Joshua Loring was an American naval officer and privateer. He served as a member of the governor's council for a short period of time.
Background
Joshua Loring was born on August 3, 1716 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Joshua and Hannah (Jackson) Loring and the descendant of Thomas and Jane (Newton) Loring, who emigrated from Axminster, Devonshire, England, to Dorchester, Massachusetts, about 1634 and, later, settled in Hingham, Massachusetts.
Education
In his youth Loring learned the tanner's trade, being apprenticed to James Mears of Roxbury.
Career
Loring enlisted in the Royal Navy as a young man. When continual warfare between England and France made privateering attractive to many New Englanders, he became commander of a brigantine privateer, which was captured by two French men-of-war in August 1744. The next few months he spent as a prisoner in the Fortress of Louisburg.
The outbreak of the French and Indian War again found him in the naval service. On December 19, 1757, he was commissioned captain in the British navy. In 1759 he commanded naval operations on Lakes George and Champlain and, the next year, on Lake Ontario, and he is now usually referred to as Commodore Loring. He was severely wounded in 1760. He participated in the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe and the subsequent conquest of Canada by General Amherst.
At the close of the war he retired on half pay and settled down at Jamaica Plain, Roxbury. Joshua Loring was one of the five commissioners of revenue and became a member of General Gage's council by a writ of mandamus. He was sworn in on August 8, 1774. Gage's appointees were immediately subjected to the greatest pressure to induce them to resign. Writing under date of August 30, John Andrews said, "Late in the evening a member waited upon Commodore Loring, and in a friendly way advis'd him to follow the example of his townsman (Isaac Winslow who had already resigned). He desir'd time to consider of it. They granted it, but acquainted him, if he did not comply, he must expect to be waited upon by a larger number, actuated by a different spirit. His principal apprehension was that he should lose his half pay". Loring is said to have deemed the cause of his countrymen just, but he did not believe it could succeed.
On March 30, 1775, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts denounced Loring and other irreconcilables as implacable enemies of their country. On October 16, 1778, he was proscribed and banished by act of the General Court. His home at Roxbury was, for a while, the headquarters of General Nathanael Greene, and then a hospital for American soldiers. The passage of the confiscation act in 1779 made his property the possession of the state, for whose benefit it was eventually sold. Upon the evacuation of Boston, he went to England and was the recipient of a pension from the crown until his decease at Highgate.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"I have always eaten the king's bread, and always intend to. "
Connections
About 1740 Loring married Mary Curtis, daughter of Samuel Curtis of Roxbury. In 1789 his widow died at Englesfield, Berkshire County, England, where their son, Joshua Loring, had settled after the Revolution.