From Diary of the American Revolution, Vol I. Compiled by Frank Moore and published in 1859.
June 9. –Abraham Patten, a spy from the rebel army, was executed at Brunswick, New Jersey, last Friday, between eleven and twelve o’clock. He had agreed to give a grenadier fifty guineas to carry four letters to Washington and Putnam; the soldier took the cash, and carried the letters to his Excellency Lord Cornwallis, wherein was proposed on a certain day to set fire to Brunswick in four places at once, blow up the magazine, and then set off a rocket as a signal for the rebels to attack the town. At the gallows he acknowledged all the charges brought against him, and said he was a principal in setting fire to New York, but would not accuse any of his accomplices. The said Patten formerly lived in New York and has left a wife and four children at Baltimore in Maryland.1
1 Upcott, v. 35.