Eye - 25 August 2023

From A Friend called Francis to A Bookish Trilogy

by Elinor Smallman 25th August 2023

New chapters

Is your Meeting planning any events to reach out to new students arriving in your town next month? Share your shenanigans with us!

A Friend called Francis

Eye has heard further talk of Quaker involvement in the American revolution, and may well have underestimated the contributions made by Friends (see ‘A revolutionary role’, Eye, 7 July).

John Lynes, of Hastings Meetings, got in touch with us to shed light on how Friends and their wares were involved in the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

He sets the scene: ‘In the eighteenth-century, Quaker whalers based in Nantucket exported their whale oil mainly to Britain. For the voyage back they shipped a return cargo to the US colonies. So it came about that in 1773 the brig Dartmouth, which was owned by the influential Quaker Rotch family, sailed into Boston Harbour with 114 chests of tea on board, from the infamous East India Company.
‘Meanwhile the British parliament had imposed a duty on US imports of tea from the East India Company. The Americans refused to pay this Tea Tax.

‘In Philadelphia and New York they sent the tea ships straight back to London. In Charlestown they refused to accept the tea at all, leaving it to rot in a damp warehouse. Only in Boston was there a major stand-off.

‘Francis Rotch, having undertaken to deliver the tea, insisted on doing so. This prompted a group of Boston citizens, disguised to evade identification, to board the Dartmouth along with two other tea ships (another of which was also Quaker-owned). They dumped the tea into Boston Harbour. This is now remembered as the famous Boston Tea Party.

‘In retaliation the British government closed the port of Boston to all foreign shipping and virtually annulled the Charter of Massachusetts, precipitating war and the Declaration of Independence. [Francis would later be summoned to Whitehall by Lord Dartmouth to give testimony regarding ‘the late transaction in Boston’.]

‘Maybe all this would have happened without Quaker assistance, but one can speculate that, if it were not for Quaker scruples, the US might, like Canada, still be part of the Commonwealth.’

The Rotch family’s willingness to act on their principles also appears in Quaker faith & practice, in 24.39. In 1776, Francis’ brother William Rotch refused to hand over bayonets for use in the conflict and instead ‘sunk them in the bottom of the sea’. He said: ‘I did it from principle. I have ever been glad that I had done it.’

William’s allegiance to the US was never in doubt, however. In 1783 his ship The Bedford sailed up the Thames. A contemporary report noted: ‘This is the first vessel which has displayed the thirteen rebellious stripes of America in any British port.’

A Bookish Trilogy

A Quakerly writer named Jane
Left her new novel out in the rain
To her utter dismay
The words washed away
Silent pages were all that remained.

A Friend read his Bible one day
By the hob as he cooked crepe flambée
As the pages caught fire
And the flames they leapt higher
He exclaimed ‘it’s the light and the way!’

An erudite Quaker named Sue
Dropped her library book down the loo
She thought should I bin it?
No! Wash, dry and spin it
So she did and returned it as new.

Shirley McCaw

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