American Crisis
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87 Benjamin Franklin to Vergennes, in ibid., 6:137–38. The passport is printed in ibid., 6:137n; Vergennes to Lucerne, December 19, 1782, in ibid., 6:151; Louis A. Norton, Joshua Barney (Annapolis, United States: Naval Institute Press, 2000), pp. 91–93.
88 Vergennes to Franklin, December 15, 1782, in Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 6:140.
89 Franklin to Vergennes, December 17, 1782, in ibid., 6:144.
90 In 1780 Great Britain had also declared war on the Dutch Republic. Although Dutch money played an important role in supporting the Revolution, the military and mainly naval impact of Dutch participation was minimal. Friedrich Edler, The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1911). See also Papers of John Adams.
91 Journals of the House of Commons, Fifteenth Parliament of Great Britain, Third Session (December 5, 1782–16 July 6, 1783), December 5, 1782.
92 Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution, ed. Winslow C. Watson (New York: Dana, 1856), p. 203.
93 Journals of the House of Commons, Fifteenth Parliament of Great Britain, Third Session, p. 4.
94 Watson, Men and Times, p. 205.
Chapter Eight
1 Carleton and Digby to Washington, August 2, 1782, GWLC. Cornwallis was not actually confined. He was on parole; that is, he was free but not permitted to rejoin the army. Laurens to William Bell, September 1, 1782, in Papers of Henry Laurens, ed. Philip Hamer et al. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2002), 16:1–2.
2 Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution, ed. Winslow C. Watson (New York: Dana, 1856) p. 205.
3 GW to Carleton, August 2, 1782, GWLC.
4 GW to President of Congress, August 5, 1782, FW, 24:466.
5 On April 19, 1782, the Dutch States General resolved that “Mr Adams shall be admitted and acknowledged in the quality of ambassador of the United States to Their High Mightiness.” John Adams, Papers of John Adams, ed. Gregg Lint et al. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 12:422. Official notice did not reach Philadelphia until early September. Samuel Osgood to John Lowell, September 13, 1782, LD, 19:153.
6 Edmund C. Burnett, The Continental Congress (New York: W.W. Norton, 1964), pp. 350–51.
7 Georges Lemaître, Beaumarchais (New York: Knopf, 1949), pp. 177–78.
8 Louis W. Potts, Arthur Lee: A Virtuous Revolutionary (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), pp. 88–89.
9 Samuel Adams to Stephen Sayre, November 16, 23, in Writings of Samuel Adams, ed. Harry Alonzo Cushing (reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1968), 2:56–61, 66–69.
10 Letters of Dennys de Berdt, 1757–1770, ed. Albert Matthews (Cambridge: J. Wilson and Son, 1911), p. 299.
11 Samuel Adams to Sayre, November 16, 1770, in Writings of Samuel Adams, 2:59.
12 JCC, 6:897. Lee replaced Thomas Jefferson, who declined the assignment.
13 For a summary of the feud, see Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 8–13 and Julian P. Boyd, “Death by a Kindly Teacher of Treason?” William and Mary Quarterly, third series (1959), pp. 165–87, 319–42, 515–50.
14 Instructions, June 15, 1781, JCC, 20:651–54.
15 Charles Thomson, “Notes of Debates,” August 8, 1782, LD, 19:40. Jesse Root of Connecticut made a substitute motion to appoint a committee. Since the effect would be the same, Lee supported Root’s motion and withdrew his own.
16 Madison to Edmund Randolph, August 15, 1782, in ibid., 19:59; Thomson, “Notes of Debates” August 8, 1782, in ibid., 19:44.
17 Robert Livingston to Franklin, September 5, 1782, RDC, 5:696–98.
18 JCC, 22:460n.
19 Ibid., 23:463; Thomson, “Notes of Debates,” August 12, 1782, LD, 19:57.
20 Lincoln to Knox, August 12, 1782, KP, reel 9.
21 James Duane to Philip Schuyler, August 16, 1782, LD, 19:70.
22 Thomson, “Notes of Debates,” August 12, 1782, in ibid., 19:58.
23 Morris to Ridley, August 6, 1782, PRM, 6:147. At the time, Ridley was in Holland negotiating a loan for the state of Maryland.
24 Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), p. 23.
25 Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970), pp. 56–57.
26 The terms radicals and conservatives, while appropriate in describing these points of view, were not necessarily contemporary terms. They are used here simply to make the distinction.
27 “Articles of Confederation,” article 10, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp, accessed October 19, 2009.
28 Jack N. Rakove, The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 104.
29 For a detailed analysis of voting factions in the Congress, see Calvin Jillson and Rick K. Wilson, Congressional Dynamics: Structure, Coordination, and Choice in the First American Congress, 1774–1789 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 167–286.
30 JCC, 19:112–13.
31 For a thoughtful analysis of the motivation behind those serving in the American cause, see Royster, A Revolutionary People at War, appendix, pp. 373–78.
32 John A Nagy, Rebellion in the Ranks: Mutinies of the American Revolution (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2008), pp. 297–99.
33 Allen Bowman, The Morale of American Revolutionary Army (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1964), pp. 24–25. Greene to William Greene, March 7, 1778, PNG, 11:301. Greene’s numbers were likely exaggerated.
34 FW, 11:237.
35 Gates to Morris, April–May 10 (1782), PRM, 5:89.
36 Quoted in Terry Golway, Washington’s General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution (New York; Henry Holt, 2005), p. 159.
37 GW to William Buchanan, February 7, 1778, FW, 10:427, 13:465.
38 Greene to GW, February 15, 1778, PNG, 11:285.
39 Paul Lockhart, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron Von Steuben (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), pp. 95–117.
40 Theodoric Bland et al. to GW, November 1777, GWLC. In addition to Bland, the officers were M. Gist, Joseph Carvel Hall, Thomas Hartley, Robert Lawson, James Innes, John Taylor, and Henry Miller.
41 Theodoric Bland et al. to GW, November 1777, GWLC. These proposals were Cromwellian. After the British developed a professional army in the late seventeenth century following the Treaty of Ryswick, demands arose in Parliament for a reduction of the officer corps. To reward those who were being dismissed, Parliament agreed to half pay for life, thinking that it was only a temporary measure and would, as the officers died, eventually cease. The resumption of hostilities in 1702, however, resulted in the recall of officers from half-pay status, thus beginning a revolving door by which half pay became a permanent institution in the British army. Aside from the unintended consequence of permanency, this system created a class of half-pay soldiers who were inclined when not in service to turn to politics. As members of Parliament, they formed a strong pro-army clique. All of this was well known and detested in America. Hew Strachan, Politics of the British Army (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 22–23; William H. Glasson, Federal Military Pensions in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918), p. 12.
42 “Remarks on Plan of Field Officers for Remodeling the Army,” November 1777, FW, 10:125–26.
43 James Lovell to John Adams, January 13, 1778, John Adams, Papers of John Adams, ed. Gregg Lint et al. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 5:383–84.
44 Continental Congress Conference Committee to GW, December 10, 1777, GWLC. The British occupation of Philadelphia forced Congress to adjourn to York, Pennsylvania, where it met from September 30, 1777, to June 27, 1778.
45 Ibid.
46 GW to Elbridge Gerry, December 25, 1777, FW, 10:
200–201.
47 James Lovell to Samuel Adams, January 13, 1778, LD, 8:580–81.
48 JCC, 10:285–86.
49 Connecticut Delegates to Jonathan Trumbull, May 18, 1778, in ibid., 8:708.
50 JCC, 11:502. For an analysis of the voting in Congress, see Jillson and Wilson, Congressional Dynamics, pp. 213–21.
51 JCC, 14:638–39.
52 Ibid., 14:779.
53 Ibid., 15:1337–38.
54 Ibid., 18:893.
55 Ibid., 18:897.
56 GW to President of Congress, October 11, 1780, FW, 20:158.
57 Ibid.
58 Members were elected by their state legislature.
59 Burnett, Continental Congress, pp. 406–27, 472.
60 JCC, 18:958–59.
61 Ibid., 21:1112.
62 Circular to the Governors of the States, May 16, 1782, PRM, 5:191.
63 Morris Diary, in ibid., 5:520.
64 JCC, 4:35; JCC, 6:912; January 6, 1776; October 30, 1776. For his views on money, see Pelatiah Webster, To The Honourable The Legislatures of the Thirteen United States of America This Second Essay on Free Trade and Finance, Is Most Humbly Inscribed, August 20, 1779 (Philadelphia: Hall and Webster, 1779), p. 17.
65 Webster, A Fourth Essay on Free Trade and Finance …, February 10, 1780 (Philadelphia: Hall and Sellers, 1780), p. 17.
66 Ibid., p. 15.
67 Ibid.
68 Webster, Sixth Essay on Free Trade and Finance (Philadelphia: T. Bradford, 1783), pp. 5, 12.
69 Ibid., p. 27.
70 Quoted in H. B. Learned, “Origins of the Superintendent of Finance,” American Historical Review 10 (April 1905), p. 568.
71 Morris Diary, PRM, 5:520.
72 With the support of Henry Knox, officers of the Massachusetts Line had already petitioned the Massachusetts House and Senate for pay. Petition of Officers of the Massachusetts Line, July 1782, Knox to Lincoln, July 15, 1782, KP, reel 9.
73 JCC, 22:418.
74 Ibid., 22:423.
75 Thomson Notes, July 31, 1782, LD, 18:694.
76 Samuel Osgood to John Lowell, September 9, 1782, in ibid., 19:130.
77 Thomson Notes, July 31, 1782, in ibid., 18:694.
78 Ibid.
79 Thomson, “Notes of Debates,” July 30, 1782, LD, 18:688.
80 Samuel Osgood to John Lowell, September 9, 1782, in ibid., 19:130.
81 Thomson Notes, July 31, 1782, in ibid., 18:695.
82 Morris Diary, PRM, 5:524n.
83 GW to Secretary at War, October 2, 1782, FW, 25:227–28.
84 Lincoln to GW, October 14, 1782, BLP, reel 6A.
85 Morris to GW, October 16, 1782, PRM, 6 (1984):604; For a similar view, see Alexander Hamilton to Lafayette, PAH, 3:191–93.
Chapter Nine
1 Although Philadelphia offered a closer point for debarkation, its proximity to New York, and location at the head of a long entrance via Delaware Bay, made it vulnerable to interference by the Royal Navy.
2 Lincoln to President of Congress, October 30, 1782, Papers of the Continental Congress, National Archives, no. 149, II, 105; David Mattern, Benjamin Lincoln and the American Revolution (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), pp. 138–39.
3 Lincoln to President of Congress, October 30, 1782, Papers of the Continental Congress, no. 149, II, 105.
4 Madison to Edmund Randolph, October 29, 1782, LD, 19:322.
5 Lincoln to GW, November 22, 1782, GWLC.
6 Ibid.; JCC, 23:750. The recommendation did not cover the entire period of service, but if approved it would have set the precedent of state responsibility for army pay. See Robert Morris to President of Congress, December 3, 1782, PRM, 7 (1988):151n.
7 Morris Diary, November 30, 1782, in ibid., 7:136.
8 Morris to President of Congress, December 3, 1782, in ibid., 7:151.
9 Osgood to Lowell, September 9, 1782, LD, 19:130.
10 Knox to Lincoln, November 25, 1782, KP, reel 10.
11 Daniel Salisbury to Captain Simon Jackson, December 10, 1782, BPL, ms. 1199.
12 Kingston was the temporary state capital.
13 Massachusetts Line—Petition Vote and Proceedings, November 16, 1782. KP, reel 10.
14 Massachusetts Line, John Crane, from Braintree, Massachusetts, commanded the third artillery regiment. John Brooks was from Reading, Massachusetts, and commanded the Seventh Regiment. Hugh Maxwell was from Charlemont, Massachusetts, and Rufus Putnam was from Sutton, Massachusetts. Thacher was a regimental surgeon from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Fred Anderson Berg, Encyclopedia of Continental Army Units (Harrisburg: Stackpole Books, 1972), pp. 72–75; Robert K. Wright Jr., The Continental Army (Washington: Center for Military History, 1983), pp. 203–16.
15 Response of First Massachusetts, November 19, 1782, KP, reel 10.
16 Response of Tenth Regiment, November 19, 1782, and Response of Fifth Regiment, November 19, 1782, both in ibid.
17 Minutes of the meeting have not been found. It is simply reasonable to assume that the body did select a committee. It might also be speculated that the committee consisted of the three men who were elected to deliver the memorial to Congress.
18 JCC, 24:291.
19 “To the United States in Congress Assembled, the Address and Petition of the Officers of the Army of the United States,” December 1782, in ibid., 24:291–93.
20 For McDougall’s career, see Roger J. Champagne, Alexander McDougall and the American Revolution in New York. (Schenectady: Union College Press, 1975).
21 Instructions to the Committee from the Army, December 7, 1782, quoted in Champagne, Alexander McDougall, p.185.
22 GW to Jones, December 14, 1782, FW, 25:430.
23 Morris Diary, PRM, 7:226.
24 GW to Jones, December 14, 1782, FW, 25:430–31. Not only did Washington suffer the personal discomfort of not being able to travel home; he also endured financial difficulty. Four days after writing Jones, he had to borrow two thousand pounds from his friend George Clinton, the New York governor, to buy land near Mount Vernon. GW to Clinton, December 18, 1782, in ibid., 25:451–52.
25 Knox to Lincoln, December 20, 1782, KP, reel 10.
26 Madison’s Notes on Debates, December 18, 1782, LD, 19:492.
27 Irwin Polishook, Rhode Island and the Union (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969), pp. 81–101. See also resolution, JCC, 24:34.
28 Eliphalet Dyer to William Williams, January [10?], 1783, LD, 19:573.
29 Hamilton to John Laurence, December 12, 1782, PAH, 3:211–12. Laurance is not to be confused with John Laurens. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1989). On July 22, with strong support from Alexander Hamilton and his father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, the New York Assembly called upon the Congress to call a “general Convention of the States” to revise the Articles of Confederation, particularly those sections dealing with fiscal affairs. Congress received the resolutions, assigned them to a committee, and there they languished and were never acted upon. PAH, 3:110–13.
30 McDougall to Knox, January 9, 1783, KP, reel 11; Champagne, McDougall, p. 186.
31 McDougall to Knox, January 9, 1783, KP, reel 11.
32 Morris Diary, December 31, 1782, PRM, 7:247.
33 The committee was composed of Phillips White (NH) Samuel Osgood (MA), Jonathan Arnold (RI), Oliver Wolcott (CT), Alexander Hamilton (NY), Silas Condict (NJ), Richard Peters (PA), John Dickinson (DE), Daniel Carroll (MD), James Madison (VA), Abner Nash (NC), and John Rutledge (SC). At the time, Georgia was not represented. Madison’s Notes, January 6, 1783, LD, 19:539n; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
34 JCC, 11:502–3. Wolcott became chair in one of two ways: either he garnered more votes than anyone else when the committee was elected by the body, or he might have been elected by the members of the committee. In either case his election certainly sent a message. For committee structure in the Congress, see Calvin Jillson and Rick K. Wilson, Congressional Dyna
mics: Structure, Coordination, and Choice in the First American Congress, 1774–1789 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 91–100.William H. Glasson, History of Federal Military Pensions in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918), pp. 10–11.
35 Samuel Osgood to John Lowell, January 6, 1782, LD, 19:543.
36 Madison’s Notes, January 7, 1783, in ibid., 19:556.
37 Madison’s Notes, January 10, 1783, in ibid., 19:571.
38 Hamilton to Clinton, January 12, 1782, PAH, 3:240–41.
39 Madison’s Notes, January 10, 1783, LD, 19:571.
40 Madison’s Notes, January 9–10, 1783, in ibid., 19:569.
41 Madison to Randolph, January 14, 1783, in ibid., 19:583.
42 Madison’s Notes, January 13, 1783, in ibid., 19:579.
43 Ibid., pp. 579–81.
44 Head note, Morris to John Pierce, January 20, 1783, PRM, 7:330.
45 Madison’s Notes, LD, 19:581; head note, Morris to Paymaster, January 20, 1783, PRM, 7:329.
46 “Observations on the Present State of Affairs,” (January? 1783), PRM, 7:306.
47 Morris Diary, in ibid., 7:310.
48 To what degree the members of the committee, or Congress in general, were aware of this mission is uncertain. Morris was determined to keep the venture secret. Head note, Morris to John Pierce, January 20, 1783, in ibid., 7:328. Morris did keep Washington informed. Head note p. 328; “John Barry’s Account of Proceedings on the Alliance and the Duc de Lauzun” and head note, both in ibid., 7:607–13.
49 “Observations on the Present State of Affairs,” in ibid., 7:306.
50 Head note, Morris to Pierce, in ibid., 7:330.
51 Morris, Diary, in ibid., 7:315.
52 Head note, Morris to Pierce, in ibid., 7:330–31.
53 JCC, 24:83–92; Morris to President of Congress, January 24, 1783, PRM, 7:368. See also extensive notes accompanying the letter, pp. 361–71.
54 Madison’s Notes, January 24, 1783, LD, 19:610.
55 Ibid.
56 Ibid.
57 Lee to Adams, January 29, 1783, LD, 19:630.
58 At first Hamilton knew little about public finance. In 1781 Washington was asked if Hamilton might be suited for the office of superintendent of finance. He responded, “How far Colonel Hamilton, of whom you ask my opinion as a financier, has turned his thoughts to that particular study I am unable to answer, because I never entered upon a discussion on this point with him.” Washington to John Sullivan, February 4, 1781, FW, 21:181.