Browsing: Papers of John Adams, Volume 4

1. On 26 Aug. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and JA were appointed a committee to consider a letter of 22 Aug. from Col. James Wilson of the Flying Camp at Amboy, N.J. ( JCC , 5:705). The letter noted previous efforts to encourage desertion and called for a new appeal that, unlike the others, would make a distinction between officers and men in the inducements proffered (PCC, No. 78, XXIII, f. 301). The committee met and produced a report that has not been found, since it was probably used as a printer's copy, and that was adopted on 27 Aug. The resolution of the congress took the form of an address to the officers of the foreign troops, calling on them to desert and offering land in varying amounts according to rank ( JCC , 5:707–708). The appeal was immediately translated into German, printed, and distributed, probably under the direction of Franklin, but only a single copy of that document has been found. For Christopher Ludwick's efforts among Hessians, see Jonathan Bayard Smith to JA, 28 Aug., note 2 (below).

Although American attempts to encourage desertion have been well chronicled by L. H. Butterfield in “Psychological Warfare in 1776: The Jefferson-Franklin Plan to Cause Hessian Desertion” (Amer. Philos. Soc., Procs. , 94 [1950]:233–241), some acknowledgment of JA's contribution to the appeal made to foreign officers is in order. The preamble printed here was not rejected but was substituted, with minor changes in word order, for the preamble in Jefferson's draft of the appeal. The latter called attention to the earlier appeal of 14 Aug., which had been directed to foreign soldiers {p. 17} generally, and offered the “blessings of peace, liberty, property and mild government, on their relinquishing the disgraceful office on which they had been sent hither” (Jefferson, Papers , 1:509–510; JCC , 5:653–655). JA's language, beginning with the words “there may be many, of liberal Minds” continuing to “to renounce So dishonourable a service,” was adopted instead ( JCC , 5:707–708). JA rekindled some of the fire that marked the earlier appeal to German soldiers.