Story of the Gaspee Affair

Joseph Bucklin fired a musket and wounded a British naval captain during an intentional attack to capture an English navy ship. That shot caused the immediate surrender of the English Navy ship Gaspee.  In short: Joseph fired the most important shot in the capture and burning of the ship Gaspee.  Some call this shot the first shot in the American Revolution.

Historians accord various degrees of importance to the Gaspee Affair as pushing the American and English into the American Revolution.  But there is general agreement historians that the shot fired by Joseph was the first time an American deliberately shot a specific English military man as a part of a deliberate attack --- planned by colony leaders --- on the English military forces.

Here in this Joseph Bucklin Society web site, we offer facts about the Gaspee Affair and the men who participated in it.  Below is the story of the 1772 attack by Rhode Island men on the English ship,  with its planned capture and destruction.

Biographical facts about Joseph Bucklin !V (about whom there is much information because of his status as a prominent Providence merchant) and his son, Joseph Bucklin V (who fired the shot). Check our discovery that Joseph V was the one who did the shooting of the Gaspee commander on that night of June 10th, 1772.

Condensed Story of the Gaspee Affair 

Executive Summary

The Gaspee was an English revenue cutter, preventing smuggling and collecting taxes.  When the Gaspee went aground, a number of men of the Providence area rowed out, and attacked the ship. Joseph Bucklin shot and wounded the English Navy captain; the attackers successfully boarded and overpowered the crew; the attackers took the English navy crew off the ship; and the Americans burned the Gaspee.  The English Attorney General gave a legal opinion that it was "treason" and an "act of war". England attempted to find who was involved, and bring the attackers back to be tried in England. The Rhode Island colonists, joined by other colonies, insisted that this English attempt violated the rights of Englishmen to be tried by a jury of their own peers, in their own county or vicarage.  Although about100 men were involved, and the attackers included many well-known men of Rhode Island, the people of Rhode Island successfully kept the identity of the attackers secret from the English until after the end of the Revolutionary War.

The Story

The Rhode Island 1772 attack on the British Navy's armed schooner Gaspee gives us insight into the thoughts and motives of the American colonists in the years immediately preceding the 1775 battles of Concord and Lexington.  The men who led the assault on the King's ship Gaspee were not struggling farmers, or persons without land, apprentices, or unemployed sailors. The leaders of this assault were leaders of the Rhode Island colony: merchants, sea captains, and lawyers  - some of them members of the General Assembly.  The leaders were not acting on the spur of the moment, because of some immediate action of a tax collector.  The attack was planned, by men who had thought about the structure of society and the relationship there should be between Rhode Island and the English in England..

The shooting of the English navy commander was not planned, but obviously taking 100 men to the Gaspee, all armed with something, many with muskets or rifles,  meant that the Rhode Island attackers expected the use of force to board the Gaspee

After the attack, the English Attorney General joined with the English Solicitor General in London to give a formal opinion by the most senior law officials of the day that the attack was "treason" and an "act of war." Until then, each of the acts of violence or resistance by the colonists had not been so labeled by the English legal system. Little wonder that the Rhode Island governor feared that in retaliation to the Gaspee attack, there would be an invasion of the colony by the British troops then stationed in Boston.

Early in 1772 the British Government sent ships, including the Gaspee and Beaver, armed navy schooners, to Rhode Island with orders to assist the Revenue Officers of the colony in stamping out smuggling and illicit trade. Lieutenant Dudingston, Commander of the Gaspee, was an energetic young officer who detested what he called the 'piratical scum' that piloted their ships on the seaways of Rhode Island. It is true that the Rhode Island ship captains and merchants made a regular business of smuggling and otherwise ignoring the imperial English taxes on Americans importing goods.  Among the 'piratical scum' were some of America's great sea captains: Abraham Whipple, Samuel Dunn, John Hopkins, Joseph Tillinghast, and Simeon Potter.

Dudingston proceeded to make his ship an anathema to the seafarers of the colony. He stopped and searched all ships that entered Narragansett Bay, not pleasantly, but in a harsh manner intended to secure obeisance of his commands. The cargoes of two coastal ships were impounded, and, in probable violation of the law, he sent them, not to the local Rhode Island court for condemnation as smuggling ships, but to Boston for trial. Governor Wanton of Rhode Island sent a vigorous protest to Admiral Montague, Commander of the British North American Fleet and Dudingston's superior. In reply Wanton received an insolent letter threatening to hang anyone who might attempt to obstruct his officers in the performance of their duties. Governor Wanton then sent a letter of complaint to the Earl of Hillsborough, one of England's Secretaries of State.

Meanwhile the interference with what the Rhode Island merchants thought of as lawful trade (and the English thought of as smuggling) continued, and the bitterness of the colonials mounted. Then fate, guided by  Captain Benjamin Lindsey, gave the Rhode Islanders an opportunity to repay the pestiferous Lieutenant Dudingston. 

About noon on June 9, Captain Lindsey, in command of the sloop Hannah, arrived at Newport from New York and after reporting her cargo at the Custom House, proceeded up the river toward Providence. The Hannah had cleared the Newport harbor when the Gaspee, like a  watchdog, moved to intercept the Hannah.. Lieutenant Dudingston signaled the Hannah to hove to for boarding but Captain Lindsey did not obey. Either as a plan to ground the Gaspee, or on the spur of the moment, the response of Lindsey was to not stop, but rather flee and let the British pursue.

Pursue they did.  All afternoon the two ships tacked back and torch against a northwest breeze. Lindsey's kept the Hannah out of cannon range of her pursuer. As they neared Providence, the American skipper, who knew these waters like the back of his hand, instead of fleeing sensibly, tacked his ship sharply to westward, clearing a long underwater sand-bar at Namquid Point, then in apparent confusion tacked further toward shore and lost headway. Lieutenant Dudingston headed the Gaspee straight toward his quarry, confident that a quick straight course would win the prize.  With all sails set, the Gaspee plowed into the underwater sand bar and was firmly grounded. 

The British sailors watched the Hannah turn and sail toward Providence. Captain Lindsey immediately went ashore and reported the plight of the Gaspee to John Brown, a member of one of the richest and most influential merchant firms in colonial America.

John Brown, several years before, had been grounded on this same point with the same moon and tide conditions.  He knew that the English ship would be hard aground until flood tide - about three o'clock the next morning, and the night would be dark.

Here was an opportunity to destroy the hated Gaspee. John Brown wasted no time. He instructed one of his  shipmasters to collect eight of the largest long-boats in the harbor,  to have the oars and row-locks well muffled to prevent noise, and to place them at Fenner's Wharf directly opposite the Sabin Tavern. The town crier, Daniel Pierce, was told to beat his drum through the streets, to cry out the situation of the Gaspee and to invite anyone who had a mind to destroy the nuisance to assemble in Sabin's Tavern.

By nine o'clock in the evening, the large southeast room in the tavern was filled with  resolute men, some of them with weapons. The crowd repaired to the waiting boats.  They armed themselves additionally with barrel staves and paving stones. John Brown delegated one of his ship captains, Abraham Whipple to lead the expedition. A sea captain acted as steersman on each boat as they shoved off for the long row to Namquid Point seven miles away.

Whipple ordered the other boat captains that as they neared the objective, the boats should in a line abreast.  This was a good naval tactic, because the night was dark and this minimized  the possibility of passing the Gaspee in the dark.  It also kept the  fleet of longboats from straggling, and they all would be able to attack the quarry at one time.  The line of boats crept cautiously toward Namquid Point, the oarsmen pulling hard to combat the incoming tide.

About midnight, the black bulk of the Gaspee was discovered by the boats. An alert sentinel on the navy ship saw them.

"Who comes there?” he cried.  There was no response from the boats, which  began to close in.

"Who comes there?" the sentinel challenged again. Again no response and the sentinel awoke the ship captain, Lieutenant Dudingston.  Dudingston mounted the starboard gunwale in his nightshirt, carrying his sword.

Dudingston shouted to the boats to not come nearer or he would fire upon the boats.  This threat was hollow, because the boats were coming at the ship at angles where the side mounted guns of the ship could not be brought to bear.

In response to Dudingston's shout, Captain Whipple shouted back: "I'm the sheriff of the County of Kent,"  "I have a warrant to arrest you - so surrender."

"All hands on deck.  Tell the men not to take time to get dressed.  Open the arms locker and hand out the weapons!" Dudingston ordered.

The English crew opened fire with their small arms.  Dudingston used a stroke from his sword to stop the first colonist attempting to climb on board.

Joseph Bucklin, in one of the boats. asked his seatmate for a gun: "Eph, reach me your gun. I think I can kill that fellow!"

Joseph Bucklin took  aim and fired. Dudingston fell. Bucklin burst out: "I have killed the rascal !"

Continued on next page.

Key Words in this article: Gaspee, American, Colonist, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Dudingston, Bucklin, War