USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > History of Monmouth County, New Jersey. Pt. 1 > Part 42
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"The above was read to, considered and approved of by upwards of four hundred respectable citizens.
"Ordered by them that the committee by us ap- pointed do, in our names, sign it.
" Ordered that General Forman and Colonel Holmes be requested to wait on his Excellency, General Wash- ington, with it, and that they do wait hls Excellency's final determination.
" Monmouth, April 14, 1782.
"John Covenhoven, Samuel Forman,
Thomas Seabrook,
William Wilcocks,
Peter Forman, Asher Holmes,
Richard Cox, Elisha Walton,
Joseph Stillwell, Stephen Fleming,
Barnes Smock, John Smock,
John Schanck, Thomas Chadwick."
The committee appointed to wait on General Washington placed in his hands, besides the foregoing address, the affidavits of Aaron White, John North, William Borden and John Russell in relation to the killing of Philip White, and also the affidavit of Daniel Randolph (who had been a prisoner in the hands of the British with Huddy) to the facts embodied in the address in reference to Huddy's imprisonment and execu- tion. When General Washington received their papers he at once transmitted them to the Pres- ident of Congress, notifying that body of his in- tention to retaliate, and asking their approba- tion of such a step.1 He also ordered the as-
sembling of a council of war, which was accord- ingly held at the headquarters of General Heath, at West Point, on the 19th of April. The coun- cil unanimously decided on retaliation unless Lippincott should be given up, the victim to be selected by lot from the British prisoners (officers) who had surrendered at discretion, and not under convention or capitulation. This de- cision was submitted to Congress and approved by that body.
Washington notified Sir Henry Clinton (April 21st) of the decision of the council of war, and demanded the surrender of Lippincott. Clinton replied on the 25th, refusing to give up Lippincott, but said he had ordered a court-mar- tial of that officer to investigate the circum- stances of the execution of Huddy. In May, Clinton was succeeded in command, at New York, by Sir Guy Carleton, who wrote Wash- ington condemning the Huddy murder and en- tirely disavowing it on behalf of the British authorities. In fact, the British were inclined to surrender Lippincott to Washington, but the influence of the American Loyalists prevented it.2
The demand for Lippincott's surrender hav- ing been refused, Washington ordered the selec- tion of a victim from among the British officers taken at Yorktown, and then confined at Lan- caster, Pa. The lot fell on Charles Asgill, a captain in the Guards, a member of a noble fam- ily in England, and at that time only nineteen years of age, who, immediately after the selec- tion by lot, was conducted to Philadelphia and thence to Chatham, accompanied by his steadfast friend, Major Gordon, of the British army, who was to remain his companion to the end.
There was great excitement and exasperation among the people when it was definitely an- nounced that Lippincott would not be given up, and a plan was then proposed to capture him in the midst of his friends in New York, and bring him away by force. To effect this purpose, Captain Adam Hyler, of New Brunswick, hav-
1 The papers having been referred to a committee, and . that committee reporting on the 26th of April, Congress
passed a resolution unanimously approving " the firm and judicious conduct of the commander-in-chief in his applica- tion to the British General of New York, and do assure him of their firmest support in his fixed purpose of exemplary retaliation."
2 Thatcher.
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ing ascertained that Lippincott resided in Broad Street, New York, left the Kills at dark in a single boat, with a crew disguised as a British press-gang, and arrived at Whitehall, New York, about nine o'clock. Here he left the boat in charge of a few men and passed directly to Lippincott's house, where, on inquiry, it was as- certained " he had gone to Cock Pit," and so the expedition failed ; but the promptness with which the dangerous and desperate service was performed proved the devotion of the brave men who undertook it.1
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In the mean time the execution of Captain Asgill was suspended, and every effort was used, every plan that ingenuity could devise or sympathy suggest, was adopted to save the in- nocent victim. His friend, Major Gordon, ap- pealed to the French Minister, then in Phila- delphia ; he wrote to the Count de Rochambeau, and dispatched messengers to numerous in- fluential Whigs throughout the colonies to interest them in behalf of the unfortunate captain; and so eloquent and importunate were his appeals that it was said by General Graham that " even the family of Captain Huddy became themselves suppliants in Asgill's favor." These untiring exertions unquestionably contributed to postpone the fate of the victim, until finally the court of France made successful intercession.
" The public prints all over Europe resounded with the unhappy catastrophe, which for eight months impended over the life of this young officer.2 The extreme grief of his mother [Lady Asgill], the sort of delirum that clouded the mind of his sister at hearing the dreadful fate which menaced the life of her brother, interested every feeling mind in the fate of that unfortunate family. The general curiosity in regard to the events of the war yielded, if I may say so, to the interest which young Asgill inspired ; and the first question asked of all vessels that ar- rived from any port in North America was
1 Naval Magazine, November, 1839.
? This quotation is from the Memoirs of Baron de Grimm, whose attention was the more particularly called to the story of Captain Asgill's doom, to die in retaliation for the murder of Huddy, by it being made the foundation of a tragedy called " Abdir," written by De Sauvigny, and rep- resented in one of the theatres of Paris in January, 1789.
always an inquiry into the fate of that young man. It was known that Asgill was thrice conducted to the foot of the gibbet, and that thrice General Washington, who could not bring himself to commit this crime of policy without a great struggle, suspended his punish- ment ; his humanity and justice made him hope that the English general would deliver over to him the author of the crime Asgill was con- demned to expiate. Sir Henry Clinton, either ill advised, or insensible to the fate of young Asgill, persisted in refusing to deliver up the barbarous Lippincott. In vain the King of England, at whose feet the unfortunate family fell down, had given orders to surrender up to the Americans the author of a crime which dis- honored the English nation ; George the Third was not obeyed ! In vain the States of Hol- land entreated the United States of America for the pardon of the unhappy Asgill. The gibbet, erected in front of his prison, did not cease to offer to his eyes those dreadful preparations, more awful than death itself. In these cir- cumstances, and almost reduced to despair, the mother of the unfortunate victim bethought herself that the minister of a King armed against her own nation might succeed in ol- taining that which was refused to her King. Madame Asgill wrote to the Count de Vergen- nes a letter, the eloquence of which, independent of oratorical forms, is that of all peoples and languages, because it derives its power from the first and noblest sentiment of our nature."
For more than six months the brave young Asgill remained under suspended sentence and within the shadow of death. Then came his deliverance, wrought out chiefly by his mother's piteous petition to the gallant Frenchman, Ver- gennes, through whose influence the King and court of France was induced to ask the Govern- ment of the United States to forego retaliation. Such a request from its great ally could not be disregarded, and the distressing case was closed by the following action of Congress, viz. :
"THURSDAY, November 7, 1782.
"On the report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. Rutledge, Mr. Osgood, Mr. Montgom- ery, Mr. Boudinot and Mr. Duane, to whom
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
were referred the letter of the 19th of August last, from the Commander-in-Chief, the report of a committee thereon, and the motions of Mr. Williamson and Mr. Rutledge; and also another letter from the Commander-in-Chief, with a copy of a letter to him from the Count de Ver- gennes, dated July 29th last, interceding for Captain Asgill : Resolved, That the Commander- in-Chief be, and he hereby is, directed to set Captain Asgill at liberty."
A copy of these proceedings and the resolu- tion was forwarded by Washington to Captain Asgill, with the following admirable letter:
*"Sir .- It affords me singular satisfaction to have it in my power to transmit to you the en- closed copy of an Act of Congress of the 7th instant, by which you are relieved from the disagreeable circumstances in which you have so long been placed. Supposing that you would wish to go to New York as soon as possible, I also enclose a passport for that purpose. Your letter of the 18th came regularly to my hands. I beg of you to believe that my not answering it sooner did not proceed from inattention to you, nor a want of feeling for your situation; but I daily expected a determination of your case, and I thought it better to await that, than to feed you with hopes that might in the end prove fruitless. You will attribute my deten- tion of the enclosed letters, which have been in my possession for a fortnight, to the same cause.
"I cannot take leave of you, sir, without as- suring you that, in whatever light my agency in this unpleasant affair may be viewed, I was never influenced by sanguinary motives, but what I considered to be throughout the whole of it a sense of duty, which loudly called on me to use measures, however disagreeable, to pre- vent a repetition of those enormities which have been the subject of discussion; and that this important end is now likely to be answer- ed without the effusion of the blood of an innocent person, is not a greater relief to you, than it is to me.
"G" WASHINGTON."
"CAPT. CHARLES ASGILL."
Upon his release Captain Asgill proceeded to
New York, whence soon afterwards he sailed to England and rejoined his family. The letters ad- dressed by his overjoyed mother to the Count de Vergennes and Major Gordon, expressing in the most touching manner her deep gratitude to them for what they had done in her son's be- half, are intensely interesting in their pathetic earnestness, but their length forbids their inser- tion here. Very few facts have been found concerning the subsequent career of the bright young officer who stood so long in full view and continual expectation of an ignominious but undeserved death.
In December, 1836, almost fifty-five years after the murder of Captain Joshua Huddy, his youngest and only surviving child, Martha Piatt, then an aged widow, living in Cincinnati, Ohio, petitioned the Congress of the United States, asking pecuniary relief. In her memo- rial, after reciting the above-named facts and the circumstances of her father's death, she proceeds: "His widow, left desolate, with two daughters of tender age, in common with the high-souled females of the Revolution, trusted in Providence, and hoped that the country for which her husband's life had been sacrificed would not forget her or her children.
While, in obedience to these claims, a British officer was selected by lot as the victim of re- taliation, and while the melancholy interest which youth and innocence associated with the name of Captain Asgill excited the deep sympathy of the American people, while the heart-rending appeal of his noble mother to the Count de Ver- gennes in behalf of her devoted son induced the mediation of the French Court to obtain his release, the name and fate of Captain Huddy are only remembered as among the many in- stances of cruelty incident to a state of war. And the widow and children of that martyred hero have been left hitherto without the least token of the gratitude of their country. Your petitioner appeals to the justice of Congress. She is now seventy years of age; her mother is dead and her sister also. She alone survives to feel anew the horrors of that dreadful moment when she was told that she was fatherless and that her gallant sire had met the death of a
1
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malefactor, while his only crime was his ardent attachment to the cause of American liberty. The gratitude of the country has been long de- ferred, and, though late, your petitioner asks that, in common with the representatives of her deceased sister, she may be allowed such sum in money and such quantities of land as her father would have been entitled to had he served until the conclusion of the Revolutionary War."
This petition was presented to Congress on the 21st of December, 1836, and referred to a special committee, consisting of Mr. Storer, of Ohio; Mr. Buchanan, of Pennsylvania; Mr. Hardin, of Kentucky; Mr. Elmore, of South Carolina; and Mr. Schenck, of New Jersey. In February, 1837, this committee made a re- port, recommending the desired measure of re- lief, and embody ing a representation of the facts in the case, accompanied by remarks upon it, from which the following extracts are made:
"Perhaps the annals of the civilized world do not present a more melancholy spectacle than was exhib- ited in New Jersey while the British army occupied the city of New York. The people were all at arms, their substance wasted by the enemy, their farms un- tilled, their families dispersed. In addition to the constant and harassing inroads of the British, there "The committee, in the consideration of the case, cannot account for the silence of an American Con- gress upon a claim like this present, which the history of the Revolution so amply established. It is true, his representatives have made no appeal until they offered their memorial at this session, but it is be- lieved that the principles of natural justice are inde- pendent of all such agency. If their modesty has was a foe within her very borders, more watchful and more relentless than the common enemy. Traitors to American liberty filled the land, willing to sacrifice their former friends to gratify their malignant passions or to prove their loyalty to their King. These men, combined together for the avowed object of murder and plunder, were to be met at all points ; and it re- quired the utmost energy, activity and address to op- ; hitherto deterred them, it is at least the gratifying I evidence that there is one American family who have forborne to remind the Legislature of the nation of its high duties, and are contented to await the judgment of their countrymen, however tardy may have been its announcement.
pose them. Their movements were sudden, and from their intimate knowledge of the country, their march was often unknown until their object had been effected. Hence the most untiring vigilance was required to counteract their plans ; and Captain Huddy became so zealously engaged as a partisan leader that he was more obnoxious to the Tories than any individual in the American service. To these desperate men it was | then all important that one whom they so much dreaded should be deprived of power to oppose them ; and no means were left unattempted to effect that purpose.
"The documents which the committee have an- nexed to this report minutely describe the horrible tragedy, and they forbear to state here the incidents which are there recorded in the language of eye-wit- nesses. There is something so revolting in the man- ner a brave soldier was doomed to die, something so fiend-like in the haste to sacrifice him without the
parting farewell of his friends and the consolations of religion, that no age, however barbarous, can furnish a stronger instance of refined, deliberate cruelty. Yet even here the devoted sufferer sustained his high reputation for moral firmness and heroic devotion to liberty. Mr. Randolph testifies that when the Refugees were taking the irons from Captain Huddy, to con- duct him to the gallows, the brave man said he should die innocent and in a good cause; and with uncom- mon composure and fortitude, prepared himself for his end. And, to use the language of one who assisted at the execution, ' he met his fate with all the firm- ness of a lion.' His executioner was a negro. . .
"It is painful to state that after a lapse of fifty years, while the story of Asgill's captivity has been made the theme of the biographer and poet, the mem- óry of the murdered Huddy has not been honored with an epitaph. His country, it would seem, has outlived the recollection of his services, and forgotten that such a victim was ever sacrificed for American liberty. The resolution of Congress, adopted on the day subsequent to the discharge of Asgill, and which required that ' the British commander should be called to fulfill his engagement to make further inquisition into the murder of Captain Huddy, and to pursue it with all the effect that a due regard of justice will ad- mit,' is yet unfulfilled and unrequited; and the only memorial on the public journals of American gratitude for the services of the living and the character of the dead are resolutions of retaliation, none of sympa- thy or condolence.
"The children of Captain Huddy were both females, and were left at an early age to their mother's protec- tion. She struggled, as did the other high-souled women of the Revolution, with the ordinary vicissi- tudes of war, and sustained herself by the prospect of future independence. When her gallant husband was in the field, she knew he was engaged in a holy cause, and prepared herself for whatever might occur; but when she found that she was- left desolate, and the father of her children had been cruelly and wantonly murdered, she thenceforward lived but for them. These orphans, after the return of peace, were mar- ried ; one of them, with her mother, is now dead ; the survivor, who is the memorialist, at the advanced age
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HISTORY OF MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.
of seventy years, now resides in the West, and asks, ere she joins those who have already departed, that the sufferings of her father may be remembered, and his services, even at this late day, be requited by some token of national gratitude.
" As Captain Huddy was not in the regular army, there is no one of the resolutions of the old Congress that would include this case, were it a claim for mili- tary services merely. But when it is remembered that he was actively engaged from 1776 to 1782 in a most hazardous and important duty, at a time when ordi- nary zeal would have become cold and ordinary cour- age crushed, when they regard his exposure, his posi- tion and his untimely death, the committee cannot but conclude that the spirit of these resolutions should be extended to your memorialist ; and if there is such an attribute as national gratitude, it should now be ex- erted. The Committee report the following resolutions for the consideration of the House :
" Resolved, That the Congress of the United States holds in high estimation and grateful remembrance the services of Captain Joshua Huddy, of New Jersey, in the war of the Revolution, and unites in the opin- ion of the Continental Congress of 1782 that he was wantonly and inhumanly sacrificed by the enemy while in the heroic discharge of his duty.
" Resolved, That in consideration of the services ren- dered to his country by Captain Joshua Huddy, and in the performance of which he was taken prisoner, and afterwards executed for no other crime than his devotion to liberty, it is the duty of Congress to ap- propriate to his children the same sums they would have received had their father been a Continental officer, and had continued in the service until the close of the war; and the whole benefit of the resolutions of September 19th, 1777, and August 24th, 1780, he extended to them."
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These resolutions, with the entire report of the committee, were adopted by Congress Feb- ruary 14, 1837, granting to the heirs of Captain ! Huddy the benefits of existing pension laws, the same as if he had been an officer of the regular Continental service; also giving them six hundred acres of the public lands and the sum of twelve hundred dollars, it being the amount due to him for seven years' service as captain of artillery. And so closes the sad story of the patriotic services and savage mur- der of a man whose name is often mentioned as that of the Hero Martyr of Monmouth.
Richard Lippincott, the Tory captain, whose name became a theme of reproach and univer- sal execration among the patriots of the Revolu- · tion on account of the leading part which he took
in the barbarous murder of the hero, Joshua Huddy, was a native of Monmouth County, born in the year 1745, and at the beginning of the war of the Revolution was a resident of Shrewsbury township. In or about 1778 he left Monmouth County and went to New York, where he laid before the Board of Associated Loyalists a proposition to raise a company of Tories for their service, of which company he was to have the captaincy. The desired au- thority was given him, the company was quickly raised, and he duly received his captain's com- mission under orders of ex-Governor Wil- liam Franklin, president of the board. He became one of the most active and energetic of the subordinate officers in the royal service, and was correspondingly detested by the pa- triots, especially those of Monmouth County. His property in Shrewsbury township was con- fiscated and sold in 1779, as elsewhere men- tioned.
Among his friends, the British, it appears that his standing was good. At the court- martial which was convened in New York, by order of Sir Henry Clinton, to try him for the part he took in the hanging of Captain Huddy, one of the witnesses, Colonel John Morris, of the Second Battalion Royal Volunteers, testi- fied that he had known the prisoner, Lippincott, for many years ; " that he always supported a good character since deponent has known him, and he has always endeavoured to serve the Government all in his power, and that with propriety. Deponent has never known him guilty of plundering or any action of that kind." John Wardell, a Shrewsbury Tory, and at that time with the Loyalists, testified, at the same court-martial, "that he had been ac- quainted with Captain Lippincott for more than ten years ; that he was his neighbour, and had been always looked upon as a peaceable, inof- fensive man."
The Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooke, the Episco- palian clergyman of Shrewsbury, who had gone over to the British. in New York, and was at that time a chaplain to one of their bri- gades, was another who testified in Lippincott's behalf before the court-martial. In the min- utes of his testimony is found the 'following :
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" That he had not known Lippincott before the Rebellion, but has been acquainted with him, upwards of three years since Captain Lippin- cott has been within his Majesty's lines. That he has been particularly acquainted with him and has every reason to think his character stands as fair as that of any Refugee within his Majesty's lines." Whether, by the use of the words in this last sentence, the reverend gentle- man intended to make a distinction in the mat- ter of character between the Refugee officers and those of the regular British line cannot now be determined.
After the close of the Revolution, Lippincott went to England to claim compensation for his services and for the losses he sustained in the confiscation of his property by reason of his adherence to the royal cause. He was placed on the retired list of captains, with half-pay for life; and the British government gave him a grant of three hundred acres of land at York (now Toronto). On that tract he settled in 1793, and there he died in 1826, in the eighty- second year of his age. His daughter Esther (his only child) married George Taylor Denni- son, and their son, George T. Dennison (who became for a time a member of the Canadian Parliament), wrote as follows, in vindication of the character of his grandfather :
"Richard Lippincott," he said, " was naturally a person of the most harmless and quiet dispo- sition. Philip White was a half brother to his wife, and Lippincott was exasperated by the butchery of an innocent relative,1 who, found on a visit to his mother's house, was treated by Huddy as a spy. The old man [Lippincott] was respected by all who knew him in the coun- try [Canada], rich and poor, and was so well known to all old Loyalists who settled there that persons came uninvited thirty or forty miles to pay tribute to his memory ; hundreds still living [about 1830] will repudiate the un- favorable character, as a man and soldier, given him by the American historian [Sabine]. He was true to his Sovereign both in property and
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