How Not to Do Counterintelligence

Christopher Marshall (1709-1797) was an Irish-born Philadelphia merchant active in Revolutionary politics, for which he was eventually expelled from his Quaker meeting.

Here’s the entry from his diary on 9 Jan 1776, which begins as Marshall hears some disturbing news about a valet to a member of the Continental Congress—James Duane, shown here courtesy of the New York Public Library. At the time the royal governor of New York, William Tryon, had chosen to move onto a ship in New York harbor for better security:

At breakfast, I was visited by Paul Fooks’s housekeeper, who informed that their boy, Neal, had heard his sister Rosanna Thompson, who lived at [Richard] Bache’s, [state] that James Brattle, servant man to James Duane, one of [the New] York delegates, was employed by Governor Tryon, to collect and send him all the news he could find, on board the Asia, for which he should be well rewarded and also be preferred to some post, in consequence of which, he had written to him, and in particular the day our fleet sailed with their number, &c.

On this information, I called upon some of our Committee at the Coffee-House. Joseph Dean went with me, but could gain nothing. We returned. Then John Bayard went with me to Joseph Reed’s he not at home; thence to see him at the Committee of Safety; not there; thence to the Court-House; found him.

After taking his advice, went to Halls printing-office; took Richard Bache home with us; called his maid; examined her. She seemed confounded, but, on the whole, denied it. From thence to the Coffee-House, where, consulting Major Cox, he joined us two.

We went to the State-House; called out Mr. Duane informed him; he seemed confounded; requested us to attend him to his house. We did. He called his man, examined him; took him up stairs and made search, all to no purpose.

We then went, took him with us to Paul Fooks’s; examined the boy who persisted. We brought the boy back to Duane’s lodgings; sent for the young woman, who, upon seeing her brother, confessed that what he had said was true.

James was called and interrogated, but all to no purpose. Then Major Cox and Mr. Duane took him upstairs again, and while they were employed at that business, he slipped down stairs, out through the yard, and have seen no more of him. Major Bayard and myself waited for them in the parlor. Thus he escaped.

An 1857 volume of Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York says in a footnote:

James Brattle, who had formerly lived with [i.e., was a servant for] Governor Tryon, was at this time servant to James Duane, a member of Congress, whose minutes he was in the habit of purloining, on his master retiring to bed, and afterwards sending them and other information to Governor Tryon. On being discovered he absconded, and was sent to England by his employer.

Among the intelligence Brattle was able to supply was news of the Americans’ top-secret submarine—which was promptly ignored by the Royal Navy.

A Machine to Blow Up Shipping?

Yesterday I quoted Continental artillery colonel Jeduthan Baldwin’s record that on 14 Dec 1775 he “went in the afternoon to Dotchester point to See the mashine to blow up Shiping, but as it was not finished, it was not put into the water.”

It sure sounds like Baldwin really saw an unfinished machine which was eventually supposed to go into the water. Which puts me in mind of the pioneering submarine of David Bushnell, who had just graduated from Yale at the advanced age of thirty-five. Bushnell was working on his machine by August 1775, when a friend described it in a letter to Benjamin Franklin. On 23 Oct 1775, Samuel Osgood, aide de camp to Gen. Artemas Ward, wrote to John Adams from the camp at Roxbury:

The famous Water Machine from Connecticutt is every Day expected in Camp; it must unavoidably be a clumsy Business, as its Weight is about a Tun. I wish it might succeed [and] the Ships be blown up beyond the Attraction of the Earth, for it is the only Way or Chance they have of reaching St Peter’s Gate.

By the next month, a British spy named James Brattle, working as a servant of Continental Congress delegate James Duane, had sent the same news to Gov. William Tryon of New York.

However, as of 7 December Bushnell was still testing his craft on the Connecticut River, wrestling with a peculiar problem of submarine warfare: it’s dark inside a waterproof chamber, and lighting a candle uses up the oxygen supply. Bushnell, with Franklin’s advice, planned to use some bioluminescent plant materials, but they weren’t available in late fall.

Bushnell formally presented his submarine plan to the Connecticut Council in February 1776. At that time he planned to move it to Boston to engage the Royal Navy there, but the British evacuated the next month, making that trip unnecessary. The vessel, dubbed the Turtle, finally saw action on 6 Sept 1776 in New York harbor, the first submarine attack in naval history. (The picture above comes from Digital History at the University of Houston.) I haven’t come across any indication that a version of Bushnell’s machine was in Dorchester the previous December.

The machine that Baldwin saw might therefore have been another invention. There was at least one other grand scheme to attack the British fleet that fall. On 20 Oct 1775, John Hancock signed a letter drafted by a Congressional committee to Gen. George Washington:

Captain John Macpherson having informed the Congress that he had invented a method by which, with their leave, he would take or destroy every Ministerial armed vessel in North-America, [a committee of delegates] reported that the scheme, in theory, appeared practicable; and that, though its success could not be relied on without experiment, they thought it well worth attempting on the fleet in and about Boston Harbour, their destruction being an object of the utmost importance.

The Congress have therefore desired Captain Macpherson to repair immediately to Cambridge. They recommend this matter to your particular attention...

Macpherson was a Scotsman with experience in the Royal Navy who had settled in Philadelphia. His son, also named John, was an aide to Gen. Richard Montgomery in the American invasion of Canada; both men would die outside Québec at the end of the year.

On 8 Nov 1775, Washington replied that he wasn’t as optimistic about the captain’s plan as the captain was:

I laid myself under a solemn tye of secrecy to Captn. McPherson, and proceeded to examine his Plan for the destruction of the Fleet in the Harbour of Boston, with all that care and attention which the Importance of it deserved, and my Judgement could lead to: but not being happy enough to coincide in Opinion with that Gentleman, and finding that his Scheme would Involve greater expence, than (under my Doubts of its success), I thought myself justified in giving into, I prevaild upon him to communicate his plan to three Gentlemen of the Artillery (in this Army) well acquainted in the knowledge, and practice of gunnery; by them he has been convinced, that in as much as he set out upon wrong principles, the Scheme would prove abortive.

unwilling however to relinquish his favourite project of reducing the Naval force of Great Britain, he is very desirous of building a number of Row-Gallies for this purpose; but as the Congress alone are competent to the adoption of this measure, I have advised him (altho’ he offered to go on with the building of them at his own expence ’till the Congress should decide) to repair immediately to Philadelphia with his proposals; where, if they should be agreed to, or Vessels of Superior force, agreeable to the Wishes of most others, should be resolved on, he might set instantly about them, with all the materials upon the Spot; here they are to collect; to him therefore I refer for further information on this Head.

Capt. Macpherson carried this letter and others back to Philadelphia for the commander-in-chief. He could have returned to Boston by December, but I have no evidence that he did.

So what was the machine that Baldwin expected to see in use in December 1775? It might have been a prototype of Bushnell’s, or another of Capt. Macpherson’s ideas, or yet another machine created by someone else entirely. In any event, it didn’t work.