Compliance with Committees of Correspondence

October 12

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

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

New-York Journal (October 12, 1775).

“I Acknowledge that I have at several times spoken in favour of the laws of Taxation.”

Lemuel Bower wanted to return to the good graces of his community in the fall of 1775.  Events that occurred since the previous April – the battles at Lexington and Concord, the siege of Boston, the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Second Continental Congress appointing George Washington as commander in chief of the Continental Army, an American invasion of Quebec – had intensified feelings about the imperial crisis and, apparently, made for a difficult situation for Bower since he had expressed Tory sentiments in the past.  In hopes of moving beyond that, he composed a statement that appeared in the October 12, 1775, edition of the New-York Journal.

“I Acknowledge,” Bower confessed, “I have at several times spoken in favour of the laws of Taxation, and against the measures pursued by America to procure Redress, and have thereby justly merited the displeasure of my country.”  To remedy that, “I beg forgiveness, and so solemnly promise to submit to the rules of the Continental and Provincial Congresses,” including abiding by the nonimportation and nonconsumption provisions in the Continental Association.  Furthermore, Bower pledged, “I never will speak or act in opposition to their order, but will conduct according to their directions, to the utmost of my power.”  He did not state that he had a change of heart, only that he would quietly act as supporters of the American cause were supposed to act rather than engage in vocal opposition.  As William Huntting Howell has argued, such compliance, especially when expressed in a public forum, may have been more important to most Patriots than whether Bower truly agreed with them.[1]  How he acted and what he said was more important than what he believed as long as he kept his thoughts to himself.

Bower did indeed express his regrets and his promise to behave better in a public forum.  He concluded his statement with a note that “this I desire should be published in the public prints.  When it appeared in the New-York Journal, it ran immediately below a notice from the Committee of Inspection and Observation in Stanford, New York, that labeled two Loyalists as “enemies to the liberties of their country” and instructed the public “to break off all commerce, dealings and connections with them.”  That was the treatment that Bower sought to avoid!  That notice appeared immediately below news from throughout the colony.  Bower’s statement ran immediately above paid advertisements.  The two statements concerning the political principles of colonizers thus served as a transition from news to advertising in that issue of the New-York Journal.  Did John Holt, the printer, treat them as paid notices?  Did he require Bower to pay to insert his statement?  Or did the Patriot printer publish one or both gratis?  Perhaps he printed the statement from the Committee of Inspection and Observation for free but made Bower pay to publish his penance.  Whatever the case, Bower’s statement was not clearly a news item nor an advertisement but could have been considered both simultaneously by eighteenth-century readers.

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[1] William Huntting Howell, “Entering the Lists: The Politics of Ephemera in Eastern Massachusetts, 1774,” Early American Studies 9, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 187-217.

June 22

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

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

New-England Chronicle (June 22, 1775).

“I … declare myself a Friend to the Charter Privileges of my Country.”

Timothy Brown of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, wanted to return to the good graces of his community in the summer of 1775.  He had fallen out of favor because he had not always supported the American cause with as much fervor as his neighbors wished, so he realized that he needed to apologize and pledge to do better.  To that end, he not only submitted a “written Acknowledgment” to the Committee of Correspondence for the towns of Chelmsford, Billerica, and Tewksbury but also benefitted from the publication of their response in the New-England Chronicle for readers far and wide to see.

“WHEREAS I … have been suspected as an Enemy to the Liberties of America,” Brown confessed, “I do hereby acknowledge that I have in Time past said something (tho’ with no inimical Design) that were taken as of an inimical Nature.”  Like others who had signed an address to Governor Thomas Hutchinson when he departed for England, Brown simultaneously admitted what he had done and attempted to distance himself from it.  He had not intended his words, he claimed, in the way that they had been interpreted, though he understood how whatever he had said had been received.  “I am heartily sorry I said those Things,” Brown lamented, “and desire the Forgiveness of all Persons that I have offended thereby.”  Furthermore, he declared himself “a Friend to the Charter Privileges of my Country” and pledged that he would “use all lawful Endeavours to maintain and defend the same.”

Brown presented that statement in writing to the Committee of Correspondence for Chelmsford, Billerica, and Tewksbury.  In turn, the committee recommended him “to the Charity and Friendship of the good People through the Country.”  Simeon Spaulding, the chairman, published Brown’s acknowledgment of his error and the committee’s response in the New-England Chronicle “In the Name and by the Order of the Committee of said Towns.”  It appeared next to the second insertion of the advertisement that cleared Ebenezer Bradish of attempting “to do any Injury to his Country,” part of a trend of using newspaper advertisements to designate which colonizers once suspected of sympathizing with Tories now expressed support for the Patriot cause.  That the advertisement concerning Brown was inserted in the New-England Chronicle “by the Order of the Committee” suggests that Brown was not the only one to benefit from its publication.  The committee paid for an advertisement to make a public display of Brown falling in line, an example for others who had not yet done so and a testament to the unity they hoped to achieve among colonizers as the imperial crisis became a war of resistance in the spring and summer of 1775.