Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783

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informed of their situation. His letter to General Mathew is an odd mixture of incitement to enterprise and cautious

reservations. But to Rodney, who had asked where to send the fleet in the hurricane season, no communication was

made.1

The coming redeployment and evacuation of America was an operation so vast and secret that Shelburne ordered

Admiral Digby to correspond with and receive his orders directly from a Secretary of State.2 But more than a

special chain of command, serious preparations were needed. None were made: no transports were prepared, nor

any steps taken to redeploy the existing shipping for the great withdrawal. It was unfortunate, as Middleton

admitted, that the Ministry had not taken office till the spring, with so little time to plan their measures; yet the fact

remains that they had ordered the evacuation of the vast army in America with no thought to the means. It was not

for want of advice. A few days after Keppel had taken over at the Admiralty, Middleton saw a newspaper report of

the intended evacuation, and called on him to discuss it. He explained that the simultaneous evacuation of New

York and Charleston with their cannon, provisions and stores would call for 85,000 tons of shipping or three times

as much as was in hand. He suggested that the Charleston garrison should be left till the withdrawal from New

York was completed: 4050,000 tons of shipping would then be enough and could be obtained. In any event, he

said, the American station would have to be warned to retain all their transports and convert their victuallers to

troopships; water casks must be prepared; and provisions ready to sail from the British Isles for New York and

Charleston must be diverted. But nothing was done. Transports and victuallers lay idle at Spithead for months, and

were then allowed to sail fully laden for Canada and the West Indies with no orders to take part in the withdrawal.

Stores and provisions were shipped to garrisons that were to be moved, tying up the transports and adding to the

material which would have to be shifted or abandoned. By Middleton's calculation fifteen months' supply of stores

were allowed to sail for New York and Charleston after the decision to evacuate them. These omissions, he said,

lost a whole year in completing the withdrawal; and had the war continued through 1783 they would have

prevented an offensive in the West Indies.3

The strategic implications of the withdrawal were also under fire. In Jamaica General Archibald Campbell expected

the abandonment of the southern colonies to expose his homeward-bound convoys to heavy losses as they came up

the American coast to feel for the trade wind: the effect, he told Knox, would be harmful 'to a degree beyond what

the

1 CO 318/19, f. 133; CO 137/82, f. 173; Mundy, II, 328.

2 Co 5/255, p. 141.

3 Barham, II, 4750, 769.

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speculative politicians have calculated'. The same thought had already struck Middleton, who pointed out that the

dangers were augmented by the Spanish capture of New Providence in the Bahamas. He urged the immediate

recovery of Providence, and the establishment of cruiser bases there and in Bermuda to protect the trade. After the

evacuation of America there would be no port for cruisers on the coastline from Halifax to Jamaica, and he

suggested the strange possibility of reoccupying Rhode Island. Nor was Middleton convinced that the abandonment

of New York was of advantage to a West Indian offensive. Germain had suggested in his last memorandum on the

American War that without America troops in the Caribbean would have no healthy summer station; and

Middleton advanced the same idea. Only a limited force could act together in any place in the West Indies; but the

climate and fighting would call for frequent reinforcements, which were best assembled and acclimatised in the

healthy station at New York, with only a two-months' round trip for the transports to St Lucia.1

The news of Rodney's victory suggested immediately that troops evacuated from America might take the offensive

in the Caribbean and recover the lost islands. But though the proposal was made on 21 May and expressed to

Carleton as a hope on 5 June, no practical steps were taken to evacuate the rebel colonies. By the end of July it was

clear to Middleton that the evacuation of New York could not be completed that autumn, and an alternative must

be considered: the troops intended for the West Indies might be detached, leaving the remainder to winter in New

York, while the surplus transports began the removal of stores to Halifax. He suggested bringing Pigot's fleet from

the Leeward Islands to assist in the movement of troops, providing the equivalent of 6,000 tons of transports. The

question was raised in the Cabinet on 2 August by Lord Ashburton; and it was agreed that Pigot should be ordered

to bring his fleet to America in the hurricane season. The Cabinet still hoped that the whole force at New York

could be removed before the winter with the help of transports from the St Lawrence, though it was improbable

that Carleton could embark the families and effects of all the loyalists who wished to leave. Not that the Ministry

felt any strong sense of obligation to the loyalists Carleton's orders had made no provision for bargaining in their

favour but the new Secretary, Thomas Townshend, threw out the idea that Carleton might be able to hold on to

some port and make the embarkation in stages. This vague hope characterises the whole plan, a plan based on

orders for the Leeward Islands fleet which should have been given many weeks earlier. On 14 August Carleton was

informed that an active war was now to be opened

1 Knox, 188; CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, Nos. 14, 17.

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in the West Indies. He was ordered to embark all the troops which could serve there, assume the command in the

West Indies himself, and take the offensive. Townshend gave him full liberty to make any alterations which he

thought necessary in the execution of the plans: 'All that can be done on this side of the water is, to chuse an

officer fit for the command, to point out the objects to him, and to give him full and ample credit and confidence

in his measures for the attainment of them.' These were words which Germain might have used to Sir William

Howe in the early days of the rebellion. But Germain would not have been content with this: he would have made

strenuous efforts to provide the means.1

The Fleet in Home Waters

The Cabinet's usual summer preoccupation was home defence, and the new men had brought some ideas in their

baggage. Richmond, on taking over the Ordnance, obtained engineers' reports on the defences of Portsmouth and

Plymouth, and personally inspected those of Chatham. They were found unsafe against heavy cannon, and the

Cabinet authorised the expenditure of £1/4 million to make the three great dockyards as safe for the summer as

time and circumstances allowed.2 Shelburne revived an idea of the Elder Pitt: a fleet of transports maintained in

constant readiness to carry troops wherever they were needed. He suggested hiring 20,000 tons of shipping to be

stored, victualled and fitted for troops. The idea was good in itself, but the country's shipping resources were

already under heavy strain, which the coming evacuation of America would increase. The Navy Board could obtain

no bids for the hire of transports, and passed the requisition to the Board of Ordnance, who collected 5,000 tons of

shipping by the end of July.3

The Ministers were allowed no breathing space before they were thrown into the problems of the naval

campaigning season. While the Ministry was forming, news arrived of an expedition assembling in Brest; and it

was also known that in Cadiz Guichen was about to bring home some Dutch East India ships and the San Domingo

convoy, which had been delayed in the West Indies when de Grasse sailed for the Chesapeake. The Channel fleet

was not ready for sea, but there was no major force to be feared in Brest, and at the beginning of April a dozen

ships of the line which

1 CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, Nos. 15, 18; G 3771, 3862, 3864; CL, Sydney, IV, Ashburton's memo. to

Townshend of 2 Aug.; Adm. 2/1341, f. 152; CO 5/106, pp. 57, 291308, 314.

2 CL, Shelburne, Vol. 136.

3Ibid., Vol. 151, Nos. 1920.

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were ready were sent out under Barrington to watch Brest and look for the expedition and the convoy. They were

to cruise between Belle-Isle and Ushant till the 25th; and on the 20th a frigate sighted a French convoy escorted by

two sixty-fours with a third en flûte. Barrington gave chase, and during the night Jervis in the Foudroyant, 80,

overhauled and took one of the enemy sixty-fours. The ship en flûte, with 500 troops and naval stores, surrendered

to the Queen, and twelve out of the eighteen transports were captured. The convoy was bound for India, and the

losses, added to Kempenfelt's captures in December, were a heavy blow to the hopes of de Bussy.1

Before the main fleet could take up the watch it was learnt, first that la Motte-Picquet had slipped out of Brest to

join Guichen, and then that Guichen's immensely valuable convoy had left the shelter of Ferrol and Corunna and

fetched Bordeaux in safety.2 This last news arrived on 7 May; and the same day Howe's orders to go off Brest

were countermanded. In April the Admiralty had learnt that fourteen Dutch two-deckers were lying ready in the

Texel to force their way down the Channel and join the French. The Flying Fish now came in from the Dutch

coast, having seen the enemy anchored outside the Texel. Tromp in the Medway was evidently remembered; and

while militia were hastily thrown into the Landguard fort off Harwich, Howe was ordered to the Downs to attack

the Dutch fleet. He was off the South Foreland on 11 May; but on entering the North Sea his crews were struck

down by the crippling epidemic of influenza which was sweeping across Europe, and finding that the Dutch had

reentered the Texel he returned to the Channel under Cabinet orders. A force under Sir John Ross was left to guard

the North Sea, but it too was driven back to the Downs by sickness in the middle of June, and a weakly defended

Baltic convoy was lucky to get home in safety.3

Another convoy was not so fortunate. The Franco-Spanish fleet sailed from Cadiz on 4 June under the command of

Cordoba. As it worked its way northwards towards the end of the month it met a British convoy outward-bound for

Newfoundland, and captured eighteen merchantmen. Early in July the Brest squadron of eight sail of the line

joined the flag, giving Cordoba a fleet of forty sail of the line to command the mouth of the Channel.

Howe had sailed for the westward at the end of June to cover a Jamaica convoy which was due in the Soundings.

Almost at once he learnt from

1 G 3615; Adm. 2/1341, ff. 80, 85; Chevalier, 3304; James, 366.

2 G 3695; Adm. 2/1341, ff. 1035.

3 CL, Shelburne, Vol. 168, 17 Apr. from Keppel; G 37201, 3731, 3774, 381011; James, 367; Chevalier, 335.

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neutrals that the Combined Fleet was in the chops of the Channel, and on 12 July he sighted it to windward south-

south-east of the Scillies. He had only twenty-five sail of the line; and resolving to gain the windward position he

boldly took his fleet by night between the Scillies and Land's End. La Motte-Picquet had given chase with the eight

ships of the fast squadron, but finding himself out of supporting distance of the main fleet he was forced to draw

back. 'Quelle journée, Monseigneur, nous avons manquée par la pesanteur des vaisseaux espagnols!' he lamented

in his report. It was not the only debt which Howe would owe to Sandwich's legacy of copper.1

Howe did not sight the Jamaica convoy; but a heavy gale drove the enemy off their station in the chops of the

Channel as it approached, and Sir Peter Parker brought it safely home. This was a stroke of luck; yet the new

Ministry had thrown one convoy straight into the arms of the enemy, while the Baltic fleet had been saved only by

the passiveness of the Dutch. The new government was pursuing the same policy as their predecessors. Once again

an inferior fleet had disputed the command of the Channel, while the superiority in the North Sea for which

Middleton had pleaded had been sacrificed to the Western Squadron; for on the approach of the Combined Fleet

five ships of Ross's North Sea squadron had been ordered to the Channel. The King mentioned 'the propriety of

getting the fleet for the North Sea out as soon as possible for the defence of our northern trade'; and Middleton was

in despair. The Dutch fleet was reported at sea again, with the apparent intention of going north about to join the

French and Spaniards; and instead of the Atlantic convoys being brought round Scotland through a commanded

North Sea, the whole strength of the home fleet was again being thrown to the west to form a force which could

never hope to match the enemy. Two West India convoys were approaching the Channel, a Baltic fleet would soon

be ready to return from Elsinore, a convoy for India and more than 300 ships for America and the West Indies was

waiting to sail. Everywhere there was danger or delay. The failure to give early protection to the North Sea might

prevent the Baltic trade from making a second voyage that year, while the Dutch safely escorted their own East

and West India convoys into the open sea.2

The Third Relief of Gibraltar

Cordoba's Combined Fleet quit the Channel at the end of July to cover the siege of Gibraltar. The British

government had known for some time that the enemy's main effort in Europe would be against Gibraltar; and

ammunition, provisions and reinforcements were needed for the garrison.

1 James, 369; Chevalier, 335.

2 G 3817, 3820, 3849; Adm. 2/1341, f. 130; Barham, II, 524.

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There was now a real need to throw the Home Fleet's strength to the west-ward; but because the North Sea had

been sacrificed to the Channel in the preceding weeks, the Baltic convoy was still imprisoned at Elsinore, and with

the Leeward Islands convoy approaching the north of Scotland the return of a force to the North Sea could not be

delayed. A straight preference for the North Sea rather than the Channel was no longer possible: neither Gibraltar

nor the northern trade could wait.

Middleton was summoned to the First Lord on 22 July, to learn that Gibraltar would be relieved as soon as the

enemy quit the Channel. This was the first Middleton had heard of it, and guessing that the loading of the

transports was not in hand, he asked if the Treasury had been warned. Keppel referred him to young William Pitt,

the twenty-three year old Chancellor of the Exchequer, and on the following day Middleton attended a conference

at the Treasury.

Pitt was in the chair. He showed the Comptroller a list of the supplies to be sent to Gibraltar, and asked how it

could be done. The intention was to send the relief in September. Middleton greatly preferred the immediate

despatch of a small squadron, which Keppel had proposed; and he pointed out that though nothing had been done

to prepare and load transports, the bulky item of provisions was lying ready at Spithead in a convoy for New York,

where they were not needed. There was now a surplus of provisions in America, and he suggested that the whole

of the New York supply should be diverted to Gibraltar, and a vessel quickly loaded in the Thames with the mixed

articles not supplied by contract. Two days later he saw Keppel again, and learnt more about the government's

general intentions, including the transfer of troops from New York to the Leeward Islands. 'No plan, however, is

yet settled to carry these measures into execution,' he noted; 'and what might be done, at this moment, with a few

ships, cannot be executed, in a few weeks, with our whole force.' For the failure to prepare the Gibraltar supplies

he blamed the numerous Cabinet and its ineffective chairman. Shelburne, he wrote, had not the weight or ability to

obtain decisions: he lacked method, application, and knowledge of his job, and for lack of weight could carry no

plan into execution. For lack of proper directions the Comptroller's work could not begin: he could 'get no fixed

plan from any of the ministers, and therefore can lay none on my part, for preparation'.1

The Comptroller's plan for an immediate relief had the King's support, for the grand attack on the fortress was

imminent; but Shelburne, pleading the technical question of the entrance to the Bay, dared not decide, and

predicted that the Cabinet would find the decision equally difficult.2 The plan was not

1 Barham, II, 546, 74.

2 G 38623.

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adopted, and the relief was hung up for weeks while the Treasury and Ordnance assembled their cargoes. Keppel

was proclaiming the need to bring home the Baltic fleet with its naval stores before anything else was attempted,

and the general futility of looking beyond the problems of the moment. Shelburne turned to the Comptroller for

better advice. Middleton now thought that the chance to relieve Gibraltar with a small force had been lost, and that

when the transports were ready the whole fleet would be needed. But he suggested that the interval while the

transports were loading should be used to bring home the Baltic fleet.1 Probably as a result of this advice the

Cabinet on 14 August resolved that Howe should enter the North Sea with all the ships which were ready, and

cruise as far as the Naze of Norway to cover the inbound convoys. But later in the day doubt set in. The Cabinet

began to wonder whether Howe could return from the northward in time to sail for Gibraltar by the first week in

September, and instructed the First Lord that the plan should depend on Howe's answer to the question.2

Keppel went down to Portsmouth on the 16th, as Sandwich had sometimes done, to supervise the preparations. The

weather was bad and work at a standstill; but from the 18th the refitting went ahead with speed, and when the First

Lord returned to London on the 21st there was little more to be done but pay the men. But the Gibraltar transports

were not yet assembled. The victuallers and storeships in the Thames were expected in the Downs on the 28th or

29th if they had a westerly wind to take them out of the river; but they would then have to wait for an east wind to

blow them through the Straits of Dover.3

Keppel returned to London to find that Shelburne had decided to suspend the North Sea operation in favour of

Gibraltar. On the 23rd Howe's North Sea orders were cancelled, and he was ordered to sail for Gibraltar as soon as

the victuallers and storeships joined him. But the next morning the Cabinet veered again. Howe was now to

reinforce the North Sea squadron to a strength of fifteen; and with these Admiral Milbanke would proceed off the

Texel, make sure that the Dutch fleet was not at sea, and summon the Baltic convoy from Elsinore. But instead of

remaining to cover its passage, he was to rejoin Howe with the first easterly wind.4

Milbanke saw the Dutch lying in the Texel, summoned the convoy, and returned as he had been ordered. The

transports from London river also

1 G 38778; CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, No. 37 (wrongly dated Nov. 1782). The Duke of Grafton in his

Memoirs ascribes this plan to Keppel, who of course had the task of 'selling' it to the Cabinet.

2 G 38801.

3 G 3895.

4 G 3887, 3899, 3900, 3903.

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passed the Straits, and on the 6th were off the Isle of Wight with a fair easterly wind. Had the whole convoy sailed

at once, Middleton reckoned that they might have been at Gibraltar by the 20th, and home for an early autumn

refit. But instead of being joined by the fleet at sea, the transports were brought in to Spithead. The fleet did not

sail till the 11th, lost its fair wind, and took another month to fetch the Straits, by which time the main crisis at

Gibraltar had long been weathered. In the interval before it sailed, the detachment which had returned from the

North Sea lay idle for five days while the Baltic convoy was making its unprotected passage from Elsinore. 'There

is fault or want of judgment or both somewhere', wrote Middleton, 'and the City will be in an uproar if the fleet

from the Sound does not appear soon. . . . There can be no good peace if the war is not better conducted.' Happily

the Dutch did not come out, and on 21 September the Baltic convoy was reported on the Yorkshire coast.1

'This last business', Middleton noted, 'is the worst managed of any in the whole war.' In the midst of these rapid

changes of plan Lord Mulgrave had written to Sandwich from the Channel fleet: 'The whole of this summer's

proceedings in our line must I think show your administration to great advantage.' About the same time an

important letter about the peace negotiations arrived from Oswald in Paris; and when one recalls the Opposition

sneers at Ministerial 'haymaking' in the August of 1779, it seems curious that August 1782 saw Shelburne's Cabinet

scattered so wide that it would have taken a week to call a meeting.2

Two days after the relief sailed from Spithead, the enemy launched his great attack on Gibraltar. The siege was

now in the hands of the duc de Crillon, the victor of Minorca. He had found that the Spaniards, with the

experience of 1705 and 1727, saw no hope of taking the fortress by a land assault; and an orthodox naval

bombardment on the sea flank of the defences would be crushed by the rain of bombs and heated shot from the

British batteries. But with peace in sight the fall of Gibraltar had to be hastened, and a solution emerged. For the

grand attack which was now intended, a French engineer officer had designed a special weapon: floating batteries

of timber so thick as to be impenetrable by shot or bombs, and protected against fire by a pump-driven circulation

of water. Ten were built, mounting 152 heavy cannon. Their fire was to be co-ordinated with that of the Spanish

gunboats and

1 CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, No. 26; Barham, II, 667, 73; G 3931, 3939.

2 Sandwich, IV, 424; G 3891. Thurlow evidently considered diplomacy to be no more a lawyer's province than

naval strategy: on 19 September an urgent alteration to Oswald's commission had to be sent to Derbyshire so

that he could attach the Seal to it. (CL, Sydney, Vol. V, Nos. 69). Cf. above, p. 399.

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the batteries in the siege lines, bringing 398 pieces of ordnance to bear to crush the 86 British guns in the sector

which the floating batteries were to attack.

Crillon was in haste. Though the first trial of the pumps had flooded the interiors of the batteries, he would not

allow time to correct the faults: instead the water channels were sealed off except on the exteriors. On the evening

of September 12th he ordered Admiral Moreno to attack on the following day. The notice was short: too short to

co-ordinate the elements of the plan. No co-operation had been arranged with the Combined Fleet, which had

arrived that very day, or even with the sloops and gunboats based on Algeciras; and no arrangements had been

made to tow the batteries out of action to repair damage or extinguish fires. Nevertheless under threat of removal

Moreno accepted his orders.

The grand assault of September 13th was a total failure. The floating batteries were anchored in too extended a

line: they were exposed to excessive British fire, and the furthest of them were beyond the supporting range of the

siegeline batteries, which in any case ran out of ammunition in the afternoon. At nightfall slow fires were burning

in two of the batteries. They could have been extinguished if arrangements had been made for towing out action,

but instead the batteries had to be abandoned and destroyed. At two in the morning a dozen British gunboats

emerged from Gibraltar, and finding the remaining batteries unprotected by Spanish sloops or gunboats they

attacked the southern end of the line, moving up relentlessly through the carnage to destroy the entire line of

batteries.

So ended Crillon's hope of carrying the fortress by attack, and the siege reverted to a blockade. Gibraltar might yet

have been starved into surrender; and the Combined Fleet of forty-nine sail of the line lay at Algeciras to prevent a

relief. But the thirty-five Spanish ships were in lamentable condition, and Cordoba could not use them with

confidence in battle. In contrast, Howe was coming south with thirty-four sail of the line, all coppered and with no

barnacled laggards among them. The fleet had a first-rate commander whom it trusted, it was well trained, and the

admiral had confided in his captains.

On October 10th a storm from the south-west struck the enemy fleet. One ship of the line drove ashore on the

Spanish coast, another under the guns of Gibraltar, where it was taken, and a third was blown through the Straits

into the Mediterranean. The next evening, while the enemy lay becalmed in Algeciras, a northerly breeze brought

Howe into the Straits; but though four transports got in to Gibraltar, the rest of the convoy was carried into the

Mediterranean by the currents through the transport masters' neglect of their instructions, and the fleet was forced

to follow. Cordoba might have sealed the Straits against their return, but he was more concerned to recover his

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missing ship than to give battle; and pushing into the Mediterranean in search of it he enabled Howe to slip

between the Combined Fleet and the Straits. He declined a close action, and on the 16th an east wind enabled

Howe to summon the convoy from the African coast and bring it to anchor under the batteries of Gibraltar.

Thus the final relief of the fortress was accomplished. On the 19th Howe was away into the Atlantic ahead of the

enemy. On the following day the Combined Fleet had the weather gauge, and he prepared to fight. But once again

the enemy refused a close action, and eventually drew off and vanished. Howe detached eight ships of the line to

the West Indies, and set his course for Portsmouth.1

The Comptroller Compares

Sir Charles Middleton had long maintained a correspondence on naval affairs with Lord Shelburne; and

Shelburne's advent to office released a storm of paper from the Comptroller. It is easy to be wise without

responsibility, and Middleton's hastily scribbled memoranda were written from the shelter of an administrative

office; yet if his criticism of Sandwich is to be allowed any weight, his criticisms of the Rockingham and

Shelburne administrations must not be discounted. Before the summer was out Middleton regarded his new masters

with less favour than the old.

His diagnosis of the trouble was simple, and familiar: it was ministerial ignorance and incapacity. The bridge

between conception and execution had vanished, for no one in the new administration knew the procedure for

executing a strategic decision. The Cabinet was too large; Shelburne as Prime Minister lacked the weight, ability

and application to carry a plan into execution; and the Secretaries of State were ineffective. He lectured Shelburne

as North, with very different motives, had lectured the King. 'War is a comprehensive business; the minister who

conducts it must think of nothing else.' The Prime Minister must grasp the whole detail of the war, or appoint

reliable Secretaries of State. 'The want of a minister to connect

1 Chevalier's account of the operations attributed the Combined Fleet's failure to engage closely to Howe's

superior speed. But the British accounts make it clear that Howe was ready to fight these odds if the enemy

were willing. It is curious that this was the man who had said in Parliament of Kempenfelt's brush with

Guichen that his whole force should have been taken. It is one more instance of the varying worth of

parliamentary criticism.

In defending the Preliminaries of the peace, Howe later said that his ships were in bad shape; and Shelburne

claimed that he had complained of the fleet's discipline (Barrow, Life of . . . Howe, 1701). But these assertions

are entangled with the issue of the peace-terms, and probably with the animosity between Shelburne and

Keppel. In the face of the fleet's success against a superior enemy, they must be treated with reserve.

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