Paul Wentworth

Paul Wentworth (1728 or 1736–1794) was a lawyer and plantation owner in Surinam, a stockbroker in London, a British intelligence agent to Lord North during the American War of Independence, and a politician who sat in the House of Commons briefly. He was friendly with Arthur Lee, Silas Deane, Philip Skene and Benedict Arnold.

Early life

Wentworth may have been born in Barbados or in New Hampshire. He moved to Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the 1750s, and won the patronage of the governor Benning Wentworth. He studied law (LL. D.) and in 1756 he married a rich widow in Surinam, where he worked at court of justice. In 1764 he hired the chemist Edward Bancroft to survey and improve his Surinam plantation. After he inherited a sugar and coffee plantation he left for London. He established himself as a stockbroker or speculator. In 1767 he resided at Spring Gardens and send a collection of butterflies from the Dutch colony of Surinam and a pastel by Francis Cotes to 2nd Marquess of Rockingham. In 1770 he resided in Amsterdam and tried to sell his late wife's property. His friend John Wentworth, the loyalist governor of New Hampshire appointed him in 1770 as a member of the New Hampshire council and also as the province's agent to the Parliament of Great Britain despite the two offices needing to be on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

Counselling activities

Before open war between France and Britain, Pierre Beaumarchais was at the center of an arms traffic to support American Insurgents.

Wentworth lived at Poland Street and he invited Arthur Lee (diplomat) who lived there for five years. Wentworth gave Lee access to the highest reaches of the British government.

Wentworth decided that the British crown offered better opportunities than the Americans. He started supplying information to the British secret service in 1772 or 1774. Wentworth was to spy on the American delegation to the French court when Silas Deane was sent to Paris in 1776. (See France in the American Revolutionary War) Deane and Benjamin Franklin were both old friends of Wentworth and he could easily make the necessary contacts. Wentworth arranged for Bancroft to meet Secret Service chief William Eden and Lords Suffolk and Weymouth, where Bancroft agreed to become a spy for Britain. Bancroft joined the American mission in Paris in December 1776. In 1777 Pierre Beaumarchais wrote to Vergennes that Wentworth spoke French "like you and better than I do: he is one of the cleverest men in England". In 1778 Wentworth was in discussions with Franklin on peace terms but the effect of this was to help drive the French into alliance with the Americans.

Later life and legacy Wentworth still owned Klein Hoop, a sugar plantation (500 acres and 130 slaves) on the north bank of the Cottica River in Surinam. In 1784 John Wentworth sent 19 slaves from Nova Scotia. According to his secret will he went there with Nathaniel Paul Wentworth (1770-) and his mistress after October 1790. He promised the poet Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton in Braintree and her daughter money. He died on 26 January 1794. His medium-sized plantations Klein Hoop, L'Assistance (Commewijne River) and a brickyard Appecappe were passed on to three relatives.