Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
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all confidence in himself. 'Let me advise you never to take command of an army', he said. 'I know I am hated, nay
detested by this army. . . . The Minister has used me so ill I can no longer bear with this life.'1
His state of mind percolated to the public of New York that autumn, and a new arrival in November may have
reported the common opinion when he wrote home: 'no abilities to plan, nor firmness to execute, the most trivial
military operation . . . an ignorant, capricious, irresolute commander'. Clinton was much better than that, but his
temperament was his undoing. 'I indulge a hope', wrote a loyalist who had endured the spectacle of Howe's missed
opportunities, 'that I shall yet have a chance of seeing a General that's neither a Rebel nor a Histerical Fool.'2
A demand arrived from Haldimand for 2,000 men to strengthen Canada, with which Clinton complied; and
Commodore Collier sailed soon after to repel an attack on a new post on the Penobscot River in Maine. Clinton,
aware that the naval balance in the western Atlantic was turning in the enemy's favour, began to draw the army into
a tighter perimeter round New York. There was a fresh pinprick in the middle of August when 'Light Horse Harry'
Lee surprised and almost captured Paulus Hook. Clinton was 'tremendously depressed'. The next day he sent off a
renewed demand to be recalled. He wrote that his spirits were worn out by adversity, and he had abandoned every
hope of an effort in the north. In this mood he received Admiral Arbuthnot and the reinforcements.3
The long-expected convoy brought only 3,800 rank and file, for the German and Irish recruits were to follow, and
did not arrive till 21 September, the Germans about 1,000 of all ranks. Arbuthnot's troops were very sickly after
their long confinement in the transports, and brought a fever which swept through the army and put 6,000 men into
hospital. Though the 2,000 men detached to Canada failed to get through to Quebec before the winter and returned
to Clinton, their absence and the sickness killed the northern operations, of which Clinton had already despaired.
He prepared instead to open an autumn campaign in the south.
Germain had written at the end of March to urge once more the importance of reducing Charleston in the autumn.
About the time of Arbuthnot's arrival at New York, James Simpson the Attorney-General of South Carolina
appeared from the south. He had been sent from England to Georgia in the spring with orders to cultivate a
correspondence with the back
1 Wortley, 151, 1867.
2 Verulam, 127; Nelson, 143. There is a suggestion in Hutchinson Diaries, II, 296, of a revulsion against
Clinton in England.
3 CO 5/98, ff. 2012, 287.
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country of South Carolina. He had long since urged Charleston's superiority over Savannah as a base to protect the
trade of the West Indies, and he now presented himself to Clinton with an optimistic account of opinion in South
Carolina. He was confident that a strong British force would be supported by many of the people, and that the
province could be subdued with little difficulty. Thereafter he believed that with proper management royal
government would strike firm and permanent roots.1
These were the hopes on which Clinton was now to build. He had intended to attack South Carolina in the past
summer if Grant's troops had arrived from the West Indies, and had had little doubt that he could seize Charleston
without them, though he might not be able to hold it.2 General Cornwallis and 3,000 troops prepared to embark for
the south, and Arbuthnot planned a naval diversion in the Potomac.
2
The Loss of Command at Sea
The chapter of accidents which delayed Arbuthnot's convoy has already been explained. Not so the absence of
Grant's troops which he had been ordered to return to Clinton. He had indeed promised these on receiving
Germain's letter, and Clinton had built considerable hopes on these good regiments.
On reading the order to detach towards the end of May, Grant resolved to send six regiments back to America.
Two others were serving as marines in the fleet, and he planned to keep the remaining three together on St Lucia.
His prediction that half his force would be out of action soon after it reached the West Indies had proved too
gloomy. He had arrived in the healthy winter season, and careful administration kept the sick rate in the spring
down to little more than the average rate in America. But it was still high. Of the 4,945 rank and file fit for duty
when the force arrived in December, 1,400 were sick or dead by 1 April; and by the middle of May the total had
risen to over 1,800.
The intended distribution of troops assumed a continuous protection of the British islands by the fleet; and since
Byron's arrival in the Leeward Islands he had been keeping watch on the enemy in Martinique from his new
anchorage at St Lucia. But though he knew that la Motte was on his way with reinforcements from Brest, and
cruised for a few days in the hope of intercepting him, he left his station at the beginning of June and sailed
northwards to protect the homeward-bound convoy which was gathering
1 Sackville, II, 137; CO 5/97, f. 144; and above, pp. 233 and 2567.
2 Willcox, American Rebellion, 120 n.
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at St Kitts. His absence in the northern islands was used by the French. Four hundred troops were sent southwards
past St Lucia and attacked St Vincent, whose derisory garrison capitulated at once.
In the meantime la Motte-Picquet had got safely into Fort Royal, with a desperately needed provision fleet and a
reinforcement which turned the scales against Byron. The British fleet was now slightly inferior in capital ships,
and in frigates very weak indeed, for Vaudreuil and la Motte between them had brought eight from Europe.
D'Estaing had the superiority he needed for another blow. On 2 July he attacked Grenada; and on the following day
Lord Macartney's 159 regulars and 300 militia capitulated. The richest British sugar island in the Lesser Antilles
had gone the way of Dominica and St Vincent.
Byron had returned to St Lucia on 1 July to learn that the enemy were steering for Grenada. A frigate was sent to
look into Fort Royal; but the enemy's cruiser screen kept her at a distance, and her captain wrongly reported that
thirteen ships of the line were still in the harbour. Byron concluded that only a weak detachment had gone to
Grenada, and in the hope of falling on it he made sail with twenty-one of the line and a convoy of troops. When he
sighted the island he could see d'Estaing's ships straggling out of harbour, and came down widely spread in a
General Chase to attack them before they could form their line. Before he knew that he was in the presence of a
superior force he was closely engaged. The British fleet was lucky not to lose its damaged ships in the battle, and
had d'Estaing ordered his frigates to chase the unguarded convoy, the whole of the military force would have been
taken.
Byron now knew that he had lost the command of West Indian waters. It was out of the question to escort troops to
America; and the troops themselves were now needed to defend the islands. The regiments which had been told off
for America were thrown into garrison; and once again seapower and land forces were proved to be inseparable.
For want of ships in the West Indies, the six battalions were denied to Clinton.
The loss of St Vincent was known in England at the beginning of August, and caused much concern. Grant had
been ordered to distribute his troops through the islands where garrisons were required; but in the light of
Germain's assurance of superiority at sea he had reasoned that small garrisons would make his command weak
everywhere, and that a disposable force kept together at the fleet base was the islands' best security. This reasoning
Germain acknowledged to be sound in general; but it could not apply to islands which were liable to surprise or
could not be immediately succoured by the navy, and St Vincent had been snapped up by a contemptibly small
enemy force. For the order to disperse, Germain has been savaged by
18
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Sir John Fortescue,1 who attributes to it General Vaughan's difficulty in re-concentrating the force in the following
year before he could resume the offensive. Yet Germain's order had been conditional on Grant being unable to take
the offensive; and though Grant had not acted on the order, he did so without a reminder and in spite of his own
previous reasoning as soon as the naval superiority was lost. The regiments which had been intended for America
were not kept together on St Lucia, but stationed on St Kitts and Antigua; and it was these which Vaughan had to
reassemble when he was able to go over to the offensive. It was Grant, in other words, who dispersed his force;
and he did so because the command of the sea had been lost and there was no dependence on relief by a mobile
reserve. He held only the most important islands, and held them in some strength; and there was no other means of
securing them against an enemy who controlled the water.2
3
Disintegration of the Western Theatre
The hurricane season was now approaching; and in August d'Estaing left the Leeward Islands for Haiti. From the
British fleet first Barrington and then Byron went home, leaving the enemy in a central position from which they
might move northwards to the American coast or westwards against Jamaica. D'Estaing was said to be impressing
Jamaican pilots, but he had used this artifice before.
In the western Caribbean towards which d'Estaing was pointing, the intervention of Spain had opened a series of
petty operations and great alarms. In West Florida General Campbell found it beyond his power to attack New
Orleans as Germain had suggested. His British regiment was worn out and only fit to be drafted; and the Germans
and Provincials whom he had brought from New York at the end of 1778 were too few to defend Pensacola and
simultaneously protect the settlements on the Mississippi. His only warship was an armed sloop, and a large
Spanish schooner in the mouth
1 ' . . . the folly and ignorance of Germain . . . this deplorable Secretary of State' (Fortescue, III, 275).
2 Fortescue, III, 2745, 341; CO 318/5, Germain's of 1 April and 6 Aug., and Grant's of 6 Jan., 25 May, 8 and
17 July, 10 Oct. Grant's distribution of troops was:
St Kitts
. ...3 battalions
St Lucia
. ...3 battalions
Antigua
. ...1 battalion (equivalent)
Total Strength: rank and file
fit . ...
. 1,775
sick ...
. 495
effectives ...
. 2,521
(CO 5/318, f.
19).
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of the Mississippi effectively cut his command in two. Colonel Dickson's force on the Mississippi was isolated, and
in October it was forced to surrender to the Spaniards.
Though West Florida was nominally Clinton's responsibility, it was too distant for effective communication. The
naval responsibility however lay with Sir Peter Parker on the Jamaica station, and it was to Jamaica that Campbell
looked for support. But Parker and the Governor, Colonel Dalling, were involved in operations in another quarter.
In obedience to Germain's suggestions contact was made with the Mosquito Indians. A small naval force was
cruising in the Gulf of Honduras, with Captain-Commandant Dalrymple and a dozen of his soldiers on board,
when it was learnt that two galleons were sheltering under the fort of S Fernando de Omoa. English settlers were
collected from the Bay of Honduras to swell the party, and in October Omoa was stormed and a rich treasure
taken. Dalrymple appropriated for his dozen soldiers the credit which properly belonged to the seamen and
marines. It was the opening of a curious and unhappy enterprise on the Isthmus.1
In Jamaica itself Parker and Dalling existed in a continual state of fear. Cries for help were flying to and fro across
the Gulf of Mexico. When General Prevost marched into Georgia from East Florida, he left only a few hundred
troops to hold St Augustine. The officer whom he left in command feared the Spaniards at Havana and the French
at Haiti, and appealed to West Florida and Jamaica for men and powder. But d'Estaing's central position equally
threatened Jamaica, and Sir Peter Parker and Dalling dashed off their own cry for help to New York.
Clinton received this appeal on 15 September, at the moment when he was preparing to switch his own effort to the
Carolinas. On receipt of Parker's letter, with its news that d'Estaing's fleet and transports were at Haiti, the southern
expedition was instantly dropped, and Cornwallis was embarked with 4,000 men to save Jamaica.2 On the 24th the
transports were over the bar and standing out to sea when a privateer came in with the news that d'Estaing no
longer threatened Jamaica: he was already on the coast of Georgia.
Thus for the second time Clinton's army was pinned down by the arrival of a French fleet. Mutual support between
America and the Caribbean became impossible. Grant had been unable to send his regiments to Clinton; and now
Clinton, ignorant of d'Estaing's intentions, was unable to send help to Dalling or even shift his forces within his
own command. From Quebec
1 James, Journal, 718
2 Governor Dalling very characteristically protested on learning that Cornwallis would come to supersede him
after he had borne unspecified distress, fatigue and difficulties in his quiet Jamaican backwater.
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to Tobago 55,000 British troops now lay in isolated pockets where before they had been linked by the navy.
Haldimand's thin forces in the St Lawrence basin, the scattered garrisons in the Leeward Islands, Dalling's troops in
Jamaica and the garrisons of the Floridas were strong only so long as secure intercommunication made them one
army. In Clinton's command only the main force at New York was strong in itself. Rhode Island, Halifax and
Savannah lay vulnerable to an attacker who commanded the intervening water.
Everything came to a halt. Cornwallis returned with his transports to the shelter of New York, while Arbuthnot
prepared to repeat Howe's defence of Sandy Hook, and quarrelled with Clinton about whether to reinforce Halifax.
Though he had only been at New York for a month, there had already been friction between the two commanders;
and on this occasion the old admiral told Colonel Stuart with tears in his eyes that he was tired to death of Clinton,
and abused him for his folly and want of candour. Stuart returned to Clinton, who abused Arbuthnot in the grossest
terms for his deceit and artifice. Later, however, they met and agreed to send no ships of the line to Halifax. 'This
indecision seems to be the rule of those from whose conduct the American conquest is expected', wrote Stuart.1
The most serious consequence of d'Estaing's intervention was the abandonment of Rhode Island. Realising that
they were incapable to supporting the garrison if it were attacked by a French fleet, Clinton and Arbuthnot agreed
at the end of October to withdraw it. This decision is often represented as a disastrous error. Rodney called it 'the
most fatal measure that could possibly have been taken', and described Rhode Island as the only all-weather
harbour in America. His motive was probably to discredit Arbuthnot with Germain; and it is a fact that the British
had never used Newport as a fleet base during three years of occupation. It had proved a less satisfactory winter
anchorage than had been hoped when it was taken; and Howe's ships had driven there owing to the badness of the
anchoring ground and the roughness of the sea. For cruisers there was a good anchorage at Gardiner's Island on the
north-east end of Long Island; and it was arguable that if the force which held Rhode Island could be spared for
garrison duties, it could be better employed in holding an anchorage in the Chesapeake.
Germain had already heard the arguments for evacuating Rhode Island when he learnt that it had been done, and
he gave it his approval: 'Indeed if in consequence of your withdrawing the troops from thence the southern colonies
are recovered this winter, the wisdom of the measure will be fully manifested and the authors universally
applauded.' The strongest argument for retaining Rhode Island was the negative one of denying it to the enemy.
1 Wortley, 161.
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As Lord Howe wrote, 'd'Estaing will be found a more troublesome neighbour, than in our time, if he makes his
headquarters at Rhode Island'; and in 17801 a French fleet and army did indeed find there the secure base from
which they contributed to the victory at Yorktown. But Arbuthnot and Clinton had immediate realities to face. Its
possession tied up 5,000 troops and half a dozen warships at a time when all quarters were crying out for help. And
if d'Estaing came north it could not be relieved: Howe had barely been able to save it in 1778, and Arbuthnot with
only five ships of the line could certainly not save it from d'Estaing's twenty. Five thousand troops might make a
new Saratoga for a possession whose value was small to Britain and uncertain to the enemy; troops which were
needed for the coming expedition to South Carolina. It is true that the evacuation eventually assisted the enemy, but
in war it is impossible to insure against every risk.1
D'Estaing had first proposed a return to America in the previous spring, suggesting a joint expedition with
Washington against Halifax or Newfoundland. Washington had been discouraging. He could not spare the troops
for these divergent objects; and he doubted whether New York could be attacked, though the French might burn
the British transports and attack Staten Island. D'Estaing remained in the West Indies throughout the summer; but
in August he received an appeal for help from the Governor of South Carolina. Prevost was threatening Charleston;
and the Governor's appeal was supported by French representatives on the spot. They painted a frightening picture
of confusion: shortage of regular troops, a feeble undisciplined militia, and quarrelling leaders. But they believed
that if the French fleet could appear in September, the British army and flotilla could be destroyed by a single
stroke.
D'Estaing could see the difficulties; but his original orders had demanded a coup d'éclat to demonstrate the value
of French support, and he was influenced by his failure at Rhode Island in 1778. He warned the American
Governor that his absence from the West Indies would have to be brief, and that success would depend on the
speed and promptitude of the American troops. 'M. Rutledge m'a demandé de venir frapper un coup, c'est tout ce
que je peux.' On 1 September he swooped on the coast of Georgia with twenty ships of the line and 5,000 troops.
Surprise was complete. The fifty-gun ship Experiment fell into his hands with pay for the troops in Georgia; so did
a frigate and two storeships. But
1 CL, Germain, 10 Oct. 1779, William Pulteney to Germain; CL, Clinton, 4 Dec. from Germain;
Huntington Library, HO 15 (13 Dec., Lord Howe to Captain Curtis). For some contemporary estimates of
Rhode Island as a base, see Pulteney's letter cited above; Mundy, Rodney, I, 42832; and for alternative
bases, Sandwich, IV, 174, 180, 196, 197.
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here his luck ended. Maitland's troops at Beaufort slipped through his fingers, and made their way south by creeks
and inlets to rejoin Prevost in Savannah. D'Estaing was on their heels, and on 16 September he summoned the town
to surrender. But Prevost had two great assets: an able Engineer officer, and the brave Seventy-first Highlanders.
When the enemy's batteries opened on 3 October his little force was ready. For six days cannon and mortars
pounded the town, and as time went by d'Estaing grew increasingly uneasy. The season was late, his anchorage
bad, his seamen and guns on shore. At last he persuaded General Lincoln to cut short the siege by attempting to
storm. Before daybreak on the 9th the French and Americans assaulted. A redoubt was penetrated; but a
determined counter-attack by two companies of the Sixtieth and a party of Marines drove the enemy back with
heavy loss. D'Estaing was wounded in the fight; and he gave up as he had given up at New York, Rhode Island
and St Lucia. Troops, stores, and guns were reembarked, and before the end of October the French had quit the
coast of America for the second time.
While Clinton and Arbuthnot awaited the outcome of d'Estaing's operations, they had pressed on with their
preparations for the expedition which they had planned against South Carolina. The news of the enemy's repulse at
Savannah reached them on 18 November, and they waited only to be sure that the French fleet had left the coast.
Before the end of the year Clinton sailed with his expeditionary force for Georgia. Large-scale operations in the
northern colonies were over, and the great adventure in the south had begun.
The American operations of 1779 have been called 'the disjointed offensive'. The name is misleading. It was not a
single offensive, but a series of spasmodic local efforts by forces crippled by external circumstances. Nor was it the
realisation of Germain's conception.
For it was not the lack of a plan which disjointed the operations, but the maritime failure to secure the early
passage of Arbuthnot's convoy of reinforcements and the command of the western Atlantic. The retention of a large
fleet in the Channel to meet the French and Spaniards, and the last-minute failure to reinforce the West Indies,
gave France the game in the west: it was only good fortune that averted the worst consequences in the Leeward
Islands and Georgia. Britain's American strategy was strangled. Only at New York was there a disposable force to
retain the initiative; but Clinton was distracted by cries for help from Jamaica, Halifax and Quebec. He was obliged
to abandon Rhode Island, and his expedition to the southern colonies was delayed for three months. Whatever the
condition of the rebel colonies, whatever the grounds for believing that capitulation was near, a shadow hung over
the British path of conquest: the shadow of the French fleet.
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Chapter XVI
The Defence of England
1
The Invasion Plan
Hitherto Spain had remained neutral because she had settled her quarrel with England's ally Portugal, and because
in the way of her ambitions there stood rebellious America, a fatal example to her own colonies. Nor were her own
resources such that she could lightly engage them. Nevertheless she longed to wipe out her past defeats. On her
own coasts there were Gibraltar and Minorca to be regained, and beyond the seas Jamaica and Florida. In
Honduras there were British settlements to dislodge; and she hoped for a share in the Newfoundland fisheries. The
Foreign Minister, Floridablanca, was determined on war. But he was playing a devious game in the political
thickets of Madrid, and before he could commit his country he had been forced to concede to King Charles III his
wish to mediate.
Vergennes disliked the delay, but was forced to defer to the temper of the Spanish Court. A further consideration
held the allies apart: the strategy of the coming alliance. Vergennes remained hostile to the idea of invading
England; but the Spaniards could not contemplate a long struggle to undermine the British economy, and hoped for
a short decisive war. One carefully planned blow against the English homeland would achieve their end. For this
they held out; and when the indecisive battle of Ushant had convinced Vergennes of his need of the Spanish fleet,
Floridablanca was able during the course of the winter to shepherd him gradually into accepting the Spanish
strategy. By the beginning of March Vergennes was converted to invasion.1
Many plans for invading England had been examined in the past eighty years. The Comte de Broglie's of 1765, for
a landing in Sussex and a march on London, offered the most decisive results. But Vergennes still feared that the
other Powers would take fright at so resounding a victory. He preferred a more limited success. England's public
wealth was believed to be an unstable credit structure founded on public confidence; and an attack on Portsmouth
would not only blast her naval power but cause a panic which would wreck her credit system. The plan which
Vergennes proposed was to concentrate fifty French and Spanish ships of the line off Corunna by the middle of
May, and establish command of the English Channel. Twenty thousand troops would cross from Normandy to seize
first the Isle of Wight,
1Patterson, The Other Armada, 3947.
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and then a beachhead at Gosport from which to shell and burn the Portsmouth dockyard. Subsidiary operations
might be launched against Bristol and Liverpool, and afterwards against the victualling depot at Cork; and if the
Isle of Wight attack miscarried, Plymouth might be made the main object. In the couple of months which followed
the French proposal, the plan was extended under Spanish pressure to include the capture and occupation of
Portsmouth itself; and the military force was raised to 30,000 men.1
In this plan the time factor was vital. The Spaniards insisted that their ships must return at the end of August,
before the weather made navigation hazardous in the Channel; and in any case a longer cruise would strain the
victualling arrangements and tell on the health of the crews. This deadline gave the allies four months from the
beginning of May to concentrate the fleets on the Spanish coast, train them in combined manoeuvres, win the
command of the Channel, and accomplish the invasion. Until late in April Vergennes believed that the Brest fleet
would be ready to sail on 1 May and could join the Spaniards in the middle of the month; but when d'Orvilliers
arrived in Paris on 21 April he revealed to the Minister's disgust that he could not sail before the end of May. The
sailing date was put back to early June, and the Brest fleet put to sea five weeks behind its schedule. But
Vergennes little suspected how much further the Spaniards would fall behind their promises.
D'Orvilliers reached the rendezvous near Corunna on 10 June, where he was joined before long by two ships from
Toulon which completed the French component to thirty of the line. The Spaniards had originally been intended to
contribute twenty, and to send another twenty to blockade Gibraltar or pursue Arbuthnot's convoy; but to ensure an
overwhelming superiority in the Channel they agreed to transfer sixteen ships to the main force, making it a vast
armada of sixty-six sail of the line. But where were the Spaniards? After making every conceivable excuse and
betraying his repugnance to the French, the Admiral of the eight Ferrol ships at last came out and joined
d'Orvilliers on 2 July. But though Vergennes had begged the Spaniards to lose no time by waiting for news that the
Brest fleet had sailed, the Cadiz fleet had not sailed till 23 June; and meeting the north winds which blow on the
coast of Portugal at that season, it did not reach the rendezvous till 23 July.
The French had now been waiting for six weeks. They had been hurried to sea without their full four months'
supply of water and provisions, and many ships were without surgeons or adequate medical supplies. The fleet had
now consumed half its victuals, and fevers and smallpox had begun to ravage the crews. Time was running low.
But though the French signal codes had
1 Patterson, 5, 7, 467, 149.
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