The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution

by James Henry Stark

In 1773 John Hancock was elected treasurer of Harvard college. "In this they considered their patriotism more than their prudence." The amount of college funds paid over to him was upwards of fifteen thousand and four hundred pounds, and, like his friend, Samuel Adams, he, too, proved to be a defaulter. For twenty years the corporation begged and entreated him to make restitution. They threatened to prosecute him and also to put his bond in suit, as Adams' was, but it was all of no avail. He turned a deaf ear to their entreaties, and it was only after his death, in 1793, that his heirs made restitution to the college, when a settlement was made, in 1795, in which the college lost five hundred and twenty-six dollars interest.

Josiah Quincy, the president of Harvard college, in referring to this matter, says:

"From respect to the high rank which John Hancock attained among the patriots of the American Revolution, it would have been grateful to pass over in silence the extraordinary course he pursued in his official relation to Harvard college, had truth and the fidelity of history permitted. But justice to a public institution which he essentially embarrassed during a period of nearly twenty years, and also to the memory of those whom he made to feel and to suffer, requires that these records of unquestionable facts which at the time they occurred were the cause of calumny and censure to honorable men, actuated in this measure solely by a sense of official fidelity, should not be omitted. In republics, popularity is the form of power most apt to corrupt its possessor and to tempt him, for party or personal interests, to trample on right to set principle at defiance. History has no higher or more imperative duty to perform than, by an unyielding fidelity, to impress this class of men with the apprehension that although through fear or favor they may escape animadversion of contemporaries, there awaits them in her impartial record, the retribution of truth."[37]

The action of the tea mob was the culmination of mob violence in Boston. It brought the king and parliament to decide that their rebellious subjects in Boston must be subdued by force of arms, and that mob violence should cease. General Thomas Gage was to have at his command four regiments and a powerful fleet. He arrived at Boston, May 13, 1774, and was appointed to supersede Governor Thomas Hutchinson, as governor, who had succeeded Governor Sir Francis Bernard in 1771. General Gage was now in the prime of life. He had served with great credit under several commanders, at Fontenoy and Culloden, and had fought with Washington, under Braddock, at Monongahela, where he was severely wounded, and carried a musket ball in his side for the remainder of his life as a memento of that fatal battle. An intimacy then existed between him and Washington, which was maintained afterwards by a friendly correspondence, and which twenty years later ended regretfully when they appeared, opposed to each other, at the head of contending armies, the one obeying the commands of his sovereign and the other upholding the cause of his people. How many cases similar to this occurred, eighty-six years later, when brother officers in arms faced each other with hostile forces, and friendship and brotherly love were changed to deadly hatred.

The claim has been set up by American historians, and accepted as true by those of Great Britain, that hostilities were commenced at Lexington and by the British commander. This is not so. The first act of hostilities was the attack upon the government post of Fort William and Mary at Newcastle, in Portsmouth harbor, New Hampshire. The attack was deliberately planned by the disunion leaders, and executed by armed and disciplined forces mustered by them for that purpose.[38] The fort contained large quantities of government arms and ammunition, and being garrisoned by but a corporal's guard, it was too tempting a prize to be overlooked by Samuel Adams and his colleagues.

Sir John Wentworth, governor of New Hampshire, tells us that the raiding party was openly collected by beat of drum in the streets of Portsmouth, and that, being apprised of their intent to attack a government fort, he sent the chief justice to warn them that such an act "was short of rebellion," and entreated them not to undertake it, "but all to no purpose." They embarked in three boats, sailed to the fortress and "forced an entrance in spite of Captain Cochrane, the commander, who defended it as long as he could. They then secured the captain triumphantly, gave three cheers, and hauled down the king's colors."[38]

Thomas Coffin Amory, in his "Military Service of General Sullivan," says (p. 295) that "the raiding force consisted of men whom Sullivan had been drilling for several months; that they captured 97 kegs of powder and a quantity of small ammunition which were used against the British at Bunker Hill."

The attack on this fort is worthy of far more consideration than has been given to it, for not only did it occur prior to the conflict at Concord, but was the direct cause of that conflict. It was as much the commencement of the Revolutionary war as was the attack on Fort Sumpter by the disunionists, in 1861, the commencement of the Civil War, and had precisely the same effect in each case. When the news reached London that a government fort had been stormed by an organized force, its garrison made prisoners and the flag of the empire torn down, the ministers seem to have become convinced that it was the determination of the colonists to make war upon the government. To tolerate such a proceeding would be a confession that all law and authority was at an end. Some vindication of that authority must be attempted. An order was dispatched to General Gage to retake the munitions that had been seized by the disunion forces, and any other found stored that might be used for attacking the government troops; surely a very mild measure of reprisal. It was in obedience to this order that the expedition was dispatched to Concord, that brought about the collision between the British and colonial troops and the so-called "Battle of Lexingon."

In Rhode Island, a revenue outrage of more than common importance occurred at this time. A small schooner named the Gaspee, in the government service, with a crew of some 25 sailors, commanded by Lieutenant Duddingston, while pursuing a suspected smuggler on June 6, 1772, ran aground on a sand-bar near Providence, and the ship which had escaped brought the news to that town. Soon after a drum was beat through the streets, and all persons who were disposed to assist in the destruction of the king's ship were summoned to meet at the home of a prominent citizen. There appears to have been no concealment or disguise, and shortly after 10 at night eight boats, full of armed men, started with muffled oars on the expedition. They reached the stranded vessel in the deep darkness of the early morning. Twice the sentinel on board vainly hailed them, when Duddingston himself appeared in his shirt upon the gunwale and asked who it was that approached. The leader of the party answered with a profusion of oaths that he was the sheriff of the county, come to arrest him, and while he was speaking one of his men deliberately shot the lieutenant, who fell, badly wounded, on the deck. In another minute the "Gaspee" was boarded and taken without any loss to the attacking party. The crew was overpowered, bound and placed upon the shore. Duddingston, his wounds having been dressed, was landed at a neighboring house. The party set fire to the "Gaspee," and while its flames announced to the whole county the success of the expedition, they returned, in broad daylight to Providence. Large rewards were offered by the British government for their detection, but though they were universally known, no evidence could be obtained, and the outrage was entirely unpunished. It is to be observed that this act of piracy and open warfare against the government was committed by the citizens of a colony that had no cause for controversy with the home government, and whose constitution was such a liberal one that it was not found necessary to change one word of it when the province became an independent republic.

General Gage, being informed that powder and other warlike stores were being collected in surrounding towns for the purpose of being used against the government, he sent, on Sept. 1, 1774, two hundred soldiers up the Mystic river, who took from the powder house 212 barrels of powder, and brought off two field-pieces from Cambridge. On April 18, 1775, at 10 o'clock at night, eight hundred men embarked from Boston Common and crossed the Charles river in boats to the Cambridge shore. At the same time Paul Revere rowed across the river, lower down, and landed in Charlestown, and then, on horseback, went in advance of the troops to alarm the country. He was pursued, and with another scout named Dawes, was captured by the troops. At the dawn of day Lexington was reached, 12 miles distant from Boston, where the troops were confronted on the village green by the Lexington militia, which was ordered by the commander of the British expedition to disperse, but failing to do so they were fired on by the troops, and several of them killed. The militia dispersed without firing a shot.