Edward Bartholomew Bancroft ( – September 7, 1821) was a
-born physician and chemist who became a
double agent, spying for both the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
while serving as secretary to the American Commission in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
during the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
.
Early life
Bancroft was born on January 20, 1745 in
Westfield,
. His father died of an epileptic seizure when Bancroft was two years old, and his mother remarried five years later to David Bull of
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
.
There Bancroft studied under
Silas Deane, a schoolmaster who later became an important politician and diplomat with whom he would work in Paris. At the age of sixteen, Bancroft was apprenticed to a physician in
Killingworth, Connecticut, but after a few years ran away. (Bancroft returned and repaid his debt to his former master in 1766.)
South America and London
On July 14, 1763, after fleeing his apprenticeship, Bancroft left New England for the sugar-producing slave colonies of Dutch Guiana, where he became a plantation doctor.
He soon expanded his practice to multiple plantations and wrote a study of the local environment. Based on observations of experiments already being performed on live eels by Dutch colonists in and around Surinam and Essequibo, Bancroft concluded that
American eels and
torpedo fish discharged electricity to stun their prey, rather than by imperceptibly swift mechanical action, as had previously been argued. Although he left South America in 1766, he published ''An Essay on the Natural History of Guiana, in South America'' in London 1769, where with the encouragement of
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
, he embarked on a career as a man of letters. Bancroft later wrote extensively about the chemistry of dyes, based in part on his work in Dutch Guiana, contrasting non-European dyeing techniques unfavorably with the learned "philosophical chemistry" of natural philosophers like himself.
In London, Bancroft's ''Natural History of Guiana'' (1769) attracted the attention of
Paul Wentworth
Paul Wentworth (1533–1593), a prominent English member of parliament (1559, 1563 and 1572) in the reign of Elizabeth I, was a member of the Lillingstone Lovell branch of the family.
Life
His father Sir Nicholas Wentworth (died 1557) was chi ...
,
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
's colonial agent in London, who hired Bancroft to survey Wentworth's plantation in
Surinam Surinam may refer to:
* Surinam (Dutch colony) (1667–1954), Dutch plantation colony in Guiana, South America
* Surinam (English colony) (1650–1667), English short-lived colony in South America
* Surinam, alternative spelling for Suriname
...
and make recommendations for more efficient operation. Bancroft spent two months there before returning to London. While in Surinam, Bancroft wrote a three-volume, semi-autobiographical novel, ''The History of Charles Wentworth, Esq''. The
epistolary novel, which follows the life of a plantation owner (with the same surname as his friend and employer), imitates
Voltaire's ''
Candide
( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, The ...
'' and reflects Bancroft's
deistic
Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin ''deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of t ...
beliefs, ridiculing passages in the Bible and criticizing Christianity for its "detestable spirit of intolerance and persecution."
In 1771 Edward married the twenty-two year old Penelope Fellows, daughter of a prominent Catholic family. A son,
Edward
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”.
History
The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...
, was born in 1772; they eventually had six more children. Bancroft was elected a
fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
in 1773 as "a gentleman versed in natural history and Chymistry, and author of the natural history of Guiana". In the summer of 1773, Bancroft joined the
Medical Society of London
The Medical Society of London is one of the oldest surviving medical societies (being organisations of voluntary association, rather than regulation or training) in the United Kingdom.
It was founded in 1773 by the Quaker physician and philanthrop ...
, though he did not receive his
M.D.
Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...
from the
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...
until 1774.
Spying for the Americans in London
When the
Committee of Secret Correspondence
The Committee of Secret Correspondence was a committee formed by the Second Continental Congress and active from 1775 to 1776. The Committee played a large role in attracting French aid and alliance during the American Revolution. In 1777, the Co ...
sent Silas Deane (Bancroft's former teacher) to France in 1776, Franklin instructed Deane to contact Bancroft, believing he would be a source of useful information. Deane arrived in France on June 7, 1776; the next day he wrote to Bancroft in London, asking him to come to Paris. In the letter, Deane said they would discuss procuring goods for trading with the
Indians
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
, and he enclosed thirty
pounds (a generous amount) for travel expenses. Deane did not mention political issues in case the letter was intercepted. Bancroft met with Deane on July 8 and learned that Deane's purpose in France was to win French aid for the Americans against Britain. While Bancroft declined the invitation to attend negotiations, he did serve as Deane's assistant and interpreter. Deane's negotiations resulted in France sending some supplies to the Americans.
Deane told Bancroft that American leaders hoped to embroil Britain in a war against other foes (specifically, an alliance of France and
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
), which they hoped would distract Britain. Though Deane and other Americans thought France would form an alliance, the ploy came to nothing. Nevertheless, it greatly troubled Bancroft. On July 26, 1776, Bancroft returned to London, assuring Deane that he would spy for the colonies.
In London, Bancroft sent copies of recent newspapers and pamphlets on current affairs and long letters to Deane to keep the Americans informed about the thinking of the British government and people. Bancroft arranged to have his dispatches smuggled into France in French diplomatic pouches to avoid having them opened by the London post office. In December 1776, the arsonist
John the Painter set a fire near the
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
dock and then visited Bancroft. Bancroft refused to give him any assistance.
Spying for the British
Though Bancroft had worked for Franklin and Deane, he was unenthusiastic about American independence, and the possibility of a French war against Britain alarmed him. Despite his promise to Deane, he had reservations about doing anything that might promote a rift between Britain and the American colonies.
In London he met Paul Wentworth, recently recruited by the British Secret Service. Wentworth arranged for Bancroft to meet Secret Service chief
William Eden and Lords
Suffolk
Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...
and
Weymouth, where Bancroft agreed to become a spy for Britain. A couple of days later, on August 14, 1776, Bancroft composed a nine-page report detailing what Deane had been able to accomplish since arriving in France. In early February 1777, Bancroft visited John the Painter while he was in prison in London.
Soon after this, Franklin arrived to take over the negotiations with France. Bancroft was ordered to associate himself with Franklin. Fortuitously, Franklin appointed Bancroft as secretary to the American Commission in Paris. On March 26, 1777, Bancroft departed London for Paris, where his wife and children joined him two months later. For his spying, the British promised Bancroft a pension of 200 pounds. (This amount was later increased to 500 and then 1,000 pounds.)
Bancroft assisted Franklin and Deane by copying letters and other documents, by translating diplomatic correspondence into French or English, and by arranging for repairs, hiring crews, and buying supplies for American ships in French ports. Thus Bancroft had access to much sensitive information that he was able to pass along to the British.
Bancroft reported under the cover of weekly letters to "Mr. Richards", signed "Edward Edwards", about "gallantry" (exploits with women). But between the lines of the cover text, Bancroft wrote his reports in a special ink. Every Tuesday after 9:30 PM, he put the letter in a bottle, tied a string around it, and left it in a hole in a certain
box tree
''Buxus'' is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood.
The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South ...
in Paris.
A British official retrieved the message and replaced it with new orders. Bancroft would return later that night to recover the bottle. Through this method,
George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
may have seen the
French-American Treaty of Alliance just two days after it was signed.
Bancroft was "successful but ineffective"; that is, though he gathered a good deal of information, the British were unable to prevent a Franco-American alliance.
In December 1777,
John Paul Jones arrived in France, expecting to be given command of the ship
''Indien'' being built in Amsterdam. Because of intelligence provided by Bancroft, the British successfully pressured the Dutch to cancel the sale of the ship. Nevertheless, with smaller vessels, Jones successfully raided coastal towns in England and Ireland and captured two British warships despite regular intelligence provided the British by Bancroft. Unaware that Bancroft was a British spy, Jones and Bancroft became close friends, and Jones even used him as an intermediary with Franklin. In the summer of 1777,
Arthur Lee charged that Bancroft had met with members of king's privy council; and in April 1778, a sea captain named Musco Livingston told Lee that in London he had seen a letter written by Bancroft that provided details about the French treaty before it had been signed. When Lee accused Bancroft of being a traitor, Jones came to his defense; and in early 1779, Jones convinced Livingston to retract his accusation. (Livingston's accusations had been true, but the rumor that Bancroft had met with the privy council was not.)
Franklin's possible knowledge of Bancroft's intrigue
On January 19, 1777, Franklin wrote to Juliana Ritchie, a woman living in a Benedictine convent in
Cambrai
Cambrai (, ; pcd, Kimbré; nl, Kamerijk), formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a city in the Nord (French department), Nord Departments of France, department and in the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, regio ...
, that even if he suspected his valet to be a spy, "as he probably is, I think I should not discharge him for that, if in other Respects I lik'd him."
Although some historians believe the letter indicates Franklin's suspicion of Bancroft, others have noted that after the war, Franklin remained on good terms with Bancroft while he shunned other
Loyalists, including his own son,
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
. The vast majority of historians reject the thesis that Franklin was in any way disloyal to the United States.
Death of Silas Deane
After the death of former American diplomat
Silas Deane in 1789 aboard a ship about to sail to America, Bancroft suggested in a private conversation that Deane had committed suicide. The following year an anonymous pamphlet, ''Theodosius'', attacked the scientist and clergyman
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...
by claiming that while dying, Deane had uttered blasphemous and atheistic statements that he had supposedly derived from Priestley. Priestley, who had never met Deane, pleaded with Bancroft to set the record straight. Bancroft responded by publishing in several newspapers an account provided by the ship's captain, which stated that Deane had become suddenly ill and had been unable to say anything comprehensible during the four hours before his death.
In 1959, historian
Julian Boyd suggested that Bancroft might have poisoned Deane, then spread rumors that Deane had committed suicide in an attempt to cover up the murder. In the years since Boyd's articles appeared, his thesis has been largely dismissed as "ungrounded conjectures"; nevertheless, the theory has been widely publicized in a popular American textbook: James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, ''After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection'' (Boston: McGraw Hill, 1982
ixth edition, 2010.
Life after the Revolutionary War
Following the Revolutionary War, Bancroft obtained patents to import
black oak
Black Oak may refer to:
Places in the United States
* Black Oak, Arkansas
* Black Oak, Daviess County, Indiana
* Black Oak, Lake County, Indiana, a neighborhood of Gary, Indiana
* Black Oak, Missouri
Other
* Black Oak Arkansas, American band
** ...
into Britain and France to be turned into a yellow dye called
quercitron
Quercitron is a yellow natural dye obtained from the bark of the Eastern Black Oak (''Quercus velutina''), a forest tree indigenous in North America. It was formerly called Dutch pink, English pink, or Italian pink.
The name is a shortened fo ...
; and he convinced John Paul Jones to invest a large sum in the business. In 1789 Jones accused Bancroft of fraud and withholding money owed him.
Gouverneur Morris tried to mediate the dispute, and Bancroft did make small payments to Jones; but when Jones died in July 1792, Bancroft apparently still owed him £1,800.
In 1794, Bancroft published ''Experimental Researches Concerning the Philosophy of Permanent Colors'', a book he updated in 1814.
[E. Bancroft (1814]
Experimental Researches Concerning the Philosophy of Permanent Colors, volume 1
volume 2
links from HathiTrust He was also elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1797.
Bancroft's wife, Penelope, died on May 10, 1784 at home in London while Bancroft was on a trip to Philadelphia. Bancroft himself died on September 7, 1821, at Addington Place in
Margate
Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and Westbrook, Kent, ...
. Bancroft's activity as a double agent was not revealed until 1891, when British diplomatic papers were released to the public.
See also
*
Intelligence in the American Revolutionary War
*
Intelligence operations in the American Revolutionary War
During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Army and British Army conducted espionage operations against one another to collect military intelligence to inform military operations. In addition, both sides conducted political action, c ...
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bancroft, Edward
1745 births
1821 deaths
18th-century American physicians
Double agents
People of colonial Massachusetts
Alumni of the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Fellows of the Royal Society
American deists
Critics of Christianity
British spies during the American Revolution
American spies during the American Revolution
People from Westfield, Massachusetts
British deists