BRITISH PARTIES AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1778-1783
When the news of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown reached
England, it was recognized by Whigs and Tories alike that the time had
come to admit the failure of the war. The loss of 7,000 troops was not
in itself a severe blow, at a time when England had over 200,000 men
under arms in various parts of the world; but it actually marked the
breakdown of the American campaign, and, what was still more
significant, the political bankruptcy of the North Ministry. Ever
since 1778, the tide had been rising against the royal policy. At
first, when the French war began, the nation rallied against the
ancient foe and there was some enthusiasm displayed in recruiting and
furnishing supplies; but, as general after general returned from
America--first Burgoyne, then Howe and his brother, the admiral,--to
rise in Parliament and denounce the administrative incompetence which
had foiled their efforts; as month after month passed and no victory
either in America or Europe came to cheer the public; worst of all,
when, in 1779, and again in 1780, combined French and Spanish fleets
swept the Channel {115} in overpowering numbers, driving the English
fleet into Torbay harbour--the war spirit dwindled, and bitter
criticism took its place.
The Whig Opposition, no longer hampered by having the defence of the
revolted colonists as their sole issue, denounced in unmeasured
language the incompetence, corruption, and despotism of the North
Ministry, singling out Sandwich, at the Admiralty, and Germaine,
Secretary for the Colonies, as objects for especial invective. Party
hatred festered in army and navy, Whig and Tory admirals distrusting
each other and engaging in bitter quarrels, Whig and Tory generals
criticizing one another's plans and motives. On his part, Lord North
felt, as early as 1779, that his task was hopeless, and sought
repeatedly to resign; but in spite of secessions from the Ministry, in
spite of defeats and humiliations such as the control by the allies of
the Channel, nothing could shake George's determination. He would
never consent to abandon the colonies or permit North to surrender to
the detested Whigs.
In 1780, the Opposition, led by Fox and Burke, began to direct its fire
at the King himself; and finally, in March of that year, they had the
satisfaction of carrying in the Commons, by votes of men who once had
been on the administration side, a resolution to the effect that "the
power of the Crown {116} has increased, is increasing, and ought to be
diminished." This was carried, by 283 votes to 215, in a House where
four years before the total Opposition mustered only a hundred.
Measures to cut down sinecures, to limit the secret service fund, to
take away opportunities for royal corruption, were introduced by Burke
and, although defeated, drew large votes.
The tenacious politician who wore the crown was not yet beaten. In the
summer of 1780, the disgraceful Gordon riots broke out in London; and
the King, by his courageous personal bearing and bold direction of
affairs, won momentary prestige. The news from America, moreover, was
brighter than for a long time, and the British defence of Gibraltar was
unshaken. Suddenly dissolving Parliament, the King employed every
resource of influence or pressure, and managed to secure once more a
majority in the House of Commons. During the year 1781, the North
Ministry breathed more freely, and was able to repel Whig attacks by
safe majorities. But the respite was short.
In the winter session of 1782, the news of Yorktown shook the Ministry
to its centre, and on top of that came the reports of the surrender of
Minorca, St. Kitts, and Nevis. Held together only by the inflexible
determination of George III never to yield American {117} independence
or "stoop to opposition," the Ministers fought bitterly though
despairingly against a succession of Whig motions, censuring the
Admiralty, demanding the withdrawal of the troops, and finally
censuring the Ministry. Majorities dwindled as rats began to leave the
sinking ship. On March 8, North escaped censure by ten votes only.
The King made repeated efforts to induce members of the Opposition to
come into some sort of coalition, but the hatred was too fierce, the
divergence of principle too wide. Rockingham would accept only
absolute surrender. On March 15, a resolution of want of confidence
was lost by nine only.
Five days later, in face of a renewed motion of the same kind, North
announced his resignation. The end had come. The system of George III
had broken down, ruined by the weaknesses of the Tory Cabinet in
administration, in war, and in diplomacy, the most disastrous Ministry
in the history of England. There was no possible doubt as to the
significance of the collapse, for Lord Rockingham took office with a
Whig Cabinet, containing Shelburne and Fox, steadfast friends of
America, as Secretaries of State, and with the avowed purpose of
conceding independence to the former colonies, while maintaining the
contest with Spain and France.
{118}
Interest now shifted from the battlefield to the regions of diplomacy,
where the situation was complicated and delicate, owing to the unusual
relations of the parties involved. The United States and France were
in alliance, each pledged not to make a separate peace. Spain was in
alliance with France for the purpose of recovering Gibraltar, Minorca,
and Florida, but was not in any alliance with the United States. The
French government, tied thus to two allies, recognized the possible
contingency of diverging interests between Spain and the United States,
and exerted all the influence it could to keep diplomatic control in
its own hands. This it accomplished through its representatives in
America, especially de la Luzerne, who wielded an immense prestige with
the members of the Continental Congress, not only through his position
as representative of the power whose military, naval, and financial aid
was absolutely indispensable, but also by means of personal intrigues
of a type hitherto more familiar in European courts than in simple
America. Under his direction, Congress authorized its European
representatives, Franklin, Jay, and Adams, accredited to France, Spain,
and the Netherlands respectively, to act as peace commissioners and to
be guided in all things by the advice and consent of the French
Minister, {119} Vergennes. Their instructions designated boundaries,
indemnity for ravages and for the taking of slaves, and a possible
cession of Canada, but all were made subject to French approval. When,
accordingly, in 1781, both Shelburne and Fox of the Rockingham Ministry
sought to open negotiations with the American representatives, while
pushing on vigorously the war against France and Spain, they
interjected an embarrassing element into the situation. Vergennes
could not prohibit American negotiation, but he relied upon the
instructions of the commissioners to enable him to prevent the making
of any separate peace, contrary to the treaty of 1778.
The first steps were taken by Franklin and Shelburne, who opened
unofficial negotiations through Richard Oswald, a friend of America.
It seems to have been Shelburne's plan to avoid the preliminary
concession of independence, hoping to retain some form of connection
between America and England, or at least to use independence as a
make-weight in the negotiations. Hence Oswald, his agent, was not
commissioned to deal with the United States as such. Fox, Secretary
for Foreign Affairs, felt, on the other hand, that the negotiation
belonged to his field, and he sent Thomas Grenville to Paris,
authorized to deal with France {120} and, indirectly, with the United
States. Over this difference in the Cabinet, and over other matters,
an acute personal rivalry developed between Fox and Shelburne, which
culminated when Rockingham died in July, 1782. George III, who much
preferred Shelburne to Fox, asked him to form a Ministry, and upon his
acceptance Fox, absolutely refusing to serve under him, withdrew from
the Cabinet, carrying his friends with him. Thus the triumphant Whig
party was split within a few months after its victory. The whole
responsibility now rested on Shelburne.
Meanwhile, a new situation had developed in Paris, for Jay and Adams,
the other two commissioners, had brought about a change in the American
policy. Franklin, deeply indebted to the French court and on the best
of terms with Vergennes, was willing to credit him with good intentions
and was ready to accept his advice to negotiate with England under the
vague terms of Oswald's commission; but Jay, who had had a mortifying
experience in Spain, suspected treachery and insisted that England
must, in opening negotiations, fully recognize American independence.
He was sure that Spain would gladly see the United States shut in to
the Atlantic coast away from Spanish territory, and he felt certain
{121} that Vergennes was under Spanish influence. Adams, who knew
nothing of Spain, but distrusted the French on general principles,
sided with Jay; and Franklin, submitting to his colleagues, agreed to a
curious diplomatic manoeuvre. Jay sent to Shelburne a secret message,
urging him to deal separately with the United States under a proper
commission and not seek to play into the hands of Spain and France. He
knew that a French emissary had visited Shelburne, and he dreaded
French double-dealing, especially on the question of boundaries and
fishery rights.
The British Prime Minister was in the odd position of being appealed to
by one of the three hostile powers to save it from the other two; but
underlying the situation was the fact that Shelburne, as a Whig since
the beginning of the American quarrel, was committed to a friendly
policy toward America. He knew, moreover, that when Parliament should
meet he must expect trouble from Fox and the dissatisfied Whigs, as
well as the Tories, and he was anxious to secure a treaty as soon as
possible. So yielding, on September 27, he gave Oswald the required
commission, but, suspecting that he was rather too complaisant, sent
Henry Strachey to assist him. During the summer, Franklin and Oswald,
in informal {122} discussions, had already eliminated various matters,
so that when negotiations formally opened it took not over five weeks
to agree upon a draft treaty.
During all this time the Americans violated their instructions by
failing to consult Vergennes. Here Franklin was again overruled by Jay
and Adams, whose antipathy to French and Spanish influence was
insuperable. It does not appear that Vergennes had any definite
intention to work against American boundaries or fishery rights; but
there can be no doubt that Rayneval and Marbois, two of his agents,
committed themselves openly in a sense unfavourable to American claims,
and it is likely that, had the negotiations taken place under his
control, the outcome would have been delayed in every way in order to
allow France to keep its contract with Spain, whose attacks on
Gibraltar were pushed all through the summer. As it was, the
negotiators managed to agree on a treaty of peace which reflected the
Whig principles of Shelburne and the skill and pertinacity of the three
Americans. Little trouble was encountered over boundaries, Shelburne
ceding everything east of the Mississippi and north of Florida, and
designating as a boundary between the United States and Canada in part
the same line as that in the Proclamation of 1763, from the {123} St.
Croix River to the eastward of Maine, to the Great Lakes and thence
westward by a system of waterways to the headwaters of the Mississippi.
At the especial urgence of Adams, whose Massachusetts constituents drew
much of their wealth from the Newfoundland fisheries, the right of
continuing this pursuit was comprised in the treaty, together with the
right to land and dry fish on unoccupied territories in Labrador and
Nova Scotia. As a possible make-weight, the navigation of the
Mississippi was guaranteed to citizens of both the United States and
Great Britain.
The chief difficulty arose over the question of the treatment of
American loyalists and the payment of British debts which had been
confiscated in every colony. Shelburne insisted that there must be
restoration of civil rights, compensation for damages, and a pledge
against any future confiscations or disfranchisements for loyalists,
and also demanded a provision for the payment of all debts due to
British creditors. Here the negotiation hung in a long deadlock, for
Franklin, Adams, and Jay were unanimously determined to concede no
compensation for individuals whom they hated as traitors; while the
British negotiators felt bound in honour not to abandon the men who had
lost all and suffered every indignity and {124} humiliation as a
penalty for their loyalty. At length, progress was made when Adams
suggested that the question of British debts be separated from that of
Tory compensation; so a clause was agreed upon guaranteeing the full
payment of bona fide debts heretofore contracted.
Finally, after Franklin had raised a counter-claim for damages due to
what he called the "inhuman burnings" of the British raids since 1778,
it was agreed to insert a clause against any future confiscations or
prosecutions of loyalists and to add that Congress should "earnestly
recommend" to the States the restoration of loyalists' estates and the
repealing of all laws against them. At the time the commissioners drew
up this article, they must have known that the Congress of the United
States had no power to enforce the treaty, and that any such
recommendations, however "earnest," would carry no weight with the
thirteen communities controlled by embittered rebels, who remembered
every Tory, alive or dead, with execration. Nevertheless, it offered a
way of escape, and the British representative signed, on November 30,
1782. The great contest was at an end.
When Franklin revealed to Vergennes that, unknown to the French court,
the American commissioners had agreed on a {125} draft treaty, the
French minister was somewhat indignant at the trick, and communicated
his displeasure to his agent in America. This induced the easily
worried Congress to instruct Livingston, the Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, to write a letter censuring the commissioners; but, although
Jay and Adams were hotly indignant at such servility, the matter ended
then and there. Vergennes's displeasure was momentary, and the French
policy continued as before. The European war was, in fact, wearing to
its end. Already, in April, 1782, Admiral Rodney had inflicted a sharp
defeat on De Grasse, capturing five of his vessels, including the
flagship with the admiral himself. This, together with the extreme
inefficiency of the Spanish fleet, put an end to the hope of further
French gains in the West Indies. Before Gibraltar, also, the allied
fleet of forty-eight vessels did not dare to risk a general engagement
with a British relieving fleet of thirty, and when in September, 1782,
a final bombardment was attempted, the batteries from the fort proved
too strong for their assailants. The allies felt that they had
accomplished all they could hope to, and agreed to terms of peace on
January 20, 1783. France gained little beyond sundry West India
Islands, but Spain profited to the extent of {126} regaining Minorca
and also Florida. It was at best a defeat for England, and the Whig
Ministry, which carried it through, was unable to prevent such an
outcome.
The American peace was made the pretext for Shelburne's fall, since a
coalition of dissatisfied Whigs and Tories united in March, 1783, to
censure it, thereby turning out the Ministry. But, although Fox
regained control of diplomatic matters and made some slight moves
toward reopening negotiations, he had no serious intention of
disturbing Shelburne's work, and the provisional treaty was made
definitive on September 3, 1783--the day on which the French treaty was
signed. Thus the Americans technically kept to the terms of their
alliance with France in agreeing not to make a separate peace, but as a
matter of fact hostilities had entirely ceased in America since
January, 1783, and practically since the fall of the North Ministry.
The British had remained quietly in New York and Charleston,
withdrawing from all other points, and Washington with his small army
stood at Newburg-on-the-Hudson. In October, 1783, the last British
withdrew, taking with them into exile thousands of Tories who did not
dare to remain to test the value of the clauses in the treaty of peace
intended to protect them. So the last traces of the long contest
disappeared, {127} and the United States entered upon its career.
The treaty, as must have been foreseen by the commissioners themselves,
remained a dead letter so far as the Tories were concerned. Congress
performed its part and gave the promised recommendation, but the States
paid no heed. The loyalists were not restored to civil or property
rights. The plain provision of the treaty prohibiting further
legislation against loyalists was defied in several States, and
additional disqualifications were placed upon those who dared to remain
in the country. The provision regarding the payment of debts remained
unfulfilled, since there was no mechanism provided in the treaty
through which the article could be enforced. Only from the British
government could the Tories receive any recompense for their
sufferings, and there they were in part relieved. Very many received
grants of land in Canada, where they formed a considerable part of the
population in several districts. More went to New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia to receive similar grants. Others spent their days in England
as unhappy pensioners, forgotten victims of a war which all Englishmen
sought to bury in oblivion. Those who remained in the United States
ultimately regained standing and fared better than the exiles, but not
until new {128} domestic issues had arisen to obliterate the memory of
revolutionary antagonisms.
With the Treaty of 1782, the mother country and the former colonies
definitely started on separate paths, recognizing the fundamental
differences which for fifty years had made harmonious co-operation
impossible. England remained as before, aristocratic in social
structure, oligarchic in government, military and naval in temper--a
land of strongly fixed standards of religious and political life, a
country where society looked to a narrow circle for leadership. Its
commercial and economic ideals, unaltered by defeat, persisted to guide
national policy in peace and war for two more generations. The sole
result of the war for England was to render impossible in future any
such perversion of Cabinet government as that which George III, by
intimidation, fraud, and political management, had succeeded for a
decade in establishing. Never again would the country tolerate royal
dictation of policies and leaders. England became what it had been
before 1770, a country where parliamentary groups and leaders bore the
responsibility and gained the glory or discredit, while the outside
public approved or protested without seeking in any other manner to
control the destinies of the State. While the English thus sullenly
fell back into their {129} accustomed habits, the former Colonies, now
relieved from the old-time subordination, were turned adrift to solve
problems of a wholly different sort.