Spy Games

As conflict with England escalated, delegates to the 2nd Continental Congress foresaw the need for diplomatic and intelligence services. On 29 November 1775 the Committee for Correspondence was born, soon becoming the Committee for Secret Correspondence, and ultimately the Committee for Foreign Affairs on 17 April 1777. In the beginning, with war on the horizon, the likeliest prospective agents were Americans living abroad with established networks of information and alliance. The first agent recruited was born and reared at Stratford, and had been collecting intelligence for years. He was deeply placed in circles of London radicals and friends with establishment Whigs like Lord Shelburne. Join us this month as Stratford Mail peers beneath the covers of early American spy games. 

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Transcript

Stratford Mail 

IX.

Welcome to Stratford Mail, a Production of Stratford Hall Historic Preserve, where the voices of American history still speak. This episode is made possible by the generous support of Chapter 23 of the Colonial Dames of America. Here now is our Director of Research, Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey.

This month the origins of US Diplomatic and Intelligence Services, and the Stratford-born and raised Lee at the heart of it. 

As conflict between Britain and her North American colonies drifted toward a rupture, hastened by sputtering diplomacy and the Butcher’s Bill from Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, delegates to the 2nd Continental Congress recognized the need for aid in the event of full-blown war. On August 21 1775 Pennsylvanian Richard Penn and Arthur Lee of Stratford delivered the so-called Olive Branch petition to Secretary of State for the American Colonies Lord Dartmouth, a last ditch attempt at reconciliation. Lord Dartmouth informed the pair on September 1 that the King would not consider it, Congress receiving news of this rejection on November 9. On November 12, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John:  I could not join to day in the petitions of our worthy parson, for a reconciliation between our, no longer parent State, but tyrant State, and these Colonies. -- Let us seperate, they are unworthy to be our Breathren. Let us renounce them and instead of suplications as formorly for their prosperity and happiness, Let us beseach the almighty to blast their counsels and bring to Nought all their devices. By November 29, Congress resolved, that a Committee of 5 be appointed for the sole purpose of corresponding with our friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world. The committee of 5 included Benjamin Harrison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Johnson, John Jay, and John Dickinson (with the exception of Harrison, the rest had collaborated on the Olive Branch petition). This new Committee of Correspondence would soon become the Committee of Secret Correspondence, as it became clear that the task of developing foreign assets to aid in the American cause was a dangerous affair best conducted under a seal of secrecy. This was especially true in light of The Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition issued by King George III on August 23, 1775, which declared the Colonies in open and avowed rebellion, and charged all loyal and obedient subjects to transmit to one of Our Principal Secretaries of State, or other proper Officer, due and full Information of all Persons who shall be found carrying on Correspondence with, or in any Manner or Degree aiding or abetting, the Persons now in open Arms and Rebellion against Our Government within any of Our Colonies and Plantations in North America, in order to bring to condign Punishment the Authors, Perpetrators, and Abettors of such traitorous Designs. The Proclamation prioritized the identification of enemies within as a critical tool for suppressing rebellion.

On November 29, 1775, the Committee for Correspondence was brand new. As the Committee set to its task, members looked first to patriot Americans living abroad, persons whose residence might put them on the wrong side of the Proclamation. The name of the person at the top of the list was certainly at risk. A resident of London, he had deputized Benjamin Franklin as representative of the Massachusetts Bay Colony since 1770, and was a longtime ally and correspondent of John Dickinson. Agreed that this man was an exemplary candidate, the Committee on the day after it was formed, posted its first letter to Arthur Lee of Stratford, then living at No. 2 Garden Court, Middle Temple, London:

Philadelphia. 30 November 1775.

Sir, 

We have the honor to be appointed by the Congress a Committee of Correspondence with the friends of America on the other side of the ___. Our institution is with design to preserve secrecy, and thereby secure our friends, who we suppose may be endangered and alarmed by the late proclamation. It is considered as of the utmost consequence to the cause of Liberty, that an intercourse should be kept up, and we shall be obliged by your sentiments of the most probable and secure method of effecting it. If any should be certainly resolved on, which you may think much concerns America to be apprised of, we shall consider it within the power of our appointment to pay the expense of an Express Boat, if you can provide one under proper cautions. We are, Sir, your most obedient servants.

In 1769, Arthur had written: To tyrants, and to tyranny, a foe, I will maintain my liberty at the hazard of my life. To accept this intelligence commission would be to hazard his life anew. He was already under surveillance; his mail was being intercepted (which he complained about to the American Secretary [Germain]); and in spring 1775 British spymaster Paul Wentworth offered Arthur 300 pounds sterling and political appointments to ‘go away.’ Arthur refused these enticements. Tory politicos viewed Arthur as the enemy within, as one expressed in a 1775 letter to MP Colchester Charles Gray: They might act as they pleased in America if we were united at home, but the American Party with Arthur Lee as a writer, have got possession of the newspapers. This Lee was bred up to Physick, then turned Lawyer, and now finishes as a rebel. He is probably the chief incendiary of Virginia, and he is on this side of the Atlantick. In October 1775 a rumor circulated that Arthur had been arrested for sedition; the London Chronicle nosed around the story (Oct 26): A report prevailed yesterday in the City, that the brother of a certain Alderman [that’s William Lee] was committed to Newgate [prison], for holding a treasonable correspondence with the Americans, which is void of truth. ‘Void of truth’ so far as the imprisonment goes, but on the money so far as the treasonable correspondence. The rumor may have been circulated to intimidate Arthur into silence.  

On December 11, 1775 Congress appropriated $3000 to the Committee of Secret Correspondence. On the 12th the Committee posted a letter to Arthur Lee, outlining basic tradecraft in secure communications with the Committee, like the use of third-party intelligence contractors (in this case, Charles Dumas [Dyu’mah] in the Hague), cover names, and letter drops. Days before Committee member Benjamin Franklin wrote Charles Dumas: 

We desire, also, that you would take the trouble of receiving from Arthur Lee esquire, agent for the congress in England, such letters as may be sent by him to your care, and of forwarding them to us with your dispatches. When you have occasion to write to him to inform him of any thing, which it may be of importance that our friends there should be acquainted with, please to send your letters to him, under cover, directed to Mr. Alderman Lee, merchant, on Tower Hill, London: and do not send it by post, but by some trusty skipper, or other prudent person, who will deliver it with his own hand. And when you send to us, if you have not a direct safe opportunity, we recommend sending by way of St. Eustatia, to the care of Messrs. Robert and Cornelius Stevenson, merchants there, who will forward your dispatches to me. 

The recruitment of Arthur Lee formalized what the Virginian had been doing since his return to London in 1768. He was undeniably among the most important sources of political intelligence for patriot leaders at home and the most important propagandist writing in support of the American cause–and all of this from the heart of the Lion’s Den. Arthur’s total contribution to the political literature of the era may never be known given a patchy historical record and his clever use of pseudonymity and anonymity. Between 1768 and 1776 Arthur wrote at a minimum 170 essays averaging 750 words each, 9 pamphlets (one of which went through 4 editions), 17 petitions, 50 personal letters placed anonymously in colonial papers–which is to say nothing of the firehose of politically significant private correspondence to his network of family, friends, and allies in Britain and the Colonies. How good was he?  In the words of John Adams to the comte de Vergennes (Feb 11 1779), from 1770 to the Year 1774, he held a constant Correspondence, with several of those Gentlemen, who stood foremost in the Massachusetts Bay, against the Innovations, and illegal Encroachments of Great Britain … From September 1774 to November 1777, I had the Honor to be in Congress and the opportunity to See his Letters to Congress, to their Committees, and to Several of their Individual Members. That through the whole of both these Periods, he communicated, the most constant, and certain Intelligence, which was received from any Individual within my Knowledge.

In its December 12 1775 letter, the Committee suggested a focus for Arthur’s energies:

It would be agreeable to Congress to know the Disposition of Foreign Powers towards us, and we hope this Object will engage your Attention. We need not hint that great Circumspection and impenetrable Secrecy are necessary. The Congress rely on your Zeal and Abilities to serve them, and will readily compensate you for whatever Trouble and Expence a Compliance with their Desires may occasion. We remit you for the present Two Hundred Pounds Sterling.

This latest post was hand delivered to intelligence contractor Lee by Irishman Thomas Story, whose debrief to the Committee on October 1 1776 included happy news: 

On my leaving London Arthur Lee Esqr. requested me to inform the Committee of Correspondence, that he had several conferences with the French Embassador who had communicated the same to the French Court, that in consequence thereof the Duke De Vergennes had sent a gentleman to Mr. Lee, [who informed] him that the French Court could not think of entering into a War with England, but that they would assist America by sending from Holland this Fall £200,000 Sterling worth of Arms and Ammunition to St. Eustatius, Martinico or Cape Francois, that application was to be made to the Governors or Commandants of those Places, by enquiring for Monsr. Hortalez and that on applying, Persons properly authorised, the above articles would be delivered to them.   

Since 1768 Arthur had been as thick as thieves with metropolitan radicals like John Wilkes but also establishment Whig opposition like Lord Shelburne. His close working relationship and friendship with bon vivant John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London and MP for Middlesex, brought Arthur into contact with another bon vivant, French polymath and playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, author of The Barber of Seville and later The Marriage of Figaro, famously converted into operas by Mozart and Rossini respectively. Beaumarchais was also an agent of the French Court, and the Virginian’s inspired advocacy for the American cause persuaded Beaumarchais to carry the case to French Foreign Minister, the comte de Vergennes. In February 1776, Beaumarchais wrote to King Louis XVI, conveying Arthur’s proffer for a long-term commercial treaty in exchange for covert aid, and quoting the blunt Virginian: For the last time, is France absolutely decided to refuse us all aid and has she become the victim of England and the laughing stock of Europe by this unbelievable torpor? Beaumarchais wrote: The famous quarrel between America and England will soon divide the world and change the system of Europe … While a violent crisis is approaching with great rapidity, I am obliged to warn your majesty that the preservation of our possessions in America, and the peace which your Majesty appears to desire so much, depend solely upon this one proposition: the Americans must be assisted, adding the success of the plan depends wholly upon rapidity as well as secrecy. On June 10, 1776 Beaumarchais was granted 1 million livres to support covert aid to the colonies and an additional million from Bourbon Spain. Beaumarchais would soon ship war materials via a shell company ‘Roderigue Hortalez et Compagnie’ headquartered on Rue de Temple in Paris with operations in the French West Indies. Successive transactions with Beaumarchais were handled by Silas Deane of Connecticut, who had been posted to Paris as an agent of Congress. By December 1776 Arthur Lee received a new posting as co-commissioner (with Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin) to Paris, where he would be a signatory to the 1778 Treaty of Alliance that brought France openly and decisively into the war on the American side. The Virginian left behind his comfortable rooms at the Middle Temple, and wrote to his friend Lord Shelburne that he must now bid adieu, perhaps, forever, to a Country where from choice I had fix’d my fortunes, & to a people whom I most respected & could have lov’d. But the first object of my life is my Country, the first wish of my heart is public liberty. I must see therefore the liberties of my country establish’d, or perish in the last struggle. It was his deep roots in Britain and deep friendships with British politicos like Lord Shelburne that made the French wary of Arthur Lee, but that is a tale for another day.  

From Stratford Hall Historic Preserve in Westmoreland County, Virginia, I’m Director of Research Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey.  

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Letter to Arthur Lee: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 22, March 23, 1775, through October 27, 1776, ed. William B. Willcox. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 280–281

Sound effects courtesy of Pixabay
Music is William Ross Chernoff's "In Shadows"
AI voices courtesy of Play.ht and Murf.ai (except Dr. Steffey)

© Dr. Gordon Blaine Steffey, 2023