To George Washington from Brigadier General Anthony Wayne, 11 January 1781
From Brigadier General Anthony Wayne
Trenton 11th Jany 1781 9. OClock A.M.
My Dear General
In mine of the 9th I had the Honor of giving you a particular account of our proceedings & Situation,1 yesterday Our Sergts or Commanders agreed as a preliminary to give us up the two Spies & that all such Soldiers as were entitled to their Discharges (which are but few) should Immediately give up their Arms & retire2 these were Articles which they took the Voice of the Soldiers on—who agreed to them with more Unanimity than the bunch of Sergts. the two Caitiffs will suffer Death this morning in pursuance of their Sentance last Evening3—this will Effectually forclose all future negociations with Sr Harry—who I wanted to Strike!—the Committee of Congress are afraid to trust Our boys so near the Enemy least they change their Disposition.
I shall Introduce the Commanding Officers of Regiments to Morrow & hope to draw the power Out of the hands of the Sergts by degress.
We shall begin business Immediately4 but am still of Opinion that we had better get rid of all the Sergts &ca & to rendezvous the Whole at some time & place—the[y] say they will One & all reinlist & serve their Country with more Order & fidelity than ever—these are Words of Course.
Sr Harry sent out two more Spies—who I know to be rascals—but serviceable to us—they brought new Overtures—such as giving the Command of the Line to the Sergts &ca.5
I shall give your Excellency all the material—Intelligence that may come to hand—One of the Spies—in hopes of saving his life—told me that Capt. Ward who Defended the block house—with thirty men Desperadoes are to make you a prisoner—by watching you when riding out—with a Slender train6—it will not be amiss to be on your guard—I pray you don’t give an Opening—get some trusty guards round you—time will not permit me to say more or to look over what I wrote.7
Adieu my Dear General & believe me in every Vicissitude of fortune your’s most Affectionately
Anty Wayne
ALS, DLC:GW. The docket is on a document which Wayne apparently enclosed with this letter. The document is a copy of his letter to the Continental Congress Committee on the Pennsylvania Line written at Princeton, N.J., on 10 Jan., 5:00 P.M.: “The bearers are two emisaries from the Enemy—but true to their Country have rendered us essential service at different times, & are therefore entitled to some confidence & bounty, with your Assistance & Advice we may probably employ them to Advantage—shall we take Sr Harry like a wood Cock in his own springs—think of this matter over Night, I will explain myself in the Morning—should you not like the Idea” (DLC:GW). For the two emissaries, see n.5 below.
1. Wayne refers to his letter to GW of 8 January.
2. See Committee of Sergeants to Joseph Reed, 10 Jan., in , 2d ser., 11:665. For the two spies—John Mason, an emissary from British general Henry Clinton, and Mason’s guide, James Ogden—see Wayne to GW, 8 Jan., and n.5 to that document.
3. For the trial and execution of these two men, see Continental Congress Committee on the Pennsylvania Line to GW, 10–11 Jan., and notes 3 and 7 to that document.
4. Wayne refers to the process of determining soldiers eligible for a discharge.
5. These two spies, evidently double-agents, were Caleb Bruen and a man named McFarlan (McFarlane). The British had sent the two out separately on 6 Jan. as emissaries to the Pennsylvania mutineers. They had met by chance at Princeton and then proceeded together to Trenton. By 15 Jan., McFarlan had returned to New York City and reported a misleading account of his mission to Maj. Oliver De Lancey, deputy adjutant general to Gen. Henry Clinton and chief of Clinton’s espionage service (see , 248–49).
Caleb Bruen, of Newark, N.J., served in 1776 as a second lieutenant in a company of Essex County minutemen. In 1781, the British imprisoned him in New York City for treachery (see , 170–71). Col. Elias Dayton later obtained his release (see Dayton to GW, 12 Jan. 1782, DLC:GW).
6. Wayne refers to Mason, who had associated with Loyalist captain Thomas Ward in past plots (see , 87). For Ward’s defense of the blockhouse at Bull’s Ferry, N.J., against an attack led by Wayne, see Thomas Lloyd Moore to GW, 22 May 1780, n.3, and Wayne to GW, 22 July 1780.