Description:

The rarest of all Boston Massacre orations: Peter Thatcher's March 5, 1776 address demanding independence, delivered the day after Washington captured Dorchester Heights: "... let us expire with this prayer upon our quivering lips, O GOD, LET AMERICA BE FREE!" This copy was owned by a Lexington Alarm Minuteman who later served as a Continental Marine aboard the ship that transported John Adams to France in 1778.

Pamphlet, [Peter Thacher, An Oration Delivered at Watertown, March 5, 1776: To Commemorate the Bloody Massacre at Boston: perpetrated March 5, 1770. ([Watertown: Printed and sold by Benjamin Edes, on the Bridge, 1776]), 13 pages, small 4to, (lacking first two leaves), bound in string. With ownership signature "W Jennison's" together with further ink emendations on the first extant page and the blank verso of the final leaf. Creases, some moderate toning from a dampstain, marginal wear, else good condition.

A remarkable oration delivered by the Reverend Peter Thacher (1762-1802), then serving as pastor of the First Church at Malden (1777-1784). From 1785 until his death in 1802, Thacher served as pastor of the Brattle Street Church in Boston. The oration opens (with period spellings retained): "MY FRIENDS, WHEN the ambition of Princes induces them to break over the sacred barriers of social compact, and to violate those rights, which it is their duty to defend, they will leave no methods unessayed to bring the people to acquiesce in their unjustifiable encroachments. IN this cause, the pens of venal authors have in every age, been drawn with Machiavellian subtlety, they have laboured to persuade mankind, that their public happiness consisted in being subject to uncontrouled power; that they were incapable of judging cornering the mysteries of government; and that it was their interest to deliver their estates, their liberties, and their lives, in to the hands of an absolute Monarch..."

Thacher's oration continues, recalling the battles at Lexington and Concord, as well as the sacrifice of Joseph Warren at Bunker Hill which most have proven compelling to his audience: "THIS Day, upon which the gloomy scene was first opened, calls upon us to mourn for the Heroes who have already died in the bed of honour, fighting for GOD and their country. Especially, does it lead us to recollect the name and the virtues of General WARREN!" Thatcher then casts to the north, to "the Canadian wilds, and come to the plains of Abraham, where WOLFE once fell, we are there again compelled to pay a tribute to exalted merit, and to lament the fall of the great MONTGOMERY!"

Most importantly, this pamphlet contains an early call for independence_a movement which had been just gaining momentum with the publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense less than two months before: "WITH transport, my countrymen, let us look forward to the bright_day, which shall hail us a free and independant state. with earnestness let us implore the forgiveness and the patronage of Being of all beings, who holds the fate of empires in his hands! With zeal let us exert ourselves in the service of our country, in life: and when the early scene shall be closing with us, let us expire with this prayer upon our quivering lips, O GOD, LET AMERICA BE FREE!"

Extremely Rare. Evans 15101; Sabin 95172; T. R. Adams, American Pamphlets, 229. Evans notes four editions of this pamphlet in institutional collections including The American Antiquarian Society, British Museum, Massachusetts Historical Society and New York Public Library.

Not only is this a particularly rare Boston Massacre oration, delivered in one of the most critical phases of the American Revolution, but this copy was owned by a veteran of the Lexington Alarm, and a participant in the Siege of Boston, William Jennison (1757-1843). On the first page Jennison added some salient details gleaned from the now missing first two leaves, remarking that the address was intended "To commemorate the bloody Massacre at Boston Mar 5, 1770" and ascribing the oration to "Peter Thacher Esqr." and adding that it was "Delivered at Watertown, March 5, 1776." His son, William Jennison III (1759-1866), who for many years served as a justice of the peace in Worcester, has added his ownership signature, "W. Jennison's."

Jennison, who was born in Mendon, Massachusetts, marched as a sergeant with his father's minuteman company on the Lexington Alarm on April 19, 1775. In May he was attached to Joseph Read's (Reed's) 20th Massachusetts Regiment serving as its quartermaster until December 1775. In May 1776, Jennison was commissioned a lieutenant of marines and assigned to the frigate Warren, but relinquished the appointment to join Colonel Smith's Massachusetts Regiment for five months, seeing action at the Battle of White Plains. In February 1777, Jennison entered the naval service again, this time as midshipman and sergeant of marines aboard the frigate Boston, which captured the British frigate Fox off Newfoundland. He became a lieutenant of marines in December 1777, and the following year, in October 1778, he sailed to France to convey John Adams to Paris. Jennison became a purser the next month and remained in service aboard the Boston until its capture at Charleston, South Carolina in 1780. After the war, Jennison settled in Boston. (NARA M804. Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, "Jennison, William.")

On the blank page at the end, sometime around 1810, the elder Jennison has added a short history of the Boston Massacre, likely for the edification of his son and namesake: "On the Monday evening the 5th of March 1770 a party of Indians British Soldiers of the 29th regiment of foot under the command of Capt. Preston, fired on the Inhabitants of the town of Boston; whereby 5 were killed, and 7 wounded; two of the latter soon died, the others after some time recovered, &c. See mention of this in Cooper's history of Greece Rome North (and South) America- published in one octavo volum[e] by Joseph Avery of Plymouth in 1808 W J. The names of those 5 killed were - Crispus Attucks - Samuel Gray - Samuel Maverick - [James] Caldwell and Patrick Carr - The Court at which the murderers were tried was holden before the Honl Benjamin Lane - John Cushing[,] Peter Oliver and[d] Edmund Trowbridge Esqrs. Justices of the Superior Court of judicature - court of assize and general gaol deliver, held at Boston, by adjustment, on the 27 Novr. 1770 _ W. J."

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