Come cheer up, my lads, ’tis to Glory we steer,
To add something new to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, not press you like slaves,
For who are so free as we sons of the waves?
Pitt was the man of the hour, widely acclaimed as the architect of these victories. As the year closed, his admirer, Smollett, wrote, ‘The people here are in high spirits on account of our successes, and Mr Pitt is so popular that I may venture to say that all party is extinguished in Great Britain.’9 The poet William Cowper recalled how the events of 1759 had made him, ‘the son of a staunch Whig and a man that loved his country … glow with that patriotic Enthusiasm which is apt to break forth in poetry.’
Poets were kept busy as the next three years yielded fresh victories. Their spoils were listed by Cowper’s friend, John Duncombe, in a mock-Horatian ode to the new king, George III:
And lakes and seas before unknown,
Exulting commerce calls her own,
The lakes that swell, the seas that roll,
From Mississippi to the Pole,
Who drink, Quebec, they stream profound,
By Britain’s righteous laws are bound;
The faithless Cherokee obeys,
Rich Senegal her tribute pays,
And Ganges’ tyrant shakes with fear,
For vengeance whispers, ‘Clive is near.’
Comparisons between Britain and the empires of Greece and Rome were plentiful in an age which sought aesthetic and literary inspiration in the Classical past. Horace Walpole was so impressed with Britain’s imperial conquests that he dismissed the Greeks and Romans as ‘little people’ when compared to his countrymen.10 A correspondent to the Gentleman’s Magazine felt sure that the siege of Quebec deserved to be set alongside that of Troy as an epic of courage.11 Others, less learned, simply wanted an excuse for a drunken rout:
Come all ye brave Britons, let no one complain
Britannia, Britannia! once more rules the main:
With bumpers o’erflowing we’ll jovially sing,
And tell the high deeds of the year Fifty-nine.12
Keen to exploit the public mood, David Garrick followed up his Harlequin’s Invasion with two similar pieces, The English Sailors in America and a pantomime, The Siege of Quebec, which appeared in the spring of 1760.
The exuberance of the festivities which marked the victories of 1759 and the unparalleled imperial expansion they made possible deserves close attention. They owed much of their intensity to the mood of introspective gloom which had characterised the previous three years. ‘We are rolling to the Brink of a Precipice that must destroy us,’ wrote John Brown, a north country cleric, whose An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (1757) was widely read and commented on. It was more than a jeremiad against current behaviour and tastes, because Brown directly attributed the nation’s misfortunes to interior moral weaknesses, in particular among the ruling classes.
‘The Conduct and Fate of Fleets and Armies depend on the capacity of those that lead them,’ argued Brown. These men, the gentlemen of Britain, had become contaminated by what he called ‘effeminacy’, whose symptoms were a preference for such comforts as sedan chairs – gentlemen worth their salt rode – warm rooms and gluttony. Young men ‘whose Talk is of Dress and Wagers, Cards and Borough-jobbing, Horses, Women, and Dice’ were lacking in what he called ‘public spirit or Love of our Country’. No such degeneracy marred the ordinary soldier or sailor for, ‘It is well known there are no better Fighting Men upon Earth. They seldom turn their Backs upon their Enemy, unless their Officers shew the way.’13
There was an equation between the collective moral worth of the nation’s upper class and its achievements. This proposition, like Britain’s current performance on the battlefield for which it was part explanation, was disturbing. If, as was commonly believed, human development passed through phases of growth, fruition and decay, then Britain might be approaching the last state.
The contrary was proved by the successes of 1759. National self-esteem and self-assertion grew stronger, as did that already deep-rooted sense that Britain was specially favoured by Providence. It was a nation which was moving forwards and the inexorable expansion of trade and empire was striking evidence of this progress. Innovations in the arts, science and industry added to this popular impression of the overall advance of British society. The 1760s and 70s witnessed the introduction of labour-saving machinery in the manufacture of cotton, iron, steel and pottery, as well as the first practical applications of James Watt’s and Matthew Boulton’s steam engines. A national genius could be detected behind this quickening pace of advancement in every field of human activity. Furthermore, it was agreed that the growth of empire and industry had been achieved because of Britain’s felicitous political system which was neatly summarised by Isaac Watts, the contemporary hymn-writer:
The crowns of British princes shine
With rays above the rest,
When laws and liberties combine
To make the nation bless’d.14
And yet, as John Brown had shown, national prosperity, the overthrow of Britain’s foes and the enlargement of its power in the world depended upon the determination, sense of duty and courage of its leaders. Their greatness of spirit was the vital ingredient for national greatness. Writing of empire-building, Cowper, with Pitt in mind, observed that ‘Great men are necessary for such a purpose.’ Cowper and others, excited by the victories of 1759, felt themselves part of an empire whose size was a measure of their country’s virtues. The war had and would continue to create a belligerent, over-confident patriotism which extended to all classes, a fact which made Smollett, among others, uneasy. Popular – that is, mob – patriotism was, he thought, dangerous among a people who were ‘naturally fierce, impatient, and clamorous’.15
The noise of celebrations of victory reached a crescendo in 1762. Martinique and a scattering of French sugar islands were taken by Admiral Sir George Rodney. Profit-seekers followed the landing parties for his victories and the admiral was struck by the speed with which planters from British islands flocked to Martinique to stake out claims to land.
Greater prizes were now available, since Spain had taken the plunge and joined France. Almost immediately, she suffered two stunning blows. Manila surrendered to an expeditionary force from India, and Havana was surprised by a fleet commanded by Admiral Sir George Pocock which had, at considerable risk, approached its target by the Old Bahama Channel, a seaway normally shunned because of its reefs and cays. The gamble paid off; thirteen Spanish battleships were taken in Havana harbour and Pocock and Lord Albemarle, who commanded the landing force, each received £123,000 in prize money. Rank-and-file soldiers and sailors got about £4.
At the moment when optimistic patriots believed that the Spanish as well as the French empires might pass into Britain’s hands, the government was negotiating a peace. Pitt had resigned in October 1761 after falling out with his colleagues over the terms that could be extracted from France. Negotiations were continued by the new ministry under the Marquess of Bute, a well-meaning mediocrity who enjoyed the confidence of George III. Although both France and Spain were prostrate, there was a fear among some that what the Whig Duke of Bedford called Britain’s ‘monopoly’ of seapower would ‘excite all the naval powers of Europe to enter into a confederacy against us’, a pusillanimous view which ignored the fact that these other nations did not possess enough ships to challenge the Royal Navy. In fact, it was the rising cost of the war and resort to additional taxation, including increased duties on beer, which encouraged the government to reach a settlement.
The Treaty of Paris, signed early in 1763, was controversial. Britain retained the slaving forts on the Senegal coast; the West Indian islands of Grenada, St Vincent, Dominica and Tobago; Canada and all the lands to the west of the Mississippi, Minorca and Florida, which the Spanish conceded in return for the evacuation of Havana. France withdrew its forces from Ge
rmany and was allowed to keep Gorée Island, St Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, a share in the Newfoundland fisheries and all the possessions she had held in India before 1749, so long as they were demilitarised. Manila was returned to Spain in return for a ransom (which was never paid) and given title to some land west of the Mississippi.
These terms excited much public indignation, on the grounds that too much had been surrendered merely to provide for the security of Hanover. This criticism was handled clumsily by the government which revived antique laws to punish one of its opponents, John Wilkes, for an article in his journal The North Briton. Ineptitude of one kind or another marked the performance of all the ministries between 1763 and 1775, a period dominated by politicians of limited talents and narrow horizons. Matters were not helped by the frequent interventions of George III. Emotionally a paternalistic patriot and directed by an urge to do what he considered best for his people as a whole, the King, who was also interested in farming, did little more than reveal himself a better judge of livestock than of men.
* * *
Politics after the Treaty of Paris revolved around relations with the North American colonies and these, together with the war which broke out in 1775, will be examined in a later chapter. Of equal importance, from the point of view of the overall development of the empire, was the massive programme of naval rearmament begun by the French in 1762. The impetus behind this attempt to rebuild the French fleet was Choiseul, who was determined to avenge the defeats of 1759–62 and restore his country’s former position as an imperial, global power. Within eight years, the total of French battleships had risen from 40 to 64, and frigates from 10 to 50.
This development was closely watched by the Admiralty, which had a well-organised network of agents in France and Spain, managed, until his death in 1770, by Richard Wolters, the British consul in Rotterdam. During the Seven Years War, Wolters controlled spies in Versailles, Brest, Toulon, Le Havre, Rochefort and Madrid who reported to him on the movements of French warships. During the winter of 1759–60, he was able to send to London information about the arrival home of the Comte D’Achée’s East Indies squadron and plans for its return to Pondicherry.16 Although still little-known even today, the Admiralty’s intelligence-gathering system was extremely valuable in giving advance warning of the deployment of the French navy. Additional details were given by British consuls elsewhere who regularly sent the Admiralty information they considered useful. they often employed their own spies, like the ‘intelligent person who knows the country well’, paid by the consul in Oporto to reconnoitre the positions of the Spanish army which had invaded Portugal in August 1762. The consul at Ligorno questioned the skippers of neutral merchantmen to discover the whereabouts of French warships in the Mediterranean, and his colleague at Helsingör recorded details of Russian men-o’-war as they sailed through the Skaggerak.17
This excellent service was continued in peacetime and enabled the Admiralty to keep an accurate and up-to-date breakdown of the numbers and condition of ships in the French and Spanish navies. By 1770, the picture emerging from intelligence sources indicated that the gap between the Royal Navy and the combined fleets of its former antagonists was narrowing. Between them, France and Spain had a total of 121 ships of the line against Britain’s 126. Pitt had estimated that 125 of this type of vessel was the minimum needed for security everywhere, a figure that had been kept to in spite of a post-war reduction in the naval budget.18
For the moment, however, British naval paramountcy seemed unassailable. In 1764–5 the naval big stick had been wielded to good effect against France and Spain. The threat of naval action alone had upheld British claims to the Turks Islands, defended British loggers’ rights to cut mahogany on the Honduran coast and ensured the expulsion of the French from slaving posts in the Gambia. In 1769–70, the fleet had been mobilised in defence of British interests in the Falkland Islands and, rather than risk war, the Spanish gave way.
These successful exercises in gunboat diplomacy may have encouraged official complacency, but they did not excuse the government’s shortsightedness after the first outbreak of rebellion in North America in 1775. Lord North’s administration assumed that the insurgents would be easily and swiftly overcome, and that no other power would consider intervention. Both judgements were mistaken; after two years of fighting it was clear that the Americans would survive and the surrender of General Burgoyne’s army at Saratoga in 1777 finally convinced the French that the moment had come to launch a war of revenge against Britain. France therefore entered the war in February 1778 and was followed by Spain in June 1779 and the Netherlands soon afterwards. The remaining powers of Europe were malevolent neutrals.
Between 1778 and 1783 the British empire faced a crisis which remained without equal in seriousness until the summer of 1940. Britain had no allies in Europe; her main line of defence, the navy, was outnumbered; and no outstanding statesman or commander came forward to match the time. Fortunately, as it turned out, there was a similar lack of imaginative leadership among Britain’s enemies and, while the French navy had been physically transformed, it had yet to produce a breed of aggressive commanders prepared to adopt bold, if risky, tactics. Time and time again, when presented with a tactical advantage, French admirals allowed it to slip from their grasp.
At the beginning of the war, France had three major strategic objectives. The first was to transfer troops to North America and assist the rebels there; the second was to attack and occupy British sugar islands in the West Indies, and the third, and most ambitious, was an invasion of the southern coast of England.
The early phases of each campaign were disappointing. The Comte d’Estaing’s North American squadron disembarked troops on the shores of Delaware Bay, but discovered that a smaller British squadron had escaped. Unable to establish local superiority in North American waters, d’Estaing sailed southwards to begin the conquest of the British West Indies. This required complete dominance of the Caribbean, which eluded him after he allowed a badly mauled British force to withdraw after an engagement off Grenada in July 1779.
The French record in home waters looked more promising and, by August 1779, Britain faced the ominous prospect of losing control of the Channel. The combined Franco-Spanish fleet mustered 63 battleships and 16 frigates, more than enough to escort the 500 transports which had assembled to carry the 30,000-strong invasion army to the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth. Against this force, the Channel squadron could raise 42 ships of the line. Not surprisingly, when Lord North hurriedly proposed a massive increase in militia numbers, he was faced with charges of having neglected the navy.
French preparations were meticulously monitored by Admiralty spies, one of whom reported the presence of Irish dissidents in Paris, which raised fears that the attack on the south coast might be combined with an insurrection in Ireland. There was, however, consolation in the knowledge that the Franco- Spanish armada was bedevilled by vacillating leadership, half-hearted commitment by the Spanish, rough weather, delays in the deliveries of rations and a savage epidemic of scurvy which put over 8,000 sailors out of action. In mid-September, as the equinoctial gales were approaching, Admiralty agents reported that the invasion had been postponed. At the same time, intelligence from Cadiz suggested that enormous efforts were in hand to step up the siege of Gibraltar, which had begun in June.19
Having shelved the invasion plan, and with it the chance of a quick end to the war, France shifted her resources to the siege of Gibraltar and the North American and West Indian theatres. She now faced what she was least able to sustain, a war of attrition against a power with a longer purse. Moreover, released from the threat of invasion, the British were able to divert more ships to other fronts.
Admiral Sir George Rodney had been appointed to take command in the West Indies in October 1779. He was a gallant, resolute officer who wrote, ‘Persist and Conquer is a maxim that I hold good in a War, even against the elements.’ And yet for all his tenacity, he was short-tempered, dog
ged by ill-health and quarrelsome. His prickliness contributed considerably to the lack of coordination between senior commanders in the West Indies and North America, and helped prevent the evolution of a grand strategy for the entire area. Nevertheless, his men were in good heart when they set sail from Spithead in the spring of 1780. William Home, a young marine officer aboard HMS Intrepid, wrote enthusiastically to his parents how he was bound ‘on an expedition to Puerto Rico or some place on the Spanish Main, which I hope will enable us to come home with our pockets full of Dollars’.20
His tour of duty during the summer of 1780 brought him no rewards, nor did his commander obtain the decisive victory needed to re-establish British dominance of the Caribbean. Instead, Rodney discovered that his subordinate commanders were disobedient, slack and cautious to the point of cowardice. After a desultory engagement off Martinique in May 1780, he complained that ‘the British Flag was not properly supported’ since several captains had refused to commit their ships to the action. His remedy was sharp; henceforward all refractory officers were promised dismissal and possibly the fate of Byng. ‘My eye on them had more dread than the enemy’s fire,’ he told his wife, and they knew it would be fatal. No regard was paid to rank: admirals as well as captains, if out of their station, were instantly reprimanded by signals, or messages sent by frigates: and, ‘in spite of themselves, I taught them to be, what they had never been before – officers.’ The key to this transformation was, according to Rodney, acceptance of his principle, ‘Yours to obey. The painful task of thinking is mine.’21
The Rise and Fall of the British Empire Page 10