Jonathan Odell was a master of Loyalist invective who poured satirical verse into Rivington's New York Royal Gazette and other Tory publications throughout the Revolution. A true believer who found no redeeming virtues in his foes, he had little use for half measures. Even when he turned to such auspicious topics (for Loyalists) as the king's birthday or the British victory at Savannah in 1779, Odell rarely forgot entirely about his Yankee enemies or his mission "to poison with the pen / These rats, who nestle in the Lion's den!"

Odell acquired his Loyalist fervor honestly, if somewhat circuitously. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Temperance Dickinson Odell, a daughter of Jonathan Dickinson, and John Odell, a descendant of William Odell, who had been among the founders of the Massachusetts colony. Jonathan's maternal grandfather was the first president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and...