By 1775 Boston was one of the major maritime centres of colonial America. It had an extensive ship-building industry and was a major employer of seamen to sail the ships that were built there. As Jacqueline Barbara Carr notes in her After the Siege: A Social History of Boston, 1775-1800, 'Before the Revolution "about one hundred and forty-five vessels had been launched in Massachusetts" annually, with Boston claiming a substantial part of that number.' When war broke out in April 1775 the massive workforce necessary to maintain that industry was still available in the town. Since it was not unusual for boys to go to sea at an early age it is likely then that James Proctor was a young seaman in that workforce. Many of those employed in the shipping industry by June 1775 were roaming the streets of Boston unemployed as a consequence of the local economic collapse brought on by Britain's imposition of the "Coercive Acts" on the town after those responsible for the Boston Tea Party refused to pay compensation for the hundreds of cases of tea they had emptied into Boston Harbor on the night of December 16, 1773.
(It is worth noting, given the considerable amount of nonsense claimed for the Boston Tea Party in the past few years that the Tea Party was not a protest against taxation by the godless British, but a desperate attempt by the revolutionary leaders Sam Adams, Paul Revere and others to revive a flagging revolutionary movement that had come almost to a stop by the end of 1773. As history records, they were indubitably successful.) [cf. Benjamin Woods Labaree, The Boston Tea Party, London, 1963, passim.] But back to James Proctor.
As early as February 1775 Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves, the Commander of the Royal Navy's North American Squadron was deeply concerned that the '[s]hips at Boston are beginning to be sickly ... they have lost several men to deaths and as deserters...' Graves ordered 'to raise men for the Squadron' that 'thirty seamen be pressed at Marblehead' where the British were having problems with recalcitrant seamen. The press did not happen because the people of Marblehead would not allow the press-gang to disembark. A further press of 100 men was ordered in Virginia. [Vice Admiral Graves to Philip Stephens, Secretary of the British Admiralty, 2oth February, 1775 and May 13, 1775, William Bell Clark, Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Vol. I, Washington, 1964, pp. 98 and 177.] In Boston, Graves pressed crews of British transports, an action which appalled the military Governor, General Thomas Gage. Graves, whose skills in dealing with the Army and Boston civilians can only be described as sadly lacking, justified his behaviour on the grounds that ''from Ill usage [the seamen] will not stay in the Transports ... And if they are not allowed to Enter on board the Men of War, so many Men as are determined to leave the Transports will be lost to the Service.' [Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves to General Thomas Gage, Boston, June 11, 1775 in Clark, NDAR, Vol. I, p.656.] Such was Graves's bad reputation, Gage can hardly have found this explanation convincing. (Some time later the Admiral had his drawn sword broken by the Commisioner of Customs in a street scuffle, outraged because Graves had stolen some hay from his farm on one of the Bay islands and was selling it on the black market at inflated prices.The two had to be separated by bystanders before blood was shed.) [Captain Francis Hutcheson to Maj. General Frederick Haldemand, Boston, August 19, 1775 in Clark, NDAR, Vol I,p.1182.]
Understandably enough, the carnage of the battle of Bunker Hill changed Gage's attitude towards impressment of local seamen somewhat. On the very day of the battle, Admiral Graves ordered his captains 'to impress as many Seamen as possible.' [Narrative of Vice-Admiral Samuel Graves, Boston, 17th June, 1775 in Clark, NDAR, Vol. I,p. 704.] The next day, when '[m]ost of the Artificers in Boston refused to work on a Brig building for the Crown' he sent out four press-gangs 'to secure all the Shipwrights, Caulkers and Seaman they could lay hold of and send them on board the flag Ship.' Two to three hundred men were impressed, 'among whom were found many Sailors.' [Narrative of Vice Admiral Samuel Graves,18 June, 1775, in Clark, NDAR, Vol. I, p.714.] (Graves may have had other reasons besides lack of manpower for his mass impressment of local sailors. When discontented they were notoriously prone to riot. Growing out of resistance to the press-gangs, these violent outbursts were sometimes destructively directed against the King's shipyards, a real danger in 'the Metropolis of Sedition'. Keeping the local seamen under control was essential to Boston's internal security against rebels within the town.} [Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra. Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden History of Revolutionary Action, Boston, 2000, p.211.] James Proctor may very well have been among them, or was caught up in later presses.On the basis of his later career in gunnery one can surmise he may have worked below-decks as a powder monkey in one of the men-of war in the harbor, during the frequent barrages on rebel positions ashore. Powder-monkeys were young boys responsible for running with powder barrels to the guns when the ship was in action.
Like Jacob Nagle, his fellow First Fleeter, who had been at the battle of Brandywine in September 1777, an was later for a brief time a rebel privateer, and was impressed into the Royal Navy as part of a prisoner exchange after the disastrous French defeat at the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782, Proctor appears to have cheerfully accepted his lot and made a successful career with the British. As noted in a previous post, he eventually established himself as a relatively prosperous settler on Norfolk Island in 1792. He died there in 1801.
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