He operated in New York City with the aliases "Samuel Culper, Jr." and "723" and gathered information as a service to General George Washington.

His father arranged an apprenticeship during his mid-teens with the merchant firm of Templeton and Stewart, where Robert lived and worked among soldiers and residents of Holy Ground, New York City's biggest red-light district during the war.

[5] A number of factors led Townsend to the Culper Spy Ring, including the influence of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the British harassment of his family, and his relationship with Woodhull.

Even among those who were not members of the Quaker faith, its philosophies were widespread in much of the northeast at the time and colored the thought of many people; this included the sect's adherence to pacifism.

Paine also advocated resistance as the means to achieve those goals, which put him directly at odds with the newly reformed Quaker movement.

A few months after Paine's pamphlet was published, Townsend volunteered for a logistics post in the Continental Army, which would not require him to kill.

A number of British officers thought that anti-British sentiment had been ingrained into the colonists' spirit and believed that "it should be thrash'd out of them [because] New England has poyson'd the whole.

Colonel John Graves Simcoe of the Queen's Rangers and roughly 300 of his men were stationed in Oyster Bay during the winter months.

How their transports are secured against attempt to destroy them-whether by armed vessels upon the flanks, or by chains, booms, or any contrivances to keep off fire rafts.

[13] Wasting little time to begin his spy activities, Townsend sent his first dispatch on June 29, 1779, nine days after Woodhull had informed Washington that he had a contact in New York.

"[14] One of Townsend's most valuable and memorable discoveries concerned a plot by the British to ruin the American economy by flooding the country with counterfeit dollars.

In early 1780, Townsend received some intelligence that the British believed that the war would not last much longer as a result of a disastrous depreciation of the dollar.

The most crucial part of Townsend's report was that the British had procured "several reams of paper made for the last emission struck by Congress."

As a result, Congress was forced to recall all its bills in circulation, a major ordeal but that saved the war effort, by not allowing counterfeit money to flood the market.

At one point, he warned Benjamin Tallmadge that Christoper Duychenik was an agent of New York City Mayor David Mathews.

Townsend also believed that if the men found out about the intelligence report, they would immediately suspect him, which indicated his potential association with high-level officials.

James's cover story was that he was a Tory who was visiting family in Rebel-controlled territory and was seeking to recruit men for the British Army.

[19] As the end of the war drew near, and American forces focused on Yorktown and Lord Charles Cornwallis, the Culper Ring became less significant for Washington.

Indeed, I never saw such general distress and dissatisfaction in my life as is painted in the countenance of every Tory at N.Y.[20] After the war, Townsend ended his business connections in New York and moved back to Oyster Bay.