Continental Association
Mowat patrolled the New England coast for smugglers until ordered to Falmouth (present-day Portland, Maine) in March, 1775 to assist a loyalist shipbuilder who was attempting to defy the Continental Association boycott on goods manufactured in Great Britain. Mowat was temporarily taken prisoner by militia from Brunswick, Maine during Thompson's War a few weeks after the battles of Lexington and Concord. "Canceaux" resumed coastal patrols after Falmouth loyalists negotiated Mowat's release.