page_title: Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet
section_title: The "Asgill Affair"
hierarchical_section_title: Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet / The "Asgill Affair"
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawing of Timothy Day's Tavern
context_page_description: General Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet, GCH was a career soldier in the British Army. Asgill enjoyed a long military career, eventually rising to the rank of general. He is best remembered as the principal of the so-called "Asgill Affair" of 1782, in which his retaliatory execution while a prisoner of war was commuted by the American forces who held him, due to the direct intervention of the government of France.
context_section_description: In April 1782, a captain of the Monmouth Militia and privateer named Joshua Huddy was overwhelmed and captured by Loyalist forces at the blockhouse (small fort) he commanded at the village of Toms River, New Jersey. Huddy was accused of complicity in the death of a Loyalist farmer named Philip White who had died in Patriot custody. Huddy was conveyed to New York City, then under British control, where he was summarily sentenced to be executed by William Franklin, the Loyalist son of Benjamin Franklin.
  Huddy was held in leg irons aboard a prison ship until 12 April 1782, when he was taken ashore and hanged, after first being allowed to dictate his last will. Loyalists pinned a note to his chest reading "Up Goes Huddy for Philip White" and his body was left hanging overnight. Following his burial at Old Tennent Church by Patriotic supporters, a petition was collected demanding retribution for Huddy's death and presented to American commander General George Washington.
  Washington responded to this pressure by declaring that a British captain would be executed in retaliation for the killing of Huddy. On 27 May 1782, lots were drawn at the Black Bear Inn, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with Asgill's name being drawn by a drummer boy, together with the paper marked "Unfortunate", which put him under threat of execution. Asgill's fellow officer, Major James Gordon, protested in the strongest terms to both General Washington and Benjamin Lincoln, the Secretary of War, that this use of a lottery was illegal.
  After lots were drawn on 27 May 1782, Brigadier General Moses Hazen who had been in charge of the proceedings, wrote that same day to Washington to inform him that Major James Gordon had identified unconditional prisoners, but that Asgill was on his way to imprisonment for the next six months, where he awaited the gallows on a daily basis. He also told Washington that his orders of 3 and 18 May 1782 had been painful for him to carry out. "Since I wrote the above Majr Gordon has furnished me with an Original Letter of which the inclosed is a Copy, by which you will see we have a Subaltern Officer and unconditional Prisoner of War at Winchester Barracks. I have also just received Information that Lieut. Turner, of the 3rd Brigade of Genl Skinner's New-Jersey Volunteers is in York Goal—but as those Informations did not come to Hand before the Lots were drawn, and my Letters wrote to your Excellency and the Minister of War on the Subject, and as I judge no Inconveniency can possibly arise to us by sending on Capt. Asgill, to Philadelphia, which will naturally tend to keep up the Hue and Cry, and of course foment the present Dissentions amongst our Enemies, I have sent him under guard as directed. Those Officers above-mentioned are not only of the Description which your Excellency wishes, and at first ordered [on 3 May], but in another Point of View are proper Subjects for Example, been Traitors to America, and having taken refuge with the Enemy, and by us in Arms. It have fallen to my Lot to superintend this melancholy disagreeable Duty, I must confess I have been most sensible affected with it, and [do] most sincerely wish that the Information here given may operate in favour of Youth, Innocence, and Honour". From Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Asgill was conveyed to Chatham, New Jersey, where he was under the jurisdiction of Colonel Elias Dayton, and in close proximity to the people of Monmouth County, who wished him to atone for Huddy's execution. Dayton housed Asgill in his own quarters and treated him kindly. However, in a P.S. to his letter to Dayton of 11 June 1782, Washington wrote telling him to send Asgill to the Jersey Lines under close arrest, adding that he should be "treated with all the Tenderness possible, consistent with his present Situation". In the event, however, Asgill was sent, under close arrest, to Timothy Day's Tavern.
  On hearing of her son's impending execution, Asgill's mother, Sarah Theresa, Lady Asgill (who was of French Huguenot origin), wrote to the French court, pleading for her son's life to be spared. King 
caption: Timothy Day's Tavern, Chatham, NJ, the location of Asgill's imprisonment in 1782. From "At the crossing of the Fishawack" by John T. Cunningham (p.11) with permission from the Chatham Historical Society. "The Asgill Affair" is featured in the Winter 2019 issue of The Journal of Lancaster County's Historical Society, which devoted the entire issue to this subject.[8]
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