Part 3 (2/2)
CHAPTER VI
BRITISH PARTIES AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1778-1783
When the news of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown reached England, it was recognized by Whigs and Tories alike that the time had come to admit the failure of the war. The loss of 7,000 troops was not in itself a severe blow, at a time when England had over 200,000 men under arms in various parts of the world; but it actually marked the breakdown of the American campaign, and, what was still more significant, the political bankruptcy of the North Ministry. Ever since 1778, the tide had been rising against the royal policy. At first, when the French war began, the nation rallied against the ancient foe and there was some enthusiasm displayed in recruiting and furnis.h.i.+ng supplies; but, as general after general returned from America--first Burgoyne, then Howe and his brother, the admiral,--to rise in Parliament and denounce the administrative incompetence which had foiled their efforts; as month after month pa.s.sed and no victory either in America or Europe came to cheer the public; worst of all, when, in 1779, and again in 1780, combined French and Spanish fleets swept the Channel {115} in overpowering numbers, driving the English fleet into Torbay harbour--the war spirit dwindled, and bitter criticism took its place.
The Whig Opposition, no longer hampered by having the defence of the revolted colonists as their sole issue, denounced in unmeasured language the incompetence, corruption, and despotism of the North Ministry, singling out Sandwich, at the Admiralty, and Germaine, Secretary for the Colonies, as objects for especial invective. Party hatred festered in army and navy, Whig and Tory admirals distrusting each other and engaging in bitter quarrels, Whig and Tory generals criticizing one another's plans and motives. On his part, Lord North felt, as early as 1779, that his task was hopeless, and sought repeatedly to resign; but in spite of secessions from the Ministry, in spite of defeats and humiliations such as the control by the allies of the Channel, nothing could shake George's determination. He would never consent to abandon the colonies or permit North to surrender to the detested Whigs.
In 1780, the Opposition, led by Fox and Burke, began to direct its fire at the King himself; and finally, in March of that year, they had the satisfaction of carrying in the Commons, by votes of men who once had been on the administration side, a resolution to the effect that ”the power of the Crown {116} has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.” This was carried, by 283 votes to 215, in a House where four years before the total Opposition mustered only a hundred.
Measures to cut down sinecures, to limit the secret service fund, to take away opportunities for royal corruption, were introduced by Burke and, although defeated, drew large votes.
The tenacious politician who wore the crown was not yet beaten. In the summer of 1780, the disgraceful Gordon riots broke out in London; and the King, by his courageous personal bearing and bold direction of affairs, won momentary prestige. The news from America, moreover, was brighter than for a long time, and the British defence of Gibraltar was unshaken. Suddenly dissolving Parliament, the King employed every resource of influence or pressure, and managed to secure once more a majority in the House of Commons. During the year 1781, the North Ministry breathed more freely, and was able to repel Whig attacks by safe majorities. But the respite was short.
In the winter session of 1782, the news of Yorktown shook the Ministry to its centre, and on top of that came the reports of the surrender of Minorca, St. Kitts, and Nevis. Held together only by the inflexible determination of George III never to yield American {117} independence or ”stoop to opposition,” the Ministers fought bitterly though despairingly against a succession of Whig motions, censuring the Admiralty, demanding the withdrawal of the troops, and finally censuring the Ministry. Majorities dwindled as rats began to leave the sinking s.h.i.+p. On March 8, North escaped censure by ten votes only.
The King made repeated efforts to induce members of the Opposition to come into some sort of coalition, but the hatred was too fierce, the divergence of principle too wide. Rockingham would accept only absolute surrender. On March 15, a resolution of want of confidence was lost by nine only.
Five days later, in face of a renewed motion of the same kind, North announced his resignation. The end had come. The system of George III had broken down, ruined by the weaknesses of the Tory Cabinet in administration, in war, and in diplomacy, the most disastrous Ministry in the history of England. There was no possible doubt as to the significance of the collapse, for Lord Rockingham took office with a Whig Cabinet, containing Shelburne and Fox, steadfast friends of America, as Secretaries of State, and with the avowed purpose of conceding independence to the former colonies, while maintaining the contest with Spain and France.
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Interest now s.h.i.+fted from the battlefield to the regions of diplomacy, where the situation was complicated and delicate, owing to the unusual relations of the parties involved. The United States and France were in alliance, each pledged not to make a separate peace. Spain was in alliance with France for the purpose of recovering Gibraltar, Minorca, and Florida, but was not in any alliance with the United States. The French government, tied thus to two allies, recognized the possible contingency of diverging interests between Spain and the United States, and exerted all the influence it could to keep diplomatic control in its own hands. This it accomplished through its representatives in America, especially de la Luzerne, who wielded an immense prestige with the members of the Continental Congress, not only through his position as representative of the power whose military, naval, and financial aid was absolutely indispensable, but also by means of personal intrigues of a type hitherto more familiar in European courts than in simple America. Under his direction, Congress authorized its European representatives, Franklin, Jay, and Adams, accredited to France, Spain, and the Netherlands respectively, to act as peace commissioners and to be guided in all things by the advice and consent of the French Minister, {119} Vergennes. Their instructions designated boundaries, indemnity for ravages and for the taking of slaves, and a possible cession of Canada, but all were made subject to French approval. When, accordingly, in 1781, both Shelburne and Fox of the Rockingham Ministry sought to open negotiations with the American representatives, while pus.h.i.+ng on vigorously the war against France and Spain, they interjected an embarra.s.sing element into the situation. Vergennes could not prohibit American negotiation, but he relied upon the instructions of the commissioners to enable him to prevent the making of any separate peace, contrary to the treaty of 1778.
The first steps were taken by Franklin and Shelburne, who opened unofficial negotiations through Richard Oswald, a friend of America.
It seems to have been Shelburne's plan to avoid the preliminary concession of independence, hoping to retain some form of connection between America and England, or at least to use independence as a make-weight in the negotiations. Hence Oswald, his agent, was not commissioned to deal with the United States as such. Fox, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, felt, on the other hand, that the negotiation belonged to his field, and he sent Thomas Grenville to Paris, authorized to deal with France {120} and, indirectly, with the United States. Over this difference in the Cabinet, and over other matters, an acute personal rivalry developed between Fox and Shelburne, which culminated when Rockingham died in July, 1782. George III, who much preferred Shelburne to Fox, asked him to form a Ministry, and upon his acceptance Fox, absolutely refusing to serve under him, withdrew from the Cabinet, carrying his friends with him. Thus the triumphant Whig party was split within a few months after its victory. The whole responsibility now rested on Shelburne.
Meanwhile, a new situation had developed in Paris, for Jay and Adams, the other two commissioners, had brought about a change in the American policy. Franklin, deeply indebted to the French court and on the best of terms with Vergennes, was willing to credit him with good intentions and was ready to accept his advice to negotiate with England under the vague terms of Oswald's commission; but Jay, who had had a mortifying experience in Spain, suspected treachery and insisted that England must, in opening negotiations, fully recognize American independence.
He was sure that Spain would gladly see the United States shut in to the Atlantic coast away from Spanish territory, and he felt certain {121} that Vergennes was under Spanish influence. Adams, who knew nothing of Spain, but distrusted the French on general principles, sided with Jay; and Franklin, submitting to his colleagues, agreed to a curious diplomatic manoeuvre. Jay sent to Shelburne a secret message, urging him to deal separately with the United States under a proper commission and not seek to play into the hands of Spain and France. He knew that a French emissary had visited Shelburne, and he dreaded French double-dealing, especially on the question of boundaries and fishery rights.
The British Prime Minister was in the odd position of being appealed to by one of the three hostile powers to save it from the other two; but underlying the situation was the fact that Shelburne, as a Whig since the beginning of the American quarrel, was committed to a friendly policy toward America. He knew, moreover, that when Parliament should meet he must expect trouble from Fox and the dissatisfied Whigs, as well as the Tories, and he was anxious to secure a treaty as soon as possible. So yielding, on September 27, he gave Oswald the required commission, but, suspecting that he was rather too complaisant, sent Henry Strachey to a.s.sist him. During the summer, Franklin and Oswald, in informal {122} discussions, had already eliminated various matters, so that when negotiations formally opened it took not over five weeks to agree upon a draft treaty.
During all this time the Americans violated their instructions by failing to consult Vergennes. Here Franklin was again overruled by Jay and Adams, whose antipathy to French and Spanish influence was insuperable. It does not appear that Vergennes had any definite intention to work against American boundaries or fishery rights; but there can be no doubt that Rayneval and Marbois, two of his agents, committed themselves openly in a sense unfavourable to American claims, and it is likely that, had the negotiations taken place under his control, the outcome would have been delayed in every way in order to allow France to keep its contract with Spain, whose attacks on Gibraltar were pushed all through the summer. As it was, the negotiators managed to agree on a treaty of peace which reflected the Whig principles of Shelburne and the skill and pertinacity of the three Americans. Little trouble was encountered over boundaries, Shelburne ceding everything east of the Mississippi and north of Florida, and designating as a boundary between the United States and Canada in part the same line as that in the Proclamation of 1763, from the {123} St.
Croix River to the eastward of Maine, to the Great Lakes and thence westward by a system of waterways to the headwaters of the Mississippi.
At the especial urgence of Adams, whose Ma.s.sachusetts const.i.tuents drew much of their wealth from the Newfoundland fisheries, the right of continuing this pursuit was comprised in the treaty, together with the right to land and dry fish on unoccupied territories in Labrador and Nova Scotia. As a possible make-weight, the navigation of the Mississippi was guaranteed to citizens of both the United States and Great Britain.
The chief difficulty arose over the question of the treatment of American loyalists and the payment of British debts which had been confiscated in every colony. Shelburne insisted that there must be restoration of civil rights, compensation for damages, and a pledge against any future confiscations or disfranchis.e.m.e.nts for loyalists, and also demanded a provision for the payment of all debts due to British creditors. Here the negotiation hung in a long deadlock, for Franklin, Adams, and Jay were unanimously determined to concede no compensation for individuals whom they hated as traitors; while the British negotiators felt bound in honour not to abandon the men who had lost all and suffered every indignity and {124} humiliation as a penalty for their loyalty. At length, progress was made when Adams suggested that the question of British debts be separated from that of Tory compensation; so a clause was agreed upon guaranteeing the full payment of bona fide debts heretofore contracted.
Finally, after Franklin had raised a counter-claim for damages due to what he called the ”inhuman burnings” of the British raids since 1778, it was agreed to insert a clause against any future confiscations or prosecutions of loyalists and to add that Congress should ”earnestly recommend” to the States the restoration of loyalists' estates and the repealing of all laws against them. At the time the commissioners drew up this article, they must have known that the Congress of the United States had no power to enforce the treaty, and that any such recommendations, however ”earnest,” would carry no weight with the thirteen communities controlled by embittered rebels, who remembered every Tory, alive or dead, with execration. Nevertheless, it offered a way of escape, and the British representative signed, on November 30, 1782. The great contest was at an end.
When Franklin revealed to Vergennes that, unknown to the French court, the American commissioners had agreed on a {125} draft treaty, the French minister was somewhat indignant at the trick, and communicated his displeasure to his agent in America. This induced the easily worried Congress to instruct Livingston, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to write a letter censuring the commissioners; but, although Jay and Adams were hotly indignant at such servility, the matter ended then and there. Vergennes's displeasure was momentary, and the French policy continued as before. The European war was, in fact, wearing to its end. Already, in April, 1782, Admiral Rodney had inflicted a sharp defeat on De Gra.s.se, capturing five of his vessels, including the flags.h.i.+p with the admiral himself. This, together with the extreme inefficiency of the Spanish fleet, put an end to the hope of further French gains in the West Indies. Before Gibraltar, also, the allied fleet of forty-eight vessels did not dare to risk a general engagement with a British relieving fleet of thirty, and when in September, 1782, a final bombardment was attempted, the batteries from the fort proved too strong for their a.s.sailants. The allies felt that they had accomplished all they could hope to, and agreed to terms of peace on January 20, 1783. France gained little beyond sundry West India Islands, but Spain profited to the extent of {126} regaining Minorca and also Florida. It was at best a defeat for England, and the Whig Ministry, which carried it through, was unable to prevent such an outcome.
The American peace was made the pretext for Shelburne's fall, since a coalition of dissatisfied Whigs and Tories united in March, 1783, to censure it, thereby turning out the Ministry. But, although Fox regained control of diplomatic matters and made some slight moves toward reopening negotiations, he had no serious intention of disturbing Shelburne's work, and the provisional treaty was made definitive on September 3, 1783--the day on which the French treaty was signed. Thus the Americans technically kept to the terms of their alliance with France in agreeing not to make a separate peace, but as a matter of fact hostilities had entirely ceased in America since January, 1783, and practically since the fall of the North Ministry.
The British had remained quietly in New York and Charleston, withdrawing from all other points, and Was.h.i.+ngton with his small army stood at Newburg-on-the-Hudson. In October, 1783, the last British withdrew, taking with them into exile thousands of Tories who did not dare to remain to test the value of the clauses in the treaty of peace intended to protect them. So the last traces of the long contest disappeared, {127} and the United States entered upon its career.
The treaty, as must have been foreseen by the commissioners themselves, remained a dead letter so far as the Tories were concerned. Congress performed its part and gave the promised recommendation, but the States paid no heed. The loyalists were not restored to civil or property rights. The plain provision of the treaty prohibiting further legislation against loyalists was defied in several States, and additional disqualifications were placed upon those who dared to remain in the country. The provision regarding the payment of debts remained unfulfilled, since there was no mechanism provided in the treaty through which the article could be enforced. Only from the British government could the Tories receive any recompense for their sufferings, and there they were in part relieved. Very many received grants of land in Canada, where they formed a considerable part of the population in several districts. More went to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to receive similar grants. Others spent their days in England as unhappy pensioners, forgotten victims of a war which all Englishmen sought to bury in oblivion. Those who remained in the United States ultimately regained standing and fared better than the exiles, but not until new {128} domestic issues had arisen to obliterate the memory of revolutionary antagonisms.
With the Treaty of 1782, the mother country and the former colonies definitely started on separate paths, recognizing the fundamental differences which for fifty years had made harmonious co-operation impossible. England remained as before, aristocratic in social structure, oligarchic in government, military and naval in temper--a land of strongly fixed standards of religious and political life, a country where society looked to a narrow circle for leaders.h.i.+p. Its commercial and economic ideals, unaltered by defeat, persisted to guide national policy in peace and war for two more generations. The sole result of the war for England was to render impossible in future any such perversion of Cabinet government as that which George III, by intimidation, fraud, and political management, had succeeded for a decade in establis.h.i.+ng. Never again would the country tolerate royal dictation of policies and leaders. England became what it had been before 1770, a country where parliamentary groups and leaders bore the responsibility and gained the glory or discredit, while the outside public approved or protested without seeking in any other manner to control the destinies of the State. While the English thus sullenly fell back into their {129} accustomed habits, the former Colonies, now relieved from the old-time subordination, were turned adrift to solve problems of a wholly different sort.
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