Philadelphia Merchants, Trans-Atlantic Smuggling, and The

Friends in Low Places: Philadelphia Merchants, Trans-Atlantic Smuggling, and the Secret Deals that Saved the American Revolution By Tynan McMullen University of Colorado Boulder History Honors Thesis Defended 3 April 2020 Thesis Advisor Dr. Virginia Anderson, Department of History Defense Committee Dr. Miriam Kadia, Department of History Capt. Justin Colgrove, Department of Naval Science, USMC 1 Introduction Soldiers love to talk. From privates to generals, each soldier has an opinion, a fact, a story they cannot help themselves from telling. In the modern day, we see this in the form of leaked reports to newspapers and controversial interviews on major networks. On 25 May 1775, as the British American colonies braced themselves for war, an “Officer of distinguished Rank” was running his mouth in the Boston Weekly News-Letter. Boasting about the colonial army’s success during the capture of Fort Ticonderoga two weeks prior, this anonymous officer let details slip about a far more concerning issue. The officer remarked that British troops in Boston were preparing to march out to “give us battle” at Cambridge, but despite their need for ammunition “no Powder is to be found there at present” to supply the Massachusetts militia.1 This statement was not hyperbole. When George Washington took over the Continental Army on 15 June, three weeks later, he was shocked at the complete lack of munitions available to his troops. Two days after that, New England militiamen lost the battle of Bunker Hill in agonizing fashion, repelling a superior British force twice only to be forced back on the third assault. Rather than alleviate concerns about the state of the army, this distinguished officer’s comments revealed that the Revolution was in dire straits. With hindsight, we know that the munitions shortage would be overcome through foreign aid, and that General Washington and the Continental Army would prevail. Traditionally, this narrative centers around the French-American alliance struck on 6 February 1778 along with the 1 Boston News-Letter (Boston, Massachusetts), no. 3736, May 25, 1775: [2]. Readex: America's Historical Newspapers. https://infoweb-newsbank-com.colorado.idm.oclc.org/apps/readex/doc?p=EANX&docref=image/v2%3A1036CD22 1971FE08%40EANX-107B06025BE3DCB0%402369510-107B0602851EDA20%401. 2 actions of prominent French figures such as the Comte de Vergennes and Pierre Beaumarchais. Through the lobbying of Connecticut merchant Silas Deane on behalf of the Continental Congress, Vergennes and Beaumarchais were able to begin secretly funneling crown money to send arms and ammunition to the Americans in 1776. This narrative follows the actions of the French and American states, where politicians utilized merchants to achieve military and diplomatic ends. These actions, while covert, were officially sponsored on both sides of the Atlantic. This process of French-American cooperation did not happen overnight, and Revolutionary historians acknowledge that a shadowy trade existed between French and American merchants before the arrival of Silas Deane in Paris in March 1776. But the rapidity of the process suggests that there was more to the story. In an era when it took weeks for people and correspondence to cross the Atlantic, Americans began picking up shipments of French arms from Europe and the Caribbean almost immediately after hostilities broke out. A closer examination of congressional records and personal letters reveals that illicit trade between American and French merchants was a common phenomenon, a phenomenon centered around the mercantile city of Philadelphia. From the City of Brotherly Love, merchants with pre-existing smuggling connections to Europe were able to gain influential positions on the Continental Congress and quickly convert their illegitimate business to sanctioned covert arms dealing. Rising above competitors from New York, Boston, and Charleston, Philadelphia shippers utilized a long history of illegal French trade to arm the Revolution and prevent an early collapse of Washington’s army. 3 Philadelphia’s role in the American Revolution and its prominence as a trading port has been well studied by Revolutionary historians. For a general history of Philadelphia, Russel Weigley’s 1982 book Philadelphia: A 300 Year History begins with William Penn, and richly details the social, cultural, and economic development of colonial Philadelphia. Weigley goes to great effort to demonstrate how Philadelphia’s planned infrastructure, religious tolerance, and geographic fortunes made it all but predestined to be a thriving mercantile city. By 1775, Philadelphia was the shipping and political capital of the colonies, and would have an outsized importance in the early Revolution. Weigley’s research has stood as the preeminent history of Philadelphia, and any subsequent projects on the city benefit from reading his work.2 Regarding the shipping, trade, and economy of colonial and wartime Philadelphia, three books give us a complete picture of the mercantile industry. Arthur Jensen’s 1963 work The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia provides an excellent background on the trade economy of Philadelphia and the activities of its merchants prior to the Revolution. Maritime Commerce also dedicates an entire chapter to pre-Revolutionary smuggling along with the British trade acts that encouraged it. Thomas Doerflinger’s incredibly thorough A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise, written in 1982, gives a complete analysis of the merchant community in the 1770s. Doerflinger organizes the staggering number of trades during this era into a single cohesive narrative that covers issues of class, conflict, and economics while providing financial and trade details through primary sources. He highlights the significance of particular merchants, most notably Robert Morris, in the pre-war and wartime Philadelphia economy. Finally, John McCusker and Russell Menard’s 1991 The Economy of British America 1607-1789 places 2 Russell Frank Weigley, Philadelphia: A 300 Year History (New York: W.W. Norton, 1982). 4 Philadelphia into the trans-Atlantic economy, and compares it to New York, New England, and Southern trade. While each of these works does an excellent job at defining the merchant communities and detailing the mercantile system upon which Philadelphia was based, they are broad histories that do not give particular focus to the early years of the Revolution. While they touch on smuggling, these works do not provide details on the political machinations behind them, or the impact of Philadelphia trade on the battlefield.3 The politics behind Philadelphia’s smuggling are best described in Elizabeth Nuxoll’s 1985 dissertation Congress and the Munitions Merchants, which examines the importation of French arms during the Revolution through the lens of the Secret Committee of Trade. Throughout the dissertation she examines the political and logistical mechanisms of the Revolutionary arms trade, specifically how members of the Secret Committee lobbied French merchants and politicians. Nuxoll’s work focuses primarily on activities in the middle and later years of the Revolution, drawing on the history of Franco-American smuggling as a background rather than an area of focus. While Nuxoll acknowledges the centrality of Philadelphia in this trade, she does not go as far as to argue that Philadelphia’s mercantile history was crucial to this trade or elaborate on the pre-war relationships that contributed to the efficiency of wartime dealings.4 The excellent work by these historians has given us a comprehensive understanding of the trading economies of colonial and wartime Philadelphia, but I believe they overlook a crucial 3 Arthur L. Jensen, The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin for the Dept. of History, University of Wisconsin, 1963)., Thomas M. Doerflinger, A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in Revolutionary Philadelphia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986)., John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of British America, 1607-1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985). 4 Elizabeth Miles Nuxoll, Congress and the Munitions Merchants: The Secret Committee of Trade during the American Revolution, 1775-1777 (New York: Garland Pub, 1985). 5 human factor in Philadelphia’s history that would go on to save the Revolution. It’s not what you know, it's who you know, and Philadelphia’s merchant class was the best connected group to the French in British North America. Researching the Journals of the Continental Congress, George Washington’s writings, and bits of correspondence from Philadelphia merchants, a picture emerges of a complex and lucrative trading network dating back to the 1750s. Merchants, politicians, and generals discussed the shocking lack of American powder, detailed trade with European ports, and shadowy meetings with French agents. The records of these conversations paint a picture of a network that would be activated well before the signing of the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. Engagements at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill in 1775 made it clear the colonies needed help to survive the upcoming year. This help came in the form of Philadelphia’s merchant elite, who combined business opportunity and patriotism to keep the Continental Army afloat. For decades prior to independence, American and French traders had engaged in illegitimate,

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