Boston 1775: Darius Sessions

Showing posts with label Darius Sessions. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 08, 2025

Rhode Island’s “vote for raising men”

As soon as he heard about the shooting at Lexington, James Warren, delegate from Plymouth to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, passed the news on to Patriots in Rhode Island.

On 20 April the elite militia company called the Kentish Guards mustered and marched toward Massachusetts.

Before those men reached the border, a message arrived from Gov. Joseph Wanton (shown here), ordering the unit to stand down.

Four members continued on horseback, three of them being Nathanael Greene and his brothers. But once those men heard that the British troops were back inside Boston and the emergency had passed, they went home to Rhode Island to sort things out.

The colony’s first step came quickly. On 22 April the assembly passed an act to raise 1,500 men

properly armed and disciplined, to continue in this colony, as an army of observation, to repel any insult or violence that may be offered to the inhabitants. And also, if it be necessary for the safety and preservation of any of the colonies, to march out of this colony and join and co-operate with the forces of the neighboring colonies.

The Massachusetts Provincial Congress had also used the phrase “army of observation” in early April, implying a purely defensive force. Once the fighting began, however, it dropped that phrase entirely. Even as the Rhode Island assembly called its new troops an “army of observation,” it was clearly opening the door to sending those men off to help Massachusetts in its war.

Top officials in the colony resisted. Though Gov. Wanton had been crucial to stymieing the Crown’s Gaspee inquiry a couple of years before, he filed a protest against the legislature’s vote. Deputy Governor Darius Sessions joined him along with two members of the Council of Assistants (the upper house), Thomas Wickes and William Potter. On 25 April they declared their opposition to the new army

Because we are of opinion that such a measure will be attended with the most fatal consequences to our charter privileges, involve the Colony in all the horrors of a civil war, and, as we conceive, is an open violation of the oath of allegiance, which we have severally taken upon our admission into the respective offices we now hold in the Colony.

Coincidentally, Rhode Island’s charter called for a new legislative session to start on the first Wednesday of each May. In that spring’s annual election, Sessions, Wickes, and Potter all lost their seats. (Potter would recant and apologize in June, and then return to the Council of Assistants.) Nicholas Cooke became the new deputy governor.

Rhode Island’s freemen reelected Joseph Wanton as governor, but on 2 May he sent a letter to the assembly saying, “indisposition prevents me from meeting you.” Instead he enclosed what Lord Dartmouth, the British Secretary of State, considered a conciliatory offer. Wanton thought that was a more promising route to resolving the crisis. He told the legislators:

The prosperity and happiness of this colony, is founded in its connexion with Great Britain; “for if once we are separated, where shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws and commerce, we must bleed at every vein.”

That passage quoted from John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. (Some authors miss the quote marks and attribute those words to Wanton himself.)

On 5 May the legislative speaker, Metcalf Bowler, tried to force the governor’s hand. He sent a blank commission for an officer in the new army and asked Wanton whether he would sign such a form. The governor replied:

I cannot comply with it; having heretofore protested against the vote for raising men, as a measure inconsistent with my duty to the King, and repugnant to the true and real interest of this government.

At that point the assembly bypassed Gov. Wanton and started treating Nicholas Cooke as the colony’s chief executive. Wanton wouldn’t be officially replaced until November, but he could no longer stand in the way of Rhode Island’s army.

TOMORROW: Finding a general.

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

“A man of weak capacity, and little political knowledge”

I hadn’t expected to write a week of postings about the Gaspee affair, even with its sestercentennial coming up next month. But I got intrigued.

One early discussion of the case I came across while looking for sources was in Mercy Warren’s 1805 History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution.

In a section on Rhode Island in 1775, Warren wrote:

It is the nature of man, when he despairs of legal reparation for injuries received, to seek satisfaction by avenging his own wrongs. Thus, some time before this period, a number of men in disguise, had riotously assembled, and set fire to a sloop of war in the harbour. When they had thus discovered their resentment by this illegal proceeding, they dispersed without farther violence.

For this imputed crime the whole colony had been deemed guilty, and interdicted as accessary. A court of inquiry was appointed by his majesty, vested with the power of seizing any person on suspicion, confining him on board a king’s ship, and sending him to England for trial. But some of the gentlemen named for this inquisitorial business, had not the temerity to execute it in the latitude designed; and after sitting a few days, examining a few persons, and threatening many, they adjourned to a distant day.

The extraordinary precedent of erecting such a court among them was not forgotten; but there was a considerable party in Newport, strongly attached to the royal cause. These, headed by their governor, Mr. Wanton, a man of weak capacity, and little political knowledge, endeavoured to impede all measures of opposition, and to prevent even a discussion on the propriety of raising a defensive army.

You’d never know it from the way Warren wrote of events, but Gov. Joseph Wanton had been the primary brake on the Gaspee “court of inquiry” that she decried. He helped to undercut witnesses found by the Royal Navy. He let the Earl of Dartmouth’s confidential instructions out. As chair of that royal commission, he had the most sway over how it dissolved without reaching any significant conclusions.

Two years later, when word of the Battle of Lexington and Concord arrived in Rhode Island, Gov. Wanton indeed refused to approve sending militia regiments north to face the king’s troops. So did deputy governor Darius Sessions, who back in 1772 had helped to alert Samuel Adams and other out-of-colony politicians about the threat of the Gaspee inquiry. For those men, hindering a royal commission was fine; taking up arms against the royal military went too far.

The Rhode Island assembly replaced both Wanton and Sessions by the fall. They never became outright Loyalists, simply retiring from politics. But for Mercy Warren, Wanton’s behavior in 1775 meant he deserved no credit for what he’d done in 1772–73.

Monday, May 23, 2022

“All should be ready to yield Assistance to Rhode Island”

We can see the logic of the London government’s decision to try people suspected of attacking H.M.S. Gaspee on 10 June 1772 in Britain, not Rhode Island.

For one thing, the colony hadn’t convicted anyone for the similar torching of the Customs ship Liberty in 1769. Or for earlier assaults on government vessels.

For another, a couple of the men accused of helping to storm the Gaspee were county sheriffs, and others were highly influential merchants and office-holders. The Crown controlled none of the branches of the Rhode Island government.

But by deciding on that plan, to be backed up by the army and navy, secretary of state Dartmouth gave Rhode Island’s Whigs a threat they used to rally other colonial leaders to their cause.

At first, American politicians and printers had been reluctant about supporting a bunch of smugglers who’d attacked a naval vessel enforcing the law. But once the issue became every British citizen’s right to be tried in the county where the alleged crime took place, not three thousand miles away, then Whigs found their voice.

Around Christmas, four Rhode Island politicians wrote to “several gentlemen in North America” about what Lord Dartmouth had told their governor. Those four politicians were:

Darius Sessions, deputy governor, who months before had initiated official complaints about the Gaspee’s patrols.
Stephen Hopkins, chief justice and possibly author of the “Americanus” essay on the case published days before.
John Cole, attorney and former chief justice who would be called as a witness in the inquiry.
Moses Brown, wealthy merchant and brother of the alleged leader of the attack.

One recipient of the men’s letters was Samuel Adams, leader of the Massachusetts resistance. He wrote three letters in return, saying such thing as:

It should awaken the American Colonies, which have been too long dozing upon the Brink of Ruin. It should again unite them in one Band. . . . It has ever been my Opinion, that an Attack upon the Liberties of one Colony is an Attack upon the Liberties of all; and therefore in this Instance all should be ready to yield Assistance to Rhode Island.

And:

I beg just to propose for Consideration whether a circular Letr from your Assembly on this Occasion, to those of the other Colonies might not tend to the Advantage of the General Cause & of R Island in particular

Adams had helped to guide the Massachusetts legislature through its 1768 circular letter dispute. In November 1772 he had led the Boston town meeting to set up a standing committee of correspondence to exchange political letters with other Massachusetts towns. He saw the Crown’s reaction to the Gaspee affair as a cue to do the same with other colonies.

Richard Henry Lee might have been another of the men who received the Rhode Islanders’ letter. At any event, on 4 February he wrote to Adams, introducing himself and asking about details of the Gaspee matter; “this military parade appears extraordinary, unless the intention be to violate all law and legal forms, in order to establish the…fatal precedent of removing Americans beyond the water, to be tried for supposed offences committed here.” Adams wrote back, assuring Lee that the stories out of Rhode Island were true.

Meanwhile, no American was actually removed to Britain. The royal commission never collected enough strong evidence against anyone to bring charges. The investigation petered out in the spring of 1773. But by then it had helped to inspire a wider network of correspondence and a little more paranoia among the American Whigs.

TOMORROW: Remembering Gov. Wanton.

Friday, April 22, 2016

John Howland and the Lexington Alarm in Providence

Yesterday I quoted Elkanah Watson’s description of how Providence, Rhode Island, responded to the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

According to Watson, the news arrived on the afternoon of 19 Apr 1775, his militia unit spent the whole night equipping themselves, and they marched off on the morning of 20 April, defying the governor’s proclamation that they not cross the border into Massachusetts.

Watson’s contemporary John Howland, born in October 1757, left his own memoir of that day. He was from a lower class than Watson, apprenticed to a barber instead of a merchant and attached to an ordinary militia unit instead of the Cadets. But Howland grew up to be president of the Rhode Island Historical Society and seems to have been more accurate about important points:

On the afternoon of the 19th of April, 1775, news arrived here that a battle was then going on, as the regulars had marched from Boston into the country. There were four or five boys of us on Mr. Thompson’s wharf, where some hands were unloading a scow load of salt. Mr. Thompson came down and said, “war, war, boys, there is war. The regulars have marched out of Boston; a great many men killed; war, war, boys.” He turned quickly and went up to the street. We all followed, and saw the officers of the companies and many others on the parade before Gov. Bowen’s, seeking intelligence.

Jabez Bowen was never governor of Rhode Island; in 1778 he became deputy governor, and served for several years. But Bowen was a leader of the Providence militia, so it makes sense that people gathered near his house for news.

The drums of the four independent companies beat, and the men paraded as soon as possible. It was sundown, and the officers of the company repaired to Lieut. Gov. [Darius] Sessions, requesting him to give them orders to march towards Boston, as without his orders their authority would cease when they should have passed Pawtucket bridge. He declined doing any thing in the case, having no power out of the colony, or in it, as the Governor [Joseph Wanton] who lived in Newport was above him in authority.

It was then concluded to send an express towards Boston, to know whether the enemy had returned or were yet in the field, and to act or march on further intelligence, orders or no orders. Mr. Charles Dabney, a member of the Cadet company, offered to be the express. A horse was procured and he set off. It was toward noon the next day before he returned, but an express from near the scene of action arrived, stating that the regulars were safe cooped up in Boston.

Before this intelligence arrived here, early in the morning Col. [James] Varnum, with his Greenwich company arrived, but would not stay. They continued their march some miles beyond Pawtucket, when receiving the intelligence they returned here. I viewed the company as they marched up the street, and observed Nathaniel Greene with his musket on his shoulder, in the ranks as a private. I distinguished Mr. Greene, whom I had frequently seen, by the motion of his shoulders in the march, as one of his legs was shorter than the other.

According to Howland, therefore, Varnum’s Kentish Guards were the only Rhode Island company that marched across the colony line on 20 Apr 1775. Watson’s unit, the Independent Company of Cadets, waited for word from their member Dabney about what the situation was. Before noon, Providence received news “that the regulars were safe cooped up in Boston,” so those Cadets probably never marched. Elkanah Watson just wished they had.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Rhode Island’s First Major General

A few days back, I quoted Samuel Ward’s December 1774 letter describing how Rhode Island was putting itself on a footing for war by, among other things, appointing the first major-general in the colony’s history. That was not Nathanael Greene, who sprang from the rank of private to that of general only after the war had begun. So who was it?

The Rhode Island legislature appointed Simeon Potter (1720-1806) of Bristol. He had gained wealth and notoriety as a privateer during the mid-century imperial wars and allegedly helped to lead the raid on the Royal Navy’s Gaspée in 1772.

According to Beggarman, Spy: The Secret Life and Times of Israel Potter, by David Chacko and Alexander Kulcsar, Simeon Potter was not a mild-tempered man. For instance, in 1761 he beat up a seventy-four-year-old minister. (To be fair, the minister had told Potter, “There is whoring wherever you go.”)

What did Maj.-Gen. Potter do in the spring of 1775? On 19 April, two members of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress—James Warren of Plymouth and Dr. Charles Pynchon (1719-1783) of Springfield—came to Providence to consult with Rhode Island legislators about the outbreak of fighting in Middlesex County. One of the Rhode Island politicians, Stephen Hopkins, sent Potter a letter reporting:

The King’s Troops are actually engaged butchering and destroying our brethren in the most inhuman manner. The inhabitants oppose them with great zeal and courage.

Hopkins asked Potter to come to Providence to consult with Lt. Gov. Darius Sessions, who had been put in charge of the colony’s military preparations.

Potter never took the field. According to Beggarman, Spy, he “claimed to have received a letter from the commanding general of the Massachusetts Militia telling him that no troops were needed.” Unfortunately, Chacko and Kulcsar don’t quote that letter, and their citation isn’t specific or clear.

That book’s notes mention “Simeon Potter’s letter of September 3, 1774 to his nephew Nathan Miller of Warren in WHS [Warren Historical Society] that is only partially reprinted in NDAR [Naval Documents of the American Revolution].” The second volume of N.D.A.R. does include a letter from Potter dated 3 Sept 1775, saying it went to Col. William Turner Miller and is at the Rhode Island Historical Society. But that letter says nothing about the April crisis or a message from Massachusetts. It’s conceivable that that published transcript is based on an incomplete, mislabeled copy and that the Warren Historical Society holds a longer document, but I wish the information were more solid.

In any event, the Rhode Island legislature cleaned house in May 1775. It replaced Lt. Gov. Sessions with Nicholas Cooke, and later pushed out Gov. Joseph Wanton in favor of Cooke as well. It made Greene a brigadier-general commanding three regiments of infantry and an artillery company outside Boston. For its own defense, the colony chose a new major-general: William Bradford (1729-1808), also of Bristol. In October Bradford became lieutenant governor and Joshua Babcock (1707-1783) of Westerly became the new major general.

As for Potter, one of these days I’ll quote that September 1775 letter to show his resentment about the whole situation. Potter did end up providing cannon for the Continental Army—at a price. In 1776 the Rhode Island legislature even appointed him an Assistant, or member of the upper house. But Potter didn’t show up for sessions, the next year he stopped serving in town offices, and he refused to pay taxes to the new government. That didn’t save him from losing his mansion in a British raid in 1778. Potter had to move into a smaller house, which is now a bed-and-breakfast.

Boston 1775

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