Part 4: Run-up to Revolution
Part 4: Run-up to Revolution
Discussed in this post:
The end of mast trade with England
The burning of Falmouth
Mast prices dropped, and Falmouth merchants chafed under British regulations. In 1774 the first Continental Congress adopted an agreement to import nothing from England after December 1, 1774, and to export nothing to England after September 10, 1775. In the aftermath of Lexington and Concord, the export ban was imposed immediately. In Boston Americans burned spars and other naval materials stored on Noddle Island. Meanwhile the back country rebels and the Falmouth merchants, realizing that navy enforcement depended on masts, cut off British access. In Georgetown the local committee of safety gained an agreement that a cargo of great pines would not be transported. An excitable character named Colonel Thompson brought his armed militia and commanded the mastwrights to stop. They threw down their adzes and fled in empty mast ships. Thompson’s militia went on to seize more masts at Brunswick.
These outrageous and violent actions brought Falmouth under Admiralty scrutiny. Thomas Coulson, Tory merchant there, had just launched the huge mast ship Minerva, and collected a mast load of ships. He was planning to violate the agreement made at the Continental Congress. Local Navy commander Captain Mowatt came to Falmouth in H.M.S. Canceaux to guard the outfitting of the Minerva. While ashore Mowatt was kidnapped by the provocative Thompson, but released the next day. Canceaux and Minerva left on May 16 without the cargo of masts. Coulson returned three weeks later, accompanied by the 14-gun sloop Senegal. Locals towed the masts from the harbor mouth to the mouth of the Presumpscot River, and seized the boat and crew sent after them. Minerva and Senegal returned to Boston in early July. All British authorities had fled the area, and the Navy could not get any masts.
Captain Tate appears to have warned his London principals, who were able to switch all their contracts back to the Baltic. The Tates stood back from the conflict, hoping it would end, and they could get back into the mast trade.
Meanwhile, up the coast at Machias, locals as hot-headed as Thompson attacked and seized the Navy cutter Margaretta in June.
Also in June, Americans in Boston fortified a hilltop in Charlestown and were attacked and driven off by the British. At the Battle of Bunker Hill the Americans flew a pine tree flag.
Mowatt, on the strength of “his most earnest solicitation,” according to Albion, received orders from Graves to punish the colonists and returned to Falmouth on October 17 with the 16-gun Canceaux, the 20-gun Cat, a 12-gun schooner, a bomb sloop, and a supply schooner. The vessels ranged in the harbor from the foot of modern-day India Street to just off Union Wharf. He sent a wordy message ashore warning the people and inviting loyalists aboard. Then he fired on the town and burned most of it. Albion says, “The masts, however, like those at Georgetown and Portsmouth, never reached England, and it is said that a half century later they still lay rotting in Portland Harbor.”
As tour guides, we have heard and repeated that Mowatt’s intention was to attack Machias, and he only turned to Falmouth after being baffled by the wind. Clearly that was not the case.