The New Declaration of Independence: From Trump

 

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The present  state of the USA demands a new declaration -- against Donald Trump and Trumpism. 

The original declaration of 1776 blamed George III for the conflict. Most of the blame lay with Parliament, but focusing on the king made the argument for independence simple: the people versus a tyrant. The argument is much stronger today than in 1776, because Trump, unlike George III, truly is a tyrant. Ironically, just recently, George III's descendent, Charles III schooled Congress on the importance of the ideals proclaimed in the declaration.   

Charles did not mention that the original Declaration of Independence, in the part few read today, listed a long series of "repeated injuries and usurpations" it ascribed to George III, designed to establish "an absolute Tyranny over these States." 

Today, a New Declaration of Independence from Trump should be drawn up, with a similar list of the injuries and usurpations he and his MAGA toadies have inflicted on the USA. I propose something like the following:

He has repeatedly violated the Constitution and corrupted the system of separation of powers and checks and balances.

He is destroying the fabric of American institutions designed to advance education, health, and the general welfare. 

He has attacked and is attacking freedom of speech, the press, and assembly. 

He has violated the norms of diplomacy and human rights, killing and arresting people without evidence of any crime. 

He has made enemies of traditional allies and friends of the USA.

He is destroying one of the strongest economies on earth.

He has repeatedly violated the norms of human morality.

He has brought the USA into global contempt.

He has praised and assisted the enemies of human freedom, decency, and democracy.

He is a felon guilty of bribery, rape, pedophilia, tax evasion, extortion, and other crimes. 

He is a six times bankrupt who has repeatedly failed to pay his creditors.

He golfs on the taxpayers' money while the country burns.

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Easter Special: The Resurrection of The Orange God

I'm looking forward to the 250th Anniversary of US independence, to see how the God-King Trump and the red MAGAts spin his fascistic policies while celebrating a revolution against alleged tyranny and for liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. 

I'm wondering how they will deal with the irony of such a celebration led by a president who is a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, pedophile, and insurrectionist. Can you imagine a Trump speech denouncing Benedict Arnold as a traitor? Arnold was a Boy Scout compared to Trump.

2024 was a leap year, and on November 5th, American voters took a leap into the abyss. A leap that is now producing AGONY for many of them, including his supporters. I mean, the price of eggs, FFS. 

IRONY, of course, is an enduring feature of the human condition, but the current world fairly drips with it. The world should be getting better, given our vast experience and knowledge, but it is getting worse.   

A presidential election in the USA is always a leap into The Twilight Zone, given the existence of the Electoral College and the massive fortunes spent on electing our political clowns. But this election outdid all the previous ones in its fantastically outrageous mockery of the democratic process, not to mention its sheer expense, lunacy and incompetence. 

When was the last time a convicted felon with scores of outstanding indictments against him ran for president? This snake oil salesman, father of 10,000 lies and nearly as many illicit affairs, sells bibles to the faithful to raise money for his campaign. The scenario drips with irony. Trump doesn't read and certainly doesn't heed the GOOD BOOK. He's broken virtually every commandment on a daily basis. 

"His" bibles are produced in China, a country he has repeatedly threatened and condemned. But they are cheap and profits are good. Never mind that a bible is a book you can get for free in the USA. Most churches give them away, or they did when I was an innocent kid.

Trump supporters swear that GOD sent him to save America from satanic "libtards and commies." Somehow, OUR godlike SAVIOR didn't manage to come up with a way to save a million or so Americans from the Covid pandemic. Bleach didn't work; or that horse medicine. The US, with 4% of the world population, racked up 20% of the deaths globally. How quickly we forget. 

To MAGAts, Donnie the Blessed is both savior and savvy, and most important, is opposed to gun control, their political litmus test. Trump agrees that guns are not the problem, people are. 

The solution appears to be eliminating people, because guns without people will not be a problem. With RFK, Jr. handling federal health services, that goal should be met before long.  

Another irony arises from the fact that Trump, a convicted criminal, ran against Kamala Harris, a successful former prosecutor. The felon should not have been able to run, but he won, which is all you need to know about the abject state of the USA as it heads into the 250th anniversary of its existence. 

P.S. Easter is a great time of year to test claims of Trump's divinity. Crucify him. If he comes back in three days, we will know he's the genuine article.

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America's Last King: A Far Better Man than Trump.

The July 4th holiday in the US always produces some reflections on America's last king, George III. Most of them celebrate the overthrow of a tyrant, allegedly a mad tyrant at that. 

In recent years, such denunciations of King George have often been expressed by Americans who desire to get rid of Trump. "We removed the tyrant King George in 1776 and we'll get rid of tyrant Trump as well." Bravo, but comparing Trump to George III is a distortion of history. It is like comparing a slightly tarnished pot to a completely blackened kettle.

Americans succeeded in booting out George III in 1776. They have failed twice to get rid of Trump. Why would a people who  rejected George III 250 years ago accept a virtual tyrant with powers George never had and did not try to get? 

Do the apparent majority of Americans feel comfortable going to bed with a president the Supreme Court has declared immune from prosecution for his acts? Charles I claimed similar powers in 17th century Britain. It cost him his head.

As a historian of Georgian Britain, I reject the claim that George III was a tyrant. In my opinion, the evidence shows that Trump is incomparably worse as a leader and a man than King George was. 

George III had flaws, but an urge to despotism was not one of them. He was sometimes obstinate but he was not a narcissistic sociopath. He remained faithful to Queen Charlotte, his wife of 60 years and mother of his 15 children, poor lady. Unlike most monarchs, he never took a mistress. Maybe it would have been better if he had.

George considered himself a constitutional monarch and took his job seriously. He venerated the (unwritten) British constitution. Unlike Trump, he understood his country's constitution. His father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, ensured he had a solid education in a wide array of subjects, including  politics and constitutional law. As early as age eight George could discuss current politics in speech and writing, in both English and German. He also learned French and Latin. He was the first British monarch to be thoroughly educated in science. 

As king, he was a strong supporter of the sciences and arts. He gave a large portion of his income to charity. He amassed a library of more than 65,000 volumes, and opened the collection to scholars including Samuel Johnson and Joseph Priestley. The collection is now part of the British Library and belongs to everyone.

Frederick, who died before his father George II, prepared his son George to be a "Patriot King," ruling in the interests of his people. Frederick believed, correctly, that the Hanoverian dynasty needed to improve its public image, and he passed that belief on to his son. 

The first two Hanoverian kings were highly unpopular. They preferred their native Hanover to England and spent long periods of time there. Many British people referred to both of them as "German George." 

In contrast, George III was born in Great Britain and considered himself British. At his coronation in 1761, he made much of the fact. "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain." He made it clear that Britain and its prosperity would be his first concern. He spent his life of 82 years in the country. [Image: George as Prince of Wales, by Jean Etienne Liotard, 1754]

Initially, George III had little to do with the actions that angered the American colonists. They were devised by the king's ministers and approved by Parliament. The king opposed some of them, notably the Stamp Act of 1765. Part of that was personal. He detested the architect of the Stamp Act, Prime Minister George Grenville. 

In 1766, George was able to push Grenville out. His successor, Lord Rockingham, repealed the Stamp Act with the help of the king and the popular William Pitt. The king's efforts were applauded in the colonies. New York City erected a statue in his honor. 

In the following year, Parliament re-asserted its right to tax the American colonies. The furor the new taxes (Townshend Duties) produced led to all but a tiny tax on tea being repealed. Leaving the tea tax in place was intended to maintain the principle that Parliament could levy taxes on the colonies. (Image: George III by Johan Zoffany, 1771)

The king supported Parliament's right to tax the colonies. But it was Parliament's right, not his. After the Civil War of the 1640s, British monarchs could not levy taxes. That was Parliament's prerogative. 

The Declaration of Independence blames George III rather than Parliament for the conflict that followed, because it was simpler than explaining the bizarre intricacies of the British political system. The result was a distortion of reality that has become a standard meme of American history.

The Declaration listed 27 grievances against the British government. Most of them began with "He has...", personalizing the conflict into one of the people versus an overbearing king. It is worth noting that perhaps as many as half of the colonists were Loyalists who supported the king's government during the war. 

George III was no warmonger. One of his first actions as king had been to bring an end to the Seven Years' War with France and Spain at a time when Britain was winning victories everywhere. 

It is true that once the American war had begun, he was determined that it end in a British victory. He obstinately continued to support the war even after the disastrous British defeat at Yorktown (Oct. 1781), when most of his ministers urged him to give up. A few months later, he agreed and authorized peace negotiations.

Once independence was conceded he accepted, grudgingly, the new relationship with the former colonies. In 1785 he told John Adams, the first American ambassador to Britain, "I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made ... I have always said, as I say now, I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power." 

George III is often referred to as Mad King George, and people persist in connecting his loss of America to insanity. The problem with this view is that he showed no symptoms of mental illness before 1788, five years after American independence.  

British rule in the colonies was often insensitive and infuriating. The frustrations were increased by the immense distance between Britain and America. But no colonies of the time were as loosely governed by an imperial country as the thirteen who declared independence in 1776. They were also highly prosperous.

 

The timing of the revolution had more to do with the removal of the French threat from North America in 1763 than any actions of George III or the British government. Before then, the colonists felt the need for British protection. After then, they didn't. That emboldened them to push for change in the relationship between mother country and themselves. British actions exacerbated an already difficult situation.

The change to independent status made sense, but explaining it as the result of the tyranny of George III is misplaced. In 1785, an American Quaker, Hannah Griffits, provided an interesting perspective on the results of the revolution: 

The glorious fourth -- again appears 

A day of days -- and year of years 

The sum of sad disasters 

Where all the mighty gains we see 

With all their boasted liberty 

Is only change of masters. 

(Image: George III by Allan Ramsay, 1762)

Further Reading: 

John Brooke, King George III (London: Constable, 1972)

Stanley Ayling, George the Third (London, 1972)

Jeremy Black, America's Last King, George III (New Haven; Yale University Press, 2006)

Andrew Roberts, George III (London: Penguin Books, 2023)

 

Coronation! British Monarchs Who Ended Badly, Part 12: George III

In 1760, the death of George II brought his grandson, an awkward nineteen year old, to the British throne. George III had the longest reign of any British monarch up to that time, sixty years. He was the last king of the colonies that became the United States. 

Every July 4th, Americans celebrate the overthrow of tyrant King George. He is also known as the Mad King, and in some minds, a mad tyrant.  [George III soon after he became king,  by Allan Ramsay, 1762]

He was the third Hanoverian monarch. Unlike the first two Georges,  however, he was born in Britain. He considered himself fully British and cared little for Hanover. At his coronation, he declared "I glory in the name of Britain." He never went to Hanover, or even left England, during his long reign.  

George III considered himself a constitutional or limited monarch. He took his job seriously, maybe too seriously. He venerated the (unwritten) British constitution. His father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, ensured he had a solid education in a wide array of subjects, including  politics and constitutional law. 

At the age of eight George could discuss current politics in speech and writing, in both English and German. He also learned French and Latin. He was also the first British monarch to be thoroughly educated in the science of the day. 

As king, he was a strong supporter of the sciences and arts. He gave a large portion of his income to charity. He amassed a library of more than 65,000 volumes, and opened the collection to renowned scholars such as Samuel Johnson and Joseph Priestley. The collection is now part of the British Library.

Frederick, who died before his father George II, prepared his son George to be a "Patriot King," ruling in the interests of his country and people. Frederick believed rightly that the Hanoverian dynasty needed to improve its image, and he passed that belief on to his son. [Image: George as Prince of Wales, by Jean Etienne Liotard, 1754]

At first, George III had little to do with the actions that angered the American colonists. Most of them were devised by his ministers to help pay the enormous costs of the recent war with France and Spain, the Seven Years War, or French and Indian War in North America. 

They were devised by his ministers and approved by Parliament. The king opposed some of them, notably the Stamp Act of 1765. Part of that was personal. He detested the architect of the Stamp Act, George Grenville. 

In 1766, George was able to push Grenville out. His successor, Lord Rockingham, repealed the Stamp Act with the help of the king and the popular William Pitt the Elder, now Lord Chatham. The king's efforts were applauded in the colonies. New York City erected a statue in his honor. 

In the following year, Parliament re-asserted its right to tax the American colonies. The new taxes, the Townshend Duties, aroused a furor in the colonies. In response, Parliament repealed all the taxes except a tiny tax on tea. Leaving the tea tax in place was intended to maintain the principle that Parliament could levy taxes on the colonies. [Image: George III by Johan Zoffany, 1771]

The king supported Parliament's right to tax the colonies. But it was Parliament's right, not his. After the Civil War of the 1640s, British monarchs could not levy taxes. That was Parliament's prerogative. 

The Declaration of Independence essentially blames George III rather than Parliament for the conflict that followed. It was simpler than explaining the intricacies of the British political system. 

The Declaration listed 27 grievances against the British government. Most of them began with "He has...", personalizing the conflict into one of the people versus a tyrannical king. 

George III was no warmonger. One of his first actions as king had been to bring an end to the Seven Years' War with France and Spain at a time when Britain was winning victories everywhere. He was concerned that if Britain seized too much, it would multiply its enemies. 

If we seek the true causes of the American Revolution, we must admit that it was in large part due to British success in the Seven Years War. One of its effects was to remove France as a threat to the colonies and their expansion west. 

Before the war, France had controlled Canada (Quebec) to the north and claimed the lands between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. In the peace treaty of 1763, the French ceded those territories to Britain. 

Prior to this, the colonists had relied on British soldiers to protect them against attacks by the French and their Indian allies. Now, they felt more secure. They looked forward to settling the trans- Appalachian country. 

They became furious when the British government tried to restrict colonists' movement into what they deemed Indian lands. The view in London was that settler expansion would lead to Indian wars and colonial demands for British protection. The government wanted to reduce expenditure, not increase it. 

It is true that once the American War for Independence began, King George was determined that it end in British victory. He obstinately continued to support the war even after the disastrous British defeat at Yorktown in October 1781, when most of his ministers urged him to give up. A few months later, he agreed and authorized the start of peace negotiations.

Once independence was conceded, he became resigned to the new relationship with the former colonies. In 1785 he told John Adams, the first American ambassador to Britain, "I was the last consent to the separation; but the separation having been made ... I have always said, as I say now, I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power." 

British rule in the colonies was often insensitive and infuriating. The frustrations were increased by the immense distance between Britain and America. But no colonies of the time were as loosely governed by an imperial country as the thirteen who declared independence in 1776. 

The true tranny in the American colonies was the enslavement of a large part of the population. British politicians had helped make that possible. But the power of Parliament over the colonies meant they could also end slavery. One reason many southern leaders supported the revolution was the fear that Parliament might do exactly that, especially after Chief Justice Mansfield ruled slavery in England illegal in 1772. 

George III is often referred to as “Mad King George.” But he did not show any clear signs of mental illness until 1788, 28 years into his reign. This is the event portrayed in Alan Bennett’s play The Madness of George III and the film based upon it, The Madness of King George. 

That episode lasted a few months and produced what historians call the Regency Crisis. It threatened to bring down the government, led by William Pitt the Younger. Many opposition MPs were demanding that the Prince of Wales be installed as regent to rule in his father’s name. 

The contemporary cartoon below shows Tory and Whig leaders "pulling for a King." George III is restrained in a chair in the rear, a pawn in the struggle for power.

Prince George favoured the opposition Whigs, who believed he would help them gain power. George III's recovery ended that prospect. [Image: George, Prince of Wales, later George IV, c. 1789, by Mather Byles Brown]

George suffered more attacks of his illness in 1800 and 1804, but recovered quickly. In 1810, the disease returned and on this occasion he agreed to a regency. by now the Prince of Wales had become disillusioned with the Whigs, some of whom had shown a tendency towards radicalism. The Tories remained in power until 1830.

The king's malady proceeded to dementia, blindness, deafness. He was in great pain from rheumatism. He had become Shelley’s “old, mad, blind, and dying king.” [Image: George III in his last years, sketched by Henry Meyer]

George III clung to life for another ten years, dying at age 82 in 1820. Upon his death, The Prince Regent became king as George IV (1820-1830). His twenty years as Regent and King are still referred to as the Regency Period. 

Biographers and Historians of Psychiatry have long debated the nature of George III’s illness. In the late 1960s, psychiatrists Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter argued that George suffered from a genetic metabolic disorder called porphyria, which among other things, can cause one’s urine to turn dark red or purple. Bennet’s play and film highlights the king’s dark urine and the bumbling doctors who think it unimportant. 

Other researchers have questioned the porphyria diagnosis. They argue that the king showed symptoms of psychoses such as dementia, mania, and manic-depressive or bipolar disorder. A study of his hair in 2005 revealed that he had consumed large amounts of medicines or cosmetics containing arsenic, a poison that might have precipitated his disease.  

Interestingly, George III was attacked on several occasions by people later declared insane. In 1786, a woman named Margaret Nicholson tried to stab him with a small dessert knife. The king easily fended of the blow and told his attendants to treat her kindly. “The poor creature is mad. Do not hurt her. She has not hurt me.” (Image: Contemporary print showing Nicholson's attack on the king)

In 1790 he reacted with similar sympathy when John Frith, who believed he was St. Paul, threw a rock at the king’s coach. A third assailant, James Hadfield, tried and failed to shoot the king in 1800 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The king seems to have been unfazed by the incident. He fell asleep during the interval. 

All three assailants were sent to Bethlem Hospital for the Insane, Hadfield after being declared not guilty due to insanity during his precedent-setting trial for treason. [Image: Contemporary print showing the "Horrid" Hadfield's attempt to shoot the king].

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"The Glorious Fourth": A Poem on Independence Day by Hannah Griffits, 1785

The 250th anniversary of American independence is in 2026. Given how Trump is undermining the principles the US was founded upon, it is worth looking at the views of an intelligent women who was ambivalent about the whole thing. 

Hannah Griffits was a Quaker poet who lived in the late colonial and early national period of American history. She witnessed a lot of changes: her life spanned 90 years (1727-1817).

Hannah decided to be a poet when she was just a child. At age 10, she promised God that she would not write poetry about "trifling themes." She kept her promise. 

Griffits came from a prominent Pennsylvania family. She supported colonial resistance to British rule. In addition, she was also a proto-feminist who wrote poems celebrating the efforts of the Daughters of Liberty to boycott British goods in response to the attempts of Parliament to tax colonial imports.  

But she was also a devout Quaker. She abhorred violence and advocated a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Once hostilities commenced she denounced the behavior of both sides and the suffering and divisions they created. The war divided Griffits' relatives into Patriots and Loyalists, a common outcome in many families.

She was appalled by the carnage of the first major battle after the Patriots had declared independence, the Battle of Long Island.  [Image: "The Battle of Long Island" by Alonzo Chappell, 19th century recreation.]

She was particularly harsh in condemning Thomas Paine (one of my heroes), calling him "a Snake beneath the grass" whose extreme rhetoric drowned out that of moderates. The British came in for a drubbing as well. They exhibited evidence of a "deep degeneracy of nature." 

In the wake of the war, she wrote a poem expressing disillusion with the costs and results of independence. It is short and simple, but immensely powerful. It sums up, I think, the feelings many people have today about the current situation of the United States. It deserves wide dissemination at this perilous time. 

"The glorious fourth --  again appears,

A day of days -- and year of years,

The sum of sad disasters,

Where all the mighty gains we see,

With all their boasted liberty,

Is only change of masters." (1785)

Griffits' poetry received little attention in her time. The literary establishments of the day were hostile to women authors. Griffits never tried to publish her poems. A few did get published but not through her own efforts. Many others survived in commonplace books kept by relatives and friends. 

Further Reading: 

Hannah Griffitts - Wikipedia

Hannah Griffitts | History of American Women (womenhistoryblog.com) by Maggie Maclean

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A South Carolina Loyalist's Voyage into Exile, 1778: Louisa Wells Aikman

One of the most interesting narratives produced during the War for American Independence was by a woman, Louisa Susannah (Wells) Aikman. She left a detailed record of her voyage from Charleston, South Carolina to London in 1778. It was a voyage into exile because she was a Loyalist from a family of Loyalists. 

[Image: Louisa Wells Aikman, from a miniature painted c. 1815.]

Louisa was born in Charleston in 1755. Her parents, Robert Wells and Mary Rowand, married in 1750. Three years later they emigrated to Charleston. They moved there in part because members of her mother's family in Scotland had been implicated in the failed Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, on behalf of "Bonnie Prince Charlie." 

Mary's family had been forced to change their name, from Ruthven to Rowand. The Ruthven name, like the tartan, had been outlawed after the rebellion. 

Robert Wells soon established a successful printing and bookselling business in Charleston. He also published Charleston's second newspaper, The South Carolina and American General Gazette. It competed with the older South Carolina Gazette, owned by Peter Timothy. The two became bitter rivals. 

Wells amassed considerable property, including a house at 71 Tradd Street that survives. In 1775, he claimed to have the largest stock of books of any bookseller in the North American colonies. [Image: Wells' house on Tradd and East Bay]

Ironically, Wells' newspaper was the first in South Carolina to publish the Declaration of Independence, in August 1776. Ironically, because Wells was a Loyalist who staunchly defended the British government in his editorials. 

Wells had left Charleston for London the previous year, declaring that he could not live under the rebel government of South Carolina. His younger son, William Charles Wells, soon followed him, determined to pursue a medical degree at Edinburgh. William was then an apprentice to Dr. Alexander Garden, the naturalist for whom the gardenia is named. His wife Mary and daughters Priscilla and Helena went to England after William. 

Robert placed the management of his business in the hands of his eldest son John, assisted by Louisa, his eldest daughter. John had apparently shared his father's political views, but as the inevitability of independence and war approached, he joined the Patriot side. It was John who published the Declaration of Independence, enthusiastically, he claimed. 

John's sincerity may be doubted. He switched sides again in 1780 when the British captured Charleston, and then again when they evacuated it in 1782. He became the black sheep of the family before dying in poverty in the West Indies in 1799. 

Louisa remained committed to the British cause, and like many other Loyalists, was banished from South Carolina in 1778 for refusing to sign an Oath of Allegiance to the state. 

A major fire in Charleston that January had destroyed much of the family property. The Patriot government confiscated the rest. Louisa no longer felt bound by the promise she had made to stay in Charleston and preserve the family property "as long as one stone stood upon another." 

In late June, Louisa, her uncle Robert Rowand, his son, and other Loyalists boarded the ship Providence, bound for Rotterdam. From there, they hoped to get passage to England. Louisa's maid Bella came with her. 

Was Bella enslaved? Louisa does not say. If she was, she would have been legally free once she landed in Britain. Chief Justice Mansfield's decision in the Somerset Case (1772) had declared slavery illegal in England.

As the ship began to leave Charleston harbor, many boats were busy bringing palmetto trees into town to celebrate the second anniversary of the "ever inglorious 28th of June 1776." [Image: Charleston Harbor, c. 1773, Library of Congress]

She was referring to the Battle of Sullivan's Island, the first major defeat the colonists had inflicted on the British. As they passed Fort Moultrie at the entrance to the harbor, she noted that they could see British cannon balls "lodged in the [palmetto] logs as in a sponge." 

The ship was stuck at the harbor entrance for a few days by adverse winds. On July 1, they went bumpily but safely "over the bar," guided by a "Black Pilot" named Bluff. The passengers paid him $100 in addition to the ship master's fee. 

Louisa remarks on Bluff's skill and pointedly mentions that the passengers had chosen a black pilot in preference to a white man. Many of Charleston's most respected harbor pilots at the time were of African origin.  

Once upon the open ocean, they celebrated their deliverance from "the dominion of Congress." As they sailed away on a brisk Southwest wind, the last bit of Charleston to disappear from sight was the black steeple of St. Michael's. Originally white, as it is today, the revolutionary government had ordered it painted black so that it would be harder for British ships to see. (It wasn't, except perhaps in the dark.) 

Many hair-raising adventures lay ahead. On the 4th of July (how ironic!) their ship was captured by a British navy vessel, The Rose. Its captain, James Reid, first thought Providence was French. It had been built in France. He then decided the passengers were American rebels. Despite their protests he ordered Providence taken to New York as a prize, hoping to claim its cargo.

A few days later, nearing the British stronghold of New York, they were pursued by a French fleet under the Comte d'Estaing. They managed to reach safety in the harbor. 

At first it seemed they were in danger of being treated as rebels in New York, but influential Loyalist friends intervened to ensure they weren't. While waiting for a judgment on the disposal of the ship's cargo, Louisa spent several weeks in Flushing with old friends, Colonel Archibald Hamilton and his "Lady," granddaughter of Cadwallader Colden, long-time Lt. Governor of New York.

A Vice Admiralty court ruled in favor of the Providence. Louisa and the other passengers recovered their property and were allowed to leave. In mid-October they embarked on the Mary and Charlotte, bound for England, accompanied by a convoy of naval and mercantile ships. After having survived storms and avoided French and American privateers, they became lost in dense fog for eight days off the south English coast, unsure of their location. 

When the fog cleared they found themselves off the rocky coast of Cornwall. That night another ferocious storm struck. Five of the six ships in their group were lost. 

Louisa's ship survived, and they anchored near Dover on November 27. Contrary winds prevented their landing, but she and other passengers were able to disembark a few miles down the coast at Deal. Observing the stone walls of Deal Castle, she remarked that the British should build forts of palmetto logs!

She described her emotions when finally stepping onto "British soil": "I could have kissed the gravel on the salt beach! It was my home: the country which I had so long and so earnestly wished to see. The Isle of Liberty and Peace." 

It seems a rather ironic statement from a woman born in South Carolina of Scottish parents as she arrived on the South coast of England! Especially as her mother's family had supported the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 against the Hanoverian monarchs. 

From Deal Louisa and her uncle took a coach across the Chalk Downs (hills) and passed through Canterbury, Rochester and Greenwich to London. Along the way, she remarked how remarkably green the countryside was compared to America in late November.

She ended her journey at the home of her parents at 47 Salisbury Court, just off Fleet Street. The street was then known colloquially as the printers' street because it was home to so many printing establishments. It was a natural place for Robert Wells to settle, and he had built a successful printing business there. 

Louisa fell ill of a fever shortly after she arrived. Her parents sent her to Bath Spa to recover. The journey must have been unpleasant because she claimed that she would rather have made a voyage to the West Indies. 

Ironically, that is where she soon went. In 1782 she married Alexander Aikman, Printer to the House of Assembly and King's Printer, in Jamaica, and a member of the Assembly. 

The couple had known each other in Charleston. For four years they had worked together in her father's business. On her way to Jamaica to marry Aikman, Louisa's ship was seized by a French naval vessel. She was interned in France for several months before being allowed to resume her journey. 

The couple had 10 children, only four of whom survived to adulthood. Such appalling child mortality was typical of malarial Jamaica and also of Louisa's native South Carolina. It was in part a consequence of an economy based on enslaved African labor.

Around 1820 Louisa moved to Cowes on the Isle of Wight, perhaps for health reasons or to be with her daughter Susannah. Louisa died in Cowes in 1831, aged 76. 

A few months after her arrival in London in November 1778, Louisa wrote the work from which most of this information comes, The Journal of a Voyage from Charlestown, S.C., to London (1779). The journal is an important primary source for social life during the Revolutionary Era generally. 

Due to the loss of his Charleston property, ill-advised lending, and a paltry pension from the British government, Robert Wells fell into debt in the 1780s, leaving the family in comparative poverty. He suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1791 and died three years later. Mary Wells survived him, dying at Camberwell in 1805. 

Louisa's brother William became senior physician at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of London, the most prestigious scientific society in Britain. His written works include one in which he articulated the theory of natural selection, more than 40 years before Charles Darwin. William Charles Wells died of a heart condition in 1817. 

Louisa's sister Helena married and authored two novels. She died in 1824. We know little of her other sister, Priscilla, except that she never married. She died in 1843, outliving her siblings. 

Louisa played an important role in the preservation of popular musical scores. Along with a large load of books, Robert Wells had brought hundreds of song sheets from the British Isles to Charleston in 1753. Many of them have survived because Louisa created a personal songbook of about 110 sheets of the music. 

In 1992, the Music Division of the Library of Congress purchased the book. Individual sheets are available for viewing at the Library online. https://www.loc.gov/notated-music/?all=true&q=Louisa+Susannah+Wells&sp=1

Further Reading: 

Louisa's journal was published in 1906 by the New York Historical Society. A copy can be accessed online at the Internet Archive:

The journal of a voyage from Charlestown, S. C., to London, undertaken during the American revolution by a daughter of an eminent American loyalist : Aikman, Louisa Susannah Wells, 1755?-1831 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Peter McCandless, Slavery, Disease, and Suffering in the Southern Lowcountry. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2011, 2014. 

Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992)

The Papers of Henry Laurens. 16 vols., (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972-2003. See Volumes dealing with the 1770s.

Arthur Middleton: Flawed Founding Father

South Carolina's Arthur Middleton (1742-1787) is probably best known as a signer the American Declaration of Independence. Visitors to Middleton Place near Charleston may recall that he owned the rice plantation there, erected by his father Henry and famed for its landscaped gardens. 

In the 1750s, his parents sent him to England to be educated, a privilege largely restricted to the sons of wealthy planters. He did his preparatory education at two of England's most prestigious "public" schools, Harrow and Westminster. He then attended university at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and the Middle Temple in London, where he studied law. 

He returned to South Carolina in the early 1760s, and married the daughter of another wealthy planter family, Mary Izard. In 1764, Arthur's father gave him Middleton Place and moved to The Oaks, a plantation near Goose Creek where he had been born.    

In 1768, Arthur and Mary went to England and did not return until 1771. Shortly before their return, the American artist Benjamin West, who had settled in Britain, painted a family portrait of Middleton with his wife Mary Izard Middleton and their infant son Henry. Ironically, West would soon become the court painter to George III, soon to be Middleton's nemesis. [Image: Arthur Middleton, and the full family portrait]

Upon his return, Arthur emerged as one of the the most radical opponents of British colonial policies. he joined the American Whig Party, who later dubbed themselves the "Patriots." He allied with his friend and neighbor, William Henry Drayton of Drayton Hall, who had swung from being a firm supporter of the Crown to one of its most vocal opponents. 

Both men served on many of the committees the extralegal Provincial Congress of South Carolina established in 1775. They used the committees to effectively run the colony and render the royal government virtually helpless, violating many laws and personal liberties in the process. 

Through the Secret Committee, they used the Sons of Liberty to harass those believed to be loyal to the Crown or neutral. Their methods of persuasion included intimidation, illegal house searches, and for the most vocal, tarring and feathering, sometimes followed by banishment from the colony. 

In early 1776, the Provincial Congress gradually turned in favor of complete independence. By this time open war between colonists and Britain had begun in New England. The Congress elected Middleton as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He replaced his father Henry, who was much less radical than he was. Their differences led to a serious rift in the family. 

As noted above, Arthur was among those who signed the Declaration of Independence.  A few days before that event, Patriot forces in South Carolina had repulsed a British attack on Charleston at the Battle of Sullivan's Island. It was the first major victory of the war for the Americans. 

During the next three years, the war hardly touched South Carolina. But in the late 1770s, the British adopted what they called the Southern Strategy. They captured Savannah in December 1778 and set their eyes on Charleston, then the wealthiest city in America. The city surrendered to a British and Loyalist force in May 1780. It was the worst Patriot defeat of the war, as the entire Southern Army was captured. [See The British Seize Charleston]

The surrender was also a disaster for Middleton. After landing on the Charleston peninsula, British soldiers ransacked Middleton Place, beheading many of its statues. 

Worse followed. The British arrested Middleton and about twenty others they thought were plotting further resistance. The prisoners, who included Christopher Gadsden and Edward Rutledge, were shipped to the British stronghold at St. Augustine. 

They remained in Florida until July 1781, when the British paroled them and sent them to Philadelphia. By then, the war was nearing its close. Lord Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington and a French force at Yorktown in October. 

Middleton returned to South Carolina at war's end. He died of a fever, probably malaria, at Middleton Place in January 1787 and was buried there in a tomb. [Image: Middleton's tomb at Middleton Place]

His legacy was mixed. A fervent Patriot he surely was. Yet some of the measures he supported as a member of the Secret Committee violated the very notions of liberty he espoused and he lived a life made possible by the enslavement of hundreds of his fellow beings. 

Side note: Middleton's descendants include Charles Middleton, who starred as the evil Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon films of the 1930s. I remember Ming well. I used to sit and watch the films on TV on Saturday mornings in the 1950s, absolutely fascinated!   

Further Reading:

John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution 2 vols., Charleston, 1821. Based on documents John's father William Henry Drayton had collected prior to his death.

The Papers of Henry Laurens. 16 vols., Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972-2003. Volumes dealing with the 1760s and 1770s.