The Curious Case of the Spurious letter from George Washington to His Wife in the Gentleman’s Magazine , 1777: David Henry and the Dual use of Propaganda

In its supplement to 1777 the Gentleman’s Magazine (hereafter GM) presented a tantalizing offering to its readers: ‘The following intercepted original Letter from Gen. Washington to his Lady’, runs the editorial headnote, ‘having every internal Mark of Authenticity, deserves to be recorded’ (xlvii [1777], 629). The magazine accordingly printed in entirety and in apparent good faith an intriguing letter (xlvii [1777], 629–31) supposedly addressed to Washington’s wife, Martha Custis Washington, dated 24 June 1776, ten days before the adoption of the American Declaration of Independence. The letter, as has long been known, was a forgery, concocted in all likelihood as a crafty piece of propaganda intended to damage Washington’s reputation and sow division in America. How and why the GM’s conductor, David Henry, came to publish it is a signal instance of how propaganda designed to sway opinion negatively in America could at the same time be enlisted to mold opinion in support of a completely different end among its British readership: the cause of reconciliation between Great Britain and the Colonies so earnestly advocated by Henry in the pages of the Gentleman’s Magazine.