Two days later General Howe set sail for England and left Sir Henry Clinton to evacuate the troops in June. The incompetence or treachery of an American officer, Charles Lee, saved Clinton’s regiments from severe losses as they crossed New Jersey. After their arrival within the fortifications around New York, the British held not a square mile elsewhere on the mainland of the northern and middle colonies.
The summer was occupied with raids by British irregulars on the Pennsylvania and New York frontier and a series of inconclusive feints and chases between Admirals Howe and D’Estaing. In September Howe resigned his command and followed his brother home to England. Deeply disgruntled with Administration, the Howes joined General Burgoyne in efforts to obtain satisfaction from Parliament. The Whigs, hoping for disclosures embarrassing to the government, at once took up the cause of the commanders; while the ministers, with equal determination, resisted every move for a court-martial or inquiry.
During this year the Tory government had been as hard pressed at home as the King’s forces had been abroad. The news of Saratoga, received early in December 1777, struck a staggering blow to the ministers, who at once adjourned Parliament for six weeks and endeavored to open indirect and secret negotiations with the American commissioners in Paris. When Parliament reconvened, Fox’s motion in the Commons “that no more of the Old Corps be sent out of the kingdom” produced a suddenly swollen minority. There was a cry throughout the country for Chatham. North had lost his zest for the war and would willingly have retired in favor of Chatham, but the King refused to consider such a move. In a desperate effort to counteract American negotiations with France, North then introduced, 17 February 1778, his conciliatory bills, which offered the repeal of the acts that had offended the colonists and conceded all but the name of independence. While the House was recovering from its amazement Charles Fox rose and said that he was glad Ministers had at last concurred with the long-standing views of Opposition. But had not their repentance come too late? Did not Ministers know that a commercial treaty between France and America had already been signed?[19] “Acts of Parliament have made a war,” Walpole wrote Sir Horace Mann three days later, “but cannot repeal one.”[20] On the 13th of March the French ambassador in London announced the treaty of friendship between France and the United States. Thereafter no one in either party expected much of North’s commission to treat with America. Detained in England until mid-April, the commissioners arrived in the Delaware a whole month after Congress had ratified the treaty with France and, to their great chagrin, just in time to take part in the retreat from Philadelphia. One member of the commission, George Johnstone, after futile private overtures to members of Congress, quarreled with his colleagues and returned in a huff to vindicate himself and criticize ministers and commanders before Parliament. On the whole, the commission did little more than aggravate the ill-feeling on both sides.
On the 7th of April, after a long absence, Lord Chatham, wrapped in flannels and supported by his sons, took his seat in the House of Lords. Rising for the second time in the debate to speak on the American war, he was struck down by an apoplexy from which he never recovered. His death, on the 11th of May, was believed and said by many to be a portent of doom to the Empire.
Meanwhile the specter of a French invasion caused the King late in March to communicate to Parliament his intention of ordering the militia “to be drawn out and embodied, and to march as occasion shall require.” Five encampments were established; peers and M.P.’s, Whig and Tory alike, hastened to raise regiments; and by June Gibbon could tell Holroyd that “The chief conversation at Almack’s is about tents, drill-Serjeants, subdivisions, firings, &c.”[21] All summer and autumn the country was full of marching and countermarching for the edification of anxious royalty. In the newspapers appeared advertisements for “martial balsam,” recommended for those afflicted by toothache from exposure to damp canvas and mattresses. Even theater business was depressed by the rage for visiting the encampments. Sheridan, ever resourceful, dashed off as a counter-attraction his entertainment of The Camp, with a musical arrangement by Thomas Linley, a prologue by Tickell, and (according to the newspaper notices) “a perspective Representation of the grand camp at Coxheath, from a view taken by Mr. de Loutherbourg and erected under his direction.”
All this was diverting, but in midsummer occurred an incident that betrayed to the nation the smoldering antagonism between ministers and commanders. In the previous March Admiral Keppel, a staunch Whig who had refused to serve against America, had been promoted commander of the Channel fleet. He found, contrary to the Admiralty’s repeated assurances in Parliament, that ships and equipment were woefully inadequate for his crucial task of defending the coasts. At length reinforced, Keppel on the 27th of July engaged the Brest fleet off Ushant. In command of the British rearward squadron was Sir Hugh Palliser, a Tory M.P. and a Lord of the Admiralty. Following a short and indecisive action, Keppel gave orders for a new line of battle, but Palliser did not obey until after dark. By morning the French had escaped. Keppel did not report Palliser’s insubordination, but accounts of the action appeared in the papers, and before the opening of Parliament the incident had become a heated party issue, with Keppel exalted as a popular hero and Palliser condemned as the agent of a negligent and scheming ministry.
4
Affairs stood in this critical posture when Parliament was summoned in the last week of November. Fearing defection in the Tory ranks, North called a private meeting of his friends beforehand to consult on strategy. He was himself there taxed with negligence, and extraordinary steps were taken to secure attendance in the government seats. Now a favorite parliamentary weapon of North’s had always been humor—or, as his opponents styled it, “buffoonery.” His motto, said Walpole, ought to have been “Aut dormitabo, aut ridebo.”[22] And when Anticipation appeared, it was widely believed that North himself had had a hand in its composition.[23] The very favorable reception of the pamphlet must have surpassed the hopes of both author and patron. For some days the papers printed eulogistic notices and long extracts. Representative is the comment in The Morning Chronicle on the day the session opened:
The literary piece of mimickry published on Monday last, under the title of Anticipation, is beyond compare one of the ablest sketches ever hit off by a man of fancy and talents. Mimicks in general distort the features of those they affect to imitate; the author of Anticipation, on the contrary, has preserved the vrais-semblance of each of the objects of imitation with wonderful correctness, and it is a question whether he deserves most applause for the humorous conceits with which he has dished out the oratory of his heroes, or the striking likenesses (in point of order, argument, imagery, and diction) which he has drawn of each speaker. Lord G[ranb]y’s harangue is, to those who have not been in the House of Commons on the first day of a session, a perfect example of Opposition oratory on such an occasion.—Mr. T. L[uttre]ll’s speech need not have had his name prefixed to it; no member, T. L[uttre]ll excepted, could possibly shew so much learning to so little purpose.... In a word, Anticipation is one of the best pamphlets the publick have been favoured with for years, and though it has in some measure a political tendency, ... it serves, contrary to the effect of most political pamphlets, to put all parties in good humour.