Theatre in Boston 1775 and Sydney Cove, 1789 Compared

Some time between September and December 1775 David Collins probably went to a play for the first time in his life.Probably by early October he was now stationed in Boston as a Deputy-Adjutant Marines under the keen eye of his father and General Howe who supplanted Gage as Commander-in-Chief on October 10. A performance of an English adaptation of Voltaire's Zara was taking place every week at Faneuil Hall. General John Burgoyne, himself a dramatist of some note, had fitted out the Hall's upper floor, once the meeting place for the Sons of Liberty, 'very Elegantly for a Theatre', much to the chagrin of Boston Puritans, who, since 1750, had banned the performance of plays because 'they caused great mischiefs', mi;itated against industry and frugality, and most importantly, increased 'immorality, impiety and a contempt for religion.' Lord Rawdon gave the prologue, written by Burgoyne, and a ten year old girl delivered his epilogue to the play. Probably to Collins's and the rest of the audiences' delight, 'The Tragedy ... was Performed beyond Expectation [with] Zara by Miss Flucker and Ormon by Lt. Medham of the 47^th Regt.' Fourteen years later Collins would attend, not a theatre or palatial hall, but 'a hut fitted up for the occasion' at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, with 'three or four yards of stained paper and a dozen farthing candles stuck around the mud walls.' where convicts put on a rough performance of Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer with their own humourous prologue. It, too, was 'an opportunity of escape from the dreariness and dejection of [the] situation.'.'¹

1Despite French's arguments -cf. Allen French, The First Year of the American Revolution, Cambridge, Mass., 1934, p. 537 and Richard J. Hargrave Jnr., General John Burgoyne, East Brunswick, NJ, 1983, p. 82; For dating of Collins's appointment Collins as Deputy Adjutant cf. Journal of the Cerebus, Captain John Symonds, 26 Sept. 1775 in William Bell Clark, (ed.) Naval Documents of the American Revolution,{NDAR} Vol. 2, Washington,1966, p. 210 and John Currey, David Collins. A Colonial Life, Melbourne, 2000, p. 23. Currey places Tooker Collins's arrival in Boston in October, 1775 For Howe becoming C-in-c, John Richard Alden, General Gage in America, Being Principally A History of His Role in the American Revolution, New York, 1948, p. 283; Lieut. William Feilding to Lord Denbigh, Boston, Jany 19, 1776, in Marion Balderston and David Syrrett, (eds.) The Lost War. Letters from British Officers during the American Revolution, New York, 1975, p, 58; Jacqueline Barbara Carr, After the Siege. A Social History of Boston, 1775-1800, Biston, 2005, p, 199; Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, Politicak And Military Episodes In The Latter Half Of The Eighteenth Century Derived From The Life And Correspondence Of John Burgoyne, General, Statesman, Dramatist, London, 1876, pp. 88-86; Francis Hjtcheson to Major-General Frederick Haldemand, Boston, December 4, 1775, in Clark, (ed.) NDAR, Vol. 2, pp. 1267-1268; David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales with Rtemarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Names, etc., of the Native Inhabitants of that Country,Sydney, 1975, pp. 57-58; Watkin Tench, 'A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson' in Tim Flannery, (ed.) Two Classic Tales of Australian Exploration, Melbourne, 1996, p. 109.