Congress Creates Committee of Secret Correspondence (29 NOV 1775)

Photo By Erin Thompson | The Second Continental Congress voting on independence (National Archives)  

UNITED STATES

11.24.2023

Story by Erin Thompson 

U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence

by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian

CONGRESS CREATES COMMITTEE OF SECRET CORRESPONDENCE
On 29 November 1775, the Second Continental Congress created the Committee of Secret Correspondence to develop and protect clandestine communications with foreign allies during the American Revolution. The committee was a crucial step in establishing alliances with France that would help win the war.

The Continental Congress, while planning for war with Great Britain, realized foreign intelligence and foreign alliances were the best chance for creating a union of states in the American colonies. However, bitter relations between the Americans and the British government made it difficult for the Congress to communicate freely with its supporters without garnering unwanted attention.

On 29 November 1775, the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution to create the Committee of Secret Correspondence, “for the sole purpose of corresponding with our friends in Great Britain, Ireland and other parts of the world,” using government agents and a systematized courier network. The new organization was separate from the various committees of correspondence set up in each colony as early as the 1760s to alert colonists of British activities. Instead, this new Committee of Secret Correspondence supported the efforts of the Secret Committee, organized earlier in 1775 to procure alliances and materiel from overseas, using secret agents to perform business deals under the guise of colonial merchant ventures.

Members of the new committee included multiple signers of the Declaration of Independence, such as Benjamin Franklin, and notable historical figures like John Jay, Robert Livingston, Thomas Paine, and James Lovell. Paine, the author of Common Sense, briefly served as the group’s secretary before he was “discharged for divulging information from Committee files.” Lovell, a teacher at the Bostin Latin School, joined the Committee of Secret Correspondence in later years, following his arrest by the British for spying after the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was released in a prisoner exchange and was later elected to the Continental Congress. There Lovell, an early pioneer of American cryptology, became engaged with the committee and created complex ciphers to aid intelligence activities.

Couriers for the committee engaged frequently with British and Scottish sympathizers to the American cause. In a short time, the committee had formed a cross-seas network that acted separately from the Navy, relying on Americans and foreign patrons living abroad for intelligence. Benjamin Franklin benefited from various acquaintances across Europe from his political, scientific, and literary career. Committee member Richard Henry Lee secured communications through his brother, Arthur Lee, who lived in London representing colonial business interests and served as a valuable insight into public opinions on the rebellion.

France was of immediate interest to the Congress due to its known antagonism towards Great Britain. As early as December 1775, the committee met with French intelligence agents in Philadelphia. This meeting between agent Julien Alexandre Achard de Bonvouloir, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin was crucial in gaining Louis XVI’s support for the American cause. Another agent in France was Silas Deane, an American merchant; he and Arthur Lee helped secure the Treaty of Alliance in 1778 that formalized financial and military support from the French. The committee’s activities in France proved key to American victory in the revolution.

In April 1777, Congress changed the committee’s name to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, but little changed within its purpose or operating methods. Serving as both an intelligence and diplomatic entity, the committee was a central feature of early American foreign policy and a forerunner for the Department of Foreign Affairs, predecessor of today’s Department of State.

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• Date Taken: 11.24.2023
• Date Posted: 11.24.2023 15:01
• Story ID: 458492
• Location: US