Copies of Copies: British-Intercepted Letters During the Revolutionary War

After the first battles of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the British government wanted to gauge American sentiments on the developing conflict. There was no such thing as polling in the eighteenth century, so how did they do it? They read Americans’ mail.

In June 1775, after news of Lexington and Concord reached London, Lord Dartmouth, Britain’s secretary of state for the colonies, ordered the General Post Office in London to intercept letters from the packet boats that shuttled the mail between Great Britain and the American colonies. He and his successor, Lord George Germain, kept the practice going until November 1775, when the war shut the packets down. In a “secret office” at the post office, skilled workers selected letters, carefully broke their wax seals, copied whole letters or selected excerpts, seamlessly sealed the letters back up, forwarded the copies to Lord Dartmouth’s office, and then sent the originals on to their destinations quickly so that their recipients would not guess that they had been opened.

Today the copies and excerpts made at the post office are at Britain’s National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office), while copies of the copies are held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. The Library’s copies were made by its Foreign Copying Program, which for more than a century has been systematically locating and copying documentation of American history in international archives. While digitization has made some of these copies redundant, the copies made by the Foreign Copying Program remain valuable for researchers on this side of the Atlantic. A guide to the Foreign Copying Program records from Great Britain was recently produced by the Manuscript Division.

The authors of the intercepted letters were prosperous city-dwellers representing a range of views, from loyalist to patriot to undecided. They included colonial officials, merchants whose overseas business necessitated correspondence with Britain, families with members on both sides of the Atlantic, and Americans in London. New Hampshire’s royal governor, John Wentworth wrote to his cousin, and patron Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham, that the British navy would do well not to “rely principally on Naval operations.” Such an approach, the governor worried, might “exceedingly distress,” but would not “subdue a People inhabiting such an immense continent, & possessed with such enthusiastic Principles of Resistance as undoubtedly prevail, and have hitherto produced the most astonishing and incredible effects, beyond reasonable calculation.” Governor Wentworth wrote this letter in Boston, where he had fled after “Three Attempts to seize me” by the Americans. He reported that three more royal governors were in the same situation: “Governor Tryon at New York is taken a Prisoner by the People. Lord Dunmore in Virginia on board a man of war, & his authority contemned. Governor Martin in North Carolina in the same state.”

New York loyalist Anne DeLancey, from a family of New York loyalists, wrote Alice DeLancey Izard, who was living in London with her husband, South Carolinian Ralph Izard (the Izard family papers are in the Manuscript Division). She confirmed Wentworth’s news about the Americans’ threat to seize royal governors, including New York’s William Tryon, predicting that “you will be concerned to hear that he thought himself necessitated to take refuge on board the packet, in consequence of some Intelligence he had reced [received], That Orders were transmitted from the Continental to our provincial Congress to seize all the Officers of Governm^t.” Anne DeLancey took the British side. She may not yet have realized that the Izards were committed to the Americans.

An unsigned letter from Philadelphia to an uncertain recipient stated, “I expect every Day to hear, that at the great Expense of lives, one Push will be made to drive [British general] Gage from Boston, and to rid the Continent of Enemies. The Petition of the Congress lies before our King, and all is left to His Wisdom & Goodness. May God give Him Wisdom and Tenderness to decide the awful contest . . . you see how unwilling we are to be broken off from England. How happy would we be if the Parliament had the same Tenderness for us.” The petition the anonymous author mentions was probably the conciliatory Olive Branch petition that the second Continental Congress sent to King George III that July.

One year before the Declaration of Independence, this mixture of feelings, and especially a wish for reconciliation, was not unusual. One New Yorker wrote, “I would to God we could remain in Peace, and that an old and happy government was restored, but when we shall see that Day no mortal knows.” Others predicted Americans would favor independence. Henry Hugh Ferguson, in Philadelphia, wrote British naturalist and American sympathizer John Fothergill in London, “I have good authority for assuring you that the Colonies will declare themselves independent of the Crown of Britain next Spring.” Britain was behaving like “a wounded Lyon,” he wrote, but “I still believe the Colonies will not be subdued.”

Even though the postal workers tried to keep their interceptions secret, some writers suspected that their letters had been opened and read by British officials. Those who left their letters unsigned were probably among them. George F. Norton of London wrote William Reynolds of Yorktown, Virginia: “‘tis very much the fashion to pry into all Letters to America, to gather Information for purposes you are well acquainted with.”

Interspersed with the copies and extracts are notes from post office officials themselves. One of them complained that “A very large box by the last New York mail was entirely broke to pieces, so that the Acts of Assembly and other bulky papers it contained were quite loose and the merchants letters in the mail much damaged and defaced by the box which has been often the case.”

According to historian Julie Flavell, Lord Dartmouth’s clandestine polling revealed that the British assaults on Lexington and Concord had created greater consensus where previously there had been more division. One New Yorker wrote, “This City which has long been Cause of Complaint on account of it’s Divisions, seems now to be united more & more every Day, and the Appellations of Whig and Tory will, I doubt not, be wholy forgotten in the general Cause in which all are embarked.”

Today the copies and excerpts are a historical record of American sentiments and of the information-gathering activities of the British government at the start of the Revolutionary War. They also do what primary sources are so good at: They preserve tumultuous events as they were experienced in the moment before anyone knew how it would all turn out.

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“They read Americans’ mail.” Julie Flavell, “Government Interception of Letters from America and the Quest for Colonial Opinion in 1775,” William and Mary Quarterly 58 (April 2001): 403-430.

“That they had been opened…” For Dartmouth’s role see Flavell, “Government Interception,” 407-408; for the date the Post Office began intercepting letters, 403; for the “secret office” and the work of the Post Office clerks, 410-411; for the end of the packet service, 421.

“Made by its Foreign Copying Program…” Great Britain, Colonial Office Records, 1574-1814, Colonial Office (hereafter CO) 5/134, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. The Colonial Office records are in the form of transcripts, photostats, and microfilm. All the letters cited here are on microfilm #11,467. They are also included in a subscription database called Colonial America, available at the Library of Congress, among other libraries. The Foreign Copying Program was also active in France, Spain, Germany, and several other countries.

“Loyalist to patriot to undecided…” Flavell, “Government Interception,” 414, 423.

“Governor Tryon at New York is taken a Prisoner…” Governor [John] Wentworth, Boston, to the Marquess of Rockingham, October 10, 1775, CO 5/134, 117-118.

“The Izards were committed to the Americans…” Mrs. Anne DeLancey, Union Hill [New York] to Mrs. [Alice DeLancey] Izard, Tower Hill, [London], October 31, [1775], CO 5/134, 164.

“I expect every Day to hear…” Unsigned, Philadelphia, to the Rev. Dr. Ewing or to Dr. Hugh Williamson, October 3, 1775, CO 5/134, 111.

“I would to God we could remain in Peace…” Unsigned, New York, to Isaac Wilkins, October 7, 1775, CO 5/134, 96.

“A wounded Lyon…” Henry Hugh Ferguson, Philadelphia, to Dr. John Fothergill, October 2, 1775, CO 5/134, 123.

“‘Tis very much the fashion…” George F. Norton, London, to William Reynolds, York Town, VA, November 23, 1775, CO 5/134, 72.

“A very large box by the last New York mail…” [Anthony Todd] General Post Office, [London], to John Pownall, July 1, 1773, CO 5/134, 137.

“This City which has long been Cause of Complaint…” Richard Yates, quoted by Flavell, “Intercepted Letters,” 411. This letter is from a separate cache of intercepted letters in the Dartmouth Manuscripts in the Staffordshire Record Office; see Flavell, “Intercepted Letters,” 403. Similar sentiments appear in the letters at the Colonial Office.