Sir, the choice that this town has made of you, to represent
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£ 40; Edward Stow, £ 10; David Phips, Esq., £ 40. Five of these estates were subsequently confiscated and sold by the Commonwealth; the estates of Lechmere (144 acres) and Oliver (96 acres), to Andrew Cabot, Esq., of Salem, Nov. 24, 1779; the estate of Sewall (44 acres) to Thomas Lee of Pomfret, Conn., Dec. 7, 1779;1 the estate of Phips (50 acres) to Isaiah Doane of Boston, May 25, 1781; and the estate of Vassall (116 acres) to Nathaniel Tracy, Esq., of Newburyport, June 28, 1781.
Inman returned soon, and his estate was restored to him. The heirs of Borland and the widow Vassall succeeded to the ownership of their estates in Cambridge; but several houses and stores in Boston, formerly belonging to Borland, were advertised by the agents of the Commonwealth to be leased at auction, March 1, 1780. General Brattle conveyed all his real estate in Cambridge, Dec. 13, 1774, to his only surviving son, Major Thomas Brattle, and died in Halifax, N. S., October, 1776.
By the persevering efforts of Mrs. Katherine Wendell, the only surviving daughter of General Brattle, the estate was preserved from confiscation, and was recovered by Major Brattle after his return from Europe,—having been proscribed in 1778, and having subsequently exhibited satisfactory evidence of his friendship to his country and its political independence.
Besides the persons already named, there were a few other loyalists, or tories, in Cambridge, but not holding such a prominent position: John Nutting, carpenter, was proscribed in 1778; Antill Gallop, a deputy sheriff, who had promised conformity in September, 1774, is said by Sabine2 to have gone with the British troops to Halifax, in 1776; also George Inman (H. C. 1772, died 1789) and John Inman, sons of Ralph Inman, Esq.
After the close of the war, it was proposed to permit the proscribed loyalists to return,—not indeed to share in the administration of the government, but to reclaim their confiscated estates.
This proposition did not meet the approval of the inhabitants of Cambridge.
At a town meeting, May 5, 1783, instructions to their representative, reported by a committee consisting of James Winthrop, Samuel Thatcher, and Abraham Watson, Esquires, were unanimously adopted:—
1 Sometimes called “English Thomas,” to distinguish him from another Thomas Lee, his nearest neighbor. He was a rich merchant, honored and beloved for his generosity to the poor. He died May 26, 1797, in the 60th year of his age.
2 American Loyalists, pp. 308, 381.
Boston. Houghton and Mifflin. 1877.
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