Commemoration of American Revolution

April 19

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What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (April 19, 1774).

“BOHEA, GREEN, and HYSON TEA.”

Not all colonizers dispensed with advertising, selling, and drinking tea as an immediate response to the Boston Tea Party, especially if the tea in question had not been subject to import duties.  In April 1774, Pott Shaw advertised “BOHEA, GREEN, and HYSON TEA, warranted of the finest Quality,” in the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  Shaw did not reveal when the tea arrived in the colony, by what means, or its origins, leaving those details to prospective customers to ask about, if they chose to do so, when they made their purchases.  Buying and selling this particular commodity occurred in the context of conversations about the politics of tea.

The April 19 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal carried some of the same updates about possible reactions to the Boston Tea Party that appeared in the Connecticut Courant a week earlier.  Throughout the colonies, printers reprinted news from one newspaper to another.  In this instance, both newspapers carried an “Extract of a letter from London, January 24,” that originally ran in newspapers in Philadelphia.  It briefly stated, “Three men of war are ordered to be in readiness to sail for Boston, and exact payment for the TEA,” without providing additional information, including who had written the letter.  Readers had to decide for themselves whether the report was accurate or merely rumor.  Another news item, this one having arrived via New York, reported that the “intentions of the British administration, relative to the American duty on tea, are not yet fixed.”  Readers in Charleston and Hartford read both these dispatches from London.  They also encountered advertisements for tea in the same issues that carried that news.

Readers of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal also read about commemorations of events that contributed to the imperial crisis.  From Boston, they learned that “the horrid tragedy of the 5th of March,” the Boston Massacre, “was observed with the usual solemnity” on its fourth anniversary.  That article described “a portrait of that inhuman and cruel massacre” put on display and the ringing of bells throughout the city for an entire hour.  An update from New York followed, describing dinners that celebrated the “anniversary of the repeal of the STAMP-ACT.”  Abuses perpetrated by both British soldiers and Parliament received attention alongside news about tea.

For the moment, however, that did not result in merchants, shopkeepers, and others refraining from advertising and selling tea in South Carolina or Connecticut or other colonies.  The beverage was exceptionally popular, making it difficult to curtail consumption.  Eventually, colonizers did enact boycotts, but some people still devised ways to evade them, at least according to Peter Oliver’s account.  Although some entrepreneurs opted not to sell (or at least not to advertise) tea following the Boston Tea Party, it did not immediately disappear from shelves or newspaper advertisements.

April 11

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What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston-Gazette (April 11, 1774).

“The SECOND EDITION of Mr. HANCOCK’S ORATION.”

Benjamin Edes and John Gill, printers of the Boston-Gazette, gave their advertisement for the “SECOND EDITION of Mr. HANCOCK’S ORATION Deliver’d March 5th” a privileged place in their newspaper.  Readers did not need further explanation to understand that “March 5th” referred to the date of the Boston Massacre and that Hancock had been selected to give the annual address that memorialized the victims and raised an alarm about the danger of quartering an army in an urban center, like Boston, during times of peace.

Still, Edes and Gill, who printed the “ORATION” as well as the newspaper, did what they could to draw attention to the second edition.  The first time they announced it was “This Day Published,” in the April 4, 1774, edition of the Boston-Gazette, they ran the notice immediately below news and editorials.  Even if readers chose not to peruse other advertisements closely once they realized they had finished the news, they likely took note of the advertisement for the “ORATION” in its place of transition from one kind of content to another.  In the next issue of the weekly newspaper, the notice ran at the bottom of the last column on the first page, the only advertisement on that page.  Once again, the patriot printers increased the likelihood that readers would spot that advertisement and accept an invitation to demonstrate their own commitment to the patriot cause by purchasing copies for themselves.

That Edes and Gill published a “SECOND EDITION” testified to the demand for the first edition.  It sold well enough to justify another printing.  Edes and Gill took it to press just a few months after the Boston Tea Party and just a few weeks after another destruction of tea.  Although that second Boston Tea Party is not nearly as well known today, it was certainly among the current events that would have been on the minds of colonizers as they participated in commemorating the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre, discussed the politics of tea, and decried various abuses perpetrated by Parliament.  Purchasing and reading Hancock’s “ORATION” was part of the growing resistance to British rule in the colonies, a means for consumers to practice politics in the marketplace and imbibe the rhetoric of a noted patriot long after the Boston Massacre’s annual commemorative events concluded.

April 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Essex Gazette (April 5, 1774).

“To be sold by the Printers hereof, Mr. Hancock’s ORATION, On the Fifth of March.”

Immediately above the record of ships “Entered-In,” “Outward-Bound,” and “Cleared-Out” from the customs house in Boston in the April 5, 1774, edition of the Essex Gazette, Samuel Hall and Ebenezer Hall, the printers, inserted a brief notice, just three lines, alerting readers that they sold “Mr. Hancock’s ORATION, On the Fifth of March.”  The Halls did not need to provide further elaboration for readers to understand the announcement.  For colonizers in New England in the 1770s, the phrase “Fifth of March” conjured images like the phrase “Boston Massacre” evokes today.  They needed no explanation that the advertisement referred to John Hancock delivering the annual address to commemorate the event, to honor those killed when British soldiers from the 29th Regiment under the command of Captain Thomas Preston fired into a crowd of protesters, to condemn quartering troops in colonial cities during times of peace, and to advocate for American liberties.

As had become customary by the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre, the town voted to have the oration published and advertisements appeared in newspapers printed in Boston.  Yet they did not appear solely in newspapers in that town.  Other newspapers in New England sometimes carried them as well, none more often that the Essex Gazette, published in nearby Salem.  Samuel Hall had a long history of publishing news and opinion that favored sentiments expressed by Patriots.  On the first anniversary of the Boston Massacre, for instance, he included thick black mourning borders on the first page of his newspaper and published “a solemn and perpetual MEMORIAL Of the Tyranny of the British Administration of Government in the Years 1768, 1769, and 1770,” especially “THE FIFTH OF MARCH, … the Anniversary of Preston’s Massacre–in King-Street–Boston, N. England–1770.”  When Benjamin Edes and John Gill, among the most ardent of Patriots among the printers in Boston, published Hancock’s oration in 1774, the Halls acquired copies to disseminate in Salem and beyond.  In so doing, they participated in the commodification of the Boston Massacre while simultaneously commemorating it and encouraging others to side with the Patriots as relations with Parliament further deteriorated following the Boston Tea Party the previous December.

March 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston-Gazette (March 21, 1774).

“THE ORATION DELIVER’D BY THE Hon. JOHN HANCOCK, Esq; Will be PUBLISHED.”

Many colonizers commemorated events that were part of the American Revolution before the Revolutionary War began.  For instance, residents of Boston acknowledged the anniversary of the “horrid Massacre on the 5th of March 1770” each year.  That description of the Boston Massacre came from coverage of the fourth anniversary commemorations in the March 7, 1774, edition of the Boston-Gazette.  Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers, reported that “the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of this Town met at Faneuil-Hall.”  They selected Samuel Adams as moderator for the meeting.  Adams, in turn, recognized John Hancock to deliver “an ORATION, on the dangerous Tendency of Standing Armies being placed in free and populous Cities” and sought to “perpetuate the Memory of the horrid Massacre … by a Party of Soldiers belonging to the 29th Regiment, commanded by Capt. Thomas Preston.”

According to the printers, a “prodigious Crowd of People attended to hear the Oration, which was received with universal applause.”  In turn, two committees were appointed, one to select a speaker to deliver the oration the following year and the other “to return the Orator the Thanks of the Town for his elegant and spirited Oration, and also to request a Copy of it for the Press.”  Already, the annual commemoration including publishing the oration for further dissemination throughout the city and beyond.  Edes and Gill further reported that the anniversary occurred on Saturday, “the Evening of which is considered by many Persons as the Commencement of the Sabbath,” so the display of the “Exhibition Portraits of the Murderers, and the slaughtered Citizens” was delayed until Monday evening, the same day the printers distributed that issue of the Boston-Gazette.

Two weeks later, on March 21, Edes and Gill ran a notice in their own newspaper to alert readers that “ON WEDNESDAY NEXT … THE ORATION DELIVER’D BY THE Hon. JOHN HANCOCK, Esq; Will be PUBLISHED” at their printing office.  They even specified the time, “ELEVEN o’Clock,” so prospective customers would know exactly when they could obtain their copies.  The printers staged an eighteenth-century precursor to a release party.  In hopes of inciting greater demand and gaining even more attention for Hancock’s arguments about the rights of colonizers, Edes and Gill also ran advertisements in the Boston Evening-Post and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy on March 21.  The next issue of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter carried a notice that the oration had been published and was available from “EDES & GILL in Queen-Street.”  Each year, printers published the oration marking the anniversary of the Boston Massacre and advertised it widely.  Commodification of the event went hand in hand with commemoration.

March 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 14, 1774).

“ANNIVERSARY of the REPEAL of the STAMP-ACT … will be celebrated.”

Many colonizers commemorated events associated with the American Revolution even before the Revolutionary War.  During the years of the imperial crisis, residents of Boston staged annual commemorations honoring those killed in the Boston Massacre and residents of New York held annual dinners to mark the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act. To mark the eighth anniversary of the latter, colonizers in New York had choices about which celebration to attend in 1774.  Advertisements for two of those events appeared in the March 14 edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.

For one, “18th of MARCH” served as the headline.  Many readers certainly recognized that date without having to peruse the rest of the advertisement.  For those who did not, the notice provided a reminder of its significance: “ON Friday next … at the house of Mr. DE LA MONTAGNIE, will be celebrated the ANNIVERSARY OF THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP-ACT, by those gentlemen, and their friends, who associated there last year.”  De la Montagnie hosted a celebration each year, promoting it in the public prints.  In 1774, he served dinner three hours earlier than the previous year.  Given recent developments, including the destruction of tea in Boston, perhaps he determined that his guests needed more time to commemorate the repeal of the Stamp Act and air their grievances about new abuses perpetrated by Parliament.

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 14, 1774).

The other advertisement also deployed the date as the headline: “FRIDAY next, The 18th of MARCH.”  It also clarified that was “the ANNIVERSARY of the REPEAL of the STAMP-ACT.”  In this instance, the event “will be celebrated at PROTESTANT-HALL” and “all the SONS of LIBERTY are heartily invited.”  While the two celebrations competed for guests, they worked in concert in cultivating a culture of commemoration among colonizers in New York.  Many years after those events, John Adams famously asked in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, “What do WE mean by the Revolution?”  Answering his own question, Adams asserted, “The Revolution was in the Minds of the People, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775.”  That occurred, in part, through the annual commemorations of significant events and promoting them in the public prints.

April 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Essex Gazette (April 6, 1773).

“An ORATION … to COMMEMORATE THE BLODDY TRAGEDY of the FIFTH of MARCH, 1770.”

On the occasion of the third anniversary of the Boston Massacre, Dr. Benjamin Church delivered an address “upon the dangerous Tendency of Standing Armies, and in Commemoration of the horrid Massacre perpetrated by a Party of the 29th Regiment on the Fifth of March 1770.”  According to coverage in the Boston Evening-Post and the Boston-Gazette on March 8 and reprinted in the Essex Gazette the next day, Church “had the universal Applause of his Audience; and his Fellow Citizens voted him their Thanks, and unanimously requested a Copy of his Oration for the Press.”  John Greenleaf quickly printed Church’s Oration, followed by Benjamin Edes and John Gill, printers of the Boston-Gazette, promoting a “THIRD EDITION, corrected by the AUTHOR.”  Commodification of the Boston Massacre occurred simultaneously with commemoration of it, as had been the case with the first and second anniversaries.

Samuel Hall and Ebenezer Hall, printers of the Essex Gazette in Salem, participated in both the commemoration and the commodification of the Boston Massacre.  In addition to reprinting coverage of the events that marked the anniversary in Boston, they ran an editorial from Marblehead in the March 23 edition.  “THE respectable metropolis of this province,” the anonymous author began, “has certainly acted worthy of itself in establishing, as a monument against ‘the foul oppression of quartering troops in populous cities, in times of peace,’ the MASSACRE ANNIVERSARY.  It must ever do it honour, and serve to convince relentless oppressors, that such measures will produce disgrace to themselves, as well as distress to an injured people.”  The author concluded with a call for colonizers beyond Boston to commemorate the Boston Massacre and remember its significance.  “And while the city solemnizes the fifth of Marchwith its yearly oration,” the author asserted, “may every town in the province observe it in some suitable way; and by keeping up a memento of measures the most cruel and oppressive, be ever guarding its inhabitants against the intriguing designs of Pensioners, Despots, and Tyrants.”

Elsewhere on the same page, the Halls presented an opportunity for consumers to do their part in guarding against “cruel and oppressive” measures by doing their part to commemorate the Boston Massacre through purchasing Church’s Oration.  They apparently sold the correct edition printed by Edes and Gill, declaring that “To-Morrow Morning will be published, and sold by the Printers hereof, An ORATION … to COMMEMORATE THE BLODDY TRAGEDY of the FIFTH of MARCH, 1770.  By DR. BENJAMIN CHURCH.”  The anonymous author from Marblehead gave an endorsement for Church’s Oration as well as the addresses delivered in 1771 and 1772 in the editorial.  “The Gentlemen who exhibited on the two first of these anniversaries,” the author noted, “gave great satisfaction to their hearers, as was evident from the applause they received; and the last performance [by Church] expresses so much true sense, and this conceived in such a delicate stile, that no one can read it without respect for the celebrated author.”  The editorialist from Marblehead likely had a copy of Church’s Oration printed by Greenleaf, allowing for extensive quotations and reflections on how they accurately described the crisis the colonies faced.

That editorial bolstered the advertisement for Church’s Oration that the Halls inserted in that issue and subsequent advertisements that appeared in the next three issues of the Essex Gazette.  More than a month after the anniversary, the Halls continued to hawk the pamphlet, extending the commemoration and helping to keep the dangers of quartering soldiers in Boston visible to their readers who resided outside that city.

March 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston-Gazette (March 22, 1773).

“An ORATION … to COMMEMORATE the BLOODY TRAGEDY of the FIFTH of MARCH 1770.”

Within a week of Benjamin Edes and John Gill announcing that “Dr. CHURCH’S ORATION will be Published by the Printers hereof as soon as possible,” advertisements for that pamphlet appeared in three of Boston’s newspapers.  Edes and Gill referred to the address that Dr. Benjamin Church delivered “At the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of BOSTON” on the third anniversary of the Boston Massacre “to COMMEMORATE the BLOODY TRAGEDY.”  Edes and Gill reported on the commemorations in their newspaper, the Boston-Gazette, on March 8, 1773, reporting that Church spoke about “the dangerous Tendency of Standing Armies” to the “universal Applause of his Audience.”  Furthermore, “his Fellow Citizens voted him their Thanks, and unanimously requested a Copy of his Oration for the Press.”  In the next weekly issue of the Boston-Gazette, Edes and Gill advised the public that they would soon publish Church’s Oration.

Boston Evening-Post (March 22, 1773).

Three days later, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter carried a notice that the “THIRD EDITION, corrected by the AUTHOR” was “Just Publish’d” and sold by Edes and Gill as well as Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, the printers of the Boston Evening-Post.  Apparently, Joseph Greenleaf was the first printer to take Church’s Oration to press, but Edes and Gill produced a superior edition.  In promoting the third edition, the printers gave their advertisement a privileged place in the Boston-Gazette.  It appeared as the first item in the first column on the first page of the March 22 issue, making it difficult for readers to overlook.  The same day, the Fleets ran the same notice in the Boston Evening-Post.  Although not as prominently displayed as in the Boston-Gazette, the placement likely received special attention.  Rather than nestled among the dozens of advertisements on the third and fourth pages, it ran as the sole advertisement on the second page.  As readers moved from “Proceedings of the Town of Westminster” to news from London that arrived in the colonies via New York, they encountered the advertisement for Church’s Oration.  In its own way, that notice served as news, continuing the coverage of current events and shaping how colonizers viewed their place within the empire.

March 18

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (March 18, 1773).

“An ORATION … to Commemorate the bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March 1770.”

In their first issues published after the commemorations of the third anniversary of the Boston Massacre, the Boston Evening-Post and the Boston-Gazette reported that Dr. Benjamin Church delivered an oration “on the dangerous Tendency of Standing Armies being placed in free and populous cities.”  According to that coverage, Church’s oration “was received with universal Applause: and his Fellow Citizens unanimously voted him their Thanks, and requested a Copy of his Oration for the Press.”  The previous year, printers in Boston published and advertised the oration that Dr. Joseph Warren delivered on March 5, 1772, to commemorate the second anniversary of the Boston Massacre.  They also hawked copies of the oration that James Lovell delivered following the first anniversary of “the Massacre in Boston.”  Annual commemorations of the Boston Massacre quickly became a tradition, as did producing and promoting memorabilia associated with the commemorations.

Following coverage in the March 8 edition, the Boston-Gazette carried a short notice on March 15 to inform readers that “Dr. CHURCH’S ORATION will be Published by the Printers hereof as soon as possible.”  Three days later, a notice in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter announced the sale of the Oration by “T. & J. FLEET,” printers of the Boston Evening-Post, and “EDES & GILL,” printers of the Boston-Gazette.  That advertisement indicated that Edes and Gill printed “The THIRD EDITION, corrected by the AUTHOR.”  How did they go from promising to publish the address “as soon as possible” to issuing a corrected third edition three days later?  It appears that Edes and Gill competed with Joseph Greenleaf and the editions that he produced “at the NEW PRINTING-OFFICE, in HANOVER-STREET, near CONCERT HALL.”  Seeking to beat the competition, Greenleaf likely rushed his edition to press.  Apparently, he met sufficient demand to produce a second edition without advertising.  Harbottle Dorr, the merchant now famous for annotating and indexing newspaper coverage of the imperial crisis that resulted in the American Revolution, for instance, purchased a copy of Church’s Oration printed by Greenleaf.

Printers in Boston recognized that demand existed for memorabilia associated with commemorating the Boston Massacre.  They likewise believed that they could incite even more interest through advertising, keeping the events of “the bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March 1770” in the public discourse long after the anniversary passed.  Publishing and promoting memorabilia, in turn, contributed to shaping perceptions of the relationship between Britain and the colonies.

March 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 8, 1773).

“Will be celebrated the ANNIVERSART OF THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP-ACT.”

It was an annual event.  Patriots in New York gathered to celebrate the “ANNIVERSARY OF THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT.”  Newspaper notices summoned them, including in 1770, 1771, 1772, and, once again 1773.  At that time, seven years had passed since colonial resistance contributed to Parliament’s decision to repeal the legislation, while simultaneously passing the Declaratory Act to save face.  Patriots gathered each year to commemorate their victory, encourage further vigilance, and call on others to make common cause with them.  The notice in the March 8, 1773, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury invited “those Gentlemen … who associated [at Abraham de la Montaigne’s tavern] last Year” as well as “their Friends” to join the festivities.  Occasionally, advertisements in newspapers published in other cities also promoted similar commemorations.  In 1771, for instance, a notice in the Boston-Gazette informed the public that “The Feast of ST. PATRICK is to be celebrated, together with the Repeal of the STAMP-ACT … at the Green Dragon.”

In addition to commemorating that triumph over oppressive legislation, colonizers also marked the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.  On March 8, 1773, the same day that the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury carried the notice about the upcoming dinner to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Boston Evening-Post reported that on “the Anniversary of the 5th of March,” the day that British soldiers fired into a crown and “barbarously murdered” several colonizers in 1770, the committee that organized the commemoration the previous year “engaged Dr. BENJAMIN CHURCH, to deliver an ORATION, on the dangerous Tendency of Standing Armies being placed in free and populous Cities, and to perpetuate the Memory of the horrid Massacre.”  Church delivered the address “at the Old South Meeting, where the people crowded in such Numbers, that it was with Difficulty the Orator reached the Pulpit.”  According to the article, Church’s “Fellow Citizens … requested a Copy of his Oration for the Press.”  In the coming weeks, readers would encounter advertisements for the address.

In the evening, a “Select Number of the Friends of Constitutional Liberty” displayed a lantern with a pane painted with “a lively Representation of the bloody Massacre” perpetrated three years earlier.  When lit, the lantern cast eerie shadows depicting the event near the spot where it occurred.  The side panels included other images; on the right, a personification of America, “sitting in as Mourning Posture, looking down and the Spectators,” and, on the left, a “Monument, sacred to the Memory” of the victims.  The organizers extinguished the lantern at “a Quarter after Nine, the Time of the Evening when the bloody Scene was acted.”  Then, “most of the Bells in Town toll’d till Ten.”  The Boston-Gazette carried similar coverage the same day, as did the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy in their next issues on March 11.  Residents of Boston would have been familiar with these commemorations before they appeared in the newspapers.  The printers published the accounts to inform readers in other towns and for printers in other cities to reprint and disseminate to even greater numbers of colonizers.  The Essex Gazette, published in Salem, reprinted the account on March 9, the day after it first appeared in the Boston-Gazette.

Commemorations of the events that resulted in thirteen colonies declaring independence began before the fighting started at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.  As acts of resistance, colonizers marked significant events associated with the American Revolution even before they knew that the outcome would indeed be a revolution.  Such commemorations may have helped convince some colonizers of the merits of separating from Great Britain.

May 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (May 4, 1772).

“The elegant POEM, which the Committee of the Town of Boston had voted unanimously to be Published with the ORATION.”

The May 4, 1772, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy carried a brief advertisement for “The elegant POEM, which the Committee of the Town of Boston had voted unanimously to be Published with the ORATION.”  The “ORATION” referred to the address that Dr. Joseph Warren delivered on the second anniversary of the Boston Massacre, an address already published and advertised in several newspapers in Boston and beyond.  Why, if “the Committee of the Town of Boston had voted unanimously” to publish it with Warren’s oration, had that not occurred?

The advertisement did not name the author of the poem, but many readers knew that James Allen wrote it.  Both the American Antiquarian Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society state that the poem “was suppressed due to doubts about Allen’s patriotism and later was republished by Allen’s friends, with extracts from another of his poems, as ‘The Retrospect.’”  That narrative draws on commentary that accompanied the poems as well as Samuel Kettell’sSpecimens of American Poetry (1829) and Evert A. Duyckinck and George L. Duyckinck’s Cyclopaedia of American Literature (1856).  More recently, Lewis Leary argues that Allen’s “friends” had motives other than commemorating the Bloody Massacre in King Street or demonstrating Allen’s patriotism in the wake of the committee composed of Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other prominent patriots reversing course about publishing the poem in the wake of chatter that called into question Allen’s politics.

According to Leary, Allen’s poem about the Boston Massacre and “The Retrospect” must be considered together, especially because “the extracts from ‘The Retrospect’ are unabashedly loyalist, praising Britain’s military force, her selfless defense of her colonies, and benevolent rule over them.”  Furthermore, the commentary by Allen’s supposed friends “does indeed clear ‘the authors character as to his politics’ and exhibits his ‘political soundness,’ but that character and that soundness are loyalist, not patriot.”[1]

Postscript to the Censor (May 2, 1772).

Significantly, Ezekiel Russell published the pamphlet that contained Allen’s poem, “The Retrospect,” and commentary from Allen’s “friends.”  He also published the Censor, a weekly political magazine that supported the British government and expressed Tory sympathies.  The Postscript that accompanied the final issue of the Censor included a much more extensive advertisement for Allen’s poem, one that included extracts from both the commentary and “The Retrospect.”  The portion of the commentary inserted in the advertisement describes how Allen “describes the triumphant March of the British Soldiers to the CAPITAL” and then “makes the following Reflections, which no less characterise their Humanity than their Heroism” in “The Retrospect.”  The advertisement praises the “ingeniousAUTHOR” for his “luxuriant Representations of the Valour and Achievement of the British Soldiery.”

Leary argues that Allen’s “friends” sought to discredit Adams, Hancock, and other patriots for being so easily fooled by his poem about the Boston Massacre that seemed to say what they wanted to hear.  In that regard, the “publication of his Poem and its antithetical counterpart seems to have been one among many minor skirmishes in the verbal battles between Tories and Patriots on the eve of the Revolution, in which skirmish Allen seems to have been more pawn than participant.”  To that end, the “purpose of his ‘friends’ seems clearly to have been to discomfit the committee for its vacillation on the publication of the poem and to expose patriot leaders in Boston as men who could be duped by a skillful manipulator of words.”  Allen’s “friends,” according to Leary, did seek to clarify his politics, but with the intention of “certify[ing] him, certainly to his embarrassment, a Loyalist clever enough to mislead his patriot townspeople.”[2]

Still, that may not tell the entire story.  Leary argues that “what evidence is available suggests that James Allen as a younger man, like many colonials, had been enthusiastically a loyal British subject, grateful for Britain’s protection of her colonies, but that after the horror of the massacre in Boston on March 5, 1770, had become at thirty-six a patriot who could bitterly challenge the British.”[3]  In 1785, Allen’s poem about the Boston Massacre appeared in a collection of orations that commemorated the event, including Warren’s address.  By then, the editors who compiled the anthology recognized that Allen wrote the poem “when his feelings, like those of every other free-born American were alive at the inhuman murders of their countrymen.”[4]  The controversy had passed, Allen’s poem no longer questioned as an insincere lamentation belied by his earlier work.

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[1] Lewis Leary, “The ‘Friends’ of James Allen, or, How Partial Truth Is No Truth at All,” Early American Literature 15, no. 2 (Fall 1980): 166-167.

[2] Leary, “‘Friends’ of James Allen,” 168-169.

[3] Leary, “‘Friends’ of James Allen,” 168.

[4] Quoted in Leary, “‘Friends’ of James Allen,” 170.