Washington's only chance lay in immediate action. The foolish disposition of the British army gave him an opportunity. Their central cantonments, nearest to the enemy, were weak. Trenton was held by only 1,200 Hessians; their discipline was relaxed, they were hindered by difference of language from gaining intelligence, and they lived in careless security. Washington was reinforced by Lee's troops and by three regiments from Ticonderoga, which Carleton's inaction had rendered available for service in the south. On the night of December 25 he crossed the Delaware, and before daybreak took Trenton by surprise. The startled garrison could make no resistance; about 200 escaped and 918 were taken prisoners. Of the Americans only two were killed and six wounded. Cornwallis, who was on the point of embarking for England, hastened back to the Jersey army. Washington avoided a general engagement, defeated two regiments employed in an operation for the defence of Princeton, and before the middle of January, 1777, compelled the British by a series of well-conducted movements to evacuate West Jersey and withdraw to Brunswick and Amboy, where they went into quarters. The king's troops, British and German, committed many excesses, plundering friends and foes alike; and the inhabitants, indignant at their conduct, took advantage of Washington's success and turned against them. Many joined Washington's army. The British were in the midst of a hostile population, and though they had communication with New York by water, were almost besieged by land, for their supplies were constantly intercepted. The Jersey loyalists were left to the vengeance of their neighbours and were mercilessly plundered. Many of them fled to New York where several thousand provincial troops were embodied. Howe remained inactive at New York until the spring, and Washington also stayed quietly at his headquarters at Morristown.
A PARTIAL SECESSION FROM PARLIAMENT.
Parliament was opened on October 31, 1776. An amendment to the address referring to American affairs was defeated in the lords by 91 to 26 and in the commons by 242 to 87. The news of the victory at Brooklyn—"the terrible news," as Fox indecently called it—and of the occupation of New York strengthened the ministers; and on a motion to revise the acts by which the Americans considered themselves aggrieved, the minority in the commons sank to 47. Depressed by the exhibition of their weakness, the Rockingham section ceased to attend parliament except on the occasion of private bills in which they were interested. Petulance and a false notion of dignity led them to neglect their duty to their country and their party. Their conduct was blamed by other whigs, and their secession, though it occasioned discord in the opposition, did not paralyse its efforts. Fox, by that time its most effective orator, went off to Paris, and the king advised North to proceed with as much business as possible in his absence.
The split in the opposition was specially manifested on the introduction of a government bill in February, 1777, for a partial suspension of the habeas corpus act, in order to secure the detention of persons charged with high treason in America or on the high seas; Rockingham, Burke, and others adhered to their secession, while Dunning and Fox headed the minority in the commons. Fox warned the house not to be deceived by the amicable professions of the French ministers, who, he said, were holding conferences with delegates from congress while he was in Paris, and were only delaying to take part against England until the French navy was in good order. He declared that our losses were far greater and our successes far smaller than they were represented by government, and inveighed against the inhumanity with which he asserted the war was conducted on our side. He attacked the solicitor-general, who in answering him pointed out that if, as he asserted, France was secretly intriguing against us the bill was specially necessary. In a personal encounter Wedderburn was a dangerous antagonist, and Fox met more than his match. Dunning urged an amendment to prevent any abuse of the act; and North, always averse from violent measures, accepted his proposal. The bill was carried by 112 to 33. Public feeling had lately been excited on the subject of treason by incendiary fires which did much damage in the Portsmouth dockyard and destroyed some buildings on Bristol quay. They were found to have been the work of one James Aitken, commonly called John the painter, who had lately returned from America, and who stated in his confession that he had acted at the instigation of Silas Deane, one of the emissaries of congress in Paris.[119] He was hanged at Portsmouth on March 10.
The expenses of the war were growing. For 1777 parliament voted 45,000 seamen, including 1,000 marines. The difficulty was to get them. A seaman's service was not continuous; when his ship was paid off he could go whither he would. The peace establishment of the navy was ridiculously small, and when a war broke out it was always difficult to get men in a hurry. Many of the best seamen would have taken service on board merchant ships and would, perhaps, be at sea; and life on the king's ships in time of war was often so rough that it is not surprising that men should have avoided it. The usual difficulty of manning the fleet at the beginning of a war was increased at the present time, for it was calculated that the revolt of the colonies deprived England of 1,800 seamen. The navy in time of war was recruited by impressment, a system which, though recognised by common law, entailed much hardship. Seamen were kidnapped, often after a bloody struggle, and if caught inland were sent to the ports ironed like criminals. Men who had been at sea for years were liable, as soon as their ships neared home, to be taken out of them, put into a press tender and sent to sea again. Merchant ships were stripped of their best men, and were left to be brought into port by the master and a few lads. The press gangs looked for trained seamen, though when a war lasted for some years they took what they could get; landsmen were impressed, and the press was sometimes abused as a means of getting rid of a personal enemy, a rival in love, or an inconvenient claimant. The system was expensive; it was stated that from 4,000 to 5,000 seamen were employed on the business, and that every pressed man who was found to be fit for sea cost the nation £30. High bounties were offered, but they failed to entice men to enter a service which the press might make practically continuous, and a proposal for a limited term of service was rejected by the commons. The supplies for the year amounted to £12,592,534. New taxes calculated to yield £237,000 were laid on male servants, a guinea on each, stamps, imported glass, auctioneers, and sales by auction; and the deficiency of £5,500,000 was met by a loan, raised at 4 per cent., with a premium of ½ per cent. to meet the state of the stocks.
ARREARS OF THE CIVIL LIST.
While war was thus increasing the burden of the nation, the king again applied to parliament for payment of the arrears of the civil list, amounting to £618,000. The ministers exhibited accounts which failed to satisfy the opposition. Wilkes pointed out that payments since 1769 of £171,000 and £114,000 for secret service were each noted in a single line, and that there was a general charge of £438,000 for pensions. As in 1769, the arrears must be traced to an expenditure which increased the king's influence. Wilkes said this plainly, Burke in less broad terms, and Fox taunted North with the pledge given when he was in office in 1769 that no such demand should be made again. Besides money deliberately spent in corruption, vast sums were wasted on abuses in the royal household, on sinecures, and on other useless places of profit. One of the king's turnspits was a member of the house of commons, and paid £5 a year to a humble deputy, and no fewer than twenty-three separate tables were kept up, eleven for the nurses. For such abuses George was only partially responsible. Though he lived with a frugality which was almost meanness, he was in dire distress for money; the wages of his menial servants were six quarters in arrear, and he owed his coal-merchant £6,000.[120] After much discussion the money was voted, and the civil list was increased to £900,000 a year. In presenting the bill to the king the speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton, dwelt on the magnificence of the gift, and added that the commons were confident that he would apply wisely what they had granted liberally. Though the court party in the commons declared that he had not expressed the feeling of the house, he received a vote of thanks for his speech. Towards the close of the session Chatham was sufficiently recovered from his long illness again to attend parliament, and moved an address to the crown to put an end to the war. He pointed out the danger of foreign intervention, and declared that France was already destroying our commerce. The idea of conquering America was absurd; America would not be conquered by the loss of ten pitched battles. He was against American independence, but this country, he said, was the aggressor, and "instead of exacting unconditional submission from the colonies, we should grant them unconditional redress". His motion was negatived by 99 votes to 28.
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.
A fresh plan for obtaining the mastery of the line of the Hudson was already in course of preparation. Burgoyne, who returned home in December, obtained the command of the northern army, and, on February 28, laid a project of campaign before the government. He proposed to secure Ticonderoga and the lakes, and march down the Hudson to Albany, where he was to effect a junction with Howe, previously detaching a small force to create a diversion by advancing from Oswego and down the Mohawk river to Albany. The object of this plan was to open communication between New York and Canada, cut off New England from the southern provinces, and enable Howe to operate in the south with an overwhelming force. He pointed out the difficulties of the proposed march and suggested alternative schemes; but his first project was chosen by the king, and he was ordered to carry it out. The projected campaign, if successful, would have been disastrous to the Americans. Its success depended on Howe's co-operation. An invasion by distinct armies, such as Burgoyne proposed, with bases far apart and acting on converging lines, can only be undertaken with safety when intercommunication is secure and co-operation assured. Otherwise one of the invading armies is liable to be crushed before it can receive help from another, specially when, as was the case here, the enemy can act on lines interior to those on which the invaders move. Burgoyne fell into the error, common throughout the war, of trusting too much to loyalist help. Apart from that, however, his project assumed that Howe would be advancing up the Hudson in time to get between him and any large force which might advance against him, and it failed miserably, because Howe did not co-operate with him. Germain informed Carleton of the plan and ordered him to resign the command of the northern army to Burgoyne; he was to command only within his own province, keeping 3,700 men with him, and was to forward Burgoyne's expedition. Germain reproached him for his retirement from Ticonderoga, which, he said, gave Washington the means of breaking the British line at Trenton. Carleton was indignant at this unworthy treatment, and though he did what he could to help Burgoyne, he resigned the governor-generalship.[121]
During the winter Howe formed a plan for taking Philadelphia, and on December 20, 1776, expounded it by letter to Germain, observing that the northern army would not reach Albany before September. Germain wrote on March 8 approving of his plan,[122] which might have been executed without preventing the junction contemplated by the minister. After some unimportant operations Howe took the field in June, and on the 5th received a copy of Carleton's instructions relating to Burgoyne's campaign. Washington's difficulties were then somewhat relieved; he encamped at Middlebrook in a position too strong to be forced; he would not be enticed to a general engagement, and Howe could not leave him in his rear and push on to Philadelphia. Time was passing, yet Howe was still set on prosecuting his design on Philadelphia. Finally he embarked an army of 14,000 men at Sandy Hook, and instead of remaining to be in readiness to co-operate with Burgoyne, left Clinton with 8,500 men to garrison New York and "act as circumstances may direct," and on July 23 sailed for the Delaware, where he considered he would be sufficiently near to New York to act with Burgoyne, if necessary, and yet could carry out his own main design. The naval officers were unwilling to risk disembarkation in the Delaware, and Howe, determined not to give up his design, sailed for Chesapeake bay. The fleet met with contrary winds, and it was not until August 25 that his army landed at the head of Elk river. Washington with about an equal force marched to the north of the Brandywine to defend Philadelphia. The two armies met on September 11. Howe, who well knew how to handle an army in the field, out-manœuvred him, and after some sharp fighting the American army was defeated with a loss of over 1,400 men, killed, wounded, and taken, and eleven guns. Congress again decamped, and on the 27th Cornwallis took possession of Philadelphia amid the acclamations of a large part of the inhabitants, while Howe and the main army encamped at Germantown, five miles to the north.