Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783

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The King had written to North as he had promised; but he enclosed the letter in a despatch box with some signed

warrants, and North had thrown the whole contents to a clerk without looking at them. The truth emerged on the

Monday morning, the 21st, when he received a sharp rebuke from the King for his neglect of Germain. He had

now kept the American Secretary's fate in suspense for six weeks, to his own discredit and the detriment of military

preparations. The King added that on one point he would ever agree with his American Secretary: a separation

from America would be the end of Britain as a Great Power, and would make his own situation intolerable. North's

reply made his dilemma clear. Though many of the Ministry's supporters would turn unreliable if Germain stayed in

office, they objected to his views rather than his person: peace with America was necessary, even at the cost of

England's sovereignty. Since the King agreed with Germain, was it right that he rather than North should be forced

to go?1

But did North mean it? His friends had heard these tones too often to be sure. Robinson reported him as

determined to go on, but in very low spirits, which he attributed not to his differences with the King on policy, but

to the annual tribulation of the approaching budget. At any rate North sent Germain a civil note, and saw him on

the following day. He told him flatly that it was impossible to continue the war: America was lost, and it was vain

to think of recovering it. Germain offered to treat on the basis of uti possidetis, but North was sure that only

independence would now be accepted. Then, said Germain, he must look out for another Secretary of State. The

Prime Minister described the difficulty of finding a competent successor in the House of Commons, since

Jenkinson would not take the office. He promised to give Germain his decision before he went to the House on the

following day. But, he ended sadly, Germain's removal would solve nothing, since the King stood immovable on

independence.2

Such was Germain's account of the interview. But North carried off the impression that if nothing was done and no

one rendered ill offices, everything might go on as before: Germain's views on America had not after all differed

from his own as much as might have been expected, and the

1 G 3501, 3503. That there was substance in the charge that North's delays were disrupting military

preparations is suggested by the arrangements to ship the 2,700 recruits to New York. Not till 20 February

did Germain's successor instruct the Admiralty to provide transports. A month later he ordered that shipping

should if necessary be hired at a high price owing to the importance of the reinforcement; but on 21 March

he learnt that the Navy Board could procure no shipping, and ordered it to apply to the Ordnance, which

had 5,000 tons available. When another month had gone by the new Ministry was asking for a progress

report (CO 5/255, pp. 132, 137, 139, 194).

2 G 3502; Knox, 2756; Sackville, I, 76.

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only subject not open to compromise was the appointment of Carleton. So Germain heard no more; and North

continued on his blinkered way, half paralysed by George III's declaration that if Germain was to be removed for

opposing independence, the King must be removed as well. Parliament re-assembled; and Rigby and Dundas let it

be known that they would not attend the House while Germain was in office. On this Germain wrote to North again

on the 30th, when more than a week had passed since their interview, demanding the answer he had been promised

as an absolute necessity so that his Department could function: the mails were about to be made up for America

and the West Indies, and proper instructions were needed for the Commanders-in-Chief as well as an answer to

Clinton's application to resign. No answer was returned; but as North came out from the Closet on the following

day, he said that Germain's wish was reasonable, but the worst of it was that Jenkinson refused to take his office.1

This was enough. From that moment, says Knox, Germain considered himself as out. Meeting Hillborough, he

learnt that Welbore Ellis was to be sounded as his successor, and if that failed the American Department would be

merged in the Southern Department. To the King's surprise Ellis accepted the office on 5 February, and Germain's

days in the American Department drew to their close. One of his last despatches authorised Clinton to hand over to

General Robertson and leave America; and he begged him for the last time not to sacrifice the loyalists outside

Charleston and Savannah by over-insuring at New York. On 9 February he paid his farewell to his office, and

recommended Knox's application for a pension to the Prime Minister. And so he departed, having borne for more

than six years the main burden of a great war.2

The Fall of the Ministry

Perhaps the Opposition had spent the recess consulting their constituents as they had promised: one contemplates

with pleasure the Christmas activity of Thomas Pitt, who elected himself for Old Sarum, or of the incorruptible

Barré, returned by Lord Shelburne for Calne. They came back refreshed to Westminister with a determination to

keep the members together, and by numerous call of the House they succeeded in keeping attendance at an

unusually high level. Lord North added nothing positive to his own strength when he replaced Germain with

Welbore Ellis, a correct and ageing politician whose services had always been at the government's disposal.

1 G 3507; Knox, 276; Sackville, I, 77.

2 CO 5/104, f. 181; Knox, 276; Lothian, 408; Abergavenny, 48.

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In the December debates Thomas Pitt had denounced the Ministers as a set of puppets dancing to the orders of a

deadly secret influence. It was a stale story; but never perhaps had George III come nearer to the Opposition's

conception of him than in the months after Yorktown, when his determination not to give up America blocked

every effort to abandon a policy which had lost the support of the public. Germain had defied the Opposition to

remove the Ministers by parliamentary means and impeach them; to which Mr. Byng had replied that the Ministers

were protected by a phalanx of hired supporters. 'Give us only an honest Parliament, and we should then see if

security and impunity would result from impeachment.'

Byng was wide of the mark. The Ministry, like every stable Ministry of the century, rested ultimately on the

confidence and support of a proportion of the independent country gentlemen; and as long as North was free to

change its composition and policies, the country gentlemen were likely to remember their duty to the throne and

the social order, and to prefer the King's government to the ranting factions of the Opposition. But time was to

show that no important section of the Opposition could now be bought in; and the King's refusal to end the

American War alienated the country gentlemen and threw him on the mercy of the men he feared and hated.

The first assault was launched against the Admiralty. Sandwich, unlike Germain, intended to fight for his position.

He could not afford to lose it: 'unless I retire with a pension', he was to write, 'my finances will be in the utmost

disorder'.1 He had courted the naval enquiry, and in as public a form as possible; and he had carefully canvassed

and primed his colleagues. He worked hard to collect the materials for his defence, and succeeded in assembling

impressive evidence of his administrative achievements. He faced his attackers prepared and confident.2

But Fox did not intend to bore the squires with administration. He confined himself to recent operations; and for

this Sandwich was less prepared, and the charges were less easy to answer. The outcome of operations, as he said,

did not decide the question whether the orders given had been right3; but though his defence was spirited, Fox's

catalogue of the past year's reverses shook the House. On 7 February the government's majority was only 22 which

'makes Lord North horrid sick'.4 On a second motion on the 20th the majority remained steady, but an ominous

number of deserters were absent or voted with the Opposition. Most significant of all, only ten country members

voted with the Ministry.

1 Abergavenny, 52.

2Ibid., 468; Add. MSS. 38217, ff. 216, 228; Sandwich, IV, 281301, 30814, 355 ff.

3 Above, pp. xvixvii.

4 Christie, 312: for the enquiry in general, see ibid., 30519.

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Dundas was later to say that if Sandwich had been jettisoned in time the Ministry would have survived.1 The

defence of the Admiralty eroded the majority; and on 22 February the Opposition switched its attack and opened a

new offensive against the American War. An address against its further prosecution was barely defeated, and

Dundas declared that the government was converted and that the retirement of Germain meant the repudiation of

the policy of coercion. But this was less than the truth; for unless the King yielded, the Ministers' hands were tied,

and they could not adopt a new or a firm policy. When the motion was re-introduced on the 27th Welbore Ellis

could only declare that he and North did not differ from the Opposition on the principle of the question, but solely

on the expediency. This was not enough. Fox had called North a mere puppet of the King and his friends 'of that

infernal spirit which really governs' and it had become evident to many independents who had no wish to displace

the Ministry that only a check imposed by the House of Commons could turn the King from the policy which the

nation had rejected. Sir Gilbert Elliot, who detested the Foxites and their joy at the national disasters, now

repudiated the American War: he 'now plainly saw that the nation, the House of Commons and the ministers had

been for a long time in the wrong'. In the division more than forty of the Ministry's friends deserted, and about half

of them voted with the Opposition. 'I perfectly agree', said one of them, ' . . . in detesting the views of some of the

faction leaders in opposition, and in wishing to support the King's government.' But by 19 votes the House

abandoned the coercion of America.2

This defeat was not the end of the Ministry or the policy. A few days later North opened his budget as usual, and it

was apparent that the condemnation of the war was not synonymous with the fall of the men who had waged it. But

North warned the King that the Ministry must be reconstructed with help from the ranks of the Opposition.

Thurlow was authorised to approach the Bedfords, but in vain, for on the American question the King would yield

no ground. The royal reply to the address was evasive, and close by the King's chair stood Benedict Arnold. Only

the return of twenty-eight deserters saved the government from immediate defeat; but on 4 March a resolution

passed the House which declared all who should advise or try to prosecute offensive war in America for the

purpose of reducing the colonies to obedience by force to be enemies of their country. This was the end of the

policy. Two days later Germain's successor notified the Commanders-in-Chief of the Commons' decision.

Yet still the Ministry remained, unshaken by the loss of Minorca and the

1 Abergavenny, 51.

2 Christie, 31940.

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imminent fall of St Kitts. North declared that he would stay until the House thought fit to remove him, and the

Opposition was forced to advance from its defeat of the policy to the censure of the men themselves. On the 8th

the government survived by only ten votes. Dundas, whose Scotch phalanx held the balance, declared that the

government could not be carried on with this majority a majority, as North told the King, where defeat would have

meant the immediate removal of the Ministers.1 Nothing except fresh blood could now save the Ministry. The

Bedfords and Grafton had refused their services; Shelburne would not join a broad-bottom administration; and the

King, having by the obstinacy of his prolonged defence expended every reserve which could cover his retreat, was

now face to face with Shelburne and Rockingham. The Closet was about to be stormed.

The last hopeless resort was tried: Thurlow sounded Lord Rockingham. The reply was crushing. The Marquess

claimed to speak for all the components of the Opposition, and his terms meant unconditional surrender: full power

to grant independence to America; the full programme of economical reform; full power for Rockingham to name

the Ministers and exclude all who were 'obnoxious'.2 Still the King struggled in the net; and Robinson's lists

showed further defections in the House of Commons. Rather than yield, the King hinted at abdication. On 15 March

Sir John Rous, a Suffolk independent, was put up to propose a motion of no further confidence in the Ministry. The

majority shrank to nine; and three days later another independent member, Thomas Grosvenor, informed the Prime

Minister that he spoke for a group of country gentlemen who had resolved no longer to oppose the clear sense of

the House of Commons. To North this was decisive. For years he had talked intermittently of resigning: now,

almost too late, he spoke out firmly. 'The torrent is too strong to be resisted: Your Majesty is well apprised that, in

this country, the Prince on the throne, cannot, with prudence, oppose the deliberate resolution of the House of

Commons.' 'Your Majesty has graciously and steadily supported the servants you approve as long as they could be

supported . . . Your Majesty . . . can lose no honour if you yield at length.'3

There was nothing to be done but abandon the present Ministers entirely and approach Rockingham and Shelburne.

This was North's advice; but the King had already said that he would not treat personally with the leaders of the

Opposition: if North resigned before he had decided on his course, 'you will certainly for ever forfeit my regard'.4

But North was desperate. A motion for the removal of the Ministers was down for the 20th, and he believed

1 Abergavenny, 51; G 3546.

2 G 3551, 35556, 3565.

3 Christie, 365.

4 G 3567.

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it might be carried: he would quit office under the unparallelled stigma of a vote in the Journals for his removal.

From this disgrace he implored the King to save him; and by the afternoon of the 20th he had prevailed. When

Lord Surrey rose to propose the removal of the Ministers, North rose simultaneously. After an hour or more of

debate Surrey gave way; and Lord North announced the Ministry's resignation. The House adjourned at once.

'Good night, gentlemen', said North to the stranded throng at the door, 'you see what it is to be in the secret.' And

stepping into his waiting carriage he rolled away into the gathering dusk.1

1 Wraxall, II, 607. For the final struggles of the Ministry, see Christie, 34069.

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Chapter XXVIII

The New Brooms

The Sack of the Fortress

The Rockingham Ministry took office on 27 March 1782. Never had there been such a massacre. The new rulers

were numerous and vengeful, and every place that could be cleared was needed. The fallen administration was

'shot by platoons and in corps'. Every Minister went except Thurlow; virtually the whole Court except the King's

Bedchamber. In Dublin Lord Carlisle learnt of his dismissal as Lord-Lieutenant of the East Riding by reading it in

the Gazette, a breach of the 'decent forms to be observed between gentlemen', and resigned the Lord-Lieutenancy

of Ireland. The Lords of Trade were spared from the slaughter only to fall victims to judicious principle: Burke's

bill to abolish the Board was revived, and Edward Gibbon was 'stripped of a convenient salary' which had

promoted his comfort for the past three years.

The Secretaryships of State were re-organised, and the American Department abolished; but the Cabinet, instead of

shrinking, was swelled from nine to eleven members through the inclusion of the Master-General of the Ordnance,

the Chancellor of the Exchequer (separated from the head of the Treasury because Rockingham was a peer), and

the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Rockingham was Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, with

his guiding spirit Fox as Foreign Secretary; Shelburne took the other Secretaryship, in charge of domestic, Irish and

colonial affairs; Richmond the Ordnance. Amherst lost his post as Commander-in-Chief to Conway, and his

Lieutenant-Generalcy of the Ordnance to Sir William Howe. Middleton's wish for professional knowledge at the

Admiralty was gratified by the elevation of Keppel to the head of the Board.

In the army, there were not many changes apart from the fall of Amherst. General Irwin was removed from the

command in Ireland to make way for Burgoyne, who had filled his long divorce from military activity by

composing a comic opera, and was now rewarded for his opposition to North with a Privy Councillorship and the

command of a regiment. Carleton had already been ordered to relieve Clinton, and the appointment stood. Mathew

was retained in the Leeward Islands and Campbell confirmed in Jamaica: neither appointment was a conspicuous

political plum, or offered much except danger and disease. But for the dissident Admirals the day had dawned

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and the looting began. For Keppel, now the political head of his profession, there was promotion and a peerage; for

Harland, who had refused to serve in 1779, promotion and a seat at the Board. Darby was ejected from the Channel

fleet to make way for Lord Howe, who obtained an English peerage; and Barrington accepted the command of one

of his divisions. Hyde Parker's resignation after his North Sea battle was rewarded with the command in India.

Rodney was superseded by Sandwich's East India House opponent, Hugh Pigot, who like Harland became Admiral

of the Blue and a member of the Board. Dismissals alone could not make vacancies for all the asking faces, and

Keppel hoped to revive the sinecure of Major-General of Marines, which, as the King remarked,1 'will not increase

his popularity though it may his dependents'. But Palliser, surprisingly, was spared. After an interval Fox demanded

his removal from Greenwich. Keppel wanted to do it, but shuffled; and Shelburne saved him on the grounds that

the right moment had passed.

In his own office Shelburne made a somewhat curious impression on Germain's old subordinates. He was one of

the most intelligent Ministers of the century; yet Knox heard Sir Stanier Porten of the Southern Department say,

'God be thanked I am not to be under you again.' Knox had long ago been told by a predecessor2 that Shelburne

was the most difficult of all Ministers to please, and he found it was true. Drafts were endlessly revised, but

despatches remained unanswered, and Knox could obtain no instructions for preparing drafts. Finally he was

summoned to the 'Jesuit's' house in Berkeley Square on a Sunday night between ten and eleven o'clock with all the

unanswered despatches, and refused to go. On taking office Shelburne had told Knox he would continue to employ

him, and asked him to keep another member of the department away from him, as he could not bear to see anyone

he meant to part with: 'a fair confession, I thought', says Knox, 'of weakness of nerves, notwithstanding all his

bustle and high tone.' In the end Knox was turned out without notice two days after Shelburne had said he hoped

he would continue.3

Rodney's recall was decided by the Cabinet at an after-dinner meeting eight days after the battle of the Saints.

Keppel, who had long ago stood silent while Byng was condemned, is said to have opposed it, but to have let his

own interest moderate his counsel, and to have insisted only that the recall should be put through a Secretary of

State. This evasion of an unpleasant task was not unoticed by George III, for about the same time Keppel was

1 G 3783.

2 Sir Richard Sutton, who retired from an under-secretaryship of state with a baronetcy in 1772.

3 Knox, 2836. See also his Extra-Official State Papers, I, 214, 301, 38.

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sounding Shelburne about removing Palliser, while refusing to be mixed up in it himself; conduct in both cases

which the King despised.1

On 1 May the Secretary to the Admiralty penned the administration's first communication to Rodney. 'Lord

Viscount Keppel', he began, 'having signified his Majesty's pleasure that Hugh Pigot, Esq, Admiral of the Blue, be

appointed to relieve you in the command of his Majesty's ships in Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, I am

commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to acquaint you therewith . . .'2

Pigot, newly raised to the Board of Admiralty and the rank of full Admiral, had been a Rear-Admiral at the

beginning of the war. He had benefited by the rapid wartime promotion without ever hoisting his flag, and to small

experience as a captain he had added none as an admiral. Hitherto his main war work had been the organisation of

a pressure group in favour of his brother Lord Pigot, illegally deposed from the Governorship of Madras, whose

case the Opposition had taken up in 1777. This was the officer chosen to replace England's most successful

Admiral.

Pigot hoisted his flag in the Jupiter to sail for the West Indies. But on 18 May arrived the news that Rodney had

won the most complete victory of the war. Frantically the Ministers tried to undo their work. A King's messenger

sped out of London that morning, and at two in the afternoon of the 19th he dismounted at the Port Admiral's

office in Plymouth, having covered the road in twenty-eight hours.3 He was too late: Pigot had gone. A cutter put

out to chase him; but the Jupiter had vanished into the Atlantic, pursuing her inexorable course to Barbados.

Within four days the news of Hood's capture of two more ships of the line completed the tale of Rodney's success.

'You will find Rodney has taken some more ships', Sheridan wrote to Thomas Grenville in Paris. 'The unluckiness

of his recall, I think, appears to increase with its ill effect; and people don't seem to fancy Pigott.'4 Rodney's toll in

the course of the war was now seventeen ships of the line destroyed or taken, with a Dutch, a French, and two

Spanish Admirals. The Ministry could do nothing but put the best face on it. Before the hero returned he was

created a peer of Great Britain, with a pension of £2,000, which on his death was settled for ever on the title. There

was a peerage for Hood, and baronetcies for Drake and Affleck.

The Order of Withdrawal

The Rockingham government had policies as well as places: it was dedicated to the liquidation of the American

War and the making of peace. The

1 James, 357; G 36767, 36993700.

2 Mundy, II, 326.

3Ibid., II, 307 n.

4 Buckingham, Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George III, I, 32.

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negotiations with America lay with Shelburne's department, and his envoy Oswald was rapidly translated to Paris

to sound Franklin, while Fox's accredited envoy Thomas Grenville opened talks with the European belligerents.

The way was long and difficult, and in July the death of Rockingham and the withdrawal of Fox from the Ministry

left Shelburne as Prime Minister with the whole negotiation in his hands. While the Cabinet searched the thickets

for a way out of the country's difficulties, it had still to bear the inherited burden of the war; and the course of the

last campaign would powerfully influence the terms of the peace.

About their great line of strategy they came to office in complete agreement. The army was to be withdrawn from

America, and part of it redeployed to strengthen the West Indies. The executive orders to Carleton were resolved

on three days after the Ministry was established. He was to leave for America without delay to take over a unified

command which would include Canada and Newfoundland; to evacuate New York, Charleston and Savannah; and

St Augustine too if circumstances justified it. With the evacuated regiments he was to reinforce the West Indies as

he thought necessary, and to ship the remainder of the troops to Halifax. If evacuation proved difficult or was

prevented by an enemy attack, an early capitulation on terms which would secure the main object was preferable to

an obstinate defence without a rational purpose. Carleton was authorised to inform the Americans of his intention

to withdraw, and was promised a new peace commission so that he could negotiate on liberal terms if it proved

expedient.1

Dining with a large party at Lord Hillsborough's Knox was surprised by Lord Denby calling in a loud voice, 'Knox,

what are you going to do with all the troops you are taking away from Charleston and New York?' Knox replied he

knew nothing about removing troops. 'No', said Denby, and swore he knew it, for one of the Cabinet had told him

so. Knox retailed the conversation to Shelburne, and says that he continued: 'Your Cabinet, my Lord, is too

numerous for secrecy, and especially as there are some in it who were never in the habit of keeping secrets, and

they cannot resist the pleasure of the display of their importance.' His dismissal soon afterwards is not wholly

surprising.2

For the West Indies no immediate measures seemed necessary: Rodney was already away with sufficient

reinforcements, and for the future the Cabinet looked to Carleton's regiments from America. On learning that St

Kitts and other islands had fallen before Rodney's arrival, Shelburne wrote to the Generals in the Caribbean urging

them to keep Carleton

1 G 3618; CO 5/106, pp. 113.

2 Knox, 285.

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