American Rebels

by Nina Sankovitch

  * * *

  Throughout the spring of 1768, Josiah Quincy Jr. lived alone at the family home on Marlborough Street. His brother Ned had gone on a journey south, catching a ride with a trading ship on its way to Barbados. The purpose of the journey was to restore Ned’s health in time for his upcoming wedding. Rebecca Lloyd, his fiancée, had joined with the family in encouraging him to take the trip: the sunshine, the warm sea breezes, the fresh fruits of the island—all would play a vital role in staving off the consumption. Goodbyes were said and plans made for letters to be sent back and forth with trading vessels. A month or so away, and then Ned would return. A summer wedding could be planned, and then Miss Rebecca Lloyd would join the Quincy family.

  With Sam married, and Ned soon to follow, it was time for Josiah Jr. to move things along with Abigail Phillips. She had become a trusted companion, as eager as he was to read and discuss all sorts of serious books and pamphlets. Her father, William Phillips Jr., both a Whig and an intellectual (he, along with his father, was a major benefactor of the Phillips Academy in Andover) approved of Josiah Jr., and was eager for the match to be made. Josiah’s family was all for the marriage, and had been for months.

  Feeling fit and strong, his consumption having gone into remission, Josiah finally proposed to Abigail in early April 1768. Plans were made for another Quincy wedding, to take place after Ned and Rebecca were married.

  But at the end of April, Josiah Jr. received the news that his brother Ned had died in a shipwreck off the coast of Bermuda. Josiah traveled out to Braintree to deliver the terrible news to his father. His brother Sam came the next day, and the family settled Ned’s accounts. They sent Rebecca a sad memento of the never-to-be celebrated union between her and Ned: a plate that had been made for the couple, a large serving dish of the finest bone china decorated with their joined initials. Josiah Jr. and Abigail would postpone their own wedding until the period of mourning had passed.

  Sam penned a poem in his sorrow, likening a man’s life to “a summer’s day / some only breakfast and away / Others to dinner stay and are Full Fed.” The last lines of the poem were meant as a comfort to his father, and for all the family: “he that goes soonest, has the least to pay.”10

  The family’s faith was strong: Ned would soon arrive in heaven, with few sins for which to atone, and from there, bless his family on earth below.

  * * *

  In early May 1768, John Hancock’s ship the Liberty dropped anchor in the harbor. While Hancock had successfully thwarted inspection of the Lydia through legal means, keeping royal customs officers off the Liberty proved more problematic. The captain of the Liberty, James Marshall, had listed the ship’s cargo as twenty-five pipes of wine brought from Madeira, Spain (a pipe carried about 126 gallons). But when the tidewaiter Thomas Kirk came aboard to verify the amount, Marshall refused to let him inspect the cargo hold; instead, he forced Kirk below deck and locked him in a cabin. That evening and well into the night, Kirk lay awake, listening to the unmistakable sounds of Marshall and a few other men off-loading cargo.

  At sunrise, Kirk was released from his impromptu prison and shown a cargo hold containing twenty-five pipes of wine. James Marshall lay on deck, worn out from his night’s work but still defiant; he took Kirk by the arm and warned him that if he breathed a word of his captivity or what he heard during the night, Marshall himself would hunt Kirk down and kill him. Kirk, thoroughly frightened, agreed to keep silent.

  Captain Marshall soon died of the exhaustion brought on by unloading the illicit cargo. A few weeks passed, and Thomas Kirk, no longer fearing reprisal, approached Benjamin Hallowell, chief customs officer, with his version of what had happened aboard the Liberty.

  By this time, the British warship Romney had arrived in port, and Hallowell requested the assistance of its commander, John Corner, in carrying out a seizure of the Liberty as allowed under the Townshend Acts (any vessel suspected of use in smuggling could be seized). On June 10, Hallowell made a big show of parading down to Hancock’s Wharf surrounded by Crown officials. He painted a broad arrow on the side of the Liberty, to indicate that it was now government property. John Corner arrived by water in a barge, ready to cut the Liberty’s lines and tow it away.

  News traveled fast along the streets lining the harbor. John Corner was a man already despised throughout Boston for his efforts to impress vulnerable men into the navy and for his characterization of Boston as “a blackguard town … ruled by mobs … by the eternal God, I will make their hearts ache.”11 But there was nothing the gathered crowd could do when Corner and his crew cut the lines of the Liberty and began to lead it away from its berth at Hancock’s Wharf: Corner’s crew was armed and ready to fire upon them.

  Incensed, the crowd focused their anger on Hallowell and his entourage, who were standing on the dock, and began to pelt them with stones, sticks, and bricks. A boat belonging to a Crown official was lifted out of the water, carried through the streets, and then set alight on Boston Common, within yards of the Hancock mansion.

  John Adams took up his defense of Hancock in the Liberty case even before official charges were brought. He had been taken on as counsel to Hancock a few weeks earlier, his appointment secured through Sam Adams. Sam was certain that his cousin John would serve Hancock’s interests better than those “cringing Tory lawyers” Hancock had used in the past (not counting, of course, the decidedly anti-Tory Otis, whose health issues now interfered with his representation of Hancock).12

  In a letter to Dennys de Berdt, the London agent for the Massachusetts House of Representatives, John Adams explained that Hancock had nothing to do with the fracas involving the Liberty and the burning of the boat belonging to a Crown official; “The truth is, the barge was burnt on a common surrounded by gentlemen’s seats … the mean insinuation that it was done under the influence of Mr. Hancock is so far from the least shadow of the truth … the tumult was finally dispersed principally by his exertions, animated by his known regard to peace and good order.”13

  News of the Liberty’s seizure quickly traveled across Massachusetts and through all the colonies. Outrage over British enforcement tactics flared, and support surged for a continentwide boycott against Britain. Already New York and Philadelphia had agreed to impose their own nonimportation agreements; and in May, the traders and merchants of Boston agreed to take a hard line against imports. The Boston merchant John Rowe recorded in his diary that he and the other merchants and traders of the town had agreed “not to write for any goods after the first of June, nor Import any after the first Day of October, untill the Act the Imposing Dutys on Glass Paper &c be Repealed.”14

  In Virginia, George Washington led the way for his colony’s nonimportation agreements; in South Carolina, “the generality of the people of this province” agreed “Not to purchase or cause to be purchased any goods whatever imported from G.B. except hard ware; 2. To go heartily to work in manufacturing their own & Negroes cloathing; 3. To avoid as much as possible the purchase of new Negroes; 4. To give all possible encouragement to the importation of such goods (not prohibited) as are manufactured in others of his Majesty’s colonies.”15

  The only colonies not joining in the boycott were New Hampshire and New Jersey, but ports in all the other colonies refused to trade with Britain.16 Although nonimportation would hurt the colonial economies, the hope was that the merchants and manufacturers in England would be damaged even more. Economic pressure had killed the Stamp Act; Sam Adams, John Hancock, and Josiah Quincy Jr. all hoped that such pressure would again succeed against the plans of Parliament.

  But this time round, Parliament was determined to see its acts implemented. If the presence of the Romney was not enough to signal its resolve, more warships would be sent, along with more British troops. As Governor Bernard explained in a letter he wrote to Parliament, “Troops are not wanted here to quell a Riot or a Tumult, but to rescue the Government out of the hands of a trained mob, & restore the Activity of the Civil Power, which is now enti
rely obstructed.” He added, “this aught to have been done two years and a half ago. If it had, there would have been no opposition to Parliament now.”17

  By mid-September, four months after the arrival of the Romney, two more British regiments on fourteen warships had arrived in Boston, sailing into the harbor and then angling their broadsides toward Boston, guns ready to fire. In one day, ten thousand British troops disembarked, carried by smaller boats to the wharf, where they then organized into lines. Josiah Quincy Jr., alerted by messenger, came out to watch in increasing disbelief as “with muskets charged, bayonets fixed, drums beating, fifes playing, and a complete train of artillery, the troops took possession of the Common, the State House, the Court House, and Faneuil Hall.”18

  John Hancock and his aunt Lydia could see the soldiers from their home on Beacon Hill. Dolly Quincy, her sister Katy, and her parents stood at the other end of the Common, close enough to the parading troops that they could smell the mixture of sweat and mildew that rose off the men; it was as if the uniforms had been in a damp, dark cargo hold and no amount of light could take away the rot. But under the bright sun, the colorful uniforms glowed—red for the soldiers and yellow for the drummers. The black tricorn hats worn by the infantrymen and the miter-shaped bearskin hats on the grenadiers made the men appear taller than they really were. Smelly or not, there was no denying how impressive these British troops were.

  The drums of the soldiers, the pounding of their boots, and the whistle of the fifes could be heard from John and Abigail’s house on Brattle Square to the grand town houses east of the Common, where Sam and Hannah Quincy lived, to those homes on Beacon Street to the north, where Abigail Phillips and her father could be found. Even with the windows closed and curtains drawn tight across the frames, Abigail Phillips could hear the roll and rhythm of the marching feet, boots on stones, one after the other.

  Governor Bernard tried to convince the colonists of Massachusetts that the British troops arriving in Boston were simply being brought in from outlying frontier posts as a cost-saving measure; maintaining them at the borders of British territory was very expensive, and moving them close to supply lines was a more efficient way of protecting the colony.

  But within days, the troops’ true purpose seemed evident to everyone working the wharves: every ship coming in and leaving the harbor was boarded by customs officials for inspections, with British soldiers at their side every step of the way.

  While troops sent in February had been housed in “Barracks built at the Castle … that there might be no Occasion of Quartering Them,” there was no longer room on Castle Island for all the incoming soldiers, and the men had to find—or build—housing in Boston itself.19 Soldiers patrolling the streets of Boston, living alongside the colonists: Josiah Quincy Jr., John Hancock, and John Adams all agreed that no good could come of it. They would soon be proved right.

  “Opinions differ respecting what ought, and what will be, the deportment of this people,” Josiah wrote to a friend. “On the one hand, a swarm of court dependents, and a standing army in the bowels of a state, have been, in all ages and nations, thought, and found to be the bane of civil freedom. On the other, an open rupture with Great Britain … is a dreadful alternative.”20 Liberty from England was not yet the goal; instead, what the colonists sought was liberty from its oppressive taxes, and from the troops sent to live among them and used to enforce such taxes.

  The selectmen of Boston did all they could to prevent British troops from commandeering public spaces for their living and working quarters. While there was little that could be done to keep the soldiers and their officers out of Faneuil Hall and Town Hall, Crown officials ran up against legal barriers when trying to requisition private buildings for use by the British Army. Josiah Quincy Jr. advised one of his clients who owned a warehouse to deny entrance to Crown officials by whatever means necessary.

  The man bolted all the windows of his building, barricaded the doors, and then released a statement to the effect that “his council [sic] were of the ablest in the province, and he should adhere to their advice be the consequences what they would.”21 He remained holed up in his warehouse—visited only by his lawyer—until all danger of requisition of his property had passed.

  A complaint was issued against the warehouse owner and a legal case brought seeking to force him to open his property for use by the British Army. Chief Justice Hutchinson ruled against the Crown’s complaint and upheld Josiah Quincy Jr. in the advice he had given his client: the law protected the property owner and he could not be forced to house soldiers in his warehouse.

  But everyone in Boston worried that the day would come when the sanctity of private property would no longer be enough to hold back the rapacity of the British. They worried that so many troops, quartered on a public square or in public buildings, could move quickly to take over their town; never had their liberty felt so threatened, with soldiers all around them. All in all, there were over four thousand British troops in Boston, one to every four inhabitants of the town.

  The colonists feared that even more measures meant to oppress and intimidate them were on the way: “British taxations, suspensions of legislatures, and standing armies are but some of the clouds which overshadow the northern world,” Josiah Quincy Jr. bemoaned in the Boston Gazette. “Heaven grant that a grand constellation of virtues may shine forth with redoubled lustre, and enlighten this gloomy hemisphere.”22

  No matter the scope of British enforcement measures, Quincy declared that there would be no submission to the will of Governor Bernard or Parliament. “We Americans have a righteous cause. We know it. The power of Great Britain may oppress, nay, for a time apparently subdue us,” explained Josiah in a letter to a friend. Before “all the freeborn sons of the north will yield … to any tyrannic power on earth,” there will be a fight.

  And the fight would be fierce: calling himself and all who stood with him “political dreamers,” Josiah warned that “political dreamers are the most obstinate, and incorrigible, of all.”23

  * * *

  John Hancock was arrested in November 1768 on smuggling charges arising from the docking of the Liberty. He was charged with importing one hundred pipes of wine valued at £3,000 without paying the taxes due and threatened with fines and penalties equaling close to £100,000 (including the value of the Liberty, still held by the British). John Adams agreed to represent Hancock in the case, and the trial was set for January 1769. Jonathan Sewall would be the prosecutor, representing the Crown.

  As Adams prepared for trial, the happy days spent in the white house on Brattle Square during John and Abigail’s first months in Boston seemed like a distant memory. A shadow had fallen over the household. British officers drilled their troops on the square, right under their windows. The clatter of boots and the call of orders rang through the home, disturbing the children and bringing on headaches in Abigail.

  As winter settled in, the days shortened and the temperatures fell so precipitously that Boston Harbor froze solid. The air outside was damp and heavy with smoke from so many household chimneys; food was expensive and supplies scarce; the children, cooped up inside, became fretful; and the clients who came to John’s office were grim, wary of what the future might bring as Parliament’s grip tightened around Boston.

  The gloom in the Adams home was temporarily cast away by the birth, on December 28, 1768, of John and Abigail’s third child. They named her Susanna after John’s mother and called her by the affectionate nickname of Suky. She was a beautiful baby, with hazel eyes and a rosebud mouth, but she seemed small and frail compared to Abigail’s previous babies.

  Abigail worried about Suky; she was always fretting and crying, and refused to nurse. Nothing Dr. Warren suggested seemed to help, and Abigail’s own mixtures of herbs and poultices did little to revive the baby’s appetite or strength. In the end, the decision was made to send Suky to the quiet and healthier environs of Braintree, where John’s mother could care for her. Abigail wished she cou
ld have gone with her youngest, taking the older children and her husband along. Boston, with its unceasing noise, its cold and fetid air, and its ever-present British troops, was no longer a place to her liking—no longer safe, but menacing.

  * * *

  The smuggling case against John Hancock began in early 1769 and dragged on and on for three months. Jonathan Sewall, representing the Crown, produced little evidence to show conclusively that Hancock knew how much wine had originally been transported on the Liberty or that he had played a part in illegally removing pipes of wine from the vessel. Dozens of witnesses were called—“the Crown seemed determined to examine the whole town as witnesses”—including “his amiable and venerable Aunt Lydia.”24

  John Adams, representing Hancock, felt worn down by the prosecution, its monotony and relentlessness: “a painfull Drudgery I had of his cause. There were few days through the whole Winter, when I was not summoned to attend the Court of Admiralty … I was thoroughly weary and disgusted with the Court, the Officers of the Crown, the Cause, and even with the tyrannical Bell that dongled me out of my House every Morning.”25

  Finally, at the end of March, Jonathan Sewall called the case to a close, stating simply for the record, “Our Sovereign Lord the King will prosecute no further hereon.”26 Although no fines or penalties had to be paid, the Liberty was never returned to John Hancock, and the ship became the property of the Royal Navy. In the summer of 1769, angry colonists managed to board it and set it afire. It never sailed again.

  11

  Portents of a Comet

  The pulse of the people beats high,

  and it may well be imagined that in our present state

  all ranks among us are much agitated.

  —JOSIAH QUINCY JR.

  In the summer of 1769, John Adams had a choice to make: get himself to Taunton for the sitting of the local court where he hoped to secure new clients, or wait a day in Boston and attend the grand feast planned by Sam Adams, John Hancock, and the Sons of Liberty. The feast was to celebrate the departure of Governor Francis Bernard; the hated administrator had finally been called back to England.