Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
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drag on for some years a contemptible existence as a commercial state'. Minorca seemed a small price for an
alliance which might save the country.1
Catherine refused the bait, for her real preoccupation was with the Ottoman Empire, and she could not afford
serious distractions in the west. Nor could the Austrians be tempted by an offer to re-open the Scheldt.2 The
mediation, however, proceeded, and the terms which were produced in May had much to attract England. France at
that moment was willing if necessary to sacrifice the Americans for the sake of peace: to accept a basis of uti
possidetis which would leave England in possession of South Carolina and Georgia, much of North Carolina, a
foothold in Virginia, the neighbourhood of New York, and a base in the Penobscot River which would enable her
to lay effective claim to most of Maine. But the very reasons which made Vergennes willing induced the British
Cabinet to reject the opportunity. The French finances were near the breaking point, their joint campaign with the
Spaniards had misfired in the West Indies, the Americans seemed to be near the end of their physical and moral
resources. The southern colonies were collapsing one by one before the British advance, and the French
commanders and Minister in America were in despair with the rebels. In February Franklin had passed on a
solemn warning from Washington that the situation demanded the most vigorous efforts or a peace. For many
months Vergennes had feared a separate peace between Spain and England: if the operations of 1781 did not bring
the success which had eluded the allies for four successive years, a settlement would be inevitable.3
Most of this was known to the British government. 'This war like the last will prove one of credit', the King had
recently said; and there was evidence, some of it in the captured papers of Henry Laurens, that the short purse of
France was nearly empty. Almost at the moment of the mediation, intelligence from France reported the dismissal
of Neckar for opposing further war expenditure, and the consequent fall on the French Exchange. 'The best men',
said the report, 'consider M. Neckar's retreat as a fatal stab to the credit of France, and to the independence of
America'. The hope of a French financial collapse was widely held. 'One lucky blow in the West Indies will give us
peace', General Murray wrote from Minorca, 'for I judge the enemy finds the expense of the war as intolerable as
we do.'4
1 Sandwich, IV, 236; Walpole, Last Journals, II, 442; G 32023, 3230, 3237, 32456; Knox, 272, 291; Bemis,
Diplomacy of the American Revolution, 1801; Malmesbury Corr., I, 299, 31521, 3236. See also Madariaga,
23942, 2845.
2 Madariaga, 287.
3 Bemis, Diplomacy of the American Revolution, 1817, and Hussey-Cumberland Mission, 11324.
4 Bemis, Hussey-Cumberland Mission, 111; G 3155, 3166, 3249, 3315, 3342, 3344, 3347, 3355, 3357; Knox,
176; Mahon, Murray, 392; Knox, Extra-Official State Papers, I. 27.
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In their financial embarrassment the French were known to be deeply worried by the condition of the Americans.
Since the spring of 1780 a steady trickle of reports had told of the rebel's weakness and disunity. Much of this was
opinion, but there were facts to support it: the collapse in South Carolina, the separatism of Ethan Allen in
Vermont, the treason of Arnold. In Paris Silas Deane was hatching further treachery. In the New Year there were
two serious mutinies in Washington's army, and Clinton soared from sullen gloom to the peaks of optimism. With
proper reinforcements and superiority at sea the coming campaign could break the rebellion: 'I have all to hope,
and Washington all to fear.'1
As this picture unfolded in London, it seemed likely that if England could keep afloat, American resistance would
at last collapse. Germain's hopes rested on Cornwallis and his army in the south. When the news of the victory at
Camden arrived in December 1780 he was confident that Cornwallis would sweep forward into Virginia and join
hands with the force in the Chesapeake. Then perhaps the authority of Congress would at last be undermined and
public opinion in the colonies would turn in our favour. The news of rebel difficulties which accumulated in the
New Year confirmed his hopes.
Indeed [he wrote to Clinton at the end of the winter], so very contemptible is the rebel force now in all
parts, and so vast is our superiority, that no resistance on their part is to be apprehended than can materially
obstruct the progress of the King's arms in the speedy suppression of the rebellion, and it is a pleasing
though at the same time mortifying reflection when the duration of the rebellion is considered . . . that the
American levies in the King's service are more in number than the whole of the enlisted troops in the
service of the Congress.2
These were the hopes for which the British fought on. They fought for complete victory, or at the least for a peace
which would not acknowledge the right of other powers to mediate between England and her colonies. 'I am fully
convinced', North told the House of Commons in the New Year, 'that the means possessed by this country, when
vigorously exerted, constitute the only mode of obtaining a just and an honourable peace.' If the country could go
doggedly on, avoiding defeat and preventing losses,
1 Sackville, II, 160, 168, 206; CL, Germain, June 1780 (intelligence), 27 Aug. 1780, 24 and 27 Feb. 1781;
G 3262; Wortley, 171; Lothian, 382; CO 5/101, f. 10 et seq. When Wilmington, North Carolina, was
occupied by the British, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence wrote a lament which
compares with anything written by the English opponents of North: 'A country on the verge of ruin a
corrupt or what is worse an ideot Assembly an indolent executive Treasurers without money a military
without exertion punctilios superseding duty . . .' etc. (Duke University MSS., 13 Feb. 1781, Wm. Hooper to
James Iredell).
2 CL, Clinton, 5 Dec. 1780, 7 Feb. and 7 March 1781, from Germain.
25
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the enemy might relinquish the field. It would be a narrow thing, and the hurricane in the Leeward Islands had
unseated the naval calculations. But in the New Year there were still two reasonable grounds to hope that the naval
balance could be restored. The Spaniards would probably give battle to Darby when he relieved Gibraltar, and
suffer a second defeat; and Rodney had enough ships in the Leeward Islands to intercept and beat the French
reinforcements before they reached Martinique.
On the French side of the Channel Neckar might be silenced, but Vergennes did not deceive himself. Like George
III he knew that credit and time were vital: 'This war has gone too slowly; it is a war of hard cash, and if we drag it
out the last shilling may not be ours.' The coming campaign must be decisive, said a memorandum to the
Spaniards: 'everything urges us to end the war; the means for waging it daily decrease, and the European situation
may change at any moment.'1
The Spaniards, however, were an obstacle to the search for a decision. They had frustrated the renewal of the
invasion plan in 1780, and after drawing the French into a Caribbean campaign had given no effective co-
operation. In the early winter Vergennes tried to interest them in another attempt to invade the British Isles in 1781;
but now they saw Gibraltar and Minorca within their grasp, and did not mean to conquer them in the Channel.
Their own plan was to concentrate the fleets in the Straits, overwhelm Britain's Mediterranean garrisons, and follow
up the victory by attacking Jamaica. They obtained a promise of six French ships of the line to join them at Cadiz.
With the lever of the Cumberland negotiations, the weaker and less efficient ally was forcing the stronger into her
wake: to the Mediterranean instead of the Channel, to Jamaica and Florida instead of the Lesser Antilles and the
rebel colonies.
An alternative to the invasion of England was to reinforce Rochambeau for a decisive effort in America.
Rochambeau's son reached Versailles late in 1780 with his demands for reinforcements and supplies. Money was
sent at once; but Vergennes hesitated to grant him troops. They might yet be needed for invading England; and the
death of the Empress Maria-Theresa and the impending mediation had plunged European affairs into uncertainty.
Nor was it clear what additional French troops could achieve in America: their arrival might merely encourage the
rebels to let their own army filter away.
These questions remained unresolved through the early months of 1781. Nevertheless a striking force was collected
in Brest, to sail in March when its destination was decided. A containing force was also prepared for the Indian
Ocean. By January the British preparations to attack the Cape had
1 Doniol, IV, 516, 544.
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been discovered and their purpose identified. The French had already been discussing a plan to reinforce the Cape
and Mauritius, and the decision was now taken. Eleven hundred troops and five sail of the line commanded by
Suffren were to leave Brest with the main striking force in March.
As these preparations went forward, the main plan at last took shape. It was decided not to reinforce America
directly from France: Rochambeau's force would remain an auxiliary corps under Washington, and the Americans
would be sent the means to keep twelve or fifteen thousand troops of their own on foot. The main fleet under de
Grasse would go to the West Indies. There it would co-operate with the Spaniards if they had a plan; and in the hot
weather it would sail north in great strength to join Ternay's squadron on the American coast. What de Grasse
should do there was left to circumstances. If the worst happened and the American army disintegrated, he had
orders to evacuate Rochambeau's corps to the West Indies: so much had the winter mutinies at Morristown shaken
the trust of the French.1
When these orders were given, the preparations were already near completion. Castries, the new Minister of
Marine, went down to Brest to super-intend the fleet's departure; and on 22 March de Grasse sailed with twenty
ships of the line for Martinique. The hopes of France went with him.
1 Doniol, IV, 54450.
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Chapter XXII
The Defence of the East Atlantic
1
Gibraltar and the Cape
The resolution on New Year's Day to send the Channel Fleet to Gibraltar had implications far graver than the
similar decision of the previous winter. Rodney's relieving force had been clear of the Channel before the end of
the year: Darby had still to receive his orders and assemble his ships and convoy. Nor was the fleet ready. Many of
his ships had been withdrawn in the early autumn to make up Hood's reinforcement for the West Indies; but the
twenty-two sail of the line which remained with him stayed at sea longer even than Hardy's fleet in 1779, for at the
end of October it put out to intercept Guichen's return from the West Indies. But the enemy did not intend to risk
Guichen and his convoy off Ushant. Their main fleet was with the Spaniards at Cadiz; and there Guichen was
brought. Early in November the whole French fleet of thirty-eight sail of the line sailed for its home port. As it
came northwards Sir Samuel Hood left Spithead for the West Indies, little suspecting the danger towards which his
convoy was steering. Happily for the British Empire the enemy was sighted off Finisterre by the Crescent frigate,
which turned northwards to search for the Channel fleet. Approaching the Channel she met Hood with his convoy,
and with this warning he held a northerly course to keep out of the enemy's track. The French entered Brest
without incident on 3 January. In the meantime Darby had returned on 21 December for his winter refit after a vain
cruise of two months in the Bay of Biscay.
Once again winter cruising had exercised a disastrous influence on future strategy. Though the relief of Gibraltar
was decided on 1 January, it was not till 13 March that Darby could sail; and such was the shortage of men that if
Amherst had had his way and withdrawn the two regiments on loan to the fleet, four or five capital ships would
have been immobilised and the expedition could never have sailed.1 Instead of a winter relief, the Channel fleet
was going to Gibraltar at the very moment when it was needed for the spring operations in home waters. Even now
his convoy was not complete. His storeships were with him; but the loading of provisions in the depot at Cork had
been held up waiting for victualling transports to return from
1 WO 34/236, pp. 403, 763; WO 34/122, ff. 823.
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abroad. They were now loaded; but to send them up the Channel at the last moment to Spithead would have been a
gamble on an alternation of westerly and easterly winds. Instead, Darby seized an east wind to take him down the
Channel, and sailed for Cork to pick up the victuallers. But by ill fortune a change of wind held the victuallers in
harbour, and ten more days were lost in sight of the bleak hills of County Cork before they could join him at sea.1
Had Darby been able to press straight on, he might have met de Grasse's West India reinforcements as they sailed
from Brest and changed the course of history. But he was still far off on the Irish coast. The shipping shortage had
combined with the winds to impose a fatal delay.
Darby took the whole fleet of twenty-eight sail of the line, for thirty-two Spaniards were lying in his course to
intercept him. His ships were now well manned and fitted, and if he had to fight the odds would not be too heavy.
Against the lengthening chances at sea a victory would have counted heavily. But the delay in sailing cheated the
Ministry of this hope; for when Darby at last approached Gibraltar the Spaniards had gone into Cadiz for
provisions. Darby's convoy unloaded under fire in Gibraltar bay, and when the fleet obtained a wind to take it
home, thirty or forty empty transports were ready to accompany it.2
The movement of the Channel fleet was used to cover the Cape expedition, which sailed with it. The naval force
was commanded by Commodore Johnstone; and very ungrateful he was, for he complained loudly that the
cancelling of his River Plate enterprise would cost him a hundred thousand in prize money. Johnstone was a hot-
tempered politician with modest naval experience but a lot of influence. He had never commanded a post-ship till
1779, when he was given a small squadron on the coast of Portugal; but he was a nephew of Lord Elibank and
General Murray, and an East India House politician. His military colleague was General Medows, a veteran of the
Seven Years War and commander of the brigade which had repulsed d'Estaing at St Lucia: a thorough professional
soldier, an excellent tactician and manager of troops; sweet-tempered and popular but of firm character. He had
three battalions of infantry, though most of them were still raw recruits3; and Johnstone's task force was two ships
of the line and three of fifty guns.
Nine days after the British fleet's departure, there sailed from Brest de Grasse's great fleet and convoy for the West
Indies; and with it went Suffren's five sail of the line and 1,100 troops for the Cape and Mauritius.
1 Keppel, II, 349 ff.; Sandwich, IV, 330, 348.
2 G 3229, 3262; Eg. 2135, f. 156; Sandwich, IV, 46, 34.
3 Actually three battalions, (2/42nd., 98th, 100th), two of them very strong, and four Additional Companies:
about 2,600 rank and file.
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The Bailli de Suffren, an obese untidy little man of energy and courage, had served under d'Estaing in the western
Atlantic, and there he had confirmed his belief that the current French naval doctrine was false. He was convinced
that the first object of a fleet must be to destroy the enemy's. On 16 April he was approaching Porto Praya in the
Cape Verde Islands for water and minor repairs when he sighted Johnstone's expedition lying in the anchorage. It
was in disorder and inferior strength, and Suffren bore down in headlong attack. He was completely unexpected,
and confusion reigned in the British fleet: Colonel Fullarton had to swim from the shore to rejoin his ship.
Somehow, through mismanagement by the French captains, Johnstone was able to beat off the enemy and pursue
them; but at nightfall he broke off the chase and rejoined his transports, leaving Suffren to make his way
unhindered to the Cape.
Johnstone lingered at Porto Praya for another fortnight, and when he reached the Cape the enemy were ready.
Suffren's troops were ashore, and the Dutch Governor, already warned by a French frigate of the British
declaration of war, had landed the guns of five Dutch East Indiamen. The British expedition had been outpaced
and thwarted. The naval officers thought at once of prize money, and wanted to switch the whole force back to the
River Plate enterprise.1 Fullarton supported them; but Medows's orders were clear. He had not been sent on a
'buccaneering party', and if the Cape could not be taken, the two battalions originally intended for the east should
proceed to India. Johnstone then formally proposed that Medows should land and attack the Cape, while warning
him that he could not guarantee to maintain communications with the shore: a characteristic device which would
have thrown the responsibility on the military commander. Medows declined the invitation, and insisted on being
forwarded to India. So Johnstone detached the convoy with two ships of the line and one fifty-gun ship; and though
he knew the strength of Suffren's force at the Cape, he adhered to the letter of his instructions and turned back with
two fifties to take some prizes to St Helena. Very different was the conduct of Medows. From a warship at sea he
had learnt of Hyder Ali's successes. In spite of peremptory orders to detach one battalion to the West Indies, he
framed his conduct to the new circumstances and took all his regiments to India. Very different might have been
the coming struggle in the east if Johnstone had acted like him.2
1 When some Dutch East Indiamen were attacked in Saldanha Bay, Captain Pasley much resented the
participation of the army and its consequent claim to a share of the spoils.
2 WO 34/135, f. 225. For further information on the above operations see Willcox in American Neptune, 1945;
Rutherford in Mariner's Mirror, 1942; Castex, Manoeuvre de la Praya; Richmond; Harlow.
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2
The Price of Gibraltar
Darby's absence left not a single ship in full operational order at home, except a few which were preparing for
foreign service. Nothing was left to molest de Grasse and Suffren, who sailed to upset the balance in the West
Indies and Indian Ocean; nothing to cover the convoys in British waters; nothing to hold the Dutch in check except
one or two bad ships which might just do for North Sea service.
When Darby sailed for Gibraltar, the forces in enemy ports were accurately known, but their destination could not
be penetrated. The French-inspired reports that they would send a force to America were treated with suspicion,
and on 7 March Germain guessed that they had still to make up their minds. Even when it was almost certain that
de Grasse had sailed, it was still not known whether his force was bound for America, the West Indies, or both; or
whether it might instead join the Spaniards at Cadiz and dispute Darby's passage to Gibraltar. The French delay in
forming their plans had made it virtually impossible to discover them in advance; but it is difficult to explain why
no cruiser observed the fleet as it left Brest or tracked its course: a sloop was sent to look into the port the day after
the enemy had sailed. In defence of the Admiralty Sandwich later maintained that the intelligence service on land
was more regular and accurate than unsupported cruisers reconnoitring Brest. This may have been true, though if
rumour is correct Stormont did not believe it: yet it did not remove the need to watch enemy fleet movements at
sea, and the fact remains that de Grasse was not shadowed. For twelve days after his departure the British Cabinet
was uncertain that he had gone.1
About 30 March it was learnt that part of the enemy fleet was bound for the Indian Ocean. Its access to the harbour
of Ceylon and the known connection of the French with Hyder Ali gave the news a serious twist. If the enemy won
control of Indian waters and landed an army, they would find an ally already lodged in the Madras Presidency, and
could overwhelm the handful of British troops and sepoys who held the sky suspended. The East India Company
appealed for help and was swiftly answered. The Monarca, 68, a prize of Rodney's Moonlight Battle, was ordered
to India, and a regiment which the Company 'thankfully' accepted was to follow in company transports. A few days
brought news still blacker. Hyder's invasion of the Carnatic had caught the British dispersed and unprepared; and
in September 1780 he had destroyed a force of nearly 4,000 men under Colonel Baillie.
1 CO 318/8, f. 23; Mundy, II, 5961; Adm. 2/1339, f. 47; Add. MSS. 38344, f. 243; Walpole, Last Journals,
II, 482.
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Amherst had already opposed the despatch of troops, with a warning that the forces at home were 16,000 below
the numbers needed for home defence. He had posed the question whether to risk a further decrease, or to send
only recruits from England and to raise Swiss or other foreign troops for the Company. When Baillie's defeat was
considered, the Cabinet attended to the warning: it resolved that only recruits should be added to the reinforcement,
and that the Company must negotiate for Swiss or Germans. But at all hazards ships had to be found, and the
Cabinet agreed to send out two additional ships of the line at once, and two more in October.1
By now it was probable that none of de Grasse's fleet was to go directly to America. The general guess was that he
would reach the West Indies without a decided superiority and too late in the season; and that after provisioning
the French islands he would go north to 'revive the dying cause of rebellion'. Yet till the Channel fleet returned
from Gibraltar, not a ship could be spared to follow him. The first charge on the country's reserves was India; for
there, as Sandwich told Rodney, everything was at stake.2
The convoy for India could not sail till Darby's return, for there was nothing to protect it against a raiding squadron
from Brest. From the first the safety of the convoys in the absence of the Channel fleet had worried Sandwich.
Cruisers went out to the westward to stop the inbound convoys and divert them north about; and the German
reinforcements collected in the Weser were sent round the north of Scotland to America instead of being brought
down the Channel to join a convoy at Spithead. To cover this northern traffic and the Baltic trade a cruiser force
commanded by Captain Stewart in a seventy-four was sent to patrol the seas between Norway and Scotland, and a
working base with a small garrison was established in the Shetlands.3 These arrangements were largely successful.
The German troops slipped away before the Dutch came out from the Texel, and the homeward bound Jamaica
convoy was met and diverted round the north of Scotland. But the cruisers missed a convoy laden with the plunder
of St Eustatius, and on 2 May it ran into a raiding squadron under la Motte-
1 Add. MSS. 38315, f. 42; WO 34/132, ff. 44, 58; WO 34/236, p. 501; G 3270, 3274, 3297, 3300, 33112,
33349. General Faucit who had negotiated the 'Hessian' treaties, re-opened negotiations in Germany; and a
Mr Erskine, who had been seeking permission to raise a regiment in Switzerland, was authorised to raise
one for the Company. But French influence in Switzerland was at a peak, and the cantons took stringent
measures to prevent Erskine from recruiting (see Giddey in Schweiz. Zeitschr. für Gesch., 1954). Eventually
two Hanoverian battalions reached India.
2 CO 318/8, f. 54; CO 5/101, f. 170; Mundy, II, 1067.
3 Half a battalion of Scottish Fencibles was convoyed to Lerwick in March, leading to representations by
Stormont on the undefended state of the Scottish coast.
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Picquet. Commodore Hotham made the signal to scatter, but two-thirds of his convoy was captured by the enemy.1
This misfortune was accompanied by intelligence that the Dutch fleet had sailed from the Texel. They had not been
expected to be ready before the end of May, and Hyde Parker was hurried off to Portsmouth to scrape a force
together. The Princess Amelia, 80, and Buffalo, 60, both unfit for foreign service, were made ready, and Sandwich
considered appropriating the two ships of the line which were waiting to sail to India. But Darby fortunately
arrived from Gibraltar on 20 May. The Channel was now safe, and on the 28th the Sultan, 74, and Magnanime, 64,
received their sailing orders for the convoy to India. Two of Darby's returning ships were ordered to the North Sea
to face the Dutch; and three more were at last spared for America, and one for the West Indies. But after their
voyage to Gibraltar they had to complete their stores to foreign service scale, and it would be some time before
they could sail. America's real protection against de Grasse was a swift pursuit from the West Indies; and knowing
that Rodney intended to come home, Sandwich begged him to remain at his post and take the critical decisions.2
The delay in despatching these reinforcements was directly caused by the decision to relieve Gibraltar. They did not
reach America till the crisis was past, and their absence added to the accumulation of misfortunes which composed
the disaster at Yorktown. Wise after the event, the Opposition led by Keppel maintained that if Darby had
forwarded part of his fleet straight to the West Indies from Gibraltar, as had been done when Rodney relieved the
fortress, the whole course of the war beyond the Atlantic would have been changed. A tidy argument can be
marshalled to support the contention. Four of Darby's ships were actually ordered to America and the West Indies
as soon as they returned from Gibraltar. If they had been equipped for foreign service before Darby sailed, and had
gone straight out to Rodney from Gibraltar, they would have reached the West Indies sooner than de Grasse with
his cumbrous convoy, and enabled Rodney to master the French.
But in strategy tidy arguments are usually achieved by ignoring the complex of facts and guesses which form
decisions. To send out ships intact and in good condition to Rodney it might have been necessary to
1 Mundy, II, 5961; CL, Germain, 20 March, to Admiralty; G 3270; Sandwich, IV, 7, 18; Adm. 2/1339, ff.
402.
2 G 3316, 3327, 3348; James, 448; Sandwich, IV, 48; Adm. 2/1339, f. 83. For the state of the naval forces at
home between March and the end of May, compare lists in Sandwich, IV, 402, 3323.
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