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Murray C. Morgan
Political Refugee Hoped Northwest Was His Passage to
Freedom
The News Tribune
February 2, 1995
P. FP 12
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Copyright, 1995, Murray Morgan
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Political Refugee Hoped
Northwest Was His Passage to Freedom
 The
first political refugee to reach the Pacific Northwest arrived in
Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island aboard a fur trading ship almost
two centuries ago June 19, 1796.
Thomas Muir, revered in Scotland as The Scottish Martyr, had
escaped from the British prison colony in Australia and was trying
to get to Philadelphia to seek help from President Washington. He
didn't make it.
Born in Glasgow in 1765, Muir was graduated in law from the
University of Edinburgh in 1787. He distinguished himself as a
skillful leader, not only on behalf of clients but as an advocate
of political reform. His great cause was extension of the right to
vote to men who did not own real property. British authorities
considered the idea seditious conduct amounting to treason though
without an overt act. Possession of books written by the American
revolutionary, Tom Paine, was equally bad.
Muir was arrested on multiple charges of endangering the state.
Released on bail, he went to France to consult with Lafayette. He
had trouble getting back to Scotland because the British
periodically blockaded French ports during the wars that followed
the French revolution but he eventually got there and turned
himself in. His trial, which was staged in August of 1793, remains
a classic of injustice.
Muir, who served as his own attorney, admitted that he had "exerted
every effort to procure a more equal representation of the people
in the House of Commons but denied advocating the use of means not
sanctioned by the constitution. As for Paine's "The Rights of
Man," he owned a copy and had lent it to relatives. He urged
the populace to read political works of all kinds.
The
trial was conducted before a panel of five judges. One observed
that Muir deserved to be hanged without a hearing. Another said
there was no fit punishment since torture had been outlawed.
In
response to Muir's statement that his aim was to win the vote for
men without real property, the presiding officer of the court
asked:
What right have they to
representation. ... In this country government is made up of the
landed interest, which alone has a right to be represented. ...
As for the rabble who have nothing but personal property, what
hold has the nation on them? They can pack up all their property
on their backs and leave in the twinkling of an eye, but landed
property cannot be removed.
The trial lasted less than two days. The jury returned a guilty
verdict on all counts within two hours. The judges decided Muir
should be transported to the penal colony in New South Wales
(Australia) for 14 years.
Muir was shipped overseas on the convict transport Surprise on May
1, 1794. He was accompanied by four other political dissidents a
Unitarian minister, a gentleman farmer and two London advocates of
extended suffrage for men as well as by several hundred
standard-brand miscreants.
The
gentlemen transportees were gently treated. They were not
imprisoned; each was given a brick house to maintain at his own
expense. They could move freely about the penal colony but did not
have permission to leave. After a bit more than a year of waiting
for friends to rescue him, Muir left on his own.
A
Boston fur-trading ship, Otter, en route to Northwest America put
in at Sydney to deliver 15 bales of general merchandise and a
quantity of molasses, rum, Madeira and port wine. The captain,
Ebenezer Dorr, undertook to increase profits by offering
transportees a way out of Australia. Muir arranged for passage to
Boston for himself and two servants. When they boarded the Otter
from a small boat just off the coast, they found that they would
share limited space with 16 less genteel transportees. After a
slim-ration voyage of four months through the Tonga archipelago
and across the Pacific, the Otter reached Nootka Sound on
Vancouver Island on June 19, 1796.
The
Spanish schooner Sutil, sent north from San Blas in Mexico on an
inspection trip, lay at anchor in Friendly Cove. Six of the 15
crewmen on the Sutil were disabled by scurvy. The Otter had more
men aboard than Captain Dorr could feed. So he and the commanding
officer of the Sutil, Jose Tovar y Tamariz, made a deal. Dorr
traded five seamen from his ship to Tovar in exchange for
provisions that would allow him to spend time trading with Indians
along the coast.
Muir, realizing that staying with the Otter would mean a year or
two delay in reaching the United States, talked Tovar into taking
him south to Mexico. The arrangement worked out badly for nearly
everybody. Dorr made a successful fur-trading cruise but lost most
of the proceeds in a lawsuit on return to Boston. Tovar was
removed from further command by Spanish authorities for having
aided foreigners.
Muir was taken to Mexico City, treated hospitably, but denied a
loan or permission to go to the United States. Instead he was
ordered transported to Spain, his fate to be determined by higher
authorities.
Spain and Britain were at war, and the ship taking Muir to Cadiz
was attacked by British warships. Muir, fighting on the side of
the Spanish, lost an eye and was disfigured but finally reached
Cadiz. After long hospitalization in Spain he was allowed into
France, where he was briefly treated as a hero, then as a bore. He
never recovered his health or his mental balance and died alone.
Thirty years later some of the reforms he had been exiled for
advocating were adopted by Parliament.
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