no good grace. Chance one day threw into his hands an old almanac,
containing _Poor Richard's Maxims_, by Dr. Franklin. In that curious
assemblage of useful instructions, a man is advised, "if he wishes to
have any business faithfully and expeditiously performed, to go and do
it himself--otherwise, to send." Jones was immediately struck, upon
reading this maxim, with the impropriety of his past conduct, in only
sending letters and messages to court, when he ought to have gone in
person. He instantly set out, and, by dint of personal representation,
procured the immediate equipment of the squadron, which afterwards
spread terror along the Eastern coasts of England, and with which he
so gloriously captured the Serapis, and the British ships of war
returning from the Baltic. In gratitude to Dr. Franklin's maxim, he
named the principal ship of his squadron after the name of the
pretended almanac-maker, _Le Bon Homme Richard_, the Good Man Richard.
[52] Cooper's Naval History.
XV. EMINENT FOREIGNERS,
CONNECTED WITH THE REVOLUTION.
George III. King of England--General Burgoyne--Sir Henry
Clinton--Colonel Barre--Charles Townshend--Lord
Cornwallis--William Pitt--Marquis of Bute--George Grenville--Duke
of Grafton--Lord North--Colonel Tarleton--Sir Peter Parker--Sir
William Meadows--Sir Guy Carlton--General Gage--Marquis of
Rockingham--Edmund Burke--Kosciusko--Count Pulaski--Baron de
Kalb--Baron Steuben--Count Rochambeau--Count D'Estaing.
In the preceding pages, we have had occasion to trace the causes and
events of that struggle which resulted in the independence of the
United States; and, in so doing, incidental mention has been made of
some of the leading men of England, who figured in the cabinet, in the
field, and on the ocean; with the part they acted either in favor of,
or in opposition to the grand object of the colonies in their contest
with the mother-country. Judging from his own early desires, the
author persuades himself that he will be conferring a favor upon his
readers by giving some brief sketches, in this place, of those
distinguished men, and of others, who contributed to retard or
accelerate the final result. Such notices of the most prominent, we
proceed to give, beginning with the monarch, the great fountain of
power and law, then on the throne of Great Britain.
GEORGE III.
George III. was born in 1738, and succeeded to the throne on the death
of his grandfather, George II., October 25, 1760, about the time the
troubles with America began. At this period, principally through the
lofty spirit and political sagacity of Pitt, afterwards Earl of
Chatham, who was, and for some time had been, at the head of the
administration, the affairs of the nation were in a most prosperous
state. The army and navy were highly efficient, and flushed with
recent conquests; the revenue flourished; commerce was increasing; the
people were loyal; and, perhaps, no prince had ascended the throne of
his ancestors with more flattering prospects than George the Third.
Soon after ascending the throne, the king evinced a determination to
procure a general peace. In this measure he differed from his great
minister, Pitt, who, on that account, retired from office, October 5,
1761. Peace, however, contrary to the wishes and designs of the king
could not be obtained on a just basis, and the war proceeded.
In May, 1762, Lord Bute, a particular favorite of the king, who had
contrived to gain a remarkable ascendancy over him, succeeded the Duke
of Newcastle, as first lord of the treasury. Preliminaries of peace
between England, France, and Spain, were signed on the 3d of November,
and the definite treaty followed, February 10th, 1763. The people,
however, were by no means pacifically inclined, or contented with the
political ascendancy of Lord Bute, whose administration was attacked
with unsparing severity by several popular writers, particularly by the
celebrated John Wilkes, in his periodical paper, called the North
Briton. The arrest of Wilkes, and the seizure of his papers under a
general warrant, issued by the secretary of state for the home
department, increased the indignation and clamors of the people; Lord
Bute was execrated throughout the country, and the king himself became
exceedingly unpopular. The removal of the favorite, and the appointment
of George Grenville to the head of the treasury, having failed to allay
the national irritation, Pitt, it is asserted, was at length summoned to
court, and requested to make arrangements for forming a new ministry;
but he presumed, it is added, to dictate such arrogant terms, that,
rather than submit to them, the king said he would place the crown on
Pitt's head, and submit his own neck to the axe.
In 1764, the king suggested to Grenville the taxation of America, as a
grand financial measure for relieving the mother-country from the heavy
war expenses, which, it was unjustly claimed, had chiefly been incurred
for the security of the colonies. The minister was startled, and raised
objections to the proposal, which, however, were overruled by the king,
who plainly told him that, if he were afraid to adopt such a measure,
others might easily be found who possessed more political courage. At
length, Grenville reluctantly brought the subject before parliament;
and, in spite of a violent opposition, the stamp act, so important in
its consequences, was passed in the following year. The most alarming
irritation prevailed among the colonists of America.
The Rockingham party, which now came into power, procured the repeal
of the stamp act; but, notwithstanding this and some other popular
measures of the new cabinet, it was dissolved in the summer of 1766.
The Duke of Grafton succeeded Lord Rockingham, as first lord of the
treasury, and Pitt (then Earl of Chatham) took office as lord privy
seal. In the following year, Charles Townshend, chancellor of the
exchequer, proposed the taxation of certain articles imported by the
American colonists; and, early in 1768, Lord Chatham retired in deep
disgust from the administration, which, during the preceding autumn,
had been weakened by the succession of Lord North to Charles
Townshend, as chancellor of the exchequer. Some other official changes
took place; one of the most important of which, perhaps, was the
appointment of Lord Hillsborough to the new colonial secretaryship.
The aspect of affairs in America grew more serious every hour: the
deputies of Massachusetts declared taxation by the British parliament
to be illegal; a scheme for a general congress of the different states
was proposed, and an open rupture with the mother-country was
evidently approaching. Blind to the consequences of their fatal
policy, the king and his ministers, however, persisted in those
measures, with regard to the trans-Atlantic colonies, which eventually
produced a dismemberment of the empire.
In January, 1770, the Duke of Grafton resigned all his employments;
but, unfortunately for America, he was succeeded by Lord North, who
increased rather than alleviated the national calamities, and was
decidedly with the king in his determination never to yield to the
demands of the colonists, but to coerce them to submission, however
unjustly, by the arm of power.
In 1782, Lord North was compelled to resign, and the Rockingham party,
friendly to the independence of America, came into office; but the new
administration soon afterwards broke up, on account of the sudden
death of the premier. Lord Shelburne was now placed at the head of the
treasury, and Pitt, son of the great Earl of Chatham, became
chancellor of the exchequer.
In 1783, a general peace was concluded, and the United States procured a
formal acknowledgment of their independence. When Adams, the first
American envoy, attended at the levee, the king, to whom he was
personally disagreeable, received him with dignified composure, and
said, "I was the last man in England to acknowledge the independence of
America, but having done so, I shall also be the last to violate it."
This was highly honorable to the king. America was a jewel in the
British crown which was increasing in lustre, to part with which was
truly painful to royal ambition. Nor did George III. consent to any acts
which tended to this relinquishment, only as he was compelled to it by
the ill success of his armies in America, and the clamorous demands for
peace by his subjects at home. But having, at length, parted with this
jewel, and having acknowledged the independence of America, he nobly
declared his intention to live in peace with this newborn empire.
JOHN BURGOYNE.
General Burgoyne was the natural son of Lord Bingley. At an early age
he entered the army; and while quartered with his regiment at Preston,
married Lady Charlotte Stanley, whose father, the Earl of Derby, was
so incensed at the match, that he threatened utterly to discard her;
but a reconciliation at length took place, and the earl allowed her
three hundred pounds a-year during his life, and, by his will,
bequeathed her a legacy of twenty-five thousand pounds. The influence
of the family to which Burgoyne had thus become allied, tended
materially to accelerate his professional advance. In 1762, he acted
as brigadier-general of the British forces which were sent out for the
defence of Portugal against France and Spain.
In 1775, he was appointed to a command in America; whence he returned
in the following year, and held a long conference with the king on
colonial affairs. Resuming his post in 1777, he addressed a
proclamation to the native Indians, in which he invited them to his
standard, but deprecated, with due severity, the cruel practice of
scalping. The pompous turgidity of style, in which this address was
couched, excited the ridicule of the Americans, and procured for
General Burgoyne the soubriquet of "_Chrononhotonthologos_." His first
operations were successful: he dislodged the enemy from Ticonderoga
and Mount Independence, and took a large number of cannon, all their
armed vessels and batteries, as well as a considerable part of their
baggage, ammunition, provisions, and military stores. But his
subsequent career was truly disastrous; his troops suffered much from
bad roads, inclement weather, and a scarcity of provisions; the
Indians, who had previously assisted him, deserted; and the Americans,
under General Gates, surrounded him with a superior force, to which,
although victorious in two engagements, he was, at length, compelled
to capitulate at Saratoga, with the whole of his army. This event,
which rendered him equally odious to ministers and the people, was,
for some time, the leading topic of the press; and numberless lampoons
appeared, in which the general's conduct was most severely satirized.
The punsters of the day, taking advantage of the American general's
name, amused themselves unmercifully at Burgoyne's expense; but of all
their effusions, which, for the most part, were virulent rather than
pointed, the following harmless epigram, poor as it is, appears to
have been one of the best:
"Burgoyne, unconscious of impending fates,
Could cut his way through woods, but not through GATES."
In May, 1778, he returned to England, on his parole, but the king
refused to see him. Burgoyne solicited a court-martial, but in vain.
In 1779, he was dismissed the service for refusing to return to
America. Three years after, however, he was restored to his rank in
the army, appointed commander-in-chief in Ireland, and sworn in one of
the privy-council of that kingdom. He died suddenly of a fit of the
gout, at his house in Hertford street, on the 4th of August, 1792; and
his remains were interred in the cloisters of Westminster abbey.
It would, perhaps, be rash to pronounce a positive opinion of the merits
of Burgoyne, as a commander. He boldly courted a scrutiny into the
causes which led to his surrender at Saratoga, which ministers refused,
because, as it has been insinuated, such a proceeding might expose the
absurd imprudence and inefficiency of their own measures with regard to
the American war. Prior to the capitulation, his military career, as
well in America as Portugal, had been rather brilliant; his misfortune
was precisely that which befel Cornwallis; but, unlike the latter,
Burgoyne was not allowed an opportunity of redeeming his reputation.
In parliament, he was a frequent and fluent, but neither a sound nor
an impressive speaker. While in employment, he appears to have been a
staunch advocate for the American war; which, however, he severely
reprobated, from the time that he ceased to hold a command. He was a
writer, chiefly dramatic, of considerable merit.
SIR HENRY CLINTON.
This distinguished general was a grandson of the Earl of Clinton, and
was born about the year 1738. After having received a liberal education,
he entered the army, and served for some time in Hanover. In the early
part of the revolutionary struggle he came to America, and was present
at the battle of Bunker's hill; from which time to the close of the
American war, he continued to aid the British cause. In 1777, he was
made a Knight of the Bath, and in January, 1778, commander-in-chief of
the British forces in America. On his return to England, a pamphlet war
took place between him and Cornwallis, as to the surrender of the
latter, the entire blame of which each party attributed to the other. In
1793, he obtained the governorship of Gibraltar, in possession of which
he died on the 23d of December, 1795.
[Illustration: Sir Henry Clinton.]
The merits of Sir Henry Clinton, as a commander, have been variously
estimated; and, as is usually the case, the truth seems to be
intermediate between the panegyric of his friends and the censure of
his enemies. That he was endowed with bravery, and possessed a
considerable share of military skill, cannot, in fairness, be denied;
but he was decidedly unequal to the great difficulties of his
situation and unfit to contend against so lofty a genius as
Washington, supported by a people resolved on obtaining their
independence, and fighting on their native soil.
ISAAC BARRE.
[Illustration: Colonel Barre.]
Colonel Barre was born in Ireland, about the year 1726. He served at
Quebec, under Wolfe, in the picture of whose death, by Benjamin West,
his figure is conspicuous. The Earl of Shelburne procured him a seat
in parliament, where, acting in opposition to government, he was not
only deprived of his offices of adjutant-general and governor of
Stirling castle, which he had received as a reward for his services in
America, but dismissed from the service. During the Rockingham
administration, he was compensated for the loss which he had
sustained, by being voted a pension of three thousand two hundred
pounds per annum; which he subsequently relinquished, pursuant to an
arrangement with Pitt, on obtaining a lucrative, but not distinguished
office. He usually took office when his party predominated; and was,
in the course of his career, a privy counsellor, vice treasurer of
Ireland, paymaster of the forces, and treasurer of the navy. His best
speeches were delivered during North's administration, on the American
war, to which he appears to have been inflexibly opposed. His oratory
was powerful, but coarse; his manner, rugged; his countenance, stern;
and his stature, athletic. He was suspected, but apparently without
reason, of having assisted in writing the letters of Junius. For the
last twenty years of his life, he was afflicted with blindness, which,
however, he is said to have borne with cheerful resignation. His death
took place on the 20th of July, 1792.
CHARLES TOWNSHEND.
Charles Townshend, son of Viscount Townshend, was born 1725. From his
youth, he was distinguished for great quickness of conception and
extraordinary curiosity. In 1747, he went into parliament, and
continued a member till he died. He held various offices in the
government. In 1765, he was paymaster general, and chancellor of the
exchequer; and a lord of the treasury in August, 1766, from which
period he remained in office until his decease, which took place on
the 4th of September, 1767.
In person, Charles Townshend was tall and beautifully proportioned;
his countenance was manly, handsome, expressive, and prepossessing. He
was much beloved in private life, and enjoyed an unusual share of
domestic happiness.
Burke, in his speech on American taxation, thus admirably depicted the
general character of Charles Townshend: "Before this splendid orb
(alluding to the great Lord Chatham) had entirely set, and while the
western horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, on the
opposite quarter of the heavens arose another luminary, and for his
hour he became lord of the ascendant. This light, too, is passed, and
set for ever! I speak of Charles Townshend, officially the rëproducer
of this fatal scheme (American taxation); whom I cannot even now
remember, without some degree of sensibility. In truth, he was the
delight and ornament of this house, and the charm of every private
society which he honored with his presence. Perhaps there never arose
in this country, nor in any country, a man of more pointed and
finished wit, and (where his passions were not concerned) of a more
refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had not so great a
stock, as some have had who flourished formerly, of knowledge long
treasured up, he knew better by far, than any man I ever was
acquainted with, how to bring together, within a short time, all that
was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that side
of the question he supported. He stated his matter skillfully and
powerfully; he particularly excelled in a most luminous explanation
and display of his subject."
CHARLES CORNWALLIS, MARQUIS.
Lord Cornwallis, eldest son of the fifth lord, and first Earl
Cornwallis, was born 1738. At the age of twenty, he entered the army,
and obtained a captaincy. In 1762, on the death of his brother, he
took his seat in the house of lords. In 1770, he and three other young
peers, having protested, with Lord Camden, against the taxation of
America, Mansfield, the chief justice, is said to have sneeringly
observed, "Poor Camden could only get four boys to join him!"
Although he had opposed the measures of the government with regard to
the disaffected colonies, yet when hostilities commenced, he did not
scruple to accept of active employment against the Americans. His
history, during the war, will be found in the preceding pages. He was
a proud man, and most humiliating was it when he was obliged to
surrender to Washington at Yorktown.
But his failure in America did not impair his reputation. On his return
to England, he was made governor of the Tower. In 1786, he was sent to
Calcutta, as governor-general and commander-in-chief. Having
terminated, successfully, a war in that country, he returned to England.
In 1799, he became lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Soon after the expiration
of his vice-regency, he was sent to France as plenipotentiary for Great
Britain, in which capacity he signed the treaty of Amiens. In 1804, he
succeeded the Marquis Wellesley, as governor-general of India. On his
arrival at Calcutta, he proceeded, by water, to take the command in the
upper provinces. The confinement of the boat, the want of exercise, and
the heat of the weather, had a most serious effect on his health.
Feeling, soon after he had landed, that his dissolution was at hand, he
prepared some valuable instructions for his successor; and the last
hours of his life were passed in taking measures to lessen the
difficulties which his decease would produce. He expired at Ghazepoore,
in Benares, on the 5th of October, 1805.
Lord Cornwallis was not endowed with any brilliancy of talent. He had to
contend with no difficulties, on his entrance into life: high birth
procured him a military station, which his connexions enabled him to
retain, after he had committed an error, or, at least, met with a
mischance, that would have utterly ruined a less influential commander.
Although ambitious, he appears to have possessed but little ardor. He
manifested no extraordinary spirit of enterprise; he hazarded no untried
manœuvres; and yet, few of his contemporaries passed through life with
more personal credit or public advantage. He had the wisdom never to
depute to others what he could perform himself. His perseverance,
alacrity, and caution, procured him success as a general, while his
strong common sense rendered him eminent as a governor. He always
evinced a most anxious desire to promote the welfare of those who were
placed under his administration; Ireland and Hindostan still venerate
his memory. His honor was unimpeachable; his manners, devoid of
ostentation; and his private character, altogether amiable.
Napoleon Buonaparte, in his conversations with Barry O'Meara, declared
that Lord Cornwallis, by his integrity, fidelity, frankness, and the
nobility of his sentiments, was the first who had impressed upon him a
favorable opinion of Englishmen. "I do not believe," said the
ex-emperor, "that he was a man of first-rate abilities; but he had
talent, great probity, sincerity, and never broke his word. Something
having prevented him from attending at the Hôtel de Dieu, to sign the
treaty of Amiens, pursuant to appointment, he sent word to the French
ministers that they might consider it completed, and that he would
certainly execute it the next morning. During the night, he received
instructions to object to some of the articles; disregarding which, he
signed the treaty as it stood, observing that his government, if
dissatisfied, might refuse to ratify it, but that, having once pledged
his word, he felt bound to abide by it. There was a man of honor!"
added Napoleon; "a true Englishman."
LORD CHATHAM.
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was born November 15, 1708. His father
was Robert Pitt, of Boconnock, in the county of Cornwall. He received
his education at Trinity college, Cambridge. He took a seat in
parliament as early as 1735, as a member for Old Sarum. His exalted
talents, his lofty spirit, and commanding eloquence, soon rendered him
singularly conspicuous. Under George II., in 1757, he became premier
of that celebrated war administration, which raised England to a proud
prëeminence over the other nations of Europe. His energy was
unbounded. "It must be done," was the reply he often made, when told
that his orders could not be executed. After which, no excuse was
admitted. Under his auspices, England triumphed in every quarter of
the globe. In America, the French lost Quebec; in Africa, their chief
settlements fell; in the East Indies, their power was abridged; in
Europe, their armies suffered defeat; while their navy was nearly
annihilated, and their commerce almost reduced to ruin.
On the accession of George the Third, Pitt, who felt strongly
impressed with the policy of declaring war against Spain, was thwarted
in his wishes by the influence of Lord Bute; and, disdaining to be
nominally at the head of a cabinet which he could not direct, he
resigned his office in October, 1761.
[Illustration: Lord Chatham.]
In 1764, he greatly distinguished himself by his opposition to general
warrants, which, with all his accustomed energy and eloquence, he
stigmatized as being atrociously illegal. A search for papers, or a
seizure of the person, without some specific charge, was, he contended,
repugnant to every principle of true liberty. "By the British
constitution," said he, "every man's house is his castle! not that it is
surrounded by walls and battlements; it may be a straw-built shed; every
wind of heaven may whistle round it; all the elements of nature may
enter it; but _the king cannot; the king dare not_."