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.