The Polymath Spy

 Winter Journey
 

In the chill December of 1776, as ice floes were forming on the Delaware River, the USS Reprisal docked at Auray, a port town shrouded in Atlantic mist. Benjamin Franklin, a key historical figure in my novel, The Reluctant Spy, stepped onto what would prove to be a decisive, if not kinetic, field of battle.

Sailing to France

Doctor in the House?

At the then very ripe age of seventy, the polymath from Philadelphia—printer, inventor, philosopher—arrived not as a conqueror but as a supplicant spy, his fur cap and spectacles deliberately signaling rustic American virtue. Dispatched by Congress, Franklin's mission was to persuade the French King Louis XVI to join the war against Britain and secure more loans, arms, and ships to shift the balance in America's favor. To achieve this, he would walk a tightrope among the most skilled practitioners of the dark arts in history.

King Louis XVI

Diplomat as Rock Star

Paris, the glittering center of Enlightenment salons and Bourbon intrigue, would be his battleground, where diplomacy swayed with deception, and every whispered promise concealed a shadowed meaning.

 Franklin's Home Away from Home: Hotel Le Valentinois

Franklin energized the city like he was an 18th-century Rock Star! His international reputation—from lightning rods to Poor Richard's almanacs—preceded him like a comet. He settled into Passy, a leafy suburban villa lent by a generous patron, turning it into a hub of intrigue. Here, amid cherry orchards, he crafted a web of alliances that mixed charm with calculation.

The Comte

Chief among his patrons and adversaries was Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, the foreign minister whose gaze fixed on Britain's North American jewel. Vergennes, a calculating aristocrat scarred by the Seven Years' War's humiliations, saw the rebels as a tool for French revenge.

Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes

Franklin knew as much and outwitted him masterfully, hosting salons where philosophes like Raynal and d'Alembert debated liberty over claret, subtly steering discourse toward Franco-American solidarity. "We must make them believe the cause is theirs," Franklin confided to Deane, his early ally—a Connecticut merchant whose prior secret shipments of powder had already greased the wheels.

Working the “Street”

 Yet alliances were fragile blooms in a thorned garden. Franklin's network extended into the underworld — a tangled web of booksellers, couriers, and informants who smuggled secrets amid salons and at French ports, where informants tracked British naval dispatches. He even enlisted the Marquis de Lafayette's circle, funneling funds to the young nobleman's expeditionary force.

Charles-Joseph Panckoucke

 A key ally was Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, the powerhouse Parisian bookseller and publisher whose Palais-Royal shop was a revolutionary printing hub. He openly collaborated with Franklin, churning out pro-American pamphlets such as the Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique series in 1776–1777 to sway French public opinion and elites toward an alliance. 

 By 1777, more French gunpowder and muskets flowed covertly to Washington's ragged Continentals, sustaining Valley Forge's winter quarters.

Sultan of Sophistication

 Franklin's espionage was no cloak-and-dagger affair so much as a symphony of subtlety. He cultivated British expatriates in Paris, posing as a harmless savant while extracting tidbits on troop movements from loose-lipped officers at the iconic theater and social venue, Comédie-Française.

Comédie-Française

One such ploy netted details of Burgoyne's Saratoga campaign, intelligence relayed in invisible ink to Congress. The stunning American victory at Saratoga that October sealed the deal: bolstering American morale and tipping Vergennes toward an open alliance. In February 1778, France formalized the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance in a blaze of mutual pledges—commerce, defense, and the dream of a transatlantic republic. A formal declaration of war came the following month.

Signing the Treaties

Spies Among Us

Adversaries lurked in every corner of the city. The British embassy, a hive of spies under Paul Wentworth and Edward Bancroft—a turncoat American chemist in Franklin's own employ—plotted ceaseless sabotage. Bancroft, double-dipping for London while transcribing Franklin's dispatches in lemon juice, fed Whitehall a stream of half-truths, nearly unraveling the mission when forged letters in 1778 accused Deane of profiteering.

Edward Bancroft

Then there was Arthur Lee, Franklin's fellow commissioner, a Virginia lawyer whose paranoia festered into outright enmity. Lee, sidelined by his own prickly demeanor, accused Franklin of embezzlement and senility, caballing with British agents to discredit him. "Lee is a wretch," Franklin later quipped, but the barbs stung, fracturing the American delegation and inviting French skepticism.

Beyond, George III's envoys like William Eden prowled the salons, dangling peace overtures to peel France away. At the same time, Prussian and Spanish diplomats—wary of Bourbon overreach—whispered doubts in Vergennes's ear.

Obstacles

Challenges mounted. Secrecy was paramount. A single leak could summon British frigates to Brest. Franklin countered using a cipher system blending Polybius squares and homophonic substitutions, smuggling letters in wine bottles or hollowed canes.

Crafting Secret Letters

Financial straits gnawed deeper—Congress's credit evaporated amid war's voracity, forcing Franklin to beg loans from French bankers like the Neufvilles, who demanded ruinous interest. "I am become the diplomatic beggar of Europe," he lamented in a dispatch.

Chick Magnet

Yet he responded with unflagging bonhomie, charming Versailles courtiers with bifocal demonstrations and anti-slavery tracts that aligned American ideals with French humanism. Franklin used his avuncular image to woo the French noblewomen.  A trait that his other commissioners found off-putting, but yielded no small conquests.

Twists and Barbs

When British spies torched American supply ships in the summer of 1779, crippling reinforcements bound for the Carolinas, Franklin retaliated not with rage but with a mock obituary for the "late" General Howe (who returned to Britain in disgrace in 1778), circulated in private letters, humiliated London, and eroded morale. To the French, he spun the arson as proof of British desperation, urging Vergennes to dispatch Admiral d'Estaing's fleet anew, even as d'Estaing's stalled Savannah siege that autumn tested the alliance's mettle.

The "Late" General Howe

Meanwhile, Bancroft's betrayals went unnoticed, but Lee's slanders echoed through Congress, and Britain's steadfast resolve suggested a tough struggle ahead. Franklin, always the optimistic strategist amid chaos, wrote to Washington: "Persevere, and the sun will break through."

Deception’s Twilight

By the close of 1778, Franklin sat by Passy's hearth, spectacles fogged by pipe smoke, studying a chessboard tilted in delicate advantage. The alliance thrived—French ships filled with cannon slicing through Atlantic waves, Vergennes's coffers opening for yet another loan, and soon French soldiers would fight side by side with the hard-pressed Americans.

The French Army - Crucial to Victory

The old scholar had woven a web of cleverness and charm, outsmarting empires with a smile and a secret. His first year in Paris marked a tour de force of realpolitik amid the rising storm. He would need to keep playing his game, as the stakes would be higher as the long-warring nations struggled to reach peace.

 

 

 

 

Spirits of Seventy-Six

Ever since I posted my vintage Yankee Doodle Spies Blog titled, “George Washington, Vampire Slayer,” I have wanted to share more Revolutionary War stories from beyond the grave. Below are more ghostly figures who continue to march (or drift) to a haunting version of the Yankee Doodle tune. Recent reports by paranormal investigators include Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVPs), which are sounds or voices recorded on electronic devices.  EVP recordings often happen in environments with background noise and are interpreted as messages from the deceased. Some believe these are communications from spirits.  

All these sightings are lore, passed down over the years by visitors and caretakers who hardly believe what they see, but are still spooked all the same.

 

The Anguished Angel

Built in 1716, Concord's Colonial Inn served as a temporary hospital during the Revolutionary War, treating wounded soldiers after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Legend connects it to a nurse named Rosemary, a middle-aged caregiver who tended to the injured amid the chaos of 1775. Reports describe her apparition as a spectral woman in old-fashioned nursing attire. The anguished angel of mercy drifts silently through dimly lit hallways, her footsteps silent but her presence chills the air. Guests in Room 24, a corner chamber with creaking floorboards and antique furnishings, often wake to grayish figures huddled in pain—wounded soldiers with bandaged limbs and vacant stares, vanishing like mist when approached. Cold spots appear unexpectedly, doors latch shut on their own, and faint medicinal scents linger.

The Concord Inn

One account from 2018 details a family hearing labored breaths and seeing a translucent figure checking an empty bed before fading away. Paranormal investigators capture EVPs of whispers like "hold on" and orbs in photos. These sightings continue, echoing the inn's bloody past.

 

A Smuggler’s Spirit

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, established in 1659, overlooks the site of the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, where British artillery targeted the North End, riddling gravestones with cannon fire. Captain Daniel Malcolm, a Sons of Liberty smuggler who evaded duties on 60 casks of wine, lies beneath one of the most scarred markers—a winged skull epitaph declaring him a "True Son of Liberty." His spirit, restless from the desecration, reportedly stirs paranormal activity: strange lights flicker like musket flashes among the crooked slate stones at dusk, casting elongated shadows that twist unnaturally. Muffled cries echo as if from wounded ranks, groans rise like wind through pines, and translucent figures in tricorn hats pace the paths, halting abruptly. Visitors feel an icy grip on their shoulders or hear gravel crunch under invisible boots.

Captain Daniel Malcolm's Gravestone

A 2023 account describes a group photographing the pockmarked stone when orbs swirled, accompanied by a guttural "liberty" whisper on recordings. The hauntings peak on foggy nights, blending colonial fury with eternal vigilance.

Sentinel Spooks

On September 6, 1781, during the Battle of Groton Heights, 160 American defenders held Fort Griswold against 800 British raiders led by Benedict Arnold. Despite inflicting heavy losses, the garrison faced a massacre after surrender. Lieutenant-Colonel William Ledyard was bayoneted, and many were slain or wounded inside the redoubt. Today, the site is a state park with the Groton Monument overlooking the Thames River, and it’s filled with stories of restless spirits. Wounded defenders sometimes appear beside modern picnickers on the grassy slopes—gaunt figures in bloodied linen shirts, leaning on muskets with vacant eyes fixed on the horizon. Sudden chills sweep through groups mid-meal, accompanied by ragged breaths and the sound of phantom footsteps on the earthworks.

Fort Griswold

A 2025 report describes a family seeing translucent soldiers resting against the ramparts, their groans synchronized with the wind before vanishing. EVPs capture pleas like "mercy" near the death hole where bodies were piled. The hauntings grow stronger at dawn, recalling the betrayal and brutality that marked this forgotten outpost.

A Southern Spirit

This legend is strikingly similar to the famed “Headless Horseman.” In 1781, during a Patriot raid on Wedgefield Plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina, British dragoons guarded the property and some prisoners amid the chaos of the Southern Campaign—specifically, some of the famed “Swamp Fox” Francis Marion’s men. A clash ensued when a rescue party arrived. One sentry, beheaded by a swift sword stroke in the skirmish, became the lore's centerpiece: "The Headless Sentry." Apologies to Ichabod Crane!

At twilight, the sentry’s apparition staggers across the yard—a headless torso in a tattered red coat and riding boots, his large flintlock pistol gripped in a gloved hand, groping blindly for his lost head. Hoofbeats thunder or chains rattle from nowhere, building to a frenzy as he lurches toward witnesses, the ragged neck stump oozing ethereal blood. Approachers hear guttural gurgles, feel a rush of fetid breath, before he dissolves into mist.

Headless Dragoon Haunts sthe Bunkers

The estate is now a golf course residential community, but that has not driven away the ghost—a 2020 video from golfers captured distorted audio of clopping hooves and a form flickering near the clubhouse. The ghost writhers on grounds where the raid unfolded, pistol raised in futile defense, vanishing at full dark. This tale warns of war's dismembering toll and its effect on your handicap!

Warrior Whispers 

From 1776 to 1783, British prison hulks in Wallabout Bay held over 11,500 American captives in squalor; disease, starvation, and abuse claimed most, their bones dumped into unmarked graves now beneath Fort Greene Park's Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument—a 149-foot Doric column dedicated in 1908. Lore clings to the waterfront: faint whispers of martyred Patriots drift on breezes by the East River, spectral murmurs of "freedom" or chained coughs blending with lapping waves. At dusk, visitors near the monument hear ragged breaths from the crypt below, where remains were reinterred, or glimpse emaciated shadows shuffling in fetters along the shore. Cold fog rolls in unbidden, carrying briny rot and distant clanks of irons.

Martyrs Monument

A 2017 historical tour reported EVPs of overlapping pleas amid the hum of traffic, tying back to the "ghost ship" Jersey's horrors. These echoes mark the unseen graveyard, a silent rebuke to forgotten suffering.

The Phantom Encampment

Valley Forge National Historical Park in Pennsylvania marks the grueling winter encampment of the Continental Army from 1777-1778, where around 2,500 soldiers died from typhus, pneumonia, and starvation in the freezing cold, their shelters just simple log huts amid frozen fields. Archaeological evidence shows most bodies were taken to distant hospitals for burial, leaving the site eerily free of graves, yet the sense of tragedy remains. Victorian-era romanticism created the legend, adding whispers of unrest. Phantom soldiers in threadbare blue coats trudge across snowless paths at sunset, bayonets shining under moonlit oaks, their empty footsteps matching phantom drum rolls that unset modern nerves. Distant musket cracks break the silence, as if volleys echo from unseen lines. On stormy nights, ghostly campfires glow across barren hillsides—orange flickers drawing eyes to shadows huddled for warmth, faces gaunt and frostbitten, vanishing with thunderclaps.

Since reports began in 1895, witnesses have glimpsed a solitary sentry saluting, his tricorn hat cast in shadow. South of Route 23, near Varnum's quarters, an "JW" headstone commemorates Lieutenant John Waterman, who died on April 23, 1778. A 1901 obelisk, relocated in 1939, sparks tales of wraiths clawing from the soil, although no haunt linked to him has been proven—only legends of his vigilant shade patrolling the monument with eyes fixed on intruders.

The Haunted Obelisk

 

A Peer in Paris

The Peer's Challenge

As Paris buzzed with intrigue during the American Revolution, Lord David Murray, the seventh Viscount Stormont, the British ambassador to Louis XVI's court and chief of intelligence, was at the center of this complex web of intrigue. Appointed in 1772, Stormont was a Scottish peer related to Lord Mansfield, the chief justice who had ruled against colonial protests during the Stamp Act crisis of 1765. His diplomatic cover cloaked espionage aimed at blocking French support for the rebelling colonies.

Lord Stormont

Covert Aid

The 1776 Declaration of Independence upped the stakes. George Washington's Continental Army faced severe shortages of weapons, powder, and funds. Franklin's arrival in Paris in December was a game-changer: the Philadelphian captivated French intellectuals and aristocrats alike. He lobbied Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, the Comte de Vergennes, for more covert aid. Vergennes, estimating the strategic blow to Britain, authorized secret shipments through intermediaries, such as the front company Rodrigue, Hortelez & Cie.

Comte de Vergennes

Unleashing a Master Spy

From his Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré estate, Stormont took this as a dire threat. His network, funded by Whitehall subsidies and coordinated with Loyalist exiles, became Britain’s eyes and ears in a city full of conspiracy. At the core of Stormont's operation was Dr. Edward Bancroft, a Massachusetts-born physician and chemist whose scientific credentials masked his duplicity. Recruited in March 1776 by British secret service agent Paul Wentworth, a wealthy Loyalist tobacco merchant acting as Stormont's intermediary, Bancroft had infiltrated the American mission.

Edward Bancroft

Placement and Access

Serving as Silas Deane's secretary—the Connecticut merchant tasked with buying munitions—Bancroft gained access to Franklin's villa in Passy, a hub of covert diplomacy. From there, he documented every detail: Vergennes' promises of gunpowder, arms shipments disguised as commercial cargo; the negotiations over loans to fund the American cause. Bancroft’s use of spycraft was brilliant. He used stain (invisible ink), hidden papers, and pseudonyms.

Silas Deane

Sophisticated Spycraft

He made weekly visits to a “dead drop" in a crevice at the base of a tree on the south terrace of the Jardin des Tuileries. Stormont dispatched his private secretary, Thomas Jeans, who retrieved these drops under the cover of darkness. Stormont’s instructions and new requests for intelligence were also left by Jeans, often accompanied by payments of up to £500 annually.

Jardin des Tuileries 

Exquisite Intelligence

By April 1777, as negotiations between France and America intensified, Bancroft's leaks included verbatim transcripts of commissioners' minutes and drafts of the 1778 Treaty of Alliance. One dispatch, smuggling the final version of the treaty, reached King George III within 48 hours of its signing in Paris, allowing Britain to prepare naval responses.

King George III

Démarcheing the Bourbons

Stormont used this intelligence in heated meetings with Vergennes, citing specifics to accuse France of violating the 1776 Treaty of Commerce and demanding inspections—his démarches spawned hesitation and bought Britain months of breathing space. 

Signing the Treaty

An Army of Agents

His influence reached the Atlantic ports of Lorient, Brest, and Nantes, which were crucial points for American supplies. Here, a network of embedded agents—dockyard foremen, corrupt customs officials (douaniers), and bribed ship chandlers—monitored rebel privateers such as the USS Reprisal, commanded by the daring American Captain Lambert Wickes.

USS Reprisal

Stormont’s informants tracked illegal exchanges: American tobacco and indigo were traded for Charleville muskets and gunpowder, which was routed through Roderigue Hortalez et Cie.

Actionable Intelligence

In July 1777, Lambert Wickes' squadron escorted a Dutch convoy loaded with arms past Ushant. Stormont's informers provided intelligence that led the Royal Navy to intercept the convoy, seizing prizes worth £100,000. As the British ambassador, he issued a strong démarche to Versailles. This pressured Vergennes to issue mild protests against "illegal" sailing.  Although enforcement was pro forma, Stromont’s protests delayed France’s full naval involvement until 1778.

Illegal Sailing

French Mole

Meanwhile, spymaster Stormont developed a mole within the Foreign Ministry's Archives Section—a junior archivist, possibly bribed with 500 louis d'or—who stole dispatches from locked cabinets.

Lord North

Breaking into the Quai d'Orsay's bureaucracy was a master stroke against the French.  These stolen dispatches revealed Franco-American subsidies, as well as overtures to Spain's Charles III for a Mediterranean diversion against Gibraltar. Stormont forwarded copies to London via secure couriers, helping Prime Minister Lord North lobby neutral European nations, such as the Dutch, against Bourbon plans.

Unplugging the Electrician

But no target infuriated Stormont more than Franklin, the "electrician of sedition,” whose charm threatened French neutrality. Intercepts exposed Franklin's secret letters to William Petty, the second Earl of Shelburne, a Whig opposition leader who called the war "madness" in Parliament and secretly provided £10,000 to American agents such as Arthur Lee.

Benjamin Franklin

In a slick psychological operation, Stormont leaked "correspondence" accusing Franklin of treasonous dealings—leaking rebel plans to Lord Shelburne for personal gain. These accusations were circulated in London newspapers and Paris coffeehouses, sparking a scandal. 

Lord Shelburne

Angered at the false reports, Shelburne fought a duel with his purported accuser, Colonel William Fullarton, in Hyde Park, but both survived unscathed. This episode damaged trust within the American delegation, with Deane suspecting Lee of leaks and making French courtiers wary of deeper involvement. It also provided the predicate for my fifth novel in the Yankee Doodle Spies series, The Reluctant Spy.

Success and Failure

Lord Stormont’s web of espionage delayed French arms shipments, kept London apprised of secret negotiations, and sowed discord among both French and American diplomats. However, Stormont's efforts in Paris could not stop the momentum of support for America by France, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Admiral d'Estaing

After the treaty of alliance was signed in 1778, French fleets under Admiral d'Estaing sailed for Savannah, shifting the war. Stormont, whose protests were ignored, was recalled that June — bringing a great sigh of relief to Vegennes and Franklin. Although his network dissolved, its efforts had sustained the British struggle for two more years—a testament to the power of espionage in the forging of revolution.

The Peer's Postscript

In a final note, Edward Bancroft's treason to America was not revealed in 1889 — from Stormont's secret papers—highlighting how Britain’s intelligence secrets were sustained over many decades.

 

 

The Clockmaker's Gambit

 Beaumarchais and the  Cause of Liberty

In April 1775, the American colonies had burst into open rebellion against King George III. In the glittering salons of Paris, whispers of liberty mingled with the clink of wine glasses as the nobility watched the war in America unfold from afar. Some volunteered to join the fight, defying their King Louis XVI's wishes. Most simply read the bulletins and broadsheets, whispering their support.

Beaumarchais: Clcomaker, Playwright & Spy

But a commoner, a clockmaker and part-time playwright, was weaving a web that would stretch across the Atlantic and help give birth to a nation. Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, a watchmaker turned playwright, was about to help elevate the most significant rebellion of the century.

The Clockmaker

Born in 1732 to a Parisian clockmaker, young Pierre Caron was no stranger to tinkering. His skillful fingers crafted timepieces so fine they caught the eye of King Louis XV’s court. By his twenties, he had charmed his way into Versailles, teaching harp to the royal daughters and earning the noble suffix “de Beaumarchais” through a clever marriage and a talent for reinvention. His skills brought him close to young Louis XVI, an amateur clockmaker.

18th-century Century Clocks were 

High Tech Gadgets of the Age

The Playwright

But clocks and courtly manners were just the beginning. Beaumarchais had a restless mind, thriving on the stage and in the shadows. His plays, like The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, delivered sharp jabs at the aristocracy, earning him both applause and enemies. His plays drew the King's ire and were banned, but later revived as operas by Mozart. By the 1770s, he wore many masks: dramatist, merchant, and secret agent for the French crown.

Scene from Marriage of Figaro

A Complex Script

But it was in a different kind of play where Beaumarchais truly found his calling. France, still sore from its defeat in the Seven Years’ War, saw a chance to poke Britain in the eye by aiding the American rebels. But Louis XVI, cautious of open war, needed plausible deniability. Beaumarchais's flair for drama made him the perfect man to orchestrate a covert operation. 

King Louis XVI

In 1775, he met with American agents in London, including Arthur Lee, a Virginia lawyer with a fiery patriot’s spirit. Lee’s stories of colonial resolve ignited a spark in Beaumarchais. Here was a cause that blended profit with principle—a chance to arm the rebels, weaken Britain, and help rearm France.

The Pitchman

Beaumarchais pitched his plan to Foreign Minister Comte de Vergennes with the enthusiasm of a man promoting a hit play. “Sire, the Americans need muskets, powder, and cannon,” he argued. “Let me supply them through a front—a trading company. France stays clean, Britain is caught off guard, and liberty wins.” Vergennes, no fool, saw the merit. 

Comte de Vergennes

By 1776, Beaumarchais had created Roderigue Hortalez & Compagnie, a front (a sort of shell) company that acted as both merchant house and espionage hub. With a million Livres from the French treasury (and another from Spain, persuaded by Beaumarchais’ silver tongue), our playwright got to work.

Secret Script

Imagine a busy office in Paris, clerks scribbling invoices, while in the back room, Beaumarchais haggles with arms dealers and dodges British spies. The operation was a dangerous game. Britain’s spies prowled the docks, looking for French interference. 

Back-room Scheming and Planning

Beaumarchais wrote coded letters, used aliases like “Durand,” and spun stories to mislead the enemy. One moment, he was a merchant shipping “cloth” to the West Indies; the next, he was smuggling muskets to American privateers. His ships, loaded with 200 cannons, 25,000 muskets, and tons of gunpowder, sailed under neutral flags to ports like Saint-Domingue, where American agents waited.

Stormy Reviews

But the sea was no friend to Beaumarchais. Storms, British patrols, and shoddy captains sank half his cargoes. Worse, the Americans were slow to pay. Congress, short on cash, sent promissory notes and tobacco instead of money. 

Stormy Seas, Secret Cargoes

Beaumarchais was under pressure but kept going, driven by a mix of ideals and ambition. His supplies arrived at critical moments for General Washington’s army. At Saratoga in 1777, American troops, armed with French muskets, crushed General Burgoyne’s redcoats—a victory that convinced France to join the war openly. Beaumarchais’ guns had tipped the scales.

The Clock Strikes

Despite his successes, Beaumarchais’ life was a risky balancing act. His enemies at court, jealous of his influence, whispered accusations of treason. His debts piled up as Congress delayed payments. In 1777, he faced brief exile after a duel gone wrong but bounced back, ever the survivor. His plays kept him in the public eye, their sharp wit echoing his own defiance. The Marriage of Figaro, banned for its cheek, was a jab at the old order—a nod, perhaps, to the American rebels he admired.

Resetting the Clock

By 1778, France’s formal alliance with America changed Beaumarchais’s role. His secret trading gave way to official French aid. But he kept scheming, running spy operations for Vergennes, uncovering British plans, and even outfitted ships for privateering to harass British trade.  These activities were less about traditional espionage and more about logistical coordination to disrupt British supply lines. For instance, Beaumarchais used his network to monitor British merchant vessels, enabling privateers to target them effectively, which indirectly supported the Allied war effort.

Doctor Franklin

His Paris home became a hub for American envoys like Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin, who valued his charm and connections. Franklin, in his fur cap and with a sly grin, called Beaumarchais “a genius in his way,” though he joked about Beaumarchais’ endless requests for repayment.

Winding Down

By 1779, his focus increasingly shifted to settling financial disputes with the Continental Congress over unpaid debts for earlier covert aid, decreasing his role in intelligence-gathering. The war’s end in 1783 didn’t bring peace for Beaumarchais. Congress owed millions, but American funds were limited. He spent years chasing debts, with his wealth shrinking.

Peace celebrated in Paris

The Clock Strikes Midnight

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, Beaumarchais supported its ideals but recoiled at its violence. Accused of hoarding arms, he fled to Germany, returning only after Robespierre’s fall. He died in 1799, his life a whirlwind of victories and setbacks.

Storming the Bastille Launched the Revolution

Curtain Call

Beaumarchais saw America’s fight as a reflection of his own struggles against privilege and authority. His plays mocked the nobility; his guns supported the rebels. He was a man full of contradictions—a courtier who despised tyranny, a profiteer risking everything for a cause.

The Triple Agent

 Game of Secrets

Paris, December 1776. The air was crisp with winter’s chill, and the Tuileries Gardens lay shadowed, their neat paths empty except for a single figure moving purposefully. Edward Bancroft, a doctor, scientist, and man of letters, slipped through the darkness, his breath fogging in the cold. In his coat pocket, a rolled letter to “Mr. Richards” rested, its ink written in a special code only the right eyes could decipher. To the world, Bancroft seemed to be a loyal American, a trusted aide to Benjamin Franklin. Still, tonight, as he approached a twisted box tree and slipped his message into a hollow, he played a different role: a spy for King George III.

Tuileries Gardens

New England Student

Born in Westfield, Massachusetts, in 1744, Edward Bancroft moved to Connecticut with his widowed mother after she remarried David Bull. There he was tutored by none other than Silas Deane, the schoolteacher who would become our Deane of Spires—America’s agent in Paris.

Home in 18th-century Massachusetts

Fake Physician

Young Bancroft was a quick study, but he was restless. At sixteen, he gave up an apprenticeship with a doctor in Killingworth to seek adventure in Dutch Guiana or Suriname. There, he assumed the mantle of a physician, treating plantation workers while pursuing his study of the natural world. A fateful acquaintance was made when Paul Wentworth, a wealthy plantation owner, hired Bancroft to survey his land. While there, Bancroft penned a semi-biographical novel as a homage to his employer, detailing the life of a planter.

Surinam: Dutch Guiana 

Celebrated Scientist

He made his way to London, where in 1769, his Essay on the Natural History of Guiana earned him recognition. He began calling himself “Doctor,” despite having no formal degree. He made the rounds in coffeehouses and intellectual salons, where he met Doctor Benjamin Franklin, the American colonial representative in London. Franklin recognized potential in Bancroft’s wit and worldly charm, and they soon became close friends. As the colonies moved down the road to rebellion, Bancroft’s pro-American writings—like his 1769 Remarks on the Review of the Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies—enhanced his patriot bona fides. 

Ben Franklin: Mentor and Mark?

Family Man

In 1771, Cupid’s arrow struck, and Bancroft married young Penelope Fellows, daughter of a prominent Catholic family. Ironic as Bancroft was, at best, a Deist. A son, Edward, was born in 1772, and the couple went on to have six more children.

Loyal Secretary

In 1776, Silas Deane arrived in Paris to seek French aid, as Congress’s representative (using a cover), he tapped his former student to help. Franklin, now an American commissioner, soon arrived, appointing his London acquaintance as secretary to the American delegation. To Deane and Franklin, Bancroft was a trusted employee, copying letters, translating dispatches, and organizing supplies for American ships. But beneath this front, a darker loyalty simmered—Bancroft was, in actuality, now a mole.

Silas Deane

What Went Wrong?

Before Bancroft left London for France, Paul Wentworth, now a recently recruited agent of the British Secret Service who ran a spy ring, approached him. Wentworth was an American-born loyalist who ran a British spy ring and had employed Bancroft when they were both living in Dutch Guiana. A meeting was arranged with William Eden, the head of the Secret Service, and a deal was struck. For $ 200 a year—later increased to $500, then $1,000—Bancroft agreed to betray his fellow Americans. 

William Eden

His motives were a mix of loyalty to the British Empire, financial ambition, and doubt about the chances of American independence. Believing that the colonies’ best future was within the Empire, he began a life in the shadows, engaging in a risky game—secretly passing information to the British while working for Franklin and Deane. In the spy parlance, he had perfect placement and access.

Dead Drops in the Dead of Night

On Tuesday nights, Bancroft carried out his secret routine. Using the alias “Edward Edwards,” he penned reports to a “Mr. Richards,” using invisible ink while cleverly disguising his intelligence reports within stories of romantic escapades. Details about American negotiations with France, troop movements, and Franklin’s personal thoughts would be slipped into a bottle, tied with a string, and hidden in a hollow in a Tuileries tree after 9:30 p.m. When Bancroft cleared the area (departed), a British agent from the embassy would make the pickup, leaving new orders, which Bancroft would gather later that night. America’s secrets were in the hands of William Eden and King George III just two days later.

George III 

Suspicious Colleague

Yet Bancroft’s game was filled with danger: Arthur Lee, an American diplomat, suspected betrayal. Of course, the prickly Virginian suspected everyone! Lee saw Bancroft’s stock speculations and rumored mistress as a red flag.  He warned Franklin and Congress in 1778, claiming there was evidence of Bancroft’s treachery. “I consider Dr. Bancroft a Criminal concerning the United States,” Lee wrote. But he had no proof. Franklin remained loyal to his friend and dismissed them. 

Arthur Lee

Sly Deception

Bancroft caught wind of these accusations and warned his friends. To avoid suspicion, the British staged a fake arrest of Bancroft, accusing him of aiding the rebels—a ruse that kept his cover intact. Lee’s warnings diminished, and Bancroft’s deception remained hidden.

Astounding Success

Bancroft’s actions were remarkable. He translated the commission’s correspondence, repaired American ships, and even advised John Paul Jones, all while passing secrets to London. In 1781, he stole Deane’s private letters, which revealed despair over America’s prospects and called for peace with Britain. Published in New York after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the stolen letters damaged Deane’s reputation, calling him a traitor. 

John Paul Jones

Post War Laurels

After the war ended, Bancroft’s reputation continued to grow. In 1783, he moved to England to secure his British pension, while continuing to correspond with Franklin. Bancroft’s scientific work thrived; his 1794 book, Experimental Researches Concerning the Philosophy of Permanent Colors. This earned him a fellowship at the Royal Society, and his patents for quercitron dye made him a wealthy man. Our secretary, double and triple agent, mole and scientist, died on 7 September 1821, at Addington Place in Margate.

Edward Bancroft

A Riddle

Was Bancroft a traitor to America or a patriot to Britain? The question hangs like fog over the Tuileries. Some historians suggest he was a British loyalist who truly believed in the Empire’s unity. Bancroft’s betrayal, though daring, did not destroy the American cause. Ironically, his intelligence, though detailed, often went unused by the British, who did not utilize his reports effectively. Why not? Did they suspect him of being a triple agent? Some speculate Franklin knew of his duplicity but let him operate under the adage of keeping friends close and enemies closer. 

A Spy at Work?

And an Enigma

Whatever the truth, his espionage activities remained hidden until 1891, when British archives revealed his treachery, shocking historians and damaging his legacy. Regardless of who he betrayed, Bancroft’s spying, though daring, did not destroy the American cause. That might just provide our answer—or not. Such is the dilemma of traversing the wilderness of mirrors.