Augustus Johnston (ca. 1729 – 1790) was an Attorney General in the Colony of

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

from 1758 to 1766 and is the namesake of

Johnston, Rhode Island Johnston is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 29,568 at the 2020 census. Johnston is the site of the Clemence Irons House (1691), a stone-ender museum, and the only landfill in Rhode Island. Incorpora ...

. He also served briefly as a stamp distributor during the controversial Stamp Act 1765 protests and later fled Rhode Island after the Revolutionary War due to his

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

sympathies.

Early life and career

Johnston was born near

Perth Amboy, New Jersey Perth Amboy is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey. Perth Amboy is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 55,436. Perth Amboy has a Hispanic majority population. In the 2010 census, th ...

around 1729 to George Johnston and Bathsheba Lucas. His paternal grandfather emigrated from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. Johnston's father died when he was young and his mother remarried to Matthew Robinson. Johnston was eventually educated in New York before moving to

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

, where he became a voter on April 30, 1751. Johnston studied law with his step-father, Matthew Robinson, a prominent, well-read Rhode Island lawyer with a large private library. Johnston's maternal grandfather, Augustus Lucas, a French

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

also lived in Newport and built the Lucas–Johnston House, which Johnston later inherited. After building a successful reputation as an attorney, Augustus Johnston was appointed in 1754 and again in 1756 to assist in drafting legislation for General Assembly. In October 1756 Johnston became a first lieutenant in a military regiment to be sent against

Fort Crown Point Fort Crown Point was built by the combined efforts of both British and provincial troops (from New York and the New England Colonies) in North America in 1759 at a narrows on Lake Champlain on what later became the border between New York and Verm ...

during the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

. In June 1757 he was acting as attorney-general because the candidate elected died, and he was then reelected each year until May 1766. As Attorney General he helped to revise the colony's laws and worked to start a

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

inoculation hospital. When the town of Johnston separated from Providence in 1759, it was purportedly named for the Attorney General.

Stamp Act and American Revolution

In 1765, Johnston served as a stamp-distributor under the Stamp Act 1765. On August 27, 1765 Johnston and two others who had supported the rights of the Parliament of Great Britain were hanged in effigy and the next day a mob damaged their homes and rioted outside the Newport Colony House. The three individuals fled to a naval ship, , moored in Newport's harbor. Johnston came ashore the next day and signed a document agreeing not to act as stamp distributor without the colonists' consent. The other two refugees fled to England and requested compensation for their damages and informed the British government of their losses. Johnston also requested compensation, and all three were accused of inflating their claimed losses. The British Treasury requested that the Rhode Island General Assembly pay the claims, but the Rhode Island government refused until the British Treasury reimbursed Rhode Island for their expenditures during the French and Indian War in 1756, which had never been repaid. Negotiations over the claims took place until 1773 but were never settled. Augustus Johnston remained in Newport until July 18, 1776, but when he refused the Patriots' oath of allegiance he was ordered interned at South Kingstown for a time. During the British occupation of Newport, he was appointed to various civil positions, but he moved to New York when the British left Newport in 1779 and then possibly South Carolina. Johnston's property was eventually confiscated. Although he had a pension from the British government, Johnston died insolvent in 1790 leaving a widow and four children. Despite his advanced age, Johnston's step-father, who had been Johnston's surety, had to defend various suits which were brought against him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnston, Augustus Rhode Island lawyers Politicians from Newport, Rhode Island Rhode Island Attorneys General 1729 births 1790 deaths