Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783

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British trade passed through Bristol; but into London alone the British islands sent nearly 300 ships in an average

year, with a 100,000 hogsheads of sugar and 11,000 puncheons of rum. The West India imports in 1776 had been

valued at £4 1/4 millions, compared with the East India Company's £1½ millions. And for a mercantilist the sub-

tropical products of the West Indies fitted much better into the British economy than the products of American

farms and fisheries, which were not needed and were generally excluded from the home market. The planters'

produce was needed, and favoured the balance of trade by saving England from the need to buy from foreign

rivals. As a market for English manufactures the planters were also more satisfactory than the Americans: with

their sugar profits they could at least pay their debts. The sensible Sir Charles Middleton believed passionately in

the islands' importance. 'The sugar islands', he wrote,1 'are the best and surest markets for our staple commodities,

and the most productive of all our colonies. They are the easiest source of our revenues.'

There was thus a general belief that the British economy and finances depended on the West Indies. And

conversely it could be argued that nothing but their West India commerce had enabled the French to equip the fleet

which successfully confronted Keppel in the course of 1778; and that the conquest of the French islands would ruin

the enemy's finances. And by conquering them all it was argued that England would obtain an economic grip on the

American colonies. 'Let therefore the dance of rebellion go round', wrote a West India correspondent to Germain

on the eve of the French war,2 'while we appropriate the islands and emancipate the continent [i.e. the Spanish

Main]. The full possession of the West India islands will soon repay the expenses of the war, and this with a proper

guard on the Mediterranean would soon bring America to our beck.' A note among the Germain papers at the end

of 1778 urges the same view. 'Having them in possession, instead of cringing to an American Congress for peace,

we shall prescribe the terms, and bid America be only what we please.'3

For England, the islands held the lure of compensation for her losses in America, finance to pay for the war, a

favourable balance of trade, an economic lever to coerce America. For the chance of conquering the French West

Indies and 'avenging the faithless and insolent conduct of France', the King had said he was willing even to come

to terms with America. As early as the end of January he had been contemplating a complete withdrawal from the

rebel colonies, retaining only Canada, Nova Scotia and Florida. More than this, he had suggested that if Spain was

not very explicit about

1 Barham, II, 70.

2 CL Germain, 2 March 1778 from (?) the Rev. James Ramsey.

3 CL, Germain, 5 Dec. 1778, 'Thoughts on the Caribbean Station'.

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her intentions we should seize New Orleans from her. On the day when France declared her intentions, he insisted

that all thought of reinforcing Clinton so that he could resume the offensive was dead. England must form front

against the French, and gather a force from America for the West Indies. In America two or three thousand of the

remaining troops could be set apart to attack the rebel ports: the rest should be distributed in fixed garrisons to hold

New York and Rhode Island in the colonies, and Nova Scotia and the Floridas at the extremities. Philadelphia must

be abandoned.1

It was on the following day that a Cabinet meeting at Weymouth's house received the views of Sandwich. It was

agreed that the Howes should detach most of their ships of the line and 4,000 troops to defend the Leeward Islands.

The question of evacuating America was not decided. But Amherst was consulted by the King on the 17th, and

opposed the total abandonment to which Sandwich2 had inclined. He feared that to concentrate the fleet at Halifax

as Sandwich wished would open the American coast and invite the rebels to collect a fleet of their own and attack

the West Indies; and his advice was to abandon only Philadelphia, to hold New York as the fleet rendezvous, and

to use the warships to destroy all vessels in American harbours. If the Peace Commissioners found on their arrival

that the Americans were determined to join the French, New York and Rhode Island should be evacuated and the

troops used for a West Indian offensive.3

On the next day another Cabinet meeting at Weymouth's heard Amherst's views and amplified their plans. Lord

Howe was to send a squadron of four sail of the line, three fifties and four frigates to the Leeward Islands; and (to

satisfy Sandwich and Admiral Keppel), to send home twenty frigates and sloops to make good the desperate

shortage of cruisers in British waters. Five thousand troops from Philadelphia should attack St Lucia; and 3,000

more should be sent to reinforce the Floridas. The gutted remnant of the army in Pennsylvania should withdraw to

New York, and thence make yet another detachment to strengthen Halifax. The Peace Commissioners should be

sent to New York at once; and if they found no prospect of success, or that the army and fleet were in danger,

Clinton should prepare to evacuate the city.4

The orders were signed on 21 March. Extraordinary steps were taken to prevent a leakage, which might bring out

an intercepting force from Brest. A rumour was floated in London that the army in America was coming

1 G 2182, 2190, 2204, 2243, 2251. No. 2243 must have been written about 13 March rather than on the

23rd as printed.

2 G 2227; Sandwich, I, 359.

3 G 2229. This is the King's account of Amherst's views; but Amherst may perhaps have thought New York

should be evacuated only if the Commissioners found it to be in danger, as the consequent orders directed.

4 Sandwich, I, 3635; G 2227, 2229.

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home. In the American Department only the Under-Secretary who wrote out the orders was in the secret. At the

Admiralty the most secret part of Howe's instructions was handled by the First Lord in person, so that even the

Board should not see them. And the Peace Commissioners sailed for America in ignorance that Philadelphia was to

be abandoned.1

These orders reduced the forces in America to the defence of Britain's undisputed possessions on the flanks of the

rebellion, with only two posts in the rebel colonies themselves, at New York and Rhode Island. Canada and

Newfoundland would be reinforced from home; but for Nova Scotia and the Floridas, which lay within Clinton's

command, he would have to provide part of the reinforcements from his own depleted force. And no replacements

would be sent: no new regiments except the three already promised for Nova Scotia; and no recruits, for they were

needed to fill the battalions at home. Clinton would therefore have to draft his weakest regiments and send their

cadres home. His marine battalions were called home to man the fleet; and one of his cavalry regiments, unlikely

to be needed for the defensive warfare to which he was reduced, was to be dismounted and shipped back to

England. No more would be heard of the development of a naval base at New York. Its evacuation was not

mentioned in his instructions, as its possession was important to the Peace Commissioners' negotiations, and it was

hoped that he could keep up the alarm on the American coasts and reduce the attacks on British trade which had

been the curse of 1777.2

Scarcely had these orders been signed when despatches were opened which gave a distressing account of the state

of Lord Howe's fleet, and raised doubts of his ability to provide the full force intended for St Lucia. So anxious

was the King for the secret expedition to proceed that he would have been willing to spare two or three ships of the

line from the exiguous home fleet; but the Admiralty sent Howe a supplementary order drafted by Amherst, to

explain why he should make every effort to provide at least part of the force named in his orders. 'The object of the

war being now changed, and the contest in America being a secondary consideration, our principal object must be

distressing France and defending . . . His Majesty's possessions.'3

The Peace Commission

The St Lucia expedition had been considered with care, and was far from being the senseless diversion of effort

which it has sometimes been called.

1 CL, Germain, 31 July 1778 to Eden; 21 March to Sandwich; Sandwich, I, 369.

2 CL, Germain, Amherst's minutes of March 1778, and 21 March, Germain to Clinton; Sandwich, I, 36370; II,

29; G 2229.

3 Sandwich, I, 365, 370; Adm. 2/1334; despatch to Howe of 22 March.

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The Peace Commissioners were to argue that it blasted the hopes of a settlement with America, and asserted that

one more determined effort in the colonies would have brought peace on the terms which they were empowered to

offer. It is just possible that they were right, though the refrain that the rebellion was on its last legs was already

depressingly familiar. But the Commissioners saw only a part of the game. The fact was that France had a striking

force poised in her home ports, and the West Indies were almost defenceless. Another effort in America would

have staked the probable loss of the West Indies against the lesser probability of detaching the rebel colonies from

the French alliance, on terms which at the best would have left them in a state of near-independence. It might be

argued that though the West Indies needed reinforcements for their defence, this was very different from the

offensive planned against the French islands. But the truth is that an offensive was the islands' best and cheapest

defence. Dispersed garrisons in the Caribbean were wasteful of men, led to weakness everywhere, and required the

permanent attendance of a superior fleet. Preventive attacks on the French bases were a cheaper policy in the long

run. Though the French were to disrupt the plan, the plan itself made sense.

In reorientating strategy to face the French, constructive parts had been played by Sandwich, Germain and the

King.1 Through the unanimity which shrouds the Cabinet minutes, only one unhappy voice is heard in feeble

protest: it is the Prime Minister's. When the orders had been signed and despatched, he wrote to the King

predicting disaster. The country was not equal to a war with France, Spain and America. Borrowing would dry up

and England would be ruined by the expense. 'Great Britain will undo herself while she thinks of punishing

France.'2

North had never really thought that Congress would listen to any terms which his colleagues could swallow.3 And

with France standing by the side of America it was still less probable. But there were signs of a change of heart in

England. It would be worth great concessions if our hands could be freed for the fight with France: a price which

in the last resort might mean even independence for America. Even the King was coming round: 'so desirable to

end the war with that country, to be enabled with redoubled ardour to avenge the faithless and insolent conduct of

France . . .'. His sticking point was no longer independence, but the fate of Canada, Nova Scotia and Florida, the

possessions still uncontaminated by rebellion. These

1 Germain consulted Amherst, drew up the orders, and later defended the plan to Clinton. A letter to him of

24 March (CL, Germain, from John Drummond) suggests that he had personally been investigating the

possibilities in the West Indies.

2 G 22467.

3 G 2164.

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we must retain: 'for it is by them that we are to keep a certain awe over the abandoned colonies.'1

When the King had shifted so far, the atmosphere had changed indeed. The Commissioners' instructions had not

been settled when Noailles presented the French declaration; and the draft from the American Department was

referred by North for revision to the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General, who had helped to draft the

preparatory Acts. Wedderburn was pressing for larger powers for the Commissioners, on behalf of his ally Eden.

Knox of the American Department held forth on his favourite theme, that the northern colonies were dangerous

commercial rivals who should be cast off and annihilated; to which the formidable Thurlow replied that if the

northern colonies where we still had a foothold were not worth keeping, the southern ones where we had not were

not worth invading. After some sulking and bickering Wedderburn had his way; and the Commissioners were

empowered to offer terms so generous that the conservative Knox thought the Americans would enjoy all the

advantages of being British subjects without any of the burdens. Great Britain, he lamented would be depopulated

and reduced.2

A note among Lord Weymouth's papers suggests that the Cabinet regarded these terms as a surrender of Britain's

war aims, but an inevitable one in the light of French intervention. 'The basis of the whole', it runs, 'is that in the

present state of things . . . the object, although just and well founded in the principles of our Constitution, is not

valuable enough, to countervail the expense which must attend even the successful enforcement of it.'3 The

Commissioners' instructions were indeed a dramatic surrender of British claims. The Acts authorising the

Commission had already renounced Grenville's touchstone of parliamentary supremacy, the right to tax for

revenue. The Commissioners were empowered to treat with Congress 'as if it were a legal body'. Then the

catalogue of concessions: no standing army in the colonies in time of peace without the assemblies' consent; the

colonies to maintain their own military forces; their charters secured; offices reserved for Americans; judges' tenure

secured; Congress to continue in being if the Americans insisted, provided it did not infringe the sovereignty of

Parliament. And of this sovereignty what was left? A power to regulate the trade of the empire, and to tax non-

British imports to the colonies, thus maintaining the protected American market for British manufactures; the

Americans to maintain no ships of war; provincial officers to hold the

1 G 2251.

2 Carlisle, 377; Knox, 2778.

3 Thynne Papers, American Affairs 17778, No. 1 (probably in Lord Weymouth's writing).

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Kings's commission; no independent coinage (but help from the home government to secure the debts of Congress

and sink its vast issues of depreciating paper currency); American debts to British merchants to be honoured;

loyalists restored to their estates. But this was not the whole tale of concession. Additional and secret instructions

provided for the probability that the Americans would insist on the recognition of independence before they would

treat. This was not to be refused. The Commissioners were to refer it to London for instructions, and arrange an

armistice while they awaited the reply.1

The Commissioners embarked on 16 April; and so well had the secret of the new strategy been kept for a whole

month that they were still ignorant of the coming evacuation of Philadelphia. At the last moment their destination

was changed from Philadelphia to New York; and when Carlisle asked the reason Germain replied briefly but

truthfully that 'perhaps the city may not be in your hands on your arrival'. When Carlisle learnt the truth on

reaching America, he asserted in his rage and wounded vanity that if he had known it he would have refused to

sail, rather (he improbably asserted) than receive the public wages for a useless task. From this it was a short step

to the imputation of motives: soon he was saying that he had been deceived to ensure his departure.2

Lord North declared that he thought Eden knew of the orders; Germain that he had had no idea of the

Commissioners' ignorance, and that since he had not been a party to their appointment and instructions he had

never thought information from himself to be necessary. In this the American Secretary may not have been entirely

candid. But he added a better reason: that he had not been at liberty to reveal the secret. Full knowledge of the

plans were virtually confined to the Cabinet; and who was Carlisle that he should be excepted? An ambassador on

an important mission, to whom the information was relevant; but also a smart penurious young man who had been

appointed to please his father-in-law or provide a front for Eden. He was surrounded by fashionable gossips from

his old school. Anthony Storer was going out with him, and that connoisseur of executions, the larmoyant George

Selwyn, hung about his coat-tails. Perhaps the country's secrets were safest out of the Commissioners' keeping till

they had crossed the Atlantic.

1 The Commissioners' instructions are admirably presented in Ritcheson, 26871. But contrary to his

statement Carlisle's father-in-law, Gower, did in fact attend the vital Cabinet meeting which ordered the

evacuation.

2 Carlisle, 33545, 37880.

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Chapter X

The Command of the Seas

The French Initiative

The new war plans of March 1778 assumed that England would retain the initiative in the western Atlantic, and

could shift her forces between the American colonies and the West Indies without interference. But in the coming

struggle the initiative lay with the enemy. For the French navy was uncommitted, whereas England had already

locked up a large naval force, especially of frigates, in America. The French were in a more forward state of

readiness than the British home fleet; and the day after the decision was taken to attack St Lucia, a letter from Lord

Stormont gave warning that Admiral d'Estaing had left to take command of the Toulon fleet. The British Isles were

weakly garrisoned and vulnerable to invasion. And France could choose the moment to sally out of her harbours

and strike. Only a great margin of initial superiority at sea could have enabled England to throttle the French

initiative; and she did not have it.

The French navy was faced with two broad strategic alternatives. It could concentrate in the English Channel and

force a decisive battle to open the way to invasion. Or it might contain the British main fleet in home waters and

strike in an overseas theatre. Invasion made little appeal to Vergennes. A victory so decisive might bring other

states into the war to redress the balance of power. 'Even if I could destroy England, I would abstain from doing so,

as from the wildest folly.' He was fighting for limited objects, and they could be attained with less risk of

international repercussions by striking at England's economic strength through her trade and colonies than by

invading her homeland.1

Vergennes therefore preferred the plan of the Ministry of Marine, which considered that the French navy lacked

the decisive superiority to win a battle of annihilation with the rigid linear tactics of the day. Nor had the French

much confidence in their ability to match the British fleet in equal combat. In spite of the efforts to reform the

French service since the last war, they felt that the Royal Navy was trained in the tradition of victory and at least

partly seasoned by three years of war service. They would enjoy 'l'avantage que donne la science et l'expérience'.

The French plan was therefore to rivet the attention of the British home fleet in the Channel, and detach a force to

seize the local command of an

1 A. Temple Patterson, The Other Armada, 379.

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THE EUROPEAN THEATRE

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overseas theatre with decisive effect. For this purpose they had an immense asset in their Mediterranean base.

Brest could menace the Channel, but it could also be closely watched by the British Channel fleet based on

Portsmouth and Plymouth. It was much less easy for the British to control the distant exit from the Mediterranean,

though they held bases at Minorca and Gibraltar from which it might be done. The French preparations were

complete. The fleet which they had begun to assemble two years earlier in Toulon had a dozen sail of the line in

readiness. In February the command of this force was given to the Comte d'Estaing, with orders to cross the

Atlantic and strike as opportunity served. At the same time eighteen sail of the line, the forerunners of a larger

Channel fleet, were ordered to lie ready in the Brest roads to threaten the English Channel; and a large camp of

exercise was to be formed in Normandy to simulate invasion.

These preparations could not be concealed from the British government. Intelligence from inside France was

regular and accurate: so accurate that a note by Sandwich towards the end of the war asserts that even in wartime it

proved a more reliable source than the cruisers which hastily looked into Brest.1 When France made her

declaration, the Cabinet knew of the squadron arming in Brest, and of d'Estaing's departure to command at least ten

of the line at Toulon. But his destination remained a secret. All sources agreed that he would not stay in the

Mediterranean, but beyond that there was no certainty. Bancroft had written that he would strike in America, but

there was no corroboration from the Paris embassy. Was it safe to act on Bancroft's word? Or would d'Estaing join

the Brest fleet in the mouth of the Channel? Or the Spaniards at Cadiz, whose intentions were distrusted? Or was it

India? Stormont's reports from Paris did not penetrate its purpose.2

The existence of this striking force explains Lord Sandwich's anxiety to strengthen the West Indies. He had long

foreseen that a rupture with France would find England's overseas possessions in danger. But it was not an easy

decision. England had never had such a surplus of naval force that she could be strong everywhere in face of an

uncommitted enemy. The central pillar of the system evolved in the eighteenth century was the Western Squadron

or Channel fleet. It had two functions: to blockade Brest, and thus simultaneously secure the Channel and prevent

the enemy from despatching an expedition overseas; and to act as a strategic reserve, which could detach flying

squadrons in pursuit of enemy expeditions or task forces to support British overseas offensives. From the Channel,

said Lord Sandwich, 'all our exterior efforts are derived'.3

1 Sandwich, IV, 329.

2 SP 78/306, Stormont's of 3, 12, 15 and 16 March 1778; Patterson 978.

3 Sandwich, I, 3335.

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The system has sometimes been represented as a straight alternative to an evil system of dispersion. But this is too

simple. In the first place local squadrons were needed on foreign stations, to protect the trade and garrisons in

quieter periods and meet the first impact of an emergency till relief arrived from home. Secondly, the blockade of

Brest was a more complex operation than is sometimes allowed. Its usual form in the eighteenth century was an

open blockade, with the fleet lying in an anchorage on the coast of England and cruisers off the enemy port. This

left the Atlantic wide open to the French, and the only method which offered a good chance of intercepting enemy

expeditions was a close blockade off Brest by the battle fleet itself. But a close blockade was so taxing that it was

never adopted as the regular method till after the conquest of scurvy at the end of the century, and in 1778 the only

precedent for it was Hawke's blockade of 1759. The parliamentary opposition argued when it suited their purpose

that Sandwich should have kept the fleet off Brest and thus throttled the enemy's overseas efforts at the source; but

in attacking the Ministry's orders of 1778 to Keppel, Lord Howe revealed a contrary opinion, which his experience

in the next war was to confirm. He told the House of Commons that 'stationing a large fleet off the coast of France,

was a very improper and hazardous measure'. The ships were exposed to great damage, the crews became sickly,

and any southerly wind put the fleet in peril from the difficulty of weathering Ushant. 'A station off Brest', he

concluded, 'was a dangerous station, and should never be taken but upon great emergencies.'1

Keppel was never as explicit as this; but on one aspect of the policy of keeping the seas he was very positive. This

aspect was winter cruising. The Ministry was blamed, both then and subsequently, for not attempting to intercept

de Grasse when he left Brest in March 1780.2 For such a winter interception there was a precedent in Hawke's

autumn cruise of 1759. But even Hawke had acted against his better judgment under pressure from Anson, and

Keppel condemned the system utterly while he commanded the Channel fleet. 'The French can have no better wish

than to know you keep your large fleet collected at sea in the winter: their fleet in port quiet, recruiting and waiting

the moment of the storm's separating and demolishing your fleet, while theirs remains perfect to go upon some

settled service when the English fleet is in port from disaster and sickness.'3 Middleton, who was responsible for

the fleet's repairs and upkeep, was equally opposed to keeping it at sea in the winter.

But the decisive objection to a close blockade was the lack of a margin of superiority to allow for refits. In the

Napoleonic Wars a superiority of one

1Parl. Hist., XX, 2023.

2 Richmond, Navy in India, 1379.

3 Sandwich, II, 166.

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