Arsonist: The Most Dangerous Man in America

by Nathan Allen

  And what was the cause of this masterful stroke of political manipulation? The probable answer is that it was no event, but rather a person, the greatest political operator that Jemmy knew – his father. The relationship between son and father had been cold since the Colonel’s ascendency to the Council; most in the Popular Party, Jemmy included, viewed the Colonel’s new position as a betrayal. Jemmy had stormed out of the House and resigned his seat. The Colonel taught Jemmy a lesson with the Mount Desert Island grant to Bernard: an opponent will respond better to your argument if they don’t think of you as an enemy. The Colonel had always been a master of compromise; recall that he’d helped push through Hutchinson’s currency reform bill in 1750 in exchange for the debt collection clarification that helped Jemmy prosecute a case. And as John Adams later claimed that Jemmy’s writs of assistance argument was the first shot of the Revolution, a meeting that would soon take place between Jemmy and his father would result in a thorough bombardment of the oligarchy. And that meeting was likely not the first between the two; the planning had probably ensued over months and perhaps began when Jemmy and his father spent that previous cold November together in Barnstable. The Colonel had likely told his son that if he desired his own Council seat, then he should grant his enemies a Mount Desert Island. Jemmy’s apparent apostasy was a vital ingredient to the plan, as was the fact that Jemmy, now Speaker of the House, chaired 45 committees and sat on another 102 – a vast increase over the 14 chairs and 49 committee assignments he’d held the previous year.

  Meanwhile, confusion reigned in the Popular Party, with John Adams later recalling that, “There was an appearance of coalition between Hutchinson and Otis, which had wellnigh Otis’s popularity and influence forever. The rage against him in Boston seemed to without bounds. He was called a reprobate, an apostate, and a traitor, in every street in Boston. … But I then suspected and believed that Otis was corrupted and bought off . … This was the general opinion.” Significantly, Adams failed to recognize that Popular Party members expressed the same “rage” when the Otises shepherded through the Mount Desert Island grant in 1762; the Colonel got a Council seat and was roundly condemned for being “bought off.” Governor Bernard seemed to forget the details of the Mount Desert arrangement as well; he wrote John Pownall on May 6, 1765:

  The author of the Rights of the Colonies, now repents in Sackcloth & ashes for the hand he had in that book & in the printed Letter to the Agent. In a pamphlett lately published he has in the humblest manner asked for the pardon of the Ministry & of the parliament for the liberties he took with them. This Confession, which is sincere, is likely to cost him his seat in the Assembly altho’ he had evry Vote at the last Election.

  Francis Bernard’s naiveté was in no short supply, and his assurance to Pownall that the “Confession … is sincere” exemplifies what the Otises surely knew and what Thomas Hutchinson feared: Bernard was blinded by his desperation for “Easy” and lucrative years in Massachusetts. The newspapers were quiet other than a jibe in the Gazette that Otis was now “free from all political Connections.” The annual town elections were scheduled for Tuesday, May 14, and the buzz on the streets echoed Governor Bernard’s opinion that Jemmy Otis would not be reelected. But on the day before the election, the two major newspapers published articles that swayed public opinion. Samuel Waterhouse, an anonymous pamphleteer and customs official known for his invective, published a cruel poem under the name “Peter Minim” in the Evening-Post meant to be sung to the tune of the old English satirical ballad Lillibullero. Waterhouse’s burlesque was entitled “Jemmibullero: A Fragment of an Ode to Orpheus” and filled an entire column, and, in part, reads:

  And Jemmy is a silly dog, and Jemmy is a tool;

  And Jemmy is a stupid cur, and Jemmy is a fool;

  And Jemmy is a madman, and Jemmy is an ass,

  And Jemmy has a leaden head, and a forehead spread with Brass.

  And Jemmy’s a malicious dog, -- you see it in his look,

  And Jemmy’s scribbled politics, and Jemmy’s burnt his book.

  And Jemmy is a sorry jade, -- Ah Jemmy hasn’t mettle

  And Jemmy pleads his bloody nose when quarrels he should settle

  So Jemmy rail’d at upper folks while Jemmy’s DAD was out,

  But Jemmy’s DAD now has a place, so Jemmy’s turned about.

  And Jemmy wrote the Letter too, and Jemmy’s now afraid,

  But Jemmy needn’t scare himself, --- THEY know what’s Jemmy’s trade.

  Lillibullero is a British ballad that mocked Irish hopes of expelling English troops; the title is likely a garbed version of the Irish for “Lilly was clear and ours was the day” – the “lilly” a reference to both the Bourbon Lillies and a popular 16th century prophet who foretold of a Catholic English king. The irony of ridiculing Otis with a song that mocked the hopes of a people who wished to be free from British oppression with the aid of the French could not have been appreciated at the time. Yet the general idea was not lost on the people of Boston, and this bit of derision effected the opposite of its author’s objective because it implied that Jemmy had not decamped in the Court Party. This is the second time that labeling Jemmy a “madman” only served to rouse public support in his favor. Also on that Monday before elections, the Gazette printed an appeal from James Otis addressed to the “Freeholders and other Inhabitants of Boston,” claiming in part,

  There lives not a man who can say I ever asked his vote or his interest. … I am, ever have been, and expect ever to be, a poor man. . . . I have given up £200 a year sterling. …I know not where to go for any part of this money. Should my children want it, and their daily bread, I hope it will be some consolation to them, that their father lost part of his in a vain attempt to serve his country. … I have sacrificed peace, quiet, real friends and every tempting allurement of man, naturally and constitutionally inclined to social pleasures. Tell me once dear friends, what have I got by all this, besides the curse causeless, of thousands, for whose welfare my heart has bled yearly, and is now ready to burst. …

  More than anything, Otis pleaded that he was not a part of the oligarchy. He was poor, not motivated by self-interest, not driven by social connections. This was certainly not an argument that Hutchinson, the Olivers, Bernard or Colonel Otis would present; all of them would have been embarrassed to makes such claims. After this declaration of his anti-oligarchy position, the pleading stopped, and the rebel returned:

  What would it avail for me to tell you, that were it lawful and possible, to get at my deeply entrenched fellow commoner, who I know to be the cause of all your calamities, I would leap like a Roe, not to run away but to pay part of the purchase of your ransom with my life or his? Possibly I need not leave America to find him.

  Jemmy never uttered the word “independence” and sometimes decried mob action, but he more than once stoked the fire of violent uprising. Here, on May 13, 1765, he publically stated he would kill or be killed purchasing the ransom – the freedom – of the people of Boston. How long would it be before the people of Boston agreed with this sentiment? Jemmy also requested a “half an hour’s talk” before the town meeting on election day, and apparently his words were sufficiently convincing. There were 641 votes cast that Tuesday. Thomas Gray got 570, Thomas Cushing 538, Oxenbridge Thacher 427 and James Otis 388. Obviously a significant number of people were unsure what to make of Otis’s seeming new friendship with Bernard, but enough found faith in the “poor man” to return him to the Boston bench, and he was chosen as moderator. Samuel White was again elected Speaker, and the Court Party again seemed to effectively control the Assembly. Interestingly though, immediately after the votes were tallied, Jemmy was “unanimously chosen” as town moderator. The low vote count seems to reflect some trepidation, but the election as town moderator belies such a conclusion. The power brokers seemed to know perfectly well Otis’s plans and were determined to affirm their support with a unanimous election to the moderator position. Otis was repeatedly chosen a
s moderator over the next few years.

  The plot of which Hutchinson was all too suspicious but of which Bernard was all too ignorant had begun to unfold. Jemmy had simultaneously placated Bernard and enflamed the people. Later that month the Superior Court convened in Plymouth, and Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson was informed that a mysterious meeting had taken place across the street from the Plymouth court house. The Warren family – a son had married Mercy, Jemmy’s sister – had hosted Jemmy and the Colonel, and discussions had taken place. A decision – whose exactly we don’t know – was made that the colonies should take united action against the Stamp Act. This unification would enable “the demagogues of the several governments in America to join together in opposition to all orders from Great Britain.” Jemmy had led the efforts to unite the colonial assemblies a year before in opposition to the new sugar tax, and that effort – and its lack of result – must have been fore in his mind. It’s likely he’d been planning this new move since then, and he’d been positioning Bernard so that the governor couldn’t blunt the new efforts that were required to make this unification effort successful. Finally, he was going to answer the question: What action can the colonies take if Parliament chooses to ignore their rights?

  The “Black Act,” as John Rowe branded The Stamp Act, had become a statute of the realm on March 22 with a November 1, 1765 effectuation date. The Stamp Act was much more than a simple revenue act; it was Parliament’s effort to lay comprehensive regulations on the Colonies, and, to a significant degree, the first such effort. The Act dictated the manner in which many businesses and private persons could interact and increased the ways in which ordinary daily interactions could be illegal. Nearly everything that pertained to paper was now regulated, and such regulations not only applied to the obvious, such as newspapers, but also to official documents of all sorts. A liquor business could be fined if its permit was not properly stamped; a wide variety of legal documents would be void if they lacked the appropriate stamps. And, as legislatures are sometimes wont, Parliament impregnated an ostensive revenue bill with special regulations for newspapers, pamphlets and books. First, the penalty for printing without stamps was steep:

  the Author, Printer, and Publisher, and all other Persons concerned in or about the printing or publishing of such Pamphlet, shall, for every such Offence, forfeit the Sum of Ten Pounds

  But the Act went further; not only were all those associated with an unstamped publication fined, but they lost their copyright to the publication, such that

  any Person may freely print and publish the same, paying the Duty payable in respect thereof by virtue of this Act, without being liable to any Action, Prosecution, or Penalty for so doing.

  The effect of such regulation would be to cool the hot colonial presses as every publication would now incur the additional expense of a stamp or a fine, and face the possibility of forfeiting ownership of the publication. But Parliament went further to cool the presses, particularly the heated political debates and paper wars, by banning anonymous publications:

  And it is hereby further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That no Person whatsoever shall sell or expose to Sale any such Pamphlet, or any News-Paper, without the true respective Name or Names, and Place or Places of Abode, of some known Person or Persons by or for whom the same was really and truly printed or published, shall be written or printed thereon; upon Pain that every Person offending therein shall, for every such Offence, forfeit the Sum of Twenty Pounds.

  All slanderous remarks and seditious observations must now have a name and “Place or Places of Abode” attached to them; it was clear to all that such a regulation not only permitted pervasive enforcement of the Black Act but also facilitated prosecution of anyone not a “friend of government.” The Stamp Act’s purpose went far beyond generating revenue; it inserted government regulation into the far reaches of private colonial activity and attached potentially significant liability to critiquing the government and government officials. And the colonists feared the Act was merely a prelude to greater regulation.

  Otis and the Popular Party likely had been distressed by the variation that bordered on discrepancy reflected in the petitions the colonial assemblies had sent to England, and Otis had experienced during the paper war how little one man could accomplish. Further, given how easily Whitehall could target one man, he would have feared the impotence of any abrupt attempt by one colonial legislature and would have equally feared disparate efforts likely to result in nothing but more regulation. The Otis family conclave that occurred in May 1765 at the Warren house in Plymouth decided that a united colonial congress was the necessary solution to the inadequate efforts at colonial collaboration of the past year. They also concluded that such united cooperation was the foundation of any successful action the colonies could employ against Parliament. It was a daring, innovative idea that could only be safely nurtured by men who were viewed as friends of government. To have any likelihood of success, the unification effort had to be concealed as an inside job.

  The newly elected General Court first met on May 24, 1765, and Governor Bernard gave the usual state of the province address in which he confessed to the “novelty” and the “disagreeable” features of the new “regulation,” but strongly advised “respectful submission” for “there must be a supreme Legislature, to which all other Powers are subordinate.” The speech could have been plagiarized from Jemmy’s Vindication and Brief Remarks; while the Popular Party thought Otis’s last pamphlet betrayed their beliefs, Otis had, in effect, written a script for Bernard to follow. And amazingly, Bernard was following it. Regardless of Jemmy’s well laid plans, the Popular Party was determined to play the antagonist, first by attempting to deny a Council seat to Andrew Oliver, the newly designated stamp distributor and the eternally irritating Hutchinson; their efforts almost succeeded this time. Meanwhile, the newly government-friendly Jemmy and his father lobbied the moderate Assembly members to support a meeting of the colonies. So a committee began meeting on June 6; while the meetings weren’t exactly secret, the House took the extremely unusual measure of withholding all official reports of the meetings from being printed in the House Journal until final decisions had been reached, which severely limited Bernard’s knowledge of and ability to impede the meetings. Finally on June 25 – after all necessary meetings were concluded – the House voted to disclose these furtive meetings in the pages of the Journals of the House of Representatives, and they read in full:

  On a Motion made and seconded, Ordered, That all the Proceedings relative to the sending a Committee to New-York, be printed in this Day’s Journal as follows, viz.

  In the House of Representatives, June 6, 1765.

  The House taking into Consideration the many difficulties to which the Colonies are and must be reduced by the Operation of some late Acts of Parliament; after some Time spent.

  On a Motion made and seconded, Ordered, That Mr. Speaker, Brigadier Ruggles, Col. Partridge, Col. Worthington, General Winslow, Mr. Otis, Mr. Cushing, Col. Saltonshall and Capt. Sheaffe, be a Committee to consider what Measures had best be taken, and make Report.

  The Committee appointed for that Purpose, reported as follows.

  The Committee appointed to consider what dutiful, loyal and humble Address may be proper to make to our gracious Sovereign and his Parliament, in relation to the several Acts lately passed, for levying Duties and Taxes on the Colonies, have attended that Service, and are humbly of opinion:

  That it is highly expedient there should be a Meeting as soon as may be, of Committees from the Houses of Representatives or Burgesses in the several Colonies on this Continent to consult together on the present Circumstances of the Colonies, and the Difficulties to which they are and must be reduced by the operation of the late Acts of Parliament for levying Duties and Taxes on the Colonies, and to consider of a general and humble Address to his Majesty and the Parliament to implore Relief.