The Loyalists of Massachusetts Part 4

CHAPTER IV.

_BOSTON MOBS AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION._

After the adoption in Ma.s.sachusetts of Patrick Henry's resolves, the people, brooding over the injuries which Adams made them believe they were receiving under the Stamp Act, became fiercer in temper. Open treason was talked, and many of the addresses to the Governor, composed by Adams, were models of grave and studied insolence. The rough population which abounded about the wharves and s.h.i.+pyards grew riotous, and, with the usual indiscrimination of mobs, was not slow to lift its hands against even the best friends of the people. "Mob law is a crime, and those who engage in mobs are criminals." This is a fundamental axiom of orderly government that cannot be denied.

The first great riot was in antic.i.p.ation of the arrival of the stamps.

On the morning of August 14, 1765, there appeared, at what is now a corner of Was.h.i.+ngton and Ess.e.x streets, two effigies, hanging on an elm tree, representing Andrew Oliver, the stamp agent, and Lord Bute, the former prime minister. In the evening these images were carried as far as Kilby street, where there was a new unfinished government building, wrongly supposed to have been erected for use as a stamp office. This the mob completely demolished, and, taking portions of its wood-work with them, they proceeded to Fort Hill, where a bonfire was made in front of the house of Mr. Oliver, burning the effigy of Lord Bute there, and committing gross outrages on Oliver's premises, which were plundered and wrecked.

A few nights later riots recommenced with redoubled fury, the rioters turning their attention to the house of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, who was also chief justice, and kinsman of Oliver. Hutchinson was not only the second person in rank in the colony, but was also a man who had personal claims of the highest kind upon his countrymen. He was an American, a member of one of the oldest colonial families, and, in a country where literary enterprise was very uncommon, he had devoted a great part of his life to investigating the history of his native province. His rare abilities, his stainless private character, and his great charm of manner, were universally recognized. He had at one time been one of the most popular men in the colony, and although Hutchinson was opposed to the Stamp Act, the determined impartiality with which, as Chief Justice, he upheld the law, soon made him obnoxious to the mob.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANDREW OLIVER, STAMP COLLECTOR ATTACKED BY THE MOB.

His beautiful mansion on Oliver street, Fort Hill, was wrecked and he narrowly escaped with his life.]

When the mob surrounded his house in Garden Court street, they called for him to appear on his balcony, to give an account of himself as to the Stamp Act. He barred the doors and windows and remained within. One of his neighbors, alarmed, no doubt, as to the safety of his own property, told the mob that he had seen Hutchinson drive out just at nightfall, and that he had gone to spend the night at his country house at Milton. On hearing this the mob dispersed, having done no other damage than the breaking of windows.

The popular fury had now become so ungovernable and perilous that Governor Bernard took refuge in the Castle, leaving Hutchinson to bear the brunt of this vehement hostility. Shortly after the governor's retreat, on the 26th of August, occurred a riot as disgraceful as any on record on either side of the Atlantic. It commenced at dusk with a bonfire on King street. One of the fire-wards attempted to extinguish it, but he was driven from the ground by a heavy blow from one of the mob which had a.s.sembled. The fire was doubtless kindled as a signal for the a.s.sembling of a ruffianly body of disguised men, armed with clubs and staves. They first went to the house of the register of the admiralty court, broke into his office in the lower story, and fed the fire hard by with the public archives in his keeping, and with all his own private papers. Next they went to the house of the comptroller of customs in Hanover street, tore down his fence, broke his windows, demolished his furniture, stole his money, scattered his papers, and availed themselves of the wine in his cellar as a potent stimulant to greater excesses.

They then proceeded to Hutchinson's house, the finest and most costly in Boston. He had barely time to escape with his family, otherwise murder would no doubt have put a climax to the criminal orgies of the night.

The rioters hewed down the doors with broad axes, destroyed or stole everything of value, including important historical data which he had spent years in collecting, papers which, if preserved to his countrymen, would be worth many times their weight in gold; and still further maddened by the contents of the cellar, the incendiary crowd broke up the roof and commenced tearing down the wood-work of the mansion.

There exists competent evidence that the munic.i.p.al authorities had timely notice of the pendency of this riot. They held a town meeting next day, denounced the rioters by unanimous vote, in which many who had been foremost in the affair gave a.s.sent to their own condemnation, but nothing was done towards punis.h.i.+ng the perpetrators of the outrages, and it was evident that the prevailing feeling was with the rioters. Those who were arrested and committed for trial were released by a formidable body of sympathizers, undoubtedly fellow criminals, who went by night to the jail, forced the jailer to deliver up the keys, and released the culprits.

The Custom House was selected for a.s.sault and pillage on the following night. The collector somehow gained information of this purpose. He had in his custody about four thousand pounds in specie, which could not be removed so secretly as to elude the espionage of eyes intent on rapine and plunder. The governor, at the urgent demand of the collector, called out the cadets, who const.i.tuted his special guard. The mob a.s.sembled. The commanding officers addressed them, first with persuasion, then with threats, but in vain. Driven to extremity he ordered his company to prime and load, and then begged the rioters to retire. They remained immovable until the order was given to "aim," when a hurried retreat of the tumultuous rabble ensued.

There were, subsequently, various public demonstrations of a disorderly character; effigies of unpopular members of the home and provincial governments were hanged and burned, and there were frequent displays of violent hostility to the administration; but it was not till June, 1768, that there was another dangerous and destructive riot. In this there cannot be the slightest doubt that the mob had on their side as little moral justification as legal right. The sloop "Liberty," belonging to John Hanc.o.c.k, a leading merchant of the patriot party, arrived at Boston, laden with wine from Madeira, and a custom-house officer went on board to inspect the cargo. He was seized by the crew and detained for several hours, while the cargo was landed, and a few pipes of wine were entered on oath at the Custom House as if they had been the whole. On the liberation of the customs' officers the vessel was seized for a false entry, and in order to prevent the possibility of a rescue it was removed from the wharf to the protection of the guns of a man of war. A mob was speedily collected, and as the rabble could not get possession of the sloop, they attacked the revenue officers for doing their duty in properly seizing the vessel for false entry and smuggling. The collector, his son, and two inspectors, received the most barbarous treatment, were badly bruised and wounded, and hardly escaped with their lives. The mob next went to the house of the inspector-general, and to that of the comptroller of customs, and broke their windows. They then dragged the collector's boat to the Common and burned it there.

When we consider the lawless condition of Boston, there cannot be any question that Governor Bernard was fully authorized to seek the presence of troops. The crown officers were in a rightful possession of their offices, and it would have been cowardly for them to desert their posts and sail for England, and thus to leave anarchy behind them. Meanwhile their lives were in peril, and they had an unquestionable right to demand competent protection. This they could have only by sending out of the province for it. The colonial militia could not be relied upon, for the mob must have been largely represented in its ranks. Nor could dependence be placed on the cadets, for Hanc.o.c.k, in whose behalf the last great riot had been perpetrated, was an officer of that corps. The only recourse was to the importation of royal troops--a measure which legal modes of remonstrance by patriots worthy of the name would never have rendered necessary or justifiable.

Two regiments, the 14th and 29th, of about five hundred men each, arrived on Sept. 28, 1768. These soldiers were, of course, a burden and annoyance. They could not have been otherwise. Individually they were not gentlemen, and they could not have been expected to be so. Yet had their presence been desired or welcome, there is no reason to suppose that there would have been any unpleasant collision with them.

The first token of resentment on the part of the populace occurred eleven days after their arrival. The colonel of one of the regiments had ordered a guard-house to be built on the Neck. The site was visited in the night by a mob, who tore down the frame of the building and cut it in pieces, so that no part of it could be put to further use. From that time on there were perpetual quarrels and brisk interchanges of contumely, abuse, and insult between the soldiers and the inhabitants, in which gangs of ropemakers bore a prominent part. There was undoubtedly no lack of ill-blood on either side, but, after patiently reading the contemporary record of what took place, we are inclined to adopt the statement of Samuel G. Drake, whose intense loyalty as a loving citizen of Boston no one can question, and who writes "That outrages were committed by the soldiers is no doubt true; but these outrages were exaggerated, and they probably, in nine cases out of ten, were the abused party."[29]

[29] "History of Boston," Samuel T. Drake, page 778.

Pa.s.sing over intervening dissensions and tumults, we now come to the so-called "Boston Ma.s.sacre," on the 5th of March, 1770, an occasion on which loss of life was inevitable, and the only question was whether it should be among the soldiers or their a.s.sailants. The riot was evidently predetermined, as one of the bells was rung about eight o'clock, and immediately afterwards bands of men, with clubs, appeared upon the streets. Early in the evening there had been some interchange of hostilities, chiefly verbal, between the soldiers and town people, but an officer had ordered his men into the barrack-yard, and closed the gate. The "main guard," for that day's duty, was from the 29th regiment.

About nine o'clock a solitary sentinel in front of the custom-house on King street, now known as State street, was a.s.sailed by a party of men and boys, who pelted him with lumps of ice and coal, and threatened him with their clubs. Being forbidden by the rules of the service to quit his post, he called upon the "main guard," whose station was within hearing. A corporal and seven soldiers were sent to his relief. They were followed by Captain Preston, who said, "I will go there myself to see that they do no mischief." By that time the crowd had become a large one, intensely angry, and determined on violence. The mob supposed the soldiers were helpless and harmless; that they were not permitted to fire unless ordered by a magistrate. The rioters repeatedly challenged the soldiers to fire if they dared, and the torrent of coa.r.s.e and profane abuse poured upon the soldiers is astonis.h.i.+ng even in its echoes across the century, and would furnish material for an appropriate inscription on the Attucks monument. The soldiers stood on the defensive while their lives were endangered by missiles, and till the crowd closed upon them in a hand-to-hand conflict. The leader of the a.s.sault was "Crispus Attucks," a half Indian and half negro, who raised the blood-curdling war-whoop, the only legacy save his Indian surname and his strength and ferocity, that he is known to have received from his savage ancestry. He knocked down one of the soldiers, got possession of his musket, and would, no doubt, have killed him instantly had not the soldiers fired at that moment and killed Attucks and two other men, two more being fatally wounded. There is no evidence that Captain Preston ordered the firing, though if he did he certainly deserved no blame, as the shooting was, for the soldiers, the only means of defence. There is no doubt that the mobs on these occasions were set in movement and directed by some persons of higher rank and larger views of mischief than themselves.

Gordon, the historian of the American Revolution, informs us that the mob was addressed, in the street, before the firing, by a tall, large man, in a red cloak and white wig, and after listening to what he had to offer in the s.p.a.ce of three or four minutes, they huzza for the "main guard" and say, "We will do for the soldiers." He also said, "But from the character, principles, and policies of certain persons among the leaders of the opposition, it may be feared that they had no objection to a recounter that by occasioning the death of a few might eventually clear the place of the two regiments."

This avowal, which, coming from such a source, has all the weight of premeditation, chills us with its deliberate candor, and begets reflections on the desperate means resorted to by some of the leaders of the populace in those trying times, which historians generally have shrunk from suggesting.

Hutchinson fulfilled at this time, with complete adequacy, the functions of chief magistrate. He was at once in the street in imminent danger of having his brains dashed out,[30] expostulating, entreating, that order might be observed. His prompt arrest of Preston and the squad which had done the killing was his full duty, and it is to the credit of the troops that the officer and his men, in the midst of the exasperation, gave themselves quietly into the hands of the law.

[30] "Life of Thomas Hutchinson," page 162.

In the famous scenes which followed, the next day, Samuel Adams and other leading agitators, as representatives of the people, rushed into the presence of Hutchinson, and rather commanded than asked for the removal of the troops. Hutchinson hesitated. He was not yet governor--Bernard was in England. The embarra.s.sment of the situation for the chief magistrate was really appalling. He knew that their removal would, under the circ.u.mstances, be a great humiliation to the government and a great encouragement to the mob. On the other hand, if the soldiers remained it was only too probable that in a few hours the streets of Boston would run with blood. He consulted the council, and found, as usual, an echo of the public voice. He then yielded, and the troops were sent to Fort William, on Castle Island, three miles from the town.

Although, from that day to this, it has been held that the British uniform was driven with ignominy out of the streets of Boston, they deserve no discredit for their submission to the Governor and his council. They were two weak regiments, together amounting to not more than eight hundred effective men, isolated in a populous province which hated them, and were in great peril of life. It does not appear that they showed the white feather at all, but rather that they were law-abiding. Probably few organizations in the British army have a record more honorable. The 14th was with William III. in Flanders; it formed, too, one of the squares of Waterloo, breasting for hours the charges of the French cuira.s.siers until it had nearly melted away. The 29th was with Marlboro at Ramillies, and with Wellington in the Peninsula; it bore a heavy part, as may be read in Napier, in wresting Spain from the grasp of Napoleon. To fight it out with the mob would no doubt have been far easier and pleasanter than to yield; for brave soldiers to forbear is harder than to fight, and one may be sure that in the long history of those regiments few experiences more trying came to pa.s.s than those of the Boston streets.

Few things contributed more to commence the American Revolution than this unfortunate affray. Skillful agitators perceived the advantage it gave them, and the most fantastic exaggerations were dexterously diffused. It, however, had a sequel which is extremely creditable to the citizens of Boston.

It was determined to try the soldiers for their lives, and public feeling ran so fiercely against them that it seemed as if their fate was sealed. The trial, however, was delayed for seven months till the excitement had in some degree subsided. Captain Preston very judiciously appealed to John Adams, who was rapidly rising to the first place among the lawyers and the popular party of Boston, to undertake his defence.

Adams knew well how much he was risking by espousing so unpopular a cause, but he knew also his professional duty, and though violently opposed to the British Government, he was an eminently honest, brave, and humane man. In conjunction with Josiah Quincy, a young lawyer who was also of the popular party, he undertook the invidious task, and he discharged it with consummate ability. Three years afterwards he wrote in his diary: "The part I took in defence of Capt. Preston and the soldiers procured me anxiety and obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly, and disinterested acts of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.

Judgment of death against those soldiers would have been as foul a stain upon this country as the execution of the Quakers or witches, anciently.

As the evidence was, the verdict of the jury was exactly right."

These n.o.ble words and his actions in this matter are sufficient alone to prove that John Adams was a fit successor to President Was.h.i.+ngton. He was entirely just in the estimate he put upon his conduct in these frank terms. His defence of the soldiers was one of the most courageous acts that a thoroughly manly man performed, and his summing up of the matter just quoted, is perfectly accurate. If John Adams showed himself here a man of sense and a hero, as much cannot be said of his cousin, Samuel Adams, who undoubtedly was one of the leaders who incited the mob to attack the soldiers, as hinted at by Gordon. And, again, in the vindictive persecution which followed, in the attempt to arouse in England and America indignation against the soldiers, by doc.u.ments based on evidence hastily collected in advance of the trial, from wholly unreliable witnesses, and in the attempt to precipitate the trial while pa.s.sion was still hot, the misbehavior of the people was grave. In all this no leader was more eager than Samuel Adams, and in no time in his career, probably, does he more plainly lay himself open to the charge of being a reckless demagogue, a mere mob-leader, than at this moment.

Captain Preston and six of the soldiers, who were tried for murder, were acquitted; two of the soldiers, convicted of manslaughter, were branded on the hand and then released. The most important testimony in the case was that of the celebrated surgeon, John Jeffries, who attended Patrick Carr, an Irishman, fatally wounded in the affray. It is as follows: "He said he saw many things thrown at the sentry; he believed they were oyster sh.e.l.ls and ice; he heard the people huzza every time they heard anything strike that sounded hard. He then saw some soldiers going down towards the custom-house; he saw the people pelt them as they went along. I asked him whether he thought the soldiers would fire; he said he thought the soldiers would have fired long before. I then asked him if he thought the soldiers were abused a great deal; he said he thought they were. I asked him whether he thought the soldiers would have been hurt if they had not fired; he said he really thought they would, for he heard many voices cry out, 'Kill them!' I asked him, meaning to close all, whether he thought they fired in self-defence or on purpose to destroy the people; he said he really thought they did fire to defend themselves; that he did not blame the man, whoever he was, that shot him. He told me he was a native of Ireland; that he had frequently seen mobs, and soldiers called to quell them. Whenever he mentioned that, he called himself a fool; that he might have known better; that he had seen soldiers often fire on people in Ireland, but had never in his life seen them bear so much before they fired."

John Adams, in his plea in defence of the soldiers, said: "We have been entertained with a great variety of phrases to avoid calling this sort of people a mob. Some called them shavers, some called them geniuses.

The plain English is, they were probably a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, mulattoes, Irish teagues, and outlandish Jack-tars, and why we should scruple to call such a set of people a mob, I can't conceive, unless the name is too respectable for them."

Chief-Justice Lynde, eminent for his judicial integrity and impartiality, said on the announcement of the verdict: "Happy am I to find, after much strict examination, the conduct of the prisoners appears in so fair a light, yet I feel myself deeply affected that this affair turns out so much to the disgrace of every person concerned against them, and so much to the shame of the town in general."

In 1887, at the instigation of John Boyle O'Reilly and the negroes of Boston, the Legislature pa.s.sed a bill authorizing the expenditure of $10,000 for the purpose of erecting a monument to the memory of the "victims of the Boston Ma.s.sacre." The monument was erected on Boston Common, notwithstanding the fact that the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society, and the New England Historic Genealogical Society, voted unanimously against it. "That it was a waste of public money, that the affray was occasioned by the brutal and revengeful attack of reckless roughs upon the soldiers, while on duty, who had not the civilian's privilege of retreating, but were obliged to contend against great odds, and used their arms only in the last extremity; that the killed were rioters and not patriots, and that a jury of Boston citizens had acquitted the soldiers." A joint committee, composed of members of both societies, presented the resolutions to Governor Ames, and requested him to veto the bill. He admitted that "the monument ought not to be erected, but if he vetoed the bill it would _cost the Republican party the colored vote_." When the monument was erected and uncovered, it presented such an indecent appearance that the City Council immediately voted $250 for a new capstone. It now represents an historical lie, and is a sad commentary on the intelligence and art taste of the citizens of Boston. To be sure monuments of stone will not avail to perpetuate an error of history, as witness the monument erected to commemorate the Great Fire of London. The inscription on that monument, embodying a gross perversion of history, was effaced in 1831, after it had stood there one hundred and fifty years, but the just resentment, the ill-feeling, the grief and shame which it engendered during that period, had been evils of incalculable magnitude. The time will surely come when the monument on Boston Common will be removed for the same reason.

On the 18th of March, 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed. It had remained in force but one year, and was then repealed in an effort to pacify the colonists. A duty was placed on tea and other imports which the colonists had always admitted to be a valid act of the Parliament.

Whatever might be said of the Stamp Act, the tea duty was certainly not a real grievance to Americans, for Parliament had relieved the colonists of a duty of 12d. in the pound which had hitherto been levied in England, and the colonists were only asked, in compensation, to pay a duty of 3d. in the pound on arrival of the tea in America. The measure, therefore, was not an act of oppression, but of relief, making the price of tea in the colonies positively cheaper by 9d. per pound than it had been before. But the turbulent spirits were not to be satisfied so easily. They organized an immense boycott against British goods and commercial intercourse with England, and appointed vigilance committees in many communities to see that the boycott was rigidly enforced.

Hutchinson, in describing them, says: "In this Province the faction is headed by the lowest, dirtiest, and most abject part of the community, and so absurdly do the Council and House of Representatives reason, that they justify this anarchy, the worst of tyranny, as necessary to remove a single instance of what they call oppression; they have persecuted my sons with peculiar pleasure." August 26, 1770, he wrote to William Parker, of Portsmouth: "You certainly think right when you think Boston people are run mad. The frenzy was not higher when they banished my pious great-grandmother, when they hanged the Quakers, when they afterwards hanged the poor innocent witches, when they were carried away with a Land Bank, or when they all turned "New Lights," than the political frenzy has been for a twelve-month past."[31]

[31] "Life of Hutchinson," page 195.

In December, 1773, three s.h.i.+ps laden with tea, private property of an innocent corporation, arrived at Boston, and on the 16th of that month, forty or fifty men, disguised as Mohawk Indians, under the direction of Samuel Adams, John Hanc.o.c.k, and others, boarded the vessels, posted sentinels to keep all agents of authority off at a distance, and flung the three cargoes, consisting of three hundred and forty-two chests, into the harbor. How can we, law-abiding citizens, applaud the "Boston Tea Party" and condemn the high-handed conduct of strike-leaders of the present time? In this transaction some respectable men were engaged, and their posterity affects to be proud of it. But they were not proud of it at the time. In their disguise as Indians they were not recognized, and the few well-known names among them were not divulged till the rebellion became a successful revolution. It probably made no "patriots." We have proof that it afterwards turned the scales against the patriot cause with some who had sympathized with it and taken part in it.

Looking back to those times during later years, John Adams wrote: "The poor people themselves, who, by _secret manoeuvres_, _are excited to insurrection_, are seldom aware of the purposes for which they are set in motion or of consequences which may happen to themselves; and _when once heated and in full career_, _they can neither manage themselves nor be managed by others_."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOSTONIANS PAYING THE EXCISEMAN, OR TARRING AND FEATHERING.

A cartoon published in London in 1771, showing how the authority of the government was wholly disregarded in Boston.]

The illegal seizure of the tea was in a certain sense parallel to the so-called "respectable" mob which on the 11th of August, 1834, destroyed the Charlestown convent, and, a year later, nearly killed Garrison and made the jail his only safe place of refuge. Had slavery triumphed, that mob would at this day be the object and the subject of popular glorification; every man who belonged to it, who was present abetting and encouraging it, would claim his share of the glory, and a roll of honor would have been handed down for a centennial celebration in which every slaveholder in the land would have borne a part. But now that slavery is dead, and the statue of Garrison has its place in the fas.h.i.+onable avenue of Boston, there is no longer any merit in the endeavor to b.u.t.tress the fallen cause. Had the Revolution failed, the disgrace of the men who threw the tea overboard would never have been removed, and the best that history could say of them would be that, like the Attucks mob, they were enthusiasts without reason.

John Hanc.o.c.k, one of the princ.i.p.al leaders of the Tea Party Mob, and the owner of the sloop "Liberty," which was seized for smuggling, and later the first to sign the Declaration of Independence, inherited 70,000 from his uncle, who had made a large part of it by importing from the Dutch island of St. Eustacia great quant.i.ties of tea, in mola.s.ses hogsheads, and, by the importation of a few chests from England, had freed the rest from suspicion, and not having been found out, had borne the reputation of a "fair trader." Partly by inattention to his private affairs, and partly from want of sound judgment, John Hanc.o.c.k became greatly involved and distressed, and his estate was lost with much greater rapidity than it had been acquired by his uncle.[32]

[32] His. Ma.s.s. Bay, page 207.

John Adams had very positive opinions concerning the mobs of the Revolution. In a letter to his wife he says:

"I am engaged in a famous cause. The cause of King of Scarborough _versus_ a mob that broke into his house and rifled his papers and terrified him, his wife, children and servants, in the night. The terror and distress, the distraction and horror of this family, cannot be described in words, or painted upon canvas. It is enough to move a statue, to melt a heart of stone, to read the story. A mind susceptible of the feelings of humanity, a heart which can be touched with sensibility for human misery and wretchedness, must relent, must burn with resentment and indignation at such outrageous injuries. These private mobs I do and will detest."[33]

[33] Letters of John Adams to his wife, Vol. I, pages 12-13.

Concerning the Loyalists, he says: "A notion prevails among all parties that it is politest and genteelest to be on the side of the administration, that the better sort, the wiser few, are on one side, and that the mult.i.tude, the vulgar, the herd, the rabble, the mob, only are on the other."[34]