 Thank you for coming. Can everyone hear me? Okay. Great. Thank you, John. It is my third time here, so it's a real pleasure. I feel a little intimidated with a grippa over there staring down at me, so I better do good here. I'll just do that. First I just want to click it here. Oh, you've got to turn it on. I hate technology, too. These are my first two books. The first book, Rhode Island Campaign, is about the French and American, the first time the French got involved in the Revolutionary War, and it was right here in Newport. So I went through a lot of French naval records, and of course the American Army records. Fascinating story, definitely the most complete history of the conflict. A lot of it happened right outside the porch here and in the bay when the French ran up the Narragansett Passage, and also the most accurate detailed description of the Battle of Rhode Island. And the other one is Kidnapping the Enemy. I spoke on that about a year ago. That's half of the book. It's about captured Prescott up here at Prescott Farm by William Barton, for Barton's name. So a great story. The other half is the capture of General Charles Lee. Barton captured Prescott so he could exchange Prescott for Lee. Lee was definitely one of the more eccentric officers on either side of the conflict in the Revolutionary War. For example, he always had a pack of dogs following him. Now these days dogs are very common. But back then it was seen as eccentric. And one time a genteel young woman went up to him and said, General Lee, do you like dogs? And he said, yes, madam, but I detest bitches. That's the kind of guy he was. What can I say? Both these are on sale at the gift shop as well as the spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island. This is not working out. Now I want to mention the new website. And thanks, John, for mentioning that. We have an article every week on Rhode Island history. It's intended for a popular audience. They're short articles. We have a team of 25 established Rhode Island history authors on board. You know, Pat Conley, the historian Laureate, has done an article. Frank Grzib, Russell D. Simone of Aquedinic Island. Fred Zillion is on the team. So definitely encourage you to check it out. And as a matter of fact, if you'd like an email from me announcing the new article for the week, please put your name down on this sign-up list. I'd appreciate it. And I have Commander Johnson's pen in my hand, so I'm hoping to get that back at the end. But I really hope you can sign up. I'll give you two just in case. Here's the pen. Okay, my talk today is about spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island. And one feature of spies is that they were normally ordinary people. They weren't officers. They weren't wealthy persons or famous persons. But these ordinary people risked their lives to promote the cause they believed in. And the cause wasn't just the patriot cause to support independence from Great Britain. It was also the loyalist cause of retaining the crown as the Great Britain as the mother country. In effect, there was a small-scale civil war here in Rhode Island. And both sides had family members whose descendants went back to the 17th century in Rhode Island. Now, there are three periods I'm going to talk about. The first during the Revolutionary War. And the first period is from April 1775 to April 1776. At that time, Captain James Wallace had a small fleet of warships, and he terrorized Narragansett Bay. And threatened Newport with bombing but never actually did it. But he did raid Jamestown and burned some buildings and killed a few people. The second period started in December 1776 when the British occupied Newport. And they did so for three years. The third period after the British left was from July 1780 to September 1781, when a French fleet and army allied with the American army occupied Newport. Now, don't be deceived that just because this book is about little old tiny Rhode Island that the events were important. They were. If the Americans and French had been able to capture Newport from the British in 1778, that could have ended the war. It could have been an early Yorktown. And when the French arrived in Newport in 1780, General Clinton, the British commander, wanted to attack the French and drive them. And if he had been able to defeat them, he could have driven the French out of the war. Now, the history of spying is about stories. I can only tell you a few of them today, but I'll start with Walter Chaliner, who was a staunch loyalist, who was the sheriff of Newport County for seven years before being dumped by patriots in 1774. Now, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, an American army surrounded Boston. But there were some loyalists in that area, and they wanted to escape. So some of them came down here, and Walter Chaliner helped to have them transported on board Captain Wallace's ships in Narragansett Bay. Now, one night, Chaliner's main assistant, William Crossing, helped by an unnamed African-American man, rode more loyalist escapees to Captain Wallace's ship, the HMS Rose, in Narragansett Bay. Here's a drawing by Captain Wallace of the HMS Rose, the one on the left. So he was, Captain was a very good drawing. He was a terrible person, but he was a good, good drawer. And of course, you might remember the replica of the HMS Rose that John Millar started. And if you don't know, it was used in the Pirates of the Caribbean as a ship and in Master and Commander. Now, at the time, one of the men on board this ship was an American sailor. He had been captured earlier in the day. And when he went to the fire to warm himself by the fire on board the Rose, he recognized William Crossing. And later, the next day, the sailor was allowed to go back to Newport. And this man went directly to Patriot authorities. And he said, I saw William Crossing on board the Wallace's ship. And that meant that William Crossing was helping Captain Wallace. So Crossing had to go into hiding immediately. And Walter Chaliner was known to be a good friend and close to Crossing. So he was hassled by Patriot guards. Eventually, Chaliner said, I need to escape. I need to get away. Otherwise, I would be put in jail. All the boats had been taken up because they didn't want Crossing to get to Wallace. So Chaliner found a long wooden plank, brought it to the Newport wharves and said to a buddy of his carpenter, make me a seat. So we made him a seat. And then one night, he brought the plank down to the water and started to row to the Wallace's ship two miles away. Can you believe it? During his perilous journey, he experienced, quote, very great danger and fatigue. Choppy water overset his plank several times. But being very strong and determined not to die after several hours hard labor, he finally reached and boarded the British ship. Now we jump to the British occupation of Newport and the rest of Equinic Island, which started in December 1776. And here's a nice image of an early 20th century. And you can see the British flat boats carrying the red coats toward Middleton and Weaver's Cove. The Americans couldn't handle this great expeditionary force, so the British easily took Equinic Island as well as Jamestown. Here's a classic picture of Newport. You can see the church spires. There were more than seven denominations in Newport and the oldest Jewish synagogue in North America. Now, the British and Americans immediately started creating their own spy networks. The punishment for being caught as a spy was hanged, being hanged. And an officer was not granted the more humane alternative of being shot by a firing squad. And here's a famous, most famous spy who was hanged, at least for British spy. That was John Andre. He was convicted as a spy and he did not appear in officer's clothing and he was hanged, even though he wanted to be shot. He begged Washington to be shot, but Washington did not agree. Now, my sister said at an earlier program this week that it's kind of gruesome to have this up here for 10 minutes, so I'm going to go to the one after it. Now, I'm aware of only one person who was hanged as a spy in Rhode Island. His name was John Hart. He probably hailed from Little Compton. Hart was part of a bold British plan to circulate counterfeit continental money in New England, so the idea was he would give it to his loyalist buddies in Rhode Island. Loyalist buddies would pay their taxes with it and then it would help to ruin the local economy. In addition, Hart was using Newport as a base. He would sneak over across the bay in the Narragansett North Kingstown, recruiting soldiers for loyalist regiments that were forming in Newport. He also at one time tried to capture delegates to the State General Assembly when the General Assembly was meeting in Kingston, Rhode Island, but his days were numbered. George Washington himself warned Rhode Island authorities about the counterfeiting plot and General James Varnum of East Greenwich led a party one night looking for Hart. His party would come across Tories in the road and they would threaten them with hanging and worse if they didn't disclose where Hart was. Finally they found out, they surrounded a house in Exeter and they captured Hart. Hart admitted he was brought to Providence. He admitted his offenses at a court marshal. He was convicted of being a spy and a few days later he was hanged. So they had quick justice in those days. It should be noted around this time that several loyalist spies in the Hartford area doing the same thing that Hart was doing were also hanged. Interestingly not all spies were hanged. Ebenezer's Slocum of North Kingstown was a staunch Tory and he admitted to crossing over, sorry I'll take questions afterwards, thank you. Ebenezer's Slocum of North Kingstown admitted crossing over from Narragansett to Newport, Newport, meeting with the British commander in chief on two occasions, but he wasn't hanged. He was put in jail for several months and then released. Now the most spectacular success of any spy in the Rhode Island theater was by Isaac Goodman of Newport. He was a Jewish doctor who had immigrated to Newport in 1774. So he didn't have enough time to be inculcated with the independent spirit of Rhode Island. It had only been here a few years. So he was a loyalist. He agreed to service a spy in 1777, early 1777. He went to the mainland with the goal of trying to find out are the Americans trying to form an expeditionary force to take over Newport and the rest of Equinic Island. With his German accent making him stand out, he was quickly identified as a Tory and put in jail. And he languished in jail for months. Meanwhile, New England forces finally were indeed forming a expeditionary force to attack the British garrison in Newport. It was a secret expedition. So you had drafts of troops from Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, mostly Cape Cod area, thousands of them coming to Tiberton. So they would come to Halin's Ferry, Fogler Ferry, and they were going to invade Equinic Island. Back in Providence some months earlier, Goodman had been released. He had a court date, but no one showed up to testify against him. Rather than escape back to Equinic Island, he decided to continue his spying activities. And he apparently made friends with American officers because he knew all about this expeditionary plan to attack Equinic Island. Back on Equinic Island, the British commander had no idea. He was about to send 20% of his force to raid New Bedford. But at one o'clock in the morning on the very day that the Americans were going to invade across the Sakana Channel, Goodman was escorted into the headquarters of the British commander. Stunned, the British commander canceled the expedition's outside Rhode Island and put his men on high alert. And after that, the expedition called Spencer's expedition really had no chance of succeeding. Now during Spencer's expedition, the Americans had their own spy, William Taggart Sr. And he lived about three miles east of New Port, in the eastern part of Middletown. His son, William Taggart Jr., would secretly roll over from Little Compton. His son was an officer in the American Army and visit his father's house in British-occupied Equinic Island. The son would obtain accurate reports from his father where the troops were located, where the regiments were located, artillery and placements. And then he would go back the same night and he would meet with General Spencer, the American general. Now the British spy, Isaac Goodman, almost uncovered William Taggart Sr.'s secret work at his crucial meeting with the British commander. Goodman stated that the Americans, quote, have exact intelligence of everything doing on Equinic Island and that some rebels were lately at the house of a person who conveys information to them. Goodman must have some really good loose-lipped contacts to find out that information. Fortunately for the Taggarts, he didn't know the name of the Taggarts or the exact house in Middletown. Still, matters didn't turn out very well for the Taggarts. After the second invasion attempt, Taggart decided to escape across the Count of China to join the Americans. The British found out that he was the spy and the British commander ordered the German troops to level his house. So his barn and everything was, quote, dirt. Now, I write about several women who were spies. It was thought by some that women could not work as spies, but of course that made them even more effective spies. Are there any female spies out there today? They're good at spying, I think. There was Mary Wenwood, who traveled to Newport to work for the second most infamous spy in New England history, Dr. Benjamin Church. Who was it? Actually, I should say traitor and spy. Who was the most famous traitor and spy in New England history? Benedict Arnold, whose father was a governor of a grandfather was a governor of Rhode Island. The best female spy was Anne Bates. Anne never entered Rhode Island, but she worked as a British spy during the Rhode Island campaign during July and August of 1778. After she was recruited in British held New York City, so the British held New York City, she disguised herself as a peddler selling threads and ribbons and needles, which infantry soldiers needed. She was able to travel to Washington's camp near White Plains, and she would count the artillery pieces. She would identify regiments and brigades and their locations. Importantly, she tried to find out whether the Americans were sending reinforcements to the east to Rhode Island to help with the siege of Newport. On one occasion, she even entered the house then being used as Washington's headquarters and saw General Washington and overheard a general talking about invading Long Island. She would make grueling trips between New York City and back to Washington's camp. Here's a copy of a report by a British, her handler, a British Secret Service officer. You could see, it starts with, she went into camp. It was always the woman or she, it never named her. But this would go on for pages. Fortunately, it was good handwriting, so I could read it. Unfortunately, in September 1778, she saw a British deserter in camp who knew her. So the British deserter left, British regiment came to the Continental Regiment in White Plains. That put her in a dangerous position, so she stopped spying on Washington's camp at that point. In her pension application years later, she made the claim that her warnings to British bymasters of Lafayette, going with reinforcements towards Rhode Island, led British Clinton, General Clinton, to send his own reinforcements, which saved the British garrison. But several historians have agreed with that, and they've claimed that Anne Bates is one of the most effective spies in early Great Britain history. But the timing doesn't work. I discovered from this British memorandum book in the Library of Congress that she didn't tell her British handlers that Lafayette had left for Rhode Island with reinforcements until August 19th. But in fact, Lafayette left on July 22nd. And the French Navy, the large expeditionary force, arrived right out here in the tip of Narragansah Bay on July 29th. So the timing doesn't work. But still, she was a remarkable woman and a talented spy. Now, during the Rhode Island campaign in August 1778, American General John Sullivan was on the lookout to hang any spies. And here's an image of the siege of Rhode Island. This is not the battle of Rhode Island. I bought this on eBay for $100, so keep your eyes open. You can see the British soldiers to the left with their bearskin caps. I like the soldiers on the right with their floppy hats. And on the right, in the distance, you can see the artillery being fired from a hill and then landing on Honeyman's Hill in Middletown, which is near Easton's Palm. Now, General James Varnum of East Greenwich advised Sullivan that it is absolutely necessary to hang some person as a spy in terrarium to prevent intelligence from your army to the enemy. When a real spy cannot be obtained, a scoundrel under the influence of Toryism may be deemed a proper villain. Wow, that Varnum was cold-blooded. He accused the Tory of being a spy, and the unfortunate man was put on trial, but he was found not to be a spy and was released. Meanwhile, the British bemoaned the fact that they had no spies to provide them with intelligence of what they really wanted to know, which was where is Sullivan going to attack? As an alternative, they adopted another strategy, kidnapping civilians, mainly in Jamestown and Narragansett. Here's what two kidnapped civilians from Jamestown on August 2nd, 1778 reported. The account of these people is that a very formidable attack will be made unless very soon. Sullivan, with 15,000 men being in our neighborhood, they talk of making four different attacks, viz. One from Cananacut or Prudence Island, one from the east side from Foglan under the cover of French frigates, and the principal one on the north end of the island from Howlin's Ferry. Dostang, who commands the French fleet, is pressing them to commence their operations as soon as possible, but the rebels are not yet in readiness. Wow, I could not have given a more accurate description of my book of the current situation at that time. It just shows to go, shows, it goes to show how civilians obtained sensitive military information, just the new spread like wildfire. Rhode Island had its own Benedict Arnold. The trader's name was Metcalfe Bowler. Prior to the war, he was one of the richest men in Rhode Island. He was a haughty Newport merchant, and he owned one of only two horse-drawn coaches in the colony. There's a picture of a portrait of his wife in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, obviously wearing a nice silk blue dress with ruffles. He represented the colony in the Stamp Act Congress, and he was a prominent son of liberty. He was Speaker of the House of Deputies in the General Assembly after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and he supported the Patriots. But within days of General Clinton landing British troops in Newport in 1776, Bowler sent him a letter offering his assistance as a spy. It appears he was motivated to save his fine house in Portsmouth, and he had one of the best gardens in all of New England. Now after the Rhode Island campaign ended, General Clinton visited Newport and met with Bowler. The two agreed that Bowler would send written reports that only Clinton would read. Clinton then was then based in New York City. Now Bowler wasn't much good as a spy if he was in Portsmouth, so he agreed that he would move to Providence, and that's where the headquarters of the American Army were in Rhode Island. Their Bowler sometimes met with the commanding general Horatio Gates, who would bluster that he would hang the first spy that he met. Bowler somehow sent secret messages to Captain Henry Savage here in Newport, and then Savage would forward them by ship to New York City to Clinton. On one occasion, Bowler even informed Clinton that a strong brigade of Continentals had departed Providence, so that Providence was vulnerable to an attack, and he recommended that Clinton attack Providence, and burn it down, so pretty shocking. Fortunately, Clinton wasn't interested in raiding Providence at that time. Now Bowler lived out his days in Providence struggling as a small shopkeeper. He served the minor government positions. He was never allowed into the back into the leading positions. You can see he signed his name here, M. Bowler. In 1786, he even sent George Washington a book he wrote on agriculture, which was found in Washington's library at his death. Had Washington known he was a spy, I don't think he would have kept it. Bowler's role as a spy was not uncovered until historians found his letters to Clinton in the 1920s. The most successful American spy in Rhode Island, Theater of War, was the unobtrusive Isaac Barker. He was a 26 year old man living in Middletown, about three and a half miles east of New Port, and importantly he was a mile from the Sakana Channel, so he wasn't right on the coast. Barker was active after the Rhode Island campaign from September 1778 to October 1779. I have found 38 reports that Barker made for the commanding general Horatio Gates. Barker was assisted by Lieutenant Seth Chapin of Sherburne's Regiment of Continentals. The 24 year old Chapin was stationed with a small party of men on the coast in Little Compton, and Chapin and Barker worked out a system of signals. So Barker would have a stake and a crutch on a stone wall. He would position at certain ways and convey certain information. For example, that there was a Tory fleet that was heading out to Nantucket, which happened several times. Now sometimes, well, here's a map of Middletown. You can see the Barker house right there, and a distance from the coastline where he would go. So he was a little bit protected because he wasn't right on the coast. Sometimes the message was for Chapin to ride over in a boat at night and pick up a secret message under a large rock on the coast. And here's a picture of that rock today. Barker was so effective at conveying intelligence that the British began to suspect that there was a spy working in that area. But he was effective at not getting caught, and he never was caught. General Gates once sent intelligence from Barker to Samuel Adams in Boston. Gates wrote, it comes from a person who was never deceived in the information he procures from Bird Island. After the war, Barker's application for a revolutionary pension was rejected. The reason was he had never enlisted. So even though he was risking his life for the American cause, unlike other soldiers who served in the war, he wasn't given a pension. You can see his pension application I found in the National Archives rejected. But knowing he had to make the best case to get a pension, it was good for us because he had a very detailed pension application. Here's part of his pension application. Not a very good map maker, but at the top are some of the signals that he used. Now on July 10, 1780, a French fleet carrying some 6,000 French soldiers commanded by Lieutenant General Rochambeau arrived off Newport. And here's Rochambeau greeting his troops who were landing on the on the Long Wharf in Newport. The plan was to use Newport as the primary base of French operations against the British. Meanwhile the British commander-in-chief Henry Clinton wanted to attack the French in Newport before the French could establish their defenses. And if he succeeded he could drive France out of the war. Here's an image of General Clinton. This is the background of a number of amazing spy stories dealing with Newport, only a few of which I can mention here. Part of the story involves the Culper Spy Ring, which was the focus of AMC's turn cable television series and the best-selling book, George Washington's Secret Six. Prior to the arrival of the French at Newport, General George Washington called on the services of the Culper Spy Ring and he says, hey I need you to tell me if General Clinton is planning to invade Newport. And that ring was based in Long Island. So Major Benjamin Talmadge, Captain Caleb Brewster, Abraham Woodhol, Austin Rowe, Robert Townsend, they did brilliant work. And they discovered and reported about Clinton's large force gathering on the north side of Long Island. Within ten days of the request they gathered the intelligence and sent it to Alexander Hamilton, who was Washington's young aide at Washington's headquarters. At the time Washington's headquarters were across the Hudson River. Hamilton then sent an urgent message by express to the Marquis de Lafayette. At that time Lafayette was going east. He left a few days earlier heading to Rhode Island to meet with his French buddies. This intelligence from the Culper Spy Ring is sometimes credited with alerting General Rochambeau and the American Commanding General at the time William Heath of the planned invasion by Clinton, which allowed them to prepare their defenses and fend off the invasion. Here's a beautiful French map. You can see where French had artillery on where Fort Adams is, on Goat Island, on Rose Island, and they had their ships lined up as well and in between the islands and the firing line was right in the middle there and if the British fleet wanted to go up Narragansett Passage, that's what they would have faced. Now the first word received by General Heath of Clinton's plans did not come from the Culper Spy Ring. Instead it came from the Sloup Gates, who's captain boldly sailed it from Stonything, Connecticut evading the British blockade of Narragansett Bay and arriving at the Newport Wars about 3 p.m. on July 24th. The Sloup carried Samuel B. Webb, a colonel of a continental regiment named after him, who was then on parole as a former prisoner. Webb had actually been captured in Long Island Sound as he was on a boat about to raid Long Island. He was brought to Newport and he was generously and quickly paroled and allowed to go back to his home in Weathersfield, Connecticut, to sit out the war until he was exchanged. But when he heard from his pal Major Talmidge that the French Free had arrived in Newport, he thought well I'd like to go visit them and some of my friends in Newport, so he and four buddies did that. But it was a risky adventure, their ship could have been caught by British frigates in Long Island Sound. Now after leaving Central Connecticut coast on July 18th and making their way over in a leisurely fashion, they arrived in Stonyton on July 23rd and they heard the stunning news of Clinton's imminent attack on Newport. When they arrived in Newport the next day, they brought with them a written statement from one Clark Pratt, who had left Long Island on July 23rd, probably by whale boat, then crossed over to Stonyton. On Long Island, Pratt had met a man who had departed York City on July 21st and this man informed Pratt that the British troops had embarked on the ships carrying them to the eastward, they numbered about 10,000 and that they were on transports poised to head to Newport and invade Newport. Webb's actions delivering this valuable intelligence against the interests of the Crown violated his parole, but he felt it was important to do. He then immediately penned letters to the Rhode Island governor and the general in charge of the militia in southeastern Massachusetts asking for a militia to be raised as quickly as possible and to send reinforcements to Newport. The message from the Culper Spying Ring wasn't the second warning to arrive in Newport either. That honor went to Colonel Henry Babcock from Westerly, Rhode Island. Babcock, it seems, had met the same man who had recently arrived from Long Island at Stonyton. Babcock sent his children's tutor and Mr. Whitman to deliver the written message. Despite the way the matter addressed in his letter, let's see, I think we got mixed up here. Babcock made a trivial request of Heath to allow Whitman to board the French flagship. So this Whitman is the tutor and he says, as Mr. Whitman was never on board a ship of the line before, so not that anyone else had either. Babcock sent another message the next day about a gentleman who had been on Long Island and who stated that, quote, the British officers flatter themselves of entirely captivating both the French fleet and army of his most Christian majesty. Now the express rider carrying Hamilton's dispatches from New Jersey finally arrived at Lafayette's headquarters at midnight on July 25th. So while the Culper spine ring performed highly dangerous and excellent work, they should not be given all the credit. Washington had other intelligence sources to draw upon. Now General Clinton in turn wanted his own intelligence. He wanted to know, have the French established their defenses? Have they put artillery out? Have American reinforcements arrived? He needed a spy and he got it in the form of Thomas Hazard who was a small Newport merchant and a farmer from North Kingstown. Hazard surreptitiously arrived from Long Island and he departed the same way. He gave Clinton a detailed map and report of the French defenses and the recent arrival of the Rhode Island and Massachusetts militia. This is in Clinton's papers in the Clement Library. You can see, similar to that map before, he shows the ships and on either side of Goat Island, then called Fort George and he says 5,500 have embarked. Those are the French troops and 2,000 militia have arrived as reinforcements. As it turned out, due to British missteps and miscommunication, as well as Hazard's report, Clinton did not attack the French forces in Newport. So the French were here to stay in Newport, waiting for an operation to use their Navy and Army forces to defeat the British. Then a Tory spy ring in Newport began to operate. The Tory spies were led by Dr. John Halliburton of Newport. He was a Scottish immigrant doctor. He was known to be a Tory, but because he was a doctor, it was important to have him so they let him stay in Newport. Now one at a time, Tories would sneak out of Newport to the British fleet in Long Island Sound and to General Clinton, headquartered in New York City and they would tell them about French military developments. For example, in early February 1781, Halliburton sent out Tory William Brenton from Newport, of course you know Brenton Neck, Brenton Park, to warn British commanders of French plans to send out a squadron of ships with 1,300 soldiers on board to attack Portsmouth, Virginia. At that time, Benedict Arnold had a small British army in Portsmouth. He had turned traitor at that time. So they were going to combine with American forces and try to capture Arnold and his troops. But Brenton left Newport, found out about this information, got in touch with the British Admiral in Long Island Sound and the British Admiral quickly sent his own fleet to Portsmouth and they actually arrived at Portsmouth before the French fleet. They took a shortcut along the coast where the French kind of looped around. After a short and sharp engagement, the French returned to Newport and their mission had failed all because of the spy. Here's a nice pen and ink drawing that the French did of the French ships arriving back in Newport. Now, American counter-espionage efforts made the following discovery of where the Tory spine ring meant in Newport, at least for a time. They met at the boarding house on Thames Street operated by Mary Olmey who was a strong Tory whose son had escaped to New York City. Mary was quite a character. Her husband actually fought on the American side during the Rhode Island campaign. She once wrote to her husband, My dislike of the nation that you call your friends, meaning the Patriots, is the same as you knew me. And she called America's new allies Cursed Frenchmen. So she was a staunch Tory. The Americans filed the following report on Mary Olmey's house. This house stands alone, is near the wharf to which is an entrance by a garden door. There are many false secret entries. It belongs to Walter Chaloner, remember him? It is occupied by a widow who has three children. Another son stays at New York. This last man comes regularly once a week and arrives in an open boat and gets into the garden. At night a Negro woman lets him in the house by a back door. There he finds 10, sometimes 15 persons who come half after night and stay until within an hour of daybreak. During the meeting there are always sentries at the four corners of the house. These meetings have been held regularly since the arrival of the French troops at Newport. They have stopped two days since. It is thought they meet in another house but we don't know where. Now how did the Tory spies get to the British off of Long Island and New York City? Typically they would take a small boat from Newport across the bay to Jamestown and then to the mainland Narragansett. Then they would head toward the beaches. There they might have a prearranged assignment to be picked up by a small boat sent by a British frigate. If they didn't then Tories could give them small boats and they could make their way and go to Block Island which was dominated by the British Navy and then from there they could just hop over to Long Island and ride down to New York City. You can see how close everything is. On August 3rd, 1780 Joseph Babcock of Westerly informed Red Island's governor the following. Last night a man since supposed to be a spy inquired whether there was no way to cross over from the beach at Westerly to Block Island. Babcock continued this fellow though dressed like a tar meaning a sailor outwardly yet was accidentally observed to be well dressed underneath. Later they saw small British boats from British frigates off the coast but Fogg then obscured the boats. Now I don't have time to describe all of the spy efforts by the Tories operating out of Newport. I will say that on August 1781 Dr. John Halliburton conveyed accurate intelligence to General Clinton that the French were vulnerable to attack in Newport and they really were. And if Clinton had attacked he would have definitely crippled the French effort but Clinton was stymied by and doing so by his own Royal Navy and the Tories in Newport were unable to discover the most important intelligence of the war and that is that of strong powerful French fleet was sailing from the Caribbean and would cooperate with the French fleet in Newport and Washington's army and trapped the British army at Yorktown. Here's an image of Rochambeau and Washington meeting at Yorktown at the Great Victory. Now even after the stunning loss by the British at Yorktown the war continued for two more years. They continued to hold New York City. Dr. Halliburton remained in Newport but then one of his old couriers arrived in Newport of course spies need couriers to go from here to there and this courier tried to blackmail him and succeeded for a while. Frightened that he would be discovered as a spy Dr. Halliburton decided to escape to Newport and travel by small boat to British Hale Long Island. In the depth of winter in February 1782 aided by only one man Halliburton took a small boat and headed to Long Island but then the two men suddenly found themselves in a fierce winter storm that almost tossed him out of the boat. With the onset of frigid weather their boat became quote enclosed in a body of ice. And the poor doctor remained there for five hours even though he was just 100 yards from the Long Island shore. Finally he got to land and he made his way to Newport to meet with General Clinton. In a meeting with General Clinton Halliburton complained about the low reward he was offered for his buying services. He told Clinton to his face with a plainness of character that if my intelligence had made proper use of his majesty's affairs would have worn a very different aspect. Despite this impertence Clinton gave the doctor a pretty generous award and he continued to serve as a doctor for the British Navy at Halifax, Canada. Now there are lots more stories to tell but I don't have time to tell them. You have to read the book to find out. Thank you. Yes? Who did all the hanging in the Army or the other civilians? You said the hanging these guys got on and this guy I mean they did with the different courts? Different courts. It was a court martial that John Hart was hanged. It was an American military court martial that most of the people that were hanged were actually deserters. The British hanged one or two deserters. Now there were lots of British and German deserters who escaped to the American across the bay to start a new life and the Americans hung one too in Providence and threatened to hang a lot more. The Americans weren't necessarily going over to join the British they were trying to go back home. One more question. What happened to all the rum the slave traders super traded went on? That just went on and nobody ever deserved it? No it pretty much stopped because you had the American privateers actually stopped the British slave trade. The British slavers were the biggest slavers. I mean Newport and Rhode Island was definitely the biggest slave traders in the 13 colonies but by far the biggest slave traders were the British and American privateers including from Rhode Island stopped that trade. I came across one situation where Crep and George Babcock he was actually John Hart tried to capture George Babcock George Waite Babcock and later Babcock was captain of a privateer he went to Africa he must have known the area and he captured a bunch of British slavers he brought 300 slaves to South Carolina sold them there. So that was one of the most successful privateer ventures of the war. Thank you. But after the war it started up again of course. Where do you find the written reports that you've been showing us? Well in various places you know it's not easy to research about spies you know it's tended to be secret so it could be tricky. The best source was probably Clinton's papers at most of which are held at Clement Library and Ann Arbor, Michigan. There are I've quoted some letters from Rhode Island State Archives also American reports Washington records and the Library of Congress and a fair bit of written material too that's been published over the years but it was really a challenge to bring it all together to to make this book. A couple things it was Benedict Arnold the governor who ordered guns on God Island to fire in support of a smog not a British ship in support of a smuggler I don't know if you were aware of that. Well I think that was Stephen Hopkins. In the earlier one. You think that was in an earlier one? Yeah. In 1680 or something? Yeah. And also did you ever run into Captain Eldridge from Jamestown? Captain Eldridge. Was he the have I run into Captain Eldridge from Jamestown? Not that we brought in for you. Yeah. Yeah. You know Legend of Sleepy Hollow you never know what's but was he the one who was he had the gun in Jamestown? Yeah. He found the gun and just set himself up in businesses and artillery batteries. Yeah. Well he he fired a gun at Captain Wallace's ships and and there against the bays from Jamestown and Captain Wallace didn't like it so he sent a rating party to Jamestown and they killed one 80 year old man they shot him in the stomach and he died later and they burned about 10 houses so that was I don't think he fired any more guns after that. You say a word about Prescott out in Fort Smith and Militant? Well half my book is about that I'm kidnapping the enemy and he was kind of a petty tyrant he would see no that's not true he would hit see Quakers and they wouldn't dump their cats at him and he would knock their hats off and pin them against the snow wall there was a American privateer captain who was captured and he hit him in the head with and so you damn rascal damn rebel there was a poor Burrington Anthony was a 300 pound militia officer he was caught put in jail and Prescott would go over there almost every day and threaten to hang him you know so he was that kind of guy but one of my favorite stories about Prescott was Benedict Arnold when he was on the right side the American side he was one of our best generals in Canada Prescott was in Canada at the time Prescott put a bounty on Arnold's head of a thousand pounds Arnold responded by putting a bounty on Prescott for 500 pounds even the British newspapers like that in my book I have some great quotes from British newspapers making fun of Prescott always you know he's sleeping with a woman up there and you know he's was brought out without his pants on and all this other stuff but it was it was kind of funny but actually there's no proof that he was sleeping with a woman he was up there to be close to the action most of the action was that Helen's Fairey Fairey in that area so he knew that at night that was the best time for there to be raids he wanted to be closer to the action in the day he would go back to Newport did you have the the general we use book of was that light horse Eric no this is Charles Lee he was an Englishman and unrelated to the Virginia Lees yeah yeah you spoke of a female spy having access to military camps is that where the term camp follower comes from what was she doing there well she was selling she was a peddler she was selling threads and needles and ribbons you know they needed the soldiers needed these kind of items you know so they needed to fix their own clothes camp followers are exactly that they're women who were with American regiments each regiment had their own camp followers mostly married women married to soldiers and they would help out they did important work washing clothes fixing them selling beer now and again Molly Pitcher I don't know if she I think she was a local woman I don't think she was a camp follower but so they you know even the British the British also here in Quiddock Island had many camp followers as well did the Quakers play any quiet in this one way or another or were they strictly neutral during the conflict Quakers what was the role of Quakers most of them were neutral you know they didn't believe in war so they wouldn't if you stuck with the Quaker philosophy then you didn't pick up a musket a lot of them were pretty conservative and were actually more sympathetic with the British but as Prescott said said one day if the Quakers would only be Quakers I'd be okay with them you know so what happened to the British spies who were Americans after the war where they caught and hung up well when when the British left Newport a lot of them left with the British and then they went to New York City and then eventually in 1783 they left New York City and most of them went to Canada so a lot of the Newport Tories strong Newport Tories including some that's you know officers who served in loyalist regiments and spies they went to Canada and started a life there a few of them went back to England Isak Goodman went back to England he was in very poor circumstances he asked for a pension got a little bit but not much and Bates went back to England she got a little bit not too much some of them went to the Bahama or Ireland some went to the Bahamas especially the Jewish merchants after Wallace started threatening and then the British sacked I guess St. Eustatius is what I'm thinking of the British sacked St. Eustatius and stole a lot of their goods anything more one more I think you know people were very experienced with boats you know with Barton's raid you know they found men in the first Rhode Island state regimen experienced in boating so they they took their five boats across from Warwick neck to to Middletown so that was pretty common and during the Rhode Island campaign there was you know they had to get the army off the Quiddock Island that was in great danger of losing the army but they were very effective they found a lot of boatsmen and they had a lot of boats and and did a great job of evacuating without loss of a single man actually there was they say a single man but I did find one person who was not told that he was supposed to evacuate and he was captured but one other thing of associated group the Native Americans turned you know figures in with a few of the Native Americans in their stories but how about Rhode Island did he anything well the story with the Native Americans is really the you know often intermarried with the African Americans the free slaves and so a lot of them joined the first regiment and I talked about them in the Rhode Island campaign book and they were the first regiment played a key role in the Battle of Rhode Island so a lot of them were not they called them African Americans but they were really a mixed mixed blood interestingly I played on the South Kingston basketball team with a guy named Victor Hazard and he was African American and Narragans to India and there's an historian Joanne Mellish who was a very good historian a professor at University of Kentucky on this period in Rhode Island and at the time Victor Hazard was working as a dean of students at the University of Kentucky and Joanne Mellish didn't know him and he she went up to him and said do you have some Narragans in Indian blood in you he couldn't believe it that happened in Kentucky what was the extent of the Indian support to the British Indian support of the British well not not much around here the Indians were not by then there were only a few hundred in Southern Rhode Island the main Indian support was in Western New York Joseph Brandt the Iroquois the Indians coming down from Canada they raided a lot of the pioneer settlers of the Mohawk Valley and Western Pennsylvania there were some terrible atrocities there so that was hard there were a few American Indians and from Sturbridge village area I believe that helped serve as guides for the Americans okay well thank you very much for my question thank you