During the second season, which lasted for six months, they had
repeated the same plays many times, and probably having nothing new
or more attractive to offer for another season, they determined to
try their fortunes elsewhere. They closed with a series of benefits,
and some of the appeals made respecting them are sufficiently curious
to be noticed. Mrs. Davis announces that a benefit is given to her
to enable her to buy off her time, and she hopes that all ladies and
gentlemen who are charitably inclined will favor it, closing in legal
phraseology, “and their humble petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever
pray.” It was the constant practice at that time for masters of vessels
to bring out passengers to New York upon the condition that they should
be sold immediately upon their arrival as servants to any person who
would pay their passage-money. They were sold for a definite period of
time and were called Redemptioners, of which class Mrs. Davis, from
her earnest appeal, appears to have been one. Mr. Jago humbly begs
that all gentlemen and ladies will be so kind as to favor him with
their company, as he never had a benefit before, and _is just come out
of prison_; and Mrs. Osborne appropriately selects the play of “The
Distressed Mother,” with the announcement that it is the first time
this poor widow has had a benefit, and having met with divers late
hardships and misfortunes she appeals to the benevolent and _others_.
It is stated in Clapp’s “Records” that Otway’s “Orphan” was played
in Boston, in the Coffee House in State street, in the early part of
1750, by two young Englishmen, assisted by some volunteer comrades of
the town; and as this is about the period when Murray & Kean’s company
began to perform in New York, this may possibly have been an initiatory
attempt on the part of some of the members of that company to introduce
dramatic amusements among the people of New England. Whether it was so
or not, it was immediately followed by the passage of an act by the
General Court of Massachusetts, in March, 1750, prohibiting stage plays
and theatrical entertainments of any kind.