There was a more serious business in the tarring and feathering of the Widow Nabby Freeman of which the towns-people were sufficiently ashamed, evidently, to charge it in turn to Whig and Tory. Freeman, in his history, says she was a Whig, the victim of Tory spite; Otis, with convincing detail, that she was a Tory. She kept a small grocery, and refused to surrender her tea to be destroyed by the Vigilance Committee. She was “a thorn in their sides—she could out-talk any of them, was fascinating in her manners, and had an influence which she exerted, openly and defiantly, against the patriotic men who were then hazarding their fortunes and their lives in the struggle for American independence.” Both narratives agree in the fact: she was taken from her bed to the village green, smeared with tar and feathers, set astride a rail and ridden about the town. We may fancy the tongue-lashing her persecutors received in the process. At last they exacted from her a promise that in the future she would keep clear of politics. The men who carried through this cruel comedy were not eager to be known; yet it is said feeling against the Tories ran so high that even in Sandwich, which had lamented the harsh treatment of Quakers, a strong party justified the act. But that public sentiment did not approve such rowdyism is proved by the fact that it stands out alone in unlovely prominence.
It is probable that many a private grudge was worked off in this cry of “Tory, Tory.” When Joseph Otis, brother of the patriot, cited a prominent townsman for disaffection, the court held the accusation to proceed “rather from an old family quarrel and was the effect of envy rather than matter of truth and sobriety, or any view to the publick good.” And when as a deacon he had been haled before the church for his political opinions, the church decided that it had “no right to call its members to an account for actions of a civil and public nature,” that the protestants “did not charge the deacon with immorality” and that it “begged leave to refer them to a civil tribunal.” It is further recorded in a later month that the affair between the deacon and “the brethren, styled petitioners, was happily accommodated.”
Until the actual clash of arms, many believed that there might be found some ground for reconciliation; but England was blinded by jealous tradesmen and foolish politicians, hot blood in the colonies was all for separation. Events swept beyond the control of statesmen, and all were carried on to the vortex of revolution. In a speech from the throne George III asserted that “a most daring resistance to the laws,” encouraged by the other colonies, existed in Massachusetts. Again Camden spoke in defence of the colonies: “They say truly taxation and representation must go together. This wise people speak out. They do not ask you to repeal the laws as a favor; they claim it as a right.” But Parliament charged the Americans with “wishing to become independent” and as for any danger of revolt, determined “to crush the monster in its birth at any price or hazard.” They were to have a good run for their money.
II
In no long time the king’s men were marching out to Concord and Lexington; and with the actual shedding of blood, messengers, on the Sunday, rode out post-haste to rouse the country. “War is begun,” cried they at church doors. “War, war,” broke in upon hymn or parson’s prayer; and from pulpit and people rose the solemn response: “To arms: liberty or death.”
The radicals were jubilant. Mr. Watson, of Plymouth, wrote to his friend Freeman congratulations upon the spirit of Sandwich, where Freeman had ordered the royal arms burned by the common hangman. “We are in high spirits,” wrote Watson, “and don’t think it is in the power of all Europe to subjugate us.” “The Lord of Hosts fights on the side of the Yankees,” averred he. “I glory in the name.” Yet Watson, an ardent patriot, in the course of a political quarrel of later years, was denounced to Jefferson as an old Tory, and was conveniently removed from office.
But sober men were preparing to meet the cost of choosing between a man’s way and a child’s. Cape Cod, in particular, with a defenceless coast and the probable interruption of her fisheries and commerce, faced ruin; but, four-square, she stood for freedom. Immediately upon the news of fighting, two companies of militia from Barnstable and Yarmouth took the road, but returned on word that the royal troops were held in Boston. With them, that day, piping them out with fifes, were two boys who, when they were sent back, “borrowed” an old horse grazing by the roadside to give them a mount homeward. One boy became solicitor-general, the other a judge, and one day there chanced to be a case of prosecution for horse-thieving between them. “Davy,” whispered Judge Thacher, leaning from the bench, “this puts me in mind of the horse we stole that day in Barnstable.”
As the militia had marched down the county road, an old farmer halted them. “God be with you all, my friends,” said he as one who would consecrate their enterprise. “And John, my son, if you are called into battle, take care that you behave like a man or else let me never see your face again.” A Harwich father, when he had heard of the first blood spilled, cried out to his son: “Eben, you’re the only one can be spared. Take your gun and go. Fight for religion and liberty.” And that boy and others who joined on the instant were ready to fight at Bunker Hill.
Yet there had been no open declaration of cutting loose from the mother country; and the colonists seem to have had no more deliberate intention of founding a nation than had the Pilgrims of declaring a new principle of government. The second Continental Congress had recommended a day of prayer and humiliation “to implore the blessings of Heaven on our sovereign the King of England and the interposition of divine aid to remove the grievances of the people and restore harmony.” The Cape, a sturdy inheritor of the Pilgrim spirit, seems to have been an early advocate of state rights. In 1778 Barnstable appointed a committee to pass upon the proposed union. “It appears to us,” said Barnstable, “that the power of congress is too great.... But if during the present arduous conflict with Great Britain it may be judged necessary to vest such extra powers in a continental congress, we trust that you will use your endeavors that the same shall be but temporary.” “The Plymouth spirit, which nearly a century before had been shy of a union with Massachusetts,” writes Palfrey, “was now equally averse to a consolidated government which should implicate the concerns of Massachusetts too much with those of other states.”
Bunker Hill was fought, and by July Washington, as commander-in-chief, was in residence at Cambridge. When he called for troops to man Dorchester Heights, Captain Joshua Gray marched through Yarmouth with a drummer, calling for volunteers, and eighty-one men responded. The night was spent in preparation, the women moulding bullets and making cartridges, and by dawn the little company, equipped for war, was ready to take the road. As was natural, fishermen and sailors, when they could, enlisted in the infant navy. But the call for men pressed until even Joseph Otis protested: “We have more men in the land and sea service than our proportion,” and “there is scarcely a day that the enemy is not within gun-shot of some part of our coast. It is like dragging men from home when their houses are on fire, but I will do my best to comply.” An additional grievance lay in the fact that the Cape troops seem to have been sent largely to Rhode Island. And Otis added that it was unreasonable “to detach men from their property, wives and children to protect the town of Providence in the heart of the State of Rhode Island.”