The Gaspee affair was a significant event in the lead-up to the American Revolution. HMS Gaspee was a Royal Navy revenue schooner that enforced the Navigation Acts around Newport, Rhode Island, in 1772.Bartlett: Destruction of the Gaspee – "His Britannic Majesty's Schooner Gaspee." Accessed June 9, 2009. It ran aground in shallow water while chasing the packet boat Hannah on June 9 off Warwick, Rhode Island. A group of men led by Abraham Whipple and John Brown attacked, boarded, and burned the Gaspee to the waterline. This version of the story is told by Ephraim Bowen and John Mawney in William R. Staples' The Documentary History of the Destruction of the Gaspee. The only other testimony from a contemporary is that of Aaron Biggs (sometimes Briggs), an escaped slave who told a slightly different version of the story. His telling of the events was later discredited, however, when it was found that it had been given under duress. (Bartlett, John Russell. A History of the Destruction of His Britannic Majesty's Schooner Gaspee, in Narragansett Bay, on the 10th of June 1772 (Providence, RI.: A. Crawford Greene, 1861), pp. 84–87). There is also testimony from the crew and officers of the Gaspee, who reported a larger number of attackers and more boats.
The event sharply increased tensions between American colonists and Crown officials, particularly given that it had followed the Boston Massacre in 1770. Crown officials in Rhode Island aimed to increase their control over the colony's legitimate trade and stamp out smuggling in order to increase their revenue from the colony. Concomitantly, Rhode Islanders increasingly protested the Townshend Acts and other British policies that had interfered with the colony's traditional businesses, which primarily rested on involvement in the triangular slave trade.
Along with similar events in Narragansett Bay, the affair marked the first acts of violent uprising against Crown authority in British North America, preceding the Boston Tea Party by more than a year and moving the Thirteen Colonies as a whole toward the coming war for independence.
Background
The British Customs service had a history of facing strong resistance in the Thirteen Colonies in the 18th century. Britain was at war during much of this period and was not in a strategic position to risk antagonizing its overseas colonies. Several successive ministries implemented new policies following Britain's victory in the French and Indian War (the component of the Seven Years' War in North America) in an attempt to increase control within the colonies and to recoup some of the heavy cost of the war. The British Parliament argued that revenue was necessary to bolster military and naval defensive positions along the borders of their distant colonies and also to pay the debt which Britain had incurred in pursuing the war against France.
One policy included deputizing Royal Navy officers to enforce customs laws in American ports. The Admiralty purchased six Marblehead sloops and schooners and gave them Anglicized French names based on their recent acquisitions in Canada, removing the French accents from St John, St Lawrence, Chaleur, Hope, Magdalen, and Gaspee.Bartlett, 1861 The enforcement became increasingly intrusive and aggressive in Narragansett Bay. Serious riots had in a number of instances occurred in response to what was considered by the colonists as an unjust incursion on their trade and livelihood.Bartlett, 1861, p. 6
Rhode Islanders finally responded by attacking in 1764, and they burned in 1768 on Goat Island.Warships of the world to 1900, Volume 799, Ships of the World Series:Warships of the World to 1900, Lincoln P. Paine (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000) p. 95 Captain Samuel Hood of HMS Romsey reporting in 1767 that Gaspee was repaired at Halifax after damaging her gripe and false keel after going ashore near Rhode Island suggests Gaspee was no stranger to Rhode Islanders or its shoals.National Archives. ADM106/1153/281
In early 1772, Lieutenant William Duddingston sailed Gaspee into Narragansett Bay to enforce customs collection and mandatory inspection of cargo. He arrived in Rhode Island in February and met with Governor Joseph Wanton. Soon after he began patrolling Narragansett Bay, Gaspee stopped and inspected the sloop Fortune on February 17 and seized 12 hogsheads of undeclared rum.Staples (1845), p. 7. Duddingston sent the Fortune and seized rum to Boston, believing that any seized items left in a Rhode Island port would be reclaimed by the colonists.Staples (1845), p. 6. This move brought outrage within the Rhode Island colony, because Duddingston had taken upon himself the authority to determine where the trial should take place concerning the seizure, superseding the authority of Wanton. Furthermore, it was a direct violation of the Rhode Island Royal Charter to hold a trial outside of Rhode Island on an arrest that took place within the colony.Samuel Greene Arnold, History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Vol. 2, New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1859.
Duddingston and his crew became increasingly aggressive in their searches, boardings, and seizures, even going so far as to stop merchants who were on shore and force searches of their wares. Public resentment and outrage continued to escalate against Gaspee in particular and against the British in general. A local sheriff threatened Duddingston with arrest, and Rear Admiral John Montagu responded with a letter threatening to hang as pirates anyone who made effort to rescue ships taken by Duddingston during his operations.
On March 21, Rhode Island Deputy Governor Darius Sessions wrote to Wanton, requesting that the basis of Duddingston's authority be examined. Sessions includes the opinion of Chief Justice Stephen Hopkins, who argues that "no commander of any vessel has any right to use any authority in the Body of the Colony without previously applying to the Governor and showing his warrant for so doing." Wanton wrote to Duddingston the next day, demanding "produce me your commission and instructions, if any you have, which was your duty to have done when you first came within the jurisdiction of this Colony."Staples (1845), p. 4. Duddingston returned a rude reply to Wanton, refusing to leave his ship or to acknowledge Wanton's elected authority within Rhode Island.
Incident
On June 9, Gaspee gave chase to the packet ship Hannah but ran aground in shallow water on the northwestern side of the bay on what is now Gaspee Point. The crew were unable to free the ship, and Duddingston decided to wait for high tide to set the vessel afloat. Before that could happen, however, a band of Providence men in 18 boats armed with pistols, guns and clubsNational Archives. ADM1/484/76 led by Abraham Whipple and John Brown decided to act on the "opportunity offered of putting an end to the trouble and vexation she daily caused."Staples (1845), p. 8.This version of the story is told by Ephraim Bowen and John Mawney in Staples (1845), pp. 14–16. These men made these statements in 1826 relying on their memories from 67 years earlier.Arthur M Schlesinger, Sr. "Political Mobs and the American Revolution, 1765–1776," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 90:4 (1955), 245. In an affidavit, one of the men testifies they were intent on burning the schooner. John Brown's brother Joseph was also in the boarding party.
Their flotilla rowed out to the ship which was about 9 miles from Rhode Island and boarded it at 1 a.m. on the morning of June 10.National Archives. ADM1/484/71 The crew put up a feeble resistance in which they were attacked with handspikes, and Duddingston was shot and wounded in the groin. Duddingston requested to be allowed down to his cabin, and two surgeons were ordered to dress his wounds.National Archives. ADM1/484/70 The boarding party casually read through the ship's papers before forcing the crew off the ship and setting it aflame. Since Gaspee was burnt and did not explode, it is likely that her magazine's gunpower had been looted.
A few days after being forced off the ship, Duddingston was arrested for an earlier seizure of colonial cargo. His commanding officer Rear Admiral Montagu freed him by paying his fine and then promptly sent him back to England to face a court-martial on the incident, since there were not enough ships from which to form a court-martial at Boston.National Archives. ADM1/484/80
Aftermath
Charges and investigative commission Previous attacks by the Americans on British naval vessels had gone unpunished. In one case, a customs yacht had been destroyed by fire with no administrative response.Staples (1845), p. xxxii But in 1772, the Admiralty would not ignore the destruction of one of its military vessels on station. The American Department consulted the solicitor and attorneys general, who investigated and advised the Privy Council on the legal and constitutional options available. These included charges of arson in royal dockyards, but the idea was dismissed as not legally credible, as HMS Gaspee was not in a dockyard when she was burned. The Crown turned to a centuries-old institution of investigation: the Royal Commission of Inquiry, made up of the chiefs of the supreme courts of Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey, the judge of the vice-admiralty of Boston, and Rhode Island Governor Wanton.
The Dockyard Act passed in April 1772 demands that anyone suspected of burning British ships should be extradited and tried in England; however, Gaspee's raiders were charged with treason.Edward Thurlow and Alexander Wedderburn (the attorney and solicitor general) wrote to the Earl of Hillsborough on August 10, 1772, dismissing the Dockyard Act and demanding the charge of high treason instead for levying war against the king. National Archives (Public Record Office, United Kingdom) CO (Colonial Office Records) 5 159 folder 26. The task of the commission was to determine which colonists had sufficient evidence against them to warrant shipping them to England for trial. The commission was unable to obtain sufficient evidence and declared their inability to deal with the case.
The British authorities called for the apprehension and trial of the people responsible for shooting Duddingston and destroying Gaspee. Governor Wanton and Deputy Governor Sessions echoed those same sentiments, but they lacked any enthusiasm for punishing their fellow Rhode Islanders.Staples (1845), p. 16. William Dickinson the British midshipman from HMS Gaspee described the attackers as "merchants and masters of vessels, who were at my bureau reading and examining my papers."Staples (1845), p. 14.
Admiral Montagu wrote to Wanton on July 8, nearly a month after the burning of the schooner, and utilized the account of Aaron Briggs, an indentured servant claiming to have participated in the June 9 burning. Montagu identified five Rhode Islanders, in varying levels of detail, whom he wanted Wanton to investigate and bring to justice: John Brown, Joseph Brown, Simeon Potter, Dr. Weeks, and Richmond.Staples (1845), p. 17.