Michael Finnigan

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I keep starting over. I’ve even deleted all my posts and started from scratch — more than once. I’ve changed my approach (more than once) and taken long hiatuses (I suppose the correct plural is actually “hiati”, but nobody would know what I was talking about if I said it, and “hiatuses” is more of a mouthful and therefore more fun to say* — and I’m not really sure about “hiati”, anyway). I’ve learned a lot about the Revolutionary War since I first started blogging several years ago, but I certainly haven’t blogged consistently.

So, here we are, seven years after I published my first blog post, and it’s that time of year again: a day-by-day history of the Revolutionary War (which is what I set out to create in the first place) has to start out with the battles of Lexington and Concord, which took place on April 19, 1775. Most everybody has heard something about those, even if they don’t remember it; if nothing else, most people seem to remember something about Paul Revere, who made his famous ride the night before. I won’t promise to post something every day, as I tried to do at first, but you’ll probably be hearing from me more often than you have been. I hope you enjoy it.

“There was an old man named Michael Finnigan…” That’s not a quote from the 1770s, but if you know the rest of the song, you can guess why I mentioned it.

*Or, as Mark Twain put it in A Horse’s Tale, “size is the main thing about a word, and that one’s up to standard.”

John Adams on Self-Delusion

If you’ve heard of John Adams, you may know of him as a member of the Continental Congress, an ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War, and the first Vice President and second President of the United States. A few years before the war started, however, in addition to being a lawyer, he wrote newspaper articles about agriculture. But as politics got more turbulent in Massachusetts, he became more involved, and he couldn’t help putting some of his political opinions in his letters to the editor.

Knowing what we know about John Adams — that he became a famous statesman and one of the founders of the United States, and that he wrote and published a lot of things about politics and government — it’s a bit funny to read, in a political article he wrote in August 1768, that it was “the last” time he would write about politics instead of his “principal and favorite views of writing on husbandry and mechanic arts.”

He was an independent sort of person. Not only did he later devote his life to American independence, but he didn’t like being tied to a political party; he liked to do things the way he thought they ought to be done, rather than following the crowd — even if it made him unpopular. In this particular article, he wrote, “I would quarrel with both parties and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either.” (Note that he wasn’t talking about the Republican and Democratic parties, which didn’t exist at the time; he was just talking about the opposing groups in Massachusetts at that time.) He went to say that

…more pains have been employed in charging desire of popularity, restless turbulence of spirit, ambitious views, envy, revenge, malice, and jealousy on one side; and servility, adulation, tyranny, principles of arbitrary power, lust of dominion, avarice, desires of civil or military commissions on the other; or in fewer words, in attempts to blacken and discredit the motives of the disputants on both sides, than in rational inquiries into the merits of the cause, the truth, and rectitude of the measures contested.

That description, sadly, fits things that happen all the time; people spend more time and energy talking about how bad the other political party is and trying to dig up and throw mud at each other than they spend trying to figure out what is true and what can be done. (If you don’t believe it, maybe you haven’t watched the news lately.) Adams was watching the same thing happen around him, involving some people he knew and even respected, and he wanted less yelling (so to speak) and more honest, rational thinking (the title of his article was “On Self-Delusion”).

Adams wasn’t done writing about politics; his next article, published a week later, began with the words, “It seems to be necessary for me, (notwithstanding the declaration in my last) once more to digress from the road of agriculture and mechanic arts…”

Source

John Adams, The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, Selected and with a Foreword by C. Bradley Thompson (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000). 4/6/2019. <https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/592> Pages 7-12.

Thick Skull

For some reason, somebody writing in a Massachusetts newspaper in late 1772 chose the pen name “Thick Skull.” It was common at that time for people to use pen names when writing something for a newspaper or pamphlet, and the pen names usually had some special meaning, but why this person chose to call himself “Thick Skull” is beyond me.

Thick Skull - Boston-Gazette and Country Journal 4 Jan 1773 p2
“Thick Skull” defended his pen name in a Boston newspaper in January 1773.

I haven’t found the article he presumably wrote under this pseudonym; I only came across a little paragraph in The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal of January 4, 1773, where he made a comment about himself. Apparently somebody made fun of his choice of name (which is certainly understandable), and he responded:

THICK SKULL, would acquaint the anonymous writer in Draper’s last paper, that he does not think himself in the least “unlucky in the choice of his signature”, as his choice was deliberate; rather thinks himself happy that this writer should think that “the signature fits him”, and that for once at least he is like to have “great proof” in his favour.

Maybe if I find the original article or pamphlet, I can figure out why he called himself that — or if the only reason was that he actually had a thick skull or a large head or something. (I assume that he wasn’t trying to say that he was stupid.) If I find out, I’ll let you know. In the meanwhile, I’ve started thinking: If I were to use a pen name, what would I pick?

Some pen names used during the Revolutionary period were:

  • Americanus (“an American”)
  • Novanglus (“a New Englander”) and Massachusettensis (“a Massachusettsian”); these were used by John Adams and Daniel Leonard in a newspaper debate
  • Common Sense (this was not only the title of Thomas Paine’s famous pamphlet, but also the pen name he used for this and a number of other pamphlets)
  • Cato (the name of an ancient Roman politician; this was probably used a number of times by a number of people, but one of the people who used it was someone who disagreed with “Common Sense”)
  • The Forester (which Thomas Paine used to respond to “Cato”; I’m not sure why he chose that one)
  • Age & Experience
  • J. (used by Jonathan Sewall)
  • U. (used by John Adams)

Source

The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal, 4 January 1773, p. 2.

Rome and the Bible

One thing that people of the 1700s often used when arguing about politics was ancient Roman history. Another one was the Bible. People on all sides of the debate about America used them to support their arguments. Of course, some people didn’t know Roman history well, although well-educated people generally did; and not everybody knew the Bible. But generally speaking, I think that the people in England and America at that time knew more about both than the average person does today. Some speeches, newspaper articles and pamphlets were full of quotes from the Bible, or references to Roman history. For example, a New Yorker wrote in 1774:

Let us, with the brave Romans, consider our ancestors and our offspring. Let us follow the example of the former, and set an example to the latter. … Had I a voice which could be heard from Canada to Florida, I would address the Americans in the language of the Roman patriot: “If you have a mind to keep those things, be they what they will, you are so fond of,” (whether your money, your freedom, civil and religious, or whether your very superfluities,) “rouse at length, and stand up for the liberties of your country.”

I hope that you don’t think (because you may not know Roman history very well) that all of the ancient Romans were noble, brave, and free; but Rome was a republic at times and was often held up as a model of good government.

The same writer also quoted or referred to the Bible several times, and encouraged clergymen to support the cause of liberty:

And let not the Ministers of the Gospel neglect their duty; let them remember the example of the Apostles, who embraced every opportunity of testifying their zeal for the civil and religious liberties of mankind; and while they teach men to consider their oppressors as “the rod of God’s anger, and the staff of his indignation,” let them not fail to excite and encourage them to a hope of his interposition in their behalf, while they humble themselves by fasting and prayer, and are in use of all proper means for deliverance.

If an article like this showed up in a newspaper today, I don’t think it would be very well received; most people probably wouldn’t understand the things it said about Rome and the Bible, and some would say that it’s inappropriate to base political arguments on the Bible at all.

If you want to test your Biblical knowledge, read the whole article and see how many Biblical references you can find.

Source:

American Archives, Series 4, volume 1, pp. 294-5.

A Race of Convicts

I mentioned in my previous post that Dr. Samuel Johnson hated Americans in general. Here are some examples of the things he said about them:

He once wrote in a letter that “the planters [that is, plantation owners] of America” were “a race of mortals whom, I suppose, no other man wishes to resemble.”

Another time, while talking with someone about the Americans, he said, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.”

And while dining with some friends and acquaintances one evening about three years after the Revolutionary War started, he somehow got onto the subject of America and said:

“I am willing to love all mankind except an American:” and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he “breathed out threatenings and slaughter;” calling them, “rascals — robbers — pirates;” and exclaiming, he’d “burn and destroy them.”

One of the other dinner guests criticized him a little bit for this outburst, which irritated him, and he “roared out another tremendous volley, which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantic.” He was a big man, and I imagine that he could roar pretty loud.

He was an interesting man, and I find it very interesting that America seemed to be the only subject that always made him angry. Maybe sometime I’ll go into one of the pamphlets that we wrote in response to the Americans’ complaints about taxes; it was titled “Taxation No Tyranny”.

Source

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by James Boswell, Esq.; vol. 1, pp. 304, 484; vol. 2, p. 194.

Slavery and Liberty

James Boswell, a Scottish gentleman who spent much of his life in London, which he called a “heaven on earth,” was a good friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson, a very intelligent, well-educated, and famous Englishman. Among other things, Dr. Johnson had written a dictionary. Boswell looked up to Johnson a lot, though he didn’t always agree with him.

Dr. Samuel Johnson

Johnson hated the Americans — and I mean he really hated them. When I read his biography (written by Boswell himself, with lots of notes of conversations they had and time they spent together), it seems like the Americans, and especially the rebellious ones, were the only subject that always made him angry, whenever it came up. Other things he might get upset about, but when he talked about the Americans, or when somebody else spoke in their favor, he got more than a little upset.

Boswell, on the other hand, thought that England was too harsh on the American colonies, and that they were even being unjust. This caused some friction between them at times, and Boswell generally tried to avoid the subject.

But on another subject that had to do with freedom, their opinions were reversed, in my view: Johnson said that slavery was wrong (which was one thing he had against the Americans), while Boswell said it was right and necessary. Johnson said:

It must be agreed that in most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion.

But Boswell, in the biography he wrote about Johnson, put in his response to Johnson’s opinion:

I beg leave to enter my most solemn protest against his general doctrine with respect to the Slave Trade. For I will resolutely say — that his unfavorable notion of it was owing to prejudice, and imperfect or false information… To abolish a status, which in all ages GOD has sanctioned and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects; but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now when their passage to the West Indies and their treatment there is humanely regulated. To abolish this trade would be to “…shut the gates of mercy on mankind.”

James Boswell

Boswell wasn’t nearly the only one who used those arguments. Some people probably just did it because they made money from the slave trade, or because other people did it. But some — and Boswell may have been one of them — honestly had that opinion. It was not uncommon. And at the time that Boswell wrote the biography, there was a lot of debate in England about the slave trade, because some people were working hard to abolish it.

 

If you think that Boswell’s arguments were strange or stupid or mean or whatever (and I do), then ask yourself this: Do you think slavery is wrong because you were always told, since the time you were a little kid, that slavery is wrong? Or because you studied and thought and read and debated about it, and came to that conclusion yourself? Perhaps Boswell was misinformed, but at least he did some homework and came to his own conclusions, and he didn’t just say what other people said; he was even willing to disagree with the man whom he admired more than anyone else.

But at any rate, Johnson’s opinion of slavery was as immovable as Boswell’s. In a pamphlet called “Taxation no Tyranny,” which said that England had a right to tax America, he asked a question that pointed out one of the great paradoxes of the American Revolution: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

Source

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by James Boswell, Esq., vol. 2, pp. 134-136. (The biography was first published in 1791; my copy, of course, was printed much later, in New York, but it was long enough ago that it doesn’t have the usual copyright page, with dates, etc., so I don’t know exactly when it was published.)

Front-page News: Plant Grapevines!

I hope you won’t mind me indulging my fascination for all things ancient. When I read about the American Revolution and that time period, I find interesting not only the “big, important” events, but the little, miscellaneous, everyday things that give me a glimpse into what life was really like and what those people thought. For example, in the Virginia Gazette of February 25, 1773, the front-page article was an “Essay on the Utility of VINE PLANTING in Virginia.”

The writer was trying to convince people that it would be good to plant more vineyards and produce more wine in Virginia, rather than importing wine from elsewhere. I guess there had been some bills in the legislature about promoting vineyards, or something along those lines, and he supported them. Some of his arguments seem reasonable, though I’m not an expert on viticulture (had to look that word up), but I think he took it a bit far when he said:

The Cultivation of the Vine should be the Aim of our most serious Counsels and active Industry. Will it cause an Expense? I am willing to pay my Proportion, sure to be rewarded a Thousand Fold in the Good that will befall either myself, my Children, my Fellow Citizens, or all together. If you are of a different Opinion, consider yourself as liable to be mistaken. You may be right, perhaps; but if you prevent a Measure actually prudent and beneficial, and in the Degree suggested, consider whether the Birth of any Mortal was more pernicious to his Country than yours to your Country.

That’s a little bit intense for talking about vineyards, if you ask me. I don’t think that producing wine was the most important thing for Virginia at the time, or that preventing it was the worst possible thing a Virginian could do to his country — but hey, what do I know? I didn’t even know the word “viticulture” before I started writing this…

Prime Minister North Says That Britain Can’t Be Silent Any Longer

Will this country sit still, when they see the Colony [of Massachusetts] proceeding against your own subjects, tarring and feathering your servants; denying your laws and authority; refusing every direction and advice which you send? Are we, Sir, seeing all this, to be silent, and give the Governor no support?

To change the government of Massachusetts is to take away their colony charter, which was granted by King William III and Queen Mary II, all the way back in 1691! Since the Americans aren’t here to defend themselves, it’s like holding a trial without even letting the defendant come into the courtroom! It’s not right to do this without giving them a chance to make up for what they did!

These were some of the arguments used in the British House of Commons against the bill to alter the government of Massachusetts, which was one of the “Intolerable Acts” passed in reaction to the Boston Tea Party. (The bill gave more power to the governor — who was appointed by the Crown — in hopes that he would be able to stop the rebellious demonstrations and enforce the law.) The opponents of the bill were very vocal and sometimes eloquent in their opposition. Those who supported the bill, on the other hand, had numbers on their side, so they could afford to be fairly quiet; but sometimes they matched their opponents in eloquence and energy. Lord North, for example, who was the Prime Minister, usually stuck to calm speeches, but on at least one occasion he put a bit of fire in his remarks about this bill:

Will this country sit still, when they see the Colony proceeding against your own subjects, tarring and feathering your servants; denying your laws and authority; refusing every direction and advice which you send? Are we, Sir, seeing all this, to be silent, and give the Governor no support? Gentlemen say, let the Colony come to your bar, and be heard in their defence; though it is not likely that they will come, when they deny your authority in every instance. Can we remain in this situation long? We must, effectually, take some measure to correct and amend the defects of that Government. … The Americans have tarred and feathered your subjects, plundered your merchants, burnt your ships, denied all obedience to your laws and authority; yet so clement, and so long forbearing has our conduct been, that it is incumbent on us now to take a different course. … It is not I say, again, political convenience, it is political necessity that urges this measure: if this is not the proper method, shew me any other which is preferable, and I will postpone it.

Of course, he didn’t postpone it; nobody presented an option that was preferable. (Personally, I doubt that any other plan, no matter how good, would have seemed preferable to him, or that he would have allowed it to be pursued.)

While some members of Parliament argued that Britain was taking too high-handed an approach, the King, and Lord North and his supporters, were tired of letting the Americans push the bounds of British authority. Theirs was a “no more Mr. Nice Guy” approach. When the Parliamentary session had opened in March 1774, the King had urged the members to take steps to “better [secure] the execution of the Laws, and the just dependence of the Colonies upon the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain.” And they did.

Source

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, pages 5, 73.

The Beginning of Lord Dunmore’s War with the Indians

While Pennsylvania and Virginia were bickering about which colony Pittsburgh was in, there was even more serious trouble between the colonists and some of the local Native Americans. The tribes involved included the Shawanese (or Shawnees), the Mingoes, the Cherokee, and the Delawares. The Virginia House of Burgesses mentioned the Indian “disturbances” as one of their main concerns when they met in May 1774, and they urged the governor, Lord Dunmore, to take action “to repel the hostile and perfidious attempts of those savage and barbarous enemies.”

Both Virginians and Pennsylvanians were united in their fear of and hostility toward the Indians. Some Virginian colonists petitioned Lord Dunmore to protect them. Other settlers blamed the Virginians for provoking the Indians. At any rate, it was some settlers or traders who evidently started the trouble, or at least helped to start it, by killing some Indians.

In their settlement on the Muskingum River, in present-day Ohio, the members of the United Brethren Mission were especially worried about the Indian troubles. They were there to convert the Indians to Christianity, and they had friends among the Indians, but the different tribes didn’t agree among themselves, and while some were friendly, others were not. The mission’s journal noted:

May 8. In the evening arrived an express from Gekelemuckepuck, with the disagreeable news that the white people on the Ohio had killed nine Mingoes, and wounded two; the messenger arrived, making a terrible noise as it is usual in war time. He had also a message from the Shawanese, which the Chief of Gekelemuck sent to us to take notice of “that their grandfather, the Delaware Nation, should not be concerned, but be easy and quiet; let the traders traffic among them, and not hurt them, or any other white people in that quarter…. This seems to signify as if they intended to keep the road to Pittsburg clear, and not hurt the Pennsylvanians, but only to contend with the Virginians.

A council among the Indians didn’t solve the problem, though some of them urged the others to make peace. David Zeisburger, a missionary at a place called Schonbrunn, wrote to the brethren at Muskingam on May 24:

We then were in hopes that the dark cloud would pass over soon, and peace be re-established, as the Shawanese in the Council at Woaketameka, had given seemingly a pretty favourable answer. But it appears now that they were only afraid of the Delaware party in the Council, for we heard since that a party of twenty warriors were gone to make an incursion [i.e. an attack] where the Mingoes have been killed.

Another of the United Brethren, known as “The COSH, alias JOHN BULL,” wrote at the same time:

We heard that three Cherokee Indians going down the river had killed one trader and wounded another, and plundered the canoe: the traders had imprudently shewn their silver things they had for trading. In the Fort [Fort Pitt] we heard that the Mingoes had stolen that night fifteen horses, and that they were all gone off from below Logtown. The white people began to be much afraid of an Indian war. We hastened to get home again, and after our return received the news that a company of Virginians, under one Cresap, enticed some of the Mingoes, living at the mouth of Yellow Creek, to the other side of the river, and gave them rum to make them drunk, and then they killed five; two others crossing the river to look after their friends were shot down as soon as they came ashore. Five more were going over the river whom they also waylaid, but the Indians perceiving them, turned their canoe to make their escape, but being immediately fired at, two were killed and two wounded. The day following they killed one Shawanese and one Delaware Indian, in a canoe down the river with two traders The same party killed John Gibson’s wife, a Shawanese woman; they further pursued a canoe, killed a Shawanese Chief, and wounded another man. They said they would kill and plunder all that were going up and down the river. But they soon fled and left the poor settlers as victims to the Indians; many are fled and left all their effects [i.e. belongings] behind…

We are in great distress and don’t know what to do; our Indians keep watch about us every night, and will not let us go out of town, even not into our corn fields. If there should be more bad news, we will be forced to move from here, for we are in danger from both sides.

The tension and violence grew worse and eventually led to what became known as Dunmore’s War, as the Virginian governor mobilized a few thousand men to fight the Indians. It was several months before the Indians were conclusively defeated and agreed to peace.

Sources

American Archives, 4th Series, Volume 1, pages 276, 283-7.

Border War: Is Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania?

“Pittsburg is at least probably within the charter limits of this Province,” wrote John Penn, governor of Pennsylvania, to Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia. There was a minor border war going on between the two colonies, and Penn was trying to reach a settlement. The problem was that the western parts of many of the colonies were not very well-defined; hence, different colonies laid claim to the same areas: New Hampshire and New York squabbled over what is now Vermont; there was friction between Pennsylvania and Connecticut (I haven’t figured that one out yet, since they didn’t share a border — at least, not on the map); and in early 1774, things were getting pretty heated in western Pennsylvania.

Lord Dunmore sent a man named John Conolly to establish Virginia’s authority in Pittsburgh and the surrounding area. Governor Penn sent Arthur St. Clair to deal with the situation. Conolly called for the people to organize as a militia (which, if they would recognize his authority, would enable him to carry out his plans). St. Clair had him arrested. Some of the locals, however, gathered all the same — with their guns. St. Clair wrote that they marched through town and then to Fort Pitt, “where a cask of rum was produced on the parade, and the head knocked out. This was a very effectual way of recruiting.” When St. Clair and some other Pennsylvania officials tried to get them to disperse, “they replied they had been invited there, but came with peaceable intentions, and would go home again without molesting any one; on which we left them; however, towards night, their peaceable disposition forsook them, and I should probably have felt their resentment had I not got intimation of their design. I thought it most prudent to keep out of their way.” (That last part was well put.)

Conolly didn’t stay in jail for long, but Lord Dunmore was outraged that the Pennsylvanians had dared to arrest someone who was acting under his authority. He wrote to governor Penn in March:

I do insist upon the most ample reparation being made for so great an insult on the authority of his Majesty’s Government of Virginia; and no less can possibly be admitted than the dismission of the clerk (St. Clair) of Westmoreland county, who had the audacity, without any authority, to commit [i.e. imprison] a Magistrate in the legal discharge of his trust, unless he (St. Clair) can prevail, by proper submission, on Mr. Conolly, to demand his pardon of me.

Penn was somewhat more diplomatic, but still firm, in his reply:

You must excuse my not complying with your Lordship’s requisition of stripping him [St. Clair], on this occasion of his offices and livelihood, which you will allow me to think not only unreasonable, but somewhat dictatorial.

Some people, governor Penn included, called for a temporary boundary line to be agreed upon — a sort of truce — while the two colonies worked at getting the King to settle the matter with an official survey. But there was more than one hothead involved, and the conflict went on even while the troubles between the colonies and Britain continued to grow.

Sources

American Archives, Series 4, Volume 1, pages 254-55, 260, 267.