Patriot Pirates (21 page)

After circling the British Isles that first summer, Conyngham deposited prisoners, sold prizes, and refitted at Spanish ports. Two merchant houses, Lagoanere & Company of Coruña and Gardoqui & Sons of Bilbao, handled his affairs in a cooperative arrangement in which costs and revenues were shared “with perfect consideration,” Lagoanere told a business partner in November 1777. But confusion set in when Arthur Lee got involved. After learning that Ross and Hodge were in Spain monitoring Conyngham’s activities at Deane’s behest, he fired off imperious letters to Conyngham and the Spanish merchants hinting at misdeeds and cover-ups.

Spies working for Britain’s ambassador in Paris, Lord Stormont, informed him of every detail of France’s clandestine aid to America. His threats of violent reprisal had little effect on French officials increasingly confident of the damage the Revolution and, in particular, the privateers were doing to the British economy—and they played into Franklin’s plan to incite war between Britain and France “sooner than is desired by either party.”

“Mr. Hodge and Mr. Ross have no right to direct or control you,” he wrote the captain, “neither had Mr. Deane any right to dispose of the prizes you made, as Monsieur Lagoanere informs us he has done.” Lee demanded to review beforehand any dispersal of prize money from now on. “Individuals who may be concerned will have their share when they prove their right.”

Conyngham, though puzzled by Lee’s orders “contradicting those of Mr. Deane,” was accommodating. He asked only that his men be paid (they wouldn’t sail otherwise) and that his prize earnings, once available, be sent to his wife and children in Philadelphia in the event of his death or capture.

Ross and Hodge were intimidated, however. Through insinuations “artful and wicked,” Hodge wrote his colleague, “Arthur Lee, Esquire, has been of considerable detriment to me, and has puzzled me to know how to act in regard to the accounts.”

Lee’s true target was Deane. In hopes of catching him in a lie, he regularly checked Deane’s assertions with Ross and Hodge to confirm “whether you understand it so.” The queries led Ross to warn Deane about appearing too independent. “Circumstances and my own observations lead me to see it necessary for you to act as much as possible with consent and approbation of your colleagues, lest your distinct services for the public in your present station (however well intended) may be misrepresented or misconstrued.”

Undeterred, Deane continued to direct Conyngham’s activities from Paris in a loose style that gratified the Spanish merchants if not Lee. They welcomed the business of other privateers and solicited colleagues to front Conyngham “all the money he will ask of you, upon drafts on us.”

So well did the merchants make out, when John Adams visited Spain two years later, Lagoanere handed him $3,000 in cash. A Bayonne merchant gave Adams “a letter of credit for as much more as I should have occasion for,” while another in Bordeaux offered a bill of exchange “for the like sum.” Adams’s travel expenses were “paid upon sight” and even his government salary, he advised Congress, could be drawn from Lagoanere’s funds if necessary. The source of this largesse seemed to surprise him, “being part of the proceeds of some prizes heretofore made by Captain Conyngham.”

Interestingly, Deane’s later testimony to Congress described Conyngham’s expeditions out of Spain in 1777 as a tactical winner but a financial drain. The first prize settled there “turned to little account,” he said, “as did also some others he afterwards captured.”

This was the truth as far as he knew. Though his critics contended that he discounted the vessel’s profits in order to pocket them, throughout its period of operation he consistently lamented
Revenge
’s red ink to friends and colleagues. The settlement snafus that plagued New England privateering occurred in Europe as well, delaying the accumulation of revenue; what were surpluses by the time Adams arrived were deficits to Deane. Thus by the fall of 1777 he was looking to unload
Revenge
“on account of the unsuccessful, expensive cruises of that vessel.”

Admitting that he didn’t expect a price “equal to the first cost” of its original purchase in Dunkirk, Deane proposed that Ross buy the government’s half-interest in the vessel and become co-owner with Hodge. He didn’t doubt that Conyngham and
Revenge
would continue to attack British trade; he predicted that they’d operate more effectively “under private instructions.” Being on scene in Spain rather than in Paris, Ross realized
Revenge
’s earning potential and agreed to buy it.

He nervously notified Arthur Lee of the pending deal, saying it was “agreeable to all parties.” Lee scotched it at once “owing to some difficulties” he didn’t articulate. They were clear enough to Deane and his subordinates. “The jealous disposition of Mr. Lee, which led him to apprehend designs injurious to him in everyone he dealt with, gave a general disgust and often proved prejudicial to our affairs.”

There were other setbacks. In December Conyngham seized a Spanish transport bearing British cargo. His excuse that the Royal Navy often ignored neutral flags didn’t assuage Spanish annoyance, and the crew Conyngham had placed aboard the prize was briefly imprisoned. Deane upbraided his captain (“in future let French, Spanish and other neutral vessels pass without detaining them”) and assured Lagoanere and Gardoqui that their support would bring no further embarrassment. That Conyngham still cursed the “damned policy” didn’t bode well, however.

The influx of privateers from America made such violations more common. A pair of Charleston vessels captured a Rotterdam sloop. A Massachusetts privateer,
Civil Usage
, managed to insult “two Bourbon courts” in one swoop by taking a French ship carrying Spanish goods, while a warship from New Hampshire did American diplomacy no favor by seizing a load of British beef bound for the French navy.

But the most egregious violation, occurring in May 1778, again involved Conyngham. Upon overhauling a Swedish brig,
Honoria Sophia
, he found a valuable cargo of wine, fruit, and oil. His crew, understatedly described as “not always amenable to discipline or willing to abide by the laws of civilized warfare,” composed and signed a crude release. “Whereas Captain Conyngham says that he has directions not to insult any neutral flag, yet the cargo appearing so plain to be British property we have engaged him to take her and try her chance to America.”

The dispatch westward of
Honoria Sophia
was the great affront in this case; it showed that
Revenge
’s men knew the capture was illegal and that their only chance for a payoff was in a prize court far from Europe. Now Sweden joined in the condemnation of “an American corsair named Conyngham,” whose claim that he’d been pressured into the deed by his crew found few believers in light of his fierce reputation.

Franklin undertook the usual damage control (“it is a crime in our eyes to have displeased a power for which Congress is penetrated with respect”), while Arthur Lee spread word that the incident’s fallout was dire but not his fault. In fact it subsided in a few months. Europe, in Deane’s phrase, was “embarrassed with connections and alliances” that often generated more diplomatic smoke than fire.

Still, the uproar over
Honoria Sophia
convinced Conyngham it was time quit Europe. His new destination was the same place the Swedish ship had ended up for settlement—Saint-Pierre, Martinique, the most avid privateering port outside New England.

His arrival in October 1778 was welcomed by Bingham. Knowing from experience that successful privateering required a satisfied crew, the agent advanced
Revenge
’s men a “bounty” against their future prize earnings before dispatching them after “the grand object” of enemy trade. Near St. Eustatius in November, Conyngham took three small transports and a British privateer in a single day. More captures followed (“this intrepid commander,” raved the
Boston Gazette
), until at last he headed home to Philadelphia in February 1779.

He arrived not to acclaim but to lawsuits. Three members of a prize crew he’d sent from Europe had filed a complaint that he’d concealed prize money through a private arrangement with Hodge, the man they said was
Revenge
’s true owner. The captain, who remembered his accusers well (“a very troublesome and mutinous disposition”), was called before Congress’s Marine Committee, headed by Richard Henry Lee, to explain:

“I admit that the command I was engaged in was intricate in its nature, but I must observe that I did all in my power to prevent any obscurity in the business so far as related to myself and the commissioners under whose authority I acted. I know of no evidence existing to prove or justify the idea of the vessel being private property, nor ever did I consider myself under the direction of any private person or persons.”

To support his defense, Conyngham was asked to provide “financial accounts and letters of instruction” pertaining to his voyages. It was impossible. For almost two years he’d been at sea, in prison, or darting in and out of foreign ports. Unable to make a ruling either way, Congress dismissed the matter and put
Revenge
up for auction.

Conyngham used the occasion of the inquiry to press a claim for back pay. “I also think myself entitled to two-twentieths of all prizes sent into port. This was sacredly promised to me by the American commissioners in Paris.” He apologized that his estimate of monies owed wasn’t exact, “but as nearly so as I was able from the information I was then possessed of.”

He cited April 1778 as when the commissioners had begun giving him newly detailed instructions “for the application of proceeds of the prize money,” instructions whose proper fulfillment he was certain the commissioners would verify. By that date, however, Deane had been gone from France for almost a month; and Franklin, as ever, was focused on diplomacy and prisoner relief. Conyngham’s petition depended on the corroboration of one commissioner only.

Eighteen years later, the claim would remain in limbo. “Every difficulty was thrown in my way,” Conyngham wrote in 1797, “by Arthur Lee, Esquire.”

T
he year 1777 saw Deane become intensely disillusioned. His slide had begun in February when, with high hopes, he’d joined an independent privateer project under a captain named Thomas Bell. By August it had fallen apart; French go-betweens hired to procure the warship,
Tartar
, apparently fleeced the investors. The project’s mastermind, the pickled Nantes agent, Tom Morris, pressured Deane to fudge his books so that
Tartar
’s funding, £1,000 of which had been put up by Tom’s brother Robert, would appear “as having been paid on public account.” Deane refused.

Tom went with an alternate plan, appropriating a recently arrived government cargo to fulfill, he said, an outstanding debt to Willing & Morris. When
Tartar
’s bills came in (though it never sailed, people still demanded to be paid), Deane was left holding the bag. He lost doubly as a result—his stake in the privateer and the value to the commissioners of the purloined cargo.

Beaumarchais, who also owned a piece of the ill-fated deal, bailed Deane out. William Carmichael, Deane’s secretary, assumed that the Frenchman’s source for the money was Hortalez & Company, a public firm disguised as a private one. He didn’t keep that assumption to himself.

Then there was Deane’s entanglement with James Aitken, alias “John the Painter,” a twenty-five-year-old Scot who’d first sought him out at Deane’s Paris hotel in November 1776, seeking help for his one-man plan to burn down the Royal Navy shipyard at Portsmouth.

Compelled by personal grievances against the British government rather than zeal for American liberty, Aitken (“his eyes sparkling and wild”) had struck Deane as clearly nuts. Yet always open to schemes against Britain, he’d given the young man his blessings, an endorsed passport, and the equivalent of “about three pound” in French currency. He also gave him the name of Edward Bancroft as a contact in London.

Aitken was hanged as a saboteur in Portsmouth in March 1777, his remains displayed in a gibbet beside the harbor for almost half a century. A fire he’d set in the facility’s rope house caused only £20,000 in damage, but that incident combined with his attempts to ignite incendiaries in neighboring Bristol had sent the London stock market plummeting on fears of mass arson. It also goaded Parliament to pass Lord North’s controversial Pirate Act suspending the legal rights of captured American seamen.

Before his execution, Aitken named Deane (“the honestest man I know”) as a supporter. He also implicated Bancroft, a potentially ruinous link for a gentleman with extensive business and family ties in London, not to mention one secretly working for the king’s intelligence service. To clear his friend, Deane sent a seemingly oblivious letter asserting Deane’s right as an American “to destroy, at one blow, the fleet and armaments preparing to spread devastation and bloodshed in my country” and clearing Bancroft of any advance knowledge of the attempt.