The Fate Of Benjamin Kennedy

Benjamin Kennedy, born in Lichfield, England in 1743, was the son of Thomas Kennedy,  burgess of Lichfield. Thomas had several sons, all of whom were set up in good positions when they reached their teens.  We know almost nothing of Thomas except that he must have been very well connected.  We do not even know Thomas's wife's name. The records are mute despite the best efforts of researchers.

Benjamin is described as a "chirurgeon" (surgeon) on his marriage certificate. Surgeons came in for much pillorying in the press and literature of the time.  The famous political and social cartoons of the day frequently portrayed the surgeon as a dissembling trickster.  In the novel ‘Tom Jones’ by Henry Fielding,  published in 1749,  a novel with very much a whiff of real life in those times despite of, or because of, its many comic moments (Fielding was a prominent magistrate and law reformer),  surgeons are portrayed speaking in an obscure medical terminology,  confusing patients.  They are shown pressing inappropriate treaments on credulous patients.  One makes false statements about a patient, with the end of convicting the innocent hero of the novel.  The most prominent surgeon character in ‘Tom Jones’,  one Mr Partridge, is shown as a loyal friend but superstitious,  gullible, a coward,  a Jacobite (unfavourable in this case as Fielding was an arch-Hanoverian) and prattler. 

Of course the medical profession of those times had a difficult public relations task on its hands. Society relied on them for relief from horrendous epidemics and afflictions which were causing death on an appalling scale,  but surgeons were only just beginning to become aware of scientific methods.  The College of Surgeons resisted most advances of progress.  A small band of determined pioneers set about researching the human organism – mainly through dissecting the bodies of hanged criminals and any other bodies they could secure.  Acquiring these bodies was very difficult and often involved paying criminals to steal corpses from the graveyards.  Even getting hold of the cadavers of the executed usually ended in a fight between the family and friends of the deceased on one hand and the surgeon and his assistants on the other. Once acquired, the bodies were transported to a safe house where they would be cut up and the results studied and often sketched.  The students were encouraged to smell and even taste the different parts of the corpse.

During these times the huge leaps that would revolutionise modern medicine were being made.  Medical men would experiment on animals,  poorer clients and even themselves in order to establish the best treatments.  From these doubtful activities the foundations of medical knowledge for future generations were assembled.  Their methods hardly endeared the practitioners to the general public,  and certainly not in small, conservative, provincial communities such as Lichfield.

A surgeon had to serve an apprenticeship for some years with an experienced practitioner,  probably in London or in Edinburgh.  Upon then starting his practice,  he had to get himself a good name by having some early successes, preferably with a prominent member of the community.  This was chiefly a matter of luck.  This was the happy result for Erasmus Darwin,  the most famous surgeon of Benjamin’s day. He too was a resident of Lichfield – he moved there after an apprenticeship in Edinburgh. In fact Darwin had cleverly noted the importance of fresh air, rest and a good balanced diet to convalescents.  He was able to use these principles to good effect in the community.  He treated poor people for free but this caused him no great loss as they could be used for experimenting with new techniques, and in any event, rich patients from far beyond Lichfield’s outskirts would pay handsomely for his services. King George III once asked him to be his surgeon but he declined as he did not want to live in London.  Once a man from London travelled to Lichfield and begged of Erasmus’ services.  The Lichfield surgeon pointed out that there was a great surgeon back in London who could have obliged the sufferer.  The response was that the man was indeed that eminent London surgeon.  It is possible that Erasmus’ famous public dissections and other prominent successes at that time, inspired Benjamin to take up his career.

A surgeon did not generally sell drugs to patients,  but instead would refer them to an apothecarist. Many surgeons specialised in particular areas such as,  in Benjamin’s case, inoculation. James Boswell referred in one of his letters to a certain Dr. Kennedy of London who specialised in the treatment of gonorrhea (a disease very familiar to the great biographer of Dr Johnson).  Surgeons were not regarded as admissible to the higher circles of society.  Their knowledge was generally more soundly based on practical knowledge than the physicians who were their social superiors but this counted for little in Polite Society.

Anna Seward, poetess, biographer of Erasmus Darwin and great Lichfield hostess of the late 1700s once said that in general one did not invite surgeons to card parties,  though they were allowed to attend dances.  On the other hand the physician Darwin was a regular guest at her and other tables in The Close.  Obviously his status as poet and inventor lifted him above his fellows.  Another Lichfield surgeon Richard Greene,  who had a museum in Lichfield during the period when Benjamin married Damaris, was admitted to the inner social world of the Close.  Again his wider interests would have made him an interesting guest to stimulate converations at dinner.  Apparently even Darwin was subjected to social humiliation at times in his life,  despite his exalted status in the country.

In any event surgeon Benjamin married a prestigious bride. He married Damaris Maddox in 1769 at St Matthew’s Church, Walsall.  They were to have one son whom they named Rann.  Rann’s unusual first name was derived from Damaris’ mother Mary’s maiden name.  Giving Rann the name of this illustrious family,  well-established in the Birmingham area as has already been seen,  was one key to his prosperity later on.  Two Rann ladies countersigned the marriage declaration that is held at Lichfield Archives – Sarah and Elizabeth,  the former is likely to be Damaris’ grandmother who also appears to have used the name Sarah – or else is possibly the Sarah who was Damaris’ cousin Joseph’s wife - and the latter is likely to be her great aunt by marriage. 

Damaris was the granddaughter of the Reverend John Rann,  Vicar of Rushall and Colmore (now a suburb of Walsall on the Birmingham Road) (earlier Vicar of the parish of West Bromwich) and his wife Mary also known as Sarah,  nee Dolphin.  Reverend Rann officiated.

Benjamin In America

In the Birmingham Gazette of 1765,  in a letter penned by ‘Benovolius’, one ‘Master Kennedy’ is described as having given a virtuoso performance in a production of King John,  by William Shakespeare – the greatest playwright of the Black Country.  The same Master Kennedy was said by the writer to have performed before the King,  Duke of York and Princess of Brunswick who paid him compliments on his acting.

At the end of the 1760s Benjamin Kennedy had left the stage behind him – if indeed it was the same person treading the boards in Birmingham a few years before.  He was now a surgeon and married to Damaris,  daughter of Illedge Maddox.  The marriage does not appear to have met with old Maddox’ approval judging from the fact that even after both his daughter and son in law had tragically died,  he saw fit to exclude their son,  then studying at University, from any mention in his will,  whilst he bestowed considerable sums upon several others – including his housekeeper - from his estate.  It is a fair bet that the financial background of the young surgeon was that which met with disapproval from Maddox senior.  They married in Walsall, Staffordshire,  many miles from the Withington, Shropshire home of her father and near to the home of Damaris’ maternal grandfather Reverend John Rann.  When he was away,  Damaris stayed at the home of Reverend Rann.

Shortly afterwards Benjamin travelled to Annapolis,  Maryland,  in the American Colonies.  America does not at first sight seem a promising destination.  The colonial towns were already riven by violent mobs protesting the taxes of the hated Stamp Act,  to the extent that the authorities were simply not enforcing the legislation in order to keep relative peace.  In fact, whilst stirred up by prominent citizens for political reasons, many of the disturbances were really caused by the desperate state of the American poor who had arrived full of high hopes of a new life,  only to find the available land already divided up by established families.  Those very respectable politicized citizens were none too pleased to have their own property razed by the angry mobs of the poor, as sometimes happened.

However the Midlands itself, like many other parts of Britain, had only recently been the scene of hunger riots in the aftermath of the end of the Seven Years War. The openings for surgeons,  which had been many during the war were now falling in number.  It seems from the evidence of his will that Illedge Maddox may not have approved of his son in law.  The best way for him to prove his worthiness as a husband was to make his fortune in the American Colonies.

In Maryland in the period immediately before Benjamin arrived there was much unrest according to the letters of the Governor Horatio Sharpe.  There were clashes between new settlers and Indian tribes in the Allegheny Mountains.  There were major problems with the clergy many of whom were unfit,  drunk,  murdering their slaves then running off,  refusing to perform their duties or living adulterously.  Some parishioners even rioted over the low quality of their incumbents.  One cause of conflict was the practice of having more than one living which persisted though it was frowned upon officially.  The result of this state of affairs was that parishioners were taking themselves to the local Dissenting Churches instead.  This led to increased dissatisfaction at being forced to pay for the upkeep of the Established Church and their own nonconformist institution.  Putting the affairs of the Established Church in order was a major concern for the Governor.  Another was finding sinecures for frequent new arrivals with letters of introduction from Lord Baltimore.  Naturally the Governor was falling over himself to comply with his Lordship’s wishes, but his proteges could be most truculent – one clergyman was not content with the living of St Anne’s in Annapolis,  he wanted the one over the bay too and as a result the parishioners were on the warpath.  The Governor was rapidly losing patience with the whole business when he found that Lord Baltimore had decided he was to be replaced by one Captain Robert Eden.  It was Eden who was presiding over the topsy turvy State of Maryland when Benjamin arrived.

The General Assembly were wrestling with the problems of the Tobacco Trade,  still in somewhat of a downturn.  There was a proposal to build a new lighthouse at Cape Henry. Destruction of wolves, crows and squirrels was called for in another bill before the gentlemen. Also among the bills was one imposing a duty on the import of negroes,  the resulting funds raised to be directed for the benefit of local schools.  Reading all the reams of declarations that were already spouting from the Maryland Assembly  and other groups of outraged colonial citizens,  it is hard to believe that these alleged poor, oppressed wretches of the Maryland mercantile class were actually living in an utterly luxurious condition, subsidised by free labour – that of the enslaved, brutalised Africans in their midst. One of the major concerns of Governor Sharpe was that boatloads of overcrowded poor people from Britain and Ireland were arriving bringing ‘distempers’ that could cause contagion amongst the slave population – he noted the deaths of 20 negroes from disease.

Benjamin evidently believed there to be opportunities in promoting inoculation in the colonies and this seems to be the reason he travelled there,  to work in what would now be described as a practice – promoting and carrying out inoculation with an associate named Shuttleworth,  according to a method originating from a surgeon named Sutton.  In the letter written in Annapolis to his wife in England in 1770 he shows no indication of wishing to stay there permanently - it seems from his tone that financial pressures drove him over the Atlantic.  The Revolution was to begin in 1775 while he was there,  though in the letter to his wife he indicates that he thought the separatist movement would come to nothing.  The letter is the earliest one that has turned up that was written by one of the Lichfield Kennedies.  It is written in very good English and Benjamin has elegant handwriting - he has obviously been well educated.  His handwriting is neater than the Governor’s.  He expresses a dislike of the American continental climate – the temperature being either too hot or too cold.  He describes Americans as being reluctant to pay their debts.  He cannot find anything American that is praiseworthy apart from the neatly ordered streets of Philadelphia. This might surprise a modern reader but by this Benjamin shows himself to be of his times - before the Romantic poets, there was no concept of a beautiful wilderness.  He does mention that it is cheap to live in the Colonies. 

From the letter it seems business was not proceeding well in America for his practice.  Benjamin expresses much dissatisfaction with the medical standards and public relations skills of his colleague Shuttleworth who had been doing inoculations in the neighbouring districts. Benjamin sounds gloomy as to the impact that Shuttleworth’s inadequacies have had on their likelihood of getting many more patients.  One can imagine Damaris being somewhat depressed after reading the letter,  which was addressed to her grandfather Rev’d Rann’s Vicarage at Colmore in Walsall.  At the end of the letter he quotes some literary lines that he says they used to read to each other during their courtship.  Benjamin shows himself to be a man of sensitivity, learning and with a strong sense of professional pride.  He also shows that he is concerned about money and the need to earn it in order to provide for their future.  He shows some lack of tact by sharing with Damaris details of the business difficulties he is having in the Colonies – although this may be a stratagem to engender her sympathy – elsewhere in the letter he protests that he has been faithful to her,  in an apparent response to a letter from her accusing him of philandering whilst he is away.  A miniature portrait of Damaris,  perhaps one especially made to be taken by Benjamin over the Atlantic, remains in the family.  It shows a slim, intelligent young woman with short dark ringlets of hair,  with a sorrowful look about her. Her dress is a loose white chemise, without the bodice so prevalent in the 1700s.  She has a doubled string of pearls on her head however despite other signs of informal dress.

Benjamin shows an interest in politics in his disparaging reference to the early stages of separatism in America – indicating that he has talked of politics with her and “the old man”. The old man in question is most likely to be Reverend John Rann,  Damaris’ grandfather, to the Vicarage of whom the letter was addressed and who was in his eighties by this time. 

The letter of 1770 is notable for the lack of religious references.  The wills of his grandparents and uncles from Lichfield are overwhelmingly filled with mentions of God.  It seems that Benjamin didn’t feel strongly enough about religion to invoke his Maker either on his or his wife’s behalf at any stage of a lengthy letter except “I pray to God this Letter may find you in perfect health” near to the end, despite the great distance between them and the potential for cruel fate to intervene in their lives.  This leads one to wonder whether his thinking was closer to the enlightened European progressives of his time,  such as Rousseau and Voltaire, who were moving away from blind religious piety to a more rational view.  The fact that he was pioneering a new medical technique would tend to support this interpretation.

The literary lines that he quotes in the letter are from a Restoration play by Thomas Otway (1652-1685) “The Orphan” – the preceding and quoted lines are given here.

“-------It was not kind

To leave me like a Turtle, here alone,

To droop and mourn the Absence of my Mate.

When thou art from me, every Place is desert:

And I, methinks, am savage and forlorn.

Thy Presence only 'tis can make me blest,

Heal my unquiet Mind, and tune my Soul.”

These lines are quoted in an edition of The Spectator from 1711 and are said in the article to be the best possible lines for a wife to contemplate when her husband is absent for a long period.  The lines are therefore highly appropriate.  Nonetheless, the lines are quoted with reference to the period when Benjamin and Damaris were together,  therefore they presumably have a copy of the play at home, along with others.  Travelling theatre companies were performing in Lichfield and Walsall at the time.  The greatest actor of his age – Garrick – was a native of Lichfield.  And it has already noted here that a certain young Kennedy had been gracing the stage in the Midlands.

Doctor Johnson,  Benjamin’s father’s Lichfield contemporary, spoke approvingly of Otway,  saying that “He conceiv’d forcibly, and drew originally, by consulting nature in his own breast”.  Otway wrote,  like his contemporary and near neighbour Dryden, using exotic locations and ancient historical periods. His plays were filled with tragedy, emotional discord,  sentimentality and would be considered histrionic by later standards.  Otway also used extremely bawdy scenes – believed by many critics to be demonstrations of fealty to the bawdy King Charles II. The love of Otway’s life was the actress Elizabeth Barry,  who was to become English Theatre’s first leading lady.  She was the mistress of both the infamous ‘Libertine’ (immortalised on screen by Johnny Depp), the Earl of Rochester and Sir George Etheredge (at the same time) and spurned Otway.  Rochester also cruelly ridiculed him. He lived a short and turbulent life,  apparently cut short by hunger.  At the end of his unfortunate life he staggered into an Inn begging money for food.  A former admirer of his who was drinking there gave him a guinea which he promptly used to buy a bun,  the eating of which is supposed to have choked him.

By 1749 the writer Henry Fielding was using ‘The Orphan’ to lampoon Jacobites,  his most absurd characters in the great comic novel ‘Tom Jones’ quoting the play at various points,  whilst cursing the government of the day and wishing for the ‘King Over The Water’ to return.  The themes that were dear to provincial people such as Benjamin and Damaris harked back to a cavalier past but the play’s time was past in the opinion of then-contemporary Whig observers.  Fielding’s more intelligent characters speak favourably of Milton,  the poet-spokesman of the Commonwealth.

‘The Orphan’ concerns two brothers who have both fallen in love with their adopted sister.  Although the play is nominally set in continental Europe,  the character of the adoptive father is based on the old cavaliers, disillusioned with the compromises made by Charles II after the Restoration.  Monimia,  the adopted daughter is herself the daughter of a ruined cavalier,  a friend of the family.  One brother secretly marries Monimia and the other,  overhearing part of a covert sexual arrangement between the secret pair,  steals into her room at dead of night, pretends to be the other brother and deceives Monimia into sharing her bed with him.  When the secret is discovered,  the starcrossed trio all kill themselves.  Theatrical society in the Restoration period frequently made their dramas involve scandalous behaviour in order to distance their royalist culture further from the Puritans.  In fact theatres were often the scene of debauchery amongst the audience.  Actresses such as Barry had somewhat colourful lifestyles – and this continued throughout the 1700s.  It is safe to say that Damaris was a broadminded woman.  It seems not too much of a leap to suggest that the couple’s love of this play shows them to be nostalgic for the era of the Stuarts. The play was originally dedicated to James Duke of York who as James II attempted to roll up the compromises of the Restoration,  with, of course, unfortunate consequences for his career as King in the fatal year of 1688.

Notwithstanding their shared tastes in tragic Restoration playwrights and racy dramas,  Benjamin and Damaris were clearly much in love and he evidently respected her as an intellectual equal.  Their marriage was not merely an alliance of family interests.  Subsequent to the 1770 letter,  Benjamin and Damaris’ marriage was blessed with the birth of a son whom they named after his venerable maternal great grandfather Rann.  Despite reservations expressed in the letter the Kennedys settled in Maryland.

They would not have had an easy time.  As relations soured between Britain and her errant colonies,  anyone who was a supporter of British rule was labelled a “Tory” and subjected to a steadily increasing number of inconveniences.  Tories were prevented from trading or working and suffered expulsion and loss of their property.  They were exiled by the vengeful “Patriots” to far flung areas,  guarded by surly troopers who did little to defend the prisoners from patriot-inclined crowds along the way.  Some were actually led away in chains.  Even when in exile they found themselves preyed upon by the patriots who would boycott them and penalise those among their communities who offered shelter to the exiles.  Prominent “Tories” were thrown in prison and relatively moderate Maryland even passed a law condemning loyalists to death.  Despite this there were loyalist uprisings in the region requiring military force to quell them.  Loyalist desperadoes,  driven from their land became notorious for their raids and depradations on the Patriots that had seized their land. This was Civil War.

In 1776 Ben is noted in the papers of the Committee of Public Safety as treating American soldiers.  By this time he had a shop in Baltimore,  in partnership with another doctor of Ayrshire ancestry named Michael Wallace. 

1776 saw Colonel William Smallwood's Maryland Regiment join with the Continental Army for the Battle of Brooklyn.  The unit comprised 400 crack troops,  superbly kitted out compared to the rest of their comrades in smart uniforms and carrying bayonets,  a rarity in the Continental Army at that time.  General Clinton's plan to outflank the American army succeeded and the battle turned into a rout,  which was only halted by a brave rearguard action at Gowanus Creek by the Marylanders. They charged the British six times. They were mostly killed or captured.  Thanks to their bravery,  George Washington was able to escape with the core of his army,  and the United States was saved from extinction.  This would have had a galvanising effect on Marylander patriots at home and anyone with loyalist sympathies would get still shorter shrift from their neighbours.  Benjamin would have treated the injured survivors of Gowanus Creek,  as a surgeon attached to the regiment.
[The author is astonished to read that the mass grave of the brave Marylanders who saved their country is unmarked and likely to be developed into commercial property.]

1777 was a fateful year for Maryland and for Ben.  At the beginning of the year there were shortages of flour,  bread and iron in the hard-pressed northern rebel areas,  and trade in those commodities was passing through the Chesapeake Bay in order to remedy the situation.  In Baltimore,  a town of a little over 5000,  the mobs were persecuting any who showed loyalist sympathies.  Amongst the more cerebral revolutionaries a Whig Club was set up.  Ben was best not airing any pro-British sentiment even if he harboured it.  In February in Somerset and Worcester counties there was an insurrection by armed loyalists which was crushed by Virginia troops,  Baltimore militia and Annapolis Artillery.

The American Congress had been meeting in Baltimore and at the end of March adjourned and moved to Philadelphia. Among the decisions taken was that Baltimore would become a naval dockyard for the new US Navy.

Then on 5^th May 1777 the records for the Committee of Public Safety state that Doctor Kennedy is with “The Enemy in New York”.  On the 18^th May the Maryland Gazette contains an advertisement stating that the contents of the shop owned by Ben and Dr Wallace are to be sold off by his administrator and wife Damaris. 

Whatever it is that Ben did in New York with the British,  that led to the ending of his life,  the Maryland authorities paid Damaris well for the medical equipment.  This shows that they still did not regard him as an enemy loyalist.

Damaris is named as Administrator of Ben's estate, and was duly paid a large sum of money by American authorities for the medical equipment in the shop.

Damaris Kennedy

Damaris was given leave by the Committee to return to England via New York in 1780.  She was back in England in 1782. In a letter to her from an associate of her husband’s , a certain J. Mallet, carried back by the same Captain Buchanan who passed on the letter from Benjamin of 1770- she is described as having had an awful time during the voyage.  She had been denied payments owed to her late husband by his last American patients, prior to the voyage, and during the passage experienced unwelcome advances from a certain army officer,  only to be rescued by the captain.  The sea journey across the Atlantic during that era was a traumatic enough experience – usually taking the best part of a month.  With the added difficulties of being amongst a mixed crowd ranging from rich to poor, fleeing a collapsing Imperial possession,  and leaving her dead husband behind with financial worries hanging over her, one can imagine how awful it would have been for her.  Travel on a barque of this period meant braving often horrendous weather and during the latter part of the voyage subsisting without fresh food or water,  living on vile sea provisions.  There would have been deaths on board due to the privations.  Ship captains had only just begun to able to buy the new ship’s chronometers that had been pioneered during the mid 1700s by the great clockmaker John Harrison – before the 1780s ships frequently knew only vaguely what their position was,  and often got hopelessly lost, or sank due to hitting unexpected rocks and reefs,  so danger was ever-present.

In the letter sent to Damaris by Mr Mallet,  addressed to her care of his sister in Lichfield,  General Clinton is suggested to her, among others, as a possible protector.  General Sir Henry Clinton was one of the main commanders on the British side and was blamed by many in Britain for the loss of the American Colonies, though this was somewhat unfair.  He spent much of the next few years defending his conduct during the Revolutionary War, both verbally and in print.

Though she had success in many of  the military engagements,  Britain was almost certainly bound to lose the War. The preceding years of unrest over taxation had undermined support for King George III.  The swift accomodation with the Catholic French Canadians following the Seven Years War with France also annoyed the rebellious, predominantly Protestant colonists.  This did not stop the stout rebel Protestant colonists from gladly accepting the assistance of the French King Louis XVI in their struggle however.  Slow communications between the two continents hampered an effect policy.  The addition of French soldiers and ships sustained the rebellion and probably were the decisive factor that brought it eventual victory.  The lack of British troops available meant reliance on Germanic mercenaries and local Native American cohorts who alienated colonists with their ferocity, and thus lost the “battle for hearts and minds”.  As can be seen in conflicts up to the present day,  fighting an insurgency thousands of miles from home is a costly and difficult business.  Lord North,  an able politician who had resolved a serious financial crisis whilst Prime Minister,  realised that he could not fight a war against the American Colonists and offered his resignation to George III,  but he was refused.

For geographical reasons, Britain could only have held onto the American territories by the overwhelming consent of the white colonists.  A small number of political agitators had used a widely held sense of grievance to erode that consent.  King George regarded the rights of the Indian tribes to have equal weight to those of the white settlers.  The treaties with the Indians prevented further migration westwards.  The period after the Seven Years War was one of economic downturn,  when many of the American plantation owners and merchants fell into debt.  Some of the indebted landowners declared lotteries in which land or slaves were offered as prizes.  The only real way of resolving debts was for the debtor to move westward and seize ‘virgin’ - actually Indian – land, in contravention of signed treaties.  There were also a large number of poor,  rootless Americans who by their rioting provided the impetus to the revolution.  The longterm answer to the problem of these poor whites was for them to move west too.  Ultimately the colonial whites, both rich and poor, were on a collision course with  the British Government.  Revolution was very profitable too - expropriating land and property belonging to the many loyalists and not having to pay debts owed to them or to merchants –  or surgeons - from Britain, was a great relief to rebel pockets.

Those who showed loyalty to the British Crown did so to their cost.  The minister Reverend Jonathan Boucher of Annapolis kept a pair of loaded pistols in his pulpit while he preached loyalty to King George.  There were others who joined the British forces – a planter from Kent County,  James Chalmers, formed the Maryland Loyalists in 1777.  They were treated ignominiously by the British Army,  not taking part in any of the main battles.  They took part in some of the fighting though,  for example the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey.

At length they were sent to Florida to fight the Spanish.  The Marylanders that had not succumbed to smallpox or the Spanish Army were evacuated at the end of the Revolutionary War to Nova Scotia,  only to be shipwrecked.  The few survivors had no possessions and now had to build a new life in much colder climes than they had formerly been used to.  Those few survivors must have bitterly regretted their loyalty to King George III.

In 1782,  at the height of the Revolutionary War,  Damaris was in New York,  then occupied by the British Forces.  She has the friendship of the correspondent Mr. J. Mallet and the British officer Captain Buchanan, both associates of her husband  (there are a number of Buchanans mentioned in Maryland State papers of the time,  one of which fought for the Revolutionaries by 1777). She is also said in the 1782 letter to be able to call upon the senior British General Sir Henry Clinton for assistance.  It is hard to imagine what Damaris was doing in that war-torn country in the first place.  It might be argued that she was attempting to retrieve debts owed to her husband by American clients.  Many of these former patients of Benjamin would not pay up,  according to Mr Mallet – conforming to the description of colonials painted in Benjamin’s letter of 1770.    

It is hard to imagine why Damaris would be of any significance to General Clinton,  at a time when large numbers of loyal supporters of King George were fleeing rebel-held areas,  their land and chattels having been seized by the rebels.  However the connection becomes more credible when one recalls Damaris’ favourite grandfather’s former role as chaplain to the old Earl of Dartmouth, whose son was now Colonial Secretary and otherwise member of the government,  and John Rann’s continuing position in West Midlands society up to his death in 1771. He is described in a letter from his father in law John Dolphin in 1724 as being able to secure sixty votes for the Tories as parson of West Bromwich, and he probably continued to be involved in political circles throughout his life.  Perhaps Rann’s son in law Benjamin was carrying out more than just medical duties.

It is unlikely that Kennedy was merely a doctor pursuing his practice in a purely non-partisan manner and with the confidence of all sides.  Tolerance of the mild-mannered Governor Robert Eden amongst Marylanders allowed him to remain even up to the eve of the declaration of Independence,  but he was sent away by ship not long afterwards.  This was many years before the concept of neutral medical aid during wartime developed.  Loyalists - even surgeons, were prohibited from working in rebel-held territory after the mid 1770s. 

When the Lord North government fell after America had defeated the British Army,  it was Rockingham – an associate of Dartmouth - who was invited by George III to take the office of Prime Minister.  Rockingham immediately set about negotiating peace with the new American Administration. Rockingham however died before these talks could be completed and Shelburne assumed the Prime Ministerial reins.

‘J. Mallet’ was Mr. Jonathan Mallet,  originally from Lichfield, who was Inspector General of the Society of New York Hospital. The hospital was being used to treat injured members of the forces of the Crown during the Revolutionary War.  This is an intriguing detail in the story.  Mr Mallet was the brother in law of another Kennedy – he was married to Catherine, the sister of Archibald Kennedy,  Laird of Culzean and inheritor to the title of Earl of Cassilis, later to be made Marquis of Ailsa by his friend William IV.  Archibald was a second generation American,  a naval officer who had played a conspicuous naval role in the British fight to retain the American colonies.  Archibald was resident in New York,  his house,  which had become the British Headquarters, was at 1, Broadway. George Washington expropriated the house for his own use after the end of the war,  though it was released to Archibald eventually.  Much of his other property was lost however. Following one return visit to New York, he returned to London,  having given his American property away to relatives who had remained in the United States.  

It is possible that Benjamin was spying on behalf of the British in the heart of rebel territory – using the cover of his position as a surgeon to the American Army to gather intelligence in the houses of prominent citizens. General Clinton is known to have placed great importance upon a network of spies constantly sending him information from around America during the War. What cannot be denied is that in 1782, in the opinion of Mr. Mallet,  General Clinton would feel honour-bound to afford help to Damaris.  As a spy Benjamin would have risked the ultimate penalty.  Another who found himself accused of espionage by George Washington,  Major Andre,  was executed.  He had visited Lichfield not long before and had made many friends in fashionable society there.  George Washington visited Lichfield after Independence and had to make craven apologies to the many friends of Major Andre there who included Anna Seward.  Mallet was a close friend of both Major Andre and Benedict Arnold.

It is also possible that Benjamin offered his services to the loyal armed forces, who no doubt needed them, and at some point he was able to offer some medical help to General Clinton.  The announcement of his death in May 1777 contradicts the impression from the Mallet letter that he was alive and still treating non-military patients in New York up to the 1780s.  Mallet described the difficulties in extracting payment from the former patients.  Did Ben fake his own death in order to work for the British - and if so why did he leave his beloved wife in American territory?  It is difficult to square these pieces of evidence.

It is as yet only conjecture but this connection between the Lichfield and Ayrshire Kennedys may lead to major revelations about the origins of the Lichfield Kennedy family.  Another possible connection is the Captain Buchanan who delivered the letter to Damaris back in 1771.  Archibald Kennedy was close to an important Glasgow and Virginia-based merchant family of that name.  If Captain Buchanan was one of those Buchanans then the connection between Benjamin and Archibald and their respective Kennedy branches becomes more longlived,  giving rise to a tantalising possibility that the connection between the two branches continued uninterrupted all the way back to the departure of the Kennedys to Lichfield back in the 1600s.

The Culzean Kennedys made their living by smuggling which strengthens this theory.  It would have been very useful to have relations such as Benjamin’s grandfather William Kennedy who was a peripatetic market trader in the relatively affluent Midlands of England,  who could distribute contraband items to well-heeled customers.  It also helps to explain how Benjamin’s father Thomas Kennedy could have become a burgess in Lichfield with no sign of a source of income or evidence of any business transaction.  The fact that one of Benjamin’s brothers was a Customs official merely shows how well-connected his father was.

The Culzean family were also strong Jacobites though covering their tracks sufficiently so as to avoid losing their estates.  This goes some way towards backing up the old Lichfield Kennedy family's Jacobite legend.

On her return,  Damaris Kennedy was able to find funds sufficient to set up her only son Rann with the best education on offer.  Sadly she did not live much longer.  Perhaps the traumatic experiences in America and the voyage home weakened her too much.

The French King Louis might have rubbed his hands with glee over the ending of Britain’s rule in America,  but within a decade of the founding of the United States he paid for his support for the anti-monarchist rebels in America with his own head,  at the guillotine.  The influence of free-thinkers such as Franklin, Paine, Jefferson and others in America on young French officers such as Lafayette had fatal consequences for King Louis’ ultra-conservative regime.  This had been predicted by Loyalists in Maryland during the mid 1770s at the time of France coming to the aid of the rebel colonists.

Postscript 6.6.2018
Recently I have come across a book American Loyalist Migrations by Peter Wilson Coldham.

This book has an entry for Benjamin Kennedy which is as follows:
Kennedy, Dr Benjamin of Annapolis, deceased. Memorial and Petition by his wife Damaris, London 1784. Her husband attended Sir Robert Eden to America where he supplied drugs to MD and VA and would have become one of the richest men in the province. Because of his loyalty he was persecuted and his estates confiscated before he took refuge in Jamaica. He died from his sufferings leaving the claimant with a nine year old child without support. She was used to living in affluence and had brought a considerable fortune to her husband upon her marriage. All her English servants left her to go home when the war came and when she protested she was told to be thankful that her husband had died a natural death. Though her son was admitted a natural citizen of the US she forced him out of American hands, and tried to get to England but illness prevented her from arriving before the death of her guardian Mr Dolphin. She has tried in vain to enter her son into Christ's Hospital. (13/40/87-94, 61/324-328).

Their only son Rann is dealt with here.