USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 29
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was only rescued by the "Squirrel" springing her cable and bringing the battery under her broadside. The captain of the "Squirrel " complained to the government bnt no redress was given or attempted. The captain of the "Squirrel" made a report in which he styled the government a "very ignorant council." and the lientenant of the schooner prayed for "a change of government in this licentious republic."
In March, 1765, the secretary of his majesty's conncil sent out papers to the government of Rhode Island particularly requir- ing a report as to "what was done by the government of the colony when the populace possessed themselves of the battery upon Goat Island." According to Arnoldl two of the magistrates gave the order to the governor at Fort George to fire on the boats. No explanation of this high-handed proceeding appears on the records, but it would seem that the offense of the officer of the schooner was his supposed intention to take the brig with the seized cargo to Halifax for condemnation.
Rhode Island had always been tenacious abont her relations with the customs and claimed the right of establishing the salaries for crown officers. The action of the British navy officers at Halifax in sending their cruisers down the coast in search of seamen was repeated in 1765. In May the " Maidstone," a British armed vessel. Jay for several weeks in the harbor im- pressing seamen from vessels that came into port. from the coasters and even the small wood boats and river craft. The townsmen of Newport were let alone, but the commerce of the port suffered from the avoidance of it by trading vessels. Supplies to the town even became scarce. These outrages culminated in the boarding by English naval officers of a brig arrived from Africa on a June afternoon, and the impressment of the entire crew. Exasperated beyond measure, about five hundred Newport sailors and boys seized the "Maidstone's" boat at one of the wharves and dragging it through Queen street to the common, there burned it.
During the summer all the colonies were in opposition to the Stamp Act. The house of burgesses of Virginia declared the measure unconstitutional; the people of Philadelphia spiked guns at the fort and barracks. In June and July news came that the act would be enforced in November. In June the Massachusetts house of representatives agreed to a meeting of committees from the several colonies at the city of New York
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on the first Tuesday in October. One after another the colonies appointed their delegates. The general assembly of Rhode Island named Metcalfe Bowler and Henry Ward commissioners to the New York congress.
News came of a change in the British ministry. Gren- ville went out and Conway became secretary for the colo- nies. But before this information arrived the colonies were in open revolt. Commissions had been received for the stamp officers, some of whom accepted the post. The office of Oliver in Boston was sacked, Ingersoll in New Haven was forced to promise the reshipment of the stamps, Cone of New Jersey threw up his commission, McEvers in New York made formal resignation. Augustus Johnston, the attorney-general who had been appointed stamp distributor for Rhode Island, also resigned and notice was published in an extra of the " Providence Gazette," which bore the legend, "Vox Populi, Vor Dei" above its title. In many of the chief towns the stamp distributors were hung in effigy. The rage of the people ex- pressed itself in this way at Newport. On the 26th of August effigies of three leading citizens, Augustus Johnston, Martin Howard, Jr., a lawyer, and Dr. Thomas Moffatt, a Scotch physi- cian, were carted through the streets, hung on a gallows in front of the court house and at night cut down and burned. The next day their houses were phundered and they were driven to refuge on board the "Cygnet " sloop of war in the harbor. The revenue officers closed the custom house and sought the same protection. The lieutenant governor, Gideon Wanton, Jr., in the absence of the chief magistrate, invited them to return, but they demand- ed a guard and also the arrest of Samuel Crandall, the leader of the rioters, who had insisted as a condition of quiet that the custom house be managed in accordance with the acts of assem- bly, and that a prize sloop from the West Indies, with its cargo, held by the "Cygnet " for orders from the prize court of Hali- fax, be given up to the captors. There was even a plan by the citizens to take Fort George, cut out the prize sloop and to fire on the "Cygnet " in case of interference.
The assembly, in September, condemned these violent pro- ceedings, and directed the governor to issue a proclamation for apprehending the rioters, and at the same time passed and made public certain declaratory resolutions concerning the act levying stamp duties and other internal duties, according in the
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main with those passed in Virginia and others of the colonies. These rested on the charter rights of Rhode Island, its custom of government by the assembly in matters of taxes and internal police, and declared the acts of parliament unconstitutional, and their intention to disregard all laws and ordinances except of their own making. This assembly, which Arnold styles one of the most important sessions ever held in Rhode Island, ap- pointed the commissioners to the congress.
The Stamp Act congress, as it is known in history, met in New York on the 7th day of October, 1765. Nine colonies, among which Rhode Island were represented; the delegates appointed in different forms and differently empowered but actuated by a similar spirit. They agreed upon a masterly declaration of rights and grievances and adopted memorials to the lords and commons. The congress adjourned on Friday, the 25th of Oc- tober, and the delegates were placed under an engagement of secrecy as to their proceeding until the petitions were presented. Immediately on their breaking up, a meeting of New York citizens was called at "Jones House in the Fields in New York" (the present City Hall park) for Monday the 28th, but the notice being too short for full attendance. it was postponed to the 31st of October at the City Arms (late the City Hotel), when over two hundred of the principal merchants solemnly bound themselves to a non-importation agreement. Philadelphia followed this example on the 7th of November. [Here it may be mentioned that there is a tablet in Philadelphia stating that this famons agreement originated in that city. ]
Meanwhile the 1st of November, the day fixed for the stamp act to take effect, had arrived. Governor Samuel Ward of Rhode Island had refused to take the oath to enforce the act. But the people took care that the instruments themselves should be want- ing. In New York the mayor himself, as the enstodian of the people, received the stamps from the lieutenant-governor. In Newport the stamp officers placed them on board the " Cygnet," sloop of war, for safe-keeping; a town meeting was called at which the governor presided, which appointed a military guard and a night patrol to maintain peace and order in the excited town. No one has better stated the nature of the crisis than Mr. Arnold: "The wheels of every government in America were stopped at once. Commerce was crushed, law was annulled, justice was delayed, even the usages of domestic life were sus.
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pended by this anomalous and terrible act. Not a ship could sail, nor even a marriage take place that was not in itself illegal, so far as the British parliament could make it so; for every one of these acts required the evidence of stamped papers to establish its validity."
No one in England, not even Franklin himself, who best of all the agents understood the temper of the colonies, was prepared for such a universal spirit of resistance. At the opening of parliament in January, 1766, American affairs were the one engrossing subject of consideration. At the close of Feb- ruary the act was repealed, but at the same time an act passed declaratory of the right of parliament " to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever." The king signed both documents on the 18th of March. The first impulse given to home manufactures in America sprung from the determination of the people to free themselves from dependence on Great Britain. Societies were established to promote these industries and markets set up in the chief cities. Rhode Island was not behind in this enterprise. A premium was offered for the largest amount of flax raised dur- ing the year in the county of Providence. A paper mill was es tablished. The use of homespun garments became general. Lib- erty trees were planted in all the chief cities-in New York on the Fields; in Boston on the common; in Newport on a plot of land given by Captain William Read, one of the deputies for the town. A sort of reaction of loyalty followed the repeal of the stamp act. Statues were voted to the king and to Pitt. The king's birthday was celebrated with joy. There were rejoicings and balls in Providence and at Newport, where the assembly met in June and adopted an address to the king and resolutions of thanks to the merchants of London who had been zealous friends of the colonies.
The whigs now came into power in England and parliament passed an indemnity to those who had incurred penalties under the stamp act, and an act regulating trade with the West India islands with larger privileges. The Rhode Island colony was especially pleased by this legislation and the governor de- clared its satisfaction. The trne state of public feeling was, however, not understood in England, or if understood disre- garded. A measure was brought into parliament to raise rov- enue in America by customs duties collected by officers of the crown, Revenue commissioners were appointed with station at
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Boston and John Robinson, collector at Newport, was appointed one of the new board. The collectors had nothing to do, as all orders for goods on which imports due were to be paid had been countermanded, and committees of the citizens took care to see that the non-importation agreement was enforced.
The impossibility of collecting revenue in America for the service of government was gradually bronght home to the British government, and in July, 1769, Joseph Sherwood, the agent of Rhode Island, was able to inform the governor that the Earl of Hillsborough, one of the secretaries for America, had informed the agents of several of the colonies that the legis- lature and ministry had resolved to repeal the act levying duties on paper, glass and colors. But before this news reached the colony Newport had again been the scene of a violent resistance to the revenue laws. The " Liberty," a revenue sloop, had been sent by the commissioners of the customs in Boston to crnise in the waters of Long Island. Her officers had taken and brought into Newport a Connecticut brig and sloop. In the night the townspeople cut the "Liberty's" cable, when she drifted to shore near Long Wharf, where she was boarded and burned. The sloop escaped in the disturbance and the brig was duly cleared by the authorities. Governor Wanton issued a proclamation from which it appears that the real purpose of these riotons proceedings was to enable the vessels to get away with their prohibited goods. The commissioners offered a re- ward of one hundred pounds sterling for the conviction of any of the offenders.
The king, while yielding to the desire of his ministry in the attempts to collect revenue, insisted on the right ; and " the three pence duty upon tea" was therefore excepted in the act of repeal.
In Newport, as has been seen, there was never much attention paid to restrictive laws of any character, whether touching priva- teering, importations or collection of the revenue. In March, 1772, the arbitrary condnet of the officers of his majesty's schooner " Gaspee," stationed with the " Beaver " in the Narra- gansett waters to enforce the revenue acts, and the seizure on trivial pretexts of craft engaged in the daily trade of the colony, brought on a correspondence between Governor Wanton and Lieutenant Duddington, in which the officer expressed himself with the customary British insolence, and Governor
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Wanton answered with the independent spirit which was al- ready the tone of American communications. The interference of bientenant Duddington continuing, it was determined to put a stop to it. Word coming to Newport that the "Gaspee," while in chase of a trading vessel which had arrived in the har- bor of Newport and gone up the river to Providence, had run aground below Pawtuxet, volunteers were summoned in Provi- dence by beat of drum. Led by Captain Abraham Whipple and joined by a boat's crew from Bristol, they boarded the " Gaspee " at night and after a short struggle, in which the sancy British lieutenant was wounded, the crew of his majesty's ship was driven below. At daylight the lientenant was landed and the "Gaspee" was burned.
Large rewards were offered in England for the arrest of the offenders and it was ordered that they be sent to England for trial, but this was still another of those demands to which the colonies would not submit. The rewards were unavailing and after many attempts on the part of the British government, the proseentions were dropped. The friends of absolute govern- ment were inclined to peremptory measures and Hutchinson, the governor of Massachussetts, proposed the annulling of the char- ter of Rhode Island. The struggle was now rapidly approaching which was to determine whether England was to govern America or America to govern herself.
CHAPTER VI.
NEWPORT IN THE REVOLUTION.
BY JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS.
Events of 1774 .- First Continental Congress .- Military Preparations in Rhode Island .- Events of 1775 .- The Army of Observation .- The Train of Artil- lery .- Depredations by Captain Wallace and his Fleet .- Events of 1776.
N EWPORT was not included among the principal Ameri- can ports to which the East India Company sent the first tea ships. Her fidelity to the non-importation agreements was not, therefore, subjected to the same practical test as in the ports to which the consignments were made, but she left no doubt as to her attitude on the question. At a "very full town meeting" held on the 12th of January, 1774, Newport was the first of the Rhode Island towns to adopt stringent res- olutions forbidding the landing or bringing to land of any "dntied tea" belonging to the East India Company or any other person ; approving the proceedings of the people of Bos- ton, Philadelphia and New York, and pledging themselves to join with the other towns of the colonies, and with the other colonies, in a resolute stand against every unconstitutional measure calculated to enslave America, and the tea act in par- ticular.
A committee of correspondence, consisting of Colonel Joseph Wanton, Jr., Henry Ward, John Mawdsley, John Collins and William Ellery, Esquires, was appointed to address the towns of the colony and to visit the importers of English goods, with notice of the resolutions and a request to countermand ship- ments of any dutiable merchandise ordered.
The other towns followed in rapid succession : Providence on the 19th of January, Bristol and Richmond on the 28th of February, New Shoreham (Block Island) on the 2d of March, Cumberland on the 18th of March, Barrington on the 21st of March ; copies of the Newport resolutions having been sent to
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each. The published records of the colony name these towns and give all the resolutions in full, except those of Newport, which are represented to be in substance similar to those of Providence as here given. Arnold says that Warren followed Providence. Westerly met on February 2d, Little Compton February 3d, Middletown on the 9th ; then South Kingstown, Jamestown and Hopkinton-the others as above given. Gov- ernor Samuel Ward, of Westerly, the Samuel Adams of Rhode Island, one of the staunchest of the steadfast band who led the revolution, and second to no man in sturdy common sense, drew the Westerly resolutions, which were in the main the model of those which followed.
The idea of a Congress was by no means new. The New York committee of inspection, discontented with the breach of the non-importation agreement by the Boston merchants, to their own detriment and the general injury, had, as early as Angust, 1770, nrged a Congress on the colonies, to "unite them in one system for the whole Continent," which; as appears by the letter of the chairman of the New York committee pub- lished in Holt's "New York Journal," Angust 30th, 1770, was rejected. But now that the liberties of Massachusetts were directly menaced, the "rejected " measure became the corner- stone of the temple. John Hancock proposed it in a public meeting at Boston on the 5th of March, and with this endorse- ment it was at once received by New England and spread by the committees of correspondence through every town.
The news from England of Lord North's measure of coercion ; the closing of the port of Boston against all commerce until it should give indemnity for the past and security for future obedience, the legalizing of quartering troops within the town of Boston, the appointment of General Gage, the military con- mander-in-chief for all North America, to the post of civil gov- ernor of Massachusetts, and the ordering to that colony of four regiments of British troops, left no doubt of the determination of Great Britain-king, ministers and parliament-to maintain their authority, of whatever nature and at whatever cost. Gage was ordered also to send to Great Britain the leaders of resistance -- Samuel Adams, Hancock and Warren. The arrival of the Boston port bill on the 10th of May, followed by the landing of Gage at Castle William, hastened the measures of defense.
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The general assembly of Rhode Island, at its May session (4th), ordered a census of the colony and appointed field offi- cers for the four counties : For Newport county, Mr. Daniel Dunham, colonel ; Mr. Isaac Dayton, lientenant-colonel ; Mr. John Forrester, major. The census showed the population of the colony to be 59,678, including 54,435 whites, 3,761 blacks and 1,482 Indians. Newport county had 15,929, Providence 19,206, Kings 13,866, Kent 7,888 and Bristol 2,789. The town of Newport had 9,209 inhabitants and Providence 4,321.
The committees of the towns abont Boston held a conference on the 12th of May, at which the speaker of the Rhode Island assembly, Mr. Metcalfe Bowler, of Newport, appeared with the news that the majority of the several colonies had made favorable answer to the circular-letter of the Rhode Island house of deputies, the object of which was "a firm and close union of the Colonies," and that all were pledged to union. A great meeting was held at Faneuil Hall on the 13th, which was spirited in its resolves for resistance but had no word for a congress. On the 17th the people of Providence resolved heartily to join with the province of the Massachusetts Bay and the other colonies in measures to secure their natural rights and privileges, and directed their deputies "to use their influence at the approaching session of the general assembly of this colony (Rhode Island) for promoting a Congress." The people of Newport, Mr. Henry Ward, secretary of the colony, acting as moderator of the meeting, agreed to "unite with the other colonies in all reasonable and proper demands to procure the establishment of the rights of the colonies," and heartily to join in the measure to put a stop to trade with Great Britain and the West Indies. The meeting was very full and the spirit of it firm and determined. A number of gentlemen were immediately to form a company for carrying on the wool- en manufacture extensively in Rhode Island, there being wool enongh raised on it to clothe all the inhabitants.
The resolutions of the Providence meeting breathed the true spirit, but the claim of Mr. Arnold that it was the "first ex- plieit movement for a general Congress" cannot be sustained ; since New York had before then urged that as the only measure which would bring relief. The merchants and others of New York met on the 16th and appointed a large committee of corres- pondence. This committee organized on the 23d, when Paul
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Revere, the express from Boston to Philadelphia, brought in the official report of the Boston town meeting of the 13th, recommending strong non-importation resolutions. The New York committee instantly replied : "No remedy can be of any avail unless it proceeds from the joint act and approbation of all. From a virtuons and spirited union much may be ex- pected, while the feeble efforts of a few will only be attended with mischieľ and disappointment to ourselves and triumph to the adversaries of our liberty. Upon these reasons we con- clude that a congress of deputies from the colonies in general is of the utmost moment ; that it ought to be assembled with- out delay and some unanimous resolutions formed in this fatal emergency, not only respecting your deplorable circum- stances but for the seenrity of our common right ; " and close requesting "speedy opinion of the proposed Congress-that if it should meet with your approbation we may exert our ut- most endeavours to carry it into execution."
To this the Boston committee replied, on the 30th of May, that the only measure was a "suspension of trade." New York answered on the 7th of June: " That (the suspension of trade) and every other resolution we have thought most pru- dent to leave for the discussion of the General Congress. Ad- hering therefore to that measure as most conducive to promote the grand system of politics we all have in view, we have the pleasure to acquaint you that we shall be ready on our part to meet at any time and place that you shall think fit to ap- point ; either of Deputies from the General Assembly or such other deputies as shall be chosen not only to speak the senti- ments but also to pledge themselves for the conduct of the people of the respective colonies they represent. We can un- dertake to assure you in behalf of the people in this colony that they will readily agree to any measure that shall be adopted by the General Congress. It will be necessary that you give a sufficient time for the Deputies of the Colonies as far Southward as the Carolinas to assemble and acquaint them as soon as possible with the proposed measure of a Congress."
Massachusetts hesitated to bind herself to any common ac- tion. She wanted her own way and no other way. Rhode Is- land was more liberal. It is enough honor to her to say that in the movement for a congress she went hand in hand with New York. Indeed, since the happy result of the stamp act
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congress, it must have been plain that a congress with power to enforce its resolutions was the only manner to unite the forces of the colonies in a common action for redress of grievances or whatever ultimate result might be desired.
The non-importation agreement originated in New York. It had been hailed with satisfaction by the other colonies but had not been adhered to by them. The southern colonies had in- creased their importations and, to quote the words of Bancroft, who gives authority for his statement, " New England and Penn- sylvania had imported nearly one half as much as usual; New York alone had been perfectly true to its engagement, und its imports had fallen off more than five parts in six. It was im- patient of a system of voluntary renunciation which was so un- equally kept; and the belief was common that if the others had adhered to it as strictly, all the grievances would have been re- dressed." Insult upon insult had been heaped upon New York because of her refusal to continue in the agreement, until she was resolved that she would make no agreements nuless there was some power to compel compliance among the parties to it. That power was to be found and only to be found in a congress. Connecticut entreated Massachusetts to fix the time and place of meeting generously yielded to her by New York.
On the 26th of May the legislature of Virginia was dissolved by Governor Dunmore, and on the 28th the committee of cor- respondence of that colony addressed the Rhode Island com- mittee approving the "appointing deputies from the several colonies of British America to meet annnally in general con- gress." Here the idea of a permanent body is formulated. Rhode Island made a practical response and while the general court of Massachusetts, spurred on by Sam Adams, was cau- tionsly arranging the day and place of meeting which, on the 15th of June it finally named, the general assembly of Rhode Island had already, on the 13th, in a session held at Newport, appointed the Hon. Stephen Hopkins and the IIon. Samuel Ward to represent the people of the colony in a general con- gress of representatives, with instructions to join in a loyal and dutiful petition to his majesty for relief of grievances; to con- sult as to what measures to pursue in a united manner to pro- cure nt redress of their grievances and to endeavor to procure a regular annual convention of representatives from all the col- onies.
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