** Cooper, in his Naval History, i., 81, says that the Hannah was "favored by a fresh southerly breeze." The details here given are taken chiefly from a statement by the late Colonel Ephraim Bowen, of Providence, who was one of the party that attacked the Gaspee. Colonel Bowen says the wind was from the North. The circumstances of the chase, however, show that it must have been from the South.
Expedition against the Gaspee.—Her Destruction.—Efforts to discover the Incendiaries.—The Commissioners,
discharge was returned by a musket from one of the boats. * Duddington was wounded in the groin, and carried below. The boats now came alongside the schooner, and the men boarded her without much opposition, the crew retreating below when their wounded commander was carried down. A medical student among the Americans dressed Duddington's wound, ** and he was carried on shore at Pawtuxet. The schooner's company were ordered to collect their clothing and leave the vessel, which they did; and all the effects of Lieutenant Duddington being carefully placed in one of the American boats to be delivered to the owner, the Gaspee was set on fire and at dawn blew up. ***
On being informed of this event, Governor Wanton issued a proclamation, ordering diligent search for persons having a knowledge of the crime, and offering a reward of five hundred dollars "for the discovery June 1 of the perpetrators of said villainy, to be paid immediately upon the conviction of any one or more of them." Admiral Montague also made endeavors to discover the incendiaries. Afterward the home government offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the leader, and two thousand five hundred dollars to any person who would discover the other parties, with the promise of a pardon should the informer be an accomplice. A commission of inquiry, under the great seal of England, was established, which sat from the 4th until the 2 2d of January, 1773. **** It then adjourned until the 26th of May, when it assembled and sat until the 23d of June. But not a solitary clew to the identity of the perpetrators could be obtained, notwithstanding so many of them were known to the people. (v) The price of treachery on the part of any accomplice would have been exile from home and country; and the proffered reward was not adequate to such a sacrifice, even though weak moral principles or strong acquisitiveness had been tempted into compliance. The commissioners closed their labors on the 23d of June, and further inquiry was not attempted. (vi)
* Thomas Bucklin, a young man about nineteen years of age, fired the musket. He afterward assisted in dressing the wound which his bullet inflicted.
** This was Dr. John Mawney. His kindness and attention to Duddington excited the gratitude of that officer, who offered young Mawney a gold stock-buckle; that being refused, a silver one was offered and accepted.
*** The principal actors in this affair were John Brown, Captain Abraham Whipple, John B. Hopkins, Benjamin Dunn, Dr. John Mawney, Benjamin Page, Joseph Bucklin, Turpin Smith, Ephraim Bowen, and Captain Joseph Tillinghast. The names were, of course, all kept, secret at the time.