Desperate Sons

by Les Standiford

  Although Prime Minister North and Secretary of State for the Colonies Dartmouth were engaged in secret talks with Franklin in an attempt to find some workable compromise, the two sides remained apart. Dartmouth proposed the sending of a “Peace Commission” to the colonies to consider the grievances of the citizens, but Franklin countered that such an endeavor would be of no avail unless the British first agreed that the colonies had the right to govern and tax themselves.

  Meanwhile, word reached North that the king was impatient with his prime minister’s shilly-shallying and that certain forces were at play within the cabinet—all champions of the authority of Parliament—to remove him from his position. Thus, at a cabinet meeting of January 12, just prior to the reconvening of Parliament, North threw off all attempts at conciliation and agreed to pursue policies that would cut off all trade with the colonies and declare all persons within the colonies not actively loyal to the crown to be rebels.

  North’s capitulation was a fateful step, of course, though any opposition on his part would have accomplished little. In any case, the colonial secretary was quick to follow the prime minister’s lead. On January 27, Dartmouth wrote orders to Gage to arrest Samuel Adams and the rest of the leaders of the resistance in Massachusetts. Given the fact of “an actual and open Rebellion in that Province,” he wrote, “the first & essential step to be taken towards re-establishing Government, would be to arrest and imprison the principal actors & abettors in the Provincial Congress (whose proceedings appear in every light to be acts of treason & rebellion).”

  Gage was to move secretly and without warning, Dartmouth said, adding that the plan “can hardly fail of Success, and will perhaps be accomplished without bloodshed.” It was the secretary’s opinion that the inhabitants were surely unprepared to combat regular troops and in short “cannot be very formidable.”

  Even if such an action set off other “hostilities, it will surely be better that the Conflict should be brought on, upon such ground, than in a riper state of Rebellion.” Such an operation was, in Dartmouth’s opinion, “the best & most effectual means of vindicating the authority of this Kingdom.”

  As for the disposition of Adams and any other prisoners taken, Dartmouth left that up to Gage. Since the courts were not at present functioning, there was little hope of prosecution, but, as Dartmouth observed, “Their imprisonment however will prevent their doing any further mischief . . . and the continuance of that imprisonment will be no slight punishment.”

  Gage should be prepared for almost any eventuality as a result of the operation, Dartmouth warned, and he should use whatever means he thought necessary to prevail. Naval forces would be at his disposal if needed, and his conduct was to be governed “very much by your own Judgement and Discretion.” Given that the charter of Massachusetts Bay colony provided that the governor declare a state of martial law “in time of actual War, Invasion or Rebellion,” Dartmouth suggested that Gage was free to exercise such power, though “the Expedience and Propriety of adopting such a Measure must depend upon your own Discretion under many Circumstances that can only be judged of upon the Spot.” With that, Dartmouth essentially approved the first strike of what would become a war.

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  Shot Around the World

  Dartmouth’s letter would not reach Gage until April 16, but meantime other actions on both sides of the Atlantic gave portents as to how those orders would play out. On February 2, Prime Minister North appeared before the House of Commons to move for a declaration that Massachusetts was in fact in a state of rebellion and a reaffirmation of the sovereignty of Great Britain over all the colonies. Included was a stipulation that the king take all necessary measures to enforce the laws there. North also recommended authorization for an increase in military forces in America and an immediate cessation of trade between the colonies and Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies. Though there was some objection and debate, North’s proposals won out by a 2-to-1 margin in the House of Commons and by 3 to 1 in the House of Lords.

  About three weeks later, on February 27, North submitted two more proposals, the New England Trade and Fisheries Act—often referred to as the New England Restraining Act—and the Conciliatory Resolution. The former was a punitive measure that forbade the colonies from trading with any nation other than Great Britain and also declared the lucrative North Atlantic fishing grounds, claimed by England, off-limits to fishermen of all the northeastern colonies, a genuinely crippling move.

  The Conciliatory Resolution, on the other hand, actually sounded like the stuff of the Continental Congress’s dreams, for it provided for the removal of all taxes and duties from any colony that agreed to submit its rightful portion of the monies necessary for the maintenance of the common defense and the functioning of the civil government and court system. The colonies would be left to devise their own scheme of raising the funds and would thus be “voluntarily” bearing their fair share of such expenses.

  There was more to the proposal than met the eye, however, for the true intent of the resolution, addressed not to the Continental Congress but to individual colonies, was to entice the more moderate provinces into a contest against such radical enclaves as Virginia and Massachusetts and thus break the resolve of the Continental Congress. By the time the news of the resolution reached the colonies, however, such blandishments would fall far short of convincing even moderates of any good intentions on the part of the mother country.

  Meanwhile, in the colonies, the degree of strength apparent in the common resolve varied by locale. In New York, the state assembly balked at reconstituting itself as a Provincial Congress and actually voted down the various resolves of the Continental Congress by a small margin. When that body also refused to select delegates for the second congress, scheduled for May, the Committee of Sixty took matters into its own hands and in early March convened a public meeting of concerned citizens for the purpose of selecting congressional representatives, a matter it quickly concluded.

  As debate on the elections ensued, the Rivington’s Gazette of March 9 printed an account submitted by two men, William Cunningham and John Hill, complaining that scarcely had they arrived upon the grounds of the liberty pole to watch a boxing match when they were approached by a group of men who took exception to remarks the pair had made in favor of the king at one of the committee’s meetings earlier in the day. Before long the two were surrounded by as many as two hundred men, who then dragged Cunningham to the pole, forced him onto his knees, and demanded that he “damn his Popish king George.”

  Instead, Cunningham said, he blurted, “God bless King George,” whereupon he was dragged about the green, his clothes were torn off, and he was relieved of his watch. The same indignities were about to be visited on Hill, the complainants said, when a justice of the peace arrived with a group of deputies to rescue them.

  On March 1, Charles Pinckney wrote to Sears and Lamb on behalf of the South Carolina committee to commiserate on the unfortunate circumstances faced by the Sons in New York. It was a disappointment to hear that the state assembly would not join the association, Pinckney said, but he wanted Sears and Lamb to know that South Carolina did not see it as a repudiation. Though Pinckney observed that “we cannot but think it would have been much more happy for the whole,” had the New York Assembly gone along, he and his colleagues in the South were well aware of “the poison that is daily distilling from some of your pensioned presses, and the hireling writers that have crept in among you.”

  New York had for so long been a haven for “placemen, of contractors, of officers, and needy dependants upon the Crown” that a certain difficulty in achieving unanimity of purpose was to be expected. Nonetheless, the South Carolinians assured their counterparts, “love to Constitutional Liberty, to justice, and your posterity, however depressed for a little while, will at last surmount all obstacles, and do honour to New York.” Pinckney did, however, press his fellow New Yorkers for some proof of that province’s commitment to the cause, in o
rder that the face of unity might be maintained. Pinckney’s concerns vanished when word arrived that a New York delegation to the second congress had in fact been selected.

  At the same time, Gadsden, Pinckney, and their fellow Sons were facing their own troubles in South Carolina. Though a Provincial Congress and Committee of Correspondence had been established, during debate on the trade boycott the influential planter John Rutledge had introduced a provision that would allow for the continuing export of rice to Great Britain. It was all well and good for the northerners to declare an end to exports, Rutledge argued, for they shipped out little. An end to the export of the staple crop of South Carolina, however, would lead to the collapse of the province’s economy. Though Gadsden and other radicals vigorously opposed the exemption, the state congress voted by its pocketbook, and rice was approved for export.

  Another flare-up took place in Charleston in March, when a planter returned aboard ship from a visit to England, bringing with him a consignment of horses, silver plate, and furniture that he intended for use at his plantation. Though the initial decision of Gadsden and the committee was to allow the landing of the horses, given that no mention of livestock had been made in the provisions of the Continental Association, the mechanics of the town protested, fearful that artists and skilled workers and craftsmen would end up bearing the brunt of the boycott if matters continued to be interpreted so. After heated debate, it was determined by a vote of 35 to 34 that horses and all would have to be returned to England.

  Meanwhile, in Virginia, difficulties escalated between the newly formed Provincial Congress and Lord Dunmore, who had held the post of governor since being ignominiously shuffled off from New York in 1771. Dunmore’s relations with his constituents were very nearly as contentious as Hutchinson’s were in New York, and he had dissolved the House of Burgesses on more than one occasion during his tenure.

  On March 20, 1775, while suffering under a prolonged order of dissolution by Dunmore, the House of Burgesses convened in Richmond, where Patrick Henry introduced a measure calling for the establishment of a state militia. When more moderate interests opposed the measure, Henry rose to deliver what is generally referred to as the most influential of all prorevolutionary speeches, inspired in large part by the experiences of the biblical prophet Jeremiah, who was told by God, “Attack you they may, overcome you they cannot.”

  Colonel Edward Carrington, listening outside a window of the church where the burgesses were meeting, wrote that Henry’s oration had been so transcendent that he thought no experience was ever likely to exceed it. “Right here I wish to be buried,” he said. Another reported that he had been “sick with excitement.”

  The references are, of course, to the famed speech that closed with the valiant assertion “Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Henry’s words, since immortalized, are credited with swinging a close majority of the burgesses, including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, into agreement on the proposal to call troops to arms.

  Considerable controversy has risen regarding the speech, owing to the fact that Henry kept no copy and, once again, no transcription was made of his remarks at the meeting. Galvanizing as all those who were there agree it was, it was nearly forty years later before Henry’s biographer William Wirt made an attempt to reconstruct the remarks from the recollections of bystanders. Adding to the difficulty that the intervening years had intensified, Wirt found himself up against an issue often cited by those who found themselves under the famed orator’s spell. As Thomas Jefferson explained it, “It was difficult to tell when [Henry] had spoken, to tell what he had said. . . . When he had spoken in opposition to my opinion, had produced a great effect, and I myself had been highly delighted and moved, I have asked myself, when he ceased, ‘What the devil has he said?’ and could never answer the inquiry.”

  There were those who recalled the speech in far more unflattering terms. The Tory James Parker wrote a loyalist friend that the speech had been an insolent offense: “He called the K—— a Tyrant, a fool, a puppet and a tool to the ministry.” Parker added that Henry had characterized Britons as a set of spoiled wretches who “had lost their native courage and [were] unable to look the brave Americans in the face.” Still, there seems little doubt that Henry closed his speech—directed as much at the less stalwart of his own colleagues as at the British, it should be noted—with some version of the stirring phrase.

  Such moments and contests large and small might have continued indefinitely had it not been for the eventual arrival of the secret orders from Lord Dartmouth to Gage. The Essex Gazette of April 18 noted that the British ship Nautilus had arrived in Boston on Friday, April 14, bearing “dispatches for His Excellency” and that same issue reported the arrival of the Falcon on April 16.

  As it turned out, the Nautilus was actually carrying a duplicate of the orders Dartmouth dispatched to Gage. His lordship’s original letter was aboard the second ship to arrive. In any event, Gage now possessed authorization for the highly provocative operation that he himself had first suggested to the colonial secretary. As early as January 18, the governor had told Dartmouth that it was his opinion that “if a respectable force is seen in the field, the most obnoxious leaders seized, and a pardon proclaimed for all others, Government will come off victorious.” Though Dartmouth would not be able to promise Gage the power to issue the pardons for some time, for the first time in the history of the conflict, a British commander was given the go-ahead to use force against the colonists.

  Meanwhile, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and the other “obnoxious” leaders of the resistance had been meeting since April 11 with the Provincial Congress in Concord, about twenty miles northwest of Boston, where they would be free of interference by Gage. Though Adams and Hancock were arguing there for the establishment of a militia in perhaps the most contentious of the colonies, it became a tough sell.

  There was little money available for the purpose, and for all that had taken place, many in Massachusetts, as in Virginia, were not convinced that armed resistance was necessary or advisable, even though correspondence from London had recently arrived announcing that there would be no conciliation; in fact, the dispatches warned, the British were sending troops to quash what was officially termed “an open state of rebellion.” Yet the most that Hancock and Adams were able to coax out of their Congress was a small amount for the stockpiling of supplies and a resolution of April 15 that proclaimed the upcoming day of May 11 as one of “Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer,” in order that the people of Great Britain—and especially their rulers—might “have their Eyes open’d to them.”

  Though a number of accounts insist that the moment Gage read the fateful orders from the colonial secretary he set upon the design of a mission to apprehend Adams and Hancock in Concord, there is little evidence for that. During the Concord meetings, Adams and Hancock were actually staying in Lexington, five miles to the southeast, at the home of the Reverend Jonas Clarke, a fact of which Gage, who had an informant planted within the Provincial Congress, was well aware. With the frustrating session at Concord now concluded, the pair saw no reason to return to heavily fortified Boston. They planned to stay with Clarke in Lexington for a few more days before traveling directly to Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress in May.

  Still, it was apparent that something was up in Boston. Paul Revere had formed his own surveillance team made up of fellow mechanics from the city, and each night small groups patrolled the streets of Boston to keep an eye on what the troops were up to. Revere and his men noted that a number of small transport boats attached to the warships in the harbor had been hauled out of the water for repair and returned to the mother ships just before midnight on Saturday, April 15. Furthermore, Revere said, all the light infantrymen and assault troops had been removed from their normal duty stations. When he reported the news to Dr. Joseph Warren, who had stayed on in Boston, Warren suggested that Revere ride
to Lexington on Sunday to let Adams and Hancock know.

  When Revere delivered his report to Adams, the longtime activist realized that the moment he had long foreseen was at hand. Though he could not be sure just what Gage intended, it was clear that a British assault of some sort was imminent. Neither he nor Hancock would have assumed that they would be the targets of any sizable force, as was suggested by the number of boats and size of the force reported by Revere. Any attempt to take the two of them would have been more likely a stealthy enterprise involving a few men. It was more likely, Adams and Hancock reasoned, that Gage intended to move on Concord for the purposes of confiscating what munitions and supplies the Committee of Safety had managed to gather. Accordingly, they sent word to have the shot, powder, muskets, tools, and foodstuffs dispersed and hidden about the community of Concord. Then, while Adams and Hancock deliberated their next moves, Revere was dispatched back to Boston to keep watch. Should he observe any movement of troops out of the city, it would be his duty to ride ahead to Lexington and Concord and spread the alarm.

  Revere, dedicated Son that he was, eagerly accepted the charge. Still he was a cautious man, troubled by the fact that word of a number of his detail’s covert activities was inexplicably finding its way back to General Gage. What if someone were to learn that he was the messenger meant to warn Adams of the troop movement and decide upon a way to prevent his riding out? Or what if he was somehow delayed on his way to Lexington and Concord—crossing the sandbar-laden Charles could be a tricky proposition, particularly in the dark. Thus, on his way back to the city, Revere stopped in Charlestown to confer with Sons there on a backup plan.

  The moment he observed troops moving in Boston, Revere told his counterparts on the north bank of the Charles, he would give a signal: “If the British went out by Water [directly across the Charles], we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land [marching across the Boston Neck to the southwest], one.”