François Henri de la Motte

Who was François Henri de la Motte?

Francis Henry de la Motte, or François Henri de la Motte, was a French citizen and ex-French army officer executed in London for High Treason on 27 July 1781. He had been arrested in January 1781 on suspicion of being a spy, and held for six months in the Tower of London. At an Old Bailey trial on 23 July he was found guilty of running an operation which sent secret naval intelligence to France—a country which supported the rebellious American colonists, and with which Great Britain had been at war since 1778.

Specifically, the intelligence concerned British fleet dispositions at Portsmouth and other British ports. In July 1781 the War of American Independence was not over and the navies of Great Britain and France were still fighting each other not only in the North Atlantic but as far afield as the Indian Ocean.

What sealed de la Motte's fate was the damning testimony of a former accomplice, Henry Lutterloh, who was the chief prosecution witness. Having been found guilty by the jury, the terrible sentence pronounced by the judge was that the prisoner be hanged, drawn and quartered.