It was true; and General Arnold, turning traitor to his country from jealousy, vengeance, and the shameful necessities entailed by a disorderly life, had sought refuge at New York with Sir Henry Clinton. Major Andre was in the hands of the Americans. Young, honorable, brave, endowed with talents, and of elegant and cultivated tastes, the English officer, brought up with a view to a different career, but driven into the army from a disappointment in love, had accepted the dangerous mission of bearing to the perfidious commandant of West Point the English general’s latest instructions. Sir Henry Clinton had recommended him not to quit his uniform; but, yielding to the insinuating Arnold, the unhappy young man had put on a disguise; he had been made prisoner. Recognized and treated as a spy, he was to die on the gallows. It was the ignominy alone of this punishment which perturbed his spirit. “Sir,” he wrote to Washington, “sustained against fear of death by the reflection that no unworthy action has sullied a life devoted to honor, I feel confident that in this my extremity, your Excellency will not be deaf to a prayer the granting of which will soothe my last moments. Out of sympathy for a soldier, your Excellency will, I am sure, consent to adapt the form of my punishment to the feelings of a man of honor. Permit me to hope that, if my character have inspired you with any respect, if I am in your eyes sacrificed to policy and not to vengeance, I shall have proof that those sentiments prevail in your heart by learning that I am not to die on the gallows.”
With a harshness of which there is no other example in his life, and of which he appeared to always preserve a painful recollection, Washington remained deaf to his prisoner’s noble appeal: Major Andre underwent the fate of a spy. “You are a witness that I die like a man of honor,” he said to an American officer whose duty it was to see the orders carried out. The general did him justice. “Andre,” he said, “paid his penalty with the spirit to be expected from a man of such merit and so brave an officer. As to Arnold, he has no heart. . . . Everybody is surprised to see that he is not yet swinging on a gibbet.” The passionate endeavors of the Americans to inflict upon the traitor the chastisement he deserved remained without effect. Constantly engaged, as an English general, in the war, with all the violence bred of uneasy hate, Arnold managed to escape the just vengeance of his countrymen; he died twenty years later, in the English possessions, rich and despised. “What would you have done if you had succeeded in catching me?” he asked an American prisoner one day. “We would have severed from your body the leg that had been wounded in the service of the country, and would have hanged the rest on a gibbet,” answered the militiaman quietly.
The excitement caused by the treachery of Arnold had not yet subsided, when a fresh cup of bitterness was put to the lips of the general-in-chief, and disturbed the hopes he had placed on the reorganization of his army. Successive revolts among the troops of Pennsylvania, which threatened to spread to those of New Jersey, had convinced him that America had come to the end of her sacrifices. “The country’s own powers are exhausted,” he wrote to Colonel Lawrence in a letter intended to be communicated to Louis XVI.; “single-handed we cannot restore public credit and supply the funds necessary for continuing the war. The patience of the army is at an end, the people are discontented; without money, we shall make but a feeble effort, and probably the last.”
The insufficiency of the military results obtained by land and sea, in comparison with the expenses and the exhibition of force, and the slowness and bad management of the operations, had been attributed, in France as well as in America, to the incapacity of the ministers of war and marine, the Prince of Montbarrey and M. de Sartines. The finances had up to that time sufficed for the enormous charges which weighed upon the treasury; credit for the fact was most justly given to the consummate ability and inexhaustible resources of M. Necker, who was, first of all, made director of the treasury on October 22, 1776, and then director-general of finance on June 29, 1777, By his advice, backed by the favor of the queen, the two ministers were superseded by M. de Segur and the Marquis of Castries. A new and more energetic impulse before long restored the hopes of the Americans. On the 21st of March, 1780, a fleet left under the orders of Count de Grasse; after its arrival at Martinique, on the 28th of April, in spite of Admiral Hood’s attempts to block his passage, Count de Grasse took from the English the Island of Tobago, on the 1st of June; on the 3d of September, he brought Washington a reinforcement of three thousand five hundred men, and twelve hundred thousand livres in specie. In a few months King Louis XVI. had lent to the United States or procured for them on his security sums exceeding sixteen million livres. It was to Washington personally that the French government confided its troops as well as its subsidies. “The king’s soldiers are to be placed exclusively under the orders of the general-in-chief,” M. Girard, the French minister in America, had said, on the arrival of the auxiliary corps.
After so many and such painful efforts, the day of triumph was at last dawning upon General Washington and his country. Alternations of success and reverse had signalized the commencement of the campaign of 1781. Lord Cornwallis, who commanded the English armies in the South, was occupying Virginia with a considerable force, when Washington, who had managed to conceal his designs from Sir Henry Clinton, shut up in New York, crossed Philadelphia on the 4th of September, and advanced by forced marches against the enemy. The latter had been for some time past harassed by the little army of M. de La Fayette. The fleet of Admiral de Grasse cut off the retreat of the English. Lord Cornwallis threw himself into Yorktown; on the 30th of September the place was invested.
It was but slightly and badly fortified; the English troops were fatigued by a hard campaign; the besiegers were animated by a zeal further stimulated by emulation; French and Americans vied with one another in ardor. Batteries sprang up rapidly, the soldiers refused to take any rest, the trenches were opened by the 6th of October. On the 10th, the cannon began to batter the town; on the 14th an American column, commanded by M. de La Fayette, Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Lawrence, attacked one of the redoubts which protected the approaches to the town, whilst the French dashed forward on their side to attack the second redoubt, under the orders of Baron de Viomenil, Viscount de Noailles, and Marquis de St. Simon, who, ill as he was, had insisted on being carried at the head of his regiment. The flag of the Union floated above both works at almost the same instant; when the attacking columns joined again on the other side of the outwork they had attacked, the French had made five hundred prisoners. All defence became impossible. Lord Cornwallis in vain attempted to escape; he was reduced, on the 17th of October, to signing a capitulation more humiliating than that of Saratoga: eight thousand men laid down their arms, the vessels which happened to be lying at Yorktown and Gloucester were given up to the victors. Lord Cornwallis was ill of grief and fatigue. General O’Hara, who took his place, tendered his sword to Count de Rochambeau; the latter stepped back, and, pointing to General Washington, said aloud, “I am only an auxiliary.” In receiving the English general’s sword, Washington was receiving the pledge of his country’s independence.
England felt this. “Lord North received the news of the capitulation like a bullet in his breast,” said Lord George Germaine, secretary of state for the colonies; “he threw up his arms without being able to utter a word beyond ‘My God, all’s lost!’” To this growing conviction on the part of his ministers, as well as of the nation, George III. opposed an unwavering persistency. “None of the members of my cabinet,” he wrote immediately, “will suppose, I am quite sure, that this event can in any way modify the principles which have guided me hitherto and which will continue to regulate my conduct during the rest of this struggle.”
Whilst the United States were celebrating their victory with thanksgivings and public festivities, their allies were triumphing at all the different points, simultaneously, at which hostilities had been entered upon. Becoming embroiled with Holland, where the republican party had prevailed against the stadtholder, who was devoted to them, the English had waged war upon the Dutch colonies. Admiral Rodney had taken St. Eustache, the centre of an immense trade; he had pillaged the warehouses and laden his vessels with an enormous mass of merchandise; the convoy which was conveying a part of the spoil to England was captured by Admiral La Motte-Piquet; M. Bouille surprised the English garrison remaining at St. Eustache and recovered possession of the island, which was restored to the Dutch. They had just maintained gloriously, at Dogger Bank, their old maritime renown. “Officers and men all fought like lions,” said Admiral Zouttman. The firing had not commenced until the two fleets were within pistol-shot. The ships on both sides were dismasted, scarcely in a condition to keep afloat; the glory and the losses were equal; but the English admiral, Hyde Parker, was irritated and displeased. George III. went to see him on board his vessel. “I wish your Majesty younger seamen and better ships,” said the old sailor, and he insisted on resigning. This was the only action fought by the Dutch during the war; they left to Admiral de Kersaint the job of recovering from the English their colonies of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice, on the coasts of Guiana.
A small Franco-Spanish army was at the same time besieging Minorca. The fleet was considerable, the English were ill-prepared; they were soon obliged to shut themselves up in Fort St. Philip. The ramparts were as solid, the position was as impregnable, as in the time of Marshal Richelieu. The admirals were tardy in bringing up the fleet; their irresolution caused the failure of operations that had been ill-combined; the squadrons entered port again. The Duke of Crillon, who commanded the besieging force, weary of investing the fortress, made a proposal to the commandant to give the place up to him: the offers were magnificent, but Colonel Murray answered indignantly: “Sir, when the king his master ordered your brave ancestor to assassinate the Duke of Guise, he replied to Henry III., Honor forbids! You ought to have made the same answer to the king of Spain when he ordered you to assassinate the honor of a man as well born as the Duke of Guise or yourself. I desire to have no communication with you but by way of arms.” And he kept up the defence of his fortress, continually battered by the besiegers’ cannonballs. Assault succeeded assault: the Duke of Crillon himself escaladed the ramparts to capture the English flag which floated on the top of a tower: he was slightly wounded. “How long have generals done grenadiers’ work?” said the officers to one another. The general heard them. “I wanted to make my Spaniards thorough French,” he said, “that nobody might any longer perceive that there are two nationalities here.” Murray at last capitulated on the 4th of February, 1782: the fortress contained but a handful of soldiers exhausted with fatigue and privation.
Great was the joy at Madrid as well as in France, and deep the dismay in London: the ministry of Lord North could not stand against this last blow. So many efforts and so many sacrifices ending in so many disasters were irritating and wearing out the nation. “Great God!” exclaimed Burke, “is it still a time to talk to us of the rights we are upholding in this war! Oh! excellent rights! Precious they should be, for they have cost us dear. Oh! precious rights, which have cost Great Britain thirteen provinces, four islands, a hundred thousand men, and more than ten millions sterling! Oh! wonderful rights, which have cost Great Britain her empire upon the ocean and that boasted superiority which made all nations bend before her! Oh! inestimable rights, which have taken from us our rank amongst the nations, our importance abroad and our happiness at home, which have destroyed our commerce and our manufactures, which have reduced us from the most flourishing empire in the world to a kingdom circumscribed and grandeur-less! Precious rights, which will, no doubt, cost us all that we have left!” The debate was growing more and more bitter. Lord North entered the House with his usual serenity. “This discussion is a loss of valuable time to the House,” said he: “His Majesty has just accepted the resignation of his ministers.” The Whigs came into power; Lord Rockingham, the Duke of Richmond, Mr. Fox; the era of concessions was at hand. An unsuccessful battle delivered against Hood and Rodney by Admiral de Grasse restored for a while the pride of the English. A good sailor, brave and for a long time successful in war, Count de Grasse had many a time been out-manoeuvred by the English. He had suffered himself to be enticed away from St. Christopher, which he was besieging, and which the Marquis of Bouille took a few days later; embarrassed by two damaged vessels, he would not abandon them to the English, and retarded his movements to protect them. The English fleet was superior to the French in vessels and weight of metal; the fight lasted ten hours; the French squadron was broken, disorder ensued in the manoeuvres; the captains got killed one after another, nailing their colors to the mast or letting their vessels sink rather than strike; the flag-ship, the Ville de Paris, was attacked by seven of the enemy’s ships at once, her consorts could not get at her; Count de Grasse, maddened with grief and rage, saw all his crew falling around him. “The admiral is six foot every day,” said the sailors, “on a fighting day he is six foot one.” So much courage and desperation could not save the fleet, the count was forced to strike; his ship had received such damage that it sank before its arrival in England; the admiral was received in London with great honors against which his vanity was not proof, to the loss of his personal dignity and his reputation in Europe. A national subscription in France reinforced the fleet with new vessels: a squadron, commanded by M. de Suffren, had just carried into the East Indies the French flag, which had so long been humiliated, and which his victorious hands were destined to hoist aloft again for a moment.