Washington's Spies

by Alexander Rose

  44. According to a personal note in the Scrapbook of Solomon Townsend II (Robert’s nephew), F89.11.8, in the Townsend Family Papers, Raynham Hall Museum.

  45. S. R. Frey, The British soldier in America: A social history of military life in the Revolutionary period (Austin, Tex., 1981), pp. 38–39.

  46. Frey, The British soldier in America, p. 95.

  47. Frey, The British soldier in America, pp. 99–102. There’s some debate over the exact measurements, caliber, and weight of the musket. I’ve used Frey’s figures, but see also E. E. Curtis, The organization of the British army in the American Revolution (New Haven, 1926; rep. 1969), p. 16 and n. 38.

  48. E. Bangs (ed.), Journal of Lieutenant Isaac Bangs, April 1 to July 29, 1776 (Cambridge, 1890), p. 29.

  49. Bangs (ed.), Journal of Lieutenant Isaac Bangs, pp. 30, 31.

  50. C. Abbott, “The neighborhoods of New York, 1760–1775,” New York History, XV (1974), p. 50.

  51. L. Picard, Dr. Johnson’s London: Coffee-houses and climbing boys, medicine, toothpaste and gin, poverty and press gangs, freak shows and female education (New York, 2002 ed.), p. 78; G. Ellington, The women of New York; or, the underworld of the great city (New York, 1869), p. 448.

  52. T. H. Breen, The marketplace of revolution: How consumer politics shaped American independence (Oxford, 2004), pp. 140–42.

  53. J. Baldwin and G. Rossano, Clan and commerce: The Townsend family of Oyster Bay (no date, thesis in possession of Raynham Hall Museum, Oyster Bay), p. 108. Regarding the Townsends’ business affairs, throughout this book I have heavily relied on this invaluable dissertation, available only at the Raynham Hall Museum. I am indebted to Lisa Cuomo of the Museum for bringing it to my attention.

  54. Baldwin and Rossano, Clan and commerce, p. 108.

  55. “Report to the president of Congress on driving off stock,” in Onderdonk (ed.), Revolutionary incidents of Queens County, no. 79, July 1776; and also, letter dated July 12, 1776, in Pennypacker, George Washington’s spies, p. 107

  56. On the appointment, see Pennypacker, George Washington’s spies, pp. 108–9.

  57. This section is based on the detailed contents of a family document describing the incident, reproduced in Pennypacker, George Washington’s spies, pp. 105–6. For the names of the officers in question, see Onderdonk (ed.), Revolutionary incidents of Queens County, no. 505, which lists the officers of the Seventeenth Light Dragoons. On Thomas Buchanan’s background, see V. D. Harrington, The New York merchant on the eve of the Revolution (New York, 1935; rep. Gloucester, Mass., 1964), pp. 51, 351. On Townsend’s oath of allegiance, Pennypacker, p. 107. After the war, in common with many Loyalists, Buchanan sold up and left for Nova Scotia with his family.

  58. Certificate, in Box 1, 1776 Folder, of the Townsend Family Papers at the New-York Historical Society.

  59. Her letter, which survived two attempts to destroy it, is lodged in the Long Island Collection at East Hampton Public Library. It is reproduced as a footnote in Pennypacker, George Washington’s spies, pp. 112–13.

  60. “Petition and representation of Queens County,” in Onderdonk (ed.), Revolutionary incidents of Queens County, no. 123, October 21, 1776.

  61. Letter, Tryon to Germain, December 24, 1776, in E. B. O’Callaghan et al. (eds.), Documents relative to the Colonial history of the State of New-York (Albany, 15 vols., 1856–87), VIII, p. 693.

  62. Undated note in Box 1, 1776 Folder, in the Townsend Family Papers, New-York Historical Society. His nephew’s recollection is written on the note.

  63. Baldwin and Rossano, Clan and commerce, p. 137.

  64. Pennypacker, George Washington’s spies, p. 12.

  65. Barck, New York City during the War for Independence, pp. 150–51; B. Fay, Notes on the American press at the end of the eighteenth century (New York, 1927) is also very useful.

  66. O. T. Barck, Jr., New York City during the War for Independence, with special reference to the period of British occupation (New York, 1931; rep. Port Washington, N.Y., 1966), p. 153.

  67. Royal Gazette, March 7, 1778; January 3, 1778; November 1, 1777; S. Curwen (ed. G. A. Ward), The journal and letters of Samuel Curwen, an American in England, from 1775 to 1783 (Boston, 4th ed., 1864); letter, Curwen to the Reverend Isaac Smith, April 30, 1777, p. 125.

  68. Royal Gazette, March 20, 1782.

  69. J. L. Van Buskirk, Generous enemies: Patriots and Loyalists in Revolutionary New York (Philadelphia, 2002), pp. 41–42.

  70. Royal Gazette, September 16, 1780. See also Royal Gazette, January 31, 1781, for Congress’s “Last Will and Testament.”

  71. Quoted in the Magazine of American History, XX (1915), p. 124.

  72. The reader is directed to L. Hewlett, “James Rivington, Loyalist printer, publisher and bookseller of the American Revolution, 1724–1802: A biographical bibliographical study” (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1958); B. M. Wilkenfeld, “Revolutionary New York, 1776,” pp. 43–72, in M. Klein (ed.), New York: The centennial years, 1676–1976 (Port Washington, N.Y., 1976), p. 59; on Loosley, see I. N. P. Stokes, The iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498–1909: Compiled from original sources and illustrated by photo-intaglio reproductions of important maps, plans, views, and documents in public and private collections (New York, 6 vols., 1915–1928), V, p. 1055; on the lamps, Royal Gazette, November 22, 1782.

  73. Stokes, Iconography, V, p. 1059. The store’s opening was announced on December 20, 1777.

  74. Henry Wansey’s entertaining recollections of a postwar tour has this: “June 23rd [1794], I dined with James Rivington, the bookseller, formerly of St. Paul’s Churchyard; he is still a cheerful old man.… During the time the British kept possession of New York, he printed a newspaper for them, and opened a kind of coffee-house for the officers; his house was a place of great resort; he made a great deal of money during that period, though many of the officers quitted it considerably in arrears to him.” H. Wansey, The journal of an excursion to the United States of North America in the summer of 1794 (New York, orig. 1796; rep. 1969). On Townsend’s involvement, see Pennypacker, General Washington’s spies, p. 12.

  75. On his dealings with Templeton & Stewart, see various entries in his Cash Book, 1781–1784, in the Townsend Family Papers, Box 4, New-York Historical Society.

  76. Baldwin and Rossano, Clan and commerce, pp. 137–38.

  77. Baldwin and Rossano, Clan and commerce, p. 139; and Pennypacker, George Washington’s spies, p. 54 n. (Pennypacker calls him “Oakman.”)

  78. For his rent payments, see Townsend’s Cash Book, 1781–1784, in Townsend Family Papers, Box 4, New-York Historical Society. In the Townsend Papers at Raynham Hall, there is a black-and-white photograph, marked Gold. 35&6, of a note written by Peter Townsend, the subject’s nephew, recording that Robert “kept Bachelors Hall over his store on Peak Slip on the East Side near Pearl St.”

  79. This list is taken from Baldwin and Rossano, Clan and commerce, pp. 138–39.

  80. See his Cash Book, 1781–1784, in the Townsend Family Papers, Box 4, New-York Historical Society.

  81. The doctrine of the Inward, or Inner, Light is covered in H. H. Brinton, The religious philosophy of Quakerism (Wallingford, Pa., 1973), pp. 5–7; S. V. James, “The impact of the American Revolution on Quakers’ ideas about their sect,” William and Mary Quarterly, XIX (1962), 3, pp. 360–61; W. M. Goering, “ ‘To obey, rebelling’: The Quaker dilemma in Moby-Dick,” New England Quarterly, LIV (1981), 4, pp. 520–22. For discussions of Quaker reformism, see S. V. James, A people among peoples: Quaker benevolence in eighteenth-century America (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), pp. 141–68; J. D. Marietta, “Conscience, the Quaker community and the French and Indian War,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XCV (1971), pp. 3–27; D. J. Boorstin, The Americans: The colonial experience (New York, 1958), pp. 56–60.

  82. See An epistle from our general spring meeting of ministers and elders for Pennsylvania and New-Jersey, held at Philadelphia, from the 29th of th
e third month, to the 1st of the fourth month, inclusive (1755), pp. 2–3, quoted in F. B. Tolles, Meeting house and counting house: The Quaker merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682–1763 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1948; rep. New York, 1963), pp. 235–36; see also, Mekeel, Relation of the Quakers, p. 6, and P. P. Moulton, The journal and essays of John Woolman (New York, 1971), pp. 48–50.

  83. Townsend owned a copy of the History of Pennsylvania, and so was well acquainted with Quaker affairs. See the inventory of Robert Townsend’s “Goods, Chattels and Credits,” May 26, 1838, in the Townsend Family Papers, Raynham Hall Museum, FX 88.30.22.2.

  84. P. Brock, The Quaker peace testimony, 1660–1914 (York, 1990), pp. 143–44.

  85. I. Sharpless, A Quaker experiment in government; history of Quaker government in Pennsylvania, 1682–1783 (1902 ed.), p. 234.

  86. As pointed out by W. C. Kashatus III, “Thomas Paine: a Quaker revolutionary,” Quaker History, LXXIV (1984), 2, pp. 57–60.

  87. Paine, Common Sense (Mineola, N. Y., 1997 ed.), p. 51.

  88. The ancient testimony and the principles of the people call’d Quakers renewed with respect to the king and government, and touching the commotions now prevailing in these and other parts of America, addressed to the people in general, cited in Mekeel, Relation of the Quakers, p. 138.

  89. See Paine, The American Crisis, no. 3, April 19, 1777: “What more can we say of ye than that a religious Quaker is a valuable character, and a political Quaker a real Jesuit.”

  90. Paine, American Crisis, nos. 1 (13 January, 1777) and 3.

  91. Paine, Common Sense, p. 55.

  92. To the most famous dissident of all, General Nathanael “the Fighting Quaker” Greene, who took on Paine as his aide-de-camp in 1776, peace was certainly not the answer. Only by beating their plowshares into swords, and their pruning hooks into spears, and learning how to war, could Quakers stay true to the Inner Light. The way to guarantee Quakers’ religious rights—including the right to preach pacifism—was not to cozy up to a tyrannical regime or retreat into Stoic asceticism. No, Quakers must forcefully carve themselves a place in the new United States by fighting for their liberties with bayonet and musket. So, when the Revolution came, Greene accepted the bitter cup while others passed it on. By 1781 there was even a small Paineite splinter group called the “Free Quakers”—Betsy Ross, she who allegedly sewed the first flag, was one—animated by the pang for freedom from oppression and from every sort of ecclesiastical tyranny (including their own). But Greene and the Free Quakers were extreme examples of Paineite enthusiasm, and never gained much traction outside their own circle. See Kashatus, “Thomas Paine,” pp. 48–49; and T. Thayer, Nathanael Greene, strategist of the American Revolution (New York, 1960). Mekeel, Relation of the Quakers, has a short chapter on the Free Quakers, pp. 283–89; C. Wetherill, History of the religious Society of Friends called by some the Free Quakers, in the city of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1894), is also useful.

  93. Quoted in Irwin, Oyster Bay in history, p. 96.

  94. The essential text on this material is R. A. Bowler, Logistics and the failure of the British army in America, 1775–1783 (Princeton, N.J., 1975).

  95. J. S. Tiedemann, “Patriots by default: Queens County, New York, and the British army, 1776–1783,” William and Mary Quarterly, XLIII (1986), 1, pp. 49–50.

  96. Letter, Stuart to Bute, February 4, 1777, in E. Stuart-Wortley (ed.), A prime minister and his son (London, 1925), pp. 96–99.

  97. The detail and conduct of the American war under Generals Gage, Howe, Burgoyne, and Vice Admiral Lord Howe: With a very full and correct state of the whole of the evidence as given before a committee of the House of Commons (London, 3rd ed., 1780), p. 119.

  98. William Bamford, “Bamford’s diary: The Revolutionary diary of a British officer,” Maryland Historical Magazine, XXVIII (1933), p. 13.

  99. Letter, Lord Rawdon to the Earl of Huntington, September 23, 1776, in F. Bickley (ed.), Report on the manuscripts of the late Reginald Rawdon-Hastings, Esq., of the Manor House, Ashby de la Zouch (London, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1934), III, p. 185. On this topic, see Tiedemann, “Patriots by default,” William and Mary Quarterly, pp. 38–39.

  100. On this subject, see Jones (ed. De Lancey), History of New York, I, pp. 115–122; Barck, Jr., New York City during the War for Independence, pp. 100–1. Both books are vital resources for this subject.

  101. Jones (ed. De Lancey), History of New York, I, pp. 334–36; Tiedemann, “Patriots by default,” William and Mary Quarterly, pp. 42–44; Bowler, Logistics and the failure of the British army, pp. 24–25, 183–85, 190–99; on the Stamp Act revenue, see J. C. D. Clark, “British America: What if there had been no American Revolution?” in N. Ferguson (ed.), Virtual history: Alternative and counterfactuals (London, 1997), p. 153.

  102. The situation was almost as bad on the American side. They, too, would roust pro-independence civilians from their house if an officer took a liking to it, and forcibly billeted soldiers on homeowners who could ill afford to feed them. (Still, they often put a brave face on it. Anna Zabriskie of Kingston, New York, whose Patriotic credentials were impeccable, complained of the rudeness of the American officers staying with her: “One must always bear with the insolence of the lower sort,” she mused.) When Mary Hay Burn of Hackensack, whose husband was fighting for Washington, was ordered to relocate by an American official, she replied, vainly, “Why should I not have liberty whilst you strive for liberty?” Whereas the British were more overtly corrupt, whenever the Continental army liberated Loyalist territory around New York, there were score-settling vendettas and arrests as local Patriots informed on and harassed their Tory neighbors under the guise of instilling the requisite civic virtue. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, a Loyalist of French background living in New York State, described in his Sketches the kind of pompous cant adopted by a greedy Whig deacon and his wife, and the other “low, illiterate, little tyrants” bossing other people about, to justify the cruel imprisonment and plundering of a Tory squire: “ ’Tis a bleeding cause, as our minister says of it; therefore sufferings must come of it.” (Van Buskirk, Generous enemies, pp. 37–39; H. St. J. de Crèvecoeur [ed. A. E. Stone], Letters from an American farmer and sketches of eighteenth-century America [New York, 1981], “Landscapes,” pp. 428–39. For the remark about “little tyrants,” see p. 450.) Then again, when Crèvecoeur fled to New York in 1778 to escape Patriot persecution, some anonymous snitch tipped off the British, who imprisoned him for being a suspicious Frenchman. As Eccleston, a Crèvecoeur character described as “an American gentleman [italics added],” presciently remarked of the predicament faced by his nonpolitical, moderate countrymen, “We are … suspended between poverty, neglect, and contempt if we go to New York, and fines, imprisonment, and exile if we stay!” His acquaintance Iwan, a gloomily philosophical Russian, advises him to “learn to bear the insolence of men. Societies, like individuals, have their periods of sickness. Bear this as you would a fever or a cold.” (From Stone’s introduction to Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American farmer, p. 12. See also W. Smith [ed. W. H. W. Sabine], Historical memoirs from 16 March 1763 to 12 November 1783 of William Smith, historian of the province of New York; member of the governor’s council, and last chief justice of that province under the Crown; chief justice of Quebec [New York, 3 vols. in 2, rep. 1969–71], II, entries for February 10 and 15, 1779, pp. 74–75; July 8, 1779, p. 126; July 16, 1779, p. 133; August 1, 1779, p. 146; for Eccleston and Iwan, see p. 447.) It was left to a Hessian, Major Baurmeister, to express the shared feeling among Patriots, Loyalists, and neutrals alike that “no matter how this war may end, as long as this mess continues, the people suffer at the hands of both friend and foe. The Americans rob them of their earnings and cattle, and we burn their empty houses; and in moments of sensitiveness, it is difficult to decide which party is more cruel. These cruelties have begotten enough misery to last an entire generation.” (B. A. Uhlendorf [trans.], Revolution in America: Confidential letter
s and journals 1776–1784 of Adjutant General Major Baurmeister of the Hessian forces [New Brunswick, N.J., 1957], p. 362.)

  103. Barck, New York City during the War for Independence, p. 111.

  104. Barck, New York City during the War for Independence, p. 112; Tiedemann, “Patriots by default,” William and Mary Quarterly, pp. 42–44.

  105. Jones (ed. De Lancey), History of New York, II, p. 227.

  106. Jones (ed. De Lancey), History of New York, I, p. 352. Americans, too, complained of the new, heavy burden of wartime government they bore. A character in Crèvecoeur’s Sketches observes that “we have so many more masters than we used to have. There is the high and mighty Congress, and there is our governor, and our senators, and our assemblymen, and there is our captain of light-horse … and there is … our worthy colonel; and there are the honourable committee. And there are, let me see, one, two, three, four, five commissaries who want nothing but our horses, grain, hay, etc., and from whom we can never get any recompense.” Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American farmer, p. 461.

  107. M. M. Klein, “Why did the British fail to win the hearts and minds of New Yorkers?” New York History, LXIV (1983), no. 4, p. 366; and Jones (ed. De Lancey), History of New York, II, p. 136.

  108. See, for instance, Jones’s attack on Clinton in his (ed. De Lancey), History of New York, I, p. 285; and also E. G. Schaukirk, Occupation of New York City by the British (originally published in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, January 1887; New York, rep. 1969), diary entry for December 16, 1780, p. 17: “The general language even of the common soldiers is, that the war might and would have been ended long before now, if it was not for the great men, who only want to fill their purses; and indeed it is too apparent that this has been and is the ruling principle in all departments, only to seek their own private interest … and when they have got enough to retreat or go home—let become of America what will!” There was more. Henry Clinton—“haughty, morose, churlish, stupid,” in Thomas Jones’s characteristically bitter words—was nicknamed “The Knight” owing to his fondness for foxhunting when he should have been campaigning. Lord Cornwallis was dismissed as a “blockhead.” General James Pattison, for a time the commandant of New York, was “warm, vain, and weak.” Governor Tryon was widely regarded as “hot, rash, vain, and ignorant.” Admiral James Gambier was a “money getting pompous fool.” General James Robertson—now aged nearly eighty—not only “lavish[ed] away the City funds upon every well-dressed little female” but personally clipped and shaved gold coins to pay off his creditors (the counterfeits being known as “Robertsons” around town). (See Jones [ed. De Lancey], History of New York, I, pp. 318; Smith [ed. Sabine], Historical memoirs, III, entries for June 24, 1780, p. 288; December 26, 1779, p. 201; October 5, 1779, p. 173; February 10, 1779, p. 79; on Gambier, see S. Kemble, Kemble’s journals, 1773–1789, in Collections of the New-York Historical Society [New York, 2 vols., 1883–84], XVI, p. 167; Jones, History, I, pp. 164, 162.) Indeed, commanders didn’t even think much of each other, a sign of the dissension and infighting within the upper ranks that often paralyzed British decision-making. The German general Leopold Philip von Heister tangled with his British counterpart, William Howe, whom he thought “as valiant as my sword but no more of a general than my arse,” while Admiral Arbuthnot condemned Clinton as “a vain jealous fool.” Robertson was of similar mind about his boss: Clinton lacked “the understanding necessary for [even] a corporal.” (L. F. S. Upton, The loyal Whig: William Smith of New York and Quebec [Toronto, 1969], p. 123; Smith [ed. Sabine], Historical memoirs, III, entry for June 21, 1780, pp. 284–5; for Arbuthnot and Clinton’s antagonism, Jones [ed. De Lancey], History of New York, I, p. 361; for Robertson on Clinton, see Smith [ed. Sabine], Historical memoirs, II, entry for September 4, 1778, p. 9.)