David James Corbett - Dunmores new world the extraordinary life of a royal governor in Revolutionary America--with Jacobites, counterfeiters, land schemes, shipwrecks, scalping, Indian politics, runaway slaves, and two

Dunmores New World

EARLY AMERICAN HISTORIES

Douglas Bradburn, John C. Coombs, and S. Max Edelson, Editors

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA PRESS Charlottesville and London

The Extraordinary Life of a Royal Governor in Revolutionary Americawith Jacobites, Counterfeiters, Land Schemes, Shipwrecks, Scalping, Indian Politics, Runaway Slaves, and Two Illegal Royal Weddings

J AMES CORBETT DAVID

For my parents

University of Virginia Press

2013 James Corbett David

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

First published 2013

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

David, James Corbett, 1977

Dunmores new world : the extraordinary life of a royal governor in Revolutionary Americawith Jacobites, counterfeiters, land schemes, shipwrecks, scalping, Indian politics, runaway slaves, and two illegal royal weddings / James Corbett David.

pages cm. (Early American histories)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8139-3424-2 (cloth : acid-free paper) ISBN 978-0-8139-3425-9

(e-book)

1. Dunmore, John Murray, Earl of, 17321809. 2. GovernorsVirginia
Biography. 3. Colonial administratorsVirginiaBiography. 4. Scots
VirginiaBiography. 5. VirginiaHistoryColonial period, ca. 16001775.
6. VirginiaHistory17751865. 7. VirginiaPolitics and governmentTo 1775.
8. VirginiaPolitics and government17751865. I. Title.

F229.D89D38 2013

975.502092dc23

[B]

2012048292

FIGURES

MAPS

After eight years of sporadic research and writing, the existence of even one (unrelated) reader seems to me a minor miracle, so my first thanks are to you.

This project began as a doctoral dissertation at the College of William and Mary. Over the years, it has received vital support from a number of institutions, including the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History; the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library of Colonial Williamsburg; the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan; the David Library of the American Revolution in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania; the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello; and the Lyon G. Tyler Department of History, the Wendy and Emery Reves Center for International Studies, and the Office of the Provost at William and Mary. From 2008 to 2010, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies provided office space and access to the libraries of the University of Pennsylvania.

For research assistance, I am grateful to staff at the National Records of Scotland and the National Register of Archives in Edinburgh, especially Tessa Spencer; the New York Public Library; the New-York Historical Society; the Bahamas National Archives; Caroline Stanford at the Landmark Trust in Shottesbrooke, England; the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia; the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, especially Patricia Gibbs, George Yetter, and Barbara Luck; and the Earl Gregg Swem Library at William and Mary. For permission to quote from the Dunmore Family Papers, and her encouraging correspondence, I am indebted to Anne, Countess of Dunmore.

I received valuable feedback on work in progress at Bernard Bailyns International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World at Harvard University (2008), the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (2008), and the Graduate Student Forum at the Colonial Society of Massachusetts (2006). Several individuals read and responded to drafts at various stages, including Robert Calhoon, Andrew OShaughnessy, Rhys Isaac, Bob Gross, Ron Schechter, Chris Grasso, Kris Lane, Rob Parkinson, Mendy Gladden, Sean Harvey, Dan Amsterdam, Jeffrey Edwards, Sarah Grunder, Liam Paskvan, and Rachael Nichols. The project also benefited from the assistance of Brett Ruthforth, Allan Gallay, C. S. Everett, David Hancock, and Roddy Jones. For incisive commentary, and many hours wasted and well spent in Williamsburg, M. J. Bumb deserves special recognition and thanks.

The University of Virginia Press has been wonderful to work with. I want to thank Dick Holway for his faith in the manuscript, and Mark Mones and Raennah Mitchell for their enthusiastic support. Margaret Hogan copyedited the manuscript meticulously, and Bill Nelson drew the maps with patience and skill.

A few scholars have been especially generous to me over the years. Jim Axtell, who began his graduate research seminar with Garrett Mattinglys astonishing Curtain Raiser from The Armada, has been an invaluable source of advice and encouragement. Maya Jasanoff went above and beyond the call of professional courtesy in her engagement with this project, reading an early version in full and kindly helping in any way she could. Cassandra Pybus has been a marvelous mentor and friend; her work is an inspiration. Finally, Ron Hoffman advised the thesis on which this book is based. It was his seminar that sparked my interest in the American Revolution and his recommendation that led me to write about Lord Dunmore. For this and so much more, I will always be grateful.

It is a rare pleasure to finally be able to thank the people closest to me. Sarah, you have changed my life in so many wonderful ways. I love you with all my heart. To my parents, Margaret Grace David and George A. David, Sr., whose support never once wavered, these pages could only be dedicated to you.

Dunmores New World

Sometime before nine oclock on the morning of 5 December 1793, a couple identifying themselves as Augustus Frederick and Augusta Murray were married at St. Georges Church in Hanover Square, London. The bride had arrived in a hackney coach, the equivalent of a modern taxi, wearing a common linen gown beneath a winter cloak. The groom was dressed in a brown greatcoat, not unlike those worn by London shopkeepers of the day. She was in her early thirties; he was ten years her junior. The curate who performed the ceremony did not recognize either one of them, but St. Georges was a large parish so he believed them when they claimed to be congregants. If he noticed the bulge in the brides coatshe was nearly eight months pregnanthe never mentioned it. They seemed to him totally unremarkable, well below the rank of gentleman, as he told the Privy Council several weeks later, not at all distinguished by their dress from the appearance of persons in trade. He had no reason to believe that the marriage of this Augustus Frederick and Augusta Murray represented anything more than the dawn of an ordinary day in the life of his church.