Prelude to Glory, Vol. 7

by Ron Carter

  North gaped. Benedict Arnold? A private conference with the King? North settled as the King continued.

  “General Arnold has proposed a plan that will bring the colonies to their knees. He informs me they are destitute. Bankrupt. Their troops are beginning to mutiny. Already Washington has been forced to put down one mutiny and execute the mutineers. Arnold correctly calculates that if we will maintain our present course in America, they will capitulate because they have no money to continue. The army will simply quit and go home. We can win in America if we will simply maintain a presence there. I want that message delivered to the Privy Council and the House.”

  The message fell on deaf ears. Benedict Arnold? Can a traitor be trusted?

  In despondency that approached depression, King George found himself with no other choice. To save any hope of retaining some modicum of respect from the Empire for the throne, he would have to compromise. Once again he summoned North.

  “You will meet immediately with the Secretaries for both the Northern and Southern Departments, Stormont and Hillsborough. Peace negotiations with the American colonies will fall on their shoulders should that necessity arise, and I must know their disposition toward granting America the full independence the rebels now demand.”

  North called both men to his private library and startled them with his calculated indecision. He presented himself in the posture of being morose about the direction the war had taken and horrified at the depletion of the country’s treasury. He opined that what little control England still held over the Americans was worthless, and he openly declared that the King was in total disagreement with him. He concluded by retreating into a wait-and-see attitude in the forlorn hope that somehow something unexpected might rescue the Empire. Stormont and Hillsborough departed the meeting stunned and befuddled, but they did not change their determination to bring an end to the war for America.

  December passed into January, 1782, with Lord Germain bewildered at the deadlock in London. Lodged in nearby Drayton, on January 10, he wrote that he was in a state of waiting, “ . . . as if all were peace and quiet. Lord North perhaps is doing the same; but if he intends to make any change among us, it is almost time to let us into the secret.” On January 15 he could no longer endure the state of limbo that had seized the land. He returned to London and requested, and was granted, audience with the King on January 17. He put the critical question to the King directly.

  “Sire, am I to still regard myself as Secretary of State for America?”

  Caught in the crossfire of the white-hot battle, the King narrowed his eyes and retreated.

  “That decision has not yet been made.”

  Germain revolted. Trembling to control himself, he spared nothing. “Your Majesty, I will never retract my refusal to grant America independence! I will leave office now on my terms, rather than be forced to it later on their terms. I must have an answer!”

  Stunned at the audacious outburst, the King fumbled for a moment. “I shall confer with North. You have my word he will summon you immediately to resolve the matter.”

  The summons arrived at Germain’s quarters the next morning, January 18, 1782. Germain made no attempt to disguise his resolve, nor his impatience. He was waiting for North at the appointed time and place on Downing Street. But when North came, he did not come to the room where Germain was seated, waiting. Rather, without a word, he walked on down the hall to take up his place in a cabinet meeting on Admiralty matters! His assistant timidly approached Germain.

  “Lord North has repaired to a cabinet meeting on issues of the Admiralty.”

  Germain was confounded! A cabinet meeting? Admiralty matters? He understood he had been invited to a private, pivotal meeting with North. Jaw clenched, Germain was ushered into the cabinet meeting, where he sat silently, struggling to control his rage. The meeting ended, North stood, bowed to his peers, and walked out with no visual sign that he even knew Germain had been present.

  In a monstrous passion, Germain stormed back to his quarters and wrote a scathing letter of resignation to the King. Robinson, an intermediary, begged him to withhold it until Monday morning, January 21. During the four-day wait, it was discovered that the King had written North regarding Germain, as promised, but the letter was delivered to North with several warrants. Buried in paperwork and pressures, North had tossed the entire packet to a clerk, and had never seen the letter. When the King heard of North’s neglect, he sent him a severe rebuke, and North repentantly arranged to meet with Germain the following day, January 22. Germain came, and his words cut like a cavalry saber.

  “Do I remain Secretary of State for America?”

  North spoke with resolve, bulging eyes narrowed. “At the moment, yes. However, it is impossible to continue the war. America is lost to us. It is vain to hope that we can prevent granting them independence.”

  For long seconds the two men stared at each other before Germain drew the line. “Then you must begin looking for another Secretary of State for the American Colonies.”

  North slowly answered. “I shall, but it will not be an easy task. Jenkinson has already advised me that he will not accept the office. You must continue until the matter is resolved.”

  In the deadly game that was now out of control, North realized his duty to inform the King of Germain’s position. The King went into a rage, shouting, “If Germain is to be removed for opposing independence, then I must be removed as well!”

  Shaken to his very foundations, North found himself stumbling, groping, unable to remedy the fact that the Privy Council and Parliament were both on the cutting edge of revolt against their King. He must divine a way to reconcile the King’s refusal to abandon America with the rock-solid decision of the House of Commons to the contrary. Using every resource and all his energy, he could conceive of nothing that would succeed.

  On January 30, North received a sealed correspondence from Germain. “I demand the response I was promised regarding the position of Secretary of America. The mails are being prepared for America as well as the West Indies, and proper instructions are an absolute necessity for the commanders in chief, as well as an answer to the request of General Sir Guy Clinton to resign. Lacking such, this department can not function.”

  Germain received no answer. The following day, on his exit from the Cockpit, North simply stated that the request was reasonable, but he could do nothing, since Jenkinson had again refused to accept the position. From that moment, Germain considered himself relieved as the Secretary of State for the Americas. On February 9, 1782, he bade an emotional farewell to his staff and office and closed the door behind him as he left the building for the last time.

  The issue of what to do with the Americas ground on in the House of Commons. The first week of February, 1782, the King held a paper-thin margin of twenty-two votes in his support among the House members, but the opposition was rapidly pushing their attack on him and his stubborn refusal to abandon America. The conflict was quickly moving from an historic battle to an onslaught. North was nearly physically ill from fear. On February 27, lightning struck. The opposition to the Crown in the House of Commons again forced a vote on the question of abandoning the war against America. This time the majority was against the King by nineteen votes.

  In a hopeless effort to retain something from the earth-shattering defeat, North proposed that the entire policy regarding the Americas should be reconsidered, with those opposing the Crown invited to participate. It was not to be. On March 4, 1782, the House of Commons passed a resolution that “ . . . all who should advise or try to prosecute offensive war in America for the purpose of reducing the colonies to obedience by force are to be deemed enemies of this country.”

  It was over.

  The opposition turned to Rockingham and Shelburne, who had been the core of the opposition to King George and his ministry. North requested of the King that he be released from office; the King refused. Rockingham and Shelburne moved ahead like a juggernaut. They scheduled a vote f
or March 20 to determine what was to become of the present ministry. Desperate to save face, North implored the King to permit his resignation, to spare him being forever remembered as dismissed by a vote of the House of Commons. The King refused; however, on March 20, the day of the vote, he relented. When Lord Surrey arose in the House to propose the removal of all the ministers, North rose with him, and after heated debate, North prevailed. He resigned. As he walked past those gathered at the door, he said simply, “Goodnight, gentlemen. You see what it is to be in the secret.” Without another word, he departed that august body and walked out into the night.

  On March 27, with the Marques of Rockingham now named First Lord of the Treasury, and the Earl of Shelburne his Secretary of State over Home and Colonial Affairs, England witnessed a wholesale slaughter of the ministry never before seen in the history of the Empire. Of the entire cabinet that had served with Lord North, only one survived in office—Thurlow.

  The Rockingham ministry appointed Richard Oswald, an elderly, one-eyed Scot, with Henry Strachey, the Undersecretary of State, to represent England at a peace treaty conference to be held in Paris. The purpose was to meet with representatives of the United States of America, to grant the rebels full independence on such terms as were mutually agreeable. The American delegates were Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, John Adams, and Henry Laurens. Secretary for the British delegation was Alleyne Fitzherbert, with Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, William, serving as secretary for the Americans.

  The war for the Americas was over. The will of the British Empire to longer endure the stubborn refusal of her colonies to submit to their authority had been undone by the fall of Yorktown and the surrender of General Cornwallis and his entire army. The house of cards had tumbled. Embarrassed and humiliated before the world, they had done the only thing left to them. The purging of their own government of all who had participated in the profound debacle had been spectacular, brutal, and unprecedented. Men who on one day had held the keys of power to the mightiest empire in the world, were on the next day stripped of any vestige of their glory, to become things of ridicule and scorn. They were gone. All of them.

  England had thrown the dice, and lost. Her rebellious children, now orphans, had won.

  Notes

  Lord North, First Lord of the Treasury during times relevant herein, and one of the most powerful men in the King’s cabinet, is accurately described as to both his very unimpressive personal appearance, and his political attitudes and capabilities, which were sufficient to manage the ministry in a time of peace, but clearly rendered him incapable in a time of war (Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, pp. 20–21). Lord George Germain is accurately described, including his startling history, his impressive physical appearance, his commanding presence, and his superior capacity to serve as Secretary of State for the American Colonies in the cabinet (Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, pp. 46–57). For an excellent chart of the royal cabinet as it existed at times relevant in this chapter, see Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, on the unnumbered pages following the Preface, pp. xxvi.

  King George III is as described. Physically appealing as an adult, he had a sense of wit and charm, but never the capacity to rule a kingdom such as England. His ancestors had clear episodes of mental illness, which George III inherited, and manifested from time to time in fits and sustained periods of incompetence and insanity (Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 26–40).

  The events, dates, persons involved, and the time line that describe the news of the loss of the British army under command of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, when the terrible message reached London, who received it, and the tumultuous and disastrous aftermath that ensued, resulting in the total destruction of the King’s cabinet, and the replacement of it with men who supported the proposition of granting independence to the rebellious American states in an effort to save the British interests in the West Indies, are as herein set forth. The key participants, and the role they played in the entire episode, are as described, including North, Germain, Stormont, Thurlow, Shelburne, Rockingham, King George III, and others. Most of the meaningful statements credited to these major players in this chapter are verbatim, or very near verbatim, quotations from the historical records. In this chapter, this writer has described the momentous fall of the North ministry as a “wholesale slaughter,” while Piers Mackesy described it as a “massacre”; a very powerful description from the modest and revered Mackesy (Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, pp. 433–76; Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 659–60).

  Benedict Arnold, the hero-turned-traitor, did have audience with King George III, as herein set forth, as well as with other leaders in the Privy Council and Parliament, in which he proposed that the collapse of the American army was imminent due to a total lack of money. There actually had been two mutinies which required Washington and General Anthony Wayne to execute at least six American soldiers, all of which was true. Further, if England could have maintained even a token offensive, they would have won the war by default of the Americans. His efforts were too late, however, and his plan was never given serious consideration by any other than the King, and Arnold never rose to a position of much influence (Mackesy, The War for America, 1775–1783, p. 468; Martin, Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero, p. 430; Randall, George Washington, A Life, pp. 390–91; Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, pp. 403–5).

  With the fall of the ministry of Lord North, and the rise of Lord Rockingham, the British commissioned Richard Oswald and Henry Strachey to travel to Paris to negotiate the independence of the United States, with Alleyne Fitzherbert as their secretary. The United States authorized Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, John Adams, and Henry Laurens, with William Franklin as their secretary, to represent America (McCullough, John Adams, pp. 273–85).

  Readers may be interested to know the rest of the story of Benedict Arnold. He spent time in London where he was included in the circle of high political figures, including personal audience with the King, however with little substantial influence. He decided to relocate his family to Nova Scotia, Canada, where a large community of British sympathizers, called Tories, had gathered after fleeing from America. He attempted several mercantile ventures in Nova Scotia, with little success, and returned to London, where he continued his efforts in the mercantile and privateering business, without success. With asthma, gout, and disabling pain in his twice-wounded left leg destroying his health, he slipped into a week of severe illness and died on June 14, 1801, in London, his life and fortune gone, his widow, Peggy, and their children in destitute condition in a foreign country. A folklore rumor suggests that in his last moments, he beseeched God to forgive him for his treason against America and requested that he be buried in his American general’s uniform. The story is unfounded, and the best historians take the position that it is not true, as does this writer (Martin, Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero, p. 431).

  Horace Walpole was considered one of the leading sages of the London news industry and commented continuously on the British-American conflict (Leckie, George Washington’s War, pp. 194–96, 367, 380, 460).

  Gloucester, Virginia

  November 25, 1781

  CHAPTER II

  * * *

  The late November cold wind quieted in the night, enough that a light frost settled over the small American and French military camp at the fishing village of Gloucester on the north bank of the York River in the southern reaches of Virginia. What was left of the tiny tobacco trading village of Yorktown lay directly south, across the broad expanse of the river, which flowed east into Chesapeake Bay and on into the dark waters of the Atlantic beyond.

  In the blue-black of five o’clock a.m., a young drummer stood shivering beside the flagpole to bang out reveille, then trotted back to his tent to drop his drum, then hunker down next to the small fire in the nearby ring of smoke-blackened rocks, palms thrust outward to catch the warmth. He watched as the camp stirred, gathering the will to rise one
more time and face the grinding monotony of building the morning cooking fires, frying stale cornmeal mush, boiling fourth-day coffee beans, inspection, drill, and moving freight. Six years of soldiering had taught the American army the hard truth that most of military life was relentless, mindless obedience to a daily routine that became sheer torture.

  He grinned at the soldiers as they curled in their blankets, cursed the cold, and loudly but sincerely offered to shoot him—or better yet, hang him—if he beat on that cursed drum one more time. Just one more time, and his mother would receive a letter: “It is with great glee that we inform you of the death of your favorite son, who was shot dead while sounding reveille.”

  One hundred yards due west of the flagpole, Caleb Dunson stirred beneath the pine boughs of his lean-to, swallowed sour, and waited while the recollection of where he was solidified in his brain. For a brief time he lay wrapped in his ragged, threadbare blanket, allowing himself the luxury of savoring the little warmth, and of letting his thoughts come as they would. In the darkness, random images formed in his sleep-fogged mind, and he did not forbid them.

  Mother at home in Boston—the night he ran away from home to join the Continental Army at the age of sixteen—the lust for revenge on the red-coated soldiers who had shot and killed his father at the battle in Lexington—the battle at Brandywine, where he had shot and bayoneted men so close he could smell the fear on them—the beating he had taken from the bully Murphy—Dorman teaching him to use his fists—the sickening satisfaction of beating Murphy to the ground—the flawless beauty in the face of Nancy, the British spy who used him—the fight in the woods when Murphy and another man ambushed him—the realization he had killed both of them—his court-martial and acquittal—leaving his New York company to join the American army in the South—his capture and escape—Primus the fugitive black slave who had saved his life during the escape—joining Francis Marion and his small band of patriots—the battles at King’s Mountain and Cowpens—joining the Americans and French at Yorktown—the great Chesapeake sea battle between the French and British—the siege of Yorktown—Washington sending a small force across the York River to Gloucester at night to stop “Bloody Tarleton”—the musket flashes in the fight before dawn—Tarleton’s retreat—digging in to hold Gloucester—the surrender of British General Lord Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown—