AUTHOR'S NOTE

I first wrote this piece about Edward in 2004/5 and, at that time, being unable to access easily the original documents connected with him in England and America, I relied greatly on the books and pamphlets that had been published about him up to that point. Since then much more is available online including newspaper reports and above all, the late Prof Thomas Schaeper of St Bonaventure University, New York State, published his scholarly biography of Edward in 2011. Drawing on Prof Schaeper's work and other available material, I have made a number of revisions to reflect the new information available.

INTRODUCTION

Edward was a controversial figure, of whom much has been written,^* particularly in connection with his role as an agent for the British Crown during the War of American Independence. He was a noted naturalist, an exceptionally able chemist whose discoveries in connection with vegetable dyes produced quercitron^** for the calico printing trade and a work which became the definitive reference on such dyes for the next fifty years, an entrepreneur, a practicing physician, a speculator in stocks and, perhaps above all, one of the most successful spies of all times. His work for the British Crown only coming to light some seventy odd years after he died when Government papers from that period were released for public examination.

He was a man of great natural gifts and considerable drive; he comes across as a busy person who warmly embraced the opportunities that life offered him. As an aside, it may be that he was short in stature as such "busyness" and his pugnacious approach to adverse comment are often characteristics of smaller men. He displays a chippiness on certain occasions suggesting that he was very sensitive about his honour and his worth and, certainly, he had a very commercial (and for those times a rather ungentlemanly) approach to all he did. However, as his stock speculation and double life show, he was not averse to taking risks; indeed, he may well have enjoyed the excitement of such ventures. He must also have been endowed with considerable courage to see them through. He enjoyed convivial company, entertained a good deal and was warmly regarded by his friends both in America and Britain. Regrettably, his posthumous reputation suffered when his activities as a secret agent became known.

Over the years, Edward has attracted much opprobrium for his role as a secret agent for the British, particular from American historians, including his distant relative George Bancroft (1800-1891), the renowned C19th American diplomat and historian. This is not surprising. To patriotic Americans Edward's disclosure of the rebel Colonist's activities in Paris was great treachery, the more so because it was also a breach of the trust placed in him by distinguished men like Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, who was Edward's friend and mentor. Happily, the late Thomas J. Schaeper's biography "Edward Bancroft - Scientist, Author, Spy", published in 2011, provides a much more nuanced view of Edward's life correcting a great many mistakes and misinterpretations made by earlier writers.

It is interesting that despite Edward's duplicity, he seems to have been able to maintain friendly relationships with most of those with whom he worked in the American Commission in Paris (there are some exceptions, like Arthur Lee); a process which must, at times, have tested his natural affability and resolve. Letters have survived from both Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane signed, respectively: "y^rs most affec:" & "affec: friend". Moreover, he rescued Deane when he was in financial difficulties in London towards the end of his life and continued to have a high regard for Franklin, editing a collection of the latter's Philosophical & Miscellaneous Papers in 1787. In this respect, Edward is a bit of an enigma: on the one hand he worked hard to undermine everything that Deane and Franklin were seeking to achieve in France and on the other he was an affectionate friend to them, holding their confidence and respect throughout their lives. Such perhaps is the nature of successful secret agents but it is also possible that Edward held affection for Deane and Franklin as friends whilst at the same time abhorring their collective plotting to achieve American independence through rebellion and war.

The American War of Independence and the uneasy period leading up to it, created considerable difficulties for thoughtful Colonists, particularly those who had spent time in England. It is not surprising, therefore, that there were many loyalists both in America and England, who were appalled at the actions of the rebels, and whose ranks provided the British with some remarkably successful secret agents. Edward seems to have been a supporter of the republican cause during his early days in England, if company that he kept or his pamphlet, Remarks on a Review of the Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies, published in 1769 and his writings on American affairs for the London Monthly Review are any guide. The turning point seems to have come during his meeting with Silas Deane in Paris in June 1776 when he discovered the enormity of what the rebels were seeking to achieve in France.

It is more difficult to see why British historians, like Lewis Einstein (1933) and Sir Arthur MacNalty (1944), took such a moralistic attitude to Edward's business, political and social activities and set out to paint so black a picture of his character. Perhaps, their view of him was too much coloured by earlier American historians like Samuel F Bemis (1924) or, perhaps, writing as they were in the middle of the C20th, they were imbued with a greater moral rectitude than now exists and a greater sensitivity to spying. Historically, spying has not been regarded as an honourable activity even if it was in the interests of one's King or Country, spying for reward was regarded in an even poorer light (unrewarded spying seems to have been considered less reprehensible) and working as a double agent was, as it still is, regarded as beyond the pale.

There is no doubt that Edward displayed a mercenary approach to his work as a secret agent but it seems improbable that he was motivated to work for the British just for the financial reward; political conviction must have been a factor as well. Indeed, initially, he worked for no reward at all, but, unlike Paul Wentworth and Revd. John Vardill whose reward, or hoped-for reward, was an appointment in the gift of the King, which, incidentally, neither enjoyed, Edward preferred lump sum payments and a pension when he was finally taken on the "payroll".⁶ Given Edward's background in comparison to Wentworth's and Vardill's, perhaps that was not surprising. He came from a respectable yeoman family in Massachusetts but his father died two years after he was born and his mother married again to a tavern keeper in Hartford, so the family was not well off and he and his brother had to make their own ways in the world.

Wentworth records having difficulties with him over a demand for £500 for some information, writing that he detested "higgling in a bargain for the King's services and the cause of my country", which, clearly, highlights the difference in the two men's approach to money matters.⁷ Wentworth, himself, was not averse to submitting an account for his expenses; in the five years to December 1777 he had spent £2437 working for the British.

One final point on this issue. It is difficult to see how Edward could have afforded to live with his family in Paris while working for the American Commission without some income. No doubt, his quercitron trade was bringing in something by then but he had given up his medical practice in London and his American employers seem to have been reluctant to remunerate him, if, indeed, they ever did.

It may well be that Silas Deane,^*** and other Americans, saw Edward as an agent for their cause even after he left London and was working for them in Paris. In practical terms, however, once Edward settled in Paris he was no better placed than any other American there to know what was going on in London, so it is only during the period between June 1776 and April 1777 that Edward could have passed any useful intelligence to the Americans.

During this time, despite the clandestine method he used of communicating with Deane through the good offices of the French Chargé d'Affaires in London and his several visits to Paris, it seems unlikely that Edward took the risk of imparting any secret or confidential information to Deane or that his activities on this front were undertaken without the full knowledge and approval of William Eden who was responsible to Lord North for intelligence gathering. Moreover, it is questionable whether or not Edward ever had any secret or confidential information to impart. It is not surprising, therefore, that his letters to Deane during this period turn out to consist mostly of gossip and matters that were already in the public domain and are much embellished by judicious name-dropping. The ingenuous Deane, in his enthusiastic letters to his colleagues in America, ascribed a much greater value to them than they justified but, perhaps, having a feel for public sentiment in London about the "independence issue" and connected matters was useful to Deane and his colleagues in Paris, if not those in America.

There is no hard evidence that Edward received any remuneration from the Americans for his efforts during this time. Such evidence as survives is contradictory and comes from a letter that Deane wrote to the Secret Committee of Congress saying that no man (Edward) had better intelligence "but it costs something", which implies payment or at least expense, and one from Edward to Deane saying that he was doing the very best that anyone could do without money - potential informants in London expected remuneration.

The British authorities may well not have fully trusted Edward on account of his earlier espousal of the rebels' cause and William Eden's office is recorded as being party to a plan, hatched by the Revd. John Vardill, to scrutinise letters being taken to Edward in Paris by his "mistress".⁸ (This was when Penelope Fellows joined him in Paris with his two sons). Nevertheless, as Schaeper points out, the British government had many other "information gatherers" in Paris apart from Edward. They might not have had access to such detailed information about the American Commission's activities as he but they all contributed to a general information flow against which Lord North's government could judge the truth or otherwise of Edward's "intelligence". 

Despite George III's strong distaste for stockjobbing and, consequent, distrust of Edward and Paul Wentworth, there is not a shred of evidence that they falsified their reports in order to manipulate the (Stock) Exchange as the King chose to believe, though they did use their information to speculate on it. Moreover, of the King's description of Edward as "a double spy" in one of his letters to Lord North, Schaeper writes, "No one in the British government had any proof for believing that Bancroft was an American agent, and as far as can be determined, the King himself was the only one to believe it."⁹

As to the importance of Edward's career as a secret agent, it is worth reflecting on Einstein's interesting comment that "No government was ever better served by its informers than that of George the Third, or possessed more accurate information of its enemies most hidden plans or treated this knowledge with greater neglect."¹⁰ That is probably correct but Einstein's belief that George III held back from making concessions to the Colonists which would "almost certainly have preserved his empire" because of his distrust of Edward and Paul Wentworth is a grave oversimplification, in Schaeper's view.¹¹  It might reflect George III's position but it fails to recognise that the Crown did not dictate policy to a British government even during the "mixed monarchy" of the 18th-century. The monarch had his or her views and might seek to persuade government ministers to act on them but, ultimately, the latter followed their own agenda. In this instance, Lord North and his cabinet chose, for diverse reasons, not to act decisively on the intelligence they received from Paris.

Notes :

* Bibliography:

1) Dictionary of National Biography Vol III - Edited by Leslie Stephen (Edward's original entry (Pages 105-106) was written by G. T. Bettany in 1885 and makes no mention of Edward's activities as a secret agent. Later editions show that this entry was later revised.)
2) Winnowings in American History No IV - Edited by P. L. Ford (1891)
3) British Secret Service and the French-American Alliance by Samuel Flagg Bemis. The American Historical Review , Apr., 1924, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 474- 495
4) Divided Loyalties by Lewis Einstein (1933)
5) Edward Bancroft, M.D., F.R.S., and the War of American Independence by Sir Arthur S. MacNalty, KCB, MD, FRCP - Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, June 7 1944
6) Intrigue in Paris by G. J. A. O'Toole - Chapter 5 of Secret New England - Spies of the American Revolution - Edited by Edmund R. Thompson (2001)
7) Edward Bancroft - Scientist, Author, Spy by Thomas J. Schaeper (2011)

** A yellow dye made from the bark of the Black Oak which grows in North America. It was in use up until the beginning of WW II.¹²

*** Silas Deane had been sent to Paris in 1775 by the newly formed Committee of Congress for Secret Correspondence with a view to obtaining arms and supplies from the French that the Colonists urgently needed to wage their war against the British Crown.

Edward Bancroft is known best for his part in the lead up to the American Colonist's split from the British Crown but that period only covers seven or so out of Edward's busy life of 76 years.

Early Years
(1744-1766)

Edward's father died about a year and a half after Edward was born and nothing has been discovered about him or his occupation. Edward's mother Mary was thus left husbandless to bring up Edward and his younger brother Daniel who was born shortly after his father's death. Four or so years later, Mary married David Bull, a tavern keeper in Hartford, Connecticut, and it was there that Edward spent most of his childhood.

Details about Edward's early life vary from one account of it to another but there is a general consensus about the following: ^{13 14}

First, he had little formal education and was largely self-taught but sometime in 1759, Silas Deane, then recently graduated from Yale, was hired for a short period as his tutor. Silas Deane was to feature many years later in Edward's life as a close friend and partner.

In October 1760, the Bancroft family moved from Hartford to Killingworth in Connecticut and Edward became an apprentice in the practice of a physician by the name of Dr. Benjamin Gale. Medical apprenticeships in those times varied in length from two to six years but Edward did not complete his apprenticeship with Dr Gale as in June 1763 he "ran away to sea" aboard the brig Success bound for Barbados. Finding no work there, he travelled on to the Dutch colony of Surinam (Dutch, later British, Guyana) where he worked under a Scottish physician, and later on his own, caring for the medical needs of the colonists and their slaves on several large plantations along the Demerara River.

It was in Surinam where he is said to have first met Paul Wentworth who owned three plantations there but it is more likely that that event occurred at London in 1769 when the latter took up residence there. Paul Wentworth was later to feature considerably in Edward's life both in London and Paris.

It was, also, in Surinam that Edward turned his attention to the local flora and fauna and it was his research on these that later established his reputation as a botanist and zoologist. This research was recorded in his first published book (1769), Essay on the Natural History of Guiana, in South America written, as was fashionable at the time, as letters to his brother.

He seems also to have taken an interest in tropical plants and their dye producing properties. As we shall see later, vegetable dyes were to be the main commercial focus in his life.

In 1766, Edward left Surinam and returned to America where it is recorded that on November 3rd, he sold one-third of a small piece of land that he owned near Westfield to his uncle John Bancroft for £22.¹⁵   In the spring of the following year, he sailed for London.

Early Career
(1767-1776)

Once in London, Edward studied to obtain some formal medical qualification. There is no certainty about where Edward did his training but it is thought that he might have been a physician's pupil at St Bartholomew's as he dedicated the book he published in 1769 to " William Pitcairn, M.D, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London, and Physician of St. Bartholomew's Hospital" , "with Respect and Gratitude". He obtained his MD, probably in absentia, from Aberdeen University, where according to Sir Arthur MacNalty, his name is to be found in the Roll of Marischal College for the year 1774.¹⁶

Edward's medical "apprenticeship" probably lasted no longer than two years - in late 1869 or early 1870, he left England for Surinam - and during those years, he seems to have found time to do some writing. On the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin whom he had got to know in London, he wrote comments about American affairs for the London Monthly Review whose founder and editor was the London bookseller and publisher, Ralph Griffiths.

In 1769, he published a paper entitled Remarks on the Review of the Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies. Paul Wentworth is reputed to have assisted him in writing this tract but there is little evidence of this though he and Edward seem to have become well acquainted that year to the extent that Paul commissioned Edward to go back to Surinam to see how the Wentworth plantations there could be made more productive.

While in Surinam, Edward, amazingly, completed his first novel, a three-volume tome that he sent to England for publication 1770. It was entitled The History of Charles Wentworth, Esq. The name of the subject of this work being no doubt chosen as a compliment to his friend and benefactor, Paul Wentworth. Sir Arthur MacNalty says of this work, "In Charles Wentworth Bancroft tried to do two things: to write an ethical and sociological treaties and a love-story. As a consequence, he failed in both aims and the novel, although interesting as a study of the author, cannot be regarded as a success." It was not a literary form that Edward attempted again.¹⁷

After several months in Surinam, Edward sailed to America in September 1770 before returning to England in February 1771. Back in London, it seems that he became amorously attached to a 22-year-old woman by the name of Penelope Fellows and it may be that he and she married that year but, rather surprisingly in view of the marriage records that have survived, no record of theirs has been found and it is quite possible that it took place several years later in Paris.

Whatever the case may be, Edward set up house with Penelope in Marylebone, London, where they started a family.¹⁸ He seems to have established himself fairly quickly as a successful physician and, in between treating patients, he continued his research into dyes that he had begun in Surinam.

In March 1773, he was able to present a paper to the Royal Society On producing and communicating colours, which he later read in May;¹⁹ it and no doubt his growing reputation resulted in his being unanimously elected a Fellow.²⁰ Among his eight sponsors for this election were the Astronomer Royal (Nevil Maskelyne) and Benjamin Franklin. A year later in April 1774, he read a paper entitled, 'Note on nigrescent vegetables', it was in the form of a letter from him to the naturalist John Walsh.

By now Edward was considered to be a leading expert on dyes and was well accepted as such by scientists in both London and Paris. He advised the East India Company on the subject (Indian dyes being of significant commercial value) and is reputed to have helped them introduce lac dye (a scarlet dye like cochineal extracted from the crude shellac resin excreted by the lac insect, Laccifer (Tachardia) lacca) though this seems unlikely as the dye was in use long before Edward's time. It is more likely that Edward advised them on how it could be extracted more efficiently.

When the Medical Society of London started in 1773, one of the early members was Edward and his figure appears in Samuel Medley's portrait of the "Founders" that was painted in 1800. It was an honour for Edward to be invited to join the Society given that he had not yet obtained his MD (he eventually received that in 1774) and it demonstrates the high regard in which he was held not only as a man of science but also as one of probity.

During these years in London, Edward and Penelope had several residences. An unspecified one in Marylebone when their first son was born, Lisle Street, Soho in 1773 and then at 4 Downing Street, where their son Samuel was born and where Edward was visited by "John the Painter" in 1777 (see later); it was from Downing Street that the family moved to Paris.

Years of Intrigue
(1776-1783)

This period in Edward's life has to be seen against the background of the American Colonist's rebellion against British rule. From 1765 onwards there had been rumblings of discontent from the Colonists over various British attempts to tax them in order to defray the cost of the British administration there, particularly the armed force that was thought necessary to protect the colonies from the Indians. By late 1773 these rumblings had developed into open revolt - witness the Boston "Tea Party" when duty-free tea belonging to the East India Tea Company was destroyed in Boston harbour leading to the closure of that port to the colonists in June 1774 - and into guerrilla warfare against the British forces stationed there.

By the end of 1775 it became clear to the American rebel leaders that they could not hope to win their fight against the British without outside support, so the newly formed Continental Congress set up a special committee known as "Committee of Congress for Secret Correspondence" (CCSC) whose role was to secure, secretly, support from France and perhaps also from Spain and Prussia.²¹ The CCSC appointed Silas Deane, a Connecticut deputy, as their agent to go to Paris with the objective of sounding out the French with regard to an alliance and of securing arms, ammunition and clothing for 25,000 troops, as well as, gifts for the Indians to the value of £40,000 - bribes to keep them quiet while the Colonists fought the British!

Deane was instructed to take on the character of a merchant and, inter alia, "...to procure a meeting with Mr. Bancroft by writing a letter to him under cover to Mr. Griffiths at Turnham Green near London, and desiring him to come over to you in France or Holland, on the score of old acquaintance". "Mr. Bancroft" was, of course, Edward whom Deane would have known as a pupil. Edward is thought to have visited America in 1775 and met various members of Congress, including his friend Benjamin Franklin; it is very likely that he and Deane had renewed their acquaintance during that visit. There is no doubt that the members of the CCSC considered Edward sympathetic to the Colonist's cause and hoped that he would provide Deane with useful intelligence.²²

Much has been made of this clandestine method of contacting Edward in commentaries on Edward's "spying" activities for the rebels. However, it should be remembered, also, that it was important for Deane's presence and true purpose in Paris to be kept secret from the British as long as possible. Letters were regularly intercepted and read by the Post Office, particular if they were addressed to known Colonist sympathisers, and, in contacting Edward on this occasion, it was obviously prudent to avoid such scrutiny by sending it via Ralph Griffiths, the publisher of the Monthly Review in London, who was well-known to both Benjamin Franklin and Edward.

Edward, who was fluent in French, met Deane shortly after the latter's arrival in Paris on 8th July 1776 and during the course of the next two weeks accompanied him as his translator in his initial meetings with the French Foreign Ministry and others and in doing so learnt every detail of Deane's secret mission.²³ Deane for his part, sought Edward's help in keeping him informed on how the Colonist's cause was viewed in England.

Our knowledge of the next part of this affair comes from Edward's memorial of 1784 addressed to Lord Carmarthen, then Secretary of State, to solicit the continuation of the pension that had been promised him by the former Secretaries of State. In it he describes the circumstances in which he came to work for the British Crown as a secret agent.²⁴

It seems that on Edward's return from Paris, he was approached by his friend Paul Wentworth and persuaded to disclose what had passed between him and Deane. By this time, Wentworth held an appointment as an adviser to the Cabinet on American affairs, a role which seems to have involved him working mostly as an "intelligence gatherer" (he bitterly resented being thought of as a spy) for William Eden, then Under-Secretary of State to Lord North.²⁵

Edward's motivation in agreeing to report on what Deane was doing in Paris is unclear. Perhaps he believed that by disclosing Deane's objectives to the British government it might help to frustrate the Colonist's plans. Whatever the case may be, Edward prepared a detailed document for William Eden about Deane's mission that quickly passed into the hands of Lords Weymouth and Suffolk, Secretaries of State, responsible for foreign affairs.

It is worth reflecting at this stage that had Edward been the ardent supporter of the Colonist's cause that both the CCSC members and, probably, Wentworth believed him to be, he would have been much less forthcoming about what had passed between him and Deane. In the event, his meeting with Deane seems to have left him with considerable qualms about the course (total independence through armed conflict) that the rebels were bent on pursuing.

The Lords Weymouth and Suffolk realised that Edward's contact with Deane provided a wonderful opportunity for keeping track of what the Americans were up to in Paris and it was suggested that he might like to continue to report on developments there. Edward agreed to this but the arrangement could not be entirely one-sided as he needed to maintain Silas Deane's trust as well.

At this stage, incidentally, there was no suggestion from either party that Edward should be paid for his services to the British though presumably he expected his expenses to be covered.

For the next ten months Edward corresponded with Deane and visited him in Paris once or twice. Their correspondence was carried out through the French Chargé d'Affaires in London, Mr Garnier, who was a known sympathiser with the Colonist's cause and with whom the CCSC had, rather ingenuously, instructed Deane to correspond much to the French diplomat's discomfort. With the help of Garnier, Edward was able to send his letters to Paris unopened in the French diplomatic bag, which, of course, denied the British authorities any knowledge of what they contained. However, it is unlikely those letters held anything of a secret or confidential nature, Edward had no access to such information. More probably, Edward would have passed on the sort of intelligence available to any politically informed person in London - relevant parliamentary reports, newspaper comment, and the like - these, nevertheless, were useful insights, most of which would not have otherwise reached Deane. It's not surprising, therefore, that he wrote enthusiastically to his colleagues in America about Edward's contribution to their cause.

There is no evidence that Edward received any remuneration from Deane for the information he passed to him despite at one stage Deane writing about Edward to the CCSC that no one had better intelligence in England "... but it costs something.". This seems to imply that Edward was being paid but the phrase more likely refers to the expenses Edward was claiming. Additionally, Edward asserts in a letter to Deane that he was achieving as much as was humanly possible without funds. Given Edward's later problems concerning remuneration from the Colonists, it seems probable that the only recompense that he ever received at this stage was for his expenses.

In December 1776, Deane's solo efforts in Paris were reinforced by Benjamin Franklin and, later, by Arthur Lee creating a formal American Commission there. When the British authorities became aware of this, it was clear that it would be much more useful to have Edward directly involved with this Commission and to this end he was persuaded to leave London and settle Paris. As leaving London entailed giving up his earning capacity in England, Edward did not agree to do this without some contract of employment and a remarkable document has survived, which was negotiated between him and Wentworth, and which sets out in great detail the terms of this arrangement.

The contract covered Edward's remuneration, the various subjects on which Edward was to report - the progress of the treaty with France, the nature of the assistance expected by the colonists and so forth, the method of communication — fictitious love letters with information written in invisible ink between the lines where to be hidden in a sealed bottle and deposited in the hollow of a certain box tree growing in the Tuileries Gardens. This bottle was to be collected every Tuesday evening and another substituted in its place containing any instructions for Edward. The British Ambassador, Lord Stormont, was to act as the go-between in this arrangement, passing on all Edward's information to Wentworth.

Edward's remuneration from this contract was an annual lifetime pension of £200 (this was to be paid retrospectively from 25 December 1776) which would be increased to at least £500 when either the colonists' revolt ended or France openly entered the war. Further, he was given an immediate gift of £500 to defray his expenses in moving to Paris.²⁶ In the event, Edward did eventually get his pension of £500 pa when France entered the war in the spring of 1778 and it was when this fell into arrears in 1884 that Edward wrote his revealing memorial to Lord Carmarthen.

Having got the contractual side of the venture agreed, it was expedient to establish some plausible reason why Edward and his family should leave London and settle in Paris. Edward first wrote to Deane saying that he might not be allowed to remain in England much longer. Next, so some writers claim, he contrived to be put in jail; an event that a distressed Deane duly reported to the CCSC, saying: "This worthy man is confined in the Bastile[sic] of England...".²⁷ No evidence of Edward's incarceration has been found so it may have been a fiction he devised for Deane's consumption to strengthen his case for fleeing London.

Then, quite fortuitously, though he may not have viewed it in that light, Edward was implicated in the "John the Painter" affair. This concerned a Scotsman by the name of James Aitken, a painter by trade, who, having lived briefly in America, had become fanatically involved in the republican cause and had hatched a wild plan to destroy Portsmouth and Plymouth dockyards. He had submitted in this plan to Deane in Paris who had sent him to see Edward. Soon after, Aitkin set fire to the Rope House at Portsmouth Dock and some buildings in Bristol and was later caught and hanged for these offences. His connection with Edward emerged at his trial in March 1777.²⁸ Edward vigorously denied that he had helped Aitken in any way and, needless to say, the British authorities took no action on the matter. Nevertheless, it seemed to confirm that Edward's sympathies were with the Colonist's cause and his departure a month later to the safety of Paris was not considered surprising. Ironically, far from bring him safety, his departure to Paris was the beginning of an extremely dangerous venture.

For the next six years Edward and his family lived in Paris - Penelope Fellows and their two sons joined him in May 1777 (Penelope was five months pregnant with their first daughter, Maria) - and five more children were born to them there. At some time during this period, perhaps influenced by the more puritan company they were keeping, Edward and Penelope seem to have got married but, sadly, despite the survival of the dates of their children's births and baptisms, no such family record survives for it. During that time Edward, when not enjoying the pleasures of that City in so far his family life would allow, worked for Deane and Franklin at the American Commission's office in the Passy suburb of Paris.

He had access to all the Commission's secret documents and copies of these duly found their way to Paul Wentworth via the bottle hidden in the Tuileries Gardens. Additionally, from time to time, Deane and Franklin sent him back to England on various missions. These visits to London allowed Edward to make personal reports to William Eden and his colleagues.

It is a tribute to the arrangements that Wentworth and Edward had set up for the collection of Edward's information that a copy of the Franco-American treaty of February 1778 was in the hands of George III within forty-two hours of it being signed, though in this instance a special courier was used. It is also remarkable that Edward's work for the British authorities went undiscovered, if not unsuspected, for all the years that he worked for the American Commission in Paris.

The Commission was soon to discover that there was a leak and eventually Arthur Lee (one of the commissioners) accused Edward of being responsible. There seems to have been considerable animosity between Lee and Edward, which may have accounted for this accusation. Lee, who was not liked by Deane and Franklin, could furnish no proof of his suspicions and the matter was eventually dropped. Ironically, it was later discovered that Lee's personal secretary, Major John Thornton, was one of William Eden's "information gatherers".

After about a year in Paris, Edward wrote to the Committee for Foreign Affairs of Congress setting out the work that he had done for Deane and the other commissioners in Paris and complaining of his lack of recognition by Congress. In it he threatens to give up his work for the Commission and focus on his own business affairs. What prompted him to write this letter is unclear. Perhaps, his pride was hurt that his efforts had gone unacknowledged (and unpaid) or, perhaps more likely, he thought it expedient, given the difficulties that he had had with Arthur Lee and his lack of a formal appointment within the Commission, to make a show of getting matters put on a proper footing. There is no record of whether or not he was ever recognised or remunerated by Congress but the letter may well have helped deflect suspicion from him.

The French, who spied against all the American Commissioners, seem to have had full confidence in Edward. Indeed, Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister, asked Edward to go to Ulster in 1779 to ascertain whether or not it would be possible to start a revolt among the Presbyterians there who were believed to be sympathetic to the republican cause. Disguised as an English merchant, Edward duly visited Ireland but on his return to Paris advised against the idea.

Despite being in Paris, Edward maintained his keen interest in speculating on the London [Stock] Exchange. There are reports of two episodes, neither entirely to Edward's credit, where he used information gained from his post with the Commissioners to further his own interests or that of his friends. In the first, he delayed reporting the news of General Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga so that he could make a "killing" on the Stock Exchange, writing instead to his London broker. Unfortunately, George III learnt of this and never really trusted his intelligence reports again, believing that they were designed simply to manipulate the market. In the second, Edward was accused by Arthur Lee of passing confidential information, including the approaching Franco-American treaty, to his friends the Whartons so that they could use it to speculate in stocks. The truth of Lee's accusation does not seem to have been ever properly established; there were claims and counterclaims, statements and retractions from the protagonists with no one coming out of the affair in a very good light.

By 1779, such was Edward's value to the British that they increased his remuneration to £1000 per annum for so long as he lived in France, which he did until June 1783 when he returned to England to live in London once again. By then, hostilities had ceased and the Treaty of Paris was in the process of being finalised; it was eventually signed on September 3rd 1783.

Later Career
(1783-1799)

Edward, now 38 years old, settled his family once again in London, taking a house in Duke Street, St James's, and having arranged for his two eldest sons, Edward Nathaniel and Samuel, to attend Dr William Rose's academy at Chiswick (it later moved to Hammersmith), he sailed for America in August 1783.²⁹

The purpose of this visit is uncertain. Some believe that he was sent by the British to discover how the fledgling United States was coping with its new-found independence and it is true that he had a meeting with Lord North and Charles Fox prior to his departure and offered his services " in promoting measures and dispositions, favourable to the interests of this Country, as well as in giving information of the State of things there, and of the views and proceedings of Congress, etc." The reason he himself gave was that he went to recover payment of a loan made by the Prince of Luxembourg to the State of South Carolina. Somehow he had acquired the power of attorney for the Prince in this matter, which concerned a warship called the Indian, later the South Carolina, and from which Edward was to have received a commission of 6% from all that he could recover. Unfortunately, he was unable to reach a satisfactory settlement with the State on that and other occasions though he pursued the claim for some years, even sending his son Samuel to America in 1796 to plead the case.

Whilst in America, Edward wrote to the British authorities about conditions and the political situation there lending credence to the story that he was still in the British Government's employ. He also wrote proposing the idea that a restrictive policy towards American shipping would fracture the unity of the new Union to Britain's advantage; a view born, no doubt, of his loyalist leanings. He was later to put this idea again to William Pitt on his return to England and reported that it had been favourably received but by then the British had had enough of conflict with America.³⁰

Edward stayed in America until June 1784 returning to London via Paris - he had interests in the dyeing trade there in partnership with Paul Jones (of which more later) - to find that his youngest daughter, Sophia, had died of smallpox a month or two earlier³¹ and his wife Penelope of unrecorded causes, in early May and, doubtless, the household in Duke Street being run either by his servants or possibly one Penelope's London relatives.

Edward's return from America in 1784 brought to an end his political activity and from then on he concentrated on his business and literary interests but, of course, the most pressing issue at that moment was the future care and education of his younger children. On that matter, Edith Bancroft writes, "He then placed his daughters at a boarding school (Sept. 30th, 1784) at Baron House, Mitcham, and returned to Paris for a few months."³² The fact that this event is dated suggests it came from some family document available to Edith; it gives her statement authenticity but it also raises some issues. First, what happened to the girls' brother, John Paul then aged 4, and, secondly, did Baron House Academy, which was owned from c. 1785 by the Dempster family, take young girls at that time; it was solely for young gentlemen by the 1800s.³³ Aged barely 3, Catherine would have been very young for such an "institution"!

With Penelope gone, obviously it was difficult for Edward to provide a family home in London for his children though he did always keep a house there while they were growing up, nonetheless, although his sons' education and "term time" existence are fairly clear-cut, no satisfactory account has survived of how his daughters, Maria, Julia and Catherine were looked after or educated.

It was in 1784 that Edward wrote the notorious memorial to Lord Carmarthen that was referred to earlier in which he sets out the details of the work that he had done for the British Crown between 1776 and 1783. It was intended to remind Lord Carmarthen of the promises that previous Secretaries of State had made concerning Edward's life pension. It is not known whether or not Edward ever received the pension he had been promised. As he did not raise the matter again, it has been assumed that he did but his financial difficulties in later years - he was insolvent at the time of his death - suggest that it never materialised.

For the next seven or eight years Edward seems to have flitted between London and Paris, possibly also running an establishment in the latter. He had business interests in both cities. His monopoly on the importation of the American Black Oak bark for the manufacture of quercitron in England was renewed for a further ten years by an Act of Parliament in 1785 and he secured a similar monopoly from the French Government in the July of that year; how long that latter monopoly survived is unknown, probably, not beyond 1793 when Britain and France were once again at war with each other.

Prior to obtaining the French monopoly, probably as early 1779, he is said to have had a business venture in France in partnership with John Paul Jones, a Scottish naval adventurer who is regarded as the "father" of the United States Navy, being the first to hold a commission in it, and after whom Edward named his third son. They were promoting the use of quercitron for the dyeing of wool and, several years later, the diaries of Gouverneur Morris, the first United States Minister to France and a friend of Edward's, record Morris's assistance to Edward in winding up that partnership in 1790. John Paul Jones died two years later.

It has been said that the quercitron business produced Edward an income of between £800 and £900 per annum but whether or not this figure took account of his French interests is unclear.³⁴

After the breakup of his partnership with John Paul Jones, Edward's business interests in France were wound down and from 1791 onwards, he was based firmly in England, having also, by then, taken British citizenship. At that time, he was living in Francis Street (now Torrington Place), St Pancras, having moved there in 1789 - it is said, he ran a medical practice in nearby Bedford Square for some years.³⁵ Before that house, Edward moved twice; from 6 Duke Street in St James's, in late 1784/early 1785, he moved to Villiers Street, Westminster, for a year and half or so, before moving on from there to 21 Charlotte Street, near Rathbone Place, in September 1786.³⁶

In 1787, while living in Charlotte Street, Edward, who was still in touch with the ageing Benjamin Franklin (their exchange of letters over this publication seems to been their last), edited a collection of Franklin's papers for the London publisher, Charles Dilly.³⁷ They appeared under the lengthy title Philosophical and miscellaneous papers / lately written by B. Franklin, LL.D. Fellow of the Royal Society of London; member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris; president of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, &c. &c.

Edward kept the house in Francis Street until c. 1804 before moving to Margaret Street, Cavendish Square. During these years the composition of his household was changing as his children grew to adulthood - Edward's youngest son John Paul had died, in August 1786, of unknown causes and, like his sister Sophia's, his place of burial has not been found. Edward Nathaniel and Samuel were away boarding at Dr William Rose's (from 1786, Mr Charles Burney's) Academy and would have left when it was still situated at Hammersmith - Charles Burney moved it to Greenwich in 1793. They both then went to Cambridge University and on into the wider world but Edward's three surviving daughters, Maria, Julia and Catherine, would have needed somewhere to live, someone to look after them until Maria was old enough to do so and, importantly, some education.

Overall, it is difficult to determine from surviving papers how much time Edward spent with his children during their childhood. Judging by his busy life and the little that his daughter Catherine was later able to tell her nephew William Bancroft about him, they did not see a lot of their father. In this context, it is interesting to note that when Edward wrote his Will in September 1802, he describes his three daughters as "residing in the City of Gloucester" and not with him in London.

Throughout 1792, Edward was engaged finalising the text of what was to be his magnum opus. When this was published on November 15th 1794, it was entitled: Experimental Researches Concerning the Philosophy of Permanent Colours and the best Means of producing them by Dying, Calico-printing, &c.. It was probably the first definitive work on dyeing and dyestuffs in the English language and it remained a popular work until the discovery of coal-tar dyestuffs in the 1850s and 1860s. It sold well and the thousand copies that were printed were soon taken up. Edward lamented in the second volume that second-hand copies of his first volume were selling at six times their original price [7s.] adding "... without any benefit to me".

There is an unsubstantiated family story that Edward was present at the execution of the French King, Louis XVI, who held him in high regard and who gave him his lace ruffles at the scaffold. These, so his granddaughter Mrs. Lister says in a letter to Mrs. Allen, another granddaughter, are in her possession.³⁷ Edward makes no mention of this in any of his papers nor does it seem that he was in Paris at that time (January 1793).

In the summer of 1799, Edward suffered a severe setback to his business interests because the House of Lords, succumbing to much lobbying by Northern dye manufacturers, threw out the Act of Parliament to renew of Edward's English monopoly on the quercitron bark trade. Edward was incensed and wrote a pamphlet of protest to Parliament on the matter but there was no going back and years later he was to write: "I was left with very little remuneration for the labours of a great part of my life. In less than twelve months this bark rose to three times the price at which it had been invariably supplied by me, and at which I should have been bound to supply it for another term of seven years, if the bill had become law; and it has on the average been at nearly double that price to the present time. This is the only instance, I believe, in which an invention ever became more costly after the expiration of a monopoly, granted to remunerate the inventor, than it was during the continuance thereof, and it has demonstrated most incontrovertibly that my opponents were greatly deceived and that I was greatly wronged".³⁸

1799 also brought with it the death of Edward's second son Samuel for whom Edward once held hopes of a successful legal career. Those hopes do not seem to have been fulfilled but Samuel did get married to Nancy Dixon, on the second attempt (the first seems to have been prevented by Nancy's guardians as she was still a minor).³⁹ Nancy was the beneficiary of a substantial sum from her late father's Will - the press reports putting it at £30,000 were a gross exaggeration - but she and Samuel had difficulties getting their hands on it (See Nancy's story). Samuel died just two months or so after their first child was born. Nancy remarried just over a year later.

Later Years

(1800-1821)

 Edward's financial circumstances were now considerably less rosy. He had lost any income he might have had from his quercitron bark imports and, worse still, he had hanging over him a debt to his former friend and fellow speculator, the Hon. Thomas Walpole, in the form of a promissory note for £6400 which Edward was committed to paying off at the rate of £250 every six months commencing in March 1800. Thomas Walpole died in the early months of 1803 by which time Edward appears to have paid him £1500 and then paid no more until Thomas Walpole's son and executor brought a case against him in the High Court in July 1804 to obtain the balance. The case went against Edward but how the future payments were made has not been discovered.⁴⁰

Furthermore, Edith Bancroft writes that he had lost £2500 in some unsuccessful business venture at Brentford. Consequently, by 1801, he found himself in severely straighten circumstances surrounded by demanding creditors and in a surviving letter, he writes to his daughter-in-law, Nancy, (the widow of his son Samuel) in April that year, saying, "my situation is such as imperiously to demand my departure from England as soon as possible, otherwise I shall have nothing left to help myself with."³⁷ Other pressing issues must have prevented his immediate departure as it was not until September 1802 that he embarked at Portsmouth for South Carolina and arrived in Charleston on October 22nd. Shortly before sailing, he took the precaution of making a new Will (his final one as it turned out) leaving his surviving children equal shares in his estate.

Edward was by now nearly 59 years of age and it is a tribute to his energy and courage that he undertook this journey and, also, another to South America two years later. Apart from escaping his creditors, Edward's voyage to South Carolina was in all probability in connection with the outstanding matter of the Prince of Luxembourg's loan to the State of South Carolina, which was mentioned earlier, but there is no record of this. As it is pretty certain that this visit to America was made in order to strengthen his financial position, it is quite likely that he also tried to recover some money he was due on land at Vandalia, Illinois. Unfortunately, he seems to have been unsuccessful with this claim as well because many years later it surfaced again as the "Bancroft Claim". It has never been paid.

Edward returned to London in December 1802, presumably, with his financial circumstances much as they had been when he left. Edward is recorded as still living in Francis Street in the Court papers of July 1804 but about this time his son Edward Nathaniel came to the end of another spell of army hospital service and it seems likely that they both moved to a house in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, sometime during that year. Edward Nathaniel is reported to have set up in private practice around that time and it is quite likely that his income kept the family afloat. The only contemporary reports of Edward living at Margaret Street concern an elegant dinner that he gave for "a select party of medical friends" in September 1805⁴¹ and the announcement of his daughter Julia's marriage to Dr George Lamb, Rector of Iden, in June 1806⁴² but it is believed that he lived there until Edward Nathaniel moved to Jamaica for the good of his health in the summer of 1811.

In November 1804, Edward embarked once again at Portsmouth, this time, for British Guiana. No explanation has survived of why he undertook his visit to British Guiana and it is difficult to see how it could have helped his financial situation except insofar as it removed him, albeit temporarily, from pressing creditors. A note in his eldest son's Essay on the disease called Yellow Fever, &c., &c., which he edited, records that he stayed with Dr and Mrs. Ord when travelling between Demerary (Demerara) and Berbice in February 1805. The note explains that Dr Ord was formerly Surgeon to the 39th Regiment and that Edward had ascertained from him that he did not consider Yellow Fever contagious. In April 1805, he sailed to Barbados where he records he received great hospitality from Lord Seaforth (Captain-General and Governor in Chief) and other gentlemen of the Island. He returned to England in July 1805.

1811 finds Edward living in Chelsea but it is unclear whether or not he was there on his own. Indeed, the whereabouts of his two daughters Maria and Catherine during much of his lifetime is shrouded in mystery, as is how they managed to afford to live independently of him, if indeed they did. There is a suggestion that they might have been the first to settle on the south coast, perhaps to be near their sister Julia when she moved to Rye and then Iden after her marriage. There is a possible sighting of them at Ramsgate in September 1815⁴³ and they were present when their brother's eldest daughter, Ursula, was christened (for the second time) at Margate by the Revd. Lamb in April 1817 (Maria was a godmother). The christening's setting at Margate and not Iden (Revd. Lamb's parish church) suggests that Margate was more convenient for everyone especially Edward who may well have been living there by then.⁴⁴

While still in London, Edward published a revised version of his first volume of his magnum opus, The Philosophy of Permanent Colours,^† together with the long-awaited second volume. It appeared in London in 1813 and in the title page of second volume, he states that he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of the State Massachusetts Bay; an honour which he must have acquired sometime after the publication of the first volume otherwise, doubtless, it would have been mentioned at that time.

In September 1816, the French academic publication Annales de Chimie et de Physique contained a paper by Edward entitled "Instructions concernant les préparations nommées lac-lake et lac-dye; &c., &c.". This paper is not, as some have indicated, simply an extract from Edward's The Philosophy of Permanent Colours (vol. II), it is an original text on the subject. Interestingly enough, "M. Edward Banckroft" is credited as the author, but not as the translator, that honour went to an unnamed person: "Extrait de l'anglais par M. ***" as the title page puts it.⁴⁵

It is said that Edward's declining years were spent in straitened financial circumstances and that he was in debt in 1818 though there is no evidence that after the Walpole case anyone else took him to court or sought his bankruptcy.

Edward died in Margate, possibly at a house in Addington Place, in September 1821.⁴⁶ He was buried in the churchyard at Iden in a plot set aside for members of the Lamb family. The plot and Edward's gravestone were recorded to as being intact in 1906 but have disappeared in the intervening years.

The Will that Edward made in 1802 left any property he had at his death to be divided equally amongst his four surviving children, Maria, Julia, Catherine and Edward Nathaniel.⁴⁷ Such a Will was rather unusual for that period as it gave no preference to his eldest son. He appointed Edward Nathaniel and his oldest surviving daughter as his executors and, as he was doubtless concerned about Edward Nathaniel's life expectancy, in the event of the latter predeceasing him, he appointed his two oldest surviving daughters as his executrices, counselling them to get good advice on what to do. In the event, Maria, Edward's eldest daughter, obtained probate. According to the Legacy Duty record of his affairs, she swore that his assets were under £200, though this seems to have been revised to £300 in June 1822.

There is a rather cryptic entry in this record; in the columns to be used for setting out the amounts each beneficiary is due to receive, it says: "Insolvent" followed by "RS 1811-1822". What the latter entry indicates is unclear but there were no free assets to distribute and so no liability for legacy duty.⁴⁸

At the time Edith Bancroft wrote about Edward in the early decades of the 20^th century, she stated that there were two portraits of him in existence: Mrs. Alexander (his great granddaughter Blanche Bancroft) had a small watercolour sketch and that Edith herself had a head and shoulders oil painting of which the picture of Edward above is a photograph. Neither picture seems to have survived the German bombing during WW II but, happily, Edith had photographs made of her portrait of Edward, one of which she donated to the Royal Society in 1909, others are held by some of Edward's descendants.⁴⁹

^† Experimental Researches Concerning the Philosophy of Permanent Colours: And the Best Means of Producing Them, by Dyeing, Calico Printing, &c, Volume 1

Edward married Penelope Fellows, daughter of William Fellows and Penelope, 1771 or c. 1777 in London or Paris. (Penelope Fellows was born on 26 Nov 1749 in Stonecutters Street, London ^{50 51}, baptised on 22 Dec 1749 in St Bride's, Fleet Street, London,⁵² died on 10 May 1784 in Duke St, St James's, London ⁵³ and was buried on 13 May 1784 in St James's Church, Piccadilly ⁵⁴.)