American Spring

by Walter R. Borneman

  In October of 1765, Hancock joined 250 British merchants, among whom he was clearly a kingpin, in supporting a boycott of British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed. For Hancock it was definitely a win-win. With the depressed economy, his business was at low ebb. His remaining credit in London was nil, and he could not have ordered a shipload of British goods if he had wanted to. Joining the boycott gave him an excuse to unload existing inventories at bargain prices. The boycott was actually good for his business, and it made him look like a hero to the Adams crowd. As for his own debts, he craftily pointed out to his London agent that without stamps, “he was legally unable to issue any remittances.”29

  It helped John Hancock immensely that he was well liked by his hundreds of employees and related operators who depended on his many businesses. By one later estimate, perhaps a little high, “a thousand families were, every day in the year, dependent on Mr. Hancock for their daily bread.”30 So when Hancock showed up at the Green Dragon, or any other establishment in Boston, the rank and file sang his praises as someone who treated them kindly and honestly.

  In the end, the people hurt the most by this boycott were British merchants whose flow of orders from America and accounts receivable from past business took a substantial dip. By one account, British exports to the colonies dropped 14 percent, and London merchants pleaded with Parliament as readily as did their American cousins to consider “every Ease and Advantage the North Americans can with Propriety desire.”31

  A wealthy planter in Virginia who was watching events throughout the colonies held a similar view. “I fancy the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the colonies, will not be among the last to wish for a repeal of the act,” George Washington wrote to the uncle of his wife, Martha, in London. As for Hancock, he declared to his London agent “that not a man in England, in proportion to estate, pays the tax that I do.” He would not be a slave, Hancock declared. “I have a right to the Libertys & Privileges of the English Constitution, & I as an Englishman will enjoy them.”32

  With Adams’s blessing and the support of the Boston Caucus, Hancock won a seat in the Massachusetts legislature, polling five votes more than Adams himself received in his own race. Hancock thought that he was championing commercial freedom, but what his election really did was bring him to the full attention of the government in London, which now identified him as “one of the Leaders of the disaffected.” This impression was particularly solidified when, in one of Hancock’s tavern campaign talks, he had boasted that he “would not suffer any of our [English customs] Officers to go even on board any of his London ships.”33

  Out for a walk that election day, John Adams happened to run into cousin Samuel and they took “a few turns together.” Coming in view of Hancock’s mansion on Beacon Hill, Samuel pointed to the impressive structure and remarked to John, “This town has done a wise thing to-day. They have made that young man’s fortune their own.”34

  Ten days later, lightning struck. One of Hancock’s ships docked in Boston with news that Parliament had repealed the Stamp Act. Samuel Adams’s mob—dignified in some circles by the name Sons of Liberty—set off a huge fireworks display on Boston Common. Then they marched on John Hancock’s Beacon Hill property, just as Hancock had once feared. But now they came to crown Hancock the hero of the hour for championing the boycott. He responded with fireworks of his own “in answer to those of the Sons of Liberty” and set out a pipe of Madeira wine—a cask of about 125 gallons—to treat the crowd. The only casualty of the night occurred when a giant wooden pyramid bedecked with lanterns, which had been erected on the Common, caught fire by accident and burned to the ground.35

  The end result was that John Hancock and Samuel Adams emerged from the Stamp Act crisis as somewhat unlikely political partners. As the years went by, there would never be any question which side they were on. Others would vacillate, even up until the final hour, but together Hancock and Adams would stay the course toward rebellion and, ultimately, independence. As for those who wavered in their views, “Their opinions,” noted Samuel’s cousin John with disgust as he sat down to the First Continental Congress, “have undergone as many changes as the moon.”36

  Chapter 4

  Volleys of Words

  In the decade before 1775, rebels and loyalists aggressively used political propaganda to promote their individual agendas—just as political leaders have done throughout history. When events such as the Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts occurred, both sides were quick to put their respective spins on the issues and to circulate their ideas as widely as they could. What gave colonial media wider distribution and greater weight than merely a local readership would have conferred was the postal system, which sped newspapers and letters from committees of correspondence to every corner of the colonies.

  By 1775, thanks to Benjamin Franklin’s efforts years before, the thirteen colonies enjoyed a state-of-the-art postal system. Franklin was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737. At the time, there was little communication between the colonies—at least not on an urgent basis—and mail delivery even between principal cities was a matter of “maybe it gets there, maybe it doesn’t.” Most often, mail was entrusted to a private traveler known to be going that way.

  By 1753, Franklin was deputy royal postmaster for North America, essentially a postmaster general for the colonies. By the time Franklin left Philadelphia for his extended stay in England, he had eliminated this haphazard approach and unified and streamlined mail delivery into a truly reliable postal system. His post riders pioneered twenty-four-hour travel, using lanterns when necessary, horse relays, and centralized offices in major towns. Not only did his system reduce delivery times and increase reliability, it also proved profitable. The canny Franklin may or may not have realized at the time that he was nurturing what would one day become an essential component of revolutionary communication.

  Riders carrying letters and newspapers made the trip from Boston to Philadelphia in five days and reached as far south as Charleston, South Carolina, in a month. This gave newspapers wide and relatively timely circulation, and it was common for papers in Boston and New York to reprint news of interest from Georgia and the Carolinas and vice versa. As political events heated up, rebels and loyalists—there were newspapers aligned with both sides—could read what their brethren were doing throughout the colonies.

  Perhaps even more important, rebel committees of correspondence had direct and speedy—for the times—access to committees in other colonies. Initially, these committees were formed for a limited duration in response to a specific event—such as the committees in Massachusetts and New York, which promoted the Stamp Act Congress—but by 1775, some committees of correspondence had become shadow governments. This was particularly true after Parliament disbanded colonial legislatures with the passage of the Intolerable Acts. The postal system allowed rebel committees of correspondence to exchange news, formulate cooperative plans, and direct concerted action.

  FOR MUCH OF THE HEYDAY of American newspapers during the twentieth century, major cities boasted at least two papers of competing political persuasions. It was no different in Boston in 1775. Among the newspapers in Boston that year, Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy and the Boston Gazette, published by Benjamin Edes and John Gill, trumpeted the rebel cause. Brothers Thomas Fleet Jr. and John Fleet’s Boston Evening-Post and Richard Draper’s Massachusetts Gazette—variously known as or published in tandem with the Boston News-Letter and Boston Post-Boy—were bastions of loyalist thought.

  In just one example of the heated exchanges that occurred early in 1775, a writer signing himself only as “a Friend to Peace and Good Order”—who was in truth loyalist Harrison Gray—published a pamphlet containing inflammatory criticism of the recent Continental and Massachusetts Provincial Congresses. Calling the adoption of the Suffolk Resolves nothing “short of high treason and rebellion,” Gray charged that “the only apology that could be made for their conduct was, that they came into thi
s vote immediately after drinking thirty two bumpers of the best madeira,” and that by the following morning “they were ashamed of what they had done; but it was then too late for a reconsideration of the vote.” Gray claimed that to avoid such mistakes in the future, the delegates “prudently determined to do no business after dinner.”1

  Edes and Gill, writing in the Boston Gazette in rebuttal, termed Gray’s pamphlet “despicable” and noted it was “commonly called the Gray Maggot.” As for Gray’s “most impudent and false Assertion,” the Gazette replied that as the minutes of the congress showed, “they never did any Business after Dinner.” The Suffolk Resolves, the Gazette concluded, “were acted upon on a Saturday in the Forenoon.”2

  Perhaps the longest-running war of words occurred between two writers signing themselves “Massachusettensis” and “Novanglus.” As John Adams recalled many years later, upon his return from the First Continental Congress in November of 1774, he “found the Massachusetts Gazette teeming with political speculations, and Massachusettensis shining like the moon among the lesser stars” in defense of the loyalist cause. Adams immediately surmised that Massachusettensis was none other than his estranged friend, Jonathan Sewall. Told that Massachusettensis “excited great exultation among the tories and many gloomy apprehensions among the whigs,” Adams “immediately resolved to enter the lists with him.”3

  If his suspicion of Sewall’s involvement was indeed his belief at the time, it brings a particular poignancy to the exchange. Not only were the two men advocates of their respective causes, they also were estranged friends turned determined adversaries. But in fact, as Adams acknowledged later, he was in error. Massachusettensis was not Jonathan Sewall but yet another Massachusetts lawyer named Daniel Leonard.

  Born in Norton, Massachusetts, in 1740, Daniel Leonard was the son of the owner of an iron foundry in nearby Taunton. Entering Harvard in 1760, Leonard finished second in his class and felt compelled to prove his merits by delivering his commencement speech in Latin. He returned to Taunton and practiced law with Samuel White, who was also the speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly. Leonard married White’s daughter, Anna, in 1767, but she died in childbirth the following year. Later, he married Sarah Hammock and had three children with her. In 1769, he became king’s attorney for Bristol County.

  Smart, wealthy, well connected, and recognized as one of the finest legal minds in Massachusetts, Leonard was a prime example of just how difficult it sometimes was to determine which side one was on—or even that a crisis requiring a choice of sides was at hand. Not only did Leonard have all the trappings of royally connected power and esteem, he was also a lieutenant colonel of the Bristol County militia. In this capacity, he reportedly spoke coolly of King George, king’s attorney though he was.

  Then in 1774, royal governor Thomas Hutchinson appointed Leonard a mandamus councilor. Now his allegiance was really being tested. Leonard denied that he had changed his position, but he chose to don the robe of loyalist rather than be further swayed by rebel arguments. When rebels in Taunton challenged his decision, Leonard’s home was attacked by a mob firing shots and breaking windows. Like many rural mandamus councilors, Leonard sought refuge in occupied Boston.4

  Whether or not this thirty-four-year-old lawyer and businessman—run out of his own town by rebels—took it upon himself to speak out for the loyalist status quo or was possibly encouraged to do so by General Gage is not known. But in December of 1774, Leonard began his series of articles—in the form of letters to the editor—that were published in the Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston Post-Boy and Advertiser. Leonard chose to sign himself Massachusettensis, a concocted name with a Latin flair.

  The use of pseudonyms or pen names by contributors was not at all unusual in those days, but just why writers adopted them is an interesting question. There usually was little mystery—among the well informed, at least—as to the true identity of an author. Newspapers were leaky sieves of gossip and innuendo. Libel laws may have been of some concern, but prosecution was usually reserved for blatant assaults on individual character rather than advocacy of general political views. Such presumed anonymity tended, however, to allow authors to express views more pointed and accusations more personal than if they had signed their own names. Some authors no doubt also felt that such pseudonyms—particularly when they referenced noted Roman statesmen or were otherwise Latin flavored—added a mark of distinction and gravity to their words.

  Samuel Adams appears to have used at least twenty-five pseudonyms, including Candidus, Populus, and A Son of Liberty, and Alexander Hamilton (Publius, Americanus), Benjamin Franklin (Silence Dogood, Richard Saunders), Robert Livingston (Cato), and James Madison (Helvidius) all employed pen names. Another advantage, according to journalism historian Eric Burns, was that the more pseudonyms an author used, “the more likely it was that readers would think of him as several authors [and] his views, therefore, would seem to be held by many rather than simply one man with a prolific pen.”5

  Daniel Leonard was somewhat of an exception to the hate-mongering that frequently sprang from such pseudonymous columns; the impassioned pleas he made as Massachusettensis for loyalty to the king began in a balanced and moderate tone. “When a people, by what means soever, are reduced to such a situation, that every thing they hold dear, as men and citizens, is at stake,” Leonard wrote in his first letter, dated December 5, 1774, “it is not only excusable, but even praiseworthy for an individual to offer to the public any thing that he may think has a tendency to ward off the impending danger.”6

  A main theme of the loyalist argument that Leonard underscored was the impossibility of the colonies surviving on their own or prevailing in a direct struggle against the assembled might of Great Britain. “With the British navy in the front, Canadians and savages in the rear, [and] a regular army in the midst,” Massachusettensis noted, “desolation will pass through our land like a whirlwind, our houses be burnt to ashes, [and] our fair possessions laid waste.”7

  As January of 1775 passed, Leonard’s weekly missives became more strident. “You are loyal at heart, friends to good order,” Massachusettensis told his readers. “But you have been most insidiously induced to believe that Great-Britain is rapacious, cruel and vindictive.”8 Two weeks later, he warned: “To deny the supreme authority of the state is a high misdemeanor… to oppose it by force is an overt act of treason, punishable by confiscation of estate and most ignominious death.”9

  John Adams chose to answer Massachusettensis as Novanglus, meaning “New Englander,” but he took his time doing so. His first Novanglus letter appeared in the Boston Gazette on January 23, 1775, seven weeks after Massachusettensis’s opening salvo. Adams’s tone was uncompromising from the start, particularly about the inevitability of Great Britain’s power. Massachusettensis was mistaken, Adams wrote, when he said “the people are sure to be loosers in the end. They can hardly be loosers, if unsuccessful,” Adams maintained, “because if they live, they can but be slaves, after an unfortunate effort, and slaves they would have been, if they had not resisted.” Death, Adams went on to assert, “is better than slavery.”10

  That same week, not yet knowing that he had a direct adversary in the field, Massachusettensis continued to develop the theme of the dangers of the colonies surviving on their own. “Destitute of British protection,” he asked, “what other Britain could we look to when in distress?” Would not the trade, navigation, and fisheries, which no nation dared to violate while protected by British colors, “become the sport and prey of the maritime powers of Europe?”11

  Adams chose to address himself to Leonard’s arguments in the order of their publication, pursuing him “in his own serpentine path.” His adversary, Adams wrote, “conscious that the people of this continent have the utmost abhorrence of treason and rebellion, labours to avail himself of the magic in these words.” As to the charge that rebels had subverted the long-cherished freedom of the press, Adams termed it but one example of his opponent’s wily art �
��intended to excite a resentment against the friends of liberty.” Both sides had their respective newspapers at their service, even if Adams was slightly disingenuous in concluding, “the Massachusetts Spy, if not the Boston Gazette, has been open to them as well as to others.” As for the pro-loyalist papers, Adams maintained “the Evening-Post, Massachusetts Gazette & Boston Chronicle, have certainly been always as free for their use as the air.”12

  WHILE MASSACHUSETTENSIS AND NOVANGLUS ENGAGED in this war of words, Samuel Adams was also getting his writings, if not always his real name, in newspapers in Massachusetts and throughout the colonies. As Boston suffered under the deprivations of the closure of its port, support in the form of cash, goods, livestock, and crops poured in not just from surrounding Massachusetts counties but also from other colonies, including far-off Georgia. As chairman of the Boston committee of correspondence, Adams frequently either wrote or directed the writing of acknowledgment letters for those expressions of support and then made sure to give them wide circulation.

  Of course, Samuel Adams never shied away from a political controversy. When loyalists cast aspersions upon those administering these donations, the Boston committee of correspondence was quick with a response over Adams’s signature as chairman. “The Printers in this and the other American Colonies,” Samuel Adams wrote, “are requested to insert the following in their several News Papers.” (Here again an effort was being made to gain a much wider circulation than just Boston.) “The Committee appointed by the Town of Boston… think themselves obliged, in this publick Manner, to contradict a slanderous Report raised by evil minded Persons, and spread in divers Parts of this Province, and perhaps more extensively thro’ the Continent.” There was absolutely no truth, Adams asserted, to reports that each member of the Boston committee was compensated six shillings, or, as some claimed, as much as half a guinea (ten shillings) a day for their attendance, in addition to receiving a commission on donations received. Any such reports were “in every part… groundless and false.”13