34. David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 11, 23–24.
35. Pennsylvania Gazette, September 14, 1774, at 2, col. 3.
36. Brattle to Gage, August 26, 1774, in Peter Force ed., American Archives (Washington, D.C. 1837–53), 4th series, vol. 1, at 739.
37. Letter dated September 1, 1774, in Andrews, Letters of John Andrews, 38.
38. Knollenberg, Growth of the American Revolution, 226, 502, n.10; Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 44–45.
39. Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 47.
40. Andrews, Letters of John Andrews, 38.
41. Unsigned report datelined Boston, September 5, 1774, in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 4, at 762.
42. Andrews, Letters of John Andrews, 39–40.
43. Ibid., 39.
44. New York Journal, September 29, 1774, at 1, cols. 1–2.
45. Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 50.
46. Diary entry dated September 25, 1774, in Ezra Stiles, Literary Digest, F. B. Dexter ed. (New York, 1901), vol. 2, at 479, quoted in Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 46.
47. Gage to Dartmouth, September 3, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 373.
48. September 1, 1774, entry, in Andrews, Letters of John Andrews, 37.
49. Ibid., 41–42.
50. “A Letter from Rhode Island, Dated the 5th Instant,” Virginia Gazette, September 15, 1774, at 3, col. 1.
51. Virginia Gazette, September 22, 1774, at 3, col. 1.
52. Ibid.
53. James Duane, Notes of Proceedings, in Edmund C. Burnett ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1921), vol. 1, at 12.
54. Ibid., vol. 1, at 13.
55. Ibid., vol. 1, at 20.
56. Letter of September 14, 1774, in The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762–1784, L. H. Butterfield et al. eds. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), 72.
57. Richmond, Powder Alarm, 82–83, 86–87.
58. Andrews, Letters of John Andrews, 46.
59. Ibid., 46–47.
60. Percy to the Duke of Northumberland (his father), September 12, 1774, in Hugh Percy, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy from Boston and New York, 1774–1776, Charles Knowles Bolton ed. (Boston: Charles E. Goodspeed, 1902), 37–38.
61. Ibid., 38.
62. An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, 1 W. & M., Sess. 2, cl. 2, (1689).
63. Gage to Dartmouth, September 12, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 374.
64. Andrews, Letters of John Andrews, 52.
65. Gage to Dartmouth, September 25, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 376–77.
66. Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 43.
67. Richard Frothingham, Lift and Times of Joseph Warren (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1865), 452.
68. Boston Gazette, September 19, 1774, at 1, col. 2; also in Pennsylvania Gazette, Sept. 21, 1774, at 1, cols. 1–2. Reprinted in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, at 902. For a summary of the Resolves, see Knollenberg, Growth of the American Revolution, 312–13.
69. Journals of the Continental Congress (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1904), vol. 1, at 39.
70. Gage to Dartmouth, November 2, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 382. The letter also appears in William Cobett, The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (London: T. C. Hansard, 1813), vol. 18, at 105.
71. Boston Gazette, September 19, 1774, at 2, col. 1. The grievances are reprinted in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, at 903.
72. Document datelined Boston, September 27, 1774, in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, at 806–07.
73. Letter dated September 29, 1774, to Continental Congress, in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, at 907.
74. Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph Warren, 381.
75. Ibid., 382.
76. Letter dated September 30, 1774, in Andrews, Letters of John Andrews, 58.
77. Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, at 943–44.
78. Letter dated October 1, 1774, in ibid., vol. 1, at 58–59. The full text of this humorous account is as follows:
It’s common for the Soldiers to fire at a target fix’d in the stream at the bottom of the common. A countryman stood by a few days ago, and laugh’d very heartily at a whole regiment’s firing, and not one being able to hit it. The officer observ’d him, and ask’d why he laugh’d? Perhaps you’ll be affronted if I tell you, reply’d the countryman. No, he would not, he said. Why then, says he, I laugh to see how awkward they fire. Why, I’ll be bound I hit it ten times running. Ah! Will you, reply’d the officer; come try: Soldiers, go and bring five of the best guns, and load’em for this honest man. Why, you need not bring so many: let me have any one that comes to hand, reply’d the other, but I chuse to load myself. He accordingly loaded, and ask’d the officer where he should fire? He reply’d, to the right--when he pull’d tricker, and drove the ball as near the right as possible. The officer was amaz’d--and said he could not do it again, as that was only by chance. He loaded again. Where shall I fire? To the left—when he perform’d as well as before. Come! once more, says the officer.—He prepar’d the third time.—Where shall I fire naow?—In the Center.—He took aim, and the ball went as exact in the middle as possible. The officers as well as the soldiers star’d, and tho’t the Devil was in the man. Why, says the countryman, I’ll tell you naow. I have got a boy at home that will toss up an apple and shoot out all the seeds as its coming down.
79. Letter dated October 1, 1775, in Andrews, Letters of John Andrews, 59.
80. Gage to Dartmouth, October 3, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 378.
81. Boston Gazette, October 17, 1774, at 2, cols. 2–3.
82. Ibid., col. 3.
83. Gage to Dartmouth, October 17, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 378–79.
84. Boston Gazette, October 31, 1774, at 3, col. 1; New York Journal, November 10, 1774, at 1, cols. 2–3. Also in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, at 852.
85. Boston Gazette, November 14, 1774, at 3, col. 2.
86. Knollenberg, Growth of the American Revolution, 219–21.
87. Gage to Dartmouth, November 2, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 381.
88. Ibid.
89. Knollenberg, Growth of the American Revolution, 214–16.
90. Boston Gazette, December 5, 1774, at 4, col. 1.
91. Ibid.
92. Gage to Dartmouth, October 30, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 380.
93. Dartmouth to Gage, October 17, 1774, ibid., vol. 2, at 175.
94. Gage to Dartmouth, December 15, 1774, ibid., vol. 1, at 386.
95. Gage to Dartmouth, December 15, 1774, ibid., vol. 1, at 387.
96. Cobett, Parliamentary History of England, vol. 18, at 106; Warren, History of the American Revolution, vol. 1, at 88.
97. E.g., Boston Gazette, April 17, 1775, at 3, col. 2; Pennsylvania Reporter, May 1, 1775, at 4, col. 1.
98. Josiah Quincy, Jun’r, Observations on the Act of Parliament Commonly Called the Boston Port-Bill; with Thoughts on Civil Society and Standing Armies (Boston: Edes & Gill, 1774); reprinted in Josiah Quincy, Memoir of the Lift of Josiah Quincy Jun. (Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, & Co., 1825), 413.
99. Ibid., 411.
100. Ibid., 428.
101. Daniel Dulany Jr., Considerations on the Measures Carrying on with Respect to the British Colonies in North America (London: R. Baldwin, 1774), 57.
102. Ibid., 117.
103. John Allen, Oration, Upon the Beauties of Liberty; or the Essential Rights of the Americans (Wilmington, Del.: James Adams, 1775), x–xi.
104. Dartmouth to Gage, January 27, 1775, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 2, at 183.
105. “Paper delivered to a
Committee of the Town of Boston by Gov. Gage, containing proposals for maintaining good order and harmony between the soldiers and town people, November 1774,” Manuscript in Gage Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
106. Massachusetts Gazette, December 29, 1774, at 2, col. 2.
107. Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, at 1062.
108. Massachusetts Gazette, January 19, 1775, at 2, col. 2.
109. Connecticut Courant, January 16, 1775, at 2, col. 3.
110. G. Allan Yeomans, “Introduction” to Charles Lee, Strictures on a Pamphlet, reprinted in G. Jack Gravlee & James R. Irvine eds., Pamphlets and the American Revolution (Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1976), iii–iv, vii.
111. Charles Lee, Strictures on a Pamphlet, Entitled a “Friendly Address to All Reasonable Americans, on the Subject of our Political Confusions.” (Philadelphia: William & Thomas Bradford, 1774), 12. This passage was widely reprinted. E.g., Essex Gazette, January 17, 1775, at 4, col. 1.
112. Dartmouth to Gage, October 17, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 2, at 175–76.
113. “Fusee. A small near musket or firelock. Bur we now use fusil.” Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828).
114. John Adams, Novanglus; or, A History of the Dispute with America, no. III, February 1775, in The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, C. Bradley Thompson ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000), 172.
115. Ibid., 172–73.
116. Richmond, Powder Alarm, 38–39.
117. John Adams, Novanglus; or, A History of the Dispute with America, no. III, February 1775, in Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, 173.
118. Ibid.
119. Novanglus, no. V, February 20, 1775, in Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, 186–87.
120. Novanglus, no. VI, in Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, 204.
121. Novanglus, no. VI, in Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, 204, quoting Grorius B. I, cl. 3, § I.
122. Novanglus, no. VI, in Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, 206, quoting Pufendorf’s Law of Nature and Nations, I. Vii. cl. vii. § 5, 6. Barbeyrac’s note on § 6.
123. Novanglus, no. VI, in Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, 206–07, quoting Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government.
124. Peter Oliver’s Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion: A Tory View, Douglass Adair and John A. Schurz eds. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1961), 116–17. The manuscript was written in 1781.
125. Frederick MacKenzie, A British Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston, Being the Diary of Lieutenant Frederick MacKenzie, Adjut ant of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, January - April 30, 1775, Allen French ed. (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1926; reprinted 1969), 31–32.
126. Ibid., 33.
127. Ibid.
128. Bancroft Collection, New York Public Library, in French, Day of Concord and Lexington, 57–58. This letter is not in the published Gage Correspondence. As “200 rods” (1, 100 yards) was far beyond the range of accurate fire for firelocks, Gage may have intended to say “200 yards.”
129. MacKenzie, A British Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston, 37.
130. Ibid., 38–39.
131. John Rowe, Letters and Diary of John Rowe, Boston Merchant 1759–1762, 1764–1779 (Boston: W. B. Clarke Co., 1903), 290.
132. New York Journal, March 30, 1775, at 2, col. 3. Also in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 2, at 120. See also Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride, 70.
133. Massachusetts Gazette; and Boston Weekly News-Letter, March 17, 1775, at 3, col. 1. Also in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 2, at 94.
134. Ibid.
135. Ibid., col. 2.
136. MacKenzie, A British Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston, 39–40.
137. The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing ed. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907), vol. 3, at 200.
138. Ibid., vol. 3, at 207.
139. Ibid., vol. 3, at 208.
140. Gage to Dartmouth, March 28, 1775, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 394–95. See “Remonstrance Presented by the Selectmen of Billerica,” March 16, 1775, in Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 2, at 153.
CHAPTER 3
1. That enactment, 29 Geo. II cl. 16 (1756), provided in part:
Whereas by an Act of Tonnage and Poundage made in the twelfth Year of the Reign of King Charles the Second, Power is expressly reserved to his Majesty to prohibit, at and for such Times as he should see Cause, the transporting of Gunpowder, or any Sort of Arms or Ammunition, into any Parts out of this Kingdom: And whereas Salt Petre is absolutely necessary to the making of Gunpowder, and the publick Safety may require temporary Restraints upon the Exportation thereof, at critical Conjunctures; Therefore to prevent all Doubts, be it hereby declared and enacted . . . That his Majesty may, by Proclamation or Order in Council, when he shall see Cause, and for such Time as shall by therein expressed, prohibit the exporting, or attempting to export, Salt Petre out of this Kingdom, in such Manner and under such Restraints as he shall think fit.
2. 5 Acts Privy Council 401. The enactment was reprinted in the Connecticut Courant, December 19, 1774, at 3, cols. 2–3. The decree was renewed from time to time until l783. James Truslow Adams, Revolutionary New England 1691–1776 (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1923), 412.
3. Bernhard Knollenberg, Growth of the American Revolution, 1766–1775 (New York: Free Press, 1975; reprinted, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003), 204–5.
4. Dartmouth to Gage, October 19, 1774, The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage with the Secretaries of State, and with the War Office and the Treasury, 1763–1775, Clarence E. Carter ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1931–33), vol. 2, at 176.
5. Dartmouth to Gage, October 19, 1774, in ibid., vol. 2, at 176–77.
6. See Ibid., vol. 2, at 177.
7. See Daniel A. Miller, Sir Joseph Yorke and Anglo-Dutch Relations, 1774–1780 (The Hague: Mouton, 1970).
8. “Extract of a letter from Sir Joseph Yorke to the Earl of Suffolk, dated Hague, August 5th, 1774,” Manuscript in Gage Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan. Actually, Nantucket was attached to the New York colony until 1692, when by act of Parliament it became a part of the Bay Colony of Massachusetts.
9. “Extract of a letter from Sir Joseph Yorke to Earl of Suffolk, dated Hague, August 26th, 1774,” Manuscript in Gage Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
10. “Copy of a letter from Earl of Suffolk to the Earl of Dartmouth, dated St. James’s the 31st August 1774,” Manuscript in Gage Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan. The earl described a further letter from Yorke as confirming that “North America is largely supplied by the way of St. Eustacia, with what it does not chance to take from England, or to export directly from Holland . . . .” “Copy of a letter from Sir Joseph Yorke to Earl of Suffolk, dated Hague 11 October, 1774,” Manuscript in Gage Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
11. “Copy of a letter from Sir Joseph Yorke to Earl of Suffolk, dated Hague 11 October, 1774,” Manuscript in Gage Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
12. See William R. Staples, Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee, Richard M. Deasy ed. (Providence: Rhode Island Publications Society, 1990).
13. “Copy of a letter from the Earl of Suffolk to the Earl of Dartmouth dated St. James’s 15th October, 1774,” Manuscript in Gage Collection, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
14. Robert P. Richmond, Powder Alarm, 1774 (Princeton, N.J.: Auerbach Publishers, 1971), 95.
15. Miller, Sir Joseph Yorke and Anglo-Dutch Relations, 39. In one incident, “a vessel loaded with arms, ammunition, etc. for New England, on her departure from Amsterdam, was stopped, and all her cargo seized.” Pennsylvania Reporter, February 13, 1775, vol. IV, no. 173.
16. Miller, Sir Joseph Yorke and Anglo-Dutch Relations, 40–41. “Six large ships sailed lately, three from Holland, and the rest from France, with arms and ammunition and other implements of war, for our colonies in America, and more preparing for the same place.” Pennsylvania Reporter, April 24, 1775, at 2, col. 1 (referring to a report from London, February 16, 1775).
17. Richmond, Powder Alarm, 96.
18. Gage to Dartmouth, December 15, 1774, Correspondence of General Gage, vol. 1, at 386.
19. Gage to Dartmouth, December 15, 1774, ibid., vol. 1, 385–86.
20. Boston Gazette, December 12, 1774, at 3, col. 1.
21. James Truslow Adams, Revolutionary New England 1691–1776 (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1923), 412; John R. Alden, General Gage in America (New York: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969), 224; David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere’s Ride (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 56.
22. Wentworth to Gage, December 14, 1774, letter reprinted in William Cobett, The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (London: T.C. Hansard, 1813), vol. 18, at 145. The letter crossed the ocean again and was reprinted in, e.g., Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), June 8, 1775, at 1, col. 2. “Amicus Patriae” claimed that “they surely meant only to seize the Ammunition belonging to every Town, and private Property, which we have been led to suspect would have been seized upon by Administration, to enforce Obedience to their cruel measures.” New-Hampshire Gazette, February 24, 1775, at 1, col. 1.
23. Percy to Grey Cooper, after December 13, 1774, in Hugh Percy, Letters of Hugh Earl Percy from Boston and New York, 1774–1776, Charles Knowles Bolton ed. (Boston: Charles E. Goodspeed, 1902), 46.
24. Wentworth to Gage, December 16, 1774, letter reprinted in Cobert, The Parliamentary History of England, vol. 18, at 147.
25. New Hampshire Gazette and Historical Chronicle, January 13, 1775, at 1, col. 1. Reprinted in Peter Force ed., American Archives, 4th series, vol. 1, at 1065.
26. Pennsylvania Gazette, December 14, 1774, at 2, col. 3.
27. Pennsylvania Gazette, December 21, 1774, at 3, cols. 1–2.
28. Massachusetts Gazette, December 29, 1774, at 3, col. 1.
29. Connecticut Courant, January 9, 1775, at 2, col. 2.
The Founders' Second Amendment Page 43
