The Monmouth Manifesto
James Arnett
Friesen Press
384 pages, hardcover, softcover, and ebook
Reviewed by Emily Mernin
It may be hard for modern readers to imagine Manhattan as a rural island or New York City, now home to over eight million, as “a mere smudge along the shore far across the bay.” It might be difficult, too, for anyone who has travelled through New Jersey — the most tightly packed state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — to picture it as it once was: a sparsely populated British colony of rolling hills, farmland, and small villages.
This year marks the semiquincentennial of the start of the American Revolution, the
brutal eight-year war that resulted in independence from Great Britain. Much of the conflict unfolded in Philadelphia and in what are now the five boroughs of New York, plus the verdant land between the two cities: the Garden State. In his second novel, The Monmouth Manifesto, James Arnett immerses readers in this landscape as he follows two yeoman farmers who enlist to fight as Loyalists.
Arnett’s plot and characters are drawn entirely from historical accounts, all of which are refer enced in his epilogue, afterword, and appendix; he changes few names and dates. The narrative begins with Richard Lippincott in early July 1776 at a Quaker meeting house in Shrewsbury, on the “northeastern coastal plain.” Described as
“even- featured, lean, and about five-foot-nine,” the thirty- one-year-old listens intently to a discussion of “the current chaotic conditions of the Province of New Jersey”— specifically the spreading power of George Washington’s Continental
Army. One of the meeting’s elders rattles off James and Richard fight side by side in the Battle of Staten Island in August 1777 and become unexpectedly close, even if James is “one of those polished arrogant Anglicans” and Richard is “one of those prickly sanctimonious Dissenters.” As the years pass — and their home lives feel increasingly distant — they influence each other greatly. Despite a series of rebel advances and London’s declining interest in its restless colonies, they help each other stay loyal to the cause. In 1781, after he learns of Maggie’s death, Richard rents a room for himself and Esther in Manhattan, where most of the Loyalists in the region have taken refuge. Although charting the moral evolution of multiple characters, Arnett zeroes in especially on Richard’s slow acceptance of bloodshed, military life, and revenge.
In 1782, Richard’s eventual comfort with violence culminates in his desire to person ally execute the rebel captain Joshua “Jack” Huddy. Richard organizes the prisoner of war’s hanging without the proper orders — a dangerous decision that surprises himself, Esther, and even James (who later resettles in Nova Scotia). The unwarranted murder of Huddy enrages the Patriots. They write the Monmouth
Manifesto, a document “demanding that Washington retaliate” by executing someone on the British side. The future president selects a young officer, Charles Asgill, who (as in reality) ultimately sails back to London after six months of imprisonment.
Arnett’s rendering of this dramatic event, which came to be remembered as the Asgill Affair, is suggestive of the futile desperation of the British and Loyalist forces toward the end of the war, along with the self- abandonment required to commit senseless violence. I grew up in A hillside town in Essex county, recent advancements of the rebel cause, including an attempt to establish a “so-called State” and a “Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.” He then asks a question that rings throughout the novel: “How do we pacifists withstand the demands of a violent society?”
For Arnett, the short answer seems to be that they can’t. Within weeks of this gathering, Richard abandons his 100-acre farm “with its many saltwater marshes and estuaries,” his wife, Esther, and their daughter, Maggie, to join the Skinners, a volunteer regiment forming on Staten Island. Arnett writes long, reflective passages on Richard’s internal struggle to reconcile his peace- loving religious views with his new-found commitment to serve the Crown. After a failed attempt to challenge his slave-owning bunkmate, James Moody, Richard thinks, “Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a Friend. Not everyone is ”just a few kilometres west of Newark, facing the ever- changing Manhattan skyline. When I go back to visit, I inevitably drive past the many strip malls of Galloping Hill Road (down which the British retreated during the Battle of Springfield in 1780), catch the eastbound commuter train in Morristown (where Washington’s army headquarters were located), and run along the Palisades — a thirty- two- kilometre stretch of steep cliffs — near Fort Lee (where Thomas Paine composed much of The American Crisis).
Over the last 250 years, these places, like the notion of patriotism, have changed profoundly. It is compelling to find them reimagined here, as part of a richly drawn backdrop for a book about those on “the wrong side of history” (as the
cover copy reads). In revisiting this chapter of civil strife, Arnett reminds his readers how careful we must be with what enthralls, ensnares, and enrages us.
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