Edward Bancroft: Scientist, Author, Spy

by Thomas J. Schaeper

A man of as many names as motives, Edward Bancroft is a singular figure in the history of Revolutionary America. Born in Massachusetts in 1745, Bancroft moved to England as a young man in the 1760s and began building a respectable résumé as both a scientist and a man of letters. In recognition of his works in natural history, Bancroft was unanimously elected to the Royal Society, and while working to secure French aid for the American Revolution, he became a close associate of such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and John Adams. Though lauded in his time as a staunch American patriot, when the British diplomatic archives were opened in the late nineteenth century, it was revealed that Bancroft led a secret life as a British agent acting against French and American interests.

In this book, the first complete biography of Bancroft, historian Thomas J. Schaeper reveals the full extent of the agent's deception during the crucial years of the American Revolution. Operating under aliases, working in ciphers, and leaving coded messages in the trees of Paris's Tuileries Gardens, Bancroft filtered information from unsuspecting figures including Franklin and Deane back to his contacts in Britain, navigating a complicated web of political allegiances. Through Schaeper's keen analysis of Bancroft's correspondence and diplomatic records, this biography reveals whether Bancroft should ultimately be considered a traitor to America or a patriot to Britain.

Genres: Biography, History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 2008

Reviews

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Philosophical question: Could one be branded a traitor to America before 1776? Many colonists, including Ben Franklin (Until July 4, 1776), did not want to leave the British Empire. Edward Bancroft was either a spy or a double spy and no one fully understood this until almost 100 years later. His work on behalf of the Monarchy prolonged the war, watered down the treaty negotiations and cost thousands of lives.

In addition to that, he was a world class scientist.

Was Franklin duped this spy or did he dupe the spy?

Interesting bio.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a 2005 article published by the Journal of American History (91: 1415), Daniel J. Cohen, estimated that 2.3% of all college U.S. history survey courses used the popular text Davidson & Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, as a course supplement, making that book the third most adopted supplement in American history survey courses nationwide. Presumably, then, countless thousands of American college students have read of Edward Bancroft (1744-1821) through the well-written, but deliberately one-sided, account that Davidson & Lytle present in the “Prologue” of their book, a chapter based on the three long articles by Julian Boyd (William and Mary Quarterly, 1959) arguing that Bancroft likely murdered American diplomat Silas Deane (1737-1789), perhaps by poisoning his supply of laudanum.

Schaeper has done great service by demonstrating the overwhelming unlikelihood of Boyd’s scholarly speculation while in the process providing us with the first rounded portrait of Bancroft, whom he considers “a first-rate scientist who also happened to be a first-rate spy.” My own judgment is that Bancroft was a second-rate scientist whose spying unintentionally aided the American Revolution; but that belief does not detract from Schaeper’s careful and lucid account of Bancroft’s life and times. I still think Bancroft a scoundrel, just not as great a scoundrel as I once believed.

A curious question is whether, in the next edition of their textbook, Davidson & Lytle will recognize Schaeper’s new evidence, evidence they claim to “eagerly await” in their bibliography, or whether they will continue to purvey the entertaining Boyd thesis on the grounds that “limitations of space” prevent them from doing otherwise.

[The Book : An Online Review at The New Republic]

THE HISTORICAL LEDGER gives famous spies and traitors a celebrity they rarely sought in their own lives. For Americans, treason and Benedict Arnold are synonymous. When we admire noble patriotism, we think of Nathan Hale, executed by the British as a spy in September 1776, regretting that he had only one life to give for his country.Read more...