Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
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reserve and readiness in debate to insinuate that he was cunning; and his court-martial was a gift to unscrupulous
opponents. Their use of it disgraced the Opposition. 'The Ghost of Minden' was for ever being wheeled in. They
began at once. Wilkes said that he might conquer America, but it would not be in Germany, a sally which Lord
George found funny enough to retail in the Cabinet; Luttrell that the only safety of the army was flight, in which
Germain was fit to lead them. Germain had 'either to turn absolute knight-errant, or else put up quietly with
constant affronts'.1 He brought to these trials reserves of contemptuous dignity. Yet the equanimity described by
Wraxall did not preclude a sharp and hasty temper. Sometimes he gave way to the goading of Charles Fox and his
friends, and once threw the House into an uproar by challenging an opponent on the spot. He could be irritated into
revealing what the easy-tempered North had managed to conceal. Fox claimed that he knew how to exploit his
'unwary frankness'; and Jenkinson in 1778 described his conduct on the question of investigating General Howe's
campaigns as indiscreet beyond description.
In these circumstances, and without a personal following in the House, Germain's contribution to the Ministry's
strength could only be his achievements in office. His enmities were widely spread. The Graftons had long disliked
him, and the Duke's brother had been a hostile witness at his trial. He cannot have loved the Rutland family
connection, for Lord Granby had been his rival and Lord Robert Manners had sat on his court-martial. Lord
Albemarle, the head of the Keppels, whose family included a prominent general and Admiral serving in the
American War, had been a chief examiner at the trial. The Duke of Richmond, a violent and wrong-headed
politician of the Rockingham connection, had served on Ferdinand's staff at Minden, and twenty-two years later in
the House of Lords malevolently exaggerated the time lost by Germain's delay; and Shelburne had been with
Granby in the battle. It was a time of unrestrained parliamentary language, and political enmities need not be taken
too seriously: Fox found no difficulty in alternating ferocious denunciation of Lord North with intimate gossip with
the victim. Perhaps more serious for Germain was hostility within the Ministry. Lord Amherst, who joined the
Cabinet as Commander-in-Chief in 1778, had been a friend since childhood. But Lord Bathurst disliked him, and
Lord Barrington, the Secretary at War, had arranged his court-martial.
These coolnesses may not have mattered much: his relations with the First Lord of the Admiralty undoubtedly did.
Sandwich was the man with whom a close understanding was most essential for the efficient conduct of the war. In
wartime a harmonious inner circle of Ministers was needed to
1 Walpole, Last Journals, II, 267; Carlisle, 311.
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reach decisions quickly and steer business through the Cabinet. It was all the more necessary when the presiding
Minister in the Cabinet was as evasive and undecided as North. Friction between Germain and Sandwich began
early. It started with Germain's criticism of naval weakness in America, and was kept alive by disputes over naval
appointments and letters of marque. The two men had little in common. Sandwich was a political jobber, gamester,
and man of fashion, Germain politically solitary with the stately manners of an old-fashioned country gentleman.
To spur the sluggish Admiralty on was a duty in the Secretary of State; and Germain made no effort to conceal his
low regard for the navy, its operations and its Admirals. Their lack of mutual confidence must have brought many
matters unprepared before the Cabinet.
A constitutional historian has described Germain's position as very similar to Pitt's in the Seven Years War.1 As
Secretaries of State, both controlled the main operations of a war; and just as the Elder Pitt had used his office to
dominate the Admiralty and quicken the Ordnance, so Germain could try to make the wheels of administration
revolve with the faster tempo of war. He had faults of temper, but so had Pitt. If he lacked the touch of genius
which in Pitt was allied with madness, he was a more orderly administrator. But one asset of Pitt's he lacked: the
weight of transcendent political authority. He had not, like Pitt, been summoned by the nation; he did not hold the
Ministry's fate in his hands; he could make no claim to share the political supremacy with the First Lord of the
Treasury. And, for all his talents, he lacked the magic gift of Pitt: the power to frighten and inspire.2
3
The First Weeks in Office
Lord George Germain's country seat was Drayton in Northamptonshire. His London retreat was his favourite
house, Stoneland Lodge3 near Tunbridge Wells, convenient for his London friends and close to the Sackville
family seat at Knole and to his friend Amherst's home at Montreal. For his working days he took Lord
Waldegrave's house in Pall Mall, in the heart of official London. Across the way in St James's Square lived
Admiral
1 Thomson, The Secretaries of State, 86.
2 No biography of Germain based on archival research existed till the recent publication of Alan Valentine's
Lord George Germain, where much information and many leads on sources may be found, though on many
points Mr Valentine's judgments are contrary to my own. A highly sympathetic sketch is Louis Marlow's
Sackville of Drayton. Wraxall and Cumberland show Germain through the eyes of friends; and there is
interesting material in C. J. Phillips, History of the Sackville Family, George Coventry's study of Junius, and in
the Memoirs of Percival Stockdale.
3 Now Buckhurst: he rented it from his nephew the Duke of Dorset.
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Palliser of the Board of Admiralty. A few steps beyond, Lord Suffolk lived in Duke Street, and the Secretaries'
offices were nearby in Cleveland Row. Germain's own office was across the Park in Whitehall, conveniently near
Downing Street and the Admiralty.
The impression Germain made in his Department was immediate. From the beginning he showed the qualities
which had brought him to the top of the army. He was punctual and precise, quick and impatient of delays.
There was at once an end [the Under-Secretary Richard Cumberland recalled] to all circumlocutory reports
and inefficient forms, that had only impeded business, and substituted ambiguity for precision: there
was . . . no trash in his mind; he studied no choice phrases, no superfluous words, nor ever suffered the
clearness of his conceptions to be clouded by the obscurity of his expressions, for these were the simplest
and most unequivocal that could be made use of for explaining his opinion, or dictating his instructions. In
the meanwhile he was so momentarily punctual to his time, so religiously observant of his engagements,
that we, who served under him in office, felt the sweets of the exchange we had so lately made in the
person of our chief.1
The decision to use a large army in America had already been taken when Germain became responsible for the
war. But he had wholeheartedly approved the measure. After the first rebel successes a sharp lesson was needed.
Germain never deluded himself that America could be conquered by force from without; but he believed that
England was dealing with a seditious minority, whose power must be broken in order to crack the unity of
Congress and enable the people, under pressure of commercial blockade, to turn to the loyalists for a lead. But the
blow must be delivered swiftly. 'As there is not common sense in protracting a war of this sort', he had written in
September,2 'I should be for exerting the utmost force of this Kingdom to finish the rebellion in one campaign.'
Events were to prove the wisdom of this. Not only did the prolonging of the struggle tempt the European powers to
intervene, but the accumulated bitterness of protracted war was to divide the Americans from England as no merely
constitutional struggle could do, and make for ever unattainable the political settlement for which England
embarked on the struggle.
In a war so distant it would have been improper for the Secretary of State to dictate the course of operations or the
disposition of the troops in the fighting theatres. The Elder Pitt had tried to do it; and from lack of confidence in
the energy of Loudon and Abercromby he had dictated the strength and composition of every body of troops down
to companies. But his intervention was as unpractical as it was unusual, and with increasing experience and greater
confidence in his generals he came to allow a larger
1 Richard Cumberland, Memoirs, 289.
2 Sackville, I, 1357
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degree of operational autonomy to the theatre commanders. Germain in 1776 made no attempt to repeat Chatham's
early experiment. 'The distance from the seat of Government necessarily leaves much to the discretion and
resources of the General', he had said recently.1 His proper sphere as Secretary of State was the appointment of
commanders, the allocation of resources between theatres, and the organisation of movement and supply at home:
in a word, grand strategy. The commanders he inherited: in Howe he had confidence, in Carleton less. He did not
dictate their operations in detail. Not till Howe and Carleton had failed and Clinton had shown his feebleness did
he begin to press detailed proposals on the general. His misfortune was to be that, a member of a weak and
embarrassed government, he was unable to replace his commanders as he might wish.
The strategic situation when Germain took over his Department seemed to be well in hand. It was hoped that
Howe's force was already transferred from Boston to the more useful base at New York, ready for the spring
offensive; and that Canada was safe for the winter in spite of the failure to get the reinforcements through. The only
operation immediately on foot was the small expedition of seven battalions for Charleston, for which preparation
had begun. The path seemed clear for the orderly preparation of the spring offensives in the Atlantic colonies and
Canada; and through the rest of November and most of December Germain pressed on with their organisation. But
in the closing days of the year news arrived from both Howe and Carleton which shed a very different light on the
prospects.
From Boston came General Burgoyne, eager for Parliament and society bearing the latest news from Howe. The
withdrawal to New York had been frustrated. The victuallers from England had gone astray in the autumn storms,
and Howe found himself without the necessary shipping to lift his whole force at one time. To move it in two
échelons was most hazardous, in view of the extent of the lines to be held and the uncertain winter weather which
might delay the rescue of the second division.2 Thus the army remained immured in Boston through a dismal
winter. The infantry battalions defending the long perimeter were on the low peacetime establishment and had been
further reduced by wastage and casualties. At the beginning of the winter their average strength had been only 400
of all ranks, and sickness had been increasing. While Howe remained in Boston it would be difficult for him to
keep a reserve in hand to meet an emergency; and when the spring came he would lose part of the campaigning
season in taking New York.
Still worse was the news from Canada. Two days before Christmas a
1 Marlowe, 175
2 Howe's Orderly Book, 3027; T. S. Anderson, Command of the Howe Brothers, 86.
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frigate hastened in from the St Lawrence with despatches reporting that the Americans had burst into Canada from
two quarters, and Quebec itself was in danger. Many months earlier, the loss of Ticonderoga and Crown Point had
revealed a threat to Canada. But Germain's predecessors had delayed reinforcements until they miscarried in the
autumn gales south-west of Ireland. Now General Montgomery had swept forward from Ticonderoga, and Carleton
had sacrificed most of his regulars in defending the approaches to Montreal. Then behind him a second enemy had
burst from the wilderness of Maine. Arnold's force debouched on the St Lawrence opposite Quebec. The city's
fortifications were in disrepair, there were few troops, and the shortage of stores and provisions was desperate.
Germain did not despair. He suspected that Carleton had painted the situation blacker than was necessary. But
there was no time to lose. The provisions in Quebec could not last beyond the middle of May, just after the ice
broke up in the St Lawrence, but long before the main spring convoys reached the river; and Carleton had
suggested a small emergency relief. There was nothing for it but to trust an emergency supply to the wintry ocean.
Germain hastened to the Admiralty. No one was there except Palliser. The First Lord and every other member of
the Board was in the country for Christmas; and according to the gossip Lord North was also on the point of
slipping away to his villa at Bushey when Germain laid him by the heels and forced him to attend to the problem.
Palliser was summoned at once to plan an emergency shipment to Quebec with Germain and the Prime Minister.
The last news before a curtain of silence fell on the besieged city was growing worse. But if Quebec could hold out
till the ice broke up, relief would come. A fifty-gun ship and three cruisers were ordered to stand by; three
victuallers were loaded; and a regiment of foot embarked in Navy Board transports. The force sailed from the Nore
on 22 February, with orders to push singly and with all speed for the St Lawrence; and the little expedition was
scattered forth upon the Atlantic.1
4
The Strategy of Reconquest
Scarcely had the relief been set in motion when Palliser learnt with alarm that shipping was needed for a second
wave of 10,000 troops for Canada. This was on 3 January, and their purpose was indicated to Howe as the relief
1 Sandwich, I, 85; CL, Germain, Suppl., I (24 Jan. to Admiralty); Adm. 2/372, 15 Jan.; CO 5/254, pp. 4, 6,
9; CO 5/93, p. 335; Walpole, Last Journals, I, 531. Walpole's story that Palliser had to inform Germain that
the St Lawrence was frozen need not be credited. Even if Germain had incredibly been ignorant of this, the
appeals from Quebec made it clear.
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or recovery of Quebec. Palliser's surprise might suggest that the reinforcement was a response to the rebel
invasion.1
Yet much more was ultimately intended. There had been talk in the previous summer of building up a striking
force in Canada and retaking the lost frontier forts; and Carleton had asked for an army of ten or twelve thousand
men to invade New England. In September he had been warned to expect the bulk of the 20,000 Russians whom it
was hoped that Catherine the Great would provide; and soon after the news of the attack on Quebec Palliser had
been warned that boats would be needed for the frontier lakes, on which he innocently observed: 'I don't foresee
when we shall be in possession of the Lakes.'2
It is therefore clear that the plan to advance from Canada had old roots; and every plan which had been canvassed
advocated it. New England was rightly assumed to be the core of the rebellion; and though a policy of attacking
the softer areas was to be adopted later in the war, it seemed natural at the outset to break the heart of the
movement by striking at New England. She must be isolated at the least, and squeezed by economic pressures; at
the best, invaded and crushed. Seize control of the Hudson crossings and cut New England off from the Middle
Colonies; dominate Upper New York and enlist the help of the numerous loyalists in the area; open the
communications between New York and Canada so that the reservoirs of Indian and Canadian help could be
tapped in support of the regular striking force.
The importance of the Hudson valley had been grasped by the rebel Congress from the outset, and in November
1775 they had sent a committee to report on the fortifications which guarded its northern and southern entrances.
The committee found that at the Canadian end the fort at Crown Point would be too expensive to repair, and
recommended that work should be concentrated at Ticonderoga; while in the Highlands which blocked the
approach from New York they urged the obstruction of the channel and the strengthening of the existing
fortifications.3 On the British side the same basic proposal for a joint operation from New York and Canada had
come from Gage, Burgoyne and finally Howe, with the possible variants of simultaneously holding Boston or of
seizing Rhode Island to pin down the militias of Connecticut and Massachusetts. The incursion from Canada had
also, as we have seen, been urged by General Murray, who had commanded there in the previous war, and by
Carleton, who was there at the moment. Carleton had always been sure that the Hudson link was vital; and eight
years earlier
1 Sandwich, I, 94; CO 5/254, f. 2; CL, Germain, 5 Jan. to Howe, and Suppl., I, 15 Jan. to Admiralty.
2 Gage, II, 202; CO 42/34; Sandwich, I, 878.
3 Harvard, Sparks MSS., 52/II.
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he had urged the creation of strongholds at New York and Quebec, linked by restoring the fortifications of Crown
Point, Ticonderoga and Fort George. He did not doubt that Canada would provide a great reservoir of loyal helpers,
sharing and indeed promoting the extravagant expectations of Canadian assistance which pervaded every quarter.1
The views of Burgoyne, who was to be so intimately connected with the execution of the plan, ran thus:
I have always thought Hudson's River the most proper part of the whole continent for opening vigorous
operations. Because the course of the river, so beneficial for conveying all the bulky necessaries of an army,
is precisely the route that an army ought to take for the great purposes of cutting the communications
between the Southern and Northern Provinces, giving confidence to the Indians, and securing a junction
with the Canadian forces. These purposes effected, and a fleet upon the coast, it is to me morally certain
that the forces of New England must be reduced so early in the campaign to give you battle upon your own
terms, or perish before the end of it for want of necessary supplies.
For Burgoyne, then, the New Englanders in 1775 were an enemy entrenched in an unassailable position, who must
be compelled to sally forth or be starved into surrender.2
This was the plan which led two years later to Saratoga: but it should not be judged in the light of the errors of
Howe and Burgoyne. It was framed before the armies of the Revolution took shape, and was executed when they
seemed continually on the point of dissolution. The harassing of the western frontier was expected to dry up the
rebel armies' flow of supplies. On the authority of men like Governor Tryon of New York and Colonel Skene of
Skenesborough, it was believed that numerous loyalists in the Champlain and Hudson areas awaited the moment to
throw off the oppression of the rebel committees.3 Refugees are often deceptive advisers; but Tryon dwelt in no
fool's paradise, and in the previous August he had advised Dartmouth to withdraw the claim to tax America, in
order to rally the Crown's supporters, who were between Scylla and Charybdis.4 Again, though a past war is often
a deceptive guide to a present one, the Seven Years War seemed to show that the advance from Canada would be
possible and effective. A handful of French troops backed by militia and Indians had kept the frontiers of New
York in flames, and contained a considerable force of regulars and provincials to protect the settlements. In 1758
1 General Murray had advocated using 12,000 Canadians against New England in his letter of 1 July to
Barrington.
2 G 1662, 1670; Gage, II, 413, 418; Howe's Orderly Book, 302, 304; Thynne Papers, American Affairs, Nos.
212 (a copy of Burgoyne's answers to queries from Gage, supplied to Lord Rochford); Burt; Carleton.
3 As late as June 1777 Carleton gave credit to this belief (CO 42/36, f. 172).
4 Add. MSS. 38650A, ff. 12.
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15,000 men had marched from Albany on the Hudson by Lake George to attack Ticonderoga. The fortifications of
Ticonderoga had administered a bloody repulse; but in the following year Amherst had taken Ticonderoga and
Crown Point and invaded Canada by Lake Champlain and the Mohawk. Nor had the Americans, in the course of
these operations, shown the military virtues they were soon to display.1
Howe's own proposals were received on 14 November, and approved by Germain on 5 January in a letter which
announced the major reinforcements for Canada. Assuming that he would have the promised 20,000 men, Howe
proposed to use his main force at New York. He would isolate New England from the Middle Colonies, strike up
the Hudson, and open communications with Canada. Having secured these with proper posts, his own army and
Carleton's might invade the back of Massachusetts by separate routes. A further despatch brought by Burgoyne on
27 December advocated the evacuation of Boston and the seizure of Rhode Island.2
While Quebec was still in danger, Germain was cautious of committing his hopes for Canada to paper. 'Major-
General Burgoyne', he wrote to Carleton on 17 February, 'will be so fully instructed in every point in regard to the
important services that are to be carried on', that he wrote nothing on the subject himself. But a flotilla for the
Lakes was being proposed; and the prospect that it would be used in the coming campaign brightened in the second
half of February when news came from enemy sources that an assault on Quebec had been defeated. Thus, when
Burgoyne left London at the end of March bearing the orders for Canada, Germain felt justified in indicating the
full scope of his hopes. Carleton was ordered to endeavour to pass the Lakes as early as possible, and in his
progress 'contribute to the success of the army under General Howe'. But Germain had no intention of dictating
Carleton's operational plans. 'These operations must be left to your judgment and discretion, as it would be highly
improper, at such a distance, to give any positive orders, especially as so much confidence is placed in your
knowledge and military experience'. To Howe he wrote at the same time in a similar strain. If the rebels had given
up hope of conquering Canada, 'there is good ground to hope, that the army will be able to advance into the other
colonies, by the passage of the Lakes': that was to say, 'as far as I can judge of what is likely to be the general plan
of operations in North America'.3
1 The Ministerial viewpoint on the prospects offered by the advance from Canada is précised in CO 5/253,
ff. 2130.
2 Howe's Orderly Book, 302, 304, CO 42/35, f. 3; G 1826; Howe's of 23 Jan.
3 CO 42/35, f. 7; CO 5/93, p. 72.
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Chapter III
The Great Concentration
1
The Timetable
'Our disgraces have been great and repeated in America', wrote Sandwich when the news of the invasion of Canada
reached him, 'but I am clear in the opinion I allways [sic] had, that they are entirely owing to our having begun too
late, and having suffered ourselves to be amused by what were called conciliatory measures; fleets and armies,
admirals and generals, can do very little without ships, troops, and orders . . .'1
It was Germain's task to make up for lost time: to supply the orders and the men. Howe had asked for six or seven
thousand recruits and 4,000 foreign troops, in addition to the seven regiments which were coming out by way of
Charleston. Germain promised better. Not only would he find 10,000 men for Canada: Howe should have 4,400
British reinforcements and 10,000 Germans, a total of more than 14,000. And even this figure was to be
improved.2
The reinforcements had not been easy to find. The Tsarina had dashed the summer's hope of Russian troops. At
home the Ministry had been at its wits' end to find recruits. The East India Company had refused to suspend its
own recruiting a measure of the weakness of executive government in the eighteenth century and would certainly
siphon off a thousand recruits. As for completed regiments, the Charleston expedition left only four battalions fit
for immediate service in England and Scotland apart from the Foot Guards; and the old croker Lord Barrington
declared that there were not enough troops at home even to keep public order against 'the very levelling spirit
among the people'. In Scotland, where four or five battalions were needed, there would not be 600 infantry to
maintain order and collect the revenue. There was a large force in Ireland; but the executive in Dublin Castle
refused to take German mercenaries or the Scots-Dutch brigade in exchange for their own regiments, on which the
Protestant ascendancy depended. Their contribution was reduced, but at the expense of the force in England.
Foreign troops were the only answer to the shortage. As soon as the Russian refusal was known, the Cabinet had
resolved to close with the offers
1 Duke University MSS., XVIII: 30 Dec. 1775, Sandwich to unidentified correspondent.
2 CL, Germain, 5 Jan. to Howe (précis in Howe's Orderly Book, 308).
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from Hesse-Cassel and Brunswick, and hire Germans. The German regiments were originally intended to relieve
British troops in Ireland; and when the Irish executive protested, to be used in garrison in America to release all
Howe's troops for the field. Only gradually did the King and his Ministers accept the necessity of using Germans
for general service. In January 1776 treaties were signed for 18,000 German troops. These were tough and
disciplined regulars officered by veterans trained in the school of Frederick the Great and Ferdinand of Brunswick.
By accepting them England solved her man-power problem for the moment. Without them the attempt to subdue
America would have unthinkable.1
Thus the troops were secured. But the greater task was to deploy and maintain them on battlefields 3,000 miles
beyond the ocean. This colossal task was shouldered by Germain. In high spirits he set to work to sweep away the
legacy of Dartmouth's timidity, confident that one bold stroke would settle the American question and irradiate his
reputation.2 And if organisation alone could have conquered, he would have succeeded. To the American
Department flowed in reports of the Germans' progress towards their ports of embarkation; intimations from the
War Office of British troops ready to embark, from the Ordnance of artillery loaded and storeships ready to sail,
from the Admiralty and Navy Board of transports mustering and escorts preparing for sea. Five major
embarkations had to be arranged for the spring: the Guards at Spithead, the Highlanders in the Clyde, Irish infantry
for Canada at Cork, Germans in the Elbe and Weser. Innumerable other embarkations and convoys were required:
for recruits, for tents and camp equipment, for artillery and ordnance stores, for provisions. From Germain's office
went forth the ceaseless stream of instructions which were to marshal troops, stores and landing craft in the
approaches to New York and the St Lawrence. He had to see that the Admiralty hired and equipped the transports
for men, baggage and horses, and assembled them at widely scattered loading points; that it found the escorts for
large convoys and single storeships; that it duly forwarded sailing orders and intructions for the disposal of troops
at their destination. Embarkation orders went out to bat-
1 G 1708, 1710, 1725, 1727, 1760, 1769, 1771, 1774, 17767; Sackville, I, 243; Barrington, 1537; CO 5/254,
f. 15. The original treaties with the German princes took into the service 12,500 men from Hesse Cassel,
4,000 from Brunswick, 900 from Hesse Hanau and 750 from Waldeck. Offers from Bavaria and
Würtemberg were refused because of the poor quality of the men and their equipment. In 1777 1,285 men
were accepted from Ansbach-Bayreuth, and in 1778 1,160 from Anhalt-Zerbst. Small augmentations and
drafts of recruits brought the numbers of Germans sent to America and Canada in the course of the war to
29,166.
2 Carlisle, 306; Hastings, III, 166, 168.
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