Associated Loyalists Embrace Policy of Retaliation

As noted in a prior article, in October 1781, the Continental Congress issued a manifesto promising eye-for-an-eye retaliation against captured British and Loyalists for atrocities committed against citizens of the United States. Emboldened by this manifesto, Monmouth County’s Association for Retaliation, a vigilante society, increased the quantity and severity of its acts against its real and perceived enemies. The movement toward more severe retaliation—through which a prisoner would be punished for abuses unrelated to his own acts—progressed on both sides.

From New York, the Associated Loyalists were a body of embittered Loyalist refugees who raided into the American countryside in order to punish rebels and bring much-needed farm goods into New York (for which they were paid good prices from British commissary officers). But British commanders never liked the Associated Loyalists—resenting their independence and indifference to the rules of war. Henry Clinton, commanding British forces in America, called the Associated Loyalists "over sanguine refugees whose zeal has but too often outrun their prudence."

British Leaders Restrain Retaliation

The Associated Loyalists embraced retaliation largely due to events in Monmouth County. In January 1781, Loyalists were loaded in irons in the Monmouth County jail. Thomas Crowell (formerly of Middletown) of the Associated Loyalists loaded rebel prisoners in his custody in irons as an act of retaliation. But Crowell did not undertake more violent retaliation. Loyalist leaders understood that extra-legal murders were a step beyond what the British would tolerate, and an act that could ruin the reputation of men associated with it. The conversation about retaliation, however, continued.

James Robertson, the Governor-General at New York wrote to Clinton on January 23. Robertson alluded to Clinton asking him if the civil government headed by Robertson might embrace a policy of retaliation. He acknowledged that Clinton "did not think it expedient to threaten military retaliation." Robertson noted Loyalist requests for retaliation but declined to embrace it himself, writing that Clinton "had already fallen upon a better expedient to recover the confidence of the Loyalists."

The next day, Clinton wrote Lord George Germain, the British Foreign Secretary, about his discussions with Robertson and William Franklin (Chairman of the Associated Loyalists) about retaliation:

In the cause of debate upon this subject, General Robertson having expressed himself of the opinion that it might be necessary for me to issue a proclamation threatening the rebels with retaliation for any injury they should inflict upon the Loyalists for having joined the King's Army; I told him that I thought punishments of that nature operated more properly in the civil jurisdiction and that a threat of retaliation from the Army would be altogether nugatory to the present hour.

Clinton avoided taking a stand on the policy of retaliation; he simply stated that it was not a military matter. Germain had a warm relationship with Franklin and was likely lobbied by Franklin on the need for the British to embrace a policy of retaliation. Germain asked Clinton to offer a gesture of support for the Associated Loyalists if he would not accede to their request on retaliation. Accordingly, on March 9, Clinton wrote a public letter that was published in the Loyalist New York Gazette. Clinton (insincerely) expressed his “continued affection” for the Associated Loyalists and offered "assurances that no post, place or garrison in which Loyalists are joined with the King's troops will be surrendered on any terms which might discriminate between them." He remained silent on retaliation.

Clinton’s letter was little solace for strident Loyalists who craved revenge. One such Loyalist was James Moody, who played a prominent role in the raid that razed Tinton Falls in 1779, and whose brother, John Moody, was a Loyalist horse thief killed in August 1781. Moody would write that the Associated Loyalists were "hand-in-glove with similar bodies of depredators on the American side" but were checked by the British, while American vigilantes went unchecked. Moody further wrote of the Associated Loyalists: “One of the objects of the organization was that the Associators could retaliate upon the Americans for outrages and murders committed upon the Loyalists.” And yet the British restrained them:

Our Generals suffered these [rebel] executions of the Loyalists to go on, without ever attempting to put a stop to them by threatening to retaliate. Nay, they would not permit the Associated Loyalists to save their friends, by threatening to execute the Rebels, whom these Loyalists had taken prisoners, and they [the Loyalists] held in their own custody.

However, Moody also understood that acts of retaliation might beget acts of retaliation from the other side, leading to a cycle of pointless escalation: “It is asserted by the enemy, I fear with good ground, that they are compelled to retaliate for the violences committed by the crews of [Loyalist] whaleboats.” This inspired Whig privateers such as Adam Hyler “that frequently land on Staten and Long Island without a pretense of authority and commit the same cruelties & depredations." 

Moody also noted that prisoners in the custody of hostile localities such as Monmouth County were subject to abuse. These prisoners should be put in custody of "Continental or State Commissaries of Prisoners."

Associated Loyalists Embrace Retaliation

There is little doubt that the leadership of the Associated Loyalists, and William Franklin in particular, wanted to kill a rebel prisoner as an act of retaliation. Thomas Leonard, formerly of Freehold, who had served as a major in the New Jersey Volunteers, recalled speaking with Franklin on April 1, 1782. He and Franklin discussed “the relief of Captain [Clayton] Tilton” (jailed in Monmouth County) and the murder of the Loyalist Philip White. Franklin said "he knew of no means to prevent the cruel & barbarous treatment but retaliation, which had been his sentiment from the first." Franklin reportedly said he would "order retaliation" were it within his authority. Two weeks later, Richard Lippincott, at the verbal direction of Franklin, murdered Joshua Huddy of Colts Neck. (The subject of another article.)

Henry Clinton did not support Huddy’s execution. He called it "a very extraordinary outrage” and “an unprecedented act of barbarity." He concluded that, "I cannot too much lament the great imprudence shown by the Refugees." He accused the Associated Loyalists of showing only a "trifling" concern to Clinton's misgivings about retaliation. He ordered Lippincott's arrest and court martial to determine who was at fault.

On May 1, Clinton stripped the Associated Loyalists of the power to cross enemy lines: "no expedition or excursion against the enemy shall take place from the posts under their [the Board's] charge, without his Excellency's particular orders." No such permission would be granted. The Loyalist publisher, Hugh Gaine, recorded on May 1: "Orders for this day for no farther hostilities at any of our ports, and the Refugees not to go out any more without orders." He also reported "much talk about poor Lippincott." Franklin laid low and then left for England to avoid Lippincott’s court martial and the building taint on his reputation.

From England, Franklin stayed interested in the plight of Loyalists but now seemed to understand that the Associated Loyalists lacked the authority to execute a man as retaliation for an unrelated abuse. In June, he wrote Guy Carleton, Clinton’s successor, about the fate of Timothy Scoby and William Herbert, two more Monmouth County Loyalists jailed in Freehold and sentenced to death. Franklin complained:

No crime is alleged against them, as we are well assured, but their Loyalty, and one of them was taken on shore going to purchase provisions, and the other within British lines. As it is not within the power of the Board to afford these poor Loyalists the relief they are entitled, especially as retaliation nor threats of retaliation, can be made by them [the Board] without the concurrence of the Commander in Chief, they must beg leave to subject the whole matter to your Excellency's determination.

In Great Britain, the ethics of retaliation was debated through the end of 1782. In July, the magazine, The Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military, and Literary Journal, printed several letters related to Lippincott’s court martial and rebel abuses. The editor claimed that retaliation, though unpleasant, was effective:

This they did in two other instances previous to the death of Huddy and it produced the desired result in the quarter where it was done. Rebel murder and assassinations immediately ceased, and the Loyalists, when taken, were treated with humanity and exchanged; and their cannot be a possibility of doubt, but that had our Generals conducted the war upon the same politic and just principles, the lives of many hundreds of faithful British subjects would have been saved, and the war carried on in a manner humane and civilized.

Yet, we lack evidence that American leaders were intimidated into kindness for Loyalist prisoners because of the brazen mistreatment of rebel prisoners. The march toward the ultimate expression of retaliation—murder—in April 1782 suggests the opposite was true. The Associated Loyalists’ embrace of murderous retaliation was stoked by the Association for Retaliation of Monmouth County.

Historian Simon Schama labeled retaliation a "brutal vendetta.” He also observed that the escalation toward murderous retaliation was "no surprise" given that men on both sides were motivated by revenge more than any other principle.

Caption: Gen. Henry Clinton restrained Loyalists from murdering American prisoners in retaliation for abuses against captured Loyalists. Loyalist mistreatment in Monmouth County was a major flashpoint.

Related Historic Site: Morris-Jumel Mansion (New York City)

Sources: Henry Clinton, The American Rebellion; Sir Henry Clinton's Narrative of His Campaigns, 1775-1782, with an Appendix of Original Documents (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1971) p 192; Alexander Lawrence Flick, Loyalism in New York During the American Revolution (NY: Columbia UP) p113-4;

James Robertson to Henry Clinton, Great Britain Public Record Office, CO5/1089, p415-6; Henry Clinton to George Germain, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Colonial Office, CO 5, v93, reel 8, #413; Transcript of the Court Martial of Richard Lippincott, http://personal.nbnet.nb.ca/halew/Lippincott.html ; Cynthia Eldenberg, Jonathan Odell: Loyalist Poet of the American Revolution (Durham: Duke UP, 1987) p129-32; Library of Congress, Rivington's New York Gazette, reel 2906; Thomas Jones, History of New York During the Revolutionary War: And of the Leading Events in the Other Colonies at That Period (Ulan: 2012) pp. 481-3; Susan Burgess Shenston, So Obstinately Loyal, James Moody (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000) p 138; Anonymous Account in Jared Sparks Collection, Harvard U - Houghton Library, MS Sparks, 49.2, #141; Thomas Leonard’s deposition at Richard Lippincott’s Court Martial, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Colonial Office, CO 5, v107, #240-2, 261, 268; Board of Associated Loyalists to Henry Clinon, Library of Congress, Richard Lippincott Court Martial, reel 1, #187; Henry Clinton to Board of Associated Loyalists in Edward H. Tebbenhoff, “The Associated Loyalists: An Aspect of Militant Loyalism,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 63 (1979), pp. 142-3; Simon Schama, Rough Crossings, (NY: Harper Collins, 2006) p140-2; Francis Bazley Lee, New Jersey as a Colony and as a State (New York: The Publishing Society of New Jersey, 1902), vol 2, pp. 249-50; Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Journals of Hugh Gaine, Volume I (New York: Dodd, Mead 81 Company, 1902), vol. 2, pp. 148, 152; Henry Clinton to George Germain, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Colonial Office, CO 5, v105, reel 8, #692-705; William Smith, Historical Memoirs of William Smith: From 26 August 1778 to 12 November 1783 (New York: Arno, 1971)  pp. 507, 511, 529; William Franklin to Guy Carleton, Great Britain Public Record Office, British Headquarters Papers, 30/55, #4768; The Political Magazine and Parliamentary, Naval, Military, and Literary Journal, July 1782, v 4, p 420.