The number of Americans in Bristol are compiled in the following list: Col. Oliver and six daughters. Mr. R. Lechmere, his brother Nicholas, with wife and two daughters. Mr. John Vassal, wife and niece, Miss Davis, Mr. Barnes, wife and niece, Miss Arbuthnot, Mr. Nathaniel Coffin, wife and family. Mr. Robert Hallowell, wife and children. Judge Sewell, wife, sister, and two sons. Samuel Sewall with his kinsman. Mr. Faneuil, and wife. Mr. Francis Waldo and Mr. Simpson, together with Mrs. Borland, a son and three daughters.
April 24, 1780. This day, five years are completed since I abandoned my house, estate, effects and friends. God only knows whether I shall ever be restored to them, or they to me. Party rage, like jealousy and superstition is cruel as the grave;—that moderation is a crime and in times of civil confusions, many good, virtuous and peaceable persons now suffering banishment from America are the wretched proofs and instances. By letter from Salem from our friend Pynchon, all our friends there are well and longing, but almost without hope, for the good old times as is the common saying now except among those as he expresses it, whose enormous heaps have made them easy and insolent, and to wish for a continuance of those confusions by which they grow rich.
London, Oct. 30th, 1781. To Samuel Sewell, Esq., You wish me to write you favorable news from America. Would to God such was to be found written in the book of fate. The French you know are in possession of the Chesapeake, with a much superior fleet to that of Great Britain, for they reckon thirty-six capital ships to our twenty-four, even after Digby's junction. General Cornwallis's royal master is in the utmost distress for him, who, all the world here fears to hear will have been Burgoyned and therefore an end to this cursed, ill-omened quarrel, though not in a way they wish, for which the instigators and continuers deserve execution. At New England Coffee House heard the glorious news of Admiral Rodney's defeat and capture of the French Admiral de Grasse, with five capital ships and one sunk.
London, March 17, 1783. Before the preliminaries are ratified or hostilities ceased in the channel an American ship laden with oil, with thirteen stripes flying, came into the river from Nantucket. The ship, Captain Holton Johnson of Lynn, with whom I came from America, was, by a revolution common at such periods translated into a legislator in our Massachusetts Assembly, being about two months in London, told me that had not his interests and efforts prevailed, my name would have been inserted in the banishment list, and my estate confiscated, the reason, if any, must be private spite and malice, no public crime was ever alleged, but merely leaving the country in her distress. If success is justification, I confess my guilt. Read a Boston newspaper, where I saw poor Coomb's estate in Marblehead advertised for sale. I really pity my poor fellow refugee and think him cruelly treated by his savage townsmen. At New England Coffee House to read the papers filled with relations of the rising spirit of Americans against the refugees, in their towns and assemblies. Intoxicated by success under no fear of punishment, they give an unrestrained loose to their angry, malevolent passions attribute to the worst of causes the opposition to their licentious, mobbish violation of all laws human and divine; and even some of the best of the republican party seem to think at least their practice squints that way, that the supposed goodness of their cause will justify murder, rapine, and the worst of crimes. But cool impartial posterity will pass a better judgment, and account for the violence of the times from party rage which knows no bounds.
SAMUEL CURWEN.
Born at Salem in 1715. Judge of Admiralty. Died at Salem in 1802.
London, Aug. 9, 1783. By the newspapers from America, particularly our quarter, I find there but slender grounds of hope for success in attempting the recovery of debts or estates; a general shipwreck is seemingly intended of all absentees' property—the towns in their instructions to the representatives making it a point to prevent the return of them, and consequent confiscations of all their property, notwithstanding the provision in the fifth preliminary article. These lawless people regard not any obstacle when the gratification of their angry passions or the object of gain are in view. For an explicit answer, "Do you propose to spend the remainder of your days abroad?" The wished for period of my return is not arrived, it is a subject I consider with some indifference, age and infirmities having made such inroads on my constitution as leave me but little to hope, or fear from the result of public councils, or the imprudence of private conduct. I am free to declare my apprehension that the lower, illiterate classes, narrow-minded and illiberal all over the world, have too much influence. Oct. 6. This day was proclaimed peace with France, Spain, and Holland. At New England Coffee House in company with Mr. Nathaniel Gorham, lately arrived from Boston, whom I had well known. He is a native of Charlestown, late a member of Congress, and of the Massachusetts Assembly, and who is now here on the score of obtaining a benevolence for the sufferers at the destruction of that town June 17, 1775, by the king's troops, which all things considered, carries with it such a face of effrontery as is not to be matched. Invited him to tea; received a letter from my wife's brother, James Russell. To him he replied, I thank you for your favor of the 21st of August, the first from you since my unhappy abandoning my former home in April, '75. In truth, were your sister (Mrs. Curwin) no more, there would need no act of Massachusetts, or any other assembly, or senate to prohibit my return. To his wife he writes: If it was not for your sake, or that you would follow my fortune or accompany my fate, I should not hesitate for a moment taking up my future abode, which cannot possibly be but of short continuance, somewhere out of the limits of the republican government. Wishes for the welfare of my friends still warm my heart, as to the rest, I read with cold indifference the insurrection in Pennsylvania, and the carryings-on in the late English colonies, having lost local attachment. If your fortitude has increased in the proportion that your health and spirits have improved, perhaps you will not find it an insurmountable difficulty to resolve on a land tour to Canada, or a voyage to some other English settlement. Whatever shall be the result of your thoughts let me be made acquainted therewith as soon as convenient. Should a final expulsion be concluded on, you will no longer hesitate. Captain Nathaniel West brings me a message from the principal merchants and citizens of Salem proposing and encouraging my return which instance of moderation I view as an honor to the town and respectful to myself. It affords me pleasure, and I would cheerfully accept the offer, but should the popular dislike rise against me, to what a plight should I be reduced, being at present (out for how long is a painful uncertainty) on the British government list for £100 a year (a competency for a single person exercising strict economy) to surrender this precarious allowance without public assurance of personal security. Imagine to yourself the distress of an old man, without health under such adverse circumstances and you will advise me to wait with resignation till the several Assemblies shall have taken decisive measures. Went to the Treasury and there received the agreeable information that the commissioners had granted my petition to appoint an agent to receive my quarterly allowance, after my departure from England, on making satisfactory proof of my being alive at the successive periods of payment. From this date an end to my doubts respecting my embarkation, its issue time must reveal. I know not in what employment I am to pass the small remainder of my days, should Providence permit my safe return home, but I shall not think part of it ill-bestowed in directing and assisting the studies and pursuits of my niece's children who are just of an age to receive useful ideas—with regard to the English, Latin, and Greek tongues. Sept. 25, 1784. Arrived at Boston at half past three o'clock. Landed at the end of Long Wharf after an absence of nine years and five months, occasioned by a lamented civil war. By plunder and rapine some have accumulated wealth, but many more are greatly injured in their circumstances. Some have to lament over the wreck of their departed wealth and estates, of which pitiable number I am, my affairs sunk into irretrievable ruin. On Sunday, being the day following, I left for Salem, where I alighted at the house of my former residence, and not a man, woman, or child, but expressed a satisfaction at seeing me, and welcomed me back. The melancholy derangement of my affairs has so entirely unsettled me, that I can scarcely attend to anything. I think it very unlikely that my home can be saved.[184] Salem, Nov. 22, 1784. Judge Curwin wrote to his friend Judge Sewall, Bristol, England, saying: "I find myself completely ruined. I confess I cannot bear to stay and perish under the ruins of my late ample property and shall therefore as soon as I can recover my account-books, left in Philadelphia on my departure from America and settle my deranged affairs, retreat to Nova Scotia, unless my allowance be taken from me." He however remained at Salem where he passed the remainder of his days dying in 1802 at the age of eighty-six. The foregoing brief abstracts from Curwin's Journal give some of the things which he saw and heard, and the hopes and fears which agitated him and his fellow exiles. He left no children. Samuel Curwin Ward, a grandson of his brother George, at the request of Judge Curwin, took his name by an act of the Legislature, and his descendants are all that now bear the name in New England.
JAMES MURRAY.
James Murray was a direct descendant of Sir John Murray of Philiphaugh, Scotland, who sat in Parliament for the County of Selkirk in 1612. Sir John's second son, was John Murray of Bowhill. This John Murray was the father of John Murray of Unthank, born in 1677, who in turn was the father of James Murray, the subject of this notice, who was born in 1713 at Unthank. Here on this ancestral estate he passed the first fifteen years of his life, after the wholesome manner of Scotch lads—porridge-fed, bare legged—he protested in after life against his grandson wearing stockings. The people amongst whom he lived had married, thriven and multiplied until the population had become one vast cousinship, bound together by that clannish loyalty which, quite apart from pride of name, is ineradicable in the Scots to the present day. Through the influence of Sir John Murray he was apprenticed to William Dunbar of London, a merchant in the West India trade. On the death of his father, he received a thousand pounds as his share of the estate. With this small patrimony he decided to try his fortune in the New World. His objective point in his new venture was the Cape Fear Region in North Carolina. The Carolinas having shaken off their proprietary rule were now entering, it was hoped, upon a more prosperous period as dependencies of the Crown. Gabriel Johnson, a Scotchman who had been a physician and professor at St. Andrews University, had been recently appointed Governor. This made some stir in Scottish circles, a fact which directed James Murray's desire to this particular Colony. With letters of recommendation to Governor Johnson, he embarked at Gravesend, September 20, 1735, for Charleston. He settled at Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River, and purchased a house in town and a plantation of 500 acres and Negro slaves. He was also appointed collector of the Port, and in 1729 he was appointed a member of the Board of Councillors. In 1737 Mr. Murray received news of the death of his mother. This necessitated a journey to Scotland to settle her estate. On returning he brought with him his younger brother and his sister Elizabeth, not quite fourteen years of age. She was installed as his housekeeper, and then began that affectionate intimacy between them which was perhaps the most vital and enduring element in the life of each. James Murray prospered as a planter and merchant. He imported from England such goods as the colonists required and in exchange sent to England naval stores, tar, pitch, and turpentine.