Brown-Crocker

The effect of Otis's Writs-of-Assistance speeches on the Cape was immediate and violent. Not every one there, by any means, was ready to declare himself for Independence, and the citizens found themselves divided into two camps — Loyalist and Patriot. Not content with this, each camp split into two factions, moderate and extreme. Thus four clearly defined political parties can be distinguished. There were the extreme Loyalists, 'peace-at-any-pricers,' who, from whatever motives, regarded war with England as equivalent to suicide or treason. There were the moderate Loyalists, who wished to avoid war, not because they believed Revolution was treason, but because they thought it unnecessary and continued to hope, or to pretend to hope, that the unhappy state of affairs was only temporary and would be remedied by Parliament. The Patriots were similarly divided into two wings, the firebrands and the calmer spirits. The extreme Patriots regarded the moderates as hardly less evil than Tories; and the feeling was reciprocal and lasted throughout the war. This furious animosity appeared with startling intensity in the course of an evening's conversation in a Barnstable tavern between Colonel Nathaniel Freeman, of Sandwich, one of the leaders of the extreme Patriots, and Captain Samuel Crocker, a dignified and intelligent member of the conservative branch of the Patriotic Party. Captain Crocker declared that routing out tea from old women's larders was a procedure unworthy of a high cause. Freeman replied that such a statement was toryism. Others of the violent Patriots agreed with Freeman and showed their patriotism by pulling up the fence in front of Crocker's house. Another incident that shows the heights which political hatred reached at this restless period occurred when the Barnstable militia were parading on the village green. Colonel Nathaniel Freeman and Colonel Joseph Otis, brother of the Patriot, were present, and Captain Samuel Crocker was putting the company through its drill. As the two Colonels passed the lines, the soldiers instead of presenting arms, clubbed their muskets. Otis, like a flash, turned on Captain Crocker and accused him of being the instigator of the insult. Crocker hotly, and probably truthfully, denied the charge, whereupon Otis struck him with his cane. Crocker retaliated, and there followed the spectacle of two distinguished citizens and officers — both Patriots — both espousing the same great cause — engaged in something very like a street brawl. The gentlemen were pulled apart, and their differences were eventually reconciled. The incident was closed, but remains a clear indication of the violence of the feeling between factions of the same party.