[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 96 (Tuesday, June 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3281-S3282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              GASPEE DAYS

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I come to the Senate floor every 
year around this time to discuss an important incident in the history 
of Rhode Island largely overlooked in the history books, certainly 
overlooked in consequence to its importance.
  We have to understand that we Rhode Islanders have always had a 
pretty fierce independent streak. The Colony of Rhode Island and 
Providence Plantations was founded by Roger Williams and others fleeing 
the harsh ideological conformity of the Massachusetts theocracy. Our 
1663 charter, describing the colony as a ``lively experiment,'' is the 
first formal document in all of history granting to a political entity 
the separation of church and state, along with unprecedented freedoms 
of speech.
  Rhode Island was the first colony to declare its independence from 
Britain, on the Fourth of May, 1776--2 months before the rest of you 
did on the Fourth of July--and we were the last colony to join the 
Union, waiting for an independent Bill of Rights. Like I said, an 
independent streak.
  Colonial Rhode Islanders chafed at the inequities of British rule, 
especially the disruption of our liberty at sea. We are the Ocean 
State. Living and working on the water has always been a Rhode Island 
way of life. As tensions with the American Colonies grew, however, King 
George III stationed revenue cutters, armed Customs patrol vessels, in 
the waters of Narragansett Bay to prevent smuggling, enforce the 
payment of taxes, and impose British sovereignty.
  In 1764, after a British ship called the HMS St. John stole goods 
from Newport merchants, a group of Rhode Islanders seized control of 
Fort George on Goat Island in Newport Harbor and fired cannons on the 
vessel.
  In 1769, the HMS Liberty, a sloop confiscated by the British from 
none other than John Hancock and repurposed as a Customs vessel, was 
boarded, scuttled, and burned by a mob of angry Rhode Islanders.
  In 1772, on a dark night, a band of Rhode Islanders destroyed the HMS 
Gaspee, one of the most hated imperial ships, drawing what the Rhode 
Island abolitionist Frances Whipple McDougall called, in 1884, ``The 
first blood in the Revolution.''
  The Gaspee and its captain, Lieutenant William Dudingston, were known 
for destroying Rhode Islanders' vessels, seizing their cargo, and 
flagging down ships to harass, humiliate, and interrogate the 
Colonials. As historian Steven Park describes in his new book, ``The 
Burning of His Majesty's Schooner Gaspee: An Attack on Crown Rule 
Before the American Revolution,'' the Gaspee was an unwelcome, even 
hated, presence in Narragansett Bay. Rhode Island Deputy Gov. Darius 
Sessions complained to Gov. Joseph Wanton, in March 1772, that 
Lieutenant Dudingston had ``no legal authority to justify his conduct, 
and his commission . . . [was] more of a fiction than anything else.''
  When British authorities assured Governor Wanton that Dudingston was 
there to protect the Rhode Island colony from pirates, the Governor 
replied that he didn't know whether Dudingston was protecting them from 
pirates or was the pirate himself.
  On June 9, 1772, all this tension came to a head. On this day, Rhode 
Island Captain Benjamin Lindsey was en route to Providence from Newport 
in his ship the Hannah. He was ordered by the hated Gaspee to halt for 
inspection. Captain Lindsey refused, and he raced up Narragansett Bay--
despite warning shots fired at the Hannah. The Gaspee

[[Page S3282]]

gave chase to the Hannah, and Captain Lindsey, who knew the waters of 
Narragansett Bay far better than Dudingston did, steered his ship north 
toward Pawtuxet Cove in Warwick, right over the shallows off of Namquid 
Point--known today as Gaspee Point. The lighter Hannah was able to 
shoot over those shallows, but the heavier Gaspee ran aground and stuck 
firm in a sandbar in a falling tide. The British ship and her crew were 
stranded and would need to wait many hours before a rising tide could 
free them.
  Wasting no time, Captain Lindsey sailed up to Providence, and with 
the help of the respected merchant and statesman John Brown, rallied a 
group of Rhode Island patriots at Sabin's Tavern, in what is now the 
East Side of Providence. Together, after suitable refreshment, the 
group resolved to end the Gaspee's menace in Rhode Island waters.
  That night, 80 or so men shoved off from the wharf under a moonless 
sky, with their faces blackened and their oarlocks muffled, paddling 
eight longboats down Narragansett Bay toward the stranded Gaspee. The 
longboats silently surrounded the Gaspee, and the Rhode Islanders 
shouted for Lieutenant Dudingston to surrender his ship. As Daniel 
Harrington recounted in the Providence Journal, ``Captain Abraham 
Whipple spoke first for the Rhode Islanders, summoning Dudingston: `I 
am sheriff of Kent County, [expletive]. I have a warrant to apprehend 
you, [expletive]; so surrender, [expletive].' It was a classic Rhode 
Island greeting!''
  Surprised and enraged, Dudingston refused and ordered his men to fire 
upon anyone who attempted to board the Gaspee. Gunshots struck out in 
the night, and musket balls hit Lieutenant Dudingston in his groin and 
his arm. The Rhode Islanders, outnumbering the British, swarmed onto 
the deck and commandeered the ship. Brown ordered one of his Rhode 
Islanders, a physician named John Mawney, to tend to Lieutenant 
Dudingston's wounds.
  After properly plundering the lieutenant's quarters, the patriots 
removed the British crew to land and returned to torch the Gaspee. 
Ultimately, the flames reached the powder magazine, and the resulting 
blast echoed across the bay as the dreaded Gaspee blew to smithereens.
  When word got back to the King, he was furious, and he offered huge 
royal rewards for the capture of the rebels who had done this deed, 
but, strangely enough, no Rhode Islander would step forward to finger 
the perpetrators. You have to admire, under that kind of pressure, that 
with 80 people who had gone down in those longboats, not one Rhode 
Islander would spill the beans.
  Word spread throughout the Colonies of this incident and of the 
Crown's brand of justice. Samuel Adams wrote a letter in the Providence 
Gazette on December 26, 1772, that read, in part:

       A court of inquisition, more horrid than that of Spain or 
     Portugal, is established within this colony, to inquire into 
     the circumstances of destroying the Gaspee schooner; and the 
     persons who are the commissioners of this new-fangled court, 
     are vested with most exorbitant and unconstitutional power. 
     They are directed to summon witnesses, apprehend persons not 
     only impeached, but even suspected! And . . . to deliver them 
     to Admiral Montagu, who is ordered to have a ship in 
     readiness to carry them to England, where they are to be 
     tried.

  The Reverend John Allen delivered at the Second Baptist Church in 
Boston a Thanksgiving sermon on the Gaspee Affair that was distributed 
in pamphlet form throughout the Colonies. His words helped rouse the 
spirit of independence of this fledgling Nation. He said:

       Supposing . . . that the Rhode Islanders, for the sake of 
     the blood-bought liberties of their forefathers, for the sake 
     of the birthrights of their children, should show a spirit of 
     resentment against a tyrannical arbitrary power that attempts 
     to destroy their lives, liberties and property, would it not 
     be insufferably cruel (for this which the law of nature and 
     nations teaches them to do) to be butchered, assassinated and 
     slaughtered in their own streets by their own King?

  Well, schoolchildren's history books tell a tale of Bostonians who 
dressed up in funny outfits and climbed onto a British boat and pushed 
bales of tea into the harbor, but not enough schoolchildren know of the 
bravery of the Rhode Islanders who, more than a year earlier, fired the 
first shots and drew the first blood in the quest for American 
independence. It is a fine thing, I am sure, to push tea bales off a 
boat. We blew the boat up, and we did it more than a year earlier.
  Rhode Islanders are justifiably proud of our role in our rebellion. 
We have made a tradition of celebrating the Gaspee incident with the 
annual Gaspee Days celebration and parade through Warwick. An 
independent study group at Brown University is adapting the tale of the 
Gaspee into a virtual reality educational experience so you can put on 
the goggles and reenact the experience of the Gaspee, marrying Rhode 
Island history with cutting-edge technology to engage middle and high 
school students in this history.
  Someday soon, children across the country may be able to join Captain 
Whipple and John Brown and step into a virtual longboat, coast down a 
virtual Narragansett Bay, and watch the sky over a virtual Rhode 
Island, alight with the fire of revolution.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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