An Artist in Treason: The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson by Andro Linklater Page B
Authors: Andro Linklater
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When he finally recovered his composure, his career as an officer in the Revolutionary War was at an end. He had neither command nor patron, and too much pride to seek either again.
He had trusted Gates and, in his own mind, been betrayed, and the experience had erased a small but curiously childlike innocence.
6
L OVE AND I NDEPENDENCE
O N NOVEMBER 12, 1778, Colonel James Wilkinson married Miss Ann Biddle at an Episcopalian ceremony in Christ Church, Philadelphia’s most fashionable church. The place and the denomination signified that Nancy Biddle was prepared to be expelled from the Society of Friends for breaking its rule against marrying one of “the world’s people” rather than a Friend. Her brothers, Clement and Owen, both military officers, had suffered the same fate for flouting the Quaker doctrine of pacifism. Nevertheless, it cannot have been an easy decision for someone who, for all her high spirits, needed to be surrounded by familiar faces and close friends. Her parents and two sisters remained Quakers, while Owen secured readmission after the war. For years Nancy retained her Quaker speech with its thee and thy , even after she had left Philadelphia. But being married to “my beloved Jimmy” ensured a lifelong exile from the calm and quiet in which she had been reared.
The wedding also forced her nominally Episcopalian husband to enter a different world. Hitherto he had had to follow the spartan lifestyle of a U.S. army officer, and, before that, of the son of a near-bankrupt. By marrying into the Biddle family, James Wilkinson exchanged this pinched existence for a world of mouthwatering financial prospects.
The decision of the British general William Howe to withdraw from Philadelphia in June 1778 allowed the wedding to take place in the city. The British retreat also enabled John Biddle to regain ownership of his house and other enterprises in the city, including the badly damaged Indian King, renamed by the invaders the British Tavern. One of Wilkinson’s first civilian jobs was to help his father-in- law take control of his business once more. But the scope for making real money came from the fierce turf war that was fought for political control of the evacuated city.
It was won by the Constitutionalists, an egalitarian alliance of Presbyterians from western Pennsylvania and radical Whigs, who earned their name by their ideological commitment to the state’s one-man, one-vote constitution. Having spent the months of British occupation in hungry exile while others remained in the city and grew rich under enemy protection, the Constitutionalists returned to Philadelphia determined on both democracy and restitution. The program had broad appeal, not just to frontier farmers and politicians, but to mainstream families such as the Biddles, and to young professionals such as Wilkinson’s medical friend Dr. James Hutchinson.
The Constitutionalists’ leader, Joseph Reed, was elected president of the Pennsylvania supreme executive council in December. At once he began to hunt out Tory sympathizers, both among the large Loyalist population who had actively collaborated with the British, and among pacifist Quakers and moderate patriots who had simply accepted occupation. Acts of attainder were issued against almost five hundred people suspected of helping the British, requiring them to stand trial or risk confiscation of their property, and everyone holding public office was ordered to take an oath of loyalty to the Pennsylvania constitution.
There were dangers to this divisive strategy. Philadelphia’s powerful business community had numerous contacts with the British who controlled the coastline. To trade or do business on any scale was virtually impossible without negotiating some mutually beneficial arrangement with the enemy. Vulnerable to the Constitutionalists’ attack, Philadelphia’s merchants formed a rival party called the Republicans in March 1779, to fight for “the Happiness
He had trusted Gates and, in his own mind, been betrayed, and the experience had erased a small but curiously childlike innocence.
6
L OVE AND I NDEPENDENCE
O N NOVEMBER 12, 1778, Colonel James Wilkinson married Miss Ann Biddle at an Episcopalian ceremony in Christ Church, Philadelphia’s most fashionable church. The place and the denomination signified that Nancy Biddle was prepared to be expelled from the Society of Friends for breaking its rule against marrying one of “the world’s people” rather than a Friend. Her brothers, Clement and Owen, both military officers, had suffered the same fate for flouting the Quaker doctrine of pacifism. Nevertheless, it cannot have been an easy decision for someone who, for all her high spirits, needed to be surrounded by familiar faces and close friends. Her parents and two sisters remained Quakers, while Owen secured readmission after the war. For years Nancy retained her Quaker speech with its thee and thy , even after she had left Philadelphia. But being married to “my beloved Jimmy” ensured a lifelong exile from the calm and quiet in which she had been reared.
The wedding also forced her nominally Episcopalian husband to enter a different world. Hitherto he had had to follow the spartan lifestyle of a U.S. army officer, and, before that, of the son of a near-bankrupt. By marrying into the Biddle family, James Wilkinson exchanged this pinched existence for a world of mouthwatering financial prospects.
The decision of the British general William Howe to withdraw from Philadelphia in June 1778 allowed the wedding to take place in the city. The British retreat also enabled John Biddle to regain ownership of his house and other enterprises in the city, including the badly damaged Indian King, renamed by the invaders the British Tavern. One of Wilkinson’s first civilian jobs was to help his father-in- law take control of his business once more. But the scope for making real money came from the fierce turf war that was fought for political control of the evacuated city.
It was won by the Constitutionalists, an egalitarian alliance of Presbyterians from western Pennsylvania and radical Whigs, who earned their name by their ideological commitment to the state’s one-man, one-vote constitution. Having spent the months of British occupation in hungry exile while others remained in the city and grew rich under enemy protection, the Constitutionalists returned to Philadelphia determined on both democracy and restitution. The program had broad appeal, not just to frontier farmers and politicians, but to mainstream families such as the Biddles, and to young professionals such as Wilkinson’s medical friend Dr. James Hutchinson.
The Constitutionalists’ leader, Joseph Reed, was elected president of the Pennsylvania supreme executive council in December. At once he began to hunt out Tory sympathizers, both among the large Loyalist population who had actively collaborated with the British, and among pacifist Quakers and moderate patriots who had simply accepted occupation. Acts of attainder were issued against almost five hundred people suspected of helping the British, requiring them to stand trial or risk confiscation of their property, and everyone holding public office was ordered to take an oath of loyalty to the Pennsylvania constitution.
There were dangers to this divisive strategy. Philadelphia’s powerful business community had numerous contacts with the British who controlled the coastline. To trade or do business on any scale was virtually impossible without negotiating some mutually beneficial arrangement with the enemy. Vulnerable to the Constitutionalists’ attack, Philadelphia’s merchants formed a rival party called the Republicans in March 1779, to fight for “the Happiness
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