Man-Midwife, Male Feminist: The Life and Times of George Macaulay, M.D., Ph.D. (1716-1766)
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Aftermath
Another mourner, distant from the scene of his mentor's demise, must have been the hapless William Williams, whose trail we were able to pick up again a few years later. In 1775 we find him in Pensacola—a circumstance that leads us to think he benefited from the arrangements George Macaulay had made for him. Williams' fortunes were momentarily rising, for on the 24th of April, 1775, he wrote to General Thomas Gage, commander of British forces in North America and military governor of Massachusetts, to seek the general's assent in Williams' appointment as Deputy Commissary General for West Florida:
Page 237Sir,
I think it my Duty to acquaint your Excellency that Mr. Barbut Commisary [sic] Genl. for West Florida has appointed me his Deputy during his absence to England where he is gone for the recovery of his Health; I hope this appointment will meet with your Excellency's approbation having served in that Station for near three years before.
I have the honor to be with great respect, Your Excellency's Most humble and Obedient Servant, Wm. Williams
[To] His Excellency the Honble General Gage[6]
If, however, Williams did remain Catharine Macaulay's factor in Florida after George's death (as we think he may well have done), his association with her—or his perceived association with her views—may have contributed to his disgrace. In December of 1780 or January of 1781, Williams was incarcerated on suspicion of disaffection. Given the frankness with which George Macaulay had expressed his pleasure with the repeal of the Stamp Act to Williams and, as we learn from other documents, the difficulties that Williams had encountered in collecting his salary, grounds for such suspicion may have existed.[7] By April of 1781, Williams' circumstances had grown desperate. In a letter, apparently the third in a series of fruitless petitions, dated at the Main Guard [House?] from William Williams, Prisoner, 28 April 1781, he wrote his superior, Louis Genway, and complained:
Sir
I take the liberty of acquainting you that it is near five Months, since I have been confined, on Suspicion of being a disafected [sic] person to Government, and as this Suspicion, is without the least foundation, I beg Sir you will be so good, as to procure me a hearing or Tryal. I have applied to Mr. Murray, Commissary of Prisoners for Some Cloaths but can Page 238get only a Check Shirt notwithstanding I want a Hatt and Breeches above any thing. I flatter myself Sir you could easily get me these trifles, as well as the affair aforesaid which I beg once more you will assist in.
I am Sir
Your most humb. svt.
Wm. Williams[8]
Repeated petitions did not relieve Williams' plight. Another note, dated from the Main Guard on 8 May 1781, suggests that no relief was likely to be forthcoming.
Sir
I beg you will be so good, as to Speak to the General, that I may be brought to tryal, it is shocking, for an innocent man, to suffer as the most guilty. If you cannot prevail with the General in this, I hope you will to allow me some Bedding, it is very hard to lie on Boards while the other prisoners are allowed bedding, I repeat my request This once and I'll give you no more trouble whether you can, or cannot Serve me, if you have any Hatt you don't make use of [I] should be glad [if] you would bestow [it] on [me].
Sir your most obt.
Very humble Servt.
Wm. Williams[9]
Williams' treatment may suggest that, as a suspected sympathizer with the American Revolution, he was denied privileges accorded the other prisoners. As far as we have been able to discover, Williams disappears from the record after this letter, whose content did not bode well for his future. George Macaulay would surely have been shocked and saddened at the fate of his protégè.
Page 239About the disposition of Macaulay's lands in East Florida we remain unsure. Eighteen years after his death, Catharine and her second husband, William Graham, paid a long visit to America. They sailed from London in July 1784 and landed at Boston on the 15th of that month. They departed from New York on July 17, 1785, after a ten-day stay with George Washington at Mount Vernon.[10] We find no record of any business dealings concerning the Florida properties. Presumably Catharine had disposed of them earlier—perhaps as a gesture of sympathy for the revolution.
