Gaspée Affair

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Burning of the Gaspee

The Gaspée Affair was an important incident in the course of the American Revolution. The HMS Gaspée, a British revenue schooner that had been vigorously enforcing unpopular trade regulations, ran aground on June 9, 1772 off of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island while chasing the packet boat Hannah. In an act of defiance that gained considerable notoriety, the ship was attacked, boarded, stripped of valuables and torched by American patriots led by Abraham Whipple.

1 Background
2 The incident
3 Aftermath
4 Modern references
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Background

The customs service in Britain’s North American colonies in the eighteenth-century had a violent and turbulent history. The Treasury in London did little to correct known problems and Britain itself was at war during much of this period and was not in a strategic position to risk antagonizing its overseas colonies. At the end of the Seven Years' War, following Britain’s decisive victory, several successive ministries implemented reforms in an attempt to achieve more effective administrative control and raise more revenue in the colonies. The revenue was necessary, Parliament believed, to bolster the military and naval defensive positions along the borders of their far-flung empire. Among these reforms was the deputizing of the Royal Navy's Sea Officers to help enforce customs in colonial ports.

[edit] The incident

In early 1772, Lieutenant William Dudingston sailed the HMS Gaspee into Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay to aid in the enforcement of customs collection and inspection of cargo. Rhode Island had a reputation for smuggling and trading with the enemy during wartime. Dudingston and his officers quickly antagonized powerful merchant interests in the small colony. On June 9, when the Gaspée lay hard aground, a band of Providence residents rowed out to confront the officers and crew.

Before the break of dawn June 10, Lieutenant Dudingston was shot and wounded, and the vessel burned to the waterline. It was the first blood of the American Revolution. The man who fired was Joseph Bucklin.

JOSEPH BUCKLIN, was well known in Providence and kept a prominent restaurant, or place of resort, in South Main Street, where gentlemen resorted for their suppers.. Here, too, they assembled, to discuss politics, and where, possibly, the expedition which destroyed the Gaspee, was discussed, as well as at Mr. Sabin's house, which was near it.^[1]

[edit] Aftermath

Previous attacks on naval vessels had gone unpunished. In one case a customs yacht was actually destroyed (also by fire) with no administrative response. But in 1772 the Admiralty would not ignore the destruction of one of its military vessels on station. The American Department consulted the Solicitor and Attorney Generals, who investigated and advised the Privy Council on the legal and constitutional punitive options available to them. The Crown turned to a centuries-old institution to investigate – the Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Colonial Whigs were alarmed by what they perceived to be a court operating entirely outside Rhode Island jurisdiction. They believed the Commissioners could operate wholly independently from Rhode Island's judicial system. In Virginia, the House of Burgesses was so alarmed that they formed an inter-colonial committee of correspondence to consult in the crisis with other colonial assemblies.

In Boston, a little-known visiting minister at Second Baptist Church preached a sermon that utilized the Gaspée Affair to warn listeners about greedy monarchs, corrupt judges and conspiracies at high levels in the London government. This sermon was printed seven different times in four colonial cities, becoming one of the most popular pamphlets of Colonial British America. This pamphlet, along with the incendiary rhetoric of numerous colonial newspaper editors, awoke colonial Whigs from a lull of inactivity in 1772 thus inaugurating a series of conflicts that would culminate in the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

[edit] Modern references

The city of Warwick, Rhode Island commemorates the Gaspée Affair with Gaspee Days. This festival includes arts and crafts and races, but the highlight is the Gaspee Days parade. The parade features a float representing the Gaspée, along with Revolutionary War era fife-and-drum bands, a marching band dressed as period sailors, local marching bands, and others.