Shaw sent a letter to Peter Vandervoort in New York with a shipload of molasses overseen by “Wm. Harris Junr.” The 6 Dec 1770 Pennsylvania Journal likewise links a “W. Harris” with the “Sloop Bittern” traveling between New York, Philadelphia, and New London. Several newspapers in 1770 render Harris’s ship as the “Bittren.”

Two years later, the 23 Apr 1773 New-London Gazette shows “Capt. William Harris, late of New-London,” had died and one of the estate administrators was “William Harris”—no doubt formerly Jr.

Thus, I propose that the “One Harris” who visited Gen. Washington in August 1775 with a proposition regarding gunpowder was William Harris of New London, Connecticut, a ship captain recently returned from Bermuda on a sloop called something like the Bittern.

COMING UP: Mission to Bermuda.

“Not a topsail vessel to be seen”

Dissecting the multiple texts of the Solemn League and Covenant boycott and following the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman’s uncomfortable wriggling around that issue in Westboro pulled me past the debate over that document in Boston.

So I’m going back to mid-June 1774. Many of Boston’s merchants thought the top priority should be finding a way to lift the Port Bill, even if that meant (as George Erving and John Amory proposed) raising money privately to pay the cost of the tea destroyed in December.

The town’s political leaders, on the other hand, felt that standing up to Parliament’s oppressive laws was more important than regaining some expedient advantages in business.

The merchant John Andrews, who normally supported the Whigs (albeit at an ironic distance), joined their opponents on this issue. He saw the town’s economic situation as dire, as he wrote in a 12 June letter to a relative in Philadelphia:

Our wharfs are intirely deserted; not a topsail vessel to be seen either there or in the harbour, save the ships of war and transport, the latter of which land their passengers in this town tomorrow.

Four regiments are already arriv’d, and four more are expected. How they are to be disposed of, can’t say. Its gave out, that if ye. General Court don’t provide barracks for ’em, they are to be quarter’d on ye. inhabitants in ye. fall: if so, am determin’d not to stay in it.

Only five days after Andrews wrote, Gen. Thomas Gage dissolved the Massachusetts General Court, as recounted here. That legislature never had a chance to provide quarters for the troops in Boston—or to refuse to.

Nonetheless, those soldiers were never housed in private homes, nor did Gage invoke the revised Quartering Act to put them into “uninhabited buildings” and taverns. Instead, the royal government built barracks and rented buildings from willing landlords, including warehouses empty because of the lack of trade.

Andrews still thought royal officials were being too strict:

The executors of the [Boston Port] Act seem to strain points beyond what was ever intended, for they make all ye. vessels, both with grain and wood, entirely unload at Marblehead before they’ll permit ’em to come in here, which conduct, in regard to ye. article of wood has already greatly enhanced the price, and the masters say they won’t come at all, if they are to be always put to such trouble, as they are oblig’d to hire another vessel to unload into, and then to return it back again, as they have no wharves to admit of their landing it on.

Nor will they suffer any article of merchandize to be brought or carry’d over Charles river ferry, that we are oblig’d to pay for 28 miles land carriage to get our goods from Marblehead or Salem. Could fill up a number of sheets to enumerate all our difficulties.

Nonetheless, at this time Andrews saved his worst criticism for Boston’s zealous Whigs, “those who have govern’d the town for years past and were in a great measure the authors of all our evils, by their injudicious conduct.” Now those men were supposedly threatening to finish off the town’s trade with the Solemn League and Covenant.

TOMORROW: Back to town meeting.

(The picture above, courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is one version of Christian Remick’s painting of the Crown fleet in Boston harbor as seen from Long Wharf in 1768.)

John Malcom, Customs Officer

I wish I could find more sources on Capt. John Malcom’s years in Québec.

Select Documents in Canadian Economic History, 1497–1783, compiled by Harold A. Innis in 1929, quotes at least one business advertisement by him, but it’s not an easy book to stumble across in the U.S. of A.

I’m guessing that Malcom ran into some business reverses because in 1769 he not only moved back to New England, but he took a job helping to collect His Majesty’s Customs.

For a merchant captain like Malcom, joining the Customs service meant switching sides in a long-running conflict. In Boston, younger brother Daniel Malcom was being lauded for resisting Customs officers trying to search his property in 1766 and for testifying against officers seizing the Liberty in 1768.

I suspect that Malcom became especially unpopular as a Customs officer precisely because he’d been a New England ship captain. He wasn’t like Henry Hulton or John Robinson, British bureaucrats without local ties. Instead, like Benjamin Hallowell, Jr., he’d worked among fellow New England mariners. He knew their tricks. His neighbors expected better of him.

Malcom would probably have preferred to remain a merchant if he could. In eighteenth-century British society, men aspired to be “independent,” earning a good living from their land or other investments. Working for a salary, however solid, was seen as dependence on someone else.

In Malcom’s case, his first job was as a tide surveyor, which seems to have been in the middle of the bureaucracy, supervising the tide waiters but not being in charge of the money. That looks like a big comedown for someone used to commanding his own ship.

Still, that rank might have been enough for Malcom to qualify as a gentleman, and social status was certainly a recurring theme in his conflicts with other men. After joining the Customs office, he began to use “Esquire” after his name.

There may be more information about this appointment in British government records. I don’t even know when in 1769 it took place, though one clue is that Malcom’s family apparently returned from Canada in August.

On 14 Oct 1769, Isaac Werden wrote from Québec to his employer Aaron Lopez (shown above), enclosing a financial note to “John Malcom Esqr., In his Majesties Customs at Newport, Rhode Island.” In that same letter Werden called Malcom “a drole mortal.” Obviously, Werden was acquainted with Malcom and knew that he would be found in the Newport Customs office by that date.

Twelve days after that letter was written, Daniel Malcom died.

TOMORROW: Boston mourns a Son of Liberty.

The Malcoms Coming Back to Boston

In the published Boston town records are some lists of people arriving in Boston by ship in the 1760s.

Each set of entries starts by identifying the ship: for example, “Danl. Malcom Sloop Rose from Halifax” on 31 Oct 1765. Then come names and sometimes brief descriptions of the passengers.

These records show a couple of John Malcom’s trips back to Boston.

• 15 Dec 1767: On a schooner from Quebec, “Capt. John Malcom”
• 1 Feb 1768: On a sloop from Halifax, “Capt. John Malcom,” mariner

They also show that in this period Malcom was legally not considered a resident of Boston, or else he wouldn’t have gone on these lists.

Another interesting entry appears on 4 Nov 1765, a sloop from Quebec: “Mickl. Malcom to the care of Capn. Malom [sic].” That captain is probably Daniel, still based on Boston. Michael Malcom might have been his aging father or his six-year-old nephew, John’s son.

Sarah Malcom, the matriarch of the family, died in Boston on 23 Sept 1767 and was buried on Copp’s Hill. Her gravestone is quite weathered, but a nineteenth-century publication makes clear she was the wife of Michael Malcom, who died in 1775.

I puzzled over one mystery among these passenger lists. A entry for 4 Aug 1769 says a schooner from Quebec brought “Mary Malcom Wife to Jno. Malcom & 3 Children.”

John Malcom married Sarah Balch in 1750, and they had children together through the following decade. In the 1790s a Boston woman identifying herself as Sarah Malcom, John Malcom’s widow, sent petitions to the British government.

The Boston directory for 1789 listed Sarah Malcom as running a “boarding-house, [on] Ship-street.” And the 15 Sept 1800 Boston newspapers reported that Sarah Malcom, aged seventy-three, had died just a few hours after her forty-year-old daughter, also named Sarah Malcom. Those facts line up pretty well with the records of John Malcom’s wife and daughter from the 1750s.

So where does “Mary Malcom Wife to Jno. Malcom” come in? I wondered if John Malcom’s first wife Sarah might have died in Québec, he remarried to a woman named Mary, she died, and he remarried to a second Sarah. I couldn’t find any records of death and remarriage, but those events might have happened outside of Massachusetts. Given how many women of the time were named Mary and Sarah, that scenario’s not as outlandish as it might seem.

But the simplest explanation is that whoever was making those lists of incoming passengers just wrote down Sarah Malcom’s name wrong. After a few years in Québec, Capt. John Malcom’s family was moving back to Boston.

TOMORROW: More change in 1769.

“All the English must deliver their Vessels to the French”

The Turks and Caicos Islands lie north of Hispaniola. In the eighteenth century, they were sparsely inhabited, used mostly for harvesting salt.

Like many other Caribbean islands, the Turks were grabbed back and forth by the three main European Atlantic empires of that time: Spanish, French, and British.

And within the British Empire, the Bahamas and Bermuda fought over who should have jurisdiction.

On 15 May 1764, Capt. John Malcom anchored his sloop Friends off the Turks “in order to take in Salt,” according to a story printed in the 13 September Boston News-Letter.

The crew was interrupted a little more than two weeks later:

upon the 1st of June, about 9 o’Clock in the morning, a French Xebeque of 16 Guns, a Snow of 12 and a Sloop of 8 Guns anchored in the Road; a French Ship of War of 64 standing off and on, about a Mile’s distance:

Said Malcom, and other Masters of English Vessels lying there, being eight in Number, were ordered on board the Xebeque; in the mean Time about 250 Soldiers, Marines or Sailors were landed, who, as soon as they got on Shore, set all the Houses on Fire, burnt and destroyed every Thing in them.

Said Malcom, and the other Masters who were put on board the Xebeque, were told, they and all the English must deliver their Vessels to the French, who would be sent out of the Man of War to take possession of them, which he and the rest were immediately obliged to comply with, and by 2 o’Clock the same Day, all the Vessels, French and English (manned with French) got under Sail, and anchored the next Morning at Salt Quay, another Island which they had destroyed, about 24 Hours before Turk’s-Island, in the same Way;

from whence said Malcom, with the other English Prisoners, were sent to Cape François, upon the Island of Hispaniola, where said Malcom was kept Prisoner under a Guard of French Soldiers till the 10th, and then was ordered with his Men on board his own Sloop (which had been plundered of sundry Articles) in order to leave that Place immediately—

Said Malcom further informs us, that a Detachment of Soldiers had been left on Turk’s Island, with all necessary Materials to fortify said Island.

The repeated phrase “said Malcom” makes me wonder if this came from a deposition or other legal testimony the captain gave after returning to Québec.

This was the second, or perhaps even the third, time that Malcom had been held prisoner by the French in the past decade. He must have been getting tired of that.

The Friends had happened to be at “Turk’s-Island” (most likely Grand Turk) when the French came back for the first time in eleven years to reassert their claim to the archipelago. According to this Turks and Caicos history site:

They erected two “pillories” 80 feet tall that rested on large stone bases. One was on Sand Cay and the other at Saunders Pond Beach on Grand Turk. Each had the name of the French Prime Minister and displayed an iron Fleur de Lis.

A Royal Navy sloop reclaimed possession in 1766, presumably when there weren’t any French warships in the area to fight. The French returned in 1778. British Loyalists showed up in 1781. The French returned for most of 1783, fending off a brief attack by Capt. Horatio Nelson, R.N. Finally, the islands were formally assigned to Britain in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

This article appeared in the Boston News-Letter with the dateline “QUEBEC, July 36,” suggesting Richard Draper copied the text from the Quebec Gazette of that date. But I don’t have access to that newspaper since databases are defined by modern national boundaries, not old imperial ones.

It’s therefore possible that John Malcom made more news in Québec City while he was based there. I’ve found one other item reprinted in the Boston press, and it’s a doozy.

COMING UP: The first clubbing.

“His Business immediately calling him back to Quebec”

John Malcom spent November 1759 to August 1760 as a prisoner of war in French Canada.

He sailed back to Québec at the end of the year, apparently to scout for business opportunities, only to have his ship iced in.

In the winter of 1761 Malcom made a month-long trek over lake and land back to Boston.

So what do we hear about him doing next? Moving to Québec!

In the 16 Feb 1761 Boston Gazette Malcom announced:

Boston 9 February 1761.

THIS Day came to Town John Malcom, from Quebec in Canada, and desires one Thomas Power a Suttler at Halifax, immediately to come to Boston and settle all his Accompts with said Malcom without fail, as his Tarry at Boston cannot be long, his Business immediately calling him back to Quebec before the Lakes breaks [sic] up.

I’d think he could have written to Power directly, but advertising in the newspaper might have carried some legal weight.

On 2 March, the captain told Boston Gazette readers:

JOHN MALCOM will set out this Day Week [i.e., one week from today] for Quebec, by the Way of Albany, Lake George, Crown-Point, Montreal and Trois-Rivieres; and will receive Letters to carry to each Place at Mr. John Scollay’s Shop near the Town-Dock.

Perhaps, I thought, he was just going back to pick up his ship and sail it ’round to Boston again. But no, on 6 April his wife advertised in the Boston Gazette:

All Persons to whom John Malcom of Boston is indebted, are desired to bring in their Accounts to Sarah Malcom in order for Payment, as she intends soon to go out of the Province; and all indebted to said Malcom, are desired to make Payment to her directly. Said Malcom has a very commodious House at New Boston to Lett, with three Rooms on a Floor, and very good Accommodations.

In this case, “New Boston” meant what was also known as the West End. That side of the peninsula was less densely built up than the areas closer to the outer harbor.

The Malcoms evidently settled in Québec to help integrate one of the British Empire’s newest provinces into its trading system—and make money along the way. The captain maintained ties with Boston, though. Malcom announced in the 21 Feb 1763 Boston Gazette that in about ten days he was sailing his ship Friends up to Québec and could take freight or passengers.

Younger brother Daniel might have gotten involved in this trade, too. In the 25 Apr 1763 Boston Post-Boy, he advertised:

As DANIEL MALCOM intends to leave Boston for Quebec in 10 or 15 Days; any that has Demands on him are desired to apply to him. And any Persons indebted to said MALCOM are desired to pay him, or come and give their Note on Interest.—N.B. Said MALCOM goes by Land to Quebec.

Daniel doesn’t appear to have stayed in Canada for long, though. Church records and newspapers show him and his wife Ann in Boston at several points in the mid-1760s.

For the next few years John Malcom kept Québec as his trading base. But he didn’t keep out of trouble.

TOMORROW: An international incident.

“The Rout taken by Capts Malcom and Holmes, from Quebec”

Yesterday’s posting brought John Malcom back to Boston in August 1760 after more than eight months as a prisoner of war in French Canada.

On 24 November, the Boston Evening-Post reported that “Capt. Malcom…arrived here last week from Ireland.” That was probably John’s younger brother, Daniel Malcom, but there’s just enough time for John to have made that round trip as a way to get his sea legs back, so I can’t say for certain.

It looks more likely that John returned to trading with a voyage to a different port: Québec!

One might think he’d had enough of that region. But viewed another way, it made sense for John Malcom to start sailing to the British Empire’s new city. In his months in Canada, he probably learned the language, observed the culture, made some contacts.

That first voyage turned out to be harder than he planned. According to the 16 Feb 1761 Boston Evening-Post, Malcom’s sloop Wilmot got iced in on the St. Lawrence River, along with a score of other ships.

Malcom and John Holmes, master of the Sally out of Philadelphia, decided to return by land.

The same issue of the Evening-Post explained:

On the 8th of January they left Quebec in a Sleigh, in company with 12 other Sleighs having Goods for Montreal, and travel’d on a good Road to Trois Rivieres: From thence they went up the River on the Ice, and passing over Sorrell, arrived at Montreal in 2 Days:—

After tarrying there 2 Days they proceeded in their Sleigh to Chamble, St. John’s and Isle au Noix, which they reached in 3 Days more: During this Time the Season was moderate for Winter.—

From the Isle au Noix they travel’d 45 Mile on Lake Champlain in one Day, but the next Morning after going some Miles, finding the Ice grow weak, they left their Sleigh, and went ashore with their Horse and Baggage on the South-East Side of the Lake; it being bad Travelling in the Woods, it was 5 Days and as many Nights before they arrived at Crown Point.—

On their Way they met an Officer with Dispatches for the Governors of Montreal and Quebec; with Accounts of the Death of his late Majesty King George the Second, & of the Accession of his present Majesty King George the Third to the British Throne.—

At Crown Point they tarried one Day, and having procured another Sleigh, they proceeded to Ticonderoga, and over Lake George to Fort George: Thence proceeded to Fort Edward, but the Road not being broke they travelled with only their Horse:—

From Fort Edward they went in a Sleigh to Albany: From whence they came to Town by Land on Monday last the 9th of February.

The captains brought news that Maj. Robert Rogers was on his way to Detroit, another new British possession. That information came from Capt. Jonathan Brewer and other officers in the rangers.

When Malcom and Holmes made this trip, they were traversing a route that just a couple of years earlier had crossed the border between two rival empires. I think that was why the Fleets devoted so much of their newspaper to this account: for their readers, the possibility of traveling or shipping goods over land to Montreal and Quebec really was news.

TOMORROW: John Malcom makes his move.

“Taken on the 6th Day of November last by 9 Frenchmen”

Yesterday we left Capt. John Malcom in mid-1759, plying the route between Boston and the British Empire’s new conquest of Louisbourg, relaying information about developments in the Seven Years’ War.

That war caught up with Malcom in the fall. This is how the Boston News-Letter reported the story on 28 Aug 1760:

In Capt. Gardner came Passenger from Quebec, Capt. John Malcom of this Town, who with one of his Hands was taken on the 6th Day of November last by 9 Frenchmen, as they were endeavouring to get Wood off the Island of St. Barnaby for the use of the Vessel,

who after he was taken was immediately strip’d of all his Cloaths and barbarously used by the Enemy for four Days at that Place, and then obtaining Liberty to go to Quebec, was taken twice in Twenty-eight Days;

He informs that after he arrived at Quebec, he was often threatned to be given to the Indians to be massacred, they thinking him to be a Spy.—

And that on the 14th of November his Sloop, called the Sally, (his Mate being then on board endeavouring to get to Boston,) off of Gaspee, was taken by the Ship Two Brothers, Francis Boucher Commander, mounting 20 Carriage Guns; by which Accidents the said Malcom not only lost his Vessel, but likewise to the amount of near give Hundred Pounds Sterling in Cash, and other Effects, then on board.

Since Gen. James Wolfe’s forces had taken Québec City on 13 Sept 1759, I presume the “Quebec” where Malcom spent months as a prisoner of war was the area around Montréal, still in French hands until September 1760.

On 7 Apr 1760 the Boston Post-Boy reported about a couple of Malcom’s crew in a letter from Col. Joseph Frye at Fort Cumberland (now once again called Fort Beauséjour):

About [30 January] there came in eight Men, one of whom was a New-England Man, one Irishman, and the rest Italians and Spaniards; who inform’d me they Deserted from a French frigate that lay froze in, at the Head of Gaspee Harbour.

The two former belong’d to a Vessel commanded by Capt. Malcom of Boston, who was taken on by the above Frigate, as she was returning from Quebec, where she had been on a Trading Voyage.

As for younger brother Daniel Malcom, on 5 May 1760 he was home in Boston, preparing to sell a 50-ton schooner called the Betsy by auction at Harris’s Wharf.

TOMORROW: Back to trading, back to Quebec?

“Capt. John Malcom arrived here in 10 Days from Louisbourg”

On 26 July 1758, the French inside Louisbourg surrendered to a besieging British force led by Gen. Jeffery Amherst.

John Malcom may have been part of the British military in this campaign rather than the one in 1745. In any event, he quickly became a link between that new addition to the British Empire and Boston.

On 15 Jan 1759 the Boston Gazette told readers:

Last Saturday Night Capt. John Malcom arrived here in 10 Days from Louisbourg, who informs us, That the Day he came out he met his Majesty’s Ship Arundel commanded by Capt. Martin [actually Richard Matthews], who desired of him a Pilot that was acquainted with the Harbour of Louisbourg, which he put on board; Capt. Martin inform’d him he had a large Quantity of Money on board for the Garrison, and a Packet:

In Capt. Malcom came Passengers Capt. [Robert] Rogers of the Rangers, Capt. Bennet of the Brig Sally belonging to Philadelphia, lately cast away there.

Capt. Malcom also informs, That he saw a large Ship to the Eastward of the Arundel, which he suppos’d to be one of the Fleet that came out with her.

Meanwhile, younger brother Daniel Malcom was also at sea, according to the 19 February Boston Gazette:

Late last Night Captain Parrot arrived here in 18 Days from South-Carolina, in whom came Capt. Malcom of this Town, who sail’d from Falmouth 8 Weeks ago, in the Earl of Leicester Packet, Capt. Morris, bound to New-York; but meeting with Captain Parrot last Monday, bound hither, he went on board him. . . .

Capt. Malcom brought no English Prints, as he left the Packet in a hurry, which he imagines arriv’d at New-York last Wednesday.

By this time, it appears, the Boston Gazette printers expected readers to know “Capt. Malcom of this Town” was Daniel, returning from England.

The 28 May Boston Evening-Post reported:

Friday last arrived here Capt. Malcom in 9 Days from Louisbourg, and informs, That a Snow had arrived there from Admiral [Philip] Durell, with Advice that the Ice coming down in such great Quantities he was not able to get above half Way up to Gaspey, and before the Snow left him was drove down again almost to the Mouth of the River, but that the Admiral intended to make another Attempt to get up.—

That last Wednesday se’nnight his Majesty’s Ship Northumberland of 70 Guns, Lord Colvill, arrived there in 37 Days from England; and that the next Day Admiral [Charles] Saunders came in with 12 Sail of the Line from Halifax:

Capt. Malcom also informed, that off Caparouse Bay he spoke with the Nightingale Frigate, having under her Convoy 12 Transports from New-York, with Col. [Simon] Fraser’s Highland Regiment on board, also bound to Louisbourg: And that prodigious large Quantities of Ice were still floating about near the Harbour of Louisbourg.

This was still within the “Little Ice Age.”

It’s striking how much information Malcom and the printers were passing on in a time of war. No “Loose lips sink ships” concern there! Instead, the newspapers were telling the world where the British military payroll was, and when Adm. Durell might make into the St. Lawrence River in time to support Gen. James Wolfe’s push on Québec.

I think that reflects something Hannah Tucker described in a 2018 seminar in the context of commercial shipping, as I summarized:

the uncertainty of Atlantic crossings, the difficulty of communication, and merchants’ and ship owners’ inability to supervise sea captains closely meant that they preferred an open information system to a closed one. It was in nearly everyone’s interest to know about other people’s business. If you tried to keep information within your firm, you could easily find yourself cut off with no information at all.

The same culture might have prevailed in a time of war. After all, there was little chance that a French agent could pick up information from a Boston newspaper and transmit it in time to use that advantage. So why not gossip about every ship you saw at sea? That information could actually be helpful to your side.

TOMORROW: But the empires were still at war.

“Capt. Malcom of this Place, who was taken by a French Privateer”

In the late 1750s, Britain’s cold war with France once again boiled up into a hot war.

That presented dangers for merchant captains like John and Daniel Malcom, as well as opportunities.

In seeking British government assistance years later, John Malcom declared:

I have had thirteen Different Commissions in your Majesty’s Land Service in North America the two last French and Spanish warrs that is Past. I have Serv’d from a Ensign to a Colonel. I have been in all the Battles that was Fought in North America those two warrs that is Past except two and at every Place we Conquerd and Subdued our Enemys to your Majesty.

That’s quite a claim, and he didn’t provide any specifics. Were his “Commissions” in the militia, in a colonial army, as a privateer captain, or even as a contractor?

That vagueness makes it hard to figure out where John Malcom was when his surname appears in Boston newspapers. For example, the 6 Oct 1755 Boston Gazette had a supplement with news of two men missing from “Capt. Malcom’s Company” in Maj. Joseph Frye’s force after the Battle of Petitcodiac in what’s now New Brunswick. What that John Malcom, a relative, or someone with no connection?

The 23 Dec 1756 Boston News-Letter reported that a French schooner had captured a “large Sloop, belonging to Carr and Malcolm,” in Martha Brae Harbour on Jamaica. Was that ship partly owned by John Malcom? Or might that owner have been a merchant from distant Scotland?

Adding to the fog is how John’s younger brother Daniel was also a ship’s captain. The 30 May 1757 Boston Gazette reported this adventure for one of the brothers, but which one?

Thursday last came to Town Capt. Malcom of this Place, who was taken by a French Privateer and carried into Port au Prince, from whence he got to Jamaica, and informs, that just as he came away Advice was receiv’d there, that 18 Sail of French Men of War and Transports, and about 7000 Troops, was arriv’d at Port au Prince, very sickly.

I’m struck by how the Boston press referred to “Capt. Malcom of this Place” as if there were only one. Did that mean that John was serving in an army, so Daniel was the only one commanding a ship? Had one of the brothers moved out of Boston, as John would later do? Or was that just sloppy reporting?

On 4 May 1758 the Boston News-Letter reported:

The ———, Vavason, from New York, and the ———, Malcom, from Boston, for Madeira, are taken and carried into Louisbourg.

Not only was that news item short on details, but it came from London, so it was months old. But it couldn’t have been over a year old and refer to the same capture as the last article.

Fortunately, in the summer of 1758 the British Empire took Louisbourg from the French (again). After that, it’s easier to spot John Malcom.

TOMORROW: Back and forth.

The Malcom Brothers on Sea and Land

As I wrote yesterday, the brothers John and Daniel Malcom both became mariners in the middle of the eighteenth century. Here are some of their experiences in the 1750s.

From the 30 Oct 1752 New-York Evening-Post:

HALIFAX, October 14.

On Sunday last a fishing Schooner brought in here Capt. Daniel Malcom and his Men belonging to the Sloop Charming Nancy, from Cork to this Place, whose Cargo consisted chiefly of Sea Coal and Butter, which was cast away at a Place call’d Ship-Harbour, to the Eastward of this Place, where she had put in to avoid the Storm which happen’d on Sunday 7-night [i.e., a week ago]:

She parted her Cables & drove on a Ledge of Rocks, where she stove to pieces in a very little Time; the Men sav’d their Lives by getting on the Rocks, where they tarried 5 Days living upon Butter and Boil’d Dulse (a sort of Sea-Weed) and Cramberrys, which they also boil’d and eat with Butter (without Bread or Meat) ’till they met with said Scooner [sic]; during which Time they sav’d 150 Firkins of Butter and some other Things from the Wreck, which are bro’t in here:

Just before the Vessel struck the Rocks the Captain had put Sixty Guineas into a Purse in order to save them with himself, but upon her striking he jump’d upon Deck and left the Purse and Guineas upon the Table in the Cabbin, which also are lost without any Hopes of Recovery.

Daniel Malcom was undaunted, however. In the 8 Nov 1753 Boston News-Letter he started to advertise “Good Irish BUTTER by the Firkin” for sale at his house on Fish Street. That continued to be his main (public) offering until 1768.

As for older brother John Malcolm, Frank W. C. Hersey wrote: “Litigation was Captain John’s favorite pastime while on shore.”

There might be many stories lurking in the court archives, but the one Hersey told was about a 60-ton sloop called the Sally and Polly. John owned three-eighths of this ship, and Daniel presumably owned the rest. That vessel was lost at sea in 1755 on its way from North Carolina to Cork. (I’ve looked for a newspaper report on this ship with no success.)

Only then did John discover his share of the ship hadn’t been insured. He insisted Daniel had promised to provide coverage.

The two brothers started to take legal action against each other. John swore out writs against Daniel for a total of £155. Daniel responded with a writ for £70.

Finally on 31 July the sheriff of Suffolk County, Benjamin Pollard, sat the Malcoms down and helped them settle their dispute before they wore the constables ragged delivering legal papers.

TOMORROW: The Malcoms go to war (and not with each other).

John Malcom: The Early Years

Back in January I wrote about the mobbing of Customs officer John Malcom on the Sestercentennial anniversary of that event.

The standard study of that attack is “Tar and Feathers: The Adventures of Captain John Malcom,” written by Frank W. C. Hersey in 1941 and available through the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Alfred F. Young’s The Shoemaker and the Tea Party looks at the same day through the eyes of George R. T. Hewes.

I collected some additional information about Malcom that I didn’t have time to dig through and share in January, so now I’m doubling back to his story. We can call this series “The Further Adventures of Captain John Malcom.” Though really it’s more of a prequel.

First of all, a note about nomenclature: Capt. John Malcom spelled his name without a second L, as did his brother Daniel Malcom. However, many people writing about him spelled the surname in the traditional Scottish style as “Malcolm.” Indeed, Hersey transcribed a petition signed by Malcom which a clerk then labeled as coming from “Mr. Malcolm.”

Because so many historians rendered the name as “Malcolm,” I followed that style in making a Boston 1775 tag for the man years ago. However, in these postings I’m going to use the spellings that individuals preferred.

This story starts in 1721, when Michael and Sarah Malcom arrived in Boston from Ulster, Ireland, where their ancestors had moved from Scotland in the previous century. They brought young children named William and Elizabeth.

On 20 May 1723 Sarah gave birth to a second boy, whom they called John. The family then moved to Georgetown in the district of Maine. Another baby boy, Daniel, arrived on 29 Nov 1725, followed by Allen in 1733 and Martha in 1738.

Michael Malcom invested in the Massachusetts “Land Bank or Manufactory Scheme.” In 1745 he was assessed to pay £16, on the high side of those investors.

Also in 1745, wrote Hersey, young John Malcom “served as an ensign in the Second Massachusetts Regiment, commanded by Colonel Samuel Waldo, at the siege of Louisbourg; and this same year he was captain of a vessel which carried dispatches from Louisbourg to Boston,” presaging his maritime career. However, John Malcom’s name also appears as a private enlisting in Capt. Elisha Doane’s company in August 1746.

In 1750 John Malcom married Sarah Balch at Boston’s Presbyterian Meeting-House. The Rev. John Moorhead baptized five of their children between 1751 and 1758.

Younger brother Daniel Malcom also came to Boston and married Ann Fudge, and they also had children starting in 1751. He became a prominent member of the Anglican Christ Church’s congregation. While John named one of his sons Daniel, I’ve found no evidence Daniel named any of his boys John.

Both John and Daniel went to sea, made Boston their home port, and rose to be merchant captains. By the late 1740s a captain or two named Malcom was sailing out of Boston for Cape Fear, North Carolina; Antigua; Annapolis; Philadelphia; Honduras; Bristol, England; and Youghal, Ireland. By the 1750s the Malcoms were owners or part-owners of ships. They traded all over North America, the Caribbean, and Britain—and occasionally Cadiz and Lisbon.

It wasn’t illegal to trade with Portugal, Spain, or Caribbean islands claimed by other empires, but there were higher tariffs on most goods traded that way. Ship captains usually tried every trick they could to minimize those tariffs. Many of those methods made that trade into illegal smuggling, but in that period Boston merchants generally figured that as long as they didn’t get too blatant the Customs service wouldn’t come down hard on them.

The real hazards in ocean trade were natural disasters and war.

TOMORROW: Wrecked and captured.

“The Inhabitants of Boston are on the move”

Among the items in the London newspapers that arrived in Marblehead in the first week of April 1775 was this:

Yesterday a messenger was sent to Falmouth, with dispatches for General [Thomas] Gage at Boston, to be forwarded by a packet boat detained there for that purpose.

It didn’t take long for the Massachusetts Patriots to figure out that if this report had gone into the newspapers, and those newspapers had traveled to New England, then those dispatches could have made it to New England, too. And in that case, the royal governor might already be preparing to act on them.

Decades later, Mercy Warren wrote of the royal authorities in Massachusetts: “from their deportment, there was the highest reason to expect they would extend their researches, and endeavour to seize and secure, as they termed them, the factious leaders of rebellion.”

I can’t actually find those italicized words in the writings of royal officials, and “deportment” is a lousy basis for such a conclusion. But the Patriots may have had a more solid basis for expecting arrests, possibly from sympathetic people in Britain.

On behalf of the imperial government, the Earl of Dartmouth had written to Gage: “the first & essential step to be taken towards re-establishing Government, would be to arrest and imprison the principal actors & abettors in the Provincial Congress.” That letter didn’t arrive in Massachusetts until 14 April, but it looks like Patriots anticipated it after those Marblehead arrivals.

Most of the rest of the letter from James Warren to his wife Mercy that I’ve been discussing is about that worry—that Gage’s government would start arresting resistance leaders. On 6 April, James wrote from Concord:

The Inhabitants of Boston begin to move. The Selectmen and Committee of Correspondence are to be with us, I mean our Committee, this day. The Snow Storm yesterday and Business prevented them then. From this Conference some vigorous resolutions may grow. . . .

I am with regards to all Friends and the greatest Expressions of Love and regard to you, your very affect. Husband, JAS. WARREN

Love to my Boys. I feel disposed to add to this long letter but neither time nor place will permit it.

Then on 7 April James went back to his letter with more information and a warning:

I am up this morning to add. Mr. [Isaac] Lothrop [another Plymouth delegate] is the bearer of this and can give you an Acct. of us.

The Inhabitants of Boston are on the move. [John] H[ancock] and [Samuel] A[dams] go no more into that Garrison, the female Connections of the first [Lydia Hancock and Dorothy Quincy] come out early this morning and measures are taken relative to those of the last [Elizabeth Adams, who didn’t make it out before the siege]. The moving of the Inhabitants of Boston if effected will be one grand Move. I hope one thing will follow another till America shall appear Grand to all the world.

I begin to think of the Trunks which may be ready against I come home, we perhaps may be forced to move: if we are let us strive to submit to the dispensations of Providence with Christian resignation and phylosophick Dignity.

God has given you great abilities; you have improved them in great Acquirements. You are possessd of eminent Virtues and distinguished Piety. For all these I esteem I love you in a degree that I can't express. They are all now to be called into action for the good of Mankind, for the good of your friends, for the promotion of Virtue and Patriotism. Don’t let the fluttering of your Heart interrupt your Health or disturb your repose. Believe me I am continually Anxious about you. Ride when the weather is good and don’t work or read too much at other times. I must bid you adieu. God Almighty bless you. No letter yet. What can it mean? Is she not well? She can't forget me or have any Objections to writing.

James Warren appears to have gone home to Plymouth a few days later and then immediately gone on to Rhode Island to try to convince that elected government to help prepare a New England army. He was in that colony when word came of shooting at Lexington.

Lt. Ragg and “A Crime of the greatest Magnitude”

The wound that Lt. John Ragg suffered at the Battle of Bunker Hill wasn’t bad enough to knock him out of the marines.

He recovered, remained in besieged Boston, and evacuated to Nova Scotia in March 1776 along with the rest of the British military.

On 6 June, Gen. William Howe’s general orders stated:

A Crime of the greatest Magnitude, Viz.: that of striking an Officer, having been committed by John Browning, Private Soldier of the 23d. Regiment, and the time and Situation of the Army not permitting, at present, the holding of a General Court Martial, It is the Commander in Chief’s order that the Prisoner be continued in Irons on board Ship until he can be tried by a General Court Martial.

In his 2007 book Fusiliers, Mark Urban revealed (in an endnote) that the officer Pvt. Browning struck was Lt. John Ragg.

Ordinarily Browning would have been court-martialed in Halifax, but Howe needed the 23rd and all other available forces to attack New York that summer. The fleet departed three days after his order. The private remained a prisoner below decks. Lt. Ragg and his grenadier company sailed normally.

Browning’s court martial took place on Staten Island in July. Urban writes:

With evidence sketchy to back a lieutenant’s claim that he had been hit, Browning was acquitted of the capital charge but was found guilty of insulting a serjeant, for which he was ordered to receive 200 lashes. However, General Howe reviewed the case and waived he corporal punishment, arguing that if Browning was acquitted of the more serious offence there was no point in chastising him at all.

Browning’s attack was the third time in about a year and a half that Lt. Ragg had gotten into a conflict bad enough to get into the historical record. First young Samuel Shaw, then Lt. John Clarke, and here Pvt. John Browning.

To be sure, Ragg himself wasn’t officially blamed for any of those disputes. He was the alleged victim in both courts-martial.

Nonetheless, I can’t help but wonder if Gen. Howe decided to let Browning off with time served (in irons) because he’d come to view Ragg as a magnet for trouble, someone who made people angry.

TOMORROW: Ragg as the empire strikes back.

Kleiser on Land’s Free Trade Argument about the Revolution

The H-Early-America list just ran Grant Kleiser’s review of Colonial Ports, Global Trade, and the Roots of the American Revolution (1700-1776) by Jeremy Land, an economic history published last year in Leiden.

The review frames the book’s main inquiry as: “Was this a conflict over free trade? That is, was a major cause of the American Revolution the fact that Great Britain restricted British North Americans’ ability to conduct commerce with people outside of the British Empire? Land’s answer is a resounding yes.”

There are, Kleiser says, three main claims in the introduction:

First, Land stresses that historians should consider colonial eighteenth-century Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston as a “cohesive port complex,” rather than thinking of them as serving distinct regions (p. 2). Land argues that “merchants in these three cities ... often complemented and cooperated with one another, creating intricate networks of credit, business, and trade” (p. 2).

Second, according to Land, this port complex’s robust mercantile economy was perfectly capable of operating without British sources of capital and often competed with English merchants and the English mercantilist agenda. Through rigorous quantitative methods, Land demonstrates that these three cities’ trade with the British Isles was less significant than trade with the rest of North America and the globe. Therefore, “the region was economically less oriented toward Britain than to the rest of the world,” which became “a constant source of tension between the colony and metropole” (p. 2).

Finally, Land stresses that British politicians did not pursue a policy of “salutary neglect” toward the colonies. Rather, they often tried to enforce “mercantilist” policies, particularly after the Seven Years’ War raised Britain’s sovereign debt exponentially. However, the inability of the imperial state to effectively enforce customs laws while also failing to provide adequate specie (i.e., gold and silver) made many British North Americans realize that resistance, that is, continuing to trade beyond the British Empire, was both possible and necessary.

I’m happy to agree that when viewed at some distance the three biggest ports in British North America, and indeed the others, were able to work together, despite differences, competition, and tensions. Certainly by the Revolutionary period they were doing so—that’s why there was a Revolution.

I’m also open to the argument that British imperial policy may not have been “salutary neglect” by choice, but at least sometimes by necessity as the government dealt with issues elsewhere. Land ultimately seems to go along with the traditional view that North Americans resented the stricter trade enforcement and more vigorous collection of taxes that most of the governments under George III tried. But did colonists seek “free trade” or a return to the previous form of regulation?

Land’s second point raises more questions for me. It seems to separate trade with Britain from trade everywhere else in the world, including parts of the British Empire, particularly in the Caribbean. I’d like to see the separation drawn between trade within the British Empire and trade outside of it.

Kleiser summarizes that part of Land’s argument as “the general lack of demand in Great Britain for these [North American] exports forced these traders to look outside the British Empire for profitable markets (e.g., the foreign West Indies) to acquire specie and afford highly demanded British manufactured goods.” But what about the demand outside Great Britain but inside the British Empire? That was what the New England economy fed on.

The book concludes that Boston, New York, and Philadelphia’s trade beyond the British Empire “was quite significant and more important than the direct trade with Britain and Ireland,” presumably in financial terms. But how did those commercial routes compare with trading between British colonies? Also unclear to me is whether North American trade in general would have been so safe or profitable without British imperial power—i.e., the Royal Navy—in support.

There’s no question that taxes on trade led to increasing friction and resistance in the North American port from 1765 to 1774. But that still seems several steps away from Land’s claim that “Britain’s military occupation of Boston was the first salvo in a battle for equal access to global markets.”

Kleiser chides Land for overstating British policy as barring all trade outside its empire. In fact, merchants could do business in foreign ports as long as they didn’t carry in specific “enumerated goods” (e.g., tobacco and indigo, not big crops for Boston, New York, and Philadelphia) and paid duties on what they brought back. Furthermore, British governments in the 1760s carved out exceptions to its rules, suggesting that if the resistance was all about business, folks could have struck a deal.

Kleiser concludes:

Overall, Colonial Ports offers an accessible overview of eighteenth-century commercial networks in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Nonspecialists and undergraduates will welcome its clear language, argumentation, and historical background, while specialists will gravitate to its exhaustive quantitative analysis and data tables on the contours of this trade.

For a scholarly book priced at over $100, “nonspecialists and undergraduates” might prefer to seek copies in libraries, smart economic actors as they are.

Bassett on “Colonialism, Power & Identity” in Fashion, 17 Mar.

On Sunday, 17 March, Lynne Bassett will speak at the Worcester Art Museum on “Colonialism, Power, and Identity: Fashion in American Portraits.”

The event description says:

Fashion is often dismissed as a frivolous concern of no great importance to world events. Fashion was, in fact, an instigator of the global economy starting with the Silk Road in the 6th century. A thousand years later—in the 16th and 17th centuries—the pursuit of textiles and fashion led to empire-building, wars, colonization, the subjugation of natives, and the enslavement of Africans.

The Museum’s collection of 17th-to-19th-century American portraits offers an unparalleled opportunity to explore early American fashion. Learn how its power to express identity and status shaped world events and drove individuals and countries to war to satisfy their desires.

Bassett is a costume and textile historian who’s well known to New England museums because she’s worked at or consulted with nearly all of them. She was a curator at Historic Northampton, Old Sturbridge Village, and others. She’s organized exhibitions at the Mark Twain House & Museum, the Florence Griswold Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and more, and has helped many smaller museums sort out their textile and costume collections. Here’s an interview with Bassett for New Pathways in Quilt History.

Bassett’s talk is scheduled to start at 2:00 P.M. in the conference room. It is free for Worcester Art Museum members, $5 for others.

“Volumes of dense smoak” in Liverpool

EPOCH, published by Lancaster University in Britain, just shared an eye-opening article by Dabeoc Stanley on “Liverpool’s Eighteenth-Century Second-Hand Smoke Problem.”

Liverpool had grown in size and wealth in the eighteenth century as a port for Britain’s colonial and slaving ventures.

If you were to walk Liverpool’s streets in 1784, however, you would struggle to see this material wealth, indeed you would probably be struggling to breathe. The culprit was second-hand tobacco smoke. A petition to the Commissioners of Customs signed by more than 40 ‘respectable persons’ of Liverpool, and dated to June 1784, described:

… volumes of dense smoak … [that] cloud the streets to the annoyance of all passengers and fill the rooms of every house … to a degree perfectly offensive and intolerable … Within the reach of the smoak the furniture of our houses is spoiled, life is rendered comfortless to all, many are afflicted with sore eyes and only the young and healthy at some time can breathe.

In foggy or calm conditions, the wind was not sufficient to carry off the smoke, allowing it to accumulate in Liverpool’s streets and squares, creating a smog every bit as suffocating as that of London.

Those vapors had many sources: brick kilns, salt works, an oilhouse rendering whale blubber, and of course fires for cooking and heating. Tobacco smoke added to the hazy mix.

But tobacco fires were also the result of government policies, as Stanley traces. First, merchants could get a “drawback” on tobacco duties if they claimed they were reshipping that commodity outside the British Isles. That gave them an incentive to pump up the weight of their outgoing tobacco with “sand, dirt, and all manner of rubish.” They could then smuggle that untaxed tobacco into Britain through the Isle of Man.

In response to such smuggling, Parliament beefed up its laws. After 1750, Customs officers were to burn all the tobacco they confiscated as contraband or damaged.

In Liverpool, that condemned tobacco was first burned in a seaside furnace away from the center of town. But officials discovered that tobacco sent to that relatively isolated place too often went missing. So in 1783 a new “immense chimney” was built behind the Custom House in the middle of the city’s business district.

That’s why a year later locals complained about the effects of tobacco smoke on people’s health and property values. (And some of them might have preferred the opportunities of the previous system.)

Nonetheless, the situation didn’t change until 1802. That January, “a most tremendous gale” knocked the big chimney onto the Customs House, incidentally destroying lots of paperwork. (Again, some merchants and marines in Liverpool might have been pleased with this outcome.)

Massachusetts’s First Impeachment

In 1706, the elected political leaders of Massachusetts were at odds with the appointed royal governor, Joseph Dudley.

There were many bones of contention, but Gov. Dudley looked most vulnerable for being in league with wealthy supporters who traded with the French in Canada even during Queen Anne’s War.

Dudley, a merchant named Samuel Vetch (1668–1732, shown above), and associates used the cover of arranging prisoner exchanges to ship goods, even weapons, to Acadia.

Through a London printer, the Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather published the documents of the case as:

A memorial of the present deplorable state of New-England, with the many disadvantages it lyes under, by the male-administration of their present governour, Joseph Dudley, Esq. and his son Paul, &c.:

Together with several affidavits of people of worth, relating to several of the said governour’s mercenary and illegal proceedings, but particularly his private treacherous correspondence with Her Majesty’s enemies the French and Indians.

To which is added, a faithful, but melancholy account of several barbarities lately committed upon Her Majesty’s subjects, by the said French and Indians, in the east and west parts of New-England.

Elected politicians made up the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, or legislature. Under the colony’s original charter, that body really was a court—in fact, it was the highest court in Massachusetts.

Under the new charter of 1691, however, that legislature’s power was more limited. It no longer chose the governor. It no longer tried cases. But it did have this ill-defined power called “impeachment.”

The legislators decided to use that to get at Gov. Dudley. The lower house would indict his associates, as the House of Commons could, and the upper house, or Council, would try them.

That effort ran into trouble. The charter limited impeachment to a “High Misdemeanor,” not full criminal charges.

Then Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, a member of the Council, advised that the legislature really didn’t have jurisdiction. Sewall might have hoped the case would proceed in his own court, which could treat the behavior as criminal and even impose the death penalty.

Dudley stepped in and urged the Council to proceed anyway with their misdemeanor charge. That upper house found Vetch and his fellow defendants guilty. They weren’t sure what to do next, but eventually a joint legislative committee produced a “bill of punishment” imposing fines and prison time.

Vetch headed to England to argue his case and wield his influence with the imperial government. The privy council ruled the Massachusetts bill invalid, ruling that the General Court had exceeded its authority.

Vetch, having previously run guns to the Acadians, now presented the Crown with a plan to conquer Canada. Then he came back to Massachusetts to lead the invasion. New England Puritans were ready to get behind any plan to attack Catholics, so they went to war behind Vetch in 1710.

As for impeachment, the Massachusetts General Court didn’t try that again until 1774.

TOMORROW: Impeachment resurfaces.