253rd Anniversary of the ``gaspee'' Raid

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I take the Senate back to June 9 of 1772, and I read from Rory Raven's ``Burning the Gaspee.''

A handful of longboats glided across the water on a moonless night. The men--some at the oars, other nervously fingering muskets or clubs or handspikes--were silent as they drew closer and closer to the silhouette of a schooner a short distance away. A white British ensign fluttered from the schooner's topmast in a humid breeze.

A sentry on deck peered into the darkness, catching sight of the approaching boats.

``Who comes there?'' he called.

The men in the boats bristled at the sentry's English accent.

``We mean to come aboard,'' replied a big man in the lead boat. ``You cannot,'' the sentry shouted back. ``You cannot come aboard.''

A moment later, the schooner's commanding officer came on deck. Roused from his bunk, he stood at the rail in his shirtsleeves. Raising a pistol, he warned the men not to come closer.

Another man in another boat rose to his feet and declared, ``I am the sheriff of the county of Kent''--

That would be Kent County, RI--

``I am the sheriff of the county of Kent, God damn you. I have a warrant to apprehend you, God damn you. So surrender, God damn you.''

The officer drew his sword and repeated his warning. Some of the sailors under his command joined him, weapons at the ready.

In one of the boats, a man turned to the friend seated next to him, saying, ``Reach me your gun--I can kill that fellow.''

The gun was handed over. Shouldering the musket, the man took aim and the shot echoed over across the waters.

The officer doubled over and fell.

The officer involved was Lieutenant Duddingston of the Royal Navy. The ship he was on was the HMS Gaspee, a naval vessel deployed as a revenue cutter to harass the trade of the Rhode Island Colonials.

There is a bit more of a story around this because before the challenge to the Gaspee that led to that shooting, the Gaspee had been harassing other Rhode Island shipowners. One of them was a very prominent individual.

The Gaspee seized a boat called the Fortune, and this reading is from the chapter ``The Dark Affair, The Gaspee Incident'' from ``An Empire on the Edge'' by Nick Bunker.

Unwilling to trust a local judge, he sent the Fortune round to Boston, a step of doubtful legality that only made matters worse. Unwittingly, the Gaspee had antagonized a family of Rhode Islanders who embodied all the values for which the colony stood.

The rum [on board] belonged to the Greenes, Quakers with a farm or two, a saw-mill, and a forge for making anchors. The navy had not the slightest idea who they were or why it might not be wise to upset them. But one of the men who owned the cargo was Nathanael Greene, who would soon shed his Quaker beliefs to become the youngest general in George Washington's army and his closest aid from Bunker Hill to Yorktown. As Greene wrote soon after the arrest of the Fortune, the loss of her cargo created ``such a Spirit of Resentment that I have devoted almost the whole of my time in devising measures for punishing the offender.''

Well, of course, Nathanael Greene was not only George Washington's aide-de-camp and administrative officer, but he was also deployed to lead the southern campaign in the South, which caused Lord Cornwallis to write home to his wife to say:

That damn Greene is more dangerous than Washington.

So the Gaspee launched that spirit of resentment that led to a General Greene more dangerous than Washington, a Rhode Islander.

The story of that day is fairly simple. On July 9, 1772, another ship, the Hannah, is making her way north toward Providence when the Gaspee comes after her, seeking to stop and board her and seeking to seize her cargo.

Well, the Hannah was having none of it and continued sailing north, so the Gaspee gave chase. In the course of the chase, the captain of the Hannah steered the vessel over a sandy spit that sticks out where a river comes into Narragansett Bay at a place called Namquit Point and delivers a column of sand.

Now, the captain of the Hannah knew those waters well, and he knew the depths well, and he slid over the shallows in his lighter boat. The big-armed Gaspee coming along behind foundered on the sand in a falling tide and was stuck. The despised Gaspee and the despised Lieutenant Duddingston became a target.

The Hannah continued up to Providence that night. It was owned by the Brown family, who ended up giving their names to Brown University, were prominent merchants in 1772, and they rallied several longboats full of men who that night, presumably after some refreshment, rode down from Providence--miles down--to where the Gaspee was stranded.

That is where that incident began. It was those men in those longboats on that moonlit night who decided they were going to rid their beloved Narragansett Bay of the wretched and detested Gaspee, so they ended up shooting the captain of the vessel, Lieutenant Duddingston. He survived his wounds. They took the vessel. They captured the crew. They took everybody ashore. They saw that medical care was given to Lieutenant Duddingston. They came back out, and they set fire to the Gaspee.

This painting, which hangs in my office, is a depiction of the Gaspee on fire that night. As the fire burned, it came to the powder magazine, and the powder magazine exploded. The Gaspee was blown to smithereens across Narragansett Bay, and that was the end of her.

Now, the episode got rather lost to history. I will put it in a time context. This is June 9 of 1772. This is more than a year before the Boston Tea Party up in Boston Harbor. On that occasion, Massachusetts Colonials painted their faces and boarded a civilian vessel and pushed tea bags off it into Boston Harbor. That was Massachusetts.

Rhode Island's effort a year and a half before was to trick the military vessel into grounding herself, come down the bay in longboats at night, shoot the captain, capture the crew, and blow the boat up.

What more did we need to do to be in the history books? Well, we are getting there. I give this speech every year.

Rory Raven wrote ``Burning the Gaspee.'' ``The Burning of His Majesty's Schooner Gaspee'' by Steven Park. Makes an entire book.

And I just read ``An Empire on the Edge,'' from an entire chapter on the Gaspee incident.

What happened afterwards is nearly as interesting as the destruction of the Gaspee. King George was furious. Parliament was furious. An enormous bounty on the heads of the men in those longboats was offered by the King--over $100,000 in today's money.

And officials were sent from England to go and put on a trial. Find these men, try them, and hang them. No one would talk.

About 60,000 people lived in Rhode Island back then, but it was a close community, gathered mostly around the shore, a very prosperous community because of its trading. And nobody would talk.

There was never any satisfaction to King George for his rages.

14, 2023] Boston Tea Party? Rhode Island Says its Rebellion was First--and Just as Important (By Dan Diamond)

You'd be forgiven for thinking you know this story.

American colonists, itching for independence, stormed a British vessel. A spark in New England helped ignite a national revolution.

But this was not the Boston Tea Party.

Eighteen months before colonists dumped tea in Boston Harbor--an event that marks its 250th anniversary this week-- Rhode Islanders attacked and destroyed a British navy ship off the coast near Providence, furious with what they saw as the crown's overreach.

The burning of the HMS Gaspee on June 10, 1772, was the first major armed act of rebellion by the American colonists, Rhode Island historians and officials maintain. And the resulting fallout--with King George III demanding that the perpetrators be held accountable in a showdown between the colonial legal system and the British courts--helped unify the colonies for the war to come.

``[T]his is a Matter in which the whole American Continent is deeply concerned and a Submission of the Colony of Rhode Island to this enormous Claim of power would be made a Precedent for all the rest,'' founding father Samuel Adams wrote to Rhode Island's deputy governor in January 1773.

But the Gaspee affair, which shook the colonies and rattled the crown, has been largely forgotten outside of Rhode Island. It's been overlooked in U.S. history classes and remains little studied by historians of the American Revolution. The Washington Post reviewed six high school and college U.S. history textbooks and found no mention of the burning of the Gaspee, even as multiple pages were devoted to later--and, in the minds of many Rhode Islanders, lesser-- events such as the Boston Tea Party.

``Nobody knows that well before anybody pushed a tea bag off a civilian ship in the Boston Harbor, Rhode Islanders blew up a military vessel,'' Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in a recent interview in his office--sitting in front of a painting that depicts the burning of the Gaspee.

The senator from Rhode Island has repeatedly given speeches that celebrate the Gaspee raiders, and he's denounced the attention paid to Massachusetts, saying that leaders of his neighboring state have spent centuries spinning their own history.

``They got drunk, painted themselves like Indians and pushed tea bags into the Boston Harbor, which we in Rhode Island think is pretty weak tea compared to blowing up the goddamn boat and shooting its captain,'' Whitehouse told The Post. ``But you know, all those Massachusetts people went on to become president and run Harvard . . . so they told their story, and their story, and their story.''

Rhode Island-based historians agreed that the Gaspee affair is a case study in how important chapters in history become, well, history. The state's own firsts--Rhode Island, for example, was the first colony to declare independence from Britain on May 4, 1776, two months before the other 12 colonies--tend to get relegated to footnotes in national stories about the revolution.

``So much focus is put into Massachusetts history, and Rhode Island gets overlooked,'' said Kathy Abbass, the principal investigator of the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, which is working to locate the wreckage of the Gaspee off the shore of Warwick, R.I. ``Partly that's because the early histories were written by professors at Harvard and Yale, which set the tone for all the histories that came later.'' The attack on the Gaspee

There's little dispute over the events leading up to the burning of the Gaspee--only how historically significant they were.

In Rhode Island, as across the colonies, residents were bristling at the taxes, fees and other burdens imposed by a British parliament an ocean away. That parliament, meanwhile, grew frustrated by what leaders saw as Americans' efforts to evade the responsibilities of being part of the British Empire.

``The British were trying to raise money by capturing vessels that were sneaking stuff in and not paying duty,'' Abbass said. ``And yes, of course we were smugglers [in Rhode Island]--there's no doubt about that.''

Commanded by Lieutenant William Dudingston, a Scottish naval officer, the Gaspee sailed into Narragansett Bay in early 1772, seeking to enforce trade laws that the American colonists were increasingly flouting. The British ship began to abruptly board colonial vessels off the coast of Rhode Island and seize their cargo, such as barrels of smuggled rum. Accusations soon proliferated that the Gaspee's crew was stealing sheep and hogs from local farmers, and cutting down their fruit trees for firewood.

Rhode Islanders compared Dudingston to a pirate, sued him in a local court (which found against him) and even sought his arrest. But the British warned that anyone who attempted to interfere in the Gaspee's work would be executed.

``Let them be cautious what they do; for as sure as they attempt it, and any of them are taken, I will hang them as pirates,'' British Adm. John Montagu wrote to Rhode Island's governor in April 1772.

Then came June 9.

A small ship called the Hannah, reportedly owned by Rhode Island entrepreneur John Brown, was headed toward Providence. It refused the Gaspee's exhortations to stop--probably because the Hannah carried illegal cargo--and the British gave chase. But the Hannah's captain, a local man named Benjamin Lindsey, knew the area better than Dudingston, and he led the Gaspee into waters that had receded because of the daily tides. The British ship ended up stuck on a sandbar, waiting for the tides to change again hours later.

The Hannah successfully slipped away to Providence, where Lindsey quickly recounted his tale to Brown, one of the city's leading merchants, who was a member of the loose resistance movement known as the Sons of Liberty and part of the family that helped found Brown the Ivy League university that would later bear its name.

Brown was also a smuggler--one of Rhode Island's most notorious, Abbass said--and had been nursing a grudge against Dudingston and his ship.

Learning that the Gaspee was temporarily marooned, ``Mr. Brown immediately resolved on her destruction,'' Ephraim Bowen, a local man who was among the several dozen men who joined Brown, would recount decades later.

As many as 60 men gathered in the Providence harbor that evening, launching boats and muffling their oars to quietly row out to the Gaspee under cover of darkness. As they approached the ship, a confrontation began--with one of the Gaspee raiders asserting that Dudingston was a criminal who had evaded the local law, Bowen recounted--that led to Dudingston being shot in the groin and arm and all of the ship's crew being taken from the vessel.

The Rhode Islanders burned the Gaspee to the water line early on the morning of June 10. Then the gunpowder on board exploded, sending pieces of the ship flying.

As news of the attack made its way to London, British leaders seethed. In a royal proclamation, King George III offered a reward of up to 1,000 pounds sterling--more than $150,000 in today's currency--to anyone who could help identify and convict the ``outrageous and heinous Offenders'' behind the ship's burning. He also established a commission to conduct a formal inquiry, and the British vowed to transport any colonists indicted in the attack to England for trial and, almost certainly, execution.

But no arrests were ever made. Rhode Islanders refused to volunteer information about the Gaspee raiders, and local officials found ways to slow or stymie the British investigation. Colonial leaders further argued that anyone involved in the Gaspee's burning should face a jury of their peers in America. A Rhode Island sheriff even arrested Dudingston as he recovered from his wounds, charging him for the Gaspee's previous seizures of cargo.

Meanwhile, the nation's founding fathers exchanged fervent messages about the Gaspee's burning and the British response, setting up the committees of correspondence that helped them coordinate strategies in the years to come.

Adams, particularly, warned that Britain's determination to pursue the Gaspee affair, and the discussion of the deployment of troops, could lead to a cascade of events that might spark ``a most violent political Earthquake through the whole British Empire if not its total Destruction,'' he wrote in January 1773 to Rhode Island's deputy governor, Darius Sessions.

``I have long feard that this unhappy Contest between Britain & America will end in Rivers of Blood,'' Adams wrote. An `uncelebrated burning' is forgotten

Most of the Rhode Islanders involved in the burning of the Gaspee successfully concealed their identities from the British and even other colonials, helping confound the crown's probe. In some ways, their effort to hide was too successful: Even today, about half the men who burned the Gaspee are unknown.

But as the American Revolution began to slip out of living memory, Rhode Islanders tried to lay a claim to the first shot fired.

``The first blood that was shed in the revolutionary contest, by that very act begun, stained her deck, and it was drawn by a Rhode Island hand,'' William Hunter, a former U.S. senator from Rhode Island, said in an address on July 4, 1826--50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. ``Yes, the blood of Lieutenant Duddington was the first blood drawn in the American cause.''

Those efforts to highlight the Gaspee affair had limited success. In the fight over the American legacy, Rhode Island would end up largely nudged to the side--a casualty of a battle between larger states, chiefly Massachusetts and Virginia, that were disproportionately home to some of the era's most influential figures.

``There was a very busy group of Boston-based intellectuals who were eager to frame Boston as the driver of the revolution and Bostonians as the inheritors of the legacy of the revolution,'' said Nat Sheidley, a historian who runs Revolutionary Spaces, a Boston-based organization that runs public programs about colonial America--including this week's anniversary of the tea party. He added that America's elite leaders initially downplayed a number of revolutionary events, such as the destruction of tea in Boston's harbor, fearing that it would undermine the sense of order in the young nation.

``But by the 1830s, it felt a little bit safer to go there,'' Sheidley said. ``And so that's the moment where . . . the name `Tea Party' is invented, and it becomes popularized as a story of what led us to the revolution.''

A century later, a 1922 New York Times article detailed ``the uncelebrated burning'' of the Gaspee and asked why the Boston Tea Party had developed a ``much stronger hold'' upon Americans.

``[A]s an exhibition of daring the tea party was literally a tea party and nothing more compared with the Gaspee incident,'' Jonathan A. Rawson Jr. wrote in the Times. The Gaspee affair's place in history

Even today, some historians are largely unfamiliar with the Gaspee or suggest that its burning was a regional matter, The Post found. But in Rhode Island, lore about the Gaspee is thriving. For 57 years, local volunteers have held an annual celebration--known as Gaspee Days--featuring a parade to celebrate the burning of the ship, which is increasingly joined by government officials, reenactors and thousands of residents.

``Declare your independence from bank fees!'' reads one ad from a local credit union in last year's 250th anniversary booklet.

Other efforts abound. Rhode Island's secretary of state offers free Gaspee posters on demand. A Brown University instructor created a virtual reality app that allows users to be immersed in a reenactment of the story. A license plate depicting the burning of the Gaspee became available to state drivers this fall--and it looks ``wicked cool,'' said John Concannon, a retired pediatrician who is Gaspee Days' historian.

It's all part of a larger state goal: to ensure that the burning of the Gaspee is never forgotten again. Historians who have studied the event said that it merits more mention, particularly in textbooks.

``The thing about the Gaspee that is important was that the king took notice,'' said Abbass, who has written about other colonial attacks on British vessels that preceded the burning of the Gaspee but provoked negligible reaction from the crown.

The king's intervention also led to a British attempt to circumvent the colonial courts, causing alarm and ultimately backfiring on the crown, Concannon said. He argued that several articles in the Declaration of Independence, including the right to a jury of one's peers, stem from the Gaspee affair--a more significant contribution to that document than made by the Boston Tea Party, he said.

That's one reason this weekend's latest celebration of the events in Massachusetts continues to vex Rhode Islanders. When it comes to the founding of America, Concannon said, the burning of the Gaspee is ``just as important.''

Philip Bump, Azi Paybarah and Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. And you can recognize the picture I just showed you, it is in the article, and it does quite a good job of putting into context this rebellious act by Rhode Island that took place nearly a year before the Boston Tea Party and yet is mostly overlooked by historians.

Here is another version of the Gaspee aflame before it explodes, and here are the men in the longboats coming away from it having lit that fire.

So it is important enough that I thought I might try a poetical hand to it. I have read this before, and I will read it again.

Listen, my colleagues, and you shall see

How Rhode Islanders blew up the dread Gaspee.

Great Britain was fearsome, she ruled the sea,

But Rhode Islanders burned with the fire to be free.

So when George sent his frigate to tax our coast,

And its arrogant captain was heard to boast

That he'd soon have Rhode Island under his sway,

Well, a course was set for a fateful day.

Narragansett Bay sparkled bright and blue June 9 of 1772,

The trading ship Hannah was making her way

With cargo for Providence that fine day.

King George's Gaspee pursued in chase,

But the Hannah decided to give her a race.

Away fled the Hannah with wind in her sails,

As the Gaspee's cannon fired from its rails.

Evading the Gaspee's cannon balls,

The Hannah sailed for the Namquid shoals.

Fast and light, Hannah crossed the shallow,

But when the Gaspee attempted to follow,

She ran aground on the Warwick shore,

In a falling tide, and could move no more.

That night dark longboats with muffled oars,

Came slipping quietly down the shore,

To rid our Bay of the dread Gaspee,

And show old King George that Rhode Island be free.

The battle was fierce off Warwick Neck.

When the gunsmoke cleared from the Gaspee's deck,

The Rhode Islanders had her as their prize,

And her crew bound up in chains and ties.

When the crew was ashore, Pawtuxet's Rangers

Assured they'd present us no further danger.

Back to the Bay, in the dark of the night,

Went the Gaspee Raiders to set her alight.

The fire spread through the Raiders' prize,

'Til a blast filled the Narragansett Bay skies.

The fire had reached the Gaspee's magazines,

And her gunpowder blew her to smithereens.

Away sped the raiders into the dark,

Leaving in the embers freedom's spark.

``I want their names!'' King George demanded,

And ordered the Raiders be apprehended.

But his call for hangings came to naught:

His nooses hung empty; no charge was brought;

Because never a traitorous tale was told.

Rhode Island stood steady, silent, and bold.

The spark that was struck in the Gaspee Raid

Lit a flame that still burns in our hearts today.

And the lesson from then is a lesson now,

That every American still will avow.

``However majestic your powers may be,

You should heed our warning: don't tread on me.''

So that is the tale of the Gaspee. And one day it will get its appropriate notice in history.

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