“I now think myself a man of consequence, and am very happy.”
And now for the bias of the man. In the matter of politics, Hynson, like many a greater statesman, hoped for reconciliation without separation. Colonial independence thrown into the scale, his respect for the integrity of the kingdom weighed heavily against it, and this delicate balance of his public principles gave to his private interests a possibly decisive importance. England, the centre of royal government, commanded his abstract veneration. England, Isabella’s home, held his heart and his pleasure. “He hopes ... to entitle Himself to a Competence and to sit down in England, where he has a Connection which he is anxious to resume,” the King learned from his agents. To that tune the royal money-bags forthwith jingled cunningly.
II.
Though the name of neither Hynson or his sweetheart figures in any of the serious histories of the day, only an unforeseen incident prevented his, at least, from being there recorded. Isabella’s influence was to change all his original program. It now remains to show how serious were the results of Hynson’s uncertain faith, and with what measure of plausibility Isabella Cleghorn may be called an actual though humble and unconscious factor in the creation of the American republic.
Hynson, as has already been stated, was a man possessed of ambition, self-confidence, and a love of intrigue. Half his heart’s desire was to see an early reconciliation of mother-country and colony; the other half to be himself the maker of the peace. His connection with the American Commission to Versailles he consequently regarded purely as a means to this end—his intimacy with the Commission’s affairs as a password to the confidence of Downing Street. Never fearing to match his own wit against that of two nations, he clung to the idea that England must be brought to offer to America acceptable terms of compromise before the conclusion of a Franco-American understanding should lend new courage to the rebellious colony. And English diplomatists astutely upheld his faith in his own powers of high accomplishment: “Ce Capitaine continue à voir le Ld. Stormont, qui lui fait l’accueil le plus capable de le flatter,” said Gérald, in his report of April 3, 1777. “Cet homme simple, honnête mais bien intentionné, en a la tête tournee et se croit destiné â être le pacificateur des deux nations.”
The first move in Hynson’s cloudy scheme involved the delivery to the British of certain valuable despatches going from the Commissioners to Congress. As bearer of these papers, which were to be placed in his hands by Franklin in person, the agent lay under orders to sail from Havre about March 10, in the cutter-sloop that he himself had smuggled over from Dover for the purpose. Lords North and Suffolk, being informed accordingly, despatched Lieut.-Col. Edward Smith to Havre, “furnished with £800 on account, in case it should become necessary to make use of money.” No sooner had Smith opened negotiations, however, than a new feature of the scheme developed. Hynson’s complaisance had its limits, and he utterly refused to turn over the despatches in simple barter. “Persuasion hangs not on my tongue to attain it,” wrote Smith. The precious papers must be forcibly wrested from their keeper, on the very deck of his vessel. Every interest, therefore, turned to that vessel’s capture.
“The sloop” [Smith told his principals across the Channel] “is hawl’d up into the most private part of the harbour, and the King’s Dock. Men are at work upon her with all expedition. I mean that she shall be stuffed with everything that is good, to make her a better and more valuable prize.... So tell your ships to be well apprized.... You had better have sixty ships out than miss her.”
The Admiralty responded promptly. Vessels of war on Channel stations received minute instructions toward effecting so important a capture. No precaution was spared, yet in the event all proved vain, for Hynson was balked of his commission.
“A Schooner arrived in the Mean Time at Nantz from Baltimore,” [explained Smith] “with News of the Hessian Misfortune, which determined Messrs. Deane and Franklin to wait for more Events ... to send their Despatches ... and to employ Hynson, on whose Courage & Seamanship they place great Confidence, in some other Service.”
Foiled in his first design, Hynson now proceeded upon a new one—that of gathering from the Commission to Versailles such news of American affairs as, placed in British hands, might serve his object. Some of these gleanings he gave to Lord Stormont, in Paris, some he confided to Smith, “whom he met as often as they found it convenient,” and some travelled by post to England, under protection of the covers of Admiral Rodney, Hynson’s fellow-lodger in a Parisian inn.