Historical Digression

[The brig Hope out of Plymouth (at right) is confronted with a problem (Image generated using AI)] If you have not read Part One of this tale, you might want to do that first, click here.

The brig Hope of Plymouth in Provincetown harbor, evading the embargo (Image generated using AI) It was a custom for old shipmasters and seamen, after their seafaring days were over, occasionally to meet in Captain Doten’s counting room at the head of what

[Deacon John Torrey reading the “Plymouth Instructions” before Town Meeting in the Court House in Town Square, May 20, 1776.]

[Image: American privateers seek refuge in Plymouth Bay to escape the British fleet, triggering alarms that may have included a massive bonfire on Gurnet Point, generated using AI.]

[Imagining Boston viewed from Dorchester Neck, March 8, 1775, as the British fleet prepares to evacuate many thousands of British soldiers and loyalists from Boston.

[Image: American gun crews on Dorchester Heights hunker down on the afternoon and evening of March 5, 1776 as a nor’easter bears down, thwarting British plans to attack the freshly built provincial fortifications (generated using AI).]

[Image: Continental troops marching along the foot of Dorchester Heights under cover of darkness as Boston endures an artillery bombardment, created using AI] On March 4, 1776, James Thacher, Surgeon’s Mate in the Continental Army, stood in the American c…

Image: An interpretation of the bombardment of Boston that began March 2, 1776 James Thacher would become a distinguished citizen, physician, and historian of Plymouth after the Revolutionary War.

[Image: The First Plymouth County Regiment marches home on December 31, 1775, their enlistment term over after nearly eight months serving on the Roxbury siege lines.

[Image: An interpretation of Colonel Cotton and his regimental officers conferring as they examine besieged Boston from Roxbury in December 1775.

[Image: An interpretation of James Warren and members of the Committee of Correspondence confronting Loyalist members of the Old Colony Club with a letter that amounted to an ultimatum regarding Forefathers’ Day celebrations, November 1773.

The coach jolted and swayed as it passed along the deeply rutted road, pulled by a pair of weary horses moving at a slow walk.

Imagining the scuttling of Plymouth’s most successful whale ship, the Fortune.

Image generated by AI based on a rough sketch by Roland Swain, mate aboard the Plymouth whaleship Mayflower, as recorded in his log of the 1827 voyage, depicting Plymouth’s first whaling vessel off the coast of St.

The tavern was dim and close, thick with the smell of rum and woodsmoke.

The Continental privateer Washington pursued by the HMS Fowey and HMS Lively (image created using AI based on a historical image of a Revolutionary War brigantine) I perhaps should save this tale for this fall when we reach the 250th anniversary of the ev…

“Stonehenge: Stormy Day”, 1846, by Joseph Mallord William Turner I watched the sun rise today as I do most days, but with a different perspective.