Chasing down James Proctor

James Proctor was a New Englander from Boston who was a quarter gunner on the Sirius, which he joined at Portsmouth on 20 December, 1786, aged 25. The Sirius initially  had an armament of six cannonades and four six-pounders but Governor Arthur Phillip demanded she be fitted with 'ten more of the six-pounders ... and the iron-work necessary for the carriages. Having the ironwork, the guns can at any time be mounted, and may, I presume, in future be of great use to me on board or on ashore, as the service may require.' [Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia. A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney, 1989, pp. 294-295; Governor Phillip to Secretary Stephens, [London] October 31, 1786, in Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1, Pt.2, Mona Vale, 1978, p.28.]

As a quarter gunner, Proctor was probably a former common seaman and was responsible for the working of four guns. His main task was to assist the gunner's mate in the maintenance of his four  guns, and, unlike the gun captain who was responsible for the gun crew while in action, was on the official establishment. He received a wage of two shillings more than an able seaman. [N. A. M Rodger, The Command of the Ocean. A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815,London, 2004, p.393; N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World. An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy, New York, 1996, p.26.]

James Proctor's career in New South Wales is easy enough to trace. There is no record of him before the wreck of the Sirius at Norfolk Island on 19 March 1790, though he undoubtedly went on the seven month  voyage to the Cape of Good Hope with Captain John Hunter which departed Port Jackson on 2 October 1788 for desperately needed flour. Proctor was so impressed by his time on Norfolk Island despite the hardships, that he sought and gained a discharge from the Sirius after nearly a year's sojourn on the island and received a 60 acre grant for farm, ten hilly and the rest level. By 1 October, 1792 he had cultivated twelve of his acres, and by the following year was able to employ John Read for twelve months as a labourer. Tantalisingly, I have to date been unable to find any further record of this John Read, though presumably he was a convict. By 25 May, 1794, Proctor was selling grain to government stores and had rented four acres to William Wright. 

Wright was a convict who had made good. Convicted in London for stealing a watch and gown in an occupied house from a woman who first mistook him in the night for her husband, he was sentenced to seven years transportation in September 1784, and was very lucky not to be sent to Africa. Instead he spent nearly two and a half years on the London hulks. Sent out to Botany Bay on the Scarborough, he was able to prove himself once he was dispatched on the Supply to Norfolk Island in January 1790. Given a small plot to support himself on. By April 1792 he was off government stores and working for the island's free settlers., whence he saved enough capital to rent farm land off James Proctor.

By June 1794 Proctor was living with Mary Allen alias Conner, who had been convicted, aged 27 at the Old Bailey for stealing a cocked hat from a hatter in Bloomsbury. When the shop owner's son tried to arrest her she hit him on the head with a sieve while her friend gave him a good kicking, all to no avail. Just over two weeks after her arrest, she was delivered to the women's transport, the Lady Penrhyn. Ann Davis, the first woman to be hung in Sydney Town ,shared a hut with her.,  Allen was a witness at her trial for theft, and with every other convict, a spectator at the hanging, where Davis was dragged drunk, barely able to stand, to the scaffold. Mary Allen had been sent to Norfolk on the Sirius on 4 March 1790 and, like Proctor, endured its shipwreck. Probably she was  with Proctor for the whole of his time on the island, but i this is not recorded. anywhere [The details of the persons mentioned above are taken from the relevant entries in Gillen, op. cit.]

Tracing Proctor's earlier life before he came to New South Wales is far more difficult. At the time of the siege of Boston in 1775-1776 he would have been fourteen or fifteen. It is probable his father was the Boston Loyalist Thomas Proctor of Marblehead, who had been a fervent supporter of the disgraced Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutcheson as far back as 1774, While we know that family almost certainly left Boston  in March 1776 for Halifax with the British fleet, little else in certain about them. It is unlikely the Thomas Proctor who may have been James's father was the same Thomas Proctor who was identified in 1784 as a lieutenant in the loyalist Second American Regiment, attained of treason and had his property confiscated. [Lorenzo Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, Vol. 3, 1864, p.568.] The 2nd American regiment was originally the Irish Catholic regiment, the Volunteers of Ireland, raised in Philadelphia in 1777. It isimprobable that James Proctor was of  Catholic descent, since the Proctors were a famous Massachusetts Puritan family. Indeed, the New England Puritans, whether Patriot or Loyalist, were vehemently anti-Catholic.He was not related to the Proctors of Nova Scotia, from whence Deputy Adjutant David Collins of the Second Battalion Marines would find a wife in June 1777. [John Currey, David Collins. A Colonial Life, Melbourne, 2000, p.25.]
It is probable James Proctor joined the Royal Navy in America at some time during the War of American Independence, but I have not as yet found any record of him. He had progressed from ordinary seaman to quarter gunner and at war's end seems to have decided to remain in the navy, probably because there were few jobs ellsewhere because of a post-war depression. We know, too, that he was one of those seamen from whom Governor Phillip 'took his pick, all young men that were called seamen, 160 in number, no boys or women allowed.' [John C. Dann, (ed.) The NagleNagle, Sailor, from the Year 1775 to 1841, New York, 1988, p.77.] Evidently, James Proctor was well thought of by somebody, since we know Phillip chose his crew with great care.

While in New South Wales, Proctor clearly performed his duties as a seaman well, as can be inferred from the ease with which he was given his discharge and a land grant on Norfolk Island. Proctor and Mary Allen remained together until his death on 21 October, 1801. The property he left Mary was worth 60 pounds when she left Norfolk Island for Van Diemen's Land in May 1808. By then it consisted of a large two storey house, a second building 10 by 12 feet, a one storey wooden and floored barn, four thatched log houses, 28 acres of cleared land and 21 acres uncleared land. At her leaving, the authorities rated her, as a woman convict,  a '2nd class settler.' At the time she was living with another convict, William Atkins, and caring for his three children by his previous marriage. [Gillen, op. cit., p. 5.]

Christmas in and around Boston - 1775

On Christmas Eve 1775, a Sunday, the whole of New England was in the grip of a heavy snowstorm. Around Boston a foot of snow had fallen and temperatures dropped to the low twenties. [Captain Francis Hutcheson to Major General Frederick Haldemand, Boston, December 25, in Clark (ed.) Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Vol. 3, Washington, 1968, p.237; David McCullough, 1776. America and Britain at War, London, 2005, p.67].No pre-Christmas celebrations are recorded for that day or night in either British or American sources that I have seen. Perhaps the blizzard stopped them, though more likely it was in keeping with. the low-key celebration of Christmas that seems characteristic of the eighteenth century.

In Boston General William Howe, the British Commander-in-Chief,  laboured that day over a letter to Vice Admiral James Young at the British naval base at Antigua in the West Indies. Boston was chronically short of provisions because of 'the Hazards which Ships run in coming upon this Coast with Supplies when the Winter Season is so far advanced'. In desperation he had decided to send two transports to Antigua to purchase provisions there. He understood 'the markets there to be very full at this time.' If both ships could not be filled, he begged the Admiral 'to lade the smallest 'and to send her off immediately to this Place. after having provided Seamen and Guns for her Protection' or 'a Ship of War to convoy her to this Post.as the early arrival of a Vessel with Provisions may be of the last Consequence to His Majesty's Garrison in this Quarter.' He sought, too, a convoy of victualling Ships from Young. [Major General William Howe to Vice Admiral James Young, Antigua, Boston, 24 December, 1775 in Clark (ed.) NDAR,Vol. 3, Washington, 1968, p.224.]

Christmas Day broke 'clear, bright and cold.'. [Scheer and Rankin, Rebels and Redcoats, Cleveland, 1957, p.103.] It was a disastrous day for the Boston schoolmaster John Leach. Leach was suspected of rebel sympathies, having been earlier imprisoned for communicating with General George Washington's besieging army. The British Light Dragoons had been allotted Leach's wharf. He woke to find them tearing it down for firewood for winter fuel. The wharf destroyed, the soldiers threatened his school-house. The schoolmaster's protests to General Howe met with little sympathy. Leach denied his disloyalty and as an Englishman, demanded 'the protection of my property, and if my House was pulled down, I would follow him to England, or to China (Leach had been to China) for satisfaction.' To Leach's surprise Howe's response to this outburst was 'friendly.' The general referred Leach to his subordinates. That subordinate may have been Deputy Adjutant David Collins, who would later sail and serve with Governor Arthur Phillip in the convict colony of New South Wales, since Collins was on duty in Boston for Christmas Day. Whoever the subordinate was, they delayed giving orders for the destruction at Leach's wharf to stop until after the soldiers had broken into the school-house. The school-house was saved, but the Light Dragoons plundered 'valuable Books and Instruments, Drawings, Colours, Brushes, several Curious Optick Glasses and sundry things of Value that I brought from India and China, that I cannot replace for money.' [Allen French, The Siege of Boston, New York, 1911, pp.115-117. (General Books Edition.); William Howe, General Sir William Howe's Orderly Book, London, 1690, p.178.] We know that David Collins was a man with a deep interest in anthropology and it is hard not to conclude that he may have profited out of the morning's looting if he was the subordinate to whom Leach had been referred.

Collins had long been spared the rigours of the posting at Bunker Hill through the influence of his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Tooker Collins who had been in Boston for several months. This was not the case for other soldiers stationed under tents in the freezing outpost, where detachments were now stationed for a fortnight at a time to spare them the hardship of the Boston winter. Their past fortnight had been 'very Quiet without any insult from the Rebels.' Like the rest of the regiments that Christmas Day, they were provided with 'one Butt of Porter ...to make they Men Keep Christmas day.' [Captain Frances Hutcheson to Major General Frederick Haldemand, December 25, 1775 in op. cit., p.238.] 

The storm's end meant the resumption of normal activities. With the bitter easterly wind gone two hundred marines embarked on board the Scarborough for Savannah, Georgia, their hope to pick up much needed supplies of rice.  Their destination was not general knowledge. Rumours circulated the town that they were bound for the Bermudas 'where it is said the Rebels have a Magazine of Military tores' or for Rhode Island. [Lt. William Feilding to Earl of Denbigh, Boston, Jany 19th, 1776 in Balderston and Syrett, The Lost War, New York, 1975, p.59.]

Of particular interest to the British was the fact that the rebels had stopped working on the redoubt they had been constructing at Lechmere Point. The bitter cold had brought a temporary end to Patriot exertions.[Captain Francis Hutcheson to Major General Frederick Haldemand, Boston, December 25, 1775 in Clark, op. cit., p.237.] It did not occur to the British that Christmas celebrations might also be occurring in the American camp.

General George Washington's Christmas pre-occupations were as grave as General Howe's. A lack of ammunition prevented him from using what little cannon he had. His only hope was that with the icy winter the Boston Harbour would freeze over, enabling his troops to make a land approach. This did not happen. [Annual Register, 1776 in David H. Murdoch (ed.) Rebellion in America, Moreover, he was faced with a continuing shortage of men, as the militia slipped away, their terms of enlistments ending, or absenting themselves for Christmas furlough. He had but 8,500 men left along a greatly extended line to face a superior British force.of 10,000. [George Washington to John Hancock, Cambridge, 25 Decr 1775 in Clark (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 3, Washington, 1968, pp.232-233; Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause. The American Revolution, 1765-1789, New York, 2007, p.302.]

According to William Gordon, the contemporary historian of the American Revolution, who at the time was the Congregationalist Minister to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in Watertown, some miles from the camps around Boston, one American soldier spent his Christmas Day making 'a note of the numbers killed by the firings of the enemy on both the Cambridge and Roxbury sides of the rebel camp. This soldier calculated the British had fired 'upwards of 2,000 shot and shell' since the beginning of hostilities at Charlestown Heights, and lately threw more than 300 bombs at Ploughed Hill and 100 at Lechmere's Point. All up this curious militiaman decided that the British had killed no more than nineteen patriots, giving himself a peculiar kind of Christmas cheer.

Thus ended Christmas in and around Boston in the year of the siege.

China and North Korea - An Historical Perspective

This post is an attempt to bring some perspective into the current debate about the relationship between China and North Korea. I intend to demonstrate that the relationship between China and Korea, especially North Korea goes back for more than a millennium and needs to be understood in that context. This synthesis is based on material in John Keay's China. A History, London, 2008., though the conclusions drawn are my own

The first firm evidence for Chinese Korean relationships dates from about the first century AD.from the Han Dynasty. under the emperor Wudi. Han relationships with North Korea brought adaptiation to Chinese ways, notably in paper-making and literacy and, probably most significantly, Confucianism. While there was clearly some military conquest by China, relationships were mostly peaceful, since in this era there was no threat to China from the south. The Hans appear to have been forced out of the Korean peninsula some time in the latter part of the first century or second century AD.

During the late sixth-early seventh century the Sui dynasty mounted several disastrous invasions of North Korea, the most significant being the three failed invasions under the emperor Yangdi in 614. For a whole host of reasons Yangdi was, to put it mildly, a most unpopular emperor. His defeats in North Korea ultimately resulted in his assassination in 618, the end of the Sui Dynasty and the rise of the Tang Dynasty.

The Tang emperor Taizong was, unfortunately, driven to emulate his Sui predecessor when it came to North Korea. His two attempts to impose Chinese suzerainty on North Korea failed, the first invasion barely getting into the peninsula before being driven back. The second in 647 suffered a similar fate. Not until 669 would Tang troops enter Pyongyang. Then, under Wu Zetian, protectorates were established over the northern part of the peninsula with only the southern Korean kingdom of Silla surviving. The Tangs remained in northern Korea until 672, and were completely expelled by the resurgent Silla kingdom in 672, according to Korean sources. Nevertheless, Silla would acknowledge Chinese suzerainty and pay tribute to all dynasties up to the Southern Song in 1259.

The Mongol invasion of China and the encirclement of the Southern Song by the Mongol hordes in the same year saw a bloody invasion of the Korean peninsula and forced Korean submission and a new acknowledgement of Mongol suzerainty. The Koreans appear to have been left in relative peace until 1274, when they were forced to be the reluctant staging point of Khubilai's disastrous attempt at invading Japan. The Japanese did not forget. In the 1590s they invaded Korea, forcing the Ming Dynasty into a long, unwanted war.

The next significant involvement of Korea with the Chinese came under the victorious Manchus in 1620 when the Manchu Hong Taiji transformed Chinese military strategy via artillery and siegecraft, and the formation of the famed Manchu Bannerman, who recruited many Koreans for their regiments.

In the sixteenth century Western observers at the Chinese court, like the Jesuit Matthew Ricci, were appalled by Sino-Japanese warfare on the Korean peninsula, but they were bystanders. By and in the nineteenth century,  Korea had sent regular missions to the Manchu emperors, but essentially they maintained their independence. Japanese attempts to follow Western example and establish treaty ports on the Korean peninsula, as the West had done with China, led to the various Western powers, with Chinese encouragement, seek to open their own treaty ports on the peninsula. An internal Korean rebellion in 1894 resulted in the Korean king seeking Chinese troops. The Japanese responded by sending larger forces of their own. The result was war between the Quing court and the Japanese. For the Chinese the war was a complete disaster, leading to a Japanese invasion of China and a humiliating peace in 1895, which virtually made Korea a Japanese protectorate. Chinese influence in Korea was at an end, or so it seemed.

To understand what happened next we have to fast forward to the end of the Pacific War in 1945. As Japanese defeat seemed certain Soviet Russia and the United States rushed to occupy Japanese territory in Korea. At war's end the peninsula was partitioned along the line of occupation, the 38th parallel. In June 1950 North Korea, now Communist and sharing an ideological brotherhood with the victorious Chinese Communists who had established the People's Republic of China in 1949, invaded the American supported south in the name of Korean 'integration'. The subsequent Korean War was fought to a stalemate, with the Peoples' Republic backing Northern Korean Communists with the participation of  up to a million soldiers from the People's Liberation Army. Korea, when the armistice finally came in 1954, was divided into communist and capitalist blocs. China maintains its support of its intransigent southern ally to this day.

But, looking back over the millennium of history what can we conclude about the Chinese-North Korean relationship? Clearly, it goes back much further than a sympathy between two Communist allies. China has shed much blood over and in support of Korea, including an invasion of their own soil by the Japanese, followed by a humiliating capitulation (1895). For centuries the Korean kingdoms were tributaries of Imperial China. To a limited extent, Korea was acculturated by its giant northern neighbour, in much the way, say ,that modern Australia was acculturated by Great Britain. It is not a bond that will be easily broken. North Korea in particular has always been viewed by the Chinese, Imperial, republican and Communist, as a legitimate Chinese sphere of influence. This brief essay is an attempt to explain why, regardless of the antics of the North Korean Communist dictatorship, such a strong bond exists between the two nations. 

And as to their joint future? that is speculation, and speculation is not the business of history.

The Interrupted Performance of General Johnny Burgoyne's 'The Blockade of Boston' January 8, 1776

Boston under siege in January 1776 was a most unpleasant place to be. Fuel was scarce, so scarce that the British Commander-in-Chief, William Howe had authorised the pulling down and burning of the houses and wharves belonging to rebel supporters. There were no fresh provisions. Expected storeships from Britain had failed to arrive. Smallpox had broken out, but fortunately had not reached epidemic proportions. In the bitter winter, though not so bitter as to freeze up Boston Harbor and allow the Americans rebels under Washington to stage an attack to the Boston peninsula's Back Bay from the west, the greatest danger for the British was boredom. To the town's north east, soldiers froze in their tents on the Charlestown Peninsula on the redoubt on Bunker Hill, secured with much blood the previous June and in the outposts on Charlestown Neck, beyond which was rebel-held territory.

British officers and the town's wealthier Loyalists tried to boost morale with balls, concerts, and most importantly, plays, which were performed twice a week on the upper floor of Faneuil Hall, former meeting place of the rebel Sons of Liberty, now 'fitted up very Elegantly for a Theatre' [Lieut. William Feilding to Lord Denbigh, Boston, Jany. 19, 1776 in Marion Balderston and David Syrett (ed.) The Lost War. letters from British Officers during the American Revolution, New York, 1975. p. 58] much to the chagrin of Boston Puritans.

Though theatre had flourished in other major colonial towns, even Philadelphia, to the scorn of the Quakers, since 1750 the Massachusetts General Court had banned the performance of plays because they caused 'great mischiefs', militated against 'industry and frugality' and, most importantly, increased 'immorality, impiety and a contempt for religion.' [Jacqueline Barbara Carr, After the Siege. A Social History of Boston, 1775-1800, Boston, p.199]. This all changed with the arrival of General Johnny Burgoyne, who had set up the Faneuil Hall theatre by about December 1775.

Burgoyne was not only a noted soldier and inept politician. He was also a celebrated playwright. His two-act musical comedy, The Maid of Oaks, (later staged in Boston) had opened to a very mixed reception at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on November 12, 1774. Horace Walpole thought it 'as dull as the author could not help making it' though Burgoyne's modern biographer notes the 'work became a prototype of a new form of musical comedy, which reflected the influence of middle-class tastes upon dramatic productions.' [Richard Hargrove, Jr. General John Burgoyne. Newark, 1983, pp.63-64]. And Boston was nothing if not middle-class. 

So, on the night of January 8, 1776, the British officers off-duty and the Boston Loyalist elite flocked to Faneuil Hall for performances of Susanna Centlivre's The Busy Body (a 1709 farce) and the premiere of Burgoyne's The Blockade of Boston. The latter was looked forward to with much enthusiasm, as a biting satire on the besieging rebels with all the roles being performed by officers. It was not to be. Across the water the same rebels were planning a raid on the Charlestown peninsula, timed for 9 o'clock, the exact time the curtain was due to rise on Burgoyne's musical fare.

Major Thomas Knowlton with one hundred men had orders 'to go and burn some houses which lay at the foot of Bunker's Hill and at the head of' the now ruined village of 'Charles Town' and 'to bring of the Guard which we expected consisted of an officer and thirty men.' The guard was not there, but with much noise the rebels did burn 'eight houses and brought with them a' drunken 'Sergeant and 4' inebriated 'privates of the 10th regiment, and a woman they were entertaining in one of the deserted houses' A fifth man was killed because he resisted. On Bunker Hill the flashing of the musketry from every quarter of that fort showed the confusion of its defenders - firing some into the air, some in the Mystick river; in short, they fired at random and thought they were attacked at every quarter.' [George Washington to Continental Congress, January 11, 1776 in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript sources, 1745-1799, John C. Fitzpatrick, Editor, American Memory, The George Washington Papers of the Library of Congress, 1741-1799, http://memory.loc.gov 6/8/06; Extract of a letter from Cambridge, January 9, 1776, in Peter Force (ed.) American Archives,S4-V4-p.612] General Howe was deeply angered when he heard of the  confused British reaction but their confusion was nothing compared to what happened at Faneuil Hall.

An orderly sergeant outside the theatre raised the alarm crying 'Turn Out! Turn Out!' but the audience burst into applause at his appearance, mistaking him for a character in the play. When the applause died down 'he again cried out, 'What the d---l are ye about? If ye won't believe me ye need only to go to the door, and there ye'll hear and see both!' ' Finally convinced the alarm was serious, the officers rushed to their alarm stations, 'one officer was running to his Corps in his petticoats, and another with his faced blacked and in a Negro dress.' Others 'calling out for water to get the paint and smut off their faces, women fainting, etc.' Ensign Martin Hunter believed 'The enemy knew the night it was to be performed and made an attack on the mill at Charleston at the very hour the farce began;' [General Martin Hunter's Journal in G. D. Scull (ed.) The Evelyns in America, Oxford, 1881, pp. 189-190, f/n; Lieut. William Feilding to lord Denbigh, op. cit.,; cited in David McCullough, 1776. America and Britain at War, London, 2005, p.75] In fact, the Americans did not hear about the play's premiere until three days after the raid. [Cambridge, January 11, 1776 in Peter Force (ed.) American Archives, S4-V.4_p. 613, f/n.]

The piece was finally performed without interruption at the end of January, along with Marlowe's Tamerlane. One member of the audience thought '[t]he Characters of the Yankee General [Washington] and the Figure of his Soldiers is inimitable, the Genl: a man who cant Read but can Speachifye, and tell his soldiers they are to obey the Voice of the people in the streets, the Joy the Rebels are in, in reading the Resolve of the Mayor and City of London in favour of the Con-ti-nen-tal Congress in Ph-li-del-phia pa-per is truly Characteristick.' Another thought 'the Audience Expected something better from the Abilities of the Authors. its but a poor performance.' [Lieutenant William Feilding to Lord Denbigh, Boston Jany 28th, 1776 in Balderston and Syrett, op. cit., p.64; Francis Hutcheson to Major General Frederick Haldemand, Boston, January, 25th, 1776 in William Bell Clark, (ed.) Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Vol. 3, Washington, 1968, p.970.

Within less than two months, the despised rebel general would drive the British from Boston, never to return, Legal theatre would not return to Boston until 1794. [Jacqueline Barbara Carr, op. cit., p.221.]

The Travails of Robert Gordon Menzies in the 1940-41 Minority Government

In my last post I considered the relationship between Labor's John Curtin and the United Australia Party's )UAP) Robert Menzies during the Menzies' minority Government of 1940-41. In this post I am going to concentrate on Menzies; difficulties within the UAP over the period of his minority Government. My intention is to show how recent Liberal Party claims that Curtin refused Menzies a pair to travel to London in 1941 are disingenuous, at best, if not completely untruthful.

The election debacle of September 1940 had grave ramifications for the conservative Coalition. Within the Country Party there was a fight for the leadership between 'Black Jack" McEwen and Earle Page. Artie Fadden was elected to the leadership as a compromise candidate and the former United Country Party (UCP) leader, Archie Cameron, not even nominated for the leadership, left the party in high dudgeon and joined the UAP. Arthur Coles, elected as aVictorian Independent, also joined the UAP. In his reconstruction of the UAP Cabinet, Menzies gave the post of Treasurer to Fadden, much to the ire of the UAP's Percy Spender, who had been Treasurer in the former Menzies Government. He had gained the post because in April 1939 Earle Page had taken the UCP out of the Coalition because of his dislike of Menzies whom he had blamed for hounding the UAP's founding Leader, Joe Lyons, to his death. Spender, instead, was made Minister for the Army.

Negotiations with Labor and Lang Labor after the September election led to the formation of the Advisory War Council (AWC). Most significantly, for the argument I am currently advancing, John Curtin, the Labor Opposition leader guaranteed not to use Labor's numbers in the Parliament to embarrass the Government in its war effort. On 24 January, 1941, accompanied by Frederick Shedden, the Secretary for Defence, Menzies departed Australia for London via the Netherlands East Indies, Singapore and the Middle East. He was determined to induce Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, to be specific as to how he intended to reinforce Singapore and draw up a plan for the defence of the Far East. He wanted, too, an exact explanation from Churchill as to how he would make good his pledge of defending Australia from Japanese invasion.

Much of the detail of Menzies' discussions with the British Government and British defence authorities need not concern us. However, one detail is significant for its effect on politics back in Australia. In discussions with the British Foreign Office Menzies was shocked to discover the British had reservations about reinforcing Singapore with aircraft to guard against war in the Far East because the planes could be ill-spared from the European war. Nor would they engage in war with Japan unless American intervention was guaranteed. He warned the British that if the Japanese invaded the Netherlands East Indies , 'the whole Australian defence policy and plans would have to be recast.'

In an attempt to change Foreign Office thinking, Menzies gave a luncheon speech to the Foreign Press Association on 3 March. He reiterated publicly the views he had expressed to the Foreign Office and called for frankness with Japan and a 'proper blend of friendliness and plain statement'. Australia, he warned, he warned would nevertheless defend herself and her vital interests.

Back home, Curtin, Beasley and the press accused him of minimising the seriousness of the position in the Pacific and contradicting warnings the AWC had issued in February about the Japanese threat. This response disgusted Menzies and reinforced an unfortunate (and untrue) perception in the Australian electorate that he was, somehow, an appeaser of Fascism. By April Spender, concerned by Australian defeats in Northern Africa and Greece did not augur well for the Government's popularity or for Army morale, tried to persuade the War Cabinet to appoint a Commander-in-Chief  of the AMF (Australian Military Forces) to be designated "Commander-in-Chief Australia'. Because of opposition from the Military Board and Defence Committee, he was forced to compromise with the appointment 'of the GOC (General Officer Commanding) of the Field Army'. His suggestion was adopted to counter strong political pressure being applied in the Advisory War Council by Labor members about the need to give Australian defence priority over Imperial commitments. This strategem temporarily squelched Labor protests. The appointment was not made until 11 July, but did not clearly define the lines of authority and command within the military bureaucracy for the appointee, General Sir Iven Mackay.)
Menzies, now in Washington, was not impressed when Fadden cabled him about the decision. Perhaps he became suspicious that Spender had pretensions to the leadership of the UAP. On the trip home on 25 April the thought of political rivalries in Canberra gave him 'a sick feeling of repugnance and apprehension.' On 13 June, following a further Australian defeat in Crete earlier that month, Menzies decided to free himself from the pressure of administrative duties to 'better exercise a general supervision over the wart effort on the military and economic fronts.' This culminated in his public broadcast on 17 June, exhorting the Australian public to an 'all-in' effort. On 26 June he re-organised his Cabinet. But the Cabinet reconstruction brought into the open dissension within the UAP about Menzies' leadership, especially from those who had been passed over for a portfolio.
The political pressure for the Government to be seen doing something for the defence of the continent had intensified since April. On 28 July, a joint Franco-Japanese protectorate was declared over Indo-China. Australia, following the lead of Britain and the United States, froze Japanese assets. Forde and Makin in the Advisory War Council, on 29 July forced the Government on the defensive about its policy of concentrating Australia's defence in the Middle East and the Mediterranean in the face of Japanese bellicosity. Spender pointed out that the Government had despatched brigades of the 8th Division to Malaya and Darwin, had taken steps to call up 35,000 men in the home forces for full-time duty, including four detachments at Rabaul and Thursday Island, and had instituted a more efficient training programme for the militia less than a week before. Spender's argument ignored the chronic equipment deficiencies within the AMF about which the Labor men had recently been informed.
Menzies, meanwhile, was having serious problems within the UAP. At the end of July he had fended off a challenge to his leadership exacerbated by calls within the Labor Party for him to be deposed.and grew more and more preoccupied with attempts within his own party to topple him and was less able to give full attention to his Ministerial obligations. In a desperate attempt to salvage his leadership he suggested that he might go once more to London where, through the British War Cabinet he might be able to better influence decisions that would affect Australia's defence. The former World War I Prime Minister, the ancient Billy Hughes,  who once more had visions of himself as Australia's war-time leader, strongly urged this idea on his threatened leader. Labor would have none of it. Convinced that the Menzies Government was close to derelict in its responsibility for the nation's home defence, and confident that they alone could save Australia from the looming Japanese threat, Curtin refused to give Menzies a pair for what he believed was a second useless trip to London. They knew Menzies would fall if he remained in Australia.
On 28 August Menzies resigned as Prime Minister, leaving the way open for Fadden, a candidate thought more acceptable to the electorate. Fadden had no illusions about the task before him. He made no changes to the Menzies Cabinet, and determined to use Meanzies' expertise, allowed him to retain the portfolio of Defence Co-ordination.
It is clear from the above that Curtin refused to pair Menzies' second trip to London because he believed the Coalition was unfit to manage the war, a view that was shared by Arthur Coles, again an Independent, who in October crossed the floor of the House and put the Labor Party into Government. When the current shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, claimed Curtin had refused Menzies a pair to go to London, he can only have been referring to this latter occasion. That he neglected to explain the circumstances behind the refusal of a pair, namely that in time of great peril, Australia was being governed by a disunited party incapable of dealing with the threat of Japanese invasion in the near future, and which had left the country in a state on unpreparedness to meet such an invasion, at the very least puts his assertion in the realm of a half-truth, to say the least.

The Curtin Opposition and the Menzies Minority Government of 1940-41

Over the past few days the Abbott Opposition to Gillard's minority Government has been putting around the furphy that somehow John Curtin, Australian wartime Opposition Leader, was involved in attempts to destabilise Robert Menzies' wartime Government, as a justification for its current obstructiveness.  It is time to put this outrageous lie to rest. I propose to do that by examining in some detail the Curtin Opposition's relationship withe the Menzies 1940-41 Government.

After the 1940 election Menzies, seeking a way out of the political difficulties created by the Independents holding the balance of power, approached Curtin to form a National Government. Curtin responded by suggesting the Labor proposal of an Advisory War Council. After some negotiation the parties arrived at an agreement. The Labor Party promised to co-operate with the Government in its attempts to strengthen the war effort, to deal with internal security matters and in preparations for the immediate postwar period. It would not use its numbers in the Parliament to embarrass the Government in its war effort. (This last condition is worth noting. It puts the lie to Joe Hockey's claim that Curtin did not pair Menzies when Menzies went to London and Washington in January 1941.) All members of the Council, Menzies, Fadden, Spender and Hughes for the Government, Curtin, Forde, along with Makin for Labor and Beasley for Lang Labor were sworn in 'to respect all confidences.'

On 13 February, 1941, after an Advisory War Council meeting held about two and a half weeks after Menzies had departed for London to impress on Churchill the potential danger Australia faced from Japan, Curtin issued a joint statement with the acting Prime Minister, Artie Fadden that 'effective preparatory measures' were being taken to put Australia on a war footing. Curtin faced severe criticism within the Parliamentary Labor Party for his association with the joint warnings when Fadden was forced to justify his statements against the charge that he was a panic merchant. Eddie Ward, the Labor member for East Sydney, labelled the warnings a hoax. To counter this, Fadden called a secret session of Parliament to discuss the impending Japanese threat, and the measures taken to counter that threat. This was not achieved without drama. Eddie Ward refused to give an undertaking to keep secret matters disclosed at the closed session and was ejected from the House. His behaviour resulted from his conviction that the Menzies led .coalition was not fit to govern and should be attacked on any grounds regardless of the danger to national security. 

Menzies returned to Australia at the end of April, 1941 On 27 June Eddie Ward seconded a Caucus motion 'that in the interests of the people and for the safety of the nation' the Labor Party pledge itself to defeat Menzies in the House 'not later than the next Budget.' This gave the Party just over a two month deadline. The motion was nullified by a Curtin supported amendment.

Menzies was having serious problems within his United Australia Party. At the end of July he had fended off a challenge to his leadership exacerbated by calls from within the Labor Party for him to be deposed. Despite pressure from Dr. H. V. Evatt, who had pronounced himself Curtin's natural successor when it appeared the Labor leader might lose his seat in the 1940 election, and from Beasley, Curtin refused to commit himself publicly to Menzies' overthrow. 

At the suggestion of some of his Cabinet colleagues Menzies put forward the idea that he might go again to London, so the Australian voice could be 'directly heard in the place in which the major decisions are inevitably made' - the British War Cabinet. Hughes, his eyes on the Prime Ministership yet again, was one of the most forceful advocates of this plan. But Labor, with the balance of power in the House of Representatives, would not give their assent to the visit. They believed the Prime Minister should be in Australia to direct the administration of the war effort and knew Menzies would fail if forced to stay in Australia. (This is the only instance where Curtin denied Menzies a pair, and, under the circumstances facing Menzies, Labor's attitude is perfectly understandable politically.) On 28 August, after consulting his wife and parents, Menzies bowed to intra-party pressure and resigned.

George Johnston at Bunker Hill -Reflections on New Evidence

A little while ago I did a post on eleven year old George Johnston's experiences at Bunker Hill. My interpretation of the evidence for Johnston's action was based on several assumptions implied in the evidence I had gathered to that date: 1) that Johnston was in Boston with his parents  2) that he had not yet joined the Marines 3)  that consequently he was a spectator not a participant in the battle of Bunker Hill 4) that because he was with his wife in Boston, Johnston's father, Captain David Johnston was nursed by his wife in their rented residence in Boston.

New evidence that has come to light has overturned all these assumptions. Young George actually joined the Marines as a ten year old in October 1774 and came to Boston alone with his father in January 1775. His father went went with Lord Percy's First Brigade to relief Lt. Colonel Francis Smith at Lexington after the latter's disastrous retreat from Concord. Young George remained in Boston.

Bunker Hill was George's first experience of battle. He was in the rear line of the third attack against the Breed's Hill redoubt, where, according to the Johnston family tradition, he took the regimental standard from the hands of a dying ensign and rushed to the front of the battle. It is unlikely he saw his father, seriously wounded in the chest during the storming of the Breed's Hill redoubt, until he was brought down to the beach at the battle's end. David Johnston's wound was most likely treated in one of the hastily established regimental hospitals in Boston town., Though the wound was serious, he did recover, leaving his son behind in Boston when he was returned to England with the rest of the wounded several months later.

My narrative of George Johnston's time in Boston changed because new evidence came to light. This raises interesting questions about the nature of history. How can two completely different narratives, both based on reasonable evidence, arise out of the same sequence of events. The first narrative, in an earlier post, obviously was partly, though not entirely, fiction. The second narrative is probably the more accurate. So how close to fiction can history get?  Or, to put it another way, when is history wrong and when is it right, if it is ever right, once you stray beyond the basic established facts of a narrative? These are among the questions about the philosophy of history I have pondered most of my adult life, but as is ever the case with philosophy have never been able to come up with a definitive answer.They are worth pondering, even if they are irresolvable.

Independents in the Australian Federal Parliament - A War-time Case Study

The 21 September 1940 Australian federal election did not augur well for the conservative parties with dissension in the United Australia Party (UAP) and a United Country Party much discontented under the rambunctious leadership of Archie Cameron who had succeeded Earle Page. Both the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the UAP-UCP campaigned on the issue of who was best fitted to lead the nation in war. However, there were significant side issues of petrol rationing and a defence of the sectional interests of wheat growers in the Wimmera. The latter campaign resulted in the election of Alex Wilson as an Independent. He was accompanied into Parliament by Arthur Coles, another Independent, who was determined to goad the major parties to a more effective and united war effort. When the poll was declared, Labor and the coalition had gained 36 seats each, with the Independents holding the balance of power in the House of Representatives. John Curtin, the Labor leader, narrowly held his seat of Fremantle where the poll was in doubt for some days. The UAP retained power in the Senate.

The election debacle resulted in a fight for the leadership within the Country Party. Artie Fadden became compromise acting leader over John McEwen and Page, and thus Deputy Prime Minister. Not even nominated for Country Party leadership Cameron left the party in disgust and joined the UAP. Coles, a fervent supporter of the UAP Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, joined the UAP.

The intra-party infighting in mid to late 1941 that led to Menzies resigning the UAP leadership in August 1941 need not concern us greatly. His resignation left the way open for Fadden to become Prime Minister because he was thought a candidate more acceptable to the electorate. On 3 October Arthur Coles,  -who had again turned Independent after Menzies' fall - dissatisfied with the defence policies of the coalition and disillusioned with UAP disloyalty to their former leader, crossed the floor of the House giving Curtin a majority in the House of Representatives. He supported the Curtin Government in no confidence motions and the provision of supply until June, 1943. The circumstances that led him to withdraw that support in that month are worth examining in some detail.

In October 1942, during the Victorian state election campaign, Eddie Ward, the Labor member for East Sydney, alleged that under the Menzies Government there had been 'a plan in existence ... for the abandonment of an important part of Northern Australia without firing a single shot.' Over the succeeding months Ward turned this allegation into an attack on the Menzies Government's lack of defence preparedness, which in turn changed to the more serious allegation that Menzies had a plan to abandon all of Australia north of a line drawn from Maryborough in Queensland diagonally to Adelaide and/or Albany in Western Australia to the Japanese in event of invasion. Ward's claims (which were inaccurate) were vigorously denied by Menzies. Ward though, continued to make the claims and Curtin did nothing to stop him. Eventually Opposition anger grew so fierce that Ward's claims of a Brisbane Line formed the major part of an Opposition no confidence motion against the Curtin Government beginning in the afternoon of 22 June, 1943. During that debate Eddie Ward, pressed for  evidence of his allegation, made the extraordinary assertion that he had been 'reliably informed that there was a document missing from official files' that pertained to the Brisbane Line.In his speech on the no confidence motion, Coles made no reference to the issue.

In private discussions with Curtin Ward refused to disclose the name of his informant. The controversy surrounding Ward's allegation of a missing document grew so intense, both inside and outside of Parliament, that Curtin soon realised there would have to be an investigation into its accuracy. Menzies and the Opposition demanded a Royal Commission, and that Ward stand down from Cabinet. He repeated this demand the next day in during a  debate that the no-confidence motion be adjourned,that there should be a Royal Commission into the Brisbane Line allegations. Cole hesitated before  voting in support of the Labor Government. Earle Page, speaking for the Opposition in a subsequent Budget Estimates debate, urged the refusal of Supply in the Opposition controlled Senate until Curtin agreed to a Royal Commission. At this point, Coles, who had come under considerable pressure, privately informed Curtin that he intended to vote to refuse Supply.

Curtin, ever the clever politician, relieved Ward of his Cabinet post and announced a Royal Commission. Because he had acceded to the Royal Commission rather than having it voted on from the floor of the Parliament Ward could claim parliamentary privilege when he testified before it, and he had kept Coles's vote.

The UAP-UCP Opposition were not finished with the issue yet though. They decided to block Supply in the  wartime Senate unless Curtin consented to a dissolution of Parliament. Curtin did so, later that night before an almost empty House.
In the subsequent election on August 21, Labor won 49 seats to the Coalition's 23. Both Independents retained their seats, though Coles had to go to preferences. His influence over the Government of the day was at an end.

On Finding Books

Its been a while since I've posted on my blog. I've been in the throes of researching the Siege of Boston (1775-1776) and have actually begun writing chapter 6 of my book. The chapter is about the first months of the siege of Boston from June 1775 after the battle of Bunker Hill to the point in December 1775 where the Americans ready to make the final blow on the besieged British. Have also been researching the British in Halifax from April to May 1775, and the chapter on the Ethiopian Brigade in Virginia in 1775-1776. At the moment I'm waiting for about twenty one books to arrive, one on Halifax, which will almost complete my research on that chapter apart from some documents and a journal I've found on line which is not in print in book form.

One book I've been able to find which I've been trying to get for several years and have finally located at a reasonable price is Lieut. Williams Discord and Civil Wars .. And I've finally been able to afford to buy Alan Frost's The Global Reach of Empire, recommended to me by my ex-supervisor for this book. It will, I hope be very useful for setting the exploits of the First Fleeters in the American War of Independence in a wider global context. (And I very much  like Frost's work anyway.) I'm also getting Allen French's The Siege of Boston. I don't know if it will simply reiterate material in his magisterial The First Year of the American Revolution, which was written after he'd completed the former book, but I can't take the risk of missing something out.  I'm also getting Volume 5 of the Naval Documents of the American Revolution, which will be very useful for both my research into Halifax and the latter stages of Lord Dunmore's failed Virginian campaign. Another book which will be infinitely useful is Stedman's The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War. So far I'm only getting volume one. It is the only contemporary history written from the British side, and I hope it will be very useful.

On the American side I'm getting Thacher's Journal, three journals by ordinary soldiers in the Continental army, (though I'm not sure if one of them deals with Boston. I bought it on spec as it turned up in a sidebar in the bookseller's confirmation of a purchase); and a book on Washington's Navy and another on his generals. I;m also getting Selby's history of the American Revolution in Virginia, which I expect to be very good. So I have more than enough to keep me busy for a while, and that I'll be able to get back to writing chapter 5 pretty soon.

George Johnston at Bunker Hill

At the North Battery Wharf the embarkation of the 63^rd Foot and 2^nd Battalion Marines had began. The same slow clamber down the wharf ladder, weighted with arms and equipment, the same cautious stepping into the bobbing boats that had so slowed the 52^nd Light Infantry and those first marine reinforcements plagued an impatient General Clinton. 'The moment was critical; ... if that army ... [was] ... beaten there would have been an end to his Majesty's dominion in America.' Among those rowed impatiently across the Charles River were the superintendent, adjutant and deputy pay-master, to the second battalion, David Johnston and his son, George. Grown to manhood the boy would served for a time at Norfolk Island as Captain-Lieutenant and eventually become aide-de-camp to both New South Wales Governors, Arthur Phillip.and John Hunter, play a leading role in the suppression of the convict rebellion at Vinegar Hill just outside Sydney in 1804 and in January 1808 was the figurehead for the rebellion against Governor William Bligh. By then, as acting Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales he had married his stunningly beautiful convict mistress, Esther Abrahams. For his part in the Rum Rebellion on 26 January, 1808 he was eventually court-martialled in London and cashiered. Returning to his family in Sydney he became one of the town's wealthiest property owners, in a palatial mansion decked with the local red cedar. Now, as he stepped onto the shores of the Charlestown Peninsula he was but a boy destined for a military career..¹

They had passed boats going back to Boston full of wounded but little prepared them for the scene before Breed's Hill as they stumbled out onto the beach. The smoke and blistering heat rolled across from Charlestown, from where a few snipers still fired at soldiers, though more infrequently than before. All around them blue musket smoke lingered on the battlefield. The grass was soaked with blood which smeared the bright white gaiters of the officers. George Johnston stood beside his father as he barked orders to non-commissioned officers to form the marine rank and file into columns. A short distance away the boy saw in front of him the bodies piled up against the fences, some trodden down into the field and that cloud of flies that surround the dead.. Above this long, wide carpet of corpses the Americans waited behind the redoubt walls or along the rail fence sure of defeat in the face of Howe's four refreshed infantry regiments and the new marine battalion. The air was punctuated only by the screams and moans of the wounded left out of reach but within range of American muskets. In the blazing heat men sat in their shirt-sleeves, dripping perspiration, waiting for the order to move, calmed by surviving sergeants and corporals, their senior officers slain. They all knew they must 'Fight, conquer or die!'²

For eleven year old George Johnston once this final attack was launched, left among the walking wounded and the near-dead on the beach, many of whom he probably knew, the spectacle of death on Breed's Hill undoubtedly engendered intense fears about whether David Johnston would be alive or dead at the end of it. He watched General Clinton cajoling and berating stragglers and walking wounded, drummers and fife-players, into the semblance of a column, then march them as noisily as he could up the hill. When Clinton arrived at the redoubt the butchery was over, but not the chase. . 

Prescott had barely escaped. Doctor General John Warren, the prominent Boston revolutionary, was dead. Clinton, oblivious to the carnage around him, tried to bring order out of the milling confusion around him, but this took time. With Howe's permission he organised some of the light infantry, and eventually marched them to a now abandoned Bunker Hill. 'The blockheads had done nothing to it – on the contrary had left it in the only state which could annoy them. By now the majority of the rebels were retreating in an orderly fashion across Charleston Neck. Some, though, ran toward Bunker Hill from the Neck in a final attack on Clinton's contingent despite the heavy continuing cannonade from the sea. A twelve bound cannon-ball fell among them. Orders came from Howe to cease the chase. '[t]he business was finished.' The battle of Bunker Hill was over.

At the end of a great battle the first priority was always to tend to the wounded and count the dead. After the battle of Bunker Hill nineteen officers and 207 men lay dead on the battlefield, seventy officers and 738 rank-and-file lay wounded, a total of 1034 casualties. Another twenty would die of their wounds. Of the marines, one major, two captains and three lieutenants were killed, four captains and three lieutenants wounded, two sergeants and seventy nine privates wounded. Over one and a half hours the flower of the British Army in North America had been wiped out. Total British and American dead was 1,500, nearly half the British who took the field. 
The first task was to bury the hundreds dead. Privates were buried 'in holes' where they fell. The bodies of the officers were taken back to Boston for church burials.The wounded were taken down to the beach, where George Johnston waited for his father. Because he was an officer David Johnston was one of the first brought down from Breed's Hill. Boats from the men-of-war and transports were dragged up on the sand to carry the wounded back to Boston. Young George watched as they went out onto the battle-field to search amongst the trampled grass and in fence corners for officers. Some sailors stopped to rifle the dead for valuables. Men from the Somerset rolled eighty gallon casks of water ashore for the wounded and the thirsty. On the choppy ride back to the Boston-side ferry wharf the boy had time to examine his father's serious wound, most likely a jagged rip from a musket fired at close range. Others had wounds crammed with rusty nails and bits of broken glass, the rebels' last resort when they ran out of powder and ball. (From this the rumour spread around Boston's hospitals and camps that the Americans had used poisoned bullets, so absolute was the death toll from these projectiles.) Once lifted onto the ferry wharf, Johnston probably found a chaise and attendants to carry him and his son to his lodgings, a privilege reserved for officers.There he was tended by his wife and a surgeon. Beyond the windows the rumble of 'coaches, chariots, ... even hand-barrows' entered from the street outside where 'the piercing Groans of the dying & those whose painful Wounds extorted the Sigh from the firmest Mind.' But at least for George's mother her husband and son were alive. Not for her the keening, sobbing and praying of the wives of the common soldiers, some of whom would not see their husbands until the following day, if they saw them at all.

Grose, Collins and Ross and the taking of the Redoubt at Breed's Hill

Howe's plan was for the grenadiers of 5th and 52nd Battalions who had taken the worst of the previous two attacks against the rail fence, to wheel at the point where it would seem to the rebels they were almost committed . The 5th would overrun the three small fleches, the 52nd storm the northern part of the breastwork after it had been raked with grape by Howe's 6-pounders. The Light Infantry, now numbering only 150 to 200 men out of eleven companies, (including Grose in the 52nd), would protect the flank of the 6-pounders and in a feint against the fence, occupy the militia regiments stationed there. The marine battalions would take the breastwork and redoubt from the southern, Charlestown, side. Howe, impatient to begin less the mass of rebel reinforcements gathered on Bunker Hill came to the little fort's aid, ordered his attack before marines of the 2nd battalion were properly ready. As usual things did not quite go as planned. The men would not fight. 'The officers ... were observed to goad [them] forward ... with renewed exertion.' 1

The one hundred and fifty to two hundred officers and men left of the eleven light infantry companies approached the rail fence in a tight column. At 200 yards they deployed into a thin skirmish line meant to hold the New Hampshire and Connecticut rebels behind the rails should they try to help their comrades on the breastwork and in the redoubt. Howe's 6-pounders ripped into the breastwork forcing those militia behind it either to flee back to Bunker Hill or into the next door redoubt. A brief and savage artillery duel ensued between the British and two American cannon stationed at the gap between the breastwork. The British won by demolishing one of the Yankee's guns. The militia from the fence then took aim at the British gunnery, only to be distracted by a ragged volley from the light infantry which had advanced another fifty yards. Stark reduced their nuisance value by turning his long-range marksmen on their remaining officers. Again Grose was lucky and left unharmed, though not so all the British artillerymen. The rebels wounded all of their officers and nine of their men. The British gunnery's success was in no small measure due to the protection afforded them by the shattered band of light infantry. Young Francis Grose, near this battle's end, could finally hold his head up with some pride. And nothing would stop the rapid bayonet charge of the 5th Battalion on the breastwork, ditch and redoubt beyond.2

While the grenadiers attacked the breastwork and redoubt 'with great loss of men' from the right and rear, the marines advanced towards the redoubt from the left. In columns, with bayonets, under orders not to fire, a feat achieved 'with difficulty', they marched measuredly closer to the redoubt, the grenadiers to their left and both marine battalions formed into lines, the marine companies on the right of the line.Over the intervening fences, the line kept together. All the while the rebels, their 'ammunition being nearly exhausted, kept up a scattering fire.' Scattering it might have been, but for the British approaching the redoubt from whatever side, it was 'so heavy a fire that the oldest officers [said] they never saw such sharper action.' Man after man toppled to the ground. The marines were stopped briefly but the grenadiers grimly pressed on. Over the parapet and from the rear they burst into the redoubt. Ross's and Collins's companies were not in the forefront of the marine bayonet charge, begun again and gathering pace. First Lieutenant Jessie Adair of the Second Battalion led the charge up and over the parapet with a courage that inspired all. At his side, First Lieutenant John Shea, father of Captain John Shea of the yet-to-be-created New South Wales Marines, who would arrive in Boston the coming July as a Second Lieutenant, 'rece'd his mortal wound.' George Johnston's father, the deputy paymaster-adjutant, fell, 'much wounded.' Yelling, their brothers-in-arms followed, over the parapet and into the blinding smoke and dry dust of the redoubt that had allowed many of the rebels to flee. Experienced combatants though they were, many were shaken at 'the Horror within the Redoubt when [they] entered it. It was streaming with Blood and strewn with dead & dying men.' The marines, seamen used to hand-to-hand fighting as they boarded enemy ships or fired down from the tops of men-of-war, were appalled at the sight of 'the Soldiers stabbing some and dashing out the Brains of others, a sight too dreadful ... to dwell on.' Nowhere, though, is it stated that they did not join in the butchery.3

It is probably at this point, or soon afterwards, that Captain Robert Ross and Second Lieutenant David Collins lost their stomach for war. Collins would go into an administrative career, and Ross would, it has been suggested, lose his nerve. Here we see the origins of that Lieutenant-Governor Collins of Van Diemen's Land who stood for hours sniffing snuff, as close as he could be to convicts being lashed on the triangle, never leaving his post until each recreant had received his full measure of punishment. Here too, was planted that dark seed in the heart of Captain Ross, the New South wales Marine major renowned for his rage against his fellow men not of the marine service, masked only by a nervous garrulousness, the only saving graces in his life his bonding with fellow Scots and his love for his wife and children.4

Francise Grose at Bunker Hill

The British General William Howe's plan for the battle of Bunker Hill was simple. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Pigot's division, including the First Battalion Marines to which Captain Robert Ross and Second Lieutenant David Collins belonged, would march against the redoubt and breastwork as a distraction from the attack of the Welch Fusiliers, and the Fifth and Fifty-Second Light Infantry against Stark's men at the low stone wall on the beach. These Light infantry companies would overrun Stark's barricade by bayonet and take the rail fence from the rear by which time the grenadiers would be taking the fence from the front, also in a bayonet charge. With the American left demolished, the redoubt and breastwork on Breed's Hill would be isolated and overwhelmed from all sides.¹ It did not work out that way.

The 52^nd Light Infantry marched from the small depression in front of Moulton's Hill onto the hill where the British force of near one and a half thousand nen had gathered. General Sir William Howe addressed the troops, assuring them he knew they would 'behave like Englishmen' by which he meant he was certain they would stand 'undaunted in the open field to be shot at.' Their courage encouraged, the eleven companies ordered to Mystic Beach advanced in that direction as the sixteen British six pounders began a bombardment of the entire rebel line as a prelude to the infantry advance. To this accompaniment young Francis Grose set out. His company formed in a column near the beach, the 52^nd after the King's Own, the formidable Royal Welch Fusiliers at its head. At the third round the British cannon fell silent. They had been given the wrong sized cannon balls in their side boxes. Fife and drum echoed over the battlefield, the slow tramp of feet muted by the soft grass. The light Infantry columns wheeled on to the narrow Mystic Beach. Ordered not to use their muskets, they were meant to take the small stone fence half a mile away by bayonet, a flying wedge four abreast that would make a concentrated mass assault But they were nervous, uncertain. Of all the companies on the battlefield this day, they alone were utterly untrained in the tactic of a frontal assault. They were skirmishers, not an assault force. Still, they quickened their pace to a run along the smooth flat beach, their charge hidden from the rebels at the rail fence above by the ten foot high embankment, who, in any case were focused on the slow, dreadful march of Howe's oncoming grenadiers across the fields. .² Francis Grose could smell the sudden swift victory in the tangy salt air as the column rushed faster and faster , bayonets thrust forward, along the narrow shore toward the felt-capped rebels huddled behind their low protective wall of stone.

Stark had formed his men in three ranks behind the stone wall so they could loose uninterrupted succeeding volleys at the oncoming redcoats. He ordered them 'not to fire until the front of the enemy reached ' a stake which he had driven into the ground at eight or ten rods distance' (about fifty yards). The British column rushed on 'with the coolness and precision of troops upon parade,' closer and closer. The New Hampshire men kept their discipline. Not a sound came from the American ranks until the first row of the Welch Fusiliers reached Stark's stake in the sand. With the crackling of musket fire, in a haze of blue smoke ball after relentless ball ripped into the British front. As each redcoat fell, another stepped forward to take his place, stepping over the body in front of him, only to be smashed bleeding to the sand himself.

Ahead of him all Grose could see was the column bunching up, man after man toppling under the ferocious American fire. All he could hear was the roar of never-ending musket volleys, agonising screams and shrill cries of wounded and dying men, foul-mouthed cursing of a few well-disciplined redcoats urging each other forward, the soft, trembling whine of men starting to lose their nerve. Almost all of the famed Welch Fusiliers had been wiped out. Now the King's Own stepped into the breach over the crowd of dead along the beach and on the river's edge. They too were decimated. It was the Fifty-Second's turn to step into the withering fire. Instead, they turned heel and ran back along the beach. Screaming officers beat at the running men with their swords. Grose was pwerless before the surge of panicked soldiers, a lone boy standing and yelling at the men to turn and fight, sword waving in one hand, clutching the colours in the other, ankle-deep in the shore-lapping river as Yankee bullets whizzed round his head. No order could hold back that fear or flight, no sword-point turn it. Howe's crucial flanking movement, his plan to sweep down on his enemy from the rear in a crushing blow as the rest of his forces pushed at them from the front was now a complete shambles. Ninety-six men, not counting the wounded, 'lay as thick as sheep in a fold' before Stark's stone wall. The rest fled back towards the boats on the beach. One civilian watching from Boston claimed they had pushed over each over to clamber into the boats, screaming at the tars to row them back to the safety of the North Battery. With the flanking movement driven back, Stark's men were left 'unassailed and unoccupied.'³

1Ward, The War of the Revolution, Vol. I, p.90; Fleming, Now We Are Enemies, p. 235.

2Official Account of General Gage, published by the London Gazette, in Frothingham, Siege of Boston ..., p.287; Ward, The War of the Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 89, 90-91, 94; Don Higginbotham, The war of American Independence. Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763-1780, Boston, 1983, p. 73; Major Henry Dearborn, 'An Account of the Battle of Bunker Hill', in Coffin, (comp.) History of the Battle of Breed's Hill,p. 19; Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, p. 285; Fleming, Now We Are Enemies, p. 156; Urban, Fusiliers,p. 38.

3Elting, The Battle of Bunker's Hill, p. 31; Maj. Gen. James Wilkinson, ' A rapid sketch of the Battle of Bunker Hill' in Coffin, (comp.) History of the Battle of Breed's Hill, pp. 12-13; Caleb Stark, Memoirs and Official Correspondence of Gen. John Stark, with notices of several other officers of the Revolution, also a biography of Capt. Phineas Stevens and of Col. Robert Rogers, with an account of his services in America during the 'Seven Year's War', Concord, 1860, p. 29, http://www.archive.org/details/memoirofficial00starrich ; Fleming, Now We are Enemies, pp. 246-249; French, The First Year of the American Revolution, pp. 237-238.

Boston on 16 June, 1775.

On morning of 16 June, 1775, though Charlestown was by now practically deserted, anyone glancing across the Charles River from Boston to the Charlestown Peninsula might have seen the owners of the fields around the village mowing and slashing the grass under the hot sun and piling it along a rail fence below Bunker Hill, as was the normal practice. Despite false rumours that the rebels had got some of the guns from the fort at Ticonderoga in upper New York, captured on 18 May, before Boston, the British in the garrison town were 'all in high spirits.' That afternoon each regiment in turn, including Grose's 52nd Light Infantry and the First Battalion Marines, had practice in marksmanship at 'fixed figures of men, as large as life, made of thin boards...' Each soldier fired six shots, the best receiving 'a Premium', though it is most unlikely many were dispensed on this particular day. An officer concluded after this unhappy exhibition that 'recruits and Drafts who never having seen service foolishly imagine that when danger is feard they secure themselves by discharging their muskets with or without aim.'.2 To the men, though, it was a clear sign that action was not long away.

General Thomas Gage, however, would not be the commander who determined the time and place of that action. Rather, at six in the evening up to twelve hundred rebels had assembled on Cambridge Common four miles to the west 'with one day's provisions and Blanket, ready to March somewhere but we knew not where.' Accompanied by a Massachusetts artillery regiment , commanded by Captain Thomas Gridley, made up of forty-nine men and two field pieces, they comprised three Massachusetts militia regiments, one of which was commanded by Colonel William Prescott. There were two hundred men from Colonel Israel Putnam's Connecticut regiment, making up a fatigue party tending wagons loaded with fascines and gabions (the latter were dirt-filled wicker baskets meant to absorb musket shot and cannon balls), entrenching tools and some empty barrels. Putnam was assisted by an able youngish militia captain, also from Connecticut, named Thomas Knowlton.
At Harvard College, now turned into a barracks for the rebels, its elderly President had delivered a lengthy sermon and bestowed blessings on the American enterprise.The army marched from Cambridge to the beat of drums, two sergeants with dark lanterns (lanterns enclosed on all sides except the rear) led Gridley and Prescott to the road running eastward which connected to the northward road to Bunker Hill. As the columns approached Charlestown Neck, the drum-taps ceased. There, the slow-moving wagons under the care of Thomas Knowlton, and probably Israel Putnam, reached them, piled high with barrels, gabions, fascines and entrenching tools, groaning and creaking their way past Prescott in his wide coat of military blue, 'lapped and faced', a three-cornered hat perched on his head. Behind them were the two hundred Connecticut men who now joined this motley army. An observer might have thought it an odd procession; old men carrying muskets from the time of Queen Anne, seventy years past, younger men with Spanish fusees and 'old French pieces' left to them by their fathers, and a few swords rough-hewn by local blacksmiths. There were few bayonets. Eleven barrels of powder was all there was to supply them all and last out against any concerted British attack. They crossed in silence onto the peninsula and marched on to Bunker Hill.5
Bunker Hill, the highest hill on the Charlestown Peninsula and furthest from Boston, which would be almost impregnable if properly fortified, was where Prescott and Gridley wanted to throw up 'some works on the north and south ends ...' before beginning work on the lower Breed's Hill, which Israel Putnam favoured, since a small cannon placed on that hill would threaten Boston and the Royal Navy in its harbour. It would certainly provoke an immediate attack by General Gage, as Putnam intended. After much time-wasting, Putnam prevailed. Breed's Hill was finally chosen as the place to make a stand.6
The digging was done by several hundred men, farmers inured to heavy labour, under the light of dark lanterns along the lines that Gridley had laid out by midnight. The redoubt was six feet high and eight rods (1 rod = c. 5 metres) square, strongest on the side facing Charlestown where a redan ( a v-shaped earthwork) projected outwards pointing at the village. To the north, facing Bunker Hill was an open entrance for ease of retreat. A small ditch 'was dug at [its] base' but would be 'in a rude or imperfect state' when the fighting began. Nobody expected to hold this place. The men 'worked undiscovered until about four in the morning' piling up the redoubt in the soft dry earth, but that they were undiscovered was more a matter of good luck, that good fortune that oft determines the course of a battle. Across the water in Boston sentries heard the scrabbling of shovels and picks on the hill 'without making report of it.' When the HMS Lively, (20 nine-pounders), moored in the Charles River at the Charlestown ferry way, discovered the redoubt at dawn and the first cannon-balls fell on the fort, these same sentries discussed over breakfast how they had heard noises in the night but thought nothing of them.Earlier that night General Sir Henry Clinton, who had come over on the Cerebus with Howe and Burgoyne, thought he too saw shapes across the water, but his report to Gage in the dead of night was dismissed. Clinton claimed Howe supported his urging of an immediate attack. 'The first knowledge the General [Gage] had of it was by hearing one of the ships firing at the workmen, and going to see what occasioned the firing,' Howe later insisted.7
That same pounding cannon from the Lively that caused the generals to cover their backs woke the town, shaking the white A-frame houses, and woke Ensign Francis Grose of the 52nd. Light Infantry, and Captain Robert Ross and Second Lieutenant David Collins of the First Battalion Marines with a start out of their tents in the breaking dawn on Boston Common.

The Young Robert Ross

Robert Ross, a Scot, was probably born in 1740. By his late teens he had migrated to England and at seventeen had purchased himself a commission in the 80^th company of the Marines at Chatham. Ross was always conscious that the Marines were looked upon as a lesser arm of the British armed services. (Marine lieutenants, for example, were not allowed to use the wardroom quarter galley latrines, but had to use the heads [the crews' latrines], like common sailors, surgeons, pursers and chaplains.) As he had remarked in 1787 to one of his patrons, Evan Nepean, Undersecretary for the Home Department, they moved in 'subordinate obscurity.' His first service abroad was during the Seven Years' War at the siege of Louisbourg in June 1758 when he was aged about eighteen.¹

At Louisbourg Ross first met Captain Arthur Tooker Collins. Bonded by a three week siege where 'the cannon balls passed very fast on us ... yet could do no more than come ... very near' and where they spent more than three weeks without sleep and in unwashed uniforms, Ross would go on to take part in the siege of Quebec. Tooker Collins would be part of a force that assaulted Belle Ile off the southwest coast of Brittany in April 1761. He would come to the notice of Admiral Howe at the 1762 siege of Havana, and go on to a very successful administrative career with the Plymouth Marines. A lieutenant-colonel by 1765, Collins moved his family of two sons and a daughter to Exeter, Devon, about forty miles northeast of Plymouth.

At the Collins house in Grundy Lane, Ross was apparently a frequent visitor. There he met the nine-year old David Collins. The passing years made David so convinced of Ross's reliance on Tooker Collins's patronage that he incorrectly believed Tooker Collins was responsible for Ross gaining the post of Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales in 1787. (He owed it to Nepean and Sir John Jervis, with whom he would serve in the American War.)

His low status as a marine may have rankled Ross, and he would discover a deep Scotophobia among his comrades to nourish bitterness and resentment while he was in Boston. He had not yet met the wife whom he would dearly love, and deeply lament being separated from while in the Antipodes. Nor did he have any of the 'very small tho' numerous family,' the worry about whose welfare so plagued him in his late forties and early fifties. He appeared quite personable and as yet showed no signs of being the 'social monster' he would eventually become.²

1Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia. A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney, 1989, p. 319; David S. MacMillen, 'Ross, Robert, (1740?-1794)' in Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition, http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/adbonline.htm; N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World. An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy, New York, 1996, p. 67; Major Ross to Under Secretary Nepean, Portsmouth, 27^th April, 1787 in A Britten (ed.) Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. I, Pt.2, Mona Vale, 1978, p. 93; Francis Parkman, The Battle for North America, (ed. John Tebbel), london, 1948, pp. 619 ff.

2Tooker Collins, cited in Currey, David Collins, p.11; ibid., pp. 13, 22, 39; McMillen, 'Ross, Robert, (1740-1794), ADB Online; Major Ross to Under Secretary Nepean, Portsmouth, 27^th April, 1787 in HRNSW, Vol. I, Pt. 2, p. 92;Inga Clendinnen, Dancing with Strangers, Melbourne, 2003, p. 17.