Jonathan Odell; Loyalist Poet of the American Revolution
Durham: Duke University Press, 1987. Presumed First Edition/First Printing. Hardcover. xv, [1], 205, [3] pages. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Signed inscription by author on fep. Jonathan Odell (25 September 1737 – 25 November 1818) was a Loyalist poet who lived during the American Revolution. Odell was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1737 to John and Temperance Odell. He graduated from Princeton University (at the time known as the College of New Jersey) in 1754. Although he had studied medicine, instead of becoming a doctor he joined the Church of England ministry. As a minister he preached at parish priest at Burlington and Mount Holly, both in New Jersey. When the revolution broke out Odell became a strong loyalist and wrote poetry promoting the loyalist cause. He was brought before the New Jersey Provincial Congress for such actions and on July 20, 1776, he was ordered to sign a loyalty oath and remain within eight miles of the Burlington County courthouse. In December of that year, he fled to New York, with the help of local citizens, and served as an administrator and satiric poet-propagandist for the British. After the war in 1784 he emigrated to New Brunswick, Canada, where he received the post of provincial secretary as a reward for his loyalty. He remained in New Brunswick and died in Fredericton. Odell was portrayed by George Sanders as a highly intelligent but cynical loyalist in the 1955 Hollywood film The Scarlet Coat. Jonathan Odell's live and writings give us insight into the American Revolution by revealing Loyalist ideology--the ambitious few have led the gullible multitude to slaughter--and he rails against the British military for fighting a war of containment aimed at bringing the rebel leadership to negotiation. This policy effectually trapped the Loyalists between the British army, which ignored them, and the rebels, who despised them.One of the best-educated of the colonialists, Odell, a physician turned Anglican minister and then writer, lived the gamut of experience: powerful friends sustained him and the British commanders-in-chief Sir William Howe, Henry Clinton, and Sir Guy Carleton employed him; nevertheless, during the war he was a lonely exile (Tory hunters forced him from his home in 1775), and, at the end of the war, when his hope for reconciliation between the Loyalists and the Americans came to nothing, he reluctantly emigrated to Canada. Here is a voice, all but silenced for over two hundred years, that must now be heard if we are to better understand the American Revolution. Condition: Very good / very good.
Keywords: Jonathan Odell, Loyalist, American Revolution, John Andre, Benedict Arnold, Samuel Seabury, Guy Carleton, Burlington, Henry Clinton, Britannicus, William Franklin, George Hills, Richard Howe, William Howe, James Rivington, Veridicus
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