Paul Revere's Ride

by David Hackett Fischer

  43. A list of sixty members of the North Caucus who attended a meeting on March 23, 1772, appears in Goss, Revere, II, 635—44. Its leaders were an inner group of eleven men who served on executive committees: Gibbens Sharp, Nathaniel Barber, Thomas Hichborn [sic], Captain John Pulling, Henry Bass, Paul Revere, John Ballard, Dr. Thomas Young, Thomas Kimball, Abiel Ruddock, and John Lowell, names that will reappear many times in our story. Other members included Samuel Adams, William Molinaux, Dr. Joseph Warren, and Dr. Benjamin Church.

  44. Its members included John Hancock and James Otis, John and Samuel Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren and Dr. Benjamin Church, Samuel and William Cooper, Josiah Quincy and Samuel Phillips, Thomas Dawes and Samuel Dexter, Thomas Fleet, John Winslow, Royall Tyler, and Thomas Melville.

  45. John Adams, Diary, Oct. 27, 1772, Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 4 vols., ed. Lyman H. Butterfield (New York, 1964), II, 64-65.

  46. On Cromwell’s Head, kept by Joshua Brackett in School Street, see Clarence S. Brigham, Paul Revere’s Engravings (Worcester, 1954), 116—17; Alice Morse Earle, State Coach and Tavern Days (New York, 1900), 86; Drake, Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston, 61—62.

  47. This group began as the Secret Nine or Loyal Nine, Boston artisans and shopkeepers. See Edmund S. and Helen M. Morgan, Stamp Act Crisis; Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1953), 121—22; George P. Anderson, “A Note on Ebenezer MacKintosh,” CSM 26 (1927): 348-61; the leading study is Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (New York, 1972).

  48. Paul Revere, “View of the Obelisk erected under the Liberty-Tree in Boston on the Rejoicings for the Repeal of the—Stamp Act, 1766,” Brigham, Paul Revere’s Engravings, 21-25; Goss notes, “It was designed by Revere, and he had prepared and issued a descriptive plate before the celebration took place.” Cf. Goss, Revere, I, 39.

  49. Dennis Dooley et al., The Glorious Ninety-Two …Published under the Authority of the Committees on Rules of the Two Branches of the General Court to Commemorate the Return to Massachusetts of the Paul Revere Liberty Bowl (Boston, 1949).

  50. John Rowe, Diary, May 27 1773, MHS; published in part as Letters and Diary of John Rowe (Boston, 1903), 245.

  51. Brigham, Paul Revere’s Engravings, 58—60.

  52. Many attacks on British soldiers in Boston before the Boston Massacre are documented in depositions collected from the troops themselves, in the summer of 1770. They have never been published in America, and are to be found CO 5/88, 179-262, PRO.

  53. The Massacre print was drawn and engraved by Henry Pelham, and re-engraved at least three times by Paul Revere. In turn, Revere’s work was copied by Jonathan Mulliken and others. On March 29, 1770, Pelham drafted an angry letter to Paul Revere, accusing him of bringing out an edition of the print without permission, and depriving Pelham of his “advantage … as truly as if you had plundered me on the public highway.” Revere and Pelham resolved their differences and were soon doing business together again. Brigham, Paul Revere’s Engravings, 41—46; Cf. Zobel, Boston Massacre (New York, 1970), 197—98. Scholars sympathetic to Revere have suggested that Pelham’s letter survives only in draft and was never actually sent. Evidence internal to the draft strongly indicates that the letter was actually delivered. The original document survives as Henry Pelham to Paul Revere, March 29, 1770, Intercepted Copley-Pelham Letters, CO5/39, PRO.

  54. “To the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the Town of Boston in Town Meeting,” Jan. 29, 1771; Intercepted Copley-Pelham letters, CO5/39, PRO.

  55. Var. Snider, Snyder.

  56. Boston Gazette, March 11, 1771.

  57. A Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party, with a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes (New York, 1834), 40; another interesting account of the origin of the Tea Party by a seaman who joined the North End mobs and was later pressed on board HMS Captain, appears in a Deposition of Samuel Dyer, July 30 1774, in the papers of Admiral Montagu under the date of Aug. 10, 1774, ADM1/484, PRO, Kew.

  58. Francis S. Drake, Tea Leaves: Being a Collectrion of Letters and Documents Relating to the Shipment of Tea to the American Colonies in the Year 1773 … (Boston, 1884). lxvii, lxxxix, xcii, clxxvi.

  59. Goss, Revere, I, 150.

  60. Revere was reimbursed for his expenses by the town of Boston. See Paul Revere to David Wood, May 28, 1774; his bill read: “to a journey of my horse to King’s Bridge, New York, 234 miles.” RFP, MHS. For Revere’s appointment by town meeting, see Newell Diary, May 13, 1774; and Samuel Adams (Boston) to Paul Revere (Philadelphia), May 18, 1774, RFP, MHS; Boston Town Records, May 18, 1774, p. 175. For further details and for sources, see below, Appendix D.

  61. See Appendix D for a chronology of all known rides, and sources. His expenses were paid for these trips (but not the midnight ride) by the town of Boston, and later by the provincial government. Various bills and receipts are in Revere Family Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Massachusetts Archives, and the Paul Revere House; some are reproduced in facsimile in Goss, Revere, I, 144.

  62. John Wentworth to T. W. Waldron, Jan. 27, 1775, 6MHSC 4 (1891): 73-74.

  63. “As the True Born Sons of Liberty in Boston …” April 18, 1775, oversize ms., MHS.

  64. Tory writers commonly misunderstood the American Revolution as an authoritarian movement, rigidly controlled by “Sam Adams and his myrmidons,” as one of them described it. This is a common error in revolutionary conflicts, too often perpetuated by historians. Cf. Andrew Oliver Letterbook, 1767-74, Egerton ms. 2670, BL.

  65. The seven lists were: the Masonic lodge that met at the Green Dragon, the Loyal Nine (1766); the North Caucus (1771); the Long Room Club (1773); the Tea Party participants (1773); the Boston Committee of Correspondence (1774); and a London Enemies List on April 18, 1775. See Appendix E for rosters, comparisons, computations, other leaders, and discussions of these groups in relation to others in the Whig movement.

  66. Thomas Young to John Lamb, Lamb Papers, N-YHS.

  67. Paul Revere to John Lamb, Sept. 4, 1774, Lamb Papers, N-YHS.

  68. Boston Town Meeting, May 13, 1774, Boston Town Records, 1770—1777, 174.

  69. Nathaniel Ames, Almanack for 1762 (Boston, 1761); Sam. Briggs (ed)., The Essays, Humor and Poems of Nathaniel Ames, Father and Son, of Dedham, Massachusetts, from Their Almanacks, 1726—1775 (Cleveland, 1891), 327. Illustrations for the Ameses’ diaries were engraved by Paul Revere. See Brigham, Paul Revere’s Engravings, 133-36; Goss, Revere, I, 113.

  70. Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (New York, 1980), 3.

  2. General Gage’s Dilemmax

  1. Major William Sheriff to General Frederick Haldimand, Sept. 12 1774, Haldimand Papers, add. ms. 21665, BL.

  2. Gage to Dartmouth, Aug. 27, 1774, and Gage to Barrington, Aug. 27, 1774, Clarence E. Carter (ed.), The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage, 2 vols. (New Haven, 1931; rpt. New York, 1969), I, 365; II, 651. For Gage’s bodyguard, see Percy to General Harvey, Aug. 21, 1774, Charles Knowles Bolton (ed.), Letters of Hugh Earl Percy from Boston and New York, 1775—1776 (Boston, 1902), 36; for the warning by his aides, see “The Journals of Captain John Montresor,” N-YHS Collections (1881), 123.

  3. Gage to Barrington, June 25, 1775, Gage Correspondence, I, 687.

  4. Gage to Barrington, private, Nov. 12, 1770, ibid., II, 564.

  5. Percy to Duke of Northumberland, Aug 8, 1774, Letters of Percy, 31.

  6. Intelligence Report from Concord to Gage, April 14, 1775, John R, Alden, General Gage in America (Baton Rouge, 1948), 227.

  7. The standard biography is still Alden, General Gage in America; a more recent work is John Shy, “Thomas Gage: Weak Link of Empire,” George Billias (ed.), George Washington’s Opponents: British Generals and Admirals in the American Revolution (New York, 1969), 3—38; reprinted with a new preface in John Shy, A People Numerous and Armed (New York, 1976), 73-108.

  8. This was Sir John Gage of Firle, who was said to have treat
ed England’s future Queen with cruel “severity.” His death before she came to the throne may have saved the family from disaster.

  9. Alden, Gage, 1—3.

  10. Ibid., 5.

  11. Romney Sedgwick (ed)., Some Materials Towards Memoirs of the Reign of King George II by John, Lord Hervey, 3 vols. (London, 1931), I, 265.

  12. The history of Thomas Gage’s dialect remains to be written, perhaps because it is often thought to be proper English, and not perceived as dialect. But see A. S. C. Ross, “Linguistic Class-Indicators in Present-day English,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 55 (1954); J. and L. Milroy, Authority in Language (London, 1985); Tony V. Crowley, The Politics of Discourse (London, 1989), and idem (ed.), Proper English? Readings in Language, History and Cultural Identity (London and New York, 1991). For Revere’s speech, see David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed (New York, 1989), 57-62.

  13. For other versions, see J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, 12 vols. (London, 1935), II, 115-16.

  14. Of Braddock’s 1,459 officers and men, 977 (67%) were killed or wounded. Some historians have held Gage responsible for Braddock’s defeat, for it was the collapse of Gage’s van that began the disaster. But Gage’s comrades on that field did not condemn him, and several including Washington praised his courage and efficiency in restoring discipline among his men on the retreat. Cf. Lawrence H. Gipson, The Great War for Empire; Years of Defeat, 1754-1757 (New York, 1968), VII, 94, who is severe on Gage; and Stanley M. Pargellis, “Braddock’s Defeat,” AHR 41 (1936): 251-59, who holds Braddock responsible.

  15. Francis Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1898), II, 259; Gipson, The Great War for Empire, VII, 219-33; Alden, Gage, 45.

  16. Captain John Small wrote to Copley, “Your picture of the General is universally acknowledged to be a very masterly performance, elegantly finish’d, and a most striking likeness.” “Letters and Papers of John Singleton Copley and Henry Pelham,” MHSC 71 (1914): 77.

  17. Alden, Gage, 72.

  18.Ibid., 284.

  19.Ibid., 14.

  20. James Johnson to Haldimand, Sept. 15, 1774, Haldimand Papers, add. ms. 21665, BL.

  21. Gage to Hillsborough, July 31, 1768, Aug. 17, 1768, July 7, 1770, Gage Correspondence, I, 205, 184, 263; to Shelburne, Oct. 19, 1767, ibid., I, 154.

  22. Gage to Hillsborough, Aug. 17, 1768, ibid., I, 183—86.

  23. He continued: “No laws can be put in force, for those who should execute the laws, excite the people to break them, and defend them in it. Nothing can avail in so total an anarchy but a very considerable force, and that force empower’d to act.” Gage to Barrington, July 6, 1770, ibid., II, 544—47.

  24. Burke,” On Conciliation with America,” March 22, 1775, Speeches and Letters on American Affairs (London, 1956), 102.

  25. Gage to Conway, Jan. 16, 1765, Gage Correspondence, I, 80—81.

  26. Gage to Conway, Dec 21, 1765, ibid., I, 79.

  27. Gage to Hillsborough, Sept. 7, 1768, ibid., I, 191.

  28. Alden, Gage, 177.

  29. Gage to Barrington, private, Nov. 12, 1770, Gage Correspondence, II, 563—64.

  30. Gage to Barrington, Aug. 5, 1772, ibid., II, 615-16.

  31. Gage to Hillsborough, Nov. 10, 1770, ibid., I, 277.

  32. Gage to Hillsborough, Oct. 31, 1768, ibid., I, 205.

  33. Gage to Hillsborough, Oct. 31, 1768, ibid., I, 204.

  34. Gage to Dartmouth, Oct. 30, 1774, ibid., I 382.

  35. Gage to Dartmouth, Sept. 12, 1774, ibid., I, 373-74; Gage to Hillsborough, Nov. 10, 1770, ibid., I, 277.

  36. Gage to Barrington, private, Sept. 8, 1770, Alden, Gage, 188.

  37. Gage to Haldimand, Aug. 4, 1774, Haldimand Papers, add. ms. 21665, BL.

  38. George III to Lord North, Sir John Fortescue (ed.), The Correspondence of George the Third from 1760 to December, 1783, 6 vols. (London, 1927-28), III, 59.

  39. Gage’s commission and instructions, and materials concerning his arrival as governor are reproduced in L. Kinvin Wroth et al. (eds.), Province in Rebellion; A Documentary History of the Founding of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1774—1775 (microfiche edition and guide, Cambridge, 1975), documents 1—11, pp. 1—63. A large part of this vast and very useful collection, drawn mainly from the Massachusetts Archives but also from many other sources, deals with the developing conflict between Gage and the legislature and towns of Massachusetts (documents 12—333, pp. 64—1068).

  40. Gage to Haldimand, May 15, 1774, Haldimand Papers, add. ms. 21665, BL.

  41. John R. Galvin, The Minute Men: A Compact History of the Defenders of the American Colonies 1645-1775 (New York, 1967), 90.

  42. Andrew Oliver Letterbook, 1767-1774, Egerton ms 2670, BL; Gage Correspondence, I, 1365-66.

  43. The Dyer affair has been misunderstood as an arrest by Gage himself under the new Coercive Acts (Alden, Gage, 209). This incident happened in a different way. The true facts are laid out in a secret letter from Gage to Dartmouth, Oct. 30, 1774, CO5/92, PRO.

  44.|J. T. Buckingham], “Paul Revere,” New England Magazine 3 (1832): 304—14.

  45. Gage to Dartmouth, May 30, 1774, Gage Correspondence, I, 356.

  46. Gage to Dartmouth, Sept. 2, 1774, ibid., I, 371.

  47. Gage to Dartmouth, Oct. 30, 1774, ibid., I, 382.

  48. Gage to Dartmouth, Aug. 27, 1774, ibid., I, 367; Alden, Gage, 212.

  49. He called it a “phrensy” and added his hope that “it’s only a fit of rage that will cool,” and his belief that all the trouble “has taken its rise from the old source at Boston” (Gage Correspondence, I, 367, Aug. 27, 1774). In an amiable letter to Peyton Randolph of Virginia, Gage expressed a wish that “decency and moderation here would create the same disposition at home.” He looked forward to a moment when “these asperities between the Mother Country and the Colonies have terminated like the quarrels of lovers and increased the affection they ought to bear to each other” (Gage to Peyton Randolph, Oct. 20, 1774, C05/92, PRO).

  50. Gage to Dartmouth, Aug. 27, 1774, Gage Correspondence, I, 365.

  3. First Strokes

  1. Gage to Dartmouth, Sept. 2, 1774, Gage Correspondence, I, 369.

  2. Brattle to Gage, Aug. 26, 1774, Peter Force (ed.), American Archives, 9 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1837-53), 4th series, I, 739.

  3. The site is now a park at Powder House Square, Somerville, Mass.

  4. “[Account of Col. Maddison’s Expedition],” Sept. 5, 1774, AA4, I, 762; Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter, Sept. 5, 1774; Ezra Stiles, Literary Diary, ed. F. B. Dexter, 3 vols. (New York, 1901), II, 479 (Sept. 25, 1774).

  5. Robert P. Richmond, Powder Alarm, 1774 (Princeton, 1971), 1—31.

  6. Stiles, Literary Diary, II, 479 (Sept. 25, 1774).

  7.Ibid.; Benjamin Church to Samuel Adams, Sept. 4, 1774, Samuel Adams Papers, NYPL.

  8. Joseph Warren to Samuel Adams, n.d. [ca. Sept. 4, 1774], Samuel Adams Papers, NYPL.

  9. Thomas Oliver, statement dated Sept. 2, 1774, AA4, 1, 763; John Rowe, Diary, Sept. 1-3, 1774, MHS; published in part in Letters and Diary, 283-84.

  10. One of these papers survives in ADM 1/485, PRO; for the “hot, dry” weather on Sept. 1 and 2, 1774, see Jonas Clarke Diary, LHS.

  11. Revere introduced his messenger as John Marston, “a gentleman of my acquaintance, a high son of Liberty, and one that can give you a particular detail of our affairs, much better than I can write them. You will introduce him to your friends as such.” He also thanked Isaac Sears for “his kind care of my horse and sulky.” Paul Revere to John Lamb, Sept. 4, 1774, Lamb Papers N-YHS; rpt. Goss, Revere, I, 150—53.

  12. Rowe, Diary, Sept. 3, 1774, MHS; published in part in Letters and Diary, 284.

  13. Gage to Dartmouth, Oct. 30, 1774, Gage Correspondence, I, 383.

  14. Gage to Dartmouth, Sept. 25, 1774, and Gage to Hillsborough, Sept. 25, 1774, Gage Correspondence, I, 377; II, 654.

  15. David Ammerman, In the Common Cause; American Response to the Coercive Acts
of 1774 (New York, 1975), 129.

  16. Gage was one of the first to conclude that “foreign troops must be hired, for to begin with small numbers will encourage resistance.” Gage to Barrington, Nov. 2, 1774, Gage Correspondence, II, 659; and various dispatches in C05/92/1.

  17. Piers Mackesy, The War for America, 1775-1783 (Cambridge, Eng., 1964), 524.

  18. Dartmouth to Gage, Jan. 27, 1775, Gage Correspondence, II, 181; the Marine battalion, commanded by Major John Pitcairn, began to arrive on Dec. 5, 1774, in HMS Asia; Barker, Diary, 10.

  19. Revere to Jeremy Belknap [ca. 1798], Edmund Morgan (ed.), Paul Revere’s Three Accounts (Boston, 1961), n.p.

  20. Ibid.; in Puritan Boston, Bible-swearing had been condemned as idolatry; a century later, attitudes had changed. Morgan (ed.), Paul Revere’s Three Accounts, introduction.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid.; in the manuscript Revere identified their place of meeting as the Masonic hall, then crossed it out and wrote in the name of the Green Dragon Tavern.

  23. The decision to warn Portsmouth appears to have been made by Revere and a rump of the committee. A “gentleman of Boston” wrote to Rivington in New York, Dec. 20, 1774, “On Monday, the 12th inst. our worthy citizen, Mr. Paul Revere, was sent express from only two or three of the Committee of Correspondence at Boston, as I am creditably informed (of whom no number under seven are empowered to act) to a like committee at Portsmouth.” AA4, I, 1054.

  24. Captain’s Log, HMS Somerset, Dec. 11-14, 1774, ADM51/906, part 6, PRO.

  25. Allen French, The First Year of the American Revolution (Boston, 1934), 650.

  26. For the weather in New Hampshire, see Lois K. Stabler (ed.), Very Poor and of a Lo Make; The Journal of Abner Sanger (published for the Historical Society of Cheshire County, Portsmouth, N. H., 1986), 15-17.