[63] In folio 212 of the William Smith papers in the New York Public Library a memorandum in Smith’s Diary dated August 23d, 1781, reads: “In an interview with Sir Henry Clinton this day ... he said a late letter of General Parson’s said the Rebels dealt out 10,000 Rations—He allowed for 3000 less—but I recollect that Parsons made both armies but 8000 as Henry Van Schack had it from Colo. James DeLancey who saw and delivered the Letters.”
[64] This “infernal Tory” was William Heron, a good friend and close associate of Parsons.
[65] See R. R. Hinman, Connecticut during War of the Revolution, page 419.
NOTES AND AMPLIFICATION
[(101)] For ten years an endeavor to discover a handwriting that corresponded with the existing documents written by Samuel Culper Junior, was continued without success, until, upon examining a chest of old documents, once the property of Robert Townsend of Oyster Bay, Long Island, a startling resemblance was discovered. This led to a critical examination of the letters written under the alias of Samuel Culper Junior, still preserved among the papers of General Washington, and it was found that the paper upon which they were written was identical. The same watermark, the same shade, the same weight, the same laid marks minutely varying one from the other on the same sheet, but corresponding exactly with all the little variations and flaws with other sheets among the Townsend Papers. The handwriting, looking so similar, was not declared identical until the world’s greatest expert, Albert S. Osborn, had examined it. The books showed accounts with Abraham Woodhull, who had already been identified as Culper Senior, and with several others known to be engaged in the secret service work. The movements of Culper Junior corresponded with those of Robert Townsend as revealed in his documents, and the stain invented by James Jay had been twice tested on documents still carefully preserved among Townsend’s effects. Long before all the evidence was discovered, it was certain that the identity of Culper Junior, that most active spy of the Revolution, had been revealed. Everything since gathered adds to the confirmation of that identity.
Handwriting that discovered Robert Townsend to be General Washington’s Culper Junior.
[(102)] Robert, although not yet of age, like his brother, Solomon, traveled extensively before the Revolution. From Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 22, 1774, he addressed his father as follows:
“Honored Father: I wrote you a few days since from Brunswick. Have now to advise you of my arrival here the 18th. Instant.—I am much afraid whether I shall be able to purchase any Flaxseed being very little yet come to markett.—There is considerable to come from the country, which they cant yet bring owing to the waters being so very low in river.—I am with Duty to Mother, love to Brothers & Sisters,