Arsonist: The Most Dangerous Man in America

by Nathan Allen

  Meanwhile, tension between the colonists and Whitehall was increasing. The looming Sugar Act was sobering but omens from England about impending stamp duties – in essence, a sales tax on a variety of goods – was inflaming ever greater anxiety. On January 21, 1764, Francis Fisher of Philadelphia received forewarning from London, “The manner propos’d for Raising it [American revenue], is by a Stamp Duty, which however equitable, deprives us of a Liberty which Pennsylvanians have always enjoy’d & hope will ever Contend for. ….” On February 17, 1764, Stephen Sayre warned Isaac Sears in New York that “you’ll soon have a parcel of Marmadonian Ravens who will feed upon, and rip up your very Vitals; such as officers of Stamp duties, Prizies of Lands, Houses, Furniture, &c. The Ministry are determined to make you pay for the peace which you like so well.” Two months later, Eliphalet Dyer enlightened Jared Ingersoll of Connecticut that “Mr. Greenville strongly urged, not only the power but right of Parliament to tax Colonies & hoped in God’s name as his expression was that none would dare dispute their Sovreingty.” Within the first few months of 1764, widespread discussions regarding the pervasive stamp taxes were occurring.

  Meanwhile in England, Thomas Whately, Grenville’s industrious secretary, was rapidly assembling data and drafting instructions for the Stamp Act. In August 1764 he sent classified surveys to Boston Surveyor of Customs John Temple and Jared Ingersoll in Connecticut requesting information and input for features of the Act. Publically, Grenville kept the colonial lobbyists and legislatures in check by suggesting that the tax could be avoided if the colonies could produce similar revenue by other means. In response to this suggestion, Boston merchants and their representatives called for action, and on August 17, 1764, the Boston members of the House requested that Governor Bernard quickly call the General Court into session. Jemmy and the Popular Party suspected that Grenville’s suggestion was merely a ploy to buy time and quiescence, but they were determined to organize resistance to the tax and dispatch more protests to Mauduit before Parliament convened in November. Bernard and Hutchinson were perfectly aware of the Popular Party’s plans and wished to prevent the ruthless protests that the Popular Party was likely to demand in a House session.

  A Boston town meeting was held on August 16, 1764, and Jemmy was again moderator. The usual issues of grammar schools and land improvement were addressed, and in a bit of sharp irony Jemmy was appointed to lead a committee directing the construction of an insane asylum to be funded by a £600 gift from Thomas Hancock, John’s uncle, who had recently died. The following year, with Jemmy again as moderator, the town appointed the committee to establish Hancocks Hospital for “unhappy Persons” who had been deprived “of their Reason,” with Jemmy on another committee to raise additional funds.

  Meanwhile, Bernard tried to delay while waiting for more information from London – nothing could be worse than what Jemmy and the Popular Party expected – and to allow Court Party members enough time to travel to Boston; he wanted to be sure that Court Party attendance was at its maximum at the opening of the session lest Jemmy ram through another incendiary memorial right when a quorum was reached. Popular Party members took their annoyance about the delay to the press, and the Gazette unleashed a series of articles criticizing the delay that Bernard claimed only served to “inflame the people.” On August 27, 1764, “T.Q.” – probably Oxenbridge Thacher – published an explanation of the new strict customs system that included a description of the employment of the Hovering Act as nothing short of harassing coastal shippers. In the same Gazette issue, “Shearjashub Squeezum” published an article with references to possible corruption in the Salem customs house that resulted in the dismissal of Cockle, the customs officer who likely verbally requested the writ of assistance in 1760, and Governor Bernard’s entanglement in some questionable business. Another paper war was simmering. And with Jemmy’s principles detailed in Rights juxtaposed with the questionable activities of Cockle and Bernard, some Court Party disciples such as James Bowdoin began to lose their faith in the government. Eventually, Bernard agreed to call the General Court into session by mid-October, and following a meeting with Popular Party members, Bernard took refuge on his beloved Mount Desert Island. The Gazette published a rebuke on September 3, chiding that Mount Desert “must be very valuable; for we cannot suppose that a trifling matter would induce his Excellency to leave or postpone the most Important Affair That Perhaps Ever Came Before A General Assembly.”

  If Bernard was determined to delay political solutions, then the Popular Party and the merchants would implement market-based solutions; by October 1764, serious organization began for a boycott of British luxury goods. Criticism in the press continued with intimations of incompetence, secret negotiations, perfidy, and speculation about Bernard being recalled to London and replaced by lieutenant governor Hutchinson. When the new session of the General Court finally opened on October 18, the Boston bench of Jemmy Otis, Thacher, Cushing, and Gray sprang to action. The morning consisted of procedural matters that included a lecture on moderation from the governor – it was impossible to tell whether he was attempting to instruct or begging, regardless, no one in the Popular Party cared to listen. After the lecture, Governor Bernard retreated to Castle William thus leaving management of the Council to Hutchinson. The afternoon consisted of a series of debates, and the next day the House decided “that an Address be prepared and presented to His Majesty in Parliament upon the State of the Province,” and the entire Boston bench, moderate Speaker White and six others were appointed to the drafting committee, but the committee was a ruse because Thacher and Otis had drafted the “Address” well before Bernard gave his lecture on moderation. Three days later the “Address” was read into the record, accepted, and sent to the Council for concurrence. Hutchinson was opposed to the stamp taxes for both practical and philosophical reasons, so he favored an “Address,” but he concluded that the Thacher-Otis creation was too aggressive to have any hope of being presented to the House of Commons. Hutchinson shepherded a rejection through the Council that generated a joint session without result. So a large joint committee was created, and by November 1 the “Address to the King in Parliament” had been attenuated to a “Petition … to the Honourable House of Commons.” Even some of the radicals hoped that Hutchinson would have some insight into how to get heard in an organization steeped in traditions of deference. The final point of contention rested on a single word. Whereas the House insisted on asserting their “Rights,” the Council urged employing the term “Priviledges” with reference to parliamentary taxation exemption. The Court Party was eager to affirm their “Priviledges,” which were bestowed by a superior and recognized a deferential relationship. The House and Council finally agreed on the term “Liberties.” The petition was sent to Jasper Mauduit, and Bernard suspended the session with the sense that he’d luckily evaded a worse fate.

  Hutchinson had argued that the Massachusetts petition’s modest tenor would facilitate its effectiveness in the corridors of power, particularly when compared to the tactless petitions from Rhode Island and New York. William Bayard delivered a copy of the New York petition to Boston; it tackled the “rights” versus “priviledges” predicament directly, proclaiming “They nobly disdain the thought of claiming that Exemption as a Privilege. – They found it on a Basis more honourable, solid and stable; they challenge it, and glory in it as their Right.”

  The Massachusetts Popular Party was distressed that they had been persuaded to refrain from asserting their “rights.” But the Boston oligarchy was strong, the Court Party was in control of the House and Council, and there wasn’t much the Popular Party could do. Thomas Cushing sent a secret letter to Jasper Mauduit on November 17, delivered personally by fellow member of the House Bela Lincoln; Lincoln’s brother Ben would years later officially accept Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown. In Cushing’s secret letter of 1764, he explained that the House “were clearly for making an ample and full declaration of the exclusive Right of the People of th
e Colonies to tax themselves … but they could not prevail with the Councill.” Cushing further explains the House’s predicament:

  in short they were reduced to this alternative either to join with the Council in the Petition forwarded you by the Secretary or to petition by themselves & considering they had wrote you fully upon the matter of Rights ye last session & had sent you a small tract entituled, The Rights of the British Colonies in general & of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in particular briefly stated, which they then desired & expected you woud make the best use of in your Power, they thought it ye less necessary to remonstrate by themselves at this time …

  In other words, the House members either wrote of privileges or liberties or nothing at all, and considering that they had previously forwarded Otis’s Rights pamphlet to Mauduit, they felt that he was fully aware of their true position.

  Though Jemmy Otis had been a member of all the drafting committees, it is not possible to determine what part he played in the final draft, though he likely conceded to the House’s conciliatory impulses after realizing that the Council had no interest in the initial Thacher-Otis draft. Further, Jemmy was laying plans for an assault far greater than a letter to Parliament, and thus proceeded cautiously in the fall of 1764. During the hiatus before the General Court’s winter session, the Otis family network would grow increasingly complicated. Samuel Allyne, probably through the social efforts of his sister and business associations of his father, had been acquainted to the Harrison Gray family and developed a relationship with Elizabeth Gray, the province treasurer’s daughter. On November 14, 1764, they publicized their intention to marry, and the wedding was held on December 31. In reply to Harrison Gray’s wedding invitation the Colonel pleaded “the season of the year and the health of our family” in excusing Mary Otis’s absence. He also intimated that Joseph’s health was questionable, though the reference may have been to Joseph’s wife, Rebecca Sturgis, who would die a little over a year later. While Colonel Otis was certainly pleased with this marriage, another connection to a member of the Boston oligarchy surely complicated Jemmy’s life. On December 5, 1764, Samuel Allyne wrote one of his usual jaunty letters to his brother Joseph urging him to attend the wedding, but in addressing his own circumstances, he suggested something ominous was looming: “And tho I launch out with a pleasant gale, tho my streamers all aboard betoken of my present prosperity; I dare not exult, & feel something which checks & seems to tell me: Storms & tempests are consequent.”

  One of the commercial enterprises that boomed during the war years was government money contractors, essentially private bankers that received money from the Parliament and distributed it to the troops, keeping a 2.5% commission. In the 1750s, Charles Apthorp, his son Charles and his son-in-law Nathaniel Wheelwright operated such a private bank in Boston. Charles Sr. died in 1758, and as the war ended, business decreased significantly. Charles Jr. dissolved the business in 1764 and moved to New York, where British troops were still stationed and the money contracting business was still profitable. Private banks such as Wheelwright’s also issued private notes just as the province issued public notes. The public and private notes typically paid the same interest – “lawful interest” – of 6%, but the public notes had the distinct disadvantage of being monopolized by the oligarchs; those with few connections invested with private banks. Further, the parsimonious Massachusetts House was issuing fewer notes, just £138,000 in 1765. And so, private investors trusted their money with the same men Whitehall trusted. Upon Charles Jr.’s dissolution of the firm, investors were advised in the summer of 1764 to redeem their notes and otherwise settle accounts with Wheelwright. Charles Jr. conducted an audit of Wheelwright’s books at the end of 1764, showing about £132,000 in debts and £154,000 in assets. The total value of all imports and exports between Britain and New England in the early 1760s did not exceed £300,000 annually, so Wheelwright’s reported assets exceeded 50% of the entire value of annual Britain-New England imports and exports.

  The month after Samuel Allyne’s wedding, on January 16, 1765, Nathaniel Wheelwright did not open the doors to his counting house. The wartime economic bubble had burst, and New England’s shaky credit structure that so many had attempted to stabilize was crumbling. Wheelwright’s insolvency resembled that of any other colonial business: the precarious balance between creditors and debtors gave way when creditors demanded payment faster than debtors paid. Wheelwright simply could not maintain liquidity with the general economy slowing, Parliament issuing fewer money contracts, and Charles Jr. demanding the immediate transfer of about £92,000 while recommending that all clients settle open accounts. Charles Apthorp, Jr. again reviewed Wheelwright’s books, and discovered his debt to Charles Jr. was over £92,000, his total debt exceeded £178,000, and his total assets, which included several accounts that Wheelwright was unlikely to collect, was £176,000. Businesses that had financing through Wheelwright closed; the courts were flooded with suits; merchants demanded payment in gold and silver and immediate payment on all open credit lines. Just two days before his 28th birthday, John Hancock, who had recently become a full partner at his uncle’s firm House of Hancock, wrote his London agents on January 21, 1765 that “trade has met with a most prodigious shock. … Times are very bad here; and take my word, my good friends, the times will be worse here.” Merchant John Rowe, who owned the wharf next to Wheelwright’s, reported his mind was “too much disturbed” to attend church. Governor Bernard wrote to London that Wheelwright’s bankruptcy was “like an earthquake to the town; numbers of people were creditors, some for their all. Every one dreaded the consequences; lesser merchants began to fail; a stop to all credit was expected. …” Jemmy similarly referenced an “earthquake” in his description to English clients on January 25, 1765:

  … the failing of Mr Wheelwright which happened here last week and has given as great a shock to credit here as your South Sea Bubble did in England years ago. This Gentleman … acquired such an undue Credit that he became next to the Treasurer, Banker General for the province and almost for the Continent his Notes passed at par with those of our province, which are as good as your Bank Notes … I can compare it to nothing but the late Earthquake at Lisbon, such was the Consternation for some little time that people appeared with pale Horror and Dread.

  As there was no credit structure to issue general credit to merchants or to guarantee Wheelwright’s debt, Massachusetts’s business from large shippers to small farmers slowed to a state of nearly schizophrenic panic. The General Court’s winter term convened on January 9, 1765, and within a week, Wheelwright’s bankruptcy colored every debate. On January 22, the House passed an Act to regulate the distribution of assets intended to curb the inevitable flurry of lawsuits by creditors. The House also proposed lowering the interest paid on public notes from 6% to 5% in order to decrease the burden on tax payers in uncertain economic times. But the Council, many of whom owned public notes and represented others who invested heavily in them, rejected the decrease. Through the end of January and into early February, the General Court considered several other proposals to avert bankruptcies and keep them orderly and out of the courts when they did occur. It was under these tempestuous conditions that the Sugar Act was being implemented, customs enforcement was taken to new levels of austerity, and stamp taxes were being deliberated. And it was under these conditions that calm debates about new taxes could be finessed into caustic action.

  Jemmy had an idea but in order to implement it, he needed another Mount Desert Island, and he found it in much maligned lobbyist Jasper Mauduit. Mauduit was tired of Massachusetts politics and apprised the General Court that he no longer could act as lobbyist because of his failing health. The 73-year-old Mauduit had asked the Popular Party to find another lobbyist on October 31, 1764. Further, Boston’s Black Regiment was growing doubtful of Mauduit’s efforts. Mayhew wrote a letter on December 18, 1764 that questioned whether Mauduit was a “double-minded man – in a strait between honesty and the wicked po
licy of the times.” A year before, on May 4, Chauncy wrote a letter to Mauduit expressing his displeasure that Mauduit had made no progress in getting the dissident’s missionary society chartered. That same year, on June 1, Mauduit received a letter from another Black Regiment minister stating his displeasure that their charter “has met with such Opposition.” The Court Party did not know that Mauduit had fallen from favor within the Black Regiment, and Jemmy realized the opportunity to play Mauduit’s dismissal for maximum effect.