Page 15 - Talk of Tequesta - October '24

The Talk Of Tequesta, Page 15

booK review from page 14 which demanded that
President John Adams
years earlier and declared itself an independent nation— turn over the “mutineer
one of the most objectionable policies of the British and murderer” to Britain
crown and its navy was the practice of “impressment”: the for punishment. It was
stopping and boarding of other nations’ vessels, capturing awkward timing, for
members of their crews and forcing them to sail and work Adams was then in the
as seamen on British ships, most likely never to see their process of ratifying an
families again. economic trade treaty
Such was the case of many on the Hermione’s crew as with Britain that had
it sailed near the island of Puerto Rico on that September just been negotiated.
day in 1797. Adding to what was already a tinder box of Adams had to weigh
a situation was the fact that this ship’s captain, Admiral the success of the treaty
Hugh Pigot, was a disciplinarian so stern that whipping against the American
and other punishments for minor crew offenses became public’s anger about
unbearable and sparked the bloody insurrection that ended the British policy and electoral campaign focused on driving the public’s anger,
in the death of the captain and other officers. actions of impressment on the high seas and the idea of form the major part of this compelling story.
One of the main leaders of the mutiny was a man whose turning over to Britain a claimed American citizen who Eventually—and critical in light of today’s political
name throughout this book varies between Thomas Nash “had the right to regain his freedom after having been the climate and immigration crisis—the American people
(if he was actually Irish) and Jonathan Robbins, depending victim of such impressment” and return home. eventually decided that, whether or not Jonathan Robbins
upon whether his claim to have been an American from Adams’s decision to turn Robbins over to Britain— (or Thomas Nash, if that was his real name) was in fact
Connecticut was true or not. where he was executed by hanging without a trial— an American citizen, anyone fleeing from oppression
Eventually, after the mutiny Robbins made his way to Adams’s Federalist Party’s defense of his decision, and the should be able to find sanctuary in the United States and
the U.S. and was tracked down by the British government, consequences of Jefferson’s Republican Party’s national not have to fear being turned away. It is to this day at
the heart of our nation’s self-image, symbolized by the
Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor and the inscription
on her base addressed to “the huddled masses yearning
to be free.”
This is the story of how and when that all started. I
loved every word of it.

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