We now come to the home affairs of Barclugh. He returned to England
after his interview in New York.
Arnold was not successful in his enterprises after his failure to
surrender West Point. He ravaged towns in Connecticut and in Virginia,
as a British Brigadier, with fiendish delight, and history tells us
that he led anything but a happy existence in England; and at last,
died in seclusion.
“Unwept, unhonored and unsung.”
Poor Andre! He was the victim of the ambition of youth. His superiors
depended on his ability to do extraordinary things; however, his nature
was too guileless to cope with the daring of a man like Arnold. He
ought never to have gone into the American lines. To have met Arnold
secretly again at their rendezvous would have been an easy matter. His
superior, Clinton, gave him explicit instructions not to enter the
American outposts; but Arnold’s headlong rashness led him into danger
and he paid the penalty with his life.
Lord Carlisle, the British Commissioner, returned to England and
history tells us that he became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and sank
into oblivion. He and George Selwyn were the prime movers in the plot,
the purpose of which was to get funds from government with which to
square the losses of Fox at the gaming-table.
Barclugh, however, though the main actor in the plot to hold America
within the sphere of kingly and aristocratical government, was, by
his actual experience among the Americans of all classes, convinced
that their position was invincible on the principles of free and
representative government. He could see that even though the British
were to get the seaports along the Atlantic and hold them, the sturdy
pioneers would retire into the mountains and fight until exterminated.
Then the French Coalition gave England an enemy in the front and rear.
He could see the end. He thought best to conclude the war, and, at
least, save the Canadas to the mother country.
Convinced with these conclusions he went to Mr. Prince, the Governor of
the Bank of England, and made his report. The principal arguments were:
“In the eight years of the war the population increased nearly one
million souls.
“The British and Hessian soldiery desert to take up free homes on the
new lands of America.
“The land is productive of every necessity in abundance.
“The Americans leave their plows to fight one day and then return to
them, to provide subsistence the next.
“Money appeals to very few of them. None except a few merchants in the
seaports care for money. Merchandise receipts issued by the government
pass as legal tender.
“Their depreciated currency does not affect them. They have no banks.
They all have faith in their cause and in their ability to redeem their
obligations when the war ends. Therefore, each one stands ready to
sacrifice his life and his substance for his principles.”
When Mr. Prince received these tidings he knew that they were reliable
and he merely concluded:
“The war must stop before we lose all. But,” he prophesied, “in less
than one hundred years hence, England will subdue the Americans with
her system of finance and her system of aristocratic society. An
Englishman’s title will not then go begging in America.”
When Lord George Germaine received the report from the Governor of
the Bank of England and Lord North received it, and, at last, the
King--the inner circles of government were astounded.
Following closely upon these events came the news of Cornwallis’s
surrender, and Lord North made his famous exclamation:
“O God! It is all over!”