The Story of John Henry: Spy against the New England Republic

After retiring from the Army, he relocated to northern Vermont to farm and study law (presumably falling asleep during the ethics part of the curriculum). Also to write anti-republican diatribes. Let’s not forget that. In 1809, after reading some of his work, Sir James Craig, the British governor of Canada hired Henry to spy on the Federalists. It was well known in Great Britain that the New England Federalists were unhappy. Many Boston essays and pamphlets found their way to England where they enjoyed a life renewed in British newspapers (for example, Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering’s [the leader of the so-called Essex Junto] letter to Governor James Sullivan was more widely circulated in British newspapers than in American newspapers). John Henry was sent to Boston to measure their unrest and to ascertain if secession was likely (and if it was likely, to help shepherd the wayward states back into the Empire’s fold).

story