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The War of 1812 and How To Win When Outnumbered: Perspective

The past is a foreign country. Once upon a time I drove up through Maine and across the border into the wilds of Canada to take part in a bicentennial War of 1812 conference at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. The event was great fun, in part because it was surreal to hear people who mainly look and talk like you refer to you as The Other, a once and—perhaps—future foe.

Old Ironsides

It’s hard to imagine what happened back then. For example, British Loyalists who fled the United States after the Revolution stormed back across the border to sack Bangor, Maine. U.S. Army forces burned York, which is now Toronto. Britain’s Royal Navy blockaded the East Coast, shutting down crucial seaports like Boston and Newport. Redcoats landed in the Chesapeake Bay and burned the executive mansion, which we now know as the White House.

In our lifetimes the United States has always been top dog in the world. Canada has always been a close friend. And we have always enjoyed a “special relationship” with Great Britain. But it wasn’t always that way.

War of 1812 Redux

I encountered the War of 1812 again in 2015, when I had the privilege to deliver bicentennial remarks at the Charlestown Navy Yard to commemorate the last battle of USS Constitution, when our nation’s most venerated sail frigate defeated two British warships, HMS Cyane and Levant. The story of Constitution’s 1815 “dual victory” is an inspiring one. It shows that ship crews can overcome certain timeless difficulties of naval war through seamanship, gunnery, and sheer entrepreneurship. To the extent that we remember the War of 1812, we tend to remember it as a victory. That’s because the U.S. Navy won a series of one-on-one victories over the Royal Navy during the early going.

Visit Constitution today and the tour guides will tell you the vessel is Boston’s only undefeated sports team, at 33-0! In fact, Royal Navy ships took to cruising in squadrons to avoid being outgunned by 44-gun frigates like Constitution and their excellent crews.

The capture of the Cyane and Levant.

Constitution skipper Capt. Charles Stewart defeated Cyane and Levant one by one rather than blast away at them at the same time. Defeating one fraction of an enemy force, then turning to defeat the other fraction, is a timeless way to prevail when you’re outnumbered. Captain Stewart maneuvered his ship skillfully while taking advantage of a U.S. Navy technical advantage. Namely, American guns had longer range than the British navy’s. British captains liked to get close and blaze away—much as we saw Captain Jack Aubrey, a.k.a. Russell Crowe, do in Master and Commander, the wonderful naval epic that appeared in 2003. Stewart capitalized on that British preference and was able to hurt the British ships at a distance.

Top Gun

Stewart was able to maneuver Constitution to avoid being raked across the bow and stern, where wooden warships were most vulnerable. Instead he crossed ahead of and behind his opponents, raking them from ahead and astern. In one instance he ordered Constitution’s topsails taken aback—taking all way off the ship in a hurry so he could prevent Levant from crossing astern and engage from a position of advantage. The maneuver was reminiscent of Top Gun, when Maverick and Goose hit the brakes so the Soviet MiG will “fly right by” and appear in Mav’s gunsight. The contestant that does something unexpected and unorthodox gains a tactical advantage.

Being nimble and adaptive helps as well. Constitution suffered damage to her mainmast while pursuing the foe, compelling Stewart to order makeshift repairs and change up his tactics on the fly. He improvised and overcame. Both enemy ships struck their colors after a couple of hours of battle.

Theodore Roosevelt

That’s a rousing story, but the bigger picture is not so uplifting. In fact, both Theodore Roosevelt, a one-time assistant secretary of the navy and later a great navy president, and Alfred Thayer Mahan, the second president of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and probably the most influential naval historian ever, wrote histories of the War of 1812 precisely to debunk the popular legend that a plucky young United States had thrashed the preeminent sea power of the age. When remembering the War of 1812, no one should wave the foamy We’re Number One finger the way New England fans do in good years.

TR’s ‘Naval War of 1812’

TR wrote his history of the Naval War of 1812 while a senior at Harvard during the 1880s. It remains in print to this day. Mahan followed up with his own chronicle in 1905. For them the War of 1812 wasn’t a parable showing what America ought to do when facing a war at sea; it was a parable about what not to do. They pointed out that the U.S. Navy had success in the early going because the Royal Navy and British Army were fighting Napoleon in Europe. Britain could spare only a small fraction of its military and naval power for a sideshow here in the New World.

Battle of San Domingo, 1806 naval engagement in the Napoleonic Wars

By 1814, when the Napoleonic Wars were winding down, it could send much more of the Royal Navy’s fleet. After that the United States saw its navy and its merchant fleet—and thus most of its economy—shut down by an overpowering British blockade. American frigates like Constitution had a hard time even getting out to sea. The United States had unwisely failed to build a battle fleet in peacetime. Americans improvised a navy at the outbreak of war and talked themselves into believing they had won, on the cheap, with that makeshift navy.

No More Blockades

Not so, said Roosevelt and Mahan. They implored Congress, presidential administrations, and the American people to construct a modern battle fleet in peacetime so that no hostile power could again blockade U.S. shores in wartime. The U.S. Navy didn’t need to be a “navy second to none”—that came much later, during World War I—but it did need to be big and strong enough to be the master of the western Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea.

A modest fleet of 74-gun capital ships—the aircraft carriers or battleships of their day—could control waters here in the Western Hemisphere, American home turf. The United States didn’t need to outbuild Great Britain or anyone else. Britain presided over an empire on which the sun never set, and had lots of demands on its navy. All the United States needed was enough to handle whatever the British were likely to send to the New World.

A Pick-up Navy Won’t Do

So the two historians concluded that America didn’t need to bankrupt itself maintaining a navy—but it did need to invest enough to safeguard its coastlines, and thus the maritime trade that flowed through seaports like Boston and Newport. A pick-up navy will not suffice.

Lord Palmerston

Some good news comes out of the War of 1812 to go with the bad. British prime minister Lord Palmerston once declared that nations have no permanent allies, only permanent interests. That may be true, but the former members of the British Empire—the United States, Canada, Australia, India, and Britain itself—come awfully close to being permanent friends and allies. English-speaking alliances certainly date to World War II, seventy-five years ago. They arguably date to 1917, when the United States joined the Allied Powers to beat imperial Germany in World War I.

John Quincy Adams by George Peter Alexander Healy

And these nations have been able to work together on matters of common purpose for even longer than that. Animosity lingered for awhile after the War of 1812, but not for long. For instance, President James Monroe’s 1823 message to Congress—the same document that announced the Monroe Doctrine, demanding that Europeans keep their hands off Latin American republics that had won their independence—also reported that the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy were jointly patrolling the Caribbean Sea to quash the slave trade. (The Monroe Doctrine was really the handiwork of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, another eminent New Englander.) Monroe’s message came just eight years after the Peace of Ghent, which brought the War of 1812 to a close.

Lady Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher, one of Britain’s longest-serving prime ministers, spoke at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., in 1997. Lady Thatcher rued the “rough patch” Britain went through during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Fortunately, the erstwhile combatants soon smoothed out that rough patch.

Margaret Thatcher visiting the Kennedy Space Center in 2001.

The past may be a foreign country, but exploring it shows that peoples need not remain captive to old enmities.

The author of this story, James Holmes, Ph.D., is the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is the author of two books, Maritime Strategy and Red Star Over the Pacific. You can read his blog, The Naval Diplomat, here. This story was updated in 2022.

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The Penobscot Expedition, America’s Forgotten Military Disaster

The Penobscot Expedition during the American Revolution was the worst naval disaster in American history until Pearl Harbor. That a huge force of men, ships and guns failed to take a small British fort in Maine has been largely forgotten.

The failed military maneuver also damaged Paul Revere‘s reputation. On Sept. 6, 1779, Lt. Col. Revere was placed under house arrest. He was charged with ‘unsoldierlike behavior … which tends to cowardice’ during the Penobscot Expedition.

Penobscot Expedition by John Thomas Serres

Penobscot Expedition

In 1779, British warships and troop transports sailed into Bagaduce (now Castine, Maine), on the Penobscot Bay. Seven hundred British troops built a fort to defend Canada, deny timber to the rebels and interrupt their privateering. Ultimately they intended to settle the outpost as a haven for Loyalists. The British planned to call it New Ireland.

Maine then belonged to Massachusetts, and the colony’s leaders soon got word of the British presence on its soil. Civilian officeholders of the commonwealth decided to force them out. They called up the militia and commandeered ships from the Massachusetts Navy, the Continental Navy and the fleet of privateers.

The Penobscot Expedition included 40 vessels, nearly 2,000 seamen and marines, 100 artillerymen, 870 militia and 350 guns.

Civilians planned the operation with little military input, and badly trained part-time soldiers carried it out. Commodore Dudley Saltonstall and Brigadier General Solomon Lovell had joint command of the expedition. Saltonstall was timid and indecisive, while Lovell had little field experience.

Paul Revere took charge of the artillery train. He didn’t have much military training, but he had repaired the guns damaged when the British evacuated Boston.

When the massive flotilla left Boston Harbor, everyone expected it to capture the garrison – even the British. They hadn’t taken into account the expedition’s shortcomings.

Arrival

The Penobscot Expedition on July 25, 1779 sailed into the harbor outside of Bagaduce. There stood an earthworks fort protected by three sloops in the harbor. Though the Americans seemed to have a decisive advantage, the British had more military experience. They also had a favorable geographic position and better coordination between land and sea forces.

The Americans took control of a small battery on an island off the coast. Then a force of 600 militiamen advanced along a steep bluff. Suddenly they found themselves within a few hundred yards of Fort George.

Revere wanted to storm the fort, but Lovell ordered a siege. Saltonstall refused to clear the harbor of the three British ships. For two weeks the militiamen sat outside the fort. Lovell wouldn’t attack the fort until Saltonstall attacked the fleet, but Saltonstall wouldn’t attack the fleet until Lovell attacked the fort.

Meanwhile, the dithering allowed the British to build up the earthen walls of the fort and request reinforcements.

Stone structure (reconstruction of a magazine, perhaps) at the site of Fort George.

Terrible Day

On Aug. 13, a British relief fleet arrived and Saltonstall ordered a retreat – up the Penobscot River.

“…[A]n attempt to give a description of this terrible Day is out of my Power,” Lovell later wrote.

Paul Revere

During the panic that followed, Adjutant Gen. Peleg Wadsworth gave Revere an order. Revere was to send his brig carrying artillery to help evacuate a schooner drifting toward the British fleet. Revere initially refused, then followed Wadsworth’s orders.

As the British bore down, the Americans burned and sank their own ships, then disappeared into the woods. Revere and the others made their way back to Massachusetts.

In the end, Americans lost all their ships but one, which the British captured. The Americans lost 470 men; the British only 13.

Commenting on the later exploits of John Paul Jones and the Ranger, Abigail Adams wrote on Dec. 13, 1779, “Unhappy for us that we had not such a commander at the Penobscot expedition.”

Court Martial

Recrimination followed the disaster. Dudley Saltonstall was court martialed and dismissed from the Continental Navy. He then turned to privateering.

A Massachusetts committee of inquiry investigated Paul Revere. Wadsworth charged him with disobeying his orders. Lengthy testimony also showed Revere’s arrogance had earned him enemies.

Though the committee didn’t rule one way or the other on his actions, the charges sullied Revere’s reputation. He tried to clear his name and demanded a full court martial. More than two years later, a military panel exonerated him.

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New from the New England Historical Society. Click here to order your copy today!

If you enjoyed this story about the Penobscot Expedition, you might like to read about Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Quebec here. This story was updated in 2024.

Images: Fort George By Billy Hathorn – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34096704

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Tobias Gilmore Wins Freedom From Slavery Fighting for the Colonies

Tobias Gilmore, an African-American soldier in the American Revolution, left a legacy that includes a cannon left to the Town of Taunton, Mass., and some very surprised descendants.

Glover’s Regiment crossing the Delaware with Gen. Washington

He came to America as a slave and then earned his freedom by serving in the Continental Army for five years. Local lore links him and his cannon to George Washington, which he fired 14 times on the Fourth of July. Thirteen shots went off for the original colonies and one for Washington.

He was born sometime around 1745 in coastal West Africa. The son of a chieftain, he was named Shibodee Turry Wurry. In about 1757, slave traders kidnapped him while he gathered coconuts.

The slavers shackled him below deck on the slave ship Dove, bound for Virginia. A storm battered the vessel, so the slave traders changed course for Rhode Island. There they auctioned off some of the captives as slaves to pay for repairs to their ship.

A Raynham, Mass., a sea captain named John Gilmore purchased Shibodee Turry Wurry. He then gave him a new name: Tobias Gilmore.

Private Tobias Gilmore

As the Revolution approached, patriotic rhetoric about securing the natural and inalienable right of liberty no doubt inspired Tobias Gilmore.

Continental soldiers at Yorktowns; on the left, an African American soldier of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment

Continental soldiers at Yorktown; on the left, an African American soldier of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment

When war did break out, each colony had to supply a quota of troops for the Continental Army. New England regiments recruited slaves by promising them their freedom. Massachusetts sent 1,535 African-American soldiers to the Continental Army, while the other New England colonies sent 2,278. Historians count 9,000 black Patriot soldiers, including the Army and Navy, state militias, privateers, wagoneers, servants and spies.

African Americans, in fact, made up about a fifth of the Continental Army. By the Siege of Yorktown, an officer in a French regiment estimated that one-quarter of the northern army was African American.

African Americans joined the British cause as well, but in far fewer numbers.

The Taunton Flag, adopted by the people of Taunton in 1774

Tobias Gilmore began his military service on Dec. 8, 1776, as a private in Capt. Jonathan Shaw’s company, part of Col. George Williams’s Regiment.

Gilmore fought three tours of duty and saw action in the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga. He was at the Battle of Monmouth, Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery, Battle of White Plains and West Point. He also suffered through the Continental Army’s winter encampment at Valley Forge.

According to local lore, Toby Gilmore rose through the ranks to bodyguard or servant to George Washington. That can’t be proved or disproved. Some claim the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware pictures him as the African-American soldier, but probably not.

Freedom

Tobias Gilmore received his discharge in December 1781 and returned to Raynham a free man. He had won his freedom during his first enlistment – which lasted eight days. He married Rosanna Hack, and they had eight children: Toby Jr., Nancy, Delia, Timothy, Esquire, Selina, Rosina and Seabury. Toby senior went to work for his former master, and then he and his wife set up a housekeeping business.

Gilmore bought land in Raynham confiscated from a Loyalist and auctioned off. People liked Toby so much that few bid against him.

He was a frugal businessman and built a house in Raynham about 1784. It still stands. He then built a second house in 1798 bigger than his former master’s.

At some point he obtained a cannon. He told the story that Washington gave it to him.

The cannon, nicknamed Old Toby, served with him in the Raynham militia to help put down Shay’s Rebellion. The Old Colony Historical Society noted in 1879 that Tobias Gilmore gave “Old Toby” to the town. Gilmore,

…the colored revolutionary veteran ancestor of the colored villagers in North Raynham, well known as industrious and worthy citizens. It was given by Tobias to the citizens of Taunton for firing sallies on Washington’s birthdays and Fourth of July, or revert to his descendants.

Tobias Gilmore died April 19, 1812 at age 70. He lies buried at the Hall and Dean Burial Ground in Raynham.

Family Detective

In 1921, the Taunton Daily Gazette noted the passing of Caroline Gilmore, Tobias Gilmore’s last living descendant.

Ninety years later, Miloh Pasto came to the Old Colony Historical Society to research her 3^rd great-grandmother, Elmira Sullivan. She turned out to be Tobias Gilmore’s great-granddaughter. Further research then revealed Gilmore had at least 100 living descendants through his daughter Delia and her husband, Thomas Davis.

One of those descendants was a surprised North Carolina firefighter named Chaz Moore. Moore, a Sturbridge, Mass., native, learned in 2012 of his revolutionary roots. North Carolina’s Sons of the American Revolution then inducted him as the first black member.

“Growing up, I wasn’t even certain that African-Americans even fought in the Revolutionary War,” Moore told the Associated Press in 2012. “It’s not something that’s talked about. Then to say, ‘Well, yeah, they did, and you’re a direct descendant of one’ was unbelievable, humbling. I had to redefine patriotism for myself.”

The cannon today resides at Old Colony Historical Society. So do Tobias Gilmore’s mitre, rundlet and other personal effects.

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Coming soon from the New England Historical Society. Click here to pre-order an ebook; paperback version will be available soon.

This story was updated in 2024.

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British Press Gangs Cause The Boston Riot of 1747

A British naval squadron commander in November 1747 incited the worst Boston riot until violence broke out against the Stamp Act of 1765.

Commodore Charles Knowles anchored his vessel in Boston Harbor in the fall of that year, refitting and replenishing his ships en route to the West Indies. Many of his sailors deserted to escape the harshness and danger of the British Navy. Knowles desperately needed seamen for the rest of his voyage.

On the evening of Nov. 16, Knowles ordered his men to round up innocent civilians along Boston’s waterfront to replace the deserters.

Caricature of a British press gang like the one that incited the Boston riot.

Press Gangs

The British Navy notoriously kidnapped seafaring men to crew warships during the 17th and 18th centuries. The press gangs generally targeted simple tradesmen, sailors and laborers unlucky enough to be taken by force. They did it throughout the British Empire — including British North America.

Bostonians were especially vulnerable to impressment during the 1730s and 1740s, as Boston was the closest seaport to Europe and Canada and a good place to launch expeditions against the French.

Impressment didn’t just affect the men taken by the press gangs; it depressed commerce throughout the town. Merchant ships avoided Boston when they perceived a threat their crews would be impressed by the British Navy. Working-class Bostonians stayed out of the streets and sailors fled for other ports.

In 1746, Parliament banned impressment in the West Indies because it had created food shortages and depressed the sugar trade.

By tradition and law, citizens of the Province of Massachusetts believed they were exempt from impressment. Knowles didn’t care. His press gangs rounded up 46 shocked sailors, carpenters and laborers from the streets and ships of Boston’s waterfront on the night of November 16 and the morning of the 17th.

One of the kidnapped citizens, Jonathan Tarbox, later testified,that he and ‘two or three persons all inhabitants of Boston going in a Boat to Mistick (having their Tools with them) to Caulk a Vessel there–they were chafed by three Boats belonging to Commodore Knowles Squadron.’

Tarbox told the press gang they were Boston residents, but the press officer ‘in a very rough manner answered they did not care for that, for the Commodore had ordered them to Impress all they could meet without distinction.’

The Boston Riot Starts

The Boston riot began the morning of November 17. Working-class Bostonians rampaged through town, seizing British officers and seamen as hostages. For three days, the rioters controlled Boston and paralyzed the provincial government.

The Old State House, Boston

A crowd of about 300 captured the lieutenant of one of Knowles’ ships. British officials managed to free him, but the sheriff arrested two rioters. The mob turned on the sheriff, forced him to deliver up his prisoners and took a deputy as hostage.

Gov. William Shirley, hearing of the outrage, ordered out the militia to quell the Boston riot and ‘to fire upon ’em with Ball’ if need be. The militia stayed put.

His order backfired. A large crowd appeared outside his house with British hostages in tow. Shirley confronted the crowd, rescued the hostages and took them inside. That further inflamed the mob. They had with them the sheriff’s deputy they’d taken, and beat him in Shirley’s courtyard before putting him in the stocks.

Shirley called for two regiments from Castle William, the fort on Castle Island, to guard his house and the hostages he rescued. Then he went to the Old State House (then called the Town House) to win the General Court’s cooperation in suppressing the Boston riot.

As Shirley tried to persuade the lawmakers to support him, a large armed crowd, numbering in the thousands by one estimate, appeared outside the State House. They smashed the windows with rocks and brickbats, then stormed the building. The militiamen on the first floor were forced up the narrow staircase, but then defended it as a chokepoint.

Barge Burning

Gov. William Shirley

Negotiations began between the angry crowd and the governor. Shirley said the impressment angered him and he would do his best to free the victims. He asked the crowd to disband.

That they would not do. Instead, they found a barge and decided to burn it in front of Shirley’s house. Once there, they realized they risked setting the town on fire, so they took the barge to a safer place and burned it there.

Shirley woke on the morning of November 18th to find the militia refused to appear. Horrified, he fled to Castle William, where he learned he had bigger problems. Commodore Knowles, infuriated by the Boston riot, threatened to bombard the town. He ordered his men to load his 24 guns.

Shirley. through an exchange of letters, calmed Knowles down. He persuaded him to trade the impressed men for the rioters’ hostages. And he finally persuaded the General Court to order a strong military watch to protect the town.

Knowles released all the men who proved they were residents of Boston. To the great joy and relief of the town, he sailed out of Boston Harbor on Nov. 20, 1747.

The British officials tried to blame the Boston riot on seamen, African Americans, servants and foreigners. A young Sam Adams argued otherwise. In his newspaper, The Independent Advertiser, Adams portrayed the rioters as an assembly of people defending their natural right to life and liberty.

With thanks to Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence by Jack Tager. This story about the Boston riot was updated in 2022.

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The Great Boston Revolt of 1689

Colonists in Boston revolted against a hated English governor 86 years and one day before the world heard the shot in Concord, Mass.

Only no one did any shooting and the new king of England had no problem with it.

Andros is taken prisoner during the Boston Revolt

The Puritan colonists overthrew Sir Edmund Andros, for some of the same reasons the Protestant William of Orange overthrew the Catholic James II. James’ religious tolerance was as troubling to England’s political leaders as was Andros’ support of the Anglican Church to New England’s Puritans.

Andros’ doom was probably sealed the day he forced the Puritans’ Old South Church to host an Anglican service on Good Friday.

Crackdown

Andros arrived in Boston on Dec. 20, 1686 to enforce the Crown’s crackdown on the colony’s independent ways. King Charles II had learned the colonists were settling land well beyond the boundaries set by the charter. They ignored trade restrictions and they did not tolerate the Church of England. They had refused to take an oath of allegiance for years. Treason wasn’t even a crime anymore.

Charles ordered every male 16 years and older to swear allegiance to the king. Restrictions on trade and navigation were to be obeyed; and no one was to be prohibited from celebrating the ritual of the Church of England. Treason was again a crime.

The king made more demands on the Massachusetts colonists, which they generally evaded. He began to take steps to consolidate his control of the New England colonies, but died before he could finish the job. His successor, the Roman Catholic James II, picked up the task and in 1686 created the Dominion of New England from the New England colonies, New York and New Jersey. It didn’t go well.

James sent Andros to govern the new dominion. He seemed like a good choice, as he had served as governor of the provinces of New York, East and West Jersey, Virginia and Maryland.

‘Bigoted Papist’

The day he set foot in Boston, Andros began talks with the Puritan elders for the better accommodation of the Church of England. The Puritans said no to the man they viewed as a ‘bigoted Papist.’

The Puritans were pretty bigoted themselves. They objected to the Church of England’s embrace of Catholic traditions. The Puritans banned Christmas and viewed Easter with the same disdain. They had no use for hot cross buns, ashes on foreheads, handing out palms or creeping to the cross on Good Friday. Boston’s Anglicans were forced to hold services in the open air, even as Puritans tried to disrupt them. Anglican ministers couldn’t wear a surplice in public, and to recite the Church of England’s burial service at a gravesite was to risk a brawl.

Andros asked for a donation of a small spot of land on which Anglicans could build a church. The Puritans refused. So Andros asked for the Puritan meetinghouse be used for Anglican services. They wouldn’t agree to that either.

Edmund Andros by Mary Beale

On March 23, 1687, the Wednesday of Passion Week, Andros ordered his agent to ask for the keys to the Old South Church (then the Third Church) for Anglican services. He was rebuffed. A Puritan delegation visited him to explain why they couldn’t allow it. On Good Friday, he ordered the sexton to throw open the doors of Old South and ring the bell for ‘those of the Church of England.’ Whether the sexton was persuaded or coerced is not known, but the doors were open, the bell rung and the service held.

An Affront

It was an affront the Puritans would not forgive.

Andros wife, Mary Craven Andros, died soon after arriving in Boston. Andros added insult to injury by holding her funeral service at Old South on Feb. 10, 1688, with the pomp and ritual so abhorrent to Puritans.

Andros continued to vex the Massachusetts Puritans. He refused to recognize some of their property deeds, restricted town meetings, enforced the Navigation Acts and continued to promote the Anglican Church.

James II

As anger grew against Andros in the colonies, so did it fester against James II in England. English Parliamentarians overthrew his government and invited William of Orange to take his place. William landed in England on Nov. 5, 1688, and by December the bloodless coup known as the Glorious Revolution was over.

The news reached Boston in late March. Andros wouldn’t last much longer.

Vile Person

Early on the morning of April 18, 1689, the inhabitants of Boston took up arms. Militias from neighboring towns streamed into the city. They first arrested the captain of the British frigate The Rose, moored in Boston Harbor. Two thousand Massachusetts militia then marched against Andros’ garrison of a dozen or so redcoats. Andros had no choice but to surrender.

The rebels issued a declaration,

We have been quiet, hitherto, but now the Lord has prospered the undertaking of the prince of Orange, we think we should follow such an example. We therefore, seized the vile persons who oppressed us.

Andros and his agents spent nearly a year in prison, then shipped back to England.

The colonists revived their old charter, and elected Simon Bradstreet governor, the position he held before King Charles revoked the charter. They pledged their loyalty to the new British king, who supported their rebellion.

Peace would reign between the colony and the Crown, at least for a little while.

With thanks to The Puritan Commonwealth, an historical review of the Puritan government in Massachusetts in its civil and ecclesiastical relations, from its rise to the abrogation of the first charter, etc., edited by F.E. Oliver. This story about the Boston revolt was updated in 2023.

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