250 and Counting

Tag: Second Continental Congress

  • Here Come The Privateers–March 23, 1776

    Cover art for March 23, 1776: "A View of His Majesty's Brigg Observer Engaging the American Privateer Ship Jack, by British artist Robert Dodd. Hand-colored aquatint, 1784. The battle itself took place two years earlier.

    When you first hear the word “Privateers” and its definition, your mind probably goes to your basic concept of a pirate: someone who attacks a ship and plunders its hold for anything valuable. And you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but there’s still a difference.

    A privateer is essentially a pirate who’s working on the right side of the law. Privateers are given commissions through a document called a Letter of Marque, which authorizes a vessel to engage with any ship they consider unfriendly. This wasn’t unique to America; privateering was done all over the world. But in our case, it was a response to the fact that America was sorely out-gunned by the British and needed whatever help they could get. And early privateers had a high success rate, until the British realized that privateers were in use at all.

    One of our most famous privateers is John Paul Jones, who volunteered his services and, rather than using his ship to raid British vessels near America, did most of his work near the English coast. He would raid towns, attack vessels and send the Congress their share of the spoils.

    So the bottom line when it comes to the difference: permission. Privateers and pirates did much the same thing, except privateers had consent.

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  • Congress Makes A Tough Call–March 14, 1776

    Cover art for March 14, 1776: Portrait of John Hancock (detail) by John Singleton Copley, ca. 1765.

    There’s a ninth season episode of The Simpsons called “Sideshow Bob’s Last Gleaming” in which Bart’s nemesis, Sideshow Bob, steals a nuclear bomb and threatens to detonate it unless the town disables all of its television broadcasts. He delivers this ultimatum via a Jumbotron screen. Before ending the transmission, he says, “By the way, I’m aware of the irony of appearing on TV in order to decry it…so don’t bother pointing that out.”

    And to a certain extent, that’s what happened today in 1776 as well. The Colonies were protesting British oppression, but in order to do that successfully, they had to briefly resort to British tactics.

    It’s an unfortunate truism that the “good” side often has to resort to the “bad” side’s means of doing things to achieve an objective. On the other hand, the difference between the “good” and the “bad” side is that the “good” side is willing to undo the thing they did.

    I cited The Simpsons above, but I’m sure you could come up with your own specific television episodes in which this is what happens. (I’m sure you can because another one just came to mind, but I’m not sharing it.)

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  • Congress and Military Matters–March 7, 1776

    Cover art for March 7, 1776: a Revolutionary War-era medical chest. This kit is specifically equipped for performing amputations in the field.

    Congress had a lot of military-related activities to tend to, and one of them was Isaac Melchior. (If you look him up you’ll see an alternate spelling of him as “Melcher.” We’re sticking with “Melchior” because we saw that first.)

    March 7 was a Thursday, so the Congress was figuring out what do do about Melchior’s apparent insubordination the previous Saturday when he loudly and rudely insulted Congress in general, and John Hancock in particular, because he felt that the captaincy they’d offered him was inadequate.

    They actually considered banning him from future service, but the next day decided that his apology was sufficient, so he was dismissed without further punishment. Later on, he served as a brigade major for General Richard Montgomery, so at some point he managed to earn some additional rank.

    So in Isaac Melchior we have someone who is notable for his service to America, but whose historical reputation is tarnished because of his actions a week earlier. There’s a fictionalized version of this story in a book by Lars D.H. Hedbor called The Will: Tales From a Revolution—Pennsylvania, which is part of the “Tales from a Revolution” series. If you like historic fiction laid atop real-life events, you may enjoy these books.

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  • The French Connection–March 1, 1776

    Cover art for March 1, 1776: portrait of Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, created by Jean-Marc Nattier, 1755. via Wikimedia Commons.

    We bumped into a little dilemma when putting together this episode. Specifically, what do we do when 1776 doesn’t match up with 2026?

    As it turns out, 1776 was a leap year, so that year had a February 29, whereas 2026 does not. So we decided to do what most Leap Babies seem to do: mark the day on March 1.

    To that end, today marks two events: first, we take a look at an arrangement that France and Spain made to trade with America on a kind of gray market. That arrangement was first presented to King Louis XVI on February 29, 1776.

    From there we jump to March 1, the date that the Royal Navy began enforcing the Prohibitory Act in earnest. It was supposed to go into effect on January 1, but presumably the Navy didn’t know about it until after that date, so March 1 became the agreed-upon start date. Under the terms of the Prohibitory Act, the Colonies were banned from trading with other nations, in addition, any Colonial ships were considered enemy vessels and were subject to being captured and retained. Likewise, any sailors aboard those ships were enemies of the Crown and to be treated as such.

    This was almost certainly the last straw for many in the Colonies.

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  • Our New Man in Virginia–February 23, 1776

    Cover art for February 23, 1776: engraving of Carter Braxton by Ole Erekson, ca. 1876. via the Library of Congress.

    Carter Braxton was born into money, as his grandfather was probably the wealthiest man in Virginia. This gave him the “in” he needed to become a gentleman farmer and a public official.

    In 1761 he was elected to Virginia’s House of Burgesses, and in 1769 he was a signatory to the Virginia Resolves, which protested parliamentary interference with colony affairs. While he was a Patriot at heart, as 1776 rolled around and he replaced Peyton Randolph as one of Virginia’s delegates to the Continental Congress, he thought that independence from England was a little premature, but he did sign the Declaration of Independence when the time came. Not long after that he returned to Virginia and resumed his term in the state legislature.

    Carter Braxton had some notable progeny. His second great-grandson was William Tyler Page, composer of the Amercan’s Creed, which reads:

    I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

    I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

    This was accepted by the US House of Representatives on April 3, 1918.

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  • Helping New York Help Itself–February 21, 1776

    Cover art for February 21, 1776: "Bowling Green, Broadway," by artist James Dakin and engraved by the firm Barnard and Dick, 1831. The house on the left became Washington's headquarters when he came to New York.

    There’s a line in the play 1776 about how everyone in the New York Legislature is very loud and talks very fast and as a result nothing ever gets done. This was likely a side effect of the fact that New York was so politically mixed at the time. Everyone hollering at rather than talking to each other means that nobody is truly connecting with anyone else. Thank goodness we’ve moved past THAT! <eyeroll>

    But New York and the Hudson Valley in particular held great strategic value for the various parties involved in the conflict we call the American Revolution. Britain taking that area would separate New England from the other Colonies. What’s more, George Washington knew it. So he devoted a lot of energy into ensuring that that territory remained defended, even while the British were nowhere in sight, because he knew it was a matter of time.

    And he was right: the British did show up ready for battle. It didn’t happen when he expected it to happen, and we’ll talk about that when things start heating up.

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  • From Connecticut To Georgia–February 20, 1776

    Cover art for February 20, 1776: Portrait of Connecticut Founding Father Oliver Wolcott by the American painter Ralph Earl, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Museum of Connecticut History.

    Oliver Wolcott was one of our Founding Fathers in that he was one of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, but while he never achieved prominence on the level of Franklin or Adams, he nevertheless served an important role as a member of the Second Continental Congress.

    As the Revolution began, Wolcott was made a commissioner of Indian affairs, largely to work on ensuring that the northern tribes remained neutral. He was considered qualified for that position because he worked in that part of the continent during the French and Indian War.

    He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1775, and although he was quite ill for a chunk of 1776, he did sign the Declaration of Independence, although it was some time later than everyone else. He was also a signatory to the Articles of Confederation, but he did not sign the US Constitution because by then he was the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, becoming governor in 1796. A year later he died at the age of 71.

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  • Making Money–February 17, 1776

    Cover art for February 17, 1776: A two-dollar bill from the February 1776 run. Note the stitches holding the two halves together. via the Smithsonian Institution.

    Back in June, Mike told you about the Continental Congress taking a stab at issuing common currency that could be used throughout the Colonies. It didn’t work out very well, and the Continentals became a joke because there was nothing backing them up.

    But this time around, they may have gotten it right, because the new Continental Currency had some specific backing to it. (We don’t even have that today, thanks to Richard Nixon.)

    Look carefully at the bill in the cover art and you’ll see that it tore in two at some point. It wasn’t clear whether a half-bill would be accepted by any merchants, so people came up with all kinds of clever ways to reunite the two halves; in this case it was a needle and thread. Many bills that have survived to this day used this method to repair them.

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  • A More Organized War–February 13, 1776

    Cover art for February 13, 1776: a posthumous portrait of Patrick Henry by Thomas Sully, 1815. Sully was clearly cribbing much of this painting from a portrait of Captain Cook by his brother, made 20 years earlier.

    So nearly a year ago, in March 1775, Patrick Henry said “Give me Liberty or give me death.” Today the Continental Congress said “Bet,” and sent him to lead troops in Virginia.

    That was a coincidence, of course: practically anyone who showed any real leadership skills was given the opportunity to lead troops. Henry had the leadership and the oratory skills to get his troops into shape.

    We mentioned the various committees and their reports today. One of them was the committee that was directed to draft an address to the Colonies. John Dickinson wrote the first draft; James Wilson wrote the second. His version was much like the first, except he added the part about preparing for eventual separation from England. Dickinson was still mostly in denial about that but while Wilson wasn’t a strong personality, he was pragmatic in the end and figured he could see that ending coming.

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  • A New Job For John Adams–February 9, 1776

    Cover art for February 9, 1776: John Adams as portrayed by Mather Brown in 1788.

    One of John Adams’ stronger talents was being able to see the motivation behind the action, and because of this he was usually able to thwart unattractive actions somehow.

    In today’s case, he was able to thwart people who opposed him by simply agreeing with them. As a newly-minted Chief Justice of Massachusetts, some Loyalist (if not Loyalist, then certainly in the Don’t Declare Independence crowd) delegates from Maryland suggested that because he worked for Massachusetts, he had an inherent conflict of interest and therefore couldn’t vote in Congress.

    Now, at that time a colony’s quorum was exactly one delegate, so if he was the only person from Massachusetts attending that day, Massachusetts wouldn’t be able to cast a vote. So, Adams did the sensible thing and agreed with the Marylanders. Then he resigned from the position they thought he’d never give up.

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