Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
page_485
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_485.html[1/17/2011 2:28:27 PM]
< previous page page_485 next page >
Page 485
and control the several departments prevented . . . every useful measure from being carried into execution.'1
He had always pressed for professional knowledge at the Board of Admiralty, but now that he had a professional
First Lord his attitude to the administration was curious. In the autumn of 1782 he wrote thus to Shelburne:
unless the naval force is conducted in the Cabinet by professional knowledge, judgment and method, it
cannot prove equal to the many services that will be expected from it. The misapplication of a single ship
will be felt in the present contest, and it has been [due] to this omission more than any other that we are
under present difficulties.
. . . and it is proper to observe how necessary it is to settle an early plan in the Cabinet for the application
of the fleet, and to have every possible information laid before them before it can be concluded.2
The truth is that the professional element which Middleton had wanted on the Board was himself. He urged
Shelburne in a long letter to bring the Comptroller to the Board, for it would, he said, immediately remedy the evil
caused by delay in correspondence and transmission of orders between departments. To this ambition Keppel was
not an aid but a hindrance: 'as the alteration . . . will naturally give jealousy to the first Lord as a seaman, though
greedily embraced by every landman [sic] who may preside there, I should advise a delay of this measure till such
an event takes place'.
The advantages which a Comptroller from the nature of his office must have in point of naval knowledge is
so well known, that every first Lord of the Admiralty whether Sea or Land finds it necessary to consult him
on every subject of moment. Should this alteration therefore take place, it will become less material than it
has been hitherto, whether the first Lord be of the sea or land, and probably better of the latter kind if a
very able one of the former cannot be found.3
On the eve of the peace, in January 1783, Middleton wrote of the difficulty of obtaining the co-operation of a
professional First Lord in reforming the Navy Board:
That experience in the civil part of the office, which an unremitting application to the duties of my place
has given me, must be as little in his possession as in that of a landman (sic), and the innovation which I
consider a necessary part of the plan,4 he will consider an affront to his skill, and a cheque on his
conduct . . . till the business of the Navy Department is far advanced, it will be necessary, if my experience
1 Barham, II, 56, 78, 296.
2 CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, No. 37.
3Ibid., No. 39.
4 I.e., the promotion of the Comptroller to a seat at the Board.
< previous page page_485 next page >
page_486
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_486.html[1/17/2011 2:28:27 PM]
< previous page page_486 next page >
Page 486
is to be turned to public account, that a landsman (sic), in case of a vacancy at the Admiralty be placed at
the head of it. He should be a man of rank, and the design of his being offered that station, be candidly laid
before him . . . when the plan of reformation is once completed, the Admiralty Board may then take that
professional form that may be judged most proper.1
In retrospect Middleton found much to be said for Sandwich: perhaps he found the choleric Keppel less patient of
remonstrance. 'The military part of the service', he wrote to Sandwich in 1789 on a rumour that he had been
offered the Admiralty, 'has since that time been brought to a proper sense of distinction between your Lordship's
conduct and those that followed you in office.' 'Who', he wrote of civil reforms in the Admiralty, 'has so great a
right to the credit of all this as your Lordship?' This may have been no more than the judicious buttering of a
possible chief; but on his favourite topic of patronage he endorsed two drafts of old letters with these words: 'He
was called a jobber, but they are all equally so, and indeed more so than ever I found him to be, though more
secret in their manner.' 'All his successors, notwithstanding their great pretensions to a regard for the public service,
have proceeded in the same way.' It was the age, not the man, which was at fault.2
1 CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, No. 53.
2 Barham, II, 10, 30, 315, 316.
< previous page page_486 next page >
page_487
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_487.html[1/17/2011 2:28:28 PM]
< previous page page_487 next page >
Page 487
Chapter XXIX
The Sky Suspended
1
The Last Autumn
'It has been some time determined', Shelburne informed General Mathew, 'that a very effective war shall be carried
on in the West Indies.' But when he wrote it was already the middle of August, and the plan to draw on America
for a Caribbean offensive gradually merged in the general autumn planning. Early in September a winter
reinforcement of eight ships of the line was allocated to the West Indies from the fleet which was about to relieve
Gibraltar, and it was agreed that the German princes should be asked to make their troops in America available for
any part of the world. By now the Ministers were casting their net more widely in search of enterprises to justify
the abandonment of America. 'I beseech you to remember, my dear Mr Townshend', Shelburne wrote to his
successor in the Home and Colonial Department, 'that the evacuation of New York can never be justified but by
active measures elsewhere . . .' Some of the objects proposed were as diffuse as any for which North's government
had been attacked. Shelburne lingered on the idea of seizing the Canary Islands; and a plan to renew the abortive
expeditions against South America was put in train by the Cabinet, with a squadron of warships and several
thousand troops. Middleton got a hint of it from Keppel, and at once sent Shelburne a list of the necessary
preparations with a request for Treasury action.1
On 15 September a despatch arrived from Carleton, reporting the evacuation of Savannah and declaring that with
the present supply of shipping Charleston could not be evacuated that year nor New York even in 1783. At the
beginning of October Shelburne, considerably out of his depth, sent the Comptroller a questionnaire on future
operations. What was the probability that Carleton had evacuated New York? If he had not, what were the best
means of having it 'instantly' done; and what offensive measures could be counted on at that season with the troops
withdrawn? Could a force be fitted out at home in time to round the Horn this season? What could be done to
succour India with troops and ships? Middleton replied that there was not the slightest possibility that New York
had been evacuated; for however positive Carleton's orders might have been, there was the inescapable fact that the
victuallers sent abroad had not been ordered to assemble
1 CO 318/9, f. 197; G 390910; CL, Sydney, V, 10 Sept.; CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, No. 27.
< previous page page_487 next page >
page_488
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_488.html[1/17/2011 2:28:28 PM]
< previous page page_488 next page >
Page 488
at New York, and it was now too late to withdraw this season without abandoning the immense accumulation of
stores, baggage and provisions. By November, however, there should be 35,000 tons of transports at New York,
enough to remove the stores and provisions in the course of the winter as a preliminary to the general withdrawal.
Any offensive by Carleton's troops must therefore depend on what detachment he might decide to spare. As for the
Pacific expedition, ships from England could round the Horn if they sailed at the end of November: 1,800 troops
could be embarked in warships and coppered transports by then, and he admitted that they could do great mischief
to the Spaniards by supporting their rebellious colonies. Nevertheless he strongly opposed the project. The first
need was defence. Any ships sent to the Pacific were lost for the remainder of the war; and to part even with 50-
gun ships, which he had always insisted ought to be in the line of battle, might forfeit the remaining islands in the
West Indies. If Shelburne was sure of his object and determined to execute it, the force should be kept down to the
scale of the abandoned project of 1780, and consist of 40-gun ships and frigates with only 1,600 to 1,800 troops,
which could be supported by a larger force in the following autumn when New York had been evacuated and India
and the West Indies were safe. We must not embarrass ourselves with too many objects at once, he wrote: this had
been the misfortune of 1782. Unless much dexterity was used this winter to remove the stores from New York,
65,000 tons of transport shipping would be tied up abroad without a hope of any being returned to England. He
dreaded the consequences: 'Your Lordship is not so much conversant with this business as I am, nor can you
foresee the difficulties that must arise from it, if our future plans are not founded on firmer ground than they have
been hitherto.'1
Middleton's advice evidently had some influence, for the secret expedition was reduced to 1,000 troops, and the
escort to frigates with a single fifty-gun ship.2 But the orders to fit out the warships were not given till December,
and by then the situation had changed. Autumn after autumn the North Ministry had seen its initiative gradually
extinguished as the enemy's superior resources took command of the situation, and this last year was no different.
The enemy intended to renew the attack on Jamaica in 1783 by reinforcing Vaudreuil with thirty French and
Spanish ships of the line from Cadiz. The preparation of this force was known in London by December. Eight more
British ships of the line were ordered to be fitted out and sent to the West Indies, carrying two regiments for the
Jamaica garrison; and the troops for the secret expedition were ordered to rendezvous at Barbados, in case they
1 CO 5/106, p. 329; CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, Nos. 2931.
2 G 4022; CO 318/9, f. 322.
< previous page page_488 next page >
page_489
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_489.html[1/17/2011 2:28:28 PM]
< previous page page_489 next page >
Page 489
were urgently needed for the defence of Jamaica or other islands. Middleton protested, as he had done a year
earlier1 when Rodney's reinforcements were being assembled, that Jamaica would be in great danger unless the
naval reinforcement was decisively superior; and two more ships of the line were added before the end of the
year.2
Once more, therefore, the New Year opened on the prospect of a great battle for the Caribbean. But with Gibraltar
saved, diplomacy was at last on the move. On 30 November preliminary articles of peace had been signed between
England and America, and on 21 January private information reached England that the preliminaries with France
and Spain had been signed. An immediate armistice went into effect, the main reinforcements were cancelled, and
the Ministers braced themselves for the political battle to defend the terms of the peace.
2
Final Operations in the Western Atlantic
Little remains but to relate how the American War ebbed away and Jamaica remained secure against the last efforts
of the Bourbons; and how, in eastern waters far beyond the knowledge of the Ministers, Admiral Hughes and Sir
Eyre Coote with the North government's reinforcements fought out the contest with Suffren to save the British
dominion in India.
When de Grasse left the American coast after Yorktown, Washington had proposed an overland attack on Canada
in conjuction with the French land forces which remained with him. But Rochambeau had verbal instructions to
evade any such proposal, for it was no part of French policy that the Americans should establish themselves
without a rival on the Atlantic seaboard. Without French troops the Continental army could not mount a serious
offensive anywhere, and the northern states settled down to their usual
1 Above, p. 448.
2 G 4023; CO 318/9, f. 322; CL, Shelburne, Vol. 151, No. 51; Adm. 2/1341, f. 167. The reinforcements
intended for the West Indies at the end of the year were as follows:
Ships of the line:
Detached by Howe, October 8
Sailed 7 December 1
Under orders at end of year 10
19
Troops:
To sail early January with two of the above ships of the line: 1,500 men for Jamaica (68th and 81st Regiments).
To sail with the trade after 10 January, escorted by two other of above ships: 1,000 (for Barbados, provisionally
for a secret service).
< previous page page_489 next page >
page_490
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_490.html[1/17/2011 2:28:29 PM]
< previous page page_490 next page >
Page 490
winter slumbers. The south remained equally passive. Rawdon had departed to recover his health after withdrawing
the outlying garrisons; and in September his successor, Colonel Stuart, fought a desperate and indecisive little
action with Greene at Eutaw Springs. The two forces then drew apart, and the British retired into Charleston.
Greene's difficulties were as great as those of the British, and there was no more serious fighting on the southern
front.
At New York Clinton was left throughout the winter of 17812 with almost no naval force to protect him. All his
posts to the southward depended on his ability to reinforce them by sea: there were reports that a Spanish attack
was intended against St Augustine and Savannah, and in the spring of 1782 their capture of New Providence in the
Bahamas brought them uncomfortably close to Florida and to the homeward track of the Jamaica convoys. But
New York could not be attacked without a fleet; and de Grasse was unlikely for the moment to disengage himself
from the Caribbean operations against Jamaica. With the advice of a Board of General Officers Clinton resolved to
spare 2,000 men from the southern colonies for Jamaica.
But much of Clinton's time in the expiring weeks of his command was taken up with loyalist problems. The failure
to protect the loyalists in the Yorktown capitulation gave rise to fears that the serving loyalists, abandoned to
vengeful enemies, might lose heart once for all. General Robertson suggested a proclamation threatening retaliation
for injuries done to them by the rebels; and in spite of his prolonged opposition to the revival of civil government
in New York, Clinton was even prepared to re-open the courts for the purpose.1 The bitterness between rebels and
loyalists, however, was such that there was little fear of committed loyalists going over to the enemy or being
received by them. The more serious risk was that in default of British protection they would protect themselves.
The war in America trembled constantly on the knife-edge between civilised conventions and atrocious barbarity:
how precariously the decencies were preserved was soon made harshly clear.
To co-ordinate the operations of loyalist irregulars at New York, they had been placed under the control of a
Board of Loyalists, under whose direction they raided and plundered the rebel coast in an atrocious spirit of
reprisal. Early in April a rebel militia captain named Huddy, who was believed to have murdered a loyalist, was
removed from a prison ship in New York under pretence of exchanging him, and hanged on the rebel shore of New
Jersey with a notice pinned on his breast threatening one-for-one reprisals. Whether or not Huddy was guilty, the
loyalists could produce a fearful list of atrocities against their friends. The Board of Loyalists had evidently
authorised Captain Lippencote to commit the murder, though it
1 CO 5/104, f. 198.
< previous page page_490 next page >
page_491
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_491.html[1/17/2011 2:28:29 PM]
< previous page page_491 next page >
Page 491
disowned him. Clinton was greatly distressed: he believed that the Board had deliberately put Huddy through the
ordinary prison, in order to involve the army and navy and excite the war of indiscriminate retaliation for which
they thirsted. Their action had every prospect of success. Washington and his council of war resolved to retaliate;
and having received no positive requital from Clinton he ordered the British captains who were uncondiditional
prisoners in his hands to draw lots for a victim. The American officer responsible for the choice allowed the lot to
fall on an officer who was protected by the Yorktown capitulation, and Captain Asgill of the First Guards found
himself under close arrest in readiness for the gallows if Lippencote were not handed over or brought to justice.
But for Clinton to convict Lippencote was not easy. The Board of Loyalists maintained that he was not amenable
to a court-martial, he refused to plead, and the court adjourned while the Crown lawyers considered the case.
This hideous problem confronted Carleton when he reached New York at the end of April. 'Upright, zealous, and
attentive in the discharge of every duty',1 he came in high hopes of conciliating the rebels. With determined
civility he reminded Washington that the rebels had been trying loyalists for going over to the British since the
passing of their Treasons Act; and he pointed out the implications. In a civil war, he said, there could be no
treason, or each side would be able to frame its own laws to massacre the other. His overture received the usual
blank obstruction. Washington referred him to the civil power; and the Governor of New Jersey referred him back
to Washington. In arresting Captain Asgill Washington had overstepped the laws of civilisation and of war. He had
seized a hostage without waiting for justice to be denied; and through his agent's negligence he had violated the
Yorktown capitulation. The field officers of the Yorktown army appealed from the Americans to the French, and
both de Grasse and Vergennes interposed. Congress was already embarrassed by the case, and the trial and
acquittal of Lippencote enabled Washington to withdraw from an awkward predicament. Carleton promised to
pursue enquiries. But he pointed out that the case arose from a series of reciprocal horrors perpetrated by the New
Jersey rebels and the refugees: men of liberal minds and high office should rise above such vulgar malignity.2
Carleton had come to America convinced that if the great mass of Americans could recognise their own interests,
they would choose a reunion with England on terms like those which had recently been granted to Ireland. To
negotiate this reconciliation was the great mission which had induced
1 Major Wemyss in Sparks MSS., Vol. 22, p. 221.
2 The British and loyalist documents on the case, with rebel depositions, are in CO 5/105, esp. pp. 147, 291,
315.
< previous page page_491 next page >
page_492
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_492.html[1/17/2011 2:28:30 PM]
< previous page page_492 next page >
Page 492
him to cross the Atlantic again. But at the beginning of August his hopes were shattered by news that a general
negotiation had opened in Paris, with the concession of independence a probability. This blow brought the
Shelburne Ministry its first taste of an angry General, an experience its members had often rejoiced to see falling
on Lord North. Carleton wrote at once to Shelburne for leave to resign his command, as he could see no prospect
of being of further use. His recriminations to General Conway carried familiar notes: he had been hurried out of
England to be a mere Inspector of Embarkations; he had been got out of the way of more favoured soldiers; he
would serve no more out of Europe. By the end of the year his repeated request to resign led the Cabinet to order
General Grey out to relieve him; but the war ended and the exchange was never made.1
As soon as he reached New York Carleton had realised that complete evacuation that year was impossible for lack
of transports. He chose, therefore, to begin his withdrawal from the rebel colonies in the south, where two of his
three posts were at the mercy of the first serious attacker. The evacuation of Savannah was completed by the
middle of July, but it required the whole of Carleton's 10,000 tons of shipping. Even so it was only made possible
by the use of canoes and boats on inland waterways, which carried off the Indians, negroes and refugees to St
Augustine, whose evacuation had therefore to be suspended. The evacuation of Charleston would have required
three times the tonnage used at Savannah, and could not be undertaken. In the meantime New York stood on the
defensive. No further offensive operations on land were intended; but on the sea Admiral Digby was in some
embarrassment about his cruising policy, for while, as Peace Commissioner, he had received a strong resolution of
the House of Commons against the continuation of the American War, he had no orders as Admiral to desist from
capturing rebel shipping. With Carleton's support he decided to continue.2
Carleton condemned New York as a bad defensive post, and in spite of six years of British occupation 'but very,
very little obliged to art'. In the absence of a fleet he drew in his posts to tighten his perimeter; but he thought that
half a dozen French ships of the line could drive him from the town and his main magazines in a few hours, and
divide his force into separate parts. At the end of July thirteen French ships of the line were sighted off the Capes
of Virginia; and though Digby had only a single
1 CO 5/106, pp. 325, 365; CL, Shelburne, Vol. 68, p. 253. The candidate favoured by Richmond and
Conway seems to have been General Dalling: a fitting counterpart to Admiral Pigot (G 3960).
2 CO 5/106, p. 49, 211, 329.
< previous page page_492 next page >
page_493
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_493.html[1/17/2011 2:28:30 PM]
< previous page page_493 next page >
Page 493
sixty-four and two fifty-gun ships, he determined to defend the bar at Sandy Hook with a miscellaneous force.1
The French squadron had come with Vaudreuil from the West Indies. When both sides had dressed the wounds of
the battle of the Saints and despatched their convoys, Vaudreuil had been able to slip away from the hurricane
latitudes and make for Boston, where his squadron underwent a prolonged refit. A detachment of the British fleet
followed at its leisure, unsure of the enemy's destination and towing prizes which retarded its progress. Pigot's
situation was much to be pitied, wrote Hood, for he had 'no one about him capable of affording wholesome advice
which, without the smallest imputation to him as he has been so long on land and never hoisted his flag or
commanded a squadron before, I should think could not be unwelcome'. George III could now savour one of the
pleasures of Opposition, the criticising of commanders: the delay in following the French, he wrote to Keppel,
'does not do great credit to the activity or decision of those that have and do command that fleet'.2
Pigot remained in harbour at New York till the middle of October, when he returned to the Leeward Islands,
leaving Hood with twelve ships of the line to watch Vaudreuil. Early in November news reached Hood that the
French and Spanish fleets intended to unite at San Domingo to renew the attack on Jamaica; and knowing that
Vaudreuil would not be ready to leave Boston till the middle of December, he followed Pigot to the Caribbean to
prevent the enemy concentration. There he stood guard over Jamaica till March 1783, grumbling that Pigot would
not come down from the Leeward Islands to support him. But Pigot's position was difficult. Enemy forces were
known to be coming from Europe, and though Hood was certain that they would come straight to San Domingo or
Cuba, the garrisons in the Leeward Islands had shrunk so low that it was impossible to leave them to their own
protection. At the end of the year five regiments in St Lucia, Antigua and Barbados could muster only 1,570 fit
men between them.3
In Jamaica Archibald Campbell had never doubted that the attempt which had been stopped by Rodney's victory
would be renewed when the hurricane season ended in November; but he did not allow the prospect to paralyse
him, and kept up incursions on the Spanish Main to recover and protect the British settlements. These expeditions
were conducted with the economy of force which Germain had always advocated: shoremen and Indians cemented
with a few Provincials were enough for the purpose. Nevertheless, though a regiment from England had reached
him in April 1782,4 and 700
1 CO 5/106, pp. 49, 267, 329; Adm. 1/490, f. 121.
2 James, 359; G 3940.
3 CO 318/10, p. 79.
4 Fourteenth Regiment, in the convoy which sailed with Bickerton.
< previous page page_493 next page >
page_494
file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_494.html[1/17/2011 2:28:31 PM]
< previous page page_494 next page >
Page 494
recruits in June, he asked to be made up to 4,000 effectives by the end of the hurricane season. This could not be
done. To the very end the military situation in the Caribbean remained in the balance, because Carleton lacked the
shipping in America to withdraw from New York and Charleston. Though Hood was in the offing and hoped for a
naval battle, it must have been with relief that Campbell published the armistice on the last day of April 1783.
3
Hyder and Suffren
The last news from India which we recorded had arrived in April 1781, and told of Colonel Baillie's disaster in the
previous September at the hands of Hyder Ali. Throughout 1781 and 1782 a ferocious struggle was fought for the
empire of India; but news of its progress reached England slowly, and only now has the moment come to bring the
story to its conclusion. Yet it will be remembered how the situation in the east deflected British resources from
other tasks: how a squadron was drawn eastwards in the critical invasion year 1779; how in the latter part of 1780
the war with Holland abruptly ended the proposed Pacific expedition in favour of an attack on the Cape of Good
Hope and the eventual reinforcement of India; how further reinforcements were drawn from England in the critical
year of Yorktown to counter Hyder and Suffren; how a squadron under Admiral Bickerton was spared early in
1782 while the force to save Jamaica was being assembled. The British position in India was singularly vulnerable.
The Company's forces were small and dispersed, and a relatively weak French intervention could turn the balance
in favour of the country powers. France, a great military power, did not need her navy to defend her coasts as
England did, and unless Brest was blockaded could act offensively where she pleased. Labourdonnais had pointed
this out before the Seven Years War; and the East India Company had been so conscious of it as to believe that
only neutralisation could save India.1
In America a handful of French regiments intervened with decisive effect. In India, much further from Europe and
with no considerable European population, the leverage which such a force could exert was vastly greater. Few
troops of the British army had ever served in India: operations on land were mainly the affair of the Company's
European troops and sepoys, and the first regular troops sent by the North government were Lord Macleod's
Regiment which sailed at the end of 1778. In January 1781, after Baillie's defeat, Sir Eyre Coote had only 1,600
Europeans in Madras, including two Company regiments. But as the war drew towards its close, the Ministry built
up in response to enemy movements the largest force of British regulars
1 See Richmond, introduction to The Navy in India.
< previous page page_494 next page >