Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer;

Author:David Hackett Fischer; [Fischer;, David Hackett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780195098310
Publisher: OxfordUP
Published: 1994-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

The message appears never to have reached its destination. The traitorous Doctor Church delivered even this testament of affection to General Gage, in whose papers it turned up two centuries later. One wonders what happened to the money.29

In Cambridge, Paul Revere had nothing but the clothes he had worn on his midnight ride. He wrote to Rachel, “I want some linen and stockings very much.” Increasingly filthy and probably smelling more than a little ripe, he continued to attend meetings of the Committee of Safety at Hastings House.30 At a session one day after the battle Doctor Warren, perhaps sitting downwind from Paul Revere, turned to him and asked if he might be willing to “do the out of doors business for that Committee.” Revere agreed. For the next three weeks he traveled widely through New England in the service of the committee. Later he submitted an expense account for seventeen days’ service from April 21 to May 7, at five shillings a day, plus “expenses for self and horse” and “keeping two colony horses.” 31

It was common practice in the American Revolution for leaders to be reimbursed for their expenses, and common also for lynx-eyed legislators to pare their accounts to the bone. George Washington himself served without salary during the Revolutionary War, on the understanding that he would be reimbursed only for his expenses. This was thought to be an act of sacrifice, until General Washington’s expense account came in. Then there was much grumbling in Congress. The same thing happened to Paul Revere. A tight-fisted Yankee committee insisted on reducing his daily allowance from five shillings to four, before agreeing to settle his account.32

No evidence survives to indicate what exactly Paul Revere did for the Committee of Safety in the days after the battle. But in a general way, the activities of the committee are well known. It had much “outdoor work” to be done. The most urgent task was to raise an army. The committee resolved to enlist 8000 men for the siege of Boston, and sent a circular letter to town committees throughout the province.33 A draft of this document survives, written in Doctor Warren’s flowery style, and heavily revised by the Committee in the meetings that Revere attended. Its impassioned language tells us much about the state of mind among the Whig leaders after the battle:

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