The Asgill Affair or Huddy-Asgill Affair was a diplomatic incident during the American Revolution named after a British army officer, Captain Charles Asgill.
Colourised image of Charles Asgill, from a mezzotint of lost c. 1820 original by Thomas Phillips
Joshua Huddy being led from prison to be hanged, early 20th century depiction
2022 depiction of the drawing of lots at the Black Bear Tavern, 27 May 1782
Captain Charles Asgill's letter to the Editor of the Newhaven Gazette, dated 20 December 1786
Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet
General Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet, was a career soldier in the British Army. At the end of the American Revolutionary War he became the principal of the so-called Asgill Affair of 1782, in which his retaliatory death sentence while a prisoner of war was commuted by the American forces who held him, due to the direct intervention of the government of France. Later in his career, he was involved in the Flanders campaign, the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and was Commander of the Eastern Division of Ireland during the Irish rebellion of 1803.
Colourised image of Asgill from a mezzotint of lost original by Thomas Phillips
Asgill's handwriting in 1778: "An Honest Man is the noblest work of God."
Coat of arms of Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet. The motto translates as "regardless of his own interest".
Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence of Field-Marshal the Duke of York, who appointed Asgill as an equerry.
