In the midst of unspoken, whispered controversy, the life and death of Silas Deane still remains an open question to historians. What happened to this second-rate diplomat is free to interpretation based on a whole jumble of contradictory information. In my personal opinion, I believe Deane was murdered with a blink of an eye and it went unnoticed.
Everyone knew that Silas should "always be carefully watched and contracted." His reputation as a thief and possibly a traitor set him as an untrustworthy individual and his image would not change before the leaders of America during the seventeen hundreds. For anyone to advocate that the US should rejoin Britain as American victory was complete would leave a permanent scar and a bull's eye on that man's back. The death of Silas Deane seems to be just of that nature. .
Looking at the universal belief of what happened, all fingers point to suicide. Rags-to-riches, the political roulette, the money game, the shame game, then riches-to rags, depression, mood swings, and simply suicide. This was the plain outcome of Deane's life as everyone saw it. No names actually mentioned, just that Deane took a walk aboard the Boston Packet and in the next couple of days ended up dead, not without struggling to say a few words.
The historical and in-depth details tell us a whole different, more involved version of what might have really happened. In his prime days Deane was working as a negotiator for the United States in the cause of independence from Britain. Edward Bancroft came to be a close friend, pupil and personal secretary to Silas during the Paris negotiations for French alliance. As Bancroft went to do his own business becoming famous in medicine, Deane continued to lead his life in politics. Twenty years later his main objective was to get information from British intelligence. The only American that was not looked down upon in Britain was Bancroft, so Deane made a polite entrance back into his life, hoping to get the information he was sent out for.