Invisible Ink by John A. Nagy

Author:John A. Nagy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Westholme Publishing

Chapter 15

EUROPEAN SUBTERFUGE

Deception was an old game played in Europe. Finding the truth sometimes was like watching a game of three-card monte where the dealer or barker shows a card and then the victim or mark has to find the designated card. Behind what card is the truth? King George III and Prime Minister Lord North were able to silence their detractors by buying them off. The propaganda war in London was won at the cost of £200 a year. Henry Bate, the editor of The Morning Post newspaper, stopped being a critic of Prime Minister Lord North in exchange for some cash.1 Bate was released from jail for libeling the King and received annual payments of £200 from the King’s secret service fund.2 King George wrote comments on closing out Lord North’s secret services accounts that the worthless Mr. Bate had received £3,938.8.11.3 When Alexander Wedderburn had made too vociferous an attack on the administration in favor of John Wilkes and liberty, he was offered the job of solicitor general in 1771 to quell his attacks. Wedderburn went from an opponent to one of the King’s strongest supporters. It got him a promotion on June 11, 1778 to attorney general of England, a position he held until July 21, 1780. The month before in June 1780 he was made chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas with the title of Baron Loughborough. Lord North stated that Alexander Wedderburn had “the gift of accommodating conscience.”4 Junius wrote of him, “As for Mr [Alexander] Wedderburn, there is something about him which even treachery cannot trust.”5

John Bew, a bookseller, printer, publisher, and stationer at Paternoster Row, London, in 1777 published Letters from General Washington, to several of his friends in the year 1776. In which are set forth a fairer and fuller view of American politics, than ever yet transpired, or the public could be made acquainted with through any other channel. It claimed to a collection of letters that purported to be from George Washington to friends and family in Virginia written in 1776. The fictitious letters attempted to lead the reader to believe that Washington had no confidence in the cause of American Independence and was discouraged. There was no way the English public could verify any of the statements in the letters. The rumor mills in England were always telling that Washington had been captured or killed and that the members of Congress were in disagreement over the war. The letters gave credence to the gossip of the day.

The purpose of the pamphlet was to assist the ministry by making the general public and Parliament believe that it would be an easy and quick war, thereby making it palatable to the English people. To help add credibility to the documents, Bew claimed to have received them from a friend serving with Brigadier General Oliver De Lancey Senior. This friend claims to have obtained the letters after the capture of Fort Lee, New Jersey, formerly known as Fort Constitution, on November 20, 1776.

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