USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > Truro > Truro-Cape Cod; or, Land marks and sea marks > Part 23
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At the same meeting said town voted that Elkanah Paine, Ebenezer Dyer, John Rich, Isaiah Atkins and Ephraim Lombard be a committee to assist the military officers in drawing the claim list.
At the same meeting said town voted that their town Treasurer should sue the constables for such sum or sums of money due to the town, unless they make up accounts with the said Treasurer and pay in what is due to the town by the space of one month from this meeting.
Attest: MOSES PAINE. Town Clerk.
At a meeting of the inhabitants of the town of Truro, January 2d, 1758, Regularly warned and met at the house of Jonah Gross in said Truro, said town chose for moderator Barnabas Paine Esq., and after some discourse upon the soldiery, Samuel Dyer entered his dissent against ye present scheme.
Attest: MOSES PAINE. Town Clerk.
At a meeting, January 9th, 1758, at the house of Mr. Ephraim Lombard jr., said town agreed and voted to choose a committee to consider the business inserted in the warrant respecting the soldiers, and to bring in ye judgment, as to regulating the scheme as soon as they can. The town made choice of Messrs. Joshua Atkins, Ebenezer Dyer, Isaiah Atkins, Israel Gross, Job Avery and ensign Ambrose Dyer a committee for the business aforesaid.
At same meeting said town required ye judgment of their committees aforesaid, whereupon said town agreed and voted that for this year, what men shall enlist to be impressed for the service of this province, to make up the town quota of men, shall be entitled to fifteen dollars to be paid to each of them out of the town Treasury. Ephraim Lombard entered his dissent.
Attesz. MOSES PAINE. Town Clerk.
In 1759, April 2, to encourage men to enlist in His Majesty's service for the Canada invasion, money was again raised. Twenty men were required from this town, and to each of them fifteen pounds was voted, provided they enlist on or before the 6th day instant.
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By treaty of compromise, Louisburg had been conveyed to France, and the great preparations now were to carry on the war in Canada and for a second attack upon Louisburg. The demand for men to enter the English service and privateers against the French, thinned the already reduced ranks. So many of the New England sailors were on board the English war ships, that the merchant fleet had to be manned by negroes and Indians. In 1760, Truro, in common with other maritime towns, felt the burden of exactions and con- tinued privations to such an extent as to petition for an abate- ment of the Province tax.
The second siege of Louisburg was fought with success to the English. " A great victory was the result that rejoiced the British Empire. The French colors were carried into St. Paul's, and a hymn of thanksgiving was ordered to be sung in all the churches of England. Prayers and thanksgivings were solemnly offered in public worship and at the domestic altar in New England." The battle of the Plains of Abra- ham, and the death of General Wolfe, which has been called one of the decisive battles of the world, soon followed. "The hour that the British troops entered Quebec, the rule of America passed from the Gallic to the Anglo-Saxon race." This ended the one hundred and fifty years mentioned by Sabine, beginning at St. Saviour in 1609, and ending with the fall of Louisburg and Quebec in 1759.
It was now the turn of the Anglo-Americans to settle their own misunderstandings. Men of less sagacity than these enterprising Yankees could have readily seen that if cut clear of the " restrictions and embarrassments" of the Mother Country they could take care of themselves. Some were bold enough to declare they ought to be independent. In short, the crisis was impending. It soon came in the seven years' war of the Revolution.
The subject which we have barely touched in this chapter is almost inexhaustible. To cull so lightly as we have felt obliged to do, and keep a connection with the chain of history from the discovery of the Cabots to the war of the Revolu- tion, has been a delicate task.
CHAPTER XVI
WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.
Emigration. Compensation. Peace. The Exhibit. Criticism and Agitation. Stamp Act. Memorial. Port Bill. The English Merchants. Buckle on George III. East India Co.'s baneful Tea. Report of the Committee. Patriotic Letter to Boston. A good Test. Military School. April, 1775. Preparations. Provincetown a Rendezvous. Hummock Brigade. Independence. Voted to fall in. No wavering. Board of War Convention at Concord. Active Efforts. Hard Times and hard Dollars. The Somerset wrecked. General Otis. The fished Pipe. English Officers. Dr. William Thayer. Pressing Requisitions. The Continental Soldier. Condition of 1782. Positive Suffering. Unflinching Devotion. Privateer- ing. Gobbling Prizes. Marblehead and Captain John Manly. Salem. Declaration. Battle of Yorktown. Dr. Sam Adams. Rev. Levi Whitman. A High Compliment. Number of Men. Brigs Resolution and Intrepid, David Snow and Son.
D URING the long-continued wars referred to in our last chapter, the continued interruption and prostration of the fisheries had created an exhaustive emigration from Cape Cod and other fishing points to Maine and Nova Scotia. One hundred and sixty families from Cape Cod settled in one year in Barrington, Nova Scotia ; taking their families, fishing stock, and all on board their vessels, they founded that now flourishing seaport.
All along the coast and rivers of Maine, may be found the familiar names of Truro settlers, many of whom engaged profitably in shipbuilding and commerce.
By the inexorable law of compensation, these great losses to the Cape proved a blessing to the new places. From these emigrants came the hardy and prosperous sons of Maine that have built her great ocean marine and scattered her commerce to every open port of the world. A late
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report from San Francisco gives more tonnage and captains in that port from Maine than all other American ports.
With peace emigration ceased, the fisheries revived, com- merce was renewed, and the town began to recover from the blight of the French war. But confidence in the Mother Country as an auxiliary to prosperity was very much weakened. One hundred and fifty years had passed under her protection since the settlement of Plymouth. The little belt of towns along the coast, with a scant population, tax- bound and trammeled, was a poor exhibit, and poor promise for coming years. That the wars of England and her enact- ments hampered the prosperity of the country, began to be freely discussed. New measures began to be sharply criti- cised, and the voice of agitation was heard in the land.
The infamous Stamp Act was passed by Parliament 1765. By this act a ream of blank insurance policies, worth nomi- nally twenty pounds, not costing half of twenty shillings, was increased to one hundred and ninety pounds. All unstamped paper was declared henceforth null and void. December 2, 1767, the town referred the Memorial of the Selectmen of Boston, respecting loaf sugar and other enu- merated articles mentioned in the Boston Resolves of October 28, to a select committee consisting of Richard Collins, Joshua Freeman and Constant Hopkins. Voted " to leave the affair to the discretion of the town of Boston, to act as they shall think proper and beneficial to the province."
The Boston Port Bill of 1774 interdicted all commercial interests with that port as a punishment for seizing and throwing overboard the three hundred and forty-two chests of tea. While these oppressive measures were being made, the English merchants were not blind to the results. They saw in these unjust levies a disturbance of the commercial relations with the colonies. They showed Parliament that in 1764 New England employed forty-six thousand tons of ship- ping, and six thousand seamen ; that the amount of her sales in foreign markets were £322,220 sterling, and that at the
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beginning of the war they were probably double that amount.
Says Macchiavelli, " No foolish prince ever has wise coun- cillors." So George III. chose such councillors as would do his bidding and administer to his vanity.
The new king having the most exalted notion of his authority, and being from his miserable education entirely ignorant of public affairs, thought that to tax the Americans for the benefit of the English would be a masterpiece of policy. The result, a war ill-conducted, unsuccessful. and accompanied by cruelties disgrace- ful to a civilized nation. To this may be added that an immense trade was nearly annihilated; every branch of commerce was thrown into confusion; we were disgraced in the eyes of Europe; we incurred an expense of one hundred and forty million pounds, and we lost by far the most valuable colony any nation ever possessed. - Buckle's Description of King George and his American War.
The atrocious crime of using the smallest amount of tea, and the patriotic public sentiment may be inferred from the following record :
At a town meeting, February 28, 1774, several persons appeared of whom it had been reported that they had purchased small quantities of the East India Co.'s baneful teas, lately cast ashore at Provincetown. On examining these persons it appeared that their buying this noxious tea was through ignorance and inadvertence, and that they were induced thereto by the villainous example and artful persuading of some noted pretended friends of government, from the neighboring towns. It was, therefore, resolved that the meeting thinks them excusable with their acknowledgment.
At the same meeting the town appointed Captain Joshua Atkins, Isaiah Atkins, Deacon Joshua Freeman, Doctor Samuel Adams, and Messrs. Ephraim Harding, Thatcher Rich, Nathaniel Harding, Benjamin Atkins and Hezekiah Harding a committee to prepare a proper resolve to be entered into by this town respecting the introduction of Teas from Great Britain subject to a duty payable in America.
The committee reported as follows : -
We, the inhabitants of the town of Truro, although by our remote situation from the centre of public news, deprived of opportunities of gaining so thorough knowledge of the unhappy disputes, that exist between us and the parent State as we could wish ; yet, as our love of liberty, and dread of slavery is not inferior per- haps to that of our brethren in any part of the Province, think it our indispensable duty to contribute our mite, in the glorious cause of liberty and our Country, by declaring in this public manner, our union in sentiment with our much respected
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brethren of Boston, manifested in their patriotic resolve enclosed in the late letter of their committee of correspondence to this town, and our readiness to afford in our contracted sphere our best assistance in any prudent measure in defence of, or for the recovery of, our rights and privileges, and to avoid being brought into that deplorable state of wretched slavery with which we are threat- ened by the unconstitutional measures, if persisted in by the administration, and in particular by their late dangerous and detestable scheme of sending Teas to the Colonies by means of the East India Co., subject to the unrighteous Ameri- can duty, - a scheme, as we apprehend, designed to take in the unwary and to continue and establish the tribute so unjustly forced from us, - a tribute attended with the aggravation of being applied to maintain in idleness and luxury a set of worthless policemen and pensioners and their creatures who are continually aiming at the subversion of our happy Constitution, and whose example tends to debauch the morals of the people in our seaports which swarm with them : And, as we think the most likely method that we can take to aid in frustrating the inhuman designs of the administration is a disuse of that baneful dutied article, Tea. Therefore
Resolved, That we will not by any way or means knowingly promote or encourage the sale or consumption of any tea whatever while subject to an American duty; and that all persons, whoever they may be, that shall be concerned in a transac- tion so dangerous to the well-being of this Country shall be treated by us as the meanest and basest of enemies to their country's defence : And, though we have the mortification to own that some persons among us have been weak enough to be led astray by noted rescinders from all good resolutions, we cannot, in justice to ourselves, omit making public the fact that no person in this town could be prevailed upon to accept the infamous employment of transporting the tea saved out of the Messrs. Clark's brigantine, from Cape Cod to the vessel; but that the repeated solicitatations of the owners were refused notwithstanding liberal promises of a large reward, and notwithstanding we had here several vessels unemployed : and, it affords us great pleasure and satisfaction, that our highly esteemed brethren of the town of Boston have made so brave a stand in defence of AMERICAN LIBERTY ; and that wisdom, prudence and fortitude accompanied all their proceedings. We return them our sincere and hearty thanks for the intelligence they have from time to time afforded us, and hope they will continue their opposition to every measure tending to enslave us; and wish their manly fortitude may be increasing under the great public grievances to which by their situation they are more peculiarly exposed.
The preceding was signed by every member of the committee, and was adopted by the meeting ; mene com. ; and then ordered to be recorded and transmitted.
The aforesaid committee were, by unanimous vote, constituted a Committee of Correspondence for this town.
The fact that not a crew could be found under liberal offers to transport the cargo of baneful tea to Boston was a good test of loyalty and full proof of patriotism. A point well taken by the committee.
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At the opening of the Revolutionary War, the Colonies had been a military school with little abatement for thirty years. The severe discipline, continued endurance, and indifference to danger so long shared, now yielded fruit after its kind.
They had become familiar with the call to war, and had no shrinking sensitiveness about burning powder. If they had fought well for their masters who strengthened their fetters, they surely would do no less for themselves and freedom. So long as the gold of Philip II. was in his coffers, his German and Italian troops fought for Philip; but when his gold was gone, the same soldiers were ready to fight against Philip for another's gold. But the colonists had fought for their Mother Country, and paid themselves with home issue. Why not fight for themselves and their own country on the same terms?
THE WAR WAS BEGUN.
So the glittering bayonets of the five thousand English troops that marched out to Lexington and Concord that bright April morning in 1775, hurried back under the friendly mask of night. The field was only changed from Louisburg and the Plains of Abraham, to Lexington and Bunker Hill. The soldier was only changed from the red-coat and cockade of the Britishers, to the gray uniform and three-cornered hat of the Continental.
May 25, 1775, a committee of Capt. Ambrose Dyer, Dea. Joshua Freeman, Israel Gross, Eph. Harding and Ebenezer Rich were chosen to represent this town in the County Congress to be held in Barnstable.
June 1, a company of military was organized with David Smith, Capt .; Jno. Sellew, Lt .; Benj. Harding, Ensign. Also that Ambrose Smith be Capt. of the alarm-list. Eph'm Harding, Lt. and Barzillai Smith, Ensign. And that each man employed as Watch to guard the town, shall have for each night that he watches faithfully fifty cents. A committee was chosen to direct the watch. Dec. 25 ordered that if any man fire away any powder except to defend the town, he shall forfeit six shillings for every charge so fired.
Additional arms and ammunition was ordered ; and a petition was forwarded to headquarters for twelve cannon and 50 men to be stationed near Province- town.
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The unguarded condition of Provincetown Harbor, one side of which is made by Truro, and its occupation as a rendez- vous by English men-of-war, was the occasion of so much anxiety. A hostile fleet menacing both sides of the town was not a pleasant condition. The only force to oppose these British veteran soldiers was the town militia and exempts.
On one occasion when the barges made demonstrations of landing near the Pond Village, the Yankee captain with his corn-stalk brigade, marched boldly to the shore in front of a high hummock, and after due preliminaries, gave the order. For two hours he marched his single company around the hummock. The enemy in the meantime concluding such a movement of troops denoted immense preparations and reën- forcements, returned to their ships.
January 15, 1776. The request made for cannon, etc., on the twenty-fifth of December last, was revoked, and three field pieces were asked for. Captain Hezekiah Harding was delegated to present the petition. Same time, a military company was by the Court, stationed at Truro for defence. Joseph Smith, Capt .; Hezekiah Harding, Ist Lt .; Seth Smith 2d Lt. ; Captain Samuel Harding, Commissary. The Court ordered six hundred weight of cannon balls.
Owing to the peculiar situation of the town, and the possibility of certain con- tingencies, it was considered a matter of precaution and expediency to trust to a select committee to act for the town. February 12, 1777, Isaiah Atkins, Eph- raim Lombard, Richard Stevens, Ephraim Harding, Ambrose Dyer, Deacon Joshua Freeman, Barzillai Smith, were appointed that committee.
March 3, 1776. Capt. Ambrose Dyer, Dea. Ephraim Harding, Mr. Ebenezer Rich were appointed a com. to discouse with the men of war, should they come with a flag of truce, to know what their requests are, and to do what they shall think best for the town and Province.
June 18, 1776. The question of INDEPENDENCE was considered in Town- meeting, and July 9 at an adjourned meeting, the town instructed their represen- tative TO FALL IN WITH THE PROVINCIAL AND CONTINENTAL CONGRESSES. July 29, 1776, it was voted to give each man who will enlist to fill the town's quota for the Crown Point Expedition, £25.
Another record says :
The town raised £71 - 17s. - 6d. lawful money and placed it in the hands of Capt. Constant Freeman, to pay the men hired in the town to go to Crown Point. Sept. 1, 1776, a meeting was held to raise three years' men for the army, or during the war; and forty dollars was offered by the town for each recruit.
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Sept. 5, 1776. The following military officers were chosen for the South District of the town. Eben. Rich, Capt .; David Snow, Ist Lt .; Richard Rich 3d, 2d Lt. The next day it was voted that the town's quota for the Continental Army be drafted. Sept. 30, 1776, the question of TIIE UNION was discussed, and referred to a select committee. Nov. 12, 1776, the inhabitants assembled in town-meeting to hear the Treason-law read. Dea. Joshua Freeman, Moderator.
This was an imperative order applying to all the towns. It must not be supposed that all were ready to do and die for liberty. The taint of treason was here also. But it is a matter of surprise, that while their waters were in possession of the enemy, her flag daily flaunting before their eyes, a good price paid for "aid and comfort," emis- saries waiting their opportunity, and the pressure of war driving bread from their doors, that so few ever wavered.
Soon after we find the following :
The Board of War was requested to furnish field-pieces and ammunition for the defense of Truro, and it was ordered that a company be raised in Truro and adjoining towns, to be constantly in practice and to be ready at all times to pre- vent all intercourse with the British men-of-war in Cape Cod Harbor, or else- where, as well as for protection.
In 1778 a committee was sent to the brigadier to advise what is best to be done about making up the quota of the Continental men, as some of the drafted soldiers have paid their fines.
Captain Reuben Higgins was also sent as agent to the Gen- eral Court for the same purpose. A watch was sent to guard against the enemy's ships in the harbor. Provisions were made for the families of soldiers absent on duty.
In 1779 the town again petitioned for arms. "One hun- dred dollars was raised to bear Rev. Mr. Upham's expenses to Boston to adjust the prices of the necessities of life."
The new State constitution was accepted, and the repre- sentative instructed. August 29, the town approved of the resolves of the convention at Concord, and a committee was chosen to regulate the prices here, of articles omitted from that convention. The convention at Concord was doubtless where Mr. Upham was sent a delegate, and $100 raised for his expenses.
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In 1780 the town again petitioned the General Court for an abatement of State tax. To defray town and county charges, £1800 was raised. To Rev. Mr. Upham, £416 was voted and £60 hard money. These were the days of inflation of the Continental currency. One hard dollar was ordered receivable in the collection of taxes for seventy-five paper. The General Court added $3000 to the annual grant of £45 for the support of Rev. Samuel Parker of Provincetown.
The Continental service now required soldiers for six months, and the town was anxious to supply promptly its quota.
It was voted that twenty hard dollars or twenty bushels of corn be paid in addition to the two pounds promised by government to each man who shall enlist ; and also to allow six shillings per mile travelling fee to the place of abode on receiving honorable discharge.
When we consider the deplorable and really distressed con- dition of the seaboard through these prolonged years of war ; the sacrifice that had already been made, the scarcity of gold or silver, and the actual hard work to give "twenty hard dol- lars" for every man that enlisted, we realize the tug of war.
November 8, 1778, the British man-of-war Somerset, Cap- tain Aurey, stranded north of the Clay Pounds, with four hundred and eighty men, who were marched from Truro to Boston as prisoners. Almost necessarily, such an event would be the occasion of some bad management, and no little private speculation in a small way. It was the enemy's prop- erty. General Otis reflects somewhat on the business man- agement ; he says :
From all I can learn, there is wicked work at the wreck, riotous doings. The Truro and Provincetown men made a division of the clothing, etc. Truro took tw t'ards and Provincetown one third. There is a plundering gang that way. A Provincetown man by the name of Spencer, and Esquire Bowen of Sandwich, libelled her. Spencer put Colonel Doane of Wellfleet on board.
January 9, the Attorney General was directed by the General Court to file a bill against the ship. February II, the sheriff was directed to sell the effects, reserving the can- non for the State. Provisions were made for remunerating
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the sailors. As the Somerset had rendezvoused in Province- town Harbor for two years, lying at anchor about half-way from the Pond Landing to Provincetown, and her barges constantly landing, and sometimes picking up our boats and vessels, she was well known by the Cape people. It is not surprising that her misfortune was regarded as a good time! to settle up old scores, nor if the riotous doings mentioned by General Otis were true. An anecdote is told of a com- pany from Hog's Back who visited the ship early the next morning, before the captain had given her up. One of the party, a short old man with a short-tailed pipe in his mouth that had been spliced, inquired for the captain. Captain Aurey, supposing he had some authority, received him becomingly, when the old man said, "Captain, who did you pray to in the storm ? If you had prayed to the Lord he wouldn't have sent you here, and I am sure King George wouldn't." The Captain looked at him a moment and pleas- antly replied, "Old man, you've had your pipe fished, haven't you ? "
Captain Sears Rich of Truro, has a handsome cane made from the timber of the Somerset-some of the sturdy English oak. The old ship now lies buried in the sand not far from the Peaked Hills, sound as ever. I have been informed by Captain Henry Cook of Provincetown, that a few years ago the sand blew out, leaving her hull much exposed ; that several cart-loads were cut away from the wreck. Captain Cook has several timbers that he cut from her. A silver watch -some of the effects - was keeping good time at the Pond Village a few years ago.
The officers from the English ships often visited the people, and had cultivated their acquaintance; socially, were on pleasant terms. They attended church, and the chaplains not unfrequently preached. Dr. William Thayer was a sur- geon on an English man-of-war. He married Lucy Rich of South Truro, raised a family and practised medicine in Truro till the close of a long life. Some quite romantic attach- ments have been told.
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