GEORGE III. AND THE WHIGS--THE AMERICAN WAR.
1760-1783.
In the last two centuries of English history the accession of a new
king has not often caused a complete revolution in politics. The
change of sovereigns often gives us an unfortunate and misleading
cross-division, cutting periods in two that are really one, or making
us dream that there is a unity in periods which are really divided in
their interest and meaning.
This was not the case, however, when George III. succeeded his
grandfather George II. For the last time in English history, the change
of kings implied a real break in the continuity of the politics of
the time. The new monarch was only twenty-two years of age, and was
totally unversed in affairs of state. George II. had lived in bitter
enmity with his feeble and factious son, Frederic Prince of Wales, the
nonentity of whom the contemporary satirist wrote--
"Since it's only Fred who was alive and is dead,
There's no more to be said."
[Sidenote: =Education and political aims or George III.=]
After the prince's death, the old king had transferred his dislike
to his son's widow and his grandson. George III. had therefore been
brought up almost in seclusion. The most notable point in his education
was that his mother, Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, had taught him to despise
his grandfather and his grandfather's position in the State. He had
been told from his earliest years that the position of a sovereign who
allowed himself to be led and governed by his ministers was degrading.
"When you come to the throne," we are told that his mother said,
"George, _be king_." The idea had taken root, and the young prince had
made up his mind that he should rule his ministers, not his ministers
him. That the cabinet should be responsible to the king as well as to
Parliament, was the keystone of his theory. He would have the choice
of his ministers lie in his own hands, not in those of the great Whig
houses. George did not wish to rule unconstitutionally, to fly in the
face of Parliament, or to govern without it, as the Stuarts had tried
to do. He had, indeed, such a belief in his own good intentions, that
he thought that they must coincide with the nation's will, and there
were circumstances which for some time bore him out in his view.
[Sidenote: =His character.=]
George's main bent was to assert his individuality, and take the chief
share in the governance of the country. The other features of his
character are easy to describe. His tastes were frugal, and his private
life strictly virtuous, a thing which had not been known in an English
king for more than a century. He was sincerely pious, though, as some
critics observed, he was better at scenting out other persons' sins
than his own. He had an enormous capacity for hard work, though no
very great brain-power to guide him through it. He had a great share
of self-restraint and reticence, so that it was not easy to guess what
plans he had in hand when he did not wish them to be known. Above all,
he was terribly obstinate, with the obstinacy of a good-hearted man,
who feels he is in the right, and believes that he will be doing wrong
if he gives up his own opinion. Lastly, though he had no power of
appreciating greatness of any kind (he called Shakespeare "sad stuff,
only one must not say so," and thought Pitt a bombastic old actor), yet
he had great penetration in measuring littleness in others. This made
him exceedingly fitted to cope with the average Whig statesmen of his
day.
[Sidenote: =His popularity.=]
When George came to the throne he was greeted with the usual popularity
which attends a new and untried sovereign. He showed himself affable
and good-tempered, a model of decorum and respectability, and won
all hearts by his English habits and prejudices. His grandfather and
great-grandfather had been Germans in mind and language. George III.
took the first opportunity of declaring that he was English born and
bred, and that "he gloried in the name of Briton." By so doing he
won all men's hearts. Thus in the beginning of his struggle with the
Whigs he had the inestimable advantage of personal popularity with the
nation.
[Sidenote: =The "King's Friends."=]
The king had, as we have already said, passed his youth in seclusion,
with few friends and no organized band of retainers. He had to build up
his own party, if he wished to carry out his schemes. This he at once
began to do. Descending into the arena of politics, he set to work to
make himself a following, much as Newcastle or Walpole had done in a
previous generation. But George, unlike those statesmen, had not to
rely on bribery or borough-mongering alone. He could count on all the
prestige and attraction which surrounds the crown, to draw men into his
net. Some of the "King's Friends" (as his followers grew to be called)
were politicians bought by pensions or titles, but many were honest
supporters, who found their pleasure in displaying their loyalty to the
crown.
[Sidenote: =The king and the Tories.=]
In especial George won to himself from the first the very considerable
remnants of the old Tory party. Jacobitism had now become such a thing
of the past, that the vast majority of the Tories were ready to accept
with enthusiasm a king whose views exactly coincided with their own old
doctrines. For George was a stout defender of the Church of England,
in which his godless old grandfather had never professed any interest.
He held the ancient Tory doctrine that the royal prerogative should be
actively exercised in the affairs of the nation. Most important of all,
he hated the Whig oligarchy, a fact which could not fail to recommend
him to their long-oppressed rivals. Hence it came that the most
prominent element among the "King's Friends" was drawn from the Tory
party. One condition was demanded of all who joined that body--implicit
obedience to George's will, the will of a man of limited abilities
and narrow mind. This fact sufficiently accounts for the result that
the "King's Friends" never included any men of marked talent; to obey
George in all things would have been too trying for any one of real
genius or breadth of spirit.
[Sidenote: =The rise of Lord Bute.=]
The king's first and most injudicious way of attempting to interfere in
politics was worked out through the medium of Lord Bute. That nobleman
was a Scottish peer of respectable character, moderate abilities, and
a rather pedantic disposition. He had aided the Princess of Wales in
giving George such instruction in statecraft as he had received.
Bute was almost absolutely unacquainted with Parliament or practical
politics. Yet a few months after his accession, the king insisted that
the Pitt-Newcastle cabinet should take his old tutor into partnership.
Bute was made one of the Secretaries of State, and at once began to
show a great independence of the nominal prime minister. He rebuked
Newcastle for keeping the details of his political jobbing from the
king, and for filling posts without consulting royalty. At the same
time he spoke strongly against the continuance of the war with France,
and most particularly against the lavish subsidies with which the great
war-minister was maintaining our much-tried ally, the King of Prussia.
The fact was that George had observed that the Whig ministry depended
for its strength on the combination of Newcastle's corrupt influence
over Parliament with Pitt's hold on the nation, secured by successful
war. To end it he wished to deprive the duke of his patronage, and to
close the war, so as to make Pitt no longer indispensable.
[Sidenote: =Pitt's war-policy thwarted.--He resigns.=]
In this matter the king's private designs clashed most unhappily with
the interests of England, for Pitt's vigorous policy was still bearing
the best of fruits. Ere King George had been a year upon the throne,
Pitt could announce to him that Pondicherry, the last French fortress
in India; Belleisle, a large island off the coast of Brittany; and
Dominica, a rich West-Indian island, had fallen into his hands. After
these last disasters the ministers of Lewis XV. began to make overtures
for peace, which Bute wished to accept; but Pitt withstood him, partly
because he thought that England had yet more to gain, partly because he
had secret knowledge that France was trying to create a diversion by
stirring up Spain against us. Charles III., the king of that country,
was an old enemy of England, and had offered to renew with his cousin,
Lewis XV., the "Family Compact" of 1733--the old pact of the Bourbon
princes for the checking of English maritime supremacy. Having news of
this transaction, Pitt advised instant war with Spain. But Bute opposed
him, and when the king openly gave his support to his old tutor, Pitt
was forced to resign the office which he had held for five years with
such credit and distinction (October 5, 1761).
[Sidenote: =Newcastle forced to resign.=]
The king received the great minister's resignation with joy, and next
set himself to get rid of Pitt's unworthy colleague, Newcastle. That
old jobber clung to his place till May, 1762: but, finding that the
king was determined to strip him of his crown patronage, and thwart him
in his management of the House of Commons, he was finally forced to
follow Pitt into retirement. Thus Bute became the chief minister of the
realm.
[Sidenote: =Spain joins France.--English maritime successes.=]
The king's favourite was to hold power for less than two years, but
into that short space many important events were compressed. The war
with Spain, which Pitt had declared to be imminent, broke out in 1762,
and the French hoped for a moment that they might be saved by their
new ally. But Spain's power proved to have declined so low, that her
interference made no difference to the fate of the war. The able
generals and admirals whom Pitt had discovered and promoted, made short
work of the Spanish fleets and armies. Ere he had been a year at war
with England, Charles III. saw two of his greatest colonies fall into
the hands of his enemy. Havanna, the richest city of the West Indies,
and Manilla, the capital of the Philippine Islands in the far East,
were both in English hands by the end of 1762. In the same space of
time Admiral Rodney captured Martinique, St. Lucia, and all the rest
of the French West Indies. Meanwhile Ferdinand of Brunswick, with the
Anglo-Hanoverian army in Germany, had maintained his old superiority
over the French army of the Rhine.
Stripped of her colonies, with her fleet entirely destroyed, her armies
on the continent beaten back, and her exchequer completely drained dry,
France was now compelled to sue for any terms that Bute and King George
would grant her. Her ally Spain, equally disheartened by the turn which
the war had taken, followed her example.
[Sidenote: =The Peace of Paris.=]
Nothing could please the English king better than the conclusion
of peace. He gave Bute a free hand, and readily consented to the
conclusion of the treaty of Paris (February, 1763). By this agreement
France ceded to England the vast province of Canada, and all her
American claims east of the Mississippi, retaining only some fishing
rights on the coast of Newfoundland, which have proved very troublesome
in our own day. At the same time, the West Indian Islands of St.
Vincent, Tobago, Grenada, and Dominica were surrendered, as well as
the African settlement of Senegal. France also undertook to keep no
garrisons in her factories in Hindostan, when they should be restored
to her. She gave back Minorca, which she had held since Byng's
disaster, and withdrew her armies from Germany. But she received back
much that she had lost, and had no power of recovering--Belleisle in
Europe, Martinique, St. Lucia, and Guadaloupe in the West Indies, Goree
in Africa, and all her Indian establishments. In a similar way Spain
ceded to us the swampy and uninhabited peninsula of Florida, which
rounded off the line of our North American colonies; but she received
back the two wealthy settlements of Havanna and Manilla, which she
could never have regained by force of arms.
The peace of Paris was not received with enthusiasm in England. It was
said, and truly, that Pitt would have asked and obtained much better
terms, and that it was weak and futile to restore to France and Spain
their lost colonies. Yet, looking at our enormous gains, it seems
absurd to complain. The treaty made England supreme in America and
in Hindostan, and ratified her permanent ascendency at sea. When so
much was secured, it appeared greedy to ask for yet more, for never
by any previous treaty had England won so much or brought a war so
triumphantly to a close.
[Sidenote: =The treaty of Hubertsburg.=]
But one blot on Bute's reputation can not be passed over. He deserted,
most shamelessly, our useful if unscrupulous ally, King Frederic of
Prussia. Having gained what England required, he left Frederic to shift
for himself, withdrawing our armies from Germany, and stopping the
liberal subsidies which had maintained the king's famishing exchequer.
If fortune had not favoured him, Frederic might have been ruined by
the loss of his only ally. He was saved, however, by the unexpected
withdrawal of Russia from the hostile ranks. He proved able to hold
his own against Austria, his one remaining foe, and brought the Seven
Years' War to an end by the treaty of Hubertsburg ere the year 1763 had
expired. But he never forgave England for the mean trick which Bute had
played him, and would never again make an alliance with her.
[Sidenote: =Resignation of Bute.=]
When the war was over, Bute found his position as prime minister quite
unbearable. He was clamoured at by Pitt's numerous admirers for making
peace on too easy terms. At the same time the Whig borough-mongers,
who followed Newcastle, took their revenge on him in Parliament by
rejecting all his bills. He was decried as an upstart Scot, a mere
court favourite, "the Gaveston of the eighteenth century," and the
enemy of the greatness of England. Though he lavished the public money
and the crown patronage on all sides, even more shamelessly than
Newcastle had done, he could not hold his own. Bute was a sensitive
man, and apparently could not bear up against the odium which his
position as a court-minister, disliked both by the nation and the
Houses of Parliament, brought upon him. In April, 1763, he laid down
the seals of office, much to the regret of his royal master.
[Sidenote: =Divisions of the Whig party.=]
Thus King George had been defeated in his first contest with the
Whigs. He was compelled to draw back for a moment and to rearrange
his plans. His next scheme was to try the effect of playing off the
various clans and factions of the Whigs one against another. For the
fall of the great Pitt-Newcastle cabinet had split the Whig party
into a complicated series of family groups and alliances--divided by
no difference in principle, but only by matters of personal interest.
The king thought that he could make and unmake ministries by the
unscrupulous use of the votes of his "friends" in Parliament, and so
hold the balance between the various sections of his enemies, till he
could reduce them all to powerlessness.
[Sidenote: =The Grenville-Bedford ministry.=]
To succeed the Earl of Bute, George made choice of the Whig leader whom
he thought least objectionable, a narrow-minded statesman named George
Grenville, who had hitherto shown himself fairly amenable to the royal
influence. But the king had made a mistake; Grenville was as obstinate
as himself, and when he found his master interfering in his patronage
and intriguing with his followers, he allied himself with one of the
great Whig clans, that headed by the Duke of Bedford--a faction which
was jocosely called the "Bloomsbury Gang," because it centred at the
duke's residence, Bedford House, Bloomsbury.
[Sidenote: =The "North Briton."--General warrants declared illegal.=]
The Grenville-Bedford ministry only lasted two years (1763-1765), and
was overthrown by another Whig alliance, whose principal leaders were
the Duke of Grafton and the Marquis of Rockingham. But short though its
tenure of office was, it left its mark on history. In England itself
the act of this cabinet which made most noise was the prosecution of
Wilkes. John Wilkes was a member of Parliament, a party journalist
of gross scurrility and a man of scandalous private life, but he had
the good fortune to be made twice in his life a martyr to oppressive
government. He had grossly libelled Lord Bute in his newspaper, the
_North Briton_, but his chief offence in the eyes of Grenville was
that he had, in No. 45 of that publication, made abusive comments
on the royal speech at the end of the session of 1763. For this he
was illegally seized and imprisoned, under a "general warrant," a
document issued by Grenville, not against him by name, but against "the
authors, printers, and publishers of No. 45 of the _North Briton_." He
was acquitted when put on his trial, under the plea that he had been
illegally arrested. "A general warrant is no warrant, because it names
no one," was the decision of Lord Mansfield, the Chief Justice; and
so this dangerous and tyrannical form of arrest was declared illegal.
Wilkes posed as a victim of arbitrary government, and obtained great
popularity in spite of his infamous character. But Grenville then
prosecuted him for publishing a blasphemous and obscene poem. Feeling
sure that he would be condemned, Wilkes absconded to France, and lived
there four years; he was accounted by many a victim of malicious
political persecution, and never lost his favour with the mob of London.
But while raising this storm in a teacup about the worthless Wilkes,
George Grenville was committing another and a very different mistake
in a matter of the highest importance. It is to him that we must
attribute the first beginnings of the quarrel between England and her
North-American colonies.
[Sidenote: =The Stamp Act.=]
The Seven Years' War had left behind it a heavy burden of debt and
taxation, and George Grenville, while searching around for new sources
of revenue, was struck with the bright idea that he might tax the
colonies. Accordingly, he brought forward in 1764, and passed in 1765,
a bill which asserted the right of Parliament to lay imposts on our
possessions over-seas, and proceeded to prescribe that certain stamp
duties on legal documents were in future to be paid by our American
colonies. The proceeds were to go to maintain the British troops
quartered among them.
[Sidenote: =The North American colonies.=]
The Stamp Act was bitterly resented by the inhabitants of America. It
was the first circumstance that really taught the thirteen colonies,
which lay scattered along the coast from Massachusetts to Georgia,
to combine in a common movement. Hitherto they had been without any
formal bond of union between themselves. Legally, New York had no more
to do with Virginia than in our own day Jamaica has with Tasmania.
Each was administered as a separate unity depending immediately on the
English crown. Their origins and the character of their population were
very different. The Puritan farmers and seamen of Massachusetts, the
slave-owning planters of Virginia, the Anglo-Dutch of New York, and the
Quakers of Pennsylvania had few sympathies in common. Hitherto they had
been jealous of each other; colony quarrelled fiercely with colony, and
the chief tie that had kept them together was the common dread which
all felt, of the aggression of the enterprising French governors at
Quebec. It was this fear of the French which had enabled William Pitt
to induce them to join loyally in his great scheme for the conquest of
Canada.
[Sidenote: =They unite to resist the Stamp Act.=]
Now that the restraining influence of their dread of France was
removed, the colonies were no longer compelled to lean so closely on
England. They were rapidly growing in population, wealth, and national
spirit. It only required some common provocation to make them forget
their petty local jealousies and turn fiercely to defend what they
believed to be their rights. This provocation the pedantic George
Grenville now proceeded to supply.
[Sidenote: =The case for the Stamp Act.=]
Grenville had much to say on his side. It was quite fair that the
colonies should pay something towards the expenses of the Seven Years'
War, which had largely been incurred for their benefit. It was rational
that they should be asked to maintain the troops still quartered in
America for their protection. And the Stamp Act imposed on them a very
small tax, only some few thousands a year. Moreover, Grenville had
studied the old precedents, and could show clear instances of imperial
taxation levied in the past from various possessions over-sea. But,
above the letter of the law, statesmen are responsible to the nation
for the wisdom as well as for the legality of their actions. It is no
excuse for the unwise minister to plead that he has the statute-book on
his side, if it can be proved that he has common sense against him. It
is for this reason that Grenville and his two successors, Grafton and
North, are held to have incurred a graver load of responsibility than
any other British statesman has ever borne.
[Sidenote: =Grounds of the colonial opposition.=]
The main line of protest which the colonists adopted was grounded on
a favourite maxim of William Pitt, that "there should be no taxation
without representation"; that is, that any persons taxed ought to be
represented in Parliament, and allowed a share in voting their own
contributions. It was, of course, impossible in those days to ask that
American representatives should appear in the House of Commons, an idea
which the remoteness of their country and the slowness of communication
with it rendered absurd. What the colonists therefore meant was that,
being unrepresented, they ought not to be taxed. They were growing
so strong that they would no longer endure to be treated as mere
dependencies, and governed solely for the benefit of England.
[Sidenote: =The Rockingham ministry.--Repeal of the Stamp Act.=]
Serious trouble would have ensued if George Grenville had been able
to persist in his schemes. But he was overthrown in 1765 by the
machinations of George III., who bade the eighty or ninety "King's
Friends" in the Commons to vote against him, and combine with the
Opposition Whigs to turn him out of office. Grenville was evicted and
dismissed. He was replaced by a new combination of Whig clans. The new
cabinet was formed by the junction of the Marquis of Rockingham and
the Duke of Grafton, to whom the old Duke of Newcastle was for the
moment allied. Lord Rockingham was a more moderate man than Grenville,
though a less able one. He disliked trouble, and, to silence American
complaints, took the very wise step of repealing the Stamp Act. But the
Rockingham administration lasted only a year, for in 1766 the "King's
Friends" once more received orders from their master to overthrow the
cabinet of the day. Rockingham was left in a minority, and forced to
lay down his seals, and a second Whig faction had felt the weight of
King George's hand.
[Sidenote: =The Pitt-Grafton ministry.=]
The next ministry marked a new shifting of the political kaleidoscope.
Pitt, who had been out of place since 1761, was now invited by the king
to take office. He consented, believing (as he always did) that he
was the one man able to administer the British empire. To fill up his
cabinet he chose some of the younger Whig leaders, who were ready to
serve under him from their admiration for his personality. The chief of
them were the Duke of Grafton and Lord Shelburne. But the Pitt-Grafton
ministry lasted for a few months only. Pitt was growing old, and his
powers were weakening. He felt the hard work of the House of Commons
too much for him, and on taking office retired to the House of Lords
as Earl of Chatham (July, 1766). But even there the strain over-taxed
his strength. Less than a twelvemonth after he had taken office he was
stricken down by illness, which took the form of brain-trouble. He grew
incompetent to transact any business, and the cabinet which he had
formed passed entirely under the control of his colleague, the Duke of
Grafton.
[Sidenote: =Renewed attempt to tax the colonies.=]
The ministry of the Duke of Grafton proved the most disastrous that
England has ever known, with the single exception of that of Grafton's
immediate successor, Lord North. It was this Whig administration that
finally renewed the struggle with America, which had been suspended
since the repeal of the Stamp Act. With the duke's assent, Charles
Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, brought in a bill for
raising in America duties on tea, glass, paper, and painter's colours.
The whole was to bring in about £40,000 a year. Like the Stamp Act,
this measure distinctly affirmed the right of England to tax her
colonies without their consent. The Americans remembered that their
previous resistance had been crowned with success, and commenced an
agitation against the new act. A brisk fire of petitions was kept
up by the houses of representatives of the various colonies, who
besought the king--both publicly and privately--the House of Commons,
and the ministers to remove the tax, restating their old theory of
"No taxation without representation." Moreover, the colonies began
formally to correspond with each other, and to find that the same
spirit of discontent prevailed in all, a fact very ominous for the home
government.
[Sidenote: =Rioting in Boston.=]
At the head of the thirteen colonies was Massachusetts, whose capital
Boston was the largest town in America, and a very thriving port. Its
seafaring population had the greatest objection to the new customs
duties. Mobs were continually filling the streets to demonstrate
against England, and as early as 1768 the rioting grew serious. In 1770
Boston saw the first bloodshed in the American quarrel. A party of
soldiers, stoned by a mob till they could no longer keep their temper,
fired and shot four or five rioters. This "massacre," as the colonists
called it, brought the bitter feeling against England to a head.
The Grafton cabinet at home could not at all understand the feelings
of the Americans. They supposed that it was the mere amount of the tax
that was causing discontent, and contented themselves with pointing
out that it was insignificant, not seeing that it was the principle of
taxation, not the small sum actually levied, that was exasperating the
colonists.
But the duke and his followers were not to see the end of the matter.
In 1770 their day of reckoning with their master, the king, had
arrived. George III. had been perpetually increasing his band of
followers in the Commons, and the new Tory party was grown large
enough, not only to hold the balance between two Whig cliques, but to
make a bid for power on its own account.
[Sidenote: =Wilkes and the Middlesex election.=]
The Grafton ministry fell before a double assault. Pitt, whose health
had now recovered so far that he was able to appear in his seat in the
House of Lords, was thundering at them for their misconduct of American
affairs. But another difficulty was far more actively operative in
their overthrow. The irrepressible John Wilkes had returned from
France, had stood for the county of Middlesex, and had been elected.
The cabinet declared him ineligible, on account of his old outlawry,
and made the House of Commons expel him. Nothing daunted, Wilkes
appeared as a candidate again, and was re-elected. Then Grafton and his
majority enacted that the defeated opponent of Wilkes, who had received
only three hundred votes, was the legitimate member for Middlesex. This
iniquitous step roused public feeling; it was said that liberty was at
an end if the ministry could appoint members of Parliament in defiance
of the votes of the electors. Even Charles I. in his worst days had not
falsified the results of elections, as the Whigs of Grafton's party
were doing.
[Sidenote: =Fall of the Grafton ministry.=]
Stormed at by Pitt, scurrilously libelled by the able but malignant
political writer who signed himself _Junius_, hooted down by the mob
of London, and abandoned by the "King's Friends" in his moment of
distress, Grafton resigned. It was generally thought that another Whig
ministry would appear on the scene, probably an alliance between Pitt
and Lord Rockingham. This, however, was not to be so. The king had
been counting up his forces. Having upset in succession four different
Whig ministries, he now thought himself strong enough to renew the
experiment which he had tried in Bute's day.
[Sidenote: =Lord North Prime Minister.=]
Accordingly, the nation was surprised by the news that George had
made Lord North prime minister. North was a parliamentary jobber of
the same type as Newcastle. He was a good-natured, indolent man, of
limited intelligence, but shrewd and business-like. He made his bargain
with the king, and undertook to carry out his policy. He was the tool,
George the hand that guided it.
[Sidenote: =Impotence of the Whigs in Parliament.=]
For the next twelve years (1770-82) George ruled the nation according
to his own ideas, and led it into the most slippery paths. His compact
body of "King's Friends," aided by mercenary helpers from among the
Whigs, preserved a constant majority in Parliament under the astute
management of North. The old Whig clans raged in impotent wrath, but
could not shake the ministry. Their expulsion from power had one good
effect--it taught them to put some reality into their old assertion
that they were the people's friends and the guardians of constitutional
liberty. In their day of adversity they began to advocate real reforms,
though in fifty years of power they had executed none. The younger
men among them, such as the eloquent Edmund Burke, began to stir the
questions of constitutional reform which were to be brought into play
later on, as the new principles of the Whig party. They denounced
parliamentary corruption, ministerial jobbing, and attacks on the
liberty of the press, or the rights of the constituencies. Hints were
dropped that the old rotten boroughs might be abolished, and more
members given to the populous counties and cities.
[Sidenote: =The tea duties.--Further riots in Boston.=]
But while the Whigs were talking of reforms, North and his master were
actually engaged in bringing a much more exciting topic to the front.
In four years they succeeded in plunging England into a desperate war
with her Transatlantic colonies. The new ministry was determined to
persevere with the old scheme of the Grenville and Grafton cabinets for
taxing America. North, under his master's orders, remitted the taxes on
paper and glass, but insisted on retaining that on tea. His persistence
led to open violence in America. In 1773, a mob disguised as Mohawk
Indians boarded the tea-ships in Boston harbour, and cast the chests
into the sea. The local authorities pretended that they could not
discover the rioters. In high wrath, the Government resolved to punish
the whole city of Boston. North produced a bill for closing its harbour
to all commerce, and compelling the ships that had been wont to trade
with it to go to the neighbouring port of Salem.
[Sidenote: =The Massachusetts Government Act.=]
This unwise and arbitrary bill was followed by another yet more
high-handed, which annulled the charter of the State of Massachusetts,
depriving it of its house of representatives, and making it a crown
colony, to be administered by government officials and judges sent out
from England. This punishment far exceeded anything that the people of
Boston had earned by their rioting, and made all the other colonies
tremble for their own liberties.
[Sidenote: =The Congress at Philadelphia.=]
The Massachusetts Government Act was the last straw which broke down
the patience of the Americans. The representative bodies of all the
colonies passed votes of sympathy with the people of Boston, and
ordered a general fast. Soon after, they all resolved to send deputies
to a "General Congress" at Philadelphia, in order to concert common
measures for their defence against arbitrary government. This body,
which had no legal status in the eye of the law, proceeded to act
as if it were the central authority in North America. It issued a
"Declaration of Rights," which set forth the points in which the
liberties of the colonies were supposed to have been infringed. But
it also took the strong step of declaring a kind of blockade against
English commerce, by forbidding Americans to purchase any goods
imported from the mother-country.
[Sidenote: =Outbreak of war.=]
In view of this threatening aspect of affairs, Lord North began to
send over troops to America, foreseeing that a collision might occur at
any moment. He was not wrong; while fruitless attempts were being made
to pacify the offended colonists without giving in to their demands,
actual war broke out.
[Sidenote: =The skirmish of Lexington.=]
The House of Representatives of Massachusetts, when abolished by royal
mandate, had migrated to Concord, and resumed its sittings there.
Seeing that this act of contumacy must lead to an attempt to dissolve
it by force, it called out the local militia, and began to collect
munitions of war. General Gage, the governor of Boston, on hearing of
this, sent out 800 men to seize and destroy these stores. This force
was fired on by a small body of Massachusetts militia at Lexington,
where the first blood shed in the war was spilt. After burning the
stores, the British troops started to march back, but were set upon by
the levies of the district, who kept up a running fight for several
hours, and drove the regulars into Boston with a loss of 200 men (April
19, 1775).
[Sidenote: =George Washington.=]
This skirmish proved the beginning of a general war. When the news
spread, all the colonies sent their militia into the field, and the
Congress at Philadelphia formally assumed supreme authority, and named
a commander-in-chief. This was George Washington, a Virginian planter,
who had seen much service in the last French war, and was almost the
only colonist who possessed a good military reputation. No choice could
have been better; Washington was a staid, upright, energetic man, very
different from the windy demagogues who led the rebellion in most of
the colonies. His integrity and honesty of purpose made him respected
by all, and his readiness of resource and unfailing cheerfulness and
perseverance made him the idol of the willing but undisciplined bands
who followed him to the field.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Bunker's Hill.=]
Ere Washington reached the seat of war in Massachusetts, a battle
had been fought. The colonists were defeated, but not discouraged,
for at the fight of Bunker's Hill (June 17, 1775), they maintained
their entrenchments for some time against the regulars, and were only
beaten out of them after a very stiff combat. General Gage, a very
unenterprising man, was so disheartened by the losses of his troops
that he did not follow up his victory, and allowed Washington to
reorganize the beaten colonists and blockade Boston.
[Sidenote: =The "Olive Branch Petition."=]
The struggle was now bound to be fought out to the end. When the
Congress sent to London the "Olive Branch Petition," a last attempt at
a peaceful settlement, the king bade Lord North return it unanswered,
as coming from a body which had no legal existence. The small regular
army of England--some 40,000 men scattered all over the world--was
obviously unable to cope with so great a rebellion, so the government
had to begin raising new regiments, and enlisting Hessian and
Hanoverian auxiliaries in Germany.
[Sidenote: =The Declaration of Independence.=]
While these new forces were being got ready--a whole year was consumed
in preparation--the Americans had all their own way. In March, 1776,
the royal troops were forced to evacuate Boston, the only stronghold
that they held in the colonies. Three months later the Congress took
the decisive step of throwing off all allegiance to England, by
publishing the "Declaration of Independence," and forming the thirteen
colonies into a federal republic (July 4, 1776).
[Sidenote: =English victory at Brooklyn.=]
Very shortly after, the English reinforcements began to appear, and
General Howe with 20,000 men landed on Long Island, in the State of
New York. For a moment it appeared as if the rebellion would collapse
before this formidable army. Howe beat Washington at the battle of
Brooklyn (August, 1776). He retook New York, and then landed on the
mainland and overran New Jersey. The colonial army disbanded in
utter dismay, and only four or five thousand men kept together under
Washington.
[Sidenote: =Difficulties of the English.=]
But in the moment of victory the English began to realize the
difficulty of their task. The land was everywhere hostile, and could
only be held down by garrisons scattered broadcast. But America was
so vast that enough men could not be found to garrison every port and
city. When Howe began to distribute his men in small bodies, Washington
swept down upon these isolated regiments and destroyed them. The
English general was forced to halt, and to send home for yet further
reinforcements.
[Sidenote: =Burgoyne's expedition.=]
He was not denied them, for George III. had set his heart on teaching
the rebellious colonists that he could not be defied with impunity.
While Howe was sent fresh regiments, and ordered to take Philadelphia,
a new army of 8000 men was despatched to Canada under General Burgoyne,
and bidden to march by Lake Champlain and the Hudson river, to attack
the colonies in the rear. Meanwhile a third force from New York was to
ascend the Hudson and lend a helping hand to Burgoyne.
[Sidenote: =Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga.=]
Half of this plan only was executed. Howe won the battle of Brandywine
over Washington and took Philadelphia, but Burgoyne failed lamentably.
The distance he had to cover was too great; after struggling with
difficulty across the wilderness that divided Canada from the States,
he found himself with a half-starved army at Saratoga. Here he was
beset by all the militia of the New England States under General Gates.
They outnumbered him by two to one, and held strong positions in woods
and hills which he could not force. The troops from New York failed
to come to his aid, his retreat on Canada was cut off, and after hard
fighting he laid down his arms, with 5000 starving men, the remnant of
his much-tried army (October 17, 1777).
[Sidenote: =France and Spain declare war on England.=]
The news of the surrender at Saratoga flew all round the world, and
had the most disastrous consequences. Judging that England had at last
involved herself in a fatal struggle, her old enemy France resolved to
take her revenge for all that she had suffered in the Seven Years' War.
The ministers of the young king, Lewis XVI., thought that they might
now win back Canada and India, and shatter the commercial and colonial
supremacy that Britain had gained by the treaty of Paris. In December,
1777, France recognized the independence of America. In February, 1778,
she declared war on England. Spain, bound as of old by the "Family
Compact" of the Bourbons, and eager to win back Minorca and Gibraltar,
followed suit in the next year. Holland was added to our enemies in
1780.
The interference of France profoundly modified the face of the war.
Instead of a mere local struggle between England and her colonists,
it became a general contention all over the world for the same prize
that had been disputed in the Seven Years' War--the empire of the sea.
But this time England had not only to fight her old foes, but her own
children. Moreover, she was deprived of the aid of Frederic of Prussia,
the most useful of allies in the old contest; for, disgusted by the
conduct of Bute and George III. in 1762, he refused to hear of any
renewed alliance with England.
[Sidenote: =Critical position of England.=]
Nothing could have been more difficult than the problem which England
had now to face. With all her disposable army over-sea in America,
she found herself threatened by an invasion at home, and saw her
possessions all over the world beset by France and Spain. Gibraltar and
Minorca, the West Indies, and all our other outlying posts, were held
by garrisons of wholly inadequate strength. The fleet, which, owing to
the continental character of the American struggle, had been hitherto
neglected, was suddenly called upon to act as our main line of defence,
and proved too small for its task.
[Sidenote: =Last speech and death of Pitt.=]
King George was as obstinate and courageous as he was narrow-minded.
With a firm resolution that was admirable but unwise, he stood forth
to face the whole world in arms, without yielding an inch. It was in
vain that the aged William Pitt, whom the news of foreign war called
out from his retirement, came down to the House of Lords to speak for
reconciliation with America at all costs. He urged that we must not
fight our own kith and kin, but seek peace with them, and turn all
our forces against the foreign foe. After an impassioned harangue he
fainted in his seat in the House, and was carried home to die (May 11,
1778).
[Sidenote: =France sends aid to the colonists.=]
The French commenced the war by sending supplies and money to America.
Soon after, they despatched a fleet and an army to the same quarter.
This had a marked effect on the face of the war. The English lost, in
1778, all their strongholds in the colonies except the island city of
New York. But this reverse only led the king to try a new attack on the
Americans. The southern states of Georgia and Carolina were known to
be less zealous for the cause of American independence than the other
colonies, and to contain many loyalists. It was resolved to transfer
the English army to this quarter (1779).
[Sidenote: =Expedition of Cornwallis.=]
Accordingly Lord Cornwallis, an able and active officer, was charged
with the invasion of the South. For a time the English carried all
before them. They took Savannah and Charleston, and overran all Georgia
and South Carolina. Many of the loyal colonists took arms in their
favour, and it seemed that England would save at least a part of her
ancient inheritance. The American Government was much alarmed, and
sent southward all its disposable troops, headed by Gates, the victor
of Saratoga. But Cornwallis beat this large army at Camden (August,
1780), and added North Carolina to his previous conquests. But with a
mere 10,000 men scattered all over three vast States, he was unable to
maintain any very firm hold on the country, and his flanks and rear
were harassed by predatory bands of partisans, who slipped round to
raise trouble behind him. He treated these guerillas as brigands, and
shot some of them when captured, a proceeding which served no end but
to exasperate the Americans.
[Sidenote: =Cornwallis at Yorktown.=]
Persevering in his ideas of conquest, Cornwallis in 1781 collected his
army, and, leaving a very scanty garrison behind him, set out to invade
Virginia. He beat the Americans at Guildford Court House (March 15),
and chased La Fayette, a young French officer who was commanding the
colonists in this quarter, into the interior of Virginia. But finding
his army worn out with long marches and incessant fighting, he dropped
down on to Yorktown, a seaport on the peninsula of the same name, to
recruit himself with food and reinforcements from the English fleet,
which had been ordered to meet him there.
[Sidenote: =De Grasse drives off the English fleet.=]
This march to Yorktown ended in a fearful disaster. Cornwallis found no
ships to welcome him. A French squadron had intercepted Admiral Graves
when he set out from New York. Outnumbered by three to two, Graves
retired after a slight engagement, and it was the Frenchman De Grasse
who now appeared off Yorktown, to blockade instead of to succour the
harassed English troops. At the same time Washington, with a powerful
American army, reinforced by 6000 French, appeared on the land side,
and seized the neck which joins the York peninsula to the Virginian
mainland.
[Sidenote: =Cornwallis capitulates.=]
Thus Cornwallis was caught in a trap, between Washington's army and
the fleet of De Grasse. He made a desperate attempt to escape by
breaking through the American lines, but, when it failed, was forced to
surrender for want of food and ammunition, with 4500 men, the remnants
of the victorious army of the South. With him fell all hopes of the
retention of Georgia and Carolina by the British. The feeble garrisons
which he had left behind him were swept away, and the fortress of
Charleston alone remained of all the conquests which he had made
(October, 1781). New York, in a similar way, was now left as the only
British post in the North.
[Sidenote: =Reverses in the Mediterranean and the West and East
Indies.=]
Under this disaster it seemed as if England must succumb, more
especially as it was but one of a simultaneous batch of defeats
suffered in all corners of the empire. Minorca was captured by the
French in the same autumn, after a vigorous defence. All the West India
islands, save Jamaica and Barbados, suffered the same fate. In India
a French fleet under De Suffren was hovering off the coast of Madras,
while at the same time Haider Ali, a famous military adventurer who had
made himself ruler of Mysore, invaded the Carnatic from the inland, cut
an English army to pieces, and ravaged the country up to the gates of
Madras.
[Sidenote: =The Gordon Riots.=]
At home too matters were looking very dark. The dull and reactionary
government of North had been suffering a stormy trial. In 1780 the
strange and fantastic Gordon Riots had seemed for a moment to shake the
foundations of society in London. Lord George Gordon, a fanatical and
half-crazed member of Parliament, had stirred up an agitation against
some bills for the relief of Romanists which had come before the Lower
House. He raised a mob which burnt many Catholic chapels, destroyed the
houses of unpopular persons, and then turned to indiscriminate plunder.
The ministry and the magistrates showed a strange weakness before this
outburst of anarchy, and it was left to King George himself to order
the troops to act against the mob, and get the streets cleared by the
prompt shooting of plunderers.
[Sidenote: =The Irish volunteers.=]
In Ireland things were far more dangerous. In the absence of the
regular army, the ministry had permitted the Protestants of Ireland
to form volunteer corps for the protection of the island from French
invasion. But the volunteers, finding themselves the only force in the
land, proceeded to follow the example of America, by agitating for the
complete parliamentary freedom of Ireland, and the repeal of Poynings'
Act, which subjected the Irish to the British legislature. It was
only their fear of their own Catholic countrymen which kept them from
demanding separation, and all through 1781-82 an open rebellion seemed
possible at any moment; nor had England a single soldier to spare to
repress such a rising. Indeed, the trouble only ended by the complete
surrender of the English Government. North's successors in May, 1782,
granted the Irish the Home Rule they demanded, and for eighteen years
(1782-1800) the Irish legislature was completely independent of that of
Great Britain.
[Sidenote: =Rodney's victory.--Relief of Gibraltar.=]
The general break-up of the British empire seemed possible and even
probable in 1782. But two great victories saved it. Admiral Rodney
on April 12 met the French fleet in the West Indies, and inflicted a
crushing defeat on it off St. Lucia, capturing his opponent, De Grasse.
This restored English maritime supremacy in America, and led to the
recovery of most of the lost West India Islands. A similar triumph in
waters nearer home followed in the autumn of the same year. A great
French and Spanish army and fleet had been besieging Gibraltar since
1779. It made its final attack in September, 1782, bringing up vast
floating batteries to compete with the artillery of the Rock. But
General Eliott, the indefatigable governor of the place, destroyed all
these cumbrous structures with red-hot shot; and a few days later an
English fleet under Lord Howe arrived and relieved the long-beleaguered
garrison.
[Sidenote: =Lord North resigns.--The Whigs make peace with the
colonies.=]
Six months before the relief of Gibraltar, Lord North, seeing all
things round him in disaster, and sensible that the king's policy was
no longer possible, laid down office. To his grief and humiliation,
George III. was forced to call his enemies the Whigs into power, and to
surrender the administration of affairs to them. A Whig cabinet under
Lord Rockingham was formed, which immediately made overtures of peace
to the United Colonies, conceding complete independence. The Americans
were half bankrupt and wholly tired of the war; they accepted the terms
with alacrity, and, to the disgust of their French allies, made peace
in April, 1783.
[Sidenote: =The Treaty of Versailles.=]
This left France and Spain committed to a war which was no longer going
in their favour. England had reasserted her old maritime supremacy,
and seemed very far from crushed. But she was so disheartened that
it was well known that she would make vast concessions to end the
war. The allies consented to treat, and granted the new Whig ministry
comparatively easy terms. England ceded Minorca and Florida to Spain,
and St. Lucia and Tobago, Senegal, and Goree to France, besides
restoring the Indian factories of the French. So by the treaty of
Versailles (September, 1783) ended the disastrous "War of American
Independence."