There can be little doubt that under abler commanders the British armies might have crushed out all armed resistance in the middle colonies. In spite of all drawbacks, the trained British soldiers and officers were so superior in the field to the American levies on every occasion where the forces were not overwhelmingly unequal that it is impossible for any but the most bigoted American partisan to deny this possibility. Had there been a blockade, so that French and Dutch goods would have been excluded; had General Howe possessed the faintest spark of energy in following up his successes; had the North Cabinet not failed to compel Howe to co-operate with Burgoyne, the condition of things in 1778 might well have been so serious for the colonists' cause that {96} Vergennes would have felt a French intervention to be fruitless. In that case, it is hard to see how the rebellion could have failed to be crushed in the next year. As it was, the Americans, by luck and by the tenacity of Washington and a few other leaders, had won the first victory.
CHAPTER V
FRENCH INTERVENTION AND BRITISH FAILURE, 1778-1781
During the two years of fighting, the party situation in England had grown increasingly bitter. The Whigs, joined now by young Charles Fox, unremittingly denounced the war as a crime, sympathized with the rebels, and execrated the cruelty of the Ministers while deriding their abilities. Parliament rang with vituperation; personal insults flew back and forth. From time to time Chatham took part in the attack, joining Burke and Fox in an opposition never surpassed for oratorical power. But the Ministerial party, secure in its strength, pushed on its way. The King now regarded the war as the issue {97} upon which he had staked his personal honour, and would tolerate no faltering. Yet in the winter of 1778 the rumours of a French alliance thickened; and, when the probability seemed to be a certainty, North made a desperate effort to end the war through a policy of granting everything except independence. In a speech of incredible assurance, he observed that he had never favoured trying to tax America, and brought in a Bill by which every parliamentary measure complained of by the Americans was repealed, and the right of internal taxation was expressly renounced. Amid the dejection of the Tories and the sneers of the Whigs, this measure became law, March 2, 1778; and commissioners, empowered to grant general amnesty, were sent with it to the United States.
At no other time in English history would it have been possible for a Ministry thus utterly to reverse its policy and remain in office; but North's tenure depended on influences outside the House of Commons, and he continued in his place. So severe was the crisis that an effort was made to arrange a coalition Ministry, with the aged Chatham at its head; George III, however, positively refused to permit North to surrender the first place. He would consent to Whigs entering the Cabinet only in subordinate positions. This {98} obstinacy and the sudden death of Chatham blocked all coalition proposals, and left the war to continue as a party measure, not national in its character—the "King's war."
In America, the task of the commissioners proved hopeless. The men now in control of the Continental Congress and the State governments were pledged to independence from the bottom of their souls; and in the course of months of appeals, and attempts at negotiations, the commissioners failed to secure even a hearing. Congress ratified the French treaties with enthusiasm. That their proposal if made before the Declaration would have been successful can scarcely be doubted. It might even have produced an effect after 1776 had it been made by a Whig Ministry, headed by Chatham. But coming in 1778, after three years of war, when every vestige of the former sentiment of loyalty was dead, and offered by the same North Ministry which had brought on the revolution, it was foredoomed to defeat.
The war now entered upon a second phase, in which England found itself harder pressed than at any time in its history. It had not an ally in the world, and could count on no Rhine campaigns to exhaust French resources. For the first time England engaged France in a purely naval war; and for the only time France was sufficiently strong in sail-of-the-line {99} to meet England on equal terms. The French fleet, rebuilt since 1763, was in excellent condition; the British navy, on the contrary, under the slack administration of Lord Sandwich, was worse off in equipment, repairs, number of sailors, and esprit de corps than at any time in the century. The French were able to send fleets unhindered wherever they wished; and when Spain entered as an ally, in 1779, their combined navies swept the Channel, driving the humiliated British fleet into port. England was called upon to make defensive war at home, at Gibraltar, in the West Indies, and finally in India, at a time when the full strength of the country was already occupied with the rebellion.
This led to an alteration of military methods in America. The policy of moving heavy armies was abandoned; and the British, forced to withdraw troops to garrison the West Indies and Florida, began the practice of wearing down the revolted colonies by raids and destruction of property. George III especially approved this punitive policy. As a first step, the army in Philadelphia marched back to New York, attacked on its retreat by Washington at Monmouth on June 27, 1778. The American advance was badly handled by General Lee, and fell back before the British; but Washington in person rallied his men, resumed the attack, and held his position. {100} Clinton, who succeeded Howe, continued his march, and the British army now settled down in New York, not to depart from its safe protection except on raids.
Washington accordingly posted his forces, as in 1777, outside the city, and awaited events. He could assume the offensive only in case a French fleet should assist him, and this happened but twice, in 1778, and not again for three years. The first time, Admiral D'Estaing with a strong fleet menaced New York and then Newport, the latter in conjunction with an American land force. But before each port he was foiled by the superior skill of Admiral Howe; and he finally withdrew without risking a battle, to the intense disgust of the Americans. For the rest, the war in the northern States dwindled to raids by the British along the Connecticut coast and into New Jersey, and outpost affairs on the Hudson, in some of which Washington's Continental troops showed real brilliancy in attack. But with the British in command of the sea little could be done to meet the raids, and southern Connecticut was ravaged with fire and sword.
At the same time, the States suffered the horrors of Indian war, since the Tories and British from Canada utilized the Iroquois and the Ohio Valley Indians as allies. The New York frontier was in continual distress; {101} and the Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia settlements felt the scalping knife and torch. Hamilton, the British commander at the post of Detroit, paid a fixed price for scalps, and was known as "the hair buyer." Against the Iroquois, Sullivan led an expedition in 1779 which could not bring the savages to a decisive battle, although he ravaged their lands and crippled their resources. Against the north-western Indians, a daring Virginian, George Rogers Clark, led a counter-raid which captured several posts in the territory north of the Ohio River, and finally took Hamilton himself prisoner at Vincennes. In every such war the sufferings of the settlers outnumbered a hundred-fold all that they could inflict in return, and this consciousness burned into their souls a lasting hatred of England, the ally of the murdering, torturing devils from the forests.