Adams's Works , iii. 87. Hildreth, iii. 147.
Galloway's Examination , pp. 17, 18.
The good conduct ascribed to the British soldiers is not borne out by other authorities. Washington speaks of the devastations and robberies in New Jersey as equally the work of the British and the Hessians, and he notices that at Princeton, where some very scandalous acts were perpetrated, there were no German soldiers. (Washington's Works , iv. 255, 268, 309, 310.) Galloway, who had particularly good means of ascertaining the truth, also ascribes the outrages indifferently to both nations. ( Examination before the House of Commons , pp. 39, 40.) Judge Jones, in his loyalist Hist. of New York (i. 114), speaking of the plunderings by the British army near that city, says: ‘The Hessians bore the blame at first, but the British were equally alert.’ Jones notices, however, that the army under General Carleton was honourably distinguished for its good conduct (ibid. 90, 91).
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 233–246.
See Stedman, i. 220–223.
Jones's History of New York , i. 124–128.
Washington's Works , iv. 244.
Ibid. pp. 247–252.
Ibid. 249, 251.
Washington's Works , iv. 254, 255.
Ibid. 256.
Jones's History of New York , i. 136, 137.
Annual Register , 1777, p. 13. After this time,’ says the same writer, ‘every load of forage that did not come from New York was sought or purchased at the price of blood.’—Ibid. p. 21.
See Galloway's Examination , pp. 23, 65.
Washington's Works , iv. 111, 139 140, 269. Mr. Kinglake observes that ‘social difference between the officers and the common soldiers is the best contrivance hitherto discovered for intercepting the spread of a panic or any other bewildering impulse ‘through an army.— Hist. of the Crimean War , i. 807.
He says: ‘I never opposed the raising of men during the war. …. but I contended that I knew the number to be obtained in this manner would be very small in New England, from whence almost the whole army was derived. A regiment might possibly be obtained of the meanest, idlest, most intemperate, and worthless, but no more. …. Was it credible that men who could get at home better living, more comfortable lodgings, more than double wages in safety, not exposed to the sicknesses of the camp, would bind themselves during the war? … In the middle States, where they immported from Ireland and Germany so many transported convicts and redemptioners, it was possible they might obtain some.’—Adams's Works , iii. 48.
Hildreth, iii. 164, 166. Washington's Works , i. 205–207, 225.
Galloway's Examination , pp. 18, 19.
Galloway's Examination , p. 11. The editor of this Examination says: ‘In no colony where these delegates were not appointed by the Assemblies, which were in four only, were they chosen by one-twentieth part of the people.’
Story On the Constitution , book ii. ch. i.
Ibid. book ii. ch. ii.
Bolles's Financial Hist. of the United States , pp. 195–197.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , iii. 16, 18.
Bolles's Financial Hist. of the United States , pp. 34, 45, 46.
Bolles's Financial History of the United States , pp. 56, 57.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 239.
Ramsay's History of the American Revolution , ii. 129.
Quoted in Bolles's Financial History of the United States , p. 159. Many details about the prices of the chief articles of consumption will be found in that very charming book, Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife during the Revolution .
See a full history of this Subject in Bolles's Financial History of the United States , pp. 158–173.
Ramsay.
Jones's History of New York , ii. 324.
Noah Webster's Essays , p. 105.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 375. See, too, on the speculations by officers, Bolles , p. 118.
Washington's Works , vi. 210.
Oct. 4, 1779, Franklin wrote: ‘The extravagant luxury of our country in the midst of all its distresses is to me amazing.’—American Diplomatic Correspondence , iii. 116. Chastellux, in his Travels in North America , gives a vivid picture of the luxury at Philadelphia. Mr. Bolles (to whose excellent work I am indebted for most of these quotations), cites the striking description given by a modern American writer: ‘Speculation ran riot. Every form of wastefulness and extravagance prevailed in town and country, nowhere more than at Philadelphia, under the very eyes of Congress; luxury of dress, luxury of equipage, luxury of the table. We are told of one entertainment at which 800 l. was spent in pastry. As I read the private letters of those days I sometimes feel as a man might feel if permitted to look down upon a foundering ship whose crew were preparing for death by breaking open the steward's room, and drinking themselves into madness. … The moral sense of the people had contracted a deadly taint. The spirit of gambling … was undermining the foundations of society.’—Greene's Historical View of the American Revolution.
See Bancroft's History of the American Revolution.
See this memoir in Turgot's Works , viii. (ed. 1809).
Flassan, Hist. de la Diplomatie Française , vi. 143, 144.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 131.
Ibid. pp. 37, 69, 92, 93.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 273, 341.
Ibid. p. 273.
See the full details of these proceedings in the very curious letters of Franklin and Deane, American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 272, 273, 311, 313, 319, 320, 322, 341, 371. Correspondence of George III. with Lord North , ii. 68, 69. On the repeated assurances given by the French, both in Paris and through their ambassador in London, of their pacific intentions, see Adolphus's Hist. of England , ii. 309, 429, 439.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 321.
Ibid. pp. 278, 281.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 92, 93, 275.
Ibid. pp. 65, 92, 93.
The famous line, ‘Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis,’ was perhaps suggested by a passage in Manilius:
According to Condorcet ( Vie de Turgot ), Turgot wrote: ‘Eripuit cœlo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis.’
Some curious particulars about Franklin's French life will be found in a very able article on Franklin in M. Philarète Chasles' Le Dix-huitième Siècle en Angleterre.
Rocquain, L'Esprit Revolutionnaire avant la Revolution , pp. 370, 371; Memoires de La-fayette , i. 50.
‘Dites-moi de bonnes nou-velles de nos bons Américains, de nos chers républicains.’ This was told by Lafayette to Augustin Thierry. See Circourt, Action commune de la France et de l'Amérique , i. 171. Paine, many years later, wrote: ‘It is both justice and gratitude to say that it was the Queen of France who gave the cause of America a fashion at the French Court.’— Rights of Man .
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 29, 30.
Familiar Letters of J. Adams and his Wife , p. 350.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 71, 93, 276.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 71–73, 76, 97, 98, 295, 296. The lives of Steuben and of Kalb have been written in German by Kapp, and in English by Greene (G. W.), in his interesting little book on The German Element in the War of Independence.
See, on these difficulties, American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 336, 337, 346–349. Washington's Works , iv. 327–329, 419–425, 450–452; v. 32–35.
Sparks's Life of Washington. Count Fersen, however, who had interviews with Washington in Oct. 1780, says he neither spoke nor understood French.— Lettres du Comte Fersen , i. 40, 41.
Familiar Letters , p. 136.
Greene's Historical View of the American Revolution , p. 283.
Washington's Works , iv. 301, 340, 352.
Ramsay, ii. 1, 2. See, too, the Cornwallis Correspondence , i. 29.
Washington's Works , iv. 337–339. The stealing of guns continued to be a great evil in the American army. In July 1777 Washington again complains of their rarity, though the importation of arms far exceeded the number of troops raised to make use of them. Ibid. p. 477.
Ibid. pp. 339, 340. About a fortnight later, he wrote that the numbers ‘fit for duty’ were under 3,000, of whom all but 981 were militia, whose term of service would expire in about a fortnight. Ibid. p. 364.
Ibid. pp. 375, 376.
Ibid. p. 387.
Washington's Works , iv. 447.
Ibid. pp. 378.
Familiar Letters , p. 276.
Galloway's Examination , pp. 18, 19.
Hildreth, iii. 189.
Hildreth, iii. 190.
Adams writes (March 31, 1777): ‘We have reports here not very favourable to the town of Boston. It is said that dissipation prevails, and that Toryism abounds and is openly avowed at the coffee-houses.’— Familiar Letters , p. 252. His wife answered: ‘If it is not Toryism, it is a spirit of avarice and contempt of authority, an inordinate love of gain, that prevails not only in town but everywhere I look or hear from.’—Ibid. p. 261.
Jones's History of New York , i. 197.
Ramsay, ii. 8, 9.
Washington's Works , iv. 360.
Washington's Works , v. 96, 146. Hildreth, iii. 217.
Washington's Works , v. 69, 198.
Ibid.pp. 187, 197–199. Galloway's Examination , pp. 25–27.
Life of Joseph Reed , i. 359.
Mém. de Lafayette , i. 16.
Washington's Works , v. 71.
Washington's Works , v. 193, 197, 199.
Ibid. p. 329. See, too, the Mém. de Lafayette , i. 22.
Washington's Works , v. 239.
Ibid. p. 201.
Galloway's Examination , pp. 19, 20.
Ramsay, Stedman, Hildreth.
Ramsay, pp. 11, 38.
An attempt has been made in America, supported by the authority of Mr. Bancroft, to prove that Arnold was not actively engaged on this day. Mr. Isaac Arnold, however, the recent biographer of Benedict Arnold, appears to have established beyond dispute that this is a mistake, and that on this, as on all other occasions, Benedict Arnold showed himself an excellent soldier. See the Life of Benedict Arnold and a considerable amount of additional evidence in a pamphlet called Benedict Arnold at Saratoga (reprinted from the United Service , Sept. 1880), by Isaac N. Arnold. See, too, Stedman's very full account of the campaign.
See the Minutes of the Council of War, Oct. 13, in Burgoyne's State of the Expedition from Canada.
Burke's Correspondence , ii. 145, 146.
Miscellaneous Works , ii. 210.
Correspondence of George III. and Lord North , ii. 83, 84. See, too, pp. 98, 106, and Walpole's Last Journals , ii. 178.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , i, 355–357.
See his confession in Howell's State Trials , xx. 1365.
Albemarle's Life of Rockingham , ii. 305.
Burke's Works , ix. 152, 153. So the Duke of Grafton writes: ‘The majority, both in and out of Parliament, continued in a blind support of the measures of Administration. Even the great disgrace and total surrender of General Burgoyne's army at Saratoga was not sufficient to awaken them from their follies.’— MS. Autobiography.
Burke's Correspondence , ii. 118.
Correspondence of George III. with Lord North , ii. 40.
Fox's Correspondence , i. 169–171.
See Burke's Works , iii. 176, 178.
Fox's Correspondence , ii. 145, 147.
Parl. Hist. xviii. 1430.
Walpole's Last Journals , ii. 170, 171. Correspondence of George III. with Lord North , ii. 95.
Adolphus, ii. 265–267.
Ibid. pp. 504, 505.
Ibid. pp. 509–515.
See Parl. Hist. xix. 620, 622. He said ‘that Scotland and Manchester were so accustomed to disgrace that it was no wonder if they pocketed instances of dishonour and sat down contented with infamy.’
Wraxall's Memoirs , ii. 2. There is a long discussion on the origin of the Whig colours in the Stanhope Miscellanies , pp. 116–122, but it leaves the question in great uncertainty. Sparks thought that the Americans adopted the uniform from the Whigs, but it appears to have been worn in America from the very beginning of the contest. Jones speaks of a soldier who, ‘dressed in buff and blue, afterwards joined Montgomery in Canada, was wounded and taken prisoner at Quebec.’— Hist. of New York , ii. 343.
Wraxall's Memoirs , i. 470, 471.
Parl. Hist. xxii. 1176. Burke was the warmest eulogist of Franklin and Laurens.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , ii. 222, 224.
See a poem called The Muse Recalled ; Jones continued:—
Lady Minto's Life of Sir Gilbert Elliot , i. 74, 76, 77.
Correspondence of George III. with Lord North , i. 274, ii. 84. See, too, Bancroft's History of the United States , ix. 321, and also a paper, ‘On the Conduct of the War from Canada,’ copied from the handwriting of the King, in Albemarle's Life of Rockingham , ii. 330–332.
See Nichols's Recollections of George III. i. 35.
See Fox's Correspondence , i. 212.
Correspondence of George III. with Lord North , ii. 118, 125, 126.
See a remarkable letter of Gibbon (Dec. 2, 1777). A month previously the Duke of Richmond had written: ‘I will say, too, that the people begin to feel the continuance of the war, the losses, the taxes, the load of debt, the want of money, and the impossibility of such success as to reestablish a permanent tranquillity.’—Albemarle's Life of Rockingham , ii. 318. Sir George Savile, however, thought that in November the people were still on the side of the war. Ibid. p. 322.
Chatham Correspondence , iv. 452.
Chatham Correspondence , iv. 454, 455, 457.
Parl. Hist. xix. 617.
18 Geo. III. c. xi. xii. xiii.
Annual Register 1778.
Compare Chatham Correspondence , iv. 493–506, 511, 512; Albemarle's Life of Rockingham , i. 348–351.
Fox's Correspondence , i. 188, 189; Correspondence of George III. with Lord North , ii. 149, 153.
Correspondence of George III. with Lord North , ii. 151, 154, 156.
Russell's Life of Fox , iii. 330–332, 349.
Correspondence of George III. with Lord North , ii. 171, 184–186.
Albemarle's Life of Rockingham , ii. 356, 357. In a letter written immediately after the fit of Chatham, which Lord Stanhope prints from the Grafton papers, Camden speaks somewhat more feelingly on the subject. See, too, the Chatham Correspondence , iv. 519–528.
Buckingham to Weymouth (Private), March 29, 1778.—MSS., Record Office.
See Walpole's Last Journals , ii. 232, 233.
See Lady Minto's Life of Hugh Elliot , pp. 142–145.
See a curious paper by Eden describing a secret negotiation he carried on with the Opposition as agent of the Government in March 1778,—Fox's Correspondence , i. 180–183.
Ibid. i. 206–223.
Many curious particulars about the Mischianza will be found in Arnold's Life of Benedict Arnold , pp. 224–227, and Jones's Hist. of New York , i. 241–251, 716–720. A pen-and-ink sketch of Miss Shippen in the Mischianza, drawn by André, is still preserved. The editor of Jones's History has preserved a remarkably pretty poem by a Philadelphian lady describing the charm of the English occupation of that town. Some interesting letters describing Philadelphia in the summer of 1778, written by Eden the Commissioner and by his wife, will be found in Lady Minto's Life of Hugh Elliot , pp. 173–178. Mrs. Eden writes: ‘I found the account we had heard of so much apparent distress in the town perfectly false; indeed it is quite impossible to believe by the people's faces and the extreme quietness of the town, that you are not in a city perfectly at peace and at ease. As to security, I feel quite as safe here as if I was in my own dressingroom in Downing Street,’ p. 176.
Ibid. p. 177.
The deep disappointment of Washington appears clearly in his letter to his brother. ‘An unfortunate storm (so it appeared, and yet ultimately it may have happened for the best), and some measures taken in consequence of it by the French admiral, perhaps unavoidably blasted in one moment the fairest hopes that ever were conceived, and from a moral certainty of success rendered it a matter of rejoicing, to get our own troops safe off the island. If the garrison of that place, consisting of nearly 6,000 men, had been captured, as there was in appearance at least a hundred to one in favour of it, it would have given the finishing blow to British pretensions of sovereignty over this country.’—Washington's Works , vi. 68, 69.
Walpole's Last Journals , ii. 289–292.
Hildreth, iii. 241.
Washington's Works , v. 305, 312, 313, 322, 323, 328, 351; vi. 168.
Hildreth, iii. 245.
See Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in the American Army , by George H. Moore.
Ramsay, ii. 56, 57; Stedman, ii. 56, 57. That excellent and most impartial American historian, Mr. Hildreth, has related the circumstances of this transaction with a severe and simple truthfulness (History of the United States , iii. 237, 255, 256), which is much more honourable to his countrymen than the laboured apologies of Mr. Bancroft.
Washington's Works , v. 287, 346, 347.
Stedman, ii. 60, 61.
See Moore's Diary of the American War, passim. American Diplomatic Correspondence , i. 500–507; iii. 107, 127, 128. Adam's Familiar Letters , pp. 258, 259, 266.
See Washington's Works , i. 240, 241; iv. 380–386, 557–559.
Ibid. v. 308, 309.
Parl. Hist. xxii. 220.
American Diplomatic Correspondence , iii. 78.
Ibid. pp. 67, 68. It must be admitted, however, that as early as 1777 both Franklin and Deane had given their full approbation to projects that were entertained of burning and plundering Liverpool and Glasgow (ibid. i. 92, 298). I have already noticed the American proposals for burning New York and desolating the surrounding country (supra , pp. 356, 357), and Lee strongly recommended the burning of Philadelphia in 1776. (Moore's Treason of Charles Lee , p. 69.) Washington contemplated burning Newport, the capital of Rhode Island (Washington's Works , vi. 373), but this was in order to dislodge an English army, and he was never guilty of such depredations as those perpetrated by the English in Connecticut and Virginia. In 1779 Congress ordered the marine committee to take measures for burning and destroying towns belonging to the enemy in Great Britain and the West Indies as a measure of retaliation, but this order was never carried into effect (Adolphus, iii. 59). Lord Cornwallis asserts that the Americans treated their prisoners in S. Carolina with an ‘inhumanity scarcely credible,’ and that several were barbarously murdered (Cornwallis, Correspondence , i. 67, 71), but these appear to have been loyalists.
Washington's Works , vi. 15, 47.
Washington's Works , pp. 106–110.
‘Lea députés du Congrès avaient proposé an roi de prendre l'engagement de favoriser la conquête que les Américains entreprendraient du Canada, de la Nouvelle-Ecosse et des Florides, et il y a lieu de croire que le projet tient fort à cœur au Congrès. Mais le roi a considéré que la possession de ces trois contrées, ou au moins du Canada, par l'Angleterre, serait un prin cipe utile d'inquiétude et de vigilance pour les Américains, qui leur fera sentir davantage tout le besoin qu'ils ont de l'alliance et de l'amitié du roi; il n'est pas de son intérêt de le détruire.’ See the instructions to Gerard in Circourt's translation of Bancroft, De l'action commune de la France et de ‘Amérique , iii. 259, See, too, pp. 307, 311, 312.
A certain Captain Blankett, from the Victory (May 31, 1778), forwarded to Shelburne an abstract of an intercepted letter of a French engineer giving his impressions of the state of things at this time prevailing in America. He thought that the Americans owed their success much more to English blunders than to themselves, and that if Howe had followed up his victory at Brandywine, the whole American army would have been dispersed. ‘Each State,’ he writes, ‘is jealous of the other. The spirit of enthusiasm in defence of liberty does not exist among them; there is more of it for the support of America in one coffee-house in Paris than is to be found in the whole continent. The Americans are averse to war from a habit of indolence and equality. Their antipathy to the French is very great.’— Lansdowne Papers, British Museum, Add. MSS. 24131, p. 29. There is an admirably impartial and powerful summary of the arguments of the ministers to show that America must soon collapse, in the Annual Register , 1779, p. 106.
Washington's Works , v. 359.
See Bolles's Financial History , pp. 193–198.
Washington's Works , vi. 80.
Adams's Familiar Letters , p. 361.
Washington's Works , vi. 91.
Ibid. p. 151. The evil was not confined to the Americans at home. Adams writing from Passy says: ‘The delirium among Americans here is the most extravagant. All the infernal arts of stockjobbing, all the voracious avarice of merchants have mingled themselves with American politics here.’— Familiar Letters , p. 356.
‘C'est gratuitement qu'on voit dans le peuple nouveau une race de conquérants. … Malgré le grand attachement que le peuple et même les chefs témoignent pour leur indépendence, je souhaite que leur constance ne les abandonne pas avant qu'ils en aient obtenu la reconnaissance. Je commence à n'avoir plus une si grande opinion de leur fermeté, parce que celle que j'avais de leurs talents, de leurs vues et de leur amour patriotique s'affaiblit à mesure que je m'éclaire.’ ‘Leur république, s'ils n'en corrigent pas les vices, ce qui me paraît très difficile … ne sera jamais qu'un corps faible et susceptible de bien peu d'activité. Si les Anglais en avaient mis davantage, ce colosse apparent serait actuellement plus soumis qu'il ne l'avait jamais été. Dieu fasse que cela n'arrive pas encore. Je vous avoue que je n'ai qu'une faible confiance dans l'énergie des Etats-Unis.’—Circourt, iii. 312–314.
The following very emphatic passage is from a letter of Washington from Philadelphia, Dec. 30, 1778: ‘If I were called upon to draw a picture of the times and of men from what I have seen, heard, and in part know, I should in one word say that idleness, dissipation, and extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of most of them; that speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to have got the better of every other consideration and almost of every order of men; that party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a great and accumulating debt. ruined finances, depreciated money and want of credit, which in its consequences is the want of everything, are but secondary considerations and postponed from day to day, from week to week, as if our affairs wore the most promising aspect. … Our money is now sinking 50 per cent. a day in this city, and I shall not be surprised if in the course of a few months a total stop is put to the currency of it; and yet an assembly, a concert, a dinner, or supper, will not only take men off from acting in this business, but even from thinking of it; while a great part of the officers of our army from absolute necessity are quitting the service, and the more virtuous few, rather than do this, are sinking by sure degrees into beggary and want.’—Washington's Works , vi. 151, 152.