Edward Bancroft (1744-1821) Born in Westfield, Massachusetts, the son of a blacksmith, Bancroft became a physician who traveled young to South America and England. He became a well-known chemist, a respected naturalist, a pseudonymous novelist, and eventually a member of the Royal Society. During the Revolutionary War, Bancroft served as Secretary to both Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin, the American Commissioners to France. Using his prior acquaintance with both men, he served not only as their employee but as a friend and confidant. Bancroft was also simultaneously a major conduit of information to the British Secret Service. Rarely has a man been more in a position of trust. Rarely has one been more successful as a spy. Bancroft's intelligence reports to the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Stormont, led to serious losses for the American cause. This aroused suspicion, but due to his cleverness the suspicion was never seriously directed at Bancroft. After the conclusion of the war, he spent most of his life in England, a rich man who made a fortune by his discoveries of dyes, inks, and poisons.

Ephraim Bowen (1753-1841) Providence, Rhode Island merchant and officer in the Continental Army. Bowen’s claim to fame was that as a teenager he had joined the band of rebels who burned the British naval schooner Gaspee in 1772. His role in that episode, along with his extensive family connections, helped his rapid rise in the Continental Army. At the age of 22, as a lieutenant with no military experience, he was placed in charge of the outfitting of the brigantine Washington, the flagship of the General’s fledgling navy. He later served in the Quartermaster Corp of the Continental Army through much of the war. When the war ended he retired with the rank of colonel, became a wealthy Providence merchant and distiller, and built a mansion in Pawtuxet near the site where the Gaspee was burned. He was still alive when Israel Potter returned home in 1823.

James DeWolfe (1764-1837) When Israel Potter returned home from England in 1823, the United States Senator from Rhode Island was James DeWolfe. From early in his adult life, DeWolfe was an inveterate slave trader who took his lessons from his uncle, Simeon Potter. Centered in tiny Bristol, population 1000, DeWolfe expanded his enterprises to encompass every leg of the Triangular Trade. He ruled a commercial empire based on slave trading, rum distilleries and opportunistic privateering during the War of 1812. Eventually, by pioneering new smuggling routes and founding sugar plantations in Cuba, he became one of the richest men in America. He was also the uncle of Northwest John DeWolfe, who became one of Herman Melville's early mentors and his favorite relative.

Edward Griffis (Griffiths): A mysterious figure of whom virtually nothing is known. The letter of introduction which Israel Potter carried to Franklin in 1777 mentions that Potter had a "servant" with him, who presumably is Griffis; Franklin advances money to Potter and "Edward Griffis" to go to Nantes. Together, they disappear.

Henry Laurens (1724-1792) A planter and prominent slave trader from South Carolina, President of the Continental Congress from November 1777-December 1778. Congress named him minister to Holland in 1779; on a voyage to Amsterdam in 1780 he was captured by the British and imprisoned in the Tower of London on a charge of treason. The British government made every effort to subvert Laurens during his imprisonment. (In a secret journal he mentions a visit from a strange young man named Bradfille--or Pratville--a “servant” of the Secretary of State--who attempted to draw correspondence from him.) Despite poor health and a belief that Congress had abandoned him, Laurens never gave in; he was finally released in exchange for Cornwallis on December 31, 1781.

Sion Martindale (1732-1785) Bristol, Rhode Island merchant and ship captain, sometime partner and employee of Simeon Potter. Martindale came from a prominent Newport family which had suffered a decline in fortune. Besides his position as commander of the Washington, his résumé had little to recommend him to the job except a brief time as a lieutenant aboard a privateer in the French War, and at least one voyage to Africa as captain of a slave ship.

Herman Melville (1819-1891). Melville was one of America's great novelists, the acclaimed author of Moby Dick. His family background entwined in strange ways with some of the characters in this story, although he came to Israel Potter's biography seemingly by accident. Melding various accounts of Revolutionary War participants, Melville treated the story as a romping adventure and freewheeling satire. All of the outsized characters in Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile became targets for his rhetorical gifts and fierce wit, including his engaging and woebegone protagonist.

Simeon Potter (c1720-1806) One of the richest and most powerful men in Rhode Island, his place in history has been eclipsed, if not expunged, by his many political enemies. Potter made his fortune as a privateer captain (read: pirate) in 1747, by raiding a French missionary outpost in South America, and then cheating a large part of his crew of their share of the booty. He returned home to Bristol, Rhode Island, and invested heavily in ropewalks, rum distilleries, and the slave trade. A tireless entrepreneur and reprobate, he forged and broke business partnerships with many of the leading merchants in the colony, and recouped fortunes through countless lawsuits. By 1775, he had acquired enough political capital to become Major General of the Rhode Island militias, then fell from grace suddenly with the outbreak of war. Having no legitimate sons as heirs, his chief legacy was his nephew James DeWolfe, who became his highly successful protégé in the slave trade.

John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) English radical, wit, sometime member of Parliament, and tireless polemical writer, John Horne prided himself on being a thorn in the side of the establishment and trading linguistic barbs with friends and foes alike. Ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1760, Horne left the clergy to pursue his more passionate interests in law and politics, siding with Wilkes and Glynn in defending the rights of Englishmen, which extended naturally to colonial Americans. In 1775, he signed an advertisement raising money for the widows and orphans of Americans "murdered by the king's troops" at Lexington and Concord, which eventually landed him in prison. His political writing and activism continued unabated. During the next wave of repression in England (the French Revolution) his political views sent him to jail again, this time to the Tower on a charge of high treason (a jury acquitted him in less than eight minutes). In later years, Horne received a legacy from William Tooke, and adopted his benefactor's last name. He devoted years to the study of the English language which resulted in his best-known work, Diversions of Purley, a scientific approach to philology.

Henry Trumbull (1781-1843) A tireless author of American history and biography at its infantile stage, Trumbull's many works touched every part of the scale from wartime adventure to shipwrecks and castaway cannibalism, never content with the everyday. Trumbull's biography of Israel Potter is typical of his production, a tale where fact and fiction blended to the enhancement of neither. It may have been the masterpiece of this talented and thoroughgoing rogue.

John Vial (1755-1831) A gunner captured with Israel Potter aboard the Washington, Vial was impressed into the British Navy. He was able to escape when his vessel put in at New York and he returned to Rhode Island in early 1777. After rejoining the army as an ensign, he subsequently made one of the most remarkable military records of any common soldier, serving in many famous campaigns, from Red Bank to Valley Forge. Recaptured twice, and last imprisoned aboard the infamous Jersey, he returned home broken in health and penniless. He was still alive when Potter returned in 1823, and was a signed witness who verified the truth of Potter’s claims.

Paul Wentworth (??-1793) William Eden, the Undersecretary of State who ran the British Secret Service for George III, made a point of recruiting American subjects who could subvert the American cause. One of his great successes was Wentworth, a relative of a prominent New Hampshire family, who early on was an agent of the Continental Congress in London, and then became a spymaster for the British. With a salary of about 200,000 pounds a year, an unlimited expense account, and a seat in Parliament, Wentworth used his access to secret information to make fortunes for himself in the stock market. His most notable achievement in the subversion of alliances was Edward Bancroft of Massachusetts, secretary to Benjamin Franklin in Paris, a British mole so successful that his treason remained unknown to history until well after his death. Wentworth and Bancroft had made their acquaintance before the war, as partners in a Surinam plantation.