Advice is received that the Congress resolved upon independence the 4th of July; and, it is said, have declared war against Great Britain in form.

With this, the people of England learned for the first time that America had officially declared itself independent.  According to history.com, news of the Declaration arrived in London on Saturday, August 10, 1776, and, at approximately 1300 words, took some time to typeset.  The London Gazette also published an August 10 to 13, 1776, issue, but it lacked any mention of the Declaration.  As the official court organ, and perhaps to avoid royal embarrassment, the Gazette also refrained from printing the entire text of the Declaration while other “Mother Country” newspapers jumped at it, including the London Chronicle (Aug 17 – first in Europe), Edinburgh Advertiser (Aug 20), Edinburgh Evening Courant (Aug 21), Belfast News-Letter (Aug 27), etc.  Click the article image to enlarge and read the first British news of America’s July 4th independence, as reported in the London Chronicle, August 13, 1776.

As research for his forthcoming book 1775, Derek W. Beck uncovered photos of Dr. Joseph Warren’s skull, which support the idea that Warren was shot facing his enemy, at close range, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. As Beck summarizes:

“Dr. Joseph Warren was shot in the face, looking at his assailant, and given the exit wound, he undoubtedly died instantly. He made no final speeches. He was not shot in the back of the head while retreating. Whether he rallied a few steadfast Yanks to give a final volley into the oncoming British is unknown, but Dr. Warren certainly died facing the swarm of redcoats as they poured over the Breed’s Hill redoubt toward him.”

J.L. Bell also writes about Warren’s death and Beck’s photographic discovery on his Boston 1775 blog. According to Bell:

“After the doctor was killed at Bunker Hill, the British forces put his body in a shared grave, and then after the siege of Boston—on 4 Apr 1776, in fact—the Americans dug him up again… Physicians, including Warren’s brother John, examined this skull in some detail in 1776 to be sure the body was actually his; eventually Paul Revere identified his dental work.”

As Rag Linen’s contribution to the conversation, below are two newspaper reports of great significance and insight to the subject matter of Warren’s death. The top photo, from the 1775 June 29 New England Chronicle (printed in Cambridge, MA, at Harvard College, 3.5 miles west of Breed’s Hill), is a first report of Warren’s death. The second photo, from the 1776 April 25 New England Chronicle (printed in Boston), is the news of Warren’s reinterment and identifying his body by two false teeth. The last paragraph is the latter report is difficult to read so I provided a transcription below.

The last paragraph, difficult to read because of an archival repair to the paper, is transcribed below:

Though the Body (which our savage enemies “scarce privileged with earth enough to hide it from the birds of prey”) was disfigured, when taken up, yet was sufficiently known by two artificial teeth, which were set for him a short time before his glorious exit.

Later in the issue, in an extract of a letter from Newcastle, Sept. 25, we learn “Paul Jones’s squadron spread terror on the English coast wherever he appeared, the inhabitants burying and removing their most valuable effects and getting ready to depart as soon as he landed. It is amazing that this daring adventurer should have continued on our coasts for a month terrifying the people and capturing their property, without the least attempt to disturb him. Two fifty gun ships would have taken the whole of his squadron. Surely the British ministry are fast asleep!”

I’ve only read the first four chapters (of 10) so far, but I already place Defiance of the Patriots safely among my favorite history books. In fact, it may be top 10 material. J.L. Bell of Boston 1775 puts it best: “For folks interested in the real story of the Tea Party, Defiance of the Patriots is the most thorough and wide-ranging account out there.”

I first heard about Defiance of the Patriots back in April. I had just shared, via Rag Linen, a 1774 newspaper report on the unexpected consequences of the Boston Tea Party. Not long after sharing the historic report, I learned, via Twitter, from J.L. Bell, that the 1774 news item confirms the thesis of Benjamin Carp’s upcoming book. Specifically, that pressure to look good to other ports made Bostonians act radical.

Excited for the new book and its in-depth analysis of the Boston Tea Party, especially after reading this Tufts Journal piece, I contacted Benjamin and invited him to contribute a short piece for the readers of Rag Linen. Benjamin was very kind to accept my offer and has even shared some excerpts from his book, which are appropriately themed. Without further ado…

In 1773, newspapers were the colonists’ primary means of communicating and influencing public opinion. Parliament had passed the Tea Act, and Bostonians were mobilizing against what they regarded as an unjust law. This political movement had two crucial ingredients: communication between Boston and its neighboring towns (who helped comprise the “Body of the People” meetings at the Old South Meeting House), and communication between Boston and the other cities that were receiving tea shipments from the East India Company: New York City, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Neighboring towns and sister cities helped to spread the reasons for resistance and build an atmosphere of mutual reassurance. Newspapers also helped to draw boundaries within the community by publishing threats to the consignees—the merchants who were designated to receive the tea shipments from the East India Company. The consignees and their supporters tried to give as good as they got in the newspapers, but they failed to sway public opinion.

Here are two excerpts from the book that help to illustrate the significance of newspapers. The first, from page 84, describes Bostonians’ reaction to news of the Tea Act, and the newspaper squabbles that followed.

The consignees . . . had no desire to turn down the lucrative Company contract. Richard Clarke took to the newspapers, as “Z.,” to argue that the Tea Act wasn’t such a bad thing. By eliminating the middleman, the new law would make tea cheaper. He was confused about why the Tea Act suddenly caused Bostonians to yelp about the Townshend duty, since the people of Massachusetts had been importing plenty of dutied tea over the last few years. For that matter, Americans silently paid much more to Parliament in duties on wine, sugar, and molasses—why complain about tea? . . . Finally, Clarke argued, the East India Company could prove to be an ally in the fight for charter rights, and might help Americans get the tea duty removed—so long as the colonists didn’t try to ruin the Company’s sales with “unsuitable Behaviour.”

But these arguments failed to sway public opinion in Boston, where the public was forming ranks alongside the Sons of Liberty.

Instead, the consignees began to hear warnings about what would happen to them if they defied their neighbors. On November 1, the Boston Gazette reprinted a letter from “PHILELEUTHEROS” (Greek for “freedom lover”). “Secure yourselves,” this New York writer warned, “from the gathering storm, before it . . . overwhelms you with a sudden, dreadful, and sure destruction.” If the consignees persisted in injuring their country by importing tea, they would not be safe no matter how many troops and fortified walls might surround them. “You cannot readily become your own cooks, butchers, butlers, nor bakers: You will therefore be liable, to be suddenly, and unexpectedly taken off, in the midst of your confidence and supposed security, by those whom you may chance to confide in, and employ. ”The author called upon a local Brutus or Cassius “to sheath their daggers in the hearts of such base, such abandoned and infamous Parricides.” If the consignees hoped to profit from their treason, the author warned, the triumph would be short-lived. Guilt, hatred, and infamy would be their lot for generations to come. The choice was now the consignees’ to make. Threats to their safety lurked around every corner. The consignees would have to watch their backs.

This second passage, from page 139, describes the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party.

The tide swelled into Boston harbor overnight. There was no moonlight to mark the tea’s passage as it slipped away on the churning waves. Eventually the broken chests and clumps of tea formed a floating line, like a winrow of hay, along the surface of the water. The line ran from the South End of Boston along the Dorchester shore to Castle Island, almost as a taunt to the consignees and commissioners. “Those persons who were from the country returned with a merry heart; and the next day joy appeared in almost every countenance, some on occasion of the destruction of the tea, others on account of the quietness with which it was effected.”

Of course, not every countenance was joyful. Admiral John Montagu had been forced to watch the destruction of the tea without being able to lift a finger in response. On the morning after the Tea Party, he took a stroll on the wharf and looked with astonishment at the scene of devastation. He asked some of the Bostonians, “who was to pay the fidler” now? Perhaps they answered with a sudden fear and foreboding, perhaps with a jeering smugness. “The Devil is in this people,” Montagu concluded, “for they pay no more respect to an act of the British Parliament, which can make England tremble, than to an old newspaper.” He then stalked off the wharf.

In 1854, Rufus Wilmot Griswold first published The Republican Court; or American Society in the Days of Washington, which was the first time a source suggested Washington finished his oath with “So help me God.” As Boston 1775 asks, “Did it really take two-thirds of a century for a significant detail of a well-attended public ceremony to be described in print?”

What is perhaps more interesting is the fact that Griswold only used one eyewitness source in his entire focus on Washington’s inauguration.  That firsthand account was a letter from an unidentified person. The same extract of the letter first appeared in the May 13, 1789 issue of The Gazette of the United States.  Read Griswold’s only eyewitness source below. “One of the most august and interesting spectacle ever exhibited on this globe.”

That said, it was interesting to find the October 24, 1771 Massachusetts Spy had stacked one news brief about the repeal of the American tea bill on top of a blurb about Captain Preston of the Boston Massacre. See the ironic placement below.

According to the Packet, “it is said that the tea thrown into the Sea at Boston is valued at 18,000 l. at 1s. 6d. per pound. The whole sent to America is said to be worth about 300,000 l. which is returning home, not being suffered to be landed.”

Using the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, £18,000 in 1774 (I rounded up) translates to £2,023,200 today.  That’s an average of two percent inflation per year. Converting £2.023 million to USD via XE.com, I found the value of the tea destroyed on December 16, 1773 to be $3,091,687 (more than $2 million higher than the History Channel’s estimate).

According to Wesley Griswold’s The Night The Revolution Began “the figure varies with nearly every source, and ranges from as low as £8000 to as high as £18000.”

So I checked to see if the History Channel was using the low estimate.  Using the £8000 variable, I found today’s value of the tea destroyed on December 16, 1773 is $1,374,083 (still much higher than the History Channel’s quote).

If £8000 was the low estimate and £18,000 was the high, that leaves £13,000 as the median estimate. Figuring £13,000 would be the most accurate measure, I threw it in the inflation and conversion calculators and found today’s value of the tea dumped in Boston harbor on December 16, 1773 to be $2,232,885.

Can anyone tell me how/where the History Channel came up with $1 million?  What’s the most accurate estimate?

“The New England militia were elaborately organized and actively led. On the morning of April 19, 1775, they stood against Thomas Gage’s Regular Infantry in fixed positions and close formations at least six times. Twice the Regulars were broken. In the afternoon, the American leaders changed their tactics. Now facing a larger enemy and artillery, they forged a moving ‘circle of fire’ around the British force and maintained it for many hours — an extraordinary feat of combat leadership with citizen soldiers.

“After the fighting was over, many of these same men, including Paul Revere and Thomas Gage, fought the second battle of Lexington and Concord. This was a contest for what their generation was the first to call popular opinion, and even more decisive than the battle itself. Yankee leaders were victorious in spreading their version of events through the colonies. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine all testified that the news of Lexington was, in Adam’s phrase, their revolutionary Rubicon,” according to Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer (1994).

Rag Linen’s Battle of Lexington and Concord collection provides evidence of the rush, by both sides, to influence public opinion via the rapid dissemination of letters, newspapers and commentary. The collection features an exciting mix of primary source material from the days, weeks and months following April 19, 1775.

The first item, the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal dated April 27, 1775, is the only one of its kind known to exist in either institutional or private hands. It includes extracts from three letters, two of which may be whole, and one that was penned on the same day as the battle. Also featured is a London newspaper printing Gen. Gage’s official battle account. American newspaper printers, after reading Gage’s report, took their turn correcting and commenting on his version of events. As part of the counterpoint, the Connecticut Journal on August 23, 1775, prints: “To reason on the facts, which are now indisputable, is to talk which will better suit some future opportunity. The public have but to ponder on the melancholy truths thus attested by government. The sword of civil war is drawn and if there is truth in Heaven, THE KING’S TROOPS UNSHEATHED IT.” Click here to view the collection.