Ben and Nancy: A Patriot Couple, Residing in Boston During the Years 1754 to 1775, Essay Example

Ben

My name is Ben Wilson, and I began publishing my newspaper the New England Independent in 1754, when the trouble with the French began. Not that it started well, with the great Washington, who was a redcoat back then, getting a bit of a beating off the French at Fort Necessity. I published several articles which really stated the case that the French had no rightful claims on the lands west of our colony of Virginia.

By 1759, the year of the great British triumph over the French at Quebec, things had gone much better for what was then our side. My paper was very pleased about beating the French and securing possession of this great continent for good, liberty loving Protestants, and we all delighted in knocking the French out of Canada.

But there was always this nagging disquiet at the back of my mind. The English were all very well, with their redcoats and Navy to protect us, but we were a new nation that was growing. We were becoming Americans, with every year taking us further away from the old country and its European concerns. The peace might have been decided in 1763, but it was being decided a long way away from us and our needs in the colonies. Some Englishman living thousands of miles away, who had never visited the New World, could not govern us properly. More and more people began grumbling that it was time to be more American, and not so ruled by the old country.

Of course, as soon as the peace was concluded, the Indians began causing trouble over in the Ohio Valley again. Strangely though, Pontiac and his braves seemed to be causing us less trouble than the English at that time. It was in 1763 that they began passing a whole series of laws which seemed designed to cause us as much trouble as possible. Stamp Act, Sugar Act, Quartering Act, Currency Act, the list just seemed to go on and on. It was meant to be about paying for the soldiers who would keep us safe from the Indians, but it just seemed a good way to us of squeezing money out of the colonies.

The soldiers seemed more like an occupying force than protectors too, and I, and some of my more literate friends, decided to publish more articles in our newspapers and pamphlets attacking the English. This was when I first heard the line, “No taxation without representation!”. The English government seemed to want to take away our rights as Englishmen under the law. It was time for a change.

The Stamp Act was what I, as an editor of newspaper, saw as the worst of it. Why should I have to pay extra and fix stamps to my papers? I had no vote in the English Parliament.

Protest grew about the Stamp Act until we got rid of it. We made declarations of our rights, but the feeling between us colonists and the English was not the same any more. Men like Samuel Adams began persuading us that there was another way.

By 1770, the Boston Massacre had really brought things to a head. Matters would not settle down and there was a sense that something important had changed. My newspaper was full of discontent, with stories reaching us in Boston of trouble of various kinds in almost all of the colonies.

The Tea Party really fired things up though. In 1773, American resentment at the proposed monopoly of the English East India Company boiled up. A group of ‘persons unknown’ threw the tea from a British ship into Boston Harbour. From that point on, things would never be the same. Boycotts of British goods were organised, and by 1775 I was undertaking drill with a local militia.

In 1776, I heard all about the incident at Lexington from a friend who was there. Pitcairn was laughable as a commander, and we got revenge later in the day for the wounded and killed his soldiers had harmed.

I served in those early campaigns, and it was with great delight that we sent the first Redcoats home to think again. By the time I read the pamphlet ‘Common Sense’, said to have been written by Thomas Paine, I was convinced of the justice of our course, and was delighted when Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence in 1776. Our place in history was assured.

Nancy

I married Ben in 1754, just as he was starting out with the newspaper. It was my job to make sure that our house ran smoothly, but I also had to weave most of our clothing at the time. I didn’t pay much attention to the political issues which seemed to get Ben fired up, but I was always very proud to have been born in our American colonies.

By the time it was 1767, and the wars with the French had ended, I was pleased to be able to send our young daughter to school to learn her reading and writing. Although I was lucky, and my husband Ben had taught me to read and write so that I could help him with the newspaper, most women I knew could not read. Hopefully this will not be the case in the future, with the new schools which cater for some girls.

The new country will need as many people as possible who can read and write, if we are to become a truly great world power like we deserve.

So when the trouble with the English grew more intense, I made a point of not using British cloth, and joined the Homespun Movement. I also did not but British tea for our home. I read about the women of the Edenton Tea Party in the Carolinas in Ben’s newspaper, and felt very proud at what these women were doing.

When the Revolution finally came and war broke out, I was not keen on Ben fighting. But I was also very proud of the way he had joined the militia and was prepared to act as well as write about what he believed in.

Ben was delighted about the way in which I had embraced the Homespun Movement, seeing the domestic war we were fighting as almost as important as the shooting war. We had to come together and show ourselves capable of great solidarity if we were to win our struggle.

I was not the kind of woman who wanted to follow Ben to war, though some did follow their men, or even tried to enlist themselves. I saw my duty as being to run a partiotic and frugal home, saving up crucial resources for the soldiers. If we all do our duty, however small, then we will soon be rid of the English forever.