USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The story of the Irish in Boston, together with biographical sketches of representative men and noted women > Part 6
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The Irish settler in America turned up occasionally in unhappy straits, and at Boston always received kindly treatment in his distress. It is said that the suggestion of "Gulliver's Travels " came to Swift from a returned Irish emigrant named Gulliver, whom James Boies had found sitting in tears on the road to Milton, and had helped to return to his native land. In 1736, at a meeting of the selectmen of Boston, Dennis Sullivant appeared, and upon examination said that he, with his wife, were lately come to Boston from South Carolina by land ; that he had been in town about five weeks, and wanted to return to England or Ireland as soon as he could conveniently obtain a passage for himself and his wife. Of the same tenor is the following letter, which quaintly tells its own pathetic story :-
DONNOUGHADEE, March 1I, 1755.
DEAR SON
I Received Several Letters from you this while, which I am very much Grieved and in great Sorrow and trouble, about your poor and Melancholly Condition, I
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have wrot and sent 5 or 6 Letters to you within this 12 Months past whether you have received any of them I doe not know, pray use or take all the Pains or opper- tunity you Can get to come home, through Gods assistance we shall doe what Lyes in my power for you while I Live, pray neglect noe oppertunity in Comeing home as soon as Lyes in your power, your Mother has her Love to you and She is very Desireous and fond that you make the best Indeavour you can to gett home pray Delay not as soon is possible in Comeing home y" Brothers and Sisters has theire Love to you, and they are also very Desireous of y" Comeing home. Your Mother and I, joyne with our Blessing to you.
all at present from yr Loving Father
ALEXDR McNEILY.
I also pray God to bless these Good Chris- tians which has been pleased to take Notice of you in your poor afflicted State and Condition.
The province appropriated fourteen pounds for the purpose of sending the poor fellow to his friends in Ireland.
On October 31, 1741, appeared in the harbor a sloop from Ireland with sixty-five passengers, bringing a dreadful story of distress and starvation. A meeting of the selectmen was imme- diately called, and steps were taken to investigate the matter. It was found that the unfortunate sloop was called the "Seaflower," and had sailed from Belfast, with Ebenezer Clark as captain, on July 10. She was bound for Philadelphia. Her original complement of passengers was one hundred and six. On July 25 the captain died, and soon after the mate fell sick. They encountered heavy weather and sprung their mast. They lost all the ship's officers, and partly because they were now under no proper discipline, perhaps also because the original stock of provisions was so small as only to suffice by the most careful allowancing, they soon exhausted their supplies, and began to suffer the horrors of starvation. The water also failed; and the tortures of the ship's company aptly fitted the tale of the Ancient Mariner. In the extremity of their misery they resorted to cannibalism. Though our well-fed humanity sickens at the thought of it, it is more than probable that no assembly of men, in such a time of despair, would hesitate long between the sweetness
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of life and the sacredness of death. Let us remember that that company of heroes who suffered with Greely in the Arctic winters, and came home to tell the tale, owed their wrecked existence to this ghastly expedient. It is one comfort, that the lottery was not called upon to pick out a victim for sacrifice : they fell from exhaustion or disease in sufficient numbers to ensure a plentiful supply. Six successive bodies were divided among their surviving shipmates, and they were already cutting up a seventh when they espied the British man-of-war "Success." They were supplied with men and provisions sufficient to bring them to Boston, where they arrived after a passage of sixteen weeks, and with a loss of all their officers and about forty passengers. Of the sixty-five people surviving when they entered Boston harbor, as many as thirty were so weak as to be incapable of helping themselves, and required the speediest care to preserve their lives. The day of arrival was Saturday; on the fol- lowing Monday the Governor and his Council, acting on information received from the selectmen, ordered them to secure the vessel's papers and cargo, to " dispose of the Servants and Passengers " in the hospital on Rainsford's Island, to support, nurse, and recover them to health, and also to secure them for the use and service of the owners of the sloop. The owners were to be notified immedi- ately to repair to Boston to pay all charges, and to take all further care that might be necessary of the ship and her unlucky freight. Upon the refusal or neglect of the owners, the charges were to be demanded of the passengers, and exacted, if necessary, by the sale of their services " for a reasonable time." Accordingly, on Tuesday morning, the vessel was taken down to Rainsford's Island, and the passengers carried on shore and lodged in several rooms in the hospital. A messenger was despatched to New Haven for the owner, Mr. Joseph Thompson ; two weeks later he appeared, and with Capt. John Steel, one of the selectmen of Boston, gave surety to cover the town's expenses in their benevolent work. Notwithstanding this little for- mality, we find the next February that the town pays ten pounds eight shillings for nursing and burials. One of the passengers, named Carr, was so far recovered by November 18 that he was
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employed as journeyman in the shop of Mr. Samuel Butler, the saddler, at No. 2 Dock square.
The sensation which this tale of suffering created could hardly have died away when the Governor received the following communi- cation. The spelling shows a trace of the brogue.
The humble supplication of us his Majesties Subjects Late from Urope - Humbly Showeth
That ye Suppliants together with upwards of one hundred & sixty more ship'd aboard Martha and Eliz : Matthw Rowing Comander Bound fm Londonderry in the North of Ireland to New Castle in pensilvania and after being upwards of seventeen weeks at Sea, tossed and Exposed to Extrame hardships wee were cast upon the Shore at the Bay of Funday as we are told forty Eight Lagues East of St Georges River where we have Been Living poorly on Clames and other Eatibles we picked upon the shore to preserve our Lives, these Seven weeks past - Cap" Rowing hurrying us ashore to shift for ourselves there Left us ; and he with some of the hands fittest for his purpose went of from us and soon after came in ye Long bote to Frederick's fort : and thence they brought a Little Scooner and Small Sloop for the movible goods that came with us and all such of ye passingers as was found alive on the Shore - Before the Sloop and Scooner got to us, about thirty of the strongest & most. Healthy, being In Extrame want ; went to ye woods designing to travel as fare as- possible for Inhabitants. Of these we can give no farther account - Eight or Nine more of our Number went off along Shore seeking somewhat to support nature at the time the Sloop and Scooner came for us, the hands abord (our mate and others); for Reasons best known to themselves, was quite unwilling to send or sarch for these : though we had seen them that very day on the shore sarching for food and Eating Rockweed and so Left them & of these we can give no farther account. Now besides these already Mentioned of all that Came first abord the vessel at London- derry there is but forty Eight of us now in being. many died at sea and many after we came to Land the corps of wch Lie many of them yet on the Shore through wake- ness we were not able to Interr them. The Sloop and Scooner aforesd took in as much as possible of ye goods that came alongst with us : and the Forty Eight Souls they found alive and handy for them on the Shore but unwilling to stay for the other Eight or Nine already mentioned that had just gone out from us, they got of (with us) for St. Georges. Monday Last the forty Eight got safe to pleasent point at the mouth of St. Georges River where our mate with the Rest of our Crew Nowithstanding all they had brough from the vessel with them wch was more then Enough for them Charged us to pay twinty Shillings tarling Each for our passige from ye Shore where our Captain Left us to pleasent point where they Landed us. and for payment they Took and Stripted us of our Coats and Gowens we brough from Ireland with us, making all at their own price from soom they Have took fifty
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Pounds worth for fifteen pounds of this money we are after all our hardships to pay according to yt unreasonable Charge : we hope yr Excellency (seeing there is no . officers here that can come at these Goods In the Sloop & Scooner as yet or can do us any Great Sarvice In this affair) will advise us who are but poor men simple women and See justice done us In this Strange Land. they think it not too Hard as we find after all to strip the Living and Lave us almost Naked. . . . ye place is not able to support such a Number of us and away we can not get where provisions are more plenty no Sloop being Ready or willing this time of ye Year to take us off: and the most of us scarse able to walk through wakeness of Body & poverty the generality are women or small children
ST GEORGES Nov. 20, 1741
ALECK CAMPBELL WILLM LUNNEN
Governor Shirley promptly communicated this case to the General Court, saying that " as Strangers and as they are in a very Calamitous and helpless Condition they are proper objects of our Christian Compassion." On the report of a committee appointed to investigate the matter, two days later it was voted to direct the government officials at St. Georges to " use all proper methods for recovering thirty-nine persons missing and enquiring into the abuses complained of." And within three weeks from the date of writing of the petition, Sanders's sloop was loading "two hundred and fifty pounds old tenor " in provisions, for the benefit of the unhappy Irish.
It was during this same year that a famine, second only to that dreadful one within our own memory, spread death and terror over unhappy Ireland. Hard was the fate of emigrants such as these, facing a long and dangerous voyage, in a crowded ship, to a savage land; fleeing from starvation at home, only to meet it in even more merciless severity on a wild sea or a wilder coast.
There were other dangers attending the passage over. Piracy, pure and simple, was then an every-day story; but whatever ships were lost in that way would hardly appear in the Boston records. Piracy, legalized by a declaration of war, and directed against the commerce of one of the belligerents, in other words, privateering, was also a constant danger. The result of a privateering exploit turned up in Boston in 1744. On the 18th of September arrived sixteen girls and three boys from Cape Breton; they had left
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Ireland for Philadelphia in July, were taken prisoners by a French privateer and brought to Louisburg. A number of prisoners taken at Canseau by the French earlier in the year, before tidings of the war had reached the colonies, were sent to Boston, and it is probable that this collection of Irish non-combatants reached Boston with the same party. They were sent to the almshouse.
At this time the people of Boston reversed their judgment of the Irish, although they still stuck at the Catholic. Emigration of Irish was actively encouraged, agents being sent to Ireland, and the grant of a ship being (as narrated below) obtained for the purpose. The Irish penal code was then in operation, and the law did not suppose any such person to exist as the Irish Roman Catholic.
In the winter of 1749-50 the Province granted to Mr. Joshua Winslow, Mr. Thomas Gunter, and Mr. Samuel Wentworth the loan of the frigate " Massachusetts" for a voyage to Ireland and back, with the design of importing Irish Protestants. It appears that in some way this enterprise was counted as an exceedingly profitable one, for one of the citizens said he would have given " a thousand pounds Old Tenor" for the grant of the ship, and another offered deeds of a hundred acres (probably virgin forest) to any family intending to settle on the land so conveyed. "When the Grant of the Ship was first made us the news of it spread among the Irish in a surprising and quick manner into all parts of the government. My house soon after was daily filld with Numbers, and they seemed so Elated and Joyous that the Governmt had so taken notice of them, that they would encourage people enough to come, and no doubt But the Ship would be as full as she could stow.
" Most of them that came wanted to send for some Relations or other. Others wanted to go as procurers, one saying he could Engage to procure Twenty, others thirty and forty and so on. Mr. More- head was also very kind in assisting to write Circular Letters to all his Friends far and near, Recommending this ship as the best oppor- tunity that could offer for transporting themselves." 1
1 Letter of Thos. Gunter to the Ho. of Rep., 16 April, 1754. Mass. Arch. v. 15A, pp. 235-9.
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Colonel Wendell, who was one of the committee appointed by the General Court to manage the business on the part of the Province, was so exasperated at not being admitted to a share in the enterprise that he threw all possible obstacles in the way of its execution. He finally succeeded in making it so profitless that the grantees, after being at considerable expense in repairing the ship and obtaining freight, finally threw up the project in disgust, and the frigate was shortly afterward sold.
At the time that this grant was made James Boies was in Cork on similar business, and wrote the following letter to Samuel Waldo : -
MR. WALDO
Sir
In acquiescence wth ye Desire of m' Winslow that upon my arrival in Ireland i should inform you therewith as I've ye managemt of two Vessels of mr Wm Bowdoin's & shou'd be glad if yu or friends in Ireld did intend to carry familys from thence do believe I should be Enabled to treat wth you & Sooner than any other. I Shall be ready to Sail from thence abt ye 20th of March next & if you have any commds shall gladly Execute them.
I am Sr Your most humble servnt &c
JAMES BOIES
(PS) My business here is to carry Passengers & Servants please to direct my lett" to ye care of mr Wm Winthrop mercht in Cork.
CORK y 2ยช February 1749/50. To SAMI WALDO EsQr.
The dangers due to overcrowding, though not so prominent in the case of Irish ships as with the German immigrants of 1750 or thereabouts, undoubtedly prevailed to a great extent on all classes of passenger vessels. The following act, passed by the General Court in February, 1750, shows the dangers that forced themselves upon the attention of the people. A penalty of five pounds per pas- senger was incurred by violation of the provisions here quoted. Full authority was given to the customs officials to make needful exam- inations. The heartless and criminal parsimony that led to such
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horrors as that of the sloop "Seaflower " is also borne in mind by the legislators.
An act to regulate the Importation of Germans and other Passengers coming to settle in this Province : -
Whereas Germans and other Foreigners may be Imported in so great Num- bers in one Vessel that through want of necessary room and Accommodations they may often Contract Mortal and Contagious Distempers & thereby occasion not only the death of great Numbers of such Foreigners in their passage but also by such means on their arrival in this Province those who may arrive may be so Infected as to spread the Contagion and be the cause of the death of many others. - To the end therefore that such an evil Practice may be prevented and Inconveniences thence arising avoided, as much as may be ; -
Be it therefore Enacted by the Lieut Govr Council and House of Representa- tives, that from and after the publication of this Act no Master or Commander of any Ship or other Vessel whatsoever bound to the Port of Boston or elsewhere within this Province shall Import into said Port of Boston or into any other Port within this Province any greater number of Passengers in any one Ship or other Vessel than such only as shall be well provided with good and wholesome Meat, Drink and other Necessaries for Passengers and others during the whole Voyage; and shall have room therein to contain for single Freight or Passengers of The age of Fourteen years or upwards at least six feet in length and one foot six inches in breadth.
The modern emigrant ship, with its vast storage capacity and swift trips, is free from many of the dangers attending the slower and less commodious vessels of earlier times. But even now the immense crowd of people, twelve or fifteen hundred in a single ship, with ar- rangements made rather for sociability than for isolation, and to a certain extent subject to the authority and even caprice of stewards and of petty officers generally, have been exposed to considerable danger of social corruption, a danger which has been only recently, to a certain extent, eliminated. For what reform has been accom- plished in this direction the world owes its thanks to Miss Charoltte G. O'Brien, daughter of William Smith O'Brien (the Irish rebel of 48, who is said to trace his descent from Brian Boru), who entered single-handed upon the task of investigating the conditions attending the passage and arrival of Irish immigrants in America. At a meet-
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ing of the Charitable Irish Society, Nov. 9, 1882, she gave an account of her efforts and results. Though there still remains work to be done in this direction, the friendless young Irishwoman in one of these floating cities has much to be thankful for, and far less diffi- culty in avoiding the snares that are ever spread for youth and chastity.
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THE KNOW-NOTHING MOVEMENT.
CHAPTER VI.
THE KNOW-NOTHING MOVEMENT.
T HE Know-nothing movement, so called, though nominally di- rected against all foreigners, arose in the deep hatred that the English and their descendants bear against the Irish. Its cause is to be sought deep in the roots of Irish history. Like the Greeks and Persians, these islanders, that should be allies and friends, as well as neighbors, have stood always with daggers lifted to perpetuate the shame of a faithless wife, the beautiful Devorgilla, of Brefny. No soft-voiced, effeminate Paris, however, was Dermot McMurrough, the betrayer of the Irish matron. Hoarse, gigantic, bloodthirsty, and ty- rannical, he was dearer to her than her own true lord, O'Rorke, and the joy of home and kindred. She fled with him, and pursued by her husband and by the king, who actively espoused the cause of the O'Rorke, they embarked for Aquitaine, where they found Henry II. of England. By his permission Dermot prepared and launched upon his native land Strongbow's army of Normans; and in this treachery began the fight that has lasted without rest or reason for seven centuries. The Norman arms and discipline were everywhere victorious. They built great castles and lived by plunder. In the course of time they began to assimilate with the native Irish, a process which was much hastened by the neglect or inability of England to protect the loyal Anglo-Irish in times of rebellion.
The faithlessness of Devorgilla bore fruit two centuries later in the infamous statute of Kilkenny,1 which separated the body of Ire- land into two parts, - the English Ireland being the head, entitled to reasonable consideration ; and the Irish Ireland, the tail, which existed only for the sake of the head, and had of itself no claim to any kind of consideration. The separation was rigid. Intermarriage and fos-
1 40 Edward III., Irish Stat.
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terage were high treason. English ecclesiastical preferments, monas- teries, horses, weapons, and any supplies, were forbidden to pass from English to Irish; the Irish dress, their native manner of riding, their Irish language, or any mixing with the English, was forbidden. The murder of an Irishman or the violation of an Irishwoman was no crime, and war upon the Irish was the sacred duty of the English of the Pale. It is true that these enactments were not enforced, and that their very ferocity is an index of the weakness of the dominant body ; but one can see " that such as had the government of Ireland did indeed intend to make a perpetual enmity between the English and the Irish, pretending that the English should in the end root out the Irish." Although the rooting out is not yet completed, the hatred which inspired this spiteful statute has grown by exercise through centuries ; and the spectacle that Ireland furnishes in history is not unlike the condition of some households in the South before " the Institution" disappeared, where of the daughters of one father one served the other early and late with all self-sacrifice and devotion, and for return had contempt and cruel abuse.
When the Reformation came, Ireland's condition took the one possible increase of misery. Religious animosity was added to the race-hatred that had embittered her servitude; and from that time forward the Engli hman has known no honest faith, no Christian charity, no human mercy, for the "wild Irish" of Ireland's native race.
To that inherited hate, fostered by a careful silence of English historians on the merits and grievances of the Irish, and by a not less careful emphasis on her religion, her wild and desperate struggles for relief or vengeance, her physical, mental, and moral starvation, America owes the mis-named " American " movement. It has sunk to sleep in times of danger, and the universally acknowledged superi- ority of Irish soldiers has never gone begging. Irishmen signed the Declaration of Independence. Irishmen like " saucy Jack Barry " in the navy, like John Sullivan in the army, like Charles Carroll in the halls of state-craft, have not been heedlessly thrown away.
It is in the piping times of peace, when the natural activity and
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enterprise of Irishmen makes them formidable competitors for leader- ship, that the narrow-minded, the cowardly, and the ignorant fear to put "aliens" in command of a nation whose victories were in great part paid for by the blood of the alien race ..
Probably the first recorded symptom of this distemper is the utterance of Cotton Mather, in a sermon entitled "A Pillar of Grati- tude," delivered in 1700, in honor of the arrival of Governor Bello- mont, and containing a good deal of rather unnecessary praise of that functionary. The passage referred to says: "There has been formidable Attempts of Satan and his Sons to Unsettle us: But what an overwhelming blast from Heaven has defeated all those
Attempts ?. At length it was proposed that a Colony of Irish might be sent over to check the growth of this Coun- trey : An Happy Revolution spoil'd that Plot : and many an one of more general consequence than That !" It seems as if the reverend gentleman did not quite understand the characteristics of the Irish; certainly, if he were alive now, the most cursory inspection of the registry of births would convince him that if any one is " checking the growth of this Countrey" it is not the Irish.
A dozen years or so afterward, when Irish began to come in considerable numbers to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, Boston trembled again for the purity of her English stock, and finally took heart to impose regulations upon the march of colonization. The town-meeting of May 4, 1723, passed the following order : 1 -
Whereas great numbers of Persons have very lately bin Transported from Ireland into this Province, many of which by Reason of the Present Indian war and other Accedents befalling them, Are now Resident in this Town whose Circum- stances and Condition are not known, Some of which if due care be not taken may become a Town Charge or be otherwise prejuditial to the well fair & Prosperity of the Place.
For Remedy whereof Ordered That Every Person now Resident here, that hath within the space of three years last past bin brought from Ireland, or for the future shal come from thence hither, Shal come and Enter his name and Occu- pation with the Town Clerk and if marryed the number and Age of his Children and Servants, within the space of five dayes, on pain of forfeiting and paying the
' Records, 1723, p. 177.
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Sum of twenty Shillings for each offence, And the Sum of ten Shillings for Every one that Shal Continue in the neglect or non-Observance of this Order, for and During the term of forty-Eight hours after the expiration of the fiue dayes afore- said So often as the Person offending Shal be complained of and Convict before any Justice of the Peace within the Said County.
And be it further Ordered that whoever Shall Receive and Entertain and keep in his family any Person or Persons Transported from Ireland as aforesaid, Shal within the Space of forty-Eight hours after Such Receipt and Entertainment Return the Names of all Such Persons with their Circonstances as far as they are able to the Town Clerk. On Penalty of Twenty Shillings fine for the first forty-Eight hours and Ten Shillings for Every twenty-four houres he Shal be convict after the first forty-Eight hours and so toties quoties.
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