Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
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may be contrasted with Newcastle's in the Seven Years War. Newcastle had been a miserable war leader, terrified
of responsibility and ludicrously ignorant of geography. But from 1757, when he withdrew to the Treasury and Pitt
took control of the war, Newcastle became the indispensible political manager of the team. North had to be his
own party manager in a time of violent contention, bearing a burden of detail which distracted his wits. And in one
respect his civil burden was heavier than Newcastle's; for being in the House of Commons he followed custom and
combined the Treasurer-ship with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, carrying on his own back the undivided
weight of the finances. He accepted these burdens from inclination, both as a party leader and as a sound financier.
History has confirmed his financial abilities; but sound financiers make the worst war ministers. North, with his
'parsimony of public treasure',1 his ignorance of war, and his opposition to re-armament, was of the lineage of
Walpole and the Younger Pitt; of Gladstone and Neville Chamberlain.
Distracted and gloomy, the Prime Minister gradually withdrew deeper into the sheltering recesses of his
departmental routine. He became inaccessible to his colleagues, and only a few junior officials were able to
approach him. With these he conducted his business in holes and corners, always ready to take flight at the hint of
a difficulty. The Ministry had never worked as a single co-ordinated machine; and more and more it became a
government of separate departments. For this situation the King's supposed desire to rule in person has been
blamed; but the truth is that it was a recent historical accident which North perpetuated. In 1766 Chatham had
formed a miscellaneous Administration of clever young men with no bond of union but himself. When he fell ill
the Duke of Grafton at the Treasury refused to act as effective Prime Minister in his place, and the Ministry was
reduced to a collection of independent departments without a head. This was the system which North inherited: 'I
found it so, and had not the vigour and resolution to put an end to it.' Perhaps the saddest spectacle of the war is
the Prime Minister, with the clearest self-knowledge, helpless to correct his faults or to resign.2
In a moment of depression North seems to have implied that the true director of affairs was the King.3 This view
would have suited the book of
1 Knox, 156. In 1779 William Eden reproached North for devoting two-thirds of his time to contractors'
jobs, Custom House scruples, and memorials of individuals about pounds, shillings and pence (Butterfield,
61). A year later the King wished that North could be persuaded to appoint a Secretary to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer to see that letters were answered promptly (Add. MSS. 37835, f. 164).
2 Butterfield, George III, Lord North and the People, 212; Russell, Memorials of Fox, II, 38.
3 G 2845.
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Charles Fox; but it was not so. North himself was quite specific about it to Fox: 'the appearance of power is all that
a King in this country can have. Though the Government in my time was a government by departments, the whole
was done by the Ministers, except in a few instances.'1 Though still in constitutional theory the head of the
executive, and though still generally conceded to have the right to choose Ministers whose views he approved,
George III did not direct the war. He received Ministers individually, and commented on their views; but beyond
insisting in general terms on the subjugation of America he made no attempt to steer strategy. Military
administration he rightly regarded as lying within his prerogative; and in this sphere he was active, resisting the
worst abuses of patronage and retaining a say in the appointment of commanders. But these were matters of
administration rather than policy. About the strategic movement of troops he was always punctiliously consulted by
Amherst before orders were issued; but though he was capable of rejecting Cabinet advice to send a regiment to
Jamaica, it went there just the same.2
The King neither could nor would provide the missing leadership. His contribution to the war was a moral one. He
could try to see that the Ministers held together and did their duty. He would put heart into the hesitant, stir up the
idle, and check the treacherous. He never wavered from the chosen object of the war. His own firm spirit helped to
hold the Ministry together and encouraged resolute measures; in the darkest crises he never lacked confidence or
courage. 'If others will not be active, I must drive', he remarked of an occasion when he summoned the Cabinet to
his presence. His aim was not to direct policy, but to infuse his own energy into those who ought. He knew the
importance of pushing slothful administrators, and gained his servants' respect. 'I have always observed', wrote a
junior Minister, 'that the Admiralty can be expeditious when the King is inquisitive or anxious about their
preparations.' 'The more the Ministers know of their Master', Germain wrote in his retirement, 'the more will they
incline to merit his good opinion.'3
With regard to North's leadership, the King knew what was lacking. 'I fear', he wrote contemptuously in 1779, 'his
irresolution is only to be equalled by a certain vanity of wanting to ape the Prime Minister without any of the
requisite qualities.' Yet it was his own deliberate choice which kept the wretched North in harness. He preferred
administration paralysis to the political difficulty of replacing him. He never hoped the
1 Russell, Memorials of Fox, II, 38. Lord Hillsborough 'thought the King would never thwart his Minister,
and would rather, when dissatisfied, change him'. (Hutchinson Diaries, II, 187).
2 Knox, 155; CO 5/254, ff. 1256.
3 Sandwich, III, 26; Knox, 130; Sackville, I, 141.
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impossible: he never expected to turn North into an effective leader. But he believed that, while confining himself
to financial matters, North could be persuaded to fill vacant offices with the best men, and keep in touch with what
was going on; could be steered into methodical habits; and above all could be persuaded to remain in office. The
King described his ambition for North in a letter to John Robinson in November 1778: 'he must cast off his
indecision and bear up, or no plan can succeed; he must be more exact in answering letters or let others do it for
him; and he must let measures be thoroughly canvassed before undertaken, and when adopted must not quit them'.
It was a modest pattern for the head of a government at war.1
1 Add. MSS. 37834, ff. 39, 133; Knox, 155, 157; Pares, 151.
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PART ONE
THE CITADELS OF REBELLION 17757
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Chapter I
Lord Dartmouth's War
1
The Watching Enemy
The task which the unfortunate Ministers faced was enough to daunt the most stout-hearted. They had not sought
it. But with the attack on Bunker Hill they had crossed the Rubicon. Nothing had been prepared, everything had to
be done. In America there was not a single requisite for waging a war except gunpowder. The one gleam of light
was that the rebels had shown their hand, and Parliament would now vote supplies which might have been
questioned a few weeks earlier. Only the King was cheerful and energetic. 'We must persist and not be dismayed',
he replied to a jeremiad from North.1
The most threatening aspect of the situation in the long run was not in America but in Europe. If the struggle
should be prolonged, it was not likely to remain a private colonial quarrel. Paris, like London, had watched the
news from Boston. In the Foreign Ministry of the young Louis XVI there were men who waited for the day that
would right the balance and restore France to her greatness. At their head stood the Comte de Vergennes, a
statesman without the brilliance of Choiseul, but endowed with a patience which groped its way through the
tangled politics of the nations towards it goal. One of his subordinates later described the aims which inspired
them. For her honour France had to seize this opportunity to rise from her degradation. 'If she neglected it, if fear
overcame duty, she would add debasement to humiliation, and become an object of contempt to her own century
and to all future peoples.'2
In seeking independence for England's colonies, Vergennes challenged tradition. The Americans would expect the
opening of French colonial trade to their shipping and the final renunciation of Canada. Yet most French officials
believed the price should be paid. Vergennes' way was clear; and in surveying his country's alliances he followed
the path mapped by Choiseul. In Europe, the Austrian alliance should be maintained, but only as a tranquillising
agency: Austrian aggressions were not to be supported. The corner-stone of French foreign policy must be the
Family Compact with Spain. On the Continent the Compact would help to restrain Austria: on the seas France and
Spain together could outnumber the British navy.3
From the beginning of the war, Vergennes believed that the reconquest of
1 G 16823.
2 Doniol, I, 2 ff.
3 Doniol, I, Chap. 2 and p. 241.
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America was impossible. He was convinced that Britain had lost her chance; that her slow and deliberate building
up of strength would now enable the Americans to organise and prepare; and that all her wealth and resources
would not enable her to succeed. 'It will be vain for the English to multiply their forces there', he wrote in July
1775; 'no longer can they bring that vast continent back to dependence by force of arms'.1
Yet there were reasons for treading carefully. In the first place Spain was an uncertain factor. Though she coveted
Minorca and Gibraltar, and was embroiled in a dispute with Portugal which brought her into collision with
England, her interests were less clear-cut than those of France. Her colonies were more extensive and vulnerable;
and even if they survived a war with England, the rise of an independent America might create a new threat to
their security and loyalty. The internal politics of Madrid brought further confusion. The Prime Minister, Grimaldi,
was a foreigner, and anxious not to affront Spanish opinion by too Francophile a policy. This anxiety was
accentuated in the summer of 1775 when the King admitted his heir-apparent to a more active share in his
deliberations; for round the Prince of the Asturias were grouped Grimaldi's most active opponents. When the
rebellion broke out in America, Spain seemed more anxious to secure her own possessions than to embarrass
England's.
Further reasons for caution lay in the English political scene. In the long run defeat in America might tempt
England to seek compensation in the West Indies. More immediately, the surprise attack in 1755 was remembered.
A preventive attack on France did not seem beyond the bounds of possibility. The North government was pacific;
but under public pressure it might turn belligerent. A couple of days after the news of Bunker Hill, Lord Rochford
unmistakably showed his claws to the French ambassador. And behind the North Ministry stood the shadow of
Chatham. If North fell from power, the King might be forced to recall the architect of victory; and that restless and
ambitious spirit might reconcile the Americans and turn the united forces of England and her colonies against the
West Indies. Already England had ten thousand troops beyond the Atlantic with warships and transports, and at
home a powerful fleet in good condition and ready to be manned. The pick of French seamen were exposed in the
Newfoundland fisheries, and her commerce and colonies were unprotected. There was much reason for care.2
Lord Rochford's threat, however, was used to good purpose in Madrid. The two Courts drew closer together, and
Spain urged France to keep sixty sail of the line in good condition, which with Spain's fifty would balance the
British fleet. The two governments were thus closely linked against the
1 Doniol, I, 89, 1712.
2 Doniol, I, 413, 612, 6871, 81, 116; II, 901, 223.
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supposed danger, even to the point of concerting war plans, when on 23 August the British Ministry issued the
Proclamation of Rebellion. All intercourse with the rebel colonies was forbidden, and the seizure of rebel shipping
at last began. This was the real declaration of war. It marked the British government's recognition that unless it
strengthened its hand by the use of force it would negotiate in vain.1
The Proclamation gave confidence to Vergennes. Hitherto he had feared that reconciliation was imminent. But now
the door was closed. England's forces would be contained by the vain effort of reconquest, and the immediate
danger of an attack on French and Spanish colonies receded. England could be left to destroy her forces and
exhaust her finances. In a burst of optimism Vergennes and Guines, his ambassador in London, wrote as though
revolution in England was imminent. They pictured the country engulfing itself in civil war, George III as another
Charles I, with scaffolds for the Ministers and exile for the royal family. It was not, alas, the British Ministers who
were to tread the scaffold.
For France the critical moment would come when England gave up the struggle in America and withdrew her
forces; and the degree of danger would depend on how far those forces might remain intact. Vergennes' business
was to see that they did not; and he began to feel his way cautiously towards active help for the rebels. Early in
September an agent sailed for America to transmit information; and in the same month Beaumarchais, the begetter
of Figaro, returned from the colonies to urge the necessity of acting now as the future allies of America. For if
England subdued her colonies she would turn on France. France must support the colonies to ensure her own
survival.2
2
The Rebels
The population of the American colonies was estimated by Congress as nearly 3 million. The American
Department made it something under 2 1/2 million, of whom 600,000 were negroes. If one supposed that a quarter
of the white population could bear arms, there were about 450,000 fighting men in the American colonies, from
whom loyalists, pacifist sects and seamen had to be deducted. Nine years earlier Benjamin Franklin had calculated
ironically in a London newspaper that America had a quarter of a million fighting men; but since one Englishman
was as good as five Americans, an army of 50,000 could quell the colonies in three or four years at a cost of 10 or
12 million pounds a year.3
1 Doniol, I, 43, 516, 1237.
2 Doniol, I, 90, 149, 1714, 204.
3 Knox, 288; CL, Germain, Vol. 17, p. 24; Theodore Thayer, Pennsylvania Politics and the Growth of
Democracy, 125, n. 54. The population of the British Isles was about 11 million; but no comparison can, of
course, be drawn from the figures.
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Superficially, of course, the argument was fallacious, for America was geographically and politically divided, and
her economy would not allow her to mobilise more than a fraction of her fighting men for regular service.
Nevertheless a very high proportion of her men would turn out with the militia to defend their own districts; and if
the Americans were fighting for principles a very high proportion of their strength could intermittently be brought
to bear.
The total was formidable. But whether it consisted of reliable fighting men was another question. With the possible
exception of Lord Amherst, those among the government's friends who knew the Americans best rated them
lowest. Wolfe at Quebec had called the American Rangers 'the worst soldiers in the universe'. His successor,
General Murray, was now Governor of Minorca, and as late as 1777 he guessed that Washington's only reliable
men were recent immigrants: 'the native American is a very effeminate thing, very unfit for and very impatient of
war'. Admiral Rodney had met them when he was Governor of Newfoundland, and despised them. Some of the
reports on Lexington and Concord had tended to confirm these estimates. Though astonishing numbers had turned
out, it was suggested by friendly Americans that if the rebels had shown skill and courage the tired British
detachment could not have retired twenty miles without ammunition.1
Bunker Hill produced a different impression. Fighting on ground which was ideal for their tactics, among small
enclosures and narrow lanes, the Americans had defended their position inch by inch. Their steadiness was far
beyond what could have been expected. They showed, wrote Gage, 'a conduct and spirit against us, they never
showed against the French, and everybody has judged them from their former appearance and behaviour'. His
subordinates all agreed. The American defence had been well planned and obstinately maintained, and their retreat
had been covered with skill and courage.2
In face of such evidence, British Ministers have been accused of obstinate blindness to the quality of the rebels.
But the first American successes were followed by a long succession of tactical defeats. Indeed, they probably
never succeeded in equalling either the British regulars or the British-trained loyalist regiments. The Americans
could handle firearms, but at first they had little training or discipline. They could not manoeuvre in the field, and
were only happy skirmishing in the woods or digging in on a strong position. 'We must learn to use other weapons
than the pick and spade', said John Adams. 'Our armies must be disciplined and learn to fight.'3
1 Reilly, The Rest to Fortune, 223; Sackville, I, 371; CL, Wedderburn, II, Nos 49, 51 (No. 49 is
misinterpreted in a manuscript note as referring to British troops).
2 Rutland, III, 2; Dartmouth, 381; Gage Corr., II, 686; G 1670.
3 Freeman, Washington, IV, 1412.
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For British statesmen it was extraordinarily difficult to assess the enemy correctly. A revolutionary struggle which
involved an armed insurgent population was unique in the memory of the age. And the hostility of a great part of
the population and the passion of the loyalists made accurate and objective intelligence scarce. How, for example,
was Germain to assess the views of Dr Berkenhout, who went through the lines in 1778? If his report was to be
believed, the Continental army consisted chiefly of transported Irishmen; and if Washington could ever be defeated
and resolutely pursued, his troops would disperse. 'They are not, as they have been represented, a respectable body
of yeomanry, fighting pro aris et focis; but a contemptible body of vagrants, deserters and thieves.'1
The idea that Washington's Continentals were mainly Irishmen and other recent immigrants was widely held. We
have seen that General Murray believed it: so did Clinton and his staff at New York; and few of the Provincial
troops in British service were native 'Americans'.2 This much was certain: that Washington had the greatest
difficulty in keeping an army together. For the rest, Englishmen at home had no yardstick to measure such
statements. American society was unlike any other in the world; and its peculiar strength had the appearance of
weakness to the aristocratic statesmen of Westminster. Lord Carlisle, comparing the revolts of America and the
Netherlands, argued that America was in its infancy and lacked the strength and vigour of age and 'a proper
division of different ranks of men'. When he saw New York for himself in 1778 he noticed that in spite of the
wretchedness and poverty among the victims of the war, he was never asked for charity. Yet in face even of the
refractory obstinacy of rebel prisoners, well-informed and sensible Englishmen returned again and again to this
error. Admiral Rodney supposed that Washington could be bought with honours. In 1778 a particularly acute
memorandum on the conduct of the war which circulated in Cabinet circles urged the distribution of titles and
honours 'to hasten the natural progress of an aristocracy on that Continent in order to correct the levelling spirit of
the people'.3
The loyalists, of course, nourished the idea that the enemy were a mob led by demagogues; the contrast between
the rebels' talk of rights and liberties and their actual oppression of the loyal minority made it hard for the victims
to credit them with honesty of purpose. But the British themselves had reason for their low opinion of American
troops. In the Seven Years War the colonials had lost confidence in their ability to face the French
1 CL, Germain, 24 Aug. 1778.
2 Mackenzie, 81; Willcox, American Rebellion, 110. See also Hastings, III, 186; Howe's Narrative, 43.
3 Carlisle, 447; Sackville, II, 194; WO 34/110, ff. 14452.
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regulars and the disciplined Canadian militia. In part their weakness is explained by the failure of the separate
colonial legislatures to combine and contribute adequately, a failure which the British government could now
reasonably hope to see repeated. But it was also a product of the American way of life: of the individualism and
passion for freedom which made them suspicious of standing armies and impatient of discipline; of the absence of
dependence and poverty on which the recruiting sergeant could feed; and of the lack of that social subordination
which was the root of eighteenth-century discipline. Of all this the Americans themselves were aware. Petitioning
for British troops in 1755, the Massachusetts Assembly had explained:
our people are not calculated to be confined in garrisons or kept in any particular service; they soon grow
troublesome and uneasy by reflecting on their folly in bringing themselves into a state of subjection when
they might have continued free and independent.1
Throughout the rebellion the difficulty of getting Americans to serve outside their own militia areas continued.
Even Congress was reluctant to see a standing army. 'Long enlistment is a state of slavery', a member declared.
Thus the Continental army was hampered by short enlistments, and was continually dissolving and being reformed.
In some respects the British estimation of American strength in the field was not wide of the mark. Their real
miscalculation lay elsewhere.
3
Conscience and Policy
This miscalculation was the strength and vitality of the loyalists and the effectiveness of the rebel militia. And the
loyalists were essential because none of the great maxims of strategy applied in America. The weighing of ends
and means, the magnitude of the object against the cost of achieving it, provided little guidance. For both sides the
political objects of the struggle were absolute. For the Americans, before the first British counterstroke was even
launched, the object was defined as absolute independence. For Britain the object was the overthrow of the
revolutionary government. Yet this British object was, paradoxically, not an unlimited one of simple conquest. Her
ultimate desire was the political one of restoring union and harmony between the colonies and the mother-country.
Force was adopted with reluctance, and throughout the struggle the attempt to seek a solution by
1 L. H. Gipson, The British Empire before the American Revolution, VII, 71. See also Vol. II, Chap. I, and
Vol. VII, Chap. IX. Since the above was written, fresh light has been shed on the misleading lessons of the
Seven Years War by Mr. John W. Shy in 'A New Look at Colonial Militia' (William and Mary Quarterly
1963, pp. 1835).
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