Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

page_63

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_63.html[1/17/2011 2:25:15 PM]

< previous page page_63 next page >

Page 63

talion commanders. More than a hundred landing craft were eventually to be sent to Howe: by the end of 1775 the

first thirty had gone, and forty more were being got ready, with ten yawls and ten cutters. There were batteaux to

be prefabricated for the Canadian Lakes, and shipwrights to be engaged and sent out to assemble them. Three

hundred heavy waggons were to be built and shipped by the Ordnance; camp equipment for twenty-nine battalions

to be ordered and shipped. All this had to be superintended on top of the routine work of the Department: disposal

of prisoners, prevention of smuggling to the rebel colonies from St Eustatius, arrangements to watch for suspected

vessels, and all the endless necessary trivia of war administration.

The most difficult of Germain's problems was shipping. Indeed, in combination with the winter's reverses in

America the shipping bottleneck was to kill the hopes of decisive victory in the openning campaign. In the first

weeks of Germain's administration the Charleston expedition provided him with a microcosm of the problem. The

force was intended to sail on 1 December, and the Navy Board transports were ready at the beginning of the

month. So were the warships, except the Bristol, 50, which was delayed in dock for four or five days. But the

Ordnance Department was behind its schedule. Not till the middle of December were its storeships and bomb-

tenders ready to leave the Thames. Then the wind intervened. Blowing steadily from the east, it held the ordnance

ships fast in the river; and not till the 29th, four weeks after the appointed sailing day, was Sir Peter Parker able to

collect his convoy at Spithead. He sailed for Cork to pick up the Irish regiments, but in the face of storms and

adverse winds he did not make the port till 5 January. At Cork another five weeks slipped past before the whole

expedition was collected and ready to sail. On 12 February it put to sea; but a few days out it was scattered by a

violent south-wester. The shipping dispersed and ran before the gale for different ports, and several transports

arrived disabled and distressed.1

It was now the middle of February. Perhaps the enterprise should have been abandoned and the troops sent straight

on to join Howe, who feared (though this was not known) that the southern expedition might delay his own

operations. But an operation once launched is not easy to dismantle. Clinton was on his way from Boston to

command the force, the loyalists were ready and perhaps already committed, and the task force was assembled in

its interlocking intricacy. It would have been hard to throw the opportunity away and perhaps cost England her

friends in the southern colonies. For these reasons the expedition sailed again in spite of its delays. But a couple of

weeks after the transports finally cleared the Irish coast, a despatch from Howe revealed his disapproval of the

southern expedition. He regretted

1 CL, Germain, I, Suppl. précis.

< previous page page_63 next page >

page_64

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_64.html[1/17/2011 2:25:16 PM]

< previous page page_64 next page >

Page 64

that the southern colonies had not been left in a state of false security while he crushed the rebellion in the north,

and feared that it would delay his reinforcements. He also reported that private letters arriving in the same packet as

the Secretary of State's despatch had made the force's destination public knowledge in Boston, and he had little

doubt that the news had reached the enemy.1 In this he was mistaken; but the breach of security and his general

uneasiness about the expedition threw a different light on its retarded timetable. Germain therefore sent Clinton

latitude to abandon the whole project if nothing of real advantage could be gained, and to join Howe at once. A

months later news from General Cornwallis, who was with the convoy, gave good reasons for satisfaction that

Clinton had this discretion. For the transports had been delayed and scattered once more, and were now unlikely to

reach their rendezvous till the end of April. Strategic movements in the Atlantic in midwinter were not calculable.2

All this time the preparations for shipping the main forces were under way. There were eight British regiments and

5,000 Brunswickers for Canada; and for Howe 12,000 Hessians, 3,500 Highlanders and 1,000 volunteers from the

Guards.

By the end of December the negotiations with the Admiralty for transports had made considerable headway.

Admiral Palliser, holding the fort in Sandwich's absence, agreed to have 20,000 tons of shipping ready in the river

by February to fetch the first contingent of Germans, and 3,200 tons in the Clyde by April for the Highlanders. But

he saw these requirements with alarm in view of the supply-needs of the army already in America.

It seems [he wrote to his chief] the demands from the small army now in America are so great as to be

thought impossible to furnish. The waggons and draft cattle is prodigious. If this is the case, what will it be

when we have another army there above 20,000 men, if they can't make good their quarters, and command

carriages and cattle, and subsist and defend themselves without the aid and defence of the fleet, who whilst

so employed can perform no other service? I think some people begin to be astonished and staggered at the

unexpected difficulties we are in.3

Palliser's dismay can therefore be understood when he learnt in the New Year of the 10,000 troops for Canada, and

of the need for additional seamen to complete the transports and bring the warships to war establishment. He could

see that the reinforcement for Howe might prove decisive if it arrived in time, and promised that the Admiralty

would break every record to get

1 CO 5/93, p. 33; EHR 1951, p. 552. (Eric Robson, Expedition to the Southern Colonies.)

2 CL, Germain, Suppl. I, Précis; CO 5/93, p. 379.

3 CL Germain, Supp. I, 26 Dec.; Sandwich, I, 88. 'Cattle', of course, means horses.

< previous page page_64 next page >

page_65

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_65.html[1/17/2011 2:25:16 PM]

< previous page page_65 next page >

Page 65

it there. But as for the Canada force, he declared flatly that if it had to fight its way up the St Lawrence, the seamen

to man the transports could not be found. The Admiralty had already been required to provide at short notice more

transports than the highest number collected in the course of several years in the Seven Years War. Sandwich

carried the matter to the King; but he received a characteristic reply: 'You call it unprecedented: the expression in

ordinary times ought undoubtedly to be attended to; but when such acts of vigour are shown by the rebellious

Americans, we must show that the English lion when roused has not only his wonted strength, but has added the

swiftness of the racehorse.'1

Sandwich protested that 'unprecedented' was not used in complaint2; and in spite of misgivings the Admiralty set

to work to find the shipping. In this way was launched a logistical effort on the oceans which had no parallel till

1944; an effort of whose duration the British government had no conception when it was undertaken. For the truth

was that no one foresaw how the army would continue to depend on supplies from home. The distress of the

Boston garrison was treated as a temporary difficulty which would end as soon as an adequate foraging area was

seized.3 This was never to happen; and the British army in America rested on lines of communication which were

strained to the uttermost. Already the shipping shortage was restraining the despatch of troops, and North predicted

that even if more men could be hired on the continent, the transport situation would prevent their deployment in

America that year.4 There was truth in William Patterson's lament three years later: 'at the distance of above a

thousand leagues they will ever outnumber us'.

Shipping the Supplies

It was clear from the beginning that virtually all the weapons, ammunition and stores would have to cross the

Atlantic.5 Nor could Canada and the West Indies even provision their garrisons. The temperate Atlantic colonies

could at least be expected to feed an army; but even this hope was disappointed. For the British forces were to

remain for the most part confined to narrow bridgeheads. Some provisions could be obtained locally at a price:

some rice, and some flour if it could be milled and baked. Fresh meat had to be supplied by raiding the rebel

coasts, for in spite of the Treasury's efforts it proved impracticable to ship live cattle from England.

1 Sandwich, I, 94, 97, 102; G 1809; CO 5/253, f. 114.

2 G 1824.

3 Add. MSS. 38208, f. 180; Add. MSS. 38209, f. 163.

4 Add. MSS. 34413, f. 5.

5 A shipment of camp equipment is listed in Appendix I.

< previous page page_65 next page >

page_66

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_66.html[1/17/2011 2:25:17 PM]

< previous page page_66 next page >

Page 66

Fodder in general was bulky to ship, and hay out of the question, so that extended cantonments for foraging

became a dangerous but necessary feature of military operations. Everything else crossed the Atlantic: oats for the

horses; salted beef and pork, butter, oatmeal, pease and flour for the men. Every year a third of a ton of food was

needed for each man in America, besides the weight of the casks in which it was packed. Without reckoning

packaging, 29,000 tons of provisions were shipped to the army all over the world in 1782.

At every stage of the long journey from the farms of the British Isles to the distant theatres of war the provisioning

system contended with obstacles and delays. Even to forecast the need was difficult, for returns were unreliable and

commanders indented late and inaccurately. At home contractors delivered late to the depots, bad provisions were

rejected by the Commissaries, damaged barrels and casks had to be repaired before reshipping. There were delays

in assembling convoys and appointing escorts; delays from the weather, which might blow the North American

victuallers as far as the West Indies; delays through the retention of transports at their destination to provide

storage or for amphibious operations. The wastage was immense. Bad quality, packing and loading; theft, storage

and climate; changes of destination imposed by the requirements of strategy: all contributed to the immense loss of

treasury provisions.1

Added to troop movements, naval victualling, and the storing of foreign dockyards, the shipping of army

provisions and equipment imposed a crushing burden on the country's shipping resources. By July 1776 the Navy

Board alone controlled 127,000 tons of transports, though it was not yet responsible for the army's provisions, and

by 1782 the army's needs absorbed 120,000 tons of shipping. The army transports were mostly small ships of

between 250 and 400 tons burthen, and three or four troopships were needed to move a battalion.2 Germain's initial

demand for transports in January 1776 had driven the Navy Board to scour the ports of Holland and North

Germany, but the shortage continued; and when the Treasury was called on to send out the army's provisions at the

end of the month all the available shipping had been pre-empted by the Navy Board. This shipping responsibility

was new to the Treasury. As late as October 1775 the freighting of provisions to America had been left to the

contracting suppliers, on the supposition that it was a temporary measure. But it became clear that victualling from

Europe would be necessary for some time to come, and the

1 E. E. Curtis, Chap. IV; Usher, 28990, 297305; G 2700; Royal Institution, I, 37, 46, 48, 54, 102; II, 20,

257, 262, 367; CL, Germain, 6 and 13 Oct. 1780; CL, Clinton, 28 Aug. 1779 from Germain; Sandwich, I,

84.

2 Williams, 68 n.; Usher, 292, 3256, 3356.

< previous page page_66 next page >

page_67

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_67.html[1/17/2011 2:25:17 PM]

< previous page page_67 next page >

Page 67

contractors were unwilling to arm ships or expose their cargoes to rebel privateers. The Treasury asked the

Admiralty to undertake the shipping, but received the blunt reply that the transport of army provisions was not its

business. The Treasury was thus saddled with the duty of hiring its own victuallers.1 Depots were opened where a

Commissary could take delivery of the provisions. The first and most important was at Cork, a capacious

anchorage well placed for the Irish trade in beef and butter; but the expense of deliveries from English contractors

later caused other depots to be opened in the Thames and Solent. Here the provisions were inspected and shipped,

before the victualling transports sailed on their long voyage to the western depots which stretched from Montreal to

St Lucia.2

The Admiralty's refusal to help meant that four departments were competing for the available resources. They

competed for crews. The seafarers of America had been lost; and only 50,000 merchant seamen were estimated to

sail from British ports, a very small reservoir from which to man a navy whose strength rose to more than twice

that figure in the course of the war. The transport services naturally went to the wall, and the navy pressed transport

crews whenever they dared. In the course of 1776 the Navigation Laws were modified to enable shipowners to man

with foreigners up to two-thirds of their complements. But still the shortage was felt, and seamens' wages soared in

response to it.

The competition for shipping became acute again at the end of April 1776, when an urgent call for horse-transports

brought the departments into collision. At the navy's request the Treasury restrained its agents from paying the full

Navy Board price for transports, and till midsummer no victuallers could be hired. By this sacrifice twenty-one

horse-transports were collected. Every precaution was ordered by the American Department for the horses' health,

and some Dutch ships which were too close between decks to give them air were ordered to have their decks

scuttled. Nevertheless, of 950 horses which embarked more than 400 never reached New York.3

It was largely to eliminate this competition that the Navy Board at length accepted its natural responsibilities in

1779, and under the departmental imperialist Sir Charles Middleton took over the army victuallers. The Navy

Board was technically more competent to administer a transport fleet. The Treasury had hired without inspection or

supervision through a firm of agents, at a higher rate than their rivals; but the Navy Board had the resources to

survey the ships, insist on a fair price, and supervise the Masters

1 Add. MSS. 38343, f. 1: an important Treasury memorandum of 1 Jan. 1778 to which further reference is

made below.

2 Usher, 28590; Royal Institution, I, 34.

3 Treasury memo. loc. cit.; CO 5/254, f, 37; CO 5/93, p. 499.

< previous page page_67 next page >

page_68

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_68.html[1/17/2011 2:25:17 PM]

< previous page page_68 next page >

Page 68

through its Agents when the transports were abroad. In the last stages of the war, when Middleton had the ear of

Shelburne, he was to advocate the rationalisation of the whole transport service by the transfer of Ordnance and

Victualling Board shipping to his own department.1

Yet whatever the administrative and financial advantages of a unified service, the army was better served by the

Treasury than by the Navy Board. When the Navy Board took over the victuallers, it insisted that they should sail

unarmed and in convoy, which delayed their departure till the victualling fleets were assembled about three times a

year. On this Germain blamed the victualling shortage at New York in 1780. He preferred the Treasury system of

arming the victuallers and despatching them singly as they were loaded. This policy the Treasury had adopted in

February 1776 on a warning from General Howe of the risk to unarmed ships in convoy through separation in fogs

and gales.2 The ships were to be armed, and the guns manned by recruits on their way to America. The difficulties

of a new enterprise had to be overcome. The Ordnance could produce no suitable guns, and very few of the ships

had a tier of ports for cannon. Everything had to be made, and the materials collected from the various iron-works,

before the victuallers could be brought into service. But the result repaid the trouble. When the embargo on

Treasury hiring was lifted again in June 1776 enough ships were eventually found; and from that time, as the

Treasury claimed eighteen months later, the victualling service 'has never stood still an hour for want of shipping,

or of armament'.

The original plan had been that the ships which carried the first quarter's provisions should return to carry the third

quarter's, and the second likewise the fourth. This intention was unhinged by delays at home and in America, so

that the ships did not return in time to execute it. But the arming of the transports served its purpose. The small

oat-ships, armed with only a few swivels, were convoyed by the large transports. In 1776 only six Treasury

victuallers were taken. Five of these had no troops on board and, with only the ordinary transport complement of

seven men per hundred tons, could make little resistance; but the sixth, with thirteen soldiers, fought till six of them

were killed and the captain lay unconscious, when she was boarded. In the following year not a single Treasury

ship was taken, with the possible exception of an oat-ship. The vicuallers' freedom from convoy made the army's

provisions certain and regular at least till France entered the war; and

1 Curtis, 121, 129; CL, Shelburne, Vol. 153, No. 11; Barham, II, 169. For the jobbery and abuses which

governed the hiring of transports, see Porritt, Unreformed House of Commons, I, 21718.

2 Later supported by Lord Howe: 'the protection of convoy . . . is not to be relied on in this precarious

navigation' (Adm. 1/487, f. 25).

< previous page page_68 next page >

page_69

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_69.html[1/17/2011 2:25:18 PM]

< previous page page_69 next page >

Page 69

from the latter part of 1776 the Ordnance armed its storeships on the same principle. The Treasury calculated that

by the end of 1777 its method had saved the navy the escorts for twenty-nine separate convoys. The department

was rightly proud of its achievement.1

A Bid for Decision

Excusing the Admiralty for the delays to the Charleston expedition, Lord Sandwich bluntly told the King that 'I

fear your Majesty will never have a sea expedition that will be in readiness so near the given time as this has

been'.2

The punctual arrival of reinforcements was vital to the coming operations in America. Howe and Carleton had a

long way to march from New York and Lake Champlain before they joined hands on the Hudson, and once the

New England winter descended on the armies again no movement would be possible. The failure to withdraw from

Boston and the loss of all Canada as far as the city of Quebec meant that the first part of the campaigning season

would be lost in merely taking possession of the starting points; so it became the more important that operations

should begin the moment the weather allowed troops to take the field.

Germain had counted on getting the reinforcements away in the course of March. But the shortage of shipping, and

a month of severe frosts and snow in January which held up work in the dockyards, made this impossible.3

February saw the departure of the Charleston expedition and the first relief for Quebec. But it was not till April that

the main convoys for Canada, which had priority over Howe's force, were ready to depart. On 7 and 8 April the

eight British regiments and the first contingent of 2,000 Bruns-wickers sailed from Cork and Portsmouth. Howe's

reinforcement did not begin to leave till the 29th, when 3,500 Highlanders sailed from the Clyde; and about the

same time the 8,200 Hessians of the first contingent reached Spithead under General Heister. Here they embarked

in fresh transports for the longer part of the voyage, their water was laid in and their hospital ship fitted up. The

Guards, who had been waiting for them, now embarked; and early in May the whole force of 9,300 men sailed

under the protection of Commodore Hotham, with nine navy victuallers in company.4 There still remained the

balance of the Germans: 4,000 Hessians for Howe and 3,000

1 Treasury memo., loc. cit.

2 G 1809 (11 Jan.).

3 Howe's Orderly Book, 310; CO 5/253, f. 17; CO 5/93, f. 69; Walpole, Last Journals, II, 8.

4 CO 5/93, pp. 409, 422, 424.

< previous page page_69 next page >

page_70

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_70.html[1/17/2011 2:25:18 PM]

< previous page page_70 next page >

Page 70

Brunswickers for Canada. But shipping was the difficulty. The Brunswickers eventually sailed from England late in

June. At the end of March the transport shortage had made it impossible to guess when the second division of

Hessians would embark, but by the second half of May 10,000 tons of transports reached the Weser and they

arrived at Portsmouth a month later.1 On 7 July they were married to their escorts and despatched to the westward.

That the reinforcements were late was no fault of Germain's. Their despatch with the necessary supplies was an

impressive achievement, as General Howe was the first to acknowledge. 'I cannot take leave of your Lordship', he

concluded a letter on 8 June, 'without expressing my utter amazement at the decisive and masterly strokes for

carrying such extensive plans into immediate execution as has been effected since your Lordship has assumed the

conduct of this war.' An American authority on the warfare of the twentieth century has endorsed the praise. 'The

bureaucratic achievement', Walter Millis has written, ' . . . is surely entitled to the respect of modern staff officers

and logisticians.'2

The despatch of these forces was a calculated risk, for by the end of 1775 the foreign mails were reporting that

France and Spain had begun to arm. To send across the Atlantic all the good infantry in the country and most of

the navy's frigates was an invitation to our enemies in Europe; and at the Admiralty Palliser for one was haunted by

the fear of a sudden emergency at home. Yet it was also becoming clear that France and Spain intended to supply

the rebels, while the Dutch islands in the West Indies were ready to furnish the gunpowder which the colonies

could not provide for themselves. The rebellion had to be broken if possible before it could organise and arm its

forces with foreign help; and at the same time a rapid success might avert the danger in Europe. Considering the

distance of the theatre of war, England was making an effort without parallel. 'It is the plan of a campaign which

they do not want to repeat', wrote the French chargé d'affaires, 'and not of a systematic war calculated on the

means, the interests and the relations of the two countries.' The political aim behind the effort may have been

mistaken; but in the military means there was more calculation than Frenchmen realised. A 'systematic' war was the

last thing England desired or could afford: she preferred a bold decisive stroke to crack the shell of the rebellion.3

In selecting the military means the political object of the war had not been forgotten. But Germain intended to treat

from strength. As Burgoyne had

1 CO 5/93, f. 69; G 1870.

2 CO 5/93, p. 212; Walter Millis, Armies and Men, 18.

3 Sandwich, I, 76, 90; G 1806, 1857; Doniol, I, 448.

< previous page page_70 next page >

page_71

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_71.html[1/17/2011 2:25:19 PM]

< previous page page_71 next page >

Page 71

written to him in August 1775, if the extremist view continued to prevail in the colonies, 'America . . . must be

subdued or relinquished'. With this view Germain agreed; and he believed that it could be done without making

concessions. He was not an advocate of barbarity: the destruction of Falmouth by Admiral Graves gave him no

pleasure, and he remarked that Graves had shown no grounds for his action.1 But he believed that if the objects of

the war were to be assured, the Ministry must stand firm on them from the start.

This became clear when the machinery of pacification was discussed in the Cabinet. Since the early autumn Lord

North had been thinking of sending peace commissioners to America to investigate on the spot and negotiate

directly with the separate colonies. This was common sense; and as the military preparations reached their climax a

Commission to make peace was placed in the hands of the new Commanders-in-Chief on the Atlantic seaboard,

Admiral Lord Howe and his brother the General. North had once hoped for a negotiated settlement without a war;

and now that fighting had begun he hoped that the strength of the British effort would weaken American

determination and at the same time reassure the more bellicose of his colleagues. But the terms of the Commission

were vital.

When the Commissioners' instructions were discussed, only Dartmouth resisted the prevailing view in the Cabinet

that the colonies must be forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Parliament. North, however, while agreeing that

this acknowledgment must be written into the final settlement, did not want to make it a preliminary condition of

negotiation. Germain knew the Prime Minister too well: if the demand was postponed, he suspected that North

would end by letting it be shelved altogether. Rallying the support of Suffolk and his friends, he insisted that no

colony should be restored to the King's peace till it had acknowledged the supremacy of Parliament.

'The truth was', wrote William Knox, the Under-Secretary of the American Department, 'Lord George having now

collected a vast force, and having a fair prospect of subduing the Colonies, he wished to subdue them before he

treated at all.' His stand produced a deadlock, with Dartmouth and North talking of resignation; but through the

mediation of Lord Mansfield a compromise was reached.2 The paradox is that in the context of the decision to

coerce, Germain was probably right; for by now no terms which the British government or Parliament could have

swallowed were acceptable to the Americans. Though few American patriots had wanted to cast themselves off

from Britain when the rebellion broke out, the British actions which

1 CL, Germain, 5 Jan. 1776 to Howe.

2 Sackville, II, 10; Knox, 25860; Ritcheson, 2016.

< previous page page_71 next page >

page_72

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_72.html[1/17/2011 2:25:19 PM]

< previous page page_72 next page >

Page 72

followed Bunker Hill had produced a rapid change of feeling; and the news that foreign mercenaries were to be

used seemed to make the breach irreparable. If the British intended to treat the struggle as a foreign war, as

foreigners they should themselves be treated. A steady current of opinion flowed towards Independence. The

colonies would no longer listen to terms which England could accept, nor would piecemeal offers to the separate

colonies be considered by a united and undefeated America. The relative strength of the contenders would have to

be changed by battle to make a solution possible.

< previous page page_72 next page >