First Founding Father

by Harlow Giles Unger

  When Congress failed to respond, Washington sent another angry note—this one to Richard Henry Lee, who had only just returned to Congress. “Under the privilege of friendship,” Washington wrote, “I take the liberty to ask you what Congress expects I am to do with the many foreigners… promoted to the rank of field officers and… two to colonels.… These men have no attachment nor ties to the country… and are ignorant of the language they are to receive and give orders in… and our officers think it exceedingly hard… to have strangers put over them, whose merit perhaps is not equal to their own, but whose effrontery will take no denial.” Washington told Richard Henry he was “disgusted” by the practice of “giving rank to people of no reputation or service.”17

  In a long rambling letter Lee tried to explain the inexplicable, saying, “I beg you, sir, to be convinced that no desire to get rid of importunity has occasioned these appointments, but motives military and political.” He went on to divide “these adventurers” into three groups—the unemployed without recommendations but hopeful of profiting from their service; a second similar group with recommendations from the French military command on the Caribbean island of Martinique; and a third group from France, carrying enlistment agreements “with our commissioners [in Paris], or one of them at least.

  “I really believe there are many worthless men, and I heartily wish we were rid of them,” Richard Henry Lee told Washington.

  The desire to obtain engineers and artillerists was the principle cause of our being so overburdened. Many of the last class are, I believe men of real merit, and if they will learn to express themselves tolerably in English may be of service to the army. When General Conway was appointed, I did hope that as he knew most of them and spoke both French and English well, he might relieve you from the greater part of this difficulty.… We have further written to France and Martinique to stop the further flow of these gentlemen here.18

  25. Silas Deane, a member of Congress from Connecticut, was appointed by Congress commissioner to France to assist Franklin in seeking military aid from the French government and to recruit artillery and engineering specialists for the Continental Army.

  Unwilling to add to Washington’s antagonism, Lee stood in Congress to demand that it stop granting military commissions to foreigners unless Washington himself requested it. Lee also asked his brothers William and Arthur to probe as discreetly as possible into Silas Deane’s motivation for issuing so many commissions in Paris.

  It was not long before Arthur Lee learned that Deane had promised French officers not only commissions in the American army—with pay and postwar retirement pensions—but also options to buy land in Ohio from the Grand Ohio Company that Lee’s Ohio Land Company had long claimed. Indeed, Deane specified the land he sold as “land at the mouth of the Ohio, between that and the Mississippi, equal to two hundred miles square.” In addition to pocketing money from “land sales” to French officers, he borrowed £2 million for his personal use, offering as collateral the same lands he had already sold. Infuriated by his brother’s intelligence, Richard Henry Lee moved that Congress recall Deane to America and replace him as envoy to France with John Adams.

  As Lee tried stemming the flow of unwanted officers from France, Washington appealed for more American enlisted men. “Recruiting… seems to be at end,” Washington wrote. “The regiments of Pennsylvania indeed appear to be growing worse, and unless some coercive method can be hit upon to complete the battalions, I see no chance of doing it.”19

  When Congress recessed, Richard Henry Lee returned to Virginia, only to learn that a group of disgruntled state assemblymen—largely less-literate, up-country farmers who resented the power wielded by the Lee family—had taken personal affront to Richard Henry Lee’s deportment at the previous session of the Assembly. They had resented his elegant dress, his language, and what they deemed his arrogant references to political concepts alien to them but, according to Richard Henry, “common knowledge” to the rest of the world. His continual use of the phrase “as you all know” irritated them—especially delivered with his quasi-English accent.

  They did not know! Nor did they want to know. They had not attended British schools and resented his assumption that they had. None had heard of—let alone read—Montesquieu, and when the Lees had left the Assembly in May 1777 to celebrate having shaped the new state government, those they left behind unleashed their resentment by denying Richard Henry Lee reelection to the Continental Congress.

  His political enemies accused him of exploiting his tenant farmers, profiting from shortages of specie, and undermining the value of paper money printed by the Continental Congress—and there was a grain of truth to their accusations. But no more than a grain.

  When the Revolution had started, Congress printed its own paper money to replace British currency. With no gold or British reserves to back it, however, the new currency quickly lost its value, giving rise to the expression, “Not worth a continental.” As the value of continentals plunged, Richard Henry urged his tenant farmers to keep their continentals and pay their rent in tobacco or other commodities instead—a common practice at the time. But the practice led to further devaluation of continentals, thus giving his political enemies grounds for charging him with enriching himself at the expense of poor tenant farmers and undermining the national economy.

  The rest of the Lee clan rallied around Richard Henry, with his younger brother Francis Lightfoot Lee even resigning his seat in Congress to stand by his brother in Williamsburg. With oratory his best defense, Richard Henry displayed it in its full glory, saying that his tenants had lacked the cash to pay him, that he had actually benefited them by giving them options other than cash to pay their rent.

  Lee demanded an impartial investigation by both the Assembly and Governor Patrick Henry, who exonerated Lee of any wrongdoing.

  “If I have contributed in any degree to your satisfaction or enabled you to combat false news intended to injure the cause of America, I am happy,” Lee wrote to Patrick Henry. “I love that cause and I have faithfully exerted myself to serve it well.”20

  The subsequent Assembly investigation not only proved the charges against Lee to have been false, it yielded “a most triumphant and flattering acquittal [and] a humble vote of thanks for his patriotic services,”21 according to the future US Attorney General William Wirt. “His orations were warmer… could unlock the sources of the strong or tender passions,” and the same delegates who had dislodged him from Congress now restored him to his old seat—with apologies. He and his brother Frank would ride back to Philadelphia to reclaim their places and positions in Congress.

  26. A one-third-dollar paper “continental,” the currency Congress ordered printed after declaring independence from Britain. Without gold backing, it plunged in value and gave rise to the all-but-universal expression “not worth a continental.”

  Before leaving, Richard Henry took steps to bolster Virginia’s defenses. Although confident France would soon intervene, he nonetheless called on Patrick Henry and Virginia’s legislature to act. “When we consider the water accessibility of our country [Virginia], it is most clear that no defense can avail us so much as a marine one, and of all sea forces… that of gallies.*

  I wish therefore that… the General Assembly may early direct the immediate building of 10 or 12 large sea gallies… to carry two 32 pounders in the bow, two in the stern, and 10 six pounders on the side, to row with 40 oars and be manned with an hundred men.22

  The galleys, he said, would keep Virginia’s trade routes open and secure the state’s shores “better than 50,000 men. Besides the great security these vessels will yield, they will be a fine nursery for seamen so much wanted by us. If the forge and foundry on James River be well attended to, we may easily and quickly be furnished with plenty of cannon.”23

  Before Arthur Lee had left England for Paris, he had obtained intelligence of British government preparations to extend the front in America. “Chesapeake Bay will be the seat.�
� The Eastern Shore is the first object, or place of landing.” Lee learned of a “grand plan of joining their Canadian [army] with [General Lord] Howe’s army.” Later, after he had landed in Bordeaux on his way to Paris, Lee forwarded another message that “ten thousand Germans are already engaged, and ships sent to convey them.… Boston is certainly to be attacked in the spring. Burgoyne is to command. Howe will probably turn against Philadelphia.”24 Once in Paris Arthur warned his brother that the British were preparing to print counterfeit American currency that Congress had printed—the so-called continentals. By flooding the market, they hoped to render it worthless and bankrupt Congress.

  Richard Henry sent Arthur’s message to Washington, who reacted angrily: “That Great Britain will exert every nerve to carry her tyrannical designs into execution, I have not the smallest doubt,” Washington replied. “For should America rise triumphant in her struggle for independence, she must fall. It is not to be wondered therefore, after she had departed from that line of justice which ought to characterize a virtuous people that she should descend to such low arts and dirty tricks. None of which have they practiced… with more dangerous consequences to our cause than their endeavors to depreciate the continental bills.”25

  In still another message Arthur Lee suggested that Washington prepare a surprise counterattack on British and German troops as they attempt to land in the Philadelphia area. When Richard Henry forwarded the message, Washington—exhausted from several days with little sleep—replied almost incoherently that Arthur’s suggestion “is certainly well founded if our own circumstances will admit of it,” but that Arthur “little apprehended that we ourselves should have an army at this late hour to raise of men equally raw and officers probably more so.”26

  Although the first of William Lee’s ships carrying Beaumarchais arms had left Nantes and crossed the Atlantic safely, British frigates intercepted it as it approached the Delaware capes. “The captain,” Richard Henry Lee learned, “after bravely defending himself for some time in vain, blew up his ship rather than let her fall into the enemy’s hands. He lost his life, the rest of the crew was saved, and, what is remarkable… a considerable part of the cargo was driven safely ashore by the exploding powder, and persons are now securing it.”27

  Humiliated before the world by Washington’s victories in New Jersey, the British government recalled its commanding generals to London, leaving Congress hoping peace might be at hand. King George quickly dashed their hopes in his annual New Year’s speech to Parliament, calling for higher taxes to prosecute the war “with unrelenting vigor.” Richard Henry Lee responded by prodding Congress to promote Washington’s best-performing officers—only to find himself scolded by the commander-in-chief.

  “I am anxious to know,” Washington sent an angry note to Lee, “whether General Arnold’s non-promotion was owing to accident or design—and the cause of it! Surely a more active, more spirited, and sensible officer fills no department in your army. Not seeing him in the list of major generals and no mention made of him has given me uneasiness, as it is not to be presumed (being the oldest brigadier) that he will continue in service under such a slight. I imagine you will lose two or three other very good officers by promoting [others]… over them.… My anxiety to be informed of the reason of Arnold’s non-promotion gives you the trouble of this letter.”28

  Lee said he would inform Congress of Washington’s views but promised nothing else. Arnold had already resigned by then—a usual response of all high-level officers passed over for promotion. After refusing to accept Arnold’s resignation, Washington soothed Arnold’s feelings by explaining that Congress allocated all promotions by state and that it had filled the quota for Connecticut. He successfully convinced Arnold to return to active duty, but Arnold, who had fought heroically and suffered wounds in the failed American invasion of Canada, would never forgive Congress for what he considered a cruel insult.29

  In April 1777 Richard Henry Lee prodded delegates into resuming their debate over the Articles of Confederation, only to have new differences surface. Rather than allow Congress to table the issue again, Richard Henry Lee coaxed them to continue the debate at least two days a week, only to have a North Carolina delegate—the fiery Irish-born physician Thomas Burke—all but crush hopes for an effective confederation. A gifted orator with a hypnotizing lilt in his voice, Burke charged that small states were conspiring to create a strong central government only to seize and redistribute lands of large states and create thirteen equal-sized states. His baseless accusation frightened delegates into leaving all sovereign power in the states and limiting central government powers to those obtained only by a unanimous vote of the states—an all-but-impossible outcome that would render the confederation impotent.

  While Congress ceded all governing authority to the states, the British high command in New York took full advantage by launching military campaigns on two fronts in the north and south. As Arthur Lee had warned, General Lord Howe in New York led one-third of the troops southward toward the rebel capital of Philadelphia. On a second front British troops initiated a three-pronged attack to isolate New England from the rest of the colonies by overrunning the Hudson River Valley and the waterways to the Canadian frontier. While troops sailed up the Hudson River from New York toward Albany, a second force under General John Burgoyne was to invade upstate New York from Canada, march southward along Lake Champlain and Lake George to join the troops from New York and establish lines around the north, east, and south flanks of American troops at Albany. Meanwhile a third British force from western New York would march eastward toward Albany to close the vise.

  Burgoyne’s campaign started well, as his 8,000 British troops and an assortment of Indian warriors captured Lake Champlain and overran Fort Ticonderoga at Lake George. Hopelessly outmanned and outgunned, the Patriot troops deserted by scores, all but ceding the Revolution to the Redcoats and provoking a harsh evaluation by Richard Henry Lee, who called the northern campaign “disgraceful.”

  Lee told Virginia lieutenant governor John Page that Congress had responded by putting the popular British-born general Horatio Gates in command of the American Northern Army. “The militia is turning out to join that army,” he added, “and now that they have the general they love and can confide in, I hope our affairs will soon wear a better countenance.” Because of Gates’s extensive battlefield experience, Congress had almost chosen him over George Washington when it considered candidates to lead the Continental Army in 1775. On John Adams’s insistence, however, it decided against entrusting a Briton with command of America’s incipient rebellion against Britain.

  On August 11 a small band of grizzled farmers appeared on the outskirts of Bennington, Vermont, about forty miles east of Albany, New York, where British troops were threatening to overrun a force of badly outnumbered American Patriots. Each of the farmers carried as many muskets as he could in one arm, firing at random toward the enemy with his free arm, and shouting incomprehensibly to their countrymen about a ship—a French ship. The 300-ton Mercure, the first of three Beaumarchais ships that would sail into the harbor at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, had arrived. It carried 12,000 muskets, fifty brass cannons, and all the powder and ammunition they needed. In addition, the ship carried 1,000 tents and enough clothes for 10,000 men. As sailors ran the French flag up the mast, townsmen cheered, danced for joy, and jumped aboard to embrace the sailors.

  Within a week their euphoria metamorphosed into a carefully organized, 2,000-man wagon train that rolled 150 miles to Bennington, Vermont, where 500 militiamen with the American Northern Army had run out of powder and faced annihilation by a British force twice their size. With their powder horns refilled, the Americans in Bennington slaughtered 200 Redcoats and captured 700 in what proved the first in a series of crushing defeats that the steady arrival of Beaumarchais’s ships would inflict on Burgoyne and his Redcoats in the summer and fall of 1777.

  Few Beaumarchais ships risked sailing into major ports fully loaded
with arms, however. Using a flow of coded messages to his brother Richard Henry, William Lee arranged for most Beaumarchais ships to sail to one or another of the French sugar islands, where small American vessels would pick up the arms and carry them to one of the many coves along the Atlantic coast for delivery to Patriot troops. Many never reached American shores.

  “You would be greatly surprised at the number and value of the French vessels taken and destroyed by the English on our coasts this last winter and spring,” Richard Henry lamented to John Adams.30

  As the Northern Army under Gates was repelling Burgoyne’s advance in upper New York, Washington’s Continental Army in New Jersey prepared to defend Philadelphia from assault by Lord Howe. “General Washington’s forces are so placed as to be ready to meet Mr. Howe’s visitation if it happens,” Richard Henry Lee told Virginia Lieutenant-Governor John Page,31 and to Thomas Jefferson, Lee boasted, “The General [Washington] and his Army… made a fine appearance.… Should General Howe venture to enter the country against this force, I think his ruin will be sure.”32 To build support for the Revolution in Virginia, Lee constantly teased state leaders with hints of victory to come, but only if they continued supplying Washington with arms, ammunition, and troops.

  Despite Arthur Lee’s advance intelligence and Richard Henry Lee’s warning, Washington was unprepared not because of negligence but because of impotence—his own and that of Congress. He could not restore troop strength unless each state government recruited troops and sent them to him. He could not procure arms and ammunition unless Congress provided them, and Congress could not pay for such materiel unless each of the states appropriated the money to do so. Richard Henry Lee did his best, but it was seldom enough, and General Lord Howe knew it. The British had spies in America every bit as effective as Arthur and William Lee had been in Britain.