American Crisis

by William M. Fowler Jr.

  While Clinton stewed in New York, in London the opposition was heaping up political tinder around the feet of the ministry. To no one’s surprise, the first minister to be consumed was Germain. Since the news of Yorktown his departure had been a foregone conclusion, though he resisted to the last. At the eleventh hour he proposed to the cabinet yet another plan: continue to hold New York, retake Rhode Island, blockade Delaware and Chesapeake bays, and harass the American coast. These measures would, he argued, force the rebels to give up their obsession with independence and negotiate reentry into the empire. It was too late. Even while still not willing to grant independence, North and his colleagues understood that escalating the war would bear evil consequences. Having exhausted his options, Germain agreed to go but not without reward. Reluctantly, the king bought him off with a peerage. Germain left office bearing the title Viscount Sackville. North, shaken by Germain’s fall, replaced him with Welbore Ellis, “a colorless administrative wheel horse.”33

  Germain’s enemies had choreographed his exit nicely. His departure opened the door for the reentry of Sir Guy Carleton. For good reason, senior army officers disdained Germain. He had presided over a war that had ruined reputations. Carleton was among the most embittered.

  Carleton was born in Ireland into a landed family with roots in the Protestant Ascendancy. His father died when he was about fourteen.34 After his mother married a not-so-rich Anglican minister, the young Carleton, with limited opportunities at home, left to join the army. It was hardly an unusual tale. The officer ranks of the king’s army were full of men, both Anglo-Irish and Scots, who, with few other prospects, opted for an officer’s career.

  Carleton was both able and lucky. He entered the service in 1742, at a moment when Europe, after a long period of peace, was about to go over the abyss into a series of wars lasting more than a decade that eventually engulfed the entire world.35 It was a good time to be a soldier. Also working to Carleton’s advantage was the fact that he was well connected. Early in his career he had the good fortune to be posted as an aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland, the king’s brother and captain general of the army. While serving under the duke, Carleton made the acquaintance of another promising young officer, James Wolfe. Although Wolfe was prickly and prone to incessant complaining, he was also intellectually curious, a trait shared with Carleton. The two became friends, and as Wolfe advanced he used his influence to help Carleton.36 When William Pitt tapped Wolfe to command the expedition to Quebec in 1758, Wolfe requested that Carleton join him. At first the king, George II, refused. The cranky king had a long and unforgiving memory. Sometime before, Carleton made some disparaging remarks about the quality of Hanoverian mercenaries. In addition to being king of England, the German-born George II was also the ruler of Hanover, and he took personal umbrage at Carleton’s remark. Wolfe was equally stubborn and threatened to resign unless Carleton was approved. Afraid that his plans might crumble, Pitt intervened and persuaded the king to grant Wolfe his request.37

  Carleton stood with Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham to witness the defeat of the French and the tragic death of his commander and friend. Wounded at Quebec, Carleton sailed home in October 1759 but returned to duty in 1762, serving as quartermaster general during the British siege of Havana, where he was wounded a second time.

  War is a school for soldiers, but it also trains administrators. By the Treaty of Paris, 1763, Britain took possession of an empire on a scale not seen since the days of Caesar Augustus. Those who were now responsible for this empire faced monumental challenges of defense, finance, and administration. In seeking to find the talent to run this vast new enterprise, king and Parliament often turned to men whose skills in organizing for war might be put to use governing conquered lands. Carleton lobbied hard to be part of this new empire. The young King George III did not share his father’s poor opinion of Carleton and instead described him as a “gallant and sensible man.”38 With the king’s nod and an assist from friends in Parliament, in 1768 Carleton became captain general and governor in chief of Quebec.

  In the tumultuous 1760s and early ’70s, when so many of the king’s colonial governors were dueling with unruly assemblies and violent mobs, Carleton presided over a remarkably peaceful province. He astutely walked a fine line between the instructions of his superiors in London, who insisted on “anglicizing” Quebec to incorporate and control the French population, and his conviction that all Quebecers deserved to be respected and treated well. To a remarkable degree, Carleton succeeded in satisfying both his superiors and himself.

  While Carleton’s evenhanded policies did not inspire great warmth toward the Crown, they did at least assure the French population that under the English king’s regime they could expect their culture and religion to be respected and tolerated. This resignation to imperial authority proved invaluable to Carleton when the American rebels invaded Canada in 1775–76. As an example of “better the devil you know than the one you don’t,” Canadians were more suspicious about the motives of invading Protestant Yankees, with whom they had fought for generations, than concerned about an English administration under Carleton that had thus far proved tolerable. As a result, most Canadians remained either loyal or neutral, allowing Carleton to throw back the invading American army and emerge as the savior of Canada.

  While Carleton was driving the Americans from Canada, in London Germain was taking the post of secretary of state and becoming Carleton’s superior. Germain and Carleton despised each other and made no secret of their feelings. Upon hearing that the king planned to make Carleton a Knight of the Bath, Germain did all he could to prevent the honor from being bestowed. He failed but not before Carleton learned of his machinations. Their hatred flared wildly in 1777 when Germain posted John Burgoyne, an officer junior to Carleton, to command the northern army assigned to invade the colonies from Canada. Ironically, by appointing Burgoyne, Germain did Carleton a favor as Burgoyne’s invasion turned into one of the war’s great disasters.39

  As is always the case in the wake of a military disaster, Burgoyne’s humiliating defeat unleashed a storm of invective, and finger-pointing. Carleton, who had a reputation for an unbridled pen, leaped into the fray. His acid attacks on Germain reached a point where even the king noted that he was “highly wrong in permitting his pen to convey such asperity to a Secretary of State.”40 Carleton’s sharp pen failed to topple Germain. Instead the king recalled Carleton from Canada, and for the next four years the general stewed in political exile on his Hampshire estate.

  Germain’s fall in February 1782 revived Carleton’s career. Despite the calamitous events in America and the rapid erosion of political support at home, the king remained adamant: he would not recognize the independence of the colonies. Indeed he made it clear to his intimates that he would sooner abdicate than see the colonies separate. For his part, North had lost all hope for victory in America. Physically exhausted and abandoned by his political friends, he anticipated his departure from Downing Street.

  On February 22, 1782, General Henry Seymour Conway rose in the House of Commons and offered a motion to end the war in America. Debate lasted until two in the morning, and the motion lost by a single vote. Five days later the House reconsidered it. Debate began anew in the afternoon and stretched long into the evening until at one thirty on the morning of February 28 the House reversed itself and “without a division” supported the motion.41

  Deserted by his former allies, isolated from any realistic appraisal of the situation in America, the king, desperate to keep the colonies, latched on to Carleton, whom he looked upon as his “best officer” and his last hope.42 In the face of advice to the contrary, George III believed that Carleton would be able to negotiate with the Americans and find reconciliation without granting independence. On March 8 he signed Carleton’s commission as commander in chief in North America. He also signed commissions appointing Carleton and Rear Admiral Sir Robert Digby, the senior naval officer in North America, as “Commissioners for Res
toring Peace and granting Pardon to the Revolted Provinces in America and the Inhabitants Thereof.”43

  Carleton’s royal commission differed little from similar commissions given to previous commanders in chief, including General Sir William Howe and his brother Admiral Lord Richard Howe in 1776. The wording was also essentially the same as the commission carried to America by the Carlisle Commission in 1778, and indeed, the language was even repeated in the commission held by General Clinton. The Americans had consistently dismissed the conditions contained in these documents. Nonetheless, the king had not changed his mind—negotiations and pardons were encouraged, but independence was not acceptable. After a long audience with the king, Carleton took his leave and prepared to depart for his new command.

  Having brought Carleton in, the king finally let North out. Unable to muster a sufficient majority to carry on the king’s policies, North submitted his resignation on March 18. “Your Majesty is well apprized that in this country the Prince on the Throne cannot with prudence oppose the deliberate resolution of the House of Commons,” he advised. For a dozen years North had served his king, but that seemed to count for little in the mind of George III. The following morning the king responded to North’s missive with an incredibly petulant letter. He told his longtime faithful minister that he had been “hurt” by North’s remarks, and warned him that if he announced his resignation before the king had a chance to find a successor, North would “certainly for ever forfeit [the king’s] regard.”44

  On Wednesday March 20, before a packed House, North announced his departure. The next day the king invited the Earl of Shelburne to form a government. George III had no love for the earl, having once referred to him as the “Jesuit of Berkeley Square,” but in the end he had little choice. Although Shelburne and his followers lacked sufficient numbers to carry a majority in the House of Commons, they were willing to join a coalition government with factions led by the Marquis of Rockingham and Shelburne’s rival, Charles James Fox.

  The new government took office on March 27. Thurlow was the sole surviving minister from the old North administration. Rockingham stood at the head of the ministry and took the traditional post as first lord of the treasury. The offices of the secretaries for the Northern and Southern departments were abolished. In their place a new secretaryship was established: secretary of state for home, colonial, and Irish affairs. This was Shelburne’s post. The “Jesuit of Berkeley Square” was living up to his reputation. Not only was he consolidating the existing authority in his own hands, but he also gained new power. He was now the chief minister in direct authority over British commanders, both army and navy. Diplomatic duties, which had once been divided between the two secretaries, were consolidated into a new office, the secretary for foreign affairs, to be held by Fox. The reorganization pitted the old rivals Shelburne and Fox in a contest for dominance.45

  Rockingham’s government was a shaky triptych. The king had a long and unhappy political history with him and Fox, he disliked both heartily, and so he most often dealt with Shelburne, making him a shadow prime minister.46 Impaired by deteriorating health, Rockingham made little protest over Shelburne’s favored position, but Fox was not inclined to be so accepting. With an uncertain hand at the reins, the new ministry was torn in a variety of directions as Shelburne and Fox competed for authority. From Paris, where he had access to a variety of intelligence reports from London, Lafayette wrote to Alexander Hamilton in April 1782 that “the New Ministers are not much our friends, they are not friends to each other. They have some Honest Men with little Sense and some Sensible Men without honesty.”47

  Carleton watched these political shifts with dismay. He had accepted his post under North’s administration, whose American policies he supported. In the new ministry Shelburne, his immediate superior, was the only member who thus far rejected independence. Rockingham, Fox, and the others were willing to consider the possibility. They were concerned with the ongoing costs of a war that seemed increasingly unwinnable. England was fighting not only the Americans but France, Spain, and the Dutch as well. A majority in the House of Commons wanted an end to the war with America on almost any terms, perhaps including independence. The king, however, had made his position clear: he would rather abdicate than consent to independence.

  Steering between continuing the war or conceding independence, Shelburne devised a clever plan. “Peace with America, and war with the rest of the Globe” was the way one newspaper wag put it.48 Commerce with the colonies animated the minister, and after more than twenty years in government no one needed to instruct him on the importance of doing business with America. Shelburne’s first goal was to end the transatlantic unpleasantness and reengage the Americans in trade. As he told Carleton, he believed that by some plan of colonial autonomy, not independence, reconciliation was possible, but this had to be pushed quickly; for if the war continued, the Americans might be drawn ever more closely into the French bosom. America and France had to be divided.

  In thinking that reconciliation could be had without independence, Shelburne was making the same error that had dogged British leaders since the beginning of the war. The pitch at reconciliation had been made twice before to the Americans, in 1776 by the Howe brothers and in 1778 by the Earl of Carlisle, and it had been rejected each time. Many in London trusted in the face value of reports, mostly from loyalists, that the Americans were financially exhausted, that the states were quarreling, Congress was weak, and the rebel army was dissolving. However accurate this description, what Shelburne and his predecessors could not grasp was that the traditional measures of war did not apply to a revolutionary uprising. While the Americans were disunited and fractious, they could agree on one point: independence was an absolute condition for peace.

  As Carleton prepared to sail, he confided to a friend that in going to New York he intended to take a firm stand with the Americans. He was not simply going “to be employ’d as a mere Inspector of embarkations,” a statement reflecting how little he knew of the reality in America or perhaps even the politics in Parliament.49 The new ministry was committed to ending the war in America, and Carleton’s boastful comment also flew in the face of direct orders from Shelburne: “The first object of your attention must be to provide for withdrawing the garrison, artillery, provisions, stores of all kinds, every species of public property, from New York and its dependencies to Halifax. The same steps are to be taken with respect to the garrisons of Charleston and Savannah.” Then in an extraordinary instruction that any officer would have found repugnant, Shelburne told Carleton, “In case you should meet with obstructions by any attack … so that it will not be in your power to effect the evacuation without great hazard of considerable loss, an early capitulation … is thought preferable … to an obstinate defense.”50 No matter Carleton’s determined notions, the politicians had decided that the war in America must end—even in surrender.51

  To the dismay of his superiors, Carleton seemed in no hurry to depart England. Anxious to settle matters in America, Shelburne pressed Carleton, and on April 4 the impatient minister directed Carleton to “immediately Embark on the Frigate [Ceres] and proceed to New York with all possible expedition.”52 A few days later Ceres cleared the Channel and set a course west on a pleasant and quick spring crossing to America. In the evening the captain entertained his passengers at table. All were in uniform except Maurice Morgann, Carleton’s secretary, and Brook Watson, the newly appointed commissary general.

  Morgann was a familiar figure in London circles and well known to Carleton. He was a close confidant to Shelburne, having served for more than twenty years as his private secretary. In 1767 Shelburne, then secretary of the Southern Department, sent Morgann on a special mission to Quebec, where he met Carleton, who as the newly appointed governor had been struggling with the challenge of melding British and French law. To secure loyalty and maintain harmony, the governor granted considerable latitude to French Canadians in the management of local affairs. Not everyone agr
eed that such concessions ought to be made to a conquered people, and complaints filtered to London accusing him of undermining the king’s authority. Morgann was sent to investigate. He spent several months meeting with officials and reviewing laws before concluding that Carleton’s policies were wise and clearly in the best interests of the empire. His report pleased both the governor and Lord Shelburne.53

  After returning from his mission to Canada, Morgann resumed his post with Shelburne. His less than onerous duties as a private secretary left him ample time to pursue his intellectual interests. He wrote two widely circulated political pamphlets: An Enquiry Concerning the Nature and End of A National Militia and A Letter to My Lords the Bishops On Occasion of the Present Bill for the Prevention of Adultery. His best-known work, however, was a book titled An Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff, in which he rehabilitated the character of Falstaff from a drunken coward to a courageous soldier. The book went through several editions in the nineteenth century and remained in print into the twentieth. Morgann’s unusual interpretation of Falstaff was challenged by the eminent doctor Samuel Johnson when he came to visit Shelburne at Wickham. Not finding the lord at home, Johnson remained and was entertained by Morgann. Long into the night the two sparred over Morgann’s Falstaff. In the morning, Johnson, a man not accustomed to losing an argument or retreating gracefully, announced to Morgann at breakfast, “Sir, I have been thinking over our dispute last night—you were in the right.”54 Morgann did have an unfortunate reputation for talking in “a pompous way that seems borrowed from the House of Commons.”55

  Also in company with Carleton was the new commissary general, Brook Watson, charged with overseeing all matters of army supplies. Born in Plymouth, England, Watson had entered the Royal Navy. His seagoing career was cut short in 1749 due to a stroke of bad luck: while he was bathing in Havana harbor, a shark attacked him, taking off his leg. In 1778 the dramatic event was captured by the Boston-born painter John Singleton Copley in his famous Watson and the Shark. Recovering nicely from the loss of his leg, Watson turned to mercantile pursuits, moved to America, and during the Seven Years War served as commissary to the army, where he earned the nickname “the wooden legged commissary.” During his duty in America he made the acquaintance of Guy Carleton. After the war he retuned to London but remained active in American trade and Canadian land speculation. Rumors had reached London of financial irregularities in Clinton’s New York accounts. Watson was being sent to straighten out the books.56