"1. The Congress. ... 5. The protesting Lords. 7. Mr. Burke. . . 9. The friends of America in both houses of Parliament. . . . 11. The Whig's throughout the British Empire. . . . 14. May the strength of the British Constitution expel the poison of corruption. . . . 23. May the generous sons of St. Patrick expel all the venemous reptiles of Britain. . . . 28. The memory of the late noble. Lord Howe.”

Lord Howe, who was adored by the Americans that fought under him, and whose death at Ticonderoga in 1758 was commemorated by a monument set up in Westminster Abbey as a gift from the city of Boston, was the brother of the new Lord Howe, who commanded the advancing British fleet, and of Sir William Howe, who commanded the land troops.

Since it would have implied a dangerous Tory mind to refuse to pledge any of those thirty-one toasts and since the wine was Madeira, it may well be imagined that not all the guests could stand up for the last time, and that many of them must have found their thick tongues muffing the sonorous phrase, "Civil and religious liberty to all mankind."

Old General Putnam was certainly overcome, since Captain Gibbs of Washington's bodyguard, wrote to his "dear Penelope":

"Our good General Putnam got sick and went to his quarters before dinner was over, and we missed him a marvel, as there is not a chap in the camp who can lead him in the Maggie Lauder song." 40

Washington, however, was used to serial cups of Madeira, and in all the records of him there is no insinuation that he ever showed the effects of his countless potations.

Seven days later a soldier was executed for attempting Washington's assassination-and the soldier was a member of his own bodyguard.

XXVIII

THE PLOT TO ASSASSINATE HIM

AST night was discovered a most Infernal plott against the lives of Gen1 Washington & Putnem &c-Some of the Villains concerned are in safe custody among them are

L

Mr Matthews our Mayor Gilbert Forbes a Gunsmith, a fifer & Drum of Genl Washingtons Guard &c the particulars are not yet Transpiered, . . . whilst the Regulars made the attack some persons were to blow up the powder house & others were to destroy Kings brige to prevent reenforcements coming in from New England.

"In short the plott was a most damnable one & I hope that the Villains may receive a punishment equal to perpetual Itching without the benifit of scratching.'

So wrote the commissary general of the New York troops, Peter T. Curtenius, to Colonel Richard Varick on June 22, 1776. Another echo of the sensation is found in a letter written to his sister by Dr. Solomon Drowne, a surgeon in the American army:

"The whole was discovered (as I am informed) by a sergt of ye Guards, whom they wanted to take into the Plot, and who, having got what he cou'd from them, discovered all to the General.

"The Drummer of ye Guards was to have stabb'd ye General. The pretty Fellows are in safe Custody, and I hope I shall be able to give you a better account of them in my next."

Surgeon Eustis wrote:

"Their design was . . . to have murdered (with trembling I say it) the best man on earth: Genl Washington was to have been the first subject of their unheard of SACRICIDE."

The plot against Washington was threefold. He was to be poisoned, stabbed, and turned over to the British to be hanged.

In addition to this, it was said that the city was to be burned, and a powder magazine blown up; a mutiny was to break out in the army, Tory troops were to rise, and a naval attack was to be made on the city up both rivers.

If such a plan had succeeded, the Revolution might have been ended in a night, seeing that the Howes were coming in across the horizon. Nothing, however, is more dangerous in an assassination plot than covering too much territory and enlisting too many participants. Simplicity is of the very essence of an artistic assassination.

In the punishment of such plots the same faults are usual. Too many people are included, and cooling judgment acquits many who may, or may not, be lucky enough to escape execution by excited judges.

There is no reason to believe now that Mayor David Matthews was concerned in the design against Washington. There was not even evidence enough to bring about a trial, and he was sent into Connecticut as a prisoner under suspicion of "treasonable practices." He strove in vain to secure a hearing, and wrote to an old friend, the secretary of the Provincial Congress:

"I have made so many fruitless applications lately that I am almost discouraged putting pen to paper again. Is it not very hard Mr. McKesson that the Convention will not furnish me with some resolve or certificate to enable me to contradict a most hellish report that has been propagated, and is verily believed throughout this Colony, that I was concerned in a Plot to assassinate General Washington and blow up the Magazine in New York? The Convention well know that such a report prevails. They also know it is as false as hell is false. . . . May God only spare my life to meet my enemies face to face." 2

Washington wrote to Congress:

"The matter has been traced up to Governor Tryon; and the mayor appears to have been a principal agent or gobetween him and the persons concerned in it."

3

Yet there is probably no more justification for the accusation of Governor Tryon than for that of Mayor Matthews.

But cities are panicky things and Judge Daniel Horsmanden, who was still living, could remember the burning alive of twelve negroes and the hanging of eighteen other slaves in New York City in 1741 on a ridiculous charge that they had planned to burn the town. A frightened fifteen-yearold girl, an indentured servant, was the cause of that holacaust. Her testimony caused also the hanging of a young man for being a Catholic priest, a capital offence in New York until after the Revolution.*

The Commander-in-Chief's guard had existed for only three months, having been constituted March 12th, 1776, at Cambridge in a general order, dated the day before:

"The General being desirous of selecting a particular number of men as a Guard for himself, and baggage, The Colonel, or Commanding Officer, of each of the established Regiments, (the Artillery and Rifflemen excepted) will furnish him with four, His Excellency depends upon the Colonels for good men, such as they can recommend for their sobriety, honesty, and good behavior; he wishes them to be from five feet, eight Inches high, to five feet, ten Inches; handsomely and well made, and as there is nothing in his eyes more desirable, than Cleanliness in a Soldier, he desires that particular attention may be made, in the choice of such men, as are neat, and spruce.'

"5

He commissioned Caleb Gibbs of Massachusetts to be captain, and his own nephew, George Lewis, to be lieuten

When Washington returned from Philadelphia in June, 1776, without his wife, he took up his quarters in the Mor

tier House, later famous as Richmond Hill, Aaron Burr's country place; and the Guard was established close by.

Near at hand was a tavern kept by one Corbie, and there Gilbert Forbes, a gunsmith, apparently corrupted at least three members of the guard with money. These three were Thomas Hickey, the drummer, Greene, and the fifer, Johnson.

Hickey was an Irishman who had deserted from the British army and settled in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

The affair began in the Serjeant's Arms Tavern, where a certain waiter, William Collier, had his suspicions aroused by the whispering and letter writing of some of the patrons. He concealed himself in a closet and overheard enough to lead him to report the matter to a friend of Washington, who reported it to the provincial congress, which ordered the seizure of Gilbert Forbes. In his possession was found the copy of an Association entered into May 13th, 1776, by a group of men "deeply sensible of the miseries brought on this devoted country, by the wicked artifices of an ambitious faction."

They agreed to do their best to restore the authority of the King, by inculcating loyalty, and exposing the machinations of the "illegal and arbitrary congress," and frustrating their operations.

A number of letters were found, describing the various steps taken and the injuries endured.

Congress appointed a secret committee of enquiry, of whom three did most of the work, Philip Livingston, John Jay, and Gouverneur Morris.

Livingston's son, a clergyman, visited Forbes, the gunsmith, in his cell and by talk of his approaching death and promises of mercy, frightened him into making a confession accusing Hickey and other members of the Guard.