general, empowering them, in accordance with a late Act of Parliament,
to receive the submission of any colony, and after such submission to
grant pardon and redress. An Imperial nation, defied by its colonies and
not yet beaten, could hardly offer more, and to those not thoroughly
conversant with what was going on in America, it must have seemed that
there was every chance of such terms being accepted. Never as yet had
the chances of the insurgents seemed so small. It is true that the
revolt had become universal; but the spirit of the commercial population
of the Northern States was severely tried, and seemed to be yielding
under the depression of trade caused by the war. The English army was
for the time actually more numerous than that of Washington, whose
troops, nominally but 27,000 strong, were diminished by illness or
absence. Those who remained were in a miserable condition, and consisted
chiefly of men enlisted for short periods, who could scarcely be
properly drilled before they returned to their homes. But the state of
feeling was no longer what it had been. It was no longer a question of
pardon or redress. The more earnest and violent men had, as is usual in
civil commotions, been coming more and more to the front. The idea of a
total separation from England had been rapidly gaining ground;
republican and democratic principles had made their appearance; the
writings of Thomas Paine had been published, and so largely were his
views received, that a declaration, issued by the aristocratic State of
Virginia, served afterwards as the model for the Declaration of the
Rights of Man issued by the revolutionists of France; and already,
before the arrival of Howe with his offer of pardon, the extreme party
had determined to check all lukewarmness and put an end to all chance of
reconciliation by taking an irretrievable step. In June, Lee of Virginia
proposed in Congress that the colonies should declare themselves
independent. The numbers on division proved to be exactly equal, but
Dickinson, the writer of the "Pennsylvanian Farmer's Letters," and the
leader of the moderate party, consented to withdraw, and the motion for
independence was thus carried by a majority of one. The document itself
is not a very powerful one, but shows how abstract political views had
become mingled with the original questions in dispute. It is based on
the Declaration of Virginia, recapitulates all the real or fancied
grievances of the colonies, and, with curious political dishonesty,
attributes them all to the personal tyranny of the King. The Declaration
of Independence, issued on July 4th, reached Washington's army just
before Lord Howe's arrival; it of course rendered his pacific mission
fruitless. The colonies had assumed the position of an independent
nation, and claimed to be treated with all the respect due to such a
position. Howe's letters to Washington were even returned unopened,
because they were not addressed to him by his full military style and
title.
[Illustration: Neighbourhood of NEW YORK October 1776.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Brooklyn. Aug. 27.]
[Sidenote: Washington recovers New Jersey. Jan. 3, 1777.]
To the English nothing now remained but to take advantage of the
superiority of their troops. An attack upon the lines of Brooklyn, at
the end of Long Island, separated from New York only by a narrow
channel, was ordered. The Americans, in about equal numbers, came out of
their intrenchments, and for the first time during the war a battle was
fought in the open field. The victory of the English troops was
immediate and complete. It was due only to Howe's want of vigour in
pressing his success that Washington was able to withdraw his army to
New York, whence, finding it impossible to hold his ground, he retired
ultimately to the mainland, taking up a position at Kingsbridge, and
leaving the city in the hands of the English. It was plain that the
temporary militia of the colonists was useless against regular troops,
and in spite of its republican dread of a standing army, the Congress at
length listened to Washington's repeated representations, and authorized
the enrolment of some regular troops. But for more than a year he was
compelled to do his best with his old militia, and nothing but the
continued and incomprehensible slowness of the English generals saved
him from disaster. Step by step he was driven backwards, till he was
compelled to cross the Delaware and leave the whole of the Jerseys in
the hands of the English. The road to Philadelphia seemed open, and the
Congress, in fear, withdrew to Baltimore. But the English, when they
found that all the boats on the Delaware had been removed, quietly
withdrew into winter quarters upon a very extended line, and waited in
hopes of being able to cross the river on the ice. The time thus wasted
lost them all the advantages they had won, and gave Washington an
opportunity to recover. Eager to strike some blow which should raise the
spirits of the colonists and enable him to fill the ranks of the army,
he determined to take advantage of the weak and extended line of the
English. On Christmas evening, trusting to the effects of the day's
debauch, he crossed the river, and surprised and captured the garrison
of Trenton. Cornwallis, who had the command of the advanced troops of
the English, came to the rescue, but Washington by another night march
swept round the English army, and captured or destroyed two regiments at
Princeton. He was unable to secure, as he had intended, the supplies at
Gloucester, but before long he succeeded in clearing New Jersey of the
English, and confining them, as before, to New York and Rhode Island.
[Sidenote: Threefold plan of the English.]
Howe remained idle till June, thus allowing much time to the Americans,
to whom time was everything. But in June preparations for a great joint
movement were matured. Not only was the main army in New York again to
resume the offensive, but advantage was to be taken of the possession of
Canada, and an attack organized from that country. This branch of the
combined movement was placed under the command of General Burgoyne. The
cleft made by the valley of the Hudson is continued northward by the
Lakes George and Champlain, and a natural road thus formed from Canada
to New York. Down this the Canadian army was to march, assisted by the
co-operation of Clinton, who was to lead troops from New York to meet
it. Thus the disaffected provinces of New England would be severed from
the rest of America.
[Sidenote: Howe's expedition against Philadelphia. Sept. 1777.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Germanstown. Oct. 4.]
Howe's army, which was now comparatively powerful, was expected to make
its way through the Jerseys, and to complete the project of last autumn
by capturing Philadelphia; but, finding Washington ready to oppose his
advance, he suddenly withdrew his troops and embarked them in the fleet.
He appeared for a moment off the mouth of the Delaware, but again,
finding more obstacles than he had expected, took to the sea, and
sailing all round the promontory between the Delaware and the Bay of
Chesapeake, ultimately arrived at the top of that piece of water at the
Head of Elk, nearly as far from Philadelphia as when he started. The
time spent in making this long circuit enabled Washington to be fully
prepared to cover Philadelphia. He took up his position in Brandywine
Creek. He was there quite outmanœuvred. While one division of the
English held the ground in front, another marched round and fell upon
the rear and left flank, and completely routed his army. He still tried
to hold the line of the Schuylkill, but it was passed by the English
with little difficulty, and Philadelphia occupied. The capital was thus
in the hands of the English, but the expeditionary character of the
attack prevented it from being so effectual as a steady advance would
have been, while it rendered the conquest nugatory by separating it
entirely from New York, the real basis of operations. In some degree to
correct this error, it became necessary to secure direct access by sea
by the capture of the forts which held the mouth of the Delaware. For
this purpose the English army was divided, one portion remained at
Germanstown to hold Philadelphia, and the rest were moved to the siege
of the forts. Washington took advantage of the weakness of his immediate
opponents and attacked the troops at Germanstown. At first he was
successful, but a panic, such as not unfrequently seizes young and
half-disciplined troops, changed his half-won victory to defeat. The
forts of the Delaware were at length captured, and the operations of the
English seemed to have been thoroughly successful.
[Sidenote: Washington reorganizes the army.]
It was indeed a moment of intense depression in the American army;
nothing but the extraordinary patience and steadfastness of Washington
could have saved it. Half-disciplined troops, many of them inclined to
desert, or to leave their standards as soon as their short time of
enlistment was over, thousands without shoes, a commissariat
ridiculously incompetent and notoriously fraudulent, a civil power
inclined to meddle and complain of the military arrangements, such were
some of the difficulties with which he had to contend. He managed in
spite of all to keep his army together, and to induce his troops to go
into winter quarters at Valley Forge, a wild but strong position among
the hills on the Schuylkill river a little above Philadelphia. News from
the North came to cheer him in his distressed condition.
[Sidenote: Burgoyne's disasters.]
Though successful in itself, the real object of Howe's expedition had
not been obtained, it had not enabled the army of New York to go to the
assistance of Burgoyne, and that general had been compelled to surrender
with all his army on the 17th of October. In June he had advanced along
the west side of Lake Champlain, and had taken the fortress of
Ticonderoga, Fort Anne, and Fort Edward on the Hudson. Hearing that the
Americans had supplies but slightly guarded at Bennington, on the road
to the Connecticut river, he sent a small detachment to secure them.
This was the beginning of his misfortunes; the difficulties proved
greater than was expected, the expedition failed and had to retire in
haste, with the loss of all its artillery. However, trusting to the
co-operation of the army from New York, and of a force which was to make
its way from the great lakes by Fort Stanwix down the upper Hudson and
join him before Albany, Burgoyne continued to advance. He collected
thirty days' supplies and crossed the Hudson, thus cutting himself off
from Canada, and relying for safety upon his power of opening
communication with New York. The militia of the neighbouring district at
once rose behind him, thus completely severing his communications. His
Indian auxiliaries had left him; he could not rely much on his Canadian
troops, and now found himself in face of General Schuyler with 16,000
men. The help on which he had calculated did not come, Lieutenant
Colonel St. Leger failed before Fort Stanwix, and Clinton was unable to
leave New York. Burgoyne attempted an assault on the American position
before Behmus's Heights, north of Stillwater, but failed. To advance
seemed impossible, he therefore ordered a retreat, though this was
scarcely less difficult. He had told Clinton that he could hold out till
the 12th of October, and when that day came he was still close to
Saratoga, and now neither retreat nor advance was possible. His boats
upon the lake, which afforded him his sole means of procuring supplies
or of transport, had been destroyed; he had no choice but to make some
sort of surrender. On the 17th of October a convention was signed by
which he surrendered his whole force to General Gates, who had assumed
the chief command of the American troops. His army was allowed to march
out of camp with the honours of war to the bank of the river, there to
lay down their arms, and to be forwarded to England, under promise not
to serve again during the war. Though the reception of the prisoners by
both generals and men was most generous, and though Burgoyne lived as a
guest in General Schuyler's house, the terms of the convention were not
honestly fulfilled; Burgoyne, indeed, was allowed to return to England,
but the main part of the army was detained in America for several years.
The blame of this breach of treaty is held to attach to Congress only,
and not to Washington.
[Sidenote: Effect of American affairs on the Parliament. Oct. 1776.]
The autumn session of 1776 had been opened with a speech full of the
successes of the English arms. The battle of Brooklyn, the fall of New
York, the expulsion of the invaders from Canada, were all topics of
congratulation. The feeling of the nation went with the Government, and
the opposition in Parliament dwindled to a very small minority; but in
spite of their weakness they continued to urge conciliatory measures,
and at the beginning of the session, both in the Upper and Lower House,
amendments in that sense were moved to the address. So plain was it,
however, that such efforts were wholly useless, that Lord Rockingham's
party ostentatiously retired from all public questions, attending the
House only during private business. Fox indeed, who had left the
ministry in 1773, and had become the foremost champion of the American
cause, remained in his place, but the rest of the party did not
reappear, till, finding their step worse than useless, they took the
opportunity of a debate upon the Civil List to return to public life.
[Sidenote: Increase of the Civil List.]
This debate arose on a demand for an increase to the Civil List of
£100,000 a year, and £600,000 to pay off the debts already owing. Under
the existing circumstances the necessity for the measure was obvious,
for the King's ordinary tradesmen were unpaid, and his servants' wages
in arrears. The Civil List already amounted to £800,000 a year, and the
known personal frugality of the King and Queen rendered the
disappearance of so large a sum the more scandalous. In fact, nearly
£600,000 had been spent since 1769 in secret service. It was easy to
explain the insufficiency of the Civil List and the permanence of the
ministerial majority in Parliament; not only had the Pension List been
largely increased, but there were a swarm of sinecure officers about the
Court, from grand falconers in the House of Peers to turnspits of the
kitchen who sat in the House of Commons. The Civil List was increased,
but the grant was accompanied by a strong expression, on the part of Sir
Norton Fletcher, of the feeling of the House, that under the existing
pressure of taxation such extravagant use of public money was much to be
blamed,--words which were subsequently formally accepted by the House as
their own.
[Sidenote: Chatham's motion. May 30, 1777.]
[Sidenote: American intrigues with France.]
[Sidenote: France acknowledges the independence of America. Dec. 1777.]
The session closed with another effort on the part of the Opposition. On
this occasion it was Lord Chatham who led the attack. He returned, after
two years of illness, and still swathed in flannel, to move an address,
urging the King to arrest the misfortunes in America. The measures he
advised were unconditional redress of grievances, and repeal of all
penal statutes; in other words, he would have granted all the demands of
the Americans with the exception of their independence. But, while
urging moderate counsels with regard to America, he blazed out at the
idea of an alliance of the colonists with the French, and demanded
instant war. His motion was of course lost. His fears of an alliance
with France were not however unfounded; already, before the Declaration
of Independence, Silas Deane had been sent over to Europe to try and
make some arrangement. If the confession of the culprit is to be
believed, Deane's handiwork was to be seen in the nefarious plans of a
man called John the Painter, who in the December of the preceding year
(1776) had attempted to fire the dockyards of Portsmouth. Again,
immediately after the Declaration of Independence, Adams and Franklin
had been sent over as accredited agents to make a commercial and
defensive alliance with France. But though they had been well received
both by the ministry and by the salons of Paris, where for the time
Franklin was the fashion, their representations were mistrusted, and no
real help was given. The French had no wish to engage in a failing
cause, and continued to keep up an appearance of friendship with
England, even, at the instigation of our ambassador, issuing, though
probably intentionally too late, a _lettre de cachet_ to stop the
Marquis of Lafayette from sailing to join the colonists. He had no
difficulty in avoiding it, and was present with Washington during the
Philadelphian campaign. But the Court of France was in fact only
watching the turn of events. The news of the defeat of Burgoyne had
scarcely reached Europe before the independence of America was
acknowledged and a commercial treaty made. In case of France becoming
involved in the war with England, this treaty was to be extended into
one by which France engaged to supply military assistance on the sole
condition that America should never acknowledge the supremacy of Great
Britain.
[Sidenote: Chatham's energy in Parliament. Nov. 20, 1777.]
Already, by the time of the meeting of Parliament for the autumn
session, rumours of Burgoyne's difficulties had reached England, though
no news of his final disaster had arrived. The danger of war with
France, to which Chatham had alluded in the spring, seemed to increase,
and men's thoughts began to turn towards the great statesman who had
before saved England in similar difficulties. Nor did Chatham refuse to
respond to the general expectation; not for many years had he shown such
activity as in this session. In moving an amendment on the address, he
demanded the withdrawal of all troops from America, stigmatized with due
severity the employment of savage Indians in the war, and strove to
rouse the national spirit against France. But the energy and eloquence
he exhibited throughout the session were unavailing. He consistently
upheld the view that conquest of America was quite impossible, that it
was worse than useless to carry on the war, and that all the demands of
the colonists should be granted with the exception of independence.
This, he said in the strongest words, it was impossible for England to
grant. He relied, no doubt, on the natural hostility between the
colonists and France, and it is possible that, had he been placed in
office, his policy might have been successful. He was loved and trusted
by the Americans; concessions from his hands might have been received.
He was feared by France; his plan of removing the troops from America
would have left the resources of England free for a foreign war; his
threats and his name might have deterred the French from war. But
certainly no other man could carry out such a policy, and so it was
generally felt; North himself acknowledged the impossibility, and was
most desirous of resigning; Lord George Germaine, who, disgraced at
Minden as a military man, had become as member of the Government the
chief supporter of repressive measures in America, was also preparing to
give up his post. The ministry seemed on the point of giving way, and
indeed the necessity for such a step was increasing rapidly. Early in
December came the terrible news of Saratoga, and three weeks later the
preliminaries of the treaty between France and the colonies were agreed
upon, though the French ministry had not scrupled to cover their
intentions by false statements on the matter.
[Sidenote: The King insists on Lord North retaining office.]
[Sidenote: Lord North's Conciliation Bill.]
[Sidenote: Rupture with France.]
The Opposition began to feel triumphant. Though still quite outvoted in
the House, they knew that the majority turned with the ministry,
whatever it might be; but they did not sufficiently reckon on the King's
obstinacy. He had been right in his boast at the beginning of his reign;
he was thoroughly English; he reflected and sympathized with the most
vulgar feelings and prejudices of the people. The disasters in America
had called out considerable enthusiasm in England; money had been
largely subscribed for keeping up more troops, and the temper of the
nation was evidently for pressing the war with energy, regardless of
consequences. In vain did Lord North express his desire to resign, and
declare the necessity of conciliatory measures. The King, strong in the
popular feeling, reproached him for intending to desert him, as he
called it. On further pressure he gave him leave to apply to Chatham and
the Whigs, but only on the absurd condition, that they should join the
present ministry, serve under Lord North, and carry out the same policy
as the existing Government. He would not hear of the ministry being put
frankly into Chatham's hands. As usual, Lord North yielded, and
consented to stay in office. He even consented to bring in bills
absolutely reversing all his own policy, and which could have come with
good grace only from the Opposition. His Conciliation Bill, now in the
hands of the ministry, was carried without difficulty, and all American
demands, short of independence, were granted; all officers appointed by
Congress acknowledged, and commissioners, with the most ample powers to
discuss and arrange all points of quarrel, appointed. North still wished
that, as this was in fact the Opposition policy, the Opposition should
have the duty of putting it into effect; but the King and the course of
events were too strong for him. The Conciliation Bill had hardly passed
when an open rupture with France took place. The treaty concluded on the
6th of February was notified in insulting terms to the English Court.
Such a treaty was followed by the inevitable withdrawal of ambassadors,
and war with France was in fact upon us.
[Sidenote: Death of Lord Chatham. May 11, 1778.]
To the Opposition it seemed as if the play had been played out. They
were inclined for immediate submission. If England could not conquer
America alone, what hope was there of conquering America joined with
France with the whole house of Bourbon in its wake? They urged the
immediate recognition of the independence of the colonies. Such, as has
been before explained, were not the views of Chatham; his spirit rose
with the idea of war with his old enemy, and he relied on his own
ability, not indeed to conquer, but to conciliate America while he
crushed France. His plan was never put to the test. On the 7th of April
the Duke of Richmond moved in the House of Lords that all troops should
at once be withdrawn from America, and a peace concluded, which of
course implied the independence of the contracting parties. Chatham,
very weak and ill, and against the advice of his friends, went down on
purpose to oppose the motion. Scarcely able to walk, his feeble steps
were supported by his son William and his son-in-law Lord Mahon. After
hearing the Duke of Richmond's motion, he rose with difficulty, and
resting on his crutch, and with his eyes looking unnaturally vivid in
his shrunk face and under his great wig, he proceeded to make a vigorous
reply. His voice was very low, and at times his memory failed, but here
and there his eloquence rose to its old pitch, and he again thrilled his
hearers as he recounted the dangers which England had outlived, and
demanded whether the country which but seventeen years ago was the
terror of the world "was to stoop so low as to tell its ancient
inveterate enemy, Take all we have, only give us peace." The Duke
replied in a weak speech; and Chatham rose again, eager to answer him,
but before he could speak he was seen to gasp, to lay his hand upon his
heart, and to sink back, apparently dying. The death of this greatest of
English statesmen put an end to all hope of a new policy. Unless the
Americans received the conciliatory measures of Lord North well--which
was most unlikely--the war must be fought out. Every honour was paid to
the memory of Chatham. He was voted a public funeral in Westminster
Abbey, and a monument, which is placed over the door at the west end of
the Abbey, and represents him with his arm raised in the act of
speaking. His debts were paid and a large pension settled on his family.
Four Lords protested against these honours and the ministerial people
kept chiefly aloof from his funeral. But the feeling of regret and
admiration was universal. The Duke of Richmond's motion was of course
negatived, and it remained to be seen what the Commissioners could do.
[Sidenote: Laws against Roman Catholics repealed.]