Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
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possible to send letters every day beyond the Atlantic, the General must necessarily, in many respects, be
left to his own discretion.
Germain knew Howe's plan just as he knew Burgoyne's, and he let him follow it. There was no need to provide
him with a detailed recapitulation of his own proposals; for unlike Burgoyne he had no hostile superior between
himself and the Minister. It has been argued that Germain should have intervened to veto his first change of plan,
and prevent him from turning south to Pennsylvania. But it must be remembered that from the beginning Howe
had framed all his own plans on the assumption that the advance from Canada would be resumed. It was no part of
the general plan that he should support Burgoyne's initial advance to Albany. On both sides of the Atlantic it was
assumed that the rebellion was on its last legs. The only danger to Burgoyne which was foreseen was that
Washington might leave Pennsylvania undefended and turn on him with his whole force; a danger which became
likely only when Howe abandoned the Jerseys and put out to sea. It seemed right to accept Howe's judgment of the
decisive importance of Philadelphia, and to let him strike in that direction before joining Burgoyne, who in the
meantime would have established himself on the Upper Hudson.
It remains, however, to ask whether the failure of the strategy which had been pursued though two campaigns
proved it to have been unsound. Given that the rebellion had to be crushed quickly, and by an offensive on land,
was the plan to dominate the Hudson valley a realistic and useful one? It was easy to say in retrospect that the
distance between New York and Montreal was 300 miles, and that no chain of posts could be made secure enough
to protect the communications over this distance: but till Burgoyne was defeated no one fully grasped the danger
from the New England militia.1 The advantage of controlling the Hudson line would have been great. It would
have reduced the handicap of operating on exterior lines, for instead of the slow communications by sea which
were shut entirely in the winter, there would have been a direct land route between the two bases. The unified
command which had ceased in 1775 could then have been restored, and the two armies could have acted as one.
For the enemy, British control of the Hudson would have been disastrous. Permanent control of the whole length of
the river was unnecessary, for if the British held the Highlands they could use the waterway beyond at any time,
and cut the last link in Washington's lateral communications. His supplies and reinforcements would have been
strangled with decisive effect: so at
1 Least of all Burgoyne, though he had warned against underrating them in the first winter of the war
(Fonblanque, 209).
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any rate Benedict Arnold was to assert when he deserted the rebel cause.1
The irony of the campaign is that the keys rested for a moment in British hands. To check Howe in the south and
Burgoyne in the north, the Americans had fatally weakened the nexus between the two fronts. By one of those bold
tactical strokes which contrasted so oddly with his strategic timidity, Clinton had seized the forts of the Highlands
which six days earlier or six hours later would have resisted the whole army of Howe. In spite of Burgoyne's
disaster and the coming intervention of France, it is conceivable that the future pattern of the war would have been
altered if the gateway could have been kept. But the day after Burgoyne's surrender, Clinton received an order
from Howe to send five battalions and the remaining cavalry regiment immediately to garrison Philadelphia.
Though Howe knew of Burgoyne's peril he gave Clinton no latitude, beyond a few days' delay if he should be
engaged in operations on the Hudson. This order was followed shortly by instructions to dismantle and evacuate
Fort Clinton, and forbidding the loan of troops from Rhode Island. Clinton therefore had no choice but to abandon
the Highlands to ensure the safety of New York. Years later in his retirement he was to write that he had hoped
Howe would strain every nerve to keep open the door of the Hudson: ' . . . had this been done, it would most
probably have finished the war'.2
1 Fortescue, III, 338: 'The supplies of meat for Washington's army are on the east side of the river, and the
supplies of bread on the west; were the Highlands in our possession, Washington would be obliged to fight
or disband his army for want of provisions.'
2 Willcox, American Rebellion, 801; CO 5/94, f. 335.
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PART TWO
THE WORLD WAR 1778
10
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Chapter VII
The Morrow of Saratoga
1
Resignation of the Commanders-in-Chief
The defeat at Saratoga is the clearest turning point of the war. It marked the beginning of a general war waged
throughout the world; and it was the beginning of North's real parliamentary troubles. In the House of Commons
and the Lords a hurricane broke over the heads of the Ministers. For a time the country gentlemen held firm, and
Lord North maintained his large majority. But as the session dragged on and war with France drew near, these
supporters began to fall away, and at the beginning of March an Opposition motion on the Budget was defeated by
only six votes in a House of 288. Much of the political trouble turned on the treatment of the generals.
Saratoga was marked by the resignation of all the Commanders-in-Chief in America, and was the beginning of
what was soon to become a characteristic misfortune of the war: bitter feuding between the Ministers and their
naval and military commanders. By the end of 1777 both Carleton and Sir William Howe had resigned; and their
example was to be followed by Lord Howe in the course of the coming year.
Carleton's resignation was not a consequence of the disaster, but of his feud with Germain. When he learnt that he
was to hand over the bulk of his army to Burgoyne, he had treated it as a mark of disapprobation for his
withdrawal from Lake Champlain, and replied to the Secretary of State in language of intemperate violence,
reflecting with savage irony on Germain's military knowledge and personal integrity. 'An officer entrusted with the
supreme command ought, upon the spot, to see what was most expedient to be done, better than a great General at
three thousand miles distance . . . A little reflection on the nature of this climate will, I hope, convince your
Lordship . . . a little military reasoning might prove . . .' He accused Germain of having intended from the start to
remove him at the first opportunity, and in the meantime to make his situation intolerable by every kind of slight,
censure and disregard. 'Constitutionally I am not inclined to think it possible, that, from private enmity . . . a
Secretary of State should avail himself of the trust, confidence and power of his office, to insult the authority of the
King his Master, in a distant province'.
Carleton was moving from insolence to hysteria, but his letter measures the
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length to which the feud was carried, and the insinuations to which Germain's past misfortune could expose him.
As Major Carleton wrote with satisfaction to Lord Shelburne, the Governor's 'correspondence with Cain will not
dispose the latter to continue him in his government'. In all his correspondence with Germain it was Carleton who
took the offensive. 'His nature had an ugly twist', says a Canadian historian who has done much to revise the
unqualified admiration of Carleton which reigned half a century ago. Intolerance of criticism, a treacherous temper,
and a ruthless determination to cut his way out of the difficulties it raised, did much to undermine his better
qualities. How can one explain the passionate excesses of 1778? The same scholar suggests chagrin that his high
promises of Canadian support had not been fulfilled, an uneasy conscience at the result of his lenient pursuit of the
rebels in 1776, and the frustration of his hope that he might retrieve his errors by a successful campaign.1
Germain replied strongly, as Carleton's letters warranted, but with more restraint and a better aim. He remonstrated
against the 'very extraordinary manner' in which Carleton had expressed himself, and reminded the General of
what was constitutionally true, that he was the executive agent of measures which had been carefully canvassed by
the government and approved by the King. 'It would ill become my situation to enter into an ill-humoured
altercation with you.' He declared that he would never be so mean as to let personal resentment interfere with his
duty, and that the imputation of personal dislike was without the least foundation. 'I trust you did not so lightly
give credit to intelligence when you were to decide upon measures relating to the public service'.2
This reply crossed Carleton's formal resignation, which he sharpened with the parting hope that after his removal
'at least . . . the dignity of the Crown may not appear beneath your Lordship's concern'. General Haldimand, the
commander in East Florida, was named as his successor. Like Prevost in Georgia, he was a Swiss who had never
learnt to speak English well; but though he could not pretend to Carleton's qualifications for civil government, he
was a thoroughly professional soldier of whom the German officers in Canada formed a high opinion.3 Haldimand
could not get up the St Lawrence till the summer of 1778; and Carleton made use of the delay to
1 A. L. Burt, Guy Carleton . . ., summarises briefly the lifetime's reflections of a scholar on the subject. For
fuller accounts see his articles, inter alia, on the case of Chief Justice Livius and Carleton's quarrel with
Germain, in Canadian Hist. Rev., 1924 and 1930.
2 This correspondence is in CO 42/36, ff. 949, 1367, 140, 16571, 291; and Sackville, II, 133.
3 Walpole's statement (Last Journals, II, 135) that Carleton had been a witness for the prosecution in
Germain's trial, and Haldimand a witness for the defence, maintains his usual standard of accuracy. Both
officers had been in America or Canada at the time.
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dismiss Chief Justice Livius who had been appointed by Germain, an arbitrary gesture probably prompted by the
Chief Justice's defence of the legal rights of the English-speaking minority.1 When the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment
reached Quebec in May 1778 he refused to let it land as he had had no official notice of its coming, and the troops
remained in their transports for three months while their Quartermaster went back to England for the necessary
papers.
Carleton's conduct was a strange mixture of pettiness and magnanimity. On his return to England his personal feud
with Germain continued to burn. He refused to justify his dismissal of Chief Justice Livius before the Privy
Council, and the Chief Justice was reinstated. Germain for his part felt the General's insolence so deeply that he
refused to sign a letter put before him by Knox which said that Carleton's information would be helpful to his
successor. When the King rewarded the General's services with the Governorship of Charlemont, Germain
threatened to resign; while Carleton for his part neither applied for the salary nor appointed anyone to look after
the lands of the Governorship. Yet he did not intend to inflate his quarrel with Germain into a great public issue. In
the Parliament enquiry of 1779 he refused to become the tool of the Opposition, like the Howes and Burgoyne. 'He
answered like a gallant and wise man', wrote an M.P., 'scorning to make his court to a faction, either by abusing
Lord George Germain or exculpating Burgoyne.'2
Carleton was an able man, but he did not make it easy to use him. He 'dislikes Lord Amherst so much', the King
told Lord North in 1779, 'that it is not very easy to employ him'. Nor could he work again with the American
Secretary after the letters he had written: letters, said Germain four years later, of which 'the style and manner . . .
were improper to have passed between one gentleman and another'. Carleton was not re-employed in the army as
long as Germain remained in the Ministry, but in 1780 Lord North gave him an important civil employment as
head of his new Commission of Accounts.3
The trouble with General Howe ran a different course. Throughout 1776 his relations with Germain had been
excellent. But in the course of 1777 they deteriorated; and after his resignation Howe complained in the House of
Commons that Germain had not given him his co-operation or confidence, nor accepted his recommendations for
promotion. Germain's reply, as clear-headed as Howe was confused, turned the House against the General.4
1 See A. L. Burt's articles in Canadian Hist. Rev., 1924 and 1930.
2 G 2202; WO 34/138, f. 82; Malmesbury Letters, I, 410.
3 G 2754; CL, Germain, 16 Dec. 1781.
4 Germain's reply is in Parl. Deb., XIX, 1395 ff. Walpole reports the impression it made.
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In the matter of favours only three of Howe's recommendations had been held up; one for three days till a
promotion of Colonels took place, and two for solid reasons which Germain explained to the House. The
withholding of co-operation alleged by Howe can have referred only to Germain's inability at the beginning of
1777 to reinforce him to the full extent of his unreasonable hopes, and like several commanders in the course of the
war he treated the failure to fulfil his demands for reinforcements as a personal slight. The complaint of lack of
confidence must be based on two criticisms which Germain had made in the course of 1777: his infrequent letters,
and his failure to distress the rebel coasts. The Ministry had endured long periods without news in 1776; and when
Howe's A.D.C. returned to him at the opening of his second campaign with Germain's remarks on his plans, he
carried a verbal request for more frequent and explicit despatches. The message had no effect. The silences were
long, the hints of his intentions vague. 'It is surprising that the General should be so fond of concealing his
operations', Germain wrote to the King. News of the army had to be gleaned from Admiralty despatches. Not a line
did Howe pen from 17 July, before he sailed from New York, till 30 August five days after his landing in the
Chesapeake; nor did he write again till 10 October. His evacuation of New Jersey and his embarkation were known
from private letters from America and reports from France. Germain may be forgiven for writing that he awaited
Howe's despatches with impatience.1
This was a small complaint. On the conduct of operations Germain voiced a more serious dissatisfaction. He had
always been anxious to distress the rebels in every possible way. But the Howes seemed to let American shipping
come and go as it pleased; and the American Secretary's dislike of their liberality with pardons seemed to be
vindicated by the defections after Trenton. If the two brothers, the King wrote to Robinson,
will act with a little less lenity (which I really think cruelty, as it keeps up the contest) the next campaign
will bring the Americans in a temper to accept of such terms as may enable the mother country to keep
them in order; for we must never come into such as may patch for a year or two, and then bring on new
broils; the regaining their affection is an idle idea, it must be the convincing them that it is their interest to
submit, and then they will dread further broils.
It is now that Sandwich, probably prompted by the King, remonstrated with Admiral Howe at the one-sided lenity
of letting the inhabitants use their fishing boats. Germain, in accepting Sir William's plan to switch his main effort
towards Philadelphia, suggested diversions against the New England coast to impede their recruiting and secure the
British trade.2
1 Knox, 130; G 2010; CO 5/94, f. 242.
2 Sackville, II, 58; CO 5/94, f. 106; Sandwich, I, 288; Add. MSS. 37833, f. 137.
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Coastal raiding was of real military importance. In April 1777 a raid on Danbury in Connecticut destroyed a large
quantity of stores, including 1,700 tents which Washington could only replace from abroad. One effect of the raid
was to make the Connecticut authorities reluctant to send militia to Peekskill and relieve the Continentals guarding
the Highlands: a hesitation which gave Clinton his chance at Forts Clinton and Montgomery. Washington believed
that Connecticut was indefensible to the depth of a full day's march from the coast, and argued that the only
provident course was to move all valuable large stores further north.1 But Howe in 1777 believed he could spare
no troops for coastal raiding. This Germain perhaps unwisely lamented. He accepted that Howe on the spot was the
best judge; but rebel privateers were very active that summer, and public opinion at home would have welcomed
counter-measures against the enemy's coast. People were looking for bold and enterprising measures; and he told
Howe that he would have liked to see him win the applause of the ignorant as well as of better judges.2
These were the slender grounds which Howe offered for his resignation. But there is a more probable explanation
than these. His resignation accompanied the first rumours of Burgoyne's disaster. Anderson, in his sympathetic
study of the Howe brothers, came to believe that some time after Trenton Sir William began to realise the vastness
and complexity of his task, and his own inadequacy to surmount it. This was reflected in both his private and
public life: in public by a desire above all else not to make mistakes, and in private by recourse to the bottle. An
American brigadier remarked that he was 'certainly too indolent and too ignorant for the command of such an
army'; and General Lee, his prisoner and a former British officer, described him as 'totally confounded and
stupefied by the immensity of the task imposed upon him. He shut his eyes, fought his battles, drank his bottle, had
his little whore . . .' Anderson calls this a caricature. But several field officers lend credit to the view that Howe's
limitations were becoming apparent to others, and that the hand which disciplined the army was growing lax.
Colonel Stuart complained of the habitual carelessness and neglect in the field, and the relaxed discipline which
allowed the campaign in Pennsylvania to open with every kind of irregularity. Allen Maclean, the saviour of
Quebec, saw the same deficiency of leadership in the war of posts after Trenton, and declared that the successes
hitherto gained had been due solely to the bravery and impetuosity of the troops. Sir William he called 'a very
honest man, and I believe a very disinterested one. Brave he certainly is, and would make a very good executive
officer under another's command,
1 Freeman, IV, 41011.
2 Sackville, II, 68; CL, Germain, 4 Aug. to Howe.
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but he is by no means equal to a Commander-in-Chief'. Major Wemyss, wrote thus in retrospect:
he succeeded General Gage with the good opinion of the army; but it was soon discovered, that however fit
to command a corps of grenadiers [he] was altogether unequal to the duties of a Commander-in-Chief. . . .
His manners were sullen and ungracious, with a dislike to business, and a propensity to pleasure. His staff
officers were in general below mediocrity, with some of whom, and a few field officers, he passed too
much of his time in private conviviality.
On the quality of his staff Maclean agreed: 'none but very silly fellows about him a great parcel of old women'.1
By the spring of 1778 Howe seems to have lost the confidence of his best officers. He was given a convivial
farewell, as befitted a convivial man. But dissatisfied field officers were not his only critics. The loyalists naturally
criticised him bitterly for despising their help and missing his opportunities. The Hessians too, who liked his easy
ways and hospitality, criticised his professional conduct. From White Plains to Germantown they saw a long
procession of missed opportunities, costly delays, omissions of planning, and carelessness in details. On any single
occasion Howe's apologists can find plausible explanations of his conduct. But the weight of the indictment lies in
the cumulative impression of his actions, and in failures which run through the whole scale of events from the
great decisions to the details.2
2
A Distracted Leader
The first storm, however, was raised by Burgoyne. When Parliament learnt the news of Saratoga on 3 December,
Germain was bitterly assailed by Fox and Richmond. When he expressed a hope that Burgoyne would not be
condemned unheard, Fox flared in the General's defence, charging Germain with the whole responsibility for the
disaster and hoping that he would be brought to a second trial. Germain had wished to defer an enquiry into the
campaign till Burgoyne came home to defend himself; but Burgoyne's letters were so clearly intended to
incriminate him that under Fox's attack he felt justified in proceeding at once to a military enquiry on the limited
question whether the orders to push for Albany had been absolute. The Adjutant-General supported a limited
enquiry on this crucial point, but the King felt that not only Germain's conduct was in question, and that the
enquiry ought to be a general one into the whole failure of the expedition.
1 CL, Germain, Dr Berkenhout's journal, 1778; Anderson, 320, 331, 337, 342; Wortley, 1012, 1045, 1156;
Harvard, Sparks MSS. XXII, p. 214 (character sketch by Major Wemyss).
2 Nelson, 1358; Eelking, 267, 50, 52, 105, 11213, 11620.
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With this doubt in the air, the Cabinet divided evenly on whether the partial investigation should be ordered, and
for the moment Germain allowed it to drop.1
The case of Sir William Howe did not develop into a parliamentary battle till later; but his resignation produced an
immediate conflict in the Cabinet. Permission to quit his command was deferred till the end of the campaign; but at
the beginning of February the Cabinet, torn between the danger of employing an unwilling commander under a
hostile Minister and the difficulty of replacing him, reluctantly agreed that he should be ordered to hand over to
Clinton and come home. Germain read the letter to the Cabinet before it was sent; but Lord Bathurst had left the
meeting, and ten days later he suddenly resigned because the letter had been coldly phrased.
Bathurst seems to have been moved by personal hostility to the American Secretary. But as a matter of political
calculation North and the King both hoped for several weeks that Germain would resign in order to make way for a
reconstruction of the Ministry and a new peace policy. And for a time he talked of doing so. In January he
received a severe personal blow by the sudden death of his wife from measles. It could have struck him at no more
vulnerable moment, and only the support and encouragement of Suffolk persuaded him to remain in office.
Bathurst was induced by the King to withdraw his resignation, for fear that it would be the last straw which would
make North give up; and Germain was persuaded to send off a conciliatory letter to Howe.2
North had been begging for release from the moment when the Saratoga disaster was known. In the face of French
preparations he had long since lost whatever faith he had had in total victory. Weeks before the Saratoga news he
had characterised the struggle as 'this damned war'. 'I am very melancholy notwithstanding our victory', he had
remarked on the news of Brandywine: 'my idea of American affairs is, that, if our success is as great as the most
sanguine politician wishes or believes, the best use we can make of it is to get out of the dispute as soon as
possible'.3 He felt, however, that the Ministry in its present form could not honourably abandon its American
policy, and his thoughts turned to Chatham: the man to rally the country
1 Suffolk, Sandwich and North supported Germain, while Bathurst, Dartmouth and the two 'Bedfords'
opposed him. How far hostility to Germain himself can be read into this division is a matter of doubt, since
we do not know the course of the discussion or the objectors' reasons. Ritcheson (2412) is perhaps more
positive than the evidence warrants. See G 2108, 2122, 2124, 21267, 2161. The draft (probably by Eden) on
which the Cabinet divided is Add. MSS. 34414, f. 497 (see also ff. 461, 501).
2 CO 5/94, f. 376; Sackville, I, 73, 139; II, 903; G 2152, 2154, 2156, 2161, 2194, 2195; Bathurst, 178.
3 Add. MSS. 34414, ff. 30910.
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