~ The Old Sachem ~ The Burning of the HMS Gaspee

By Bill Stewart

In the 18th century the thirteen colonies gave the British customs service strong resistance to costs that England wanted to assert on the colonials. The colonists knew that the British navy was at war with France during the late 1700s and not in a position to strongly enforce directives against the colonies. The British government had expended large costs at this time and wanted the colonies to share in the costs. The British wanted the naval forces to recover costs of their actions; they argued that the revenue was necessary to strengthen military and naval defensive positions along the borders of the colonies. The British government directed the navy to enforce custom laws in American ports.

The British Admiralty purchased six Marblehead sloops and schooners and gave them anglicized French names based on their recent acquisitions in Canada. The names they used were St. John, St. Lawrence, Chaleur, Hope, Magdalen and Gaspee. The enforcements became very aggressive in Narragansett Bay, and the colonists responded by attacking the HMS St. John in 1764, and they burned the HMS Liberty in 1768 on Goat Island in Newport harbor.

The HMS Gaspee was a Royal Navy revenue schooner that was used to enforce Navigation Acts around Newport, Rhode Island, in 1772. The job of the Gaspee was to impose on the packet ships in the area for the Stamp Act. Lieutenant William Duddingston sailed the Gaspee into Narragansett Bay in early 1772 to enforce customs collections and in February met the British Governor, Joseph Wanton. The Gaspee patrolled the bay and stopped the sloop Fortune for inspection on February 17, and he seized 12 hogsheads of undeclared rum. He sent the Fortune and rum to Boston; he believed that any seized items left in a Rhode Island port might be reclaimed by the colonists.

His bold move of sending the Fortune to Boston started outrage among the Rhode Island colonists. Duddingston had decided to authorize the sending to Boston so that the trial would take place there; he had superseded the authority of Governor Wanton, which was in direct violation of the Rhode Island Royal Charter of 1663, to hold a trial outside of Rhode Island on an arrest that took place within the colony. Now his ship became overly aggressive in searches, boardings and seizures. A local sheriff threatened Duddingston with arrest. Admiral John Montagu responded with a letter threatening to hang as pirates anyone who made an effort to rescue ships taken in Newport.

On June 9 the Gaspee gave chase to a packet ship named the Hannah, but ran aground in shallow water. Duddingston decided to wait for high tide to set the vessel afloat. A patriot from Providence upon hearing of the incident recruited a group to act on the “opportunity offered by putting an end to the trouble and vexation she daily caused.” They rowed out to the Gaspee at dawn on June 10 and were able to subdue the crew and captain. Duddingston was wounded and the patriots burned the ship.

The British government advised the Privy Council to charge the colonists of arson in royal dockyards. Judges from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey were to determine who of the colonists to take for trial. The colonists would be sent to England to stand trial. It did not happen. The colonists were released, and the attack became history.

I gathered this history on a recent vacation in Newport.

  (Editor’s Note: Bill Stewart, who is better known to Saugus Advocate readers as “The Old Sachem,” writes a weekly column – sometimes about sports. He also opines on current or historical events or famous people.)