The Handy Boston Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton

On June 17, 1745, the French garrison hauled down its flag, which was replaced by the Union Jack. The extremely audacious expedition had succeeded.

      Town after town, up and down the eastern coast of North America, celebrated as the good news arrived. One newspaper after another ran special extras, singing the praises of Governor Shirley and Major-General William Pepperrell (both men were soon knighted as a result of their efforts). Two sour notes were sounded, however. First, the British Royal Navy men took a hefty share of the prize money, and second, many Massachusetts men died from smallpox while guarding the captured fort over the next two years. Many Yankees had a bitter taste in their mouth, especially when Louisbourg was returned to France under the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

      A c. 1747 painting of the siege of Louisbourg in 1745. Boston forces aided the English to capture the French garrison. Interestingly, it would not be that many years before the Americans and French were allies.

      Did the capture of Louisbourg better Boston’s economic prospects, at least?

      Even this failed to materialize. Louisbourg was out of economic action for several years, but Boston did not see any corresponding rise in its own wealth. Many Massachusetts men declared the entire Louisbourg enterprise a debacle, and they vowed to have nothing further to do with any military events that included the British. Then too, Boston saw several riots against British press gangs in the autumn of 1747. All told, the 1740s were a decade that witnessed Boston growing further apart from the English motherland.

FORESHADOWING THE REVOLUTION

      Most of us know Boston either as “The Cradle of Liberty” or “The Athens of America.” Where did the phrase “Cradle of Violence” come from?

      Historian Russell Bourne issued his book Cradle of Violence in 2006, and discussions of early maritime history have been better informed ever since. Bourne saw it as his job to free the Boston waterfront mobs from the negative impression most people had of them; he successfully argued that the Boston waterfront mobs were, in fact, vital to the winning of American independence. In his book, Bourne presented his first case, about the Knowles Riots of 1747, to readers who had never heard the story before.

      Who was Commodore Knowles and why were there riots in 1747?

      In 1747 Commodore John Knowles commanded the British vessels in and around Boston. Many of these ships had been involved in the Louisbourg expedition of 1745, and bad feelings lingered, especially between the Royal Navy sailors and the people of the Old North End. In November 1747, Knowles learned that thirty of his men had deserted, and, furious that they found shelter in Boston, he sent press gangs right into the heart of the town. The press gangs succeeded initially—they brought back forty-six men to replace the thirty that were lost—but they also evoked the anger of the Boston mob. Perhaps three hundred men participated in the initial resistance, but they were joined by perhaps two thousand others. Governor Shirley had to take refuge on Castle Island.

      Not surprisingly, Commodore Knowles threatened to bombard the town, and there is no doubt he would have singled out the North End for special punishment. Governor Shirley was able to dissuade him, and Knowles sailed away a few weeks later, but lingering fears and suspicions developed. Was the Boston mob truly this unruly? Why was the civil authority unable to deal with the situation?

      Was there any way to differentiate a native Bostonian—in around the year 1750—from a recent arrival?

      True Bostonians claimed they could tell the difference in a heartbeat (some of their descendants make that claim today). The native Bostonian tended to be cool on first acquaintance, but if he or she became a friend, it was usually as a friend for life. The average Bostonian tended to be more concerned with nautical matters than with agricultural ones, and to be keen on learning everything possible about what transpired in other parts of the Atlantic world.

      Where was Benjamin Franklin during the 1750s?

      Franklin was by now the leading citizen of Quaker Philadelphia, and he had long since shaken the dust of Boston from his boots. Franklin was farsighted enough, however, to see that the calendar change might be followed by other innovations, and he was one of the first of all colonial Americans to propose a colonial congress. Franklin’s proposal, known as the Albany Plan of Union, was debated at Albany in the summer of 1754, but was not brought to a vote.

      How did Bostonians feel about some type of intercolonial government by the 1750s?

      Two generations earlier, they would almost certainly have welcomed one. But by 1754, Boston was the third-largest town on the East Coast, behind New York and Philadelphia, and it no longer seemed certain that Boston would be the number-one political leader in such a union. Bostonians, therefore, were less keen on the idea of an intercolonial government at this time than in the past. Then too, the crisis that brought such considerations to the fore soon resulted in the French and Indian War, the fourth and last of these colonial conflicts.

      How and why did Boston change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar?

      By 1750, the various English towns up and down the East Coast were in closer touch than ever before. England wished to standardize its relations with the American colonies and to ensure better regulation of what happened in America. One measure adopted as a means towards that end was the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.

      The Gregorian calendar had been used in France, Spain, and other European nations since 1582, but the Protestant nations, and their colonies, rejected it as a Popish innovation. In September 1752, Great Britain and her American colonies finally moved from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. The difference between the two calendars was only eleven minutes per year, but when this was multiplied by the thousand-odd years since the Julian calendar was adopted, it was found necessary to “drop” eleven days from the Protestant calendar. September 3, 1752, was followed by September 14, and many people—on both sides of the Atlantic—protested, saying that they wanted their eleven days back.

THE GREAT WAR FOR EMPIRE

      How many names are there for these various colonial wars?

      There are a great many. King William’s War (1689–1697) was known in Europe as the War of the League of Augsburg. Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713) was called the War of the Spanish Succession. And the French and Indian War (1754–1763; the Great War for Empire is, perhaps, a better name) was called the Seven Years’ War by Europeans.

      How did the French and Indian War—the fourth and final colonial war—begin?

      The French had repeatedly entered the Ohio River valley, showing a desire to dominate what was then the heartland of the colonized areas of North America. In 1754 George Washington—then all of twenty-two years—led a group of Virginia militia into western Pennsylvania to eject the French. The Pennsylvania Quakers were pacifists, and Virginia claimed the right to dispute the area with the French. In May 1754, Washington fought and won the first skirmish of the French and Indian War; but in July of that year he was cut off and forced to surrender to the French. Washington was soon paroled, and his deeds had the effect of bringing on the final stage of the great colonial conflict.

      Did Bostonians know the name of Washington?

      In 1753 almost no one outside George Washington’s family circle knew the name. By the end of 1754, most newspaper readers throughout the Atlantic world knew the name of Washington. Not only was the skirmish and Washington’s surrender reported, but the text of his surrender, at Fort Necessity, was reprinted in many newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. Bostonians did not realize that this was but the first time they would hear of this man, whose actions would play so large a part in their efforts in the winning of independence and the building of the nation.

      In 1755 King George II’s government sent two British regiments under General Edward Braddock. The troops landed in Maryland and proceeded by slow stages to western Pennsylvania. Braddock took on George Washington