Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy me Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. If you have listened to or had the extremely good porton to see the incredible popular Broadway musical Hamilton's, you've probably heard that George Washington knew his plan for the Battle of Yorktown was going to work because he's had a spy on the inside. That's right, Hercules Mulligan's who we're talking about today. I kind of want to do I kind of want to say it like they say it in the song in the play, but I would have to go way off the microphone because it's very energetic. Uh. Hercules Mulligan, like the other people in Hamilton's, was indeed a real person, and he passed intelligence to George Washington mostly through two different means. One was an enslaved man named Kato and the other was the culper spy ring. But before or he started spying on the British for the future president of the United States, he was this kind of rabble rousing New York member of the Sons of Liberty, which is the same organization that in Massachusetts had pulled off the Boston tea Party. So Hercules Mulligan's story, it's kind of a long one, and it spans a lot of the Revolutionary War, some elements of which require a little bit of a refresher if you are not steeped in Revolutionary War history. So we're gonna tackle it in two parts. That's right, We're doing two parts about Hercules Mulligan. I know folks are probably tempted to pause right now and start emailing us about all the other people from Hamilton's that we should do episodes. I just wanna. I want to assure you we already have that list, like, uh, every possible person, place, event and pamphlet has been suggested except actually Hercules and Mulligan. Nobody asked us to talk about Hercules Mulligan. I just wanted to, which is kind of funny that. I mean, it's one of those things where we have gotten show the request for basically every bit of minutia related to that play. That I'm shocked that this particular stone went unturned because it's a pretty fascinating one. M So to kick it off, Hercules Mulligan was born in Ireland in seventeen forty two, Hugh and Sarah Cook Mulligan. Around seventeen forty six, his parents immigrated to the colonies with him, his brother Hugh, and his sister Sarah, and at that point Hercules was the youngest, although another brother, Cook was born after they arrived. So the reasons for immigrating aren't really documented anywhere, but it's likely that the family paid their own way rather than traveling under an indenture that would have to be worked off, which is another common way that people made their way to the colonies. The elder Hugh Mulligan appears on the New York list of Freeman of the City in seventeen forty seven, approximately a year after they arrived, and indentured servants weren't considered freeman, and since in the typical indenture asked for about seven years, it's unlikely that the Mulligan's had ever been subject to one. At first, Hercules his father worked as a wigmaker, and he moved from there into work as a merchant. Eventually he got a job in law enforcement, which was a very common occupation for Irish immigrants in the colonies for centuries. I would ask, yeah, I mean there's still that's still sort of a a little bit of a trope at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For a long time though, like that, the recent Irish immigrants were one of the major contributions to law enforcement labor force. Hercules education came through a private tutor and by the standards of the day, it seems like he was quite well educated. He also grew up to be tall and personable and very flamboyant. He retained an Irish accent, and he he tended to gain people's trust really quickly and including total strangers. He was one of those people who was everybody's best friend basically from the moment that they met. He was all that, such a good storyteller that people like to say that his family was from Blarney, which they were not. They were from a town called Coleraine in the camp In County and Trimp. Both of hercules brothers became merchants, which was a trade that Hercules tried his hand dead, but he didn't really take to him. He later became a clothier, ultimately running his own business, employing several skilled tailors. Over the first few years of his career, he moved his shop from one location to another, as various circumstances demanded it. By seventeen seventy one, he was described as New York's most fashionable merchant Taylor. One of Hercules Mulligan's most famous friends was Alexander Hamilton's. Hamilton's was born on the island of Nevas in seventeen fifty five, making him about fifteen years younger than Mulligan. When Hamilton's came to the Colonies from the Caribbean in seventeen seventy two, he brought with him several letters of introduction. One of them was directed to the New York office of a trading company where Hamilton's had worked in St. Croix. That firm was the house of Cartwright and Company. Hercules brother Hugh was part of the and company. He was a junior partner in this particular firm. He would eventually buy out his partners and own the firm outright, which made him a really powerful family connection for Hercules to have. So it was through Hugh Mulligan that Hercules and Hamilton's first met, and Hamilton's made a good first impression on Hercules, who took an immediate liking to him. Hercules helped get him enrolled in school, and later on he allowed Hamilton's two board in his home while he was attending King's College, which later became Columbia University. Hamilton's continued to live with Hercules Mulligan after the latter married Elizabeth Sanders on October seventeen seventy three. She was the niece of an admiral in the Royal Navy, and in seventeen seventy six, Mulligan moved his home and his business to twenty three Queen Street, just off Wall Street. This is a much nicer kind of uh fancier area of town than where he had been located before. It was where his business would stay for the rest of his life, and that is also when Hamilton's stopped living with him uh and that shop really became known as one of the finest clothiers in New York. This move to Queen Street was in the early years of the Revolutionary War, so to very briefly recap, Patriots were seeking American independence from Britain. Loyalists, on the other hand, were loyal to the Crown. Hercules Mulligan was a patriot through and through, Like his family's reasons for immigrating to the colonies. His reasons for this point of view aren't really documented anywhere, and most biographies simply boil it down to, well, he was Irish and the Irish were overwhelmingly in favor of independence. That's really there, you go. It's like some of them the tone is like, well, obviously he was Irish, do um, which I would just like to say, Irish people are not monolithic in their vieunds uh toward toward England. But overwhelmingly, yes, uh, overwhelmingly Irish folks were more in favor of independence. Um. When it came to independence. Hercules Mulligan was really committed and outspoken, to the point that some historians suggest that he might have actually influenced Alexander Hamilton's in his views. Hamilton's political opinions upon arriving in North America from the Caribbean aren't really particularly well known or well documented. We don't quite know what his thoughts were in that direction when he first got to New York. Regardless, long before he became a spy, Hercules Mulligan was an activist, and we're going to talk a lot about that. After we first paused for a word from one of our sponsors, Hercules. Mulligan was already active in resistance against British rule long before he ever met Alexander Hamilton's. In seventeen sixty five, he arranged for the distribution of a publication that was vehemently against the Stamp Act. To do this, he enlisted the help of Laurence Sweeney, who was the only letter carrier at New York in New York City at the time. Sweeney was caught and then the publication was deemed to be seditious, but he refused to name anyone as its source when he was interrogated. He instead made it this. He made this sort of off the cuff, a thing about how it come, had come from an iron works in New Jersey, and that became kind of an inside joke among Patriot publications after that. They would print it in the letters down at the bottom of their pamphlets and stuff. The Sons of Liberty was founded at about the same time, and Mulligan joined, becoming one of its first New York members. He made no secret whatsoever of this fact, and he was a prominent speaker and a Sons of Liberty rally held in New York in July of seventeen seventy four. Later that year, Mulligan was elected to the Committee of Observation that was established in New York on November. These committees were established in basically all of the colony for the purpose of monitoring and resisting the so called oppressive acts. These were laws that had been passed in the wake of the Boston Tea Party, more or less to punish the colonies in Massachusetts specifically. You can learn more about these laws in our podcast called Thirteen Reasons for the American Revolution. As the war went on, the Committees of Observation went on to observe loyalists in general as well. It kind of kept tabs on people whose views they didn't agree with. In March of seventeen seventy five, the Committee of Observation announced its intention to hold a meeting and elect New York delegates to the Second Continental Congress, which was to convene in Philadelphia. The Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from the thirteen Colonies, the first of which was convened in response to Britain's intolerable acts. At a very very very basic level, the first Continental Congress set out to decide how the colony should respond to the intolerable acts. The Second Continental Congress would decide how the colonies should respond to the war. I remember sitting through what seems like extraordinarily long lessons in history class as a child on the Continental congress ees. Uh, that is not that's like not even really a synopsis. That's the tiniest possible explanation of what they were um and what what all was discussed there. This meeting to elect New York's delegates was to take place at the Exchange on Mark's March sixth, and at this point New York's residents included both loyalists and patriots, as well as a lot of people who just wanted the war to be over and otherwise didn't particularly care when we or the other. When the Loyalists heard about this meeting that the Committee of Observation was organizing, they decided to have their own sort of pregame meeting to try to get a loyalist slate of delegates elected. The Patriots, on the other hand, heard about the loyalists plan to try to work up a strategy to send only loyalist delegates, so the Patriots had their own meeting as well to try to figure out how to beat the Loyalist numbers once the vote was held. In the end, the Loyalists did muster up a pretty large number of voters to attend this meeting at the Exchange. The Patriots, though, had a lot more thanks to Hercules Mulligan, Captain Isaac Sears, and Richard Livingston who basically marched through New York and rounded up every person they could possibly find to bring to the meeting themselves. They basically vote brigaded this meeting, and the Loyalists not surprisingly cried foul, saying that only people listed on the official voting roles should be able to vote. The Patriots countered that this was undemocratic and that every citizen should be able to vote. The Committee of Observation agreed with the Patriots, and the patriots slate of delegates was elected to the Second Continental Congress, which would ultimately go on to adopt the Declaration of Independence. This really just feels like a flame war on Reddit to me, well, it feels a lot like modern politics in many regards. Yeah. Also, in ste In teen seventy five, afterward of fighting in Lexington and conquered Massachusetts, reach New York, the Sons of Liberty decided to try to ban British vessels from entering or leaving the port of New York, and to do this they stole the Crown the crown collector's keys to the Customs House. If they controlled the Customs House, then they would control who entered and left the harbor. The Sons of Liberty would later go on to establish a Committee of Inspection to make sure that British goods couldn't enter or leave the port. Hercules Mulligan was involved in this effort and was on that committee as well. While all of this was going on, the Sons of Liberty also moved to try to take over the running of New York itself, choosing a committee of one hundred people to handle things until a permanent government could be established. On this committee, known among other things as the Committee of one hundred, was Hercules Mulligan. He was very committee busy. There were so many committees going on in UH in the early days of the Revolutionary War, so Mulligan's attivities as a patriot in the early days of the revolution went on from there. Some of them were above board and some of them were not. On top of all, these committees and this administrative work. He also, for example, aided in the theft of muskets from the Loyalist City Corporation, which they then distributed to members of the Sons of Liberty. A little later on in the war, he was one of the people who helped tear down the statue of King George the Third and on the Bowling Green on July nine, seventeen seventy six, just after a public reading of the newly signed Declaration of Independence. He's reported to have actually been the person who broke down the gate to get to the statue and then tied the rope that was used around it around the King's neck. He put his skills as a tailor to work for the war effort as well. Mulligan had been helping to recruit and organize military units in New York. When Alexander Hamilton was commissioned as a captain of the Provincial Company of Artillery, Mulligan was the one who made a uniform for him and then helped recruit the necessary men, which was one of the terms for Hamilton's being given the role in the first place. Yeah, it's basically okay, if you're gonna be given this role, you need to you need to recruit this many people to fill your to fill your team, and Hercules Mulligan helped him do that. Based on all of this extremely obvious activism and having his name repeatedly associated with patriotic activities, Hercules Mulligan might not seem like the most logical choice for undercover espionage on behalf of the Patriots. He was, I mean widely known as a patriot and a member of the Sons of Liberating Liberty, but he wound up being a spy anyway, which people talk about. After a sponsor break in the summer of seventeen seventy six, David Matthews, mayor of New York and a loyalist, needed a new coat. He went to Mulligan's shop. By this point it had moved to its final location at number twenty three Queens Street, which had a reputation of being extremely fine and well stocked with quality fabrics, laces and trims, and which employed a number of very skilled tailors. As we mentioned earlier, apart from the clothier's reputation for quality, Matthews had been a regular customer there for quite some time. Mulligan provided his customers with food and beverages during their visits, and Matthews had a reputation for being a heavy drinker. Eventually, alcohol seems to have gotten the better of Matthew's judgment, and he started talking about how the British we're going to kidnap George Washington and if that plan failed, their backup was to poison his favorite meal of buttered peas ham and lettuce. According to Matthews, many of Washington's own guard had not been paid and they were bitter enough about it to be willing to betray him to the Loyalists in exchange for money. Buttered peas ham and lettuce. It kind of makes me laugh. That's uh an interesting favorite meal to have. Uh. Mulligan took advantage of this situation. He angled for more details, and when it seemed clear that this kidnapped attempt was going to take place within the next few days, he finished Matthews fitting. He closed up his shop, and he headed to Washington's home in Greenwich Village. He ran into Alexander Hamilton's along the way and told him about this plot and went back to work, apparently having the forethought to realize that being seen going into Washington's headquarters would mean no other loyalist would ever be so careless around him again. Soon Mulligan's information was confirmed through some other sources. There were men who were captured in conjunction with other crimes who, when they were interrogated, named some of Washington's guard as having turned trader. A man named Thomas Hickey was arrested, and he and several co conspirators were court martialed on June seventy six. Hicky's defense was that he had not actually planned to go through with this whole plan. He was just trying to get the money and then not do any of the things that he had promised to do in exchange for that money. That defense failed, and he was hanged on Jean thirteen. Other co conspirators were imprisoned, and Mayor Matthews fled New York for England. People often like to call Hercules Mulligan the man who saved George Washington's life twice, and this was but the first time. In July of seventeen seventy six, British and Hessian troops started to land in Staten Island. Soon British General Sir William Howe had established a headquarters there, and he started recruiting loyalists from around New York, which, as we said before, there were plenty actually living in New York. While New York had been roughly even in its proportion of loyalists to patriots at that patriots, at this point, this huge influx of British troops really tipped the balance. It also made things increasingly precarious for George Washington and the Continental Army. Washington had about eighteen thousand troops on Long Island defending New York, but several of his advisers thought it would be wise to secretly evacuate because their positions were not easy to defend. Washington, however, did not take this advice, and as a result, the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, also known as the Battle of Long Island, was devastating for Washington's fighting force, especially after they wound up essentially penned in by the ocean. It took a diversion and a nighttime escape made possible by sailors from Massachusetts, for Washington to evacuate ten thousand or so remaining troops to Manhattan, using much of the same strategy that had been suggested for an earlier secret escape. Washington thought Manhattan would be nearly impossible to defend, especially considering how much water around it was now controlled by the British. Congress denied his proposition to burn the city down so that loyalists couldn't have use of it. After a second assault on September, the Patriot forces escaped through Harlem Heights, leaving the British and full control of New York City and ready to punish any Patriots they found. One of the first orders of business was to basically draw up the names of everyone who had been disloyal from their point of view, and one of the names on Realist was Hercules Mulligan on every committee, on every list. I think people might have just liked saying Hercules Mulligan, because I do. On the night of September seventy six, part of New York caught fire, and there's still debate about whether it was deliberate, and if so, who would have set that fire and why, And while he was trying to evacuate his wife and two year old son, Mulligan was arrested for the first time. While his wife and child were allowed to continue on their way, he was taken to Provost Prison, nicknamed for British Provost Marshall William Cunningham, who with whom Mulligan did not get along. Cunningham happened to have been with the patrol that had first captured Mulligan while he was evacuating, and it was under his orders that he had been taken into custody. Mulligan spent about the next two months in jail. This is one of those things that's not particularly clearly documented about when he went in and when he went out again. But while he was there, his respected work as a clothier and his clientele that included a lot of British officers, turned into a huge asset. He spent a lot of his time and friendly conversation full of lots of name dropping and references to his personal relationships with a lot of well known, powerful loyalists and officers. Soon the order came down that he was to be released, thanks in part to what a service he had done by making all those officers uniforms. He was freed under the condition that he not leave New York. In spite of this order, he crossed the river into Hackensec, New Jersey on November seventeenth of seventeen seventy six, for reasons that, once again are not entirely clear. It's possible that he wanted to join up with Alexander Hamilton's artillery company, which was in camp there, but regardless of why, he did run into Hamilton's who persuaded him to return to New York. So, among other reasons, he could keep tabs on the British for the Patriots, and that's what he did. And we're going to talk more about that next time, when we'll get into how he gradually went from sort of spy work by happenstance to being an official, basically full time spy. Exciting. Uh, do you have some listener mail that tied us over while we cliffhaning these poor people I do. This is nor mail is from Megan, and Megan says, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I'm a graduate student spending a year in Nanjing, China writing my dissertation on theater history. Your podcast have kept me company on many of my commutes around the city, so I'm glad that I finally have something interesting to share with you as a small gesture of thanks. A few weeks ago, I visited the Jungha Memorial Shipyard here in Nanjing. The park is very quiet and mostly full of grandparents flying kites with their children in the shadow of an impressive statue of jung Ha. However, history fans will appreciate the fact that this idyllic urban landscape is built around three remaining trenches out of the many that jung Ha used to construct the treasure ships. After construction, he would flood these pits with or in float the boats out to the yank Ze River, yet another marvel of engineering. As you mentioned in the podcast, the key attraction is an enormous recreation of one of Jungha's smaller treasure ships floating in one of the canals. I have to say that it's still difficult to comprehend the scale of these vessels, even when you are staring straight up at one, or even walking around on the deck. My mother, a huge Western exploration buff was visiting me at the time, and the two of us were simply in awe. Recent excavations have also uncovered some artifacts such as construction tools and masts from the bottom of the trenches that you can see in a small museum to the side of the entrance. If you ever come to Nanjang. There are many other remnants of the Ming dynasty that you can still visit today, the city walls, the Ming Tombs, the ruins of the Imperial Palace, and Lion Hill, where Jungha lived for the last years of his life. The Chinese conception of what should be preserved, rebuilt, or completely reconstructed differs of it from what we might expect in the US. Still, it is remarkable to see how some things, such as the construction of these treasure ships have left indelible mark on the geography of the city. Hinching is the kind of place where history is always evident around you. Thank you for talking about Jong Hunt and giving other people the chance to learn more about it. All the best, Megan, Thank you so much, Megan. Megan's pictures were great. Um. I had seen sort of at the stock image places where we get our imagery for a lot of things on our website pictures of the ship, but uh, having one that was taken from somebody actually standing on the deck of it was pretty awesome. So thank you again, Megan. And if you would like to write to us about this or any other podcast where at History podcast that at how Stuff works dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash miss in history and on Twitter at miss in history. Are tumbler is missed in History dot tumbler dot com, and we're also on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash miss in history. Our instagram is missed in History. We tried to stay consistent and put everything under the name missed in History. If you would like to learn a little more about what we talked about today, we can come to our parent company's website, which is how stuff works dot com. Put the word George Washington into the search bar. You will find a George Washington quiz, wrecontest, or knowledge about the man in his history. You can also come to our website, which is missing history dot com, where you will find show notes of all of the episodes that Holly and I have worked on together. 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Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy me Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. If you have listened to or had the extremely good porton to see the incredible popular Broadway musical Hamilton's, you've probably heard that George Washington knew his plan for the Battle of Yorktown was going to work because he's had a spy on the inside. That's right, Hercules Mulligan's who we're talking about today. I kind of want to do I kind of want to say it like they say it in the song in the play, but I would have to go way off the microphone because it's very energetic. Uh. Hercules Mulligan, like the other people in Hamilton's, was indeed a real person, and he passed intelligence to George Washington mostly through two different means. One was an enslaved man named Kato and the other was the culper spy ring. But before or he started spying on the British for the future president of the United States, he was this kind of rabble rousing New York member of the Sons of Liberty, which is the same organization that in Massachusetts had pulled off the Boston tea Party. So Hercules Mulligan's story, it's kind of a long one, and it spans a lot of the Revolutionary War, some elements of which require a little bit of a refresher if you are not steeped in Revolutionary War history. So we're gonna tackle it in two parts. That's right, We're doing two parts about Hercules Mulligan. I know folks are probably tempted to pause right now and start emailing us about all the other people from Hamilton's that we should do episodes. I just wanna. I want to assure you we already have that list, like, uh, every possible person, place, event and pamphlet has been suggested except actually Hercules and Mulligan. Nobody asked us to talk about Hercules Mulligan. I just wanted to, which is kind of funny that. I mean, it's one of those things where we have gotten show the request for basically every bit of minutia related to that play. That I'm shocked that this particular stone went unturned because it's a pretty fascinating one. M So to kick it off, Hercules Mulligan was born in Ireland in seventeen forty two, Hugh and Sarah Cook Mulligan. Around seventeen forty six, his parents immigrated to the colonies with him, his brother Hugh, and his sister Sarah, and at that point Hercules was the youngest, although another brother, Cook was born after they arrived. So the reasons for immigrating aren't really documented anywhere, but it's likely that the family paid their own way rather than traveling under an indenture that would have to be worked off, which is another common way that people made their way to the colonies. The elder Hugh Mulligan appears on the New York list of Freeman of the City in seventeen forty seven, approximately a year after they arrived, and indentured servants weren't considered freeman, and since in the typical indenture asked for about seven years, it's unlikely that the Mulligan's had ever been subject to one. At first, Hercules his father worked as a wigmaker, and he moved from there into work as a merchant. Eventually he got a job in law enforcement, which was a very common occupation for Irish immigrants in the colonies for centuries. I would ask, yeah, I mean there's still that's still sort of a a little bit of a trope at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For a long time though, like that, the recent Irish immigrants were one of the major contributions to law enforcement labor force. Hercules education came through a private tutor and by the standards of the day, it seems like he was quite well educated. He also grew up to be tall and personable and very flamboyant. He retained an Irish accent, and he he tended to gain people's trust really quickly and including total strangers. He was one of those people who was everybody's best friend basically from the moment that they met. He was all that, such a good storyteller that people like to say that his family was from Blarney, which they were not. They were from a town called Coleraine in the camp In County and Trimp. Both of hercules brothers became merchants, which was a trade that Hercules tried his hand dead, but he didn't really take to him. He later became a clothier, ultimately running his own business, employing several skilled tailors. Over the first few years of his career, he moved his shop from one location to another, as various circumstances demanded it. By seventeen seventy one, he was described as New York's most fashionable merchant Taylor. One of Hercules Mulligan's most famous friends was Alexander Hamilton's. Hamilton's was born on the island of Nevas in seventeen fifty five, making him about fifteen years younger than Mulligan. When Hamilton's came to the Colonies from the Caribbean in seventeen seventy two, he brought with him several letters of introduction. One of them was directed to the New York office of a trading company where Hamilton's had worked in St. Croix. That firm was the house of Cartwright and Company. Hercules brother Hugh was part of the and company. He was a junior partner in this particular firm. He would eventually buy out his partners and own the firm outright, which made him a really powerful family connection for Hercules to have. So it was through Hugh Mulligan that Hercules and Hamilton's first met, and Hamilton's made a good first impression on Hercules, who took an immediate liking to him. Hercules helped get him enrolled in school, and later on he allowed Hamilton's two board in his home while he was attending King's College, which later became Columbia University. Hamilton's continued to live with Hercules Mulligan after the latter married Elizabeth Sanders on October seventeen seventy three. She was the niece of an admiral in the Royal Navy, and in seventeen seventy six, Mulligan moved his home and his business to twenty three Queen Street, just off Wall Street. This is a much nicer kind of uh fancier area of town than where he had been located before. It was where his business would stay for the rest of his life, and that is also when Hamilton's stopped living with him uh and that shop really became known as one of the finest clothiers in New York. This move to Queen Street was in the early years of the Revolutionary War, so to very briefly recap, Patriots were seeking American independence from Britain. Loyalists, on the other hand, were loyal to the Crown. Hercules Mulligan was a patriot through and through, Like his family's reasons for immigrating to the colonies. His reasons for this point of view aren't really documented anywhere, and most biographies simply boil it down to, well, he was Irish and the Irish were overwhelmingly in favor of independence. That's really there, you go. It's like some of them the tone is like, well, obviously he was Irish, do um, which I would just like to say, Irish people are not monolithic in their vieunds uh toward toward England. But overwhelmingly, yes, uh, overwhelmingly Irish folks were more in favor of independence. Um. When it came to independence. Hercules Mulligan was really committed and outspoken, to the point that some historians suggest that he might have actually influenced Alexander Hamilton's in his views. Hamilton's political opinions upon arriving in North America from the Caribbean aren't really particularly well known or well documented. We don't quite know what his thoughts were in that direction when he first got to New York. Regardless, long before he became a spy, Hercules Mulligan was an activist, and we're going to talk a lot about that. After we first paused for a word from one of our sponsors, Hercules. Mulligan was already active in resistance against British rule long before he ever met Alexander Hamilton's. In seventeen sixty five, he arranged for the distribution of a publication that was vehemently against the Stamp Act. To do this, he enlisted the help of Laurence Sweeney, who was the only letter carrier at New York in New York City at the time. Sweeney was caught and then the publication was deemed to be seditious, but he refused to name anyone as its source when he was interrogated. He instead made it this. He made this sort of off the cuff, a thing about how it come, had come from an iron works in New Jersey, and that became kind of an inside joke among Patriot publications after that. They would print it in the letters down at the bottom of their pamphlets and stuff. The Sons of Liberty was founded at about the same time, and Mulligan joined, becoming one of its first New York members. He made no secret whatsoever of this fact, and he was a prominent speaker and a Sons of Liberty rally held in New York in July of seventeen seventy four. Later that year, Mulligan was elected to the Committee of Observation that was established in New York on November. These committees were established in basically all of the colony for the purpose of monitoring and resisting the so called oppressive acts. These were laws that had been passed in the wake of the Boston Tea Party, more or less to punish the colonies in Massachusetts specifically. You can learn more about these laws in our podcast called Thirteen Reasons for the American Revolution. As the war went on, the Committees of Observation went on to observe loyalists in general as well. It kind of kept tabs on people whose views they didn't agree with. In March of seventeen seventy five, the Committee of Observation announced its intention to hold a meeting and elect New York delegates to the Second Continental Congress, which was to convene in Philadelphia. The Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from the thirteen Colonies, the first of which was convened in response to Britain's intolerable acts. At a very very very basic level, the first Continental Congress set out to decide how the colony should respond to the intolerable acts. The Second Continental Congress would decide how the colonies should respond to the war. I remember sitting through what seems like extraordinarily long lessons in history class as a child on the Continental congress ees. Uh, that is not that's like not even really a synopsis. That's the tiniest possible explanation of what they were um and what what all was discussed there. This meeting to elect New York's delegates was to take place at the Exchange on Mark's March sixth, and at this point New York's residents included both loyalists and patriots, as well as a lot of people who just wanted the war to be over and otherwise didn't particularly care when we or the other. When the Loyalists heard about this meeting that the Committee of Observation was organizing, they decided to have their own sort of pregame meeting to try to get a loyalist slate of delegates elected. The Patriots, on the other hand, heard about the loyalists plan to try to work up a strategy to send only loyalist delegates, so the Patriots had their own meeting as well to try to figure out how to beat the Loyalist numbers once the vote was held. In the end, the Loyalists did muster up a pretty large number of voters to attend this meeting at the Exchange. The Patriots, though, had a lot more thanks to Hercules Mulligan, Captain Isaac Sears, and Richard Livingston who basically marched through New York and rounded up every person they could possibly find to bring to the meeting themselves. They basically vote brigaded this meeting, and the Loyalists not surprisingly cried foul, saying that only people listed on the official voting roles should be able to vote. The Patriots countered that this was undemocratic and that every citizen should be able to vote. The Committee of Observation agreed with the Patriots, and the patriots slate of delegates was elected to the Second Continental Congress, which would ultimately go on to adopt the Declaration of Independence. This really just feels like a flame war on Reddit to me, well, it feels a lot like modern politics in many regards. Yeah. Also, in ste In teen seventy five, afterward of fighting in Lexington and conquered Massachusetts, reach New York, the Sons of Liberty decided to try to ban British vessels from entering or leaving the port of New York, and to do this they stole the Crown the crown collector's keys to the Customs House. If they controlled the Customs House, then they would control who entered and left the harbor. The Sons of Liberty would later go on to establish a Committee of Inspection to make sure that British goods couldn't enter or leave the port. Hercules Mulligan was involved in this effort and was on that committee as well. While all of this was going on, the Sons of Liberty also moved to try to take over the running of New York itself, choosing a committee of one hundred people to handle things until a permanent government could be established. On this committee, known among other things as the Committee of one hundred, was Hercules Mulligan. He was very committee busy. There were so many committees going on in UH in the early days of the Revolutionary War, so Mulligan's attivities as a patriot in the early days of the revolution went on from there. Some of them were above board and some of them were not. On top of all, these committees and this administrative work. He also, for example, aided in the theft of muskets from the Loyalist City Corporation, which they then distributed to members of the Sons of Liberty. A little later on in the war, he was one of the people who helped tear down the statue of King George the Third and on the Bowling Green on July nine, seventeen seventy six, just after a public reading of the newly signed Declaration of Independence. He's reported to have actually been the person who broke down the gate to get to the statue and then tied the rope that was used around it around the King's neck. He put his skills as a tailor to work for the war effort as well. Mulligan had been helping to recruit and organize military units in New York. When Alexander Hamilton was commissioned as a captain of the Provincial Company of Artillery, Mulligan was the one who made a uniform for him and then helped recruit the necessary men, which was one of the terms for Hamilton's being given the role in the first place. Yeah, it's basically okay, if you're gonna be given this role, you need to you need to recruit this many people to fill your to fill your team, and Hercules Mulligan helped him do that. Based on all of this extremely obvious activism and having his name repeatedly associated with patriotic activities, Hercules Mulligan might not seem like the most logical choice for undercover espionage on behalf of the Patriots. He was, I mean widely known as a patriot and a member of the Sons of Liberating Liberty, but he wound up being a spy anyway, which people talk about. After a sponsor break in the summer of seventeen seventy six, David Matthews, mayor of New York and a loyalist, needed a new coat. He went to Mulligan's shop. By this point it had moved to its final location at number twenty three Queens Street, which had a reputation of being extremely fine and well stocked with quality fabrics, laces and trims, and which employed a number of very skilled tailors. As we mentioned earlier, apart from the clothier's reputation for quality, Matthews had been a regular customer there for quite some time. Mulligan provided his customers with food and beverages during their visits, and Matthews had a reputation for being a heavy drinker. Eventually, alcohol seems to have gotten the better of Matthew's judgment, and he started talking about how the British we're going to kidnap George Washington and if that plan failed, their backup was to poison his favorite meal of buttered peas ham and lettuce. According to Matthews, many of Washington's own guard had not been paid and they were bitter enough about it to be willing to betray him to the Loyalists in exchange for money. Buttered peas ham and lettuce. It kind of makes me laugh. That's uh an interesting favorite meal to have. Uh. Mulligan took advantage of this situation. He angled for more details, and when it seemed clear that this kidnapped attempt was going to take place within the next few days, he finished Matthews fitting. He closed up his shop, and he headed to Washington's home in Greenwich Village. He ran into Alexander Hamilton's along the way and told him about this plot and went back to work, apparently having the forethought to realize that being seen going into Washington's headquarters would mean no other loyalist would ever be so careless around him again. Soon Mulligan's information was confirmed through some other sources. There were men who were captured in conjunction with other crimes who, when they were interrogated, named some of Washington's guard as having turned trader. A man named Thomas Hickey was arrested, and he and several co conspirators were court martialed on June seventy six. Hicky's defense was that he had not actually planned to go through with this whole plan. He was just trying to get the money and then not do any of the things that he had promised to do in exchange for that money. That defense failed, and he was hanged on Jean thirteen. Other co conspirators were imprisoned, and Mayor Matthews fled New York for England. People often like to call Hercules Mulligan the man who saved George Washington's life twice, and this was but the first time. In July of seventeen seventy six, British and Hessian troops started to land in Staten Island. Soon British General Sir William Howe had established a headquarters there, and he started recruiting loyalists from around New York, which, as we said before, there were plenty actually living in New York. While New York had been roughly even in its proportion of loyalists to patriots at that patriots, at this point, this huge influx of British troops really tipped the balance. It also made things increasingly precarious for George Washington and the Continental Army. Washington had about eighteen thousand troops on Long Island defending New York, but several of his advisers thought it would be wise to secretly evacuate because their positions were not easy to defend. Washington, however, did not take this advice, and as a result, the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, also known as the Battle of Long Island, was devastating for Washington's fighting force, especially after they wound up essentially penned in by the ocean. It took a diversion and a nighttime escape made possible by sailors from Massachusetts, for Washington to evacuate ten thousand or so remaining troops to Manhattan, using much of the same strategy that had been suggested for an earlier secret escape. Washington thought Manhattan would be nearly impossible to defend, especially considering how much water around it was now controlled by the British. Congress denied his proposition to burn the city down so that loyalists couldn't have use of it. After a second assault on September, the Patriot forces escaped through Harlem Heights, leaving the British and full control of New York City and ready to punish any Patriots they found. One of the first orders of business was to basically draw up the names of everyone who had been disloyal from their point of view, and one of the names on Realist was Hercules Mulligan on every committee, on every list. I think people might have just liked saying Hercules Mulligan, because I do. On the night of September seventy six, part of New York caught fire, and there's still debate about whether it was deliberate, and if so, who would have set that fire and why, And while he was trying to evacuate his wife and two year old son, Mulligan was arrested for the first time. While his wife and child were allowed to continue on their way, he was taken to Provost Prison, nicknamed for British Provost Marshall William Cunningham, who with whom Mulligan did not get along. Cunningham happened to have been with the patrol that had first captured Mulligan while he was evacuating, and it was under his orders that he had been taken into custody. Mulligan spent about the next two months in jail. This is one of those things that's not particularly clearly documented about when he went in and when he went out again. But while he was there, his respected work as a clothier and his clientele that included a lot of British officers, turned into a huge asset. He spent a lot of his time and friendly conversation full of lots of name dropping and references to his personal relationships with a lot of well known, powerful loyalists and officers. Soon the order came down that he was to be released, thanks in part to what a service he had done by making all those officers uniforms. He was freed under the condition that he not leave New York. In spite of this order, he crossed the river into Hackensec, New Jersey on November seventeenth of seventeen seventy six, for reasons that, once again are not entirely clear. It's possible that he wanted to join up with Alexander Hamilton's artillery company, which was in camp there, but regardless of why, he did run into Hamilton's who persuaded him to return to New York. So, among other reasons, he could keep tabs on the British for the Patriots, and that's what he did. And we're going to talk more about that next time, when we'll get into how he gradually went from sort of spy work by happenstance to being an official, basically full time spy. Exciting. Uh, do you have some listener mail that tied us over while we cliffhaning these poor people I do. This is nor mail is from Megan, and Megan says, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I'm a graduate student spending a year in Nanjing, China writing my dissertation on theater history. Your podcast have kept me company on many of my commutes around the city, so I'm glad that I finally have something interesting to share with you as a small gesture of thanks. A few weeks ago, I visited the Jungha Memorial Shipyard here in Nanjing. The park is very quiet and mostly full of grandparents flying kites with their children in the shadow of an impressive statue of jung Ha. However, history fans will appreciate the fact that this idyllic urban landscape is built around three remaining trenches out of the many that jung Ha used to construct the treasure ships. After construction, he would flood these pits with or in float the boats out to the yank Ze River, yet another marvel of engineering. As you mentioned in the podcast, the key attraction is an enormous recreation of one of Jungha's smaller treasure ships floating in one of the canals. I have to say that it's still difficult to comprehend the scale of these vessels, even when you are staring straight up at one, or even walking around on the deck. My mother, a huge Western exploration buff was visiting me at the time, and the two of us were simply in awe. Recent excavations have also uncovered some artifacts such as construction tools and masts from the bottom of the trenches that you can see in a small museum to the side of the entrance. If you ever come to Nanjang. There are many other remnants of the Ming dynasty that you can still visit today, the city walls, the Ming Tombs, the ruins of the Imperial Palace, and Lion Hill, where Jungha lived for the last years of his life. The Chinese conception of what should be preserved, rebuilt, or completely reconstructed differs of it from what we might expect in the US. Still, it is remarkable to see how some things, such as the construction of these treasure ships have left indelible mark on the geography of the city. Hinching is the kind of place where history is always evident around you. Thank you for talking about Jong Hunt and giving other people the chance to learn more about it. All the best, Megan, Thank you so much, Megan. Megan's pictures were great. Um. I had seen sort of at the stock image places where we get our imagery for a lot of things on our website pictures of the ship, but uh, having one that was taken from somebody actually standing on the deck of it was pretty awesome. So thank you again, Megan. And if you would like to write to us about this or any other podcast where at History podcast that at how Stuff works dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash miss in history and on Twitter at miss in history. Are tumbler is missed in History dot tumbler dot com, and we're also on Pinterest at pinterest dot com slash miss in history. Our instagram is missed in History. We tried to stay consistent and put everything under the name missed in History. If you would like to learn a little more about what we talked about today, we can come to our parent company's website, which is how stuff works dot com. Put the word George Washington into the search bar. You will find a George Washington quiz, wrecontest, or knowledge about the man in his history. You can also come to our website, which is missing history dot com, where you will find show notes of all of the episodes that Holly and I have worked on together. 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