USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Celebration of the centennial anniversary of the evacuation of Boston by the British Army, March 17th, 1776 > Part 9
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consent of her parents, had her brought to Boston, there, at his expense, to receive the best education enjoyed by the daughters of the aristocracy of the time and place. Four years after his first sight of her she became a member of his household in a relation which had not the sanction of legal or religious rites. To relieve the scandal of that relation which prevented this child of poverty from enjoying the social position she might have had as his wife, he purchased, in 1752, a large extent of land in the town of Hopkinton, twenty-five miles from Boston, where he built and furnished sumptuously a spacious manor-house, with out- buildings, gardens, parks and fine shrubberies, and where he kept a dozen or twenty slaves. Here he maintained a bounteous hospitality while visiting Boston to attend to his official duties. There were many loyalists in Hopkinton, where lands had been purchased and an Episco- pal Church planted by Roger Price, the uncomfortable rector of King's Chapel.
Having occasion to visit England on business, in 1754, his family con- nections would not recognize Agnes, who accompanied him. He was residing with her temporarily at Lisbon, when, as he was driving in a carriage with another lady, he was buried for more than an hour under the ruins of a falling building in the great earthquake which desolated that city on Nov. 1, 1755. In the horrors of his situation he lamented some of his faults and vices, and penitently resolved if he escaped death to amend his life. Being rescued with only severe bruises, he took Agnes at once to a church, where the marriage rite was solemnized between them, which was soon after repeated by the chaplain of the ship, an Episcopal clergyman, as they were returning to England. His high-born friends now heartily received the rescued husband and the legal wife. Returning with her to Boston in 1756, he purchased, for a town-house, the splendid Clarke mansion in Garden Court street, next to Gov. Hutchinson's, still retaining the estate at Hopkinton. The writer of these pages, some twenty-five years ago, visited the fine country manor when it was occupied by the widow of Gen. Hildreth, who died there in 1857, in her eighty-eighth year. She showed the writer a chamber to which it was said Frankland used to retire on the anniversary of his resene from the earthquake, and there, wearing the clothes from which the marks of the catastrophe had not been removed,
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keep solemn fast-day. The house was destroyed by an accidental fire in 1858.
After another visit to and residence in Lisbon, as Consul General, Frankland returned to Boston in 1763. Ilis failing health took him again to England with his wife and Henry Cromwell, where he died at Bath, in 1768. Lady Agnes, with the boy, herself childless, came back to Hopkinton, where the years passed quietly and pleasantly till the siege of Boston. Of course, all the attachments of her later life were with those who were shut up in the garrisoned town, while her presence and influence were an offence to the rural stock of Hopkinton.
In answer to her request that she might move to Boston, in order to embark for England, the Committee of Safety, on May 15, 1775, " Upon the application of Lady Frankland, Voted, that she have liberty to pass into Boston with the following goods and articles for her voyage, viz. : G trunks ; 1 chest ; 3 beds and bedding ; G wethers ; 2 pigs ; 1 small keg of pickled tongues ; some hay ; 3 bags of corn ; and such other goods as she thinks proper."
The following permit was granted : -
" To the Colony Guard : -
" Permit Lady Frankland, of Hopkinton, with her attendants, goods, and the provisions above mentioned, to pass to Boston, by express order of the Committee of Safety.
" BENJAMIN CHURCH, JR., Chairman.
" HEAD-QUARTERS, May 15, 1775."
Notwithstanding this official action, an armed party in the town of Hopkinton, or on the way to Boston, under the lead of Mr. Abner Craft, resisted the lady's removal. The matter coming before the Provincial Congress, on May 18th, a committee was appointed to inquire into the facts of the case. On the report of this committee the Congress " Resolved, that Mr. Abner Craft be, and hereby is, directed forthwith to attend this Congress." After he had attended, made explanation and withdrawn, it was further " Resolved, that he should be gently ad- monished by the president, and be assured that the Congress were determined to preserve their dignity and power over the military."
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" Resolved, That Lady Frankland be permitted to go into Boston with the following articles, viz. : seven trunks, all the beds and furniture to them, all the boxes and crates, a basket of chickens and a bag of corn, two barrels and a hamper, two horses and two chaises, and all the articles in the chaise, excepting arms and ammunition ; one phaeton, some tongues, hams and veal, sundry small bundles. Which articles, having been examined by a committee from this Congress, she is permitted to have them carried in, without any further examination."
On the next day, Col. Bond, with a guard of six men, was appointed to escort the lady with her effects to Boston, showing to General Thomas, at the lines, a copy of the resolves.
She took refuge temporarily at her house on Garden-court street, from which she witnessed some of the horrors of the Battle at Charlestown and the Conflagration. She gave her services to the nursing of some of the wounded. She availed herself of the first opportunity to sail with Henry Cromwell for England, where, at the age of 57, she died, in 1783, a year after she had formed a second marriage.
BENJAMIN THOMPSON, COUNT RUMFORD.
Another individual, who was destined to attain a world-wide fame as a philanthropist and a man of science, appears in a trying and somewhat equivocal position, among those who at this time found refuge in Boston. Born as the son of a farmer in Woburn, in 1753, showing from his earliest youth some of the qualities of genius, Benjamin Thompson, while teaching school in Concord, N. II., had married a rich widow, had risen in his social relations, and received, just before the opening of hostilities, a military commission from the royal governor of New Hamp- shire. He had come under suspicion at Concord for tory proclivities, and being ill treated and threatened there had sought refuge in his native place at Woburn, Mass. Here he had been confined, and, after a public examination, the Committee of Correspondence of that town had neither acquitted nor condemned him. He therefore appealed to the Committee of Safety for a full and fair trial, and an honorable dis- charge, alleging that his personal safety and reputation depended upon a thorough and impartial investigation of the charges against him. The
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only recognition of his case on the records of the Provincial Congress, is under date of May 20: " The petition of Benjamin Thompson to the Connnittee of Safety was read, and ordered to subside."
The young man lingered awhile about Cambridge and Charlestown, and asked unsuccessfully for a commission and employment in the army that was forming. He did good service in helping to remove the library and apparatus of the college. At last, chagrined and irritated, he went off to Newport, from which he found passage to Boston. There he so ingratiated himself with the royalists, that, at the evacuation, he was sent by Gen. Howe with despatches for Lord George Germaine, under whom he became secretary in the department for the American war.
These country tories found in Boston some fellow-sufferers more or less conscientious than themselves, and either by selfish interest or the force of associations firm adherents of the royal side. These were such of the councillors as had accepted the office on appointment or command of the king in contravention of the Province Charter; crown officials, and their partisans, with their families, interested in the revenue and in supplying the army ; a few merchants and traders, and a coterie of such as followed the fashions of the times. Such as these, with a few timid but true adherents of the popular cause, made up, with the soldiers, the inmates of the garrison. Some of the patriotie remnant kept a watch- ful eye on what was transpiring around them, and upon the plans of the enemy, and with great risk communicated valuable information to the besiegers outside. Occasionally a bright youth, or a bold man, would work his way from the town to the patriot camp.
FIRE IN BOSTON.
In the midst of all the direful trials attending the leaving Boston by so many of its people, occurred the calamity of a disastrous conflagra- tion, on Wednesday, the 17th of May. A party of soldiers were hand- ling cartridges in a store used as a barrack on the south side of the town dock, when by some accident the cartridges ignited, setting fire to the store. The flames spread rapidly till some thirty warehouses and buildings were destroyed, involving much valuable property, including some of the donations that had been sent to the poor of Boston. There
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was much confusion, as the General had recently put the fire engines in charge of the soldiers, who did not know how to use them, and had afterwards to call in the aid of the citizens. Instead of ringing the bells as usual on an alarm, the soldiers beat the roll-call. There was a foolish rumor that the Whigs in the town had set the fire.
CARE FOR A CIVIL GOVERNMENT.
General Gage was now no longer the Governor of Massachusetts, so far as any recognized authority over its people was concerned. His commands, orders and proclamations were limited to the little peninsula of Boston. The Provincial Congress, at Watertown, in May, resolved, that, by his arbitrary course, he had disqualified himself to serve the col- ony as Governor, or in any other capacity ; that no obedience was due to him or his proclamations, and that he should be regarded as an unnatu- ral and inveterate enemy to the country. They recommended the towns and districts to choose Representatives for a General Assembly at Wa- tertown, July 19, opened a subscription for a loan to be committed to a Treasurer of their own, who displaced the King's, and appointed May 11 for a day of fasting and prayer.
There is a significance in the wording and contents of the successive proclamations issued by the Provincial and Continental Congresses for days of solemn religious observance, Fast and Thanksgiving, marking the gradual waning of the sentiment of loyalty, or, at least, of the ex- pression of it. The matter and phraseology of these papers were evi- dently studied with care. They were not prepared by clergymen, but by lay committees. In the proclamation by which the Provincial Con- gress had appointed March 16 for a Fast day, the Divine blessing is implored to "rest upon George the Third, our rightful King, and upon all the royal family." In the proclamation which appointed May 11 for the same sacred observance, the fact is recognized that " the New Eng- land colonies are reduced to the ungrateful alternative of a tame submis- sion to a state of absolute vassalage to the will of a despotic minister," or of meeting the dire necessity by arms in self-defence. The sentiment of loyalty breathes only the petition, " that the people of Great Britain and their rulers may have their eyes open to discern the things that shall
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make for peace," etc. Again, on a report of a committee appointed to prepare a resolve for a Fast day on July 13, an amendment was voted for introducing a petition for a " blessing on the Continental Congress," and a prayer for the "unity of the colonies." On Jime 22 the proclama- tion was once more recommitted for an amendment, and "Mr. Webster and Deacon Fisher" were added to the committee. When the proclama- tion goes forth, the " cruelty'and barbarity " of the two recent assaults are emphasized, but neither ' Parliament nor King finds a place in the prayers. But after the appointment of the day, its observance was superseded by a proclamation in which the Continental Congress had designated July 20 " as a day of public humiliation, fasting and prayer" for "the inhabitants of all the English colonies on the continent." In this a blessing is invoked upon "our rightful sovereign, King George the Third," and a reconciliation is prayed for " with the parent State, on terms constitutional and honorable to both." The varying phraseo !- ogy of these documents, by which, in good time, God was asked to bless and save " the People," instead of "the King," was a matter of observa- tion and criticism in England. The circulation of the proclamations into all the towns, from the pulpits of the churches of which they were read, followed by observances in the assemblies and the houses, was one of the best mediums of sympathy, influence and confidence between the tentative government of the province and the people. That tenta- tive government was allowed and recognized, under the emergency, till it could find confirmation and exercise authority by organic provisions and sanctions.
The following is the reply of advice and instruction given by the Con- tinental Congress in reply to the call from Massachusetts, on May 16, for direction in the matter of civil goverment : -
" IN CONGRESS, Friday, June 9, 1775.
" Resolved, That no obedience being due to the Act of Parliament for alter- ing the Charter of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, nor to a Governor or Lieu- tenant-Governor who will not observe the directions of, but endeavor to sub- vert that Charter, the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor are to be considered as absent, and these offices vacant. And as there is no Council there, and the inconveniences arising from the suspension of the powers of Government are intolerable, especially at a time when General Gage hath actually levied war,
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and is carrying on hostilities against his Majesty's peaceable and loyal sub- jects of that colony : that in order to conform as near as may be to the spirit and substance of the Charter, it be recommended to the Provincial Congress to write Letters to the Inhabitants of the Several Places which are entitled to representation in Assembly, requesting them to choose such representatives ; and that the Assembly when chosen should elect Counsellors, which Assem- bly and Council should exercise the Powers of Government, until a Governor of his Majesty's Appointment will consent to govern the Colony according to its Charter.
" A true copy from the Minutes.
"CHARLES THOMPSON, Sec'ry.
" By order of the Congress,
"JOHN HANCOCK, President."
A copy of this resolve was sent to the Selectmen of each of the towns of the province to direct the choice of Representatives for a Provincial Congress to be convened at Watertown on July 19. The exiled citizens of Boston were summoned, by their Town Clerk, to meet at Concord on July 18, to choose their representatives.
What is said in the preceding Address concerning the peculiar characteristics of the official papers, circulars, appeals and other docu- ments to be classified under the general term of " State papers," as all relating to publie interests, and passing between representative or administrative bodies, might be richly illustrated if there were space for it here. The reader of a mass of those papers will be led to wonder where and how the writers of them attained their skill, felicity, acute- ness, and extraordinary sagacity and discretion in the composition of them. We can account for the striking ability manifested by John Adams, for instance, in this direction, partly by native genius and intellectual force, and partly by his diligent study of every work on law and government on which he could lay his hands. But the astonishing fertility, acuteness and discrimination of his kinsman, Samuel Adams, baffle any easy explanation. Yet it is not only in those papers which emanated from the most conspicuous patriots and leaders that we trace the remarkable characteristics more or less common and im- pressive in all of them. The publication of a large number of the local histories of the older towns of Massachusetts has set before any one
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interested to pursue the inquiry a voluminons mass of reports, instruc- tions, arguments and counsels relating to the revolutionary epoch, written by individuals or committees, as we may almost say, simply by the light of nature, but exhibiting qualities of real, political, statesmanlike ability. The transcendent influence which DeTocqueville so discern- ingly assigned to New England town-meetings in inspiriting, guiding and leading to a successful issue our great revolutionary struggle, will find full confirmation in portions of the contents of these town histories. It was hardly strange that, at the time, the British ministry and Parlia- ment should have been so mystified and perplexed by the real nature and phenomena of a Boston or a New England town-meeting. They were in- digenous products, self-evolved methods, developments from the soil, habits and circumstances of the New England people. Very ingenious, but hardly successful, efforts have been made, by archaeological and anti- quarian essayists, to trace similar and parallel institutions in the democ- racies of ancient Greece, and in the municipalities of some portions of the European continent. But they were substantially original and unique here. Even in the other colonies of the continent, as in the Jerseys, Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas, counties, and what were called, as now, in Louisiana, " parishes," which involved a different municipal administration, were found to be an embarrassment in perfecting measures that were easily disposed in the New England towns.
The reader must exercise his own ingenuity in his moralizing or spec- ulating upon the contents of our State papers, in that one marked characteristic of them, - their avowals of a true loyalty to the King of Great Britain in spite of a defiance of all his measures, and a resistance of all his agents. Those papers approximate as nearly as was ever yet realized to a fountain which sent forth at the same place " both sweet waters and bitter." Gen. Burgoyne, who seems to have occupied some of his literary leisure here in reading such papers, wrote of them to Lord North : " It is more than probable the rebels will be as much averse to trust their canse to fair disenssion as to the fair field. Distant skirmish, ambush, entrenchment, concealment, are what they depend upon in debate as in arms."
Had it been practicable for one or more members of the British min- istry, at the time, to have been present at a town-meeting, somewhere in
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the interior of the province, in which the array and costumes of the citizens did not give token of much dependence upon broadcloth or the tailor's skill, he would probably have found equal amusement and instruction in studying the scene. Men, roughened and hardened by toil and exposure, would have shown him original specimens of the native training, in rug- geduess of independence in ideas, in natural vigor of mind, and in the power of expression and composition, using certain liberties of their own in grammar, pronunciation and spelling. And if any one should think it worth his while to digest all the voluminous patriotic papers of those days to have their pith and marrow of meaning before him, he would find that the revolt, of the New England colonies especially, proceeded upon three well-understood positions, as facts : -
First. That these colonies were not planted by the enterprise, or under the patronage of, the crown of England, nor favored and fostered by foreign sympathy or aid in their early straits ; but were ventures of a stern and earnest company of self-exiled men and women, at their own private charges and risk, and that they became what they grew to be, because they were not nurslings of court and Parliament.
Second. That these colonies first drew the interest and suspicion of the mother-country, not from any regard to their own welfare, but that they might be selfishly turned to her account and aggrandizement, so that her interference with them was oppressive and tyrannical.
Third. That the royal and parliamentary sway over the people of these colonies involved the radical iniquity of holding them by more rigid terms than were imposed upon their own islanders to the obligations of Englishmen, while denied the full rights of Englishmen.
HARVARD COLLEGE AND CAMBRIDGE.
It is an interesting fact that the College, planted in the wilderness by the first company of English colonists in the Bay of Massachusetts, should have been the scene and the centre of the earliest warlike opera- tions for the defence of the colony. From her plain halls, and from the care and training of such instructors as the resources of the time and place could furnish, had gone forth some of the foremost of the local patriots, and the jealousy of the spirit which was rising in the land had
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prompted an inquisitorial investigation into the political views of her guardians and administrators. The first recognition of the College in the crisis which had now opened around it was in a petition, by the afterwards eminent engineer, then Major, Loammi Baldwin, addressed to the Provincial Congress, June 6, 1775, representing " that General Ward had approved of a proposal for taking surveys of the ground between the camp of the Massachusetts army and the posts of the British troops, and requested the loan of mathematical instruments from the apparatus of Harvard College, to be used in the execution of this service." The Congress ordered thereupon, that the Rev. President Langdon be requested to loan such instruments for the public service.
Two days before the battle in Charlestown, on the report of a com- mittee to whom the business had been referred, the following careful provision was made by the Congress : " Whereas, it is expedient that those apartments in Harvard Hall, under the immediate charge of the Professor of Philosophy and Librarian of Harvard College, be evacuated, Resolved, That the library, apparatus, and other valuables of Harvard College, be removed as soon as may be to the Town of Andover," - a committee being designated " to consult with the Rev. President, the Hon. Mr. Winthrop [Professor], and the Librarian, or such of them as may be conveniently obtained, and with them to engage some suitable person or persons in said town, to transport, receive, and take the charge of the above-mentioned effects," - great care being taken in the pack- ing, removing, and safe transfer of the articles, the charges to be borne by the public. It appears, by a resolve on June 23, that there was a delay in carrying out this arrangement. The future Count Rumford, then Benjamin Thompson, at the age of twenty-two, showed his interest in science by volunteering his aid in the removal of the College property. A quantity of the province arms was soon deposited in the library hall. The Committee of Safety had voted, May 1, " That the quartermaster- general be directed to clear that chamber in Stoughton College, occupied by S. Parsons, Jr., for a printing office for Messrs. Halls." Samuel and Ebenezer Hall, who had been printing the " Essex Gazette " in Salem, had been induced to remove their press to Cambridge, and from their office in Stoughton Hall, they issued, on the 10th of August, the first num-
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ber of the "New England Chronicle, or the Weekly Gazette." The other halls of the College were soon surrendered for barracks and offices. With all the cares pressing upon the self-constituted civil authorities of the time, they did not fail to recognize the claims of such of the ejected students as were that summer entitled to their academic degrees ; so they provided for calling together as many of the overseers as could be reached, to bestow them. Some of the finest and noblest private mansions in the province, with broad acres around thiem, were in Cambridge, and belonged to those whose sympathies were with the royal party. Happily most of these mansions still stand to-day, some of them enriched alike by memories of patriotism and by the literary fame and honors of their later occupants. For the crisis they served for military uses.
Washington, on coming to Cambridge, found a temporary home in the dwelling then appropriated to the President of the College, which is still in good preservation. The owner of the grandest of the Cambridge mansions, Major John Vassal, being a tory, had sought the protection of the British General, in Boston. His house had been for a short time occupied by Col. Glover, and also had been appropriated to the Com- mittee of Safety. On the journal of that committee for July 8, 1775, we read the following : -
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