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°, 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 reënforcements 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 reënforcement 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 reënforced 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-manœuvred. 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 coöperation 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 reënforcements, 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 coöperation 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."
Thirdly, he would not allow the Opposition to rule. "He would run any personal risk rather than submit to the Opposition; rather than be shackled by these desperate men he would lose his crown." If he authorizes the attempt at a coalition (1779), it is "provided it be understood that every means are to be employed to keep the empire entire, to prosecute the present just and unprovoked war in all its branches with the utmost vigor, and that his majesty's past measures be treated with proper respect," i.e., provided the Opposition are ready to stultify themselves, and do all that the King thinks right, and admit that all for which they have contended is wrong. Before the spectacle of such narrow obstinacy it is difficult not to sympathize with an expression of Fox in one of his letters—"it is intolerable to think that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief."
Between these two men—it may be conceded, equally sincere, equally resolute—but the one reasoning, like the madman that he was to be, from false premises, self-deluded as to the feelings of his people, anticipating consequences which a century sees yet unrealized and the other with eyes at all times almost morbidly open to all the gloomier features of this cause, void of all self-delusion—the one conceiving himself justified in imposing dictates of his own self-will on every minister whom he might employ, entitled alike to chain an unwilling friend to office, and to shut the door of office to opponents except on terms of surrendering all their principles; the other always ready to accept the inevitable, to make the most use of the least means, to curb himself for the sake of his cause in all things except fearless plain-speaking—the one, finally resolved only to hinder the making of a nation; the other resolved to make one, if anyhow possible—the issue of the contest could not be doubtful, if both lives were prolonged. From that contest the one emerged as the mad king who threw away half a continent from England; the other as the father of the American nation.
The common consent of mankind has ranked Washington among its great men; and although the title may have been fully justified by the course of his civil life, whether in or out of office, after the termination of the War of Independence, it is hardly to be doubted that it would freely have been accorded to him had his career been cut short immediately after the resignation of his military command. Yet of those who have enjoyed the title, few, if any, have ever earned it by actions of less brilliancy. The fame of no conspicuous victory is bound up with Washington's name. His one dashing exploit was the surprise of Trenton. His one victory, that of Monmouth, had no results; his most considerable battle, that of Brandywine, was a severe defeat. His greatness as a general consisted in doing much with little means, never missing an opportunity, rising superior to every disaster. When he had recovered Boston he could say, "I have been here months together with not thirty rounds of musket cartridges to a man, and have been obliged to submit to all insults of the enemy's cannon for want of powder, keeping what little we had for pistol-distance. We have maintained our ground against the enemy under this want of powder, and we have disbanded one army and recruited another, within musket-shot of two-and-twenty regiments, the flower of the British Army, while our force has been but little if any superior to theirs, and at last have beaten them into a shameful and precipitate retreat out of a place the strongest by nature on this continent, and strengthened and fortified at an enormous expense."
The character of Washington as a commander recalls in various respects that of Wellington. In both we see the same dogged perseverance under all the various phases of fortune; the same strict discipline, hardening readily into sternness, coupled with the same careful consideration for the wants and welfare of the soldier; the same patient, constant attention to every detail of military organization; the same ability in maintaining a defensive warfare against an enemy superior in force, with the same quickness to strike a blow in any unguarded quarter; the same unflinching frankness in exposing the evils of the military administration of the day. Many of Wellington's despatches from the Peninsula might almost have been written by Washington. The difference between them, while the war lasts, is mainly this: that in Wellington the soldier is all, while in Washington the statesman and the patriot are never merged in the soldier. Hence, while in after-life Wellington had to serve his apprenticeship as a statesman after ceasing to be a soldier, and often bungled over his new craft, Washington's after-life was simply that of a statesman who had been called to take up arms and had laid them down again.
In short, though England had never a more successful foe than Washington, it is impossible not to feel, in studying his character, that no more typical Englishman ever lived.
Let us now cast a final glance at the state of the world at the close of the war. Except that an independent state had grown up for the first time since the downfall of Aztec and Inca empires on the American continent, and that England had been politically lessened, the balance of power had been little affected by the war. France had one West Indian island more, Holland one Indian settlement less. Spain had recovered Minorca and the Floridas. But she was irrevocably shut out from one great object of her ambition, the eastern half of the Mississippi Basin.