The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

The managers of the war-office were doomed to similar attacks as those of the admiralty. Early in the session General Burgoyne imputing his own misfortune and the failures of all other commanders, whether by land or sea, to the administration, had moved that all the letters written by himself and other commanders to government since the convention of Saratoga, should be laid before the house. Lord North readily granted these papers, and shortly after Sir William Howe, who was now in the house of commons, as well as his brother the admiral, made a similar motion for copies of all letters that had passed during his command between him and the secretary of state for America. It was only against Lord George Germaine that Howe wished to impute blame, and him he charged with interfering on all occasions with the management of the army in America; and of imposing restraints and schemes of his own, which were conceived in utter ignorance of the country which was the scene of the war. These papers were, also, willingly granted, and Lord North further consented that the house should go into committee for inquiring into the whole conduct of the American war. At the same time, an application was made to the house of lords, to permit the attendance of Earl Cornwallis, as a material witness. After this, however, Lord North endeavoured to put a stop to this inquiry, by asserting that Sir William Howe’s character was fully cleared by the letters produced, and that government approved in the warmest manner of his services. But this attempt was attended with great odium, and the examination of witnesses was proceeded with. This examination lasted for two months, and the officers examined were, Lord Cornwallis, Major-general Grey, Sir Andrew Snape Ham-mon, Major Montresor, and Sir George Osborne, whose evidence went to establish the facts that the force sent to America was not equal to the task of subjugating America; that the colonists were almost unanimous in their enmity and resistance to Great Britain; that the nature of the country was beyond all others difficult and impracticable for military operations; and that there was no fairer prospect of success in any future attempt at conquest, than in those which had already been made. On the other hand, Major-general Robertson, and Mr. Galloway, a member of congress who had turned royalist, gave contradictory evidence on all these points, and the latter was severe in his censures on the military conduct of Sir William Howe. At the request of Howe, this witness was directed to attend again for cross-examination; but, on the day appointed, which was the 29th of June, the general not being in the house, advantage was taken of this circumstance to dissolve the committee, and thus no resolution was passed upon this subject. Burgoyne was somewhat more fortunate than Howe, as witnesses were heard in his favour and none against him. His witnesses were Sir Guy Carleton, the Earls of Balcarras and Harrington, Major Forbes, and Captain Bloomfield, who deposed that no general could be braver or more beloved by his army. At the same time they could not make out a case of good generalship in Burgoyne’s crossing the Hudson, after the expedition to Bennington, or even give a good colour to that expedition, so that their only evidence went to show that which all men knew; namely, that Burgoyne was brave, persevering, and humane, and that in advancing to and staying so long at Saratoga, he had acted according to the best of his judgment. In the course of the examination, some of the witnesses extolled the bravery of the Americans in action; but it was also shown that Gates’s army were nearly six times as numerous as that of Burgoyne’s, and that the latter were half-famished, so that it did not require any extraordinary bravery to accomplish a victory other them.