American Crisis

by William M. Fowler Jr.

  Carleton sniped back to Washington that if he would not permit Justice Smith to pass through the lines, there was no need to give “an Officer of so high Rank as General Heath the trouble of receiving and conveying a mere Packet of Papers.” Nor could Carleton “see any motive whatever [to] require it.” He added, “Unless I hear further on the subject of the passports I shall send these papers in the ordinary conveyances,” meaning that they would not leave his headquarters for several days.37 Washington would simply have to wait for the mail. The commander in chief ordered Heath to remain in camp.38

  Normally, important messages moved between New York City and Newburgh in a day or two. It took two weeks for Carleton’s package to travel the distance. The cover letter expressed Carleton’s regret at the hanging of Huddy, which he described as “an act of great barbarity.” Although Lippincott had been acquitted, the British commander promised “to make further inquisition and to collect evidence for the prosecution of such other persons as may appear to have been criminal in this transaction.” Carleton had behaved properly in every way. Although Lippincott was a rogue and a scoundrel, there was enough evidence to suggest that he had acted on authority which he at least considered legitimate. A military court composed of “men of rank and character” had found him innocent. There must be an end to this senseless round of retaliation which “lead to evils and misfortunes of the blackest and most pernicious sort.” The matter, Carleton wrote to Washington, is now in “your own hands.”39

  No soldier ever wished to be admired and respected as a proper officer more than George Washington. From the moment he took rank as a young officer in the Virginia militia through the years of the Revolution, he was deeply aware of the importance of proper military conduct. Captain Charles Asgill had committed no crime, nor had he been charged or tried in any court. He was an innocent man. His death could only be for the sake of vengeance, and as Washington wrote to Congress on August 19, it would be an improper act that an “impartial and unprejudiced World” would judge as “unfavorable and perhaps unjustifiable.”40

  It had always been Washington’s practice as commander in chief to keep Congress fully informed of his conduct, at the same time carefully carving out and preserving his own authority as a military commander. Thus far with Lippincott he had followed this policy. Congress knew and approved what he was doing, but he took full charge. As an officer in the field, Washington was accustomed to managing an army and dispensing orders. For seven years, with a few exceptions, he had been able to keep Congress at bay and away from meddling with the army. The arrangement was reciprocal—he left politics to the Congress. This messy business spilled over into both worlds. It was a military/political problem wrapped in moral ambiguity. Admitting that the matter was above his grade, Washington wrote to the president of Congress asking for that body’s determination as the issue was “a great national concern, upon which an individual ought not to decide.”41 Carleton had put Asgill’s fate into Washington’s hands, so now he passed it to Congress. Washington’s letter, along with the packet from Carleton, arrived in Philadelphia on August 25 and was assigned to a committee of five, and there it sat in silence. Others, however, were not silent, particularly Captain Asgill’s mother, Lady Theresa.

  With the young captain’s father, Sir Charles Asgill, sidelined by “an apoplectic fit,” Lady Asgill took up her son’s cause.42 She left no stone unturned, and with her family connections she waged a vigorous letter-writing campaign, including correspondence with the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes. “My son (an only son) and dear as he is brave, amiable as deserving to be so, only nineteen, a prisoner under Articles of Capitulation of York-Town, is now confined in America an object of retaliation!”43 She pleaded with Vergennes to intercede. “I will pray that Heaven may grant you may never want the comfort it is in your power to bestow on [my son].”44 She also played her own English connections and wrote to Lord Cornwallis, asking that he intercede.45

  Lady Asgill’s aristocrat-to-aristocrat line of communication worked. Vergennes shared her plea with the king and queen and then wrote to Washington not as a “minister of the king” but as a “tender father” urging “clemency.”46 Passing the buck again, Washington forwarded the two letters—Lady Asgill to Vergennes and Vergennes to him—to Congress “without any observation.” Not everyone in Congress was inclined to clemency, but the letters did have an impact. They were, in the words of Elias Boudinot, “enough to move the Heart of a Savage.”47 By a unanimous vote Congress freed Captain Charles Asgill “as a Compliment to the King of France.”48 Washington conveyed the news to Asgill while doing what he could to preserve his own honor in the sad business. He assured Asgill:

  In whatever light my agency in this unpleasing affair may be viewed, I was never influenced thro the whole of it by sanguinary motives; but by what I conceived a sense of my duty, which loudly called upon me to take measures however disagreeable, to prevent a repetition of those enormities which have been the subject of discussion. And that this important end is likely to be answered without the effusion of the Blood of an innocent person is not a greater relief to you than it is to [me].49

  Guy Carleton’s hopes of being the agent of America’s reconciliation with Great Britain were fading fast. The ugly business of Huddy and Lippincott fashioned a world of such bitter and deep-seated animosity between loyalists and rebels that reconciliation between the two seemed impossible. Washington himself had shown little inclination to accommodation. Carleton admitted to Shelburne in June that he had “not found the least disposition in the rulers of the provinces to come into pacific measures.”50

  In his official correspondence to Shelburne, Carleton was discreet and restrained. His secretary, Maurice Morgann, whose long friendship with the minister put him in a special relationship with the earl, was far less circumspect. He echoed Carleton’s pessimism but in a more colorful manner. The loyalists, he reported, were deeply divided among themselves and prone to exaggerate their strength. Some, Morgann wrote, were “privately negotiating” their own deals with the enemy. Morale in the British army was low, and the officers were without “hope.”51 As for the rebels, Morgann observed, “The Fancy of Independence has indeed struck so Deep into the Minds of the Americans that they must be suffered to run their course, for by arms alone I am sufficiently persuaded they cannot be subdued.”52 But there was hope, for he predicted the “Fancy of Independence” would lead the thirteen provinces to a bad end. The “federal union” of thirteen provinces, based foolishly on “verbal maxims of general liberty and brotherly love,” would collapse in “despotism and mutual rage.”53 An accomplished man of letters, Morgann could not resist conjuring up examples from English history to prove his point and offer comfort to Shelburne in what otherwise might seem a hopeless enterprise.

  The secretary spoke of Washington’s “domination.” The American commander, according to Morgann, had “lately reformed his officers and new modeled the Army, with a view of retaining only those officers as seem best disposed to coalesce with the French.”54 Washington was Cromwell. History was repeating itself. A revolution overthrows a monarchy, devolves into republican chaos, and from the ashes rises a despot. “This was,” Morgann wrote Shelburne, “the case in England at the period above referred to [that is, the Commonwealth period]. The republicans tried all things [underlined in original] before they returned to that which was right.”55 Morgann was convinced that while American independence was inevitable, it was not permanent. Once their “republican experiment failed,” as he was convinced it would, they would seek “reunion.” Unfortunately, the secretary could not provide a timeline, but for the moment he urged the minister to do all that he could to woo the Americans away from their French allies with soft words and proffers of friendship.

  If Morgann was right about the inevitability of independence, Carleton’s hope of teasing the provinces back into the empire was lost. Whether the secretary shared his views with the commander in chief is uncertain; no
netheless, from all that he saw about him, Carleton could not have held much confidence that he could prevail with his plan of reconciliation.

  Shortly after Shelburne took office in March 1782, Benjamin Franklin wrote a congenial letter to the minister expressing hope that his ascension to power might produce the following result: “a general Peace, which I am persuaded your Lordship, with all good men, desires, which I wish to see before I die [and] to which I shall with infinite Pleasure contribute every thing in my Power.”56 Shelburne took advantage of this friendly gesture and dispatched the affable and wise Richard Oswald to meet with Franklin. At seventy-nine, Oswald had been around long enough to remember fondly the halcyon days of peace in the empire and a prosperous American trade. He had been a contractor in America during the French and Indian War and remained in the colonies for some years after managing to acquire a considerable fortune and a circle of international acquaintances, including Franklin, Adam Smith, the Comte de Vergennes, and Shelburne. Known to Shelburne as a man sympathetic to the Americans, Oswald would, the minister believed, enjoy easy access to his old friend Franklin. He also hoped that Oswald might pry the Americans away from their French allies.57

  Franklin had been in Paris since December 1776. His initial charge was to negotiate assistance from the French and a treaty of alliance, both of which he managed to accomplish. In June 1781 Congress appointed him one of the commissioners to negotiate a peace, to be joined by John Jay, Henry Laurens, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. At the time of the appointment French influence in Congress, orchestrated by the French minister Luzerne, was riding high, and so Congress instructed the commissioners to act only with the “knowledge and concurrence” of their French allies.58

  At the moment Oswald arrived, Franklin was the only commissioner in Paris. Jefferson never left America. Laurens was captured at sea by the British and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Jay was at his post in Madrid, and Adams was busily engaged at The Hague negotiating a loan from the Dutch.59

  It took but a few moments for the two septuagenarians to rekindle their old acquaintance. They reminisced over the world they had known before the war. Oswald assured Franklin that Britain desired peace. So too did the Americans, Franklin replied, but only with independence and a general peace that included their French allies. Nothing was settled or agreed, but talks, albeit informal and secret, had begun.60

  Oswald’s stay in Paris was brief. He hurried back to London and reported to Shelburne his encouraging conversation with Franklin. Still, the question of independence and British suspicion of France remained to trouble the ministry. Oswald shuttled back across the Channel to Paris, returning to London two weeks later with the same message: American independence had to be recognized. However, according to Oswald, Franklin had added in private that if the British “allowed the independence of America the treaty she had made with France for gaining it ended.”61 Here was the opening Shelburne had hoped for, the chance to split America from France. He told Oswald, in words he would repeat to Carleton in a letter on June 5, that in these circumstances “His Majesty has been induced to give a striking proof of his royal magnanimity and disinterested wish for the restoration of peace by commanding his ministers to direct that the independency of America should be proposed by him in the first instance instead of making it a condition of a general treaty.”62 Shelburne had crossed the Rubicon and carried a reluctant king with him.

  Carleton received the June 5 letter sometime during the last week of July. As usual, the general was cautious and circumspect, but there can be little doubt that he felt betrayed by the politicians in London. He had come to America not, as he said, “to be employ’d as a mere Inspector of embarkations” but to negotiate reconciliation with the provinces.63 His work, he had believed, was central to the preservation of the empire. Shelburne’s letter threw him to the margin.

  For a day or two Carleton held the news from London, sharing it only with Digby, Morgann, and a few staff. Aside from his own disappointment and embarrassment, Carleton was deeply concerned about the loyalists. Despite all the angst and irritation that they had caused him, he knew how much they had lost and sacrificed. Now it appeared that it had been for nothing. He knew, better than his superiors in London, that these “Good Americans” who had sought the protection of British arms would find no peace or security in an independent America. As the hanging of Joshua Huddy had shown, the ravages of war had left deep wounds that could not be healed easily. Whatever might be decided in Paris or London, on the local level retaliation trumped reconciliation.

  Carleton invited William Smith to dine with him on the evening of August 1. Before dinner the general took the justice aside. Smith later recorded in his diary that Sir Guy seemed unusually pensive. “Great trusts,” he remarked to the justice, “were honourable but difficult.” Smith was unclear whether he was referring to the trust he had placed in Shelburne or the trust that Smith and other loyalists had given to the king or whether both had been compromised. The elliptical conversation took another twist when Smith, in response to Carleton’s comment about trust, told the general that “the Path to Glory had always difficulties.” Carleton nodded. Those words had special meaning for him.64 They reminded him of a day nearly twenty-five years before when he had stood in battle with his friend James Wolfe, one of England’s greatest heroes.

  Wolfe hagiography knew few bounds. Artists, poets, and writers portrayed the fallen general not only as a courageous soldier but in good eighteenth-century fashion as a man of letters as well. Wolfe shared a love of literature, particularly the poetry of Thomas Gray, then one of England’s most revered and popular poets. According to the rising story, Wolfe’s favorite poem was Grays’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.” On the evening before the battle Wolfe read Gray’s poem to his officers. He paused over the lines:

  The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

  And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

  Awaits like the’ inevitable hour:

  The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

  After reading those lines Wolfe reportedly looked up and whispered, “I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec.”65 Carleton knew this moment.

  Justice Smith was aware of the legends surrounding Wolfe’s death and of Carleton’s relationship with the general. Smith had chosen his words carefully, reminding the general that his hero Wolfe had been a brave soldier who went to a desperate undertaking with a brave heart and a clear mind. Carleton understood, but confessed to Smith, “[My task] may exceed my abilities and require assistance.” To that, the justice replied, “Great men always wanted Instruments for the Greatest could not be great in executing every Thing themselves.”66 On that note the two joined the dinner party during which the general uttered “scarcely a syllable.”67 The next day Carleton summoned the loyalist leaders to headquarters, where Morgann announced the news to them. There was, according to an eye witness, Royal Marine captain William Feilding, “melancholy in the Face of every Spectator, and the whole dispersed very much displeased.”68

  Whatever the machinations in London and Paris, about which the loyalists knew virtually nothing, what Smith and his fellow refugees understood clearly from Morgann’s announcement was that American independence was inevitable. They were overwhelmed. For more than seven years they had heard pledges of support from their king, and now he had abandoned them. Washington’s spies reported that the loyalists were in “fits of despair—they [were] rendering their facings from their uniforms, plucking out their cockades and uttering execrations.”69 What faith could they place in any facile promise of compensation?

  Carleton was less surprised at the government’s apparent capitulation, but he was disappointed at the pusillanimity of his political superiors. His “path of glory” had come to a dead end. Two weeks after announcing the news from London, Carleton, no longer believing that he could render “any considerable service,” asked to be relieved of his command.70

  T
he news deepened the rift between Carleton and the loyalists. As the relationship cooled, the general became prickly. When a delegation of loyalist refugees, desperate for food, petitioned the general for eight thousand rations, he reportedly denied their request, telling them that if they wanted rations, they should ship themselves “in the Fleet or enter into the Army.”71

  Little did the general know that even as he wrote for permission to come home, the ministry was in upheaval. On July 1, after only fourteen weeks in office, Rockingham died. Shelburne took the reins, while Fox resigned. Finally at the helm, Shelburne held a steady course toward independence and peace. At this critical moment, changing commanders in America would only roil the waters. On Shelburne’s orders Thomas Townshend, the new minister in charge of colonial affairs, informed Carleton, “His Majesty thinks proper for the present to defer accepting your resignation.”72

  Chapter Six

  With three thousand miles of ocean and weeks of travel separating him from the ministry in London, Carleton often felt neglected by his superiors. Ironically, although Washington was barely 150 miles away, and only a few days’ travel from Congress, he too felt deprived of information and overlooked by politicians in Philadelphia. From Hasbrouck House Washington pleaded to Secretary at War Benjamin Lincoln to send him news: “You are the Fountain of Intelligence.” Unfortunately, the flow from Lincoln’s fountain was a trickle. Despite his elevated title, the amiable Lincoln was, as Congress intended, not much more than a clerk. Lincoln himself acknowledged his status. When he sat for an official portrait as secretary, he requested the artist Charles Willson Peale paint him in the uniform of major general rather than a civilian bureaucrat. In every way but title Washington was both commander in chief and secretary at war. William Clagdon, a close associate of General Horatio Gates (neither man a friend to Washington), remarked, “In some countries the Secretary at War commands the Commander in Chief, in this infant republic the Commander in Chief commands the Secretary at War.”1