Chapter 13 Judgment

BY THE EARLY autumn of 1779, the colonies were facing, perhaps, the most difficult period of the Revolutionary War. Even as Massachusetts grappled with the suffering and depredation of the Penobscot Expedition, General Washington languished in the Hudson River Valley while Admiral d’Estaing and General Benjamin Lincoln faced defeat in Savannah.1 The French had not yet fully committed their land and sea forces to the Rebel cause, and the morale of the colonies seemed to falter.²

Although the ongoing economic woes from the defeat at Penobscot had staggered the beleaguered Massachusetts government, the political focus in the state had, by then, shifted to the ratification of a new state constitution. While the committee inquiring into the failure of the expedition pored over the evidence adduced during its hearings, a constitutional convention had convened in Boston, and the arduous process of forming a permanent state government had begun.

Originating in Berkshire County in the western part of Massachusetts and taking hold after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the campaign for a statewide charter was premised upon the axiom that “the people are the fountain of power.”³

On February 28, 1778, the first state constitution in the American colonies was submitted for popular vote in Massachusetts. This poorly drafted document provided no Bill of Rights and contained critical flaws with regard to the qualification and payment of representatives. It was roundly criticized—and emphatically rejected by the people of the state.⁴ The opposition movement, however, founded on the philosophical teachings of Locke and Montesquieu, would lay the cornerstone for debate of the coming state and federal constitutions. The essence of the popular argument was the recognition of certain rights as God-­given and inalienable and the adoption of a practical framework of government to protect those rights.5 This framework, as articulated by John Adams, contemplated the creation of “an empire of laws, and not of men”—a government balanced with coequal legislative, judicial, and executive branches designed to check and restrain “the efforts in human nature towards tyranny.”⁶

By 1779 the respective counties of Massachusetts once again authorized the General Court to convene a constitutional convention. The legislature approved the measure in late spring and directed each town to elect a number of delegates equal to their current legislative representation, to be comprised of freemen over the age of twenty-­one regardless of property ownership.⁷ The first session of the Constitutional Convention was called for September 1 at the Old Meeting House in Cambridge—just as word of the failed Penobscot Expedition began spreading throughout Boston.

In a “general and free conversation” that lasted much of the day,⁸ the convention enacted a set of rules and appointed a committee of thirty-­one members assigned the task of drafting a new Massachusetts constitution. John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin were selected as a subcommittee for the undertaking—which, in turn, finally delegated John Adams to compose the actual document. The second session of the convention was scheduled for October 28, giving Adams ample time to complete his draft and circulate it among the other delegates.

With this and other important matters before the General Court, the committee inquiring into the failure of the Penobscot Expedition was anxious to complete its work and put an end to the sorry affair. Indeed, one of its members, Timothy Danielson, the chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Hampshire County and an officer in the Continental Army, had been named as a delegate from Brimfield to the Constitutional Convention.⁹ It was clearly time for the people of Massachusetts to lay the failures of Penobscot aside.

Scarcely seven days after the last witness gave testimony before the committee of inquiry, General Ward and five other panel members gathered in the Council Chamber, debated the evidence, and issued their report.10

In a series of questions asked and then answered, the findings, accompanied by the deposition of each testifying witness, began, “Is it the Opinion of this Committee that they have made sufficient Enquiry into the Causes of the Failure of the late Expedition to Penobscot?”

“Answer. Unanimously, Yes.”

Then, in a scathing and caustic attack that would effectively end his military career,¹¹ the full blame and culpability for the defeat was laid on the shoulders of Commodore Dudley Saltonstall.

“What appears to be the principle Reason of the Failure?” queried the report.

“Answer. Unanimously, Want of Proper Spirit and Energy on the part of the Commodore.”

“What in the Opinion of this Committee was the Occasion of the total Destruction of our Fleet?”

“Answer. Principally the Commodore not exerting himself at all at the time of the Retreat in opposing the Enemy’s foremost Ships in pursuit.”

“Does it appear that the Commodore discouraged any Enterprises or offensive Measures on the part of our Fleet?”

“Answer. Unanimously, Yes, and though he always had a Majority of his Naval Council against offensive Operations which Majority was mostly made up of the Commanders of the private Armed Vessels yet he repeatedly said it was [a] Matter of favor that he called any Councils and when he had taken their Advice he should follow his own Opinion.”

If it was the objective of the committee to allocate financial responsibility for the expedition to the Continental Congress by laying blame for its failure upon a Continental officer, its members were as concise and clear as a fact-­finding body could be. Dudley Saltonstall had, in the considered and unequivocal opinion of the committee, caused the failure of the Penobscot Expedition.

As thoroughly as the committee condemned the commodore, however, it absolved Generals Lovell and Wadsworth as well as the naval commanders from the State of Massachusetts of any blame for the loss.

“Was General Lovell culpable in not Storming the Enemy’s principal Fort?” posed the committee.

“Answer. Unanimously, No.”

“Does it appear that General Lovell throughout the expedition and the Retreat acted with proper Courage and Spirit?”

“Answer. Unanimously, Yes, and it is the Opinion of the Committee had he been furnished with all the Men ordered for the Service or been properly supported by the Commodore he would probably have reduced the Enemy.”

“What was the Conduct of Brigadier Wadsworth during his Command?”

“Answer. Brigadier Wadsworth (the Second in Command) throughout the whole Expedition, during the Retreat & after, until ordered to return to Boston, conducted [himself] with great Activity, Courage, Coolness and Prudence.”

In a parting shot of anger, the report concluded that the number of men detached for service at Penobscot was deficient by nearly a third, and the committee resolved that any brigadier or officer found to be at blame for this “shameful neglect” be punished in accordance with the Militia Act.

As to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Revere, though the committee had heard hours of testimony and pored over hundreds of pages of documentary evidence concerning his behavior on the Penobscot Expedition—and despite enduring a formal complaint, an order for his arrest, a probing and humiliating inquiry, and the scorn of his countrymen—the report mentioned not a word, not a breath, of him. Though the people of Massachusetts may now have considered the sorry chapter of the Penobscot Expedition closed, to Paul Revere the matter had just begun.