The Tragedy of George William Maxwell

By the early eighteenth century Massachusetts and Rhode Island had built up an illicit rum trade with islands in the French West Indies and in Canada along the St. Lawrence, in contravention to the British Trade and Navigation Acts. Local customs officers and, indeed, Governors milched the revenue collected from the 1733 Molasses Act for their own personal benefit or accepted bribes to ignore the regulations In this period the Royal Navy took no part in enforcing the navigation laws because they were barred judicially from seizing ships 'within the limit of any point within the territories of the respective Governors of his majesty's Plantations.'¹

The trade between New England and the French territories did not stop with the outbreak of war between England and France in 1756. So efficient were the Yankee traders that the French were able to provision their bases with ease throughout the war. Such illegal traffic delayed the British capture of Louisburg on the St. Lawrence for a year. Lord Loudain, the commander of British forces in North America, singled out the Rhode Islanders as 'a lawless set of smugglers, who continually supply the Enemy with what Provision they want, and bring back their goods in Barter for them.' William Pitt the Elder ordered this 'illegal and most pernicious Trade' shut down, but so endemic was it, so long-standing was the corrupt behaviour of customs officials, it was accepted as part of normal everyday life by all concerned. So it was, in the war's final years, the British Government determined to wipe out colonial smuggling. They began by authorizing the Navy to enforce rigourously the 1733 Molasses Act. With the newly passed Revenue or Sugar Act which came into effect in April 1764 the duty on molasses was reduced but the customs service was reformed root and branch, so that it actually collected more duties and cracked down intensively on smuggling in general. This was be disastrous for local economies already plunged into post-war depression. Local coastal trade was severely disrupted because of officious implementation of the new customs procedures, especially by the Navy. City after city had a rush of bankruptcies.²

Even before the Sugar Act was passed Rhode Island merchants vehemently protested it would be the colony's ruination. Lord Admiral Colvill, Commander if the North American Squadron anticipated problems from the Rhode Islanders and ordered the twenty-gun Squirrell, Richard Smith, to winter at Newport. She was blown off course into Virginia and could not find a pilot to take her to New York over winter. The Newport Mercury did not hear of the reprieve, falsely reporting the ship's arrival. George William Maxwell was one of the crew, probably a nine-year old captain's servant. He apparently fulfilled his duties satisfactorily as he was not sent back to his parents. His time on the Squirell was probably not a happy one. Judging on his own attitudes to those below him when he was a third lieutenant, bullying and beatings may have been the order of the day aboard Richard Smith's ship.. The Squirrell did not sail into Newport Harbour until April 23, 1764. It expected serious trouble with smugglers.³

Serious trouble, aligned with a touch of pettiness, it got. Rhode Islanders immediately spread a rumour that anybody rowing provision-boats out to the Squirrell would be impressed. She was left stranded in the harbour with not a bum-boat in sight. Captain Smith had to resort to publishing a disclaimer in the local press before his crew could get any fresh food.

The Navy fared no better when the coast-guard cutter, the St. John, appeared in one of the estuaries of Narragansett Bay hoping to recruit local seamen. Merchants of the district 'entered into a Combination to distress us as far as they were able, and by threats and promises to prevent Seamen from entering for this vessel.' 'Combination' was replete of dark, conspiratorial doings that were a threat to the security of the Crown. Lieutenant Hill, commanding the St. John, seized the Bristo,a merchant vessel bringing molasses from Monte Christi in the French West Indies. There was the usual procession of restraining orders and chicanery by customs officials against the Navy to guarantee themselves the seizure fees. The lieutenant travelled to Boston to dispute the customs interloping with the Collector's superior. The Newporters cried 'pirate' because at the beginning of it all the Royal Navy had fired on a merchantman. Townspeople demanded the blood of the local pilot who had led the Navy to the smuggler in the first place. Sailors from the St. John snuck ashore and stole some pigs and chickens from a local miller. A deserter, caught by the locals, was threatened with hanging. A boatload of sailors hunting for him was pelted with stones. Demands for the pilot continued. The Newport Sheriff demanded the chicken and pig thieves be handed over to the local courts, but was refused permission to board the cutter.

At this point the St. John sought instructions from the Squirrell. Some of the mob ashore packed onto a sloop ready to take the St. John but thought better of it when faced with the cutter's guns. Captain Smith ordered the cutter to anchor under the Squirell's protection. Following orders from some members of the Governor's Council, the ceremonial gunner at Fort George on Goat Island fired a few cannonballs in the St. John's direction, but, on his own initiative, made sure he had not aimed to hit it and called for the surrender of the pig and chicken thieves. The Squirrell brought her broadside to bear on the island's battery but no further cannonades followed. Maxwell's role in all this is, of course, unknown, but he may have heard Richard Smith bitterly lament it was no longer necessary to convince the Newporters 'of their error.' The young lad was being imbued with that culture of determined aggression characteristic of the British Navy since the controversial execution of Admiral John Byng for cowardice in the face of the enemy after he fled the battle of Minorca in 1756.⁴

Neither Maxwell nor John Hunter could have met in the 1760s. Their various ships were in different parts of America, for the most part chasing different merchant-smugglers. But by mid 1787, on the way to Teneriffe in the first stages of the voyage to Botany Bay, the aging John Hunter, as captain of the Sirius, saw a side of the now thirty year old Maxwell, whom he had now known for some time, that would at first enrage him and Governor Arthur Phillip, but later cause them great concern. Maxwell had taken over the forenoon watch, only to discover there was only one watch on deck instead of two. He summoned the missing sailors then ordered the boatswain, who was responsible for discipline, to cane 'them, all round, one by one.' Their screams alerted Hunter and Phillip. They came up on deck 'to see what was the matter.' When Hunter learnt of Maxwell's antics he gave him 'a severe dressing down'. Phillip forbade all his officers from striking a man, threatening instant demotion. The story was told by Jacob Nagle, one of Phillip's boatmen. A young Pennsylvanian, he fought on the American side at the battle of the Brandywine in 1777, later was an American privateer, but through a series of fateful events ended up with the British. We shall hear much more of him later. Hunter saw Maxwell's behaviour as the first sign of a 'gradual decline in his faculties.'⁵

In his first months ashore at Sydney Cove Maxwell was stable enough; not so on the easterly voyage for supplies to Cape Town on which Phillip had dispatched the Sirius in October 1788. Once in the high latitudes, Hunter ran during the short nights as well as the long days for there was 'scarcely an hour which could be called dark'. A day's sail from Cape Horn, Maxwell went stark, raving mad as the ship wended its way 'in strong gales with very heavy frequent squalls' close to 'very high ice islands' in temperatures far below zero, while he was the night officer on watch. Amid the hazards of the icebergs he ordered the crew to set all the sails the ship could bear despite the strong breeze blowing. At midnight, after the watch changed, he set the steering sails, rolling the ship. Below decks Hunter was thrown from his cot. Still in his nightshirt he rushed on deck to immediately order the billowing sails taken in 'as fast as possible.' Once the Sirius was safe he demanded an explanation from Maxwell who screamed words to the effect that he had created a sudden emergency to see if the 'set of damned rascals' could cope. Hunter saw he was delirious and relieved him. He later said 'I feel very sincere concern at the nature of Mr. Maxwell's indisposition ...we served as lieut[enant]s together in three different ships in the last war, when he was a most diligent, active and capable officer.⁶

At Cape Town Hunter probably sought some ease for his friend's suffering in the local hospital. His responsibility for the health of other crew was heavy. In the long voyage across the Southern Atlantic thirteen had been crippled with scurvy, no longer able to go aloft. Only Maxwell would not be 'perfectly recovered' for the long return to Sydney Cove. Possibly Hunter sent a message to England from Cape Town to Maxwell's 'dearly beloved friend' and cousin, Jane Maxwell, who seems to have organised a bank draft from England to cover for Maxwell's needs while in New South Wales.⁷

There was little inner peace for the disturbed man back in Sydney. Once the various doctors had declared him irrecoverably insane he was relieved of his commission. Initially left to his own devices, he was allowed to wander off on his own. In April 1790, as the colony teetered on the brink of starvation, he went missing from the hospital for nearly two days. A marine sergeant, out fishing at Middle Head spotted him in a small boat close to being 'dashed to pieces' on the head's dangerous rocks. He had been rowing furiously from 'one side of the lower part of the harbour' to the other, provisionless and sleepless, ever since he had disappeared The marine brought him safely back to the hospital, but from then on for his own safety 'he was more narrowly watched.' Given a house and garden in the hospital grounds, he managed to avoid his attendant long enough one day to get a hoe and dig enough holes to bury all of seventy gold guineas, one by one, so the garden would grow money trees to increase his riches. A desperate search for the coins by the doctors, in which he probably stubbornly refused to help, only recovered one third of his fortune..⁸

Once the replacement New South Wales Corps arrived in the Second Fleet in June 1790, Phillip could think about repatriating any naval or marine personnel who wanted to go home. He ordered Maxwell aboard the snow Waaksamheid in March 1791, again under the charge of John Hunter. Nagle, another of the returnees, and always interested in Maxwell's fortunes since the 'starting' aboard the Sirius, noted he 'lay in his cabin in a dreadful condition, constantly delerious and insensible of anything whatever.' Three weeks into the home journey Maxwell died. He was buried at sea ' in as genteel a manner as could be expected to see.'⁹

1Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided. The American Revolution and the British Caribbean, Philadelphia, 2000, pp. 62-63; Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, Philadelphia, 1974, p. 85; Neil R. Stout, The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775. A Study of Enforcement of British Colonial Policy in the Era of the American Revolution, Annapolis, 1973, p. 9.

2I. R. Christie, Crisis of Empire. Great Britain and the American Colonies, 1754-1783, New York, 1966, pp. 36-37; Lawrence Henry Gipson, The Coming of the Revolution, 1763-1775, New York, 1962, p. 30; Fred Anderson, Crucible of War. The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, New York, 2000, p.520; Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, p.85; Gary B.Nash, The Unknown American Revolution. The Unruly birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America, London, 2007, pp. 45-46; Jeremy Black, Crisis of Empire. Britain and America in the Eighteenth Century, London, 2008, p. 106; Gary B. Nash, The Urban Crucible. The Northern American Seaports and the Origins of the American Revolution,Cambridge, Mass.1986, pp. 155-159.

3Merrill Jensen, The Founding of a Nation. A History of the American Revolution, 1763-1776, `Indianapolis, 2004, p. 280; Stout, The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775, pp. 65-66; Gillen, The Founders of Australia. p.242; N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World. An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy, New York, 1996, pp. 266-267.

4Stout, The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775, pp. 66-68; Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution. Colonial radicals and the development of American opposition to Britain, 1765-1776,New York, 1991, p.10; N. A. M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean. A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815, London, 2004, p. 272.

5Stout, The Royal Navy in America, 1760-1775, p. 78 et al.;The Nagle Journal. A Diary of the Life of Jacob Nagle, Sailor, from the Year 1775 to 1841, (ed. John C. Dann), New York, 1988, pp. 85-86 and passim.

6John White, Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, (ed. Alec H. Chisholm), Sydney, 1962, p.141; John Hunter, An Historical Journal of Events at Sydney and at Sea, 1787-1792, (ed. John Bach), Sydney, 1968, p. 67, 69; Newton Fowell, The Sirius Letters. The Complete Letters of Newton Fowell, (ed. Nance Irvine), Sydney, 1988, p.100;The Nagle Journal, pp. 105-106; Captain Hunter to Governor Phillip, Sirius in Sydney Cove, Port Jackson, 17^th December, 1789 in Historical Records of Australia, Series 1. Governors' despatches to and from England, [HRA], Vol. I, 1788-1796, Melbourne [?], 1914, p.263.

7Fowell, The Sirius Letters.pp. 102-103; Hunter, An Historical Journal of Events at Sydney and at Sea, 1787-1792, p.177; Mollie Gillen, The Founders of Australia, p.247 for Maxwell's family.

8Governor Phillip to Lord Sydney, Government House, Sydney Cove, Feb. 12^Th 1790 in HRA, Vol. I, p. 147; Enclosure No. 3, Port Jackson, New South Wales, 26^th December, 1789, sgd. John White, D. Considen, G. B. Worgan in HRA, Vol. I, p. 264; David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. I, Sydney, 1975, pp. 80 and.83;The Nagle Journal, p.111.

9Governor Phillip to Secretary Stephen, Sydney, New South Wales, 14^th March, 1791 in HRA, Vol. I, p.254; The Nagle Journal,p. 131.