John Langdon

New Hampshire.

John Langdon.

Nicholas Gilman.

Massachusetts.

George Washington, President and Deputy from Virginia.

New Hampshire, John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman.

Massachusetts, Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King.

Connecticut, William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman.

Paper money is founded upon fraud and knavery.

James Wilson from Pennsylvania said, quote, John Langdon from New Hampshire warned that Wow.

I'm going to read that one again.

John Langdon from New Hampshire warned that he would rather reject the whole plan of federation than to grant the new government the right to issue fiat money.

So it was a line.

Like, are states not joining if you do this? George Reed from Delaware declared that a provision in the Constitution granting the new government the right to issue fiat money, quote, would be as alarming as the mark of the beast in Revelation.

New Hampshire's legislature had not even paid its delegates' way.

Its two men did not reach the city until July 23, John Langdon covering the expenses out of his own pocket.

George Washington had reached the city on May 13th, the day before the appointed opening.

The Philadelphia Light Horse Cavalry rode out to meet his carriage and escorted him in.

So, Gouverneur Morris, I don't think he qualifies as a secular atheist agnostic deist.

John Langdon, he was a general in the revolution, became a major general.

He's one of the original founders of the American Bible Society, the first national Bible society.

When they founded that in 1816, there had been 121 local Bible societies and state Bible societies.

That is not the philosophy of an atheist agnostic deist.

I mean, no way.

So John Langdon, who's ever heard of him today, Charles Courtois Pinckney, he also was a major general in the American Revolution.

He was out of South Carolina.

Jeremy Belknap, whose history of New Hampshire was written some years before its publication, and who was a contemporary and friend of Sullivan and Langdon, gives us the following account, which, in spite of criticisms upon it, will bear the closest scrutiny and is essentially accurate, as are most of the accounts of that first historian of New Hampshire.

belknap's history of new hampshire volume two page two eighty eight an order having been passed by the king in council prohibiting the exportation of gunpowder and other military stores to america a copy of it was brought by express to portsmouth at a time when a ship of war was daily expected from boston with a party of troops to take possession of fort william and mary at the entrance of the harbor the committee of the town with all possible secrecy and dispatch collected a company from that and some of the neighboring towns and before the governor had any suspicion of their intentions they proceeded to newcastle and assaulted the fort the captain and his five men which was the whole garrison were confined and one hundred barrels of powder were carried off the next day another company went and removed fifteen of the lightest cannon and all the small arms with some other warlike storage which they distributed in the several towns under the care of the committees major john sullivan and captain john langdon distinguished themselves as leaders in this affair it was transacted with great expedition and alacrity and in the most fortunate point of time just before the arrival of the scarborough frigate and canso sloop with several companies of soldiers who took possession of the fort and of the heavy cannon which had not been removed the governor put the five men who belonged to the fort on board the ship of war to be reserved as evidence in case of a prosecution of the offenders for high treason and having consulted counsel in this and the neighboring province thought it his duty that he might prevent any charge of misprision of treason against himself to dismiss from public trust all those persons concerned in the assault of the fort who held any office under the government and concerning whose proceedings he had authentic testimony He also issued a proclamation commanding all officers, civil and military, to assist in detecting and securing the offenders and exhorting all the people to beware of being seduced by the false arts and menaces of abandoned men.

This closes the list of documents of the immediate period bearing upon the affair, and they seem to be sufficiently clear and to agree so closely as to leave little room for the controversies that have taken place.

It is true that they mention but few names and give few details from the Patriots' standpoint.

it surely cannot be forgotten that this gentleman in company with a number of others went from durham to portsmouth in december seventeen seventy four to assist in securing the stores at fort william and mary and when governor wentworth suspended him and sundry others on that account he was restored by making oath before george atkinson esq then deputy secretary that he was not concerned In the New Hampshire Spy of Friday, May 13, 1789, Judge Ebenezer Thompson defends himself from the attack of an enemy to deceit whom he assumes to be General Sullivan and, among other things, says, That I ever was concerned, directly or indirectly, in taking the storage from Fort William and Mary in 1774 is absolutely false.

But had it been the case, I should not have thought of applying to, or receiving from, Congress a large pecuniary reward by single service.

But what a gentleman did, who assisted in the matter, will appear by the following extract from a Resolution of Congress printed in the Journal, Volume 7, page 159. ordered that the board of treasury pass to the credit of john sullivan in specie one hundred dollars as a compensation for the expense incurred by him in securing the military stores and ordnance in fort william and mary new hampshire in the year It is a well-known fact that the Honorable John Langdon Esquire and a number of other persons took the powder from the aforesaid fort and sent it into the country before the gentleman who received the reward knew anything about it.

Signed, Ebenezer Thompson, Durham, March 11, 1789 In the New Hampshire Spy of March 17, 1789, General Sullivan addresses a reply to Ebenezer Thompson, Esquire, and after refusing to affirm or deny his authorship of the article signed, An Enemy to Deceit, he discusses the Exeter Affair and the 1786 election, and then the following appears.

done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of september in the year of our lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the united states of america the twelfth in witness thereof we have hereunto subscribed our names George Washington, President and Deputy from Virginia.

New Hampshire, John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman.

Massachusetts, Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King.

Connecticut, William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman.