During the year 1775, when the spirit of rebellion rose to the height of armed resistance and open warfare, there was increased occasion for recourse to summary procedure. In that year mobs gathered in many places,[[114]] riots were numerous and cases of tarring and feathering occurred in several of the colonies.
In June, 1775, Laughlin Martin and James Dealy were stripped of their clothes, tarred and feathered, and carted through the Streets of Charleston, South Carolina, by order of the “Secret Committee,” one of the committees which had been formed to carry on an independent government in that Province.[[115]] In August of the same year, this committee had another man, “a Mr. Walker, Gunner of Fort Johnston,” treated in the same way.[[116]]
In September, 1775, James Smith, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Duchess County, New York, together with Coen Smith of the same place, were “handsomely tarred and feathered” for acting in open contempt of the resolves of the County Committee. “The judge undertook to sue for, and recover the arms taken from the Tories by order of said committee, and actually committed one of the committee, who assisted at disarming the Tories, which enraged the people so much, that they rose and rescued the prisoner, and poured out their resentment on this villanous retailer of the law.”[[117]]
In December, 1775, “at Quibbletown, New Jersey, Thomas Randolph, cooper, who had publicly proved himself an enemy to his country, by reviling and using his utmost endeavors to oppose the proceedings of the continental and provincial conventions, in defence of their rights and liberties; and being judged a person not of consequence enough for a severer punishment, was ordered to be stripped naked, well coated with tar and feathers, and carried in a wagon publicly around the town—which punishment was accordingly inflicted. As soon as he became duly sensible of his offence, for which he earnestly begged pardon, and promised to atone, as far as he was able, by a contrary behavior for the future, he was released and suffered to return to his home, in less than half an hour. The whole was conducted with that regularity and decorum that ought to be observed in all public punishments.”[[118]]
In the later years of the Revolution, also, there were cases of tarring and feathering. At Charleston, South Carolina, in 1776, “John Roberts, a dissenting minister, was seized on suspicion of being an enemy to the rights of America, when he was tarred and feathered; after which, the populace, whose fury could not be appeased, erected a gibbet on which they hanged him, and afterwards made a bonfire, in which Roberts, together with the gibbet, was consumed to ashes.”[[119]]
During the campaign of April to December, 1776, for the possession of the Hudson River, Tryon, who when governor of North Carolina had led the militia against the Regulators, was “fomenting plots of a most dastardly character against the persons and property of patriots. One of these was the seizure of Washington himself. The plotters were sometimes discovered, and, when they were, such was the exasperation of the New York patriots that they did not hesitate to cruelly maltreat them, a coat of tar and feathers being among the lightest penalties.”[[120]]
In Virginia the manner of punishing by tarring and feathering was likewise sometimes followed. According to Wirt, “The name of ‘British tory’ was of itself enough, at that period (the close of the Revolution), to throw almost any company in Virginia into flames, and was pretty generally a signal for a coat of tar and feathers; a signal which was not very often disobeyed.”[[121]]
The practice of tarring and feathering was thus mainly confined to cases in which popular indignation was aroused against Tories, or against persons expressing Tory sentiments and conspiring to injure the American cause. It is this fact that makes tarring and feathering particularly characteristic of Revolutionary times. It is to be remembered, however, that summary punishment was also administered in other ways. Various other forms of corporal punishment, as well as the occasional infliction of capital punishment, were very frequently adopted during the period of the Revolution.
In the preceding chapter, in the discussion of the origin of the term lynch-law, the legislative act was cited which indemnified Charles Lynch and some others for the part which they had taken in suppressing a conspiracy. A similar act of indemnification was passed by the legislature of Virginia in the year 1779. This act reads as follows:
“Whereas divers evil disposed persons on the frontiers of this commonwealth had broke out into an open insurrection and conspiracy, and actually levied war against the commonwealth, and it is represented to the present general assembly, that William Campbell, Walter Crockett, and other liege subjects of the commonwealth, aided by detachments of the militia and volunteers from the county of Washington, and other parts of the frontiers did by timely and effectual exertion, suppress and defeat such conspiracy: And whereas the necessary measures taken for that purpose may not be strictly warranted by law, although justifiable from the immediate urgency and imminence of the danger: Be it therefore declared and enacted, That the said William Campbell, Walter Crockett, and all other persons whatsoever concerned in suppressing the said conspiracy and insurrection, or in advising, issuing or executing any orders or measures taken for that purpose, stand indemnified and clearly exonerated of, and from all pains, penalties, prosecutions, actions, suits, and damages on account thereof: And that if any indictment, prosecution, action, or suit, shall be laid or brought against them, or any of them, for any act or thing done therein, the defendant or defendants may plead in bar, or the general issue, and give this act in evidence.”[[122]]