Vile Bohea: The Boston Tea: A Doctor Joseph Warren Novel

by James Padian

Overview

"Grand Master. These Tea Leaves . . . They're Vile Bohea."

Boston Harbor. 16 December 1773.

Aboard the tea ships, Warren's Wicked-Freemasons and other volunteers-pause in the crisp night air while the doctor ponders their discovery. Who ships worthless tea to Boston? What's afoot? Destroy or not? Destruction invites retribution. Is that their game? Stifle Boston resistance with harsh reprisals? We give welcome to them. We'll grow our rebellion from them as bitter seeds. Warren signals the Wicked to toss the tea. Hours later, they broom the decks clean and slip away to historical obscurity. Rumors suggest Warren masterminded the destruction, but no one gives him up. Parliament blockades Boston Harbor and alters the Massachusetts Bay charter. King George III appoints a new governor and orders regiments of British Army Regulars to occupy Boston. With the threat of arrest, Warren focuses on his rebellion. Will other colonies support his vision to expand the plan beyond Massachusetts? If not, he wastes his dream to forge a new nation where millions yet unborn will live free. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781735692623
Publisher:	James Padian
Publication date:	12/18/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	412
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

James Padian lived in Lexington, Massachusetts for thirty-four years. Annual re-enactments at Lexington Green, at Concord's North Bridge, along Battle Road, and elsewhere prompted decades of research into Doctor Joseph Warren, his friends, and his foes, and the prerevolutionary years. He now resides in The Villages, Florida.

Table of Contents

1. Fresh Challenge 1

2. Knowledge 13

3. Cargo Handling 15

4. Tea Scheme 19

5. Ring the Knell 28

6. We Know Not Why 32

7. Rage 38

8. That Way Madness Lies 46

9. Doctor Church 52

10. First Ship Arrives 58

11. Traitor Amidst 64

12. Treason Be Thy Name 69

13. Traitor Reports 73

14. Friend Katherine 78

15. William Aground 84

16. Rebellion Be Thy Game 88

17. The Ointment Ladies 94

18. Forty-Seven Hoists 99

19. Quell the Sadness 108

20. McFadden's Dilemma 115

21. Something Wicked Comes 118

22. Challenge Fulfilled 123

23. Never Here 130

24. An Accommodation 134

25. Windfall Departs 142

26. Governor's Wrath 147

27. Culloden Moor 150

28. Conspiracy 153

29. Shadows Required 160

30. Oration Preparation 167

31. Best Laid Plans 170

32. Windfall Returns 177

33. Reconciliation 183

34. Warren's Spy Network 188

35. Caitlin Supports 191

36. Lexington's Leaders 196

37. Training Begins 203

38. Training Aftermath 212

39. Smyth's First Report 217

40. Caitlin's Cartridges 219

41. Mercy Scollay 231

42. John Scollay 238

43. Cameron's Bairn 243

44. Recruit Our Informer 250

45. New Royal Governor 257

46. Faneuil Hall Dinner 268

47. Gage Hires Church 272

48. Smyth's Second Report 276

49. Second Portrait 278

50. Smyth Interrogation 285

51. Cameron's Interview 292

52. Night Music 301

53. Sergeants Two 305

54. Life Renewed 313

55. Lord Hawthorne 322

56. Whitehall Express 329

57. Salem Express 333

58. Colonel Abijah Willard 338

59. Thistle 343

60. Colonel Israel Putnam 345

61. Province House Dinner 353

62. Fight Like Savages 365

63. London Letters 369

64. The Barretts 380

65. The Concord Illusion 385

Author's Notes 393

Editorial Reviews

2021-12-03
A Boston physician leads a dangerous conspiracy to stop a shipment of tea from London in Padian’s historical novel set during the run-up to the Revolutionary War.

In 1773, Dr. Joseph Warren is thrown into despair when his wife, Elizabeth, dies suddenly—a tragedy that leaves him drowning in grief and drink: “Why forsake us?” he asks God. “Why? Why take her? Why not me? Damn you. Damn you. Damn you.” However, he’s greatly assisted by the intervention of his friend Samuel Adams, who serves as a kind of mentor to him in his clandestine work for the patriot cause. As part of this work, Warren receives an encrypted letter that alerts him to the arrival of four ships at Boston Harbor, traveling from England with freights of tea. Loyalist Massachusetts Gov. Thomas Hutchinson plans to hold those vessels in the bay until he can have their contents seized by customs agents, backed by the military in a move that takes advantage of an existing duty law. In response to this circumstance, Warren recruits a team of patriots—a group that comes to be known as “the Wicked”—to destroy the tea before it can be seized. By any measure, it’s a remarkably daring conspiracy, and it’s one that’s very likely to endanger Warren’s life, but he hopes, among other things, that it taunts the British into even more prohibitive rules governing the colonies—potentially stoking the flames of dissident unrest into a revolutionary blaze. Padian’s displays a magisterial knowledge of the historical period in these pages. The Boston Tea Party remains something of an unsolved historical mystery, and this makes it the perfect fodder for a literary reimagining, which he furnishes in exacting and authentic detail. Also, he makes a powerful novelistic argument for a fresh consideration of the real-life Warren as a “most forgotten founder”—a patriot whose efforts were indeed essential to the establishment of the new nation. At one point, for example, the character rousingly declares why war is both inevitable and necessary: “The English will not give up these lands and resources willingly. To gain our independence, we must fight. But how does one encourage militia to rise and rebel? Avoid conflict and England usurps the freedoms and rights won by our forefathers.” However, the author’s scholarly scrupulousness comes at a steep price, as readers must wade through a swarm of detail that finally leaves one bewildered. Every minute aspect of the plan to destroy the tea is covered with granular specificity, including the “orientation drills” of those participating. As a result of this narrative choice, the plot unfolds at a far too leisurely pace, and the book is far longer than it should be. Furthermore, Padian’s prose style sometimes feels mechanical and stiff, particularly when his characters express deep emotion. One can’t help but wish for the opportunity to read this story as a nonfiction work, which would likely have been better suited to the author’s unmistakable scholarly talents.

A historically engaging but literarily humdrum work.

Kirkus Reviews