An Analysis on the Panicked Nature of Colonial Boston
Colonial Boston in the latter half of the eighteenth century was a city of social unrest and dissent. The extent of this dissent was frequently violent and destructive. The cause of the time was British encroachment on personal liberties. Issues like taxation and impressment spurred on great upheaval and mob behavior. The most significant voice of reason at the time was John Adams. He was essential to the eventual success of the rebellion because he gave the short-tempered mob city some much-needed prudence and also gave Boston credibility for the rest of the colonies. The mob city’s violent actions would be in danger of counter productiveness if not held in check by John Adams.
There’s something indefinable about Boston’s panicked nature. It may have been the lasting influence of the Puritans. Whatever it was, Boston was quick to react and react violently if necessary. They had a history of paranoia about issues like fires and disease. They stayed isolationist for the better part of their early history. Outside influence was definitely something they took seriously.
A particularly violent act that predated John Adams’s influence on the city was the impressment riot of 1747. On November 17, the HMS Lark came into Boston Harbor for a relief. The sailors entered the city and some never came back. Admiral Charles Knowles of the Lark needed men for his ship so he started an impressments campaign and the mariners revolted. They assaulted sailors and lawmen. The raided the governor’s house. They even took a barge out the harbor and burned it in Boston Common. As the situation escalated, Knowles threatened to bombard the city from the Lark. Negotiations took place over several days and the impressed Bostonians were released and the riot ended.
The Knowles riot was a success for the Boston mariners. Their refusal to be bullied into the Navy set a precedent for the British that they would not be able to simply march into a city and do whatever they pleased. The Bostonians would not be taken hostage under the guise of impressments. Boston further helped their cause by blaming the riot on foreigners, Negros, and other undesirables so as to take the focus off the city if the British Navy chose to retaliate. It may have been blamed on the dregs of Boston society, but the message was made clear that if a ship was going to impress the population of a city they were not going to go to Boston first.
Another ugly incident in the anti-impressment fight was the case of Rex v. Corbet. The HMS Rose had intercepted the Pitt Packet; a ship crewed primarily by Irishmen. The Rose’s intention was to impress the seamen, but a handful resisted with arms. Michael Corbet drew a line in salt and threatened to kill Lieutenant Panton of the Rose if he crossed the line with intentions to impress him. Panton was not intimidated and claimed he had seen these kinds of actions before. He crossed the line and Corbet drove a harpoon into his neck, leaving him dead on the deck.
When the authorities arrived there was some confusion over what to do since the crime took place in international waters. John Adams eventually defended Corbet in a jury trial in Boston. While Adams made the persuasive argument that the men on the ship were well within their rights to defend themselves, he believed that the eventual acquittal was the result of the jury fearing that authorized impressments may become the law of the land.
The violent actions were serving their purpose, but Boston’s situation did not improve. Britain quickly took notice of Boston’s disorderly conduct and sent troops into the city. Quartering was becoming an unpleasant issue in the colonies. Britain had numerous reasons to do so. Firstly, the French and Indian War had proved costly in terms of troop movement. By Britain’s logic, it would be much cheaper to protect the colonies if the soldiers lived with the colonists. At the same time, Britain angered colonists by saying that colonists who had soldiers quartered with them were required to support them financially.
More troops were sent in because of rebellious action’s regarding the Stamp Act of 1765. Boston’s royally appointed stamp distributor was compelled to resign his post in fear of his own life. James Otis, who was a strong influence and friend of John Adams, urged a Stamp Act Congress be held among the colonies to form a list of grievances. The move eventually worked and the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766. James Otis was a radical pursuer of liberty, but his influence on John Adams’s forethought cannot be overlooked. In a court case regarding troop quartering Otis made a strong statement against Britain’s policy.
“A man’s house is his castle; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and everything in their way; and whether they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court may inquire.”
Adams was present during this statement and claimed it was the first act of resistance against British oppression.
Despite some scattered logic, the British response shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it highlights how counter productive the rebellious action could be. Adams was one who agreed with the mobs, but not their methods. He strongly disapproved of mob violence. He was often found in positions where he’d have to make the reasoned explanations of the violent incidents.
The defining moment in John Adams’s legal career was the Boston Massacre Trial. On a snowy March night in 1770 a dispute broke out between a British soldier and a Boston citizen. The argument ended with the soldier striking the man with his rifle. Soon after an outraged mob surrounded a group of soldiers. The mob hurled ice and debris at the soldiers. One man grabbed the bayonet of a soldier and threw him to the ground. The soldier rose from the ground, yelled, “Damn you! Fire!” and opened fire with his rifle. The other soldiers thought this was an order from their commanding officer, Captain Thomas Prescott, and opened fire as well. By the time Prescott could shout them down four people were dead and a fifth was dying.
In a move that upset some and puzzled many, John Adams defended the British soldiers. It was a move that seemed contradictory to previous cases where he defended colonials, but it was consistent with his views on liberty. He defended the British soldiers not because he was a loyalist, but he felt that one of the principles of liberty that he was fighting for included fair trials for everyone. It was the kind of move that eventually gave John Adams more integrity. The mob of Boston would have just strung the soldiers up from the tallest tree, but Adams kept them in check and by doing so made the American case that much stronger.
During his summation, Adams took the opportunity to not justify the mob, but account for why it occurred in the first place. He placed blame squarely at the feet of the policy of quartering soldiers in citizen’s homes against their will. “The sun is not about to stand still or go out, nor the rivers to dry up because there was a mob in Boston on the 5th of March that attacked a party of soldiers. -Such things are not new in the world, nor in the British dominions, though they are comparatively, rarities and novelties in this town. Carr a native of Ireland had often been concerned in such attacks, and indeed, from the nature of things, soldiers quartered in a populous town, will always occasion two mobs, where they prevent one. -They are wretched conservators of the peace!”
Why the mob gathered in the first place and why they were so outraged was not relevant to the trial, but Adams felt that it needed to be said so the people of Boston were not reduced to wild animals in the eyes of the world.
It was important that, despite the rebellious actions, Boston was not brushed aside as a group of troublemakers. Without John Adams, its very likely that men like Samuel Adams, James Otis, and the rest of the Sons of Liberty would simply be pigeonholed as troublemakers rather than people with legitimate grievances. Violent acts tend to sour people’s opinions of a cause regardless of its merit. In the modern day, England would be considering these people terrorists. What John Adams represented was voice of reason standing before the people and peacefully stating his case.
Adams had a way of stating a logical case. Even before the Boston Massacre Trials, he was a prominent public figure and probably the busiest lawyer in the city. When John Adams spoke, the people listened. And Adams had a very logical case for liberty to America.
“No simple form of government can possibly secure men against the violences of power. Simple monarchy will soon mold itself into despotism. Aristocracy will soon commence an oligarchy. And democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy. Such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eye and no mans life of property or reputation or liberty will be secure and every one of these will soon mold itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.”
Forty years after that statement, Adams reaffirmed his belief in it. He called it his creed. Even after decades and revolution and presidency that remained his core belief.
The consequence most necessary for the success of Boston’s rebellion was the embrace of the remaining colonies. There were plenty of loyalists remaining before the ideas of revolution became widespread. Those would be the people most necessary for its success and least likely to be swayed by mob violence. Boston was the heart of the uprising and John Adams was at the heart Boston. Making logical arguments as to why injustice needs to be fought was the most important thing that could be done and not something a violent mob would take the time to reason out. The fact that John Adams made those arguments even when they would potentially hurt his support with the mob is what made him the most important figure in the pre-Revolution period in Boston and possibly the most significant figure in getting what would become the United States of America off the ground.
