James Rivington

James Rivington was already an established figure in the colonial book trade when he launched the New-York Gazetteer in 1773, a newspaper that quickly became one of the most widely read in North America. His printing operation was prosperous and his readership broad, but his refusal to take sides in the colonial debate made him a target for patriot mobs who destroyed his press in 1775. He sailed to London, returning to New York after the British occupation restored order, and reopened as the publisher of the Royal Gazette — a Loyalist sheet that patriots nicknamed Rivington's Lying Gazette for its strident pro-British content.

For most of the war, Rivington appeared to be exactly what the patriots accused him of being: a propagandist for the Crown, using his press to demoralize the American cause and bolster British morale in occupied New York. His paper published accounts of British victories, dismissed American military efforts, and ridiculed patriot leaders. The vitriol directed at him from patriot newspapers throughout the colonies was intense, and he was burned in effigy in several towns. The complete picture of his wartime role, however, only began to emerge from documents examined long after the conflict ended.

Evidence uncovered by later historians suggests that Rivington used his privileged position among British officers to gather and transmit genuine intelligence to American agents, possibly including signals from the Royal Navy's codebook. His apparent work as a double agent — if accurate — would make him one of the most effective and audacious American spies of the war, operating in plain sight at the center of British-occupied New York throughout the occupation. The ambiguity of his legacy has made him a figure of enduring historical fascination: a man whose public face was that of a traitor and whose private role may have been that of a patriot.