Chapter 73
"_The main hope of success on the English_ side lay in the idea that the spirit and acts of resistance to the authority of the mother country were in reality only on the part of a turbulent minority--that the bulk of the people desired to be loyal. It is certain indeed that the struggle was, in America itself, much more of a civil war than the Americans are now generally disposed to admit. In December, 1780, there were 8,954 'Provincials' among the British forces in America, and on March 7th, 1781, a letter from Lord George Germaine to Sir H. Clinton, intercepted by the Americans, says: 'The American levies in the King's service are more in number than the whole of the enlisted troops in the service of the Congress.' As late as September 1st, 1781, there were 7,241. We hear of loyal 'a.s.sociations' in Ma.s.sachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsylvania; of 'a.s.sociated Loyalists' in New York; and everywhere of 'Tories,' whose arrest Was.h.i.+ngton is found suggesting to Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, as early as November 12th, 1775. But New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania remained long full of Tories. By June 28th, 1776, the disaffected on Long Island had taken up arms, and after the evacuation of New York by Was.h.i.+ngton a brigade of Loyalists was raised on the island, and companies were formed in two neighbouring counties to join the King's troops. During Was.h.i.+ngton's retreat through New Jersey, 'the inhabitants, either from fear or disaffection, almost to a man refused to turn out.' In Pennsylvania, the militia, instead of giving any a.s.sistance in repelling the British, exulted at their approach and over the misfortunes of their countrymen. On the 20th of that month the British were 'daily gathering strength from the disaffected.' In 1777, the Tories who joined Burgoyne in his expedition from the North are said to have doubled his force. In 1778, Tories joined the Indians in the devastation of Wyoming and Cherry Valley; and although the indiscriminate ravages of the British, or of the Germans in their pay, seem to have aroused the three States above mentioned to self-defence, yet, as late as May, 1780, Was.h.i.+ngton still speaks of sending a small party of cavalry to escort La Fayette safely through the 'Tory settlements' of New York. Virginia, as late as the spring of 1776, was 'alarmed at the idea of independence.' Was.h.i.+ngton admitted that his countrymen (of that State), 'from their form of government, and steady attachment heretofore to royalty,' would 'come reluctantly' to that idea, but trusted to 'time and persecution.' In 1781, the ground for transferring the seat of war to the Chesapeake was the number of Loyalists in that quarter. In the Southern States the division of feeling was still greater. In the Carolinas, a royalist regiment was raised in a few days in 1776, and again in 1779. In Georgia and in South Carolina the bitterest partisan warfare was carried on between Whig and Tory bands; and a body of New York Tories contributed powerfully to the fall of Savannah in 1778, by taking the American forces in the rear.
"On the other hand, the British generals did not receive that support from the Loyalists which they had expected. They seem to have looked upon the Loyalists as an inferior cla.s.s of aids to the regular soldiery; their advice seems to have been unsought, and the mode of war pursued was European, and not adapted to the peculiar circ.u.mstances of America.
The Loyalist volunteers were looked upon as the rivals to rather than fellow-soldiers of the regular army; and no provincial Loyalist was promoted to lead any expedition or command any position of importance.
This depreciation of the Loyalists by the English (utterly incompetent) generals exactly answered the purposes of American writers. _But the real cause of its protraction_, though it may be hard to an American to admit the fact, lay in the incapacity of the American politicians, and, it must be added, in the supineness and want of patriotism of the American people. If indeed importing into the views of later date, we look upon it as one between two nations, the mismanagement of the war by the Americans on all points save one--the retention of Was.h.i.+ngton in the chief command--is seen to have been so pitiable, from first to last, as to be in fact almost unintelligible."
"DESCRIPTION OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, AND THE MANNER OF RAISING IT.
"We can only understand the case when we see there was no such thing as an American nation in existence, but only a number of revolted colonies, jealous of one another, and with no tie but that of common danger. Even in the army divisions broke out. Was.h.i.+ngton, in a General Order of August, 1776, says: 'It is with great concern that the general understands that jealousies have arisen among the troops from the different provinces, and reflections are frequently thrown out which can only tend to irritate each other and injure the n.o.ble cause in which we are engaged.'"
"WANT OF PUBLIC SPIRIT AND PATRIOTISM IN THE STATES.
"It was seldom that much help could be obtained in troops from any State, unless the State were immediately threatened by the enemy; and even then these troops would be raised by that State for its own defence, irrespectively of the general or 'continental army.' 'Those at a distance from the seat of war,' wrote Was.h.i.+ngton, in April, 1778, 'live in such perfect tranquillity, that they conceive the dispute to be in a manner at an end, and those near it are so disaffected that they serve only as embarra.s.sments.' In January, 1779, we find him remonstrating with the Governor of Rhode Island, because that State had 'ordered several battalions to be raised for the State only; and this before the proper measures are taken to fill the continental regiments.'
The different bounties and rates of pay allowed by the various States were a constant source of annoyance to him."
"DECLINE OF CONGRESS.
"After the first year, the best men were not returned to Congress, and did not return to it. Whole States remained frequently unrepresented. In the winter of 1777-78, Congress was reduced to twenty-one members. But even with a full representation it could do little. 'One State will comply with a requisition,' writes Was.h.i.+ngton in 1780, 'another neglects to do it, a third executes by halves, and all differ either in the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always working up-hill.'
"At first, Congress was really nothing more than a voluntary Committee.
When the Confederation was completed, which was only, be it remembered, on March 1, 1781, it was still, as Was.h.i.+ngton wrote in 1785, 'little more than a shadow without a substance, and the Congress a nugatory body;' or, as it was described by a late writer, 'powerless for government, and a rope of sand for union.'"
"DECLINE OF ENERGY AND SPIRIT AMONG THE COLONISTS AND ARMY.
"Like politicians, like people. There was, no doubt, a brilliant display of patriotic ardour at the first flying to arms of the colonists.
Lexington and Bunker's Hill were actions decidedly creditable to their raw troops. The expedition to Canada, foolhardy though it proved, was pursued up to a certain point with real heroism. But with it the heroic period of the war (individual instances excepted) may be said to have closed. There seems little reason to doubt that the revolution would never have been commenced if it had been expected to cost so tough a struggle. 'A false estimate of the power and perseverance of our enemies,' wrote James Duane to Was.h.i.+ngton, 'was friendly to the present revolution, and inspired that confidence of success in all ranks of the people which was necessary to unite them in so arduous a cause.' As early as November, 1775, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote, speaking of military arrangements: 'Such a dearth of public spirit, and such want of virtue--such stock-jobbing and fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantage of one kind or another, I never saw before, and pray G.o.d's mercy that I may never be witness to it again.' Such a 'mercenary spirit' pervaded the whole of the troops that he should not have been 'at all surprised at any disaster.' At the same date, besides desertion of thirty or forty soldiers at a time, he speaks of the practice of plundering as so rife that 'no man is secure in his effects, and scarcely in his person.' People were 'frightened out of their houses under pretence of those houses being ordered to be burnt, with a view of seizing the goods;' and to conceal the villainy more effectually, some houses were actually burned down. On February 28th, 1777, 'the scandalous loss, waste, and private appropriation of public arms during the last campaign' had been 'beyond all conception.' Officers drew 'large sums under pretence of paying their men, and appropriated them.'
"'Can we carry on the war much longer?' Was.h.i.+ngton asks in 1778, after the treaty with France and the appearance of the French fleet off the coast. 'Certainly not, unless some measures can be devised and speedily executed to restore the credit of our currency and restrain extortion and punish forestallers.' A few days later: 'To make and extort money in every shape that can be devised, and at the same time to decry its value, seems to have become a mere business and an epidemical disease.'
On December 30th, 1778, 'speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seems to have got the better of every consideration, and almost of every order of men; * * party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day (in Congress), whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a great and acc.u.mulating debt, ruined finances, depreciated money, and want of credit, which in its consequences is
"DECLINE OF PATRIOTIC FEELING ON THE PART OF THE AMERICANS.
"After the first loan had been obtained from France and spent, and a further one was granted in 1782, so utterly unpatriotic and selfish was known to be the temper of the people that the loan had to be kept secret, in order not to diminish such efforts as might be made by the Americans themselves. On July 10th of that year, with New York and Charleston still in British hands, Was.h.i.+ngton writes: 'That spirit of freedom which at the commencement of the contest would have gladly sacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long since subsided, and every selfish pa.s.sion has taken its place.' But, indeed, the mere fact that from the date of the battle of Monmouth (July 28th, 1778), Was.h.i.+ngton was never supplied with sufficient means, even with the a.s.sistance of the French fleets and troops, to strike one blow at the English in New York--though these were but very sparingly reinforced during the period--shows an absence of public spirit, one might almost say of national shame, scarcely conceivable, and in singular contrast with the terrible earnestness exhibited on both sides, some eighty years later, in the Secession War."
"INCAPACITY OF ENGLISH GENERALS IN AMERICA.
"Why, then, must we ask on the other side, did the English fail at last?
"The English were p.r.o.ne to attribute their ill success to the incompetency of their generals. Lord North, with his quaint humour, would say, 'I do not know whether our generals will frighten the enemy, but I know they frighten me whenever I think of them.' When, in 1778, Lord Carlisle came out as Commissioner, in a letter speaking of the great scale of all things in America, he says, 'We have nothing on a great scale with us but our blunders, our losses, our disgraces and misfortunes.' No doubt, it is difficult to account for Gage's early blunders; for Howe's repeated failure to follow up his own success, or profit by his enemy's weakness; and Cornwallis's movement, justly censured by Sir Henry Clinton, in transferring the bulk of his army from the far south to Virginia, within marching distance of Was.h.i.+ngton, opened the way to that crowning disaster at Yorktown, without which it is by no means impossible that Georgia and the Carolinas might have remained British."
"INEFFECTIVE MILITARY ARRANGEMENTS IN AMERICA.
"Political incapacity was, of course, charged upon Ministers as another cause of disaster; and no doubt their miscalculation of the severity of the struggle was almost childish. But no mistakes in the management of the war by British statesmen can account for their ultimate failure.
However great British mismanagement may have been, it was far surpa.s.sed by the Americans. There was nothing on the British side equal to that caricature of a recruiting system in which different bounties were offered by Congress, by the States, by the separate towns, so as to make it the interest of the intended soldier to delay enlistment as long as possible, in order to sell himself to the highest bidder; to that caricature of a war establishment, the main bulk of which broke up every twelvemonth in front of the enemy, which was only paid, if at all, in worthless paper, and left continually without supplies. On the whole, no better idea can be had of the nature of the struggle on the American side, after the first heat of it had cooled down, than from the words of Count de Rochambeau, writing to Count de Vergennes, July 10th, 1780: 'They have neither money nor credit; their means of resistance are only momentary, and called forth when they are attacked in their own homes.
They then a.s.semble for the moment of immediate danger and defend themselves.'"
"FRENCH MONEY, TROOPS, AND s.h.i.+PS TURN THE SCALE IN FAVOUR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.
"A far more important cause in determining the ultimate failure of the British was the aid afforded by France to America, followed by that of Spain and Holland. It was impossible for England to re-conquer a continent and carry on a war at the same time with the three most powerful naval States of Europe. The instincts of race have tended on both the English and American side to depreciate the value of the aid given by France to the colonists. It may be true that Rochambeau's troops, which disembarked on Rhode Island in July, 1780, did not march till July, 1781; that they were blockaded soon after their arrival, threatened with attack from New York, and only disengaged by a feint of Was.h.i.+ngton's on that city. But more than two years before their arrival, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to a member of Congress: 'France, by her supplies, has saved us from the yoke thus far.' The treaty with France alone was considered to afford a 'certain prospect of success' to 'secure'
American independence. The arrival of D'Estaing's fleet, although no troops joined the American army, and nothing eventually was done, determined the evacuation of Philadelphia. The discipline of the French troops, when they landed in 1780, set an example to the Americans; chickens and pigs walked between the lines without being disturbed. The recruits of 1780 could not have been armed without fifty tons of ammunition supplied by the French. In September of that year, Was.h.i.+ngton, writing to the French envoy, speaks of the 'inability' of the Americans to expel the British from the South una.s.sisted, or perhaps even to stop their career; and he writes in similar terms to Congress a few days later. To depend 'upon the resources of the country, una.s.sisted by foreign loans,' he writes to a member of Congress two months later, 'will, I am confident, be to lean upon a broken reed.' In January, 1781, writing to Colonel Laurens,[121] the American envoy in Paris, he presses for 'an immediate, ample, efficacious succour in money from France,'
also for the maintenance on the American coasts of 'a constant naval superiority,' and likewise for 'an additional succour in troops.' And since the a.s.sistance so requested was in fact granted in every shape, and the surrender of Yorktown was obtained by the co-operation both of the French army and fleet, we must hold that Was.h.i.+ngton's words were justified by the event."[122]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 121: War of American Independence, 1777-1783, by John Malcolm Ludlow, Chap, vii., pp. 215-227.]
[Footnote 122: Dr. Ramsay says: "Pathetic representations were made to the Ministers of his Most Christian Majesty by Was.h.i.+ngton, Dr. Franklin, and particularly by Lieutenant-Colonel John Laurens, who was sent to the Court of Versailles as a special Minister on this occasion. The King of France _gave_ the United States a subsidy [as a present] of six millions of livres, and became their security for ten millions more, borrowed for their use in the United Netherlands." (History of the United States, Vol. II., Chap. xxiii., p. 407.)]
APPENDIX B. TO CHAPTER x.x.xVII.
REFLECTIONS OF LORD MAHON ON THE AMERICAN CONTEST AND ITS RESULTS--APOLOGY FOR GEORGE THE THIRD--UNHAPPINESS OF AMERICANS SINCE THE REVOLUTION--UNITY OF THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE.
At this period (Declaration of Independence), the culminating point in the whole American war, I may be forgiven for desiring to interrupt its narrative in order to review its course and its results. That injurious and oppressive acts of power had been inflicted by England upon America, I have in many places shown, and do most fully acknowledge. That from the other side, and above all from Ma.s.sachusetts, there had been strong provocation, I must continue to maintain. I should not deem it consistent with candour to deny that the Americans had sufficient ground for resisting, as they did resist, the Ministerial and Parliamentary measures. But whether these had yet attained a pitch to justify them in discarding and renouncing their allegiance to the Throne is a far more doubtful question--a question on which perhaps neither an Englishman nor yet an American could quite impartially decide.
"The time has come, however, as I believe and trust, when it is possible to do equal justice to the many good and upright men who in this great struggle embraced the opposite sides. The great ma.s.s of the people meant honestly on both sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic. The two chief men in both countries were alike pure-minded. On the one side there were deeds that savoured of tyranny; on the other side there were deeds that savoured of rebellion; yet at heart George the Third was never a tyrant, nor Was.h.i.+ngton ever a rebel. Of Was.h.i.+ngton I most firmly believe, that no single act appears in his whole public life proceeding from any other than public, and those the highest motives. But my persuasion is no less firm that there would be little flattery in applying the same terms of respect and commendation to the 'good old king.' I do not deny, indeed, that some degree of prejudice and pride may, though unconsciously, have mingled with his motives. I do not deny that at the outset of these troubles he lent too ready an ear to the glozing reports of his governors and deputies, the Hutchinsons or Olivers, Gateses, Dunmores, etc., a.s.suring him that the discontents were confined to a factious few, and that measures of rigour and repression alone were needed. For such measures of rigour he may deserve, and has incurred, his share of censure. But after the insurgent colonies had proclaimed their independence, is it just to blame King George, as he often has been blamed, for his steadfast and resolute resistance to that claim?
Was it for him, unless after straining every nerve against it, to forfeit a portion of his birthright and a jewel of his crown? Was it for him, though the clearest case of necessity, to allow the rending asunder his empire--to array for all time to come of several millions of his people against the rest? After calling on his loyal subjects in the colonies to rise, after requiring and employing their aid, was it for him, on any light grounds, to relinquish his cause and theirs, and yield them over, unforgiven, to the vengeance of their countrymen? Was it for him to overlook the consequences, not even yet, perhaps in their full extent unfolded, of such a precedent of victory to popular and colonial insurrection? May not the King, on the contrary, have deemed that on such a question, touching as it did both his honour and his rights, he was bound to be firm--firmer than even the firmest of his Ministers?
Not, of course, that he could be justified for persevering; but in truth, he did not so persevere after every reasonable hope had failed.
Not, of course, that he could be excused from continuing to demand, or to expect, unconditional submission; but, as his own letters to Lord North a.s.sure us, such an idea was never harboured in his mind. To do his duty conscientiously, as he should answer it to G.o.d hereafter, and according to the lights he had received, such was his unceasing aim and endeavour from the day when, young but superior to the frailties of youth, he first a.s.sumed the reins of government, until that dismal period, half a century later, when, bowed down by years and sorrows, and blind, doubly blind, he concluded his reign, though not, as yet, his life.
"Before the American war had commenced, and during its first period, nearly all the statesmen and writers of England argued, or rather took for granted as too plain to stand in need of argument, that separation from our colonies would most grievously impair, if not wholly ruin, the parent State. * * It is worthy of note how much our experience has run counter to the general prognostication--how little the loss was felt, or how quickly the void was supplied. An historian of high and just authority--Mr. Macaulay--has observed that England was never so rich, so great, so formidable to foreign princes, so absolutely mistress of the sea, as since the alienation of the American colonies. (Essays, Vol.
II.) The true effect of that alienation upon ourselves, as time has shown, has been not positive, but by comparison it has lain not in the withdrawal of wealth and population and resources, but in raising up a rival State from the same race, and with powers and energies not inferior to our own.
"But how far, and in what degree, has the new form of government promoted the happiness of the United States themselves? * * It would be folly, or worse than folly, to deny that since their independence the prosperity of the United States has advanced with gigantic strides; that they have grown to be a first-rate power; that immense works of public utility have been achieved with marvellous speed; that the clearing of new lands and the building of new cities have been such as to outstrip the most sanguine calculations; that among them the working cla.s.ses have been, in no common degree, well paid and prosperous; that a feeling for the national honour is in no country stronger; that the first elements of education have been most widely diffused; that many good and brave men have been trained and are training to the service of the Commonwealth. But have their independent inst.i.tutions made them, on the whole, a happy and contented people? That, among themselves, is often proclaimed as undeniable; and certainly among themselves it may not always be safely denied. That, however, is not always the impression conveyed to him who only sojourns in their land, by the careworn faces, by the hurried steps, by the unsocial meals which he sees, or by the incessant party cries which he hears around him; by the fretful aspirations and the feverish hopes resulting from the unbounded s.p.a.ce of compet.i.tion open to them without check or barrier; and by the innumerable disappointments and heartburnings which in consequence arise. On the true condition of North America, let us mark the correspondence between two of the greatest and most highly gifted of her sons. There is now open before me a letter which, in August, 1837, and on the annexation of Texas, Dr. Channing wrote to Mr. Clay. In that letter, as published in Boston, I find the following words (and what Dr Channing said in 1837 has been ill.u.s.trated in scores of instances since that time, and greatly enhanced by the events of the civil war):
"'I cannot do justice to this topic without speaking freely of our country, as freely as I should of any other; and unhappily we are so accustomed, as a people, to receive incense, to be soothed by flattery, and to account reputation a more important interest than morality, that my freedom may be construed into a kind of disloyalty. But it would be wrong to make concessions to this dangerous weakness. * * Among us a spirit of lawlessness pervades the community which, if not repressed, threatens the dissolution of our present forms of society. Even in the old States, mobs are taking the government into their hands, and a profligate newspaper finds little difficulty in stirring up mult.i.tudes to violence. * * Add to all this the invasions of the rights of speech and of the press by lawless force, the extent and toleration of which oblige us to believe that a considerable portion of our citizens have no comprehension of the first principles of liberty. It is an undeniable fact that, in consequence of these and other symptoms, the confidence of many reflecting men in our free inst.i.tutions is very much impaired. Some despair. That main pillar of public liberty--mutual trust among citizens--is shaken. That we must seek security for property and life in a stronger government is a spreading conviction. Men who in public talk of the ability of our inst.i.tutions, whisper their doubts, perhaps their scorn, in private.
"'Whether the people of the United States might have been as thriving and more happy had they remained British subjects, I will not presume to say. Certainly not if violent men like Lord Hillsborough, or corrupt men like Mr. Rigby, had continued to take part in the administration. With other hands at the helm the case might have been otherwise. Jefferson, at least, in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, said of his countrymen and of the English: "We might have been a free and great people together." One thing, at all events, is plain, that had these colonies shared the fate of the other dominions of the British Crown, the main curse and shame--the plague spot of the system of slavery--would have been long since removed from them (before it was); but, as in the case of Jamaica, not without a large compensation in money to the slave owners. It is also plain that in the case supposed they would have equally shared in our pride and glory at the wondrous growth of the Anglo-Saxon race--that race undivided and entire, extending its branches as now to the furthest regions of the earth, yet all retaining their connection with the parent stem--all its members bound by the same laws, all animated by the same loyalty, and all tending to the same public-spirited aim. How great a nation should we and they be together!--how great in the arts both of peace and war!
scarcely unequal now to all other nations of the world combined!" * *
"Since 1782 at the latest, views like these are merely day-dreams of the past. In place of them, let us now indulge the hope and expectation that the American people may concur with ours in desiring that no further resentment may be nourished, no further strife be stirred, between the kindred nations; so that both, mindful of their common origin, and conscious of their growing greatness, may both alike discard, as unworthy of them, all mean and petty jealousies, and be ever henceforth what nature has designed them--friends."[123]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 123: Lord Mahon's History of England, etc., Vol. VI., Chap.
liii., pp. 150-160.]