Highly interesting autograph manuscript presumably a draft for either an address or a broadside, now no longer extant, by Alexander McDougall, revolutionary leader, merchant, banker, and major general in the Continental Army, written at the height of the stamp act crisis when McDougall began his "radical" pre-Revolutionary activities.

Alexander McDougall was a Scottish immigrant, ex-milk boy on the streets of New York, ship's captain and later privateer, waterfront entrepreneur, in short an entirely "self made man." His talent for rallying the men on the streets and docks soon brought him a stay in jail and a measure of fame as "the Wilkes of America." When the war came McDougall became a major general, one of the inner circle of Washington's advisors, Washington promoted him commander at West Point after Benedict Arnold's treason. At the close of the war his efforts on behalf of the disillusioned officers of the Continental Army helped to forestall those who sought a military coup.

After the war McDougall was elected to the New York State Senate, serving until his death. His son-in-law John Laurance was a close associate of Alexander Hamilton, both in state and national politics and in the founding of the Bank of New York. McDougall himself moved into Hamilton's circle and became the first president of the bank.

McDougall thus moved through the revolutionary era "from the bottom up," making the climb from street radical to high-ranking general, national figure and emergent capitalist.

The resistance to the Stamp Act in New York took place within the context of the ongoing political struggles between the two dominant political factions and their struggles to win the allegiance of the laboring people: the Livingstons and the De Lanceys. McDougall was closely allied with the Livingstons.

"There were probably few imperial decisions that could have aroused the people as thoroughly as did George Grenville's revenue program for the American colonies. For McDougall, the Stamp Act cisis of 1765-1766 marked the beginning of his active interest in New York politics. He was one of a small group of middle class merchants of similar age, background, and circumstances - men such as Isaac Sears and John Lamb - who came to play important roles in the community resentment against the stamp tax. In the beginning, these fledgling leaders were indistinguishable from the mass of outraged citizens. They called themselves Sons of Liberty, or Liberty Boys...  Bound together by an emotion-charged determination to resist what they regarded as unlawful parliamentary taxation, the broadly constituted Sons of Liberty had virtually nullified the Stamp Act in New York by the end of October, 1765. Stamp officials had resigned their commissions; merchants and shopkeepers had agreed to boycott English goods until the tax law was repealed; and it was commonly agreed that no person would pay the tax. McDougall was a street leader in the protest. Along the waterfront, his standing and reputation as a former ship master and privateer captain helped him muster the large body of sailors for demonstrations which fanned the flame of unrest in the city. Although the record is not clear, he probably was involved in other protest activities as well. But considering the widespread unrest in the colony, he was no doubt interested in all phases of the effort to defeat the tax measure, from coffee house and street corner discussions of the constitutional issues to maintaining the seawatch for the ship carrying the stamps for New York.

Soon after it began, however, New York's opposition to the stamp tax threatened to dissolve into random violence, which frightened away many of the early critics of Grenville's imperial program. On November 1, 1765, the date the Stamp Act was to go into effect, a destructive riot followed a demonstration against Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden. Colden was bound by royal oath and personal views to uphold the tax, and his obstinence triggered four days of disorder and terror in the city, which ended only when he surrendered the stamped papers to city officials. Further violence was prevented, but the mob action of November 1 resulted in property damage of ₤ 1, 500. Such widespread violence shocked the city. Some men who had earlier supported community action to defeat the stamp tax separated themselves from the proponents of extreme measures. The Sons of Liberty, once an all-encompassing term for colonial protesters generally, now became a well-defined, organized group of radicals under the leadership of Isaac Sears and John Lamb, [both members of the De Lancey faction] who insisted upon a continued defiance of British power and the need for an intercolonial military defense of colonial rights.

The available evidence does not show that McDougall was a member of the Sons of Liberty as that group was identified by the end of November, 1765. The traditional accounts of the Stamp Act crisis in New York place McDougall among the leading extremists of the time. But contemporary sources do not mention him as an active participant in the city's affairs. Considering his later political activities, his anti-British attitudes, and his claim that he had earlier been a Son of Liberty, it is fair to ask why he does not appear, along with Sears and Lamb, among the Liberty Boys of 1765-1766. Several explanations may account for McDougall's absence from public view. In political matters he was influenced by William Smith, Jr., John Morin Scott, and William Livingston, all eminent lawyers and established Whigs, the "triumvirate" of New York politics. Also influential was Robert R. Livingston, supreme court justice and assembly representative from Dutchess County. McDougall undoubtedly came to know all four by way of a common interest in the affairs of the Wall Street Presbyterian Church, to which they all belonged. According to a Livingston family tradition. McDougall was supposed to have revered Justice Livingston and treasured his political writings. Together the four lawyers had fashioned the Assembly's constitutional arguments against the Grenville taxes, and in October, 1765, they were instrumental in raising the public resentment against Parliament and stirring the people against Lieutenant Governor Colden. But they had not intended to encourage rioting against private property. In the week following the violence of November 1, all four were indefatigable in working to prevent further disturbances. Robert R. Livingston, judging that seamen were the principal element of the mob, sought the assistance of ex-privateer captains in quieting the city. "One came immediately into our measures," Livingston reported. "With him we went round to every part of the town..." ... By aiding community leaders who were trying to control the violence, McDougall found himself in opposition to Sears and Lamb. This would explain why he was not counted among the popular leaders in 1765-1766." ¹    

McDougall adavanced to popular leadership in 1769, when he published his famous broadside, "To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York," under the pseudonym "A Son of Liberty," (Evans 11319). Publishing the piece did not mark a break with the Livingstons, who had lost control of the assembly in the election that year. McDougall charged the provincial assembly, now in the control of the DeLancey's, with sacrificing New Yorker's rights for partisan advantage. When he was revealed as the author, retribution came swiftly, the assembly imprisoned him. He was jailed twice on the assembly's orders, serving a total of 162 days, but he was never convicted of an actual crime.  His jailing had echoes of Parliament's notorious imprisonment of its dissident member John Wilkes, and patriots feted McDougall recalling the Wilkes case, he became known as "the Wilkes of America." McDougall and his case became a cause celebre and had clear similarities to the trial of John Zenger.

Thereafter McDougall was very active in the politics and resistance and revolution.

The current text clearly dates from the period before the repeal of the Stamp Act. It provides newly available evidence about the nature and extent of McDougall's protest and revolutionary activities at the very beginning of his public career. It shows that his nascent political views were at this early date firmly in the radical Whig camp.  This text predates his earliest known printed text, the 1769 broadside mentioned above, To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York," he published several others between the years 1770 and 1778 (see Evans 11710, 12103, 13389, 16093, and Bristol 4715), which have many stylistic similarities to the current work.

This text, which presumably is a draft for an unknown broadside, (McDougall had a speech impediment which made public speaking difficult) shows McDougall's familiarity with radical Whig ideology. While not a scholar, he had clearly absorbed much from his political mentors the Livingstons. He was known to have read the sources of 18^th century political thought, Plutarch, Seneca, Locke and Montesquieu, Cato's Letters, and Francis Hutcheson's System of Moral Philosophy; he also read Somers and Blackstone on the common law, a number of histories, and a score of nonconformist religious tracts. McDougall's poltical values were soundly based in radical Whig ideology.

"To the Respectable Freeholders, Freemen & Inhabitants of y^e Colony & City of New York in Particular, and of Am[rica] in General ---------------

    Brethren, Friends, Fellow Citizens and Fellow-Suffering Subjects

Methinks I hear the Murmurs of suffering that Delayed Justice echoing the Suspicions of an Injured People that right will not be done them - How far that will be the case time only can determine. But I must acknowledge that your suspicions do not appear to me to be groundless even if the Infernal Stamp Act should be Abolished, its ten to one but there is some thing as Destructive substituted, tho not perhaps not so glaring and   of to your Civil Liberties Substituted in y^e room of it, tho perhaps not so glaring, for as the first pill could not be cramed down much less swallowed, there is no doubt but the second will be a Gilded One --- There is the Danger! To be Doucered out of your rights - But I trust to better things of you, that after having put your hand to the plow you will not look back, on the acct. of any trifling concession that may be made to you - And call all y^e advantages emoluments of trade but trifling when put in competition with the enjoyment of the British Constitution in its primitive Vigour, and in such vigour must you enjoy it, if you will retain your Liberty for there is nothing in the name that will compensate for y^e least Deprivation of any part of it - Therefore I conjure you by the regard allegiance that you owe your king, the same regard that you bear y^e Constitution Yourselves & your Posterity, to oppose with unremitting ardour every species of Tyranny, Let the Consequences be what they may they cannot be worse than an established Tyranny, ------

   The being Call'd motley & rebellious are nothing but Court terms for apply'd to all opposed of anything illegal, arbitrary & tyrannical measures For as Mr. Locke so irrefutably offered to prove asserts & proves that they who by force break through & violate the Constitution are properly y^e Rebels       and it is well known who they are 

   I hope Many will be the Acts Tried to Deprive us of our Liberties that that being Totally subonsive [sic] of all y^e     of society salutary ends of society, so that if you w^d good subjects, good citizens or anything that is good, Maintain          scrupulously all & every of your inherent rights and privileges as British subjects as the least Concession on your part at this time will Mightily Militate against you   in any future contest with style that Hydra Headed Majesty y^e Parliament

   It  ▬▬▬▬  will stand you in no stead to report write it in letters of Gold Capitals of Gold, that our fellow subjects of Great Britain have no ▬▬▬ authority over us and at the same time pay an abject obedience to y^e  ▬▬▬▬most Tyrannical impositions that can be offered to a free people. I mean the Prohibition of Manufacturing Steel, stiling & plating of Iron, y^e water bearing of wool, and in short every Duty p^d in Consequence of an Act of P^t - as it is y^e most acknowledged proof Acknowledged proof of their Sovereignty over us - But do not Mistake me, I would not have you refuse to make acknowledgement s to the Benefits accruing to our Commercial interests from the Navy of Great Britain                  Justice Demands it in all cases that     we should Make     a return ▬▬▬▬ equivalent to y^e Benefit receiv'^d if it is in our power. But that we ought to be the sole Judges of, otherwise we are Slaves▬▬▬▬  and our Tyrants may by the same pretended authority ▬▬▬▬▬   Double or Quadruple all the Duty on our ▬▬▬▬Commerce ▬▬▬   "

Manuscript material of any substance by McDougall has rarely come on the market. His papers were only "discovered" in the possession of a descendant in the late 1960's and were promptly donated to several institutions, including Union College and The New York Historical Society. Incoming letters to McDougall from his more famous correspondents appear at auction from time to time.

The present manuscript, in McDougall's hand is a recent discovery and hitherto not a part of the historical record and should therefore be of some interest to scholars and researchers of the Revolutionary period.

1. Champagne, Roger J., Alexander McDougall and the American Revolution in New York.

Schenectady: Union College Press, 1975, pp., 12-14

    American National Biography, vol. 15, pp., 17-18

    Champagne, Roger J., Alexander McDougall and the American Revolution in New York.

     Schenectady: Union College Press, 1975

    Countryman, Edward, A People in Revolution The American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760-1790

   New York: W. W. Norton, 1989

    Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 6, pt. 2, pp., 21-22

   Nash, Gary B., The Urban Crucible Social Change, Political Conciousness, and the Origins of the American Revolution

   Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979