On October 17, 1775, Lieutenant Henry Mowatt of the Royal Navy with four ships burned the town of Portland, then called Falmouth. There seemed to be no immediate military necessity for this act, and although there had been skirmishes at Concord and on Bunker Hill, there had been no declaration of independence and no declaration of war by King George. The burning of Falmouth could be labeled a clear act of terrorism. How did it come about?
This is no time to review the political and economic causes of the coming American Revolution. Suffice it to say that in the fall of 1775, British Admiral Graves, in command of His Majesty’s naval forces in North America was a very frustrated man. He had been ordered in April 1775 to close the port of Boston in response to the Boston Tea Party. He was provided with several slow, deep draft, heavily armed ships of the line and even his few cruisers could not catch the swift colonial schooners, sloops and whaleboats that slipped in and out of the harbor. He had been quite unable to prevent the capture of Fort William in Portsmouth and the lifting of cannon, small arms and 97 barrels of powder. One of his cruisers loaded with shot had been captured. Another had run ashore in Boston Harbor and been captured and burned by colonials. Another, newly repaired and re-supplied, had run ashore near Cohasset and had to be sent back to Halifax for repairs. Another was wrecked on a rock off Machias and a sloop sent to bring back her guns had been seized in Machias by colonials.
Furthermore, the Admiral was pestered by frequent orders from the Admiralty to remove masts and rudders from laid-up vessels lest they be used as privateers, to seize and censor outgoing mail, to inspect ballast of incoming ships lest they contain flint which could be used to fire flintlock muskets – et cetera and so forth. Finally, the colonials had seized the Admiral’s supply of candles.
Therefore, in the fall of 1775, the admiral was determined to hit back. On Oct. 4 he received orders from the Admiralty dated July 6 to “carry on such Operations upon the Sea Coasts of the Four Governments of New England as you shall judge most effective for suppressing the Rebellion ….” On Oct. 8 he sent Lieutenant Mowatt eastward with orders to “lay waste, burn and destroy such Sea Port towns as are accessible to His Majesty’s ships.” He mentions nine towns. The orders continue: “make the most vigorous efforts to burn the Towns and destroy the Shipping in the Harbors.”
Mowatt, remembering his humiliating capture and broken parole the previous spring, sailed directly to Falmouth and gave the populace two hours to “remove the Human Species out of the Town.” A deputation pleaded for mercy. He gave them overnight to surrender cannon, small arms and powder and to take an oath of allegiance. They refused. At 9 a.m., the deadline, seeing a few women in town, he held off but at 9:40 blazed away with everything he had, including carcasses and hollow iron balls stuffed with oily rags, lit and fired from guns. The damage was inadequate so he sent a party ashore to set fires and burned about two-thirds of the town. He then returned to Boston.
He reported gleefully to Graves, “Falmouth with the Blockhouse and battery, the principal wharves and storehouses, with eleven sail of vessels was all laid into ashes, including a fine distillery.”
Graves, too, was pleased. He reported it “a severe stroke to the Rebels, Falmouth having long been a principal Magazine of all kinds of Merchandise.”
The colonials were outraged by this act of terrorism. George Washington, a man not given to violent rhetoric, wrote that the attack had been “effected with every circumstance of Cruelty and Barbarism which Revenge and Malice could suggest.” President Bush could not have improved upon James Warren of Boston. “What more can we want to justifie any step to take kill and destroy, to refuse them any refreshments, to apprehend our enemies, to confiscate their goods and estates, to open our ports to foreigners, and if practicable, to form alliances ….”
Thus this act of terrorism failed, giving fire to the colonial cause and shaming the British. Neither Graves nor Mowatt profited. Graves was relieved in December and never held another command. Mowatt was passed over for promotion repeatedly.
To know that the deed “lives in infamy” we need only quote Mayor of Portland, James Phinney Baxter in 1890: “Henry Mowatt ruthlessly and needlessly destroyed a thriving and well ordered town peopled with men and women of his own race and scattered them abroad exposed to suffering and death from want, hardship and exposure.”
A great deal depends on one’s point of view.