April Meeting 1941

A STATED Meeting of the Society was held, at the invitation of Mr. Zechariah Chafee, Jr., at the Signet Club, No. 46 Dunster Street, Cambridge, on Thursday, April 24, 1941, at half after eight o’clock in the evening, the President, kenneth Ballard Murdock, in the chair.

The records of the last Stated Meeting were read and approved.

The Corresponding Secretary reported the death of Worthington Chauncey Ford, a Corresponding Member, on March 7, 1941.

The Corresponding Secretary reported the receipt of a letter from Mr. Elliott Perkins, accepting Resident Membership in the Society, and letters from Mr. Lincoln Colcord and Mr. William Gurdon Saltonstall, accepting Corresponding Membership.

Mr. George Lee Haskins of Cambridge was elected a Resident Member of the Society, and Mr. Michael Joseph Walsh of Hyde Park was elected an Associate Member.

The Chair appointed the following committees in anticipation of the Annual Meeting:

To nominate candidates for the several offices,—Messrs. Robert Ephraim Peabody, Richard Mott Gummere, and Fred Norris Robinson.

To examine the Treasurer’s accounts,—Messrs. Stephen Willard Phillips and Hermann Frederick Clarke.

Mr. Frank W. C. Hersey read the following paper:

Tar and Feathers: The Adventures of Captain John Malcom

I

CAPTAIN John Malcom was cursed with a fiery temper which under the slightest provocation flamed into ungovernable rage. The only thing that could quench this heat was more heat—hot tar. But there were only two occasions on which this remedy was available and was actually applied. His irascible nature led him into quarrels with his own brother, Captain Daniel Malcom, with Governor Hutchinson, with his fellow officers in the Customs, with people in Boston, Portland, Newport, and North Carolina; and the only reason why he did not quarrel with King George III was that he wished the King to create him a Knight of the Tar.

Malcom’s hot temper was a part of his inheritance from Clan Malcolm and centuries of Highland feuds. I can speak from intimate knowledge, for Malcolm blood is coursing in me. What is more, John Malcom was my great-great-great-uncle. His brother, Captain Allen Malcom, was my great-great-grandfather. The hot temper, with other Scottish gifts, has persisted in various branches of the family for several generations, and I know of many instances where parent and daughter or brothers and sisters have burst into furious quarrels which have ended in permanent estrangements.

John Malcom was the son of Michael Malcom, a descendant of Clan Malcolm whose ancient home was in Lorne in Argyll. In the seventeenth century some of the Malcolms were among the Scotch Presbyterians who emigrated to Ulster. With other Scotch-Irish pioneers Michael and his wife Sarah arrived in America in 1721, stayed in Boston a short time, and then settled in Georgetown, Maine. John, the boy who grew up to be the hated Tory, was born in Boston, May 20, 1723. The next child, born in Georgetown, November 29, 1725, was Daniel, who grew up to be the esteemed patriot, Captain Daniel Malcom, whose services are celebrated on his gravestone on Copp’s Hill: “A true Son of Liberty, a Friend to the Publick, an Enemy to oppression, and one of the foremost in opposing the Revenue Acts in America.”488 Another son, Allen, grew up to be a soldier in the Revolution.

Like several of his brothers, John Malcom became a mariner. He owned many vessels and sailed as master on many voyages. In addition, during the 1740’s, 1750’s, and 1760’s he had an active military career. In 1745, at the age of twenty-two, he served as an ensign in the Second Massachusetts Regiment, commanded by Colonel Samuel Waldo, at the siege of Louisbourg; and this same year he was captain of a vessel which carried dispatches from Louisbourg to Boston. In a later petition to George III he declares: “I have had thirteen Different Commissions in your Majesty’s Land Service in North America the two last French and Spanish warrs that is Past. I have Serv’d from a Ensign to a Colonel. I have been in all the Battles that was Fought in North America those two warrs that is Past except two and at every Place we Conquerd and Subdued our Enemys to your Majesty.” One wishes he had named the two battles he did not fight in! As to his marine enterprises, he says: “I have Commanded 12 Different Merchant Vessels abroad to Different Parts of the World and some of them I have own’d Mostly Part of them.”

Fortunately it is possible to find more evidence in support of this second assertion than of the first. At the Public Record Office there has been preserved a list of vessels489 entering and leaving the Port of Boston during the years 1750—1765 which gives the dates, the names of vessels, masters, and owners, the tonnage, the size of the crews, the cargoes, and the ports. During these years the vessels owned or commanded by Captain John Malcom number four: the sloop Ranger, fifty tons; the sloop Sally and Polly, sixty tons; the sloop Sarah, sixty tons; and the sloop Sally, forty tons. The ports mentioned are St. Martin’s, Newfoundland, the West Indies, North Carolina, New York, and Louisbourg. Here are two of the entries: “Aug. 8, 1753, Sloop Sarah, Master—John Malcom, Tons—60, Guns—0, Men—6, Owner—John Malcom, Cargo—65000 Lumber, 20 Horses, hh^d 20 Fish, For West Indies”; “Feb. 1, 1758, Sloop Sally, Master—John Malcom, Tons—40, Guns—0, Men—4, Owner—John Malcom, Cargo—hds Molas 1, bb Sugar 8, hds Rum 1, bb Rum 4, Cask Coffee 1, Cask Wine 2, hds Salt 8, hds Lime 20, 1 chest European goods, For No. Carolina.”

The Sally and Polly was lost at sea in 1755 after she had sailed to North Carolina and was on her passage thence to Cork. This disaster led to a bitter quarrel between John and his brother Daniel, who also had become an owner of ships and took them on voyages to Lisbon and London. John owned three-eighths of the Sally and Polly, and presumably Daniel owned the other five-eighths. John accused Daniel of neglecting to have John’s three-eighths share insured for £90 during the voyage, after promising to do so. In his anger John invoked the law. First, on July 23, 1756, he had a writ issued against Daniel for £25 because Daniel had not paid him on demand a note of hand for £20. He followed this three days afterwards with another writ against Daniel for £130 damages for the loss of the insurance.490 The next day, July 27, the Deputy Sheriff attached a dwelling house of Daniel and gave him a summons. Then Captain Daniel got into action and returned a broadside. On the twenty-eighth he had a writ issued against Captain John for £70 because John had refused to pay a promissory note for £66 13s 4d. Captain John had now run out of ammunition, and the guns cooled off, for three days later, July 31, the doughty mariners met at the Sheriff’s office and agreed to settle the matter out of court. Each signed an order that the writs be withdrawn and not served.491

Meanwhile, Captain John Malcom had overhauled and run down another sort of prize: he married Sarah Balch in Boston, the intentions being filed May 24, 1750. Their children were baptized by the Reverend John Moorhead of the First Presbyterian Church, Federal Street, as follows: Ann, September 29, 1751; John, August 12, 1753; Daniel, March 2, 1755; Sarah, February 6, 1757; and Michael, December 18, 1758.

In the latter part of 1769 Malcom gave up his seafaring career and became an officer of the Crown, being appointed Tide Surveyor at Newport, Rhode Island. He moved there with his family and, now entitled to be called “Esquire,” kept up his state by attending the First Congregational Church. He wished to go a step farther and partake of the Lord’s Supper, but that was refused him. Fortunately this episode was recorded by the Reverend Ezra Stiles, then living in Newport, in his diary, February 24, 1770:

I am told that Mr. Malcom last week signified his Desires to some of the Brethren of the first Cong. Chh. here to partake with them in the Lord’s Supper last Lord’s day. His motion was declined. He is an officer in the Customs here: lately removed from Boston & settled here, & with his Family attends that meeting. Tho’ a Congregationalist, yet not Member in Communion with any Congreg^a Chh: yet to qualify for an office had received the Sacrament at an Episcopal Chh., I think in Boston. It is the declared principle of our Churches to receive to occasional Communion, any sober Communicants from any protestant Chhs., as Epis^o, Bapt., &c., if they should desire it. He pleaded this right. But the scruple arose on his Morals, which are exceptionable.492

Stiles’s last sentence is significant: it reveals the fact that already in 1770 Malcom’s reputation was unsavory. This rebuff did not deter him from continuing to go to church: indeed, he transferred his allegiance to the Reverend Mr. Stiles’s own church, the Second Congregational. His name appears in a list of families in this parish entered in Stiles’s diary, January 1, 1771. The figure “6” after it indicates the number of visits made by Mr. Stiles.

Malcom’s devotions did not, however, make him pay all his bills: the law had to be called in for that purpose. A Newport butcher, Samuel Smith, sued him for a bill of £3 os 11¾d on December 19, 1770.

Bill of Sam^l Smith493

1770			John Malcomb to Sam^l Smith Dr
			£	s	d
Sept	22	To 15 Veal 4^d		5
Oct		To 13½ Beef		3	3½
Nov^r	18	To 25½ D^o		5	9
	23	To Mutton & left to pay 1^d		0	1
	26	To 5 D^o		1	2¾
Dec^r	1	To 15 Beef		3	4½
	8	To 196 D^o	2	2	3
			3	0	11¾

On the back of the writ the constable made the following report:

Boston Dec 19^th 1770

I have Attached the Body of the within named John Malcom & took the Rev^d John Moorehead as Bail for the Defdt.

Edw^d Blake Constb^l

Some time later, July 16, 1772, a baker, Godfrey Wainwood of Newport, brought suit for £10 for nonpayment of a bill of £2 14s for 262 loaves of bread. The indorsement on the writ reads tersely: “John Malcom paid the pit. as above.”

II

Early in the year 1771 a new chapter in the adventures of Captain John Malcom began: he was appointed Comptroller of His Majesty’s Customs at Currituck, North Carolina. He arrived, much to his delight, in time to play a vigorous part in the War of the Regulation.494 Malcom joined the expedition led by Governor William Tryon against the Regulators. On May 15, the day before the Governor’s forces came into contact with the enemy, Tryon’s order book records the promotion of the fiery Captain. “Alamance Camp Wed. May 15^th 1771. Captain Malcolm appointed an additional Aid de Camp to his Excellency with the rank and pay of a captain.”495 The next day Malcom had a chance to display his energy on a stage where two armies could watch him. The best eyewitness account is in a “Journal of the Expedition Against the Insurgents in the Western Frontier of North Carolina, Begun the 20^th April, 1771.”

Thursday, 16 May.

The Army marched soon after 7 o’clock this morning leaving the Guard for the Camp as directed in the orders yesterday. The Barrels of Flour and Pork were made use of to strengthen the Barricade formed by the Waggons.

Note.—The discharging three pieces of Artillery was the signal ordered for forming the Army into two Lines in order of Battle agreeable to the plan.

About two miles from the Camp the whole were ordered by the above signal to form the line, to see if the several Detachments knew their stations. This being performed in good order, the Lines were reduced into a column and continued their march, and before 10 O’Clock came within half a mile of the Rebels’ Camp, where the Army formed in line of Battle. The Governor then sent Capt. Malcolm, one of the Aides-de-Camp, and the Sheriff of Orange, with his Letter, requiring the Rebels to lay down their Arms, surrender up their Outlawed Ringleaders, &c. . . . About half past ten Capt. Malcolm and the Sheriff returned with the Information that the Sheriff had read the Letter four several times to different Divisions of the Rebels who rejected the Terms offer’d with disdain, said they wanted no time to consider of them and with rebellious clamor called out for battle. As the Army kept moving on slowly during the absence of Capt. Malcolm and the Sheriff, when they returned the Army was within 300 yards of the Van of the Rebels, who had also advanced towards the Loyalists, waving their hats and daring them to come on. An engagement being then inevitable both Lines were ordered to advance nearer; and they even drew upon the ground upon which the Van of the Rebels first shewed themselves, the latter retreating back to their main body as the Lines advanced.

About this time the Officers petitioned the Governor for an exchange of prisoners in lieu of the two gentlemen taken over night. After some messages passing on both sides, it was agreed that all the prisoners taken by the Loyalists, (number seven) should be restored for Mr. Walker and Lieutenant Ashe. But the Rebels delaying upwards of half an hour to send back the two Gentlemen, under pretence that they were a distance in the rear, and the Governor being suspicious that they were only protracting the time that they might outwing his Flanks by the superiority of their numbers, sent them word by an Aid-de-Camp he should wait no longer for the prisoners, and cautioned the Rebels to take care of themselves, as he should immediately give the signal for action. Accordingly the Artillery began the fire which was instantly seconded by a discharge from the whole of the first Line. The action was hot on both sides tho’ the Rebels soon took to the Trees, from whence they kept up a brisk fire for near two hours, at the expiration of which time their fire slackened considerably. The Artillery was ordered to cease and the Army to advance in the best order the Circumstances would admit of. The left wing of the first line having turned upon the second line of the said wing, threw both into much disorder, tho’ by the spirited behaviour of the Officers they were again brought into the Field and moved forward with the right wing. This soon drove the Enemy from the Trees and the whole Rebel Army fled in great confusion leaving behind them near 20 prisoners taken in the Field, seventy Horses with saddles, provisions and a small quantity of Ammunition.

The Army pursued not more than half a mile beyond the Field of Battle, thro’ the Enemy’s Camp to a House where were found in a Garret, Mr. Walker and Lieut. Ashe, who had been left to shift for themselves in the hurry of the action; the night they were taken they were stript and tied to a tree and both most severely whipt with small Hickory Sticks.

It being now half past two o’clock, the Enemy entirely dispersed and the Army five miles from Camp, it was thought advisable to lose no time, but to return immediately to the Camp to Alamance.496

How much Captain John enjoyed this battle can be gathered from his proud boast in his petition to George III:

I have been in the time of Peace a Cheif Aid de Camp to the Brave Governor Tryon and there we Subdued and Brought Near Seven Thousand Men to Obedience to your Majesty’s Laws and Commands. In that Battle in North Carolina with the Brave Governor Tryon I had two Horses Killd under me but I Escaped that Battle in North Carolina saved your Majesty or the Nation more than one Million and Half Sterling for if Governor Tryon had not then Subdued them it would have Cost more than that to have Subdued them and Brought them to the same Obedience they was by us brought to.

The news that Captain Malcom had played such a dramatic part in the suppression of the Regulators was soon published in Boston and increased the public animosity toward him, for, as John Adams pointed out, “the Regulators were thought in Boston to be an injured people.” Thus, in the popular estimation, Malcom had placed himself on the side of tyranny.

At the end of the campaign against the Regulators Governor Tryon was transferred to New York and was succeeded by Governor Josiah Martin. During the rest of the year 1771 John Malcom unscrupulously used the powers of his office as Comptroller at Currituck for his own benefit and engaged in various malpractices and extortions. When complaints about these offences came to Governor Martin’s attention, he began an investigation. By February 6, 1772, he had gathered enough evidence to write this excoriating letter to Samuel Johnston:

I am favored with your letter of the 25^th of last month by Sir N. Dukenfield, & would have acknowledged its receipt by the same hand if y^e time of his stay here had afforded me opportunity to consider of the offences committed by the Collector & Comptroller of the Port of Currituck, & to examine my Documents with respect to Officers of the Customs.

As M^r Pierce informed my Secretary that he was authorized by the Commiss^rs of His Majesty’s Customs at Boston, to remove the Custom House of Currituck, I am desirous to know the latitude of their instructions to him, as well as of the Powers delegated to this hair brained Comptroller, before I proceed to extremities with them. I cannot help being of opinion that if the former has committed violence or been guilty of irregularity it has been owing to pusillanimous submission to the influence & intimidations of the Bully Drawcansir497 Comptroller whose powers derived from the Commiss^rs of Customs I understand to be of very extraordinary nature & extent. I am persuaded however at y^e same time that they will not justify the extortions & depredations & violence he exercises over His Majesty’s subjects under colour of performing his duty, as I am that the Collectors confederacy, & participation of his inequity is equally indefensible, from whatsoever motive proceeding. That I may be fully informed of their power & authority & get to the perfect knowledge of their malpractices I have written to M^r Pierce a letter, w^ch I take y^e liberty to transmit now through your hands, directing him forthwith to repair hither & to lay before me his Instructions & those of his Comptroller, and to answer for their conduct in the cases of w^ch you make complaint, that seems well supported by the Affidavits you have sent me. . . .

P.S. I shall be glad to be furnished as soon as may be convenient w^h the further proofs you mention of the misconduct of Pierce & Malcom.498

Four months later Governor Martin suspended Malcom and on June 5 informed the Earl of Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies, of his action:

M^r Malcom Comptroller of the customs for the Port of Currituck having been charged upon Oath by sundry persons of venality and corruption as well as extortion in Office, I have thought it for his Majesty’s service to suspend him of which I have informed the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs at Boston and have transmitted to them the sundry depositions made of the misconduct of that officer.499

Lord Dartmouth, who meanwhile had succeeded Lord Hillsborough replied on November 4 expressing his doubt that the Governor had the power to suspend an officer of the Customs.

The charges exhibited against the Collector of Customs for the Port of Currituck are of a nature that certainly seemed to require that he should be suspended from the Execution of his Office; but from what I have learned of the nature of that Officer’s appointment and from a comparison of it with the powers of suspension vested in you by your Instructions I very much doubt of the validity of the step you have taken and therefore cannot signify to you my commands from the King on that head until I have talked with Lord North on the subject.500

To this letter from Lord Dartmouth Governor Martin replied on March 31, 1773:

I must acknowledge, my Lord, that when I suspended Comptroller Malcom I had no more question that the powers vested in me by His Majesty’s Royal Commission warranted such a step than that the nature of his offence demanded it, but since I have been honored with your Lordship’s sentiments on that measure, and that I have reviewed my authorities as to this point more attentively, I incline to your Lordship’s opinion, that if such power over the officers of the customs was designed to be given to His Majesty’s Governor it does not anywhere clearly appear, except in the 25^th Article of the King’s Instruction relating to Trade, in the particular case of neglect connivance, with respect to ships coming from the East Indies.

But lest I should be deemed to have exceeded my powers in that case, I have thought it proper, my Lord, since I have been favoured with your Lordship’s letter to refer some complaints of no less atrocious complexion, made to me against M^r John Pierce, Collector of the same Port of Currituck, to the Commissioners of His Majesty’s Customs, whose authority he has set at defiance. Upon this subject I think it my duty to observe to your Lordships that if His Majesties Governors in the Colonies have not power to suspend officers of the Customs, it may be expedient to vest them with it, for if there is no controlling power over them in Provinces so remote as this is from Boston, the seat of the Board of Commissioners, great mischief may accrue to His Majesty’s Service before they can interpose, as it can hardly be less than four and will be often six months before they can be informed of delinquencies here, and apply proper remedies. This measure I only mean most humbly to offer to your Lordship’s consideration.501

Malcom, however, came north again and was made Comptroller at Falmouth (now Portland), Maine. The odor of tar is now mingled with the tang of the sea.

III

In October, 1773, the brigantine Brothers, John Walker master, arrived in the Sheepscut River from Cowes, Isle of Wight. Captain Walker did not have a register. The old one had been taken from him in South Carolina owing to a change in the partnership which owned the vessel, and the new one had not yet reached him. An informer notified John Malcom that Captain Walker had no register, whereupon Malcom immediately seized the vessel. A detailed narrative of this case, including a picturesque account of Malcom’s activities, appeared in the Boston Gazette, February 14, 1774. It was signed “A Friend to the Liberties of Mankind.”

Feb. 4

Messieurs Edes and Gill,

In Mill’s and Hicks’s Gazette of Monday last, I find the following piece of intelligence, viz.

“Last Week sailed from Portsmouth, bound to White Haven, the Brigantine Brothers, John Walker, Master, who had been seized (on account of an information given by the noted John Malcom, for which he in November last received a Reward from the Sailors at Sheepscut River) by one of his Majesty’s Vessels, and cleared by Order of the Hon. Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs.”

Now that the Publick may be acquainted with that whole Procedure, I beg you will publish the following Narrative, which I doubt not will be satisfactory to the bigger part of your Readers. . . .

The Brigantine Brothers, commanded by John Walker, was owned in Whitehaven in England, by several merchants of character and fortune, one of whom sold his part to another gentleman, who thinking his property in the vessel not entirely secure, while the sellers name remained in the register; inadvertently erased the name of the gentleman of whom he purchased, and inserted his own. With the register thus altered, Capt. Walker made several voyages to Sheepscut river, loaded the said brig with timber, cleared her at the custom house at Falmouth, Casco Bay, where it was not once suggested to him that his register was in any shape irregular; but about twelve months since, Capt. Walker was ordered to South-Carolina for a freight of rice for Zealand, where having loaded his brig, he applied to the custom-house for a clearance, and the collector being absent, who had cleared his vessel with the same register on a former voyage; his deputy . . . told him that his register was forged, and refused him a clearance, and upon his replying that the legality thereof was never questioned in any office before, the said officer with some warmth tore the said register and told him to take out a new one: he answered that as he was no part owner, nor could take upon him to swear who were the owners, it was impracticable for him to obtain a new register, and therefore demanded the old one; the officer, obstinately refused to let him have it, telling him to get a new one in England or elsewhere, but finally granted him a clearance, and he proceeded on his voyage. . . . [When Captain Walker returned to Cowes, England, the owners promised to send him a new register by a vessel that was to sail soon after him. Captain Walker cleared out his brig at Cowes and sailed in ballast only for Sheepscut River, where he arrived some time in October, 1773.] Having got his vessel nearly loaded, he went to Falmouth by land, and cleared out the brig and cargo at the custom-house there for Whitehaven. But during his absence, a dirty scoundrel at Pownalborough, a native of Whitehaven, who was under the greatest obligations to the owners of this vessel . . . had the ingratitude to send a letter fifteen miles to the—famous John Malcom, acquainting him that Capt. Walker had no register, and courting him to come over and make a seizure of the brigantine.

Malcom, without the least delay, sets out for the Informer’s house, and demands a guard to protect him from insults; (he, I must beg pardon of the public for dubbing the Informer a dirty scoundrel, for in truth he holds a Captain’s commission under the Governor of this province.) This informing Captain immediately orders his four serjeants to furnish themselves with such arms and ammunition as the law requires, and thus equipped, they set out to escort the great Malcom to Capt. Walker’s brig, and having made the seizure he dismissed his guard; what pay they received for this very extraordinary military manoeuvre, has not transpired, but they soon became ashamed of their conduct. The heroic Malcom made a mark upon the mast, and commenced sole commander of the brig, ordered the laborers to desist from loading, heartily damned the sailors, menaced the mate, and behaved with great insolence to the gentleman who furnished the cargo, and who happened then to be on board; threatened to sheath his sword in the bowels of any one who dared dispute his authority, and in fact cut some tackling with which some timber was hoisting, by which means three or four people narrowly escaped instantaneous death. The brig’s crew could not be reconciled to the treatment they received from their new commander, but soon told their grievances to about forty or fifty sailors then in the river, a council was held among the tars, and if common fame speaks true, Capt. Malcom verily received some inadequate reward.

Capt. Walker returned from Falmouth with his clearance, expecting to proceed on his voyage, but was told that his brigantine was seized by Malcom, and by him delivered to the custody of one Lieut. Mowit, commander of his Majesty’s armed ship the Canceaux; Capt. Walker shewed his clearance from the office at Falmouth, and demanded his vessel, but Mowit told him, he would not deliver her unless he produced an order from the board of commissioners or from Admiral Montagu, and advised him to proceed immediately to Boston, and lay the matter before the board. . . .502

An account of Malcom’s “inadequate reward” is given in a letter published in the Boston Gazette of November 15, 1773:

As I have heard it said, that a certain John Malcom was an Epitome of the whole Board of Worshipful Com—s; that they may see what special regard would be paid them, even in a remote part of the Province, were they personally present, I desire you would publish the following Extract of a Letter from Pownalborough, dated November 2, 1773.

“Yesterday about 12 o’Clock, we were saluted with three Cheers at a distance, when approaching the Window to investigate the Cause, we saw about 30 Sailors, surrounding an Object which had more the appearance of the D—l, than any Human being; but in Truth it was the Infamous J—N M—M, Esq; who had render’d himself obnoxious to the Sailors by being an Informer. They surrounded Mr. Bradbury’s House, where Malcom was. After a stout resistance John Irish was taken, being disarm’d of Sword, Cane, Hat & Wig, he was genteely tarr’d and feather’d; then after marching thro’ the Streets an Hour, was dismissed. We hope the great Rogues, will not send a Fleet to protect him!”

The seizure of the brigantine Brothers led to a bitter quarrel between Malcom and his superior, Francis Waldo, who was Collector at Falmouth. The quarrel was carried to England when three years later, in London, Captain Malcom made various charges against Waldo in a memorial to the Lords of the Treasury. Waldo, hearing of these charges, asked permission to submit the following answers.503

M^r Malcoms Memorial

That your Mem^or having received Information that the Brigantⁿ Brothers J^o Walker Master from Holland had clandestinely landed her Cargo of Tea, Glass, Painters Colours &c at Wichcassett in the Port of Falm^o in the Province of Massachusetts Bay—did in consequence of such Information Seize the s^d Brig^tn on or about the 21^st of Oct^o 1773, which Seizure was made at the risque and hazard of his Life.

Answered

The Brig^tn Two Brothers J^o Walker Master was owned at Whitehaven—was admitted to an Entry in the Books of the Coll^r & Comptroller of Falm^o per Manifest on Oath from S^o Carolina in Ballast. At S^o Carolina the Officer detained the Vessells Register on account of an Interliniation of One Owner instead of another obliterated as Cap^tn Walker declared on Oath—that Officer however permitted the Vessell to proceed on her Voyage to Falmouth—therefore M^r Malcom’s ingenious Fiction of a Voyage from Holland with Tea &c is an Untruth.

M^r Malcom

That as soon as your Mem^or made the Seizure, the Master of the s^d Brig^tn set out for the Port of Falmouth & made Application to Fra^s Waldo Esq^r Coll^r of that Port, who contrary to Law granted to the s^d Master clearances for the s^d Brig^tn then under Seizure, and for what Lumber she had taken on board in order to Screen the said Brig^tn from being prosecuted to Condemnation, tho the said Brig^tn had no English papers either Register or Clearance when seized.

Answered

This Vessell frequented the Port of Falmouth for Timber and generally came from & return’d to Whitehaven, direct—as did a Number of other British Vessells there Owned—her Register was Recorded in the Custom House Books at Falm^o—her departure from S^o Carolina was by permission of the Officers there—no clandestine running of Goods could be suspected from her Voyage—the Master was in no fault, but in a trade with Great Britain that claimed every encouragement & assistance that a Crown Officer could afford—above all other reasons & Motives that induced M^r Waldo & the D Comptroller to avoid a Seizure of this Vessell, was the great ferment in respect to political Matters that then prevailed in the Country, that render’d it dangerous to Exert powers that had become disputed, & the Exercise of which would tend to increase the ferment & produce riot & Insurrection—the Event shew’d the Truth of this Opinion.

M^r Malcom

That immediately upon Seizing the said Brig^tn your Memorialist acquainted M^r Waldo the s^d Coll^r with the grounds of doing so—but M^r Waldo instead of supporting your Mem^or in the Execution of his Duty, took means for preventing the Seizure being prosecuted, by furnishing papers from his Office as aforesaid, and as your Mem^or has been informed by some Composition the said M^r Waldo made with the said Master.

Answered

It is not true that M^r Waldo granted clearance or any Dispatches to this Vessell after he was made acquainted that M^r Malcom had seized her. And It is base & Villainous to insinuate that any Composition was Entered into between the Master & M^r Waldo—whereas he and the D Comptroller (whose Conduct in respect to this Transaction was passed upon by the Comm^ners of the Customs) were not chargeable with or even suspected of any undue Motives to influence them—by a prudent & temperate Conduct they Aimed to preserve peace & Quiet in the critical State that public affairs were then in.

M^r Malcom

That your Memorialist stated by Letters to the Comm^ners at Boston the nature of the Seizure & of an Intention there was of resqueing the said Brig^tn on which the Comm^nera applied to Cap^tn Mowatt of the Canso Man of War Sloop then at that Port to detain the said Brig^tn ’till further Orders—which was done. She was afterwards carried to Portsmouth in N. Hampshire where a Valuation was put upon her. Security was given for the amount of the said Valuation, which was afterwards Condemned to be paid by a Court of Admiralty.

Answered

The Vessell being condemned in the Court of Admiralty on the Strict Letter of the Law for being without a Register, M^r Malcom received ab^t £100 Sterl for his proportion of the forfeiture.

M^r Malcom

That by this Interference of M^r Waldo your Mem^or power as an Officer of the Customs to make Seizures became disputed, and in consequence thereof his person was exposed to the Resentment of a cruel Mob there, who Tar’d & Feather’d him, break his Sword & Cast it into a River, Extorted a promise from him never to make any more Seizures there, & otherways Illtreated him upon which I immediately went to Boston, where a second time endeavouring to do my Duty in getting the Tea landed, was barbarously & inhumanely treated, as set forth in my Memorial to his Majesty & the Lords of the Treasury—whereby your Mem^or was obliged to quit America, leaveing a large family behind him to receive his Sallary for their Support.

Answered

M^r Waldos Clearance being previous to his having information of M^r Malcoms Seizure—M^r Waldo is in no degree chargeable with the treatment M^r Malcom met with, nor is M^r Waldo affected by a new Matter here introduced viz. that M^r Malcom went to Boston and brought upon himself a second Taring & Feathering—he has not however assigned the true Cause of this last Misfortune, which happened some time after the India Companys Teas were destroyed, & was occasioned by his beating a Boy in the Street in such a manner as to raise a Mob.

M^r Malcom

That the s^d Francis Waldo Esq^r Coll^r of Falmouth has detained your Mem^or Sallary as an Officer of the Customs in said Port for near two Years to the great Distress of your Mem^or Family, & for no other reason that he knows of except that of Seizing the before mentioned Brig^tn.

Answered

The State of M^r Waldos Office is laid before the Treasury—The Ballance of the revenue of the Port of Falmouth was left in the hands of M^r George Lyde the D Collector, who at Midsummer 1775 paid M^r Malcoms Sallary to M^r Dommett Attorney to M^rs Malcom—to what time it has been since paid to her, is not known.504

IV

Now comes the most melodramatic event in this tumultuous history. Malcom had returned to Boston from Falmouth and was living in his house in Cross Street, North End. Sunday, January 23, 1774, was so severely cold that Boston Harbor had frozen over. John Rowe even entered in his diary: “The Ink Freezes as I write.” On Tuesday, the twenty-fifth, about two o’clock in the afternoon (as is stated in the graphic narrative in the Massachusetts Spy of January 27, 1774),

. . . Mr. George-Robert-Twelves Hewes was coming along Fore-Street, near Captain Ridgway’s, and found the redoubted John Malcom, standing over a small boy, who was pushing a little sled before him, cursing, damning, threatning and shaking a very large cane with a very heavy ferril on it over his head. The boy at that time was perfectly quiet, notwithstanding which Malcom continued his threats of striking him, which Mr. Hewes conceiving if he struck him with that weapon he must have killed him out-right, came up to him, and said to him, Mr. Malcom, I hope you are not going to strike this boy with that stick. Malcom returned, you are an impertinent rascal, it is none of your business. Mr. Hewes then asked him, what had the child done to him. Malcom damned him and asked him if he was going to take his part? Mr. Hewes answered no further than this, that he thought it was a shame for him to strike the child with such a club as that, if he intended to strike him. Malcom on that damned Mr. Hewes, called him a vagabond, and said he would let him know he should not speak to a gentleman in the street. Mr. Hewes returned to that, he was neither a rascal nor vagabond, and though a poor man was in as good credit in town as he was. Malcom called him a liar, and said he was not, nor ever would be. Mr. Hewes retorted, be that as it will, I never was tarred nor feathered any how. On this Malcom struck him, and wounded him deeply on the forehead, so that Mr. Hewes for some time lost his senses. Capt. Godfrey, then present, interposed, and after some altercation, Malcom went home, where the people gathering round, he came out and abused them greatly, saying, you say I was tarred and feathered, and that it was not done in a proper manner, damn you let me see the man that dare do it better! I want to see it done in the new-fashioned manner. After Malcom had thus bullied the people some time, and Mr. Usher the constable had persuaded him into the house, Mrs. Malcom threw up a sash, and begged the people to go away, and Malcom came suddenly behind her and pushing his naked sword through the opening, pricked Mr. Waddel in the breast; the bone stopping its course, which would otherwise have reached his vitals. Mr. Waddel on this made a stroke at the window with his cane, and broke a square of glass, through which breach he again made a pass, and slightly wounded Mr. Waddel, who a second time returned the blow, and Malcom withdrawing the people dispersed.

Mr. Hewes after having his wound taken care of, went to Justice Quincy and took out a warrant for Malcom, and gave it to a constable, who went to Malcom’s house to serve it, but found the doors shut against him, and was told by him, from a window, that he would not be taken that day, as he should be followed by a damned mob, but would surrender to-morrow afternoon. Here the matter appeared to subside, till in the evening the people being informed of the outrages he had committed, the threatnings and defiances he had uttered, and among other things, that he would split down the yankees by dozens, and receive 20l sterling a head for every one he destroyed, they mustered and went to his house, which being barred against them, and he menacing with his loaded pistols, which he declared he would fire upon them if they came near him, they got ladders and beating in an upper window, entered the house and took him without loss of blood, and dragging him out put him on a sled, and amidst the huzzas of thousands, brought him into King-street. Several Gentlemen endeavoured to divert the populace from their intention, alledging that he was open to the laws of the land which would undoubtedly award a reasonable satisfaction to the parties he had abused; they answered he had been an old, impudent and mischevious offender—he had joined in the murders at North-Carolina—he had seized vessels on account of sailors having a bottle or two of gin on board—he had in office, and otherwise, behaved in the most capricious, insulting and daringly abusive manner—and on every occasion discovered the most rooted enmity to this country, and the defenders of its rights—that in case they let him go they might expect a like satisfaction as they had received in the cases of Richardson and the soldiers, and the other friends of government. With these and such like arguments, together with a gentle crouding of persons not of their way of thinking out of the ring they proceeded to elevate Mr. Malcom from his sled into a cart, and stripping him to buff and breeches, gave him a modern jacket and hied him away to liberty-tree, where they proposed to him to renounce his present commission, and swear that he would never hold another inconsistent with the liberties of his country; but this he obstinately refusing, they then carted him to the gallows, passed a rope round his neck, and threw the other end over the beam as if they intended to hang him: But this manoeuvre he set at defiance. They then basted him for some time with a rope’s end, and threatened to cut his ears off, and on this he complied, and they then brought him home.

See reader, the effects of a government in which the people have no confidence!

Let those who pretend to dread anarchy and confusion at length be persuaded to join in the only measure to be depended on for their prevention, viz. to put the administration into the hands of men reverenced and beloved by the people.

The same issue of the Massachusetts Spy contains a number of letters giving bloodthirsty anecdotes of the ferocious Captain:

Boston, 26^th January, 1774, three o’clock p.m.

You may inform the public that John Malcom yesterday afternoon declared that if he should kill as many (certain) people as he could he should receive thirty pounds sterling each for them, and that in case of prosecution for the same he would repair over to the governors (meaning as the informant understood Governor Hutchinson at Milton) and he the said Governor would grant him protection.

The above informant says that she was chiding Malcom for stabbing such a pretty man as Mr. Waddel. I wish said he I had run him through the heart and killed him, and then I should have had thirty pounds sterling reward for doing it.

N.B.

A.R.

You may be assured that the difficulty the Gentlemen in Boston found in rescuing Malcom from the modern mode of punishment preparing for him last evening, in consequence of his stabbing a seaman arose from his falling into the hands of a number of sailors, from the Eastward and other parts, whom he had so often exasperated that nothing could soften them. When they were told the law would have its course with him, they asked what course had the law taken with Preston or his soldiers, with Capt. Wilson or Richardson? And for their parts they had seen so much partiiality [sic] to the soldiers and customhouse officers by the present Judges, that while things remained as they were, they would, on all such occasions, take satisfaction their own way, and let them take it off.

A.Z.

A Lady of reputation in this town says, that she has heard John Malcom repeatedly declare, that he was to have one hundred pounds sterling each for eight or ten persons in this town which he should kill or take off. And added that besides that he was to be protected: The Lady asked by whom? He answered, that was best known to himself.

The same Lady seeing Capt. W. Macky passing by, said to Mr. Malcom, there goes your friend Mackay. Damn him said Malcom, I would as soon shoot him as any man in Boston.

N.B.

A.R.

Several more details of this episode are furnished by Mr. Hewes himself, whose reminiscences were published some sixty years later.

They started for Henchman’s Wharf, and there took in a quantity of tar. . . . Thence they carted him to Butcher’s Hall; (The popular title of the Custom House on King Street (State); thence to Shubael Hewes’, who kept a butcher’s-market at that period on Main Street, in a wooden house near the Old South Church, with a jutting upper story. . . . Here, as in King Street, a flagellation was tried. Then they drove to Liberty-Tree—to the gallows on the Neck—back to the Tree—to Butcher’s Hall again—to Charlestown ferry—to Copp’s Hill,—flogging the miserable wretch at every one of these places, if not some more. . . . Hewes states that when they left him at the door of his own house, after a fourhours’ torture, the poor creature was almost frozen, and was rolled out of the cart like a log. Dr Gardiner, who met Hewes soon after, told him that it took three days to get his blood into circulation again. . . .

The assault [on Hewes] was unprovoked and outrageous; and the wound so serious that the indentation it made in his skull is as plainly perceptible to this moment [1835] as it was sixty years ago. Indeed, as the Doctor [Joseph Warren, who was a relative] told him when he dressed it, it was within one of his life. “Cousin Hewes,” said he, good-humoredly, “you are the luckiest man I know of, to have such a skull—nothing else could have saved you”; and nothing else did. . . .

Nor was he accessory in any way to the disgraceful treatment which Malcom received; so far from it, that when he first heard of his miserable situation, his instant impulse was to push after the procession as fast as he could, with a blanket to put over his shoulders. He overtook them at his brother’s house and made an effort to relieve him; but the ruffians who now had the charge of him about the cart, pushed him aside, and warned him to keep off.

Malcom recovered from his wounds, and went about as usual. “How do you do, Mr. Malcom?” said Hewes, very civilly, the next time he met him. “Your humble servant, Mr. George Robert Twelves Hewes,” quoth he—touching his hat genteelly as he passed by. “Thank ye,” thought Hewes, “and I am glad you have learned better manners at last.”

Nor was that the only benefit which accrued to this unfortunate politician. The frost caused an affection which caused a considerable portion of the skin to peel off. This, with a quantity of the Tar and feathers that adhered to him, it is understood he carefully preserved, boxed up, and carried with him to England, as a testimonial of his sacrifices for the royal cause. . . .505

Now let us hear Malcom’s own narrative of the events, dictated on January 30 as he lay in bed, and sent to Governor Hutchinson and the General Court.

To His Excelency Thomas Hutchinson Esq^r Gov^r &c^a the Hon^ble His majestys Council, and the Honorable The House of Representatives of this Provience of the Massachusetts Bay in General Court Assembled

The Memorial of John Malcom Esq^r of his Majestys Customs Most Humbly Sheweth,

That in the afternoon of the 25^th Inst a Number of People assembled at the House of your memorialist in Boston and after insulting him with opprobrious Language, under a False pretence of his haveing the Same day used a Boy Ill in the Street, they Broke his windows and endeavourd forcibly to Take him out of his House, but from the Natural Opposition he made, or Some friendly Interposition they thought Proper to Desperse—

That about Eight OClock in the Evening of the same Day a vast Concourse of people again beset the House of your memorialist, Who were Armed with axes Clubs &c^a and Broke open the door and Windows of the Lower appartments on which he Retired to an upper Chamber to make what Deffence he Could but One M^r Russell Declareing himself to be the friend of your memorialist, Came Into the Room with all the appearances of Friendship, shook hands and at same Time Desired he might be permitted to Look at the sword of your memorialist which was the only weapon he had for his immediate Deffence, which request being granted he siezed the sword and Calling out to the people assembled as afore said, they immediately Rushed in, and by violence forced your memorialist out of the House, and Beating him with Sticks then placed him on a sled they had Prepaird and Draged him before the Custom House where they gave three Huzza’s they afterwards Took him out of the sled and put him into a Cart, and Notwithstanding the severitty of the weather, Tore of his Clothes, and Tarrd and Featherd his Naked body, and in that setuation Carried him before the Provience House and ordered him to Curse The Governor and say he was an Enemy to his Country but your Memorialist Refused—from thence they prosceeded with him to Liberty-Tree so Called, where they again ordered him to Curse the governor and the board of Commissioners, and say they were Enemyes to this Countrey, and Commanded him also to Resigne his Commission; all which he Refused.

that your Memorialist asked the People what he who was their friend had Done to Desplease them, they answered he was an Enemy to the Countrey and that they would soon serve all the Custom House officers in Like manner—

that from Liberty Tree they Carryed your Memorialist to the Gallows, put Round his Neck a Rope and threatned to Hang him if he would not Do as they had before ordered him, but he still Refused Desiring and praying they would put their threats in Execution Rather than Continue their Torture, they then Took the rope off his Neck and Tying his hands Fastned him to the Gallows, and beat him with Ropes and Sticks in most savage manner, which Compeled him to Declare he would do any thing they Desired, upon which they unbound him, and obliged him to Curse the governor and the Board of Commissioners, and Declaring at the same Time they would serve the governor in the Same manner, and Extorted a promise from him to assist &c^a

and Returning with him to Liberty Tree then they made him Repeat several oathes, among which one was that he would not Discover any of the persons then present; and Carting him through the Town stopd before the Provience House and made him Repeat the above mentioned oathes. Dureing these Transactions several Humane gentlemen at Divers Times offerd him gairments to Cover him but his Tormentors would not suffer that Indulgence, at Length they Carried y^r memorialist to his House, in a most mizerable setuation Deprived of his senses

that your Memorialist is now Confined to his bed, in a most Deploreable and Dangerous Setuation in Consequence of the afore said Treatment,

Wherefore your memorialist most Humbly prays that your Ex^y and Honors would be pleased To Take his unhappy Case into Consideration and Enable him To Take such measures for his Immediat Relief and procure a suitable Redress for his unparalelled wrongs as your great Wisdom shall judge Proper, and your Memorialist as in dutty shall Ever pray &c, &c, &c^a

	his
A Coppy—Signd John	×	malcom
	mark

Witness Present

Daniel Malcom

Mary Dodge

Certificate of the Magistrate and Resolves of the House of Representatives Carried Over

Suffolk ss:

Boston 30 January 1774

John Malcom Esq^r personally appearing after being Duly Cautioned, made solemn Oath to the Truth of the several Facts in the foregoing Memorial by him subscribed

Cor: Joseph Gardner Just^c Peace

In Council Feb^y the 1^st 1774. Read and sent down.

In the House of Representatives 1^st February 1774. Read and Ordered the Petitioner have leave to withdraw his Petition.

Sent up for Concurrence

T Cushing Sp^kr

In Council Feb^y 1^st 1774

Read and Concurred.

Jn^o Cotton D Secretary

London 16^th June 1774, a True Coppy from the original.

Isaac Macneil506

Already, two days before this memorial was prepared, Governor Hutchinson had written his report of the episode to the Earl of Dartmouth, enclosing the account which was printed in the government paper, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, January 27, 1774.

Extract of a Letter from Gov^R Hutchinson to the Earl of Dartmouth dated Boston 28^th January 1774

I met the Assembly the 26^th & endeavoured to make such a Speech to them, as should shew I had no Inclination to dispute with them upon any point whatever. In general I have recommended an Exertion of Power in promoting Order.

I am sorry that I must acquaint Your Lordship with a barbarous & inhuman Act of Violence upon the Person of John Malcom the Night after the 25^th instant by a great number of Rioters in the Town of Boston; M^r Malcolm is a preventive Officer from the Port of Falmouth in Casco Bay, & lately seized a Vessel in that Port for want of a Register. I have heard no Complaint of any Irregularity in this execution of his Office, but a great number of Persons in that part of the Province thought fit to punish him by tarring & feathering him, and carrying him about in Derision. As he was not stripped, and the chief Damage sustained was in his Cloaths, upon his making complaint to me I only sent for one of the principal Justices of the Peace for the County, & directed him to make Inquiry into the Affair, and to oblige such of the Actors as he should have Evidence against to find Security to answer at the next Assizes for the County, or to commit them. He has, since his being at Boston, made frequent Complaints to me of his being hooted at in the Streets for having been tarred and feathered, and being a passionate Man, I have as often cautioned him against giving way to his Passion, or making any other return than neglect and contempt. But having met with a Provocation of this sort in the Afternoon of the 25^th from a Tradesman, who he says had several times before affronted him, he struck him with his Cane. The Tradesman applied to Justice, who issued a Warrant to a Constable, but the Constable not being able to find him, a Mob gathered about his House in the Evening and having broke his Windows, he pushed through the broken Window with his Sword, and gave a slight Scratch with the Point to one of the Assailants; soon after which the Mob entered his House, and treated him in the manner related in the News Paper which I shall inclose. This Account is given to me by the Relations of M^r Malcolm, who are Persons of good Characters in the Town. He has for some time past been threatened by the Populace with Revenge for his free & open Declarations against the late Proceedings and has, I believe, sometimes indiscreetly provoked them, which it is pretended may be some Excuse for such an outrageous Action.

I am informed today, that altho’ he is terribly bruised, it is probable he will recover. I will do every thing in my power to bring the guilty Persons to condign Punishment. I have not heard of any, except the lowest Class of People, suspected of being concerned in this Riot. The next Night there was an Attempt made to raise another Mob to search for Ebenezer Richardson, lately found guilty for Murder, but Judgment being suspended, His Majesty’s Pardon was applied for & obtained. He is now in some very inferior Employment in the Service of the Customs in Pensilvania, and it is thought a Report of his being in Town was spread for the sake of raising a Mob. Some of the more considerate People appeared & opposed the Leaders in the beginning of the Affair and put a Stop to it. I am the more particular in these Accounts because I have heretofore been thought negligent in not transmitting the earliest Advice of every Attack upon the Officers of the Customs, though of the lowest Rank. The Town continuing in this State, the Friends of the Consignees of the East India Company judge it unsafe for them to appear there, tho’ they are sensible that any further Compliance with the Demands of the People could not have been justified, and that the whole Proceedings with respect to them, have been unjust & tyrannical. There is no Spirit left in those who used to be Friends to Government to support them, or any others, who oppose the prevailing Power.507

The account in the Massachusetts Gazette was as follows:

Last Tuesday Afternoon as Mr. John Malcom was passing along Street, a Lad with a Sled ran by him, and the Sled hitting his Feet, he pursued the Boy with a Cane in his Hand to give him a Blow, a Person near endeavoring to persuade him from it, upon which Malcom struck the Man, and the People gathering together he got a Sword, and made several Pushes with it, and graz’d one Man in his Breast. A Warrant was issued out by a Magistrate against Malcom for a Breach of the Peace, and the Constable went to his House to apprehend him, but he had confined himself, however he went to the back of the House, and begged of the Officer to let him alone till the next Morning, as he was afraid to venture out, so many People being enraged against him.—The Officer then went away. In the Evening a Number surrounded his House, and entering found him in an upper Chamber, they got a Rope and lowered him out of the Windows into a Cart which they had prepared, then tore his Cloaths off, and Tarr’d his Head and Body, and feathered him, then set him in a Chair in the Cart, and carried him through the main Street into King-Street, from thence they proceeded to Liberty-Tree, and then to the Neck as far as the Gallows, where they whipped him, beat him with Sticks and threatned to hang him; having continued under the Gallows above half an Hour, they returned in the same Manner, surrounded by a vast Concourse of People, and was carried to the extreme Part of the North-End of the Town; and returned to his own House just before Midnight: It is said he was near four Hours in the Condition above-mentioned, and that he was so benumb’d by the Coldness of the Weather and his Nakedness, and bruised in such a Manner that his Life is despaired of.

It having been reported that the noted Ebenezer Richardson, was seen in Town, a Number of People were in Pursuit of him last Evening, but could not find him.

In the issue of February 3, 1774, the Massachusetts Gazette corrected some errors in the earlier account.

As the Printer was not able to go out to make Enquiry into the Circumstances of tarring and feathering J. Malcom on Tuesday Night the 25th ult. there were some Mistakes in the first Part of the Account published last Week, tho’ not very Material, nor designed; particularly that he was let down from the Chamber Window into the Cart, &c. Whereas the People went up a Ladder and Entered the Chamber Window, brought him down Stairs then put him into a Sled and carried him into King-Street, there they strip’d, tarred and feathered him and put him into the Cart, then proceeded as we mentioned: It is said his Bruises are not likely to prove Mortal.

The account written on January 31 by Miss Ann Hulton, sister of Henry Hulton, Commissioner of Customs at Boston, in a letter sent home to England, adds further particulars:

But the most shocking cruelty was exercised a few Nights ago, upon a poor Old Man a Tidesman one Malcolm he is reckond creasy, a quarrel was pickd w^th him, he was afterward taken, & Tarrd, & featherd. Theres no Law that Knows a punishment for the greatest Crimes beyond what this is, of cruel torture. And this instance exceeds any other before it he was stript Stark naked, one of the severest cold nights this Winter, his body coverd all over with Tar, then with feathers, his arm dislocated in tearing off his cloaths, he was drag^d in a Cart with thousands attending, some beating him w^th clubs & Knocking him out of the Cart, then in again. They gave him several severe whipings, at different parts of the Town. This Spectacle of horror & sportive cruelty was exhibited for about five hours.

The unhappy wretch they say behavd with the greatest intrepidity, & fortitude all the while, before he was taken, defended himself a long time against Numbers, & afterw^ds when under Torture they demanded of him to curse his Masters The K: Gov^r &c which they coud not make him do, but he still cried, Curse all Traitors. They bro^t him to the Gallows & put a rope about his neck say^g they woud hang him he said he wished they woud, but that they coud not for God was above the Devil. The Doctors say that it is impossible this poor creature can live. They say his flesh comes off his back in Stakes.

It is the second time he has been Tarrd & featherd & this is look^d upon more to intimidate the Judges & others than a spite to the unhappy Victim tho’ they owe him a Grudge for some things particul^y he was with Gov^r Tryon in the Battle with the Regulators & the Governor has declared that he was of great servise to him in that Affair, by his undaunted Spirit encountering the greatest dangers

Gov^r Tryon had sent him a gift of ten Guineas just before this inhuman treatment. he has a Wife & family & an Aged Father & Mother who they say saw the Spectacle w^ch no indifer^t person can mention without horror.

These few instances amongst many serve to shew the abject State of Governm^t & the licentiousness & barbarism of the times. There’s no Majestrate that dare or will act to suppress the outrages. No person is secure there are many Objects pointed at, at this time & when once mark’d out for Vengence, their ruin is certain.508

A new note—that of mordant humor—was sounded in an article printed at the end of the year 1774 in several Boston papers. The story came in a dispatch from London dated October 8 and contains many picturesque and dramatic details not reported by any previous witnesses.

A Correspondent says he has been informed, by a Gentleman lately arrived from Philadelphia, that when Mr. John Malcomb, an Officer of the Customs at Boston, was leading, tarred and feathered, to the Gallows, with a Rope about his Neck, he was asked by one of the Mob whether he was not thirsty, which was natural to a Man expecting to be hanged. The unfortunate Officer of the Customs, as well as he could speak, answered yes; and immediately a large Bowl of strong Tea was put into his Hands, with Orders to drink the King’s Health. Whether it was owing to Loyalty or Thirst is not material; poor Malcomb Half emptied the Bowl. He was then told he must mend his Draught, and drink the Queen’s Health. Though he had done his utmost for the King, he found he must do something for the Queen; and having taken off Half the Remainder of the Bowl, he presented it back to the Persons from whom he had received it. Hold! hold! cries his Friend, you are not to forget the rest of the Royal Family; come, drink to the Prince of Wales. Replenish, replenish, cries the loyal American; and instantly poor Malcomb saw two Quarts more of what he was heartily sick of. Make Haste, cries another loyal American; you have nine more Healths to drink before you arrive at the Gallows. For God’s Sake, Gentlemen, be merciful, I am ready to burst; if I drink a Drop more, I shall die. Suppose you do, cries one of the Mob, you die in a good Cause, and it is as well to be drowned as hanged, and immediately the drenching Horn was put to his Mouth, to the Health of the Bishop of Osnabrug; and, having gone through the other eight, he turned pale, shook his Head, and instantly filled the Bowl which he had just emptied. What, says the American, are you sick of the Royal Family? No, replies Malcomb, my Stomack nauseates the Tea; it rises at it like Poison. And yet, you Rascal, returns the American, your whole Fraternity at the Custom house would drench us with this Poison, and we are to have our Throats cut if it will not stay upon our Stomachs. The merciful Americans desisted, and the Procession was continued towards the Gallows.509

The picturesque episode thus narrated appealed to the dramatic eye of an English artist, Philip Dawe, who made a mezzotint, here reproduced, depicting the event with just that touch of sardonic humor which he had learned from his master, Hogarth. This print, published by Messrs. Sayer & Bennett, is entitled “The Bostonian’s Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring & Feathering.”510

In this cartoon Dawe displays many of the qualities of Hogarth emphasized by Charles Lamb in his essay on that artist—the quantity of thought crowded into the picture, the attention to detail, the strongly charactered faces. Here is a rapid review of the ten years of controversy, including the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party. Five men are forcing Malcom to drink from a teapot; one of them holds a rope which is tied round his neck. They are grouped under the Liberty Tree, from a branch of which dangles a noose. On the tree is a placard inscribed “Stamp Act,” but it is turned upside down to indicate that the Act had long since been repealed. The presence of the placard calls to mind the fact that the Stamp Act was the primary cause of the quarrel between Great Britain and America. In the background, on the left, is a ship, from which masked men are emptying tea chests into the water. Malcom was not involved in the Boston Tea Party, though later in London he tried to make people believe that his punishment by the mob was the result of his performing his duties as a customs officer on that occasion.

The widespread interest in Malcom’s sensational adventure is evidenced by the fact that two other prints relating to him were issued by a different publisher, Carington Bowles, one appearing nearly three weeks before Dawe’s print (see illustration opposite page 454), the other some months later (see illustration opposite page 456). The earlier of these is called “A New Method of Macarony Making, as Practised at Boston.”511 The other has a similar title: “A New Method of Macarony Making, as Practised at Boston in North America.”512 Both carry the following explanatory verse:

For the Custom House Officers landing the Tea,

They Tarr’d him, and Feather’d him, just as you see,

And they drench’d him as well both behind and before

That he begg’d for God’s sake they would drench him no more.

In the first of the Bowles prints the careful delineation of Malcom’s face without comic exaggeration makes it highly probable that this is an actual portrait. Indeed, the artist would have had many opportunities to see him during the summer of 1774. The frayed end of the rope which is tied round Malcom’s neck is held by the American on the right, and a broken rope is hanging from the gallows at the back. These details indicate that an attempt has been made to hang him. The man on the right wears a cockade on his hat, showing that he is one of the Sons of Liberty. The American on the left holds a large teapot and is ready to make Malcom drink. His hat is ornamented with the numerals 45, the symbol of Liberty, popular both in England and America, derived from Number 45 of the North Briton (April 23, 1763), in which John Wilkes had attacked the King’s speech at the opening of Parliament. The title, “A New Method of Macarony Making,” is a humorous allusion to the rumor that Malcom, on account of his sufferings, was to be made a King’s pensioner.513 In the language of the day the word “macarony” was applied to a fop or exquisite, and hence had become a term of contempt.514

Bowles’s second print, a folio line engraving, shows a scene of great animation.515 Here Malcom is in the cart which has been driven under the gallows. It will be noted at once that he is kneeling in the same position as in the other picture, but the whole figure is exactly reversed. The rope round his neck has been thrown over the crossbeam of the gallows, and the executioners stand ready to hang him. Another man in the cart is trying to induce him to resign his commission. The mob is around with clubs. All these details correspond with the facts given in the narrative of Malcom himself and by Hewes. One of a group of sailors at the foot of the cart points to the Tea Party at the right.

The fame of Captain John Malcom even spread to France. His ordeal had made such a dramatic appeal to the French people that in 1784 a representation of it (see illustration opposite page 458), engraved by F. Godefroy, with the title “John Malcom,” was included in a book of engravings portraying the principal events of the American Revolution: Recueil d’Estampes Représentant les Differents Événemens de la Guerre qui a Procuré l’Indépendance aux États Unis de l’Amérique. Malcom is being lowered by ropes from the upper window of his house into the cart. The men in the cart are beginning to undress him, and one of them is plunging his ladle into a kettle of melted tar. The artist has forgotten, however, that this event occurred on a bitter winter night, and has introduced two ladies on the right, both of them wearing summer dresses and one of them carrying a parasol.516

A final account of Malcom’s misfortunes to be cited is that given in John Rowe’s diary.

Jan. 25 [1774]. John Malcom having done some violence to a man with a Sword, enraged the Multitude that they Took him & put him into a Cart, Tarr’d & feathered him—carrying thro’ the principal streets of This Town with a halter about him, from thence to the gallows & Returned thro’ the Main Street making Great Noise & Huzzaing. I did not see the numbers attending but tis supposed by the People that did, there were upwards of twelve hundred people—tis said that Malcom behaved with Great Fortitude & Resolution. This was looked upon by me & every Sober man as an act of outrageous Violence & when several of the Inhabitants applyed to a particular Justice to Exert his Authority & suppress & they would support him in the Execution of his Duty, he Refused. B.N.517

While Captain Malcom was recovering from his wounds, he issued several bulletins reporting his progress. The Boston Evening-Post of February 14 and the Massachusetts Spy of February 17 printed this notice:

Monday, February 14 Boston

Yesterday se’nnight the following Note, it is said, was sent to several Churches in this Town, viz. “John Malcom desires Prayers of the Christian People of this Congregation, that the vile abuse received on the 25 Day or Evening of January last past, from a vile rebellious Mob, without Provocation, may be sanctified to him and his Family; and that he may bless God that his Usefulness is still spared, and that he is greatly recovered from his dreadful Wounds and Bruises he then received from the bloody and cruel Hands of these cruel Mortals here below.—May God forgive them!”

A month later, March 17, the Massachusetts Spy gave the following grateful announcement:

Last Sunday se’nnight, the following curious note was sent to several churches in this town, and we hear was read at one of them, viz.

“John Malcom returns thanks to Almighty God, that again he is able to wait on him again in the public worship, after the cruel and barbarous usage of a cruel and barbarous savage mob in Boston, on the 25^th evening of January last past confined him to house, bed and room.

March 6, 1774.”

As early as February 3 someone had written a letter to the editor of the Massachusetts Gazette condemning the barbarous treatment of the Captain, but the editor refused to print it:

Veritas, his Observations on the Method of Punishment inflicted on J. Malcom, in a Place professing the Christian Religion, cannot be inserted. He concludes “I would have every one punished that is deserving of it. But would not have it to be said by the INDIANS, We are SAVAGES.”518

A more remarkable protest, which is a masterpiece of irony, appeared in the Boston Evening-Post of April 4. There is every reason for believing that the author of this document, signed “A. Z.,” was John Malcom himself. It is full of the mannerisms of style and erratic sentence structure that are displayed in petitions of a subsequent date known to have been written by him.

Messi’rs Fleets,

Pownalborough, March 26, 1774

Be pleased to insert the following in your next Paper, if possible, and you will oblige your constant Reader,

A. Z.

There has of late been abundance of talk in the town, and in the public papers, relative to one John Malcom of Boston, being treated very ill, as some says, others says not ill enough; pray now what has he done for all this very ill treatment to him done in the town of Boston by his own countrymen? I will tell you the truth what he has done for it; in the first place he has when he the said Malcom was last in London, about five years ago he stood up for his town and country what he well could do in all companies, both high and middling sort of men; and in the next place he refused a Captain’s Commission on the establishment from the then Lord Granby, General of the King’s Army, in one of the Irish regiments then order’d out to Boston, but he refused it in order not to take up arms against his native town of Boston, this he has done for truth, and he has at three different times received the public thanks of the town of Boston by the Selectmen thereof in behalf of said town, for being a good soldier and a friend to his town & country; and has at another time, when the two Houses of Assembly was sitting in General Court, assembled with Governor Shirley at their head, he then received the public thanks of both Houses, and the Governor’s thanks in behalf of his Majesty, for being a good soldier, and being the chief instrument of saving and defending Fort William Henry, now called Fort George, on the 18th day of March 1758, against the French and Indian enemy, who came there about 2500 of them, totally to destroy it, and they did destroy almost every thing about the Fort, except the said Fort, (which we bravely defended with about 300 men) this he has done under God and received the public thanks accordingly, not regarding his life for the good of this province, and had no standing pay for it at the same time for that whole affair; and he has had eleven different Commissions in the Army in this country, even from an Ensign’s to a Colonel’s Commission in the King and Country’s service, and ever was reckoned a good soldier for his country’s good; none could go further in the field of battle when the bullets flew thickest, he was then in his element, and came out of the field of battle with honour; and now last of all, he has had three different Revenue Commissions in his Majesty’s Revenues in America, and what damage has he done therein, but endeavoured to guard the King’s Revenue the better, that he might get the more duties from it, and to prevent prohibited goods being run into the colonies, which is a damage to all fair traders: now those are the reasons that he was treated so cruelly and inhumanly of late in Boston, no other things surely was the reason.—Oh! ungreatful inhabitants of the town of Boston to stand still and see and permit such an inhuman thing to be done in your streets, and through them carried such a man as that has been! tell it not Gath nor publish it in the streets of Askelon, least it should hereafter upbraid your consciences.

A friend to John Malcom and to the community.

A. Z.

Surely this is the fiery Captain speaking, boasting of his heroic exploits and pouring scorn on his enemies. Here are his peculiarities of expression. Here, indeed, is the identical phrase, “from an Ensign’s to a Colonel’s Commission,” which he used later in his petition to King George. Here are many intimate biographical details of his service in the army and in the customs. Here is his personal exultation in the delight of battle: “None could go further in the field of battle when the bullets flew thickest, he was then in his element.”

But does the boastful soldier boast too much? His spirited account of the defense of Fort William Henry, which lasted from March 18 to March 23, 1757 (not 1758 as stated by “A. Z.”), agrees with all the facts in the official report except one—his own part in the action. Major Eyre, the commandant, in his detailed report on March 24 to the Earl of Loudoun, the commander in chief in America, says not a word about Malcom’s “being the chief instrument of saving and defending” the fort.519 Nor is there any mention of this spectacular deed in the letter from Fort William Henry, March 26, 1757, printed in the Boston Gazette of April 11, 1757, the Boston Evening-Post of the same date, and the Boston News-Letter of April 28, 1757. Parkman, in Montcalm and Wolfe (i. 417ff.), sums up Major Eyre’s report and has nothing to say about Malcom. Nor has it been possible to find any record of the alleged vote of thanks by the General Court, who, incidentally, could not at the time have had Shirley “at their head,” since Shirley had returned to England in October, 1756. The printed records of the Boston selectmen are equally silent about the three votes of thanks on behalf of the town. None the less, in view of the fact that Malcom’s statement about his prowess at the Battle of Alamance is verified by the records, and since he did receive a captain’s commission from Governor Shirley, I am quite willing to believe that Malcom was present at the defense of Fort William Henry. No doubt in later years his memory magnified his exploits in retrospect.

V

On May 2, 1774, John Malcom sailed for England as a passenger on the man-of-war Active to conduct in person a campaign to gain redress for his sufferings. The story of his efforts is told in a series of petitions to Lord North, to Lord Dartmouth, and even to George III himself. The King had already heard about this famous case even before Malcom’s first petition was submitted. When Governor Hutchinson was received by His Majesty on July 1, King George said: “I see they threatened to pitch and feather you.” Hutchinson replied: “Tar and feather, may it please Your Majesty; but I don’t remember that I was threatened with it.” On this, Lord Dartmouth, who was present, immediately exclaimed: “Oh yes! When Malcom was tarred and feathered the committee for tar and feathering blamed the people for doing it, because it was a punishment for a higher person. We suppose you was intended.”520 Lord Dartmouth was here referring to the manifesto issued by Joyce, Junior, four days after the torture of Malcom:

Yesterday morning the following Hand-Bill was seen pasted up on the most public Places in this Town. viz.

Brethren, and Fellow-Citizens!

This is to Certify, That the modern Punishment lately inflicted on the ignoble JOHN MALCOM, was not done by our Order—We reserve that Method for bringing Villains of greater Consequence to a Sense of Guilt and Infamy.

Joyce, Jun^r

(Chairman of the Committee for Tarring and Feathering)

If any Person should be so hardy as to tear this down, they may expect my severest Resentment.

J. jun521

Upon arriving in London, Malcom lost little time before submitting a petition to Lord North.

To The Right Honourable Lord North First Lord Commissioner of his Majesty’s Treasury &c. &c. &c. &c.

The Petition of John Malcom Humbly Sheweth

That your Lordships Petitioner for several Years past hath been an Officer of the Customs in America, and otherways employ’d in the Kings Service, That he hath (by a faithful execution of his Duty) suffer’d much Fatigue, and incurr’d much expence, his long Journies from Boston to North Carolina necessarily amounting to a sum considerably more than his allowance from the Crown.

That your Petitioner after returning from the Fadgue and Dangers of the expedition which he chearfully embark’d in under Governor Tryon, was again employ’d as an Officer of the Customs in the District of Falmouth, where he had made a Seizure of a Vessell laden with illicit Goods, & pursuing the Prosecution of the said Seizure, was attack’d and seiz’d by a large Mob, in Boston, from whom after the most creuel Treatment for some hours, he escap’d with his Life only, as hath been fully stated to your Lordship in a memorial the 16^th June last. In consequence of this Attack, your Petitioner hath suffer’d in his House furniture and Cloaths, upwards of One hundred Fifty pounds, besides laying under the Doctors hands for Eight weeks for the recovery of his Health.

That by these services and sufferings, he hath become indebted to different People in the sum of One hundred and Ten pounds, a part of which hath come against him here, your Petitioner having been compell’d to execute a Bond payable to one Levey, a Jew, at New York, for a Judgment obtain’d against him at Quebeck, in his absence for upwards of Forty pounds, the same hath been lately put in suit, and your Petitioner, Is now in custody by reason of his inability to satisfy the same.

Your Petitioner therefore most humbly prays that your Lordship will be pleas’d to take his case into consideration, and afford him such present relief, as your Lordship in your Wisdom, and Goodness, thinks meet, and your Lordships Petitioner as in Duty bound shall ever pray.

John Malcom522

28^th July 1774

[Endorsed:] Memorial of M^r Malcolm. R^d July 31, 1774.

Read 3^d Aug^t 1774. Nil.

The petition was followed two months later by a letter.

My Lord

I would by no means give your Lordship Unnecessary Trouble by repeated Applications and therefore beg leave to submit to your Lordships Consideration, My Whishes to Obtain the following Employments in the Customs at the Port of Falmouth which from long Residence is become (as it were) Natural to me these Appointments will very Sufficientiy compensate my Severe Sufferings in America &c. I humbly hope for your Lordships Approbation of the Proposal I flatter myself that your Lordship will think it but Reasonable, that the Loss of Property which I sustained in Consequence of the Riot in Boston to the Amount of £150 an Account of which has Already been laid before your Lordship be made good to Me; and I wou’d also solicit a Continuance in my Present Office at the Port of Falmouth as Preventive Officer the Sallary annex’d to which is £40 Anually and also that your Lordship wou’d be pleas’d (in Addition to the Above) to Appoint me surveyor and searcher at the same Port upon a like Establishment to that at the Port of Philadelphia with a Sallary of £80 pr Anum together with the Command of such a Vessel as is pointed out & Recommended to the Board by the Inspector General in his Report upon the Business of that District, with an Alowance of £80 pr Anum amounting in the whole to £200 pr Anm which I trust (after Considering my Large Family Consisting of a Wife and five Children two of whom are Unfortunately Denied the Blessing of Speech and Hearing and Consequently Dependant in a great Measure on me) your Lordship will think but a Moderate Support. The shortest sketch of the Nature & Situation of this District will be sufficient to prove the Utility and Necessity of these Appointments it extends itself about 80 Leagues along the Coast & Comprehends the finest Number of Harbours on the Continent at no greater Distance than three Leagues from each other its Situation being open to the sea ev’ry smugler comeing on that Coast may and do land their Cargoes in these Harbours without interuption. this & New London District are the Principal Ports that receive foreign Manufactures and are Places of Rendezvous for all Smugglers but particularly the Dutch and French. Thus I have Presum’d to throw myself on your Lordship for the Means of Present as well as future Support & as I wou’d gladly be expeditious in returning to my Family and find it difficult to defray the Expences of a long Continuance in England I humbly hope your Lordship will Consider my Case and afford me such timely Aid as my Exegences May Require

I am with the Greatest Respect

My Lord

your Lordships much Obliged Obedient Servant

John Malcom523

Westminster

14 of Sept^r 1774

While waiting for a reply to the petition and the letter, Malcom engaged in a little diversion: he stood for Parliament. He and Major Robert Rogers of the Rangers had the blithe audacity to run against John Wilkes and Serjeant Glynn, respectively, in the election of knights of the shire for the county of Middlesex. John Wilkes, the friend of Liberty, was looked up to with intense admiration by the patriots in America. Indeed, John Adams and other Sons of Liberty had addressed him in terms of glowing devotion. Wilkes had been repeatedly elected by Middlesex and, by the express orders of George III to Lord North, had been repeatedly expelled from Parliament. Public opinion was so incensed by this violation of constitutional law that the City of London had retaliated in 1770 by electing Wilkes an alderman, and in this very autumn of 1774 was to make him lord mayor. Now Wilkes was again presenting himself as a candidate for Parliament in a critical election. The King was exultant over the enactment of the Boston Port Bill, the punitive measures changing the charter of Massachusetts, and the sending of English troops to Boston. What a neat stroke of revenge and strategy on Malcom’s part if he could defeat the great agitator, who was the ally of his persecutors at home and the hated opponent of the King! The manifesto announcing the candidacy of Rogers and Malcom was dated London, October 15, five days before the election. It sets forth their appeal for votes with a robust bravado that savors of the camp and the trail:

To the worthy Freeholders of the County of Middlesex

Major Rogers and Capt. Malcom, just arrived from America, being encouraged by a very numerous and respectable Body of their Friends, to offer their Services to represent you in Parliament, beg leave to solicit your votes and interest at the insuing Election: They can with Truth assert, that should they be so happy as to be made the objects of your choice, it will be their constant care to defend the rights and liberties of their fellow subjects in general, and that they will pay a particular attention to the Interests of this county. As they are credibly informed that the MOCK PATRIOTS, Mr. Wilkes, and Serjeant Glynn, are to be assisted by a strong MINISTERIAL MOB on this occasion, they beg the favour of such of the Freeholders and Inhabitants as served with them in America, to attend with their friends on the Hustings, armed with their tomahawks and scalping knives, well sharped, in order to defend themselves against any attacks that may be made by the supporters of those two hypocritical hirelings.524

The election took place on October 20. The result is given in the following news item from London dated the same day:

This day came on at Brentford, the Election of Knights of the Shire for the county of Middlesex, Mr. Wilkes and Serjeant Glynn, the two avowed Candidates, set off about eight in the morning in the Lord Mayor’s coach and six, accompanied by his Lordship and a very large train of voters in carriages and on horseback. No other Candidates appearing to oppose them, the Sheriffs declared them duly elected.525

Malcom and Rogers, who had thundered so loudly in the prologue, did not even show themselves at the hustings. Wilkes was elected. The force of public opinion was now so powerful that his enemies did not dare expel him from the House of Commons again, and he was allowed to take his seat. He held it until 1790. It is interesting to know that John Malcom played a part, even if a fantastic one, in this constitutional crisis.

If Captain John Malcom could not enter Parliament, he would enter St. James’s Palace. Since he had received no reply from Lord North, he resolved to make a direct appeal to King George. On January 12, 1775, he attended the levee at St. James’s, knelt before the King, and gave his petition into His Majesty’s own hands.

To His most Gracious Majesty, George the Third, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain France and Ireland King Defender of the Faith &c, &c, &c, &c

The Petition of John Malcom a Customhouse Officer in the Boston Government in North America that so Cruelly suffered there in that Country for Nothing but being a Faithfull Officer of the Customs there for your Majesty and for Endevouring to do my Duty in some small measures as Much become Me so to do as a Faithfull Man and Officer to your Majesty as will Plainly appear by all your Majestys Good Subjects in Boston in New England and Here that was there and I Sufferd Cheifly because I would not give up your Majestys Cause and My Commission that I had in the Customhouse altho they themselves offerd Me Double the sallary I had then in your Majestys Customs there for doing the worst of Duty in the Face of all Oposition that is Doing such Duty that was Necessary to be done that No other Officer in the Customs there Dare to do that is to say the Stoping Large Quantitys of the Dutch and French East India Companys Tea from being Landed in that Government which I have often done at the Risk of My Life and Limbs, and May it Please your Majesty I have had thirteen Different Commissions in your Majestys Land Service in North America the two last French and Spanish warrs that is Past. I have Serv’d from a Ensign to a Colonel but Cheifly all My Commissions was from Governors and Commanders in Cheif of your Majestys Army so that I Never as yet had any Half Pay Alowance but was Paid only when in Actual Service and on Expeditions against the Enemys of your Majestys Countrys. I have been in all the Batties that was Fought in North America those two warrs that is Past except two and at every Place we Conquerd and Subdued our Enemys to your Majesty and Besides this I have been in the time of Peace a Cheif Aid de Camp to the Brave Governor Tryon and there we Subdued and Brought Near Seven Thousand Men to Obedience to your Majestys Laws and Commands this is not yet four years ago I was then in the Customs in North Carolina as a Comptroler of the Customs which afterwards I threw up or laid it Down. In that Battle in North Carolina with the Brave Governor Tryon I had two Horses Killd under me but I Escaped that Battle in North Carolina saved your Majesty or the Nation more than one Million and Half Sterling for if Governor Tryon had not then Subdued them it would have Cost more than that to have Subdued them and Brought them to the same Obedience they was by us brought to, and I have had four Different Deputations or Commissions in your Majestys Customs and soon Expect the fifth from the Right Honourable Lord North and I have Commanded 12 Different Merchant Vessels abroad to Different Parts of the World and some of them I have own’d Mostly Part of them but have since been Reduced or Near Next to Failing in Trade and Navigation, and also was at Boston by the Bostonians in that Cruel Mob of People Strip’d and Rob’d of upwards of £150 Sterling in My Clotheing both in the House and out of the House both Me and My wife and four Children that was with Me in the House Rob’d and Plunder’d of almost every thing we had left in the world and the House almost Torn to Peices and Destroy’d and I have Never been Paid for that Damage as yet not one Farthing. It is true I have been better than Seven Months in London waiting on your Majesty and the Right Honourable Lord North, it is true Lord North has Generously Orderd Me Cash to Support Me ever Since I have been in London and has Promised to Provide for Me for Time to Come in the Boston Goverment in New England which Suits Me Much as I have there a Wife and Five Children two of which it has Pleas’d God was Born Deaf and Dumb and ever I suppose will Remain so. Now my Good King whom I Love and am Ready to Spill my Blood for Consider all those things as Truths and Facts that I have Now set forth to your Majesty and I can Prove them all when Call’d upon, Now am not I entitled to that Honour of Kneeling and Kissing your Majestys Hand, and some small Badge of Honour done to me by your Majesty, that I have suffer’d so Much for. I Question wether a Subject you have in the whole Realm ever suffer’d so Much and Defended your Majestys Cause so Honourably even My Life was Offer’d up for it Rather than your Majestys Honour should fall to Ground. Now will your Majesty give Orders Imedeatly for Me to be paid the above £150 Sterling and for the Right Honourable Lord North to give Me the Place I ask’d him for and His Lordship very Readily Promised Me that I should have it for His Lordship Thought that I was very Moderate and as Little as I could Live upon and that He would not desire me to have Less Sallary than that Place was to have, it is a Gift of His Lordships in the Customs in the Boston Goverment and was as yet Never fill’d up untill His Lordship Punctually Promised it to me But His Lordship is Much Hurry’d in the Great Business of the Nation, and I am afraid has almost forgot Me a Poor but Honest Man. May it Please your Majesty I Long to be sent out to my Family in Boston and to my Business in the Customs in the Boston Goverment for if Lord North soon gives Me what He has already Promised Me I can under God do Greater Service in the Customs than ever I was able before to do, I well Know I soon will Raise the Revenue a Considerable Deal yearly more than it is so I Look to your Majesty for Answers of Peace and my small Desires and Requests Answerd as your Majesty shall Judge best and Mete for me, but I would Humbly Implore your Majesty let Me be soon sent from London to Boston in North America in the Execution of my Duty in the Customs. What I Mean in the whole is if your Majesty Thinks Proper to make me a Single Knight of the Tarr, that I was so Tarrd with for I Like the Smell of it, this will do Me Great Honour in North America and in a Great Measure Retaliate for all my Losses and Sufferings in North America. For several years Past I have been in your Majestys Customs for I have been three Times Tarrd and Featherd but one of them was Extrodinary and with Great Cruelty as ever was Known in this Lower World beyond all Humanity to me, the small Honour I Request of Your Majesty will forever Silence that Rebelious Mob of People at Boston that used Me so ill and Your Majestys Most Humble Petitioner shall as in Duty Bound for ever Pray

John Malcom

P. S. May it Please your Majesty the enclos’d is a Just Copy of what I had the Honour of Dilivering to the Right Honourable Lord North when his Lordship much approv’d of it and told me I should have it done for me Immedeately and I sent out again to North America, this is above three Months that is past and His Lordship being fill’d so Much Business of this Nation has I beleive quite forgot me at Present. I humbly Hope your Majesty will put him in mind of Me and I as a Dutyfull Subject and Petitioner shall for ever Pray

John Malcom526

Westminster Jan^y the 12 Day 1775

This document is particularly important, for it is the nearest thing there is to a piece of Malcom autobiography. It is full of striking details of his variegated career on land and sea. It emphasizes his loyalty and services. But there is something more. How ingeniously he has contrived to make his sufferings seem heroic! By a stroke of dramatic skill he glorifies the tarring and feathering into a mark of distinction. With audacious pride he converts it into a badge of honor. There may be many Knights of the Garter: he asks the King to make him a “Single Knight of the Tarr”! And with a true touch of the theatre he cries: “I Like the Smell of it”!

King George, alas, was not impressed by this drama. Three weeks later, on January 31, the despairing Captain wrote an urgent letter to Lord Dartmouth, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, asking him to present his petition to the King for the second time. This nobleman, the original of Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison, was known far and wide as “the good Lord Dartmouth” on account of his exemplary character and deep piety. This, be it noted, was in a period when a First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich, and a Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Le Despencer, were leading members of the Hell-Fire Club and notorious for their licentiousness. It is at once apparent how cleverly and adroitly Malcom throughout plays up to Dartmouth’s innate rectitude and goodness of heart.

Right Honord Secetary of State for North America

Sir

I Humbly beg of you as a Honest Man and Gentleman and a Man that fears God and as a Man of sound Religion that will Not be Byas’d by no party or Enfluenced by no party set of men, that you would Judiciously Read the whole of this Papers diliverd you and think on them as Matters of truth and facts as Comeing from a Man of truth and Real Gospel Religion from his Hearts experience and from one that can Prove them all when Call’d upon. Dear Sir Remember this and Peruse the said Papers well and Carefully thats the said Petition to His Most Gracious Majesty George the third which I had the Honor to Kneel and Give to him at S^t Jame’s in his Majestys own Hands the 12^th Day of this Instant Jan^y, 1775. Sir those are exact Copys of the same which I have Never Heard of since I gave them to His Majesty at S^t James’s when the Levey Broke up. Sir I humbly beg your Lordship after you have Perused the said papers that you would Present them the second time to His Majesty My Loyal King that I have sufferd so much for in North America and if your Lordship well Can to get Me a answer of Peace from His Majesty this I Humbly beg and as a good Subject insist upon Humbly from your Lordship as a Secatary of State of the American District. Dear and Good Sir fail Me not as a Christian and as a Gentleman of Note and Character for I am Determined Not again to be befool’d between the Americans and Great Britain after what I have there sufferd in My Body and Bones besides the Loss of my Private Property Rob’d from Me in that Cruel Manner as it was. Honerd Sir this is my Resolution Before Matters is settled between both Partys to be served and Completely satisfy’d by one of them and that before it is Long I will Now Heardy and willingly Leave it to your Lordship which of the two partys ought to pay and Satisfy me for my Damages and give me the place I now Ask for and that soon and I sent out Imedeatiy to seize the Americans foreign prohibited Tea Vessels as I well know all the Continent and have been a old Commander formerly by sailing in all those parts and know their Haunts and Running Places well and Pray my Lord speak a word for me your self bothe to the King and your brother the Right Hon^ble Lord North to have me soon sent out if your Lordship thinks in Justice to a Honest and I hope to a sincere Religious Man you Ought to do it for if you dont do it I am afraid it Never will be Done for Me so in Hopes of your Lordship speedey Help for Me I shall wait a little while longer and Shall for ever Remain your Lordships Dutyful and Hope faithfull

Servant untill Death

John Malcom527

Westminster

Jan^y 31, 1775

The breaking out of the Revolutionary War prevented Malcom’s being sent back to America to search for smugglers in “their haunts and running places.” He was eventually given an annuity of £100. Sometime in 1776 he resolved to present a memorial to the Treasury attacking Mr. Francis Waldo, the Collector at Falmouth, for irregularly clearing the Brothers in 1773. With this purpose in mind he called on Governor Hutchinson, then living in New Bond Street, to ask his assistance. How Malcom’s hot temper, far from being tamed by the “Real Gospel Religion” of which he had boasted, led him to quarrel with the very man whose aid he sought is forcibly displayed by Hutchinson’s narrative of the occasion in his diary:

5th [October, 1776].—John Malcolm came to me some time ago, and acquainted me he would prefer a Petition to the Treasury against M^r Waldo, Collector at Falmouth, Casco Bay, for irregularly clearing a vessel which, Malcolm being a Preventive Officer, had afterwards seized, and w^ch had been condemned. I asked what induced him, or he informed me, it was because Waldo did not pay his salary. I asked him what need he do more than complain of that? He said Waldo had hurt him, and he would have the whole story told. I advised him to apply to the Commiss^r, but he resolved to petition, and said he must appeal to me in this Petition. I discouraged him still, and he said I refused to do him justice. I told him I should be ready when called upon to answer any questions asked me. After repeatedly troubling me I saw M^r Flucker, and told him of Malcolm’s design, and that it was pity to have any stir, and that Malcolm had mentioned my name in his Petition, but I knew nothing of Waldo’s proceedings except in general. I had a remembrance he was charged with some irregularity. Flucker to-day told Malcolm I said I knew nothing of the affair, which bro’t Malcolm to my house to enquire whether I had said so? I told him I might say so, but did not remember the words, for I knew nothing but by common fame, which was knowing nothing to his purpose, for I should not be allowed to mention it. He abused me for refusing to say what he knew, and charged me with refusing to do him justice when in my power. I told him he was a very ignorant and very abusive man, and I should give myself no trouble about him. In the evening he sent me an abusive letter saying that he put my name in his Petition by my express order, and if I did not let him know by Monday [it was now Saturday] what I intended to say, he would make the world as well acquainted with my real character as he is himself. . . .

7th.—I wrote to Malcolm that a letter had been left at my house signed with his name, for the letter was not of his hand writing, nor is he capable of writing a letter which can be understood: that I should take no more notice of it at present than to let him know I had always advised him not to petition the Treasury, but he persisted in it, and said he should appeal to me, and he hoped I would not refuse to do him justice: that I told him I should not refuse to answer any questions their Lordships thought proper to ask me: that I had told him I knew nothing but by report, and that their Lordships would not think hearsay to be evidence.528

Malcom persisted in his determination to present his memorial, and, as has been seen, it brought forth a scathing reply from Waldo.529

In July, 1778, Malcom submitted the following petition to Lord North asking permission to return to his distressed family in Boston:

To The Right Hon^ble Lord North and Other the Right Hon^ble Lords Commissioners of his Majesty’s Treasury

The Memoriall of John Malcom Most Humbly Sheweth

That your Lordships Memorialist hath a Wife and five Children at Boston from whom he has not been able to hear for a very long time and who must be greatly Distressed by his Continuance in England.

Your Lordships Memorialist Therefore most humbly prays that your Lordships will be pleased to permit him to go over to America and to Advance him one Years Allowance in Order to enable him to relieve his family and put them as well as himself (if permitted to stay there) into some settled way of livelyhood. And your Memorialist as in Duty bound shall ever pray &^c &^c &^c

John Malcom

[Endorsed:] The Memorial of John Malcom July 1778.

Allowed £100 per ann. by the Treasury

Read 5 Aug^t 78 Agreed to.530

In 1780 or earlier, Captain Malcom, the man who had been “in all the Battles that was Fought in North America those two Warrs that is Past except two,” was given a commission as ensign in an Independent Company of Invalids at Plymouth, England. If his pride rebelled at this rank, he accepted the appointment, which carried £60 a year. There are muster rolls of this Company of Invalids preserved at the Public Record Office,531 but the earliest there recorded is dated August 23, 1784

Plymouth Citadel. Muster for 183 Days from 25 December, 1783, to 24 June, 1784:

John Watson	Major & Captain
Tho^s Maule	Lieutenant
John Malcom	Ensign

There were four sergeants, four corporals, two drummers, and twenty-six effective private men.

In April, 1782, when Malcom learned that an order had been given for stopping the further payment of the pensions allowed to American Loyalists, he dispatched a vigorous petition to the Marquess of Rockingham, who had just succeeded Lord North as Prime Minister. Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown the previous October, Lord North had resigned, and Rockingham and the Whigs had taken office for the purpose of making peace by acknowledging the independence of the United States. It was a dark day for the American Loyalists.

To the Most Honorable Charles Marquis Of Rockingham, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, First Lord Commissioner for Executing the Office of Treasurer of his Majesty’s Exchequer &c &c &c.

The Memorial of John Malcom Ensign of Invalids at Plymouth, Most humbly Sheweth.

That Your Lordship’s Memorialist was Surveyor of the Customs in all the Ports of America, and resided at Boston at the time of the destruction of the Tea belonging to the East India Company, and at which Time of Publick Riot Commotion and Disorder Your Lordship’s Memorialist suffered from the Rage and Violence of the People of Boston, the Infamy and Punishment of being carried to the Gallows with a Halter about his Neck, and there tarred and feathered, with other Acts of Personal Abuse, under Circumstances of such Savage Barbarity and Merciless Cruelty, as is superior to all description, and as manifestly endangered his Life for many Weeks after.

That Your Lordship’s Memorialist was wholly deprived of his Property, leaving Your Lordship’s Memorialist, his Wife and five Children, plundered and despoiled by the Mob of their Cloaths, and in a State of the most piteous Wretchedness and Indigence.

That your Lordship’s Memorialist thus Circumstanced availed himself of the first Opportunity of returning to England, where, He formerly, under the Auspice of his Grace the Duke of Grafton had been appointed to an Office in His Majesty’s Customs.

That your Lordship’s Memorialist on his Arrival in England and making Representations of his Losses and Sufferings was allowed an Annuity of One hundred pounds per Annum, and your Lordship’s Memorialist having been informed that an Order has been given for Stopping the further payment of the Pensions allowed to American Loyalists.

Your Lordship’s Memorialist most humbly prays that under the very singular Situation of himself and Family, and his peculiar and unexampled532 Sufferings, his small Annuity may not only be allowed at present, but that your Lordship in your great Beneficence and Goodness would be pleased to Order that the same be continued to Your Lordship’s Memorialist for the Short Remainder of his Life for the Support of himself and helpless Family

And Your Lordship’s Memorialist as in duty bound will ever pray &c. &c. &c.

John Malcom

Ensinge of Enoaleds Inn

Plimouth Garson

London 13^th April 1782

[Endorsed:] The Memorial of John Malcom Gent, who has £100 per Ann. as an American Sufferer and desires it may be continued during his life.

Read 4 Nov. 1782

Attended hereon.533

Malcom’s case was carefully reviewed by the Commissioners on American Loyalist Claims. His attendance before them was requested for the purpose of giving testimony, and he made the journey of 244 miles from Plymouth to London, which, as he told the Commissioners later, cost him “between 11 and 12 Pounds.” The results of the investigation and the decision of the Commissioners are recorded as follows:534

Very ill treated by the Rebels in the presence of Mr Harrison Gray, lost about 200£ or 300£ Sterling, has had 3 Cap^ts Commissions under Gen^l Shirley & Gen^l Tryon. Is now an Ensign of Invalids at Plymouth, has a Wife & 5 Children, 2 Deaf & Dumb, constantiy remits money to his Family abroad, Does expect to be a Lieut^t w^ch is 20£ a year more, has been with Invalids only two Years, Had 120£ per Ann before he had his Commⁿ. If he could get a Cap^ts Commⁿ he sho^d be glad to give up his Sallary. Refers to Mr Murry, Mr Flucker, and Mr Hallowell. Does not do Duty at present, Major Watson is the Cap^t of his Comp^y, lives near Plymouth, all his Family are in America, as Mr Malcolm says that he ought to be made Leiut^t recommended to apply to Gen^l Conway & to let know the fate of his application. No Certificates being annexed to Mr Malcolm’s Memorial, He was desired to refer to persons of Character for the truth of his Case, & he mendoned John Murray Esq^re Mr Harrison Gray, & Mr Hallowell. He said he knew Mr Flucker, but seem’d unwilling that he should be asked, as he said they had had some Disputes. Mr Flucker attended & says, that if this Man had not been tarrd & featherd he would have had no Claim at all to the Bounty of Govern^t. Sir W^m Pepperell speaks of his being tarrd & featherd, & used very cruelly. At the time Mr Malcolm was ill treated, He admits that he had very little Income besides the place in the Customs w^ch was 50£ a year. He came to England in May 1774, at first he had 20£ every two Months, afterwards he had 100£ a year. He told Lord North, he could live very well upon 100£ a Year. His Commⁿ is 52 Guineas a Year besides Arrears.

Decision

It appears to us that this Gentleman had very little property in America, & that he is now an Ensign of Invalids at Plymouth, w^ch is 60£ a year. However he appears to have a Claim upon Government for the uncommon ill treatment which he sufferd being the first Man who was tarrd & featherd & escaping narrowly with his Life. We think his present Allowance much too great, as it puts him in a much better Situation than he was ever in America. However in Consideration of his Sufferings & more particularly because he appears to us to be in some degree insane, We think that in addition to his pay as Ensign of Invalids, he should have an Allowance of 60£ a year.

Ex^d535

The last document from John Malcom’s hand is a frantic letter to the Commissioners written on February 27, 1783, when his quarter’s salary due the fifth of January failed to arrive:

Plymouth Garison 27^th Feb^y 1783

Gentlemen

I now take the liberty to write to you to inform you that I have not yet receiv’d my Quarters Salary which was due to me the 5^th day of January last.

Pray Gentlemen what is the reason of it? I can’t but much wonder at it. I hope it is not thro’ your means or if it should be so pray let me know of it immediately that I may go in Person to my Gracious Sovereign King George the third now on the Throne of this Realm for whom I suffered so much in the Continent of North America and there lost my all in this World, which was a very handsome genteel Estate and there became a Bankrupt for my good King and this Country’s Sake. And pray, shall I now be left forsaken by my King and this Government? for yet I hear nothing of my promotion in the Invalids at this or any other place in old England. Pray Gentlemen consider my doleful Situation and my helpless Family now abroad and that I now daily expect to arrive in Old England. O! pray then what shall I do with them, or my Self much longer for we cannot live on the Ensigns Pay; So for Gods! Sake Gentlemen consider of it and soon get me supplied with some Cash from the Government or I shall be in a doleful Case indeed.

I should be much obliged to you Gentlemen for a few of your Franks to frank Letters to London—Old Mr Bandsly at the Kings Treasury will prepare you the Paper and the proper Directions, for I have sent to him for that purpose—So Gentlemen Expecting to hear from you soon on this head I at present rest and remain Gentlemen

Your most Humble

and most Obedient Servant

at Command

John Malcom

P. S.

Gentlemen

You well know when you writ to me last I immediately went to London to wait on you at your Command And that Journey of 244 Miles from hence cost me between 11 and 12 Pounds but I hope you will soon make it up to me

I am yours to

Sarvise

J. Malcom536

There is a cry of anguish here which stirs one’s pity.

The dreary years of exile dragged along. Malcom was not required to be on duty at the citadel or take part in the activities of the garrison, but he lived in or near Plymouth. He never received the promotion to a lieutenancy or captaincy which he had so ardently hoped for. When a vacancy occurred in the command of his company, another officer, Major John Hatfield, was appointed. The muster roll of the Independent Company of Invalids537 was made up at the end of every six months, the first recorded roll running to June 24, 1784. On the second roll—for 183 days, from June 25 to December 24, 1784—John Malcom’s name is marked with the word “Respite” (meaning absent). The same note appears on the next roll. On the fourth roll—for 183 days, from June 25 to December 24, 1785—the entry is: “John Malcom Ensign King’s Leave 12 Months from 13 May.” During the years 1786, 1787, and 1788 five more muster rolls repeat the record: “King’s Leave 12 Months.” On the tenth roll, ending December 24, 1788, the entry after his name is changed to “Respited.” The long exile of fifteen years had come to an end: John Malcom died November 23, 1788.

Two and a half years later, his widow Sarah, who was still living in Boston, applied to His Majesty’s Government for a pension. The following affidavits attesting to the facts were presented in support of her appeal:

We do hereby Certify to the best of our Knowledge, that Sarah Malcom was the Real Wife of John Malcom late an Ensign in the Independent Company of Invalids at Plymouth commanded by Major Hatfield who died on full Pay the 23^rd day of November, 1788. And left the said Sarah Malcom and two Children wholly unprovided for. Wherefore We humbly recommend her, as an Object of his Majesty’s Royal Bounty and Compassion. Given under our Hands this sixteenth Day of March 1792.

Jn^o Hatfield Major in the Army & Captain of a Independant Comp^y of Invalides

Phipps S. Bernard

Mrs Sarah Malcom came this Day before me, and made Oath that she was lawfully married to John Malcom late an Ensign in the Independent Company of Invalids commanded by Major Hatfield and ever since his Decease she has continued a Widow, and is so at this present Time; and that she has no other Pension, Allowance, or Provision made her by the Government, either in Great-Britain or Ireland, without the Pension she hopes to receive by his Majesty’s Bounty.

Sarah Malcom

Boston Apr. 11, 1791

Commonwealth		Suffolk ss.
of Massachusetts

Sworn before me

Joseph Gardner

Justice of the Peace538

The flaming temper flamed no more. The ungovernable rage which had plunged John Malcom into quarrels with his brother Daniel, his fellow officers, Governor Hutchinson, the boy with the sled, Mr. George Hewes, and many others could do him no more harm. His life was tumultuous with adventures—voyages, storms, battles, conflicts with smugglers, feuds, quarrels, lawsuits, desperate efforts to obtain redress, a dazzling moment at St. James’s with George III, mob violence, and the frightful torture of being tarred and feathered and flogged on a night of perishing cold. A storm-tossed mariner, he had “Commanded 12 Different Merchant Vessels abroad to Different Parts of the World.” A valiant soldier, “none could go further in the field of battle when the bullets flew thickest, he was then in his element.” He had “been in all the Battles that was fought in North America” in the French and Indian War, “except two”; and had had two horses killed under him in the Battle of Alamance.

Fifteen long years he had spent in exile, separated from his wife and children and his home. As day after day he paced along Plymouth Hoe and looked out over the blue waters westward, he was not thinking of Drake and the Spanish galleons but of the Outer Brewster, and the tall shaft of Boston Light, and Deer Island, and Nix’s Mate, and Castle Island with its citadel, and Governor’s Island, and the beacon on the hill, and the welcoming arm of Long Wharf, and the royal bravery of the lion and the unicorn rampant on the Town House, and the grasshopper whirling in the breeze on top of Faneuil Hall.

POSTSCRIPT

It was only the gracious coöperation of the late Earl of Dartmouth that made possible the preparation of such an extensive and detailed account of the adventures of Captain John Malcom as I have given, and I wish to record my gratitude for his generous assistance in allowing me to have copied and now to print for the first time the various memorials and petitions of John Malcom in his possession. These documents include Malcom’s own narrative of his tarring and feathering, his petition to George III, which contains a good deal of autobiography, and his petitions to Lord North, Lord Dartmouth, and Lord Rockingham.

William Heneage Legge, the sixth Earl of Dartmouth (1851–1936), had inherited the state papers of his ancestor, the second Earl (1731–1801), who was Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord North’s ministry. It had been the custom for several turbulent centuries for ministers of state, when retiring, to take official documents to their own houses to guard them from the prying eyes of their rivals or political opponents. The comprehensive Dartmouth Collection is preserved at Patshull House, Shropshire, carefully catalogued and kept in a large modern safe deposit vault specially built for the purpose by the late Earl. A letter of introduction from my friend, Mr. Allen French, who had enjoyed a sojourn at Patshull House photographing many documents for his First Year of the American Revolution, brought me an invitation to come there. Another friend, Dr. Robin Flower, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, kindly supplied me with a statement from the Museum promising to safeguard and return any manuscripts entrusted to its care.

I arrived early in the forenoon, anticipating a long day of copying. The vault at Patshull House was, I found, actually a room lined with shelves heaped high with documents—a treasure room of American history. Lord Dartmouth was proud of this collection and had taken great pains in arranging the documents chronologically in folders. When we returned to the library with the Malcom papers, his Lordship was keenly interested in the story they revealed. As I was preparing to copy them, I rather wistfully mentioned the fact that the British Museum had offered to make photostat copies, and showed him the official form signed by Dr. Flower.

Then came a dramatic moment. Lord Dartmouth said: “Why don’t you take the papers with you when you go, if you would be so kind? Then that would save all the trouble and delay of wrapping them up securely and sending them to the Museum by mail. Won’t you take them?” Would I take them? I was overwhelmed. This expression of generosity was a burst of sunshine: it banished hours of labor and gave me instead a day of English hospitality, English charm, and English friendship. And when, later, after tea in the garden, the time came to say good-bye, and I took my reluctant departure for London, I carried with me the precious documents of John Malcom.

1 Suffolk Probate Records, xxii. 585.

2 Suffolk Deeds, lxxv. 257–258.

3 See Ronald Fuller, Hell-Fire Francis (London, 1939).

4 British Museum, Add. MSS., 30870.

5 Public Record Office, A. O. 13:73.

6 Alexander Gillespie, An Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps to 1803 (Birmingham, 1803), 191.

7 Id., 193.

8 Cyril Field, Britain’s Sea-Soldiers: History of the Royal Marines (Liverpool, 1924), 156.

9 Gillespie, Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps, 199.

10 A. O. 13:73.

11 William Hall Gage, 2nd Viscount Gage, brother of the General.

12 A. O. 12:105, f. 103.

13 A. O. 13:73.

14 There are biographical sketches of Arthur Savage and Joseph Domett in E. Alfred Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts (London, 1930).

15 A. O. 12:100, f. 323.

16 In preparing this paper I compiled, from readily accessible printed materials, a list of merchants active in the 1780’s. The careers of such merchants were then examined in order to determine the views of each respecting the Constitution.

The present study is not intended to be definitive, but it is believed that a large enough sample has been considered to yield valid conclusions. The records examined disclosed that fifty-three merchants, at least, expressed views on the Constitution. Only three men in this group opposed it: Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, John Lamb of New York, and Charles Pettit of Pennsylvania. Among the fifty who supported the movement for strengthening the general government, twenty-four lived in Massachusetts: Jonathan Austin, Joseph Barrell, Samuel Barret, James Bowdoin, Samuel Breck, George Cabot, Caleb Davis, Stephen Higginson, Nathaniel Gorham, William Gray, Jonathan Jackson, Charles Jarvis, John C. Jones, Jonathan Mason, Perez Morton, Samuel A. Otis, Edward Payne, William Phillips, Joseph Russell, Thomas Russell, Isaac Smith, James Swan, and William Tudor. At critical points John Hancock acted with the majority of his fellow merchants. Among the pro-Constitution merchants of Pennsylvania were Charles Biddle, William Bingham, George Clymer, Tench Coxe, Thomas Fitzsimons Isaac Hazelhurst, Samuel Howell, Mordecai Lewis, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, John M. Nesbit, John Ross, Pelatiah Webster, Richard Wells, John Wilcox, and Thomas Willing. The names of four Rhode Island merchants appear on the list: John Brown, Moses Brown, Nicholas Brown, and Samuel Ward. Connecticut was represented by Roger Sherman and Benjamin Trumbull; New Hampshire, by John Langdon; South Carolina, by Christopher Gadsden; North Carolina, by Hugh Williamson; Maryland, by James McHenry. In the preparation of these lists the following works have been particularly useful: Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York, 1935), Chapter 5; Norman S. B. Gras, The Massachusetts First National Bank of Boston, 1784–1934 (Cambridge, 1937); Robert A. East, “The Massachusetts Conservatives in the Critical Period,” The Era of the American Revolution. Studies Inscribed to Evarts Boutell Greene, Richard B. Morris, Editor (New York, 1939); and the Dictionary of American Biography. In the April, 1787, number of the American Museum (Philadelphia) are petitions in favor of a stronger central government signed by merchants of Philadelphia (313–314) and by merchants of Boston (320–322).

17 “The men of that age [1750–1825], while striking out for themselves a new path in a new country, never fell into the mistake of abandoning practice in favor of theory. . . . If from lack of imagination they went too far in their contempt for theory, at least they understood what they meant. . . .” Henry Cabot Lodge, Life and Letters of George Cabot (Boston, 1878), 10.

18 Born in Lebanon, Connecticut, November 24, 1726, Webster studied theology after his graduation from Yale in 1746. Between 1749 and 1755 he was pastor at Greenwich, Massachusetts, a post which he left to become a merchant at Philadelphia. During the Revolution he supported the American cause and suffered considerably at the hands of the British. He died on September 2, 1795. Dictionary of American Biography, xix. 597. Webster’s most famous essay, A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the United States of North America (1783) led Hannis Taylor to regard Webster as the father of the Constitution and to petition Congress for national recognition of his work. See Hannis Taylor, A Memorial in Behalf of the Architect of Our Federal Constitution (Washington, 1908). Taylor’s exaggerated claims were refuted by Gaillard Hunt in the Nation, December 28, 1911.

19 Article 1, Sections 8, 10.

20 Article 1, Section 10.

21 Webster originally presented his argument in the form of articles or pamphlets signed “Citizen of Philadelphia.” His articles were collected and printed in 1791 as a volume entitled Political Essays. The most important papers, for this study, are: 1. “An Essay on the Danger of Too Much Circulating Cash” (October 5, 1776)—a plea for financing the war by means of taxes rather than issues of paper currency. 2. “An Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (July, 1779)—an attack upon statutory price-fixing and other legal restraints on trade. 3. “Second Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (August, 1779), in which he proposed to prevent the increase of paper money by means of tax levies designed to raise enough money for new war expenditures. He proposed to leave the existing paper in circulation to pass at the rate of twenty paper dollars to one silver dollar. 4. “Third Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (January 8, 1780). The argument resembles that of the “Second Essay.” Foreign loans should be made only for the purpose of procuring the means of paying the interest on the money borrowed within the United States. Webster again opposed price-fixing. He suggested in this essay the establishment of a federal office of Superintendent of Finance. 5. “Fourth Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (February 10, 1780)—a plan for stabilizing the paper currency, in which Webster opposed either an increase or a decrease in the quantity of paper in circulation. He favored taxation as a means of preventing such increase. 6. “Fifth Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (March 30, 1780)—a criticism of paper currency on the ground that it imposed an unjust levy upon wealth, and another plea for taxation as the proper means of financing the war. 7. “Strictures on the Tender-Acts” (December 13, 1780)—a very strong statement against legal tender paper currency, inspired by an act of Pennsylvania of December, 1780. 8. “An Essay to Examine the True Interest of Pennsylvania with Respect to Paper Currency” (December 13, 1780)—another plea for taxation in preference to more issues of paper currency. 9. “An Essay on the Economy of the Thirteen States” (January, 1781), in which Webster again insisted that taxation was necessary in order to restore the currency. 10. “Dissertation on a Financier-General” (January 24, 1781), in which Webster presented his plan for a superintendency of finance. 11. “A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the United States of North America” (1780)—Webster’s famous plan for a strong central government endowed with independent taxing power as a means of raising assured revenues in order to pay the public debt and avoid the issuance of paper currency. 12. “Sixth Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (March 24, 1783)—an argument for a federal tax on imports as a means of raising money to support the public credit. 13. “Seventh Essay on Free Trade and Finance” (January 10, 1785)—a protest against further issues of paper currency and a plea for payment of the public debt, with safeguards against the enriching of speculators in federal certificates of indebtedness. 14. “Essay on Credit” (February 10, 1786)—an analysis of credit and a defense of the Bank of North America. 15. “A Plea for the Poor Soldiers and Other Public Creditors” (January 2, 1790). 16. “A Review of the Principles and Arguments of the Seventh Essay and of the Plea for the Poor Soldiers” (December 20, 1790). In these last two pamphlets Webster proposed to pay original creditors in full and to pay speculators an average market price of depreciated certificates of indebtedness. Two other essays by Webster are “Remarks on the Address of the Sixteen Members of the Assembly of Pennsylvania to their Constituents” (Philadelphia, 1787); and “The Weakness of Brutus Exposed” (Philadelphia, 1787), reprinted in Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, Paul L. Ford, Editor (Brooklyn, 1888). Both essays defend the Federal Constitution of 1787.

22 Political Essays, 235–236.

23 Id., 32.

24 Id., 61.

25 Id., 37.

26 Id., 144, 150.

27 Id., 84.

28 Id., 114.

29 Id., 86, 104, 139, 140, 285.

30 Id., 14, 18, 115, 117, 141, 157.

31 Id., 6, 8, 27–32.

32 Id., 31.

33 Id., 17.

34 Id., 123.

35 Id., 16.

36 Id., 62.

37 Id., 2–3, 60–62.

38 Political Essays, 9–16, 60, 66, 153, 157, 237.

39 Id., 138.

40 Id., 84–85, 149.

41 Id., 407.

42 Id., 257.

43 Id., 40–41.

44 Id., 63.

45 Id., 64.

46 Id., 105.

47 Id., 46–47.

48 Id., 7–8; 27, 49, 145.

49 Id., 60–61.

50 Political Essays, 126–127.

51 Id., 207.

52 Id., 243.

53 Id., 243.

54 Id., 258.

55 Id., 152–157, 231–241, 244–245, 247, 258–268, 272–273, 291.

56 Id., 203.

57 Id., 224.

58 Id., 274, 277, 279, 282, 291.

59 Id., 347, 349, 354.

60 Id., 45, 85, 160; 435, 436, 439.

61 Id., 435–436.

62 Id., 435.

63 Id., 436.

64 Id., 443.

65 Political Essays, 436; see also 422.

66 Id., 447–448.

67 Id., 448–449, 453, 454.

68 Id., 451 456–458.

69 The minute books of the New England Committee are among the Friends records preserved at the Moses Brown School, Providence; those of the Philadelphia Meeting are at the Friends Record Room, 304 Arch Street, Philadelphia.

70 Papers of the Meeting for Sufferings, Box 14 (1774–1778). A valuable history, “The Society of Friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey from 1764 to 1782,” was started in The Friend, September 12, 1846 (xix. 404), using largely the official records. But after many instalments it stopped abruptly, unfinished, in the issue of July 10, 1847 (xx. 333), when it had reached a date early in 1775. Consequently only a few of the records here cited were included.

71 Published in 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, iv. 1–278.

72 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, i. 426–427.

73 Id., 439; printed in The Friend, xx. 293. The “few lines” were printed in Philadelphia in 1775 under the tide, The Epistle from the Meeting for Sufferings in London to Friends and Brethren in New England.

74 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, i. 454.

75 See my article, “Intercolonial Solidarity of American Quakerism,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, lx (October, 1936), 362–374.

76 To Dr. Sandiford, Philadelphia, October 8, 1774. Pemberton Papers (MSS., Historical Society of Pennsylvania), xxvi. 165.

77 Id., 162, 167, 171, 173, 175, 180; xxvii. 1, 20, 27, 28.

78 This memorandum (id., xxvn. 21) is as follows:

List of Friends in Boston	No.	Occupation
Ebenezer Pope, wife, & son ab^t 17 years old	3	Taylor, depends on his business, rather low in circumstances
John Pope wife & 2 Children	4	Doctor & Surveyor, in Circumstances
Samuel Pope	1	Scyth Smith Not in needy circumstances
James Raymer & 3 Daughters (Grown up)	4	Tallow Chandler & Grocer in Good Circumstances
John Philips Wife & Daug^r	3	Ship Carpenter, has a house etc. & two apprentices (works Journey work)
Eph. Silsbury, wife, & Daughter	3	ship carpenter, aged & infirm depends on his dayly labour
Nathaniel Low, wife, & 3 Children	5	Blacksmith & at present full of Business
Ezra Curtain wife, & 7 Children	9	Shoemaker, a House & full business
Ezra Collins & Sister	2	Hatter in Good Circumstances
Daniel Silsbury, & 2 sisters	3	merchant. The sisters keep a House of Entertainment
Ann Gillett, (a widow) with Elizabeth Ann & Hannah Orrick & Jane Burn	5	Have a house etc. in a small [ ] of Business. 2 of the Young [ ] go out to sew etc
Sampson Silsbury & wife being cousins married Out
Josiah Goram, wife & 4 Children	6	Mariner

79 Id., xxvii. 20.

80 Moses Brown of Providence.

81 Pemberton Papers, xxvii. 28.

82 4 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, iv. 148.

83 Jonathan B. Smith to William Phillips, Philadelphia, November 25, 1774. Id., 150.

84 Id., 149 n.

85 The Friend, xx. 252.

86 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, i. 418.

87 Id., 431; printed in The Friend, xx. 292.

88 This particular letter I do not find; but Israel Pemberton did write to Brown shortly before October 19 (Pemberton Papers, xxvi. 177½), and Brown received a letter from Pemberton—perhaps the same one—on November 28 (id., xxvii. 27). The former letter was sent by the hand of James Manning, President of Rhode Island College. “He is a Baptist preacher and with another of them from New England and a committee of their Yearly Meeting here [Philadelphia] last week had a conference with the speaker and other members of the Massachusetts Assembly on the sufferings of that people in their country and on their laws under which they and Friends may be subjected to sufferings.”

89 New England Hist. Gen. Reg., xxx. 377.

90 Minutes of Salem Monthly Meeting, at Moses Brown School, 199, 200.

91 Papers of the Meeting for Sufferings, Box 14. The paper is dated Lynn, March 9, 1775, and is signed by Joseph Southwick, James Purinton, Joseph Gaskill, Daniel Newhall, and Isaac Basset.

92 Pemberton Papers, xxvii. 107.

93 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, 11 (1775–1785), 1f.

94 Pemberton Papers, xxvii. 165. The writer had come to Yearly Meeting from his home in Salem but had not had opportunity to go into Boston on his way.

95 The text of the appeal is given in the Minutes of the Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 10ff. It was drafted by John Hunt, Israel Pemberton, James Pemberton, John Reynell, David Evans, and Anthony Benezet, and subscribed “7th of 6 mo. 1775, John Pemberton, Clerk.” It is not mentioned in the bibliographies of Joseph Smith, Hildeburn, or Evans. A copy, lacking, however, the subscription blank, in the Haverford College Library is reproduced here. Another copy, likewise without the blank, is now in the Yale University Library in the Mason Franklin Collection. This copy, formerly belonging to Charles F. Heartman, is recorded in Sabin (No. 95902) from the title as given in Charles F. Heartman, The Cradle of the United States, ii, No. 950. From the same source it is listed as No. 436 in the unpublished “Supplement to Hildeburn’s Century of Printing,” by Ethel M. Metzger (M.A. Thesis, Columbia University, 1930). The subscription form, recoverable from other sources, was worded as follows (Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 11f.):

“We, the subscribers, in Consideration of the distresses to which many of our fellow subjects in the province of the Massachusetts Bay & the adjacent Provinces, are subjected, thro’ the unhappy commotions now prevailing, being desirous of contributing towards their relief do agree and promise to pay the sums by us respectively subscribed to — of — to be by — paid unto John Reynell of Philadelphia or Samuel Smith of Burlington, Treasurers of the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Pennsylvania & New Jersey, in order that the same may be transmitted at such time and in such manner as the said Yearly Meeting or the Meeting for Sufferings at Philadelphia may judge most expedient to the Committee lately appointed by the Yearly Meeting of Friends in New England to assist, advise, and relieve such who are or may be reduced to necessitous circumstances thro’ the present calamitous state of public affairs there, or to be otherwise distributed to & among such sufferers.

“Witness our hands the — day of the — Month, 1775”

96 Epistle from Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, July 27, 1775. Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 15.

97 Pennsylvania Ledger, July 22, 1775; Pennsylvania Mercury, July 14, 1775; Pennsylvania Gazette, July 12, 1775; Virginia Gazette, July 29, 1775; Newport Mercury, July 31, 1775. Cf. Newport Mercury, July 24, 1775; Essex Gazette (Salem), July 21, 1775. For these references I am indebted to Mr. Arthur J. Mekeel.

98 See letter to John Pemberton from a Quaker correspondent, London, September 11, 1775. Pemberton Papers, xxviii. 59.

99 Letter to Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, August 14, 1775. Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 22.

100 Epistle from New England Committee for Sufferings, September 12, 1775. Id., 28.

101 Letter of David Evans to Israel Pemberton, written en route at New London, November 16. Pemberton Papers, xxviii. 108.

102 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings (November 30, 1775), ii. 48.

103 This is a reference to the prevalence of Continental currency, which Friends objected to using.

104 Letter from Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, November 17, 1775. Id., 38f.

105 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, Worthington C. Ford and Gaillard Hunt, Editors, ii. 189. Neither comparison of dates nor any mention by one party of the other indicates that either’s action was in any sense a bargain with the other. Before long most of the Congress were much less well disposed towards conscientious objectors.

106 Meeting at Smithfield, June 30, 1775.

107 Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings (July 15, 1775), i. 3.

108 William Rickman to —, New York, August 9, 1775. Pemberton Papers, xxviii. 25.

109 Moses Brown to John Pemberton, Providence, August 29, 1775. Id., 41.

110 Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 9; Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 27f.

111 Letter from New England Committee for Sufferings to the Meeting for Sufferings in Philadelphia, Providence, November 21, 1775. Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 17; Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 49.

112 Printed in The Friend, xxii. 406.

113 A full-length biography of Brown is badly needed. There is an article on him in the Dictionary of American Biography, iii. 146–147. There is also a sketch by Augustine Jones entitled, Moses Brown: His Life and Services (Providence, 1892).

114 Moses Brown Papers, ii. 32.

115 Mr. Allen French has called to my attention what is probably an echo of this interview, told by Moses Brown himself a few years before his death to the biographer of General Nathanael Greene. Greene had been a Friend, a member of Greenwich Monthly Meeting, Rhode Island, but had been disowned in 1773 for his military propensities. He was now on Washington’s staff at Cambridge. “Go to General Greene; he is a Quaker, and knows more about it than I do, was his [Washington’s] answer to Moses Brown, who had been sent to Cambridge upon some business in which the Quakers were particularly interested.” George W. Greene, The Life of Nathanael Greene, i (New York, 1867), 142–143.

116 Moses Brown to Henry Lloyd, Roxbury, December 15, 1775; Brown to Ellis Gray, Providence, January 30, 1776. Moses Brown Papers, ii. 47, 49.

117 Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 33; Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 75ff.

118 Pemberton Papers, xxix. 2.

119 Episde from Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings to New England Meeting for Sufferings. Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 89.

120 Id., 89; Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 44f.

121 This letter has been printed, much edited, in The Friend, xxii. 412f., and, more nearly accurately, in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, i. 168–174. Its text as given here is from the original in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. It was evidently circulated with other documents as a form of report to the contributing meetings in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. There is, for instance, a copy in the papers of the Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, Box 14. The manuscript report received by Shrewsbury Quarterly Meeting is preserved at the Record Room at Friends Meeting House, 221 East Fifteenth Street, New York City.

122 See above, pages 51–52.

123 The letter to Howe, his reply, and the letters to Pope and Ramor are copied in the report mentioned above, page 54, n. 4. They are also copied in Minutes of the New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 23ff.

124 The remark is probably: “How many are spending their time and money in vanity and superfluities, while thousands and tens of thousands want the necessaries of life, who might be relieved by them and their distress at such a time as this, in some degree softened by the administering suitable things.”

125 “Watertown, Nov. 27 . . . Friday last, General Howe sent 300 Men, Women and Children, Poor of the Town of Boston, over to Chelsea, without any Thing to subsist on, at this inclement Season of the Year . . .” Boston Gazette, November 27, 1775.

126 See their briefer report in Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 27.

127 Pemberton Papers, xxix. 32. In the same letter Moses Brown remarks: “I think it may be said in justice to the people of that government [Massachusetts] that there is now as little appearance of the Spirit of Persecution of Friends as in any of the Colonies.”

128 Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 100f. In the Reynell-Coates Collection at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania is John Reynell’s original account book containing the same itemized information under the heading “Dr & Cr Subscriptions received from the monthly meetings belonging to the Yearly Meeting for the relief of the poor Inhabitants of Massachusetts.” The book itself is now marked “Pensilvania and New Jersey Yearly Meeting Stock in account with John Reynell 1762–1783.” I cannot find trace of any record of the individual donations.

129 James Berry of Maryland wrote from Choptank to John Pemberton on August 8, 1775: “Diverse Friends hereaways have for some time past been inclined to give a small matter towards the support of the sufferers in New England but not finding any satisfactory way of conveying it (till the Meeting for Sufferings in Philad^a opened a channel for that purpose) nothing has been done till our last Quarterly Meeting when I was directed to receive the contributions of Friends and to convey it to the Meeting for Sufferings provided it can be joined to the sum raised in your provinces and forwarded therewith.” Pemberton Papers, xxviii. 23.

130 Papers of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, Box 14.

131 Of the Boston Quaker families listed in 1774 (see page 42, n. 5, above) the following refugees were, according to the lists, assisted: at Falmouth, Maine, Phebe Pope, Nathaniel Low, wife, and three children; at Salem, Sarah Silsbey; at Lynn, Ephraim Silsbey and wife, Ezra Curtain and wife.

132 Lilley Eaton, Genealogical History of the Town of Reading, Mass. (Boston, 1874), 715–716.

133 MS., Massachusetts Historical Society. There are twenty-one families totaling eighty-two persons on this list. On the back is an account of what the town of Concord provided for them from May 13, 1775.

134 Minutes of New England Meeting for Sufferings, i. 38; Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 82.

135 Minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings of New York Yearly Meeting (Friends Record Room, 221 East Fifteenth Street, New York City), i. 38.

136 Compare the action in 1781 of the congregation in Chelsea, Mass., in sending money to “the distressed inhabitants of South Carolina and Georgia who are driven out by British troops.” 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, ix. 105–108.

137 According to English minutes preserved in the records of the Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings (Box 18), this wish was fulfilled by a grant of £500 to the Negro school in Philadelphia, while other money was being applied as late as 1789 to war sufferers in Nova Scotia.

138 Joseph B. Felt, The Annals of Salem (Salem, 1827), 497, 499. Cf. Rufus M. Jones, The Quakers in the American Colonies (New York, 1911), 152, where he observes: “In Salem the Friends in company with the selectmen of the town went from house to house and distributed their relief through the very streets along which the Quakers had been whipped a hundred years before.”

139 The New England Meeting for Sufferings wrote to Philadelphia in May, 1776, that the distribution had “a tendency to make a good impression on the minds of some who have been prejudiced against Friends.” Minutes of Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings, ii. 84.

140 The abbreviations used in the lists are:

B. Baptist	M. Moravian
C. Church of England	P. Presbyterian or Congregationalist
D. Dissenter	P. Presbyterian or Congregationalist
F. Friend	R. Roman Catholic
L. Lutheran	W. Widow

141 “N.B. Those Woomen who have no Occupations put against them, Usualy got their Living by their hand Labour of Various Kinds, now Obstructed & Stopt by the present Troubles &c.”

142 The “child” listed as Mrs. Lopthorn’s is stated to be “aged 59 years.”

143 “Taken Prisoners at Mechias in 6^th M^o 1775 whose allowance is small (1^st of y^e 3^d M^o 1776).”

144 “Those in Malbrow marked * in the Margin were not Vissited Living much dispers’d in the Town, but after due Enquiry of other people who came from Boston & the Select Men the Sums were apportion’d and sent by John Sigane of Boston & Two of the Select Men.”

145 “He freed by his master. She purchased by him, have a house in Boston & paid Taxes per bills shewn us from 1766 to 1772, but have not been favor’d with the publicks support he has 10 children She One of them, all Slaves.”

146 “Those marked * in Reading living scatter’d & remote were after due Examination relieved by sending the Moneys Anex’s to each, by Benj^a Brown a Select Man per Rc^t.”

147 “N.B. All those in Glocester on Cape Ann (a few expected as per the first Lists) are Presbiterians Congregationalist.”

148 “Calls herself a Quaker.”

149 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

150 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

151 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

152 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

153 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

154 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

155 “These persons were Imprisoned in Worcester Goal for not Appearing (or procureing others) with Arms when calld for & Refusing to pay the fine, and Leaving their Familes poor & Needy were Visited after Visiting them in Prison; they are called by some New Lights by some Friends, they seldom Attend friends Meetings but appeard sober Some faild in their perseverance & have Lamented their fall, Others were Released by their parents & Relations and are all out of Goal.”

156 “Put into the hands of John Beckford, Timothy Pickering, Samuel Holman, Joseph Brown, John Tuesdal and Jeremiah Hacker to deal out agreeable to directions.”

157 “Put into the hands of Robert Hooper Junr. of Marblehead, to deal out according to directions. And it appears likely more than 200 families will receive of these provisions, lodged in these two Towns, the number of poor, & smallness of the quantity to each is such, that an exact account is not required of the persons who deliver’d it, their integrity & faithfulness is not to be doubted.”

158 1,008 lbs. beef were distributed to 38 persons.

159 “Independent.”

160 “Omitted in the other Acc^t.”

161 Printed, in substance, in The Colophon, New Series, III, No. 4, 531–557.

162 Essex Institute Historical Collections, viii. 215–224; x. 73–104.

163 Editorial in the Boston Sunday Globe, February 17, 1929.

164 Essex Institute Historical Collections, viii. 168–174.

165 Scribbled on the title page is the following: “p^r 1s 2d J. G. hunc librum vendicat.” On the verso of the title page Green has written a list of the symbols and abbreviations used in his manuscript. In printing, only those that can be readily reproduced in modern type have been retained.

166 When he was teaching school at Roxbury.

167 Nehemiah Walter, minister of the church at Roxbury.

168 This is written on the verso of the second leaf, which is unnumbered. On the recto there is a business memorandum in a later hand.

169 Edward Green, captain of the Eagle.

170 Thomas Johnson of Cambridge, who married Green’s sister Elizabeth.

171 Samuel Champney (d 1695), whom Green’s mother married as her second husband.

172 Zechariah Hicks, who married Green’s sister Ruth.

173 Joseph Hicks, who married Green’s sister Bethiah.

174 Bethiah Green Hicks.

175 This sentence was inserted by Green at a later time.

176 Antigua.

177 Green’s memorandum: “Y^s letter I have not sent.”

178 Son of John Vassall of Jamaica, formerly of Scituate, Massachusetts. He stood at the head of the Class of 1695.

179 William Brattle did become minister of Cambridge in 1696.

180 Nathaniel Williams, Henry Flynt, Nathaniel Hunting, and Joseph Baxter of the Class of 1693.

181 Walter Price of Salem, a merchant in later life. He was captain in the fight with the Indians at Haverhill, August 29, 1708.

182 Richard Saltonstall of Haverhill, later a representative and colonel of militia.

183 Nathaniel Saltonstall, brother of Richard, college butler until 1697, subsequendy librarian.

184 John Hubbard of Ipswich, later minister at Jamaica, Long Island.

185 Simon Willard, son of the Reverend Samuel Willard, vice-president of the college.

186 Habijah Savage of Boston, apothecary and commander of the fort at Pemaquid.

187 Alfred Noyes of Boston, physician, politician, promoter of Long Wharf, and owner of fishing vessels.

188 Thomas Phipps of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

189 Timothy Lindall of Salem, merchant and councillor.

190 Jonathan Law, chief justice of Connecticut, 1725–1741, and governor, 1742–1750.

191 Ezekiel Lewis, master at the Boston Latin School and merchant.

192 Thomas Blowers, minister of Beverly.

193 Thomas Little, physician and clerk of courts at Plymouth.

194 Ephraim Littie, minister of Plymouth.

195 John Perkins, physician of Ipswich.

196 Jedediah Andrews of Hingham, minister of a Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

197 John Robinson of Dorchester, minister of Duxbury.

198 Joseph Mors of Medfield, minister of Dorchester Village (Canton).

199 Nicholas Webster of Newbury, preacher and physician at Manchester and Gloucester.

200 Green’s memorandum: “this I had thoughts of sending but afterwards repented me &c.”

201 Percival Green (A.B. 1680, A.M. 1683), minister of Wells, Maine. He died July 10, 1684.

202 Elijah Corlett, a graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and master of the Cambridge Grammar School from its foundation about 1641 to his death on February 25, 1686/7.

203 Nehemiah Walter (A.B. 1684), at this time studying at the college, often served as a substitute for Corlett. John L. Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, iii. 295.

204 “The successors of Mr. Corlett were generally young men fresh from college.” Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts (Boston, 1877), 369. No Hastings is mentioned in his list, and the only college graduate of that name was John Hastings (A.B. 1681).

205 The bracketed words are crossed out in the original manuscript.

206 John Hancock (A.B. 1689), minister of Lexington, 1698–1752, grandfather of the patriot.

207 A.B. 1680; a physician of Cambridge.

208 He married a sister of Joseph Green’s mother and lived in Boston. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, v. 414⁷.

209 Apparently Joseph’s blacksmith brother. Paige states (History of Cambridge, 569) that he was living in 1691.

210 A.B. 1668; a merchant of Boston and a member of the governor’s council.

211 A.B. 1689; a man of means who later lived in England.

212 A.B. 1689; he was learning the mercantile business in 1691.

213 A brother of Thomas and William Brattle.

214 A.B. 1686; later chief justice of the province.

215 A.B. 1687; later agent of the province and the college in London and secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

216 The wife of Jonathan Mitchel (A.B. 1687).

217 Benjamin Wadsworth, later president of the college.

218 The bracketed words are crossed out in the original manuscript. Green’s predecessor was Thomas Barnard (A.B. 1679), whose description of the school in 1681 is given in Sibley, Harvard Graduates, iii. 174–175.

219 Thomas Doolittle, A Treatise concerning the Lord’s Supper. The earliest Boston edition, which is described as the nineteenth edition, was published in 1700.

220 A Companion for Communicants: Discourses upon the Nature, the Design and the Subject of the Lord’s Supper (Boston, 1690).

221 Samuel Williams, ruling elder.

222 Pages [145–146] are missing.

223 William Brattle, his college tutor.

224 Nathaniel Ingersoll, ordained deacon in 1691 and the first innholder of Salem Village.

225 A Daniel Andrew was one of those who on July 21, 1697, as “Attornies for the people of the Village” addressed a remonstrance to the arbitrators appointed to settle the controversy between Parris and the Salem Village church that continued after his active ministry had ended. Samuel G. Drake, The Witchcraft Delusion in New England (Roxbury, 1866), ii. 159.

226 Nicholas Noyes, minister of Salem; John Hale, minister of Beverly; Joseph Gerrish, minister of Wenham, Jonathan Pierpont, minister of Reading; and Nehemiah Walter, minister of Roxbury.

227 Green characteristically fails to mention his first triumph for charity and peace following his ordination. On November 25, 1698, the church, at his instance, unanimously received back into full communion the three seceding members who had raised the faction against his predecessor. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, ii (Boston, 1867), 506–507, where other extracts from the church records are given.

228 Green’s diary begins on March 4, 1699/1700, with a characteristic entry: “Quiet & rainy. Heard small phebe and other birds sing. I was at home partly reading & pruning my orchard.”

229 “On the death of Mr. Hale, some difficulty appears to have arisen in the church, the nature of which is not defined.” Edwin M. Stone, History of Beverly (Boston, 1843), 221.

230 Printed, in substance, in Harold R. Shurtleff, The Log Cabin Myth (Cambridge, 1939).

231 Coram claimed credit for the passage of the Act of 1704 to encourage the making of tar and pitch in the colonies. Acts of the Privy Council of England, Colonial Series, vi. 172.

232 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies (1712–1714), §§357, 364, 460 (June and August, 1713); Nova Scotia Papers (Gay Transcripts, Massachusetts Historical Society), I. 117–121.

233 Col. State Paps., Col. (1712–1714), §§385, 390, 448, 459.

234 Id., §§629, 633, 634, 635, 640.

235 Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, iv (New Haven, 1938), 385–390.

236 Proposals of Coram not discussed here may be found in Cal. State Paps., Col. (1712–1714), §§629, 633, 634, 635, 640; Documentary History of Maine, ix. 342–348.

237 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1712–1714), §460; Nova Scotia Papers, i. 117–121 (August 19, 1713).

238 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1716–1717), §577; see also §§412, 528, 567, 582; Journal of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations (hereafter cited as Board of Trade) (1715–1718), 235.

239 The date is probably 1718. A copy is in the Boston Public Library.

240 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, lvi. 29.

241 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1712–1714), §§643, 656, 672, 673, 677; (1716–1717), §§249, 291, 303, 305, 315, 340.

242 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1716–1717), §599; Documentary History of Maine, ix. 357–361; Nova Scotia Papers, i. 749.

243 Board of Trade (1715–1718), 321–322, 323, 351; Cal. State Paps., Col. (1717–1718), §§308, 383.

244 Board of Trade (1715–1718), 352–354; Cal. State Paps., Col. (1717–1718), §458.

245 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1717–1718), §543.

246 Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Province of Massachusetts-Bay, ii (Boston, 1767) 244–245.

247 Doctor Pinfold’s State of the Case of the Petitioners, for Settling His Majesties Waste Land, Lying between Nova Scotia, and the Province of Main in New-England, in America. It is dated March 17, 1721. A copy is owned by the Boston Public Library.

248 Board of Trade (1722–1728), 90, 93, 114, 119, 124.

249 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1728–1729), §501.

250 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1726–1727), §§820, 841.

251 Dunbar to Lord Wilmington, February 5, 1738/9. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Eleventh Report, Appendix, Part IV, 282–283.

252 Nova Scotia Papers, iv. 88. The complete text of Coram’s memorial is given in id., 76–91.

253 Board of Trade (1722–1728), 418.

254 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1728–1729), §6281; Nova Scotia Papers, iv. 99–101.

255 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1728–1729), §§630, 631, 665; Nova Scotia Papers, iv. 101–115.

256 C.O. 217/5:108–109.

257 Report on Canadian Archives (1894), 68.

258 Documentary History of Maine, x. 440–441.

259 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1728–1729), §483.

260 Id; §§133; 234i, 365 iii.

261 Documentary History of Maine, x. 455, 459, 465; xi. 31; Cal. State Paps., Col. (1731), §3531 (1730), §402.

262 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 79.

263 Colonial Office, Maps and Plans, 180, 181 (Public Record Office).

264 For the discoveries at Pemaquid, see Warren K. Moorehead, “The Ancient Remains at Pemaquid, Maine,” Old-Time New England, xiv (January, 1924), 133–141.

265 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1731), §217.

266 Order of Both Branches of the Legislature of Massachusetts to Appoint Commissioners to Investigate the Causes of the Difficulties in the County of Lincoln; and the Report of the Commissioners Thereon (Boston, 1811), 145. Waldo took over the peppercorn idea in his deeds subsequent to Dunbar’s leaving Pemaquid. Some of the deeds are to be found in Knox Papers, l. 21f. (Massachusetts Historical Society), and in the Maine Historical Society’s manuscripts.

267 Commissioners’ Report, 144.

268 Nova Scotia Papers, iv. 125–130. Dunbar’s advertisement for settlers in the Boston Gazette, August 17, 1730, gives no hint of a change of plans. He felt that it was necessary to broach the matter to the prospective settlers by degrees. Cal. State Paps., Col. (1730), §402.

269 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 44–47; Massachusetts House Journals, ix. 272; Cal. State Paps., Col. (1731), §§6i, 12, 12 iii.

270 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 63–65. It should be mentioned that Woodside had been in difficulties with the Massachusetts House. Executive Records of the Council (MS., Mass. Archives), xv. 54–55; Massachusetts House Journals, x. 100–101.

271 Cf. Robert G. Albion, Forests and Sea-Power (Cambridge, 1926), 262.

272 Cal. State Paps., Col. (1731), §§73, 300, 301.

273 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 67–70; Massachusetts House Journals, ix. 282, 289.

274 The committee’s report is in Documentary History of Maine, xi. 70–85. Two original manuscript copies, signed by the members, are in the Massachusetts Historical Society, Miscellaneous Papers, iii. 16–18.

275 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 66–67.

276 Id., 112–128.

277 Massachusetts House Journals, x. 387–403; xi. 117.

278 Documentary History of Maine, xi. 134–135; 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 422–425; Massachusetts House Journals, xi. 174, 257–258, 281.

279 Massachusetts House Journals, xi. 322, 329; Acts and Resolves, xi. 759; 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 396.

280 6 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 327; see also 318–321, 324–328, 331–338.

281 C.O. 217/5: 108–109.

282 The Society has, with Mr. Frost’s permission, issued and distributed amongst the members a broadside containing A Considerable Speck, one of the poems, hitherto unpublished, which Mr. Frost read on this occasion. The broadside was printed from the first font of type cut and cast by Mr. Dard Hunter, Jr., and on paper made by Mr. Dard Hunter, Sr.

283 On December 17, 1936, Mr. Mood spoke before the Society on “The Genesis of Frederick Jackson Turner’s Historical Ideas.” Some of the material dealt with was afterward used in his essay, “Turner’s Formative Period,” printed (pages 5–39) in The Early Writings of Frederic Jackson Turner (Madison, 1938). Though based in part on the essay of 1938, the present paper is essentially a new piece of work.

284 Wisconsin Magazine of History, xv (September, 1931), 93; xix (September, 1935), 101–103. I have also consulted the data on the population of Wisconsin in the Census of 1870.

285 “History of the ‘Grignon Tract’ on the Portage of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers,” State Register (Portage, Wisconsin), June 23, 1883. My thanks are due the late Joseph Schafer, who kindly supplied me with a photostat copy of this, the earliest writing by Turner.

286 “The History of Fort Winnebago,” Collections, Wisconsin State Historical Society, xiv (Madison, 1898), 65–102.

287 On Veblen’s beginnings, see the earlier chapters in Joseph Dorfman, Thorstein Veblen and His America (New York, 1934).

288 Official transcript of the record of Fred Jackson Turner at the University of Wisconsin.

289 Frederick J. Turner, “Problems in American History,” The Early Writings of Frederick Jackson Turner (Madison, 1938), 76. This volume also contains a chronological list of all Turner’s works, compiled by Everett E. Edwards, and an introduction by Fulmer Mood.

290 Wisconsin Magazine of History, xix (September, 1935), 101–103.

291 Official transcript of the record of Fred Jackson Turner at the University of Wisconsin.

292 William F. Allen, Essays and Monographs (Boston, 1890), 8. D. B. Frankenburger’s memoir in this volume gives the fullest account of Allen’s life. The Dictionary of American Biography has a sketch.

293 Catalogue of the University of Wisconsin, 1881–1882 (Madison, 1882), 49.

294 The syllabus was reprinted to form a part of Methods of Teaching History, G. Stanley Hall, Editor (Boston, 1886), 323–336.

295 Catalogue of the University of Wisconsin, 1884–1885 (Madison, 1884), 8, 10. Hereafter specific references will not be given to the University of Wisconsin catalogues when the context supplies sufficient information to run down the source.

296 Wisconsin Magazine of History, xv (September, 1930), 89.

297 Printed in the University Press (Madison), 14 (35): 4 (May 26, 1883).

298 University Press, 15 (39): 12 (June 21, 1884). This oration was awarded the Lewis prize.

299 “An Act to Provide for a System of Common Schools,” Statutes of California Passed at the Sixteenth Session (Sacramento, 1866), 400–401.

300 Reuben Gold Thwaites. A Memorial Address (Madison, 1914), 38.

301 Id., 18.

302 This textbook by Alexander Johnston (1849–1889) was the first really successful, scholarly work of the kind. Editions, revised from time to time, were published in 1879, 1880, 1882, 1890, 1892, 1898, 1907, and 1910.

303 This forms part of his History Topics. See Hall, Methods of Teaching History, 330–336.

304 Syllabus of American History, 61.

305 Nation, xli (1885), 54.

306 Id., xxxii (1881), 280.

307 The Frontier in American History (New York, 1920), 25.

308 For a contrary view, see Wirt A. Cate, “Lamar and the Frontier Hypothesis,” Journal of Southern History, i (February, 1935), 497–501.

309 History of America, 386–387.

310 Hall, Methods of Teaching History, 282. The London edition of Doyle’s work was reviewed by Allen in the Nation, xxii (May, 1876), 296.

311 The Colonies, 1492–1750, ix.

312 Dr. Edward L. Hardy graduated from the University of Wisconsin with the degree of B.L. in 1893. During his last two years he elected courses in American history with Turner and accumulated an extensive file of notes recording the opinions of the lecturer. In April, 1940, Dr. Hardy, with marked generosity, presented these to me. On going through them again lately, I noted a reference by Turner to the maps in Doyle’s History of America in Dr. Hardy’s notes on the course on American Economic and Social History which he had in 1892–1893.

313 Nation, xx (1875), 226.

314 Id., xxxii (1881), 151.

315 Catalogue of the University of Wisconsin, 1888–1889 (Madison, 1889), 14.

316 Proceedings, Wisconsin State Historical Society, xxxvi (Madison, 1889), 52–98.

317 Id., 97–98.

318 Outline Studies in the History of the Northwest, 6.

319 “Little Known Fragments of Turner’s Writings,” Fulmer Mood, Editor, Wisconsin Magazine of History, xxiii (March, 1940), 329–330 (the quotation is from the editor’s Introduction). One of the “fragments” here reprinted is the article on Wisconsin, first published in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (xxiv. 616–619), and reprinted in the tenth edition (xxxiii. 861–862).

320 Official transcript of advanced courses taken by Frederick J. Turner at Johns Hopkins University.

321 Early Writings of Turner, 198.

322 Richard T. Ely, An Introduction to Political Economy (New York, 1889), 39–41.

323 Ely, Introduction to Political Economy, 41.

324 Id., 42–50.

325 Id., 53–54.

326 Ely, Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society (New York, 1903), 21 and n. 1. In the Philadelphia edition of List the scheme of stages is found on page 72.

327 Francis A. Walker, Political Economy, Advanced Course (2nd ed., New York, 1887), 44–53.

328 Ely’s popularization of this concept of stages gave it wide currency. Note, for example, its influence on his pupil, Charles J. Bullock, in Bullock’s Introduction to the Study of Economics (Boston, 1897), Chapter ii, “The Growth of Foundational Industry.” Bullock had studied at Wisconsin under Ely. Through the medium of Elementary Principles of Economics, together with A Short Sketch of Economic History (New York, 1904, and later editions), both by Ely and George R. Wicker, the concept reached an immense audience on both the high school and college levels. Book ii, “The Natural History of a Society,” in Albion W. Small and George M. Vincent, An Introduction to the Study of Society (New York, 1894), comes pretty close to the idea. Ely and Small were at Baltimore at the same time.

329 Of course, to take over, however critically, any a priori scheme or concept is to run a grave risk. The Listian sequence of stages is today firmly embedded in Turner’s great essay, and today the Listian concept can be asserted to be, as a universal rule, a fallacious idea. It is one component element in Turner’s essay that will not now stand the test of inspection.

330 Proceedings, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, xxxv (Madison, 1888), 16.

331 On Gannett, in addition to the sketch in the Dictionary of American Biography, see Simon N. D. North, Henry Gannett, President of the National Geographic Society, 1910–1914 (Washington, 1915).

332 Scribner’s Statistical Atlas, Fletcher Hewes and Henry Gannett, Editors (New York, 1885), vii (hereinafter cited as Atlas). Hewes was apparently responsible for the editing of the text; he had compiled other works earlier. Fittingly, the work was dedicated to Francis A. Walker.

333 Atlas, Plates 7–10.

334 Id., Plate 11.

335 For the text of the essay, see id., xxxvii–xl; for the maps, see id., Plates 12–17.

336 Id., Plates 15–17.

337 Early Writings of Turner, 195.

338 Atlas, xii–li.

339 Id., Plates 54–57.

340 Id., xxiii–xxiv.

341 In its first edition this work (published by the American Book Company) was issued as one of the National Geographic Monographs (1, Number 3). It was republished the following year (1896) by the National Geographic Society, Washington. It was used by Turner in his classroom teaching for many years. When I studied the history of the West as a Harvard undergraduate in 1919–1920, I was required to have the substance of this essay completely at my command. As the scientific study of physiography developed, Turner kept pace with it and made use of new findings. The paragraph in the text can be rounded out by the following quotation: “I have generalized from the report of N. M. Fenneman, Physiographic Divisions of the United States (Association of American Geographers Annals, xviii, 261–353), and A. K. Lobeck, Physiographic Diagram of the United States (Madison, Wis., 1922). . . . An older, and still useful, analysis is J. W. Powell, ‘Physiographic Regions of the United States. . . .’” Frederick J. Turner, The United States, 1830–1850: The Nation and Its Sections (New York, 1935), 2, n. 2.

342 The original MS. is in the Harvard College Library.

343 “Problems in American History” (1904), The Significance of Sections in American History (New York, 1932), 9.

344 Atlas, xliii–xliv. and Plate 22.

345 Atlas, xliv.

346 United States Census Office, Eleventh Census, 1890, Census Bulletin No. 12. Population of the United States by States and Territories, 1890 (Washington, 1890), 5. For a republication of the substance of this discussion, including tables, map, and text, see Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890. I. Population (Washington, 1892), xl–xliv.

347 Early Writings of Turner, 198–199.

348 United States Census Office, Eleventh Census, 1890, Extra Census Bulletin No. 2. Distribution of Population according to Density: 1890 (Washington, 1891), 1–2.

349 Id., 4.

350 Official transcript of advanced courses taken by Frederick J. Turner in Johns Hopkins University.

351 Letter from Wilson to Turner, Middletown, Connecticut, August 23, 1889, in the Harvard College Library.

352 I am under obligation to Dr. Eric F. Goldman of the Department of History, Johns Hopkins University, who called my attention to this material and assisted me in other ways in settling specific points relating to Turner’s period of study at Baltimore. Dr. Goldman’s student, Thomas W. McElhiney, kindly permitted me to make transcripts from his notes of the seminar discussions.

353 MS. minutes of the Johns Hopkins University seminar, 420.

354 W. Stull Holt, Editor, Historical Scholarship in the United States, 1876–1901: As Revealed in the Correspondence of Herbert Baxter Adams (Baltimore, 1938), 156; Johns Hopkins Half-Century Directory, 1876–1926, W. Norman Brown, Editor (Baltimore, 1926), 363. Other historians who completed their work on the same day were Charles H. Haskins, John M. Vincent, and James A. Woodburn.

355 Holt, Historical Scholarship in the United States, 158–159. Turner had received twenty-five copies of the published work by December 9.

356 Id., 168–169, 173–174.

357 MS. minutes of the Johns Hopkins University seminar (December 4, 1891), 622.

358 Johns Hopkins University Circulars, No. 4 (April, 1880), 47–48.

359 MS. minutes of the Johns Hopkins University seminar (October 31, 1884), 66.

360 MS. minutes of the Johns Hopkins University seminar, 139.

361 Id. (October 15, 1886), 160.

362 Id. (October 14, 1887), 29.

363 Ely’s teaching on economic rent is brief and clear. See his Introduction to Political Economy, 215–216.

364 Early Writings of Turner, 185–186.

365 Walker, Political Economy, 193, 211.

366 George W. Pierson, “The Frontier and the Frontiersman of Turner’s Essay,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, lxiv (October, 1940), 449–478.

367 Walker, Political Economy, 193.

368 Id., 193–218.

369 Francis A. Walker, Land and Its Rent (Boston, 1883), 21.

370 Id., 22.

371 Walker, Land and Its Rent, 23.

372 Id., 25–26.

373 Id., 45–47.

374 Id., 140.

375 Id., 41.

376 Early Writings of Turner, 82–83.

377 Proceedings, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, xxxviii (Madison, 1891), 93.

378 The edition was small, and the book soon went out of print.

379 J. Franklin Jameson, The History of Historical Writing in America (Boston, 1891), 141–142.

380 Dial, x (August, 1889), 71.

381 Early Writings of Turner, 236–237.

382 Holt, Historical Scholarship in the United States, 145.

383 For bibliographical details, see Early Writings of Turner, 236–240.

Wisconsin Magazine of History, xxii (December, 1938), 216.

384 Annals, American Academy of Political and Social Science, ii (Philadelphia, 1892), 782–783.

385 James A. James and Albert H. Sanford, American History (New York, 1909). In a letter to me Professor James states that this book “was, I think, the earliest text for schools to make use of the Turner viewpoint.” The book was not submitted to Turner in manuscript, Professor James adds.

386 For the inception of the plan, see Proceedings, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, xxxvi. 47.

387 Transactions, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, viii (Madison, 1892), 288–298.

388 Here Turner followed the gracious custom of his predecessor, Professor Allen.

389 Collections, Wisconsin State Historical Society, xii (Madison, 1892), 299–334.

390 Id., xiv (Madison, 1898), 341–393.

391 J. Franklin Jameson, Editor, Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States in the Formative Period, 1775–1789, by Graduates and Former Members of the Johns Hopkins University (Boston, 1889), 67.

392 Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York, 1913), 5.

393 Orin G. Libby, The Geographical Distribution of the Vote of the Thirteen States on the Federal Constitution, 1787–8 (Madison, 1894), iii–vii.

394 Collections, Wisconsin State Historical Society, xiii (Madison, 1895), 293–334.

395 Id., 334.

396 Id., 335–374.

397 Id., 363.

398 I have reprinted the 1894 “Frontier” essay, with introductory remarks, in “Little Known Fragments of Turner’s Writings,” Wisconsin Magazine of History, xxiii (March, 1940), 330, 338–341. Why Turner allowed this useful essay (as well as his Ægis article of 1892) to drop out of sight is a minor mystery. He seems to have had little concern over being misunderstood by those who were to come afterward. Until the recently published chronological bibliography of Turner’s writings by Dr. Edwards (Early Writings of Turner, 234–268) it was quite impossible to trace the unfolding of his scholarship.

399 Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1893 (Washington, 1894), 6.

400 Catalogue of the University of Wisconsin for 1891–1892 (Madison, 1892), 98.

401 Trent was of Virginian birth, had done postgraduate work at Johns Hopkins, and was the author of English Culture in Virginia (1889) and Life of William Gilmore Simms (1892).

402 William P. Trent, Southern Statesmen of the Old Régime: Washington, Jefferson, Randolph, Calhoun, Stephens, Toombs, and Jefferson Davis (New York, 1897), vii–xv.

403 Max Farrand, “Frederick Jackson Turner at the Huntington Library,” Huntington Library Bulletin, Number 3 (February, 1933), 159.

404 Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1896 (Washington, 1897), i. 281–296.

405 Id., 283.

406 Id., 287.

407 For bibliographical details, see Early Writings of Turner, 239.

408 Id., 239–250 (entries for the years 1895–1905).

409 For a statement of Libby’s views on this subject, see his article, “A Plea for the Study of Votes in Congress,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1896, i. 323–334.

410 Id., 323.

411 Id., 332.

412 Id., 332 and n.1.

413 Ulrich B. Phillips, Georgia and State Rights. A Study of the Political History of Georgia from the Revolution to the Civil War, with Particular Regard to Federal Relations (Washington, 1902), 5.

414 See Everett E. Edwards, “A Bibliography of the Writings of Professor Ulrich Bonnell Phillips” [Introduction by Fred Landon], Agricultural History, viii (October, 1934), 196–218.

415 His American Diplomacy (New York, 1915, and four subsequent editions) developed from this branch of his teaching.

416 Holt, Historical Scholarship in the United States, 276.

417 Woodrow Wilson to F. J. Turner, Princeton, January 21, 1902, in Harvard College Library.

418 This anecdote comes to me from Professor Wilbur C. Abbott.

419 Huntington Library Bulletin, Number 3, 160–162.

420 The helpful Introduction by Professor Avery Craven reveals how Turner worked and composed his manuscript.

421 For an account of the literary project that Fish had in hand, see his The American Civil War, vii–viii.

422 The project was outlined by Phillips in the Preface to Life and Labor in the Old South (Boston, 1929).

423 Wisconsin Magazine of History, xix (September, 1935), 96–97.

424 Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the year 1909 (Washington, 1911), 165–172.

425 Id., 165.

426 Mr. Potter, to whose studies and interest all later concern with the John Harvard donation is indebted, retired as the Harvard College Librarian in 1936. The Library has continued, however, to secure as far as possible copies of the books whose titles were identified. A list of some seventy such additions will be found below in the footnote on page 355; but there remains a list of desiderata, nearly twice as long, representing the items still lacking at the Library. Most of the books regarded as replacements of the original donation have been classified as a separate category with a shelf list of their own, and many of them have stood together in a separate show case in the old Treasure Room in the main building of Widener Library.

The substance of this paper is included in a more popular article, “What Happened to John Harvard’s Books?” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, xli (November 18, 1938), 241–248.

427 “A Few Notes concerning the Records of Harvard College,” Bibliographical Contributions, Justin Winsor, Editor, No. 27 (Cambridge, 1888). The list, without identifications, was published in Thomas G. Wright, Literary Culture in Early New England, 1620–1730 (New Haven, 1920), 265–272, and in our Publications, xv. 158–166.

428 In his list Potter used the designation “(Cat. 1723)” to indicate items that he identified in this way. This symbol may now be added to his printed list in the following instances, confirming or correcting his titles and editions: Nos. 26, 44 (should be Geneva, 1625), 50, 55 (also Poitiers, 1619, f^o), 81 (should be 4^o), 111a (the edition in English), 163b (should be Basel, 1611), 196 (should be 4^o), 222 (should be edition of 1547, for which “1647” in the Catalogue is an obvious error), 227b. The dates in Potter’s list should be further corrected in these items: Nos. 8b (1620 for 1630), 72d (1572 for 1568), 143a (1599 for 1589), 174a (1570 for 1574), 198a (1618 for 1628), 199 (1629 for 1627). The asterisk used by Potter to mark items of which copies are in the Harvard College Library may now be added, owing to more recent accessions, to the titles and editions which he names under Nos. 1, 2, 6a (Volumes 3 and 4), 13, 16, 18, 23a, 24a (Antwerp, 1616), 29b, 29d (Venice, 1617), 30d, 31, 33, 42, 46a, 46e, 48b, 48d, 48e, 48g, 48j, 51a, 54, 59, 60, 62a, 62c, 62f, 62h, 70, 72a, 75b, 75c, 90 (London, 1593), 91 (London, 1633), 94 (Frankfort, n.d.), 106, 108a, 109b, 114, 116, 117, 126, 134, 140, 143b, 156, 162, 163b (Basel, 1603), 169 (London, 1638), 172, 174, 183a, 184b, 189a, 191e, 195, 198a, 205, 208, 210, 220, 222 (Lyons, 1547), 234, 237, 242b, 245, 246 (London, 1618), 247, 250.

429 This striking difference between ancient and modern library practice is rarely mentioned or thought of today. Burnett H. Streeter thinks the custom goes back to the days of chained books. The Chained Library (London, 1931).

430 Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, xx. 287, 288. The original manuscript of this list is in the Boston Public Library.

431 This similarity was noted by Andrew McF. Davis (Bibliographical Contributions, No. 27, 7), but he drew no deductions from it. The list was printed by him in id., 14.

Of course some coincidences between contemporary libraries in New England are to be expected. I have attempted to compute the number of titles in the John Harvard list that are also found in three other lists of the period. The library of Thomas Jenner, left by him in America in 1649 and bought in 1651 for the use of John Eliot by the Corporation for Propagation of the Gospel in New England (the New England Company) had 200 titles (our Publications, xxviii. 113–136), of which not more than 40 are in the John Harvard list. The library left in America by Thomas Weld (1595–1662) and similarly disposed of at the same time as Jenner’s (id., 136–156) contained 195 titles, of which about 32 may be the same as titles in the John Harvard list. A smaller and earlier library, owned and housed in various places in the colony from its presentation in 1629 until it was burned in the Town House fire in Boston in 1711, was that given the Massachusetts Bay Company by William Backhouse and the Reverend Samuel Skelton. About a dozen of the John Harvard titles may be included in its 52 entries. Proc. Am. Antiq. Soc, xx. 271.

432 The date at which the two lists were copied into the Record Book is not known. Mr. Morison thinks it was probably after 1667, when the new library laws called for a catalogue. The Founding of Harvard College (Cambridge, 1935), 264. The handwriting is not that of President Dunster, as was formerly thought, but it has not been identified. Bellingham’s gift may have been made in 1642, when the magistrates and elders gave to Harvard College from their libraries books to the value of £200 (id., 263); or by bequest at his death in 1672, when, according to the inventory of his estate, he had at his house in Boston a library of books worth £30. Mellen Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, 1624–1824 (Boston, 1908), i. 427.

433 Sibley has written on the bookplate: “This book belonged to the Library before the fire Jan. 24, 1766 [sic].”

434 Proc. Am. Antiq. Soc., xxxiv. 2–4, 14–19.

435 Our Publications, xvi. 522. On the recovery of nearly seventy of the duplicates thus disposed of, see my article, “My Professor’s Closet,” Harvard Alumni Bulletin, xxxix (December 4, 1936), 297–301.

436 Our Publications, xvi. 570.

437 Id., 728.

438 Id., xxviii. 381–461.

439 Or perhaps a similar work of the same title by Ravisius Textor.

440 Of this total, $291.18 is to be reimbursed from the savings bank deposit belonging to the Martha Rebecca Hund Fund.

441 Printed in John Adams, Works, ix. 641–643, and Hezekiah Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America (New York, 1876), 107–108.

442 E. Francis Brown, Joseph Hawley, Colonial Radical (New York, 1931), 154.

443 Hawley to Gerry, February 18, 1776, in James T. Austin, Life of Elbridge Gerry, 1 (Boston, 1828), 161.

444 Id., 160.

445 2. Samuel, i: 20.

446 The material for this paper has been obtained from the following sources:

Derby business papers, Essex Institute.
Edward B. Allen, Early American Wall Paintings (New Haven, 1926).
George C. Mason, Reminiscences of Newport (Newport, 1884).
Article by Joseph Northam in the Newport Daily News, December 31, 1895.

447 Our Publications, xxxii. 505–514.

448 Frederick M. Kimball, “Corné and Tomatoes,” Canco (the trade journal of the American Can Company), v (April, 1939), 6.

449 The substance of Mr. Murdock’s remarks is printed in Appalachia, vii (June, 1941), 344–354.

450 Political Register and Impartial Review, ix (London, 1771), 81–83.

451 Id., 81.

452 The first biographer of Wilkes to use the American letters was John Almon. In his Correspondence of the Late John Wilkes (5 vols., London, 1805), Almon printed four letters from the Sons of Liberty. Two recent biographies, Raymond Postgate, That Devil Wilkes (London, 1930), and O. H. Sherrard, A Life of John Wilkes (London, 1930), have quoted these and other American letters from the Wilkes papers in the British Museum. All these letters were printed by Worthington C. Ford in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 190–215.

Two other American letters to Wilkes are available in print: from the Sons of Liberty, November 4, 1769, in John G. Palfrey, “William Palfrey,” Library of American Biography, 2nd Series, vii (Boston, 1845), 358–362; from William Palfrey, March 13, 1770, describing the Boston Massacre, in 1 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 480–483.

453 Printed in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 196–197.

454 John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1768).

455 Palfrey had sent Wilkes copies of the Boston Evening Post, which began on February 6, 1769, to publish a series of letters containing a “full answer to the Farmer’s.” Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 196–197.

456 George Hayley, Palfrey’s commercial correspondent in London and Wilkes’s brother-in-law.

457 Copy by Anna R. Palfrey, corrected and endorsed by John G. Palfrey: “Original given by J. G. P. to Mrs. [George] Ticknor May 15, 1873.”

458 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 200–202.

459 Palfrey had sent Wilkes a copy of a deposition by Sampson Toovey, clerk to James Cockle, Collector of Customs at Salem, stating that Cockle received bribes and shared them with Governor Bernard. Wilkes published this, with a short introduction, in the London Daily Advertiser and Morning Chronicle, July 22, 1769.

460 Hancock’s sloop Liberty was condemned in 1768 after several months of litigation. See Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, lv. 239–284.

461 Printed by permission of the Harvard College Library. Excerpts from this letter are printed in Library of American Biography, 2nd Series, vii. 365n.

462 Eliot visited Wilkes on September 14 and 20, 1769. Anna Ticknor, Samuel Eliot (Boston, 1869), 32.

463 In his letter of July 26 Palfrey had written: “The society of the friends of Liberty have directed me to forward you two Turtles. . . . They are now in fine order, one weighs 45 lb., the other 47, making in the whole 92 lb. which is the Massachusetts patriotic number.” Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, xlvii. 206.

464 John Glynn (1722–1779), London politician and lawyer, who took the lead in defending Wilkes in numerous suits.

465 Palfrey’s draft bears no date. However, the supplement to this letter, printed in i Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., vi. 480–483, indicates that it was written on March 5, 1770.

466 John Jeffries (1745–1819), after graduating from Harvard in 1763, studied medicine in England for several years. At first an ardent patriot, he lost the respect of the radicals by testifying for Captain Preston in October, 1770. During the war he moved to England where he subsequently became famous for the first crossing of the Strait of Dover by air.

467 The passage in brackets is canceled in Palfrey’s draft.

468 Lieutenant Colonel William Dalrymple.

469 Ebenezer Richardson.

470 “Knight of the Post” was a term of contempt for a perjurer or one who got his living by giving false evidence.

471 One paragraph, describing the Richardson affair in words similar to those above, is here omitted.

472 Wilkes’s term in the King’s Bench Prison ended on April 18, 1770.

473 Copy by Anna R. Palfrey, endorsed by John G. Palfrey: “Copy of a letter of which I gave the original to Miss Arnold.”

474 Wilkes was sworn in as alderman on the day of his release from prison.

475 Palfrey’s draft is undated. The two paragraphs describing Governor Hutchinson’s character were printed in Library of American Biography, 2nd Series, vii. 368–372.

476 Colonel James Otis (1702–1778).

477 John Temple (1732–1798), Surveyor General of the Customs.

478 Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston (1739–1802).

479 See page 414, n. 3, above.

480 James Murray (1713–1781) was President of the Council of North Carolina before he moved to Boston in 1765.

481 These Boston and Marlborough merchants had aroused considerable animosity by their violations of the nonimportation agreement. See Publications of this Society, viii. 98n.; xix. 226, 226n, 232, 233n.

482 Charles Churchill (1731–1764), English poet.

483 Arthur Lee of Virginia (1740–1792).

484 Numerous pamphlets were printed in England and America in 1770 claiming to contain the complete love letters of the Duke and Lady Grosvenor. At a trial on July 5, 1770, at King’s Bench, Lord Grosvenor was awarded £16,000 “for a criminal conversation between the Defendant and the Plaintiff’s wife.”

485 Palfrey had been in England from February 3 to April 3, 1771.

486 John Sawbridge (1732–1795), Sheriff of Middlesex, who five times returned Wilkes as duly elected to Parliament in defiance of the House of Commons.

487 Unidentified, but not Charles Churchill, the poet.

488 Mr. George G. Wolkins has written two valuable articles on the exploits of Captain Daniel Malcom: “The Seizure of John Hancock’s sloop Liberty,” Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc, lv. 239–284; and “Daniel Malcom and Writs of Assistance,” id., lviii. 5–84.

489 C.O. 5:849.

490 Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, No. 76273.

491 Litigation was Captain John’s favorite pastime while on shore. During the twenty years 1750–1770 he was frequently suing somebody or being sued. Writ after writ is to be found in the files of the Superior Court of Judicature.

492 The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D., Franklin B. Dexter, Editor (New York, 1901), i. 39.

493 Superior Court of Judicature, No. 90105.

494 “The War of the Regulation occurring in North Carolina . . . has often been regarded as a part of the general revolutionary movement. In reality it was rather a ‘peasants’ revolt’ against the hard conditions then prevailing; and most of the ‘regulators’ were tories a few years later. Professor Bassett, whose detailed article in the American Historical Association’s Reports (1894, pp. 141–212) is by far the best study that has yet been made, says (p. 211): ‘This investigation leads to the view that the Regulation could have no direct connection with the Revolution. I can see no continuity of influence. The Regulation did not make the later struggle inevitable.’ Although, as Professor Bassett states, there is no direct connection between the War of the Regulation and the American Revolution, and although most of the regulators were tories, these disturbances were doubtless influential in adding to the general spirit of unrest which was rising throughout the continent.” Edward Channing, A History of the United States, iii (New York, 1920), 122n.

495 Colonial Records of North Carolina, viii. 583.

496 State Records of North Carolina, xix. 843–845. The expedition ended on June 21, when Governor Tryon left to sail for New York.

497 The name of a fierce swashbuckler in the dramatic burlesque, The Rehearsal (1671), by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

498 Colonial Records of North Carolina, ix. 236–237.

499 Id, 300.

500 Id., 351.

501 Id., 618–619.

502 Boston Gazette, February 14, 1774.

503 Waldo’s letter to the Lords of the Treasury (T.I. 525, f. 119) is dated November 21, 1776, and is addressed to John Robinson, formerly one of the Commissioners of the Customs in Boston. Waldo had come to England after the burning of Falmouth, Maine, by the British in October, 1775. In the destruction of the town he lost his dwelling house and its contents, his distill house, and his storehouse, not to mention the customhouse, which was his own property. Treasury In-letters, 525, f. 125 (Public Record Office).

504 T.I. 525, f. 117.

505 Benjamin B. Thacher, Traits of the Tea Party; Being a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes (New York, 1835), 130–133.

506 Dartmouth mss., Patshull House, Wolverhampton, Shropshire.

507 Dartmouth mss.

508 Letters of a Loyalist Lady (Cambridge, 1927), 70–72.

509 Boston Evening-Post, December 5, 1774; Massachusetts Gazette, December 8, 1774; Massachusetts Spy, December 8, 1774.

510 The imprint reads: “London Printed for Rob^t Sayer & J. Bennett, Map & Printseller, No. 53, Fleet Street as the Act directs 31, Oct^r 1774.”

511 The imprint reads: “Printed for Carington Bowles, at his Map & Print Warehouse, No. 69 in St. Paul’s Church Yard, London. Published as the Act directs, Oct. 12^th, 1774.” The print was Number 306 in Bowles’s series of folio mezzotints.

512 The imprint is the same except for the date, June 2, 1775.

513 Two months later the London Chronicle, December 17, 1774, contained a news item confirming this expectation: “The Exciseman who was tarred and feathered at Boston and lately arrived in England has obtained a pension of 200£ per annum.”

514 R. T. H. Halsey, The Boston Port Bill as Pictured by a Contemporary London Cartoonist (New York, 1904), 93.

515 I first became acquainted with this print through the copy of it in Carpenters’ Hall, Philadelphia. My thanks are due to Charles L. Chandler, Esq., of Philadelphia for his kindness in securing a photograph of the print for me. I have subsequendy come across a copy of the print in the Harvard College Library.

516 The explanation of the scene given below the engraving is as follows: “Le 25 Janvier 1774 la populace irritée pénétra sans armes dans sa maison. Il blessa plusieurs personnes à coups d’épée: mais les Bostoniens, modérés jusques dans leur vengeance, le saisirent, le descendirent par la fenêtre dans une charrette; ensuite il fut dépouillé, goudronné, emplumé, mené sur la place publique, battu de verges, et obligé de remercier de ce qu’on ne le punisait point de mort: puis on le ramena chez lui sans autre mal.”

517 The Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant, 1759–1762, 1764–1779, Anne L. Cunningham, Editor (Boston, 1903), 261.

518 Massachusetts Gazette, February 3, 1774.

519 The complete report of Major Eyre is in the Parkman Transcripts, Massachusetts Historical Society.

520 The Diary and Letters of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., Peter O. Hutchinson, Editor (London, 1886), i. 164.

521 Boston Gazette, January 31, 1774.

522 T.I. 510, f. 49.

523 Dartmouth mss.

524 Massachusetts Gazette, December 8, 1774.

525 Id., December 16, 1774.

526 Dartmouth mss.

527 Dartmouth mss.

528 Hutchinson Diary, ii. 100–101.

529 See pages 440–442, above.

530 Admiralty Office 13:79 (Public Record Office).

531 War Office 12:11616 (Public Record Office).

532 The word in the original is unexempted.

533 A.O.13:75.

534 Malcom’s case is entered under the head of “Persons receiving Allowances under a General Minute of the Board dated the day of but whose Claims are not set forth by Memorial or supported by Voucher.” He is put down as having a “present allowance” of £100, and his “profession” is given as surveyor of the customs.

535 A.O.12:105, f. 141.

536 A.O.13:75.

537 W.O.12:11616.

538 W.O.25:3101.

539 To purchase certain books from the Matt B. Jones collection as a memorial to Mr. Jones.

540 To purchase certain books from the Matt B. Jones collection as a memorial to Mr. Jones.

541 Printed in substance as “Origins of the Colonial Idea in England,” Proceedings, American Philosophical Society, lxxxv (September 30, 1942), 448–465.

542 Francis N. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions (Washington, 1909), iii. 1849.

543 Id., 1870, 1877.

544 New England Council, id., 1827, 1834; Maine, id., 1625, 1627; Connecticut, id., i. 529, 536; Rhode Island, id., vi. 3211, 3221.

545 See the Introduction by Charles M. Andrews in Beverly W. Bond, The Quit-Rent System in the American Colonies (New Haven, 1919), 14–17.

546 Lyttleton, His Treatise of Tenures, Thomas E. Tomlins, Editor (London, 1841), 153; Melville Egleston, The Land System of the New England Colonies (Baltimore, 1886), 14. Other reasons are suggested in Viola Barnes, “Land Tenure in English Colonial Charters of the Seventeenth Century,” Essays in Colonial History Presented to Charles McLean Andrews (New Haven, 1931), 4–40; George L. Haskins, “The Beginnings of the Recording System in Massachusetts,” Boston University Law Review, xxi (April, 1941), 299–302.

547 Cf. Charles H. Atherton, “Address,” Collections, New Hampshire Historical Society, iii. 153, 156–157.

548 Cf. Edward P. Cheyney, “The Manor of East Greenwich in the County of Kent,” American Historical Review, xi (October, 1905), 29–35.

549 A partial list of these writers may be found in Richard B. Morris, Studies in the History of American Law (New York, 1930), 106, n. 2.

550 “Fuit agrée per touts que si terre soit alledge d’estre en Kent, serra presume d’estre Gavelkind, si non que le contrary soit prove.” Browne v. Brokes (1659), 2 Siderfin, 153. “Touts terres in Kent sont suppose destre Gavelkind.” Wiseman v. Cotten (1661), 1 Siderfin, 135, 138. See also Robinson on Gavelkind, Charles I. Elton and H. J. H. Mackay, Editors (London, 1897), 44. Cf. Lord Hale’s opinion in Randall v. Writtall (1673), 3 Keble, 214, 216.

551 It should be pointed out that, contrary to the opinion of some, gavelkind was frequently an incident of free and common socage. Cf. Theodore F. T. Plucknett, review, New England Quarterly, iii (July, 1930), 575: “In discussing the famous manor of East Greenwich and the question of gavelkind, we miss the one simple and conclusive answer, viz. that the charters expressly define the tenure as socage; and socage is not gavelkind.” The answer is neither simple nor conclusive; see Charles I. Elton, Tenures of Kent (London, 1867), Chapter xv.

552 Further discussion of the social and economic implications of this is given in my article, “The Beginnings of Partible Inheritance in the American Colonies,” Yale Law Journal, li (June, 1942), 1280–1315. The medieval background is detailed in John E. A. Jolliffe, Pre-Feudal England: The Jutes (Oxford, 1933), 19–30. See also George C. Homans, “Partible Inheritance of Villagers’ Holdings,” Economic History Review, viii (November, 1937), 48–56.

553 William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston, 1912), ii. 41–43.

554 Letter to Samuel Bloommaert, one of the directors of the West India Company, Collections, New York Historical Society, 2nd Series, ii. 352.

555 The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts Reprinted from the Edition of 1660, William H. Whitmore, Editor (Boston, 1889), 51, Titles 81, 82. See also The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, 1648, Max Farrand, Editor (Cambridge, 1929), 53–54, and below, page 487.

556 It was repealed in 1789. Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts, 1788–1789 (Boston, 1894), 395–396. For fee tail estates, see below, page 486, n. 2.

557 Studies in the History of American Law, 107–108.

558 Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, i (New Haven, 1934), 86n.–87n.; Zechariah Chafee, Jr., Introduction to Records of the Suffolk County Court, 1671–1680, our Publications, xxix. lxvii–lxviii. See also Professor Chafee’s article, “Professor Beale’s Ancestor,” Harvard Legal Essays Written in Honor of and Presented to Joseph Henry Beale and Samuel Williston (Cambridge, 1934), 39, 56.

559 There is some confusion in the records and the early authorities as to whether the rules of partible inheritance extended to a fee tail in Massachusetts, or whether primogeniture prevailed. In Baker v. Mattocks, Quincy, 69 (Mass., 1763), the court construed the province statute of 1692 as not extending to estates tail, thus holding that the common-law rule of primogeniture prevailed. Cf. The Charter and General Laws of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1814), 230–232. Earlier in the century, however, the court reached an opposite result in two cases. See Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 100–101. Yet in 1723 the Council passed a declaratory resolve that the statute of 1692 did not apply to estates tail. Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, v (Boston, 1924), 279. The real difficulty is that the statute of 1692 refers explicitly to fee simple estates. The earlier enactments, in 1641 and 1660, in providing for descent to all children, make no distinction between fee simple and fee tail estates. Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 51 (Titles 81, 82), 201. Morris (Studies in the History of American Law, 102) has concluded that partible descent existed as to fee tail estates during the seventeenth century. It is noteworthy that Plymouth enacted in 1685 that “all Lands heretofore Intailed, and that shall be Intailed hereafter, shall descend and enure as by the Law of England the same ought to do.” William Brigham, The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth (Boston, 1836), 299. This parallel might tend to weigh in favor of the view that in the Bay Colony rules of partible inheritance applied to estates in fee tail, since no contrary enactment exists. But the use of the words “fee simple” in the 1692 statute equally supports an opposite view. The question must remain an open one until more evidence than the enactments comes to light.

560 For full discussion of these and other incidents, see especially Robinson on Gavelkind, Book ii; Elton, Tenures of Kent, 39–44, 73–104; Nellie Neilson, “Custom and the Common Law of Kent,” Harvard Law Review, xxxviii (February, 1925), 482–498.

561 That is, among the living children of a deceased son by right of representation.

562 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 51, Title 82.

563 Id., 51, Title 81.

564 Laws and Liberties of 1648, 53–54.

565 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 201; The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts Reprinted from the Edition of 1672, William H. Whitmore, Editor (Boston, 1887), 158.

566 Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, John Noble, Editor, ii (Boston, 1904), 97 (1640); Probate Records of Essex County, Massachusetts, i (Salem, 1916), 62 (1647), 91 (1647), 173 (1654), etc.

567 See above, page 485, n. 3. The grant to Bradford and his associates in 1629 was not as of East Greenwich. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, iii. 1844. Prior to that their patent was from the Plymouth Company, which had received its charter in 1606 with an express mention of the Kentish manor. Id., iii. 3783, 3789. However, the leaders of the colony no doubt thought the tenure unchanged by the Bradford grant, since in the Code of 1636 they specifically mention East Greenwich. Brigham, Compact and Charter, 43, 51, 54.

The Plymouth laws of 1671 include a provision similar to the 1660 law in Massachusetts: that is, children take without distinction between males and females in cases of intestacy. Brigham, Compact and Charter, 281–282. In the revision of 1685 the daughters are expressly excluded and do not take unless there are no sons; again, the double portion is reserved to the eldest son. Id., 299.

568 Laws and Liberties of 1648, 17–18. There had been no earlier provision with regard to dower, as can be seen from the preamble to the title “Dowries” in this enactment: “Forasmuch as no provision hath yet been made for any certein maintainance for Wives after the death of their Husbands. . . .” The earlier provision in 1641 was of a very general character and was clearly “uncertain.” Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 51, Title 79.

569 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, Nathaniel B. Shurdeff, Editor, ii (Boston, 1853), 281: amendment to 1647 law to strike out the clause “a third part of her husbands money, goods, & chattels, reall & personall.” For the 1692 statute, see Charter and General Laws of Massachusetts Bay, 230. The effectiveness of the amendment is perhaps open to question. Cf. Records of the Court of Assistants, in. 91: “. . . by A third part for the wife to be ment a third part of the whole.” This declaration was made in 1656 by Governor Endecott. See also Records of the Court of Assistants, iii. 208, where a committee was appointed by the court “to lay out the peticon^r hir Just thirds as the law directs.” (Italics mine.) Curiously enough, the excision in 1649 was voted at the same session (May 2) at which Endecott was elected Governor. Massachusetts Records, ii. 265.

The widow very often got a great deal more than her common-law third, but not in any definite proportion. This was particularly so when there were minor children to bring up. See Essex Probate Records, passim.

570 Brigham, Compact and Charter, 43. In practice, in Massachusetts Bay, the widow might get more if the allotted third was manifestly inadequate. The court had power to assign to her such part as should seem just and reasonable. Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 51 (Title 79), 201. The administration and settlement of estates in individual cases amply bear out this proposition. Cf. the Plymouth practice of relieving the widow when the husband by will deprived her of “reasonable allowance for her subsistency.” Brigham, Compact and Charter, 281.

571 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 35 (Title 11), 45 (Title 53) — 1641.

572 Id., 35, Titles 10, 11.

573 On this distrust of the English land system, see my article, previously cited, in Boston University Law Review, xxi. 301–302.

574 Colonial Laws of Massachusetts, 1660, 35, Title 10: “All our lands and heritages shall be free from all fines and licences upon Alienations, and from all hariotts, wardships, Liveries, Primerseisins, yeare day and wast, Escheates and forfeitures, upon the deaths of parents or Ancestors. . . .”

Two points deserve special notice in this title. In the first place, a license to alienate was not necessary if a tenant held gavelkind land. Elton, Tenures of Kent, 74. This strengthens my position that gavelkind did not obtain in Massachusetts. In the second place, relief and primer seisin never attached to land held of the King in free and common socage. Lyttleton’s Tenures, 153. No doubt the colonists did not know this. At the same time, it is doubtful whether they had ever had to meet the obligations as socage tenants of the lord of East Greenwich.

In connection with the prohibition against forfeiture, mention should be made of the reply of the Massachusetts General Court to the objection by the Attorney General that persons condemned were in Massachusetts allowed to make wills: “. . . wee conceive it to be according to our patent; and if its originall, viz^t, that of East Greenwitch, according vnto which, as wee conceive, notw^thstanding the fathers crime, yet the children are to possesse the estate.” Massachusetts Records, v. 199. We cannot tell from this assertion whether the General Court actually thought the incident of gavelkind prevailed in Massachusetts, or whether the answer to the Attorney General was merely a legal argument which they hoped would stick. Thomas Hutchinson, writing a hundred years later, was surprised: “They strangely supposed that socage-tenure included all the properties and customs of gavelkind.” History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, Lawrence S. Mayo, Editor (Cambridge, 1936), i. 377. Cf. below, page 497.

575 Of general interest in this connection are Robinson on Gavelkind, Book I, Chapters ii, iii, and Elton, Tenures of Kent, 53^ff. Of more specific interest are Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederick W. Maitland, History of English Law (Boston, 1895), ii. 268, and Howard L. Gray, English Field Systems (Cambridge, 1915), 337. The relation of such customs to the Massachusetts law of partible inheritance is reserved for discussion elsewhere. See above, page 485, n. 1.

576 Those of 1606, 1609, and 1612. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, vii. 3783, 3789, 3790, 3796, 3802, 3804.

577 Those of 1663 and 1665. Id., v. 2743, 2745, 2761, 2763.

578 Those of 1664 and 1674. Id., iii. 1637, 1638, 1641.

579 Those of 1664 and 1674. Id., v. 2533, 2534, 2546.

580 See Virginia Colonial Decisions, Robert T. Barton, Editor (Boston, 1909), i. 58, 163; John S. Bassett, “Landholding in Colonial North Carolina,” Law Quarterly Review, xi (April, 1895), 154, 164; Colonial Laws of New York, i (Albany, 1894), 114; Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 80, n. 2. In Rhode Island, whose charter of 1663 contained the East Greenwich clause, primogeniture prevailed except during the period 1718–1728. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, John R. Bartlett, Editor, iv (Providence, 1859), 238, 417; Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 80.

581 See above, page 484, n. 6.

582 Robinson on Gavelkind, 38–39.

583 Id., Book I, Chapter v; Elton, Tenures of Kent, 112; First Report of the Real Property Commissioners (London, 1829), Appendix ii. 228 (examination of Mr. John Bell, K.C.).

584 Lord Coke, writing in the reign of James I, observes that in a great part of Kent land was descendible to the eldest son. Coke on Littleton, 140b. The disgavelling acts and the persons whose lands were affected are listed in Robinson on Gavelkind, 67–71. See also the entries under “Disgavelled lands” in the Index to Elton, Tenures of Kent.

585 See previous note.

586 The best account is Edward Hasted, History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, i (Canterbury, 1797), 383–385.

587 The charters, together with other pertinent documents, are collected in Auguste van Lokeren, Chartes et documents de l’Abbaye de Saint Pierre (Ghent, 1868), i, ii. See below, n. 9.

588 Examples may be found in William Somner, Treatise on Gavelkind (London, 1660), 172–187. Cf. Jolliffe, Pre-Feudal England, 24–26.

589 War conditions have prevented my examining photostats of these court rolls, but Professor Viola F. Barnes of Mount Holyoke College, who has worked with them, has kindly informed me that there is no evidence in them of the existence of gavelkind. Cf. Essays Presented to C. M. Andrews, 33.

590 Domesday Book (London, 1783), i. 12b, under “Levesham.”

591 Placita de Quo Warranto (London, 1818), i. 356.

592 Printed in John Kimbell, An Account of the Legacies, Gifts, Rents . . . of the Parish of St. Alphege, Greenwich (London, 1816), 183–209.

593 Id., 206.

594 Robinson on Gavelkind, 73–75; Elton, Tenures of Kent, 236ff.

595 These charters may be found as follows: that of Edgar, in van Lokeren, Chartes, i, No. 38; that of Edward the Confessor, in id., No. 124, and in Benjamin Thorpe, Diplomatarium Anglicum Aevi Saxonici (London, 1865), 357–361; that of William II, in van Lokeren, Chartes, i, No. 159; that of Henry I, in id., No. 170; that of Stephen, in id., No. 215. These and other documents, in abstract, are calendared in John H. Round, Calendar of Documents Preserved in France (London, 1899), i. 500–505, and, in part, in Henry W. C. Davis, Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum (Oxford, 1913), i, Nos. 141, 323. The charter of William the Conqueror, printed in van Lokeren, Chartes, i, No. 156, and in Kimbell, Legacies of Greenwich, 13–16, is unquestionably a forgery. See Davis, Regesta, 38.

A word must be said on a point raised by Davis when he asserts (Regesta, 38) that the manor of Greenwich was held by the Bishop of Lisieux of the Bishop of Bayeux in 1086. His authority for this is the entry in Domesday Book, i. 6b, which includes “Grenviz” under the holdings of the Bishop. It is to be noted, however, that these lands are specified as belonging to Earl Harold and Brixi in the time of Edward the Confessor, whereas we know that at the Conquest the manor of Greenwich was appurtenant to Lewisham and in the hands of the Abbot at Ghent. That this was the manor of Greenwich with which we are concerned seems plain from references in the charters of Henry I (“manerium suum . . . de Gronewic”) and Stephen (“maneria sua de Gronewic et Lieuesham”). The charters of William II and Henry I speak of it as having been held by the Abbot in the time of Edward the Confessor. Since Lewisham belonged to the Abbot at the time of Domesday (Domesday Book, i. 12b), we can only conclude that the manor remained appurtenant to Lewisham and belonged to the Abbot rather than to the Bishop. Just what is meant by “Grenviz” in the holdings of the Bishop is a point which must remain open. It was not until considerably later that the word “East” was prefixed to Greenwich. For our purposes, however, the important thing is that the manor of Greenwich was held in free alms before the Conquest and was certainly again held in free alms after the charter of William II. The possible doubts as to its tenure from 1066 to 1091 do not affect the conclusions as to gavelkind and frankalmoigne.

596 By the statute 1 Henry V, c. 7 (Statutes of the Realm, ii. 172).

597 Sir William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, i (London, 1655), 974–977; Calendar of the Charter Rolls, 1341–1417, 469, 479, 482. Cf. confirmation by Henry VI in Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1422–1429, 222.

598 Thomas Rymer, Foedera (Hague ed.), vi, ii, 161.

599 The general rule is emphasized clearly in an early case in the time of Henry III relating to a manor held by the Priory of Christchurch in frankalmoigne from a time before the Conquest. It was held that lands held by such an ancient spiritual tenure were not subject to the customs of gavelkind. Robinson on Gavelkind, 74.

600 “Le custome est solement suspende par reason del prerogative, car maintenant que cest ceo vient in auter maines ceo discendre come gavelkind arrere.” Wiseman v. Cotten, 1 Siderfin, 138. However, it was only the custom of descent which remained in abeyance. Robinson on Gavelkind, 62–63. I am grateful to Professor Roscoe Pound for helpful discussion on this point.

601 Elton, Tenures of Kent, 157; Coke on Copyholds, s. 31. Put more graphically, the question is this: If A held Blackacre in Sussex as of the manor of Dale in Kent, and gavelkind prevailed at Dale, would Blackacre descend according to the customs of gavelkind? Apart from Elton and Lord Coke, there seems to be no explicit authority on the point. An early case, Anon. (1552), Dalison, 12, pl. 21, speaks of gavelkind as a custom which “runs with the land and is by reason of the land.” Robinson on Gavelkind, 55, 61, is explicit to the effect that gavelkind customs cannot be imposed on lands which had never been subject to them. Not even the King, he says, could do this.

What happened if an ordinary subject tried to vary a mode of descent is seen in another early case, Anon. (1560), Dyer, 179b, pl. 45. There it appeared that a man was seised in fee of borough-English lands after the statute of 27 Henry VIII, c. 10. He made a feoffment to divers persons in fee to the use of himself and of his heirs male of his body according to the course of common law. It was held on his death, however, that the youngest son should take by descent. Notice also a case in Y. B., Trinity, 26 Henry VIII (1534), 4, pl. 19, where a man seised of gavelkind lands made a gift in tail to hold of himself by knight’s-service. It was held the land nevertheless remained partible.

Finally, we have a statement in Wiseman v. Cotten, 1 Siderfin, 138: “Si Gavelkind terres sont tenus dun Sn̄ry que est tenus in Chivalry et puis ils Escheate, Issint que sont tenus in Chivalry ore il dit que le Gavelkind Custome est destroy, Mes ceo fuit deny par Twisden Justice (que est bien Conusant in les Leys de son pais).” The implication of this passage is not only that gavelkind is inherent in the land itself, and not merely a technicality of tenure, but also that land held of a superior holding is not affected by the customs of descent of that holding. Twysden’s knowledge of Kentish customs is undeniable. From this it may be argued that lands which normally descended according to common law would not become changed as to the descent when held of a manor which was itself subject to gavelkind. The plausibility of this contention is heightened by the ensuing remarks on the number of tenements held as of the manor of East Greenwich; or rather, its plausibility is heightened for those who may still insist that gavelkind attached to the manor of East Greenwich.

602 See above, page 489.

603 Rymer, Foedera, vii, ii, 156.

604 Select Charters of Trading Companies, 1530–1707, Cecil T. Carr, Editor (Selden Society, London, 1913), 51, 54.

605 Sir John H. LeFroy, Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas (London, 1877), i. 550, 551.

606 Patent Rolls, 20 Charles II, pt. iii. I am grateful to the officials of the Public Record Office in London for checking this reference.

607 Robert M. Martin, History of the British Colonies (London, 1835), i. 38.

608 The number of these grants is too great to make possible any systematic list. See, however, the printed Calendars of the Patent Rolls for the reigns of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth (to 1560); Archaeologia Cantiana, xix (1892), lii (1940); Abstracts of Wiltshire Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward A. Fry, Editor (London, 1901), i. 3, 12, 40, 41, 59, etc.; Abstracts of Inquisitions Post Mortem Relating to London, George S. Fry, Editor, I (London, 1896), 200, 206, 221, etc.; Thomas Madox, The History and Antiquities of the Exchequer (London, 1769), i. 621; Owen Manning, History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, i (London, 1804), 357.

609 Quoted by Cheyney, American Historical Review, xi. 30. See also Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1598–1601, 517.

610 In the early years of Edward VI’s reign the socage grants show an increasing favoritism for the manor of East Greenwich. Forty-nine grants are made as of this manor, whereas those of other manors are much less numerous: e.g., five as of the Honour of Hampton Court; four as of Stalbridge, Dorset; three as of Stokenham, Devon; two as of Woking, Surrey, etc. See Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1548–1549; Viola F. Barnes in Essays Presented to C. M. Andrews, 10, n. 8.

611 American Historical Review, xi. 33–34.

612 See the instructions for the sale of lands in statute 35 Henry VIII, c. 14 (Statutes of the Realm, iii. 972–973); Letters and Papers foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, James Gairdner and R. H. Brodie, Editors, xix, i (London, 1903), 167–168, Section 5.

613 For example, the cut granted to the New River Company in 1619 was given as of the manor of East Greenwich. Select Charters of Trading Companies, 106, 113. So, too, the grant to the Yarmouth Saltmakers in 1636 (id., 148, 155) and the Bedford Level reclaiming project in 1663 (statute 15 Charles II, c. 17, Statutes of the Realm, v. 501). During the Interregnum the forfeited estates of various delinquents and the property of abolished bishops and deans were vested in trustees to be held as of the manor of East Greenwich in free and common socage. Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum (London, 1911), i. 881, 1018, 1150; ii. 83, 201, 592, 639, etc.

614 It is noteworthy how nominal the rents or other payments were in some of the charters for the British colonies. In Massachusetts Bay, for instance, it was one-fifth of the gold or silver discovered (Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, iii. 1849); in Pennsylvania, in addition, two beaver skins (id., v. 3037); in Maryland, two Indian arrows (id., iii. 1671); in Bombay, £10 (Select Charters of Trading Companies, lii, n. 4).

615 Wiltshire Inquisitions Post Mortem, i. 386.

616 Id., 209.

617 Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, iii. 1669, 1671; v. 3035, 3037.

618 Id., ii. 765, 771.

619 Charter to William Penn and Laws of the Province of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, 1879), 174, 231–232.

620 Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 108–111, has collected some of these. He attaches considerable weight to such expressions.

621 Morris (id., 108) considers the reference to East Greenwich in the Plymouth Code of 1636 as an expression of conviction that gavelkind had been brought over by the charter. The Plymouth law says: “That inheritance do descend according to the comendable custome of Engl, and hold of Est. Greenwich.” Brigham, Compact and Charter, 43. It is hard to see why this law is susceptible to that one interpretation. For one thing, gavelkind was never known as the “custom of England”; it was known as the common law of Kent at best. For another, “hold of Est. Greenwich” would seem merely to emphasize the tenurial aspect of landholding. The “Forme of Evidence” for particular holdings in Plymouth bears this out: “to A.B. his heires and assignes forever, The said lands to be holden of his Ma^tie and his successors as of his Mannor of East Greenwich,” etc. Id., 54. Cf. id., 279. The same would seem to apply to the reference to East Greenwich in the habenda of Massachusetts deeds, e.g. Suffolk Deeds, xiv (Boston, 1906), 69, 70. But see Morris, Studies in the History of American Law, 109.

622 See, for instance, Massachusetts Records, v. 199; 6 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., v. 428; and above, page 488, n. 7. Cf. Collections, Connecticut Historical Society, v. 427. Such arguments are to be contrasted with the sober preamble to the 1692 Statute of Descents, which gives quite a different explanation for the persistence of partible inheritance: “Whereas estates in these plantations do consist chiefly of lands, which have been subdued and brought to improvement by the industry and labour of the proprietors, with the assistance of their children, the younger children generally having been longest and most serviceable unto their parents in that behalf, who have not personal estate to give out unto them in portions, or otherwise to recompense their labours. . . .” Charter and General Laws, 230.

Occasionally in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, partible inheritance, whether in or outside of Kent, was termed gavelkind. Elton, Tenures of Kent, 53–54. Reference has already been made (above, page 489, n. 1) to the existence of partible inheritance outside of Kent. However, the association of gavelkind with Kent on the part of the colonists when the argument of English precedent is made shows that they were not using the word in its loose sense of “partibility.”

623 Note the letter of William Harris, the Rhode Island planter, printed in Collections, Rhode Island Historical Society, x. 249–250.

624 Aspects of this general question are treated by Julius Goebel, Jr., “King’s Law and Local Custom in Seventeenth Century New England,” Columbia Law Review, xxxi (March, 1931), 416–448, and by George L. Haskins in Boston University Law Review, xxi. 281–304, and in Yale Law Journal, li. 1280–1315.

625 The will, which occupies 158 pages of the first volume of the Suffolk County Probate Records, is printed in Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, x. 1–54.

626 See three letters printed in Suffolk Deeds, i (Boston, 1880), 83–84.

627 Records of the First Church of Boston (copy in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society), 25.

628 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, x. 21.

629 See my article, “Responsibilities of a Puritan Parent,” More Books, xvii (April, 1942), 141–159.

630 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, x. 19, 21.

631 See More Books, xvii (March, 1942), 87–105.

632 New England Hist. Gen. Reg., i. 132.

633 Massachusetts Archives, xvb, 213.

634 Files of the Suffolk County Court, No. 2233, paper 43.

635 Massachusetts Archives, xvb, 212.

636 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 6.

637 Chamberlain MSS., M.H.S., iii. 179 (November 24, 1657).

638 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 62.

639 Massachusetts Archives, ix. 32.

640 Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, iii (Boston, 1928), 67–68.

641 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 8.

642 Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in Neiv England, iv, Part i, 370 (May 28, 1659).

643 Massachusetts Archives, xvb, 213.

644 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv, Part i, 392 (October 18, 1659).

645 Miscellaneous Bound MSS., October, 1666, M.H.S. (printed in Mellen Chamberlain, A Documentary History of Chelsea (Boston, 1908), ii. 63).

646 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 8.

647 Id., No. 2233, paper 43.

648 Miscellaneous Bound MSS., March 12, 1665/66, M.H.S. The extraordinary manner of this second marriage probably accounts for the fact that no record was made of it in the book of records.

649 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 5.

650 Id., No. 26733 (printed in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, II. 12).

651 Boston Record Commissioners’ Reports, ix. 74, 79, 80; New England Hist. Gen. Reg. xxiii. 266–269.

652 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, papers 33, 35.

653 Id., No. 2233, paper 33.

654 Id., No. 2233, paper 44.

655 Id., No. 2233, paper 17.

656 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv, Part ii, 309.

657 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 10.

658 Id., No. 2233, paper 7.

659 Id., No. 2233, paper 43.

660 Id.

661 Suffolk Files, No. 26733 (printed in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, ii. 12).

662 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, papers 39, 40, 41.

663 Massachusetts Archives, xxxix. 67.

664 Miscellaneous Bound MSS., October, 1666, M.H.S. (printed in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, ii. 62–64).

665 Suffolk Files, No. 2233, paper 43.

666 Miscellaneous Bound MSS., October, 1666, M.H.S.

667 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv, Part ii, 327.

668 Massachusetts Archives, xvb, 107 (printed in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, i. 649–650).

669 New England Hist. Gen. Reg., xxxvii. 284.

670 Edward Randolph, Robert N. Toppan, Editor, iii (Prince Society, Boston, 1899), 70–73.

671 Id., iv. 12–14.

672 On June 2, 1686, it was voted in Council “that Mr. Paige have five pounds a quarter for his attendance on the President.” “Dudley Records,” 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xiii. 243.

673 Toppan, Randolph, ii. 90n.

674 Everett Kimball, The Public Life of Joseph Dudley (New York, 1911), 52.

675 See the edicts issued by Dudley and the Council providing for courts and juries 2 Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., xiii. 232–237. The details of the ensuing litigation, with many of the documents in the case, may be found in Chamberlain, Documentary History of Chelsea, i. 635–668; ii. 1–84.

676 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., v. 333.

677 Id., 225.

678 An Historical Catalogue of the Old South Church (Boston, 1883), 7.

679 5 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vi. 109.

680 Suffolk Probate Records, xx. 166–169.

681 Edward Taylor (ca. 1645–1729), a graduate of Harvard College in the Class of 1671, was minister at Westfield from 1672 until his death. The manuscript volume is in the Yale University Library, and transcription and publication of these verses are now possible by the generous permission of the Library. For a brief account of Taylor, see John L. Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, ii (Cambridge, 1881), 397–412. Much of the best poetry has been published in The Poetical Works of Edward Taylor, Thomas H. Johnson, Editor (New York, 1939), in which (pages 221–228) there is a full description of the manuscript.

682 The sole omission is that of two brief Latin elegies on the death of President Chauncy of Harvard College. They appear on the flyleaf of the volume, so mutilated as to make clear reconstruction impossible. For Taylor’s English elegy on the same theme, see the fifth selection, below.

683 All manuscript line-spacings as well as the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are exactly rendered. Words, phrases, and lines which are undecipherable or worn away are indicated by, or conjecturally supplied within, brackets.

684 Zechariah Symmes was born in Canterbury, England, on April 5, 1599. He was a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and emigrated to Charlestown in 1634 in the same ship with Anne Hutchinson, whom he later reproved for “the corruptness and narrowness of her opinions.” Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay, Lawrence S. Mayo, Editor (Cambridge, 1936), ii. 373. In December, 1634, he became teacher, and in March, 1636, pastor of the Charlestown church, and he held the latter post until his death on February 4, 1670/71. By virtue of that position he became, in accordance with the General Court’s order of September 27, 1642, a member of the first Board of Overseers of Harvard College, and he remained an Overseer throughout his life. Zechariah Symmes of the Class of 1657 was his son. Taylor was a senior at the time of Symmes’s death.

685 For Francis Willoughby, Deputy Governor of Massachusetts Bay from 1665 until 1671, see Isaac J. Greenwood, “The Willoughby Family of New England,” New England Hist. Gen. Reg., xxx (January, 1876), 67–78.

686 The early curriculum at Harvard required students to improve their rhetoric by delivering an oration or “declamation” at regular intervals during their four undergraduate years. These events took place at nine o’clock on Fridays and were so arranged that each student spoke at least once a month. After 1655 the requirements were modified, undergraduates declaiming bimonthly. Some of the declamations have been preserved, and this of Taylor’s is one of the most entertaining. It is unique among the declamations thus far brought to light in that it is composed in poetical form. Yet its frivolous and playful spirit was not uncommon to such occasions.

Taylor could not resist a pun, and his display of superficial learning has both the charm and the tediousness of much that still passes for undergraduate wit. Later on Taylor learned to govern his exuberant delight in figurative, involved language; and mere cleverness gave way to controlled harmonies. But the mood of the declamation was light and would have been judged only as oratory. Doubtless it am used the President and Fellows, as well as the less nimble-witted students who would admire the facile display.

I am indebted to Dr. Nabih A. Faris, Curator of Arabic Manuscripts and Literatures at Princeton University, for assistance in establishing the Hebrew readings; and to Dr. Floyd C. Harwood, Chairman of the Latin and Greek Departments, Lawrenceville School, for his suggestions regarding the most appropriate renderings of the Latin quibbles and puns. For sources about the Harvard curriculum in the seventeenth century, see Samuel E. Morison, Harvard College in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1936), i. 139–280.

687 “I am not Hebrew, I am not Greek, neither am I a Latin.”

688 Taylor, addressing his classmates, employs the term nurslings in its seventeenth-century literal meaning of alumni: all students of a school or college, whether of the past or present, not necessarily graduates. It is significant that he refers to the Puritan institution as one nourished by the muses.

689 The eardrum is figuratively conceived as trussed: that is, drawn tight or stretched firmly during the period of attentive listening.

690 Here used figuratively to mean the air current striking the tympanum. The spelling follows an obsolete form.

691 That is, an apology for or defense of his subject is due if he speak the things with which men usually introduce a subject; the apology will perform the duty of a gentleman usher to the body of his remarks. At Harvard, as at the English universities, each fellow had a sizar—a poorer student earning part of his own education—to serve him as secretary and valet. The term gentleman usher, however, is figurative; it was not applied to any university or college function. An usher was an undermaster or teaching assistant.

692 “I say that such an introduction you have ‘never before’ had from me, lately attempting some complimentary speech for us.” The meaning is not entirely clear. These two lines, taken with the succeeding four, might imply that Taylor had been asked or had expected at some earlier date to declaim in some class exercise in which he was heckled during his speech.

693 Help in raising up.

694 A block placed under a wheel to prevent slipping.

695 Error for truckles: that is, pulleys. The whole sentence seems to mean that the duty imposed on the speaker was one in which he received no aid, and if he succeeds in performing adequately, he will do so with the prestige that accrues under a handicap.

696 Pots in which perfumes and cordials are kept or prepared.

697 The word is often used by Taylor to mean sweet odor; it is not in the New English Dictionary, where the last recorded entry in which reek means perfume is dated 1599.

698 A rare substitute for honeydew.

699 To make trim or neat: spruce.

700 Taylor seems to mean that English is relatively free from the particles, dots, and markings attached to letters frequently used in Hebrew and Greek. These are all weaving terms: Taylor had been brought up in or near Coventry, Warwickshire, a center of the English weaving industry. He often enriched his poetry with such native, homely terms.

701 Evidently Taylor had been preceded at “this Desk” by the declaimers in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

702 The Hebrew equivalent for the English h (pron. āch) is now usually transliterated ‘ain or ‘ayin. The Hebrew beginner’s grammar in use at Harvard in the seventeenth century was Johann Buxtorf’s Epitome Radicum Hebraicarum et Chaldaicarum. In it the transliteration is given ajin, and the symbol, formed vaguely like the Greek psi (on which Taylor puns two lines below), looks something like a drumstick lying across the edge of a drum, thus ע. In the possession of Lewis S. Gannett, Esq., of New York City, a Taylor descendent, is a copy of Victor Bythner, Lyra Prophetica Davidis Regis sive Analysis Critico-practica Psalmorum . . . ad Calcem Addita Est Brevis Institutio Linguae Hebraeae et Chaldaeae (London, 1664). The copy bears Taylor’s autograph on the flyleaf and seems clearly to account for these two lines. The brief introduction to Hebrew grammar which Bythner appends to his analysis of the Psalms spells the aspirate ghajin.

703 That is, careless students might be confused by the fact that certain initial vowels in Greek (e.g. aspirates) should be given the value of consonants. To be sure, students of Greek in the seventeenth century would not have been aware of the correct linguistic laws, but they would have been taught the fact by rule of thumb.

704 The letter h in Latin has the kindred but weaker aspirate value of our h, taken over from the Greek. Initially, however, the Latin h was totally silent in the vernacular forms which emerged as Old French and Italian. Ignorance of the fact might result in a sort of “cockney” dialect. The English h in the Teutonic part of the language comes from an original surd guttural, a k, which first became a guttural spirant (as ch in German and Scotch) and then weakened to a mere aspiration.

705 Latin nouns are declined in the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, and vocative cases.

706 That is, case endings are almost totally absent in English nouns. See the preceding note.

707 Most English words form plurals simply by adding s.

708 Arraign.

709 A reference to the Latin fifth declension, in which only res and dies have plurals. Singulariter and pluraliter were the words used instead of singular and plural to head paradigms in early textbooks.

710 For example, castra (second declension) is declined only in the plural, but with a singular meaning. Its syntax requires a plural construction. It is probable that Taylor had castra in mind, for it was commonly used in seventeenth-century textbooks to demonstrate the point.

711 For example, filia and dea (feminine, first declension) have a dative and ablative in -abus to distinguish them from the masculine forms of the substantives (filiis and deis).

712 “In the [irregular] dative case.”

713 “Into the accusative.”

714 The usual Latin textbook expression for “in the ablative.” Some nouns, for example, domus (second or fourth declension), would be recognized by the ablative, domo.

715 For example, vis, which is regular in the plural but irregular in the singular.

716 Copia means supply or plenty in the singular, troops in the plural. Locus is masculine in the singular, neuter in the plural.

717 Coniunx (conjunx): husband, wife, spouse. Lepus (hare) is usually given in its masculine form, but it takes a feminine adjective when it means a feminine hare. It was a common textbook example in early grammars.

718 In grammar a heteroclite is an irregularly inflected noun.

719 That is, in English, nouns regularly follow actual (i.e. sensitive), not grammatical, gender.

720 That is, treat them as neuters.

721 The craft or art in which a thing is made to lie in relation to something else. Cf. “the lay of the land.”

722 The meaning probably is: “We helve [furnish a handle to] their handspikes, made of foreign [outland] elements [olivant: oliphant or ivory].”

723 “We also adapt foreign words to English by giving them native spellings and pronunciations, thus increasing the richness of our tongue.”

724 Galls (provincial English) are imperfections. Taylor is either coining a word or using a dialectical form by substituting an adjective for the substantive.

725 A frieze is a thick, warm woolen cloth used for rough outer garments.

726 The rare transitive verb subaud (Lat. sub + audire) means to supply mentally, as a word or an ellipsis. Taylor is coining a substantive.

727 A false etymology. The Greek αὐλή, a hall or court, is cognate with air, aura, and asthma, and from it is derived New English aula (a court or hall). But New English hall is of Germanic origin.

728 That is, we do more than merely aspirate initially: we place the letter h at the beginning of the words. Such false etymologies were commonly taught long after Taylor’s day. His metaphors, however, are by no means dull.

729 The etymology here is correct. Lamp is derived, through Latin lampas, from the Greek λάμπας.

730 Hebrew qash, stubble. The pun is complicated but was probably not obscure to his audience.

731 In modern Hebrew, qul, but in the texts of the seventeenth century, kol: the imperative of the verb speak or say. The etymology is preposterous, but the pun makes good sense.

732 An entertaining pun. The Hebrew p (cf. Greek phi) was transliterated in early texts phe and had a value sometimes p and sometimes f. It was even then known originally to mean mouth. These lines are the sole indication I know of that seventeenth-century undergraduates at Harvard were sometimes fed pie for supper!

733 Provincial English: swaggering.

734 The colloquial adjective jemmy means spruce, neat, smart. It may have been Taylor’s intention to adapt the word here and give some such meaning.

735 The whole figure conveys a surprisingly lyric touch to Taylor’s concept of poetry.

736 In rhetoric, an immediate or almost immediate repetition of a word, involving added emphasis.

737 Clearly some kind of decoration for dress is intended, but such a meaning is not recorded in the New English Dictionary.

738 In rhetoric, a repetition of a word, especially the last word, of a clause at the beginning of the next.

739 In rhetoric, a repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive clauses.

740 In rhetoric, a figure in which several successive clauses or sentences end with the same word or affirmation.

741 In rhetoric, a repetition of one word at the beginning and of another at the end of successive clauses. It is a combination of epanaphora and epistrophe.

742 In rhetoric, the repetition or resumption of a figure, especially of one by which the same word or phrase is repeated after one or more intervening words, or on returning to the same subject after a digression.

743 In rhetoric, a recapitulation of the chief points or heads in a discourse.

744 Dapper?

745 The general idea is clear enough though the three metaphors complicate the image, and the third is structurally obscure. Taylor says that English is not inferior to the other three languages: it (1) will not lower topsail to them or (2) yield reverence “with Cap in hand,” but (3) proves its right to be accepted as a tongue of equal dignity and power.

746 Obsolete: to scratch or break slighty; graze.

747 “It is neither the language of the Bible [i.e., Hebrew and Greek] nor that used in college.” Latin was not only the language of the school texts then in use but of all recitations and, theoretically, of all informal conversation as well.

748 Hebrew was universally looked on before the nineteenth century not only as the sacred language of the Old Testament but as the parent tongue of all languages. It was therefore considered linguistically of great importance.

749 Taylor seems to mean that Latin was never a sacred language. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek; but Latin has been the source by which the Testaments have been transmitted from the days of the Vulgate. Latin also has been the language of most of the Biblical commentators and, together with Hebrew and Greek, of all textbooks.

750 “And if they compete on their individual merits for honors, English will take first place.”

751 Though the implication here is that Taylor expects to be quizzed or heckled, it is likely he is speaking facetiously, in keeping with the tone of the whole declamation. There is nothing here that would call for an answer. Of course the weekly disputations gave an opponent the chance to question the respondent. But no formula beginning Si quis (“If anyone wishes to question. . . .”) was therein followed.

752 As the tide states, those declaiming on the four languages were to be followed by “five upon the five senses.” Apparently the speakers declaimed in the order named.

753 John Allen (Allin), a graduate of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, emigrated to Dedham in 1637 and was ordained pastor of the church there two years later. He was one of the more notable figures among the first generation of colonists: he assisted John Eliot in missionary work among the Indians; drafted the reply to Dr. Robert Child, the Remonstrant, in 1646; and served as an Overseer of Harvard College from 1654 until his death on August 25, 1671. His sons John and Daniel graduated from the college in 1643 and 1675, respectively.

754 John Norton of Boston (d April 5, 1663), Samuel Newman of Rehoboth (d July 5, 1663), Samuel Stone of Hartford (d July 20, 1663), William Tompson of Braintree (d December 10, 1666), John Wilson of Boston (d August 7, 1667), Samuel Shepard of Rowley (d April 7, 1668), Henry Flint of Braintree (d April 27, 1668), Jonathan Mitchel of Cambridge (d July 9, 1668), John Eliot of Newton, son of the Apostle to the Indians (d October 13, 1668), Richard Mather of Dorchester (d April 22, 1669), Eleazar Mather of Northampton (d July 24, 1669), Benjamin Bunker of Malden (d March 3, 1670), William Woodward of Dedham (d June 26, 1669), John Rayner of Dover (d April 20, 1669), John Davenport of New Haven (d March 15, 1670), Zechariah Symmes of Charlestown (d February 4, 1671), John Warham of Windsor (d April 19, 1670). Gray remains unidentified.

755 The addition, by growth or accident, of a nonsignificant letter or syllable to the end of a word (e.g., agains-t, amongs-t).

756 For the best account of Chauncy, see Morison, Harvard College in the seventeenth Century, i. 320–339.

757 John Allen, the subject of the preceding elegy, who died August 25, 1671.

758 These words are written inside a crude drawing of a dove holding an olive branch with which Taylor decorated this page of his manuscript.

759 Taylor’s first wife, whom he married on November 5, 1674, was Elizabeth, daughter of the Reverend James Fitch of Norwich, Connecticut. She died on July 7, 1689, in her thirty-ninth year, and in 1692 he married Ruth Wyllys, daughter of Samuel Wyllys of Hartford. Though the “posy-ring” verses are undated, they doubtless were composed about the same time as the decasyllabic couplets, dated October 27, 1674, which follow (No. VII).

760 The impersonal quality of these lines gives no clue to the husband’s sensitiveness, nor do they suggest his authentic talent as a poet. Among his “Sacramental Meditations,” under date of this very Sunday, is an extraordinarily beautiful poem of seven stanzas written on the occasion of his wife’s death. Poetical Works of Edward Taylor, 144–145, and Introduction, 14.

761 Samuel Hooker of Farmington, Connecticut, was a worthy but not distinguished son of the famous Thomas Hooker of Hartford. He was a classmate (H. C. 1653) of Taylor’s father-in-law, Samuel Wyllys. Ordained to his pastoral office in July, 1661, he remained at Farmington till his death. For a biographical sketch, see Sibley, Harvard Graduates, i 348–352.

762 A pun on the name of Thomas Hooker’s close friend and colleague at Hartford Samuel Stone (1602–1663).

763 Mary (Willett) Hooker, daughter of Captain Thomas Willett of Plymouth, later of Swansea and subsequently of New York, of which city he was the first mayor. She survived her husband and married the Reverend Thomas Buckingham of Saybrook in 1703.

764 Samuel Hooker was the father of nine sons and two daughters, one of whom, Mary, was the wife of the Reverend James Pierpont of New Haven and the mother of Jonathan Edwards’ wife Sarah.

765 Mehetabel (Wyllys) Woodbridge, born ca. 1658, was the second daughter of Samuel Wyllys of Hartford and an elder sister of Ruth Wyllys, Taylor’s second wife.

766 John Haynes, third governor of Massachusetts Bay (1635–1636) and first governor of Connecticut (1640).

767 George Wyllys, successively magistrate (1639), deputy governor (1641), and from 1642 till his death in 1645 governor of Connecticut.

768 An earlier spelling for grudge; now dialectical.

769 Ruth (Haynes) Wyllys, second daughter of Governor John Haynes.

770 Mehetable (Mabel) Wyllys first married (ca. 1676) the Reverend Daniel Russell of Charlestown. He died on January 4, 1678/79. The next year she married the Reverend Isaac Foster of Hartford, a classmate of Taylor and a close friend of her deceased husband. Foster died on August 20, 1682, at the age of thirty. She then married (ca. 1684) Foster’s colleague and successor in the Hartford pastorate, Timothy Woodbridge, who survived her by some thirty years. He married again shortly after her death.

771 Taylor’s verses are the only known source for the information that she bore sixteen children in the twenty-two years between 1676 and 1698 and died in childbirth on December 20, 1698. The five “Buds” here spoken of as surviving her—one each by her first two marriages and three by her third—all lived to maturity and were married.

772 Samuel Sewall noted in his Diary (iii. 389) that when Taylor died in 1729 he was “entirely enfeebled . . . longing and waiting for his Dismission.” This elegy, written upon the occasion of Increase Mather’s death on August 23, 1723, was undertaken when Taylor was approaching eighty. His handwriting is all but undecipherable, and much of the content is difficult to follow. The purport seems to be that Mather, in Taylor’s eyes, had been a champion of orthodox Congregationalism to the last, fighting courageously, under handicaps, against increasing heterodoxies.

773 Richard Mather died on April 22, 1669, while Taylor was an undergraduate at Harvard College. Mather was an Overseer of that institution at the time. Samuel Mather, a grandson of Richard, was a classmate of Taylor at college, and it may be that others of the class besides Taylor also acted as bearers.

774 Timothy Cutler, rector of Yale from 1719 to 1722, led “the Connecticut Apostacie” in the latter year by openly avowing adherence to the Church of England. In view of the fact that his defection from Nonconformist principles was considered to be not a sudden conversion but a carefully timed public statement of long-held private beliefs, his act, to men like Mather and Taylor, seemed open treachery.

775 This refers to the years (1688–1692) Mather spent in England, negotiating for the renewal of the colony charter.

776 The so-called “Pope Joan” was a legendary female Pope of the ninth century, usually placed between Leo IV (847–855) and Benedict III (855–858). She was said to have been born either in England or in Germany of English parents, and to have fled with a Benedictine monk to Athens, disguised as a man. On his death she is supposed to have gone to Rome under the alias of Joannes Anglicus, where she entered the priesthood, received a cardinal’s hat, and finally ascended the papal throne under the title of John VIII. The accounts have it that she died in childbirth during a papal procession. This myth was widely circulated from medieval times down through the seventeenth century. Taylor could have received the account from any of several authors who circulated the story.

Though undated, the verses bear every mark of late composition. They occupy the final pages among the topical poems, the handwriting suggests the author to be advanced in years, and the substance and thought are at times quite difficult to follow.

777 Muff?

778 Much satirical verse which John Cleiveland (1613–1658) never wrote was attributed to him till long after his day. The precise reference has not been identified.

779 Part of Harlequin’s Wishing Cap, or The Gift of Fortunatus.

780 Odell says she was the Wallacks’ sister. Annals of the New York Stage, ii. 247.

781 At the end of this performance there was a display of fireworks, as was the case on January 17 and on February 6 and 13. On February 6 the set pieces included “A Playing Fountain, The State-House at Annapolis, The Boston State-House, Emblems of Free Masonry, A Monumental Tribute to superior Worth, and the Arms of the United States.”

782 Also ascribed to Isaac Bickerstaffe, Richard Ford, Prince Hoare, and others.

783 The performances given on this date were originally scheduled for February 14.

784 A pantomime taken from the poems of Ossian.

785 These performances were originally scheduled for March 26. The postponement caused the cancellation of two plays by Arthur Murphy that had been announced for the twenty-eighth: Agnes of Bernauer and The Citizen.

786 Described in the announcement as “a gentleman of Boston,” he was probably not William Brown, author of West Point Preserved, also performed in Boston this season.

These performances were originally announced for August 21.

787 These performances were originally announced for October 13.

788 “A dramatic proverb in two acts.”

789 These performances were originally announced for October 16.

790 Later known by the name of Robert Treat Paine, Jr.

791 There are records of a program of entertainment by Messrs. Maginnis and Robinson at the Haymarket Theatre on December 16, advertised as their third such, and of another by Maginnis alone, at the same theatre, on December 30.

792 While Mein returned to England in November, 1769, advertisements of his Boston firm appeared in the Boston Chronicle as late as June 25, 1770.

793 Ironically enough, Knox’s Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies Reviewed has also been ascribed to Mein.

794 “Books Printed at Boston and Cambridge before 1775,” Isaiah Thomas MSS., American Antiquarian Society.

795 Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America (2d ed., Albany, 1874), i. 152–154; ii. 59–61, 230.

796 Charles K. Bolton, “Circulating Libraries in Boston, 1765–1865,” Publications of this Society, xi. 196–200.

797 Charles M. Andrews, “The Boston Merchants and the Non-Importation Movement,” id., xix. 159–259, particularly 227–230; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution (New York, 1918), Chapter iv, and “Propaganda and the Boston Newspaper Press, 1767–1770,” Publications of this Society, xxxii 396–416, particularly 411–416.

798 Roll of Edinburgh Burgesses and Guild-Brethren, 1701–1760, Charles B. Boog Watson, Editor (Edinburgh, 1930), 138.

799 Roll of Edinburgh Burgesses, 1406–1700 (Edinburgh, 1929), 346; Roll of Edinburgh Burgesses, 1701–1760, 138.

800 Boston Gazette, October 22, 1764; Thomas, History of Printing in America, I. 152–153.

801 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 153.

802 Boston Gazette, October 22, 1764; Boston Evening Post, October 22, 1764.

803 See the articles on John Glas and Robert Sandeman in the Dictionary of National Biography and that on Sandeman in the Dictionary of American Biography.

804 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 152, n. 1.

805 Henry H. Edes, “The Places of Worship of the Sandemanians in Boston,” Publications of this Society, vi. 109–134, particularly 131, n. 3.

806 The Sandeman-Barrell Papers, in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, throw much light on the personal affairs of the Sandeman family in America at this time.

807 See Williston Walker, “The Sandemanians of New England,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1901, i. 131—162.

808 Samuel A. Drake (Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston, 107) identifies the site as the north corner of what is today the junction of Franklin and Washington streets, but the wording of the advertisement indicates that the site may rather have been one or two doors north of Franklin Street. Mein remained in business at this address until sometime between July 29, 1765, and September 2, 1765. In the Boston Gazette of the latter date his advertisement states that his bookstore was then “opposite to the West End of the Town House,” i.e., in Cornhill. He remained here but a few weeks, however, for his newspaper advertisements show that sometime between September 23 and October 7, 1765, he moved his shop to “the second Door above the British Coffee-house, North Side of King-street,” the premises recently occupied by the firm of Rivington and Miller.

809 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 152–153; ii. 230.

810 J. G. Sandeman, The Sandeman Genealogy (Edinburgh, 1895), 15, 21.

811 Rivington, as sole owner, had opened the London Book Store on February 8, 1762. Boston Gazette, February 8, 1762. Subsequent newspaper advertisements show that his partnership with Miller began at some date between April 26 and July 19 of that year.

812 Boston Evening-Post, November 4, 1765. The account given there of Miller, “lately from Edinburg,” says: “He was a young Gentleman of an amiable Character enobled with Friendship; and therefore much lamented by all his Acquaintance of the same happy Disposition.”

813 No advertisement of the firm appeared in Boston newspapers after February 18, 1765.

814 The Massachusetts Historical Society possesses an apparently unique copy of this Catalogue of Mein’s Circulating Library. It has been reproduced in its series of Photostat Americana.

815 For a more extensive discussion of Mein as publisher, see John E. Alden, “John Mein, Publisher: An Essay in Bibliographic Detection,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, xxxvi (Third Quarter, 1942), 199–214.

816 This partnership concerned only the printing business. The London Book Store continued to belong to Mein alone.

817 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 151.

818 Boston Records Commissioners’ Reports, xxix. 286.

819 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 150.

820 Edward A. Jones, The Loyalists of Massachusetts (London, 1930), 206–207.

821 Thomas, History of Printing in America, i. 151.

822 Boston Records Commissioners’ Reports, xxix. 286.

823 Ezra Stiles MSS., Yale University Library.

824 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Early Court Files, Case 101964, f. 73: “An Inventory of sundry goods attach’d by Joseph Otis, Deputy Sheriff, March 1st, 1770, being taken as the Property of John Mein, late of Boston, Bookseller.”

825 Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, xxxvi. 211–214.

826 Sparks MSS., Harvard College Library, Papers relating to New England, iii. 46. The quotation is taken from Mein’s notes in explanation of the terms “Muddlehead” (Otis) and “Pieces from Salem” used in satirical descriptions of certain Boston leaders which appeared in the Boston Chronicle of October 26, 1769.

827 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Early Court Files, Case 101491, f. 134.

828 Professor Schlesinger tentatively identifies Populus as Samuel Adams. Publications of this Society, xxxii. 411, n. 3.

829 As a Boston business man Mein was early accepted, at least for a while, as a respectable citizen, being chosen constable in town meeting on March 10, 1766. This was, however, the only elective office he held while in Boston. Boston Records Commissioners’ Reports, xvi. 164.

830 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Early Court Files, Case 89428.

831 John Adams, Miscellaneous Legal Memoranda (photostat), Massachusetts Historical Society.

832 George Mason to Joseph Harrison, Boston, October 20, 1769. Sparks MSS., New England Papers, III. 40.

833 John Mein to Joseph Harrison, Boston, November 5, 1769. Id., 51.

834 Elizabeth Cuming to Elizabeth Smith, Boston, October 28, 1769. J. M. Robbins Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

835 Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Anne R. Cunningham, Editor (Boston, 1903), 194.

836 John Mein to Joseph Harrison, November 5, 1769. Sparks MSS., New England Papers, iii. 51.

837 Elizabeth Cuming to Elizabeth Smith, Boston, October 30, 1769. J. M. Robbins Papers.

838 Thomas Hutchinson to Lord Hillsborough, Boston, November 11, 1769. Sparks MSS., New England Papers, III. 53.

839 James Murray to Elizabeth Smith, November 12, 1769. J. M. Robbins Papers.

840 Massachusetts Gazette, November 24, 1769; January 15, 1770.

841 James Murray to Elizabeth Smith, November 12, 1769. J. M. Robbins Papers.

842 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Early Court Files, Case 101964.

843 Hancock Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

844 John Hancock to Thomas Longman, Boston, May 18, 1770. John Hancock His Book, A. E. Brown, Editor (Boston, 1898), 94.

845 Thomas Longman to John Hancock, London, January 3, 1770. Hancock Papers.

846 John Robinson, Commissioner of Customs in Boston, best remembered for his brutal attack upon James Otis, which was not unlike that of Mein upon Gill.

847 Hancock Papers.

848 There is no reason to believe that Mein returned to Boston early in 1770, particularly in view of a letter from Mein to James Murray, dated London, January 25, 1770, which is in the J. M. Robbins Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. In his “Propaganda and the Boston Newspaper Press, 1767–1770” (Publications of this Society, xxxii. 415), Professor Schlesinger assumes that it was Mein who directed the continued campaign in the Boston Chronicle against the signers of the nonimportation agreement. Professor Schlesinger is evidently following the statements of Mr. Bolton, in his account of Mein’s circulating library, who draws the conclusion that because Mein was sued in the Boston courts he was himself present. Mein’s case, however, was obviously conducted for him through powers of attorney left with Fleeming. It may also be pointed out that Professor Andrews is obviously in error when he states (Publications of this Society, xix. 230) that Mein “left New England permanently some time after 1771.”

849 A copy of this affidavit is included among the Hancock Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. William Palfrey, Hancock’s chief clerk and agent, returned from London to Boston on May 9, 1771. Letters and Diary of John Rowe, 215.

850 J. M. Robbins Papers.

851 Id.

852 Charles Steuart, erstwhile cashier and paymaster of the Board of Customs in Boston.

853 It is probable that the “last years bounty” was the result of a similar memorial from Mein which is listed by Charles M. Andrews in his Guide to Materials for American History in the Public Record Office, 11 (Washington, 1914), 178, under Treasury Papers, In-Letters, 1770.

854 I am indebted to Professor Verner W. Crane of the University of Michigan for photostatic and microfilm reproductions of Mein’s contributions to the Public Ledger, from the files in the British Museum.

855 Thomas, History of Printing in America, 154.

856 Public Ledger, March 15, 1774.

857 Sagittarius’s Letters, 116–117.

858 The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Written by Himself, John Bigelow, Editor (Philadelphia, 1905), ii. 547–556; The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Albert H. Smyth, Editor (New York, 1907), i. 164–166.

859 J. M. Robbins Papers.

860 Norton Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

April Meeting 1941

Tar and Feathers: The Adventures of Captain John Malcom

I

II

III

IV

To His Excelency Thomas Hutchinson Esqr Govr &ca the Honble His majestys Council, and the Honorable The House of Representatives of this Provience of the Massachusetts Bay in General Court Assembled

Certificate of the Magistrate and Resolves of the House of Representatives Carried Over

Extract of a Letter from GovR Hutchinson to the Earl of Dartmouth dated Boston 28th January 1774

V

POSTSCRIPT

To His Excelency Thomas Hutchinson Esq^r Gov^r &c^a the Hon^ble His majestys Council, and the Honorable The House of Representatives of this Provience of the Massachusetts Bay in General Court Assembled

Extract of a Letter from Gov^R Hutchinson to the Earl of Dartmouth dated Boston 28^th January 1774