Gaspée affair
The Gaspee Affair (Engl. Gaspee Affair ) occurred in 1772 and represents an important event at the beginning of the American Revolution represents.
The British schooner HMS Gaspée was attacked and destroyed by a group of the Sons of Liberty . The British Customs schooner, armed with eight cannons, led by William Dudingston, had pursued smugglers and ran aground on June 9, 1772 in Narragansett Bay off Providence . The ship was boarded by a group of independence fighters. The men forcibly removed the crew, Dudingston suffered gunshot wounds in the groin and arm, and set the ship on fire. The British government, humiliated in this way, appointed a commission of lawyers and Joseph Wanton , the governor of Rhode Island , and offered a reward to apprehend the perpetrators. You were not caught; the commission ceased its work in June of the following year.
The events in Warwick on Rhode Island are remembered with the Gaspee Days , during which the setting on fire of the ship is simulated.
literature
- Steven Park: The Burning of His Majesty's Schooner Gaspee. Westholme Publishing, Yardley 2017, ISBN 978-1-59416-267-1 .
Web links
- John Russell Bartlett: A History of the Destruction of His Britannic Majesty's Schooner Gaspee (1861, English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horst Dippel : History of the USA , p. 22 ( digitized version )
- ↑ Gaspee.com (English)