by Jeff Steinberg –
The American Revolution was a trans-Atlantic battle, fought across Europe by means of diplomacy, espionage, and clandestine operations. To defeat the British Empire, the Americans had to secure international allies, exploit European rivalries, and at the same time, win the battle of ideas.
On November 29, 1775, the Second Continental Congress created the Committee of Correspondence, charged with developing international support for the American cause in the immediate aftermath of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
The leading member of the Committee, later referred to as the Committee of Secret Correspondence due to the sensitivity of its work, was Benjamin Franklin. Other initial Committee members were Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Johnson, John Dickinson, and John Jay. Robert Morris was added to the Committee, and Arthur Lee, an American businessman living in London, acted as a covert agent of the Committee and was later formally appointed as a commissioner. Thomas Paine would become the Secretary of the Committee.
Franklin exploited his extensive network of contacts in Europe to promote international support for American independence from Britain. On December 12, 1775, he secretly wrote to Don Gabriel de Bourbon, a member of the Spanish royal family, proposing clandestine Spanish support for the colonists. He sent similar correspondence to associates in France.
During the same period, Arthur Lee began collaboration with the French writer Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais, a secret agent of the French government probing British troubles in the North American colonies from London, although he is better known as the playwright whose texts were adopted as lyrics for Mozart’s operas, polemicizing against the corruption of the European aristocracy. Lee provided Beaumarchais with intelligence on recent successes of the colonists in resisting British rule. This led the French Foreign Ministry to agree to provide covert military supplies to the Continental Army three years before France and Spain formally joined the alliance.
In late 1775, the French government sent a secret agent to Philadelphia to further assess the prospects of American independence from Britain. Julien Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir, a minor French aristocrat and former soldier, was sent by the French Foreign Minister Comte de Vergennes with a message to be delivered to the Continental Congress: France was profoundly sympathetic to American independence; France had no ambitions to take over Canada; and France would open its ports to the Americans as soon as they declared independence.
De Bonvouloir was fortunate to have a friend in Philadelphia, a Frenchman named Francis Dayman, who was the personal librarian to Benjamin Franklin as well as being Franklin’s French teacher.
Between December 17 and 18,1775, Franklin and John Jay, on behalf of the Committee of Secret Correspondence, met with the French to accept Franklin as an emissary and conveyed two requests: France should send at least two trained military engineers to assist the Continental Army in fortifications; and they should supply the colonists with arms and ammunition.
De Bonvouloir’s enthusiastic secret report back to Vergennes buttressed the efforts of Beaumarchais and Lee from London. King Louis XVI approved covert French support to the Americans through the creation of a commercial front company that would have no traceable ties to the French government.
Vergennes delivered specific guidelines to Beaumarchais, who was placed in charge of the clandestine operation:
“The operation must have essentially in the eyes of the British Government, and even in the eyes of the Americans, the aspect of an individual speculation, to which we are strangers…. We will give you secretly a million [livres]. We will endeavor to persuade the Court of Spain to unite in giving you another. With these two millions, you shall found a great commercial establishment, and at your own risk and peril you shall furnish to America arms and everything else necessary to sustain war. Our arsenals will deliver to you arms and munitions, but you shall pay for them. You will not demand money of the Americans for they have none; but you can ask return in their staple products.”
Beaumarchais created the private trading company Roderique Hortalez et Cie. From its beginning in early 1776, through to the end of the Revolution in 1783, the French would provide 90 percent of all arms and munitions used by the Continental Army, largely through this covert commercial front.
Beaumarchais’ partner Hortalez, a wealthy French textile, and shipping magnate Jacques-Donatien le Rey le Chaumont, not only provided uniforms for 30,000 Continental Army troops. He refitted a French commercial ship as a warship and donated it to Franklin, now heading the official Continental Congress delegation in Paris. Franklin assigned the ship to John Paul Jones, who christened it Bonhomme Richard.
A young, wealthy French aristocrat, the Marquis de Lafayette, was another early stockholder in Roderique Hortalez.
As the result of the French-Spanish-American covert partnership, the French Crown, anticipating formal endorsement of American independence and war with Britain, undertook a massive shipbuilding program. At the same time, the French Ministry of War designated large stocks of weapons and ammunition as “surplus,” which were “sold” to Roderique Hortalez to finance the military buildup.
Hortalez established a base on the Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius, a free port where the arms and ammunition were ostensibly shipped for ultimate delivery to the Continental Army. Silas Deane, a Connecticut businessman was the designated contact point for the arms purchases.
By early 1777, some Hortalez shipments were going directly to New Hampshire, supplying the Continental Army North under the command of General Horatio Gates. The French supplies, including artillery, proved critical to the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga — a victory which prompted France to shift from covert support for American independence to the formal alliance.
Another part of Beaumarchais’ portfolio as covert liaison between the French government and the American revolutionaries was the vetting of French military officers and others who sought to be commissioned in the Continental Army to fight against their British enemy. Among the volunteers approved by Beaumarchais was the same Lafayette who was an early stockholder in the covert arms smuggling front company.
The League of Armed Neutrality
Had the British, with their naval superiority, been able to blockade supplies to the Continental Army, the outcome of the American Revolution would have almost certainly have been different. But the British had to counterbalance their relations with the other European powers, particularly Russia, with their military operations in North America.
Catherine the Great, who assumed the throne in 1762, was personally sympathetic to the American cause, but her priority was on securing Russian trade through the Baltic and Black Seas, and she maintained a strict policy of neutrality.
In 1773, the British had requested her to provide 20,000 Russian troops and military supplies to help suppress the colonial revolt in North America. She refused the British request at that time and at least two subsequent occasions.
In 1778, the British Navy seized a Russian commercial ship suspected of supplying the Americans as part of their broader policy of intercepting and searching neutral commercial vessels. By this point, Catherine was convinced that the Americans would achieve independence and that opportunities would open up for Russian trade in North America. In 1780, to counter further British seizures, Catherine sent 15 Russian Navy vessels to the Baltic Sea.
On March 11, 1780, the Empress issued an edict declaring the right of neutral countries to trade freely with belligerents. She invited European countries to join her in the creation of a League of Armed Neutrality. The Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, Sweden, Prussia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, the Two Kingdoms of Sicily, and Portugal joined the League.
The League broke the British ability to blockade trade between European countries and the Americans. It was a decisive turn in the American battle for independence, and Franklin’s espionage and diplomatic operations across Europe played an important, albeit, supporting role.
The principal advocate and author of the League of Armed Neutrality was a Russian aristocrat and diplomat named Prince Dmitri Golitsyn. The House of Golitsyn was the second-largest noble house of Russia.
In 1762, Catherine had appointed Golitsyn, who had moved to Paris in 1760, as Minister to France. He later served as Minister to the Dutch Republic, eventually returning to the Russian Court in St. Petersburg. He was the first Russian official to publicly advocate for the freeing of the serfs, and was a sympathizer of the American cause within European intellectual circles.
In 1780, Francis Dana, an early member of the Massachusetts Sons of Liberty and of the Continental Congress, accompanied John Adams and his son Quincy Adams to join Franklin in the American diplomatic and espionage efforts. Dana had joined the American delegation to London in 1775, working with Franklin to secure concessions from the British, and came away convinced of the need for full independence. Those earlier diplomatic and intelligence experiences would be vital for his later assignments.
Immediately upon arriving in Paris and conferring with Franklin, Dana was dispatched to St. Petersburg with 14-year-old John Quincy Adams as his personal secretary and French translator.
Anxious to avoid the appearance of overt support for American independence, Catherine refused to meet Dana and to formally accept his credentials as American Minister to the Russian Court. However, Dana and Adams established an extensive network of influential Russian figures, including those close to Prince Golitsyn. And Catherine launched the League of Armed Neutrality as a demonstration of Russia’s neutrality while asserting commercial rights to trade with belligerents.
Dana’s dispatches from St. Petersburg provided crucial intelligence on the factions within the Russian government and their attitudes toward the League of Armed Neutrality, Britain, and the American Revolution.
Franklin was simultaneously engaging actively in the discussion over the League of Armed Neutrality, which he understood to be a critical advantage for America’s ability to secure European aid.
His extensive networks in the French Foreign Ministry, including Vergennes, Deputy Foreign Minister de Rayneval, French Ambassador to the Dutch Republic Duc de La Vauguyon, his close Spanish ally the Count of Aranda, and Dutch Minister Johan van Berckel, were all directly involved with Golitsyn in the formation of a European policy of armed neutrality and the formalization of the League.
Franklin was also responsible for issuing letters of marque, which commissioned American and European privateers to disrupt British supply shipping to North America. Over the course of the Revolution, 800 American and European privateers, all with letters of marque from Franklin and other American delegates in Europe, intercepted and captured 600 British supply ships. Not only were those supplies denied to the British forces in North America, much of the contraband was provided to the Continental Army. The privateers also protected American supply lines across the Atlantic.
John Paul Jones, though commissioned in the Continental Navy, operated largely as a privateer. Other leading American and Irish privateers included Jonathan Haraden, Silas Talbot, Samuel Tucker, and Luke Ryan. At the end of the Revolution, with the decommissioning of much of the American Navy, Jones sought and received a commission as Admiral in the Russian Navy.
The covert naval war provided further incentive for neutral countries, including Russia, to promote and enforce the League of Armed Neutrality.
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress formally renamed the Committee of Secret Correspondence the Committee for Foreign Affairs. Following the resignation of Henry Laurens, John Jay took charge of the Committee, which was responsible for intercepting and decoding foreign correspondence, as well as supervising the American representatives abroad, who provided a steady stream of intelligence and counterintelligence on European intrigues for and against the American cause.
A British Spy Foils a Bold Operation
In late 1778, with combat stalled across much of the colonies due to harsh winter conditions, Washington dispatched Lafayette back to Paris. With the French entry into the war, Washington was increasingly confident of ultimate American victory and independence.
Lafayette carried a letter from Washington to the French King dated October 30, 1778, with a number of specific requests and a proposed bold initiative.
- Increase the French military commitment in North America.
- In particular, deploy additional French Navy ships and crew.
- Improve coordination of American and French strategy.
- Launch a direct attack against Britain.
Washington believed that a direct assault on Britain would reduce its ability to deploy sufficient forces to North America and hasten their acceptance of American independence.
Washington’s and Lafayette’s promotion of such a direct attack on Britain from across the English Channel was already under consideration by the French and Spanish. Washington, Lafayette, and Franklin promoted the cross-Channel invasion, and this reinforced pre-existing French and Spanish interests in delivering a blow to the British.
With the signing of the Treaty of Aranjuez between France and Spain on April 12, 1779, the invasion plan went operational. Under the Treaty, Spain entered the war against Britain as an ally of France, and in return, France agreed to support Spanish efforts to retake Gibraltar and other territories taken by the British.
The joint French-Spanish invasion served the interests of the Americans, as well as the French, and the Spanish.
By late spring 1779, the French and Spanish had assembled a combined invasion force of 66 ships of the line, 400 transports, and 37,000 troops, as well as artillery. The plan was to land on the Isle of Wight and take Portsmouth which was the hub of British naval operations for both the Atlantic and Channel. Capture of Portsmouth would have crippled Britain’s ability to continue the war in America and to retain critical territories, including Gibraltar.
A combination of factors foiled the invasion plan: poor coordination between the French and Spanish fleets, an outbreak of disease, and unfavorable weather conditions repeatedly delayed the launch date.
Meanwhile, the British were already aware of the plan.
The British Secret Service had a mole inside Franklin’s American delegation in Paris. Dr. Edward Bancroft, a scientist, medical doctor, and ostensible American patriot, was Franklin’s personal secretary and one of his most trusted colleagues. Bancroft was born in Connecticut and was personally recommended to Franklin by Silas Deane. Bancroft joined Franklin’s team in Paris in 1776.
Unknown to any of the Americans in Paris, Bancroft had been recruited to spy for the British by Paul Wentworth, one of Britain’s most effective spymasters and covert operators. Wentworth, who navigated between London and Paris, was born in New England, migrated to London, and was responsible for espionage operations against the Americans in Europe, reporting directly to Secretary of State Lord Suffolk, British Ambassador to France Lord Stormont, and William Eden, coordinator of intelligence for the British Foreign Office.
It was through Bancroft that the British learned the operational details of the planned French-Spanish Armada. The British were able to mobilize 130,000 militiamen to Portsmouth and develop evasion plans for the British fleet.
Franklin had sent Bancroft to Ireland to coordinate the cross-Channel invasion plan with Irish revolutionaries agitating for independence. Bancroft went to London instead with details of the invasion plan.
While the cross-Channel invasion plan failed, it nonetheless forced the British to build up the homefront, and reduced the resources that could be deployed to North America to crush the revolution.
Bancroft’s espionage for the British was never unearthed during the American Revolution. It was not until the 1880s, when British files were declassified, that the Bancroft-Wentworth espionage penetration was revealed through payment and other records.
The Bancroft mole saga aside, the Americans conducted successful clandestine warfare across Europe, and this played a decisive role in the ultimate victory in the American Revolution. From covert commercial fronts supplying vital arms and ammunition, to an armada of privateers conducting assaults on British supply ships, to intelligence/diplomatic operations in every European court, Americans abroad conducted a spy war that contributed greatly to American independence.
Between George Washington’s espionage successes in America and Franklin’s clandestine activities across Europe, exploiting fault lines within the European power structures to win support for American independence, the British were genuinely out-spied.
Read the Earlier Installments-
American Intelligence Part I: Citizen-Patriots, the Core of Revolutionary War Intelligence
Part II: How the Americans Beat the British in the Spy Wars and Won Our Independence
Tags: american intelligence, American REvolutionary War, Ben Franklin