Beginnings of the American People

by Carl L. Becker

And few victories came in this disastrous year to cheer the remnant of tried Americans. Clinton's invasion of North Carolina was, indeed, a failure; and at the close of 1780, after the frontier troops had overwhelmingly defeated General Ferguson at King's Mountain, the British were forced to evacuate that strongly revolutionary colony. But Washington could do little more than hold with the desperation of despair to West Point, where his army had lain helpless and almost passive since the battle of Monmouth. Congress, barely able to hold together, could not maintain even that "verbal energy" which had once distinguished it. In this year as never before men served their country with one hand and with the other filled their pockets by manipulating the currency which had fallen to be a worthless scrip. And it was in this year, when fidelity seemed a forgotten virtue, when men enlisted in the army and deserted to the enemy with equal indifference, that Benedict Arnold, entrusted at his own request with the command of West Point, forswore his trust and wrote treason across the fair record of a patriot's achievements. Well might Washington write, "I have almost ceased to hope"; and Laurens, "How many men there are who in secret say, could I have believed it would come to this!"

Yet at last a happy combination of circumstances enabled the American and French forces, for the first time operating in complete accord, to bring this disastrous war to a most successful conclusion. Well aware of the importance of the Southern campaign, Washington had procured for Greene, the ablest of his generals, command of the forces which were gathering in North Carolina to resist the advance of Cornwallis in 1781. Defeated at the Cowpens and checked at Guilford, the British commander was forced to retire to Wilmington; but instead of returning to Charleston he moved into Virginia to join Arnold, convinced that the conquest of the Old Dominion must precede that of North Carolina. In May and June he carried ruin to all the prosperous towns of the province; but in July, when the American forces under Lafayette had been greatly strengthened, it was no longer safe for the British commander to divide his army. Acting under orders from Clinton, Cornwallis accordingly retired to the coast and fortified the neck of land at Yorktown. Washington had scarcely been apprised of this circumstance before he received a letter from the Count de Grasse, commander of the French naval forces in the West Indies, proposing joint operations in Virginia during the summer, and promising to bring his fleet to the Chesapeake sometime in August. The opportunity was a rare one. Abandoning the projected attack on New York, Washington and Rochambeau joined their forces and marched rapidly through New Jersey, entering Philadelphia the very day that De Grasse appeared at the mouth of the bay. They had already joined Lafayette before Admiral Graves arrived from New York with a British fleet to rescue the British general. Had Graves been a Rodney or a Nelson he might have given a different issue to the American Revolution; but he was not the man to win against great odds, and after an indecisive engagement he sailed away, leaving Cornwallis to his fate. Hemmed in by 16,000 American and French troops, the unhappy general, who never met Washington but to be defeated, surrendered his army of 7000, men on the 19th of October, 1781.

"It is all over!" cried Lord North when Germaine told him of the surrender of Cornwallis. The loss of 7000 men was not in itself an irremediable disaster; but the effort of the king and the "King's Friends" to establish the personal rule of the monarch had alienated the nation, while their attempt to subjugate the colonies had embroiled England with all Europe. In armed conflict with France, Spain, and Holland, opposed by the "armed neutrality" of Russia, Sweden, Denmark, the Empire, Portugal, the Two Sicilies, and the Ottoman Empire, never had the isolation of the little island kingdom been more splendid, or British prestige so diminished. The demand of the nation for peace could no longer be resisted, and the Whig party came into power over the king's will, and entered into negotiation with the enemies he had made. The American ambassadors were instructed by Congress and bound in honor not to make a treaty without the knowledge and consent of France. But in spite of Franklin's protest, Jay and Adams, who suspected, not without some show of reason but contrary to the fact, that Vergennes would oppose the extension of the United States beyond the Alleghanies, broke their instructions as readily as Jay broke his pipe, and without consulting their faithful ally arranged the terms of peace with England.

Independence was acknowledged as the indispensable preliminary to negotiation. John Adams declared that he "had no notion of cheating anybody," and it was agreed that British creditors should "meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of all ... bona fide debts heretofore contracted" in the colonies. The skill of Franklin and the resolute persistence of Jay and Adams, together with the desire of the English Government to make a peace without delay, enabled the Americans to gain, in every other disputed point, all they could hope for and more than they had any reason to expect. It was conceded that they should enjoy the customary right of fishing in Northern waters. The best effort of England to secure a restoration of property and of the rights of citizens to the Loyalists was unavailing, and the compensation of that unhappy class fell to the Government whose losing cause it had supported. But of all the provisions of this Peace of Paris, the most important, next to the acknowledgment of independence, was the one which gave to the new State that incomparably rich woodland and prairie country extending from the thirty-first, degree of north latitude to the Great Lakes, and as far west as the Mississippi River. With these as its main provisions, the definitive treaty was signed on September 3, 1783, and ratified by Congress January 14, 1784.

Before the treaty of peace was signed, the cessation of hostilities had been formally declared and announced to Washington's army on the 19th of April, eight years to a day after the battle of Lexington. British troops occupied New York until November 29, when the evacuation of the city was finally completed, and the United States of America entered the company of independent nations, the exhausted and half-ruined champion of those principles of liberty and equality which were soon to transform the European world. With the British troops there sailed away, never to return, a great company of Loyalist exiles; part of the thousands who renounced their heritage and their country in defense of political and social ideals that belonged to the past. America thus lost the service of many men of ability, of high integrity, and of genuine culture; clergymen and scholars, landowners and merchants of substantial estate, men learned in the law, high officials of proved experience in politics and administration. The great achievements of history have their price; and American independence was won only by the sacrifice of much that was best in colonial society. Something fine and amiable in manners, something charming in customs, much that was most excellent in the traditions of politics and public morality disappeared with the ruin of those who thought themselves, and who often were in fact, of "the better sort."

Area of Settlement in 1774; Boundary proposed by Spain in 1782; Boundary secured by Treaty of 1783; and Settlements West of Alleghanies in 1783

Happily for America not all of the "better sort" deserted their country. On the 4th of December, five days after the last British ship cleared New York Harbor, a little company of officers was gathered in the Long Room of Fraunce's Tavern. They were waiting to bid farewell to General Washington. No sign of rejoicing greeted the entrance of the familiar figure; and this masterful man of proved courage and inflexible will, this self-contained soul who endured calumny in silence, who accepted victory in even temper and defeat with high fortitude, was now strangely moved as he looked upon his beloved companions. Lifting a glass of wine he said simply: "With a heart full of love and gratitude I now take leave of you, most devoutly wishing that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable." When all had taken the general's hand and received his embrace, they walked together through the narrow street to Whitehall Ferry, where a barge lay waiting. As the oars struck the water Washington stood and lifted his hat; and his comrades, returning the salute in silence, watched the majestic figure until it disappeared from sight. Less than two years before, in the spring of 1782, the army would have made Washington king. He was now on his way to Annapolis, to present himself before Congress in order to resign the high office which eight years before he had accepted with so much diffidence, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of his country. This, as it happened, came to pass on the 23d of December. On the day following he rode away to his home at Mount Vernon, a private citizen of the Republic which he had done so much to establish; a citizen of the Republic, and of the world's heroes one of the most illustrious.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

A good brief account of the Revolution is in Smith's The Wars Between England, and America (1914), chaps, I-VI; a fuller and better account in Channing's History of the United States, III, chaps. I-XII; all things considered the ablest summary is Lecky's The American Revolution. An able and suggestive work is Fisher's The Struggle for American Independence, 2 vols. 1908. Sir George Otto Trevelyan, with wide information, strong Whig sympathies, and great charm of style, has written the most fascinating work on the subject. The American Revolution, 4 vols. 1905. The best study of British measures which precipitated the struggle is Beer's British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765. 1907. For bibliography and summary of contemporary literature, Tyler's Literary History of the American Revolution. Selections from newspapers and contemporary documents are in Moore's Diary of the American Revolution, 2 vols. 1860. For the Loyalists, see Tyler, in American Historical Review, I; Van Tyne, The Loyalists in the American Revolution. 1902. For the attitude of the clergy, and the influence of religious and sectarian forces, see Van Tyne, in American Historical Review, XIX; Cross, The Anglican Episcopate. 1902. Thornton (The Pulpit of the American Revolution. Boston, 1860) reprints a number of contemporary sermons by New England clergy. For the Western settlements see Roosevelt, Winning of the West, 4 vols.; Alden, New Governments West of the Alleghanies, in Wisconsin Historical Bulletin, II; Turner, in American Historical Review, I; Thwaites, How George Rogers Clark Won the North West. 1903. The opposition between the interior and the coast regions, and the bearing of this on the formation of radical and conservative parties in the Revolution, are well brought out in Lincoln's The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania (University of Pennsylvania Studies. 1901); and Henry's Patrick Henry, 3 vols. 1891. The letters, journals, and papers of leading Americans in the Revolution have been very fully printed. The ablest of the radicals was John Adams (Works of John Adams, 10 vols. 1856); Franklin became increasingly radical with the progress of events (Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 10 vols. 1903-07); Dickinson was the ablest of the conservatives who joined the Revolution, but with great reluctance (Writings of John Dickinson, 3 vols. 1895); the extreme conservative and Loyalist view is best represented by Hutchinson (Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, 2 vols. 1884). For the period of the war perhaps the most illuminating writings of all are the letters of Washington (The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols. 1889-93).