Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  Nearly one thousand Spanish soldiers and five thousand sailors laid down their arms, but the real prize was the fleet in the harbor and the town itself. The English had become masters of the greatest trading port in the New World. They had taken or destroyed one-third of the entire Spanish navy and captured a huge store of sugar, tobacco, and other spoils. The cost, however, was heavy. More than six thousand British seamen and soldiers had died, mostly from disease.48 Albemarle, Keppel, and Pocock tallied their booty. The admiral took home £122,700, while each lowly seaman pocketed an impressive £ 3 14s 6p. Havana was the richest prize of the entire war.

  The capture of Havana, 1762: the Morro Castle and the boom defense before the attack

  Across the globe another British force was closing in on an equally rich Spanish city—Manila in the Philippines. Called Manilad by the natives after the nilads, a beautiful white flower common in the area, Manila was occupied by the Spanish in 1565. It soon became Spain's principal post in the Pacific and the center for the immensely lucrative China trade. Taking the city had been part of Pitt's plan for the war against Spain. Bute carried it forward. Colonel Eyre Coote, Clive's successor in India, had managed to defeat the French at the Battle of Wandiwash (January 22, 1760) and take the city of Pondicherry. Coote's victories put India firmly under English control. He could easily spare men and ships for the descent on Manila.

  Coote ordered Colonel William Draper to assemble a small army of two thousand men composed of "Seamen, Soldiers, Seapoys, Cafres, Lascars, Topasees, French and German Deserters."49 Escorted by a squadron commanded by Admiral Samuel Cornish, the force left Madras in late summer 1762. Cornish sent a screen of frigates ahead of the main convoy to intercept any vessels that might bring the Manila garrison news of Spain's entry into the war. The admiral hoped to keep the enemy garrison ignorant, isolated, and unprepared. The plan worked. On September 23, 1762, the British force entered Manila Bay, catching the Spanish completely by surprise. They landed on the twenty-fifth and set to the siege. All went well, and on the sixth of October Draper stormed the town and broke through the Spanish defenses. Intoxicated by their victory and eager to seize booty, Draper's motley force was not easy to control. Looting, even beyond what was normally expected, broke out. To save themselves and the city, the Spanish pleaded for a truce. An agreement was struck: The governor-general of Manila, who also happened to be the archbishop, would see to it that his government paid a ransom of four million dollars. In return, Draper and Cornish promised to restrain their men. With that, Manila surrendered.

  Beguiled by the riches offered by Havana, Manila, and India, England neglected its oldest overseas possession: Newfoundland. For almost five years two companies—one from the Fortieth Regiment and commanded by Captain Walter Ross, and the other a company of Royal Artillery under Captain John Boxer—were all that guarded it. While their brothers shared the booty at Havana and Manila, these men begged for bedding and clothing to protect them against the fierce Newfoundland winter.

  Although forgotten by London, Newfoundland did not go unnoticed in Paris. Desperate for some victory, and anxious to grab any chip that might be traded at the peace table, Choiseuil decided to take advantage of Britain's distraction and descend upon the island. To command the expedition, Choiseuil chose a young naval officer, the chevalier de Ternay, assisted by Choiseuil's nephew, the comte de Haussonville. On May 18, 1762, de Ternay eluded the British blockade and headed west from Brest with two ships of the line and two frigates carrying a landing force of twelve hundred men. The French landed at the Bay of Bulls near St. John's on June 20, and within a week they took the town. Not until the end of July did Amherst learn of the attack on his rear. Embarrassed by the French success so close to home, Amherst the plodder reacted with unwonted speed. He dispatched his brother, Lieutenant Colonel William Amherst, to dislodge the enemy. The latter left New York with six troop transports ferrying fifteen hundred men, a supply ship, and artillery. His brother's orders were to proceed to Halifax and rendezvous there with a naval escort to be provided by the commander in chief of the North American station, Lord Colville.

  When de Ternay saw the size of the British force, he withdrew, leaving Haussonville to fend for himself. Amherst landed on September 13, and five days later the French surrendered. Forgetting protocol, Colonel Amherst wrote to his commander, "My Dear Brother! I have done the business, I hope to your satisfaction," telling Amherst, "You can't conceive how determined I was. I believe I have learned from you."50

  Seventeen sixty-two was a profitable year. Thanks to Spanish weakness, in the space of a very few months Eng;land had taken millions of pounds in prizes. From their shares of the spoils generals and admirals had grown rich, and even common soldiers and sailors had profited. Havana and Manila helped replenish the coffers of the British exchequer that had been so woefully depleted by the long war with France.

  (13)

  The End, the Beginning

  Here lies the Earl of Bute, who in concert with the

  King's ministers made the Peace.

  —Horace Walpole

  Even before the glorious news from Havana and Manila arrived, peace was in the offing. Both the king and Bute wished to end the costly war, and they were willing to settle on terms far more generous than anything Pitt might have been willing to offer. Affairs in Germany, however, were not working in their favor. Czarina Elizabeth of Russia had died on January 5, 1762, leaving her son Peter, a fawning admirer of Frederick's, to inherit the throne. Almost immediately he made peace with Prussia, giving Frederick renewed opportunity to consolidate his forces and move against France and Austria. When told by the Russian ambassador that Frederick intended to continue to prosecute the war, Bute, next to Newcastle the most important person in the cabinet, replied that "it was not the intention of England to make eternal war to please the King of Prussia."1

  Bute was playing a double game. For months, via various shadowy intermediaries, he had been secretly exchanging notes with the French. Aside from the king no one, either in Berlin or London, was aware of the correspondence. But it was only a matter of time before the news leaked. Frederick's intelligence services were not idle. By late winter 1762 he was aware that the English were in conversation with the French. He feared that England and France would make peace at his expense.

  Bute moved to consolidate his position within the cabinet. In May 1762 he engineered Newcastle's resignation, thus ending the duke's four decades of public service. In less than nine months Bute had managed to topple Pitt and Newcastle, two politicians who, although distinctly different and not overly fond of each other, had forged a coalition government that had led England to the greatest military and naval triumphs in its history. Having rid himself of Newcastle, Bute moved to the head of the table. Within weeks he arranged the appointment of the duke of Bedford as minister plenipotentiary to France. Bedford's appointment was gleeful news for the French, who dispatched their own pro-peace envoy, the due de Nivernois, to London. Weary and nearly bankrupt, the French government ached for an end to the war. Pitt was the agent of their misery. Like Rome's Cato, Pitt would hear of no terms of peace other than those that brought devastation and humiliation to the enemy. No one in Paris could talk to Pitt, particularly the king's chief minister, the due Choiseuil, who remarked that he "would rather go and row in the galleys than to have to discuss any kind of peace with Mr. Pitt." Bedford and Bute were more reasonable men.2

  John Stuart, the earl of Bute

  Bute kept Bedford on a short leash, instructing the duke to send home any preliminaries before signing. Although he was annoyed at the restraints fastened upon him, Bedford moved ahead and engaged in discussions with Choiseuil and the Spanish ambassador, the marquis Grimaldi.

  Grimaldi behaved as if Spain was winning the war. In private he insisted repeatedly to Choiseuil that the English must be barred from any new entry into the Caribbean. How he proposed to do this was a mystery since there was little left of the French navy and the Spanish were har
dly up to the task on their own. The marquis was posturing. Choiseuil detested him, and Bedford thought that "either [Grimaldi] or his Court have lost their senses."3 Ultimately, to secure Spanish agreement to a peace, Choiseuil signed a secret treaty with Spain by which France ceded all of Louisiana, with the exception of New Orleans, to Spain in recompense for Spain's agreement to surrender Florida to England.

  Late in September the glorious news from Havana arrived. Although the victory took place on his watch, Bute had had nothing to do with its planning or execution; indeed he had been noticeably cool toward the enterprise. Havana was Pitt's prize and another dazzling jewel in his crown. Bute feared that this new wave of victories might sweep him from office and return Pitt. Peace had to be made quickly. Bedford, too, understood the need to move quickly, and on February 10, 1763, with Bute's support, he signed the Treaty of Paris.4

  North America was at the center of the treaty. Neither the French nor the English desired a return to the bitter and incessant border warfare that had characterized their joint occupation of the continent. Surely the violence would continue if both nations continued to support competing colonies set side by side in this vast wilderness. Choiseuil cared little for Canada, and so he agreed to renounce "all the pretensions which [France] has heretofore formed, or might form, to Nova Scotia, or Acadia, in all its parts," and France ceded "to his Britannic Christian majesty, Canada, with all its dependencies, as well as the island of Cape Breton, and all other islands and coasts in the gulph and River St. Laurence." Having solved the boundary mess in the northeast, Bedford and Choiseuil turned their attention to the west. Here their goal was "to remove forever all subject of dispute with regard to the limits of the British and French territories on the continent of America." With the exception of "the town New Orleans, and the island on which it is situated, which shall remain to France," all other territory would be "fixed irrevocably by a line drawn along the middle of the river Mississippi." Everything on the river's left side (east) was henceforth British.

  Although the French vacated nearly everything they possessed in North America east of the Mississippi (except New Orleans), they did retain two tiny islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon, located a few miles off the south coast of Newfoundland between Placentia and Fortune bays. Their commercial and strategic importance was out of all proportion to their size. From the outset of the war Pitt had been obsessed with destroying French naval power. Like all eighteenth-century navies, the French fleet depended upon a ready supply of skilled sailors who could be brought quickly into service during wartime. Fishermen were an important manpower reservoir, and a great number of those men fished the banks of Newfoundland. Without a secure location near the banks of the western Atlantic, French fishermen would not be able to carry on the cod fishing. The economic loss would be devastating, and so too would the loss of seamen. This was precisely what Pitt desired. Allowing France to keep these two dots of land in the western Atlantic threatened to undermine his goal of sinking French naval power once and for all. Nonetheless, Bedford acceded, and the islands stayed with France. In the matter of fishing Choiseuil also managed to drag out of Bedford the right of French fishermen to drop their lines in the Gulf of St. Lawrence beyond nine miles from shore and to enjoy a similar privilege in waters off Cape Breton and Nova Scotia at a distance of forty-five miles from the coast. These were significant concessions to France.

  Having been enticed to join the war by its Bourbon partner with the promise of spoils, Spain faced instead a staggering bill of costs. It had already secretly agreed with France to surrender east Florida in exchange for Louisiana. But now the bill grew higher. In addition to east Florida, the British demanded west Florida. Spain agreed to the terms, and in return England gave back Havana. England now possessed the entire east coast of North America, from the Arctic to the Mississippi Delta.

  The West Indies were particularly troublesome. Pitt and his supporters argued vociferously that both Guadeloupe and Martinique, along with St. Lucia, ought to be held. But Bute, bent on a quick peace, knew that quibbling over those islands would delay the final settlement. On this specific point he had help from some of his Whig opponents. Wealthy West Indian planters, most of whom lived in London, were a powerful lobby in Parliament. Some of these gentlemen were dismayed at the thought of the French Islands being incorporated into the empire. Sugar production on Martinique and Guadeloupe dwarfed the English islands. The volume of imports from those islands into the English market would drive prices down. Whether to keep the islands, however, depended less upon the views of the planters and more upon the need to end the war and establish peace. Although England was triumphant, its victories did not give it sufficient leverage to demand both Canada and the sugar islands. Bute chose Canada, both to end the war and to eliminate the French in North America so as to ensure British domination over the entire continent.5 England did, however, take several other islands, including Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago. It also managed to extort from Spain the right to cut and export valuable logwood from the bay of Honduras.

  England held the upper hand on the African coast. Having failed to take Goree Island in 1757, the Royal Navy did so early in 1759. Returning the island to France represented a small concession, since in compensation England kept its position one hundred miles north at the mouth of the Senegal River (Fort St. Louis). Standing astride the river gave British slave merchants control over a vast hinterland that disgorged a seemingly endless procession of slave caravans every season. It was a far more valuable place than the collection point on Goree.

  In India, too, commerce was at the heart of English desire. To speed the peace, the ministry offered to return Pondicherry. French factories, that is, trading stations, were permitted in a limited number of locations, but fortifications were banned. Both sides retained the fiction of rule by local princes, and they agreed to recognize them as the legitimate authority. In point of fact, however, only those potentates subservient to British interests survived.

  The war ended on a particularly sour note in Europe. No one triumphed. Despite the treasure and lives expended on the campaigns in Germany, along the coast of France, and in the Mediterranean, almost nothing changed. The principal cause of the conflict on the Continent—Austria's desire for revenge against Prussia and the return of Silesia—came to naught. Frederick held Silesia, Austria got nothing, and France restored "all the countries belonging to the electorate of Hanover." France was also forced to dismantle the fortress at Dunkirk and return Minorca to England.

  No peace, other than one that humiliated France, would ever satisfy Pitt. When he learned what had been agreed to in Paris, he turned on Bute and his colleagues with venom unusual even for him. Confined to his home by an attack of gout, Pitt read reports and listened to friends who brought him news of the debates in Commons. Although he knew that the "court had purchased an effective number of votes to ratify their treaty," he was determined to do all that he could to embarrass his opponents.6 In the House of Lords the debate was furious. In answer to his critics Bute rose and declared that "he desired to have written on his tomb 'Here lies the Earl of Bute, who in concert with the King's ministers, made the Peace.' "7 It was in Commons, however, that crowds packed the galleries to watch the spectacle.

  Hoping that Pitt might recover in time to lead them in battle, opponents of the peace tried to delay a vote by referring it to committee. They were not disappointed. In the midst of the debate "the House was alarmed by a shout from without! The doors opened, and at the head of a large acclaiming concourse was seen Mr. Pitt, borne in the arms of his servants, who setting him down within the bar, he crawled by the help of a crutch, and with the assistance of some few friends, to his seat. . . . He was dressed in black velvet, his legs and thighs wrapped in flannel, his feet covered with buskins of black cloth, and his hands with thick gloves."8 Pitt spoke for three and a half hours. "At intervals he obtained the permission of the House to speak sitting . . . ; supporting himself with
cordials, and having the appearance of a man determined to die in that cause and at that hour. "9 Members gathered close to hear the faint voice. He lambasted Bute. Guadeloupe and Martinique should be taken, and the French ought to be excluded from any rights in India. He would not give them a rock on the Newfoundland shore, let alone two islands off the coast. Havana, so dearly bought, was the key to trade in the Caribbean and should be held. And most surprisingly for a politician who had so annoyed the present king's grandfather by his dismissal of German interests, he lamented that more had not been done for Prussia.

  But Pitt's moment passed. To no one's surprise, Bute carried the day by a vote of 319—65. Despite Pitt's carping criticisms, Bute had done well. Had the government followed Pitt's advice and pushed for more concessions, the war would have been prolonged. If that had been the case, the Royal Navy could have controlled the situation overseas, but on the Continent affairs were doubtful. To be sure, France was financially exhausted, but it still possessed a powerful army, and its principal allies, Austria and Spain, were not without resources of their own.

  American colonists celebrated the terms of the treaty. For more than a century North America had been embroiled in official and unofficial war. At virtually no time between the opening of King William's War (1689) until the collapse of the French in Canada was there real peace along the uncertain boundaries between the English and French in North America. Everywhere in the American colonies subjects of the king rejoiced that the French and Indian menace had been eliminated. Colonial legislators who had been so obstreperous and parsimonious when the king's commanders had laid their requests for men and money before them now fell over themselves rushing to offer proclamations of thanks to those who had delivered them. Aside from the soldiers in the field, America's chief hero was William Pitt. He had led the empire to victory.