CHAPTER XIX
ENGLAND AND AMERICA. III: THE LOSS OF AMERICA
On May 17, 1778, Lord North, "with deep dejection in his countenance,"
had laid before the House of Commons a plan of conciliation, similar to Burke"s resolution which two years earlier he had arrogantly rejected, in which a Bill was proposed to enable the King to appoint commissioners with sufficient powers to treat, consult and agree upon the means of quieting the disorders now subsisting in certain of the colonies in America. The three commissioners appointed had been unwisely chosen.
Lord Carlisle, though clever enough, had hitherto been known only as a man of pleasure, and William Eden had recently denounced American Independence in the House of Commons; while George Johnstone, who was well acquainted with American affairs, was foolish enough at the outset, through an intermediary, to offer a bribe of 10,000 to Read, a leading member of Congress, "as a condition of bringing about a reunion between Great Britain and her colonies." Read announced this attempt upon his honesty in Congress. "I am not worth purchasing, but, such as I am," he said indignantly, "the King of Great Britain is not rich enough to do it."
Such a commission was foredoomed to failure. The whole country cried aloud for Chatham, and the public desire was endorsed by North, who again tendered his resignation to the King, who, however, would only consent to receive Chatham as a minister subordinate to North. "I declare in the strongest and most solemn manner," George wrote to his minister, "that though I do not object to your addressing yourself to Lord Chatham, yet that you must acquaint him that I shall never address myself to him but through you, and on a clear explanation that he is to step forth to support an administration wherein you are First Lord of the Treasury.... I will only add, to put before your eyes my most inward thoughts, that no advantage to this country, no present danger to myself, can ever make me address myself to Lord Chatham or any other branch of the Opposition.... Should Lord Chatham wish to see me before he gives his answer, I shall most certainly refuse it."[176] Chatham could not be expected to serve under North, and the negotiations ended forthwith, leaving behind them in many minds, however, the feeling that the final victory of the Americans would not be an unmixed evil for the mother country, since, apparently, on the issue of the war depended the question, far more vital than the independence or subordination of the colonies, whether the King would be able to establish his system of government by personal influence. "I had as little doubt, but if the conquest of America should be achieved," said Walpole, "the moment of the victorious army"s return would be that of the destruction of our liberty."[177]
[176] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
[177] _Last Journals_, March, 1778.
No responsible statesman believed that England could succeed in enforcing her will upon the colonies, let the struggle end as it might.
"As for conquering America, without foreign troops, it is entirely impossible; and I think it pretty near a certainty that the rebels will be in possession of all America by the Spring," Anthony Storer wrote to Lord Carlisle, on December 29, 1775. "By the news of Fort St. John"s and Chambley, and the invest.i.ture of Quebec, their diligence and activity is wonderful, and it must end in the possession of all North America. They have taken a store-ship, and have several ships at sea. _De peu a peu nous arrivons_; if they go on so another year--_fuit Ilium ingens gloria_--we shall make but a paltry figure in the eyes of Europe. Come to town, and be witness to the fall, or the re-establishment of our present Empire."
Fox thought that the best use that could be made of the success at Long Island would be to make conciliatory overtures. "It is become still more necessary than ever to produce some manifesto, pet.i.tion, or public instrument upon the present situation of affairs; either to exhort his Majesty to make the only proper use of his victory, by seizing this opportunity of making advantageous offers of accommodation or to express openly and fairly to him the well-grounded apprehensions that every man must entertain from the power of the Crown in case his Majesty should be able to subdue the American Continent by the force of his army,"[178]
Fox wrote on October 13, 1776, to Lord Rockingham; who, in his turn in 1778 said to Chatham, "I conceive that America will never again consent to this country"s having actual power within that continent." "As to conquest, my Lords, it is impossible," Chatham, himself said in Parliament on May 30, 1777, speaking on his motion to stop hostilities.
[178] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.
Chatham, of course, had all along been opposed to the war. Speaking in 1775 of General Gage"s inactivity, he said it could not be blamed, for it was inevitable. "But what a miserable condition is ours, where disgrace is prudence, and where it is necessary to be contemptible!" he said. "You must repeal those Acts [the Boston Ports and Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Bills], and you _will_ repeal them. I pledge myself for it, that you will repeal them. I stake my reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot if they are not finally repealed. If," he concluded, with a grave warning, "if the ministers persevere in misleading the King, I will not say that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from the Crown; but I will affirm that they will make the crown not worth his wearing. I will not say that the King is betrayed; but I will p.r.o.nounce that the kingdom is undone."[179] No wonder the King heaped upon the statesman, who endeavoured so eloquently to thwart his plans, every objectionable epithet; referred to him as "that perfidious man," and "a trumpet of sedition;" and said of his motion in 1777 to put an end to the war: "Lord Chatham"s motion can have no other use but to convey some fresh fuel to the rebels. Like most of the other productions of that extraordinary brain, it contains nothing but specious words and malevolence."[180]
[179] _Chatham Correspondence._
[180] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
But while Chatham wished for peace, he had no desire for unconditional surrender on the part of his country, and when on April 7, 1778, the Duke of Richmond moved the Independence of America, Chatham, protesting "against the dismemberment of this ancient and most n.o.ble monarchy,"
made the last of the long series of eloquent speeches that adorn the all-too-barren records of Parliamentary debates. "Before the Duke of Richmond began, Lord Chatham entered the House, leaning on the arms of his son William and his son-in-law, Lord Mahon. He bowed with much courtesy to the peers, who, standing up out of respect, made a lane for him to pa.s.s to his seat. He wore a suit of rich black velvet, and very full wig. He was covered up to the knees in flannel. He looked pale and emaciated, but his eyes retained all their native fire. When the Duke sat down, Lord Chatham rose to oppose the motion. He made a rhetorical speech, and declared it was probably the last time he should be able to enter the walls of the House. The Duke of Richmond replied with much tenderness. Chatham stood up again, attempted to speak, and sank down in an apoplectic fit."[181] He was removed to the house of one of the officers of Parliament, was in a few days sufficiently recovered to bear the journey to his seat at Hayes, and there died on May 11. It is characteristic of George III that the only remark he made _a propos_ of the sudden illness of the great orator was an appeal to Lord North: "May not the political exit of Lord Chatham incline you to remain at the head of affairs?"[182]
[181] Albemarle: _Memoirs of Rockingham_.
[182] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
After Chatham"s death, Lord North, Burke, and Fox united to pay tribute to his career, while Parliament undertook to pay his debts, settled 4,000 a year for ever to the t.i.tle of Chatham, and voted a public funeral. "I was rather surprised the House of Commons have unanimously voted an address for a public funeral and a monument in Westminster Abbey for Lord Chatham," wrote the ungenerous monarch, "but I trust it is voted as a testimony of grat.i.tude for his rousing the nation at the beginning of the last war ... or this compliment, if paid to his general conduct, is rather an offensive measure to me personally."[183] The King"s feelings were well known, with the result that the Court was spa.r.s.ely represented at the funeral, and as Gibbon said indignantly, "Government tried to secure the double odium of suffering the thing to be done, and of not doing it with a good grace."
[183] _Ibid._
"I should have been greatly surprised at the inclination expressed by you to retire," George III had written to Lord North on January 31, 1778, "had I not known that, however you may now and then despond, yet that you have too much personal affection for me, and sense of honour, to allow such a thought to take any hold on your mind."[184] Now that Chatham had gone, North could no longer point with clearness to a successor. "The small party which Chatham had headed could not hope to form a government of themselves since they had lost their chief. The Whigs, under Lord Rockingham, had, in great measure, at least committed themselves to the independence of America, and on that ground Lord North could not but deprecate their return to power. There was henceforth no great statesman to lead to that middle path, that course of conciliation without compromise, which Chatham had pointed out, and perhaps might have trodden."[185] Circ.u.mstances alter cases, and the difficulty of naming a successor was so great that North yielded again to the King"s commands and entreaties, and was prevailed upon to remain in office.
[184] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
[185] Mahon: _History of England_.
Slowly the rights which had caused the breach were abandoned. "I a.s.sure you, at least so it appears to me, that American politics are very much altered," Anthony Storer wrote to Lord Carlisle, on December 14, 1775.
"Taxation and the exercise of it are totally renounced. You never hear the right mentioned, but in order to give it up."[186] The whole power of the Opposition was put forward to force the Government into a pacific path. "We have tried our strength," said Lord Camden; "we find ourselves incapable of conquest; and as we cannot subdue, we are determined to destroy."
[186] _Selwyn: His Life and Letters._
While all England desired peace, the King was still determined to continue the war, unless the victorious colonists would surrender! "No man in my dominions desires solid peace more than I do," he wrote to Lord North on June 11, 1779. "But no inclination to get out of the present difficulties, which certainly keep my mind very far from a state of ease, can incline me to enter into the destruction of the empire.
Lord North frequently says that the advantages to be gained by this contest could never repay the expense. I own that any way, be it ever so successful, if a person will sit down and weigh the expense, they will find, as in this last, that it has impoverished the state enriched; but this is only weighing such points in the scale of a tradesman behind his counter. It is necessary for those whom Providence has placed in my station to weigh what expenses, though very great, are not sometimes necessary to prevent what would be more ruinous than any loss of money.
The present contests with America I cannot help seeing as the most serious in which any country was ever engaged. It contains such a train of consequences that they must be examined to feel its real weight.
Whether the laying a tax was deserving all the evils that have arisen from it I should suppose no man could allege without being thought fitter for Bedlam than a seat in the senate; but step by step the demands of America have risen. Independence is their object, which every man, not willing to sacrifice every object to a momentary and inglorious peace, must concur with me in thinking this country can never submit to.
Should America succeed in that, the West Indies must follow, not in independence, but for their own interest they must become dependent on America. Ireland would soon follow, and this Island reduced to itself, would be a poor island indeed."[187]
[187] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
After this definite declaration of the King"s intention, the Prime Minister again made an effort to resign, only to have his application treated as his previous ones had been. "Lord North"s application to resign within two days of the prorogation I can see in no other light than as a continuance of his resolution to retire whenever my affairs will permit it," George wrote to him on June 16, 1779, "for I never can think that he, who so handsomely stood forward on the desertion of the Duke of Grafton, would lose all that merit by following so undignified an example." Again North yielded to his royal master"s expressed wish, and he was somewhat encouraged by the accession of strength to the King"s party in the new Parliament, which was at once shown by the defeat of the proposal to re-elect Sir Fletcher Norton, who had angered George by his speech when presenting the Commons" grant in 1777.
The King, too, took heart again at the increase of his influence in the House of Commons. "I can never suppose this country so far lost to all ideas of self-importance as to be willing to grant American Independence,"[188] he wrote to Lord North in March, 1780; but everybody else realised that peace must be made at any cost. Though Parliament had been bought, the country was aroused; and, although the position of the Government was temporarily strengthened in October by the victory of Cornwallis over Gates in South Carolina, the surrender of the English General at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, sealed the fate of the ministry. The news arrived in England on November 25, 1781, two days before the meeting of Parliament, but even now the King would not yield: "The getting a peace at the expense of a separation from America is," he still declared, "a step to which no difficulties shall ever get me to be in the smallest degree an instrument."[189] Indeed, the only visible sign of his distress on receiving the news was shown by the omission in a letter to Lord George Germaine of the mention of the hour and minute of his writing, an observance he never omitted. "I have received, with sentiments of the deepest concern, the communication which Lord George Germaine has made me, of the unfortunate result of the operations in Virginia," he wrote. "I particularly lament it, on account of the consequences connected with it, and the difficulties which it may produce in carrying on the public business, or in repairing such a misfortune. But I trust that neither Lord George Germaine, nor any member of the Cabinet, will suppose, that it makes the smallest alteration in those principles of my conduct which have directed me in past time, and which will always continue to animate me under every event, in the prosecution of the present contest."[190]
[188] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
[189] _Correspondence of George III with Lord North._
[190] Wraxall: _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times_.
"The aspect of affairs at the close of 1780 might indeed well have appalled an English statesman. Perfectly isolated in the world, England was confronted by the united arms of France, Spain, Holland, and America; while the Northern league threatened her, if not with another war, at least with the annihilation of the most powerful weapon of offence. At the same time, in Hindostan Hyder Ali was desolating the Carnatic and menacing Madras; and in Ireland the connexion was strained to its utmost limit, and all real power had pa.s.sed into the hands of a volunteer force which was perfectly independent of the Government, and firmly resolved to remodel the const.i.tution. At home there was no statesman in whom the country had any real confidence, and the whole ministry was weak, discredited and faint-hearted. Twelve millions had been added this year to the national debt, and the element of disorder was so strong that London itself had been for some days at the mercy of the mob."[191] But while George III insisted upon prosecuting the war--he had by his firmness broken up the Whig phalanx, was it conceivable that he should give way to the colonists?--and North, in spite of his better judgment supported him,[192] the Opposition, was every day gathering fresh adherents. "A sense of past error, and a conviction that the American war might terminate in further destruction to our armies, began from this time rapidly to insinuate itself into the minds of men. Their discourse was quite changed, though the majorities in Parliament were still quite ready to support the American War, while all the world was representing it to be the height of madness and folly."[193] "To-morrow," Selwyn wrote on June 11, 1781, to Lord Carlisle, "I find a motion is to come from Fox concerning America, to which he may, contrary to his expectation or wishes, find in the friends of Government an a.s.sent. People now seem by their discourse to despair more of that cause than ever. There has been wretched management, disgraceful politics, I am sure; where the princ.i.p.al blame is the Lord only knows; in many places, I am afraid."[194]
[191] Lecky: _History of England_.
[192] In November, 1779, Lord Gower resigned his office on the ground that the war "must end in ruin to his Majesty and the country"; and North, after informing the King that he had endeavoured to dissuade his colleague from leaving the ministry, added: "In the argument Lord North had certainly one disadvantage, which is that he holds in his heart, and has held for three years past, the same opinion with Lord Gower."
[193] Duke of Grafton: _Autobiography_.
[194] _George Selwyn: His Life and Letters._
Fox on June 12 moved that the House should resolve itself into a Committee to consider the American War, at the same time moving a further resolution that the Government should take every possible measure to conclude peace with the colonies. "The only objection made to my motion," he declared in the course of debate, "is that it must lead to American independence. But I venture to a.s.sert that _within six months of the present day_, ministers themselves will come forward to Parliament with some proposition of a similar nature. I know that such is their intention, I announce it to the House." The resolution was lost by 172 to 99; but the end was near."
"The attention of every one is confined to our situation in America,"
Anthony Storer wrote to Carlisle on November 26, 1781. "The Speech from the Throne contains the same resolution which appeared in times when we seemed to have a more favourable prospect of success, of continuing the war, and of claiming the aid of Parliament to support the rights of Great Britain." This was absurd and could not be countenanced. An address to the King moved by Conway on February 22, 1782, pet.i.tioning the King to stop the war, was only rejected by a single vote, and the Government were obliged to accept a resolution a.s.serting the hopelessness of reducing America; while on March 20, North antic.i.p.ated a motion for his dismissal by announcing his resignation.
Under ministers pledged to peace, even the King saw that hostilities could not be continued. Lord Rockingham began negotiations with the United States, and these were brought to a successful conclusion by Lord Shelburne. The treaty was signed in 1783, and the blow was the greatest ever sustained by the King. "I that am born a gentleman," he said to Thurlow, "shall never rest my head on my last pillow in peace and quiet, as long as I remember the loss of my American colonies."
George contrived, however, by his tactful reply to the address of John Adams, on the arrival of the latter as the first Amba.s.sador from the newly recognised United States to the Court of St. James"s, to regain his dignity and to impress his old enemy as well as his subjects with the sense of his majesty that he could always introduce on occasions of state. "Sir," said Adams, when presenting his credentials, "the United States have appointed me their minister plenipotentiary to your Majesty, and have directed me to deliver to your Majesty this letter, which contains the evidence of it. It is in obedience to their express commands that I have the honour to a.s.sure your Majesty of their unanimous disposition to cultivate the most friendly and liberal intercourse between your Majesty"s subjects and their citizens, and of their best wishes for your Majesty"s health and happiness, and for that of your royal family. The appointment of a minister from the United States to your Majesty"s Court will form an epoch in the history of England and America. I think myself more fortunate than all my fellow-citizens, in having the distinguished honour to stand in your Majesty"s royal presence in a diplomatic character, and I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I can be instrumental in recommending my country more and more to your Majesty"s royal benevolence, and of restoring an entire esteem, confidence, and affection, or, in better words, "the old good-nature and the good old humour," between people who, though separated by an ocean, and under different governments, have the same language, a similar religion, a kindred blood. I beg your Majesty"s permission to add that, although I have sometimes before been intrusted by my country, it was never in my whole life in a manner so agreeable to myself." To this George replied courteously, though the effort to be conciliatory must have cost him much: "Sir, the circ.u.mstances of this audience are so extraordinary, the language you have now held is so extremely proper, and the feelings you have discovered so justly adapted to the occasion, that I must say, that I not only receive with pleasure the a.s.surance of the friendly disposition of the United States, but that I am very glad the choice has fallen upon you to be their minister. I wish you, sir, to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do, by the duty which I owed to my people. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to conform to the separation; but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power. The moment I see such sentiment and language as yours prevail, and a disposition to give this country the preference, that moment, I shall say, let the circ.u.mstances of language, religion and blood, have their natural lawful effect."[195]
[195] Letter of John Adams to John Jay, American Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, June 9, 1783.
CHAPTER XX
CHARLES JAMES FOX AND WILLIAM PITT
Lord North had sent his resignation by messenger to Windsor on March 19, 1782, and George, who received the communication as he was going out hunting, sent back a verbal reply, "Tell him I shall be in town to-morrow morning and will then give an answer," after which he turned to the Duke of Dorset and Lord Hinchinbrook[196] and said calmly, "Lord North has sent in his resignation, but I shall not accept it." However, at the interview next day Lord North was firm, and nothing that the sovereign could say moved him from his purpose, for it was not only the adverse majority in the House of Commons which determined him, but the state of affairs in the colonies and abroad. "The nation, he knew well was universally weary of a war, the misfortunes which had attended which, though perhaps justly imputable to many other causes or persons, were attributed princ.i.p.ally to his errors of management. He beheld himself now engaged in hostilities, direct or indirect, with half Europe, in addition to America. Ireland, availing itself of our embarra.s.sments, loudly demanded commercial and political emanc.i.p.ation.
On every side, the Empire appeared crumbling into ruin. Minorca, long invested, had already surrendered, after a defence protracted to the last extremity. Gibraltar was closely besieged. In the East Indies, our difficulties, financial as well as military, threatened the total subversion of our wide extended authority in that quarter of the globe; where Hyder Ali, though expelled by Sir Eyre Coote from the vicinity of Madras, still maintained himself in the centre of the Carnatic. If the First Minister looked to the West Indies, the prospect appeared still more big with alarm. St. Christopher"s attacked by the Marquis de Bouille, might be hourly expected to surrender; and he had already recaptured St. Eustatius, either by surprise, or by corrupting the officer who commanded the garrison. Of all the chain of Caribee Islands which had belonged to the Crown of Great Britain at the commencement of the war, only Antigua and Barbadoes remained."[197]