April Meeting, 1938

Francis Russell Hart

THE Colonial Society of Massachusetts suffered a severe loss in the death on January 18, 1938, of Francis Russell Hart.

He was born by the sea in New Bedford, and for most of his life he was connected with and influenced by the sea. He was a large man, physically and mentally, and his outstanding characteristics of gentleness and simplicity were those of a large man. Upon graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1889, he began the practice of his profession of engineer at Cartagena on the coast of Colombia, South America, at one of the mouths of the Magdalena River, whence he accomplished the difficult task of railroad building into the interior. This marked his first acquaintance with the Caribbean countries, with which he was to be connected for most of his life. This engineering experience led to his intimate knowledge of the Spanish Main and West Indian waters which compelled his interest and led him to write Admirals of the Caribbean (Boston, 1922), The Disaster of Darien (Boston, 1929), and The Siege of Havana, 1762 (Boston, 1931).

Finally settling in Boston, he became Treasurer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and placed the finances of that notable institution upon a sound, adequate, and expanding basis. He left his imprint upon the financial history of Boston by becoming associated with one of its largest and most successful banking institutions. Shortly before his death he was elected President of the United Fruit Company.

His interest in the Colonial Society of Massachusetts never flagged, and he was a generous friend of many good causes. He was absolutely unspoiled by his varied successes in life, and his friends, who were legion, always found him charming, helpful, and sincere.

Resolved: that this tribute be spread upon the records of the Society and that a copy be sent to Mrs. Hart.

Quaker Relief during the Siege of Boston

NONPARTISAN war relief for civilians carried on by the Society of Friends in recent years, first in northern France, Serbia, and Russia, then in Germany and Austria, and most lately in both Nationalist and Loyalist Spain, is widely known and understood. But not even the Quakers themselves are aware of how exact precedents their history contains for such expressions of their pacifism in wartime. One of these examples, having to do with Revolutionary Massachusetts, has sufficient interest to deserve fuller record than it has yet received.

The sources are unusually full and clear. The executive bodies of two of the larger units of American Quakerism were involved: in New England, the Committee (later called the Meeting) for Sufferings of New England Yearly Meeting; in Pennsylvania, the Meeting for Sufferings of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The correspondence between them is entered in full in the manuscript minute books of each of these bodies.69 In the Philadelphia Quaker archives are to be found, further, not only the originals of the letters received and the rough drafts of letters sent, making a third set of the official correspondence, but a very full, detailed account of the three thousand families ministered to.70 Furthermore, personal correspondence of those most active among both the contributors and the distributors is available: for John Pemberton and his brothers, in the Pemberton Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and for Moses Brown of Providence, in the Moses Brown Papers at the Rhode Island Historical Society.

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The shadow of the Revolutionary War fell upon the Society of Friends long before the actual outbreak of hostilities. The dispute between Parliament and the colonies was carried on in a way that Quakers early anticipated could end only in irreconcilability and fighting. As long-established pacifists they were convinced that war was inconsistent with Christianity, and they deplored every step toward war taken on either side. Like their fellow citizens, they were doubtless divided in their sympathies as to the rights of the case. Their law-abiding instinct tended to brand as usurpation the illegal proceedings of the revolutionary party. At the same time their freedom-loving instinct made them chafe at the loss of civil liberties. Through years of passive resistance in the previous century they had learned to rely for relief on outwearying their opposers by patience and forbearance. The results had seemed to justify their method. Now, therefore, they attempted the extremely difficult task of remaining neutral as far as military measures were concerned, aiming to keep themselves free from implication of military assistance on either side.

There were, of course, members of the Society of Friends who could not resist the pressure of circumstances about them and who, whether because of self-interest, outside coercion, or inner fervor of loyalty either to the mother country or to the cause of freedom, did not follow the difficult path of the nonbelligerent. The official position—generally misunderstood on both sides—was, of course, weakened by these backsliders. In their care for these, in their attempt to remain firm in their chosen course, in the many difficult problems of consistent extension of pacifism to new situations, the leaders of the Quakers had plenty to occupy their attention—not to mention the wartime economic difficulties which they shared with all their neighbors. In addition it may be noted that it was just in these years of outward stress that they were bringing to a conclusion that long campaign of education and appeal to conscience by which they finally completely purified their membership of the holding of slaves.

It would have been natural if these difficulties had seemed sufficient to excuse them from participation in general services of public relief. Inevitably their own position, so acute and hard to carry through, preoccupied their minds. They were able, however, to feel anxiety for and sympathy with their fellow members elsewhere on this continent: anxiety for their faithfulness to Quaker principles, and sympathy with their sufferings. Furthermore, as the Anglo-American Quaker correspondence of the period shows, at the outset of the troubles and all through the war they could count on the solicitude and most cordial support of the large and influential body of Friends in Great Britain who up to the last moment were concerned for a just and peaceful settlement of affairs between that country and the colonies.

The retaliatory measures of the British ministry after the Boston Tea Party were easily understood in their intention to ruin that town’s commerce. The seriousness of the Boston Port Bill, signed March 31, 1774, to go into effect on June 1, was appreciated everywhere. In the latter month the Boston Overseers of the Poor were designated to receive the donations that might come in for relief purposes, and in July they were, at their own request, succeeded by a committee of twenty-six which included John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Rowe, Dr. Joseph Warren, and Josiah Quincy. The correspondence of that committee shows the extent and earnestness of the concern for the actual physical sustenance of the beleaguered town.71

The eyes of Quakerdom also were concentrated on New England, at first upon its own members there. The London Yearly Meeting, writing in July, 1774, to Philadelphia, while expressing their assurance that Friends there would be loyal to their peaceable principles, added: “We cannot forbear looking around through the flock and family professing in some parts of America with a degree of anxious concern that none be led aside to their own hurt and grief of their brethren by yielding to that unsettling restless spirit.”72 A few months later (November 4) they wrote again to Philadelphia: “We look towards our Brethren in and near to New England with tenderness and commiseration and have found it in our hearts to salute them in a few lines as a short memorial of our regard and desires for their welfare.”73 At the same time London Friends urged those in Philadelphia and elsewhere to visit those in New England. This message Philadelphia Friends copied and forwarded to several of the meetings in New England.74

The advice from London to American Friends to concern themselves about Friends in New England was hardly needed. Philadelphia Friends were already in touch with the situation. In fact, in October, 1774, one of them was actually on the spot: John Pemberton of Philadelphia. With his brothers James and Israel, sons of the late Israel Pemberton, he was among the most influential Quakers of Philadelphia at the time. Not only had he business connections in many places, but, as clerk of the Meeting for Sufferings, he was the center of a wide correspondence.

According to the prevailing custom of religious intervisitation among Friends, which did so much for their solidarity,75 he had already visited the meetings in New England in 1762 and in 1769. Now he was traveling primarily as companion to Mary Leaver, a timid visitor from England. That he knew the serious situation he was likely to meet is plain from a letter written to a correspondent in the West Indies just before he left home: “The public papers will give thee as full an account of the political affairs to the Northward as I am able; private letters contain little more. The New England men seem determined to stand their ground to the last. They hitherto avoided hostilities, which is prudent, but keep themselves ready for any emergency.”76 His letters to his wife make it possible to follow him and his English companion through Trenton, New York, Newport, Nantucket, New Bedford, Boston, and Providence.77 Writing her from Providence on November 20 about a visit he had paid at Boston, he tells her to

Writing again to his wife ten days later from Newport, Pemberton says:

The last words make clear the great difficulty of nonpartisan relief in wartime. That the Committee of Donations in Boston was partisan no one can doubt; and the same was of course true of the Committee of Correspondence appointed in May in Pennsylvania. The people of Boston, they declared, were “suffering in the general cause.”82 By the time of Pemberton’s reference the contributions from the city of Philadelphia alone had reached “about two thousand pounds.”83 The atmosphere that had prevailed there from the outset of the crisis is revealed in an anonymous letter written on June 2 giving an account of the way Philadelphia observed the going into effect of the Boston Port Bill: “Yesterday we had a pause in the business of the city, and a solemn pause it indeed was. If we except the Friends, I believe nine tenths of the citizens shut up their houses. The bells were rang, muffled, all the day, and the ships in the port had their colors half hoisted.”84

The Friends of Philadelphia from the first strenuously dissociated themselves from this public expression. They regularly objected to public fasts; and they objected now to the implication that the meeting of citizens at which this particular demonstration was arranged represented Friends at all. The following statement, prepared two days before this display of public sentiment, presents their views:85

The Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia during these autumn months, made the difficulty and anxiety of the Friends none the less. They were sympathetic enough with the objects of protest, but, as they wrote in July to their friends in London, they could not countenance “measures proposed for the support of Civil Liberty which are not dictated by wisdom from above which is pure, peaceable and gentle.”86

Writing again on November 5, they refer to the address made by the Congress in the name of all the provinces and assure their British brethren that

While John Pemberton was himself in Rhode Island, his brother Israel was in correspondence with Moses Brown, asking how Philadelphia Quakers could assist people in Boston and urging Rhode Island Friends to visit the Bostonians. Evidently the difficulty of separating Quaker relief at Boston from the spirit of belligerency there seemed to him both difficult and important.88

Doubtless not all Friends shared this insight. It is possible, for example, that some in New England itself did not. The need was great—simple human need—and if sympathizers contributed individually or anonymously and not as Friends, it could be argued that there was no compromise with Quaker principles. At any rate one notes with interest that almost the largest single entry in the list of donations received from the Province of Massachusetts Bay by the Committee of Donations in Boston is one of £90 9s on April 10, 1775, described as “from persons unknown (supposed to be the Friends Society at Nantucket).”89

At Salem and Lynn, as at Providence and Nantucket, there were Friends able to be of service to Boston Quakers. In November, 1774, Salem Monthly Meeting appointed a committee to look into the matter, and upon receiving their report a month later that help was needed, ordered assistance to be given, and in March, 1775, directed £8 to be contributed.90 At the same time the committee notified John Pemberton in Philadelphia of what they had done, adding:

Similar information respecting Friends in Boston was conveyed by the Salem committee to Moses Brown at Providence, who, in passing it on to John Pemberton, says (March 24, 1775): “I laid it before our preparative meeting and it is to be brought forth as Business to the Monthly Meeting next week, Friends thinking it best to do what is done for them as a Meeting and not as private Members.”92

On receipt of this information the Meeting for Sufferings in Philadelphia drafted a letter (May 18, 1775) to the Yearly Meeting in New England urging them to arrange a subscription among themselves for the relief of those who were in want or suffering, adding the request “that we may be speedily and particularly acquainted with your situation and the steps you are about to pursue that if the calamity prevailing should make it necessary we may join our endeavors with yours in contributing to their assistance.”93 At the same time the Meeting for Sufferings advised that a permanent executive committee be established by the New England Yearly Meeting. This was done in June, 1775. It seemed at last to provide a suitable channel for truly nonpartisan and nonmilitary relief. From then on the chief service to Friends in Massachusetts was carried on by collaboration of the Meeting for Sufferings in Philadelphia and the Committee for Sufferings in New England.

Information received in Philadelphia about conditions in Boston was not encouraging. Jeremiah Hacker of Salem reported from Newport to John Pemberton (June 14, 1775) that “by the Friends that have of late moved out we understand that . . . they are deprived of many of the comfortable things of this world as fresh provision, milk and [ ] both of which they used to abound. But have a sufficiency of bread and salt provision.”94 Two prominent Philadelphia Friends, John Hunt and Nicholas Waln, attended the Yearly Meeting in Rhode Island in June. Their report and the letter they brought from New England Friends galvanized the intention of relief into action. A form of appeal addressed “To Our Friends and Brethren of the Several Meetings of Pennsylvania and New Jersey” was drafted and printed, together with a subscription blank. It appealed for money to be raised in each local meeting and sent by the local collector to either of the two treasurers of the Yearly Meeting, John Reynell of Philadelphia and Samuel Smith of Burlington. The money was for relief of their “fellow subjects in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay and the adjacent provinces” and was to be administered by the newly appointed committee of New England Yearly Meeting to “the necessitous of every religious denomination.”95 On this last point considerable emphasis was laid in the correspondence, as also on the desire that the distribution should not in any way promote warlike measures inconsistent with Quaker principles. “Without the knowledge or approbation” of the authors96 this paper was published by the newswriters, not only in Philadelphia but also in New England and England.97 This raised the hopes of the beneficiaries but exposed the Friends to misunderstandings98 which they were at pains to remove. The New England Friends, before any of the money had reached them, repeatedly mentioned “the jealousies which have arose or may arise in the minds of any that it is designed or applied to any other than charitable purposes.”99 They were anxious to know whether the donors meant to “make no distinction of religious sect or political party,” it being already clear “from the misconstructions of your charitable intentions that care will be greatly increased in order to stop the mouths of the censorious of both parties.”100

As records of the local meetings in New Jersey and Pennsylvania show, the subscription was undertaken heartily and promptly, and by November there was available more than £2,000, worth in New England currency £1,572 9s 4d. Its transmission to New England raised a problem, but two members of the Philadelphia committee, David Evans and John Parrish, were persuaded to take a sum of £1,600 in person and deliver it to Friends in New England.101 They met the New England Committee for Sufferings at Providence on November 21, delivered the money, and were back in Philadelphia on November 29.102

In response to the inquiries of New England Friends the donors specified their intentions as to the money transmitted:

This generous and voluntary action on the part of Philadelphia Quakers, although it is not mentioned, appears to me to be reflected in the surprisingly liberal resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress at just this juncture. Meeting in Philadelphia on July 18, 1775, the Congress seems to put its imprimatur on the Quakers’ “moral equivalent for war” when it says:

At this point it may be well to note the information which Philadelphia Friends had received of circumstances in Boston. The first act of the Committee for Sufferings in New England had been to appoint some Friends to visit Friends in Boston.106 The report sent to Philadelphia is quite explicit:

Somewhat later the Pembertons received news of Boston Friends from William Rickman of New York City: “Two Friends of this place having been eastward called at Boston and are lately returned. They say the few Friends in that town being only four families are treated kindly, have liberty of leaving the town if they incline and Friends of Rhode Island are allowed free ingress and egress as oft as they choose.”108

In August the Friends in New England had little to report though they promised to inquire into the situation of both the inhabitants of Boston and those who had come out. “The inhabitants of Boston, Charlestown and other places on the Sea Coast sufferers by the present troubles are so distributed over New England that such a knowledge of the Circumstances of the needy as to select the most worthy objects for your charity is a work of some difficulty and will require time.”109

On September 12, 1775, the New England Committee wrote to the Philadelphia Meeting for Sufferings:

In November, when the money was actually in their hands, the New England Friends were doubtful whether they could distribute it to the inhabitants of Boston as soon or as satisfactorily as they had desired, having been informed that there was no passing in or out but by way of flags of truce from the commanding officers.111 They decided, however, to try and selected five of their number to carry out the plan, providing them with similar letters to both General Washington and General Howe:

There was some delay owing to illness and other causes, and it was not until December 13 that the party set out. The personnel was somewhat different from that originally intended and now included as perhaps the most active member Moses Brown of Providence.113

Born in 1738, the youngest of four notable sons of James and Hope (Power) Brown of Providence, he had grown up a member of the Baptist Church and had joined the Society of Friends only in 1773. But he well understood the Quakers’ principles and had accepted their views on war and slavery, having already emancipated his slaves before undertaking to change his church membership. He had amassed sufficient fortune to retire from business and now at the age of thirty-seven was nearing the beginning of a long career of public-spirited philanthropy. For the expedition at hand he had the further advantage of having recently been in the beleaguered town of Boston on an even more delicate and difficult mission. His own brother, John, had been held a prisoner by the British, being rightly suspected of having been the ringleader in the burning of the armed schooner Gaspee. Moses Brown, quick as always to help his older brothers in their troubles, had successfully pleaded for John’s release, giving pledges of his good behavior which were to prove embarrassing enough, and had carried him home to Providence. He had evidently interviewed at that time only the British authorities, for on his return home he wrote to James Warren (May 11, 1775):

Moses Brown, accompanied now by Benjamin Arnold, David Buffum, Thomas Steere, and Thomas Lapham, Jr., reached Cambridge on December 14. Though kindly received in person by General Washington, they were refused permission to enter Boston; but Washington suggested that they meet certain of their friends in Boston at the lines.115 Even this was refused by General Howe, and they had to content themselves with sending into the town to two Friends there, Ebenezer Pope and James Raymor, a draft for £100 with the promise of more money if needed. The draft, however, proved unavailing as Henry Lloyd, the merchant on whom it was drawn, was not in funds to pay it, and any alternative method of getting money into the town did not appear.116 Evidently the Friends themselves in Boston were not very anxious to undertake the delicate task and were not impressed with the need. The New England Committee reported to the Philadelphia Meeting on March 12, 1776: “The draft sent into Boston was not paid, which as it appears by our Friends’ letters and verbal accounts they were rather satisfied with, as they decline the task of distributing the monies under our limitations, saying ‘It having been a sufficient task to watch ourselves,’ &c., and further said it was not necessary to send them any monies at present they having some for present use to buy the necessaries of life.” “There is a gleam of hope,” they continue, “that that devoted town may again be open for its dispers’d inhabitants to go in and out. But we cannot rely upon the present prospect, the scene of things are at this juncture so precarious and uncertain.”117

In less than a week Howe had evacuated the town, and in forwarding to John Pemberton the above-quoted epistle Moses Brown could write (March 20):

At the same time Moses Brown explained that the New England Committee had allocated for distribution elsewhere all the funds received from Philadelphia, and offered to advance two or three hundred pounds of his own for use in Boston while waiting for advice about further contributions. This plan was not accepted, but a balance of £100 was ordered sent at once to Boston, and word was soon received of further funds available.119 Writing on June 15 from Newport, the Committee for Sufferings explains:

They therefore instructed Moses Brown, their treasurer, to draw the whole additional sum (£500) available.120

The actual distribution of money within Boston thus became one of the smallest and latest parts of the committee’s labors. The refugee problem outside of Boston proved a much more urgent and feasible undertaking. As the scope of this is given in statistical form in the reports printed in the Appendix, detailed description is unnecessary, though it is worth while to print here in full the beginning of the story, together with the account of the interview with Washington, as told in a letter of Moses Brown to William Wilson.121

Although the first party thus returned within eighteen days126 to their homes, plans were made to revisit the same territory again and again and to extend the investigation of need more widely. Some money was retained in Philadelphia in the expectation that some of the refugees might travel even that far; some were assisted in Providence. The distribution extended to the north well along the coast to Casco Bay, inland to Worcester, and south as far as Plymouth, though the main recipients were refugees from Boston and Charlestown in the neighboring towns. As time went on, the committee received reports of serious difficulty in Newport, and some of the Philadelphia funds were sent there, especially for the purchase of firewood. The situation on Nantucket was also very difficult.

Among other complications of the relief task was the refusal of many Friends to use the paper currency issued by the revolutionary government. In a letter to John Pemberton (Providence, April 30, 1776), Moses Brown explains the situation:

The contributions from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting were apparently closed and audited as early as September, 1776. The total given was £3,910 2s 1½d. The records indicate how much was given by each Quarterly and Monthly Meeting.128 In New England some money had been raised even before the Philadelphia effort, and perhaps Friends of New York also assisted. There is some evidence that even the more southerly Yearly Meetings contributed.129

In April, 1776, the Meeting for Sufferings in New England rendered a summary account of distributions to date amounting to £1,968 5s 2½d lawful money, “which hath been distributed in 2157 sums to 1472 different persons and families; numbering in the whole 5220 persons.” But when the final account was received in Philadelphia sixteen months later, some of the totals were doubled, there being, according to the lists, 3,030 named families.130 Since each list gives, besides the name of the head of the family, the number of persons in it, the place of present and former residence, the occupation of the breadwinner, and the religious affiliation, a source of information is here provided unlike the usual rolls of the great and important with which historians and genealogists prefer to deal. Of the families more than eight hundred were those of widows. Since the Quakers or “friendly” people listed are extremely few,131 the distribution evidently followed the nonsectarian intention of the donors. How far it was possible to avoid discriminating on political grounds or assisting those who promoted military measures on either side one cannot tell. The lists, like the correspondence of the distributors, are eloquent of the extent of human need.

It would be interesting to compare the lists of recipients with other evidence as to the names of the refugees from Boston. The great sums of money raised earlier in the colonies to help those in need as a result of the Boston Port Bill do not seem to have received so detailed an accounting. As the Quakers reported, many refugees were expected to be helped by the towns to which they had gone. There are two local lists which make an interesting comparison. One is entitled “The Names of Some of the Persons belonging to Boston and Charleston, who were relieved and assisted at Reading by the Town, in 1775.” There are about sixty of these “donation people,” several of whose names also appear later as recipients of Quaker relief.132 Similar, though briefer, is the list of “The Families and the number in each family which came from Boston to the Town of Concord as Donation Poor from Boston.”133 But the Quaker relief workers do not mention Concord. The towns in which they made the largest number of distributions were Lynn, Salem, Marblehead, Manchester, Marshfield, and Hingham, Massachusetts; Portsmouth and Newcastle, New Hampshire; Falmouth, Maine; and, later, Boston itself and Newport.

Automatically the situation gradually improved as the scene of war shifted elsewhere. Already in April, 1776, the Friends in New England wrote to Philadelphia: “Hearing of the distressed situation of the poor people in New York and the Southern Colonies, we can say but little to encourage a further sum to be sent this way, more than to give you a general account that there remain great numbers very poor and needy.”134 It was reported to the Meeting for Sufferings in New York in February, 1777, that some of the money raised in Philadelphia “for the relief of the necessitous in and about Boston” was available for like purpose in New York. The Meeting accepted the offer and undertook to raise funds also in their own meetings.135 In 1777 Philadelphia exchanged roles with Boston as to being occupied by the British. I find no evidence that Massachusetts contributed to relieve the sufferings in the Quaker city.136 For them, help was offered from another quarter: English Friends sent ships of provisions to various American ports, and in the spring of 1778 a donation of £2,000, Irish money, was put at the disposal of Philadelphia Quakers by their brethren in Ireland. This, however, they spent mainly on cases of need at a distance, such, for instance, as the frontier parts of South Carolina and Georgia. The war ended with a considerable amount of English and Irish relief money still unexpended, which Anthony Benezet, when he died in 1784, was trying to secure for the relief of Negroes unlawfully held in bondage or in other circumstances of special need.137

That the recipients in New England appreciated the Quaker relief is most likely and is in fact attested by the reports of the distributors. The difficulty of the task was quite recompensed in the minds of these latter by the appreciation of those to whom they ministered. The gratitude was doubtless private rather than public, although in the records of the town of Salem for December 29, 1775, and May 18, 1776, stand votes of thanks to the Friends.138 Apparently the histories of neither Boston, the Siege of Boston, nor the Revolution in New England make reference to this episode. There is no evidence that Moses Brown’s forecast was correct when he said: “The name Quaker though little known in these parts will be remembered and perhaps some may no more think it reproach.”139 Experience of more recent years shows that when men have once adopted the way of the sword, they have little real understanding of neutral benefactions and short memories of gifts prompted by a spirit which in other circumstances might seem to them suggestive of a better way.

Appendix

No. 1. Cont^g the list of near 150 Donations to Families whose numbers make upwards of 400 persons being the Inhabitants of Marblehead Salem Gloucester & Manchester & the dispersed inhabitants of Boston & Charlestown amounting to £120 8s 6d

No. 2. Acc^t of Distributions in Marblehead, Salem, Manchester & Gloucester on Cape Ann, and to the Dispers’d Inhabitants of Boston & Charleston. 274 Donations—the Families Cont^g 838 persons