Unlikely Allies

by Joe Richard Paul

  At the same time that the military effort was failing, so was the ability of Congress to finance the war and manage the economy. The Continental Congress had no treasury to finance a war and possessed neither the legal authority nor the practical means to collect taxes or mint coins. It could only recommend, request, and entreat the states to provide material support for the war effort. “Congress have left it in the power of the States to starve the Army at pleasure,” one officer wrote.

  All Congress could do by way of finance was to print paper currency, and this it did with a vengeance, pouring nearly $200 million on what had been an agrarian barter economy. The value of the currency, which was questionable from the outset, fell precipitously, so that within a few years a soldier’s monthly pay was scarcely enough for a bottle of cheap rum. When merchants refused to accept Continental currency for supplies, soldiers sometimes resorted to “impressment,” a euphemism for extorting supplies from civilians. Washington rightly feared that popular support for the Revolution would be lost if the army failed to respect private property. Rapid inflation eventually forced Congress to repudiate the Continental currency in 1780.

  War imposed severe economic hardships on most Americans, testing support for Washington’s army. The price of beef shot up four hundred percent in a single year. “People are now so afraid of the money that it is almost impossible to Purchase Grain at any rate,” lamented one officer. While the elite in New York and Philadelphia dressed in the latest French and British fashions and savored lavish banquets, tradesmen and farmers struggled to survive. Civilians, no less than soldiers, faced shortages of food and manufactured goods. “Great frugality and great industry are now become fashionable here,” Franklin had observed ironically. “Gentlemen who used to entertain with two or three courses, pride themselves now in treating with simple beef and pudding. By these means, and the stoppage of our consumptive trade with Britain, we shall be better able to pay our voluntary taxes for the support of our troops.”

  Washington knew that his men needed encouragement after a long string of defeats. On Christmas Day 1776, he crossed the ice-choked Delaware and staged a raid at daybreak on a group of Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, New Jersey, a small village of no strategic value. Twenty-one Hessians and no rebels were killed in a brief exchange during which 2,400 rebels captured nearly 900 Hessians. Trenton was the first of a painfully few victories that Washington won—albeit against sleepy mercenaries with Christmas hangovers. The victory at Trenton, followed by another at Princeton in early January, helped rally Americans during the hard winter months. By the spring thaw, however, Washington’s army had melted away to barely 1,000 men.

  The commissioners later learned that while the British massed to drive the rebels out of New York and New England, Congress slipped back into Philadelphia in March. Still, the reports from home grew ever more dire. In June, British general Burgoyne and nearly 8,000 men sailed down from Canada across Lake Champlain, headed for Fort Ticonderoga and Albany. At the same time, General Howe had 15,000 men under orders to march north toward Albany, link up with Burgoyne’s forces, and mop up what remained of the rebel army.

  In July, Burgoyne chased the Americans from Fort Ticonderoga without firing a shot. Two thousand badly clothed and unfit soldiers, many of them mere boys, tried to outrun the relentless redcoats in a series of teeming thunderstorms that lasted days. They left behind them 128 cannons, cartloads of scarce ammunition, and rusting muskets. Now the only military obstacle between the British and Albany was a thousand ill-equipped soldiers under the command of General Philip Schuyler, who was blamed for the loss of Ticonderoga and eventually dismissed. His men were deserting or falling ill in astonishing numbers. They had two cannons to defend Albany against Burgoyne’s 9,000 battle-ready troops. They had no shelter from constant rainstorms punctuated only by merciless heat, and their food and ammunition were nearly gone. The fall of Ticonderoga was a crushing blow to American morale. It was not just the strategic value of the fort and the loss of tons of gunpowder and dozens of cannons, but the symbolic significance of Ticonderoga in the public’s imagination. No one would have felt this loss more keenly than Deane, who had helped engineer and finance the capture of the fort at the start of the Revolution. That victory had been the signal event in Deane’s career at the Continental Congress, where some still called him by his nickname, “Ticonderoga.” For the three commissioners in Paris, the loss of Ticonderoga also meant it would be nearly impossible to persuade the French to side with the Americans.

  In July, General Howe decided for reasons of his own to disobey his orders to link up with Burgoyne and instead sailed from New York to Chesapeake Bay with the goal of recapturing Philadelphia. In September, Washington suffered still another demoralizing defeat at Brandywine, Pennsylvania, clearing the way for General Howe to roll into Philadelphia. Congress fled again—this time west, to York, Pennsylvania—where it watched in frustration and horror as the massive invasion of British troops in Pennsylvania and New York threatened to snuff out the last remnants of Washington’s army.

  The staggering cost of the war tested the courage of every American. “Our people knew not the hardships and calamities of war when they so boldly dared Britain to arms,” Robert Morris wrote to the commissioners. “[E]very man was then a bold patriot . . . equal to the contest . . .” But now, “when death and ruin stare us in the face, and when nothing but the most intrepid courage can rescue us from contempt and disgrace,” Morris continued, “many of those who were foremost in noise shrink coward-like from the danger, and are beggin pardon without striking a blow.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

  Paris, January-October 1777

  A world away from the Revolution, Franklin and Deane tried to keep up appearances around the immaculately pruned gardens of the American headquarters at Valentinois. Franklin regularly attended the salon of the Marquise du Deffand, where he flirted with the ladies and boasted about the prospects for the Revolution, knowing the truth was quite the opposite. Deane never acknowledged his own doubts in public. If the French government thought that the American cause was futile, it would never agree to an alliance. But behind the elegant façade of Valentinois, the Americans were deeply worried about the future of the Revolution and began to wonder whether they should make a separate peace with the British. Franklin and Deane secretly wrote to Stormont, proposing a prisoner exchange. The ambassador returned their unopened envelope with the reply that “The King’s Ambassador receives no applications from rebels unless they come to implore his Majesty’s mercy.” Yet the British Foreign Ministry sent a secret envoy to meet Franklin to discuss terms for a settlement, and Franklin was happy to oblige: he suggested they meet in his favorite spot for privacy and intrigue—the Poitevin bathhouse.

  Franklin and Deane saw the possibility of negotiations with the British as a way of pressuring the French into action. Beaumarchais told Vergennes that unless France stepped forward quickly, the Americans would be forced to come to terms with Britain, and France would miss the chance to strike a blow against the British Empire. Beaumarchais suspected that British agents were speaking to Franklin already, over Deane’s objections to negotiating. Beaumarchais warned Vergennes that the British were planning to kidnap Deane and prosecute him for John the Painter’s arson attack. Stormont viewed Deane as an obstacle to a negotiated settlement.

  One bright piece of news arrived in late May: the first of Beaumarchais’s ships, the Mercure, had arrived safely at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on March 17 with 12,000 muskets, 1,000 barrels of powder, 34 bales of woolen stockings, 2 cases of shoes, and bales more of woolen caps, linen, cloth, blankets, and other items. Two more ships arrived at Falmouth, Massachusetts, and two others reached the West Indies. The Amphitrite reached Portsmouth a month later and hastily unloaded a wealth of supplies including 32,840 cannon balls, 129 barrels of powder, 52 cannons, nearly 9,000 grenades, and 219 chests of small arms. The question remained whether the arms would rea
ch the Continental Army in time to stop Burgoyne from plowing through New York.

  Almost as soon as word reached the commissioners in Paris that the shipments had arrived safely, the British ambassador had a precise copy of the cargo lists. Nothing at Valentinois escaped Stormont’s notice. The accuracy of his information was uncanny. Each time Stormont confronted Vergennes with more evidence of the activities of the commissioners, he fueled Lee’s suspicions that someone in Valentinois was working as a spy for Britain. When Lee accused Bancroft of spying, Bancroft was incensed and challenged Lee to a duel, which only Franklin prevented. Franklin and Deane were outraged that Lee would question the honor of a man who had already proved his patriotism by sacrificing his comfortable life in London to serve as the secretary to the American commissioners. Franklin and Deane were convinced that Lee was mentally ill. Lee “must be shaved or bled, or he will actually be mad for life,” Deane exclaimed. “It is very charitable to impute to insanity what proceeds from the malignity of his heart; but the Doctor [Franklin] insists upon it. . . .” While it was true that Lee was tormented by many demons he had imagined, Bancroft was not imaginary.

  ON TUESDAYS, Bancroft worked late at his desk in Valentinois. He left after dark, carrying a plain satchel, which contained letters he had written to an anonymous woman with whom Bancroft appeared to be carrying on an illicit affair. The lines were carefully spaced in his broad fluid script. He rode by carriage from Passy along the right bank of the Seine into the city, stopping at the Tuileries a little before half past nine. It was not far from the bathhouse where Franklin bathed on Tuesday evenings, but Bancroft was careful to walk in the shadows and avoid the festive lights of the Poitevin. The garden was mostly empty at this hour. Bancroft walked purposefully to a certain tree on the south terrace. Other people did not notice that there was a narrow hole partially obscured under the tree’s roots. The hole was made visible in the darkness by a small white card held by a peg, and the peg was tied to a string about one yard in length. Bancroft knelt down and carefully pulled the string, which was tied to a bottle at the other end. He placed his amorous letters into the bottle, corked it, and then quickly lowered it back into the hole under the tree. Before returning to his carriage, he stopped at a nearby boxwood under which another bottle was placed containing instructions for him from Stormont. A short time later, someone from the British embassy arrived to retrieve the letters from the first bottle.

  Bancroft was not having an affair with anyone; between the lines of his love letters he had inscribed secret messages in invisible ink. When Stormont brushed a chemical solution onto the pages, the secret messages appeared. All these letters were signed “Dr. Edward Edwards,” Bancroft’s British code name.

  Neither the British Foreign Ministry nor the master spy Paul Wentworth trusted Bancroft entirely. Bancroft had no idea that the ministry had posted other spies who observed the commissioners as well. In this way the British double-checked the accuracy of the information that each spy provided.

  One of the other British spies was Joseph Hynson, a sea captain from Maryland. Captain Hynson was a close friend of Deane’s personal secretary, William Carmichael. Carmichael was another Mary-lander visiting Paris when he met Deane in the fall of 1776 and came to work for him. Carmichael lived at the same address as Wentworth at the Hôtel Vauban on the rue de Richelieu. He was a young man from a well-off family who hungered for excitement. He spent an inordinate amount of his free time trolling the seedy side of Paris for adventure, and in such environs he met a lot of seamen. Deane found that Carmichael’s taste for disreputable sorts could be useful in recruiting men for the smuggling operations and privateering. Hynson was one of the men Carmichael recruited.

  Hynson and Carmichael were soon inseparable friends and roommates. Deane chose Hynson to operate a packet ship that would convey mail expeditiously between Paris and Philadelphia. Deane did not know that Hynson was delivering his mail to the British for a salary of 200 pounds per year (about $37,000 today). Curiously, Carmichael apparently knew that Hynson was a British agent, yet he remained intimate with Hynson and never exposed his treachery to Deane. Whatever magnetic power Hynson possessed over Carmichael, Carmichael kept his secret. It was not until late 1777 that Deane suspected Hynson was a spy and promptly dismissed him. When he was finally discovered, Hynson confessed and offered his services as a counterspy—for a price—against the British. But Deane refused to speak to him and ordered Carmichael never to see Hynson again. Despite the fact that Hynson was working to undermine their mission, Carmichael continued to meet Hynson in secret.

  Lee blamed Deane for the lapse of secrecy caused by Hynson’s betrayal, and he continued to suspect Carmichael and Bancroft. The only man Lee trusted completely was his own devoted secretary, John Thornton; yet Thornton was also a British agent. He had been recruited by the British when he went to England to inspect the conditions of the American prisoners of war. Lee himself regularly wrote to his friend Lord Shelburne, in the prime minister’s cabinet, describing the latest progress in their talks with France and Spain.Of the three commissioners, only Franklin employed a secretary who was not employed by the British Foreign Ministry—his grandson, Temple Franklin. Franklin and Deane knew the British and the French were spying on their activities, and even if they did not know who was a spy, they did not allow their fear to paralyze them. Franklin acknowledged it was impossible to prevent spying, but he felt he had nothing to fear; there were “no Affairs that I should blush to have made publick.” So long as the commissioners behaved honorably, the more that was known of them, the more their reputations would grow. Franklin once commented that even if he knew that his valet were a spy, he would not fire him if he were otherwise a good valet.

  IN JULY, Ambassador Stormont confronted Foreign Minister Vergennes with irrefutable evidence from his spies that two privateers outfitted in France and commissioned by the Americans had seized or destroyed at least eighteen British ships. He accused France of violating its treaty commitments and gave Vergennes one final warning to stop aiding the Americans or Britain would declare war on France. Vergennes was furious with the commissioners for flaunting their activities and jeopardizing France’s neutrality. He had warned the commissioners that France could not permit privateers to enter their ports, and they had promised him none would. By violating their pledge, the commissioners had embarrassed Louis XVI. Vergennes ordered that the privateers and their ships be detained in France and that the captured vessels be returned to Britain.

  Franklin and Deane wrote to Vergennes to apologize for bringing France to the brink of war with Britain—which was, of course, the whole point of their diplomatic mission—and assured Vergennes that American privateers would not attempt to enter French ports in the future. “We are very sensible of the protection afforded to us and to our commerce since our residence in this kingdom,” the letter began. “[A]nd it gives us real and great concern when any vessels of war appertaining to America, either through ignorance or inattention, do anything that may offend his majesty in the smallest degree.” The commissioners would make it known to “our friends residing in your ports” that “our armed vessels” were not welcome in France and should return directly to America “without making any other cruises on the coasts of England.”

  With the growing threat of war between France and Britain and the fall of Fort Ticonderoga, the British sent a peace envoy to Louis XVI, and the French promised not to provide any assistance to the Americans. As the London stock exchange roared its approval of the peace accord, the commissioners fell into a deep despondency. Events were moving swiftly against them, and the commissioners were not sure they would be able to persuade France to join an alliance.

  Privately, Vergennes wrote to Louis XVI that the time had come either to form an alliance with the Americans or to cut them off completely. France could no longer pretend to be neutral while continuing to wink at the arms smuggling, which had proved wholly inadequate in effecting the outcome of the war. Contrary to th
e rosy predictions of Beaumarchais and Bonvouloir, it was now clear that the Americans could not win without a commitment of French forces. Nor could France wait to act in tandem with Spain. The new Spanish foreign minister, Conde de Floridablanca, was firmly opposed to war with Britain. If France were prepared to act, she must act on her own. Vergennes was not necessarily arguing in favor of war; but he recognized that the moment of decision had arrived, and that the king could no longer vacillate.

  But Louis XVI was not a decisive leader. While he wavered, his ministers quietly began making preparations for war.

  MEANWHILE, THE COMMISSIONERS, unaware that Vergennes was moving toward war, were losing hope that France and Spain would ever agree to ratify treaties of commerce and alliance. “There is nothing better to do here than drink,” Franklin remarked. “How can we fool ourselves that France might understand America better than Britain? How can we fool ourselves that a monarchy will help republicans, [who have] revolted against their monarch?”

  While Deane wrestled with his dark mood, he received a letter the first of October that his wife, Elizabeth, had died the previous June after a long illness. He had not seen her in almost two years. Though few of their letters survive, there is no doubt that he loved and respected his wife deeply. His only son, Jesse, now age twelve, was left in the care of Deane’s brother Barnabas. The distance from his home in Wethersfield only magnified the loss. His brother Simeon, who happened to be visiting Paris on business, tried to comfort him, but grief was a luxury Deane could not afford. The pressure of work and cascading events allowed him no time to dwell on the loss of his wife. “[T]he situation of my Country is sufficient to engross my whole attention, yet the loss I have met with is not the less heavy on my spirits, nor does it fall the lighter on me for coming attended with publick misfortunes & distress.” At a time when the Revolution seemed to be failing, he could not permit himself the indulgence of showing “too much Distress & Grief on any thing which effects me individually.” Perhaps Deane’s stoical attitude to the loss of a loved one was a symptom of his own despondency or of his profound faith that he might hope to see her again in heaven.