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Conceived in Liberty Companion · Volume IV, chapter 21 · 18 October 1775

Privateering and the War at Sea · the road out of the town of Falmouth on Falmouth Neck (now Portland), Maine, then part of Massachusetts

Burn, destroy, and lay waste

On a country road a woman carrying a child looks back over her shoulder as families with a handcart and a cow hurry away, while warships fire at a burning wooden town beside the harbor below.
Modern AI-assisted reconstruction. Falmouth, Massachusetts, October 1775. Captain Henry Mowat’s ships are shelling the town while its last families hurry their belongings up the road into the country. His orders were to “burn, destroy, and lay waste” every seaport on the coast up to Maine. Rothbard calls it a savage terror raid, and it spurred Congress to build a navy. Chapter 21 of Conceived in Liberty.
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The story, from several sources

This account blends Rothbard’s chapter with the other sources listed below and has not yet been separated into Rothbard’s own account and the fuller story. Read Rothbard’s chapter 21 for his account.

By the autumn of 1775 Admiral Graves at Boston could not stop the American schooners and whaleboats that were preying on his supply ships. So he decided to punish the coast. He sent Captain Henry Mowat north with orders, Rothbard says, to “burn, destroy, and lay waste” the seaports to Maine, and singled out Gloucester and Falmouth for their opposition to government. Gloucester proved too hard. Mowat anchored off Falmouth on 16 October and warned the people to leave. A town committee bargained for time and handed over a few arms, and the deadline was set for nine o’clock on the morning of the 18th. At 9:40 a red pennant went up on his flagship, the Canceaux, and the squadron began firing, with shot, bombs, and incendiary shells, until six that evening. Landing parties then set fire to what was left. Some 400 buildings burned, nearly every public building and two thirds of the houses, and more than a thousand people lost their homes in a town of about 2,500. Rothbard calls it a wanton, savage terror raid. It did not break the coast, but it did move Congress: by December it had agreed to a marine corps and a fleet of four vessels.

Where the record differs from Rothbard

Errata notes. Rothbard’s text and his account above are left as he wrote them. Every erratum.

Conceived in Liberty, p. 1212
Rothbard says Mowat “entered Falmouth on the October 16. Giving the townspeople one day to evacuate, he shelled and fired the town until its over two hundred houses, eleven ships, and wharves and warehouses were completely burned.”
The evidence Mowat arrived on 16 October with an ultimatum of two hours, a town committee bargained for time, and the bombardment began at 9:40 on the morning of 18 October, lasting until about six that evening. The burned town was some 400 buildings, about 136 to 140 houses and 280 others, with nearly all public buildings and two thirds of the private houses (Wikipedia, ‘Burning of Falmouth’; Boston Public Library research guide; Discover Concord; Encyclopedia Virginia). Rothbard’s ‘over two hundred houses’ is high; his ‘eleven ships’ fits ‘almost a dozen small ships and boats’.
Source the sources named in the evidence column

About the reconstruction

This is an AI-assisted adaptive companion inspired by Murray N. Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty. It draws on sources beyond the book and is not Rothbard’s original text or a condensation of it. Each scene identifies whether its narration combines sources or separates an account of the book from additional context.

The sources establish the event and accounts of it. The painting’s poses, expressions, lighting, and arrangement are artistic choices rather than a surviving visual record.

Suggest a correction to this companion scene. Notes about the original book are recorded separately.

Full sources and reuse information

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. IV, ch. 21, ‘Privateering and the War at Sea’, pp. 1211-1215. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. ‘Burning of Falmouth’, Wikipedia (accessed 2026-10-02): Mowat’s squadron, the 9:40 a.m. opening on 18 October 1775, the red pennant on the Canceaux, some 3,000 projectiles, over 400 buildings burned, over 1,000 residents homeless. Secondary source
  3. Boston Public Library, American Revolution in Massachusetts research guide, ‘Burning of Falmouth’ (accessed 2026-10-02): 18 October 1775; over 400 buildings; two hours’ warning; incendiary shot and landing parties. Secondary source
  4. Discover Concord, ‘The Destruction of Falmouth’ (accessed 2026-10-02): the committee’s delay and handful of arms, ‘many women and children still remaining’, the fleet in line of battle, the red pennant, Rev. Bailey’s description of the shells, and the churches, courthouse, library and waterfront burned. Secondary source
  5. Encyclopedia Virginia, ‘The Town of Falmouth, Burnt by Capt. Moet, October 18, 1775’ (accessed 2026-10-02): the engraving in Burke’s An Impartial History of the War in America (1780), and the summary that nearly all public structures and two thirds of private homes were destroyed. Secondary source

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Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0. External sources retain their own terms.

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