Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

page_518

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_518.html[1/17/2011 2:28:40 PM]

< previous page page_518 next page >

Page 518

lessons were observed not only in England but on the Continent.1 Though handicapped by the rigid training of the

rank and file, British and Hessians had proved adept students as the fighting went on. Always superior in the open,

they soon learnt to fight on equal terms in close country. Provincial units such as Simcoe's and Tarleton's marched

as fast and struck as suddenly as the best of the rebels; but the ordinary regiments of the line also incorporated the

rifle and polished their open order drills till they were capable of beating the Americans at their own game. British

officers returned home convinced that fire-power was everything and the shock of the bayonet obsolete, and a

struggle ensued between these proponents of a more open flexible tactical order and those who stood by the

Frederickean close order. In Germany, too, returning officers were influential, among them Captain Ewald of the

Hessian Jägers, with many tactical successes against the Americans to his credit, who rose to be a lieutenant-

general, wrote works on light infantry, and served with distinction in the French Revolutionary Wars. Some of the

best soldiers who emerged in Prussia's struggle with Napoleon had served in America; and men like Gneisenau

brought back the seeds of heresy from which a regenerated army was to grow after the defeat of the old order at

Jena.

The war was remembered with horror by the statesmen who had shared in its direction. Ex-opponents of North

eagerly supported internal enemies of the French Revolution in Europe: Burke and William Windham the French

emigrés, and the Grenvilles the Dutch royalists. But no one who, like George III and Dundas, had held

responsibility in the American War, would touch them. When Lord Grenville promised great results in 1799 from

the help of the Dutch population, Dundas shook his head: 'I cannot forget the American War, where we were so

miserably disappointed in the promised and expected co-operation.'2 A year later the King recalled the immensity

of the supply problem when he opposed the expedition to Egypt: 'if means were not taken to supply the troops as

completely as the army in America had been by Lord North's Treasury, he should consider them as devoted to

famine and destruction'.3

One lesson, however, was misapplied. The American War had been largely fought and decided in the West Indies.

And when the struggle with France was renewed the Cabinet turned without hesitation to that theatre. The flower of

the army was drawn irresistibly away from the periphery of Europe to perish among the fevers of the Antilles.

1 See Fuller, British Light Infantry in the Eighteenth Century; Curtis, Organisation of the British Army . . .;

Fortescue, IV.

2 Dropmore Papers, V, 215.

3 Matheson, Life of Lord Melville, 290.

< previous page page_518 next page >

page_519

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_519.html[1/17/2011 2:28:41 PM]

< previous page page_519 next page >

Page 519

The Fates of Men

The end of the war did not bring the total eclipse of the men who had waged it. Neither Germain nor Sandwich

returned to Cabinet office; but North, though perhaps tired of the responsibilities of power, came back with Fox in

1783 for the sake of his followers. The clean sweep of the tarnished men was not completed till 1784, when Pitt

assembled his Cabinet; and then Fox and Shelburne were annihilated equally with North. Yet many of North's old

colleagues escaped political extinction. Stormont, who served in the Fox-North Coalition, was Lord President of

the Council in Pitt's Cabinet in 1794. Lord Gower, purged of guilt by his resignation in 1779, served with Pitt for

many years as Lord President and Lord Privy Seal, and became a Marquess. Thurlow and Wedderburn

monopolised the Lord Chancellorship for eighteen years. Amherst reappeared as Commander-in-Chief when the

struggle with France was resumed in 1793. Most of North's able under-ministers went on: Jenkinson and Dundas to

high political office and earldoms, Eden to a distinguished diplomatic career and a barony. Middleton, as Baron

Barham, succeeded to Sandwich's old position at the head of the Admiralty in the year of Trafalgar.

In the navy total eclipse was difficult. Hyde Parker achieved it when his ship foundered on the voyage to take up

his command in India. But for those who survived there was no retirement. Sir Peter Parker, of Charleston and

Jamaica, worked his way up by mere longevity to the head of the list, and died in 1811 after eleven years as

Admiral of the Fleet. But others lived on more splendidly. From the Admirals and Captains who had served in the

dark years of the American War emerged the great school of seamen who held Revolutionary France in check. The

most remarkable survivor was Lord Howe. After four years as First Lord of the Admiralty in Pitt's Ministry, he

returned on the outbreak of the next war to the command in the Channel, and in 1794 beat the Brest fleet on the

Glorious First of June. He retained the confidence of his seamen to the end, and when the fleet mutinied at

Spithead in 1797 he was sent down to reassure the crews and bring them back to their duty.

Two Admirals who shared the honours of the First of June received Irish peerages: Thomas Graves, whose failure

off the Chesapeake had ruined Cornwallis, and Alexander Hood, whose altered log-book at the trial of Keppel had

made him unjustly notorious. Graves was badly wounded and retired with a pension; but Hood, as Lord Bridport,

succeeded Howe in the Channel command, and instituted the close blockade of Brest which became the foundation

of subsequent success. He was followed in the Channel by two distinguished captains of the American War, Jervis

< previous page page_519 next page >

page_520

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_520.html[1/17/2011 2:28:41 PM]

< previous page page_520 next page >

Page 520

Earl of St Vincent and William Cornwallis, the General's brother. The Mediterranean, which became the twin pillar

of British supremacy, was commanded in turn by Lord Hood, Hotham and Jervis. When the war was renewed in

1803 their burden was taken up by two men who had been young captains under Sir Peter Parker on the Jamaica

station: Nelson till his death in battle at Trafalgar, and Collingwood till he died at sea from unremitting toil five

years later.

Of the Generals only one went on to greatness, though field officers like Charles Stuart and John Moore rose to fill

their place. Burgoyne withdrew largely from political life after the fall of the Fox-North Coalition, wrote a

comedy, and begot four children by a popular singer. Clinton refused an Irish barony in 1783 on the ground that

Keppel, Howe and Germain had been advanced two steps in the peerage1: he died as Governor of Gibraltar in

1795. Sir William Howe served as a district commander in England in the next war. But Cornwallis within a few

years became Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief in India, where great political and territorial changes

were under way, with Archibald Campbell as Governor of Madras and Medows giving his cheerful and self-

sacrificing service. When Cornwallis came home Pitt's war ministry leant on him heavily, and he became in turn

Master-General of the Ordnance, Viceroy of Ireland, and plenipotentiary for negotiating the Peace of Amiens. In

1805 at the age of sixty-five he reluctantly accepted a second appointment as Governor-General of India, and died

the same year at Ghazipur.

Of the three statesmen most closely connected with the war, Lord North was the only one to be recalled to high

office, and his dismissal in 1783 (accompanied inevitably by a ludicrous anecdote) was the end of his official

career. For the rest of his life he acted with the Opposition against Pitt, his followers in the House dwindling till by

1788 they numbered only seventeen. By then his eyes were failing, and his last years were passed with never-

failing patience and good humour in total blindness. In 1790 his aged father's death brought him at last the Guilford

title and the wealth from which his father had always refused him an adequate allowance. But he did not enjoy

them long. Two years and a day later he died of dropsy at the age of sixty.

It was a sad end for a man who in his own way had been a distinguished politician. He belongs to that strange

procession who reigned under the classical constitution at the Treasury: Walpole, Newcastle, the Younger Pitt and

Liverpool. All but Pitt were once ridiculed as venal avoiders of trouble or mere figureheads. Yet of none of them

was this just. In that conservative oligarchy a stable executive was achieved by careful conciliation of interests

1 CL, Clinton, to C. J. Fox, after 10 July 1783.

< previous page page_520 next page >

page_521

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_521.html[1/17/2011 2:28:42 PM]

< previous page page_521 next page >

Page 521

and balancing of rewards. North formed his Ministry after a decade of unstable politics; and he held it together for

twelve years with the support of the King and the House of Commons. His tragedy was that the second half of his

administration was burdened with a contentious and unsuccessful war for which his very qualities unfitted him; and

he left a legend of ineptitude which is only half the story.

Of the two men on whom his failings threw the main burden of the war, Sandwich largely retired from public life

on the fall of the Ministry. He lived mainly at Hinchingbrooke, and died in London a few months before Lord

North at the age of seventy-three. Throughout his long career as diplomatist and statesman he had remained on the

army list, and died the senior general in the army. In the days of his eclipse he was regarded with affection by men

who had served him. Middleton was not alone in remembering him. The rehabilitated Palliser, in undisturbed

possession of Greenwich, wrote a few days after the armistice asking permission to have his old chief's portrait

painted. He intended to leave it to the Hospital as a testimony 'of my remembering to the last days of my life your

Lordship's friendship and kindness to me, as well in my days of adversity as prosperity'. The portrait by

Gainsborough still hangs at Greenwich; and the Royal Marines possess an Opie painted three years later by

subscription of the officers, 'your own children, brought into the service or promoted by your Lordship'.1

Germain retired with a peerage; but malice was not silenced by his fall, and there lay before him 'one of the last

and most painful trials of his life'.2 Lord Carmarthen3 moved in the House of Lords that his presence while under

the sentence of a court-martial would be derogatory to the honour of the House; and the motion was repeated on

the day when the new Viscount Sackville took his seat. Carmarthen was privately applauded by his friend Lord

Pembroke for resisting the countenancing of Sackville's cowardice and sodomy; and there is little doubt that the old

enmities of Minden were still at work, for the two men were friends of the Ligoniers and Pembroke had once been

aide-de-camp to Granby. But their actions were the less excusable since both had been content to serve at Court

till 1780 with the North administration. It was too much for the Lords to stomach. Personal attacks on a Minister in

office were one thing, insults to a private person another. This was 'a motion cruel and ill-mannered, not becoming

one man of quality to another; at the same time an unpardonable insult to the Crown'; 'in every light odious, and

tended to destroy the

1 Sandwich, IV, 425.

2 Cumberland, Character, 20.

3 Afterwards 5th Duke of Leeds.

< previous page page_521 next page >

page_522

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_522.html[1/17/2011 2:28:42 PM]

< previous page page_522 next page >

Page 522

best prerogative of the Crown, that of pardon'. Germain thought of challenging Carmarthen after his first speech;

but as Walpole wrote, 'it is not a cas combattable. It is more offensive than if it was'.1 On taking his seat and

enduring Shelburne's crocodile tears and the vulgar abuse of Richmond and Abingdon, he replied with temperance

and generosity.

Lord Sackville lived three more years, and continued to speak regularly in Parliament, dividing his time between

Stoneland, Drayton and Pall Mall. In the country he lived the life of an old-fashioned squire, reproving the choir's

singing on Sunday, helping the unfortunate, and entertaining his friends with lavish hospitality. He struggled to

forget the resentments which his misfortunes had accumulated, and he did not find it easy. When Lord Carmarthen

was given office by Pitt at the end of 1783 he refused his support to the new administration, in spite of the pleas of

Pitt, Thurlow, and his nephew the Duke of Dorset.2 On his deathbed he struggled to extinguish one last grudge

before he took the Sacrament. We must leave him at the last to his friends; and though resentment had betrayed

him to moments of passion, yet a friend could assert that it had not spoilt his nature. 'The same Providence that

gave him strength to endure', wrote Richard Cumberland, 'laid afflictions upon him to put that strength to the trial: I

am warranted in saying they neither hardened his heart, depressed his spirit, nor soured his temper. . . .'

Cumberland was with him two days before he died, and gives an account of Lord Sackville's last words to him

when he took the Sacrament. 'You see me now', said Sackville, 'in those moments when no disguise will serve, and

when the spirit of a man must be proved; I have a mind perfectly resigned and at peace within itself . . . Tell me

not of all that passes in health and pride of heart, these are the moments in which a man must be searched; and

remember that I die, as you see me, happy and content.'3

It may well have been true.

1 Carlisle, 572, 576; Walpole, Last Journals, II, 496; Herbert, Pembroke Papers, 195. Carmarthen's account

is in the Leeds Political Memoranda, 538. Other peers who joined in this attack were Chatham (son of the

war leader at the time of Minden), Southampton (Fitzroy, who had brought one of Ferdinand's orders to

Sackville), the Duke of Rutland (Granby's son), and Derby (Burgoyne's nephew).

2 Sackville, I, 804. See also Valentine, 485.

3 Cumberland, Character, 15, 23. His last years are also described by Wraxall.

< previous page page_522 next page >

page_523

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_523.html[1/17/2011 2:28:43 PM]

< previous page page_523 next page >

Page 523

APPENDIX

THE ARMY

< previous page page_523 next page >

page_524

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_524.html[1/17/2011 2:28:43 PM]

< previous page page_524 next page >

Page 524

Dispositions of Cavalry and Infantry1

Effectives of all ranks: including Provincials and Germans unless otherwise indicated

April

Sept.

Mar.

Dec. 76 Aug.

Feb.

Oct.

July

Mar.

Sept.

Mar.

Sept.

Mar.

Cavalry (South Britain) 3,322 3,330 3,253 3,192 3,085 3,143 4,388 5,378 5,866 5,860 5,835 5,844 5,803

Infantry (South Britain) 7,290 9,145 10,319 9,673 10,78311,32816,86417,649 19,249 20,783 19,091 21,914 21,865

Militia (South Britain) 32,21333,57336,287 36,973 30,500 36,440 36,606

TOTAL (South Britain) 10,612 12,475 13,572 12,865 13,86814,47153,46556,600 61,402 63,616 55,426 64,198 64,274

Additional Companies raising for the infantry 2,763 2,031 3,408 3,020 3,282 4,588 3,438 2,583 3,023 3,247

North Britain (i.e. Scotland) 1,745 1,831 2,300 2,043 2,116 2,132 4,354 4,954 5,651 7,102 5,856 5,850 5,892

Embarked for service *****

358

6,194 3,637 6,203 4,868 5,872

Jersey 174 332 303 280 269 264 840 1,359 1,332 2,182 2,132 2,776 2,761

Guernsey 169 175 172 172 162 162 743 1,226 1,342 2,099 1,922 2,214 1,795

Africa 157 109 84 64 64 116 116 437 333 208 343 270 270

Gibraltar 3,064 3,085 3,188 3,142 3,141 3,110 5,031 4,930 5,874 5,786 5,666 5,560 5,336

Minorca 2,168 2,193 2,243 2,223 2,210 2,199 2,183 2,151 2,134 2,132 2,077 2,035 2,035

East Indies (excluding East India Company

troops)

1,099*1,009*1,009* 1,245* 1,210 1,099 1,062

(table continued on next page)

< previous page page_524 next page >

page_525

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_525.html[1/17/2011 2:28:44 PM]

< previous page page_525 next page >

Page 525

(table continued from previous page)

Medows expedition 2,784

West Indies and on

passage

1,983 1,976 1,937 3,145 3,315 1,860 1,751 8,119 9,290 11,153 9,745 10,087 8,756

North America 6,991****10,502****14,374****20,741***23,694***50,156**** 39,637 35,942 32,149 33,466 30,531 35,641 34,463

Under orders for

North America

6,957

Convention Army** 6,277 4,175 3,617 3,617 2,794 2,684 1,535

Canada 6,835 7,767 6,647 7,507 7,471 7,471 8,976 8,976 10,225

GENERAL TOTAL

including militia

27,063 32,678 45,130 54,631 57,637 77,878112,239131,691142,386147,152135,464149,282150,310

Wanting to complete 3,521 2,842 14,663 10,311 7,305 ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

* On passage.

** The troops under the Convention of Saratoga were not considered to be prisoners of war and continued to be included in returns.

*** British troops only

**** Including Canada.

***** Under orders for Great Britain.

1 From Lord North's return-books in the William Clements Library: the figures are the latest known in England at the date given. The

Irish Establishment is omitted, as I have not found any continuous series of Irish returns.

< previous page page_525 next page >

page_526

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_526.html[1/17/2011 2:28:45 PM]

< previous page page_526 next page >

Page 526

Men Raised for the British Establishment, 177480

These figures were compiled by Jenkinson before introducing the army estimates in December 1780. They exclude

militia and fencibles.

Sept. 1774 to Sept. 1775 3,575of which none were for new levies

Sept. 1775 to Sept. 1776 11,063of which 2,124 were for new levies

Sept. 1776 to Sept. 1777 6,882of which none were for new levies

Sept. 1777 to Sept. 1778 23,978of which 12,984 were for new levies

Sept. 1778 to Sept. 1779 16,154of which 5,576 were for new levies

Sept. 1779 to Sept. 1780 15,233of which

8,392 were for new levies

76,885 29,076

Provincial Rank and File in America

Dec. 1777 3,738

June 1778 4,628

Dec. 1778 6,326

June 1779 6,504

Dec. 1779 6,757

Dec. 1780 8,201

May 1781 8,151

(WO 34/139, f. 133.)

West Indies Reinforcements

Regiments sent from the British Isles, October 1776 to February 1780, with their wastage on passage. Recruits for

regiments already in the West Indies are not included.

Rank and file Died on passage

Destination Embarked Regiment embarked Number Percentage

Jamaica 1776 Oct. Dalrymple's

491 9 1 3/4

Jamaica 1779 March

79th 1,007 83 8 1/8

Jamaica 1779 Nov.

88th 758 25 3 1/4

Leeward Is. 1779 Dec.

89th 683 40 5 3/4

Leeward Is. 1780 Jan.

90th 701 94 13 1/4

Leeward Is. 1780 Jan.

91st 710 160 22 1/2

Jamaica 1780 Jan.

85th 643 40 6 1/4

Leeward Is. 1780 Jan.

86th 683 60 8 3/4

Leeward Is. 1780 Jan.

87th 674 37 5 1/2

Jamaica 1780 Feb.

93rd 667 111 16 1/2

Jamaica 1780 Feb.

94th 710 179 25 1/8

Jamaica 1780 March

92nd 710 94 13 1/8

Totals for the above twelve regiments: 8,437 embarked

7,506 landed

932 died on passage

11% average loss

page_526

file:///C:/Users/User/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX01.335/The%20War%20for%20America%20%201775-1783/files/page_526.html[1/17/2011 2:28:45 PM]

< previous page page_526 next page >