Excerpt from Defining North Carolina: a Political Sketch and Biography of Surveyor-General Edward Moseley, by Baylus C. Brooks:
p. 295-299
A somewhat ignored figure in the [Cary] rebellion is Richard Roach. Spotswood describes him as a merchant who
had been sent by John Danson – Archdale’s son-in-law who recently inherited his share in the Proprietorship –
from England with “a dozen or fourteen great guns and ammunition, under
pretence of building a ship.”[1] A
Richard Roach (1662-1730) and his wife Anne
associated with “Philadelphians” for a time; Anne apparently died in 1708.
“Philadelphian” was a sect begun in 1694 in Norfolk, England by Jane Leade, who died in 1704. Much in common with Quakers, they rejected the idea that they were a church, calling themselves a
“society” and discouraged participation in the Anglican Church. Roach, at one time, an Anglican minister “interested in alchemy and spiritual
transformation” and his wife Anne – as well as “Archdale, Mr. (fl. 1707)” – appear on “List of Philadephians and Associates Known
to Have Joined or Interacted with the French Prophets in England.”[2] Camisards or “French Prophets” were
Huguenots from Cévennes, France. J. Laursen, in Histories of Heresy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,
writes that – coincident with the Cary Rebellion – “At the end of 1708, there were
400 followers of the French Prophets in the London area.”[3] Roach also believed in a “female embassy” that would usher in the last days, or the return
of Christ.[4]
Richard Roach explained that “it has pleased
God, in this last age, to visit many persons of both sexes, but more especially
the female, with his extraordinary powers; who have been, as Mary Magdalen was
in her time, ambassadresses of the resurrection of Christ.”[5]
Roach fell out with the French
Prophets, describing them uncomfortably – similar to charismatic Pentecostals
of later America – with “speaking in violent agitations of Body.”[6]
Roach died while Anglican rector of St.
Augustine at Hackney, Middlesex in 1730.[7]
Spotswood insinuated that Danson had been
aiding the rebels and supplied them with a ship. Roach, he said, stole guns and powder from his client’s cargo to supply the
rebels. Gov. Hyde told him that Cary’s men were
“fortifying the house of one Roach, where is the rendezvous of his drunken crew.”[1]
Spotswood also thought it necessary to add a
detailed paragraph about this Richard Roach:
I think it
necessary to acquaint your lordships that no man has appeared more active in
these commotions than this Roach, — a wretched fellow, who
being sent in lately with a cargo of goods, belonging to some merchants in
London, no sooner
came into the country but he declared himself against the government, without
examining which side was in the wrong, and has been, all along, a principal
incendiary ; and had it not been for his furnishing the mob with trading guns
out of his store, and ammunition belonging to his employers, these commotions
would never have got to the head they are now arrived at.[2]
Rev. John Urmstone, on 17 July 1711, wrote to the SPG a similar tale: “Danson sent
hither from England one Roach with some goods, and a dozen or
fourteen great guns and ammunition, under pretence of building a ship, but it
is verily believed they were designed for our ruin.”[3]
Urmstone insinuated that Danson had great influence over the other Proprietors
and that he was the culprit. Urmstone also alleged that Von Graffenreid’s Swiss
would have joined Hyde’s government, but Cary’s faction and his Indian allies prevented it. To
Urmstone, Cary’s rioters, including John Porter, were working with the
Tuscarora to kill English inhabitants!
Historian Francis Hawks agreed with this assessment, saying that Cary and
perhaps Roach were “instigating the savages to
commence a war against such of the whites as were opposed to him.” He added his
belief “that Carey was the chief instrument in causing the Indian war of 1711,
we have but little doubt.”[4]
Few details have been learned about this merchant Roach or where on the Pamlico sat his “house.” Spotswood specifically named and identified
Richard Roach as one of Cary’s men, arguing a
detailed and fabricated plea with the Proprietors at Craven House – particularly Danson. They
claimed that their (meaning Roach’s employer’s) supplies were commandeered by government forces, by the
illicit actions of Gov. Hyde. These merchants “claim[ed] that effects seized by Gov. Hyde had caused losses as determined by
Roach, and resolution that the goods seized [be] restored” as well as
possible.[5] If
Roach’s report had been true, then the Proprietors were partly responsible for
the violence of Cary’s Rebellion and the Tuscarora War, and even encouraged it from resident Quakers. Still, the next month, the Proprietors requested that Roach return to England or to the
Admiralty court in Charles Town for questioning.[6] They
also granted that “the goods seized by Govr Hyde or his order should be restored as
far as legally they can be.”[7] Roach most likely stole them; certainly
not Hyde.
These “goods” may refer to the gunpowder that Spotswood alleged Roach had stolen and used against
government forces. Furthermore, Spotswood said that Roach had been leading the Quaker faction and attempted to prevent
the success of the Swiss in New Bern, a great desire of the Proprietors that
symbolized John Lawson’s great success. “Roach and the Quakers,” he said, “reported that the baron had no credit in England, nor had he
any money anywhere.”[8] Roach probably was not interested in
helping Quakers, though. Spotswood simply took every opportunity to
blame dissenters for everything that went wrong. Furthermore, the Family and their allies simply used the
Quakers for their own nefarious purposes.
These rebels: Moseley, Porter, and Roach may have had a long-term
relationship. About thirty years later, all of these names can all be found in
the Lower Cape Fear, living in Moore’s Brunswick Settlement. Richard Roach or a possible family member named
Nicholas, who had purchased lot #11 in Bath by March 1717, received land in
the Lower Cape Fear amongst the oligarchic Family’s Brunswick Settlement (see figure 13 below). Most likely, he purchased
this land from another because he does not appear to have been granted it by
the government.[9]
Figure 13: A portion of Moseley’s map of 1733 showing the location of “Roach” property – This strategically-placed property for a mariner – directly associated
with an inlet – is just southeast of the location of the nascent “Newton,” or the current Wilmington, indicated by the notation of “[John] Watson.” This land (formerly
warrant #167) had been Maurice Moore’s until it was voided by Gov. George Burrington. Note that
“S[arah] Porter,” the widow of John Porter Jr., is shown just south of
Wilmington as well.
[1]
Ibid., 423.
[2]
Ibid., 423-424.
[3]
Francis L. Hawks, History of North
Carolina,
V.II (Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Co., 1961), 383.
[4]
Ibid., 526.
[5]
National Archives of London,
“Craven House, Minutes of meeting of the
lords Proprietors, 24 Jan. 1711/2,” Minutes of Council (Lords Proprietors), Colonial
Office, America and West Indies: Carolina (Propriety), Sessional Papers. (CO
5/292).
[6]
National Archives, “Craven House, Minutes of meeting of the
lords Proprietors, 12 Feb.1711/2,” Minutes of Council (Lords Proprietors), Colonial
Office, America and West Indies: Carolina (Propriety), Sessional Papers. (CO
5/292).
[7]
“Minutes of a meeting of the Lords Proprietors of Carolina” (January 24, 1712), NCCR, 1: 832.
[8]
Hawks, History, Vol. II, 384.
[9]
Beaufort Deed Bk. 1: 250; Mar. 25,
1717; "America and West Indies: July 1722," in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America
and West Indies: Volume 33, 1722-1723, ed. Cecil Headlam (London: His Majesty's Stationery
Office, 1934), 99-117; this Richard Roach may have been the same mariner who gave a
deposition against Gov. Woodes Rogers in the Bahamas in 1721.
[1]
Ibid., 383.
[2]
Ariel Hessayon, Jane Lead and Her Transantional Legacy (), 232-234.
[3]
J. Laursen, Histories of Heresy in the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: For, Against, and Beyond Persecution and
Toleration (Springer, 2016), 40.
[4]
Brian J. Gibbons, Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought: Behmenism and Its
Development in England (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996),
143-62; Schwartz, The French Prophets in England, 210-11.
[5]
Richard Roach, The Imperial Standard of
Messiah Triumphant (London,
1727), 48.
[6]
O.E. The shaking-prophets alarm'd, in beholding a lighted candle... (Dublin,
1711), 1;
[7]
"Hackney, Middx.: lease of the rectory to the Rev. Richard Roach,"
Correspondence and papers on the administration of the diocese of London, Papers of Edmund Gibson,
Bishop of London, Fulham Papers, ff. 4-5.
[8]
"England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSF7-K2GQ?cc=3734475
: 25 March 2021), > image 1 of 1; London Metropolitan Archives, England; Boston News-Letter, Aug 24, 1713, 2; see
also “Papers of the Revd. Mr. Richard Roach,”
Rawlinson MSS D., Bodleian Library, Oxford.
