37Davies, vol. 13, p. 15.
38SALS-DD/SH 34, Jane Strachey to Henry Strachey, Feb. 25, 1777.
39SALS-DD/SH 34, Jane Strachey to Henry Strachey, Porter’s Lodge, April 9, 1777.
40SALS-DD/SH 34, Jane Strachey to Henry Strachey, Feb. 8, 1777.
41Stephen Conway, The British Isles and the American War of Independence (Oxford, 2000), pp. 86–87; Mary Beth Norton, Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (Boston, 1980); Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America (Chapel Hill, NC, 1980).
42See, for example, SALS-DD/SH 34, Jane Strachey to Henry Strachey, May 15 and May 18, 1776 (Cheney Transcripts); May 9 [1777]; “Expenses in April 1777.”
43SALS-DD/SH 34, Jane Strachey to Henry Strachey, Porter’s Lodge, April 9, 1777.
44Mackesy, The War for America, pp. 123, 150.
45SALS-DD/SH 34, Jane Strachey to Henry Strachey, June 14, 1776 (Cheney Transcript).
46WCL-SP, Box 1, Folder 4, Henry Strachey to Jane Strachey [December 1776?], and see Box 1, Folder 5, same to same, New York, May 20, 1777.
47BNA: Derby Mercury, December 29, 1776.
48BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Aug. 14, 1776; Sept. 23, 1776; Sept. 30, 1776; Dec. 19, 1776.
49BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Sept. 23, 1776; Nov. 20, 1776; Oct. 11, 1777.
50Willcox, Portrait of a General, pp. 91, 92fn.
51WCL-HCP, 18:8 Richard Reeve, d. 1789, to [Sir Henry] Clinton, Aug. 27, 1776.
52Davies, vol. 10, pp. 329, 334; Gruber, pp. 91–92.
53Bickham, Making Headlines, pp. 86–87; Conway, “From Fellow-Nationals to Foreigners,” pp. 86–88.
54WCL-GSG, vol. 5: July 1776–March 1777, Lord George Germain to Admiral Arbuthnot, Pall Mall, July 21, 1776.
55NRAS-DH/LMC: NRAS859/Vol. 486, Box 1, Friday, July 19–July 23, 1776; Wednesday, September 11–September 16, 1776.
56Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, vol. II, p. 97.
57Correspondence of Emily Duchess of Leinster, vol. III, pp. 224, 226.
58The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox, vol. 1, p. 252.
59NRAS-DH/LMC: NRAS859/Vol. 486, Box 1, Tuesday, September 17–September 23, 1776.
60BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Sept. 23, 1776; NRAS-DH/LMC: NRAS859/Vol. 486, Box 1, Saturday Oct. 5–Oct. 10, 1776.
61BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Sept. 6, 1776; Sept. 23, 1776; Sept. 30, 1776.
62BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Aug. 14, 1776.
Ten: New York, 1776
1John J. Gallagher, The Battle of Brooklyn 1776 (New York, 1995), pp. 33, 102–3; David Smith, New York 1776: The Continentals’ First Battle (Oxford and New York, 2008), p. 39.
2Cited in Gallagher, The Battle of Brooklyn 1776, p. 105.
3WCL-GSG, vol. 3, Lord Howe to Lord Germain, Grafton Street, Sept. 25, 1775.
4Stephen Brumwell, George Washington: Gentleman Warrior (London 2012), p. 223; Mackesy, The War for America, pp. 80, 82; Urban, Fusiliers, p. 67.
5Report on the Manuscripts of Mrs. Stopford-Sackville, vol. 2, p. 31.
6Howe–Germain, April 25, 1776, cited in Anderson, p. 121. This letter, from the Colonial Office Papers in the Public Record Office at Kew, is only paraphrased in the source normally consulted by historians (Davies, vol. 10, p. 275), and it does not reflect William’s thinking and his sense of urgency in getting to New York.
7Brumwell, George Washington, pp. 5, 228, 251. Cites on pp. 5, 228.
8“A Letter of Intelligence,” Boston, June 12, 1775, The Correspondence of King George the Third, vol. 3, p. 217.
9“A Letter of Intelligence,” vol. 3, pp. 215.
10Julie Flavell, “British Perceptions of New England and the Decision for a Coercive Colonial Policy, 1774-1775,” in Julie Flavell and Stephen Conway, eds., Britain and America Go to War: The Impact of War and Warfare in Anglo-America, 1754-1815 (Gainesville, 2004), pp. 100–4.
11Cites in Flavell, When London Was Capital of America, p. 106.
12Davies, vol. 12, Transcripts 1776, p. 44.
13Mackesy, The War for America, pp. 82–83; Gruber, p. 92.
14Brumwell, George Washington, p. 223; Gruber, p. 100.
15The fullest exposition of this long-standing idea is found in Gruber, pp. 116, 355, 360, 361, 363; Ira D. Gruber, “Howe, William, fifth Viscount Howe (1729–1814),” ODNB Online [accessed Aug. 7, 2020].
16Gruber, pp. 62, 94–95, 99–100, 126; see also Syrett, pp. 39, 40, 43, 51–53.
17WCL-HC: Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe to George Washington, HMS Eagle, off Staten Island, (copy), July 13, 1776.
18Gruber, pp. 94, 95; Henry P. Johnston, The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn (Brooklyn, 1878), p. 98.
19Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency George Washington (New York, 2004), pp. 77–78.
20WCL-SP, Box 2:7, “July-August 1776 Diary of events in America.”
21Gruber, p. 99.
22Gruber, pp. 97, 99; Brown, Empire or Independence, pp. 90–92, 98, 103, 109, 111fn.
23Report on the Manuscripts of Mrs. Stopford-Sackville, vol. 2, p. 37.
24Brumwell, Paths of Glory, pp. 144–46; Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 499.
25Davies, vol. 10, p. 352.
26Smith, New York 1776, p. 33; Gruber, pp. 100-101.
27Anderson, The Command of the Howe Brothers, and Brown, Empire or Independence, do not reference Strachey’s letter of August 11, 1776. Ira Gruber cites it twice (pp. 99–100, 103), but he only makes limited use of what he believes are the opinions of Strachey himself.
28WCL-SP, Box 2:7, “July-August 1776 Diary of events in America.”
29WCL-SP, Box 1:3, Henry Strachey to Christopher D’Oyly, Eagle off Staten Island, August 11, 1776.
30WCL, Thomas Gage Papers, American Series, vol. 132, William Howe to General Gage, Charleston Camp, July 20, 1775.
31WCL-HCP, 13:36 [Sir Henry Clinton] “Report of Conversations with L[ord] D[rummond] and Tryon,” New York, Feb. 7 [1776]; 14:15, [Sir Henry Clinton] to [William Phillips], [Feb. 1776]; 14:25 [Sir Henry Clinton] to [Sir William Howe] [1776] after March 12.
32BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Sept. 23, 1776; Sept. 30, 1776.
33BNA: Kentish Gazette, October 12, 1776.
34Bickham, Making Headlines, p. 90.
35NRAS-DH/LMC: NRAS859/Vol. 485, Box 4, Oct. 3, 1776.
36Correspondence of Emily Duchess of Leinster, vol. III, cite on p. 229, and see pp. 217, 264.
37Bickham, Making Headlines, p. 91.
38Andrew Oliver, ed., The Journal of Samuel Curwen, Loyalist (2 vols., Cambridge, MA, 1972), vol. 1, p. 200.
39Stephen Conway, The American War of Independence 1775-1783 (London, New York, Melbourne, and Auckland, 1995), pp. 83–84; Smith, New York 1776, pp. 26, 39–40, 42, 46.
40O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, p. 95; Urban, Fusiliers, p. 86.
41General William Howe to Lord George Germain, Long Island, September 3, 1776, Davies, vol. 12, p. 217.
42Mackesy, The War for America, p. 88.
43An excellent review of the opinions of various historians is provided in Smith, pp. 67–81.
44For example, Jones, “Sir William Howe: Conventional Strategist,” pp. 52–54, argues that Howe was simply conventional and husbanded his army. Hugh Bicheno, Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War (London, 2003), p. 46, Anderson, pp. 134–42, 147–48, and Urban, Fusiliers, p. 86, all think Howe was cautious but reasonable to act as he did. O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, argues (p. 100) that Howe’s caution was motivated by concern about British casualty rates.
45WCL-SP, Box 2:51, “1779. Sir William Howe’s Defence (before a Select Committee of the House of Commons) of his Conduct as Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the War of Independence.” The draft of Howe’s speech in the Strachey Papers has been in the possession of the William L. Clements Library since 2010. Before then, it was in private hands and not easily accessible.
46Jones, “Sir William Howe: Conventional Strategist,” p. 52; Bickham, Maki
ng Headlines, p. 91.
47Smith, pp. 77, 82–83. Mark Urban has also noted William Howe’s concern over discipline after Bunker Hill: Fusiliers, pp. 63–64, 67–69.
48Smith, New York 1776, p. 55.
49Smith, Ibid., pp. 55–58; Bicheno, Rebels and Redcoats, p. 46.
50Cited in David Syrett, The Royal Navy in American Waters, 1775-1783 (Aldershot, Hants., 1989), p. 51.
51Smith, pp. 6–11, provides an excellent overview of the spectrum of scholarly opinions on Howe’s performance, including historians who have argued that Howe’s command decisions were influenced by a desire to broker a peace, or by other unacknowledged motives, or that he was simply unimaginative or a conventional tactician. See also C. Stedman, The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War (2 vols., London, 1794), vol. I, pp. 196–97, 198–99; Sydney George Fisher, The True History of the American Revolution (Philadelphia and London, 1902), pp. 312–13, 315–17, 323, 329; Fortescue, The War of Independence, p. 39.
52Smith, pp. 84, 93, 95.
53Cite from Gruber, p. 121.
54For example, see Mackesy, The War for America, pp. 89–90, Bicheno, Rebels and Redcoats, p. 48, O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, p. 95.
55Syrett, The Royal Navy in American Waters, pp. 50, 52; Smith, New York 1776, p. 61; University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Ne C 2738, Richard Rigby to H. F. C. Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle, October 10, 1776.
56Anderson, p. 180; Davies, vol. 12, p. 227.
57O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, pp. 95, 100.
58Thomas B. Allen, Tories: Fighting for the King in America’s First Civil War (New York, 2010), pp. 170–71.
59O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, p. 101.
60Smith, pp. 85–96; Smith, New York 1776, pp. 67–74; Gruber, p. 132.
61Smith, pp. 96, 98–101; cite from Smith, New York 1776, p. 85.
62Anderson, cite on page 337, and see also p. 343; see also Maldwyn Jones, “Sir William Howe: Conventional Strategist,” p. 65.
63Gruber, pp. 158–59; W. A. Speck, “William Augustus, Prince, duke of Cumberland (1721–1765),” ODNB Online [accessed Aug. 11, 2020].
64Brown, Empire or Independence, p. 126.
65Edward H. Tatum Jr., ed., The American Journal of Ambrose Serle, Secretary to Lord Howe, 1776-1778 (San Marino, CA, 1940), pp. 80–81; Anderson, pp. 157–58; Charles P. Whittemore, “John Sullivan: Luckless Irishman,” in Billias, ed., George Washington’s Generals and Opponents, pp. 145–46.
66Brown, Empire or Independence, pp. 116–17.
67Anderson, p. 158; cite from Davies, vol. 12, p. 226.
68It is now a museum: The Conference House, 7455 Hylan Boulevard, Staten Island, NY: http://conferencehouse.org/.
69Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York, 2003), p. 318; Thomas J. McGuire, Stop the Revolution: America in the Summer of Independence and the Conference for Peace (Mechanicsburg, PA, 2011), pp. 61, 65, 160.
70Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, p. 319; Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams (10 vols., Boston, 1856), vol. 3, pp. 77, 78.
71Henry Strachey’s account of the Staten Island conference is reproduced in full in Paul Leicester Ford, ed., “Lord Howe’s Commission to Pacify the Colonies,” The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 77 (1896), pp. 758–62. Cite on p. 759.
72John Adams wrote to his wife that the delegates had “about three Hours Conversation” with Lord Howe [Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, September 14, 1776 (electronic ed.), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. (Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/, March 21, 2018)]. A Hessian officer who was present, however, recorded that Lord Howe was shut up privately with the delegates for one hour after the meal [McGuire, Stop the Revolution, pp. 160–61].
73John Ferling, Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free (New York, Berlin, London, Sydney, 2011), pp. 155, 166; cite from Adams, ed. The Works of John Adams, vol. 3, p. 80,
74Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, September 14, 1776 (electronic ed.), Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive (Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/, August 11, 2020).
75Flavell, When London Was Capital of America, p. 113; Ferling, Independence, pp. 290, 296–97, 325.
76Tatum, ed., The American Journal of Ambrose Serle, p. 167.
77Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, pp. 294–98, cite on p. 296.
78WCL-SP, Box 1:3, Henry Strachey to Christopher D’Oyly, Eagle off Staten Island, August 11, 1776
79Ford, ed., “Lord Howe’s Commission to Pacify the Colonies,” pp. 760, 762,
80Cecil B. Currey, Code Number 72: Ben Franklin, Patriot or Spy? (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1972), pp. 73, 75–76.
81Adams, ed. The Works of John Adams, vol. 3, p. 79.
82Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, p. 322.
83Tatum, ed., The American Journal of Ambrose Serle, p. 132.
84Ford, ed., “Lord Howe’s Commission to Pacify the Colonies,” p. 761; Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, p. 319.
85Davies, vol. 12, pp. 226–27.
86WCL-GSG, vol. 5: July 1776–March 1777 [“Remarks upon the Petition & Declaration of the Congress,” dated in pencil “1776”].
87University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Ne C 2719/1-2, Richard Rigby to HFC Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle, Nov. 4, 1776.
88BNA: Oxford Journal, Oct. 19 and 26, 1776.
89Troy O. Bickham, “Sympathizing with Sedition? George Washington, the British Press, and British Attitudes During the American War of Independence,” in William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, vol. 59 (2002), p. 115.
90BNA: Northampton Mercury, Nov. 4, 1776; BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Nov. 1, 1776.
91NRAS-DH/LMC: NRAS859/Vol. 485, Box 4, Oct. 10, 1776; Oct. 17–21, 1776.
92BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Oct. 12 and 16, 1776.
93BNA: Oxford Journal, Oct. 19, 1776; Bickham, Making Headlines, pp. 89–91, cite on p. 90.
94BNA: Oxford Journal, Oct. 26, 1776; Bickham, Making Headlines, p. 93.
95Heinde, Kielmansegg Family Papers, Lady Howe to [ ] Kielmansegg, London, Nov. 1, 1776. (Transcript provided by Professor Ira Gruber.)
96Mackesy, The War for America, p. 85; University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections, Ne c 2758, General E. Harvey to HFC Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle, Nov. 4, 1776.
97Brown, Empire or Independence, pp. 130–32; Flavell, “American Patriots in London and the Quest for Talks, 1774-1775,” pp. 356–57; BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Nov. 2, 1776; Nov. 5, 1776.
98Gruber, pp. 143, 146–47, 149, 152.
99WCL-SP, Box 2:16, December 28, 1776, Autograph Letter from Strachey [to his wife] from New York.
100Bickham, Making Headlines, p. 95; Mackesy, War for America, p. 93.
101BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Dec. 19, 1776; Dec. 30, 1776.
Eleven: The Tide Turns in America
1E. J. Climenson, ed., Passages from the Diaries of Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys of Hardwick House (London, 1899), pp. 178–79, 183.
2Jane Moody and Daniel O’Quinn, eds., The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre, 1730-1830 (Cambridge, 2007), p. 199.
3Letters of David Garrick and Georgiana Countess Spencer, pp. 55–57, 81.
4Passages from the Diary of Mrs. Philip Lybbe Powys, pp. 179, 181–83, 186–87; BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Dec. 30, 1776.
5BL-AP, 75613, CH/LS, Dec. 6, 1776.
6Letters of David Garrick and Georgiana Countess Spencer, p. 81.
7BC: London Evening Post, January 23–25, 1777.
8Lunt, John Burgoyne of Saratoga, p. 136.
9For example, a letter of Admiral Lord Howe to a friend was read aloud in Garraway’s Coffee Shop, and subsequently reported in BC: St. James’s Chronicle, or British Evening Post, Jan. 6–8, 1778. Major Balfour’s conversation was reported in the Boston Gazette on March 3, 1777 [Readex, Early American Newspapers: Series 1, 1690–1876].
10Conway,
The American War of Independence 1775-1783, p. 84; Urban, Fusiliers, p. 94; Margaret Stead, “Contemporary Responses in Print to the American Campaigns of the Howe Brothers,” in Julie Flavell and Stephen Conway, eds., Britain and America Go to War: The Impact of War and Warfare in Anglo-America, 1754-1815 (Gainesville, FL, 2004), pp. 120–22.
11BL, Fox Papers, 47579, fols. 43–44, Richard Fitzpatrick to his brother Lord Upper Ossory, Dec. 1776.
12Davies, vol. 10, p. 414; Bedfordshire Archives, Lucas Manuscripts, L29/214, “Conversation with Nisbet Balfour, Jan. 13, 1777”; Fortescue, The War of Independence, pp. 44–46.
13WCL-KP, 2:73 Lord George Germain to William Knox, Dec. 31, 1776.
14Davies, vol. 14, p. 30.
15WCL-GSG, vol. 5: July 1776–March 1777, Lord Howe to Lord Germain, New York, March 23, 1777; Davies, vol. 14, p. 30.
16Gruber, p. 193.
17Anderson, pp. 314–16; Brumwell, George Washington, Gentleman Warrior, p. 299; Allen, Tories, p. 190.
18Jacqueline Jones, “Race, Sex, and Self-Evident Truths: The Status of Slave Women During the Era of the American Revolution,” in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., Women in the Age of the American Revolution (Charlottesville, VA, 1989), pp. 326–30; Simon Schama, “Dirty Little Secret,” Smithsonian Magazine (May 2006).
19Philip D. Morgan and Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, “Arming Slaves in the American Revolution,” in Christopher Leslie Brown and Philip D. Morgan, eds., Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age (New Haven and London, 2006), pp. 182, 187, 190.
20See, for example, Vincent Caretta, “Richmond, Bill (1763-1829),” ODNB Online [accessed March 14, 2020]; Stephen Brumwell, “Revisiting B. E. Griffiths: Former Slave, Queen’s Ranger, and ‘Son of Africa,’ ” Journal of the American Revolution, vol. 5 (April 23, 2019).
21Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Chapel Hill and London, 1999), pp. 156–58, 160; Robert M. Calhoon, “Loyalism and Neutrality,” in Jack P. Greene and J. R. Pole, eds., The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA, and Oxford, 1994), p. 247; Allen, Tories, p. 171; Morgan and O’Shaughnessy, “Arming Slaves,” p. 190.
22Mary Beth Norton, The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England 1774-1789 (Boston and Toronto, 1972), pp. 78, 219.
The Howe Dynasty Page 53
