“For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences.”
From the Declaration of Independence, one of the charges against the King that justified secession. It was built on a violent American raid on a British ship years earlier that few of us are ever taught about.
In the early hours of June 10, 1772, a band of Rhode Islanders rowed out in the dark, shot and seriously wounded a Royal Navy commander, captured the crew and burned his ship to the waterline.
The Crown moved to drag them 3000 miles across the ocean to hang because they called it treason. The Sons of Liberty called it self-defense.
THE CLAIM
We start this story after the event. On December 21st, 1772, an explosive article was published in the Newport Mercury.
“To be, or not to be, that’s the question ; whether our unalienable rights and privileges are any longer worth contending for, is now to be determined. Permit me, my countrymen, to beseech you to attend to your alarming situation.”
Signed by a writer using the pseudonym Americanus, it warned of a newly-established court system that would destroy the ancient right to trial by jury of your peers in your own vicinage.
“A court of inquisition, more horrid than that of Spain and Portugal, is established within this colony … and the persons who are the commissioners of this new-fangled court are vested with most exorbitant and unconstitutional power”
The author described a system where defendants, witnesses, and even mere suspects would be kidnapped and taken thousands of miles away for a “trial” – a mockery of the justice system.
“They are directed to summon witnesses, apprehend persons not only impeached, but even suspected! And them, and every of them to deliver to Admiral [John] Montagu, who is ordered to have a ship in readiness to carry them to England, where they are to be tried.”
He summed it up by calling this attack on liberty a fate worse than death.
“Ten thousand deaths, by the halter or the ax, are infinitely preferable to a miserable life of slavery, in chains, under a pack of worse than Egyptian tyrants”
Americanus predicted the tyrants’ thirst for this power had no limits.
“Whose avarice nothing less than your whole substance and income will satisfy and who, if they can’t extort that, will glory in making a sacrifice of you and your posterity, to gratify their master the devil, who is a tyrant, and the father of tyrants and of liars.”
Read that again. Four years before Thomas Jefferson wrote a word of the Declaration of Independence, Americanus was already warning that these men would, as the Declaration later put it, “harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
The vocabulary of Independence was already being written, in a Newport, Rhode Island newspaper, in 1772.
THE PROOF
The author, most likely Stephen Hopkins, may have sounded to some people like a nutcase with all that over the top rhetoric. But then on December 31, 1772 the Massachusetts Spy published a massive scoop proving it wasn’t mere rhetoric at all.
The Spy had gotten its hands on leaked government communications forwarded from Rhode Island to the printer Isaiah Thomas. It started by naming the source of the plans, the highest-ranking member of the King’s administration for the colonies.
“A genuine extract of the letter from Lord Dartmouth, to the Governor of Rhode Island, dated Whitehall, September 4, 1772.”
In Dartmouth’s own words came verification of the Crown’s intention to transport Americans across the ocean for trials in England.
“It is His Majesty’s intention, in consequence of the advice of his Privy Council, that the persons concerned in the burning the Gaspee schooner, and in the other violences which attended that daring insult, should be brought to England, to be tried.”
SEARCH AND SEIZE
What did these people do that was worth dragging them across the Atlantic to hang? They attacked a Royal Navy ship, shot the commander, captured the crew, and burned the ship to the waterline.
Considering this violent raid happened nearly three years before the battles of Lexington and Concord, it’s an incredible story.
In early 1772, Lieutenant William Dudingston sailed the HMS Gaspee into Narragansett Bay to enforce customs laws and to inspect cargo. They were looking for smugglers.
On February 17, he got his first big prize. The Fortune and its cargo of approximately 1,400 gallons of rum were seized. Duddingston sent the ship and seized rum to Boston because he was worried that any seized property kept in a Rhode Island port would be under threat of being reclaimed by the colonists.
The fortune was owned by a guy you might be familiar with – Nathanael Greene – the man who’d soon become George Washington’s most gifted and trusted general. Greene later wrote about how much he was driven to bring the thieves to justice.
It “created such a Spirit of Resentment that I have devoted almost the whole of my time in devising measures for punishing the offender,” the offender in this case, being Dudingston.”
The entire system was built on a perverse incentive, similar to civil asset forfeiture programs of modern times. Dudingston got a personal share of the proceeds from the sale of every ship and its cargo he seized, so taking the Fortune was just the start.
Within weeks, the Gaspee searched so many boats that even the Governor of Rhode Island wrote to complain.
“A considerable number of the inhabitants of this Colony have complained to me of your having,in a most illegal and unwarrantable manner, interrupted their trade, by searching and detaining every little packet boat plying between the several towns. As I know not by what authority you assume this power, I have sent off the high sheriff, to inform you of the complaint exhibited against you, and expect that you do, without delay, produce me your commission and instructions, if any you have, which was your duty to have done when you first came within the jurisdiction of this Colony.”
The governor didn’t get a response he was looking for, so he sent a second letter. Instead of responding, Dudingston escalated to his boss, admiral Montagu, who wasn’t too happy about it. The Lt. “sent me two letters he received from you of such a nature I am at a loss what answer to give them, and ashamed to find they come from one of his Majesty’s Governors”
The Admiral’s language made it quite clear that the military was definitely NOT subordinate to the civil authority.
“I shall report your two insolent letters to my officer, to his Majesty’s Secretaries of State, and leave them to determine what right you have to demand a sight of all orders I shall give to all officers of my squadron, and I would advise you not to send your Sheriff on board the King’s ships again on such ridiculous errands.”
He didn’t stop there. He told the governor that those under him didn’t need to show him anything.
“The Captain and Lieutenants have all my orders to give you assistance whenever you demand it, but further you have no business with them, and be assured it is not their duty to show you any part of my orders or instructions to them.”
And in true imperial fashion, he also casually threw out a threat of executing Americans who might resist their taxes and trade restrictions.
“I am also informed the people of Newport talk of fitting out an armed vessel to rescue any vessel the King’s schooner may take carrying on an illicit trade. Let them be cautious what they do; for as sure as they attempt it, and any of them are taken, I will hang them as pirates”
THE RAID
That brings us to the big event, which started with a chase on June 9, 1772.
Captain Benjamin Lindsey of the packet boat Hannah sailed north from Newport to Providence. The Gaspee promptly gave chase and the ships made their way up Narragansett Bay.
The Rhode Islanders claimed that Lindsey knew exactly what he was doing and set a trap for the Gaspee. In their version of the story, he intentionally lured the British ship across the shallows off Namquid Point where it ran hard aground on a sandbar.
According to Steven Park, who is by far the leading expert on this history, there was another side to that story.
“Dudingston claimed that he ran aground at Namquid Point because he did not have his local pilot with him and lacked knowledge of the Bay.”
Either way, the Gaspee was stuck – unable to move until the flood tide the following day.
Lindsey quickly spread the word, and later that evening, the town crier was in the streets beating a drum, the traditional call for the local militia to muster. Around 10pm, the Sons of Liberty met at Sabin’s Taver in Providence to plan a raid on the British ship.
The attack party was led by wealthy local merchant John Brown and the town sheriff Abraham Whipple. Shortly after midnight on June 10th. As Park documents, there were two different stories on the size of that raiding party.
“Colonists claim there were approximately eight longboats with about 64 men. Dudingston claimed there were dozens of vessels comprised of about 250 men.”
The men used a rowing technique known as muffling oars – where cloth, animal skins, or specialized rubber fittings are wrapped around the part of the oar that rests in the oarlock to help evade detection as long as possible. This technique dampens the scraping and creaking sounds of oars rubbing against metal, allowing the boat to move more quietly.
When the boats were finally discovered approaching the ship, Commander Dudingston gave out a “who goes there.”
According to local accounts, the sheriff – acting how the highest local law enforcement officer should act – announced that he had an arrest warrant.
“I am the sheriff of the county of Kent, G… d ..n you. I have got a warrant to apprehend you, G.. d..n you; so surrender, G.. d..n you.”
While there is no documented proof of such a warrant being written up, at this point things still escalated quickly. 18-year-old Joseph Bucklin realized he had a clear line, so he fired shots at Dudingston, who was hit twice. As he was bleeding on the deck, dozens of Sons of Liberty boarded the ship and quickly overtook the crew. Dudingston surrendered the ship, and the raiders took the entire crew captive.
The crew was loaded on the longboats, and a local doctor, with the help of the shooter Bucklin, attended to Dudingston and saved his life.
Brown and Whipple stayed back to search the ship for official orders and other documents. When they finished, they set it on fire. It burned from the hull up. The powder magazine went last and the explosions were loud enough to be heard from land. By morning the Gaspee had burned to the waterline.
THE COMMISSION
Two days later, Governor Wanton issued a proclamation offering a reward of 100 pounds for information that would lead to a conviction of the perpetrators. But in true Rhode Island fashion, no one knew nuttin’ about nobody raiding any ship. That included the local sheriff, who was one of the leaders of the attack!
Ten weeks later, the ante was upped by the King himself, who raised the reward to 500 pounds. He also created a commission to investigate and punish the raiders on charges of treason.
But here’s the twist. The man the King put in charge of finding the culprits – Gov. Wanton – made sure no one ever could be. As Park documented, “He made certain that none of the Gaspee crew were ever in the colonial house for questioning at the same time as any of the Gaspee raiders in order to prevent crew members from identifying the raiders.”
The result? No one was ever charged.
SELF-DEFENSE
Despite not being part of our normal history lessons today, this event was one of the most well-known at the time. A big reason for that was a sermon by the Rev. John Allen given on Thanksgiving day, 1772 at the request of the Boston sons of liberty.
In An Oration Upon the Beauties of Liberty, Allen hammered the Gaspee investigation and commission at least seven separate times.
The crown had a word for what happened with the Gaspee: treason. Allen had another one entirely
“It is no rebellion to oppose any king, ministry, or governor, that destroys by any violence or authority whatever, the rights of the people.”
He grounded this in the first law of nature – the duty of self-preservation – along with the natural right of self defense.
“Shall a man be deem’d a rebel that supports his own rights? it is the first law of nature.”
For Allen, refusing to exercise the right of self-defense is moral degeneracy – rejecting the gift of your creator.
“And he must be a rebel to God, to the laws of nature, and his own conscience, who will not do it.”
But Allen didn’t stop at the principle. He named the specific injustice: Exactly what the Crown wanted to do to those men. To make the point, he asked Lord Dartmouth to imagine it himself.
“How would your Lordship like to be fetter’d with irons, and drag’d three thousand miles, in a hell upon earth? No! but in a hell upon water, to take your trial?”
It didn’t matter where it came from. Anyone – and that meant anyone – who issued such an order is an enemy tyrant.
“Then, that man, that king, that minister of state, be who he will, is worse than a Nero tyrant that shall assume to drag him three thousand miles to be tried by his enemies.”
Three thousand miles. To be tried for self-defense against usurpations of power.
Less than four years later, Thomas Jefferson and company put it in list of charges against the King in the Declaration of Independence.
“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.”
- Shots Fired, Ship Burned: The Sons of Liberty vs the HMS Gaspee - June 10, 2026
- Ignorance and Vice: The One-Two Punch for Tyranny - June 3, 2026
- It’s Not Just a Right. It’s a Duty. - May 15, 2026