The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

John Derby cracked on sail like a true son of his father, and made a passage across the Atlantic of twenty-nine days, handsomely beating the lubberly “Royal-Express packet” Sukey, which had sailed from Boston four days ahead of him. It is supposed that he made a landing at the Isle of Wight, went ashore alone, and hurried to London as fast as he could. The tidings he bore were too alarming and incredible to be accepted by the statesmen and people of Great Britain. Nothing had been heard from General Gage and here was an audacious Yankee skipper, dropped in from Heaven knew where, spreading it broadcast that the American colonists were in full revolt after driving a force of British regulars in disastrous rout. From the office of the Secretary of State, Lord Dartmouth issued this skeptical statement, May 30th:

“A report having been spread and an account having been printed and published, of a skirmish between some people of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and a detachment of His Majesty’s troops, it is proper to inform the publick that no advices have as yet been received in the American Department of any such event. There are reasons to believe that there are dispatches from General Gage on Board the Sukey, Captain Brown, which though she sailed four days before the vessel that brought the printed accounts, is not arrived.”

On the following day, Hutchinson, who had preceded Gage as Governor of Massachusetts, wrote from London to his son in Boston:

“Captain Darby, in ballast arrived at Southampton from Marblehead the 27, and came to London the next evening. I am greatly distressed for you. Darby’s own accounts confirm many parts of the narrative from the Congress, and they that know him say he deserves credit and that he has a good character; but I think those people would not have been at the expense of a vessel from Marblehead or Salem to England for the sake of telling the truth.”

On June 1st, Lord Dartmouth wrote General Gage as follows:

“Whitehall, 1st June, 1775.

“Sir: Since my letter to you of 27th ult. an account has been printed here, accompanied with depositions to verify it, of skirmishes between a detachment of the troops under your command and different bodies of the Provincial Militia.

“It appears upon the fullest inquiry that this account, which is chiefly taken from a Salem newspaper, has been published by a Capt. Darby, who arrived on Friday or Saturday at Southampton in a small vessel in ballast, directly from Salem, and from every circumstance, relating to this person and the vessel, it is evident he was employed by the Provincial Congress to bring this account, which is plainly made up for the purpose of conveying every possible prejudice and misrepresentation of the truth.

“From the answers he has given to such questions as has been asked, there is the greatest probability that the whole amounts to no more than that a Detachment, sent by you to destroy Cannon and Stores collected at Concord for the purpose of aiding Rebellion, were fired upon, at different times, by people of the Country in small bodies from behind trees and houses, but that the party effected the service they went upon, and returned to Boston, and I have the satisfaction to tell you that, the affair being considered in that light by all discerning men, it has had no other effect here than to raise that just indignation which every honest man must feel at the rebellious conduct of the New England Colonies. At the same time it is very much to be lamented that we have not some account from you of the transaction, which I do not mention from any supposition that you did not send the earliest intelligence of it, for we know from Darby that a vessel with dispatches sailed four days before him. We expect the arrival of that vessel with great impatience, but ’till she arrives I can form no decisive judgment of what has happened, and therefore can have nothing more to add but that I am, &c., Dartmouth.”

Alas for British hopes and fears, the eagerly awaited arrival of the Sukey confirmed the disastrous news revealed by Captain John Derby, as may be learned from the following article in The London Press: