Revolutionary Self Defense (episode 339)

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Jake 2025:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the Hub of the Universe.

Introduction to Revolutionary Self-Defense

Jake 2025:
[0:13] This is episode 339, Revolutionary Self-Defense. Hi, I’m Jake. This week, I’m talking about two murder trials that were held in Revolutionary Boston. The first case was against four ordinary sailors accused of murdering an officer of the Royal Navy on a ship in Massachusetts coastal waters. And the other was against nine British prisoners of war who were accused of murdering a guard aboard a prison ship in Boston Harbor. The sailors were accused in 1769, when Boston was under military occupation, and the tensions that would soon result in the Boston Massacre were coming to a head.

Jake 2025:
[0:56] The Redcoats stood trial over a decade later, in the midst of a bloody civil war that had touched the lives of all Bostonians by 1780. In both cases, attorneys and judges worried whether a jury could deliver justice in such a polarized city. Both cases were argued by signers of the Declaration of Independence, with John Adams defending the American sailors in 1769, and Robert Treat Payne prosecuting the Redcoats in 1780. In both cases, the defendants argued that they’d acted in self-defense. And amazingly, both cases ended in acquittal. But before we talk about these two capital cases, I just want to pause and say thank you to the listener supporters who make it possible for me to make Hub History.

Jake 2025:
[1:48] The first episode of this podcast aired on October 30th, 2016, so this is actually our ninth anniversary episode. To those of you who have been with us from the very beginning, wow, you’re appreciated. Looking back, those early shows were pretty rough, but I’m always amazed that we’ve been able to bring you forgotten, overlooked, and sometimes downright bizarre stories from almost 400 years of Boston history for nine years now. I love diving into the archives to try to unearth fascinating figures, hidden landmarks, and unexpected events, the stuff that’s shaped this city. We’re proud to be an independent show, dedicated to delivering fascinating stories and careful research, with no institutional support.

Jake 2025:
[2:38] Unfortunately, producing a podcast takes a lot of time, and a fair amount of money. from access to archives, to equipment replacement, to media hosting and online tools. I started this show because I love talking about Boston history, but I can only keep it going with the help of listeners like you. So to everybody who’s already supporting the show, thank you. And if you’re not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start, it’s easy. Just go to patreon.com slash hubhistory or visit hubhistory.com and click on the support us link. And thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors. Now, in our first case, we’re going to hear about a group of sailors who barricaded themselves below deck in an attempt to avoid being illegally kidnapped by an officer of the Royal Navy. Hmm. Government officials acting on behalf of a despotic king kidnapping Massachusetts residents. That sounds familiar for some reason.

Jake 2025:
[3:44] Anyway, these sailors drew a line in the sand, pretty literally, and announced that they would kill the first man who crossed it. Moments later, a British lieutenant was dead, his throat slashed with a harpoon blade. The civilian sailors were brought back to Boston in chains, where they would stand trial before an admiralty court, without a jury of Bostonians who might have been sympathetic to ordinary citizens resisting the might of empire. Instead, the panel of judges who had decided their fate was made up of prominent loyalists, Tories, and even government officials, by all appearances rigging the trial in favor of the Crown. Enter John Adams in one of the cases that made him an obvious choice for the Boston Massacre trial just a few months later. This story originally aired in April of 2023.

Jake 2023:
[4:36] In April 1769, Boston was still adjusting to life under military occupation. After the Stamp Act riots a few years before, Parliament seemed to relent, repealing the hated law that colonists saw as taxation without representation. They had another trick up their legislative sleeves, however. Starting in 1767, Parliament passed a series of repressive taxes and statutes known as the Townsend Acts, shifting the focus of colonial resentment from stamped paper to customs duties on everything from glass to paint to, most importantly, tea. Boston merchants and sea captains smuggle goods into town in defiance of the new customs duties, including a wealthy and prominent merchant named John Hancock.

Jake 2023:
[5:26] As colonial resentments refocused on the new Commissioners of Customs, unrest grew in Boston and started to become violent again. One of the most frightening incidents occurred after Hancock brought in a cargo of Madeira wine in May 1768, paying the duties on just a fraction of the cargo. When the Commissioners of Customs seized his ship Liberty, the resulting Boston riot was so severe that the Commissioners and other officials had to seek refuge on a British man-of-war in the harbor, and a castle island. Just a few months later, entire British regiments began landing in Boston in October 1768. These troops were intended to keep the peace, but instead they fanned the flames of conflict that eventually led to the Boston Massacre in March 1770.

Jake 2023:
[6:14] We’ve heard about the 1768 Liberty Riots in Episode 224, about the occupation of Boston just recently, in episodes 263 and 267, and we heard a lot about the Boston Massacre in episode 174. The Boston Massacre and the Liberty Riot both led to important legal cases. And in both cases, John Adams represented the defendants. In 1768, he defended John Hancock before a court of admiralty on charges of smuggling. And then again in 1770, he defended the British soldiers who’d opened fire on King Street against charges of murder. In between those two cases, John Adams served as the defense attorney in yet another high-profile case in Admiralty Court.

Jake 2023:
[7:00] Six months into the military occupation of Boston, Merchant John Rowe’s diary entry for April 24, 1769, records, Mr. Hooper of Marblehead came to town and brings the melancholy account of Lieutenant Paxton, meaning Panton, being killed and endeavoring to press some hands of Mr. Hooper’s brig. The mere rumor that a British naval officer was impressing sailors in Massachusetts Bay was explosive in Boston. Impressment was basically legalized kidnapping, the practice by which the Navy could simply take sailors off civilian ships against their will and force them into the Crown’s service. Back in 1747, during the administration of Governor William Shirley, one of the worst riots in Boston history tore the town apart after Commodore Knowles began illegally impressing Boston sailors. The Boston mob took Navy officers prisoner, battered down the doors of the governor’s mansion, held the entire colonial government hostage on the upper floors of our old statehouse, and eventually forced the release of all the impressed Massachusetts sailors.

Jake 2023:
[8:10] As we said in episode 54 about that 1747 riot, the practice of impressment predated the Magna Carta. So by 1769, it had been in place for over 570 years. In that earlier episode, we quoted historian Jack Tager about who could be impressed into the Royal Navy. Impressment was initially applied only to seamen, but over time, anyone on shipboard or in seaports was ripe for the press gang. Englishmen anywhere on the globe were subject, but there were exceptions. All landsmen except harvesters, which meant large numbers of those working the land, gentlemen, apprentices, or those tied to masters, ships officers and bosons, and various skilled artisans, e.g. Carpenters of merchant vessels over 50 tons, and only when on their vessels.

Jake 2023:
[9:08] This meant that it was largely the urban lower orders—sailors, simple craftspersons, and the wide variety of common laborers of the seaports—who were the targets of the press gang.

Jake 2023:
[9:21] Captain John Corner of the HMS Romney had tried to illegally impress Massachusetts sailors in 1768, and the Liberty Riots weren’t much less damaging than the Knowles Riots in 1747. In both cases, the governor eventually upheld a precedent stating that Massachusetts residents were not subject to impressment. Now, a shipowner from Marblehead was in Boston barely a year later, saying that the same thing had happened again.

Jake 2023:
[9:50] After so many past conflicts around impressments had reaffirmed the exemptions for Massachusetts sailors, was a Royal Navy officer really making the same mistake? It certainly looked that way, with the May 1st, 1769 edition of the Boston Evening Post reporting under a dateline of Salem, April 25th, a very melancholy accident happened last Saturday morning on board the brig Pit Packet, commanded by Captain Thomas Power, belonging to Marblehead, and bound in there from Cadiz. The brig, when within about seven leagues of Cape Ann, came across the Rose Man of War, was boarded, and two of her men impressed. But these being for some reasons released, the lieutenant of the rows with a number of men again boarded the brig in order to take some of the other men, who, for a number, had secured themselves in the forepeak, determining to defend themselves with some harpoons, etc., that they had provided for the purpose, as long as they had life.

Jake 2023:
[10:54] The lieutenant made use of moderate, kind, and persuasive arguments, and offered first to take but two, and afterwards but one, if they would surrender themselves. But all his proposals and entreaties being ineffectual to induce them to come up, the lieutenant informed them that he was determined to make use of force, and the sailors as resolutely protested that they would kill any who should attempt to take them. The Pit Packet was a square-rigged ship with two masts that was carrying a cargo of mostly salt from Spain to her home port on Cape Ann. Salt was in high demand in fishing towns like Gloucester and Marblehead. When she was stopped by HMS Rose, she was about 21 miles out of Marblehead and probably within sight of land. The Rose was a post ship, bigger than a sloop and smaller than a frigate, with about 28 guns on a single gun deck.

Jake 2023:
[11:52] She was commanded by a Royal Navy captain, but it was a subordinate officer, Lieutenant Henry Gibson Panton, who led the press gang that boarded the pit packet. Panton asked Thomas Power, the master of the brig, for his paperwork, and told him to call the crew together. It was no secret to the crew of six why the naval officer had come aboard, and instead of assembling on the deck as ordered, they hid where they could below the decks. Panton called first for a candle to see where the men were hiding, and then he called for a crowbar to try to break into the forepeak, which was the tiny compartment between decks and the pointy part of the bow that was too small to use for anything practical.

Jake 2023:
[12:36] The exact details of the scuffle that followed were disputed, but the bottom line is that the four men in the peak made it clear that they’d been born free, and that they’d rather die free than subject themselves to impressmen, with the Boston Evening Post reporting, A pistol charge of powder was first fired at them, which burnt the face of one Michael Corbett. And afterwards, another one of them received a pistol shot in his arm, which broke the bone. This increased their resolution of dying rather than surrendering, and their whole conduct seemed to manifest such abhorrence of being forced on board a man of war as to prefer death to such a life as they deemed slavery. They repeatedly declared that they would kill the first man that offered to approach them. And a man the lieutenant sent in to begin the attack upon them was considerably wounded, on which he retreated. The lieutenant then told them that he would lead the way to them himself. Corbett answered him with the most solemn protestations, and called Almighty God to witness that so sure as he advanced one inch further, he should instantly lose his life.

Jake 2023:
[13:44] In the version of this exchange that passed into legend, sailor Michael Corbett drew a line in the sand, either by scraping a line into loose salt that was on the deck, or by taking some salt from his pocket and sprinkling it on the ground. He told Panton that if he took one step over the line, he’d kill the officer. In response, the legend says that Panton took a pinch of snuff for courage, and then slowly and deliberately stepped over the line.

Jake 2023:
[14:13] In the version reported by the Boston Evening Post, some of those details are already present. The lieutenant told him that he’d seen many a brave fellow, should take a pinch of snuff, and then consider of it. Which, having deliberately done, he began to step towards them, when Corbett, agreeable to his promise, immediately threw a harpoon, which did instant execution. It hit the lieutenant near his throat and cut the jugular vein, on which he had only time to say that they’d taken his life and, gasping three or four times, fell down and expired. The sailors still continued to defend themselves, notwithstanding there was a large number of marines at this time on board the brig. But, having provided themselves with a quantity of liquor, Alba Corbett became so intoxicated therewith that they were soon pulled out. He continued to defend himself for three hours and a half after he killed the lieutenant. And it was thought would have been killed upon the spot rather than have been taken if he had retained the use of his limbs. But being also overcome with liquor was by that means taken.

Jake 2023:
[15:23] Realizing how much trouble they were in, the foreman and the forepeak began hitting the bottle. After getting too drunk to continue defending themselves, they were taken prisoner. I almost said that they were clapped in irons, but later testimony makes it clear that they were just taken onto the rose and watched by an armed guard, while both ships were brought back to Boston. Along with ringleader Michael Corbett, the other prisoners were Pierce Finning, John Ryan, and William Connor. The Evening Post article continues, The lieutenant, we hear, was named Panton, a young gentleman between 20 and 30 years of age, and was much respected. The captain of the Rose, after this tragical affair, thought himself obliged to take charge of the brig as well as of the men, and carried them to Boston. The corpse of the lieutenant was kept on board the brig, where it was to remain until a jury of inquests should be summoned on the same. Not one American belonged to the Brig.

Jake 2023:
[16:26] The Rose Man of War, and the brig with Mr. Panton’s body on board, arrived at Boston last Tuesday, and on Friday his remains were decently interred there. After Lieutenant Panton was buried, Corbett and his fellow prisoners were left on board the Rose to await an uncertain fate. Would they be brought into Boston to stand trial for murder? Would they be taken to England to stand trial there? Or would they face military justice on the Rose itself?

Jake 2023:
[16:56] If Corbett was to stand trial in Boston, would he be judged by a jury of sympathetic Bostonians?

The Sailors’ Illegal Impressment

Jake 2023:
[17:03] At the turn of the 18th century, a parallel court system had been set up in Boston as a way to try pirates. Since at the time, juries in the colonies were sometimes seen as overly sympathetic to piracy. And a more recent law had mandated that more offenses would fall under the jurisdiction of this parallel legal system. In July 1768, Parliament had passed a fifth Townsend Act, the Vice Admiralty Court Act. This law gave admiralty courts, a legal system operating under the auspices of the Royal Navy, sole jurisdiction over enforcing customs laws. Admiralty courts were originally set up to deal with pirates who were taken into custody in Boston. After the notorious Captain Kidd was arrested in Boston on possibly trumped-up charges, he was shipped off to London to stand trial. Because they missed out on the spectacle of trying and hanging a famous pirate, and because they continued to capture pirates with some regularity, many Bostonians welcomed the Act for the More Effective Suppression of Piracy that was passed in 1698.

Jake 2023:
[18:13] This law established admiralty courts in Britain’s overseas colonies, and the first admiralty trial outside Britain was held in Boston in 1704, where a pirate captain named John Quelch was convicted, hanged, and buried below the high tide line. In his biography of Quelch, Clifford Beale describes the appeal of an admiralty trial. The intent was to circumvent trial by jury, thus bypassing sympathetic local courts and gaining more convictions, as well as confiscated treasure. Considered throughout the colonies as a violation of the freeborn right of all Englishmen to a fair trial, the new admiralty court powers created a stir similar to that of the recent U.S. Guantanamo Bay military tribunals for suspected terrorists. Then as now, the tinkering with long-established legal convention, for reasons of judicial expediency, Disobediency was regarded with great suspicion and general hostility.

Jake 2023:
[19:15] The statute allowed for a trial without a jury, trial without an attorney, and trial under maritime law, rather than the laws of the province of Massachusetts Bay. However, the first Massachusetts Admiralty Court set some precedents that were still in place in 1769. First, while the court would be steered by maritime law, and the verdict would be returned by the judges rather than a jury, the composition of the panel of judges is revealing. It was made up of the governor and lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, the lieutenant governor of New Hampshire, our old friend Samuel Sewell, the Salem witch trial judge who hated Christmas so much, and a newly appointed judge of the local admiralty court. This lent more of an air of legitimacy to the court than it would have gotten from unknown judges or despots. Plus, very importantly, though the statute did not provide for a defense attorney, on On the first day of the trial, the court appointed an attorney named James Menzies to defend Quelch. All those precedents were still in place in 1769, so Corbett and the others would have a proper defense. However, questions remained as to what crime the prisoners should be charged with, since the Navy’s story was already starting to change. The captain of the Rose now denied that Lieutenant Panton had boarded the pit packet in order to impress local sailors.

Jake 2023:
[20:43] Instead, the new claim was that the boarding party had only been searching for goods that had not been declared and that the customs duties had not been paid for. While customs enforcement was wildly unpopular in Boston at the time, claiming that this was the reason for boarding the brig was convenient, since it would clearly make the case subject to the recent Vice Admiralty Court Act.

Jake 2023:
[21:06] To bolster this assertion of jurisdiction, the Boston Evening Post printed an updated account of what happened on the Pitt Packet in their July 3rd, 1769 edition. The inhabitants were not a little alarmed to learn that those who were the aggressors and acted in defense of an act of parliament are left at liberty, while the men who only stood upon their defense against an illegal attempt upon their liberty are confined in irons, on board the man of war, in order to their being put upon trial for life, and that proper application for their being brought up to the town and treated as the law prescribes has been hitherto ineffectual. But they are quite astonished to hear that one of the commissioners and others of the cabal have given out that Lieutenant Panton was not on the business of pressing men, but only executing the duty of a Customs House officer on board the brig by endeavoring to search out and secure contraband goods, and that he was therefore opposed and slain while in the due execution of that trust.

Jake 2023:
[22:04] We shall only remark upon the above account that if the captains of our men of war have it in their power to stop vessels at sea and impress the seamen, as also to detain such vessels in order to break open hatches and make a search for uncustomed goods, that then the floating property of the merchants lies at their mercy. Or if such officers can assume on board a merchantman at sea the shape of either marine or custom house officer as best suits them in order to laying their hands on our seamen, that then a kite is made of a most solemn act of Parliament, provided and enacted for the security of the persons of that class of His Majesty’s liege subjects in America, whether by sea or land.

Jake 2023:
[22:47] Two Boston lawyers would represent the defendants, James Otis and John Adams. At the time, Adams was an up-and-coming attorney, but he didn’t have much of a reputation for politics yet. Otis, on the other hand, was seen as a raving patriot. In 1761, he delivered a five-hour argument against the writs of assistance that John Adams later credited with igniting the flame of American independence, and he acted as a political mentor to the radical Samuel Adams. However, his mental health declined soon after this trial, and he was largely forgotten or ignored by the time of the Revolution. Later in 1769, a Crown official clubbed him over the head with a cane, which many people blamed for this decline. However, a letter that John Adams wrote nearly 50 years after the fact suggests that Otis was already suffering from bouts of mental illness during the trial. His unhappy distemper was then in one of its unlucid intervals. I could hardly persuade him to converse with me for a few minutes on the subject.

Jake 2023:
[23:54] Whatever his state of mind was like, it at first seemed that Otis had found a trump card for the Vice Admiralty Court Act that would allow the defense team to force a trial before a sympathetic Boston jury. In his notes from the trial, John Adams wrote, A question has been made by Mr. Otis whether the prisoners have not a right to a jury. He says that Magna Carta, in a case of life at least, must be expressly repealed, not by implication or construction only, and that in England, a jury is summoned every day for the trial of such offenses committed at sea. But I think that the statute of Henry VIII before cited explains this difficulty, and this case seems to be but one instance among many others of the partial distinctions made between British subjects at home and abroad. The civil law, the course of the admiralty, and the methods and rules of the admiralty will be construed to take away the benefit of a jury. Mr. Otis, from his first retainer in the cause, has been very sanguine to move for a jury. He has mentioned his resolution in all companies, and last week at Plymouth he mentioned it to the lieutenant governor and the rest of the judges. Mr. Fitch, happening to hear of our design to move for a jury, went to rummaging up Acts of Parliament to satisfy himself, and found the act for the further preventing of robbery, etc., and for declaring the law upon some points relating to pirates.

Jake 2023:
[25:23] The Whiggish Journal of the Times was critical of both impressment and customs inspections, so it’s no wonder that their note dated May 31st, 1769 was sympathetic to the defendants. On Tuesday last, His Majesty’s commission for the trial of piracies, robberies, and felonies on the high seas was read and a court formed for the trial of Michael Corbett and three others, charged with being concerned in the murder of Lieutenant Panton of His Majesty’s ship Rose. A motion having been made on behalf of the prisoners that they might have the privilege of a trial by jury, the court was adjourned to the Thursday following, when they again met and adjourned to the 29th instant, when it was determined that said prisoners were not entitled to a trial by jury. The prisoners then, by their counsel, filed a plea against the jurisdiction of the court, and it having been thought proper by the court to take the same into consideration, they adjourned to the 14th of June next. Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson was named as a judge for this admiralty court, so his history of the province of Massachusetts Bay contains first-hand knowledge of the debate over a jury trial.

Jake 2023:
[26:37] Back in 1747, during that massive riot against impressment, he’d been a popular Boston selectman and the Speaker of the Massachusetts House. When the mob threatened Governor Shirley’s house and the naval officers taking refuge there, he physically placed himself between the rioters and their potential victims, possibly saving their lives. In the meantime, though, his alignment with the Townsend Act made him unpopular with Boston radicals, and another later mob destroyed his North End home during the Stamp Act riots of 1765. Hutchinson was also a longtime political opponent of James Otis, so you can almost hear him rubbing his hands together in glee, and this footnote from his History of Massachusetts that explains why a jury trial was not called for in this case. Four of the crew belonging to the brigantine were apprehended and ordered to a trial before For a special court of vice-admiralty, consisting of crown officers, which court had always proceeded without a jury. But exception was now taken, and a jury was insisted upon by Mr. Otis and Mr. Adams, the counsel for the seamen.

Jake 2023:
[27:48] The authority for the Court of Admiralty for trial of piracy and felony upon the high seas was derived from Acts of Parliament in the reign of William III and George I. And murder, being felony, was supposed to be cognizable by force of those acts. All the commissions in pursuance of them directed that the proceedings should be without a jury. It was now stated that the trial ought to be by jury, that the acts would admit of it, and that, in order to deprive a subject of his birthright, the privilege of being tried by a jury, the words ought to be expressed, and such as would admit of no other construction.

Jake 2023:
[28:28] Upon opening the court, the governor, as president, observed that the commissioners were disposed, if it might be done consistently with law, that the prisoners should be tried by a jury, that they would take under consideration the several statutes and their commission, and for that purpose would adjourn a few days. Upon a hearing by counsel for the king and prisoners, the counsel for the king acceded to a trial by jury, and the only point remaining was the manner of summoning the grand and petite jurors. While this was under consideration, the chief justice drew up a statement of the case in which it appeared that the prisoners might be sent to England and tried there, in which case the trial must be upon the statute of Henry VIII, which directs a trial by jury. Or they might be tried in the plantations, meaning the American colonies, but the trial there must be according to the directions of the statute of William, without a jury. This statement being laid before the commissioners, they were unanimously of the opinion to proceed without a jury, and the Chief Justice was desired, in open court, to declare the grounds of their decision. It was, however, unpleasing.

Jake 2023:
[29:42] Not only were the four defendants now denied a jury of their peers, the judges were not exactly drawn from the peers of a common seaman, as reported by the Boston Gazette and Country Journal on June 19, 1769. Tuesday last, His Excellency Governor Wentworth arrived in town with a great retinue from New Hampshire. Several other gentlemen also arrived here, being officers included in the commission for the trial of piracies, felonies, etc. on the high seas. The court was opened according to adjournment yesterday for the trial of the persons charged with the murder of Lieutenant Panton of His Majesty’s Ship Rose. The plea against the jurisdiction of the court was not admitted, and the court proceeded to the examination of the evidences and will continue from day to day till the whole trial is finished. The judges are as follows. The list of judges included not only prominent Tory politicians like Thomas Hutchinson and Governor Bernard, but also the hated customs collectors from three different ports.

Jake 2023:
[30:47] It certainly seemed to Michael Corbett, his three co-defendants, and the Boston Whigs who were lining up to support them, that the scale was being deliberately tipped against them. The Journal of the Times report, dated May 31st, continues, It was with difficulty that this court was formed, a great part of the gentleman named in the commission living at a distance, and the inhabitants had the mortification to perceive that the whole of His Majesty’s council of this province, who had been included in all former commissions, was excluded from the present, while not only the council of a neighboring colony, but even pro temp collectors helped to constitute this court. For such an indignity thrown upon this ancient, loyal province, it is known we are obliged to the generosity and prudence of Governor Bernard.

Jake 2023:
[31:38] By this time, Governor Bernard was already quite unpopular in Boston, so it was easy to blame him for the constitution of the Admiralty Court. After all, it was his request for reinforcements after the Stamp Act protests that it brought 4,000 occupying redcoats to Boston in the first place, but not until after he had dissolved the legislature for complaining about the Townsend Acts. As the drama of Corbett’s trial was unfolding in 1769, his letters to London were leaked to the press, showing how he had exaggerated the violence in Boston in order to get the troops sent here. By the time the trial was over, both Bernard and the legislature were independently petitioning Parliament to get him recalled to London. A wish that was granted that August. But before that happened, the four sailors had to stand trial.

Jake 2023:
[32:33] John Rowe was a merchant of Boston and a reliable diarist. As the outbreak of war drew closer, he would lean to the Whig side of the Boston crisis. But in 1769, he still seemed fairly politically neutral. That’s why his diary entry for June 14, 1769, really speaks to the persuasive powers of John Adams. He wrote, This day, Power and others were on trial for their conduct on board the Rose Man of War. Their behavior was very courageous, and I think very right.

Jake 2023:
[33:10] Power, the ship’s master, was called as a witness, but was not himself on trial. Nevertheless, Rose seems to have been more persuaded by Adams in his examination of the witnesses than by newspaper accounts of a supposed customs inspection or a lawful impressment. Giving the Navy side of the story was Peter Bowen, who was part of the boarding party from the Rose. John Adams recorded his statement to the court in his notes on the trial. Mr. Panton went on board, and I with him. We inquired for the master, who proved to be the person we spoke to. Master, Mr. Panton, and I went down in the cabin. When below, Mr. Panton inquired from where the brig came. Master made answer, from Cadiz, bound to Marblehead. Mr. Panton then asked him for his bills of lading, clearance, and other papers. The master answered that he had no papers except a bill of health, which he produced. Next, Mr. Panton asked how many men he had on board. The master answered, six before the mast, besides himself and a mate.

The Fatal Confrontation

Jake 2023:
[34:19] A side note from Jake, I never realized that you could sail across the Atlantic with a crew that small, even on a relatively small ship.

Jake 2023:
[34:29] He then asked for his logbook, and the master produced it. Mr. Panton desired that the hatchways and scuttles might be opened, and he would send his people down to search for uncustomed goods, or to that purpose. Mr. Panton and I went upon the deck, leaving the master in the cabin. Mr. Panton desired the mate to send all his hands aft. At the same time, ordered the Rose’s people to go below and search.

Jake 2023:
[34:56] That’s when four sailors were discovered in the forepeak, and they refused to come out. The scene that followed sounds utterly chaotic in Bowen’s testimony. Two different groups from the Rose tried to get access into the forepeak, one by prying open a closed hatch, and the other by digging through a mound of goods that the sailors had piled in front of an open hatch. According to testimony by the Master of Arms from the Rose, the space between the decks was so small that Lieutenant Panton had to crawl forward when he wanted to speak with the men. This is where the exchange between Panton and the sailors took place, but in this telling, there was no dramatic line of salt for him to step over. The sailors were packed into a dark, cramped chamber under the deck, where they were armed with a hatchet, a musket, a fish gig, and a harpoon. Corbett was pointing the harpoon at Lieutenant Panton. according to some testimony, thrusting at him with it, while the officer was sitting on a pile of salt, and the boarding party was trying to pry enough planks off the hatch to get a look at who was inside. One detail remained consistent between accounts. After one of the men in the forepeak said that they would kill the first person through the door, Bowen reported that Lieutenant Panton responded, I? Will you shoot me? In a joking, cheerful manner added, I will take a pinch of snuff first.

Jake 2023:
[36:22] Things continued to unfold quickly, and Bowen tried to make sense of the series of events that led up to the lieutenant’s death for the court.

Jake 2023:
[36:30] Almost immediately after, I heard the report of a pistol, which, silly at that time, said was fired by him, without ball, at the man who threatened the lieutenant so hard. Who the man was, I can’t tell, being on the other side. Mr. Panton, all this time, frequently begging of them to surrender, or he must clear his way to them. Some of them again said that they would shoot Mr. Panton first, and Forbes, the master of arms, next, before they would be taken. Upon hearing the report of a second pistol, I turned about and saw Mr. Panton had been wounded in the throat. I did not see the harpoon. I saw the shape of the harpoon upon the throat, and he had fired a pistol, as I then thought, at the receiving of that wound. Two men testified about the nature of Lieutenant Panton’s wounds, a Boston physician named William Pettigrew and Robert Bryce, the surgeon’s mate from the Rose.

The Courtroom Drama Begins

Jake 2023:
[37:29] First, Pettigrew stated.

Jake 2023:
[37:53] John Adams asked him, Are the artery and vein three inches deep? And Pettigrew responded, I suppose it must have penetrated three inches, for the natural elasticity of the artery and vein would have given way. The surgeon’s mate also testified about the cause of death. I saw him about a half hour before he died. His death I apprehend, occasioned by a triangular wound in the left side of his neck. It must have been the immediate occasion of his death. The two jugulars on the left side and the carotid artery were cut through. The wound went down in an oblique direction. There is an external and internal jugular vein. One could have known the wound by the instrument that gave it. There must have been force used in drawing it back as the surface of the wound was lacerated.

Jake 2023:
[38:46] All that testimony confirmed that Lieutenant Henry Panton had been killed with a harpoon to the throat, and that the harpoon was wielded by Michael Corbett. It also confirmed that Corbett and three other sailors had been barricaded into the forepeak at the time of the incident, and that Panton and his men had been trying to get to them.

Jake 2023:
[39:06] However, the defense wasn’t contesting any of those facts. Instead, James Otis and John Adams had to prove that the boarding party was actually a press gang, intent on impressing sailors rather than enforcing the customs duties. They also had to prove that the impressment was illegal, and that the sailors acted in defense of their life and liberty. Testimony by the Briggs’ master, Thomas Power, helped put the defense on the right track, making it clear that the naval officer had boarded the pit packet in search of men, not smuggled goods. He asked me for my clearance. I told him I had none. He replied, you must certainly have some papers. I told him that I had no other clearance but a bill of health and a bill of lading, as it was a foreign port from whence I came, and we took no clearance therefrom. He asked me for the bill of health, which I produced. He then asked me for a list of my men. I produced him my shipping book. He asked me if I would walk down into the cabin. When he came down, he asked me where my people were. I told him I did not know. Then he called for pen and ink and for the logbook, and took down the people’s names, and then he ordered some of his party to go and seek for my people, and turn them up from below.

Jake 2023:
[40:27] If that didn’t make it clear enough that Lieutenant Panton was leading a press gang, Power continued, After he had taken my people’s names, he asked me, If I had any particular person that I wanted a favor done him, let him know his name, and he would put a mark against it, and when he came upon deck, he would not take him. I told him I had one man that was married, and thought it was very hard to take him. He said by no means he would not take any married man, for he had orders to take none that was married.

Jake 2023:
[40:59] He asked me if I had any more hands aboard but what was in the list, and I answered no. Then he desired me again to tell him if I had any more, for if he found more aboard, it should be worse for me. There would have been no reason for the naval officer to ask the master of the pit packet who was on board, and whether there were any crew members who he shouldn’t take, if he was there to search for smuggled tea or exotic paint pigments. There was exactly one reason to ask those questions, which John Adams made clear when he cross-examined Peter Bowen. Did not the prisoners often say that they did not want to hurt him or his men, they only wanted their own liberty? Yes, I don’t know that I hurt him more than once. Whether they begged and pleaded that the lieutenant would let him alone? Yes. When the prisoner said that they would die before they would be pressed, did the lieutenant tell him he did not want to impress them, but only wanted to look for uncustomed goods? No. Did the lieutenant ever tell him he did not want to impress them? No, never in my hearing.

Jake 2023:
[42:10] Was the opening in the bulkhead such that the lieutenant might see into the four-peak whether there was uncustom goods there or not? I don’t know.

Jake 2023:
[42:19] When James Otis cross-examined Master of Arms Forbes of the Rose, the officer denied that Panton had even been armed during the standoff at the four-peak, implying that Corbett had no reason to use lethal force to defend himself. However, Otis did get him to confirm that the boarding party found no smuggled goods. Do you know of any uncustomable goods that were found in this forepeak by any of the party, or any other part of the vessel? Not that ever were found to my knowledge. Hugh Hill, who was the first mate of the pit packet, gave testimony similar to that of the Briggs master, Mr. Power. Asked if Lieutenant Panton had been armed, or had been acting as a press gang, he testified, He took up his sword from our companion where he had laid it, and drew the sword, and left the scabbard and belt and went forward, and went down into the forecastle, where the prisoners were. He said, My lads, you’d better come up. I shall take but two of you. You shall have an equal chance. They replied that they would not. They told him that they would not be impressed, that they would defend themselves, and they told him to keep off from them. That he did not want to hurt him, nor any of his people. He then replied to the prisoners that he had often known as stout as fellows as you, but by God, I will have you all.

Jake 2023:
[43:45] Cross-examining Hill, John Adams asked, Did the lieutenant with his party, from the time of his coming on board the pit packet to the time he fell, conduct him and themselves in all respects, merely as a press gang? Hill responded, Yes, I understood it so, and had very good reason when he told me that he would take me on board the Man of War if I would not turn the men up.

Jake 2023:
[44:10] The defense team had reason to be optimistic after Judge Achmadi asked William Peacock, one of the midshipmen in the boarding party, have you any doubt upon your mind, but he intended to impress the people or not? To which Peacock responded, no, sir. In his closing argument, Prosecutor Samuel Fitch made the case that Lieutenant Panton had been carrying out his lawful duty as a naval officer, which gave the men in the forepeak no right to resist him. According to Fitch, it didn’t matter whether Panton had been impressing the men or simply searching for undeclared cargo, so he sidestepped the question. He said that it may have been Corbett who struck the fatal blow, but since the four men had acted together, they were all guilty of killing the officer. Corbett was one of the persons that threw the harpoon that killed the lieutenant. They were all active, stimulating one another, and all equally concerned, though Corbett gave the mortal blow. The lieutenant was in the lawful discharge of his duty, and had the explicit consent of the master for this purpose. Any opposition to him, therefore, was illegal. The opposition being illegal, he was not obliged to give back. No threatenings on the part of Mr. Panton by which the prisoners could apprehend the danger to their lives, though they had apprehensions of being impressed.

Jake 2023:
[45:30] On the other side of the aisle, John Adams marshaled three arguments for his closing. First, that the Royal Navy had no legal grounds for impressing sailors in Massachusetts Bay. Second, that any subject had the right to defend himself from a lethal threat with lethal force. And third, that Lieutenant Panton had posed a deadly threat to the sailors by threatening them with a sword and a pistol in an illegal impressment attempt. The first question that is to be made, according to my opinion, is whether impresses in any cases are legal.

The Defense’s Arguments

Jake 2023:
[46:02] For if impresses are always illegal, and Lieutenant Panton acted as an impress officer, Michael Corbett and his associates had a right to resist him. And if they could not otherwise preserve their liberty, to take away his life. His blood must lie at his own door, and they be held guiltless. Nay, I think that impresses may be allowed to be legal, and yet Corbett might have a right to resist. After quoting the statutes of Queen Anne, which prohibited impressmen in the American colonies, Adams continued, This statute is clear and decisive,

The Verdict and Its Implications

Jake 2023:
[46:35] and it places the illegality of all impresses in America beyond controversy. No mariner on board any trading vessel in any part of America shall be liable to be impressed, or shall be impressed by any officer.

Jake 2023:
[46:48] All that Lt. Panton did on board the vessel was tortious and illegal. He was a trespasser from the beginning, a trespasser in coming on board, and in every act that he did until he received the mortal fatal wound. He was a trespasser in going down below, but especially in firing a pistol among the men in the forepeak. It is said that the lieutenant, with his own hand, discharged this pistol directly at Michael Corbett, but the ball missed him and wounded the man who was next to him in the arm.

Justifiable Homicide Explained

Jake 2023:
[47:16] This, therefore, was a direct commencement of hostilities. It was an open act of piracy, and Corbett and his associates had a right, and it was their duty to defend themselves. What could Corbett expect? Should he stand still and be shot? Or should he have surrendered to a pirate? Should he have surrendered to the Empress? Mr. Panton and his associates in attendance had no authority for what they did. They were trespassers and rioters. The evidence must be carefully recapitulated. Their arms, swords, pistols, and their threats and menaces. Citing both law and precedent, Adams laid out the case for justifiable homicide. Basically, if a British subject was being robbed, and the robber was armed with a deadly weapon, the victim would be justified in using deadly force to defend himself.

Jake 2023:
[48:07] Similarly, if a subject was being threatened with deadly force, he could respond in kind. Even before the aggressor struck a first blow or fired a first shot.

Jake 2023:
[48:17] Having established the grounds for acquittal on grounds of justifiable homicide, Adams laid his case before the judges, that Corbett and the rest of the sailors were in fear for their lives from an officer who was dead set on illegally impressing them. What could Corbett think? When a pistol had been presented at his mouth and discharged, loaded he knew not with what? It had wounded him. He knew not how badly. He saw a desperate gang of armed sailors before him. Other pistols cocked and presented at him and his companions, their heads and breasts, drawn swords in the hands of some, continual threats to blow their brains out. Could he expect anything but death? In these circumstances, what was his duty? He had an undoubted right, not merely to make a push at Lieutenant Panton, but to have darted a harpoon, a dagger through the heart of every man in the whole gang. If Mr. Panton came as a custom house officer, and it may be true that he came in part to search the ship for uncustom goods, he had a fair opportunity to do it. He ordered, asked, and was told that the hatchways were open. He ordered the lazaretto open and it was done. And after this, instead of searching for uncustom goods, he proceeds directly to search for semen.

The Trial of Lieutenant Panton

Jake 2023:
[49:35] The killing of Lieutenant Panton was justifiable homicide. Homicide se defidindo Sorry, I’ve never been one for Latin pronunciations.

Jake 2023:
[49:47] To everyone’s surprise, the justifiable homicide defense was successful, with the governors, naval officers, customs collectors, and admiralty judges of this special court voting unanimously to acquit, despite undeniable proof that Corbett had wielded the harpoon that took Panton’s life. The June 19th edition of the Journal of the Times noted, On Tuesday, His Excellency Governor Wentworth, with several of the counsel of that province, included in the commission for the trial of piracies, felonies, etc. on the High Seas arrived in town. The next day, the court was opened according to adjournment for the trial of the persons charged with the murder of Lieutenant Panton of His Majesty’s Ship Rose. The plea against the jurisdiction of the court was not admitted, and the court proceeded to the examination of witnesses, etc. The trial did not end until the Saturday following, when a decree was given, Injustifiable Homicide, and the prisoner set at liberty.

The Acquittal of the Defendants

Jake 2023:
[50:46] The noble president of the court, Sir Francis Bernard, during the course of this lengthy trial gave so many proofs of his impartiality, tenderness, and ability as a judge, as were truly admirable, and could not but convince the court and others that he bid as fair to outstrip a Jeffries as he has confessedly done in Andros in the character of the governor.

Jake 2023:
[51:07] Against all odds, Michael Corbett, Pierce Finning, John Ryan, and William Conner were free men. That description of the noble impartiality of Governor Bernard was not a compliment. Keep in mind that back in 1689, Governor Andros had been deposed in a coup in Boston, arrested, and eventually sent back to England in shame. The journal probably drew this parallel to remind readers that there had been plenty of calls for Bernard also to resign, and to also go back to England.

Jake 2023:
[51:41] Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson doesn’t mention John Adams by name in his notes on the trial and his history of Massachusetts Bay, but he seems to have been convinced by Adams’ arguments. It appeared that neither the lieutenant nor any of his superior officers were authorized to impress, by any warrant or by special authority from the Lords of the Admiralty. And the court, the commanding officer of the king’s ships being one of the commissioners, was unanimously of the opinion that the prisoners had a good right to defend themselves. And, though the fact of the killing was fully proved, that they ought to be acquitted of murder, with which they were charged, and that, at common law, the killing would not have amounted to manslaughter.

Jake 2023:
[52:25] A few months after the trial, John Adams wrote in his diary on December 23, 1769, that he’d been thinking about the Corbett trial and considering whether he should write a pamphlet or even a book about the case. I’ve been musing this evening upon a report of the case of the four sailors who were tried last June before the Special Court of Admiralty for killing Lieutenant Panton. A publication only of the record—I mean, the articles, plea to the jurisdiction, testimony of the witnesses, etc.—would be of a great utility. The arguments which were used are scarcely worth publishing. Those which might be used would be well worth the perusal of the public. A great variety of useful learning might be brought into a history of that case, and the great curiosity of the world after the case would make it sell. I have half a mind to undertake it.

Jake 2023:
[53:18] Adams never published a book about the pit packet trial, but luckily for us, his notes about it are detailed enough to form the basis for this podcast, capturing not only his own research and theory of the case, but also transcripts of most of the testimony. Even without a book about the case, it went a long way toward bolstering the reputation of John Adams as both a lawyer and a patriot.

The Aftermath of Corbett’s Acquittal

Jake 2023:
[53:42] About a year and a half after his defendants in this case were acquitted, Captain Thomas Preston and eight British soldiers under his command were charged with murder for their role in the horrid massacre in King Street on March 5, 1770.

Jake 2023:
[53:57] In many ways, that case was the mirror image of the Pitt-Packett case, with the defendants worrying that they couldn’t get a fair trial in Boston and royal officials advocating to move the trial to England. The Redcoats would claim self-defense, and they hired the newly minted self-defense specialist, John Adams. Adams would be joined by Robert Aukmady, the admiralty judge who’d been won over by Adams’ defense in the Corbett case. He won that one, too.

Jake 2025:
[54:26] A decade after John Adams got Corbett and his co-defendants acquitted, Boston was a very different place. The royal government and most of the loyalists who’d followed them had packed up and left Boston in March of 1776. And the lion and unicorn that symbolized royal authority had been torn down from the roof of the old statehouse and burned after Boston first heard the Declaration of Independence that July. By the summer of 1780, the theater of war had moved down to the south, but New England was still providing the lion’s share of troops and money, and it was seen as a safe place to stash British prisoners of war, where they’d find few friends to help them escape.

The Prison Ship Uprising

Jake 2025:
[55:08] In August 1780, just as the new Massachusetts Constitution was about to go into effect, some of those prisoners did attempt an escape, killing a guard in the process. They didn’t make it far, and the ringleaders soon found themselves on trial for murder. In a state with a reputation for harboring the most rabid patriots, where the prosecutor had signed the declaration in 1776, could a group of redcoats get a fair trial for murder? We’ll find out in a story that originally aired as part of an episode in August 2021.

Jake 2021:
[55:47] One thing to note as we get started is that the following account of the events on August 10th, 1780 is assembled from the testimony of eyewitnesses, as recorded in Robert Treat Payne’s notes from the grand jury in the trial. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, and many of the accounts of that night conflict with each other in the details. In putting the story together from these fragments, I did the best I could to sort out the details, but I’m sure some conflicts remain. The day started out like any other for the eight American guards who whiled away the hours on board the former Royal Navy troop transport anchored in Boston’s Inner Harbor. They took turns standing guard and patrolling around the deck of the ship. They rarely went below decks, where they were far outnumbered by the hundreds of British soldiers who’d been captured at sea just over a year before. Instead, they’d sometimes check in at the cabin they called the Roundhouse. This would have been the uppermost large cabin in the stern of the ship, where the captain, or perhaps his mates, would have bunked on the long voyage from Britain that was cut short by an American privateer on August 1st, 1779.

Jake 2021:
[56:57] Even after a year in captivity, the British officers preferred to be detained in the small but relatively comfortable roundhouse, rather than mixing with the rank-and-file prisoners down in the holds. As the day heated up the prisoners the guards encountered on deck started getting more and more insolent when relief came and a new shift of guards started some prisoners began openly insulting them and one of the guards said that a prisoner spat in his face as the tension rose the americans began to hear rumblings that something was about to happen a corporal checked in with the british officers who still called the roundhouse home and heard that some of the prisoners below decks were planning to rob the guards. A sergeant also stopped by the roundhouse just at sunset, and he was warned that the prisoners were planning an uprising. The sergeant, Joseph Waterman, stepped out of the roundhouse and fired his musket to signal to the town of Boston just a few yards away that the guards needed help. That’s when everything fell apart.

Jake 2021:
[57:59] Somehow the prisoners had gotten their hands on just enough rum to give them liquid courage, and as soon as Waterman had fired his musket in the air, a group rushed him before he had a chance to reload. The mob grabbed his gun away, and all over the ship the guards were tackled, clubbed, stoned with bricks from the ovens, or simply outnumbered and overwhelmed. Within seconds, all eight American guards were disarmed, and the prisoner’s ringleader strode on deck, an Irishman named Duncan McGregor dressed in a kilt and stockings. Waterman drew the bayonet from his belt and lunged at McGregor, but the Irishman slapped away the thrust and grabbed the bayonet from the sergeant’s hands. Just at that moment, Lieutenant Isaac Morton pulled up alongside the ship. Hearing Waterman’s shot, at least two boats had rowed out from Boston to see what the problem was. The first to arrive was commanded by Morton, the local militia’s officer of the day. As he came alongside, he could hear raised voices in a scuffle. As Morton stepped on deck, he saw McGregor flanked by two of his fellow prisoners, and all of them were now armed with muskets and bayonets. A prisoner named Thomas Lynch swore at the lieutenant, and McGregor punched the officer in the face.

Jake 2021:
[59:17] Just then, the second boat arrived from shore, under the command of a Major Rice, who yelled at Morton to jump down into the boat. The scene on deck devolved into a frenzy of conflicting commands, all shouted at gunpoint. One man said that if Morton didn’t stay on the ship, he’d run him through with a bayonet. Another one screamed that Morton had better get back in the boat before he shot him in the face.

Jake 2021:
[59:41] Suddenly, a shot rang out from on deck, and one of the men in the boat dropped dead. Before his ears stopped ringing from the shot, Lieutenant Morton was hit in the head with a large wooden club and knocked overboard into the boat below. Believing that two of his men were dead, Major Rice and some of his guards rushed on board and managed to subdue the redcoat who’d fired at them, even though he was armed with a musket and fixed bayonet and swore the whole time that he’d shoot them. As Rice bundled the man onto his boat, the armed prisoners exchanged shots with the men in the boat below, but nobody was injured. They were close enough to shore that Major Rice could yell for help, while his men rowed the boat carrying the bloody body of Sergeant Thomas Bickford, who’d been shot from the prison hulk, Lieutenant Morton, who’d been knocked senseless and was slowly recovering, and Thomas Lynch, the British prisoner who’d fired on Sergeant Bickford. Reaching land, Prisoner Lynch was turned over to another major named Carnes, while Bickford’s body was delivered to Ebenezer Doerr, who was acting as coroner of Suffolk County.

Jake 2021:
[1:00:46] Back on the ship, the remaining guards were rounded up and locked into the small guard room that served as a storage closet and break room for the American guards. The prisoners rounded up every musket and bayonet they could find and methodically searched the guard room for more ammunition, while holding the disarmed guards at bayonet point. The guard boats were out of reach, and the prison ship had no masts, so there was no question of sailing for freedom, even if the Redcoats could have navigated the unfamiliar your shoals and rocks of Boston Harbor on this foggy night. Instead, they cut the ship’s anchor cables and let the tides and winds take the wheel. After a year aboard the Prison Hulk, much of it below decks, the prisoners were ready to take their chances.

Jake 2021:
[1:01:32] Unfortunately for them, the ship didn’t drift very far, as described in the August 14th, 1780 edition of the Boston Gazette. Thursday evening last, a number of prisoners on board the guard ship mutinied, seized and disarmed the guard, consisting of eight men, cut the cable, and she drove ashore near Leachmere’s Point leading up Cambridge River. On the alarm being given, it being very foggy, the town was alarmed when a number of boats went off and quelled the mutiny. So in pretty short order, the drifting ship washed up near the Cambridge Side Galleria and the Museum of Science, where a pretty sizable detachment of Boston militia were waiting for them. The wooden clubs and eight or nine muskets that the prisoners had armed themselves with were no match for the militia’s firepower, and discretion got the better part of valor. The Gazette piece continues, 21 of the prisoners were brought on shore and committed to prison. A jury of inquest being summoned to sit on the body of the deceased, after about 44 hours examination of the prisoners separately, found from their own confessions 11 principals and accomplices, accessory to the murder, who are now in jail waiting for trial.

Jake 2021:
[1:02:47] Prisoners had been a problem even before the birth of the Continental Army. As we heard in the last edition of Hub History, about the three battles for Boston Light, George Washington took pains to announce that the new army would be as famous for its mercy as for its valor.

Jake 2021:
[1:03:04] That meant that the new American army would treat their prisoners under the laws and customs of war. A 2012 article about British prisoners in the Journal of the Early Republic describes what those customs were like. Eighteenth-century European military conventions furnished continental officials with several precedents for managing their new captives. Belligerents customarily bore the expense of their own soldiers in captivity. To reclaim their troops, nations negotiated formal cartels, exchanging rank for rank with officers receiving priority over the enlisted men. Captured officers were paroled on their honor as gentlemen, affording them more freedom than their men, who were typically confined pending their exchange.

Jake 2021:
[1:03:49] To reduce the costs and burdens of a long confinement, the combatants occasionally permitted the rank-and-file prisoners to hire their labor until exchanged. After the first hostilities broke out at Lexington and Concord, the handful of redcoats who were taken prisoner in those battles were simply locked up in the local jails. As the war escalated, the number of prisoners jumped first to dozens, and then to hundreds, and then even more. Thank you. When Major Tupper led the second raid on Boston Light in July 1775, he took dozens of Royal Marines prisoner, inspiring Washington’s comment about mercy and valor. These prisoners, along with others captured on the battlefield and at sea, would be sent to towns like Worcester and Springfield, where they’d be far enough from the front lines to make it difficult to pass messages to the enemy or to attempt an escape. They were mostly housed in taverns and inns, with a few officers quartered in private homes. They could work to earn money for better food and other comforts, and they were often paroled and exchanged as quickly as possible.

Jake 2021:
[1:04:56] Before Continental General Richard Montgomery caught a bullet in the neck in Quebec, on New Year’s Eve 1775, he led a stunningly successful campaign into Canada that fall and winter. While Benedict Arnold led 1,100 soldiers from Cambridge through Maine to Quebec, Montgomery led about 2,000 from Fort Ticonderoga toward Montreal. Taverns in Worcester were good enough for a few dozen redcoats taken prisoner in raids on the Harbor Islands or skirmishes at Boston Neck. But when Montgomery’s army captured the entire garrisons at Fort St. John and Chambly in November, taverns wouldn’t hold as 700 prisoners. They’d end up in rural towns in the interior of Pennsylvania, at places like York and Lancaster, which would become the Continental Army’s largest prisoner of war camps for the next few years.

Jake 2021:
[1:05:49] After the British were forced to evacuate Boston in early 1776, the town became a major continental stronghold. While it wasn’t uncommon to see a paroled British officer enter or around Boston, they didn’t become common until the tide of war truly shifted in 1777. That October, British General Burgoyne led an army south from Canada in a bid to link up with a column he hoped would come north from New York City. Together, they’d cut off New England along the Hudson-Champlain Corridor. With the rebellious New Englanders effectively isolated, the British leadership believed that the rest of the colonies could be quickly brought to heel, but they never got a chance to test that hypothesis.

Jake 2021:
[1:06:32] Continentals and militia surrounded Burgoyne’s army and fought a series of battles over 18 days, with the British ultimately unable to break out of their trap.

Jake 2021:
[1:06:42] Finally, after losing over a thousand soldiers and making no progress, Burgoyne surrendered his entire army on October 17th. The document detailing the terms of surrender was called the Saratoga Convention, and the nearly 6,000 British soldiers who became prisoners that day would be called the Convention Army. This convention called for them to march to Boston, then ship out to Europe, never to fight on this continent again. Among the foot soldiers of the Convention Army was Corporal George Fox, who was captured at Saratoga with the 47th Regiment of Foot. In a journal that was first published in 1990, he described marching from Freeman’s Farm in upstate New York, across Vermont, into New Hampshire, down the Connecticut River Valley to Hadley Mass, and then east, to what remained of the wooden barracks the Continentals had used at the Siege of Boston. He estimated that they marched about 27 miles a day on average, covering about 200 miles in their roundabout route to Boston. Finally, Fox wrote, In the middle of November, we arrived at Prospect Hill, near Boston, two or three miles, and were put into wooden barracks and fortified works that they made for our men at Boston, and there we remained all winter. Good usage, but very cold barracks.

Jake 2021:
[1:08:03] A German grenadier from Brunswick, whose unit also surrendered at Freeman’s Farm, was marched straight down the Hudson, then east across Massachusetts, more or less on the route of the Mass Pike. The Journal of Johann Benz records that they marched through Watertown on November 7, 1777, and into Winter Hill, where they were put into barracks. He described them in his journal. The barracks were only put together with boards. The gables were open. There were no windows, but just open holes. We had neither wood nor straw to lie on. Most had lost their knapsacks. No shirts, no blankets, the regimentals, meaning uniforms, torn, and here a penetrating cold. In short, we were the most wretched people in the beginning. But little by little, we were restored to good condition and also got blankets. We were here exactly one year and two days.

Jake 2021:
[1:09:02] During the time we were here, many died of scurvy, and very many deserted. Our supplies were still quite good here, although we got salt fish at times, which we, however, resold to the inhabitants. Every Thursday, we had parade, and marched past the generals while our oboists were playing. We had our own guard, and to stem desertions, we provided daily a picket of one captain, two officers, and sixty men. Whenever we wanted to go out, we had passes from the mayor of Cambridge and received our writ with the name of our own officer.

Jake 2021:
[1:09:39] While the Convention Army was in Boston, Congress found a pretext to declare the terms of their surrender null and void. Instead of shipping back to Europe, they’d remain POWs for the remainder of the war, though not in Boston for much longer. Coincidentally, I found myself stopping at Fort Frederick in western Maryland on a recent road trip. The fort’s a partially preserved and partially reconstructed stone quadrangle with bastions at each corner that was originally built in 1756 to protect the frontier from French attacks, and later used as a Union strongpoint to resist Confederate raids on the nearby C&O Canal. In between, it was pressed back into service as a prison camp from 1777 until the end of the war. In 1778, the Convention Army was marched out of Boston to Charlottesville, Virginia, then moved again in 1780 to Fort Frederick. While I was visiting, one of the reenactors told a possibly apocryphal story about a British officer who made the march from Boston, ended up at Fort Frederick, and was exchanged just in time to rejoin his unit for the Battle of Yorktown, where he was once again captured and imprisoned at, you guessed it, Fort Frederick.

Jake 2021:
[1:10:54] While you could point to plenty of examples of cruelty or compassion towards prisoners on both sides, on balance, the British treated American prisoners more harshly than their continental counterparts. The British believed that they couldn’t afford to extend the normal protections for prisoners of war to these domestic rebels, whom many officers believed were no better than criminals. In his 2012 paper on British prisoners, Ken Miller wrote, North America’s latest conflict was no ordinary war, however, but a colonial revolt against imperial authority. Complicating matters for continental officials, their prisoners were fellow Britons, seized in an unlawful rebellion. British officials refused to bow to conventions in a war against domestic rebels, fearing that any recognition of the Americans’ belligerent status might legitimize the insurgency.

Jake 2021:
[1:11:47] American prisoners may have wished to be paroled or exchanged, but British officers were reluctant, because any official recognition that these were prisoners of war would mean recognizing that the colonies were an independent nation. While some officers may have been tempted to give in to their instinct to put these criminals on trial, or hang them as traitors, that wouldn’t work if there was any hope of a negotiated peace that ended with the colonies remaining part of Britain. That left American prisoners in a terrible limbo, which the British addressed by dumping prisoners into horrifying prisons and letting them die of disease and starvation.

Jake 2021:
[1:12:25] There were large prisons in Charleston, South Carolina, and near Philadelphia for a time, but the most notorious were the ones in New York City. At times during the war years, there were as many as 16 prison hulks anchored just off the shore of Brooklyn. These were old ships that were no longer useful at sea, but still managed to float. Sometimes, the deck would be covered with a superstructure like a barracks building. A century later, the USS Constitution would be given a similar treatment, with the masts and rigging removed, and a two-story building running the length of the upper deck, so it could be used as a receiving ship.

Jake 2021:
[1:13:04] Sometimes the rudder, masts, rigging, and other useful bits would be stripped away, and the rest of the ship more or less left untouched. That was the case with the Jersey, the prison hulk that would become the most notorious among the Americans. The Jersey had been built in the 1730s, and it saw action in two wars against France. In the early 1770s, it was converted to a hospital ship. Then in 1779, it was again converted to a prison ship and anchored off Brooklyn. A 1970 article by Arthur B. Tortolo describes its transformation. British men of war were majestic, handsome vessels, three towering masts carrying billowing square sails and topped with bright pennants, gaily painted and extravagantly decorated sterns, bright and imaginatively carved figureheads, and great, solid hulls that could withstand the pounding of the high seas and still move with massive grace in sheltered waters. But as a prison ship, the Jersey was a gloomy, depressing sight. Her elaborate figurehead, a rampant royal lion, had been taken away for use on an active vessel.

Jake 2021:
[1:14:16] Rudderless, she rested on her keel at low tide on the oozy bottom of the bay. More than 1,100 men were crammed between decks at night without cots or hammocks. “‘and so crowded was her spar deck by day that they had to take turns walking in platoons “‘along narrow aisles kept open for that purpose.

Jake 2021:
[1:14:34] “‘Night was the most horrible time. “‘At sundown the guards bellowed, “‘Down, rebels, down!’ “‘and the half-naked, emaciated men descended through narrow hatchways, “‘each of which was guarded by a solitary sentry once the grating covers were in place.’.

Jake 2021:
[1:14:52] With 1,100 men crammed into a ship designed to carry a crew of 400, disease was rampant. During the three years it was used as a prison ship, it’s estimated that 11,000 American prisoners died on the Jersey of starvation or disease, their bodies tossed overboard or buried in shallow graves on the nearby beach. The Jersey quickly gained a reputation as a place of no return, and American prisoners dreaded being sent there. Here’s how Ebenezer Fox, a Massachusetts sailor from Roxbury, described arriving at the Jersey after being captured at sea.

Jake 2021:
[1:15:29] The idea of being incarcerated in this floating pandemonium filled us with horror, but the idea we had formed of its horrors fell far short of the realities which we afterwards experienced. In consequence of the fears that were entertained that the sickness which prevailed among the prisoners might spread to the shore, she was removed and moored with chain cables at the wallabout, a lonely and unfrequent in place on the shore of Long Island. Her external appearance was forbidding and gloomy. She was dismantled. Her only spars were the bowsprit, a derrick that looked like a gallows for hoisting supplies on board, and a flagstaff at the stern. The portholes were closed and secured. Two tiers of holes were cut through her sides about two feet square and about ten feet apart, strongly guarded by a grating of iron bars. Such was the appearance of the jersey as we approached it, an appearance well calculated to excite the most gloomy forebodings of the treatment we should receive after we should become its inmates.

Jake 2021:
[1:16:33] The idea of being a prisoner in such a place was sufficient to fill the mind with grief and distress. The heart sickened. The cheek grew pale with the thought. Our destiny was before us, and there was no alternative but to submit. I now found myself in a loathsome prison, among a collection of the most wretched and disgusting-looking objects that I ever beheld in human form. Here was a motley crew, covered with rags and filth, visages pallid with disease, emaciated with hunger and anxiety, and retaining hardly a trace of their original appearance. Here were men who had once enjoyed life, while riding over the mountain wave, roaming through pleasant fields, full of health and vigor, now shriveled by a scanty and unwholesome diet, ghastly with inhaling impure atmosphere, exposed to contagion, in contact with disease, and surrounded with the horrors of sickness and death. Here, thought I, must I linger out the morning of my life In tedious days and sleepless nights Enduring a weary and degrading captivity Till death shall terminate my sufferings And no friend will know of my departure, A prisoner on board the old jersey The very thought was appalling.

Jake 2021:
[1:17:50] At the war’s end, about 1,400 emaciated prisoners were liberated from the Jersey, while the bones of nearly ten times that many bleached on the nearby shore. Twice as many Continental soldiers and sailors died on British prison hulks as were killed in battle. Ebenezer Fox would not be among them. In his account of the war, he recalls participating in many escape attempts, including one where a guard gave him a nasty wound with a cutlass that he barely survived.

Jake 2021:
[1:18:20] In the end, though, Fox chose a different ticket off the jersey. In a moment of weakness, as he and a group of prisoners were taking turns trying to bite into a hunk of beef that was tougher than all their remaining teeth combined, a British recruiter happened by, and tempted him with vivid descriptions of the clean uniforms, comfortable cots, and good old army rations that were available to even the lowliest red coat. Fox caved, and he ended up serving in the British Army in Jamaica, before finally settling back in Roxbury after the war. I haven’t been able to find many sources that explain how the decision was made to employ prison hulks on Boston Harbor, or when they were first used. By about September of 1776, a former Massachusetts Navy brig, called the Rising Empire, had been released from use as a warship, after the captain described it as totally unfit for service. At the end of 1779, the brig was pressed back into service as a warship, but in between it housed prisoners on Boston Harbor.

Jake 2021:
[1:19:25] In the summer of 1777, two captured British ships, a troop transport called the Favorite and a bark renamed the Adams, were used to house prisoners on Boston Harbor as well.

Jake 2021:
[1:19:37] It’s not clear to me whether having the Convention Army in town that fall helped contribute to the decision to start moving more British prisoners onto hulks, or whether it was a form of retribution, as awareness of conditions on board the Jersey and other British hulks grew, or what it was exactly. No matter how the situation arose, by August 1780, there were quite a number of British prisoners on old ships in Boston Harbor, and now an uprising had taken place on one of them. The challenge would be deciding the proper and legal way to respond. Were these enemy combatants governed only by the laws of the battlefield? Or were they subject to Massachusetts law?

The Legal Battle Begins

Jake 2021:
[1:20:18] That’s the question that Massachusetts Attorney General Robert Treat Payne and defense counsel Increase Sumner would have to hash out in the trial that took place before the Superior Court of Judicature that August. Along with John Adams, Robert Treat Payne was one of the foremost legal minds of the revolutionary generation. He’d been the prosecutor in the trial where Adams successfully defended the Boston Massacre suspects against murder charges. However, by the time of that trial in 1770, he and Adams had been friendly rivals for about 15 years, with Adams describing him all the way back in 1756 as, “…that universal scholar, gay companion, and accomplished gentleman, Mr. Robert Treat Payne.”.

Jake 2021:
[1:21:03] After Boston Latin and Harvard, Bob Payne had been a schoolteacher, a merchant captain, a whaler, and briefly a soldier, before settling down and studying law. From law, he moved on to politics, serving the Massachusetts legislature and the revolutionary shadow government, then the Second Continental Congress, and he signed the Declaration of Independence alongside his old friend John Adams in 1776.

Jake 2021:
[1:21:32] After leaving Congress that December, he served in the Massachusetts legislature again, then the Executive Council, and he helped John Adams draft the state constitution. In 1780, he was in the third of his 13 years as state attorney general, which would be followed by another 14 years on the Supreme Judicial Court. All that to say that the prosecutor in the murder case following the uprising on the prison ship was no slouch. In his trial notes, he asked himself three rhetorical questions. May persons be in a state and not subject to its law? Have prisoners a right to rise and retake a vessel?

Jake 2021:
[1:22:14] And would it be murder if Congress should order all the prisoners to be hung up at the yardarm? Then, like any good lawyer, he hit the books and looked for precedent. His notes indicate that he consulted… The reports of Sir Edward Coke, Knight, in English, in 13 parts complete, with references to all the ancient and modern books of the law, and Edward Coke’s general abridgment of law and equity, alphabetically digested under proper titles, with notes and references to the whole. Well, that’s a mouthful. From Matthew Hale’s Historia Placitorum Corone, The History of the Pleas of the Crown, Payne concluded, Aliens that come in a martial manner cannot be considered as traitors. And from Vittel’s The Law of Nations, he took The right of war gives right to kill whenever they can.

Jake 2021:
[1:23:09] Payne seems to have pretty well anticipated how the defense planned to respond to the charges. In his trial notes, he recorded the opposing counsel’s theory of the case. Quote, As they were prisoners by force, they had a right to regain their liberty by force. Our prisoners have the same right at New York. That opposing counsel was no slouch either. Increase Sumner had also gone to Harvard after Roxbury Latin, and although he was about 15 years younger than Robert Treat Payne, the two men had been moving in the same circles for quite a while. They argued in the same courts, served in the state legislature at the same time, and they’d eventually serve in the Supreme Judicial Court at the same time as well. While Sumner was on the state’s highest court, he heard treason cases against participants in Che’s Rebellion, as well as the cases that effectively ended slavery in Massachusetts.

Jake 2021:
[1:24:05] In 1796, he would unseat Samuel Adams as the governor of Massachusetts, and he’d be the last governor to serve in the old statehouse. After the uprising on the prison hall, a Suffolk County grand jury was seated in August 1780. They heard testimony from eyewitnesses, victims, and some participants in the uprising. I used Robert Treat Payne’s notes about this testimony to assemble the blow-by-blow account of the uprising that started this segment. The grand jury decided that there was sufficient evidence to pursue charges against 11 of the prisoners, returning the following indictment. The jurors for the government and people of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, upon their oath present that Duncan McGregor, Timothy Lynch, Michael Hogan, Thomas Mann, Robert Watt, Morris Pressingham, Kenneth McPherson, Michael Hayes, and John Roch, resident at Boston, not having the fear of God before their eyes, on the tenth day of August in the year of our Lord 1780, with force in arms at Boston and the county of Suffolk, and upon one Thomas Bickford, in the peace of God and of the government and people, being feloniously, willfully, and of their malice aforethought, did make an assault.

Jake 2021:
[1:25:24] Feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought, did shoot and discharge, and that the said Timothy Lynch, a certain musket of the value of forty shillings, then and there charged with gunpowder and one leaden bullet, which musket the said Timothy Lynch with both his hands held to, against, and upon the said Thomas Bickford, then and there, feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought, did shoot and discharge, and that the said Timothy Lynch did strike and penetrate and wound, giving to the said Thomas Bickford just below the vertebra one mortal wound of the depth of four inches and of the breadth of a half inch, of which mortal wound the aforesaid Thomas Bickford instantly died. And that Duncan McGregor, Michael Hogan, Thomas Mann, Robert Watt, Morris Pressingham, Kenneth McPherson, Michael Hayes, and John Roch, feloniously, willfully, and of their malice aforethought, were present, aiding, abetting, comforting, assisting, maintaining felony and murder. And so the jurors, upon their oaths, do say that the defendants did kill and murder against the peace of the government and people, and the dignity of the same.

Jake 2021:
[1:26:36] The grand jury found that there was enough evidence to hold a trial, but did Massachusetts have standing to prosecute enemy prisoners of war under civilian law? On August 29th, Sumner submitted a petition on behalf of the defendants, protesting that they are not guilty of the premises charged in the indictment, and say that they ought not to be compelled to answer to said indictment, because, they say, that all homicides and other offenses committed by the subjects of one state against the government and people of another state, while an open war is subsisting between them, have ever been, and of right ever ought to be, inquired of, heard, and determined by the courts marshal in the country or place where said homicide or offenses may be committed, agreeable to the laws of nations and the laws of war, and not by the courts or justices appointed in any country or place to inquire of and determine upon homicides or other offenses committed within such a country or place, agreeable to the municipal laws, customs, and statutes are the same.

Jake 2021:
[1:27:36] As prosecutor, Payne responded to the petition. And Robert Treat Payne, Esquire, Attorney General for the Government and People, who prosecutes in this behalf for the Government and People, as to the plea of Duncan McGregor, Thomas Lynch, Michael Hogan, Thomas Mann, Robert Watt, Morris Pressingham, Kenneth McPherson, Michael Hayes and John Roach, the pleas and the matter therein contained are not sufficient in law to preclude the court from their jurisdiction to hear and determine the murder and felony specified in the indictment. Wherefore, for one of a sufficient answer in their behalf, he prayeth judgment.

Jake 2021:
[1:28:16] The judges concurred with Payne, the motion was dismissed, and the trial proceeded. The defendants all pled not guilty. I couldn’t find a full trial record anywhere, but Robert Treat Payne’s notes have a number of interesting details pulled from the eyewitness testimony. For instance, while it seems like a prisoner uprising would be a sudden, violent, surprising event, there was actually a fair amount of advanced warning for the guards on the ship. with William Barrett testifying, I was one corporal of the guard. The officer said that the prisoners was about to rob them. The prisoners were saucy, getting sticks, bricks, etc. Lieutenant Morton came alongside. I drew my bayonet. John Roch catched it out of my hand and cut me over the nose. I then got my gun, and Roch also got my gun. All the prisoners were present, cursing and d***ing me and saying they would have my life. Rach struck me under the chin and on the head with my gun. It was about an hour from the time of their first beginning to make preparation to their assaulting me.

Jake 2021:
[1:29:30] Lieutenant Isaac Morton’s testimony reveals the frightening confusion in the moment he came on board ship to investigate the disturbance. Thomas Lynch d***ed me for a rebel, and if I came to the assistance of the guard, I was no better than they. He would throw me overboard. McGregor said, You are not better than the guard, you Yankee rogue, and struck me on the head with his fists. Michael Hayes said, You shall not abuse him. McGregor came with gun and bayonet and threatened to run me through, and threatened to throw me overboard in all of us. McGregor said he brought his gun from Ireland. He said he disarmed the guards to make an escape. Major Rice came alongside and bid me to step into the boat. McGregor, having a gun in his hand, said, if you offer to go into the boat, I’ll blow your brains out. There was a cry of, fire, fire, blow the brains of the damned rebel out. Major Rice bit us shove off And they cried us Board the ship, fire Blow the damn brains out And immediately they fired and a man dropped A billet of wood then from the ships Knocked me overboard, There was no firing from the boat While I was there.

Jake 2021:
[1:30:44] Because the records of the trial are all from Robert Treat Payne’s own notes, we know very little about what his arguments were during the trial, or what lines of cross-examination he might have taken with witnesses. What we do have, however, are his notes about the defense’s case, including this summation of Increase Sumner’s defense. We shall endeavor to establish this point, that as they were prisoners by force, they had a right to regain their liberty by force. Our prisoners have the same right at New York. Have not prisoners a right to rise and retake a vessel? Their enjoying the liberty of being free of shackles is sufficient consideration for their noble rising.

Jake 2021:
[1:31:26] Maybe invoking ships like the Jersey that Americans so hated and feared helped sway the jury. Or maybe they were simply not convinced that enemy combatants should be tried in a civilian court. Either way, the notes kept in the minute books of the Superior Court of Judicature for August 1780 reveal A jury is thereupon impaneled and sworn to try the issue. William Cunningham, foreman, and fellows, who after hearing all matters and things concerning the same, return their verdict. And upon their oaths, do say that the said Duncan McGregor is not guilty. Timothy Lynch is not guilty. Michael Hogan is not guilty. Thomas Mann is not guilty. Robert Watt is not guilty. Morris Pressingham is not guilty. Kenneth McPherson is not guilty. Michael Hayes is not guilty. John Roch is not guilty. Whereupon the prisoners’ counsel move that they be discharged. It is therefore considered by the court that the prisoners aforesaid go without day. And now Patrick Ryan, Edmund Healy, and Emmanuel Joseph, prisoners of war confined in jail upon suspicion of being concerned in the aforementioned case, and no bill being found, the court order that they be delivered.

Jake 2021:
[1:32:43] After their verdicts of not guilty, the eleven defendants recede into the mists of history. I assume they were returned to captivity on the Hulk, and I likewise assume that they were eventually exchanged or returned at the end of the war, but I couldn’t even find a record for when the last prison ship left Boston Harbor.

Verdict and Historical Silence

Jake 2021:
[1:33:04] For these eleven men, the murder one of them committed in a desperate bid for freedom was their one brush with immortality, and they’re otherwise forgotten.

Jake 2025:
[1:33:15] To learn more about these two cases of self-defense, check out this week’s show notes at hubhistory.com slash 339. I’ll have all the sources I used in preparing both stories, including documents from the papers of John Adams and Robert Treat Payne, British and American prison memoirs, and 18th century newspaper articles covering the cases. I’ll also link to modern articles that help me put the facts of the trials together. And in case you’re wondering why you’re hearing another rerun again so soon, well, I had a whole different episode planned, and I spent a lot of time on the research. I’d pulled together a bunch of primary sources, and then when I started outlining my script, I realized that the only Boston connection was actually a spoof. I had to toss the whole thing out and start over. Anyway, that’s why you’re hearing about these self-defense cases today.

Jake 2025:
[1:34:14] If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubhistory.com. You can look for me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as hubhistory, and on Mastodon as at hubhistory at better.boston. I don’t post a lot in any of those places, but I have been getting back into social media ever so slightly over on Blue Sky, where you can find me by searching for hubhistory.com. The very best way to contact me is to go to hubhistory.com and click on the Contact Us link. While you’re on the site, hit the Subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do, drop me a line. Now I’ll send you a Hub History sticker as a token of appreciation. That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.