John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution |
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John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution
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by Jessica Warner
Sales Rank: 800899
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$3.99
At Amazon
on 6-16-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 320 pages
Published by: Four Walls Eight Windows October 10, 2004
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 156858315X
ASIN: B000KHXC1M
Book Dimensions:
8.3 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
Weighs: 1 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
During the early days of the American Revolution, James Aitken, alias John the Painter, set fire to the Royal Navy dockyards of Portsmouth and Bristol, briefly striking terror into the hearts of the English. Completely forgotten today, Aitken strove to gain notoriety through various criminal acts, culminating in the arson he committed in support of the American rebels. In an entertaining successor to her fascinating Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason, Warner traces Aitken's life from his restless childhood in the poverty and grime of Old Town, Edinburgh, to his exploits as an indentured servant in the colonies, from his time as a British soldier—and repeated deserter—to his plots against the Crown. Warner points out that Aitken's loneliness, the taunts he received as a Scot in London and his desire to be seen as a mastermind led him to seek revenge through robbery, rape and murder. Aitken believed that if he could destroy British ports and thus hobble the great Royal Navy, then America would win the war. Warner points out that Aitken even tried to enlist prominent Americans, such as Benjamin Franklin, to support his plots. Warner's blend of social history and psychology (she teaches in the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto) brings new life to this little-known character who briefly gained fame by terrorizing England. black and white illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Warner presents the life of an eighteenth-century Scotsman who apprenticed as a house painter, immigrated to America as an indentured servant, returned to Britain, and torched installations at the Portsmouth naval dockyard, where he was publicly hanged in 1777. Except for the arson, a life like John Aitken's 24-year existence was ordinary for the time, or as author Warner perceptively puts it, "harrowing beyond our imagining." Her elaboration of the point confirms her acuteness at social history, previously shown in Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason (2002); in this work, that skill expands into biographical insight as Warner reconstructs Aitken's wanderings, intelligent but slightly off-kilter personality, and fateful dealings with American diplomat Silas Deane and English spy Edward Bancroft. Aitken is not entirely sympathetic, having committed robberies and a rape; on the other hand, he was stifled by class and anti-Scottish prejudice: his world was rough, friendless, and, when he came to the attention of the state, pitiless. A captivating restoration of a once-sensational case from the American Revolution. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution (Hardcover)
Any Americans who pay attention to history take pride in the Revolution that brought the nation its freedom, and all Americans have been shocked by recent attacks by terrorists. What if during the Revolution, there had been a terrorist operating in England on behalf of American freedom? It seems an impossible anachronism, but the strange truth is that there was such a man. He is a historical footnote now, but at the end of his brief life he was one of the most notorious men in England because of his crimes of arson performed against naval targets in furtherance of the American cause against England. This bizarre story is told in _John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution_ (Thunder's Mouth Press) by Jessica Warner, which fetches its subject back from obscurity. The saying "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" does not really apply to John the Painter, whose real name was James Aitken. Shifting through the often obscure vestiges of fact, Warner is not able to document that Aitken was inspired by any patriotic fervor or love of liberty. His motivations remain mysterious, and his crimes ineffectual, at least as far as affecting the American Revolution, so his obscurity is deserved; but this is a lively and welcome examination of a tiny and surprising patch of history. Aitken was born in 1752, in an impoverished section of Edinburgh. He became a painter, and got an introduction into some basic chemistry and had easy access to flammables, but had small success in his trade. He opted to try his luck in the New World. He arrived in Jamestown in 1773 as an indentured servant. He ran away from his master, and was in different areas of the eastern seaboard for two years. He did not get imbued with the love of liberty while he was there; in fact, he was part of an exodus of Scots back to England in 1775. He heard a conversation in a pub in Oxford to the effect that if the naval dockyards were lost, the navy would be lost, and thus the war would be lost. He then formed the plan of torching Britain's docks. He may have thought that in doing so he could have returned to America as a hero, and become (his great goal) a military officer, but any clear explanation of what he was thinking is impossible. He met with the American representative in Paris, got a small amount of money, and thought he was doing American duty as he torched a few warehouses and docks, with the aim of crippling Britain's navy. He had houses as well as naval buildings as targets, and although no one died, he did (as terrorists do) inflict psychological damage. He was not particularly careful about his work and keeping from suspicion, but policing at the time was primitive. Eventually, someone recognized him, others realized that a housepainter always seemed to be around town before a blaze, and a hunt was begun. It quickly succeeded when a large reward was offered for his capture. Aitken's efforts terrified Britons, but had none of the effects he had planned. Americans had been suspected of setting the fires (Aitken's incendiary devices had convinced authorities that there was more than one arsonist about) and those who had sympathy for the American cause had reason to be less enthusiastic. He was put on trial for the offence of arson in a naval dockyard, one of the many crimes punishable by death. Warner explains how limited justice was for those accused at the time, and how an informer was hired to befriend the unsuspecting Aitken in jail, in order to get details of his activities. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be hung. There was a customary, but unseemly, race to get his life into print, with different authors vying to be the one responsible for his true final confession. None of them turned out to be very reliable. The prison chaplain refused to give Aitken final communion until he gave a final confession that might be published on its own (with profits to the chaplain). Aitken was hung on high, specifically from a ship's 60-foot mast especially erected in Portsmouth for the occasion. His body was tarred and gibbeted, hanging for years in an iron cage to serve as a warning to others, and pieces of him were taken away for souvenirs. A finger was turned into a tobacco stopper, and was destroyed, as luck would have it, in an incendiary raid on Portsmouth by the Germans in World War II. John the Painter's life was not useful to the Americans, who forgot him entirely, and serves only as a historical anomaly. Warner's telling of a sad tale, however, is full of sympathy for a flawed protagonist and good humor for his peculiar style of making himself famous. He was a failure; his biography is a vigorous, ironic success.
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John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution
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