The First Conspiracy

by Brad Meltzer

  Then, on October 13, one of Tryon’s spies provides him with a piece of intelligence that will alter the fate of the colony.

  According to Tryon’s spy, the Continental Congress in Philadelphia just sent a secret authorization for the rebel governments in each colony—to kidnap or seize royal officials or private citizens whom they suspect are unfriendly to the American cause. In the words of the Congress:

  Resolved: That it be recommended to the several provincial Assemblies or Conventions, and councils or committees of safety, to arrest and secure every person in their respective colonies, whose going at large may, in their opinion, endanger the safety of the colony, or the liberties of America.

  These words would be alarming for any British sympathizer in the colonies. But according to the spy, that’s not all. While the Congress was passing the resolution, they brought up one name in particular. William Tryon.

  Tryon understands immediately that he is now in danger.

  Given the chaos engulfing his city, Tryon has no doubt that local Patriots would take the Continental Congress’s words as justification to seize or kidnap him. They could put him in jail, hold him for ransom, or simply murder him on sight.

  In a panic, Tryon tries to enlist protection for himself. That day, he sends a written message to New York City’s Mayor, Whitehead Hicks, demanding that the City Corporation—the city governing body—guarantee Tryon’s unequivocal safety, or he will flee the city. He makes a stark threat that should any harm come to his person, British warships in the harbor will retaliate against the city with the full force of their cannons:

  The Continental Congress have recommended it … to seize or take up the officers of this Government, and particularly myself, by name. I am therefore to desire you will inform the Corporation and citizens of this city, that I place my security here in their protection; that when that confidence is withdrawn, by any seizure of my person, the Commander of His Majesty’s ships of war in the harbour will demand that the inhabitants deliver me on board the fleet; and on refusal, enforce the demand with their whole power.

  Tryon’s message begins a chain reaction around the colony. Mayor Hicks convenes an emergency council of city officials, and then writes back to Tryon the next day, hoping to reassure the Governor that they will support him.

  The Members of the Corporation unanimously expressed themselves, upon this occasion, in terms of the strongest affection and confidence respecting their Governor; and I am persuaded, Sir, that their fellow-citizens … are utterly disinclined to your removal from the capital of your Province.

  The letter continues:

  The citizens … earnestly desire you will still continue your residence among us; and, from the declarations and temper of the people at large, I have not the least doubt of your enjoying the most ample protection.

  As Governor Tryon reads between the lines, he sees that the letter lacks any concrete guarantee to keep him safe. The local officials are seemingly trying to chart a neutral course and not take sides. Tryon doesn’t trust their tone—he wants a full-throated promise to defend him at all costs.

  That same day, October 14, Tryon sends a note back to Mayor Hicks, threatening to abandon the city if the local officials won’t come to his aid: “As they have not authorized you to pledge to me their assurances of security in either case, my duty in this hour of alarm will not justify me to my Sovereign in staying longer on shore, without positive declarations of their full protection, under every circumstance.” He repeats the threat of nearby British warships, prepared to retaliate against the city if he is harmed.

  As the Governor awaits the response, a spy on the Patriots’ side—a confidant of John Adams’s known only as “the Intelligencer”—learns about Tryon’s letter to Hicks, obtains a copy, and secretly sends it to Adams in Philadelphia.

  He warns Adams that Tryon has heard of the Congress’s resolution and is now threatening to call in the warships. The Intelligencer’s letter adds: “be assured that Mr. Tryon is most assiduously stirring up every coal that will catch.… If something be not done very speedily he will give you some trouble, or I am greatly mistaken.”

  Ironically, Tryon’s intelligence that the Continental Congress has targeted him for seizure is not entirely accurate. Although the Congress had indeed raised Tryon’s name in the session that led to their new resolution encouraging the seizure of prominent “enemies of America,” they had specifically declined to pursue action against Tryon. They were much more focused on kidnapping Virginia’s Governor, Lord Dunmore, who they considered a greater threat at the time.

  Nonetheless, the fact that Tryon now thinks that the Congress wants him seized creates new dangers for Patriots and Loyalists alike in New York—for example, if Tryon orders the British warships to fire on the unprotected city in retaliation.

  As Adams and the others in the Congress contemplate their next move, Tryon receives a follow-up letter from Mayor Hicks, dated October 18. Hicks says that the city officials deliberated on the matter again, and everyone spoke warmly of the Governor: “the friendly and respectful terms in which people of all ranks express themselves concerning your Excellency on this occasion, and their anxiety at the thought of your retiring from the Capital, are very satisfactory.”

  Once again, some nice-sounding words with no promise of protection.

  To further complicate matters, one of the city officials has meanwhile leaked Tryon’s original letter requesting help to a local newspaper, which immediately publishes it. Suddenly the whole city is aware that Tryon is vulnerable and asking for protection.

  Now there’s practically an invitation for Tryon’s enemies or some rebel mob to come after him, knowing he is unprotected. Tryon must take drastic action, or every passing hour could be his last.

  On the night of October 18, 1775, Tryon packs his most important papers and belongings and, with the help of his aides, sneaks out of the downtown Governor’s residence.

  They travel in darkness to the Manhattan shore, and escape by boat to Long Island, landing in today’s borough of Brooklyn. Tryon spends the night in the town of Flatbush, at the home of William Axtell, a member of the governor’s council, where they make further arrangements.

  The next morning, the little group travels back to the East River, where a small boat is waiting. The boat ferries Tryon and his belongings to a British transport called the Halifax, anchored in New York Harbor.

  Here, Tryon can at least sleep without fear of waking up to the point of a bayonet.

  From the safety of the ship Tryon sends one more message to the Mayor:

  Finding your letter of yesterday insufficient for that security I requested … my duty directed me, for the present instant, to remove on board this ship, where I shall be ready to do such business of the Country as the situation of the times will permit. The citizens, as well as the inhabitants of the Province, may be assured of my inclination to embrace every means in my power to restore the peace, good order, and authority of Government.

  Alas, Tryon’s movements aren’t quite over. A few nights later, he is shuttled around once again, this time to a British merchant ship in the harbor called the Duchess of Gordon. On this larger ship there will be space enough for him to set up a headquarters with his meager papers and belongings, a place where he can conduct business. The Duchess of Gordon is also anchored right next to the sixty-four-gun British warship Asia, providing protection for the governor and his entourage.

  On his first morning aboard the Duchess of Gordon, Tryon wakes up to the view of Manhattan across the water, less than a mile away. Here, the Governor takes stock of his new circumstances.

  The city officials in New York, once his allies, have fallen under the sway of the rebels—or at least won’t stand up to them.

  The Continental Congress has officially authorized local Patriot committees to kidnap prominent Loyalists and Crown officials throughout the colonies—including, Tryon believes, himself.

  Tryon has been forced to flee his
own city by dark of night and take refuge indefinitely in the cramped quarters of a British ship. He has only a chest of important papers and a few changes of clothes.

  The Governor’s residence, full of his artwork and furniture, is left unoccupied and will likely be ransacked or destroyed by mobs.

  However troubled New York City had seemed to Tryon when he first returned from England a few months ago, the current reality is far worse. The radicals are taking over his colony and have forced him into exile.

  It all started on that day when the officers of the Continental army marched through the city, right under his nose, led by their Commander, George Washington.

  Though the Patriots may think they’re rid of their Governor, they couldn’t be more wrong. Tryon isn’t going anywhere.

  In fact, he’ll soon have a brand new plan—a plan designed to change the course of history.

  16

  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  November 1775

  Only his brother can save him.

  As George Washington and his troops face the winter of 1775 outside Boston, the condition of his army grows worse.

  Now sleet, snow, and freezing rain create a new level of suffering in the ragged outdoor camps. Lack of proper clothing and blankets becomes fatal rather than just uncomfortable, and the troops are short on both. Frostbite and hypothermia are constant fears. As the officer Nathanael Greene describes it, the freezing troops don’t even have the essentials to build fires:

  We have suffered prodigiously for want of wood. Many regiments have been obliged to eat their provisions raw for want of firing to cook, and notwithstanding we have burned up all the fences and cut down all the trees for a mile around camp. Our suffering has been inconceivable.

  The morale of the young army is low, and getting lower. The common soldiers, most of whom signed up looking for valor or quick money, are receiving neither. The drawn-out stalemate outside Boston means long days digging trenches, building fortifications, or standing sentry in miserable conditions. Meanwhile a constant lack of funds from the Continental Congress means soldiers’ pay is deferred for months, and many worry that the pay may never come at all.

  Desertions become frequent, and spirits are sinking.

  Great Britain, on the other hand, shows signs of bolstering its military efforts in the colonies. On October 10, the British had replaced their current commander in Boston, Gen. Thomas Gage, with a new general, William Howe.

  General Howe is one of the most respected current military leaders in England, and his appointment makes a strong statement. In addition, William Howe’s brother Adm. Richard Howe is in charge of North American operations for the British navy. Together, the brothers represent a formidable threat. While the nascent Continental army struggles and shrinks, the British army grows and shows new resolve.

  Yet, for all the challenges that Washington and his officers face at the onset of winter, another crisis is more frightening than the rest.

  By a stroke of terrible luck, in early 1775, a deadly smallpox epidemic had begun to sweep through the colonies—and by summer and fall, just as the Continental forces assemble outside Boston, the epidemic spreads through the Northeast. This highly contagious disease, carried by the variola virus, is fatal in about a third of cases, and in others can lead to blindness or dementia.

  For those who contract the disease but eventually return to health, the range of symptoms—fever, exhaustion, and painful running sores on the skin and in the mouth and throat—can be incapacitating for weeks. The disease is ravaging towns and cities throughout the northeastern colonies, and causing widespread panic as it spreads, particularly at a time of impending war.

  “The Small Pox is an enemy more terrible in my imagination, than all others,” as John Adams will write. “This distemper will be the ruin of every army from New England if great care is not taken.”

  Indeed, the Continental army camps, with unsanitary conditions and men living in close quarters, create a uniquely rich environment for the virus to spread. As evidence grows of a potential epidemic, Washington sends a series of urgent letters to Congress: “If we escape the Small Pox in this camp, & the country round about, it will be miraculous—Every precaution that can be, is taken to guard against this evil.”

  Working frantically with local doctors, Washington helps to administer a system to separate contaminated soldiers and quarantine them in a special hospital. He contemplates an inoculation program for the entire army, but the only available vaccine has sometimes debilitating side effects—including the terrible running sores—and any soldier receiving it would become contagious during the vaccination period, leading to further risk of the disease spreading. While some officers and prominent citizens do take the vaccine, trying to administer it to the whole army at this point is too risky.

  So Washington and his doctors must try to control the spread of the deadly virus. With some fourteen thousand troops fanned out in dozens of camps spanning several miles, the logistics of containing the disease are incredibly complex.

  In early December, already overwhelmed by dealing with this crisis, Washington hears some shocking intelligence from within the city of Boston, where the disease is also spreading. A sailor working on the Boston docks learns about a plan on the part of the British, and shares the information with rebel officials: “Several persons are to be sent out of Boston, this evening or to-morrow, that have been lately inoculated with the small-pox, with design, probably, to spread the infection, in order to distress us as much as possible.”

  In other words, the British plan to send out of the city individuals who are known to be afflicted with smallpox, with the purpose of spreading the virus through the Continental army’s encampments.

  On December 4, Washington sends this letter to John Hancock at the Continental Congress:

  By recent information from Boston, General Howe is going to send out a number of the inhabitants.… A sailor says that a number of these coming out have been inoculated, with design of spreading the Smallpox through this country & camp. I have communicated this to the General Court & recommended their attention thereto.

  This is a crude but ruthless form of early biological warfare—and the Continental officers have difficulty proving that the British are really doing it intentionally. But they do find evidence to support the claim. Several civilians emerging from the city in the next few days are in fact contagious. Now the Continental army must set up a system to monitor every person coming from Boston who might come within range of the soldiers’ encampments.

  Throughout the trials of handling the smallpox crisis, one potential outcome is so terrifying as to be almost unthinkable: that George Washington himself will be afflicted with the disease.

  For Washington even to be inoculated would pose an enormous risk. The side effects of the vaccine can be terrible, and the process is risky. Moreover, for the Commander to be quarantined for several weeks at this juncture, when the army is fragile and a confrontation possibly imminent—well, simply put, it would be devastating.

  That’s where George’s older half brother, Lawrence Washington, comes in.

  Almost twenty-five years earlier, when Lawrence was suffering from tuberculosis, doctors had urged him to spend the winter of 1751 in Barbados, where the climate would be more favorable to his lungs.

  Only one person accompanied Lawrence on this trip: his loyal younger brother, George, who was then nineteen years old. This trip, the one and only time George Washington left the colonies in his entire life, would be fateful in the most unexpected way.

  Although the warm Barbados climate did little to improve Lawrence’s lungs, the journey had a profound impact on young George’s health. While on the island, he contracted smallpox, probably from a family friend the brothers visited in the village of Bridgetown, the island’s capital.

  At the time, the virus, still fairly uncommon in the North American colonies, was prevalent in the islands of the tropical West Indies. For more than a month
on the island, Washington suffered from the terrible symptoms of the disease—including the gruesome sores—but he eventually recovered to full health, with only some of the trademark pockmarks on his face.

  When nineteen-year-old George returned to Virginia in March 1752, he bore an unusual distinction: Having already suffered from smallpox, he was one of the few people in the colonies totally immune to the disease.

  Now, some two decades later, as the smallpox epidemic sweeps through the colonies, killing tens of thousands of people just as the Revolutionary War is beginning, George Washington, the army’s Commander-in-Chief, is protected.

  Those several weeks that George Washington spent in Barbados were among the last he spent with his childhood hero and mentor. Lawrence died two months later. Thanks to those final months together with his brother, George Washington is shielded from a deadly scourge that will take many lives in his army, at a critical time when his sickness or absence would be devastating. Without fear for his own health, he can work tirelessly to set up the army hospital to care for the sick, establish a quarantine system for the contagious, and manage a public health emergency while also running an army.

  Later, a rumor will circulate among the soldiers that their Commander is physically invincible—whether in battle or from disease—saved as he has been from death on multiple occasions. George Washington isn’t invincible, but he does have something very powerful on his side—an older brother to protect him, even from beyond the grave.