A Fist-and-Sword Fight on the Streets of Boston
Although there wasn’t much serious fighting going on between the Americans outside Boston and the British inside (they had some skirmishes, and they shot cannon at each other, but not many people were hurt), there was a fight inside Boston on August 11th — not between the armies, but between Admiral Samuel Graves, who commanded all of the British navy in America at the time, and Benjamin Hallowell, a British customs official.
A letter that was later published in a London newspaper described what had happened:
Since my last [letter] we have had every day more or less firing on the Charlestown side, but without much damage on either part. We have been very quiet all night, and have had little disturbance through the day, till last Friday, when the following battle royal in the streets drew all our attention, and has since engrossed all our conversation. — Mr. Hallowell, a Commissioner of the Customs, had written four letters to Admiral Greaves [Graves]. The subject of these letters was, it is said, an expostulation with the Admiral for taking forcibly, for his own use, one half of a quantity of hay, purchased by the Commission on some of the islands, for allowing the other half to pass. The Commissioner meeting the Admiral in Milk-street, who had never thought proper to answer any of his letters, stopped and enquired, why that notice had not been taken of his letters, which he, as a Gentleman, had a right to expect? To this civil question, the Admiral replied in his usual style; and while the Commissioner was whispering a challenge to him, returned a blow in the face. Though Mr. Hallowell was unarmed, the Admiral had recourse to his sword, on which the former rushed upon him, forced it from him, broke it over his knee, and then flung it in Greaves’s face; after this they went to it with their fists, but were soon parted. — The Admiral has come off with a black eye. He has not yet proposed a renewal of battle, probabaly preserving himself for the Yankies, who have already carried off all his fresh stock, burnt his hay on the islands, and destroyed the light-house twice under his very nose. … In his own department, the Admiral is more hated and despised, if possible, than he is by the army and rebels.
It was true that a lot of people disliked the Admiral, and it’s pretty obvious that the person who wrote this letter was one of those people. Hallowell also wrote about it — he sent a couple of letters to General Thomas Gage (the commander in chief), explaining what had happened and asking for justice to be done — and of course his side of the story was even more critical of the Admiral. I don’t know whether Graves ever wrote his side of the story.
Imagine being the commander in chief and having your fellow commander get in a fistfight with a civilian! It certainly wouldn’t make the military look good, and General Gage already had enough trouble on his hands.
Notes
To expostulate means “To reason earnestly with a person, on some impropriety of his conduct, representing the wrong he has done or intends, and urging him to desist, or to make redress” (Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language).
Interestingly, Benjamin Hallowell was a former captain in the British navy, and his son Benjamin later became an admiral.
Source
Naval Documents of the American Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 1182-3. Also see pp. 1140-1, 1180-1, and 1191.