A New Method of Macarony Making, As Practiced at Boston in North America, 1775

A New Method of Macarony Making, As Practiced at Boston in North America, Carington Bowles, 1775, University of Wisconsin Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture.

From the beginning of this project, I have been searching for a high resolution copy of this print, and finally I have stumbled across it! The University of Wisconsin's Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture has faithfully reproduced this rare image.

Even to an eye only somewhat familiar with political cartoons of the American Revolutionary era, the central figure (covered in feathers, bent on one knee and begging to be released from the noose fitted about his neck) is an obvious copy.

Library of Congress

Even the title has been lifted from a popular piece that was published only a year before. Unlike many lazy attempts to cash in on popular prints by reproducing the exact same print (only worse), Bowles used only the central figure of the original and expanded the rest of the scene dramatically.

Bowles also added a short ditty to explain the scene:

For the Custom House Officers landing the Tea ; / They Tarr'd him and Feather'd him just as you see, / And they drench'd him so well both behind and before / That he begg'd for God's sake they would drench him no more.

Sure enough, we find the begging Tory at the feet of American tars.

Perhaps taking his cue from John Adams famous description of the Boston mobs as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and mullatos, Irish teagues and outlandish Jack tars," Bowles illustrates a black and a white sailor. The seaman on the right wears a knit cap (possibly a thrummed cap) decorated with a large cockade.  His dotted neckcloth hangs over a striped waistcoat, beneath a fairly typical single breasted short jacket. His mate, ready to haul the Tory aloft by his neck, also wears a dotted neckcloth, but has much fancier headwear: a cocked hat with large cockade and lace tape. Perhaps further indicating his position as a leader among the violent mariners, his jacket is also lined with tape around his cuffs, waist pockets, and lapels. A plain waistcoat is fitted beneath, and a simple pair of trousers complete his slop clothes.

To the far left in the foreground is a short sailor, perhaps a lad. He wears a round cap, probably a knit cap judging by the stripes. His jacket is very short, barely extending past the waist, with mariner's scalloped cuffs buttoned closed. Otherwise he wears striped slops, a solid color neckcloth, and striped slops. 

Amid the crowd, right at the foot of the gallows, is a sailor heaving a stone at the helpless and prostrate man. His is a short brimmed round hat. Over his triple vented jacket is tied a dark neckcloth bordered in a lighter color, and beneath it is a pair of close fit striped trousers. Along with many of the other jacks, he carries a stick or cudgel.

Smiling as he watches the scene beside another Bostonian (probably not a sailor judging by his hair length, frock coat, and stockings), yet another tarpawlin wields a cudgel. Another thrummed cap with cockade, just like that worn by the black sailor, is visible here. His jacket is also lined with tape, but is double breasted. A white neckcloth, striped waistcoat, and plain trousers finish him off.

At the far right of the crowd another sailor gestures toward the Boston Tea Party. The infamous December 1774 event did not occur alongside a tar and feathering, but this sailor may be a visual key by the artist to indicate how the chronologically separate events are linked through the same violent rabble. 

Regardless, this sailor wears a cocked hat with the point forward and a large cockade, a solid colored neckcloth, short jacket with no waist pockets and trimmed around the cuffs and armscye, single breasted waistcoat with stripes that only appear straight down the front along the buttons stand, and a pair of striped trousers.

The Tea Party participants have foregone their Indian garb in favor of sailor's clothing. Trousers that areplain, horizontally striped, and vertically striped, accompany short jackets with slash cuffs and, in one case, even a striped jacket. Striped jackets are mentioned here and there in textual accounts of sailors, but rarely turn up in art depicting them. What's great about this piece is that this sailor is not the only one with a striped jacket.

To the left of the scaffold stands a young man waving his cudgel, but his eyes are fixed on a man symbolically pissing into a teapot:

Hatless, he too wears a striped jacket, accompanied by plain slops.

A Ship's Boat, mid eighteenth century

A Ship's Boat, Samuel Scott, mid eighteenth century, Yale Center for British Art.

Though there is no exact date to this sketch, Scott was active throughout the period of my study, and this work certainly conforms to that. What I'm really fond of with this is how the viewer is given the sense of motion through the use of darker colors and more detail at the bow, fading as you look further astern. This also serves to emphasize the common sailors over the colorless, vague figures of officers in the stern. Another great thing about this piece is the variety of colors and clothing that the men are wearing. Even though we see only a few faces, each man is given some degree of individuality.

By and large this is nothing we haven't seen before. A mix of blue, brown, and red jackets, knit caps, and a variety of cocked hats. It appears that they are all wearing breeches, rather than slops or trousers.

My favorite part: the tar wearing a colorful knit cap!

The Death of Lord Robert Manners, 1786

The Death of Lord Robert Manners, T. Macklin, 1786, Michael Finney Antique Prints.

This print is currently for sale through Michael Finney Antique Books and Prints. It depicts the death of Captain Lord Robert Manners, HMS Resolution at the 1782 Battle of the Saintes. Like many "Death of" paintings and prints of the period, this is an overly sanitized version. In truth, Manners broke an arm and took severe wounds to both legs, requiring the amputation of one of them. At that, he did not die in battle, but from the subsequent lockjaw that followed his wounds.

I don't usually address officers on this blog, as our focus is the common sailor, but this print features a good number of sailors, and gives us an idealized yet helpful picture of their dress. Oh, and it might be worth noting that there is a nearly identical print in the collection of the National Maritime Museum.

In the background on the upper left, up on the quarterdeck behind a railing and a line of buckets, are a pair of sailors looking on as Captain Manners is carried away. The sailor on the right holds what might be a fid, though it is difficult to tell. His hat is a round hat with a short crown and a floppy, short brim. He wears a single breasted jacket without collar, and a plain neckcloth tucked into the jacket. To the left is another tar in a very similar round hat and a shirt with neither waistcoat nor jacket.

Directly beneath them and almost hidden in the dark background is the helmsman, whose sleeves are rolled up almost to the shoulder, and wearing a pair of trousers. More immediately to the foreground is one of the few depictions of a black sailor that I've come across. He wears a pair of trousers, an untucked shirt without waistcoat, and a black neckcloth. Another tar with long locks of loose curly hair wears a jacket with a single vent at the back, a pair of slops, and plain stockings.

At first I thought that Manners' head and shoulders were being supported by some unspecified wreckage and sailcloth, but it turned out to be a sailor! The jack wears a plain white shirt with no waistcoat, slops, and plain stockings. Behind Manners is a mariner with a bald head, who wears a black neckcloth and a waistcoat with narrow horizontal stripes. Two more sailors clutch Manners' legs: one without a waistcoat and wearing a striped neckcloth, the other with a dark waistcoat and a round hat to match his mates on the quarterdeck.

This is where it gets interesting:

Three sailors run out a gun as Manners is led away. The sailors reaching furthest forward is fairly unremarkable, as we can't see any details beyond his shirt. Yet, the other two sailors wear jackets with tape! Much more common during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, British sailors of the late eighteenth century do not appear to have worn these very often. This is the first appearance of such decoration in any of the images we've examined. The white tape lines the seams of the jacket.

The tar further aft wears a cap of some sort, while the jack in the foreground wears a cocked hat with a flat topped crown and a pair of striped trousers.