KIDNAPPING GEORGE WASHINGTON

I am thankful that William Tyron, the Royal Governor of New York, was a little too sure of himself. Although American  “patriots” had chased Tyron out of New York City, he was still lurking, like a spider, a few hundred yards off shore, spinning his loyalist webs aboard the 74 gun “HMS Dutchess of Gordon”.

Each day sailors and royal marines from the "Dutchess" and the two other Royal Navy ships in the harbor, would row to shore for fresh water, to buy food, to even have their shoes repaired. But they also passed secret communications and funds to the loyalist mayor David Mathews.  The Tory mayor was described by a fellow loyalist  as "...a person low in  estimation as a lawyer, profligate, abandoned and dissipated, indigent , extravagant and voluptuous..." And this was the man Governor Tyron entrusted with hundreds of British pounds to "...bribe rebel soldiers to join the British cause.” Except perhaps, the loyalist mayor bribed too many soldiers.

New York City in 1776 was a crowded town of 25,000 at the southern tip of  today's Manhattan. Within that small community Tyron’s web of spies was strung between the city’s many taverns; “The Highlander” at Beaver Street and Broadway, and “The Sergeant At Arms” run by conspirator Alexander Sinclair.

Most significantly there was “The Corbie”, near Spring and Wooster Streets, which was just a few yards southwest of General Washington’s isolated headquarters on Richmond Hill (above).

And there was the “The Sign of the Sportsman”  on Broadway. It was owned and run by gunsmith Gilbert Forbes, “a short thick man”. Forbes waited patiently to buy ale for weary Continental soldiers and listen to their complaints. And in exchange for five gold guineas, he swore them in as members of the Governor’s conspiracy. It was Forbes who first swore in eighteen year old Sergeant Thomas Hickey, a member of General Washington’s Life Guards.

The 180 officers and men of the Life Guards were formed on 11 March, 1776 out of the regiments laying siege to Boston. They were intended as a personal guard for General Washington and his baggage. Washington’s orders called for “…good men, such as they can be recommended for their sobriety, honesty and good behavior " They were also handsome and in Washington's judgement, "well made”.

We know that Sergeant Hickey was a “black Irishman”, about 5' 6 inches tall, who must have been very dashing in his uniform because he was neither sober nor honest. He had deserted from the British Army, and had for some years lived in Wethersfield, Connecticut. And we know he was a man who liked money. Hickey claimed he only got involved in the conspiracy “…for the sake of cheating the Tories and getting some money from them”. We also know that Forbes had such hopes for his new recruit that he put Hickey on an allowance of 15 shillings a week. 

We know that Hickey brought with him into the conspiracy four other members of the Life Guards; drummer William Green, fifer James Johnson, and privates Micheal Lynch and John Barnes.  Hickey was paid a bounty for each of the men he induced to join the conspiracy.  But then on 15 June Sergeant Hickey and Private Lynch were both arrested for passing counterfeit continental dollars.

To finance the revolution two million Continental Dollars were printed on thick rag paper by Hall and Sellers of Philadelphia. Immediately counterfeiters began copying the sad little notes. An advertisement in the journal “Rvington’s Gazette” openly promised, “...They are so neatly and exactly executed…it being almost impossible to discover that they are not genuine”. Except not in the case of Sergeant Hickey. Once locked in the crowded three-story city jail, Hickey was warmly greeted by his fellow inmate Isaac Ketcham.
Ketcham was a  professional counterfeiter, caught buying large quantities of the rag paper in Philadelphia. He had been brought to New York to be tried, and might very well spend the rest of his life behind bars. In desperation he appealed to the patriot colonial council to release him in the name of his “six poor children”.  When that didn't work, Ketcham added that he had “…something to observe…entirely on another subject.” Behind closed doors on 20 June,  Ketcham confided that he had heard Hickey’s drunken boasts (liquor seems to have been in ample supply in that jail) that “…there were near seven hundred soldiers and civilians enlisted for the King".  Ketcham insisted Hickey said he "would he never again fight for the American cause.”

Poor General Washington. Besides being expected to defend a city surrounded by a thousand inlets and bays without any ships, he was now beset with spies and rumors of spies under every bed and bar in the city.  But the General could now compare Ketcham’s story with another warning he had received from Patriot town Mayor and businessman William Leary.  One of Leary's old employees,  James Mason, had also boasted about the loyalist plot. And there was also a warning from William Collier, a waiter at The Corbie.  Putting these three sources together, Governor Tyron’s plan became clear.

Just before the British Army was to land on Long Island - everybody knew it was coming -  loyalists would blow up or capture the Kingsbridge over the Harlem River, 13 miles north of the city. That would sever the only land connection between Manhattan and the mainland, trapping the Continental Army on the island.  In addition Loyalists militias were to screen the British landings. 

But most dastardly of all, royal Mayor Mathews later told a Royal Commission, “I formed a plan for the taking of Mr. Washington and his Guard, prisoners…”.  It must be assumed that failing to capture Washington, killing him was also an option. 

General Washington decided to crush the secret rebellion with one massive blow. At exactly one in the morning of Saturday, 22 June  colonial troops surrounded royalist Mayor Mathew’s house in Flatbush,  near the village of Brooklyn on Long Island. Mathews was safely arrested, and over the next several hours 20 other loyalist conspirators were taken into custody. Thomas Hickey was already in jail.   

On the Thursday, 27 June  Sergeant Hickey faced testimony from Private  Lynch and others who detailed his crimes in return for leniency.  In his defense Hickey claimed he had only wanted to cheat the Tories out of some money, and consented to having his name sent forward to Governor Tyon because he was a royal deserter and "...if the enemy should arrive and defeat the army here, and he might be taken prisoner, he would be safe."  The military court martial board did not buy his excuse. Hickey was quickly found guilty of ..."sedition and mutiny, and also of holding a treach’rous correspondence with the enemy, for the most horrid and detestable purposes.”  He was promptly condemned to be hanged until he was dead. 

The chosen arena was a small valley near the Bowery on Manhattan. At eleven o’clock the morning of Friday, 28 June 1776, a crying Hickey was marched to the scaffold with a clergyman at his side.  As the clergyman stepped away Hickey, “With an indignant, scornful air” wiped away his tears and “...assumed a confident look.” He muttered that one of the witnesses against him should be the next to hang.  

The blindfold was tied over his eyes, and Thomas Hickey then slowly chocked to death at the end of a rope in front of 20,000 members of the Continental Army and assorted civilian spectators.

The very next day, Saturday, 29 June,  four new British warships dropped anchor in outer New York harbor. They were the vanguard of 130 ships carrying 34,000 troops which would arrive over the next week.  In the face of that fleet the patriots of New York might have been more willing to listen to the siren song of Governor Tyron.  But he had recruited too many agents too quickly. There were too many rumors swamping the city.  And General Washington was too competent not to have paid attention to them. And in all of that the citizens of the young nation (the Declaration of Independence would not be voted on for another week) were very fortunate George Washington was in charge.

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