“A strange, mad proposal, if such a one were ever made”

Yesterday I quoted Gov. Francis Bernard reporting to London about a big meeting in Boston on Friday, 9 September, where some people advocated resisting the coming army regiments by force.

There was another gathering the next evening, Bernard wrote:

the other meeting, as I am informed, was very small & private on Saturday Night, at the House of one of the Cheifs; and there it wa[s] resolved to surprise & take the Castle on the Monday night following. I dont relate these Accounts as certain facts but only as reported & beleived.

In The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, William V. Wells stated that in fact “[James] Otis, Samuel Adams, and [Dr. Joseph] Warren met at the house of Warren…to draw up resolves, arrange for the proceedings, and prepare the order of debate” for the town meeting scheduled for Monday.

Wells’s citation for that statement was “Capt. Corner’s Diary, kept aboard the war-ship Senegal in Boston Harbor, now in the London State-paper Office.” However, John Corner was the captain of H.M.S. Romney, not the Senegal. In addition, Wells wrote in the same paragraph that the Senegal had left port three days before this meeting. But perhaps the British National Archives does hold a journal from Capt. Corner recording intelligence, or at least gossip, about the meeting on the evening of 10 September. [Anyone care to check?]

It was common for Whig political leaders to draft resolutions and make plans before an official meeting. Furthermore, those men were probably eager to avoid disorder and destruction, to channel Boston’s opposition to the troops into the most productive, least unruly form of resistance.

Bernard, however, believed the worst. Back on 9 July, he had dismissed reports of a possible attack on Castle William, where the Customs Commissioners were hiding, as “idle rumours.” But now the situation seemed more dire. In his history of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson wrote:

Information was brought to governor Bernard, that at one of those meetings it had been proposed by Mr. [William] Molineux, at the head of five hundred men, to surprise the garrison at the castle; a strange, mad proposal, if such a one were ever made. This the governor mentioned in one of his letters to the ministry, but he was not at liberty to make known the evidence of the fact. He believed it to be true.

On the same evening of 10 September, another sign of trouble appeared on Beacon Hill. On that peak on the western side of the peninsula, Boston’s early English settlers had erected a tall beacon as part of their military alert system. In case the town came under attack—most likely by sea from another European power, but perhaps from Natives—the authorities would set fire to something inflammable atop that pole. Settlers in other communities would see the beacon flare up and rush to help. All very Return of the King.

Alas, in the words of local historian William W. Wheildon, “there is no evidence that it was ever used for any such purpose, or that there ever was any fire in its skillet.”

In fact, back on 18 Nov 1767 Boston’s selectmen had noted that the beacon pole had been “thrown down by the Wind,” and the wood had proven “too rotten to serve again.” They therefore chose John Hancock and William Phillips as a committee to erect a new beacon. (Gov. Bernard told London that the beacon had been “erected anew in a great hurry by the Selectmen without consulting me.”)

The town owned the top of Beacon Hill and the narrow path up to it. On one side of that path lived John Hancock. On the other side lived William Molineux.

Sometime on the night of 10 September, someone passed between those gentlemen’s houses, climbed the pole, and left a turpentine barrel at the top, ready to set aflame.

TOMORROW: A busy Sunday in Boston.

[The picture of Boston’s beacon above comes from the Assassin’s Creed videogame. The Blackstone Valley Historical Society shares a photo of a beacon recreated in Cumberland, Rhode Island.]

“A System of Politicks exceeding all former exceedings”

On Thursday, 9 Sept 1768—250 years ago today—Boston was charging into a political crisis.

Edes and Gill’s Boston Gazette for Monday the 5th included an essay signed “Clericus Americans.” Harbottle Dorr attributed that essay to the Rev. John Cleaveland (1722-1799, gravestone shown here) of Ipswich; Cleaveland certainly asked for it to be reprinted in the midst of another dispute a couple of years later.

Cleaveland was an early adherent of the New Light religious movement, expelled from Yale College for attending a “separatist” revival in his home town. After spending a couple of years as minister to a small New Light congregation in Boston, he moved out to Ipswich to serve a breakaway group there. After that he left Ipswich only to serve as a chaplain in the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars. In fact, Cleaveland proved so popular and steady that by 1774 his church absorbed the one it had split from.

In sum, “separatism” had worked for the Rev. John Cleveland, and he didn’t back down from controversy. “Clericus Americans” laid out a radical argument in a series of leading questions: Didn’t Englishmen have a right to their own property? Couldn’t they move anywhere within the British Empire? Hadn’t the early settlers of New England built their communities at their own expense?Wouldn’t any attempt to restrict English colonists’ rights—such as the Townshend Acts—negate their compact with the royal government in Britain? And thus:

Whether the political union, connection, &c. &c. of these Colonies to the British empire and government are not hereby entirely dissolved, and the Colonists reduced to a state of nature? 

This was the argument underlying the Declaration of Independence eight years later. Cleaveland wasn’t arguing for independence—the letter ended with a plea for all colonists to pray for the health of the king and queen. But he did argue that Parliament’s taxation without representation, Gov. Francis Bernard’s early closing of the Massachusetts General Court for not rescinding the circular letter, and Customs officials’ rumored requests for army protection had delegitimized those government authorities.

Cleaveland called for Massachusetts to start over: each town should “chuse Representatives for a general assembly” to maintain good government while the colony petitioned George III to restore its “first original charter,” with no London appointees at the top.

In a report to Lord Hillsborough, the Secretary of State, Gov. Bernard wrote:

In the Boston Gazette of the 5th inst [i.e., this month] appeared a paper containing a System of Politicks exceeding all former exceedings. Some took it for the casual ravings of an occasional enthusiast: but I persuaded myself that It came out of the Cabinet of the Faction and was preparatory to some actual operations against the Government.

In this persuasion I considered that if the Troops from Halifax were to come here of a sudden, there would be no avoiding an insurrection, which would at least fall upon the Crown officers, if it did not amount to an Opposition to the troops.

Bernard knew that army troops really were on their way. On 3 September, he had received a letter from Gen. Thomas Gage in New York, alerting him that on orders from London he was moving the 14th Regiment of Foot from Halifax to Boston. Gage also offered to send the 29th Regiment if Bernard wanted it.

The governor wanted to create a soft landing for those soldiers:

I therefore thought it would be best that the Expectation of the troops should be gradually communicated, that the Heads of the Faction might have time to consider well what they were about, & prudent Men opportunity to interpose their advice. I therefore took an occasion to mention to one of the Council, in the Way of discourse, that I had private advice that troops were ordered hither, but I had no public orders about it myself. This was in the 8th insta: & before night it was throughly circulated all over the town.

On 9 September, the merchant John Rowe wrote in his diary: “The Governour told mee in Conversation Yesterday morning that he had Stav’d off the Introducing Troops as long as he could but could do it no longer.” Bernard also wanted people to understand that he hadn’t asked for army regiments, that the government in London had made the decision on its own.

Some Bostonians, describing themselves as “apprehensive that the landing of troops in the town, at this particular juncture, will be a matter of great uneasiness, and perhaps be attended with consequences much to be dreaded,” petitioned for a town meeting. The town hadn’t met since June, right after the Liberty riot. The selectmen agreed, scheduling a meeting for 9:00 A.M. on Monday, 12 September—earlier in the day than usual, but time was essential. The Edes and Gill shop began printing official notices with that summons.

Even before then, people started to act. On Friday night, Gov. Bernard wrote, there was a large but unofficial meeting “where it was the general Opinion that they should raise the Country & oppose the troops.” In other words, a significant number of people thought the town of Boston should call for the Massachusetts militia to rise up against the king’s army.

TOMORROW: The beacon on Beacon Hill.

Tour of the Revolutionary Mohawk Valley, 21 Sept.

In conjunction with Fort Ticonderoga’s American Revolution Seminar on 21-23 Sept 2018, America’s History LLC is offering a one-day bus tour named “Forts and Fights: The Revolutionary War in the Mohawk Valley.”

This tour is scheduled for Friday, 21 September. The announcement from tour leader Bruce Venter says:

This tour will explore sites in the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War; sites that are less frequently visited or on private property. We’ll stop at Fort Johnson for an overview of Sir John Johnson’s exploits as an important Loyalist leader in the Mohawk Valley. We’ll also see Guy Park, home of Col. Guy Johnson, superintendent of Indian affairs during the Revolution and hear about the efforts to reopen it as a historic site. We’ll visit the Fort Plain Museum to understand how the Patriots used forts and fortified homes to defend the valley.

After lunch we’ll walk the Stone Arabia battlefield where Col. John Brown gave his life during Johnson’s Burning of the Valleys campaign in 1780. We’ll follow Johnson’s retreat to Klock’s Field where the British forces were forced across the Mohawk and eventually back to Canada. We will return to our departure location by 4 p.m. to allow you to participate in Fort Ticonderoga’s Friday evening program.

In order to get off to an early start, America’s History LLC has booked a block of rooms on Thursday night at the Microtel Inn and Suites, 136 North Comrie Avenue, in Johnstown, New York. The tour bus will leave that hotel on Friday morning promptly at 8:00 A.M.

The tour registration fee is $100.00, which includes lunch, snacks, and beverage breaks; all admissions and gratuities; a map and materials package; and remarks by tour leaders selected for their knowledge and expertise. The hotel room would be extra.

Venter is an experienced teacher and tour leader specializing in the Revolutionary War period. He is the author of The Battle of Hubbardton: The Rear Guard Action that Saved America and is also Col. John Brown’s biggest fan.

(This photo of the Old Fort Johnson National Historic Site above comes courtesy of TripAdvisor.)

Symposium on Washington and Women at Mount Vernon, 2-3 Nov.

Last year I had the honor of speaking at the George Washington Symposium at Mount Vernon, organized by the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington.

This year’s symposium, to take place on 2-3 November, has the theme “‘A Sensible Woman Can Never be Happy with a Fool’: The Women of George Washington’s World.”

The event description:

“When the fire is beginning to kindle, and your heart growing warm, propound these questions to it… Is he a man of good character? A man of sense? for be assured a sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.”

Thus wrote George Washington in a heartfelt 1796 letter to his step-granddaughter Eleanor (Nelly) Parke Custis on the subjects of love and marriage. Although the Father of Our Country was a leader among leaders in a male-dominated world, we know that he enjoyed a number of complex and meaningful relationships with women from all stations of the socially-stratified eighteenth century. Join leading historians and academics for an enlightening look at a wide variety of women from the General’s personal orbit, including his often misunderstood mother, an admiring poet, social confidants, a traitor to the Revolution, and a defiant runaway slave. We will also examine the memory of Washington through the legacies of his adoring step-granddaughters and the Southern Matron who led the charge in the 1850s to rescue his home and final resting place.

The lineup of presentations is:

• “Mary Ball Washington: Tales of Motherhood,” Martha Saxton
• “A Rare Commitment: The Friendship of George Washington and Elizabeth Willing Powel,” George W. Boudreau
• Roundtable on “Women” and “Mothers” across Eighteenth-Century America, moderated by Karin Wulf of the Omohundro Institute 
• “True Republicans: The Relationship between George Washington and Mercy Otis Warren,” Rosemarie Zagarri
• “George Washington and Phillis Wheatley: The Indispensable Man and the Poet Laureate of the Founding Era,” James G. Basker
• “‘The tender Heart of the Chief could not support the Scene’: General Washington, Margaret Arnold, and the Treason at West Point,” Charlene Boyer Lewis
• “‘She should rather suffer death than return to Slavery’: The Escape of Oney Judge,” Mary V. Thompson
• “Daughters of the Pater Patriae: The Custis Step-Granddaughters’ Relationships with George Washington,” Cassandra Good
• “Coming to the Rescue with Ann Pamela Cunningham,” Ann Bay Goddin

These symposiums are designed to bring the latest findings and analyses of historians to the community of Mount Vernon and its supporters. Attendees fill a large auditorium, reflecting the interest in all things Washington.

Dr. Jaques and “a scarlet coat of red velvet”

In his Hundred Boston Orators (1852), James Spear Loring wrote of John Hancock:

He wore a scarlet coat, with ruffles on his sleeves, which soon became the prevailing fashion; and it is related of Dr. Nathan Jacques, the famous pedestrian, of West Newbury, that he paced all the way to Boston, in one day, to procure cloth for a coat like that of John Hancock, and returned with it under his arm, on foot.

At another point in the same profile Loring wrote, “John Hancock was accustomed to wear a scarlet coat of red velvet.”

Loring was lousy at sorting out lore from documentable fact, and even more lousy about documenting his sources. But he provided the specific details that subsequent authors loved. As a result, during the Colonial Revival many books reprinted the anecdote about “Dr. Nathan Jacques, the famous pedestrian, of West Newbury.”

There was no such person.

There was Dr. Nathan Jaques (1761-1818) of Ipswich. He served for six months in short-term military companies raised in Rowley in 1780 and 1781, the latter stint as a sergeant. In 1807 Dr. Jaques became Ipswich’s postmaster. I haven’t found any reference besides this anecdote to the doctor being a “famous pedestrian,” known—even locally—for walking long distances. Nor have I found how he trained as a physician.

Dr. Jaques married for the first time in 1792. That was an occasion for a young gentleman to buy a particularly nice suit. Or he could have done so earlier as he set up his practice and thought about courting a wife.

John Hancock was Massachusetts’s governor during most of Jaques’s bachelor years. He was known for the elegance of his dress, as Kimberly Alexander discusses here. In his Familiar Letters on Public Characters, and Public Events (1834), William Sullivan described the governor he remembered seeing decades before:

At this time, (June, 1782,) about noon, Hancock was dressed in a red velvet cap, within which was one of fine linen. The latter was turned up over the lower edge of the velvet one, two or three inches. He wore a blue damask gown, lined with silk; a white stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers.

But Loring specifically suggests that a “scarlet coat,” most likely of red velvet, was what Dr. Jaques wanted to emulate. And the Old State House Museum owns a red silk velvet coat, shown above, which family tradition says Hancock wore at one of his gubernatorial inaugurations. This garment was recently reproduced by historical tailor Henry M. Cooke IV so the original could go into storage. Copying John Hancock’s red velvet coat thus has a long history in these parts.

One Company in the 1769 Boston Militia

One of the many documents that the Boston Public Library has digitized for the public is here: “Copy of Larum List taken March 6, 1769, in Colo. Joseph Jacksons Company.”

This is a rare piece of paperwork from the colonial militia in peacetime. We have good records of who served in militia companies called up for active service because the government had to pay those men. But ordinary militia training was a duty and no money exchanged hands for that labor, so there was no reason to preserve records.

(When I say, “no money exchanged hands,” I should acknowledge that the militia law set nominal fines for not attending militia drills. However, there are so few recorded examples of those fines being collected that the rule was probably symbolic.)

It’s not clear to me who created this document or why it was preserved. But it’s an interesting snapshot of administering a militia company.

Joseph Jackson (1707-1790) was colonel in charge of the Boston militia regiment in the late 1760s, as well as a selectman and a justice of the peace. That regiment was organized along the British model, with one company assigned to Col. Jackson and probably led in practice by a lieutenant.

The purpose of this document appears to be to list all the Boston men assigned to Jackson’s company. There were about 3,000 white males above the age of sixteen—i.e., required to do militia training—in Boston at this time, and 239 men on this list. It looks like Jackson’s men came from the wards near the center of town.

Just as important as listing the men eligible to drill, the document also separated out the men who by law didn’t have to drill. Most of those categories consisted of men from the highest ranks of society:

• justices of the peace like James Murray
• ministers and deacons like the Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper 
• lawyers like John Adams
• doctors like Dr. Thomas Young
• militia officers like Thomas Marshall
• Overseers of the Poor like William Greenleaf
• scholars at Harvard College
• Customs house officers

Another set of categories identified men doing their militia service in other ways:

• “Batterymen” who did their militia service in the North or South Battery companies
• “Troopers” on horseback
• “Artillery”
• “Cadetts”

There was also one “Engine Man,” John Newal. Did this mean he looked after a firefighting engine?

Finally there were two categories of men excused for health reasons:

• men above age sixty like “Old Mr. Marston”
• “Inverleads”

That left 154 names under “Liable to Train”—though two were labeled “Lame,” one as at “Sea,” and a fourth as “Excd.,” suggesting he was excused. (He was a Jackson.) A couple of those men have the title “Capt.,” probably meaning they were ship’s captains. Some names already appearing among Boston 1775’s numerous tags are John Gill, Charles Conner, Thomas Waite Foster, John Piemont, Gawen Brown, and Nathaniel Barber.

There are no men identifiable as black or Native American. The law excluded such men from militia training, though some nevertheless did serve when war came. There are also no identifiable Quakers. I don’t think Massachusetts had a provision for conscientious objection yet, but the concept was recognized.

It might be possible to correlate this list from 1769 with the Boston tax records from 1771 and glean more information. But I’ll leave that to another day. Right now I’m feeling too inverlead.

(Thanks to John Hannigan to alerting me to this document.)

Talks to Take in about the Townshend Tariffs

This month’s Lowell Lecture Series at the Old South Meeting House, presented by the Paul Revere Memorial Association, focuses on how the new duties of 1767 roiled the British Empire. The series is titled “Lead, Glass, Paper, & Tea: The Townshend Acts and the Occupation of Boston.”

(That leaves out one category of dutied goods—painter’s colors. That really only affected specialized merchants like the Gore family. But since I spoke about the Gores at Old South a few years back, I feel obligated to stick up for their concerns.)

Here are the talks, starting tomorrow evening and continuing on each Wednesday.

5 September
“A certain sloop called the Liberty”: Charles Townsend, John Hancock & the Boston Madeira Party
On June 10, 1768, the King’s Commissioners of Customs seized John Hancock’s sloop Liberty and its smuggled cargo of Madeira wine. William Fowler, Jr., Distinguished Professor of History, Northeastern University, will describe how the Commissioners, fearing for their lives, fled to the safety of Castle William, while John Adams argued his case in defense of Hancock and Liberty at the Old State House.

12 September
Paul Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl: An American Icon
American patriot Paul Revere is wrapped in a swirling mixture of myth and poetry through which history often descends, but as a craftsman he left behind tangible traces as well. Gerald W. R. Ward, Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Emeritus, at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, will relate the story behind Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl, crafted in 1768 to commemorate the “Glorious 92” legislators who bravely opposed King and Parliament’s imposition of the Townshend Acts.

19 September
Liberty Teas and Nervous Collectors: The Townshend Acts in Boston
From the emergence of “homegrown” industries in response to British taxes on imports, to harassment of officials by the Sons of Liberty, the Townshend Acts set the stage for tensions that would erupt in 1770 with the Boston Massacre. Learn how these new laws impacted 18th-century Bostonians’ everyday life in an interactive, first-person presentation featuring costumed actors from the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum!

26 September
Tyranny Unmasked: The Townsend Acts in Britain, Ireland & America
The Townshend Acts marked a new radical phase in the crisis that eventually destroyed Britain’s American empire. Occupied Boston was the toast of radical patriots throughout George III’s dominions, and observers began to wonder whether Britain’s days as an imperial power were numbered. University of New Hampshire Professor of History Eliga Gould will tell the fascinating story of this transformation—as it appeared to Bostonians and from the standpoint of people on the far shores of the Atlantic.

All these talks are scheduled to begin at 6:30 P.M. They are free and open to the public, thanks to the historical organizations involved and the Lowell Institute.

The Powder Alarm Viewed from Westborough

Earlier in the summer I took note of the online edition of the diary of the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman of Westboro.

One of the events Parkman lived through and recorded was the “Powder Alarm” of September 1774. In fact, by writing down news at different times, the minister preserved the rumors that motivated that militia uprising.

1774 September 2 (Friday). This morning was ushered in with Alarms from every Quarter, to get ready and run down to Boston or Cambridge. The Contents Magazine of Powder at Winter Hill had been carryed off — namely [550?] Barrells; by Treachery; etc. This is told as the Chief Affair.

72 of our Neighbours marched from Gales (tis said) by break of Day; and others are continuely going. My young man goes armed, with them.

About 5 p.m. Grafton Company, nigh 80, under Capt. Golding, march by us.

N.B. Squire Whipple here. Says he is ready to sign etc. It is a Day of peculiar Anxiety and Distress! Such as we have not had — Will the Lord graciously look upon us; and grant us Deliverance — for we would hope and trust in His Name! We send for Mrs. Spring and her two Children to be here with us, while her husband is gone with the People.

Breck returned from Lancaster. At Eve we have most sorrowful News that Hostilitys have commenced at Cambridge, and that Six of our people are killed; that probably Some at least may be of Westborough. Joshua Chamberlin stood next (as it is related) to one that was slain. We have many Vague accounts and indeed are left in uncertaintys about Every Thing that has occurred.

Sutton soldiers — about 250, pass along by us — but after midnight are returning by reason of a Contrary Report. Mr. Zech. Hicks stops here. Breck is employed in the night to cast Bulletts. A Watch at the Meeting House to guard the Town stock etc. Some Towns, we hear, have lost much of theirs, as Dedham, Wrentham etc.

The initial report of the king’s soldiers taking hundreds of barrels of gunpowder from the provincial storehouse in Charlestown (shown above) on 1 September was correct. The later rumor of six men killed by those troops was entirely false. In his diary entry we can see Parkman struggling to make sense of the news he was hearing from different directions.

Many towns besides Westboro became anxious about their local supplies of gunpowder and other ordnance immediately after the alarm. After all, no one knew what would come next. The towns were preparing for war; descriptions like Parkman’s read very much like descriptions of the more famous Lexington Alarm of April 1775.

The next day the minister gradually realized the crisis had passed:

1774 September 3 (Saturday). Capt. Benjamin Fay came here between 2 and 3 o’Clock in the morn in much Concern and knew not what to do. After Light and through most of the forenoon, vague uncertain Reports. Sutton men that had gone to Deacon Wood, came back to go down the Road again.

My son Breck with provisions, Bread, Meat, etc., Coats, Blanket etc., for it was rainy, rides down towards Cambridge to relieve Asa Ware, Mr. Spring, and others who were unprovided.

About noon the Sutton Companys come back again and go home, Rev. Chaplin among them. So do the Grafton men.

Mr. Abraham Temple relates to me, that he, having been as far as to Cambridge and himself Seen many of the Transactions, that there were no Regulars there, no Artillery, no body Slain — but that Lt. Gov. [Thomas] Oliver, Messrs. [Samuel] Danforth, Joseph Lee, Col. [David] Phips (the high Sheriff) had resigned and promised that they would not act as Counsellors — that Mr. Samuel Winthrop computed there were about 7000 of the Country people had gathered into Cambridge on this Occasion — that it was probable, as he (Mr. Temple) conceived, that the Troubles would subside.

N.B. When the Sun run low, Our Company returned (consisting of Horse and Foot about 150). With them were my Son and my young man — all without any Evil Occurrance. To God be Praise and Glory! I Suppose Capt. Maynard and those who were with him are returned also.

The estimate of “7000 of the Country people” is high, but both Lt. Gov. Oliver and Dr. Thomas Young guessed there were 4,000 militiamen in Cambridge that day.

I started The Road to Concord with the “Powder Alarm” because it marked a turning point in Massachusetts’s conflict with the Crown. That was the moment that Gov. Thomas Gage lost control of most of the province, and the moment that people began to turn to military solutions for the political conflict.

Seminars at the Massachusetts Historical Society

As I was trying to sort out the accounts of the New York Tea Party, one of my biggest questions was how the New York Whigs got advance word that James Chambers was bringing in tea. First another merchant captain told the Philadelphia Whigs, who sent word to New York. Then a third captain showed up with nearly the same information, which he had copied from Chambers’s Customs filings.

And literally that tea was nobody’s business but Capt. Chambers’s—he had bought it himself, he was transporting it, and he would presumably pay the duty on it.

Now the American tea boycott made tea everybody’s business for a while. But no one seems to have found it remarkable for information on Capt. Chambers’s cargo to reach New York before he did. Today companies operate on the assumption that most such commercial information is proprietary, not public.

On Friday I attended a seminar at the Massachusetts Historical Society, where research fellow Hannah Tucker helped make sense of that question for me. A graduate student at the University of Virginia, she’s working on the patterns and practices of merchant captains in the eighteenth-century British Empire.

In that period, I grasped from Tucker’s remarks, 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.

Thus, sea captains sent their merchant employers signed copies of their bills of lading via two or three other captains—rival mariners working for rival merchants. Captains shared news with others they met at sea. After landing, captains were debriefed for news they had about other ships out of the same port. And apparently it wasn’t that odd for one captain to view the Customs documents of another.

The Massachusetts Historical Society hosts many such insightful seminars on different topics and in different formats, all free and open to the public. (Some require reserving a spot in advance so the society can be sure it has enough seats and sandwiches.)

The session with Hannah Tucker was a “brown-bag seminar,” scheduled at noon (attendees can eat lunch during it); researchers early in their research discuss their current projects and what nearby documents they plan to examine. There are more formal evening series, including the Boston Area Early American History Seminar, when scholars share essays farther along toward publication.

The M.H.S. just announced its schedule of events for the fall and beyond, and here are seminars that caught my eye because of their links to Revolutionary America.

Friday, 7 Sept 2018, 12:00 noon
American Silver, Chinese Silverwares, and the Global Circulation of Value
Susan Eberhard, University of California, Berkeley

Silver coin was the primary commodity shipped to China from the United States in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of which was reworked into silverwares by Chinese craftsmen for British and American buyers. This talk explores the different silver conduits of the American trade relationship with China. Far from a neutral medium, how were understandings of its materiality mobilized in cross-cultural transactions?

Friday, 14 Sept 2018, 12:00 noon
A Possible Connection between a Scandal and Susanna Rowson’s Last Novel
Steven Epley, Samford University

The talk will describe evidence in letters and public records suggesting that best-selling author Susanna Rowson may have based her last novel, Lucy Temple, at least in part on a scandal in which she was innocently but indirectly involved in Medford, Mass., in 1799.

Wednesday, 17 Oct 2018, 12:00 noon
“Watering of the Olive Plant”: Catechisms and Catechizing in Early New England
Roberto Flores de Apodaca, University of South Carolina

Early New Englanders produced and used an unusually large number of catechisms. These catechisms shaped relations of faith for church membership, provided content for missions to the Indians, and empowered lay persons theologically to critique their ministers. This talk explores the content and the function of these unique, question and answer documents.

Monday, 22 Oct 2018, 5:15-7:30 P.M.
Paul Revere’s Ride through Digital History
Joseph M. Adelman, Framingham State University; Liz Covart and Karin Wulf, Omohundro Institute

This seminar examines components of the Omohundro Institute’s multi-platform digital project and podcast series, Doing History: To the Revolution. It explores Episode 130, “Paul Revere’s Ride through History,” and the ways the topic was constructed through narrative and audio effects, as well as the content in the complementary reader app.

Tuesday, 6 Nov 2018, 5:15-7:30 P.M.
“A Rotten-Hearted Fellow”: The Rise of Alexander McDougall
Christopher Minty, the Adams Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
Comment: Brendan McConville, Boston University

Historians have often grouped the DeLanceys of New York as self-interested opportunists who were destined to become loyalists. By focusing on the rise of Alexander McDougall, this paper offers a new interpretation, demonstrating how the DeLanceys and McDougall mobilized groups with competing visions of New York’s political economy. These prewar factions stayed in opposition until the Revolutionary War, thus shedding new light on the coming of the American Revolution.

Tuesday, 8 Jan 2019, 5:15-7:30 P.M.
The Consecration of Samuel Seabury and the Crisis of Atlantic Episcopacy, 1782-1807
Brent Sirota, North Carolina State University
Comment: Chris Beneke, Bentley University

Samuel Seabury’s consecration in 1784 signaled a transformation in the organization of American Protestantism. After more than a century of resistance to the office of bishops, American Methodists and Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans all established some form of episcopal superintendency after the Peace of Paris. This paper considers how the making of American episcopacy and the controversies surrounding it betrayed a lack of consensus regarding the relationship between church, state and civil society in the Protestant Atlantic.

Tuesday, 5 Mar 2019, 5:15-7:30 P.M.
Parson Weems: Maker and Remaker
Steven C. Bullock, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Comment: Elizabeth Maddock-Dillon, Northeastern University

This paper argues that Mason Locke Weems’s biography of George Washington built a bridge between Washington and the world of Abraham Lincoln and Ellen Montgomery. Weems’s stories were not just expressing early-19th century cultural commonplaces, but helping to create them. The paper connects these transformations with Weems’s work to recover Weems’s importance within his own time.

Tuesday, 7 May 2019, 5:15-7:30 P.M.
Panel: After the Fighting: The Struggle for Revolutionary Settlement
Eliga Gould, University of New Hampshire; Katherine Grandjean, Wellesley College; Stephen Marini, Wellesley College; Brendan McConville, Boston University

In the ten years after the American victory at Yorktown in 1781, the nation faced myriad problems and challenges. This panel examines how the revolutionary generation confronted issues of diplomacy, governance and economic growth, and how the legacies of warfare and political convulsion shaped spiritual and social behaviors in those troubled years.

Check out the M.H.S. Events page for other sessions about other historical periods, subjects, and approaches.

“Captain Chambers has commenced a Suit in London”

In the early 1770s James Chambers criss-crossed the Atlantic between New York and London on the ship London. His name appeared regularly in the New York newspapers as shopkeepers announced they were selling the latest goods from Britain, as brought by Capt. Chambers.

During the tea crisis of 1773, Chambers promised the people of New York that he wouldn’t take on any cargo of tea for the East India Company. But in April 1774 he arrived with eighteen chests of tea that he had bought himself, hoping to sneak them past the city’s boycott.

That didn’t work, as I‘ve been relating. Chambers had to go into hiding for a couple of days before sailing back to London on another captain’s ship, along with 698 chests of rejected (but at least still intact) tea.

On 15 September, the Boston News-Letter carried this news item from New York:

We are informed, that Captain Chambers has commenced a Suit in London, for the recovery of the Damages he sustained in the destroying a quantity of Tea, which he some time ago brought to this Port.

That same month, the New-York Gazette carried a small advertisement for the sale of a schooner named Little-Peggy, ”James Chambers, Master,” as shown above.

The captain appears to have been cutting ties with New York. In 1776 and then again in 1778, Chambers wrote to the British government complaining about the destruction of his eighteen chests of tea and presumably seeking compensation.

The last news of Chambers that I found in New York newspapers made clear which side of the political conflict he had ended up on. He became a Loyalist. On 19 Oct 1778, the New-York Gazette reported:


Captain James Chambers, in a small Privateer belonging to the Island of Jamaica, has lately taken several valuable Prizes off Charlestown, South-Carolina: a large Brig was fitted out to take him, but he left the Station, and ’tis thought steered for New-Providence [in the Bahamas].

In contrast, Chambers’s trainee Thomas Truxton allied himself with the defiant Americans. In 1775, at age twenty, he commanded his own sloop trading with the West Indies, bringing in gunpowder. After the Royal Navy seized that ship off St. Kitts, Truxton made his way back to Philadelphia and signed aboard one of the Continental Congress’s first privateers. Eventually he would command the Continental Navy’s Independence and the U.S.S. Constellation.

“After the Destruction of Captn. Chambers’s Tea”

Everyone agreed that during the New York Tea Party of 22 Apr 1774 and associated demonstrations, the rest of the city was peaceful. Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden told the absent governor, William Tryon, “the Quarter where I reside, and the greatest Part of the Town were perfectly Quiet.”

For the Whigs, that showed how the New York community was normally peaceful and under control; right-thinking locals destroyed the eighteen chests of offensive tea and did no other damage. For their opponents, the fact that only a small fraction of New Yorkers got involved showed how the movement wasn’t really popular.

That split reflected the ongoing battle for public opinion. The Whig committee that orchestrated the tea destruction was playing to several audiences. They wanted to show the government and mercantile community in London, and the East India Company, that their city was adamantly opposed to paying the new tea tax. They wanted to warn merchants and sea captains like James Chambers against trying to evade that boycott.

They also wanted to show the Whigs of Boston and Philadelphia and other North American ports, who had already dealt with tea shipments, that they were just as strongly opposed. As Hugh Gaine’s New-York Gazette concluded its 25 April report:

Thus, to the great Mortification of the Secret and open enemies of America, and the joy of all the friends of liberty and human nature, the union of these Colonies is maintained in a contest of the utmost importance to their safety and felicity.

In addition, the Whigs wanted to assure the city’s riled-up populace, who actually started destroying the tea before the self-appointed leaders wanted, that their committee was looking out for the public interest.

Of course, not everyone supported the tea destruction. The first newspaper attack on the action appeared in James Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer on 28 April. In highly emphasized language a correspondent demanded:

What is the Committee of Observation? By whom were they appointed? and what authority had they to order Capt. Chambers, or any body else, to attend them at Mr. [Samuel] Francis’s, or any other place whatsoever? Who says, and upon what authority does he say, that the sense of the city was asked, relatively, either to the sending away Capt. [Benjamin] Lockyer, or the destruction of the tea on board the London? Has not every London Captain brought tea, under the same circumstances? And, if so, what were the Apostates that informed against the unfortunate man, who was threatened with DEATH for obeying the laws of his country? . . .

I wish the printers of public chronicles would be cautious of disgracing their papers, by publishing party relations. While they adhere to matters of fact, ’tis all well; but when they expand their columns to either patriot or ministerial minions, without any known evidence,— nay, contrary to the truth of fact,—they must not, they cannot, they shall not hope to escape the animadversions of a lover of Constitutional Liberty; but a sworn foe to Coblers and Taylors, so long as they take upon their everlasting and unmeasurable shoulders, the power of directing the loyal and sensible inhabitants of the CITY and PROVINCE of NEW-YORK.

According to Lt. Gov. Colden, the radical Whigs actually lost the ensuing political struggle. On 7 Sept 1774, he wrote to the governor:

After the Destruction of Captn. Chambers’s Tea, and some other violent Proceedings of the pretended Patriots, the principal Inhabitants began to be apprehensive and resolved to attend the Meetings of the Inhabitants when called together by Hand Bills.

The Consequence has been that [John Morin] Scott, [Alexander] McDougall, [Isaac] Sears & [John] Lamb are all in disgrace, and the People are now directed by more moderate Men. I hope that the giving [of] any new offence to Parliament will be guarded against.

New York City remained in a delicate balance between factions. In the summer of 1775 it simultaneously welcomed both Gov. Tryon and Gen. George Washington. In 1776 New Yorkers celebrated the Declaration of Independence by tearing down George III’s statue, and then half a year later the city, retaken by the British military, became the center of Loyalism for the rest of the war.

TOMORROW: What happened to Capt. James Chambers?

“Through the Multitude, to the End of Murray’s Wharf”

On the night of 22 Apr 1774, New Yorkers emptied eighteen chests of tea belonging to Capt. James Chambers into the harbor while hundreds of people watched. This eventually became known as the New York Tea Party.

According to diarist William Smith, the crowd then carried the empty wooden chests to the Merchants Coffee House (shown here) and built a bonfire in the street. This blaze both celebrated the merchants’ unity and warned those gentlemen not to break the boycott as Chambers had.

The city’s activists had already summoned the public to the waterfront on Saturday morning to see off Benjamin Lockyer, captain of a ship carrying 698 chests of tea waiting outside the harbor near Sandy Hook. Again, that demonstration was supposed to both thank Lockyer for agreeing to sail that tea back to London and to make sure he understood how unwelcome it was.

On Saturday morning, the 25 April New-York Gazette reported, all the ships in the harbor flew the British flag, and “a large flag was hoisted on the Liberty Pole.” At 8:00 all the church bells rang. Then:

About 9, the greatest Number of People were collected at and near the Coffee-House, that was ever known in this City. At a Quarter past Nine the Committee came out of the Coffee-House with Captain Lockyer, upon which the Band of Musick attending, played, God save the King.

Immediately there was a Call for Captain Chambers,—where is he? where is he? Capt. Lockyer must not go till we find Capt. Chambers to send him with the Tea Ship.

This produced Marks of Fear in Capt. Lockyer, who imagining some Mischief was intended him; but upon Assurances being given him to the contrary, he appeared composed.

The Committee, with the Musick, conducted him through the Multitude, to the End of Murray’s Wharf, where he was put on board the Pilot Boat, and wished a safe Passage; upon which the Multitude gave loud Huzza’s, and many Guns were fired, expressive of their Joy at his Departure.

Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden added in a letter that Chambers “thought it was best to go off himself next Day with Captain Lockyer.”

For a while, some of Lockyer’s crew didn’t want to make that voyage. The Whigs’ committee of observation reported:

that the sailors of the Tea Ship, being unwilling to proceed with her to London, made a raft of spars and boards, in order to quit the ship with the tide of flood, but were observed by the Captain, and being aided by the Committee, who offered their assistance to him, they desisted from their project.

The merchants’ committee didn’t want ordinary sailors to get too independent, after all.

At 10:00 A.M. on Sunday the Nancy finally weighed anchor and headed back out to sea, still carrying the 698 chests of East India Company tea loaded the preceding fall. The committee’s sloop followed the ship for three leagues to be sure it was leaving and then turned back to New York.

TOMORROW: Fallout from the New York Tea Party.

“The Mohawks were prepared to do their Duty”

On the afternoon of 22 Apr 1774, Capt. James Chambers admitted to the committee enforcing New York City’s tea boycott that he had brought in eighteen chests of tea on his ship London.

The 25 April New-York Gazette reported, “The Owners [of the ship?] and the Committee immediately met at Mr. Francis’s.” That was Samuel Fraunces’s tavern in southern Manhattan, now the Fraunces Tavern Museum, shown above. Which makes it only logical for the museum’s new exhibit “Fear & Force: New York City’s Sons of Liberty” to highlight this confrontation from 1774.

Despite having been alerted by two informants, the committee must have been a little surprised by Chambers’s action. As Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden wrote on 4 May, “Last Voyage he claim’d applause here, for being the first who refused to take the India Company’s Tea on Board his Ship; and received Public thanks from the People of this place for it.” For that reason, his arrival with tea “drew the particular Resentment of the People upon himself by the duplicity of his Conduct.”

Chambers might have argued that he hadn’t broken his promise because he hadn’t imported tea that still belonged to the East India Company and was designated for its American sales agents. As he told the committee, “he was sole Owner of it.” Did Chambers just not realize that the tea boycott had been extended to include all tea from Britain?

It’s worth noting that Chambers had done something similar back in the Stamp Act crisis. He had carried stamped paper into New York harbor, reportedly designated for Connecticut agent Jared Ingersoll, in early January 1766. In that case the captain had left London on 22 October, meaning he had probably heard about the early anti-Stamp Act demonstrations in Boston and elsewhere before setting out, but he was still willing to risk carrying politically incorrect cargo.

Chambers couldn’t plead ignorance of the broader tea boycott since he had repeatedly lied to committee members about having any tea on board. It wasn’t hard for those men to deduce what the captain was up to: he hoped to make a nice profit for himself by reselling his eighteen chests of tea into a market deprived of fresh caffeine.

In 1766, Chambers had received “public censure” for carrying stamped paper. This time, the crowd wasn’t in a mood to be so lenient. In fact, it looks like the committee saw themselves as standing between Chambers and the mob. Fortunately, the Boston Tea Party (and second Boston Tea Party) provided a model for what Whig activists should do in this situation.

The New-York Gazette reported what happened next:

After the most mature Deliberation, it was determined to communicate the whole State of the Matter to the People, who were convened near the Ship; which was accordingly done.

The Mohawks were prepared to do their Duty at a proper Hour, but the Body of the People were so impatient that before it arrived a Number of them entered the Ship, about 8 P. M. took out the Tea, which was at Hand, broke the Cases and started their Contents in the River, without doing any Damage to the Ship or Cargo.

Several Persons of Reputation were placed below to keep Talley, and about the Companion to prevent ill disposed Persons from going below the Deck.

At 10 the People all dispersed in good Order, but in great Wrath against the Captain; and it was not without some Risque of his Life that he escaped.

As quoted back here, New Yorkers had been referring to “Mohawks” destroying tea since the preceding fall. (It took another century before that term became regularly linked to the Boston Tea Party.)

TOMORROW: A send-off for the captains.

“Expose so considerable a property to inevitable destruction”

Yesterday we left Capt. Benjamin Lockyer in New York City, having arrived on 20 Apr 1774 after a long, stormy voyage from London with 698 chests of East India Company tea.

He in turn had left his damaged ship Nancy floating outside the official harbor area, beyond Customs jurisdiction, while he tried to figure out if he could land that tea as he had been hired to do.

A large committee of New York citizens was determined to keep the tea out. The 25 April New-York Gazette reported that “The Committee conducted him to the House of the Hon. Henry White, Esq; one of the Consignees.”

According to documents printed in Francis S. Drake’s Tea Leaves, back on 27 Dec 1773 White and his colleagues had written a letter to be delivered to Lockyer before he entered the inner harbor. (It’s not clear whether this letter actually reached him; if it did, he didn’t believe it.) The New York consignees reported that they had heard the tea sent to Boston had been destroyed, the tea sent to Philadelphia had been turned back, and the tea sent to Charleston had been impounded. They concluded:

We therefore think it is a duty we owe to the said Company, as we can neither receive the tea or pay the duty, to apprize you of your danger, and to give you our opinion, that for the safety of your cargo, your vessel, and your persons, it will be most prudent for you to return, as soon as you can be supplied with such necessaries as you may have occasion for on the voyage.

They sent a letter with similar recommendations to the board of the East India Company in London.

The paper trail continued on 20 April. Lockyer wrote a short note to the consignees stating that he was ready to unload. White and colleagues wrote back reiterating that such an effort “would not only be fruitless, but expose so considerable a property to inevitable destruction. Under these circumstances it would be highly imprudent in us to take any steps to receive your cargo.” Everyone thus covered their asses as best they could in writing.

Lockyer then announced to the committee: “That as the Consignees would not receive his Cargo, he would go to the Custom-House, and would make all the Dispatch he could to leave the City.” The Whigs chose a “Committee of Observation…to go down in a Sloop to the Hook, to remain there near the Tea Ship till she departs for London.”

The committee also arranged for a handbill to be printed, urging the populace to convene at the waterfront on Saturday morning when Lockyer was planning to leave to demonstrate “their Detestation of the Measures pursued by the Ministry and the India Company, to enslave this Country.”

That alleviated the threat of the Nancy with its 698 chests of tea. But that night another captain arrived from London confirming the earlier report that Capt. James Chambers was bringing in “18 Boxes of Fine Tea.” On Thursday the new arrival even showed the committee “a Memorandum in his Pocket Book, which he took from the Cocket in the middle of Capt. Chambers’s File of Papers in the Searcher’s Office at Gravesend.” (A cocket was a certificate from the Customs service warranting that its staff had inspected and cleared certain goods.)

On Friday the 22nd at noon, Capt. Chambers’s ship London was spotted at Sandy Hook. A pilot boarded and asked the captain if it carried any tea. He declared he had no tea.

Two members of the Committee of Observation watching the Nancy went on board and told Chambers they had heard otherwise. They “demanded a sight of all his Cockets, which was accordingly given them.” There was nothing about tea in those documents or the ship’s manifest.

Accordingly, the pilot brought the London into the wharf, arriving about 4:00 P.M. The ship “was boarded by a Number of the Citizens.” They asked Chambers again about tea. Again, he denied there was any tea on board.

The committee men then said: “it was vain to deny it, for there was good Proof of its being on board; for it would be found, as there were Committees appointed to open every Package, and there he had been be open and candid about it; and demanded the Cocket for the Tea.”

On which Capt. Chambers said, more or less, “Oh, you mean that tea,” and handed over the paperwork for eighteen chests.

Eighteen chests which had now come all the way into New York harbor and were therefore subject to Customs regulations.

TOMORROW: Party time.

“The determined Resolution of the Citizens” of New York

Now I’ll get back to the New York Tea Party of 1774. New Yorkers had mobilized against the East India Company specially taxed tea in the fall of 1773 like the people of the other major American ports. But they had no tea to mobilize against. Nothing arrived from London. Meanwhile, New Yorkers read about what people had done to the tea in Philadelphia, Charleston, and, most dramatically, Boston.

One sign of the communication between ports appeared in the New-York Gazette on 25 Apr 1774:

On Monday last [i.e., 18 April], Advice was received from Philadelphia, that Capt. [James] Chambers of the ship London, of this Port, had taken on Board at the Port of London, 18 Boxes of fine Tea, which were regularly cleared, and the Mark and Numbers were taken from the Cocket by Capt. All, of Philadelphia.

Isaac All (d. 1789) had started his career in Newport, married a niece of Benjamin Franklin, and moved his base to Philadelphia, where he boarded while on shore with Deborah Franklin. Those connections might explain why All was peering at another captain’s paperwork in London. Or perhaps it was common for sea captains to share information on their cargos, just in case one of them was lost at sea.

As I wrote back here, in the summer of 1773 Capt. Chambers had publicly declared that he would never carry East India Company tea as long as the Tea Act was in force. The New York committee therefore didn’t know what to make of this warning from Philadelphia. They decided Chambers must not know about the tea aboard his London and “supposed it to have been shipt by some ministerial Tool, under another Denomination, in order to injure the Owners, or the Reputation of the Master, or to make an Experiment of this Mode of introducing the Teas to America.”

In other words, the New York Whigs accused their political enemies of smuggling tea—an activity some of them had probably practiced back when it was illegal and not simply politically unpopular. The willingness to entertain such a conspiracy theory with no evidence showed how wide the political divide had become. The committee determined to keep a careful watch for Capt. Chambers’s ship.

But instead, another vessel arrived, stuffed to the rails with tea:

In the night the long expected Tea Ship, Nancy, Capt. [Benjamin] Lockyer, arrived at Sandy Hook, without her Mizen Mast and one of her anchors, which were lost in a Gale of Wind the 2d Instant [i.e., of this month]; when her Main-Top-Mast was sprung and thrown on her Beam Ends.

That was actually the second damaging storm the Nancy had run into. On its voyage across the Atlantic the previous fall, it was tossed around so badly that Lockyer had spent the winter in Antigua making repairs.

According to documents quoted on the Oliver Pluff company website, the Nancy was carrying more tea than any other ship sent to the colonies in 1773: 698 chests. That was more than twice as many chests as had arrived in Boston (and been destroyed) the previous fall.

Now there was a legal significance in the tea ship floating out near Sandy Hook, waiting for a harbor pilot to steer it in to a dock. That spot wasn’t legally inside New York harbor. Therefore, as far as Customs laws were concerned, the Nancy hadn’t yet arrived, which means it wasn’t yet subject to the rule requiring all cargo to be unloaded within a certain number of days or be confiscated by the royal authorities. That law had determined the timing of the Boston Tea Party.

The New York committee sprang into action to ensure the Nancy stay out of the harbor. They sent Lockyer a letter “informing him of the determined Resolution of the Citizens not to suffer the Tea on board of his Ship to be landed.” In reply, Lockyer asked the pilot to bring him into the city “to procure Necessaries and make a Protest.” But the pilot wouldn’t even do that without prior approval from the citizens.

On the morning of 19 April the committee discussed the situation. They decided “the Sense of the City” was that Capt. Lockyer could come in as long as he left the Nancy at the Hook. The committee then had a handbill printed to alert the public that that’s what it was thinking. Even so, when the pilot boat arrived with Lockyer, “the Wharf was crouded with the Citizens.” In the language of the Gazette, New Yorkers had “long and impatiently wished [for] an Opportunity to Co-operate with the other Colonies.” Why should Boston have all the fun?

TOMORROW: One crisis averted as another loomed.

“Dorchester Hill would be a very important Post”

On 25 Aug 1775, Gen. Artemas Ward wrote from his “Camp at Roxbury” to the man who had replaced him at the head of the army besieging Boston, Gen. George Washington:

Sir.

The Relations of Several Persons last out of Boston all tending to confirm our Belief that our active & restless Enemy are making large Preparation for some important Step & having ocular Demonstration that they have stript Colo. [John] Hancocks Lime Trees as well as many other Trees in Boston which we are informed was done for the Purpose of making Facines

I beg Leave to suggest to your Excellency that Dorchester Hill would be a very important Post to them as it would inevitably deprive us of the Advantage of a very considerable Part of our Works & supply the Enemy with Forage for their Cattle which we may rationally Judge is no inconsiderable Object of their Wishes:

As we ever ought to be watching a Powerful & sagacious Enemy & considering what Posts they might take which by Nature are rendered easily defensible & convenient to annoy us so also we ought carefully to consider what Steps may be taken consistent with Prudence & Safety should an Enemy in Part gain such an Ascendency—

If Sir, the Object they have in View is to entrench upon Dorchester Hill (their Facines are Indicative of entrenching or throwing up a Breast Work somewhere) I beg your Excellency to give me some Instructions relative to my Duty in that Case: I need not inform you of the Situation of the Hill nor how narrow the Passage is from the main Land to the Hill.

Whether an Attempt (should the Enemy move that Way) is to be made to dislodge them or whether they are to be permitted to go on unmolested in fortifying the Hill I shall be much obliged for particular Orders which I always shall endeavor faithfully to ex[e]cute.

I am with the greatest Respect your Excellencys most obedient Servant.

In sum, Gen. Ward worried that the British army would take possession of the Dorchester peninsula and its strategic heights, as they had taken the Charlestown heights after the Battle of Bunker Hill. He wanted to know what to do about that. As it turned out, Gens. Thomas Gage and William Howe had become convinced that the best course was to leave Boston, but they needed approval from London before acting.

Ward might have been hinting that the Continentals themselves should move onto the Dorchester peninsula to forestall a British move. But the American army was still short of gunpowder and would probably have had a hard time holding that position against a major amphibious attack. Plus, Washington was still more interested in a glorious assault on the town.

Come February, when yet another of the commander-in-chief’s proposed attacks was voted down by his council of war, he asked what those generals wanted him to do. And Ward said, no doubt more politely than this, that they should think about Dorchester Heights as he’d been saying for six months!

“Liberty Triumphant” for Sale

Tomorrow Heritage Auctions of Dallas is offering for auction a copy of this political cartoon from 1774, titled “Liberty Triumphant or the Downfall of Oppression.”

It shows the reaction to the Boston Tea Party by various figures, mostly allegorical. The Americans are represented as Natives, but there are also symbolic armed women, an angel, and a devil. Practically every figure rates a word balloon.

The artist is thought to be “Philadelphia and New York engraver Henry Dawkins.” He came to New York from England in the early 1750s and found work as an engraver there and in Philadelphia. His known work includes bookplates, maps, and diagrams for the American Philosophical Society.

In May 1776 Dawkins was hauled before the New York authorities on charges of counterfeiting money, which was a form of engraving society frowned on. Two year later, however, he designed the new New York state’s coat of arms, and two years after that engraved its currency—legally this time. His last known work was a series of copperplates advertised in Philadelphia in 1786.

Heritage Auctions says, “it knows of only six other copies” of “Liberty Triumphant,” and is starting bids at $15,000.

I found mention of copies in the collections of:

• the Library of Congress, purchased from Rare Maps.
• Brown University.
• the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, probably bought from Skinner.
• the New York Public Library.
• Colonial Williamsburg.

In addition, according to Colonial Williamsburg, the New-York Historical Society has a copy—but I couldn’t find it listed in the catalogue there. None on those copies is on the collectors’ market, of course.

COMING UP: Back to the New York Tea Party.

Capt. James Chambers on the London

As promised, I’m going to explore the story of the “New York Tea Party.” And I’ll start with the sea captain James Chambers.

The Roster of Saint Andrew’s Society of the State of New York, compiled by William M. McBean in 1911, says Chambers was active in New York from 1757, sailing to various ports. In 1762, for example, his ship Manchester was equipped with “eight carriage guns” and an unusually large crew of twenty to protect its cargo of furs and skins in wartime.

The 4 June 1770 New-York Gazette reported that on a voyage ”from the Musqueto Shore for Jamaica” Chamber’s brig had been cast away on Trinidad. The ship was “entirely lost,” but the crew and cargo survived—as did the captain, though reportedly the Spanish authorities kept him in jail for a while.

Late that November, Chambers was back in New York, commanding the ship London. He appears to have made regular trips on that vessel between New York and London after that.

Around that time a young sailor named Thomas Truxton (1755-1822, shown above as an older man), who had grown up on Long Island, asked to serve under Chambers. When they were in London in 1771, the Royal Navy impressed the teenager aboard H.M.S. Prudent. After several months, some Americans in London got Thomas released back to Chambers.

The year 1773 of course brought the Tea Act. According to the 25 Apr 1774 New-York Gazette, “Capt. Chambers was one of the First who refused to take the India Company’s Tea on Freight the last Summer, for which he received the Thanks of the Citizens.” When the London sailed back into New York harbor from Britain on 8 October, it carried no tea, but it did bring a celebrity to America: Lt. Col. Charles Lee.

Capt. Chambers was thus in North America as the tea crisis was reaching its zenith. He saw the crowds in New York demand a united front against not only the East India Company’s tea but all tea, to ensure that none of the dutied weed slipped through. He may even have heard about the Boston Tea Party in December before he sailed for Britain again.

COMING UP: When New York heard that tea was on its way.