The American Crisis

Paine breaks from his typical subject matter to write an urgent pamphlet in an effort to bring a murderer to justice. He recounts how British forces captured American Captain Huddy from the Jersey militia and, after holding him hostage in New York for three weeks, a British soldier named Lippencott murdered him on the Jersey shore. Paine explains that American General Washington then demanded that the British deliver the murderer, Lippencott, to the Americans, or that the Americans would execute British captive Captain Asgill.

Paine laments that this demand has not been met, and so Captain Asgill is now “doomed to death for a crime not his own” (153). Paine calls the situation a “black business” and questions the lack of British discipline that led to Captain Huddy’s extrajudicial murder, calling the British a “barbarous enemy” with “detestable character” (154). He shames the British army for failing to disown Lippencott and accuses them of being Asgill’s real executioners. He urges the British to give up the murderer while they can, if not to help the Americans then to save their own Captain. He claims that the British have ruined the “security” of captivity and broken any trust between the enemies that prisoners would not be murdered once captured.