Paul Wentworth (counsellor)

Paul Wentworth (1728 or 1736–1794) was a lawyer and plantation owner in Surinam, a stockbroker in London, a British intelligence agent to Lord North during the American War of Independence, and a politician who sat in the House of Commons briefly.

In 1767 he resided at Spring Gardens and send a collection of butterflies from the Dutch colony of Surinam and a pastel by Francis Cotes to 2nd Marquess of Rockingham.

(See France in the American Revolutionary War) Deane and Benjamin Franklin were both old friends of Wentworth and he could easily make the necessary contacts.

[6]: 108  He built up and controlled a spy network and provided military intelligence to the British government on the basis of the reports he gathered.

[14][15] Lord North considered him "the most important and truest informer"[2] although King George III had little confidence in his reports and disliked his speculative activities.

[13] In 1783 he was visited by John Wheelock when Dartmouth College was on the verge of financial collapse and promised an atlas and a large pair of globes.

[16][17] Wentworth still owned Klein Hoop, a sugar plantation (500 acres and 130 slaves) on the north bank of the Cottica River in Surinam.

His medium-sized plantations Klein Hoop, L'Assistance (Commewijne River) and a brickyard Appecappe were passed on to three relatives.