Among recorded mob rule incidents the
following accounts are of particular interest for two reasons.

(i) One understands that they do not occur
randomly in time but at moments when people feel threatened
(because of the arrival of the English fleet) and
they held Loyalists responsible.

(ii) These actions are similar to hate riots in which
a whole group is targetted, the intention being
to suppress it.

TORIES RIDDEN ON RAILS <br>
exerpted from a book by THOMAS JONES, CHAPTER VI

About the middle of June, 1776, New York being
a rebel garrison in which General Washington had established
his headquarters, and the Provincial Convention as well as the
City Committee being then sitting, the former
at the City Hall, the latter at the Exchange, a republican mob
was raised in the middle of the day, headed by a number of
staunch presbyterians, among whom the principal was one Lasher,
a shoemaker, and then a Colonel in the rebel army, John Smith,
Joshua Hett Smith,
Peter Van Zandt, and Abraham Lott, late an alderman of the city.
This mob, thus led on, searched the whole town in pursuit of
tories and found
and dragged several from their lurking holes, where they
had taken refuge to avoid the undeserved vengeance of
an ungovernable rabble. When they had taken several of
these unhappy victims they placed them upon sharp rails
with one leg on each side; each rail was carried upon
the shoulders of two tall men, with a man on each side to
keep the poor wretch straight and fixed in his seat.
In this manner were numbers of
these poor people paraded
through the most public streets in the town,
and at every corner a crier made proclamation
declaring the offenders to be such and such
(mentioning their names), and notorious tories.
The mob then gave three huzzas
and the procession went on. The like proclamations
were made before the City Hall, where the provincial
Convention was then sitting; before the Exchange where
the Committee were sitting making regulations
for preserving the peace of
the city; and before the door of General Washington.

So far did General
Washington give his approbation
to this inhuman proceeding that he gave a
very severe reprimand to General Putnam who,
accidentally meeting one of the processions in the street,
and shocked with its barbarity, attempted to put a stop
to it, Washington declaring that to discourage such
proceedings was to injure the cause of liberty in which they
were then engaged, and that nobody would attempt it but
an enemy to his country.

Some of these unhappy victims to the vengeance of American
liberty and the rights of mankind had nearly lost their
lives by this fatal piece of republican witticism.
Some were confined to their houses for many days, and some
received considerable hurt from the cruel operation.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY Edward Floyd de Lancey.

(1)
In a letter of Peter Elting to his brother-in-law,
written the day after the mob procession described above
there is the following account (New York, 13th June, 1776).

"Dear brother,
We had some Grand Tory Rides in this City this week
in particular yesterday. Several of them were handled
very roughly being carried through the streets on rails,
there clothes torn from their backs. Amongst them were
Capt. Hardenbrook, Mr. Rapelje, Mr. Queen the apoticary,
and Lessly the barber. There is hardly a tory face
to be seen this morning."
(Source: Letter in the Library of the NY Mercantile Library
Association)

(2)
Surgeon Solomon Drowne, then at the hospital of King's College,
writes to his father, of Providence (dated New York June 17 1776),
in these words.

"Honored Sir,
There has lately been a good deal of attention paid to the Tories
in this City. Some of the worst have been carried
through the streets on rails.
Your dutiful son."
Source: Letter in possession of Henry Drowne.
Both letters have appeared in the volume of Revolutionary
Documents published by the NY Mercantile Library
Association.

(3)
In the "Upcott Collection" in the New York Historical Society
Library, Vol. IV., p. 288, is a letter dated
"Staten Island, August 17, 1776, which says.

"The persecution of the loyalists continues unremitted.
Donald McLean, Theophilus Hardenbrook, young Fueter the
silversmith, and Rapelje of Brooklyn, have been
cruelly carried on rails, a practice most painful and dangerous."

(4)
In New England they also smoked Tories.
The operation of smoking Tories was thus performed.
The victim was confined in a closed room before a large fire
of green wood, and a cover applied at the top of the chimney.

Generals Mifflin and Putnam endeavoured to stop the
cruelty but in vain. They then complained of it to the
Provincial Congress, sitting at the time in the City Hall
before which the procession passed.
That body,
perhaps, not daring to condemn "the warm friends of liberty,
merely disapproved the proceeding by
this resolution:
"Resolved: This Congress urges the warm
friends of liberty to decency and good order.
effectual measures shall be taken
to secure the enemies of American liberty in this colony."

There is no mention of this
occurrence in Washington's general orders or letters.
No New York newspapers of the day
that are preserved refer to this matter.

-----------------------------------------------------