Prelude to Glory, Vol. 7

by Ron Carter

  Germain’s breathing slowed as the echo of the words in the great library died. For a time that seemed an eternity, he faced North in silence, whose jowls were clamped shut and trembling. The only sound was the crackle of the fire, and the lonely moan of the wind while both men allowed the words to take tentative root in their brains. Each knew that what was happening could wrench the British Empire into pieces.

  Germain licked dry lips, and the sound of his voice startled both of them. “I shall go back and wait for the dispatch from Clinton.” North remained silent, motionless, while Germain turned and walked from the great room. The boom of the huge door closing behind him sounded like the clap of a death-knell.

  The wind died in the evening, and by ten o’clock the fog had lifted. At midnight the heavens were a black velvet dome with points of light that reached into eternity when the knock came at Germain’s door. He received the folded parchment, addressed to himself, bearing the seal of General Sir Henry Clinton, nodded to the messenger, and closed the door. For half an hour he sat alone and unmoving before the fireplace, while his understanding of what was happening to the British Empire broadened with each rereading of the heavy parchment. At one o’clock he climbed into his waiting hack and slammed the door. At half past one, in the still, dark cold of approaching winter, he walked steadily from the carriage to the front door of North’s office building, identified himself, and was granted entrance. A light was burning in the library when Lord North answered his knock.

  Without a word Germain passed the document to North, who raised his large, protruding eyes and waited in silence while Germain spoke.

  “It is confirmed. Admiral Graves was defeated at the Chesapeake. General Cornwallis surrendered his entire command.”

  North bobbed his head once. The shock that had been in his eyes eleven hours earlier was still evident, but under control.

  Germain continued. “Do you wish anything further from myself?”

  “Not at this moment. I have arranged audience with His Majesty at eight o’clock in the morning. He will know of this before the meeting of the Privy Council.”

  Germain pondered for a moment, then hesitantly pushed the matter beyond his proper bounds. “Do you have a plan?”

  Instantly North understood Germain was probing for an answer to the question on which the Empire would stand or fall. Germain, during his service as the Secretary of State for America, had made it abundantly clear he would never agree to abandon the war to retain the North American colonies. Never. North, however, had refrained from declaring himself until developments in the wild, unpredictable war made it clear whether the treasury of the nearly bankrupt Empire could afford the unending drain of millions of pounds sterling. Now he was alone, facing Germain, and Germain had chosen this moment to put the issue out in the open, squarely between them.

  Was this the time to begin what could result in the polarization of the political structure of England and end up ripping the Empire into pieces? North made his decision. His sentence was measured.

  “I do not believe we can afford to continue the war in America.” His eyes dropped for a moment while he decided there was nothing else to say. He raised his face to look steadily into Germain’s eyes in silence, waiting. For the first time, the conflict between the two men, which had been lurking in the shadows, was open, declared, irreversible. Neither could calculate where it would lead, nor did they try.

  Germain broke it off. He nodded. “I shall be available should there be need,” he said, then left the room.

  In deep reflection, North closed the door behind him, then turned back into the room to spend the night pacing, trying to understand the implications of what had happened. But he could not force his brain to find the end of it. The rooster was cracking out his announcement of a new day approaching when North went to wash himself and don his best finery for his meeting with King George III.

  With London awash in chill morning sunlight, North sat slumped in his hack as it made its way from Pall Mall to Buckingham Palace. He stared straight ahead as the uniformed guards swung open the huge, wrought-iron gates to admit his rig, and he remembered nothing of walking the few steps from the swaying hack to the front door, then down the hall, where waiting, immaculately dressed and mannered servants introduced him into the royal library. The opulence of the appointments in the high-ceilinged, vaulted room went unnoticed by North as he made his way to the great, ornately carved desk to await the arrival of his sovereign.

  King George III was not the son of King George II, but the grandson. The firstborn of King George II was Frederick Louis, the Prince of Wales. The hapless child was small, ugly, frail, awkward, egocentric, and openly hated by both his father and mother, who publicly stated they would prefer the child dead. He lashed back at his father by joining the opposition party and engaging in a life of debauchery rarely known, even among that high strata of British society that abounded in degeneracy of every kind known to the human race. In time he married, and on June 4, 1738, his wife, the Princess of Wales, gave birth to a sickly child who was given the name of George at his baptism, one month after his birth. Young George had both the virtues and vices of an ordinary citizen, but never did he have the character, or the vision, to reign as king from the most powerful throne in Europe. While the boy was yet an adolescent, his grandfather, the King, became incurably insane, and on October 25, 1760, died suddenly. His father, Frederick, the Prince of Wales and the next in line to inherit the throne, had died nine years earlier, in 1751. Thus the mantle of the throne fell on the firstborn of the next generation, young George III, at the age of twenty-two. He was handsome, engaging, often witty, and totally captivated with being the King. He could not then know that his lack of capacity, combined with the crushing weight of ruling England, would drive him to neurosis, and that, coupled with the genetic disease porphyria, would eventually drive him mad, to die a lunatic.

  He was forty-three years of age that bright, cold November morning when he walked from his private chambers to his library to keep his early morning appointment with Lord North. He was troubled, aware something calamitous had occurred, sufficient to drive his First Lord of the Treasury to request an unprecedented eight o’clock Monday morning, private meeting to be held in the King’s quarters. Precisely what had happened was not yet known to him. He was wearing his familiar powdered wig and finery nearly beyond description as he opened his private entrance into the library and walked to his desk.

  North stood instantly and waited while the King walked to his chair, sat down, adjusted his purple, gold-trimmed silk robe, and raised his eyes.

  “I presume there is some reason you have requested this . . . ah . . . unusual meeting.”

  North bowed slightly and remained standing. One did not take a seat until invited by the King. He spoke with his slight lisp evident. “Your Majesty, there is. It is with deepest regret that I deliver this dispatch to you from General Sir Henry Clinton.”

  Instantly King George started in his chair. “From America?”

  “Yes.” North held the folded parchment out, waiting for the king to receive it. The monarch spoke without reaching.

  “What has happened?”

  “It is in the dispatch, Sire, from the hand of General Clinton.”

  “I am asking you. What has happened?”

  North was trapped, left without choice. His protruding eyes rolled as he spoke. “Sire, General Lord Charles Cornwallis and his entire command have fallen. October nineteenth, at Yorktown, in the colony of Virginia. Our naval fleet was defeated by the French on Chesapeake Bay, and have sailed to New York. They are apparently returning to England.”

  The King came off his chair like a coiled spring. “Cornwallis? His entire command? How many? Ten thousand?”

  “Eight thousand, Sire. All killed or captured. General Cornwallis is himself a prisoner.”

  “That can not be! Simply impossible.” He snatched the dispatch from North’s fingers. “This dispatch is a fraud!”


  “Sire, I assure you, the dispatch is authentic. I have conferred with Lords Stormont and Thurlow and Germain before bringing the news to this chamber. They agreed. You must know of this before the Privy Council meets this morning. They will learn of this before the day is out, and such news will be common gossip by sunset. Parliament meets tomorrow. Only the Almighty knows what they will do with this.”

  The monarch’s clenched fist slammed onto the table, eyes flashing as he exclaimed, “You know what they will do with this! Rockingham and Shelburne and Hillsborough will demand that we abandon the American colonies! Six years! Millions of pounds sterling! Tens of thousands of lives! All for naught!” He began to pace, gesturing, exclaiming, his shouted words echoing off the hard stone walls.

  “I want it known that I will not abandon the Americas.” He spun and thrust a finger at North. “I am aware of your statements that the treasury cannot maintain this war another year. I must know—what is your position on continuing the war for America?”

  North drew a breath to gain time. “To withdraw would be a disaster most difficult to justify.”

  The King shook his head. “That is not an answer. What is your position?”

  North settled and spoke bluntly. “Your Majesty, as matters now stand, I do not see how we can continue with it.”

  “You oppose me on this?”

  “I oppose no one. I think only of the Empire.”

  “Germain? Where does he stand?”

  “Sire, I believe that is a question for Germain to answer.”

  “Then I shall ask him.” The King stopped his pacing and brought himself to the fringes of control. He locked North with a stare that was alive with electricity. “Regardless of your private misgivings, I am charging you with the responsibility to make it known to the Privy Council today, and Parliament tomorrow, that I will never consider abandoning our campaign for America. Am I absolutely clear?”

  North hesitated for an awkward moment, then said, “I understand, Sire.”

  Only then did the angry monarch open the written document and stand with feet spread to read it in total silence. He read it again, then folded it and flung it onto his desk.

  “You are excused.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Bowing, North backed himself to the door and shambled out of the room in his awkward, ungainly fashion. During the entire encounter, the King had not asked him to be seated.

  * * * * *

  The Privy Council, composed of men whose credentials and experience in affairs of the kingdom and the world qualified them to advise Parliament and Crown, had been an institution in British government for nearly five hundred years. Their charge was to address and debate matters of crucial importance to the Empire, and impart their wisdom. Little did they know that the morning of Monday, November 26, 1781, was to burst upon them like the sword of the Almighty striking from the heavens.

  The Privy Council was called to order with Germain sitting in stoic silence, watching every expression, waiting for the lightning bolt to strike. North made the announcement of General Cornwallis’s fall, and for the first time in Germain’s memory, the more than two hundred men of prominence first gasped, then sat motionless in dead silence for a full five seconds before talk erupted. Decorum vanished and bedlam reigned. Men gestured, spoke without being recognized, pointed, exclaimed. For minutes the deeply ingrained British discipline vanished. Slowly the tumult subsided and the meeting came back to order. Germain watched and listened to the comments, all gravitating toward the same conclusion.

  “There is no hope! All is lost.”

  “We must abandon the Americas!”

  “We can not maintain our armies in India, Minorca, the West Indies, and support our war with Holland if we continue to send millions to America. And what of the Channel? With the French ships prowling constantly, defending our own shores is our paramount duty.”

  “Let the colonies go! We must protect our investment and our trade in the West Indies at all cost.”

  Watching every move like a hawk, Germain caught a glimpse of Anthony Storer passing a written note to Carlisle, and made it his business to quietly obtain and read the note at the recess: “What we are to do after Lord Cornwallis’s catastrophe, only the Almighty knows.”

  By early afternoon the news was in the street, and Lord Gower heatedly spoke of the shock now evident on the faces of the commoners. He saw the dismay, distrust, disbelief in their faces as they shouted, “The wisest and most intelligent are all asking each other what is next to be done, and the wisest and most intelligent can give no answer!”

  The debate raged on with Germain listening, watching the direction the country was moving. The wealthy in the Empire—those who contributed most to the treasury and who expected a return on their investment—slowly distanced themselves from the position taken by King George and his ministry. They could see their millions disappearing into a black hole called America, without hope of ever recovering their investment, or a return thereon, while other, more lucrative holdings of the British Empire were going begging.

  The gap between King and Privy Council widened and solidified, becoming irrevocable. It was the unanimous opinion of the members of the Council: England should abandon all thought of bringing the American colonies to heel, and the reasons were simple and compelling. Britain was a victim of its own ambition. It had opened too many farflung frontiers, engaged too many countries in war over too long a time. The Empire’s interests in India, Gibraltar, Minorca, the Mediterranean, the Orient, West Indies, Spain, Holland, France, and the Americas each demanded a greater share of the dwindling wealth and available manpower. The futile struggle to retain the American colonies had to end! Hard decisions had to be made before complete bankruptcy brought the whole trembling structure down. Were the Americas of top priority in a ranking of England’s possessions? No, said the Privy Council, the West Indies with the rich rum and sugar and slave trade are of more value. Let the colonies go. Save the West Indies.

  The King, and Germain, dug in their heels for the battle. On His Majesty’s request, Germain drafted and circulated a well-reasoned, sensible memorandum, declaring that with the superiority the British presently held at sea, Nova Scotia, Penobscot, New York, Charleston, Savannah, and East Florida could all be held and maintained by the British forces then in place, and with very little additional investment, an attack could be made on the rebel coasts, with assistance coming down from Canada to defeat the Americans.

  The memorandum fell on deaf ears. Germain understood that the realities of the crisis were not fatal. What was fatal was the people’s loss of the will to fight on. They had had enough. Six years, millions of pounds, and thousands of lives, with no end in sight, was too much.

  Abandon America. Save the West Indies, and the other British colonies.

  December 8, 1781, the Cabinet voted to send only new, raw recruits to America to bolster the flagging military; investing seasoned troops was a waste. December 14, in the House of Commons, Germain thundered that the ministry was unanimous against abandoning America. Instantly North shattered the illusion of a united ministry by resigning his seat as First Lord of the Treasury, but he did not abandon his place in either the Privy Council or the King’s cabinet. He simply moved back and took up a lesser seat. The same day, the rupture in the ministry became irreparable when the subject of the plans for America was brought on in the House of Commons for debate and a vote. The opponents of Germain and the King disemboweled the entire matter with a planned and perfectly executed silence. The matter was closed without a word. The gulf between King and Parliament widened.

  With heavy heart, Germain accepted the inevitable. If the ministry were to survive, it would require finding sacrificial scapegoats. In dark corners and small rooms, the names of Germain, the chief protagonist for holding the American colonies, and the Earl of Sandwich, head of naval operations who supported Germain, were the two selected for blame. Germain heard the deadly whisperings. Before Christmas, he
secretly beseeched the King to release him; he had been prudent with his fortune, and with the peerage he would receive upon his voluntary retirement, he could live comfortably, with honor.

  It was not to be.

  King George was outraged. He did not quarrel with Germain’s voluntary retirement, but he was nearly neurotic in his insistence that whoever replaced Germain would have to be committed to continuing the war to hold America, as Germain had been. The King might make do without Germain, but he could not maintain his stance on the Americas unless Germain’s replacement was as committed as Germain himself had been in support of the American offensive. King George summoned Lord North.

  “You may replace Lord Germain, but you will do so with a man equally strong in support of saving the Americas!”

  The widening rift between the Crown and Prime Minister instantly became public. The head-on collision brought the wheels of British government to a grinding halt. With no way to force movement in the government, North could do nothing but let Germain remain in his position.

  December 23, the House of Commons voted to replace the unfortunate General Sir Henry Clinton from his position as commander of military forces in America, but as for a replacement? Parliament favored General Sir Guy Carleton, who had so long struggled to maintain a strong British presence in Canada, and who had lately voiced deep reservations about continuing the battle to conquer America. But so long as Germain remained Secretary for the American Colonies, Parliament could appoint no one. On that same day, December 23, 1781, North was again summoned to a private conference with the King.

  The meeting was icy. Protocol and formalities were neglected as the King spoke.

  “I have had a lengthy conference with General Benedict Arnold.”