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son of King George III, along with the British admiral Robert Digby, both now resident in New York. Washington worried that all the talk of peace would sap America’s will and act as a “fresh opiate to increase that stupor” into which the states had fallen, giving them an excuse to renege on taxes and fail to complete their battalions.4 The kidnapping of Prince William Henry might serve to dishearten George III. As we have seen, Washington had long been beguiled by kidnapping plans, having first approved one for Benedict Arnold, then another for Sir Henry Clinton, and the plan for Prince William Henry followed a similar script. On a dark, rainy night, a squad of thirty-six men, dressed up as sailors, would board four whaleboats on the Jersey shore of the Hudson and row across to Manhattan. They would disable British sentinels, then grab the prince and admiral in their riverfront quarters. With his penchant for espionage, Washington was minutely involved in mapping out the operation.

On March 28, 1782, Washington sent a sober set of instructions to Colonel Matthias Ogden, the operation commander, setting the tone for the abduction. His overriding concern was that the abducted dignitaries be treated respectfully, not manhandled like ruffians. “I am fully persuaded,” he wrote, “that it is unnecessary to caution you against offering insult or indignity to the persons of the prince or admiral . . . but it may not be amiss to press the propriety of a proper line of conduct upon the party you command.”5 Washington knew that any abuse by the captors could translate into a propaganda victory for the British, yet in demanding gentlemanly treatment of the prisoners, he also betrayed some residual respect for royalty and rank. The plan was never carried out, and Washington was enraged at Ogden for snatching away his chance for a surprise victory. Many years later the U.S. minister to Great Britain showed Prince William Henry, now King William IV, Washington’s March 28 letter to Ogden. “I am obliged to General Washington for his humanity,” the king replied, “but I’m damned glad I did not give him an opportunity of exercising it towards me.”6

Despite Washington’s skepticism about British intentions, it was hard to discount the extraordinary upheaval that occurred in London in early 1782 when antiwar sentiment engulfed British politics and toppled Lord North’s ministry. In a spiteful mood, King George III reflected that it might be better if he lost America, since “knavery seems to be so much the striking feature of its inhabitants that it may not be in the end an evil that they become aliens to this kingdom.”7 That spring the Crown recalled Sir Henry Clinton and replaced him with the commander of Canada, Sir Guy Carleton, a move that threw into relief Washington’s own amazing longevity as commander in chief. When Carleton tested Washington’s position with peace overtures, the latter dismissed them as more examples of British trickery.

For Washington, 1782 was taken up with matters possessing more symbolic than military meaning. The most vexing involved the treatment of prisoners, and none caused more controversy than the case of Captain Joshua Huddy, a member of the New Jersey militia. In April 1782 the British had captured Huddy at Toms River and handed him over to a civilian Tory group, the Associated Loyalists, who placed him in the custody of Captain Richard Lippincott. In a brutal act of reprisal, Lippincott decided to punish Huddy for the death of a Loyalist partisan named Philip White, who had been captured and executed by American militiamen after he killed one of his captors. Huddy was strung up from a tree with a note fastened to his chest that read “Up Goes Huddy for Philip White,” along with threats of further retribution.8 Going through the motions of justice, Sir Henry Clinton subjected Captain Lippincott to a court-martial, which exonerated him on the ground that he had merely obeyed orders. This caused a furor on the American side because those orders had emanated from none other than William Franklin, the estranged