The Prison Ship Uprising (episode 228)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:05] 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.
This is episode 2 28, The prison ship uprising.
Hi, I’m jake In this episode, I’ll be talking about a murder that was committed on Boston Harbor 241 years ago.
This week On August 10, 1780 British prisoners of war being held on a ship in the inner harbor conspired to disarm their guards and stage an escape.
In the end, they were all caught but an american guard was killed.
This case gives us a fascinating insight into what life was like for POWs in the american revolution, but there’s very little record of it in historical sources.
If the prosecutor in the murder case hadn’t signed the Declaration of Independence four years before his papers might not have been considered worth saving and then we might have no record of this interesting case at all.
Amazingly, the defense basically argued that all’s fair in love and war and that since the red coats have been taken prisoner by force, they had a right to seek freedom by force.
Even more amazingly it worked.
But before we talk about the uprising on the prison ship, I just want to pause and say thanks to lisa, be our latest Patreon sponsor.

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Now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[2:09] One thing to note as we get started is that the following account of the events on August 10, 1780 is assembled from the testimony of eyewitnesses, as recorded in Robert Treat Pains. 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 and 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.

[2:38] The day started out like any other for the eight American guards who wild 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 show.
They rarely went below decks, where they were far outnumbered by the hundreds of british soldiers had 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 1, 1779.
Even after a year in captivity, the british officers prefer to be detained in the small but relatively comfortable roundhouse rather than mixing with the rank and file prisoners down in the holds.

[3:31] As the day heated up, the prisoners the guards encountered on deck started getting more and more insulin.
When relief came in, 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 somehow.
The prisoners have 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 are simply outnumbered and overwhelmed.
Within seconds all eight American guards were disarmed and the prisoners ringleader Strode on deck.
An Irishman named Duncan McGregor, dressed in a kilt in stockings.

[4:54] 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 that rode out from boston to see what the problem was.
The first to arrive was commanded by morton, the local militias 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.

[5:39] 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 martin had better get back in the boat before he shot him in the face.
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 red coded 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.
There 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 had been knocked senseless and was slowly recovering and thomas lynch, the british prisoner fired on Sergeant Bickford,
reaching land prisoner lynch was turned over to another major named kearns while Beckford’s body was delivered to Ebeneezer Door, who was acting as coroner of Suffolk County.

[7:08] 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 dis armed guards at bay.
At that 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 red coats could have navigated the unfamiliar 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.

[7:55] Unfortunately for them the chef didn’t drift very far as described in the August 14, 1780 edition of the Boston Gazette.

[8:04] Thursday evening last a number of prisoners on board the guard ship mute need seized and disarmed the guard, consisting of eight men cut the cable, and she drove ashore nearly smears point leading up Cambridge river.

[8:18] On the alarm being given it being very foggy.
The town was alarmed when a number of boats went off and quelled the mutiny.

[8:27] So in pretty short order, the drifting ship washed up near the Cambridge side galleria and the Museum of Science were pretty sizable. Detachment of boston militia were waiting for them.
The wooden clubs in eight or 9 muskets that the prisoners had armed themselves with were no match for the malicious firepower and discretion got the better part of valor.
The gazette peace 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.

[9:10] Prisoners have 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.
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.
18th century European military conventions furnished continental officials with several precedents for managing their new captives belligerence 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 onerous gentlemen, affording them more freedom than their men, who were typically confined pending their exchange.
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 red coats 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 hundreds, and then even more.

[10:39] When Major Tupper led the second rate on boston light. In july 17 75 he took dozens of royal marines prisoner, inspiring Washington’s comment about mercy and valor.

[10:50] 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 ends, 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 in exchanged as quickly as possible Before Continental General Richard Montgomery caught a bullet in the neck and Quebec.
On New Year’s Eve 1775, he led a stunningly successful campaign into Canada that fallen winter.
While Benedict Arnold that 1100 soldiers from Cambridge through Maine to Quebec.
Montgomery led about 2000 from Fort Ticonderoga toward Montreal Taverns, and Worcester were good enough for a few dozen red coats taken prisoner and raids on the Harbour Islands are skirmishes at boston neck.
But when Montgomery’s army captured the entire garrisons at Fort ST. John and Chamblee in November Taverns wouldn’t hold his 700 prisoners.
They’d end up in rural towns, in the interior of pennsylvania at places like york and Lancaster, which will become the Continental Army’s largest prisoner of war camps for the next few years.

[12:12] After the British were forced to evacuate Boston an early 1776, the town became a major continental stronghold.

[12:20] Well, it wasn’t uncommon to see a paroled British officer enter 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 the colony 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.
Continentals and militia surrounded by Goins Army and fought a series of battles over 18 days with the British ultimately unable to break out of their trap.
Finally, after losing over 1000 soldiers and making no progress, Burgoyne surrendered his entire army on October 17.
The document detailing the terms of surrender was called the Saratoga Convention And the nearly 6000 British soldiers, it became prisoners that day would be called the Convention Army.
This convention called for the New March to boston, then ship out to europe, never to fight on this continent again.

[13:32] 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 and 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 and their roundabout route to Boston.
Finally, Fox Road 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.

[14:25] A german grenade here from Brunswick, whose unit also surrendered at Freeman’s farm, was marched straight down the Hudson than east across massachusetts more or less on the route of the mass pike,
The journal of Johann Ben’s 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 regimental als, meaning uniforms torn and hear 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 in two days 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 march past the generals while roo boasts were playing.
We had our own guard and to Stem desertions. We provided daily a picket of one captain, two officers and 60 men.

[15:53] Whenever we wanted to go out, we had passes from the mayor of Cambridge and received are written with the name of our own officer.

[16:02] 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 forts are 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 strong point to resist confederate raise 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 1782, 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, That you guessed it, Fort Frederick.

[17:17] Well, you could point to plenty of examples of cruelty or compassion towards prisoners on both sides.
On balance, the british treated american 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 about a conventions in a war against domestic rebels, fearing that any recognition of the americans, belligerent status might legitimize the insurgency.
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 recognising 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 traders,
that wouldn’t work if there was any hope of a negotiated peace that ended with the colonies remaining part of Britain.

[18:39] 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.

[18:50] There were large presence 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 U. S. S. 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.

[19:30] Sometimes the rudder masts, rigging and other useful bits will 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 1970.
Article by Arthur, be Torsello describes its transformation british man of war were majestic handsome vessels,
three towering masts carrying billowing square sails and topped with bright penance, gaily painted an extravagantly decorated stearns, bright and imaginatively carved figureheads,
and great, solid hulls that could withstand the pounding of the high seas and still move with massive grace and 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 rudderless. She rested on her keel at low tide on the oozy bottom of the bay.

[20:47] More than 1100 men were crammed between decks at night without cuts or hammocks, and so crowded was a spar deck by day that they had to take turns walking in platoons along narrow aisles kept open for that purpose.

[21:00] Night was the most horrible time. At sundown.
The guards bellowed down rebels down, and the half naked emaciated men descended through narrow hatch ways, each of which was guarded by a solitary century. Once the grading covers were in place.

[21:17] With 1100 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. An american prisoners dreaded being sent there.
Here’s how Lebanese or Fox, a massachusetts sailor from Roxbury, described arriving at the Jersey after being captured at sea.

[21:55] 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,
and 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 wall about a lonely and un frequented place on the shore of Long Island.
Her external appearance was forbidding and gloomy. She was dismantled, her only spars with the Ball Spirit, a derek that looked like a gallows for hoisting supplies on board and a Flagstaff at the stern.
The portholes were closed and secure.
Two tiers of holes were cut through her sides, about two ft square, and about 10 ft apart, strongly guarded by a grading of iron bars.

[22:47] 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.
The idea of being a prisoner in such a place was sufficient to fill the mind with grief and distress.
The heart second 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 visitors, palette 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 within hailing and pure 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 and tedious days, and sleepless nights, and during 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.

[24:16] At the war’s end, about 1400 emaciated prisoners were liberated from the Jersey, while the bones of nearly 10 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, Ebony’s or Fox would not be among them and his account of the war.
He recalls participating in many escape attempts, including one where a guard gave him a nasty wound with the cutlets that he barely survived.
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 the remaining teeth combined.
A british recruiter happened by and tempted him with vivid descriptions of the clean uniforms, comfortable cuts and good old army rations that were available to even the lowliest Red Code.
Fox caved and he ended up serving in the british army in Jamaica before finally settling back in Roxbury after the war.

[25:20] 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 uses a warship after the captain described it as totally unfit for service.
At the end of 1779, the bridge was pressed back into service as a warship, but in between, it housed prisoners on Boston Harbor.

[25:51] In the summer of 17 77 2 captured british ships, A troop transport called the favorite and bark renamed the atoms were used to house prisoners on boston harbor as well.
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 are quite a number of British prisoners on old ships in Boston Harbor and now an uprising had taken place on one of them.

[26:31] The challenge would be deciding the proper and legal way to respond.
Were these enemy combatants governed only by the laws of the battlefield. Are they subject to massachusetts law?
That’s the question that massachusetts attorney general robert treat Paine 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 Paine was one of the foremost legal minds of the revolutionary generation.
He had been the prosecutor in the trial where Adam’s successfully defended the boston massacre suspects against murder charges.
However, by the time of that trial in 1770, he and Adams have been friendly rivals for about 15 years, with Adam’s describing them all the way back in 1756 as,
that universal scholar, gay companion and accomplished gentleman, Mr robert treat Paine.

[27:29] After boston latin and Harvard bob pain had been a schoolteacher, a merchant captain, a whaler, and briefly a soldier before settling down and studying law.
From law, you 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.
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.

[28:08] In 1780, he was in the third of his 13 years, a state attorney general, which would be followed by another 14 years on the Supreme Judicial Court.

[28:18] 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,
and would it be murder if Congress should order all the prisoners to be hung up at the yardarm?

[28:47] Then, like any good lawyer, he hit the books and look for precedent.
His notes indicate that he consulted The reports of Sir Edward Coke night in English and 13 parts, complete with references to all the ancient modern books of the law and Edward Cox 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 placid tore, um, coronet the history of the pleas of the crown pain, concluded aliens that come in a martial manner cannot be considered as traders,
and from battles.
The law of nations, he took the right of war gives right to kill whenever they can.

[29:35] Pain seems to have pretty well anticipated how the defense plan to respond to the charges and 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.

[29:56] 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 Paine, the two men have 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 eventually serve on 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.
In 1796, he would unseat Samuel Adams says the governor of Massachusetts and he’d be the last governor to serve in the Old State House.

[30:40] After the uprising of the prison hulks, 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 pains notes about this testimony to assemble the blow by blow account of the uprising that started this segment.

[31:01] The grand jury decided that there was sufficient evidence to pursue charges against 11 of the prisoners returning the following indictment.

[31:09] 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 pressing ham, Kenneth, macpherson, michael Hayes and john raj, resident at boston,
Not having the fear of God before their eyes.
On the 10th day of August in the year of our Lord 1780 with force and arms at boston in the county of Suffolk.
And 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,
feloniously willfully and of his malice aforethought did shoot and discharge And that the said Timothy Lynch a certain musket of the value of 40 shillings then, and they’re charged with gun powder and one leaden bullet,
which musket the said timothy lynch with both his hands held two against and upon the said thomas Bickford then and there feloniously willfully.
And of his balance of forethought 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 breath of a half inch,
of which mortal wound the aforesaid thomas Bickford instantly die.

[32:33] And that Duncan McGregor, michael, Hogan thomas, mann robert watt Morris pressing ham Kenneth, Macpherson, michael Hayes and john raj,
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.

[33:01] 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 29, 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 set 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 wars subsisting between them,
have ever been and of right ever ought to be inquired of heard and determined by the courts martial 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 of the same.

[34:01] As prosecutor.
Pain responded to the petition and robert treat Paine 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 pressing, ham, Kenneth, Macpherson, Michael Hayes and john Rogich.
The please in the matter therein contained are not sufficient in law to preclude the court from the jurisdiction to hear and determine the murder and felony specified the indictment.
Wherefore for one of a sufficient answer in their behalf. He prayed with judgment.

[34:41] The judges concurred with pain. The motion was dismissed and the trial proceeded.

[34:48] The defendants all pled not guilty.

[34:52] I couldn’t find a full trial record anywhere but robert treat pains. 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, etcetera.
Lieutenant morton came alongside. I drew my bayonet, john ross. Catched it out of my hand and cut me over the nose.
I then got my gun and raj.

[35:46] The head with my God. It was about an hour from the time of their first beginning to make preparation to their assaulting me.

[35:55] Lieutenant Isaac morton’s testimony reveals the frightening confusion and the moment he came on board ship to investigate the disturbance, thomas lynch did me for a rebel.
And if I came to the assistance of the guard I was no better than they would throw me overboard.
McGregor said, you’re not better than the guard, you yankee rogue! And struck me on the head with his fists.
Michael, Hey said you shall not abuse him. McGregor came with gun and bayonet and threatened to run me through and threatened to throw me overboard and 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 rebel out.
Major Rice bit us shove off and they cried us board the ship.
Fire, blow the brains out, and immediately they fired and a man dropped ability of would then from the ship’s knocked me overboard.
There was no firing from the boat while I was there.

[37:09] Because the records of the trial are all from robert treat Paine own notes. We know very little about what his arguments were during the trial, or what lines of cross examination you might have taken with witnesses.
What we do have, however, are as notes about the defense’s case, including this summation of increased 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.
They’re enjoying the liberty of being free of shackles is sufficient consideration for their noble rising.

[37:52] 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 there a point impaneled and sworn to try the issue?
William, Cunningham foreman and fellows who, after hearing all matters and things concerning the same, returned 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 pressing. Ham is not guilty, Kenneth Macpherson is not guilty.
Michael Hayes is not guilty, john ross is not guilty.

[38:45] Whereupon the prisoners council move that they be discharged. It is therefore considered by the court.
The prisoners afore said, 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.

[39:09] After the verdicts of not guilty. The 11 defendants recede into the mists of history.
I assumed 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.
I couldn’t even find a record for when the last prison ship left boston harbor For these 11 men, the murder, one of them committed in a desperate bid for freedom. Was there one brush with immortality there otherwise forgotten.

[39:40] To learn more about the uprising on the prison ship. Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 228,
I’ll have links to robert treat pains notes from the grand jury and the trial itself, as well as the text of the indictment and the defendants petition claiming that the massachusetts courts had no jurisdiction over them.
I’ll link to accounts of the convention army sojourn in boston from a german prisoner and an english prisoner and I’ll include a link to Ebony’s or foxes account of life on the prison hulk Jersey for balance,
Plus there will be links to the 2012 article and British prisoners and the 1970 article about the Jersey that I quoted from.
Most importantly, I’ll link to a 2016 article from the Mass Historical Society’s beehive blog written by Christina Carrick though she since moved on to the papers of thomas jefferson at the time.
Dr Carrick was an assistant editor on the robert treat Paine papers.
I would have never heard about this case if it wasn’t for blog post about the trial of the rebellious prisoners.

[40:47] Before I let you go, I have some listener feedback to share back when co host of Merida. Nicky was still part of the show.
She wrote our script about the 1950 Brinks heist in the North End for episode 50.
At the time, she was endlessly amused by all the classic gangster nicknames for guys like big joe, specs, Fats gus sandy and jazz.
That’s why I was excited to share the email we got from a listener named steve with her steve wrote, I listen on Spotify, I’m interested in Boston history.
From about 1840 when my great great grandparents immigrated from Ireland to Boston’s north end 1950 when my father moved to the west Coast after World War Two.

[41:34] Somehow your podcast caught my attention. I’ve listened to all 224 episodes, some in full and some just snippets because they were covering periods of Boston history. Not on my radar.
I was particularly interested in boston history now because I’m coming to boston in june to visit the places where my ancestors lived.
The North End, the West End, Roxbury churches, museums, cemeteries, et cetera.
My grandfather was the head jailer at the Charles street jail from 1940 to 1955 when he ran into some serious problems after trigger burke.
The man hired to kill specs O’keefe. One of the Brinks robbery gang escaped from the jail in 1954 which is a whole story in itself.
In your podcasts, you’ve touched on the robbery and incidents related to the robbery.
I’ll be staying a couple of nights at the Liberty Hotel, which is ironic at any rate, Keep up the good work.
I look forward to hearing many more of your podcasts signed steve.

[42:38] We also got an email from a listener named john who had a suggestion for a future podcast episode.
I’m writing to say thank you for making this podcast. I subscribe to many podcasts about history and consider yours to be among the best.
Thanks john, I’m also emailing to make a suggestion for a future podcast. Love Wells Fight.
Love Wells fight was a battle in Fryeburg Maine between rangers ak scalp hunters from the Merrimack valley and the Abenaki who lived in present day Fryeburg Maine.

[43:12] There are a couple of boston connections to Love Wells fight paul Egas, the native american chief who was killed in the battle, was held captive in boston for about a year, about two years before that.
And john Love Well was honored in boston when he returned with scalps from two prior expeditions.
Keep up the good work, john, once upon a time, I would have said that something that happened in Fryeburg Maine was too far a field for our podcast.
When we first started out, I wasn’t even sure if we should include stories from Cambridge data, more somerville, much less maine these days though, it seems like anything goes with episodes that have followed Bostonians to Canada California and even hawaii.
So maybe Love Wells Fight will make an appearance. One of these days our podcast topics have been ranging farther and farther a field and so of our listeners.
I recently got an email from an Australian listener named tim.
One of the great things about hosting the show is that we hear from a lot of real nerds, usually of course their history nerds, but we’ve heard from car nerds, ham, radio nerds and now a personal rapid transit nerd.

[44:25] One of the ideas included in the city’s plan for a bicentennial World’s fair, was a system of automated people movers based on the Alden Star car tim.
Thought that he had heard about every planned personal rapid transit system, but he had never heard about expo 76 until stumbling across episode 2 19.
His rather lengthy email said in part, Thanks for your excellent podcast on the Expo 76 plan.
It’s amazing that these plans were developed. It sounds like what they’ve tried at Masdar outside Dubai, but on a larger scale I’m writing because this part doesn’t make sense.
Alden’s proposal called for 5000 cars running on about six miles of track.
There would be capable of moving one third of a million riders each hour.
Firstly, you have the cars were 10 ft long, then that’s 50,000 ft.
But six miles is only 31,680 ft.

[45:25] We exchanged a few emails about expo 76 and PRT systems in general and I pointed them to my sources,
tim crunched the numbers and replied, you didn’t make a mistake, But I think they have six miles is the root length, but roots have multiple parallel guide ways.
The roots and loops had parallel guide ways to give the capacity with the widest having eight paths a width of 70 ft wide.
The total double guideway was 104,800 ft.
So the total guideway length is 205,600 ft or 39.7 miles.
I’m stunned that they plan to build a station that could handle 134,000 people per hour, wow.
There aren’t many railway stations in the world that have that many people Assuming the station’s capacity is correct.
I think this system capacity is at best 180,000.
If everything worked perfectly, they were dreaming big and thought they could conquer all the problems.

[46:29] Thanks for the email TEM. It was great to hear from somebody with such a depth of knowledge about something that I have only a surface level understanding of along those lines.
David tweeted to me about episode 2 26 where I described the Nike missile bases that were designed to protect boston from soviet bombers.
David had some personal experience with Nike’s to share.
Really enjoyed this episode. I was stationed at the Nike Hercules site at Gaithersburg from 1972 to 74.
Your episode on the Ajax in boston defenses was interesting since David has infinitely more real world experience with the Nike program than I do.
I asked if we were in the right ballpark with the episode.
He replied, yes, you were when I was in a I. T. At Fort Bliss.
The instructors would tell us of the problems with the Ajax. Always mentioning the explosion at the site in New Jersey.
Our only excitement was arming our missiles in October 73 and a chin up making a forced landing and I launch your area.

[47:36] Thanks for your service, David. We also got a nice email from J who could relate our episode 149 about rock and roll riots to his personal experience in Boston.
I stumbled upon hub history during Covid and I’m very glad I did as it’s been a companion on many walks in the ensuing months,
I’m impressed with and very much appreciate the broad range of topics the pod covers and the very evident thoroughness of the research.
Your interest in history shines through.
I like how you inject subtle humor as well as an appropriate and unintrusive amount of social commentary into the episodes.
I’ve regularly discussed your content with friends and family over the past year or so.
I could go on and on about the things I found fascinating in the podcast.
I was an archival intern for a stretch of the JFK library As such. To hear what was geographically proposed in that area in Expo 76 was amazing.
The audaciousness of the planning spirit in that time is remarkable, very much for better or worse and pursuant to that that world Zenden hang him was a possible site for the U. N.
Is mind boggling to me as an aside the personal history segment of boston’s, rock n roll riots, episode 1 49 resonated with me.

[48:57] A band I played in was hitting the local venues, the Middle East TTS etcetera.
Around that time, while the scene described as a bit harder edged than the bills we were on, it effectively evoked the field, the local music experience at that time. Well done.
Keep up the good work. I’ll continue to discuss the pod with friends and family and point people to it.
Thanks for what you’re doing. Signed jay.

[49:25] I appreciate Jay’s kind comments about the boston music scene back in the day, but even more, I appreciate his general kind comments about the work I do for the show.
Flattery will get you everywhere. J contrast Jay’s lovely words to this email I got from somebody named Dakota.
You’re a fucking loser, go and fuck yourself.
Hey, pro tip Dakota. If you’re going to spend your valuable time in the one life, you get writing an angry expletive filled email to a podcast, Perhaps you should give some indication of what you’re so dog gone mad about.

[50:03] In our last couple of shows, I asked for new reviews on apple podcasts to help bury a stinker. We just got from somebody who’s listening to the oldest episodes that definitely weren’t as good as they are now, six of you came through with positive new reviews.
So thanks to Coop, Joey kurt Alex, mumble and chris make sure to email me if you want a hub history sticker.
Half of the new reviews had something nice to say about my voice or diction or delivery, which kind of makes me chuckle,
stick around after the outro music if you want to hear how the sausage is made and just how many terrible takes going to getting one podcast ready delivery.

[50:45] We love getting listener feedback, whether you love the episode or just liked it a lot.
We’re happy to hear your episode suggestions, mathematical calculations of the errors in our show sources and of course praise of my diction and delivery.
If you want to leave us some feedback on this show or any other, you can email podcast at hub history dot com.
We’re hub history on twitter, facebook and instagram. Or you can go to hub history dot com and click on the contact us link while you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link and be sure 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 send you a hub history sticker as a token of appreciation.

Music

Jake:
[51:34] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.

Jake Bloopers:
[51:49] And as opposing counsel increased Sumner would have to hash out in the trial that took place before the Superior Court of judicature, jugic, adjudicate Judaic, adjudicate ju ticket Judith mature.
Adjudicate judi judi cater. Adjudicator.

[52:09] And defense counsel increased Sumner would have to hash out in the trial. That took place before the Superior Court of judicature before the Superior Court of judea.
Before the Superior Court of judy adjudicator, judi cater.
The Superior Court of judi cater that august before the Superior Court of judi cater that august ju tickets you’re that off.

[52:33] And defense counsel increased, Sumner would have to hash out in the trial that took place before the Superior Court of judicature before the Superior Court of judicature,
Judith mature before the Superior Court of Judaic judicature before the Superior Court of judicature. That august.
Either way, the notes kept in the minute books of the Superior Court of judicature.
Either way this Either way, the notes kept in the minute books of the Superior Court of Judicature for August 1780 reveal.

[53:10] Stick around after the outro music. If you want to hear how the sausage stick around after the outro music. If you want to hear how the sausage is made and just how many terrible takes.

[53:23] Stick around after the outro music. If you want to hear how the sausage stick around after the outro music, if you want to hear how the sausage God, not to include this one, now.

[53:35] Stick around after the outro music. If you want to hear how the sausages, sausages made, stick around after the outro music.
If you want to hear sticker, stick around after the outro music.
If you want to hear how the sausage stick around after the outro music, if you want to hear how the sausage is made and just how many terrible takes go into my podcast, ready delivery,
and just how many terrible takes go into getting one podcast and just how many terrible takes going to getting one podcast ready delivery.