Collections And Proceedings Of The Maine Historical Society Volume 2 PDF Download

Excerpt from Collections and Proceedings of the Maine Historical Society, 1891, Vol. 2 It has been too much taken for granted by the local historians that Captain Jones sided with the Tories in the struggle for independence. If he did, it is difficult to understand why Judge Jones, his nephew, who was admitted into all his counsels, was such a zealous pa triot and republican. Captain Jones probably felt as merchants generally do when war, that interrupts all their commerce and threatens destruction to all their fortunes, impends. The difficulties with the home gov ernment he believed and hoped would be settled. Be side, he was in the enemy's power and had to make the best terms he could. He wanted to extricate his family and household effects, as well as his vessels, from Boston, then in possession of the king's forces under strict military law, and he could only do so by agreeing to take back in his vessels cargoes of lumber to be used in constructing barracks for the Englishtroops, for which he was to be fully paid. That he stood well with the promoters of the revolution is ev ident from the fact that the selectmen of Boston fur nished him with a petition to the people of Machias, desiring them not to hinder him in his enterprise. He seems to have proceeded with the prudence character istic of his calling; for before opening his hatches and offering his goods for sale he exacted from the people a stipulation that they, on their part, would not molest him. He tried to get an obligation generally signed by the citizens by which they were to bind themselves to allow him to carry lumber to Boston and protect him and his property. But this many of the people refused to sign, and then, at his desire, a town meet ing was called, which must have been somewhat stormy. At last a vote, not unanimous, was Obtained to permit the vessels to load and sail, and Jones began to open his hatches and retail his goods to his Old customers. But it is said he made a discrimination, refusing credit to those who had been prominent in obstructing his wishes, so that on the whole there was more exaspera tion Of feeling than hearty accord produced by the vote of the town extorted under such circumstances. But it is probable that the permission granted in the vote would have been carried out in good faith had not the captain of the Margaretta unnecessarily pro voked a quarrel with the inhabitants. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.