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CHAPTER IV

THE CIVIL WAR IN THE EMPIRE, 1776-1778

In the war which now began, the military situation was such that neither side could look forward to an easy victory. Great Britain outweighed the colonies in population by three or four to one, and in every element of military strength to a much greater degree. There was a standing army, an ample sufficiency of professional officers, the most powerful navy in the world, the full machinery of financial administration, abundant credit, and wealthy manufacturing and agricultural classes which has already shown their power to carry the burdens of a world contest without flinching. With a powerful party Ministry endowed with full discretion in the ordering of military affairs, there was little danger of divided {76} councils or of inability to secure responsible direction. North, Sandwich at the Admiralty, Barrington as Secretary at War, Germaine as Secretary for the Colonies, could command the active support of the King, the Parliament, and, it appeared, of the people.

On the other hand, it was necessary to carry on war at 3,000 miles distance from the base of supplies, and to feed and clothe the armies entirely from home. The cost was certain to be extremely heavy, and the practical difficulties of management arising from the distance were sure to be great, unless a competent commander were to be given complete authority in the colonies. Then, too, the problem was not one of conquering cities or single strategic points, or of defeating a rival state, but of so thoroughly beating down resistance as to lead the Americans to abandon their revolution and submit to the extinction of their new-formed confederation. Armies must operate inland from a seacoast where landing was easy in hundreds of places, but where almost every step took them into a rough country, ill-provided with roads and lacking in easily collected supplies. In spite of all advantages of military power, the problem before the British government was one calling for the highest forms of military capacity, and this, by an unexplained ill-fortune, was conspicuously {77} lacking. Not a British general who commanded in America failed to show fighting ability and tactical sense, but not one of them possessed the kind of genius which grasps the true military ends of any campaign and ignores minor points for the sake of winning decisive advantages. Perhaps it would be unjust to apply to the British forces in this war the designation won in 1774—"armies of lions led by asses"; but the analogy is at least suggested.

Still more serious was the fact that the North Ministry was chosen mainly on the basis of the willingness of its members to execute the King's orders and use their influence and parliamentary power and connections in his behalf. North himself, able as a parliamentarian, was irresolute in policy, ignorant of war, and careless in administration; Weymouth and Suffolk, the Secretaries, were of slight ability; Lord George Germaine, Secretary for the Colonies, was arrogant, careless, and lacking in military insight; Barrington, Secretary at War, possessed administrative ability, but was without personal weight in the cabinet; Sandwich at the Admiralty was grossly inefficient. There was not a single member of the Cabinet fitted to carry on war, or able to influence George III. For such a body of men to undertake to direct the operations in America {78} at the distance of 3,000 miles was a worse blunder than it would have been to commit the conduct of the war to any one of the generals in the field, however commonplace his abilities.

On the side of the colonists, the problem of fighting the full power of England was apparently a desperate one. The militia, with superior numbers, had chased the British from Concord, and had made a stubborn defence at Bunker Hill; but the British were about to move with overwhelming strength. To raise, equip, clothe, and feed armies was the task of a strong administration, and there was nothing of the kind in America. The ex-colonists not only had never known efficient administration; they had fought against any and all administration for generations, and their leaders had won their fame as opponents of all executive power. To thunder against royal oppression won applause, but indicated no ability at raising money and organizing such things as commissariat, artillery, or a navy; and it may be said of such men as Samuel Adams, Robert Morris, Roger Sherman, John Rutledge, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson that their administrative training was as far below that of their enemies in the North Ministry as their political capacity was, in general, superior.

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The Continental Congress, moreover, which assumed responsibility for the army, could only recommend measures to the States, and call upon them to furnish troops and money. In contrast to the States, which derived their powers unquestionably from the voters within their boundaries and could command their obedience, the Congress had no legal or constitutional basis, and was nothing more than the meeting place of delegates from voluntary allies. Such military authority as it exercised rested entirely upon the general agreement of the States. National government, in short, did not exist. Still more serious was the fact that there were very few trained officers in America. The American military leaders, such as Washington, Greene, Wayne, Sullivan, were distinctly inferior in soldiership to their antagonists, although Washington and Greene developed greater strategic ability after many blunders. It was only through sundry military adventurers, some English—such as Montgomery, Gates, Lee, Conway,—others European—such as De Kalb, Steuben, Pulaski—that something of the military art could be acquired.

Most serious of all, there were no troops in America who comprehended the nature of military discipline. The conception of obedience to orders, of military duty, of the {80} absolute necessity of holding steady, was beyond the range of most Americans. They regarded war as something to be carried on in their own neighbourhoods, and resisted obstinately being drawn outside their own States. They refused to enlist for longer than a few months, since they felt it imperative to return to look after their farms. They had little regard for men from different districts, distrusted commanders from any State but their own, and had no loyalty of any description to the Continental Congress. They were, in short, still colonists, such as generations of training had made them; very angry with Great Britain, infuriated at Tories, and glad to be independent, but unable to realize the meaning of it all even under the terrible stress of war.

Under the circumstances, the task of the men to whose lot it fell to lead the American forces was such as to tax to the utmost not only their military skill, but their ability to control, inspire, and persuade the most refractory and unreliable of material. When to this were added the facts that the colonies were almost wholly lacking in manufactures except of the most rudimentary sort, that they had little capital except in the form of land, buildings, vessels, and crops, and that whatever revenue they had been in the habit of deriving from commerce was {81} liable to be destroyed by the British naval supremacy, it is easily seen that the disadvantages of the home country were actually counterbalanced by the still more crushing disadvantages of the revolting colonies.

In the summer of 1776, the British advanced from two quarters. In the north, as soon as navigation opened, men-of-war sailed up the St. Lawrence and brought reinforcements to Quebec. The relics of the American force, unable to maintain themselves in Canada, abandoned their conquests without a blow, and retreated into the Lake Champlain region, there intending to hold the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga. Col. Guy Carleton, the new commander, was soon able to move southward with overwhelming numbers; but, after reaching the northern end of Lake Champlain, he found that body of water commanded by a small squadron of gunboats under Benedict Arnold, and, deeming it impossible to advance, delayed all summer in order to construct a rival fleet. Meanwhile, all operations came to a standstill in that region. Eleven thousand men, chiefly regular troops, were thus kept inactive for months.

The principal British force gathered at Halifax, and sailed directly against New York. It was there joined by the remains of a naval expedition which had endeavoured in June, {82} 1776, to capture Charleston, South Carolina, but had suffered severely in an attempt to bombard Fort Moultrie and been compelled to withdraw. This success, which raised the spirits of the rebels, was, however, the last they were to enjoy for many months. The main British expedition was expected to overpower all colonial resistance, for it comprised a fleet of men-of-war, and an army of no less than 81,000 men, including German mercenaries, fully equipped, drilled, and provisioned. The admiral in command, Lord Howe, a Whig, was authorized to issue pardons in return for submission, and evidently expected the mere presence of so powerful an armament to cause the collapse of all resistance. His brother, Sir William Howe, who commanded the army, was a good officer in actual fighting, but a man of little energy or activity, and unwilling, apparently, to cause the revolted colonies any more suffering than was necessary. He was, moreover, quite without military insight of the larger kind, failing to recognize the peculiar character of the war upon which he was entering and acting, when pushing on a campaign, precisely as though he were operating against a European army in west Germany.

In spite of all deficiencies, it seemed as though Howe could not fail to crush the {83} undisciplined collection of 17,000 militia and minute men with which Washington endeavoured to meet him at New York. Controlling the harbour and the rivers with his fleet, he could move anywhere and direct superior numbers against any American position. The first blow, struck after futile efforts at negotiation, was aimed at an American force which held Brooklyn Heights on Long Island. About 20,000 British and Hessian troops were landed on August 22; and five days later they outflanked and crushed a body of Americans placed to obstruct their advance. There remained the American intrenchments, which were weak and ill-defended; but Howe refused to attack, probably with memories of Bunker Hill in his mind. Washington managed, owing to favourable rainy weather, to remove his beaten force by night on August 29, but only the inaction of Howe enabled them to escape capture.

There followed a delay of two weeks, during which Admiral Howe tried to secure an interview with American leaders, in hopes of inducing the rebels to submit; but, finding Franklin, Adams and Rutledge—commissioners named by Congress—immovably committed to independence, he was compelled to renew hostilities. There ensued a slow campaign in which General Howe easily {84} forced Washington to evacuate New York, to retreat northward, and after various skirmishes to withdraw over the Hudson River into New Jersey. At no time did Washington risk a general engagement; at no time did he inflict any significant loss upon his antagonist or hinder his advance. The militia were, in fact, almost useless in the open field, and only dared linger before the oncoming redcoats when intrenched or when behind walls and fences. Many of them from New England grew discouraged and homesick, and left the moment their short enlistments expired; so that without any serious battles Washington's so-called army dwindled week by week. On November 16, a severe loss was incurred through the effort of General Greene to hold Fort Washington, which commanded the Hudson River from the heights at the northern end of Manhattan Island. This stronghold, besieged by Howe, made a fair defence, but was taken by storm, and the whole garrison captured. The American army then, in two detachments under Washington and Lee respectively, was obliged to retreat across New Jersey, followed by the British under Cornwallis, until, by December 8, the remnant was at Philadelphia in a state of great discouragement and demoralization. The Continental Congress, fearing capture, fled to Baltimore and, moved to {85} desperate measures, passed a resolution, giving Washington for six months unlimited authority to raise recruits, appoint and dismiss officers, impress provisions, and arrest loyalists. Howe felt that the rebellion was at an end. On November 30 he issued a proclamation offering pardon to all who would take the oath of allegiance within sixty days; and farmers in New Jersey took it by hundreds, securing in return a certificate of loyalty. The rebels' cause seemed lost. But at the moment when, if ever, it was worth while to push pursuit to the uttermost, with the prospect of reducing three colonies and breaking up all show of resistance, Howe, satisfied with his campaign, began to prepare winter quarters.

To the northward, a similar fatality seemed to prevent full British success. During the summer, General Guy Carleton waited at the northern end of Lake Champlain while his carpenters built gunboats. Month after month went by until, on October 11, the British vessels engaged Arnold's inferior flotilla. Two days of hot fighting with musketry and cannon resulted in the destruction of the American squadron, so that the way seemed clear for Carleton to advance; but the season was late, the difficulties of getting provisions from Canada seemed excessive, and on November 2 the British {86} withdrew. Here again only extreme caution and slowness permitted the colonial army to hold its ground. Yet it seemed doubtful whether the American cause might not collapse even without further pressure, for the "armies" were almost gone by sheer disintegration. General Schuyler had a scanty 3,000 near Lake Champlain; Washington could not muster over 6,000 at Philadelphia, and these were on the points of going home. The attempt to carry on the war by voluntary militia fighting was a visible failure.

At this stage, the darkest hour, Washington, who had never dared to risk a battle, took the bold step of re-crossing the Delaware with part of his half-starved and shivering troops, and captured nearly all of a Hessian encampment at Trenton on December 25. Further, he drew on Cornwallis to advance against him, skirmished successfully on January 2, and then, moving by a night march to the British rear, defeated a regiment at Princeton. Cornwallis, with 7,000 men, was out-generalled by Washington in this affair, which was the first really aggressive blow struck by the Americans. The result was to lead Howe to abandon the effort to hold all of New Jersey; while Washington was able to post his men in winter quarters at Morristown, where he could watch every British move. This masterly {87} little campaign, carried on under every disadvantage, made Washington's fame secure, and undoubtedly saved the American revolution from breaking down. It revived the fighting spirit, encouraged the Congress and the people, and created a faith in Washington on the part of the soldiers and farmers which was destined to grow steadily into love and veneration. With no particular military insight beyond common sense and the comprehension of military virtues, he was a man of iron will, extreme personal courage, and a patience and tenacity which had no limit.

Congress now showed that its members realized in part the military lesson, for it authorized a standing regular army, and gave Washington power to establish it and appoint lower officers. It was a hard task to induce any Americans to enlist in such an organization; but little by little there were collected "Continental troops" who did not rush back to their family duties at the end of three months, but stayed and grew in discipline and steadiness. Yet Washington could never count on more than a few thousand such; Americans in general simply would not fight except under pressure of invasion and in defence of their homes.

During 1776-7, the revolted communities assumed something of the appearance of settled governments. The States replaced {88} their revolutionary conventions with constitutions closely modelled upon their provincial institutions, but with elective governors, and, to safeguard liberty, full control over legislation, taxation, and most offices placed in the hands of the legislatures. Executive power was confined mainly to military matters. The Continental Congress continued to act as a grand committee of safety, framing recommendations and requests to the States, and issuing paper money on the credit of its constituents. Military administration proved a task beyond the capacity of the new governments, even for such diminutive armies as those which guarded the northern frontier and New Jersey, and the forces suffered from lack of food, covering, and powder. The country had few sources of supplies and wretched roads.

In 1777, when spring opened, the British armies slowly prepared to push matters to a definite conclusion. The North Cabinet, especially Lord George Germaine, had no single coherent plan of operations beyond continuing the lines laid down in 1776. It was early planned to have the Canadian force march southward and join Howe, collecting supplies and gathering recruits as it traversed New York. Howe was told that he was expected to co-operate, but was not prevented from substituting a plan of his {89} own which involved capturing Philadelphia, the chief American town and, as the seat of the Continental Congress, the "rebel capital." Germaine merely intimated that Howe ought to make such speedy work as to return in time to meet the Canadian force, but did not give him any positive order, so Howe considered his plan approved. In leisurely fashion he tried twice to march across New Jersey in June; but, although he had 17,000 to Washington's 8,000, he would not risk leaving the latter in his rear and withdrew. He next determined to move by water, and began the sea journey on July 5. This process occupied not less than six weeks, since he first tried to sail up the Delaware, only to withdraw from before the American forts; and it was not until August 22 that he finally landed his men at the head of Chesapeake Bay.

Meanwhile, General Burgoyne, a man of fashion as well as an officer, had begun his march southward from Lake Champlain with 7,500 men and some Indian allies, forced the Americans to evacuate Fort Ticonderoga without a blow, and chased the garrison to the southward and eastward. Pushing forward in spite of blocked roads and burned bridges, he reached the Hudson River on August 1 without mishap, and there halted to collect provisions and await {90} reinforcements from Tories and from a converging expedition under St. Leger, which was to join him by way of Lake Ontario and the Mohawk Valley. Up to this time the American defence had been futile. It seemed as though nothing could stop Burgoyne's advance. Congress now appointed a new general, Gates, to whom Washington sent General Morgan with some of his best troops. While Burgoyne waited, the militia of New England began collecting, and presently, on August 15 and 16, two detachments of the British sent to seize stores at Bennington were surrounded and captured. St. Leger, unable to manage his Indian allies, or force the surrender of the American Fort Stanwix, was obliged, on August 22, to retreat. Burgoyne, with diminishing numbers and no hope of reinforcement, found himself confronted by rapidly growing swarms of enemies. At the moment when his need of co-operation from Howe became acute, the latter general was two hundred miles away in Pennsylvania.

Under the circumstances, the two campaigns worked themselves out to independent conclusions. In Pennsylvania, Washington boldly marched his summer army with its nucleous of veterans out to meet the British, and challenged a battle along the banks of the Brandywine creek. On September 11, Howe, with 18,000 men, methodically attacked {91} Washington, who had not over 11,000, sent a flanking column around his right wing, and after a stiff resistance pushed the Americans from the field. There was no pursuit; and four days later Washington was prevented only by bad weather from risking another fight. He did not feel able to prevent Howe from entering Philadelphia on September 27; but on October 3, taking advantage of a division of the British army, he assumed the offensive at Germantown and brought his unsteady forces into action, only to suffer another defeat. With this Washington was forced to abandon operations in the field and to go into winter quarters at Valley Forge, not far from the city; while Howe besieged and on November 2 took the American forts on the Delaware. The British campaign was successful; Philadelphia was theirs, and they had won every engagement. But nothing shows more clearly Washington's ability as a fighter and leader than his stubborn contest against odds in this summer.

Meanwhile, the Northern campaign came to its conclusion. By September, Gates, the new commander, found himself at the head of nearly 20,000 men, and Burgoyne's case grew desperate. He made two efforts to break through to the southward, at Freeman's Farm, and again at Bemis Heights, but was {92} met by superior numbers and overwhelmed, in spite of the gallantry of his troops. Forced back to Saratoga on the Hudson River, he was surrounded and at length compelled to surrender, on October 17. Sir Henry Clinton, who commanded the British garrison of New York in Howe's absence, sent a small expedition up the Hudson; but it did not penetrate nearer than sixty miles from the spot where Burgoyne stood at bay, and it achieved nothing more than a raid. So the northern British force, sent to perform an impossible task, was destroyed solely because neither Howe nor his superiors realized the necessity of providing for certain co-operation from the southward. The prisoners, according to the terms of the surrender, were to be returned to England; but Congress, owing in part to some complaints of Burgoyne, chose to violate the agreement, and the captive British and Hessians were retained. Burgoyne himself returned to England, burning with anger against Howe and the North Ministry.

The winter of 1777-8 found the two British armies comfortably housed in New York and Philadelphia, and Washington, with his handful of miserably equipped men, presenting the skeleton of an army at Valley Forge. Congress, now manned by less able leaders than at first, was almost won over to {93} displacing the unsuccessful commander by Gates, the victor of Saratoga; and it did go so far as to commit the administration of the army to a cabal of Gates's friends, who carried on a campaign of depreciation and backbiting against Washington. But the whole unworthy plot broke down under a few vigorous words from the latter, the would-be rival quailing before the Virginian's personal authority. He was not a safe man to bait. The military headship remained securely with the one general capable of holding things together.

In the winter of 1778, however, a new element entered the game, namely, the possibility of French intervention. From the outbreak of the Revolution, very many Americans saw that their former deadly enemy, France, would be likely to prove an ally against England; and as early as 1776 American emissaries began to sound the court of Versailles. In March, 1776, Silas Deane was regularly commissioned by the Continental Congress, and in the autumn he was followed by no less a person than Benjamin Franklin. It was the duty of these men to get whatever aid they could, especially to seek an alliance. The young king, Louis XVI, was not a man of any independent statecraft; but his ministers, above all Vergennes, in charge of foreign affairs, were anxious to secure revenge {94} upon England for the damage done by Pitt, and the tone of the French court was emphatically warlike. The financial weakness of the French government, destined shortly to pave the way for the Revolution, was clearly visible to Turgot, the Minister of Finances, and he with a few others protested against the expense of a foreign war; but Vergennes carried the day.

As early as the summer of 1776, French arms and munitions were being secretly supplied, while the Foreign Minister solemnly assured the watchful Lord Stormont, the English Ambassador, of his government's perfect neutrality. Thousands of muskets, hundreds of cannon, and quantities of clothes were thus shipped, and sums of money were also turned over to Franklin. Beaumarchais, the playwright and adventurer, acted with gusto the part of intermediary; and the lords and ladies of the French court, amusing themselves with "philosophy" and speculative liberalism, made a pet of the witty and sagacious Franklin. His popularity actually rivalled that of Voltaire when the latter, in 1778, returned to see Paris and die. But not until the colonies had proved that they could meet the English in battle with some prospect of success would the French commit themselves openly; and during 1776 and 1777 the tide ran too steadily against {95} the insurgents. Finally, in December, when the anxieties of Franklin and his associates were almost unendurable, the news of Burgoyne's surrender was brought to Paris. The turning-point was reached. Vergennes immediately led the French King to make two treaties, one for commercial reciprocity, the other a treaty of military alliance, recognizing the independence of the United States, and pledging the countries to make no separate peace. In the spring of 1778 the news reached America; and the war now entered upon a second stage.

There can be little doubt that under abler commanders the British armies might have crushed out all armed resistance in the middle colonies. In spite of all drawbacks, the trained British soldiers and officers were so superior in the field to the American levies on every occasion where the forces were not overwhelmingly unequal that it is impossible for any but the most bigoted American partisan to deny this possibility. Had there been a blockade, so that French and Dutch goods would have been excluded; had General Howe possessed the faintest spark of energy in following up his successes; had the North Cabinet not failed to compel Howe to co-operate with Burgoyne, the condition of things in 1778 might well have been so serious for the colonists' cause that {96} Vergennes would have felt a French intervention to be fruitless. In that case, it is hard to see how the rebellion could have failed to be crushed in the next year. As it was, the Americans, by luck and by the tenacity of Washington and a few other leaders, had won the first victory.



CHAPTER V

FRENCH INTERVENTION AND BRITISH FAILURE, 1778-1781

During the two years of fighting, the party situation in England had grown increasingly bitter. The Whigs, joined now by young Charles Fox, unremittingly denounced the war as a crime, sympathized with the rebels, and execrated the cruelty of the Ministers while deriding their abilities. Parliament rang with vituperation; personal insults flew back and forth. From time to time Chatham took part in the attack, joining Burke and Fox in an opposition never surpassed for oratorical power. But the Ministerial party, secure in its strength, pushed on its way. The King now regarded the war as the issue {97} upon which he had staked his personal honour, and would tolerate no faltering. Yet in the winter of 1778 the rumours of a French alliance thickened; and, when the probability seemed to be a certainty, North made a desperate effort to end the war through a policy of granting everything except independence. In a speech of incredible assurance, he observed that he had never favoured trying to tax America, and brought in a Bill by which every parliamentary measure complained of by the Americans was repealed, and the right of internal taxation was expressly renounced. Amid the dejection of the Tories and the sneers of the Whigs, this measure became law, March 2, 1778; and commissioners, empowered to grant general amnesty, were sent with it to the United States.

At no other time in English history would it have been possible for a Ministry thus utterly to reverse its policy and remain in office; but North's tenure depended on influences outside the House of Commons, and he continued in his place. So severe was the crisis that an effort was made to arrange a coalition Ministry, with the aged Chatham at its head; George III, however, positively refused to permit North to surrender the first place. He would consent to Whigs entering the Cabinet only in subordinate positions. This {98} obstinacy and the sudden death of Chatham blocked all coalition proposals, and left the war to continue as a party measure, not national in its character—the "King's war."

In America, the task of the commissioners proved hopeless. The men now in control of the Continental Congress and the State governments were pledged to independence from the bottom of their souls; and in the course of months of appeals, and attempts at negotiations, the commissioners failed to secure even a hearing. Congress ratified the French treaties with enthusiasm. That their proposal if made before the Declaration would have been successful can scarcely be doubted. It might even have produced an effect after 1776 had it been made by a Whig Ministry, headed by Chatham. But coming in 1778, after three years of war, when every vestige of the former sentiment of loyalty was dead, and offered by the same North Ministry which had brought on the revolution, it was foredoomed to defeat.

The war now entered upon a second phase, in which England found itself harder pressed than at any time in its history. It had not an ally in the world, and could count on no Rhine campaigns to exhaust French resources. For the first time England engaged France in a purely naval war; and for the only time France was sufficiently strong in sail-of-the-line {99} to meet England on equal terms. The French fleet, rebuilt since 1763, was in excellent condition; the British navy, on the contrary, under the slack administration of Lord Sandwich, was worse off in equipment, repairs, number of sailors, and esprit de corps than at any time in the century. The French were able to send fleets unhindered wherever they wished; and when Spain entered as an ally, in 1779, their combined navies swept the Channel, driving the humiliated British fleet into port. England was called upon to make defensive war at home, at Gibraltar, in the West Indies, and finally in India, at a time when the full strength of the country was already occupied with the rebellion.

This led to an alteration of military methods in America. The policy of moving heavy armies was abandoned; and the British, forced to withdraw troops to garrison the West Indies and Florida, began the practice of wearing down the revolted colonies by raids and destruction of property. George III especially approved this punitive policy. As a first step, the army in Philadelphia marched back to New York, attacked on its retreat by Washington at Monmouth on June 27, 1778. The American advance was badly handled by General Lee, and fell back before the British; but Washington in person rallied his men, resumed the attack, and held his position. {100} Clinton, who succeeded Howe, continued his march, and the British army now settled down in New York, not to depart from its safe protection except on raids.

Washington accordingly posted his forces, as in 1777, outside the city, and awaited events. He could assume the offensive only in case a French fleet should assist him, and this happened but twice, in 1778, and not again for three years. The first time, Admiral D'Estaing with a strong fleet menaced New York and then Newport, the latter in conjunction with an American land force. But before each port he was foiled by the superior skill of Admiral Howe; and he finally withdrew without risking a battle, to the intense disgust of the Americans. For the rest, the war in the northern States dwindled to raids by the British along the Connecticut coast and into New Jersey, and outpost affairs on the Hudson, in some of which Washington's Continental troops showed real brilliancy in attack. But with the British in command of the sea little could be done to meet the raids, and southern Connecticut was ravaged with fire and sword.

At the same time, the States suffered the horrors of Indian war, since the Tories and British from Canada utilized the Iroquois and the Ohio Valley Indians as allies. The New York frontier was in continual distress; {101} and the Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia settlements felt the scalping knife and torch. Hamilton, the British commander at the post of Detroit, paid a fixed price for scalps, and was known as "the hair buyer." Against the Iroquois, Sullivan led an expedition in 1779 which could not bring the savages to a decisive battle, although he ravaged their lands and crippled their resources. Against the north-western Indians, a daring Virginian, George Rogers Clark, led a counter-raid which captured several posts in the territory north of the Ohio River, and finally took Hamilton himself prisoner at Vincennes. In every such war the sufferings of the settlers outnumbered a hundred-fold all that they could inflict in return, and this consciousness burned into their souls a lasting hatred of England, the ally of the murdering, torturing devils from the forests.

While the British fleets fought indecisive actions in European waters, or near the West Indies, the British raiding policy was transferred to a new region, namely, the southern States, which thus far had known little of the severities of war. In December, 1778, an expedition under Prevost easily occupied Savannah, driving the Georgia militia away. The next year an effort was made by an American force, in combination with the French fleet under D'Estaing, who returned from {102} the West Indies, to recapture the place. The siege was formed, and there appeared some prospects of a successful outcome, but the French admiral, too restless to wait until the completion of siege operations, insisted on trying to take the city by storm on October 9. The result was a complete repulse, after which D'Estaing sailed away, and the American besiegers were obliged to withdraw. The real interests of the French were, in fact, in the West Indies, where they were gradually capturing English islands; their contributions so far to the American cause consisted in gifts of munitions and loans of money, together with numerous adventurous officers who aspired to lead the American armies. The most amiable and attractive of these was the young Marquis de Lafayette, owing largely to whose influence a force of French soldiers under de Rochambeau was sent in 1780 to America. But for months this force was able to do no more than remain in camp at Newport, Rhode Island, blockaded by the English fleet.

In 1780, the British raiding policy was resumed in the southern States and achieved a startling success. In January, Clinton sailed from New York with a force of 8,000 men, and after driving the American levies into the city of Charleston, South Carolina, besieged and took it on May 12, with all its {103} defenders. He then returned to New York, leaving Lord Cornwallis with a few troops to complete the conquest of the State. Congress now sent General Gates southward to repeat the triumph of Saratoga. At Camden, on August 16, 1780, the issue was decided. The American commander, with only 3,000 men, encountered Cornwallis, who had about 2,200, and, as usual, the militia, when attacked by British in the open field, fled for their lives at the first charge of the redcoats, leaving the few continentals to be outnumbered and crushed.

For a period of several weeks all organized American resistance disappeared. Only bands of guerillas, or "partisans," as they were called, kept the field. Clinton had issued a proclamation calling all loyalists to join the ranks; and Cornwallis made a systematic effort to compel the enrolment of Tory militia. The plan bore fruit in an apparent large increase of British numbers, but also in the outbreak of a murderous civil war. Raiding parties on both sides took to ambuscades, nocturnal house-burning, hanging of prisoners, and downright massacres. Pre-eminent for his success was the British Colonel Tarleton, who with a body of light troops swept tirelessly around, breaking up rebel bands, riding down militia, and rendering his command a terror to the {104} State. Marion, Sumter, and other Americans struggled vainly to equal his exploits.

Occasional American successes could not turn back the tide. On October 18, 1780, a band of Tories under General Ferguson ventured too far to the westward, and at King's Mountain were surrounded and shot or taken prisoners by a general uprising of the frontiersmen. General Greene, who replaced Gates in December, managed to rally a few men, but dared not meet Cornwallis in the field. His lieutenant, Morgan, when pursued by Tarleton, turned on him at the Cowpens, and on January 17 managed to inflict a severe defeat. The forces were diminutive—less than a thousand on each side—but the battle was skilfully fought. After it, however, both Morgan and Greene were forced to fly northward, and did not escape Cornwallis's pursuit until they were driven out of North Carolina. The State seemed lost, and on February 23, Cornwallis issued a proclamation calling upon all loyalists to join the royal forces. Meanwhile, encouraged by the striking successes in the Carolinas, Clinton sent a force under Arnold to Virginia, which marched unopposed through the seaboard counties of that State in the winter of 1781. It seemed as though the new British policy were on the verge of a great triumph.

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By this time it was becoming a grave question whether the American revolution was not going to collapse from sheer weakness. The confederation, as a general government, seemed to be on the verge of breaking down. The State governments, although badly hampered wherever British raids took place, were operating regularly and steadily, but the only common government continued to be the voluntary Continental Congress, whose powers were entirely undefined, and rested, in fact, on sufferance. In 1776 a committee, headed by John Dickinson, drafted Articles of Confederation which, if adopted promptly, would have provided a regular form of government; but, although these were submitted in 1777 for ratification, inter-state jealousy sufficed to block their acceptance. It was discovered that all those States which, by their original charters, were given no definite western boundaries, were disposed to claim an extension of their territory to the Mississippi River. Virginia, through her general, Clark, actually occupied part of the region claimed by her, and assumed to grant lands there. The representatives of Maryland in Congress declared such inequality a danger to the union, and refused to sign the Articles unless the land claims west of the mountains were surrendered to the general government. {106} This determination was formally approved by the Maryland legislature in February, 1779, and matters remained at a standstill. At last, in 1780, Congress offered to hold any lands which might be granted to it, with the pledge to form them into States, and, following this, New York, and Virginia intimated a willingness to make the required cessions. Then Maryland yielded and ratified the Articles, so that they came into operation on March 2, 1781.

The self-styled "United States" had now travelled so far on the road to bankruptcy that the adoption of the "Articles of Perpetual Union" seemed scarcely more than an empty form. In the first place, the federal finances were prostrate. The device of issuing paper money had proved fatal, for, after a brief period, in 1775, the excessive issues depreciated in spite of every effort to hinder their decline by proclamations, price conventions, and political pressure. The only way of sustaining such notes, namely, the furnishing by the States of a full and sufficient revenue, was never attempted; for the States themselves preferred to issue notes, rather than to tax, and when called upon by the Continental Congress for requisitions they turned over such amounts of paper as they saw fit. By 1780, the "continental currency" was {107} practically worthless. Congress could rely only upon such small sums of money as it could raise by foreign loans through Franklin and by the contributions of a few patriotic people, notably Robert Morris.

The maintenance of the army exhausted the resources of Congress, and every winter saw the story of Valley Forge repeated. To secure supplies, Congress was driven to authorize seizure and impressment of food and payment in certificates of indebtedness. It was for this reason, as well as from the unwillingness of the Americans to enlist for the war, that the Continental forces dwindled to diminutive numbers in 1781. Nothing but Washington's tireless tenacity and loyalty held the army together, and kept the officers from resigning in disgust. Yet it seemed impossible that Washington himself could carry the burden much longer. The general government appeared to be on the point of disintegrating, leaving to the separate States the task of defending themselves. Everywhere lassitude, preoccupation with local matters, a disposition to leave the war to the French, a willingness to let other States bear the burdens, replaced the fervour of 1776. In other words, the old colonial habits were reasserting themselves, and the separate States, reverting to their former accustomed negative politics, were {108} behaving toward the Continental Congress precisely as they had done toward England itself during the French wars. With hundreds of thousands of men of fighting age in America it was impossible, in 1781, to collect more than a handful for service away from their homes. The essentially unmilitary nature of the Americans was not to be changed.

Fortunately for the rebels, the policy of Great Britain was such as to give them a lease of hope. In spite of the great British naval power during the first two years of the war, no blockade had been attempted; and after 1778 the British fleets were thoroughly occupied in following and foiling the French. The result was that commerce of a sort continued throughout the war, armed privateers and merchantmen venturing from the New England and other ports, and trading with France, Spain and the West Indies. Hundreds were taken by British cruisers, but hundreds more continued their dangerous trade, and so America continued to receive imports. The Dutch, especially, supplied the revolted colonies with some of the commodities which their exclusion from British ports rendered scarce. So, except for paper money, there was no economic distress.

In 1781, when if ever the British might hope to reduce the colonies, the Empire was itself in sore straits for men to fill its ships and {109} garrison its forts. This made it difficult for England to send any reinforcements to America, and left Clinton and Cornwallis with about 27,000 men to complete their raiding campaign. The task proved excessive. In March, 1781, Greene, having assembled a small force, gave battle to Cornwallis at Guilford Court House. The little army of British veterans, only 2,219 in all, drove Greene from the field after a stiff fight, but were so reduced in numbers that Cornwallis felt obliged to retreat to Wilmington on the coast, where he was entirely out of the field of campaign. On April 25 he marched northward into Virginia to join the force which had been there for several months, took command, and continued the policy of marching and destroying. Before his arrival, Washington had tried to use the French force at Newport against the Virginia raiders; but the French squadron, although it ventured from port in March, 1781, and had a successful encounter with a British fleet, declined to push on into the Chesapeake, and the plan was abandoned. Cornwallis was able to march unhindered by any French danger during the summer of 1781.

But while the British were terrifying Virginia and chasing militia, the forces left in the Carolinas were being worn down by {110} Greene and his "partisan" allies. On April 25, at Hobkirk's Hill, Rawdon, the British commander defeated Greene, and then, with reduced ranks, retreated. During the summer, further sieges and raids recaptured British posts, and on September 8 another battle took place at Eutaw Springs. This resulted, as usual, in a British success on the battlefield and a retreat afterwards. By October, the slender British forces in the southernmost States were cooped up in Charleston and Savannah, and a war of extermination was stamping out all organized Tory resistance. The raiding policy had failed through weakness of numbers. The superior fighting ability and tactical skill of Cornwallis, Rawdon, Stuart, and Tarleton were as obvious as the courage and steadiness of their troops; but their means were pitifully inadequate to the task assigned them.

Further north, a still greater failure took place. Washington was not deterred by the futile outcome of his previous attempts to use French co-operation from making a patient and urgent effort to induce De Grasse, the French admiral in the West Indies, to come north and join with him and Rochambeau in an attack on Cornwallis in Virginia. He was at last successful; and on August 28 the wished-for fleet, {111} a powerful collection of twenty-eight sail-of-the-line, with frigates, reached Chesapeake Bay. Already the French troops from Newport, and part of the American army from outside New York, had begun their southward march, carefully concealing their purposes from Clinton, and were moving through Pennsylvania. As a third part of the combination, the French squadron from Newport put to sea, bringing eight more sail-of-the-line, which, added to De Grasse's, would overmatch any British fleet on the western side of the Atlantic.

The one disturbing possibility was that the British West India fleet, which very properly had sailed in pursuit, might defeat the two French fleets singly. This chance was put to the test on September 5. On that day Admiral Graves, with nineteen men-of-war, attacked De Grasse, who brought twenty-four into line outside Chesapeake Bay; and the decisive action of the Revolution took place. Seldom has a greater stake been played for by a British fleet, and seldom has a naval battle been less successfully managed. Graves may have intended to concentrate upon part of the French line, but his subordinates certainly failed to understand any such purpose; and the outcome was that the head of the British column, approaching the French line at {112} an angle, was severely handled, while the rear took no part in the battle. The fleets separated without decisive result, and the British, after cruising a few days irresolutely, gave up and returned to New York. The other French squadron had meanwhile arrived, and the allied troops had come down the Chesapeake. Cornwallis, shut up in Yorktown by overwhelming forces, defended himself until October 17, and then surrendered with 8,000 men to the man who had beaten him years before at Trenton and Princeton. Clinton, aware at last of his danger, sailed with every vessel he could scrape together, and approached the bay on October 24 with twenty-five sail-of-the-line and 7,000 men; but it was too late. He could only retreat to New York, where he remained in the sole British foothold north of Charleston and Savannah.

Washington would have been glad to retain De Grasse and undertake further combined manoeuvres; but the French admiral was anxious to return to the West Indies, and so the military operations of the year ended. More was in reality unnecessary, for the collapse of the British military policy was manifest, and the surrender of Cornwallis was a sufficiently striking event to bring the war to a close. Washington had not won the last fight with his own {113} Continentals. The co-operation not only of the French fleet but of the French troops under Rochambeau had played the decisive part. Yet it was his planning, his tenacity, his personal authority with French and Americans that determined the combined operation and made it successful. In the midst of a half-starved, ill-equipped army, a disintegrating, bankrupt government, and a people whose fighting spirit was rapidly dwindling, it was he with his officers who had saved the Revolution at the last gasp.

It was no less the British mismanagement which made this possible, for had not Howe, by delays, thrown away his chances; had not Howe and Burgoyne and Clinton and Cornwallis, by their failures to co-operate, made it possible for their armies to be taken separately; had not the navy omitted to apply a blockade; had not the Ministry, in prescribing a raiding policy, failed to strain every nerve to furnish an adequate supply of men, the outcome would have been different. As it was, the British defeat could no longer be concealed by the end of 1781. The attempt to conquer America had failed.



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CHAPTER VI

BRITISH PARTIES AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1778-1783

When the news of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown reached England, it was recognized by Whigs and Tories alike that the time had come to admit the failure of the war. The loss of 7,000 troops was not in itself a severe blow, at a time when England had over 200,000 men under arms in various parts of the world; but it actually marked the breakdown of the American campaign, and, what was still more significant, the political bankruptcy of the North Ministry. Ever since 1778, the tide had been rising against the royal policy. At first, when the French war began, the nation rallied against the ancient foe and there was some enthusiasm displayed in recruiting and furnishing supplies; but, as general after general returned from America—first Burgoyne, then Howe and his brother, the admiral,—to rise in Parliament and denounce the administrative incompetence which had foiled their efforts; as month after month passed and no victory either in America or Europe came to cheer the public; worst of all, when, in 1779, and again in 1780, combined French and Spanish fleets swept the Channel {115} in overpowering numbers, driving the English fleet into Torbay harbour—the war spirit dwindled, and bitter criticism took its place.

The Whig Opposition, no longer hampered by having the defence of the revolted colonists as their sole issue, denounced in unmeasured language the incompetence, corruption, and despotism of the North Ministry, singling out Sandwich, at the Admiralty, and Germaine, Secretary for the Colonies, as objects for especial invective. Party hatred festered in army and navy, Whig and Tory admirals distrusting each other and engaging in bitter quarrels, Whig and Tory generals criticizing one another's plans and motives. On his part, Lord North felt, as early as 1779, that his task was hopeless, and sought repeatedly to resign; but in spite of secessions from the Ministry, in spite of defeats and humiliations such as the control by the allies of the Channel, nothing could shake George's determination. He would never consent to abandon the colonies or permit North to surrender to the detested Whigs.

In 1780, the Opposition, led by Fox and Burke, began to direct its fire at the King himself; and finally, in March of that year, they had the satisfaction of carrying in the Commons, by votes of men who once had been on the administration side, a resolution to the effect that "the power of the Crown {116} has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." This was carried, by 283 votes to 215, in a House where four years before the total Opposition mustered only a hundred. Measures to cut down sinecures, to limit the secret service fund, to take away opportunities for royal corruption, were introduced by Burke and, although defeated, drew large votes.

The tenacious politician who wore the crown was not yet beaten. In the summer of 1780, the disgraceful Gordon riots broke out in London; and the King, by his courageous personal bearing and bold direction of affairs, won momentary prestige. The news from America, moreover, was brighter than for a long time, and the British defence of Gibraltar was unshaken. Suddenly dissolving Parliament, the King employed every resource of influence or pressure, and managed to secure once more a majority in the House of Commons. During the year 1781, the North Ministry breathed more freely, and was able to repel Whig attacks by safe majorities. But the respite was short.

In the winter session of 1782, the news of Yorktown shook the Ministry to its centre, and on top of that came the reports of the surrender of Minorca, St. Kitts, and Nevis. Held together only by the inflexible determination of George III never to yield American {117} independence or "stoop to opposition," the Ministers fought bitterly though despairingly against a succession of Whig motions, censuring the Admiralty, demanding the withdrawal of the troops, and finally censuring the Ministry. Majorities dwindled as rats began to leave the sinking ship. On March 8, North escaped censure by ten votes only. The King made repeated efforts to induce members of the Opposition to come into some sort of coalition, but the hatred was too fierce, the divergence of principle too wide. Rockingham would accept only absolute surrender. On March 15, a resolution of want of confidence was lost by nine only.

Five days later, in face of a renewed motion of the same kind, North announced his resignation. The end had come. The system of George III had broken down, ruined by the weaknesses of the Tory Cabinet in administration, in war, and in diplomacy, the most disastrous Ministry in the history of England. There was no possible doubt as to the significance of the collapse, for Lord Rockingham took office with a Whig Cabinet, containing Shelburne and Fox, steadfast friends of America, as Secretaries of State, and with the avowed purpose of conceding independence to the former colonies, while maintaining the contest with Spain and France.

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Interest now shifted from the battlefield to the regions of diplomacy, where the situation was complicated and delicate, owing to the unusual relations of the parties involved. The United States and France were in alliance, each pledged not to make a separate peace. Spain was in alliance with France for the purpose of recovering Gibraltar, Minorca, and Florida, but was not in any alliance with the United States. The French government, tied thus to two allies, recognized the possible contingency of diverging interests between Spain and the United States, and exerted all the influence it could to keep diplomatic control in its own hands. This it accomplished through its representatives in America, especially de la Luzerne, who wielded an immense prestige with the members of the Continental Congress, not only through his position as representative of the power whose military, naval, and financial aid was absolutely indispensable, but also by means of personal intrigues of a type hitherto more familiar in European courts than in simple America. Under his direction, Congress authorized its European representatives, Franklin, Jay, and Adams, accredited to France, Spain, and the Netherlands respectively, to act as peace commissioners and to be guided in all things by the advice and consent of the French Minister, {119} Vergennes. Their instructions designated boundaries, indemnity for ravages and for the taking of slaves, and a possible cession of Canada, but all were made subject to French approval. When, accordingly, in 1781, both Shelburne and Fox of the Rockingham Ministry sought to open negotiations with the American representatives, while pushing on vigorously the war against France and Spain, they interjected an embarrassing element into the situation. Vergennes could not prohibit American negotiation, but he relied upon the instructions of the commissioners to enable him to prevent the making of any separate peace, contrary to the treaty of 1778.

The first steps were taken by Franklin and Shelburne, who opened unofficial negotiations through Richard Oswald, a friend of America. It seems to have been Shelburne's plan to avoid the preliminary concession of independence, hoping to retain some form of connection between America and England, or at least to use independence as a make-weight in the negotiations. Hence Oswald, his agent, was not commissioned to deal with the United States as such. Fox, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, felt, on the other hand, that the negotiation belonged to his field, and he sent Thomas Grenville to Paris, authorized to deal with France {120} and, indirectly, with the United States. Over this difference in the Cabinet, and over other matters, an acute personal rivalry developed between Fox and Shelburne, which culminated when Rockingham died in July, 1782. George III, who much preferred Shelburne to Fox, asked him to form a Ministry, and upon his acceptance Fox, absolutely refusing to serve under him, withdrew from the Cabinet, carrying his friends with him. Thus the triumphant Whig party was split within a few months after its victory. The whole responsibility now rested on Shelburne.

Meanwhile, a new situation had developed in Paris, for Jay and Adams, the other two commissioners, had brought about a change in the American policy. Franklin, deeply indebted to the French court and on the best of terms with Vergennes, was willing to credit him with good intentions and was ready to accept his advice to negotiate with England under the vague terms of Oswald's commission; but Jay, who had had a mortifying experience in Spain, suspected treachery and insisted that England must, in opening negotiations, fully recognize American independence. He was sure that Spain would gladly see the United States shut in to the Atlantic coast away from Spanish territory, and he felt certain {121} that Vergennes was under Spanish influence. Adams, who knew nothing of Spain, but distrusted the French on general principles, sided with Jay; and Franklin, submitting to his colleagues, agreed to a curious diplomatic manoeuvre. Jay sent to Shelburne a secret message, urging him to deal separately with the United States under a proper commission and not seek to play into the hands of Spain and France. He knew that a French emissary had visited Shelburne, and he dreaded French double-dealing, especially on the question of boundaries and fishery rights.

The British Prime Minister was in the odd position of being appealed to by one of the three hostile powers to save it from the other two; but underlying the situation was the fact that Shelburne, as a Whig since the beginning of the American quarrel, was committed to a friendly policy toward America. He knew, moreover, that when Parliament should meet he must expect trouble from Fox and the dissatisfied Whigs, as well as the Tories, and he was anxious to secure a treaty as soon as possible. So yielding, on September 27, he gave Oswald the required commission, but, suspecting that he was rather too complaisant, sent Henry Strachey to assist him. During the summer, Franklin and Oswald, in informal {122} discussions, had already eliminated various matters, so that when negotiations formally opened it took not over five weeks to agree upon a draft treaty.

During all this time the Americans violated their instructions by failing to consult Vergennes. Here Franklin was again overruled by Jay and Adams, whose antipathy to French and Spanish influence was insuperable. It does not appear that Vergennes had any definite intention to work against American boundaries or fishery rights; but there can be no doubt that Rayneval and Marbois, two of his agents, committed themselves openly in a sense unfavourable to American claims, and it is likely that, had the negotiations taken place under his control, the outcome would have been delayed in every way in order to allow France to keep its contract with Spain, whose attacks on Gibraltar were pushed all through the summer. As it was, the negotiators managed to agree on a treaty of peace which reflected the Whig principles of Shelburne and the skill and pertinacity of the three Americans. Little trouble was encountered over boundaries, Shelburne ceding everything east of the Mississippi and north of Florida, and designating as a boundary between the United States and Canada in part the same line as that in the Proclamation of 1763, from the {123} St. Croix River to the eastward of Maine, to the Great Lakes and thence westward by a system of waterways to the headwaters of the Mississippi. At the especial urgence of Adams, whose Massachusetts constituents drew much of their wealth from the Newfoundland fisheries, the right of continuing this pursuit was comprised in the treaty, together with the right to land and dry fish on unoccupied territories in Labrador and Nova Scotia. As a possible make-weight, the navigation of the Mississippi was guaranteed to citizens of both the United States and Great Britain.

The chief difficulty arose over the question of the treatment of American loyalists and the payment of British debts which had been confiscated in every colony. Shelburne insisted that there must be restoration of civil rights, compensation for damages, and a pledge against any future confiscations or disfranchisements for loyalists, and also demanded a provision for the payment of all debts due to British creditors. Here the negotiation hung in a long deadlock, for Franklin, Adams, and Jay were unanimously determined to concede no compensation for individuals whom they hated as traitors; while the British negotiators felt bound in honour not to abandon the men who had lost all and suffered every indignity and {124} humiliation as a penalty for their loyalty. At length, progress was made when Adams suggested that the question of British debts be separated from that of Tory compensation; so a clause was agreed upon guaranteeing the full payment of bona fide debts heretofore contracted.

Finally, after Franklin had raised a counter-claim for damages due to what he called the "inhuman burnings" of the British raids since 1778, it was agreed to insert a clause against any future confiscations or prosecutions of loyalists and to add that Congress should "earnestly recommend" to the States the restoration of loyalists' estates and the repealing of all laws against them. At the time the commissioners drew up this article, they must have known that the Congress of the United States had no power to enforce the treaty, and that any such recommendations, however "earnest," would carry no weight with the thirteen communities controlled by embittered rebels, who remembered every Tory, alive or dead, with execration. Nevertheless, it offered a way of escape, and the British representative signed, on November 30, 1782. The great contest was at an end.

When Franklin revealed to Vergennes that, unknown to the French court, the American commissioners had agreed on a {125} draft treaty, the French minister was somewhat indignant at the trick, and communicated his displeasure to his agent in America. This induced the easily worried Congress to instruct Livingston, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to write a letter censuring the commissioners; but, although Jay and Adams were hotly indignant at such servility, the matter ended then and there. Vergennes's displeasure was momentary, and the French policy continued as before. The European war was, in fact, wearing to its end. Already, in April, 1782, Admiral Rodney had inflicted a sharp defeat on De Grasse, capturing five of his vessels, including the flagship with the admiral himself. This, together with the extreme inefficiency of the Spanish fleet, put an end to the hope of further French gains in the West Indies. Before Gibraltar, also, the allied fleet of forty-eight vessels did not dare to risk a general engagement with a British relieving fleet of thirty, and when in September, 1782, a final bombardment was attempted, the batteries from the fort proved too strong for their assailants. The allies felt that they had accomplished all they could hope to, and agreed to terms of peace on January 20, 1783. France gained little beyond sundry West India Islands, but Spain profited to the extent of {126} regaining Minorca and also Florida. It was at best a defeat for England, and the Whig Ministry, which carried it through, was unable to prevent such an outcome.

The American peace was made the pretext for Shelburne's fall, since a coalition of dissatisfied Whigs and Tories united in March, 1783, to censure it, thereby turning out the Ministry. But, although Fox regained control of diplomatic matters and made some slight moves toward reopening negotiations, he had no serious intention of disturbing Shelburne's work, and the provisional treaty was made definitive on September 3, 1783—the day on which the French treaty was signed. Thus the Americans technically kept to the terms of their alliance with France in agreeing not to make a separate peace, but as a matter of fact hostilities had entirely ceased in America since January, 1783, and practically since the fall of the North Ministry. The British had remained quietly in New York and Charleston, withdrawing from all other points, and Washington with his small army stood at Newburg-on-the-Hudson. In October, 1783, the last British withdrew, taking with them into exile thousands of Tories who did not dare to remain to test the value of the clauses in the treaty of peace intended to protect them. So the last traces of the long contest disappeared, {127} and the United States entered upon its career.

The treaty, as must have been foreseen by the commissioners themselves, remained a dead letter so far as the Tories were concerned. Congress performed its part and gave the promised recommendation, but the States paid no heed. The loyalists were not restored to civil or property rights. The plain provision of the treaty prohibiting further legislation against loyalists was defied in several States, and additional disqualifications were placed upon those who dared to remain in the country. The provision regarding the payment of debts remained unfulfilled, since there was no mechanism provided in the treaty through which the article could be enforced. Only from the British government could the Tories receive any recompense for their sufferings, and there they were in part relieved. Very many received grants of land in Canada, where they formed a considerable part of the population in several districts. More went to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to receive similar grants. Others spent their days in England as unhappy pensioners, forgotten victims of a war which all Englishmen sought to bury in oblivion. Those who remained in the United States ultimately regained standing and fared better than the exiles, but not until new {128} domestic issues had arisen to obliterate the memory of revolutionary antagonisms.

With the Treaty of 1782, the mother country and the former colonies definitely started on separate paths, recognizing the fundamental differences which for fifty years had made harmonious co-operation impossible. England remained as before, aristocratic in social structure, oligarchic in government, military and naval in temper—a land of strongly fixed standards of religious and political life, a country where society looked to a narrow circle for leadership. Its commercial and economic ideals, unaltered by defeat, persisted to guide national policy in peace and war for two more generations. The sole result of the war for England was to render impossible in future any such perversion of Cabinet government as that which George III, by intimidation, fraud, and political management, had succeeded for a decade in establishing. Never again would the country tolerate royal dictation of policies and leaders. England became what it had been before 1770, a country where parliamentary groups and leaders bore the responsibility and gained the glory or discredit, while the outside public approved or protested without seeking in any other manner to control the destinies of the State. While the English thus sullenly fell back into their {129} accustomed habits, the former Colonies, now relieved from the old-time subordination, were turned adrift to solve problems of a wholly different sort.



CHAPTER VII

THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 1781-1798

The British colonists, who assumed independent legal existence with the adoption of Articles of Confederation in 1781, had managed to carry through a revolution and emerge into the light of peace. They were now required to learn, in the hard school of experience, those necessary facts of government which they had hitherto ignored, and which, even in the agonies of civil war, they had refused to recognize.

Probably with three-quarters of the American people, the prevailing political sentiment was that of aversion to any governmental control, coupled with a deep-rooted jealousy and distrust of all officials, even those chosen by and dependent upon themselves. Their political ideals contemplated {130} the government of each colony chiefly by the elected representatives of the voters, who should meet annually to legislate and tax, and then, having defined the duties of the few permanent officers in such a way as to leave them little or no discretion, should dissolve, leaving the community to run itself until the next annual session. Authority of any kind was to them an object of traditional dread, even when exercised by their own agents. The early State constitutions concentrated all power in the legislature, leaving the executive and judicial officials little to do but execute the laws. The only discretionary powers enjoyed by governors were in connection with military affairs.

In establishing the Articles of Confederation the statesmen of the Continental Congress had no intention of creating in any sense a governing body. All that the Congress could do was to decide upon war and peace, make treaties, decide upon a common military establishment, and determine the sums to be contributed to the common treasury. These matters, moreover, called for an affirmative vote of nine States in each case. There was no federal executive or judiciary, nor any provision for enforcing the votes of the Congress. To carry out any single thing committed by the Articles to the Congress, and duly voted, required the {131} positive co-operation of the State legislatures, who were under no other compulsion than their sense of what the situation called for and of what they could afford to do.

Things were, in short, just where the colonists would have been glad to have them before the Revolution—with the objectionable provincial executives removed, all coercive authority in the central government abolished, and the legislatures left to their own absolute discretion. In other words, the average American farmer or trader of the day felt that the Revolution had been fought to get rid of all government but one directly under the control of the individual voters of the States. Typical of such were men like Samuel Adams of Massachusetts and Patrick Henry of Virginia. They had learned their politics in the period before the Revolution, and clung to the old colonial spirit, which regarded normal politics as essentially defensive and anti-governmental.

On the other hand, there were a good many individuals in the country who recognized that the triumph of the colonial ideal was responsible for undeniable disasters. Such men were found, especially, among the army officers and among those who had tried to aid the cause in diplomatic or civil office during the Revolution. Experience made them realize that the practical abolition of all {132} executive authority and the absence of any real central government had been responsible for chronic inefficiency. The financial collapse, the lack of any power on the part of Congress to enforce its laws or resolutions, the visible danger that State legislatures might consult their own convenience in supporting the common enterprises or obligations—all these shortcomings led men like Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Webster, a pamphleteer of New England, to urge even before 1781 that a genuine government should be set up to replace the mere league. Their supporters were, however, few, and confined mainly to those merchants or capitalists who realized the necessity of general laws and a general authority. It is scarcely conceivable that the inherited prejudices of most Americans in favour of local independence could have been overborne had not the Revolution been followed by a series of public distresses, which drove to the side of the strong-government advocates—temporarily, as it proved—a great number of American voters.

When hostilities ended, the people of the United States entered upon a period of economic confusion. In the first place, trade was disorganized, since the old West India markets were lost and the privileges formerly enjoyed under the Navigation Acts were terminated by the separation of the {133} countries. American shippers could not at once discover in French or other ports an equivalent for the former triangular trade. In the second place, British manufacturers and exporters rushed to recover their American market, and promptly put out of competition the American industries which had begun to develop during the war. Specie, plentiful for a few months, now flowed rapidly out of the country, since American merchants were no longer able to buy British goods by drawing on West India credits. At the same time, with the arrival of peace, the State courts resumed their functions, and general liquidation began; while the State legislatures, in the effort to adjust war finances, imposed what were felt to be high taxes. The result was a general complaint of hard times, poverty, and insufficient money. Some States made efforts to retaliate against Great Britain by tariffs and navigation laws, but this only damaged their own ports by driving British Trade to their neighbours'. Congress could afford no help, since it had no power of commercial regulation.

The effect upon the working of the Confederation showed that a majority of Americans had learned nothing from all their experiences, for the State legislatures declined to furnish to the central government any {134} more money than they felt to be convenient, regardless of the fact that without their regular support the United States was certain to become bankrupt. Robert Morris was appointed Financier in 1871, and took energetic steps to introduce order into the mass of loan certificates, foreign loans, certificates of indebtedness, and mountains of paper currency; but one unescapable fact stood in his way, that the States felt under no obligation to pay their quotas of expenses. In spite of his urgent appeals, backed by resolutions of Congress, the government revenues remained too scanty to pay even the interest on the debt. Morris resigned in disgust in 1784; and his successors, a committee of Congress, found themselves able to do nothing more than confess bankruptcy. The people of the States felt too poor to support their federal government, and, what was more, felt no responsibility for its fate.

Without revenue, it naturally followed that the Congress of the Confederation accomplished practically nothing. As will be shown later, it could secure no treaties of any importance, since its impotence to enforce them was patent. It managed to disband the remaining troops with great difficulty and only under the danger of mutiny, a danger so great that it took all of {135} Washington's personal influence to prevent an uprising at Newburg in March, 1783. For the rest, its leaders, men often of high ability—Hamilton, Madison, King of Massachusetts, Sherman of Connecticut—found themselves helpless. Naturally they appealed to the States for additional powers and submitted no less than three amendments: first, in 1781, a proposal to permit Congress to levy and collect a five per cent. duty on imports; then, in 1783, a plan by which certain specific duties were to be collected by State officers and turned over to the government; and finally, in 1784, a request that Congress be given power to exclude vessels of nations which would not make commercial treaties. No one of these succeeded, although the first plan failed of unanimous acceptance by one State only. The legislatures recognized the need, but dreaded to give any outside power whatever authority within their respective boundaries. While those who advocated these amendments kept reiterating the positive necessity for some means to avert national disgrace and bankruptcy, their opponents, reverting to the language of 1775, declared it incompatible with "liberty" that any authority other than the State's should be exercised in a State's territory. By 1787, it was clear that any hope of specific amendments was vain. Unanimity from {136} thirteen legislatures was not to be looked for.

On the other hand, where the States chose to act they produced important results. The cessions of western lands, which had been exacted by Maryland as her price for ratifying the Articles, were carried out by New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia until the title to all territory west of Pennsylvania and north of the Ohio was with the Confederation. Then, although nothing in the Articles authorized such action, Congress, in 1787, adopted an Ordinance establishing a plan for settling the new lands. After a period of provincial government, substantially identical with that of the colonies, the region was to be divided into States and admitted into the union, under the terms of an annexed "compact" which prohibited slavery and guaranteed civil rights. But where the States did not co-operate, confusion reigned. Legislatures imposed such tariffs as they saw fit, which led to actual inter-State commercial discriminations between New York and its neighbours. Connecticut and Pennsylvania wrangled over land claims. The inhabitants of the territory west of New Hampshire set up a State government under the name of Vermont, and successfully maintained themselves against the State of New York, {137} which had a legal title to the soil, while the frontier settlers in North Carolina were prevented only by inferior numbers from carrying through a similar secession.

Finally, in the years 1785-7, the number of those who found the unrestrained self-government of the separate States another name for anarchy was enormously increased by a sudden craze for paper money, "tender" laws, and "stay" laws which swept the country. The poorer classes, especially the farmers, denounced the courts as agents of the rich, clamoured for more money to permit the easy payment of obligations, and succeeded in compelling more than half of the States to pass laws hindering the collection of debts and emitting bills of credit, which promptly depreciated. Worse remained. In New Hampshire, armed bands tried to intimidate the legislature; and in Massachusetts the rejection of such laws brought on actual insurrection. Farmers assembled under arms, courts were broken up, and a sharp little civil war, known as Shays' Rebellion, was necessary before the State government could re-establish order.

In these circumstances, a sudden strong reaction against mob rule and untrammelled democracy ran through the country, swinging all men of property and law-abiding habits powerfully in favour of the demand {138} for a new, genuinely authoritative, national government, able to compel peace and good order. So the leaders of the reform party struck; and at a meeting of Annapolis in October, 1786, summoned originally to discuss the problem of navigating the Potomac River, they issued a call for a convention of delegates from all the States to meet at Philadelphia in May, 1787, for the purpose of recommending provisions "intended to render the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." This movement, reversing the current of American history, gained impetus in the winter of 1787. Congress seconded the call; and, after Virginia had shown the way by nominating its foremost men as delegates, the other States fell into line and sent representatives—all but Rhode Island, which was the scene of an orgy of paper-money tyranny, and would take no part in any such meeting.

Of the fifty-five men present at the Philadelphia convention, not more than half-a-dozen were of the old colonial type, which clung to individual State independence as the palladium of liberty. All the others felt that the time had come to lay the most thoroughgoing limitations upon the States, with the express purpose of preventing any future repetition of the existing inter-State wrangles, and especially of the financial {139} abuses of the time; and they were ready to gain this end by entrusting large powers to the central government. They divided sharply, however, on one important point, namely, whether the increased powers were to be exercised by a government similar to the existing one, or by something wholly new and far more centralized; and over this question the convention ran grave danger of breaking up.

Discussion began in June, 1787, behind closed doors, with a draft plan agreed upon by the Virginia members as the working project. This was a bold scheme, calling for the creation of a single great State, relying on the people for its authority, superior to the existing States, and able, if necessary, to coerce them; in reality, a fusion of the United States into a single commonwealth. In opposition to this, the representatives of the smaller States—Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Connecticut—aided by the conservative members from New York, announced that they would never consent to any plan which did not safeguard the individuality and equality of their States; and, although the Virginia plan commanded a majority of those present, its supporters were obliged to permit a compromise in order to prevent an angry dissolution of the convention. In keeping with a suggestion of the {140} Connecticut members, it was agreed that one House of the proposed legislature should contain an equal representation of the States, while the other should be based on population.

The adoption of this compromise put an end to the danger of disruption, for all but a few irreconcilables were now ready to co-operate; and in the course of a laborious session a final draft was hammered out, with patchings, changes, and additional compromises to safeguard the interests of the plantation States in the institution of slavery.

When the convention adjourned, it placed before the people of America a document which was a novelty in the field of government. In part, it aimed to establish a great State, on the model of the American States, which in turn derived their features from the colonial governments. It had a Congress of two Houses, an executive with independent powers, and a judiciary authorized to enforce the laws of the United States. Congress was given full and exclusive power over commerce, currency, war and peace, and a long list of enumerated activities involving inter-State questions, and was authorized to pass all laws necessary and proper to the carrying out of any of the powers named in the constitution. Further, the constitution, the federal laws, and treaties were declared to be the supreme {141} law of the land, anything in a State law or constitution notwithstanding. In addition, the States were expressly forbidden to enter the fields reserved to the federal government, and were prohibited from infringing the rights of property. On the other hand, the new government could not exist without the co-operation of the States in providing for the election of electors,—to choose a president—of senators, and of congressmen. It was a new creation, a federal State.

There now followed a sharp and decisive contest to gain the necessary ratification by nine commonwealths. At first, the advocates of strong government, by a rapid campaign, secured the favourable votes of half-a-dozen States in quick succession; but when it came the turn of New York, Massachusetts, and Virginia, the conservative, localistic instincts of the farmers and older people were roused to make a strenuous resistance. The "Federalists," as the advocates of the new government termed themselves, had to meet charges that the proposed scheme would crush the liberties of the State, reduce them to ciphers, and set up an imitation of the British monarchy. But, by the eager urging of the foremost lawyers and most influential men of the day, the tide was turned and ratification carried, although with the utmost difficulty, and usually with {142} the recommendation of amendments to perfect the constitution. In June, 1788, the contest ended; and, although Rhode Island and North Carolina remained unreconciled, the other eleven States proceeded to set up the new government.

In the winter of 1789, in accordance with a vote of the Congress of the Confederation, the States chose electors and senators, and the people voted for representatives. But one possible candidate existed for the presidency, namely, the hero of the Revolutionary War; and accordingly Washington received the unanimous vote of the whole electoral college. With him, John Adams was chosen vice-president, by a much smaller majority. The Congress, which slowly assembled, was finally able to count and declare the votes, the two officers were inaugurated, and the new government was ready to assume its functions.

There followed a period of rapid and fundamental legislation. In the new Congress were a body of able men, by far the greater number of them zealous to establish a strong authoritative government, and to complete the victory of the Federalists. The defeated States' Rights men now stood aside, watching their conquerors carry their plan to its conclusion. Led for the most part by James Madison of the House, {143} Congress passed Acts creating executive departments with federal officials; establishing a full independent federal judiciary, resident in every State, with a supreme court above all; imposing a tariff for revenue and for protection to American industries, and appropriating money to settle the debts of the late confederation. In addition, it framed and submitted to the States a series of constitutional amendments whose object was to meet Anti-federalist criticisms by securing the individual against oppression from the federal government. When Congress adjourned in September, 1789, after its first session, it had completed a thoroughgoing political revolution. In place of a loose league of entirely independent States, there now existed a genuine national government, able to enforce its will upon individuals and to perform all the functions of any State.

That the American people, with their political inheritance, should have consented even by a small majority to abandon their traditional lax government, remains one of the most remarkable political decisions in history. It depended upon the concurrence of circumstances which, for the moment, forced all persons of property and law-abiding instincts to join together in all the States to remedy an intolerable situation. {144} The leaders, as might be expected, were a different race of statesmen, on the whole, from those who had directed events prior to 1776. Washington and Franklin favoured the change; but Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry were eager opponents, Samuel Adams was unfriendly, and Thomas Jefferson, in Paris, was unenthusiastic. The main work was done by Hamilton, Madison, John Marshall, Gouverneur Morris, Fisher Ames—men who were children in the days of the Stamp Act. The old agitators and revolutionists were superseded by a new type of politicians, whose interests lay in government, not opposition.

But the fundamental American instincts were not in reality changed; they had only ebbed for the moment. No sooner did Congress meet in its second session in January, 1790, and undertake the task of reorganizing the chaotic finances of the country, than political unanimity vanished, and new sectional and class antagonisms came rapidly to the front in which could be traced the return of the old-time colonial habits. The central figure was no longer Madison, but Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, who aspired to be a second William Pitt, and submitted an elaborate scheme for refunding the entire American debt. In addition, he called for an excise tax, and {145} later recommended the chartering of a National Bank to serve the same function in America that the Bank of England performed in Great Britain.

Daring, far-sighted, based on the methods of English financiers, Hamilton's plans bristled with points certain to arouse antagonism. He proposed to refund and pay the debt at its face value to actual holders, regardless of the fact that the nearly worthless federal stock and certificates of indebtedness had fallen into the hands of speculators; he recommended that the United States should assume, fund, and pay the war debt of the States, disregarding the fact that, while some States were heavily burdened, others had discharged their obligations. He urged an excise tax on liquors, although such an internal tax was an innovation in America and was certain to stir intense opposition; he suggested the chartering of a powerful bank, in spite of the absence of any clause in the constitution authorizing such action. Hamilton was, in fact, a great admirer of the English constitution and political system, and he definitely intended to strengthen the new government by making it the supreme financial power and enlisting in its support all the moneyed interests of the country. Property, as in England, must be the basis of government.

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Against his schemes, there immediately developed a rising opposition which made itself felt in Congress, in State legislatures, in the newspapers, and finally in Washington's own Cabinet. All the farmer and debtor elements in the country disliked and dreaded the financial manipulations of the brilliant secretary; and the Virginian planters, universally borrowers, who had been the strongest single power in establishing the new constitution, now swung into opposition to the administration. Madison led the fight in the House against Hamilton's measures; and Jefferson, in the Cabinet, laid down, in a memorandum of protest against the proposed bank, the doctrine of "strict construction" of the constitution according to which the powers granted to the federal government ought to be narrowly construed in order to preserve the State governments, the source of liberty, from encroachment. He denounced the bank, accordingly, as unwarranted by the constitution, corrupt, and dangerous to the safety of the country. In the congressional contest Hamilton was successful, for all his recommendations were adopted, but at the cost of creating a lasting antagonism in the southern States and in the western regions.

In 1791, Jefferson and Madison co-operated to establish a newspaper at Philadelphia whose sole occupation consisted in denouncing {147} the corrupt and monarchical Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton retorted by publishing letters charging Jefferson with responsibility for it; and Washington, who steadily approved Hamilton's policies, found his Cabinet splitting into two factions. By the year 1792, when the second presidential election took place, the opposition, styling itself "Republican," was sufficiently well organized to run George Clinton, formerly the Anti-federalist leader of New York, for the Vice-Presidency against the "monarchical" Adams. Washington was not opposed, but no other one of the Hamiltonian supporters escaped attack. There was, in short, the beginning of the definite formation of political parties on lines akin to those which existed in the period before 1787. Behind Jefferson and Madison were rallying all the colonial-minded voters, to whom government was at best an evil and to whom, under any circumstances, strong authority and elaborate finance were utterly abhorrent. Around Hamilton gathered the men whose interests lay in building up a genuine, powerful, national government—the merchants, shipowners, moneyed men and creditors generally in the northern States—and, of course, all Tories.

Up to 1793, the Federalist administration successfully maintained its ground; and, when {148} the Virginian group tried in the House to prove laxity and mismanagement against Hamilton, he was triumphantly vindicated. Had the United States been allowed to develop in tranquillity and prosperity for a generation, it is not unlikely that the Federalist party might have struck its roots so deeply as to be impervious to attacks. But it needed time, for in contrast to the Jeffersonian party, whose origin is manifestly in the old-time colonial political habits of democracy, local independence, and love of lax finance, the Federalist party was a new creation, with no traditions to fall back upon. Reflecting in some respects British views, notably in its distrust of the masses and its respect for property and wealth, it far surpassed any English party of the period, except the small group led by William Pitt, in its demand for progressive and vigorous legislation. In 1793, when matters were in this situation, the state of European and British politics suddenly brought the United States into the current of world politics, and subjected the new administration to difficulties, which were ultimately to cause its downfall.



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CHAPTER VIII

THE FIRST PERIOD OF COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM, 1783-1795

While the United States had been undergoing the important changes of the period, 1783-1793, England had passed through an almost equally significant political transformation, in course of which the two countries entered upon a long history of difficult and unfriendly diplomatic relations. The treaty of peace ended the political union of the two communities, but it left the nature of their commercial relations to be settled; and this, for the United States, was a problem second only in importance to that of federal government. If the prosperity of the thirteen States was to be restored, the old-time trade routes of the colonial days must be re-established. The West India market for fish, grain, and lumber, the British or European market for plantation products must be replaced on a profitable basis, and the United States must be prepared to purchase these privileges by whatever concessions lay in its power to grant. It rested chiefly with England to decide whether to permit the former colonies to resume their earlier commercial system or begin a new policy, for it was with Britain and the British colonies {150} that seven-eighths of American commerce naturally was carried on.

Unfortunately for the people of the United States, and unfortunately for the harmony of the two countries, the prevailing beliefs of English merchants, shipowners, naval authorities, and, in general, the official classes were such as to render a complete resumption of the former trade relations almost impossible. According to the political and economic doctrines underlying the Acts of Trade, the moment that the two countries became separated their interests automatically became antagonistic. American shipping, formerly fostered when under the flag, now assumed the aspect of a formidable rival to the British merchant marine and, as such, ought to be prevented from taking any profit which by any device could be turned toward British ships.

The treaty of peace had scarcely been signed when there appeared a pamphlet by Lord Sheffield, early in 1783, which won instant success, passing through several editions. This announced that henceforward it was the duty of the British government to discourage and crush American navigation to the extent of its power in order to check a dangerous rival, taking especial care to reserve the West Indies for exclusive British control. At the possibility of losing the {151} profitable American market through retaliatory measures, Sheffield laughed in scorn. "We might as reasonably dread the effect of combinations among the German as among the American States," he sneered, "and deprecate the resolves of the Diet as those of Congress." There were elements, of course, to whom these arguments of Sheffield were unwelcome, particularly the West India planters themselves, and to a degree the British manufacturers, who would gladly have resumed the trade of the years before 1776; but, so far as the great majority of Englishmen was concerned, it seems impossible to doubt that Lord Sheffield was a true spokesman of their convictions.

In addition to the economic theories of the time, the temper of the British people was sullen, hostile, and contemptuous toward the former colonies. The bulk of the nation had come to condemn the policy of the North Ministry which had led to the loss of the plantations, but they did not love the Americans any the more for that. The sharp social distinctions, which prior to 1776 had rendered the nobility, the gentry, the clergy, and the professions contemptuous toward the colonists, still reigned unchecked; and the Tories and most of the ruling classes, regarding the Americans as a set of ungrateful and spiteful people, whom it was well {152} to have lost as subjects, ceased to take any interest in their existence. The United States was dropped, as an unpleasant subject is banished from conversation; and the relations of the two countries became a matter of national concern only when the interests of shipowners, merchants, or naval authorities were sufficiently strong to compel attention from the governing classes.

The Whig leaders should, of course, be excepted from this general statement, for they and their followers—both their parliamentary coterie and their middle-class adherents outside—retained a friendly attitude, and tried to treat the United States with a consideration which usually had no place in Tory manners. But Whigs as well as Tories held the prevailing conceptions of naval and economic necessities, and only scattered individuals, like William Pitt, were affected by the new doctrines of Adam Smith. Their commercial policy tended to differ only in degree from that of the more rigid Tories.