Chapter VII: Part 7

In Spain the news was received with consternation and despair. The thousands who on the preceding day crowded upon the neighboring hills, and with eager anxiety awaited the anticipated victory, returned to their homes disappointed and chagrined. They had been taught to believe that the attack would be crushing and invincible; that the batteries were indestructible; that the fortress must be annihilated by their overwhelming fire; but instead of these disasters they had seen every ship destroyed or sunk, with all their guns, and two thousand men of their crews either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. In the first moment of consternation the inventor of those vast machines, upon the success of which the whole attack depended, could not restrain his poignant grief and was led into confessions which he afterward regretted. Writing to the French ambassador, Montmorin, he said: "I have burned the Temple of Ephesus; everything is lost, and through my fault. What comforts me under my misfortune is that the honor of the two kings remains untarnished."

At Madrid the news of the disaster was received with dismay; and the King, who was at the palace of Ildefonso, listened to the intelligence in mute despair. The recovery of Gibraltar had been his unswerving aim, and with this repulse almost his last hope was extinguished. In Paris the intelligence was no less unexpected and unwelcome; so certain indeed had the fall of the fortress been considered that a drama illustrative of the destruction of Gibraltar by the floating batteries was acted nightly to applauding thousands.

It has been before remarked that the Duc de Crillon never held that blindly confident opinion of the inventions of D'Arcon which had turned the heads of the two Bourbon courts. He had always urged the necessity of a complete attack by sea, in which the whole fleet should engage, and of which the floating batteries would form an integral part. The French engineer ridiculed this idea, and affirmed that the ships would be destroyed before they could inflict any damage upon the walls.

The result of the attack showed how completely D'Arcon was mistaken. During the day the assistance of the combined fleet was urgently required; but when its cooperation might have turned the tide of victory, an adverse wind arose, and the vessels could not beat up within range of the Rock.

The distinguished part which Captain Curtis had taken in the defence of the fortress ever since he had joined the command drew from General Eliot commendations no less merited than sincere. Writing to Lord Howe on October 15th he says:

"Unknown to Brigadier Curtis, I must entreat your lordship to reflect upon the unspeakable assistance he has been in the defence of this place by his advice, and the lead he has taken in every hazardous enterprise. You know him well, my lord, therefore such conduct on his part is no more than you expect; but let me beg of you not to leave him unrewarded for such signal services. You alone can influence his majesty to consider such an officer for what he has, and what he will in future deserve wherever employed. If Gibraltar is of the value intimated to me from office, and to be presumed by the steps adventured to relieve it, Brigadier Curtis is the man to whom the King will be chiefly indebted for its security. Believe me, there is nothing affected in this declaration on my part."

Again, when on his return to England he was created Lord Heathfield, he expressed his indignation that Curtis only received the honor of knighthood and a pension of five hundred pounds per annum. "It is a shame," he said, "that I should be overloaded, and so scanty a pittance be the lot of him who bore the greatest share of the burthen." Such was the unaffected modesty of this great man!

When the confusion arising from their disastrous defeat had subsided in the enemy's camp, a heavy cannonade was again opened from their lines and advanced works. The firing generally commenced about five or six o'clock in the morning and continued till noon, then for two hours the batteries were silent, but again opened till seven o'clock in the evening, when the mortars took up the fire till daybreak. During the twenty-four hours six hundred shells and about one thousand shots were thrown into the garrison.

Notwithstanding the ill-success which had attended the combined attack, and the signal proof the enemy had received of the impregnable strength of the fortress, the Spaniards did not entirely despair of eventually reducing the place by famine, could the arrival of Lord Howe's fleet with the convoy be prevented.

In August the English Government, being aware of the vast preparations which had been making in Spain for the siege of Gibraltar, had collected a fleet of thirty-four sail of the line, six frigates, and three fire-ships, under command of Admiral Lord Howe, which was to convoy a flotilla of merchantmen with relief for the garrison.

By September 11th the preparations were completed, and on that day Howe set sail from Spithead with one hundred eighty-three sail, including the convoy, under the command of Vice-Admirals Barrington and Milbank, Rear Admirals Hood and Hughes, and Commodore Hotham.

Hampered by the difficulty of keeping the merchantmen together, and baffled by contrary winds and violent weather, Howe's passage was unusually slow and tedious.

The Spanish Government having gained intelligence of the approach of this powerful force, instantly took measures to attack the expedition before it could arrive at its destination. For this purpose the combined fleets of Spain and France which lay in the harbor of Algeciras were reenforced, and dispositions were made for intercepting the British ships on their passage through the Straits.

These arrangements had scarcely been completed when, on the evening of October 10th, a fresh westerly wind sprang up in the bay, and toward night gradually increased in violence till it blew a hurricane. Soon the enemy's vessels were in distress, many were dragging their anchors, and signal-guns were fired for help in rapid succession. Throughout the night the fury of the storm did not abate, and daybreak disclosed the havoc among the squadrons at Algeciras; a ship of the line and a frigate were ashore at Orange Grove, a French liner had suffered great damage to her masts and rigging, and the St. Michael, of seventy-two guns, was discovered close in shore off the Orange Bastion in distress. She was immediately fired at and after having lost four men she was run ashore on the line-wall, and taken possession of by Captain Curtis. Her commander, Admiral Don Juan Moreno, and her crew of six hundred fifty men were landed as prisoners. These misfortunes materially affected the ulterior movements of the combined fleets. In the mean time Lord Howe had on the 8th of the month arrived off Cape St. Vincent, and a frigate was sent on from there to gain information from the consul at Faro of the enemy's dispositions. Two days afterward she returned with the intelligence that the combined fleets, consisting of nearly fifty sail, lay at anchor at Algeciras.

Upon the receipt of this news a council of war was held, and clear and stringent orders were afterward issued for the guidance of the masters in charge of the merchantmen, that the convoy might be conducted safely into the harbor of Gibraltar. On the 11th, the fleet passed through the Straits in three divisions, the third and centre squadrons in line of battle ahead, the second squadron in reserve; the Victory led ahead of the third squadron.

By sunset the van had arrived off Europa Point, and before nightfall four of the transports had anchored under the guns of the fortress. By an unpardonable inattention to the orders they had received, the masters of the other vessels failed to make the bay and were driven away to the eastward of the Rock. To the astonishment of Howe, who had looked upon an engagement as inevitable, the Spaniards did not attempt to intercept the convoy.

During the two following days the British Admiral was engaged in collecting the transports to the eastward, and preparing for action in case the Spaniards should attack.

On the 13th the combined fleets, consisting of forty-four ships of the line, five frigates, and twenty-nine xebec-cutters and brigs, got under way and stood to the southward, with the apparent intention of bearing down upon Lord Howe's force. But though the Spanish Admiral had the weather-gauge, and notwithstanding his fleet was greatly superior in numbers to the English, he contented himself with the execution of some harmless manoeuvres, and permitted the whole of the transports to be conducted safely into Gibraltar under the very muzzles of his guns. The stores and provisions were immediately landed, and two regiments of infantry--Twenty-fifth and Twenty-ninth--were disembarked under the superintendence of Lord Mulgrave.

Having accomplished his mission and relieved the fortress, Lord Howe prepared to return to England.

On October 19th, taking advantage of an easterly wind, he formed his fleet in order of battle and sailed through the Straits. At this time the combined fleets were cruising a few miles north-east of Ceuta, and in view of Howe's squadron, of which they had the weather-gauge.

The two fleets remained near each other during the night, and on the following morning, the wind having come round to the northward, the Spaniards still held the advantage and could have closed for action at any moment. It was Lord Howe's desire, if possible, to avoid an engagement in the narrow and dangerous waters of the Straits, and to entice the enemy to accept battle in the open sea; with this object he continued on his course to the westward.

At sunset on the 20th the combined fleets, greatly superior to the English in force and numbers, came up with the rear division, under Admiral Barrington, and a partial action commenced, but the enemy remained at such a respectful distance, keeping as near as they could haul to the wind, that the firing was comparatively harmless on both sides. The two admirals De Guichen and Cordova led the enemy's van, and it was apparently their intention to cut off and destroy the rear division of the British fleet; but though they had the superiority in force and the advantage of the wind, they could not be induced to close, and soon after midnight the firing ceased. The next morning the two fleets were still in sight, but as the Spaniards evinced no disposition to renew the engagement, Howe, whose orders did not permit him to provoke the enemy, continued on his homeward voyage.

The successful passage of the British fleet through the Straits, in the face of the combined forces, was regarded in Madrid as a glorious victory for the Spanish arms. The despatches of Don Louis de Cordova described the partial engagement as a complete rout, and Howe was made to flee with all press of sail from his brave pursuers.

Seizing upon this exaggerated intelligence as a counterpoise to the recent disastrous news from Gibraltar, the Government extolled the valor of the navy, and spread ludicrously bombastic accounts of the "glorious victory" throughout the country. Pamphlets descriptive of the engagement were published and disseminated, in which the casualties of the English were put down in numbers imposingly enormous.

Gibraltar having thus been again successfully relieved, the Spanish government relinquished all hope of securing its possession by force of arms; but the King still fondly retained some expectation of succeeding by negotiation. In order to conceal the actual hopelessness of the enterprise, and "to give a reasonable color to the formal prosecution of the siege," private instructions were sent to Crillon to continue the offensive. But the Spanish commander was in truth no less disheartened than the ministers of his government, and with the exception of daily attacks by gun- and mortar-boats, seconded by a warm fire from the isthmus, active operations completely ceased.

On February 2, 1783, the news of the signature of the preliminaries of a general peace reached the garrison by a flag of truce, and on March 12th the gates of the fortress, which had been closed for nearly four years, were once more thrown open.

The announcement of the peace was received with general joy throughout the garrison, and this feeling was most fully reciprocated by the disheartened and weary enemy. The two chiefs, who, since they had been opposed to each other as antagonists in a struggle which riveted the attention of all Europe, had learned to regret that they were foes, now met with the cordial embrace of friendship, and no opportunity was lost which could tend to obliterate the remembrances of former rivalry. Friendly meetings were interchanged between them, and all memory of previous antagonism was buried in oblivion.

Being introduced to the officers of the Royal Artillery, through whose courage and ability his brightest hopes of victory had been destroyed, Crillon met them with praises of their noble conduct, and remarked that "he would rather see them there as friends than on their batteries as enemies, where," he added, "they never spared me."

One day when inspecting the immense lines of fortification on the northern face of the Rock, all of which had been constructed during the progress of the siege, lost in astonishment at the magnitude of the works, he exclaimed, "This is indeed worthy of the Romans!"

Early in April, the Spanish camp having commenced to break up, and the lines on the isthmus having been dismantled, the Duc de Crillon handed over his command to the Marquis de Saya, and returned to Madrid.

Thus after a duration of three years seven months and twelve days ended this memorable siege; a siege which, in the words of Lord North, "was one of those astonishing instances of British valor, discipline, military skill, and humanity that no other age or country could produce an example of." At length the devoted garrison was relieved from a situation of suffering, peril, and privation almost unparalleled in the annals of war.

END OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

A.D. 1782

JOHN ADAMS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JOHN JAY
HENRY LAURENS JOHN M. LUDLOW

Concerning the momentous consequences of the American
Revolution, not only for America herself but for the whole
world, history has raised no question of doubt. Regarding
its causes and its justification there has been substantial
agreement of both learned and popular opinion in all
progressive countries. But various and often contradictory
are the judgments pronounced upon the course and conduct of
the war itself, even among American writers.

Until recently it has been impossible that either in the
United States or Great Britain a wholly dispassionate view
of the War of Independence should be shared by both critical
students and general readers. In America it has been the
fashion to glorify indiscriminately the actors on the
colonial side and all their achievements. The provincial
note of national heroics has been transmitted from one
generation to another, and the breath of the school children
has been carefully laden with it from tenderest years. On
the English side, the quite natural early resentment against
the lost colonies--mainly confined to official circles and
hereditary interests--may be said to have been later
softened into "a certain condescension," such as Lowell
pointed out in foreigners generally toward America.

But that condescension, like the earlier acrimony, is a
thing of the past. Here, as elsewhere, history is being
rewritten. American self-glorification, as well as wounded
English pride, gives way to better teachings, and the larger
lessons of humanity, which is more than nationality, are
giving to all nations clearer visions of a federated world.

The growth of this new historic sense, informed with clearer
knowledge and a more discriminating love of justice, is well
illustrated in the following critical examination, wherein
Ludlow, a living English historian, carefully considers the
various factors at work in the Revolution, and the personal
forces through which its results were produced. Prefixed to
this is the official statement of the American peace
commissioners--John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and
Henry Laurens--to Robert R. Livingston, then superintendent
of foreign affairs, of the conditions of the preliminary
treaty, which ended the war in 1782. This was followed by
the definitive Treaty of Paris, September 3, 1783.

THE AMERICAN PEACE COMMISSIONERS

PARIS, 14 December, 1782.

We have the honor to congratulate Congress on the signature of the preliminaries of a peace between the Crown of Great Britain and the United States of America, to be inserted in a definitive treaty so soon as the terms between the crowns of France and Great Britain shall be agreed on. A copy of the articles is here enclosed, and we cannot but flatter ourselves that they will appear to Congress, as they do to all of us, to be consistent with the honor and interest of the United States, and we are persuaded Congress would be more fully of that opinion if they were apprised of all the circumstances and reasons which have influenced the negotiation. Although it is impossible for us to go into that detail, we think it necessary, nevertheless, to make a few remarks on such of the articles as appear most to require elucidation.

_Remarks on Article 2d, relative to Boundaries_

The Court of Great Britain insisted on retaining all the territories comprehended within the Province of Quebec, by the act of Parliament respecting it. They contended that Nova Scotia should extend to the river Kennebec; and they claimed not only all the lands in the Western country and on the Mississippi, which were not expressly included in our charters and governments, but also such lands within them as remained ungranted by the King of Great Britain. It would be endless to enumerate all the discussions and arguments on the subject.

We knew this Court and Spain to be against our claims to the Western country, and, having no reason to think that lines more favorable could ever have been obtained, we finally agreed to those described in this article; indeed, they appear to leave us little to complain of and not much to desire. Congress will observe that, although our northern line is in a certain part below the latitude of 45 deg., yet in others it extends above it, divides the Lake Superior, and gives us access to its western and southern waters, from which a line in that latitude would have excluded us.

_Remarks on Article 4th, respecting Creditors_

We had been informed that some of the States had confiscated British debts; but although each State has a right to bind its own citizens, yet, in our opinion, it appertains solely to Congress, in whom exclusively are vested the rights of making war and peace, to pass acts against the subjects of a power with which the Confederacy may be at war. It therefore only remained for us to consider whether this article is founded in justice and good policy.

In our opinion no acts of government could dissolve the obligations of good faith resulting from lawful contracts between individuals of the two countries prior to the war. We knew that some of the British creditors were making common cause with the refugees and other adversaries of our independence; besides, sacrificing private justice to reasons of state and political convenience is always an odious measure; and the purity of our reputation in this respect, in all foreign commercial countries, is of infinitely more importance to us than all the sums in question. It may also be remarked that American and British creditors are placed on an equal footing.

_Remarks on Articles 5th and 6th, respecting Refugees_

These articles were among the first discussed and the last agreed to. And had not the conclusion of this business at the time of its date been particularly important to the British administration, the respect, which both in London and Versailles is supposed to be due to the honor, dignity, and interest of royalty, would probably have forever prevented our bringing this article so near to the views of Congress and the sovereign rights of the States as it now stands. When it is considered that it was utterly impossible to render this article perfectly consistent, both with American and British ideas of honor, we presume that the middle line adopted by this article is as little unfavorable to the former as any that could in reason be expected.

As to the separate article, we beg leave to observe that it was our policy to render the navigation of the river Mississippi so important to Britain as that their views might correspond with ours on that subject. Their possessing the country on the river north of the line from the Lake of the Woods affords a foundation for their claiming such navigation. And as the importance of West Florida to Britain was for the same reason rather to be strengthened than otherwise, we thought it advisable to allow them the extent contained in the separate article, especially as before the war it had been annexed by Britain to West Florida, and would operate as an additional inducement to their joining with us in agreeing that the navigation of the river should forever remain open to both. The map used in the course of our negotiations was Mitchell's.

As we had reason to imagine that the articles respecting the boundaries, the refugees, and fisheries did not correspond with the policy of this court, we did not communicate the preliminaries to the minister until after they were signed (and not even then the _separate article_). We hope that these considerations will excuse our having so far deviated from the spirit of our instructions. The Count de Vergennes, on perusing the articles, appeared surprised (but not displeased) at their being so favorable to us.

We beg leave to add our advice that copies be sent us of the accounts directed to be taken by the different States, of the unnecessary devastations and sufferings sustained by them from the enemy in the course of the war. Should they arrive before the signature of the definitive treaty, they might possibly answer very good purposes.

JOHN M. LUDLOW

Paradoxical as it may seem, two things must equally surprise the reader on studying the history of the war of American Independence--the first, that England should ever have considered it possible to succeed in subduing her revolted colonies; the second, that she should not have succeeded in doing so. At a time when steam had not yet baffled the winds, to dream of conquering by force of arms on the other side of the Atlantic a people of English race numbering between three millions and four millions with something like twelve hundred miles of seaboard, was surely an act of enormous folly. Horace Walpole had wittily said, at the very commencement of the so-called rebellion, that "if computed by the tract of the country it occupies, we, as so diminutive in comparison, ought rather be called in rebellion to that."

We have seen in our own days the difficulties experienced by the far more powerful and populous Northern States in quelling the secession of the Southern, when between the two there was no other frontier than at most a river, very often a mere ideal line, and when armies could be raised by a hundred thousand men at a time. England attempted a far more difficult task with forces which, till 1781, never reached 35,000 men, and never exceeded 42,075, including "provincials," _i.e._, American loyalists.

Yet it is impossible to doubt that, not once only, but repeatedly during the course of the struggle, England was on the verge of triumph. The American armies were perpetually melting away before the enemy directly through the practice of short enlistments, and indirectly through desertions. These desertions, if they might be often palliated by the straits to which the men were reduced through arrears in pay and want of supplies, arose in other cases, as after the retreat from New York, from sheer loss of heart in the cause. The main army under Washington was seldom even equal in number to that opposed to him. In the winter of 1776-1777, when his troops were only about four thousand strong, it is difficult to understand how it was that Sir William Howe, with more than double the number, should have failed to annihilate the American army.

In the winter of 1777-1778 the "dreadful situation of the army for want of provisions" made Washington "admire" that they should not have been excited to a general mutiny and desertion. In May, 1779, he hardly knew any resource for the American cause except in reenforcements from France, and did not know what might be the consequence if the enemy had it in his power to press the troops hard in the ensuing campaign. In December of that year his forces were "mouldering away daily," and he considered that Sir Henry Clinton, with more than twice his numbers, could "not justify remaining inactive with a force so superior." A year later he was compelled for want of clothing to discharge levies which he had so much trouble in obtaining, and "want of flour would have disbanded the whole army" if he had not adopted this expedient. In March, 1781, again, the crisis was "perilous," and, though he did not doubt the happy issue of the contest, he considered that the period for its accomplishment might be too far distant for a person of his years.

In April he wrote: "We cannot transport the provisions from the States in which they are assessed to the army, because we cannot pay the teamsters, who will no longer work for certificates. It is equally certain that our troops are approaching fast to nakedness, and that we have nothing to clothe them with; that our hospitals are without medicines, and our sick without nutriment except such as well men eat; and that our public works are at a stand and the artificers disbanding. It may be declared in a word that we are at the end of our tether, and that now or never our deliverance must come." Six months later, when Yorktown capitulated, the British forces still remaining in North America after the surrender of that garrison were more considerable than they had been as late as February, 1779; and Sir Henry Clinton even then declared that with a reenforcement of ten thousand men he would be responsible for the conquest of America.

How shall we explain either puzzle--that England should have so nearly missed success, to fail at last? or that America should have succeeded, after having been almost constantly on the brink of failure?

The main hope of success on the English side lay in the idea that the spirit and acts of resistance to the authority of the mother-country were in reality only on the part of a turbulent minority; that the bulk of the people desired to be loyal. It is certain indeed that the struggle was, in America itself, much more of a civil war than the Americans are now generally disposed to admit. In December, 1780, there were eight thousand nine hundred fifty-four provincials among the British forces in America, and on March 7, 1781, a letter from Lord George Germain to Sir H. Clinton, intercepted by the Americans, says, "The American levies in the King's service are more in number than the whole of the enlisted troops in the service of Congress."

As late as September 1, 1781, there were seven thousand two hundred forty-one. We hear of "loyal associates" in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, of "associated loyalists" in New York, of a fort built and maintained by "associated refugees," and everywhere of "Tories," whose arrest Washington is found suggesting to Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, as early as November 12, 1775. New England may indeed be considered to have been cleared of active opposition to the American cause when more than one thousand refugees left Boston in March, 1776, with the British troops. But New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania remained long full of Tories. By June 28, 1776, the disaffected on Long Island had taken up arms, and after the evacuation of New York by Washington a brigade of loyalists was raised on the island, and companies were formed in two neighboring counties to join the King's troops.

During Washington's retreat through New Jersey "the inhabitants, either from fear or disaffection, almost to a man refused to turn out." In Pennsylvania the militia, instead of giving any assistance in repelling the British, exulted at their approach, and over the misfortunes of their countrymen. On the 20th of that month the British were "daily gathering strength from the disaffected." In 1777 the Tories who joined Burgoyne in his invasion from the north are said to have doubled his force. In 1778 Tories joined the Indians in the devastation of Wyoming and Cherry Valley; and although the indiscriminate ravages of the British, or of the Germans in their pay, seem to have roused the three States above mentioned to self-defence, yet, as late as May, 1780, Washington still speaks of sending a small party of cavalry to escort Lafayette "safely through the Tory settlements" of New York. Virginia, as late as the spring of 1776, was "alarmed at the idea of independence."

Washington admitted that his countrymen--of that State--"from their form of government, and steady attachment heretofore to royalty," would "come reluctantly" to that idea, but trusted to "time and persecution." In 1781 the ground for transferring the seat of war to the Chesapeake was the number of loyalists in that quarter. In the Southern States the division of feeling was still greater. In the Carolinas, a Loyalist regiment was raised in a few days in 1776, and again in 1779. In Georgia, in South Carolina, the bitterest partisan warfare was carried on between the Whig and Tory bands; and a body of New York Tories contributed powerfully to the fall of Savannah in 1778 by taking the American forces in the rear.

On the other hand it is unquestionable that in the extent and quality of the support which they met with, the British generals were cruelly disappointed. Up to May, 1778, General Howe had declared that in thirteen corps raised, with a nominal strength of six thousand five hundred men, the whole number amounted only to three thousand six hundred nine, of whom only a small proportion were Americans, and that "all the force that could be collected in Pennsylvania, after the most indefatigable exertions during eight months," was only nine hundred seventy-four men. Of the far more numerous loyalist levies in the South, Lord Cornwallis speaks in the most disparaging terms. A whole regiment in South Carolina marched off on one occasion in a body. Speaking of the friends to the British cause in North Carolina he wrote, "If they are as dastardly and pusillanimous as our friends to the southward, we must leave them to their fate." At the time of the battle of Guilford Court House (1781) the idea of such friends "rising in any number and to any purpose had totally failed." No "provincial" general ever rose to eminence on the British side, although more than one was appointed, and it is clear that if the struggle was so long protracted it was not through the valor or constancy of the loyalists.

The real causes of its protraction--though it may be hard to an American to admit the fact--lay in the incapacity of American politicians, and, it must be added, in the supineness and want of patriotism of the American people. If, indeed, importing into the struggle views of a later date, we look upon it as one between two nations, the mismanagement of the war by the Americans, on all points save one--the retention of Washington in the chief command--is seen to have been so pitiable from first to last as to be in fact almost unintelligible. We only understand the case when we see that there was no such thing as an American nation in existence, but only a number of revolted colonies, jealous of one another, and with no tie but that of a common danger.

Even in the army, divisions broke out. Washington, in a general order of August 1, 1776, says: "It is with great concern that the general understands that jealousies have arisen among the troops from the different provinces, and reflections are frequently thrown out which can only tend to irritate each other and injure the noble cause in which we are engaged." It was seldom that much help could be obtained in troops from any State, unless that State were immediately threatened by the enemy; and even then these troops would be raised by that State for its own defence, irrespectively of the general or "Continental Army."

"Those at a distance from the seat of War," wrote Washington in April, 1778, "live in such perfect tranquillity that they conceive the dispute to be in a manner at an end; and those near it are so disaffected that they serve only as embarrassments." In January, 1779, we find him remonstrating with the Governor of Rhode Island because that State had "ordered several battalions to be raised for the defence of the State only, and this before proper measures were taken to fill the Continental regiments." The different bounties and rates of pay allowed by the various States were a constant source of annoyance to him. After the first year, the best men were not returned to Congress, or did not return to it. Whole States remained frequently unrepresented. In the winter of 1777-1778 Congress was reduced to twenty-one members. But even with a full representation it could do little. "One State will comply with a requisition of Congress," writes Washington in 1780, "another neglects to do it, a third executes it by halves, and all differ either in the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time that we are always working up-hill." At first Congress was really nothing more than a voluntary committee. When the Confederation was completed--which was only, be it remembered, on March 1, 1781--it was still, as Washington wrote in 1785, "little more than a shadow without the substance, and the Congress a nugatory body"; or, as it was described by a later writer, "powerless for government, and a rope of sand for union."

Like politicians, like people. There was no doubt a brilliant display of patriotic ardor at the first flying to arms of the colonists. Lexington and Bunker Hill were actions decidedly creditable to their raw troops. The expedition to Canada, foolhardy though it proved, was pursued up to a certain point with real heroism. But with it the heroic period of the war--individual instances excepted--may be said to have closed. There seems little reason to doubt that the Revolution would never have been commenced if it had been expected to cost so tough a struggle. "A false estimate of the power and perseverance of our enemies," wrote James Duane to Washington, "was friendly to the present revolution, and inspired that confidence of success in all ranks of people which was necessary to unite them in so arduous a cause."

As early as November, 1775, Washington wrote, speaking of military arrangements, "Such a dearth of public spirit, and such want of virtue, such stock-jobbing and fertility in all the low arts to obtain advantages of one kind or another, I never saw before, and pray God's mercy that I may never be witness to again." Such "a mercenary spirit" pervaded the whole of the troops, that he should not have been "at all surprised at any disaster."

At the same date, besides desertions of thirty or forty soldiers at a time, he speaks of the practice of plundering as so rife that "no man is secure in his effects, and scarcely in his person." People "were frightened out of their houses under pretence of those houses being ordered to be burnt, with a view of seizing the goods"; and to conceal the villainy more effectually some houses were actually burnt down. On February 28, 1777, "the scandalous loss, waste, and private appropriation of public arms during the last campaign" had been "beyond all conception." Officers drew "large sums under pretence of paying their men," and appropriated them. In one case an officer led his men to robbery, offered resistance to a brigade-major who ordered him to return the goods, and was only with difficulty cashiered.

"Can we carry on the war much longer?" Washington asks in 1778--after the treaty with France and the appearance of a French fleet off the coast. "Certainly not, unless some measures can be devised and speedily executed to restore the credit of our currency, restrain extortion, and punish forestallers." A few days later, "To make and extort money in every shape that can be devised, and at the same time to decry its value, seem to have become a mere business and an epidemical disease." On December 30, 1778, "speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration, and almost of every order of men; party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a great and accumulating debt, ruined finances, depreciated money, and want of credit, which in its consequences is the want of everything, are but secondary considerations."

After a first loan had been obtained from France and spent, a further one was granted in 1782. So utterly unpatriotic and selfish was known to be the temper of the people that the loan had to be kept secret, in order not to diminish such efforts as might be made by the Americans themselves. On July 10th, of that year, with New York and Charlestown still in British hands, Washington writes: "That spirit of freedom which at the commencement of this contest would have gladly sacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long since subsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place." But indeed the mere fact that from the date of the battle of Monmouth (July 28, 1778), Washington was never supplied with sufficient means, even with the assistance of the French fleets and troops, to strike one blow at the English in New York--though these were but sparingly reenforced during the period--shows an absence of public spirit, one might almost say of national shame, scarcely conceivable, and in singular contrast with the terrible earnestness exhibited on both sides some eighty years later in the Secession War.

Why, then, must we ask on the other side, did England fail at last? The English were prone to attribute their ill-success to the incompetency of their generals. Lord North, with his quaint humor, would say, "I do not know whether our generals will frighten the enemy, but I know they frighten me whenever I think of them." When in 1778, Lord Carlisle came out as commissioner, in a letter speaking of the great scale of all things in America, he says: "We have nothing on a great scale with us but our blunders, our misconduct, our ruin, our losses, our disgraces and misfortunes." Pitt, in a speech of 1781, aptly described the war as having been, on the part of England, "a series of ineffective victories or severe defeats." No doubt it is difficult to account for Gage's early blunders; for Howe's repeated failure to follow up his own success or profit by his enemy's weakness; and Cornwallis' movement, justly censured by Sir Henry Clinton, in transferring the bulk of his army from the far south to Virginia, within marching distance of Washington, opened the way to that crowning disaster at Yorktown, without which it is by no means impossible that Georgia and the Carolinas might have remained British.

But no allowance for bad generalship can account for the failure of the British. Washington and Greene appear to have been the only two American generals of marked ability, though they unquestionably derived great advantage from the talents of their foreign allies, Lafayette, Pulaski, Steuben, Rochambeau--and Washington was more than once out-manoeuvred. Gates evidently owed his one signal triumph to enormous superiority of numbers on his own ground, and was as signally defeated, under circumstances infinitely less creditable to him than those of Burgoyne's surrender. Lee's vaunted abilities came to nothing.

Political incapacity was of course charged upon ministers as another cause of disaster; and no doubt their miscalculation of the severity of the struggle was almost childish. When Parliament met in the autumn of 1776--_i.e._, after the Declaration of Independence had gone forth to the world--it was held out in the King's speech that another campaign would be sufficient to end the war, while in spite of all the warnings of the Opposition, they persisted in blinding themselves to the force of the temptations which must inevitably bring down France, if not Spain, into the lists against them, until the treaties of these powers with America were actually concluded. The forces sent out were miserably inadequate for a war on so large a scale--"too many to make peace, too few to make war," as Lord Chatham told the Ministry. When for once a really considerable force was sent out under Burgoyne, it failed for want of timely cooperation by Howe, and this failure is stated, by Lord Shelburne, to have arisen from Lord George Germain's not having had patience to wait after signing the despatch to Burgoyne, till that to Howe had been fair-copied; so that instead of going out together, the second, owing to further mischances, did not leave till some time later. The English generals complained almost as bitterly as the American of the want of adequate reenforcements, and the best of them, Sir Henry Clinton, is found writing (1779) in a strain which might be mistaken for Washington's of his spirits being "worn out" by the difficulties of his position.

But no mistakes in the management of the war by British statesmen can account for their ultimate failure. However great British mismanagement may have been, it was far surpassed by American. Until Robert Morris took the finances in hand, the administration of them was beneath not only contempt but conception. There was nothing on the British side equal to that caricature of a recruiting system, in which different bounties were offered by Congress, by the States, by the separate towns, as to make it the interest of the intending soldier to delay enlistment as long as possible in order to sell himself to the highest bidder; to that caricature of a war establishment the main bulk of which broke up every twelvemonth in front of the enemy, which was only paid, if at all, in worthless paper, and left almost habitually without supplies.

To mention one fact only, commissions in British regiments on American soil continued to be sold for large sums, while Washington's officers were daily throwing up theirs, many from sheer starvation. On the whole, no better idea can be had of the nature of the struggle on the American side, after the first heat of it had cooled down, than from the words of Count de Rochambeau, writing to Count de Vergennes, July 10, 1780: "They have neither money nor credit; their means of resistance are only momentary, and called forth when they are attacked in their own homes. They then assemble for the moment of immediate danger and defend themselves."

A far more important cause in determining the ultimate failure of the British was the aid afforded by France to America, followed by that of Spain and Holland. It was impossible for England to reconquer a continent, and carry on war at the same time with the three most powerful states of Europe. The instincts of race have tended on both the English and the American sides to depreciate the value of the aid given by France to the colonists. It may be true that Rochambeau's troops which disembarked in Rhode Island in July, 1780, did not march till July, 1781,--that they were blockaded soon after their arrival, threatened with attack from New York, and only disengaged by a feint of Washington's on that city. But more than two years before their arrival, Washington wrote to a member of Congress, "France, by her supplies, has saved us from the yoke thus far." The treaty with France alone was considered to afford a "certain prospect of success"--to "secure" American independence.

The arrival of D'Estaing's fleet, although no troops joined the American army, and nothing eventually was done, determined the evacuation of Philadelphia. The discipline of the French troops when they landed in 1780 set an example to the Americans; chickens and pigs walked between the lines without being disturbed. The recruits of 1780 could not have been armed without fifty tons of ammunition supplied by the French. In September of that year, Washington, writing to the French envoy, speaks of the "inability" of the Americans to expel the British from the South "unassisted, or perhaps even to stop their career," and he writes in similar terms to Congress a few days later. To depend "upon the resources of the country, unassisted by foreign loans," he writes to a member of Congress two months later, "will, I am confident, be to lean upon a broken reed."

In January, 1781, writing to Colonel Laurens, the American envoy in Paris, he presses for "an immediate, ample, and efficacious succor in money" from France, for the maintenance of the American coasts of "a constant naval superiority," and for "an additional succor in troops." And since the assistance so requested was in fact granted in every shape, and the surrender of Yorktown was obtained by the cooperation both of the French army and fleet, we must hold that Washington's words were justified by the event.

The real cause, however, why England yielded in 1782-1783 to her revolted colonies was probably this: The English nation at large had never realized the nature of the struggle; when it did, it refused to carry it on. Enormous ignorance no doubt prevailed at the beginning of the struggle as to the North American colonies. They had been till then entirely overshadowed by the West Indies, which were perhaps at that time the greatest source of English commercial wealth; and the time was not far past when, it is said, they were supposed, like the latter, to be chiefly inhabited by negroes. The prominence of the slave colonies seems to have associated the idea of colonies with that of absolute government. Englishmen did not generally realize the existence in North America of vast countries inhabited by communities of their own race, which enjoyed in general a larger measure of self-government than the mother-country herself. That a colony should resist the mother-country seemed in a manner preposterous. It appears certain, therefore, that when the war at first broke out it was popular, and that the King and Lord North, as has been already stated, were themselves amazed at the loyal addresses which it called forth.

But the early resort to the aid of German mercenaries showed that this popularity was only skin-deep--that the heart of the masses was not engaged in the war. The very employment of these mercenaries, as well as of the Indian auxiliaries of the royal forces, tended to lower the character of the war in English eyes. When Chatham, in his scathing invectives, would speak of the Ministers' "traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles," or of their sending "the infidel savage--against whom? against your Protestant brethren, to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name," he might not carry with him the votes of the House of Lords, but his words would burn their way into English hearts.

That the war with the American colonies themselves was repugnant to the deepest feelings of the nation is proved by contrast through the sudden burst of warlike spirit which followed (1778-1779) on the outbreak of war with France and Spain. A few days before the French treaty with America was known, Horace Walpole had written to Mason that the new levies "don't come, consequently they will not go." By July of the same year he writes to Sir Horace Mann, "The country is covered with camps." In 1776 the King had reviewed the Guards on Wimbledon Common, and pulled off his hat to them before their departure for America. He had now (1779) to review volunteers. The passionate interest which is henceforth taken in so much of the struggle as is carried on with foreign foes, Keppel's scarcely deserved popularity, the riotous popular joy on his acquittal, the outburst of universal rejoicing over Rodney's victories, show a totally different temper to that brought out by either victory or defeat in what was now felt to be a dread civil war with our American kinsmen.

Hence it was, no doubt, that after the surrender of Yorktown, hostilities were practically at an end with America, while the naval warfare with France and Spain was carried on for another twelvemonth, and that the signing of provisional articles of peace with the United States preceded by two months that of similar articles with France and Spain, the armistice with Holland being of still later date. It may even be conjectured that the outbreak of war with France and Spain, instead of incensing the mind of the English people against the Americans, rather gave different objects to their angry passions, and tended to diminish their bitterness toward the colonists. It must have been a kind of relief to Englishmen to find themselves fighting once more against those whom they considered hereditary enemies, against men who did not speak their own mother-tongue; and the wholly unprovoked character of these foreign hostilities would soften men's feelings toward the stubbornness of those colonists of their own blood, who after all asked only to be left alone. It is moreover observable that when peace came, though it upset the Shelburne ministry, yet that of the coalition which succeeded it was most unpopular, and addresses came pouring in from counties and towns to thank the King for making the peace.

Substantially indeed--although colonial independence would no doubt have been achieved sooner or later--the more we look into the events of the war of 1775-1783, the more, perhaps, shall we be convinced that it resolves itself into a duel between two men who never saw each other in the flesh, Washington and George III.

Take Washington out of the history on the American side, and it is impossible to conceive of American success. It is barely possible that under Greene--the one general after Washington's own heart, who wrote to him from his command in the South, "We fight, get beaten, and fight again"--the army itself might have been commanded with an ability which would enable it to withstand its British opponents. But neither Greene nor any other general possessed that weight of personal character which fixed the trust of Congress and people on Washington, maintained him in authority through all reverses, and enabled him to criticise with such unflinching frankness the measures of Congress.

Take, on the other hand, George III out of the history on the British side, and it is beyond question that if the war had ever broken out, it would have been put a stop to long before its ultimate failure. In him alone is to be found the real centre of resistance to American independence. It is now well known that at least from the beginning of 1778, if not from the end of 1775, Lord North was anxious to resign, and desirous of conciliation, and that it was only through the King's constant appeals to his sense of honor, not to "desert" him, that the minister was prevailed upon to remain in office. "Till I see things change to a more favorable position," the King wrote to Lord North as late as May 19, 1780, "I shall not feel at liberty to grant your resignation"; and it was only on March 20, 1781, that Lord North at last compelled his master to accept it. Three ideas were fixed in the King's mind, the first of which was a delusion, the second a mistake, and the third contrary to all principles of constitutional government.

First, he had persuaded himself that the country was radically opposed to American independence. In January, 1778, he opposes conciliatory measures, "lest they should dissatisfy this country, which so cheerfully and handsomely carries on the contest." In the autumn of that year he is certain that "if ministers show that they never will consent to the independence of America, the cry will be strong in their favor." Two years later he "can never suppose this country so far lost to all ideas of self-importance as to be willing to grant American independence."

Secondly, he was convinced--and this conviction, it must be admitted, was shared by some of the strongest opponents of the war--that if the independence of the North American colonies were acknowledged, all the others, as well as Ireland, would be lost. If any one branch of the empire is allowed to throw off its dependency, the others will inevitably follow the example. "Should America succeed, the West Indies must follow, not in independence, but dependence on America. Ireland would soon follow, and this island reduce itself to a poor island indeed."