Warren’s Death Worth 500 Redcoats
To the editor:
By 1775, Patriots were on the long path to liberty. One of them, Dr. Joseph Warren, spoke on March 6, 1775, the annual commemoration of the Boston Massacre. After the Massacre, Warren attended the body of 11-year old Christopher Seider, perhaps the first person to die during the Revolution. Warren drafted the 1774 Suffolk Resolves to boycott imports to force repeal of the Intolerable Acts. A Son of Liberty, he arranged with Paul Revere and William Dawes to spread the alarm that British troops were marching to Concord to search for hidden arms and arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams, whom the British believed were traitorously stirring up “rebellious fanatics.” Warren probably helped organize the 1773 Boston Tea Party and said of duty to liberty: “Where danger is, dear mother, there must your son be. Now is no time for any ofAmerica’s children to shrink from any hazard. I will set her free or die.”
Having watched British soldiers violate domestic tranquility in Boston, Dr. Warren spoke to a packed Old South Meeting House: “Our Country is in Danger but Not To Be Despaired Of.” It accommodated 5,000 people, if they crowded together. Patriots feared that if the King were insulted, soldiers and officers would attack the crowd. The King, most of Parliament, and many in uniform believed colonists could be intimidated. The crowd came armed with stout bludgeons. Several dozen British officers arrived. Sam Adams cleared the front seats in the Hall and had them seated there to feel Warren’s brilliant wrath.
Warren said: “I mourn over my bleeding country … deeply resent the many injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men.” He emphasized universal principle: “That personal freedom is the natural right of every man; and that property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly acquired by his own labour, … truths which common sense has placed beyond the reach of contradiction.” Of Massachusetts, “Our fathers having nobly resolved never to wear the yoke of despotism, and seeing the European world, at the time, through indolence and cowardice, falling prey to tyranny, bravely threw themselves upon the bosom of the ocean, determined to find a place in which they might enjoy their freedom, or perish in the glorious attempt.” Warren asked, whose country is this? It “having been discovered by an English subject, in the year 1620, was (according to the system which the blind superstition of those times supported) deemed the property of the crown of England. “
By labor and faith, “Having become the honest proprietors of the soil, they immediately applied themselves to the cultivation of it; and they soon held the virgin earth teeming with richest fruits, a grateful recompense for their unwearied toil. The fields began to wave with ripening harvests, and the late barren wilderness was seen to blossom like the rose.” Britain covetously began “the hateful project of transferring the whole property of the king’s subjects in America, to his subjects in Britain.” “The hearts of Britons and Americans, which lately felt the generous glow of mutual confidence and love, now burn with jealousy and rage.” Patriots “considered the army as sent to enslave them … taught to look on the people as in a state of rebellion.” Troops’ action was unjust, as Warren recalled: “images of terror crowd around me, and discontented ghosts, with hollow groans, appear to solemnize the anniversary of the fifth of March.” What’s to be done? “Revenge is far beneath the noble mind.”
Warren advised resistance against “a British army in our land, sent to enforce obedience to acts of parliament destructive of our liberty.” Slanderous voices, “traitorous alike to king and country, have prevailed upon a gracious prince to clothe his countenance with wrath, and to erect the hostile banner against a people ever affectionate and loyal to him.” “Our streets are again filled with armed men; our harbour is crowded with ships of war; but these cannot intimidate us; our liberty must be preserved; it is far dearer than life, we hold it even dear as our allegiance.” What action is noble? “Where justice is the standard, heaven is the warrior’s shield” against enemies “numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution.” If “pacific measures are ineffectual, and it appears that the only way to safety is through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from your foes, but will, undauntedly, press forward, until tyranny is trodden under foot, and you have fixed your adoring goddess Liberty … on the American throne.”
At the battle of Bunker’s Hill, Warren asked General Isreal Putnam to send him to where the fighting would be most fierce, Breed’s Hill. Rather than as an officer, Warren served as a private. He fought valiantly. After his death, his body was desecrated by British soldiers whose arrogance could not understand or appreciate colonists’ willingness to die for self-determination and liberty, for government by debate and consent.
British General Thomas Gage accounted Warren’s death as worth that of 500 British soldiers. Loyalist, Peter Oliver called Warren “the greatest incendiary in all of America.” All he wanted was liberty, justice, and peace, noble thoughts for July 4, 2026.