Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
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'the loaves and fishes' had caused too much trouble already between the services and within the navy. But
Rodney's own conduct does not bear close scrutiny, and he offered provocation which a wiser man than Arbuthnot
might have found intolerable. He had come to America to fight Guichen; and since Guichen had gone to Europe
he had no good reason for staying. Though he assumed the command of the station the moment he arrived, his flag
never met Arbuthnot's; and while the battle fleet tossed in Gardiner's Bay, Rodney remained at New York to
plunder Arbuthnot's resources and mar his dispositions. He stripped the storehouses, impressed 400 seamen, and
carried off two frigates on his departure. Muddle and friction were the result. A convoy was about to fetch urgently
needed supplies from Halifax. Rodney countermanded it, but did not inform Arbuthnot; and when three victuallers
arrived from England on passage to Halifax Arbuthnot allowed them to proceed, imagining that supplies were
already being shuttled from their destination.1
Rodney did not wholly ignore operations. He arrived full of the idea of attacking Rhode Island, but when Clinton
showed him the correspondence with Arbuthnot he promptly dropped it. Clinton instead sent off the Chesapeake
expedition which he had planned before the French arrival, and for which Rodney's presence allowed an ample
naval superiority. On 16 October General Leslie sailed for Virginia with 2,500 men. A month later Rodney
departed for the West Indies with his ten sail of the line, leaving eight with Arbuthnot, while two returned to
England. He carried with him a powerful artillery of invective to use against the commanders in America. The war
there, he wrote to Sandwich, was being conducted with 'a slackness inconceivable in every branch'; every useful
post which was taken was unaccountably evacuated; and the abandoning of Rhode Island had been 'the most fatal
measure that could possibly be adopted'. On the last point he spoke from ignorance of the circumstances. His
criticisms of Clinton's inertia may have been just, but they were vitiated by a fact which Willcox has remarked: his
own demands for action 'had been ineffective because they had never been made'.2
1 Sackville, II, 1901; Sandwich, III, 259; Adm. 1/486, ff. 414, 450, 464, 634 et seq.
2 Mundy, I, 42832; James, 239; JMH 1945, pp. 3135.
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Chapter XX
The Home Front
1
The Command of the Channel Fleet
As Graves and Walsingham sailed for the Western Atlantic, Hardy returned from his winter quarters at Greenwich
to resume the command of the Channel fleet. The augeries were not favourable, for the slackness and indiscipline
of which Rodney had complained are confirmed from other quarters. Middleton mentioned it in connection with
the difficulty of introducing carronades. It had infected the lower deck, and when Graves's ships mutinied for their
pay, Captain Samuel Hood, then Commissioner of Portsmouth Dockyard, wrote to his brother of the 'wonderful
spirit of discontent in almost every ship which I am afraid is encouraged; this I am well assured of, proper
exertions to prevent it is not used. Such a want of discipline and order throughout the fleet was never known
before, or such a want of regard and attention to the good of the King's service. The negligence of officers in
general is really astonishing, and God only knows to what extent the mischief will go.'1 This was the general
refrain. The seamen took their lead from the ships' officers; and the officers' slackness was tolerated by the
admirals. The fleet did not need a better government or a better cause. It needed a better commander.
Sandwich believed that by wary management he was laying the hydra of faction asleep. His letters to Rodney
showed the greatest care not to drive him the way of other commanders. He greeted the victory over Langara with
the warmest praise, and claimed the credit for Rodney's receiving the thanks of Parliament and a pension. 'The
worst of my enemies', he wrote, 'now allow I have pitched upon a man who knows his duty, and is a brave, honest,
and able officer. I will not tire you with panegyric' a pleasant fancy 'but am not the less eager in dealing out all
around me the praises due to your merit.'2
At the same time, however, Sandwich was anxious to do justice to his disgraced friend Palliser. There had been
some support in the House of Commons for employing him; and encouraged by this Sandwich formed the plan of
giving him Hardy's Governorship of Greenwich Hospital. He intended to compensate Hardy with the Lieutenant-
Generalcy of Marines. Unfortunately North had already thought of the Marines for Rodney, and Barrington
1 Sandwich, III, 275.
2 Sandwich, III, 2057.
23
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had also applied for them. The King, who opposed Palliser's reinstatement because it would 'occasion noise' (as
indeed it did), warned North of Sandwich's real motive for blocking Rodney's claim. Sandwich neatly outflanked
them all by offering Rodney the Marines as an alternative to his pension, knowing well that he was anxious to
provide for Lady Rodney, on whom half the pension would devolve. Rodney chose the pension.1
As matters turned out, Hardy did not have to be bought out of Greenwich. On 18 May, on the eve of receiving his
orders for the Channel fleet, he dropped dead of a fit. A successor was needed at once, and the command was
offered to Barrington. But Barrington since his return from the West Indies was a man with a grievance. He was
dissatisfied with the recognition his capture of St Lucia had received, and when he had been asked to return to the
Leeward Islands he had told Sandwich that he would never act as a Commander-in-Chief again. He now came to
London, and in spite of Sandwich's persuasions refused the Channel command. He said that the strain and anxiety
would kill him, and advised the First Lord to send for Keppel. Mulgrave interpreted this as a deep plot on
Barrington's part to become First Lord himself; but his real motive seems to have been the one he gave to
Sandwich, that he could not face the strain. He had no confidence in the Admiralty; and a couple of days later he
opened his heart to Middleton. 'A man must see with my eyes, and have my feelings, before he can account for my
refusing the command. If our superiors had those feelings, and only their King and country's interest at heart, we
might in time be ourselves again. Had I been in command, what I have seen since I have been here would have
made me run mad. A total relaxation of discipline, and the rule laid down by a great man that we are all alike, must
in the end be productive of bad consequences.' A stouter heart and stronger nerves were wanted to reform the
Channel fleet.2
Above all energy and drive were needed. 'If you wish success in your armies or fleets', Middleton advised
Sandwich, 'look for persons of abilities of the middle age I mean about forty to conduct them.' But Barrington's
refusal forced the Admiralty back on Francis Geary, who was aged about seventy. He was much liked as a man,
and was not a politician. But more was needed. Since the previous autumn Kempenfelt had been preaching the
doctrine that the fleet needed a driving personality. He did not subscribe to the notion that some magic in the
British breed made them better seamen
1 Knox, 165; G 2951, 2960; Sandwich, III, 2089. Palliser's appointment does more credit to Sandwich's
personal loyalty than to his political discretion. It brought on the most acrimonious and personal debate in
the House of Commons which Wraxall could remember in fourteen years.
2 G 3030; Sandwich, II, 3634, III, 281; Barham, I, 366; Barrington Papers, II, 33741.
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than the French. In Keppel's campaign the enemy had managed their ships like seamen, and their frigates had
shown an alertness not equalled by the British. 'The men who are best disciplined, of whatever country they are,
will always fight the best.' But Geary was no more a leader than Hardy had been. He had been third in command
to Hawke, but had never held an independent seagoing command, and had not been to sea at all for many years.
'The present person', wrote Kempenfelt, 'is brave, generous, and may perhaps have been a good officer; but he is
wholly debilitated in his faculties, his memory and judgment lost, wavering and indeterminate in everything.' It
was as well that the major operations of 1780 were not in the Channel.1
2
The Channel Operations
Sandwich's promise to have thirty sail of the line ready for home service by 1 May was not an easy undertaking to
fulfill. The six prizes of the Gibraltar campaign had arrived at the beginning of March, and were promptly
surveyed and taken into service. But in offering the Mediterranean command to Commodore Elliot, Sandwich had
to warn him that he would not be allowed to fly his flag in a ship of the line. In present circumstances we could not
weaken the home fleet except in the hope of obtaining a superiority elsewhere. England could not be superior in
the Mediterranean, so recently a domain of the British navy, and a single ship of the line at Gibraltar would merely
be thrown away from the defence of Britain.2
Though the enemy had also dispersed their forces abroad, and did not intend an invasion, they could still assemble
nearly fifty sail of the line in European waters. But from the beginning there was no settled policy. The Spaniards
were obsessed with the siege of Gibraltar; and the French, uneasy about the Cumberland negotiations in Madrid,
were forced to defer to their wishes. 'Rien de nouveau pour le présent en Europe', Vergennes reported to Ternay at
the beginning of June. 'Il paroit que la campagne s'y passera en observation et que les grands coups s'il doit s'en
porter se fraperont dans les Amériques.'3 Seven French sail of the line had accompanied the Spaniards home to
Cadiz in the winter, and some vague idea was canvassed for a concentration there to command the mouth of the
Channel in the late summer. All this was unknown to the British government. What was apparent, however, was
that the enemy had already in part effected at Cadiz the concentration which had cost them so many vital weeks in
1779. Seven more ships of the line were believed to be fitting out at Toulon to join the main force; and there was
every reason to expect that the whole armada would eventually work its way northward
1 Barham, I, 2978, 311, 329, 333; Sandwich, III, 275, 280.
2 G 2962; Sandwich, III, 208.
3Sic (Doniol, IV, 287 n.).
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to the Channel. All that lay in the power of the British fleet was to prevent such ships as remained in Brest from
joining the enemy concentration.
Geary hoisted his flag on 24 May. His fleet was still six short of the thirty which Sandwich had promised, but
another ten would be ready as soon as men came in. The ships immediately ready were powerful, thirteen of them
of eighty guns and above, and none below seventy-four. They had moreover the inestimable advantage of copper.
When Richard Cumberland embarked at Portsmouth in April for his mission to Spain, he walked Father Hussey
round the dockyard so that he could see the tremendous display of stores which backed the fleet; and everything
which they saw afloat floated on copper. The invention had proved its worth, and enthusiasm resounded on all
sides. 'The Courageux's copper has answered beyond my hopes', Mulgrave had written in the last campaign, 'as her
superiority in sailing is hardly credible.' Rodney declared that without copper-bottomed ships, he would not have
brought Langara to action, and begged for all that Sandwich could send him. Middleton believed that if the navy
could continue to stop Dutch shipments of copper to France and prevent the export of British rolled plates, the
British lead in coppering could be maintained. 'This first of all naval improvements seems at this critical period the
means which Providence has put into our power to extricate us from present danger.'1
On 27 May the Admiralty ordered Geary to go to sea as soon as twenty-four ships of the line were ready, and
prevent the junction of the Cadiz and Brest fleets. He sailed on 8 June, hastened by a letter from old Lord Hawke
urging him to get off Brest and 'watch those fellows as close as a cat watches a mouse', and till nearly the end of
the month he cruised off Ushant watching for the French. But on the 28th he fell back to a station off the Lizard,
pleading indeterminately his orders to protect the homeward-bound convoys and to prevent the enemy's
concentration.
In the meantime a despatch had arrived from Commodore Johnstone on the coast of Portugal which faced the
Cabinet with a difficult decision. Enemy squadrons were cruising off Finisterre and Cape St Vincent to intercept
the British East and West India convoys. Should the Admiralty be ordered to detach from the Channel fleet to
protect the convoys on the far side of the Bay? Or should the trade be risked to ensure the defence of home waters
and the Soundings? On the 24th the Cabinet resolved that Geary should detach an admiral with ten sail of the line
to cruise for not more than a month beyond the Bay.2
1 CL, Germain, 21 April, Cumberland to Germain; Sandwich, III, 34, 1756, 201; G 3510.
2 G 3085; Barrington Papers, II, 3435.
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These orders were peremptory; but when he received them off the Lizard Geary hesitated. A Council of Flag
Officers was called; and in view of the enemy's strength it was agreed not to divide the fleet. Instead the whole
force sailed southwards for Finisterre. The recruits for America had even now not sailed, and Knox asked the
Admiralty to hold them up till Geary returned to protect them. Germain derided the precaution: 'I trusted to the
natural sloth of sea operations . . . and all I pray is that your precautions may not be better attended to than you
desired.' His scepticism was justified. The troops grew sickly, the campaigning season waned, the Admiralty was
sent peremptory orders that they should sail. Yet in the middle of August the recruits were still not away, and in
spite of a favourable wind it looked as though the convoy would be held up for the convenience of the Treasury. 'I
am sorry the money is likely to delay our transports from sailing', Germain wrote to Knox on the 13th, 'but the
easterly wind seems so steady that I flatter myself they will go in spite of Admiralty, Treasury, etc.' His patience
with naval arrangements wore thinner as the seasons passed.1
Geary returned off Ushant without sighting the enemy, and at the end of July the Jamaica convoy made its landfall
safely: 'very heartening to the fat and greasy citizens', the odious Eden reported to Lord Carlisle, 'and not
unacceptable to the public purse'.2 He rubbed his hands too soon. A fine southerly wind carried an outward bound
convoy to sea for the East and West Indies, escorted by Captain Moutray in the Ramillies, 64. Though the enemy
were known to be cruising off Cadiz for the trade, he was ordered to rendezvous at Madeira, and his course took
him straight through the danger area which Geary had just left. On 9 August, 250 miles west of Cape St Vincent,
he ran into the enemy fleet. Against thirty-two sail of the line Moutray could do nothing to save his merchantmen,
and he made off pursued by the fast squadron of the enemy. Of his convoy only three ships escaped. Sixty-one fell
into the hands of the enemy: tall East Indiamen, and storeships, troops and merchandise much needed in the West
Indies. The loss was valued at £1½ million, and 3,000 prisoners were taken. It was a fearful blow, not least to the
Cumberland negotiations in Madrid.
When news of the disaster arrived, Geary and his fleet were at Spithead. In spite of orders to stay at sea as long as
possible, he had been compelled to return for refreshment by the mounting scurvy, which had attacked one in
seven of his men. Sandwich was as sorry to see him in port as he had been to see Hardy, and as anxious to get him
away. The loss of another convoy, he told Geary, 'would occasion such distress to this country that no one can tell
the consequences it might have'. Two regiments were shipped as marines
1 Knox, 168; CL, Knox, 13 Aug. from Germain; CO 5/255, p. 27.
2 Carlisle, 437.
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to make up Geary's complements, and he was ordered to detach a squadron at once to protect the inward bound
convoys if he could not take the whole fleet to sea. Geary replied by asking where he should cruise, as he could
not simultaneously hinder the enemy's concentration and look for the homeward trade. The King acknowledged the
dilemma, and applauded his wisdom in throwing the decision on the Admiralty. Before the end of August,
however, the East and West India convoys were home, and North asked Sandwich to reconsider the purpose of
detaching. The order was cancelled, and Geary was ordered to take the whole fleet to sea when it was ready.1
Geary's exchanges with the Admiralty made Barrington rejoice that he had refused the command. He suspected
that the Board were preparing to lay all that went wrong on Geary's shoulders. To his brother the Bishop of
Llandaff he denounced 'the duplicity and Jesuitical Correspondence of the Admiralty, who are at present frightened
out of their senses . . . the wickedest herd that ever good men served under'. Holding these views, he was dismayed
when Geary broke down. On 27 August the Commander-in-Chief applied for sick leave with the support of his
doctors: 'The Admiral, thro' a constant fatigue and hurry of business added to an over anxiety of mind seems to
have exhausted his strength.'2
At least one captain thought Geary would not be fit to serve again. Sandwich suggested however that he should
have a short rest while Barrington took the fleet to sea. But Barrington refused to command, and sent a letter to the
Admiralty offering to serve under any Admiral but one (presumably Palliser), or to strike his flag and make way
for a junior officer.
Three or four days passed without an answer, and Barrington grumbled to his brother Lord Barrington that
everyone was too immersed in electioneering to look to the good of the country. Here he did the Ministers an
injustice. His letter had been greeted with utter consternation. Sandwich described it as criminal3; but Barrington
was one of the most popular officers in the fleet, and his retirement would fan the flames which had been raised by
Palliser's appointment to Greenwich. Mulgrave went down to Hinchingbrooke to talk it over with Sandwich, and
they diagnosed a plot to bring back Keppel, with Geary a weak tool of Barrington. Sandwich concluded that they
must resist intimidation. Barrington must go, and the fleet be sent to sea at once under Admiral Darby. North and
the King were in complete agreement; they only feared that Sandwich's draft answer to
1 Sandwich, III, 2902; Adm. 2/1338, ff. 42, 46.
2 James, 246; Barrington Papers, II, 3479.
3 ' . . . it is criminal in a military officer to make conditions with his Sovereign relative to his serving'
(Williams, 208).
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Barrington was too equivocal and would give him an opportunity to change his mind. The discussion was cut short
by a second letter from Barrington. Geary had handed over his orders, and Barrington had refused them and
handed the fleet over to the Port Admiral. This was so improper that the King could wait no longer. Since North
had set out for Oxfordshire for the election, the King himself sent the order to the Admiralty for Barrington to
strike his flag.1
To Pye went the Lieutenant-Generalcy of Marines which Barrington had sought. Nor was Barrington employed
again by the North Ministry, though he returned after its fall as second-in-command in the Channel, and for a
short time commanded off Ushant in the absence of Howe. Darby took over the Channel fleet and joined the Board
of Admiralty, and Drake was transferred from the Downs to take a flag in the fleet for the remainder of the
campaign. Darby had been promoted by Sandwich, apparently in order to preside at Palliser's court-martial, and
had first hoisted his flag in the Channel fleet when Harland refused to serve in 1779. Now he succeeded to the
chief command through the defection of another senior. He was hitherto undistinguished, but honest and personally
respected, as even Keppel acknowledged. He had no enviable task. Barrington, by refusing to serve, had split the
fleet again; and Middleton wrote speedily to Kempenfelt begging him, whatever his private feelings, not to widen
the breach till the campaign was over. On 12 September Darby sailed to cruise and protect the trade.2
3
Repulse of the Opposition
The critical summer months had passed without a return of the alarms of 1779. Though Sandwich was shaken by
the loss of the Ramillies convoy and the defection of Barrington, no enemy fleet had approached the Channel. In
politics, too, the summer brought a respite; for the Opposition suffered a series of tactical reverses which brought
their onslaught to a standstill.
The early months of the year had seen the Ministry riding out a great political storm, buffeted to and fro by
protectionist interests, extra-parliamentary agitation, and onslaughts in the House of Commons. By the end of
March it was at the point of collapse, and the Opposition seemed to be rushing the country gentlemen on towards
the destruction of the King's government and the system on which it rested. In this parliamentary battle Lord North
appeared at his best. His spinelessness in administration became flexibility in debate. Sober, reasonable and
courteous, he slipped through
1 Barrington Papers, II, 34951; Rutland, III, 60; Barham, I, 367; Sandwich, III, 2958, 300; G 3122, 31256.
2 Keppel, II, 346; Barham, I, 369; Sandwich, III, 302.
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his enemies' fingers, conceding the right of petitioners to be heard, and in the same breath making it clear that they
were individuals and not the nation. At the Easter recess the exhausted combatants scattered to recruit their health.
'Economical reform' had been checked; but when the House re-assembled early in April the offensive was renewed
from a different quarter: for Dunning opened the discussion of the forty Association petitions which lay on the
table. The attack was now directed against the Crown; and in a full House Dunning carried his resolution that its
powers should be diminished. Pressing their success, the Opposition carried a further motion that it was the duty of
the House to redress the abuses. 'The blow seems to me decisive', wrote Horace Walpole; and North told the King
that he must be allowed to retire at the end of the session.1
This was the climax of the assault; but the Opposition's triumph was deceptive. Radicalism was driving a wedge
between the leaders of the Associations and the essentially conservative mass of the discontented gentry. The
country gentlemen might agitate for lower taxes; but annual parliaments, reformed constituencies, and control of
the King's household expenditure struck at their sense of property and their respect for the throne. The House rose
for a week so that the young bloods of the Opposition could go down to the Newmarket races, and in their absence
the Ministry organised its forces. The independents who had followed Dunning in the heat of the chase began to
cool. On 13 April, while the Commons were still in recess, the Lords threw out the Contractors' Bill. On the 24th
the House of Commons reassembled. The largest gathering in living memory heard Dunning propose that till
grievances were redressed Parliament should not be prorogued or dissolved. It was an echo of the Long Parliament;
and by fifty votes the government beat it down.
The Ministry had survived, and the end of the session brought time to breathe. Shelburne and Rockingham were
moving apart, as the latter drew away from the radicals; and in the counties the majorities had already begun to
rebel against the caucuses which dominated the Associations. Soon events at home and abroad were to consolidate
the Ministry's success. Moderate opinion rallied against the fury of the Gordon riots; and the fall of Charleston
ignited new hope that the long American struggle would be fought through to victory.
At the beginning of June, about the time when Geary put to sea, the Protestant Association's petition against the
relief of Roman Catholics from certain minor disabilities was the signal for the worst rioting of the century. The
poor of London were a force whose uncontrollable violence filled the
1 See Butterfield, Chaps. VI and VII.
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propertied classes with horror. Since Walpole had wisely shelved the Dissenters' claim for relief the mob had not
come out for religion; but in the name of Protestantism June 1780 saw horrors unparallelled since the days of the
Stuarts. The City was given over to arson and pillage; Lord Sandwich was attacked on his way to the House of
Lords; Mansfield's house and splendid library in Bloomsbury were burnt; and even Stormont's distant villa at Ken
Wood was threatened. As troops were drawn towards the capital, the Commanders-in-Chief in the Downs and
Portsmouth were warned to watch the enemy coast in case the French should seize the opportunity to raid the
English coastline.
The crisis called for political courage. The Aldermen of the City had countenanced the outbreak in order to
undermine the Ministry, and the magistrates would not order the troops to open fire. Two Ministers kept cool
heads. Throughout the riots and their judicial aftermath Stormont acted with alertness, persistence, and fair-
mindedness; and Amherst showed himself ready if his colleagues would support him. At his request a Cabinet
meeting was hastily called on 6 June, and the military forces to crush the riots were placed under his direct control.
But the soldiers were still not empowered to shoot till the magistrates had read the Riot Act, and knowing that they
were not allowed to protect themselves they were showing signs of sulkiness. But where was the courage to issue
the order? The magistrates would not, and Amherst as a soldier could not. Lord Mansfield hedged about the law,
and no lead could be expected from the Prime Minister. 'Nothing is done', wrote Robinson, 'no line fixed, the
Cabinet to determine it No Cabinet fixed no previous meeting etc. etc.' The King presided at a meeting of the Privy
Council, and asked the opinions of those who were present on the legality of opening fire without the reading of
the Riot Act. There was much hesitation, for the suppression of the Wilkes riots had led to indictments for murder.
The King then turned to the Attorney-General, who was present as an assessor. Wedderburn gave the clear and
unequivocal answer he sought: if the mob was committing a felony and could not be prevented by other means, the
troops should be ordered to fire, and the reading of the Riot Act was unnecessary.
It was enough. The rest of the Council plucked up their courage and unanimously concurred. King George, with the
firmness whose want was to ruin the King of France within the decade, declared that as supreme magistrate he
would see the decision carried into effect,1 and signed on Order in Council himself. The restlay with Amherst. The
troops' morale was restored; and by the 8th fresh regiments were pouring into London and 'dealing death
1 According to some accounts he said that at all events there was one magistrate in the Kingdom who would
do his duty.
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