544 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
Although the platter lacks the accidental association which the 
Deringer enjoyed, its pictorial evidence seems, when first examined, of 
very little more value to the historian. But let us suppose for a 
moment that our questions be made more subtle and somewhat indirect. 
Instead of asking the platter to perform the verbal task of the manu- 
script or the eyewitness, let us ask it to act as an index of values and 
ideas seldom expressed verbally. However inferior as a reporter, it 
contains a superb record of the English estimate of American values 
and loyalties. Moreover, since the design became popular, it is clear 
that the British estimate did not miss the mark and that in fact the 
event excited American imagination. Finally, the evidence of the 
plate and its popularity rivals the best contemporary written opinion 
because, however discerning the latter, its bias remains indestructible. 
Since, in fact, each sale of the plate measures a minutia of popular 
opinion, the design gives thereby an insight which only an exhaustive 
survey could present. Moreover, as historians are well aware, Eng- 
lishmen seldom committed any but their gravest misgivings about 
America to paper; the platter suggests a wider range of sympathetic 
if inarticulate feeling among English manufacturers.’ 
From the 19th century to which the Booth Deringer and the platter 
belong, so many objects have survived as to make their interpretation 
a statistical as well as an analytical problem. From the late 17th 
century and early 18th century, so few Colonial artifacts remain, the 
very real danger of overweighting the available objects exists. At the 
same time, this very paucity makes the neglect of any clues given by 
authentic objects more culpable. 
One of the most common vessels of early New England silver is the 
porringer. Quite unrelated to English silver vessels of the same name, 
it most closely resembles the English bleeding bow] (pl. 2, fig. 1; pl. 5, 
fig. 2), but seems to have been seldom if ever designed for that purpose.® 
Its size varies from 4 to 6 inches in diameter with a bowl] 1 to 2 inches 
deep. Handles, while not of uniform size, range from 134 to 3 inches 
from the vessel’s rim to its tip. ‘The vessel form is common in pewter 
and often listed in American inventories of the 17th and 18th cen- 
turies.* However, despite the wide variety of American Protestant 
church plate, Alfred Jones was unable to list a single silver porringer 
among their holdings. Since tankards, standing cups, English por- 
ringers, mugs, beakers, flagons, and many domestic vessels all appeared 
2A similar exercise with the Deringer might stress that role of honor in 1826 in America 
which convinced its outstanding elite of the necessity and correctness of the personal 
firearm. 
3A very full discussion of terminology has recently appeared which stresses the inac- 
euracy of the English use of “porringer” and ‘“‘bleeding bowl” and adapts American practice. 
The Stuart period, 1603-1714, ed. Ralph Hughes and L. G. G. Ramsey, pp. 82-83. New 
York and London. No date. 
4Suffolk County (Mass.) Probate Record, Book XXIII, p. 331, Inventory of Samuel 
Tower, June 10, 1724; “To Pewter vizt. Platters, plates, tankard, basons, porringers 
Sorrel Ol Osan 
