[The following is an excerpt from my dissertation: William E. White, “Charlatans, Embezzlers, and Murderers: Revolution Come to Virginia, 1765-1776” (PhD diss. The College of William and Mary, 1998).]
Captain Jeremiah Morgan of His Majesty’s Sloop of War Hornet was no stranger to Norfolk. He knew the ways and business of the place very well. During his long stay in Virginia waters Morgan rented a house in Norfolk and lived there when the Hornet was in port. He knew personally the town’s leading citizens. On Saint George’s Day, April 23, 1766, for example, Morgan and his officers sponsored a celebration “at the house of Mr. Runsburg.” The company, which included several “other Gentlemen” from the town of Norfolk, closed with twenty-two toasts as the Hornet’s tender fired salutes from its guns. The first glasses observed the prerequisite homage to King, Queen, and Royal family. As salutations continued, toasts included a whole series of more general sentiments. Many attending that night, no doubt, belonged to Norfolk’s “Sons of Liberty” protesting the Stamp Act. The toast to the “true Sons of British Liberty” held very different meanings for Royal officers and the town’s people present that night. They drank a health “To those who dare to be honest at the worst of times” and wished “no scoundrel be in the post of Gentleman.” They yearned for “all bullies” to be “tamed by cool courage” and ended their evening with the cry “Community, Unity, Navigation, and Trade.”[1]
The naval officers and the Norfolk gentlemen shared the same community. Navigation and trade were their livelihoods. These men either profited from trade or protected it. But differing ideas concerning the course of that trade caused problems between Morgan and some Norfolk citizens. Norfolk was not just a haven for “deserters,” it also harbored smugglers. Morgan’s key mission in Virginia waters was to inhibit smuggling. He apparently did his job quite well.[2] Virginians and North Carolinians tracked Morgan’s success along the coast. Once captured, a smuggler’s ship and all its contents became prize of the Hornet. In January 1767, Morgan auctioned one of these prizes in Newburn, North Carolina. The cargo alone (some sixty-seven hogsheads of rum) sold for more than four hundred pounds. The ship itself “went cheap” on the auction block to some enterprising buyer.[3]
Those monitoring Morgan’s exploits described him as a “very assiduous” man. According to one observer he let “nothing escape him.” His diligence “in some measure put a Stop to their Illicit Trade.” Some in Norfolk did not appreciate the captain’s success, and told him so. In the fall and winter of 1765, Morgan received anonymous threats against his life, threats to burn down his rented house while he slept in it.[4]
Morgan, no doubt, treated these threats seriously. In the spring of 1766, he witnessed the citizens of Norfolk in action. A strong Sons of Liberty organization headed the town’s Stamp Act resistance. Norfolk’s members were neither the most prominent nor the least prominent Virginians. The majority were merchants or tradesmen of the city. Their primary interest was flourishing trade and commerce for the city of Norfolk. That interest intertwined with the larger issues of provincial, colonial and imperial politics. When something stood in the way (Virginia resident, Royal Navy, or Parliament) Norfolk residents stepped forward.
In April 1766, the Norfolk Sons of Liberty published their resolves against the Stamp Act. The next month they wrote a congratulatory letter to Colonel Richard Bland on the publication of “An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies.” For his “glorious undertaking” the “Sons of Liberty beg you will accept of their hearty thanks and best wishes.”[5]
The March resolves of the Norfolk Sons of Liberty declared that “whoever is concerned, directly or indirectly, in using, or causing to be used, in any way or manner whatever,” those “detestable papers called the Stamps, shall be deemed, to all intents and purposes, an enemy to his country and by the Sons of Liberty treated accordingly.” The liberty men had full intention of backing up their sanction. Merchants, in particular, took pains to associate themselves. Vendue master Joseph Calvert, for example, identified himself as a “Son of Liberty” in his advertisement of May 1766. The declaration assured the public that he would not conduct his business with stamped paper and probably also insured his business would continue unmolested by the Stamp Act protesters.[6]
Captain Jeremiah Morgan of the Hornet was in Norfolk when the Sons of Liberty met in March 1766. He had been in the harbor town more than two months while the Hornet underwent refitting. Watching the anti-imperial movement grow, Morgan felt certain it involved just the Norfolk hotheads. The resistance movement would not grow enough to even slip south across the Elizabeth River and infect the neighboring town of Portsmouth. “There is not a Man of Portsmouth side the Water I believe that will sign the [anti-Stamp Act] Paper.” Several days later Thursday, April 3, however, the Sons of Liberty proved just how effective and coercive they could be.[7]
William Smith, a Portsmouth, Virginia resident, mastered a Virginia schooner. Several local merchants owned the ship as a joint venture. When one investor, John Gilchrist of Norfolk, requested that Smith come to Norfolk and sign Bills of Loading, he doubtless thought little of it. When Smith stepped ashore in Norfolk on April 3, 1766, Gilchrist, Matthew Phripp, John Phripp, James Campbell, and Captain Fleming seized him immediately. With prisoner in hand, they escorted Smith to the market house. The Sons of Liberty accused Smith of informing against Captain Peter Burn of the snow Vigilant. Royal authorities had charged Burn with smuggling. The justice dispensed by the Sons of Liberty was summary. According to Smith, “tho’ they could find no Evidence against me they bound my hands, and tied me behind a Cart” like a felon led to execution.[8]
City officials did little to interfere with the proceedings. In fact, the Mayor, Maximilian Calvert, encouraged the gathering and joined in throwing stones as the crowd paraded to the wharf. Once at the wharf, they coated Smith with tar and feathers. The mob strapped the poor captain into the dunking stool and pelted him with rotten eggs and stones. Finally, they tired of dunking the man and “Carried me through every Street in the Town.” The parade ended with a return to the wharf. The crowd with their prisoner “came abreast of the Hornet Sloop of War.” As Jeremiah Morgan looked on, they hurled threats and insults at the ship, telling Morgan that if he came on shore they would treat him the same way. With drums beating and “all the principal Gentlemen in Town” looking on, John Lawrance ordered Smith thrown into the water. They bound the captain with a rope around his neck intending to see him drown. George Veale, a local magistrate, stepped in at this point and protested the attempt at murder. The crowd then loosened Smith’s bonds and threw him “headlong over the Wharf,” where a friendly boat took him up before he could drown and took him to sanctuary on board H.M.S. Hornet.[9]
Captain Morgan assisted Smith as much as he could. He took his statement and forwarded it on, with his own observations, to Governor Fauquier. The Governor laid the case before the Council for advice. They ordered the King’s Attorney General to prosecute Norfolk rioters for their “inhuman Treatment of Capt. Smith.” Accordingly, seven men received indictments. Most likely they were the individuals listed in Smith’s account of the event: Maximilian Calvert, James Campbell, Captain Fleming, John Gilchrist, John Lawrence, John Phripp, and Matthew Phripp. Though indicted, no one ever came to trial for tarring and feathering William Smith, despite pressure from the Board of Trade. They deemed the incident “a Scandal to Government, and the . . . Abettors of such Violence ought to be proceeded against with the utmost Severity of the Law.”[10]
Virginia’s government could not proceed against Stamp Act protesters with any “severity,” however. The protest was too widespread and even members of the Governor’s Council expressed sympathy for the protesters. What is more, the local community would not give up those indicted and the Governor did not believe his political strength sufficient to force the issue. In Norfolk, and other American communities, protest against imperial policy (the Stamp Act) combined with local concerns (protection of the smugglers in Norfolk) proved rallying points for the community. The anti-stamp proponents in town flexed their muscles. Sons of Liberty gathered ordinary citizens and used the Stamp Act along with a local offender, Captain Smith, to unify the community. And it is significant that William Smith was from Portsmouth, not Norfolk. By directing action against someone outside the community – not a Norfolk resident – the Sons of Liberty minimized the possibility that neighbors would defend Smith and split the loyalty of the community. When the enemy was external – that is, when the enemy did not divide loyalties within the community – the community could act swiftly and effectively against almost any threat.[11]
[1] Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie, 9 May 1766, 2; To Jeremiah Morgan from William Aitchison, Norfolk, 30 November 1765, PRO. Adm 1/2116.
[2] Middleton, Tobacco Coast, 207-213 discusses Chesapeake smuggling.
[3] See Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie and Dixon, 1 January 1767, 2 and 19 February 1767, 1, for accounts of Morgan’s prizes and auctions.
[4] Jeremiah Morgan to Francis Fauquier, 11 September 1767, Fauquier Papers, 3:1500-1502; Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie and Dixon, 1 January 1767, 2 and 19 February 1767, 1; To Jeremiah Morgan from William Aitchison, Norfolk, November 30, 1765, PRO Adm 1/2116. Aitchison acted as agent for Mr. Steuart who owned the property Morgan rented. Aitchison requested a deposit from Morgan equal to the cost of the house because of threats to destroy the property.
[5] The Norfolk Sons of Liberty modeled themselves after the example of Boston. The Boston Sons began as the Loyal Nine. Boston’s Loyal Nine were John Avery, Jr., Thomas Crafts, John Smith, Henry Welles, Thomas Chase, Stephen Cleverly, Henry Bass, Benjamin Edes, and George Trott. These middling Boston artisans and shopkeepers were neither conspicuous nor prominent in the Stamp Act opposition. They were, however, the prime instigators of the August 1765 protest in Boston. Edmund S. Morgan and Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 121-123.
To date I have not located a listing of the Norfolk Sons of Liberty. Their names did not appear with their resolves in the Virginia Gazette. Jeremiah Morgan identified a few of the principal Sons of Liberty in his April 5, 1766, letter to Francis Fauquier. William Smith identified others in his letter to Morgan. Fauquier Papers, 3:1349-1350. They listed several names, but only a few occupations: Mayor Maximilian Calvert, Davis Parson, Paul Loyal, Mr. Bush [Boush?] (clerk of the county), Mr. Holt (lawyer), Anthony Lawson (lawyer), Mr. Parker (merchant), John Gilchrist (merchant), Matthew Phripp, John Phripp, James Campbell, Captain Fleming, and John Lawrence. One other individual, Joseph Calvert, called himself a Son of Liberty. Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie, 23 May 1766, 3. According to Morgan there were at least thirty Sons at their first meeting in 1766.
Maximilian Calvert and Paul Loyal seem the most prominent and wealthy of the group. They had shared a 400,000 acre land grant on the New River in 1749 with sixteen other petitioners. Peyton Randolph was one of the petitioners. Both Calvert and Loyal served as local magistrates and were Mayors of Norfolk. Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, ed. H. R. McIlwaine and Henry Read (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1966-1978), 6:191 and 197. The Calverts were a merchant and seafaring family. His brother Cornelius Calvert, who also shared in the 1749 land grant, owned and captained a sloop based out of Norfolk. Executive Journals, 6:231, 232 and 233. Another brother, Joseph Calvert, was an insurance broker who also conducted public auctions, private auctions and acted as an agent for lotteries. Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie, 2 May 1766, 2 and 23 May 1766, 3. James Campbell was a merchant in partnership with Robert Tucker, John Hunter, William Aitchison, James Parker and Archibald Campbell. Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie and Dixon, 17 May 1767, 3. John Lawrence was partners with William Bolden in the Bolden, Lawrence & Company merchant firm of Norfolk. Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie, 11 April 1766, 3; 16 May 1766, 3; 13 June 1766, 3; Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie and Dixon, 27 June 1766, 2.
The proceedings of the Norfolk Sons of Liberty were published in Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie, 4 April 1766, 3 and 30 May 1766, 3.
[6] Virginia Gazette, ed. Purdie, 4 April 1766, 3; and 23 May 1766, 3.
[7] Jeremiah Morgan to Francis Fauquier, 5 April 1766, Fauquier Papers, 3:1349-1350.
[8] William Smith to Jeremiah Morgan, 3 April 1766, Fauquier Papers, 3:1351-1352.
Smith’s seizure by the same men who invested in his ship seems curious and opens the possibility that Gilchrist, the Phripps, Campbell and Fleming were conspirators in a smuggling operation. If Smith had turned in one smuggler, he would turn in others. These investors apparently felt the need to silence Smith. There must have been some advantage to damaging their investment in Smith’s ship. It is interesting to speculate that the advantage was the protection of a larger more profitable smuggling operation.
Several historians have described the Norfolk Stamp Act affair including: Thomas M. Costa, “Economic Development and Political Authority: Norfolk, Virginia, Merchant Magistrates, 1736-1800” (Ph.D. diss., College of William and Mary, 1991), 127-134; Mary Ferrari, “Artisans of the South: A Comparative Study of Norfolk, Charleston and Alexandria, 1763-1780” (Ph.D. diss, College of William and Mary, 1992); and Thomas J. Wertenbaker, Norfolk: Historic Southern Port (Durham: Duke University Press, 1931), 52-54.
Magistrate George Veal is the same Veal attacked two years later in the Virginia Gazette by Timothy Trimsharp’s satire on the Portsmouth Church scandal.
[10] Francis Fauquier to the Board of Trade, 8 October 1766 and The Board of Trade to Francis Fauquier, 22 July 1766, Fauquier Papers 3:1375 and 1388. I have not been able to locate the actual indictment.
[11] Maier, From Resistance to Revolution, 51-112 and Morgan, Stamp Act, 125-186 analyze American resistance and violence protesting the Stamp Act.