We now return to Washington, who at length received the long-wished-for intelligence, that De Grasse, with the French fleet, was approaching the Chesapeake. Admiral Rodney, who had been busy in the West Indies, whither De Grasse had also sailed, apprehending that a part of the French fleet would proceed to the American coast, had sent Hood, with fourteen ships of the line, to reinforce Admiral Graves, who commanded on the American station. Hood arrived off the Chesapeake, August 25th, and not finding Graves there as he expected, proceeded to New York, where he learned that Du Barras, who commanded the French squadron at Newport, in Rhode Island, had put to sea three days before, evidently with the design of a junction with the French West India fleet. In the hope of intercepting this junction, Graves sailed with the united English fleet; but had the mortification of discovering on his arrival, September 5th, off the entrance of the Chesapeake, that De Grasse had arrived six days before, and now, with four-and-twenty ships of the line, lay safely at anchor inside Cape Henry.
All the present operations of the combined American and French forces were evidently the result of a well-concerted plan, besides which an extraordinary coincidence occurred in their several movements by sea and land, which was beyond the reach of calculation. We have already seen that Du Barras sailed from Rhode Island on the 25th of August; on the 28th De Grasse arrived with his fleet at the Chesapeake. On the same day the French and American armies reached the Head of Elk, and an hour after their arrival received an express from De Grasse, with the welcome intelligence of his safe anchorage at Cape Henry. This is the more remarkable when we consider the distance of the parties from each other as well as the scene of action, and the difficulties and delays to which all were liable.[46] But the run of ill luck which had hitherto attended every combined attempt of the French and Americans appeared now to have changed. All went well with them, as in the rapid winding up of a long story, where the heroes are crowned with especial success as a compensation for past sorrows and sufferings.
Du Barras, however, did not arrive in the Chesapeake for near a fortnight after De Grasse, having put out to sea from fear of being intercepted by the British fleet, which was a very necessary caution, as he had under his charge the transports which conveyed from Rhode Island the heavy ordnance and other necessaries indispensable for the siege of York Town, and upon which the success of the enterprise depended. De Grasse, in the meantime, sent four ships of the line and several frigates to block up James and York rivers, so as to cut off the retreat of Cornwallis, and landed also 3,000 French troops, under the Marquis St. Simon, who had joined La Fayette, then at Williamsburg.
The first intelligence which Admiral Graves received of the French fleet, was the discovery of it, early in the morning of September 5th, lying within the mouth of the Chesapeake. Each enemy was an unwelcome sight to the other, and the French ships immediately stood out to sea. For five days the two fleets manœuvred in sight of each other; a distant cannonade was kept up; but De Grasse had no intention of coming to a close action, his sole object was to keep possession of the Chesapeake, and to cover the arrival of Du Barras with his squadron and convoy from Rhode Island. All this was done so successfully that Du Barras entered the bay without the slightest impediment, on the 10th of September, which was in fact signing the doom of Lord Cornwallis; and the French fleet, no whit the worse, returned to their old anchorage in the Chesapeake; while Graves, who had suffered considerably, having lost two of his ships and been obliged to burn a third, sailed immediately to New York to refit. On the 17th of September, transports began to bring down a portion of the French and American armies from the Head of Elk, while Washington proceeded with the remainder to Annapolis, whence they too were conveyed by the same easy mode to Williamsburg, where all had arrived by the end of the month. Washington and the principal commanders having already had an interview, the plan of operations was agreed upon. Before, however, we proceed to this, we must return to Sir Henry Clinton.
Having at length discovered the true purpose of Washington’s deeply-laid scheme, Sir Henry Clinton attempted to prevent its full accomplishment, by rendering it necessary for that commander to divide his forces. Arnold, therefore, having now returned from Virginia, was immediately despatched on a plundering expedition against Connecticut, of which state he was an unworthy native.
Landing his troops from the shore of Long Island, in the night of the 6th of September, at New London, a resort of privateers and the seat of the West India trade, Arnold advanced up the Thames, at the mouth of which New London is situated, and having taken Fort Trumball, about a mile below the town, New London was plundered and then burned, and a large amount of property destroyed. On the other side of the river was Fort Griswold, which, being strongly garrisoned, was resolutely defended by Colonel Ledyard. At length, however, it was carried by assault, with a loss to the British of 200 men, and the retaliation for this loss was as cowardly as it was bloody. Entering the fort, a British officer inquired who was the commander. “I was,” replied Colonel Ledyard, presenting his sword, “but now you are.” On these words the weapon so surrendered was plunged into the bosom of the late brave commander, and an almost general slaughter followed; forty out of 160 being all that escaped.
Washington, to Clinton’s disappointment, took no notice of this movement, but proceeded calmly with his operations in the South; and these enormities having roused a spirit in Connecticut which Arnold did not dare to encounter, he retreated to New York. The loss which the Americans sustained, besides about a dozen ships which were burnt, was very great. The quantities of naval stores, of European manufactures, and of East and West India goods found here, was almost incredible. Everything on the town-side of the river was destroyed by fire. Nothing was carried off excepting such small articles of spoil as afforded no trouble in the conveyance.[47]
The British had taught the Americans much important war-craft during this long struggle; as for instance, in the general orders which Washington gave to his American troops, he charged them to use and depend upon the bayonet, as their best and most essential weapon, in case they should be encountered on the march from Williamsburg, assuring them that they would by that means effectually cure the vanity of the British troops, who attributed to themselves so decided a superiority in that sort of close and trying combat. Nor did he omit any opportunity of exciting that honourable emulation between the allied troops which appeared so conspicuously in the subsequent operations.[48]
The combined French and American armies having, by the help of the French transports, formed a junction with La Fayette at Williamsburg, proceeded on the last days of September to invest Lord Cornwallis in York Town. Their whole force amounted to 16,000, 7,000 of whom were French picked men, the very flower of the army. The British force, about 8,000 in number, were chiefly at York Town, which had been made as strong as possible, Cornwallis having abandoned his more distant posts, which had been intended to command the peninsula, as too much exposed to be maintained under present circumstances. These, therefore, were all immediately seized by the combined armies. The post at Gloucester Point, opposite to York Town, was occupied by the famous Tarleton, with both cavalry and infantry, amounting to about 600 men.
On the evening of the 9th of October the batteries were opened against the town, the works of which, even had they been completed, would have been incapable of sustaining such a weight of force; but, as it was, the British troops were as much employed in their construction, amid the fire of the enemy, as in their defence. In a few days most of their guns were dismounted and silenced; their defences in many places broken down. Shells and red-hot ball had reached even the British ships in the harbour, several of which were burned.
In the meantime, Sir Henry Clinton, who had learned the junction of the Rhode Island squadron with the French fleet, from Admiral Graves on his return to New York, and of the peril which threatened Lord Cornwallis, lost no time in refitting and equipping a fleet to aid in extricating him and his army. Accordingly, on the 19th of October, with upwards of 7,000 of his best forces, Sir Henry Clinton set sail on this important service, with twenty-five ships of the line and eight frigates. All felt the greatness of the enterprise; the spirit, it is said, which influenced both officers and common men was full of enthusiasm, all believing that whatever the result might he, they were about to be engaged in one of the most obstinate and bloody naval battles ever fought.
On the 5th of October, Lord Cornwallis received a letter from New York, informing him of the relief that would sail thence for him about that date. But it was a fortnight later before the fleet passed the bar of New York harbour; and in the meantime, while Lord Cornwallis was anxiously expecting relief which never came, events were proceeding rapidly.
The most interesting feature of the siege was the storming of two redoubts, which, standing forward, greatly impeded the progress of the besiegers. It was determined, therefore, to attack these as the darkness of night fell, on the 14th. The attack of the one was committed to the Americans, under Colonel Hamilton, Washington’s aide-de-camp, and the other to the French, the one nation emulating the other in the honour and the duty of the enterprise. Both were successful; both redoubts were taken, when daylight appeared, but the loss of the French was the greater.
So important did Lord Cornwallis consider the taking of these redoubts, that, writing to Sir Henry Clinton the following day, he said that “he considered his situation desperate.” Using, however, all means to procrastinate, he anxiously and impatiently waited for relief from New York; but in vain.
At length, when no relief came, and when, on the 16th, a hundred pieces of heavy ordnance had so ruined the works and overpowered the batteries that the besieged could not show a single gun, and their shells, their sole means of defence, were nearly exhausted, Lord Cornwallis determined, as a last resource before surrendering, to attempt an escape with the greater part of his troops. Accordingly boats were secretly prepared; and abandoning the baggage, the troops during the night were to pass over to Gloucester Point, to cut their way through a French detachment posted in the rear of that place, and by rapid marches to reach New York in safety. The first debarkation had been made towards midnight in safety, when the weather, which had hitherto been moderate, instantly changed, and a violent storm drove the boats down the river. It was impossible to bring back the landed troops; and thus weakened and discouraged, the danger of the army was still further increased.
Means of defence there were none; their hopes of succour were at an end; the troops were diminished and worn out by constant watching and unremitting fatigue.
To avoid, therefore, the useless shedding of blood by an assault, Cornwallis wrote to Washington on the 17th, proposing a suspension of hostilities for twenty-four hours, and that commissioners might be appointed to settle terms of capitulation.
On the 19th, the posts of York Town and Gloucester were surrendered, and the British troops, about 7,000 in number, became prisoners of war to Washington. The ships and naval stores, with 1,500 seamen, were given up to the French. The officers and soldiers retained their baggage, but all visible property was liable to be seized. Washington would not grant any expressly favourable conditions, as Lord Cornwallis wished, on behalf of the loyalists who were under British protection in the town, alleging that theirs were civil offences which did not come under the authority of a military commander. One favour, however, was granted—that Cornwallis should be allowed the use of a ship ostensibly to convey despatches to New York, and which should be allowed to pass unexamined. In this vessel many obnoxious persons escaped.
General Lincoln, who had surrendered his sword to Lord Cornwallis at Charleston, by a sort of poetical justice, was appointed to receive the sword of the British commander on this occasion; and not forgetting what the British had then demanded, the capitulating force was now required to march out of the town with their colours cased.
As regarded the general treatment both of officers and men, nothing, however, could have been nobler. Lord Cornwallis, in his public letter to England, testified to the “kindness and consideration of the enemy.” The kindness and attention shown by the French officers in particular, he says, “have really gone far beyond what I can possibly describe, and will, I hope, make an impression on the breast of every British officer, whenever the fortune of war shall put any of them in our power.”
It is mentioned as a singular circumstance in the events of this surrender that the American commissioner appointed to draw up the terms of capitulation was Colonel Laurens, son of Laurens, late president of congress, who was at that time prisoner in the Tower of London.
On the 24th of October, five days after the fall of York Town, Sir Henry Clinton and the British fleet arrived off the capes of Chesapeake, where they first learned that they had arrived too late, and that Cornwallis had surrendered, on which mortifying intelligence, and unwilling to encounter the superior French fleet, they hastily returned to New York.
Washington would gladly have finished this successful campaign by an attack on Charleston; but the Count de Grasse, fearing to remain on the American coast in the stormy season which was at hand, sailed shortly after for the West Indies. Count Rochambeau cantoned his troops during the winter at Williamsburg. Wayne, with 2,000 Pennsylvanian continentals, marched to reinforce Greene’s army in South Carolina, while the main body of the American army returned to their old positions on the Hudson. The prisoners of Cornwallis’s army were marched over the mountains to Winchester, whence a part of them were sent to Lancaster in Pennsylvania.[49]
The surrender of Cornwallis was in effect the end of the war. The British power was now reduced merely to defensive measures, and was confined principally to the cities of New York, Charleston and Savannah. Wilmington was very soon evacuated, thus putting an end to all the hopes of the loyalists of North Carolina; and early in January, Greene approaching Charleston, so distributed his troops as to confine the British to the Neck and the adjoining islands.
The news of the important victory of the allied armies in the South caused a general rejoicing throughout the Union. Nothing could equal the joy and satisfaction caused by the prospect which it afforded. Washington ordained a particular day for the performance of Divine service in the army, recommending that all the troops should engage in it with a serious deportment and that sensibility of heart which the surprising and particular interposition of Providence in their favour claimed.
Congress, on receiving the official intelligence, went in procession to the principal church in Philadelphia, to return thanks to Almighty God for the signal success of the American arms, and appointed the 13th day of December as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.[50]
The official intelligence of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis reached the British cabinet on Sunday, Nov. 25th. The tidings were a blow to the minister, Lord North, who according to Lord George Germaine’s account, received them as he would have done a cannon-ball. He paced up and down the apartment, exclaiming with the deepest emotions of consternation and distress, “Oh God, it is all over!” The king was more calm, perhaps because he was of a more stolid nature. Lord George Germaine communicated the “dismal intelligence” by letter. The king replied that he “particularly lamented the unfortunate result of the operations in Virginia, on account of the consequences connected with it, and the difficulties which it might produce in carrying on the public business, or in repairing the misfortune. It would not, however,” he asserted, “make the slightest alterations in those principles of his conduct which had hitherto directed him, and which would always continue to direct him, in the prosecution of the present contest.”[51]
Accordingly, the speech from the throne, on the re-opening of parliament, two days after this news had arrived, breathed the same warlike spirit as at the late close of the session. Nevertheless, a strong opposition existed in parliament; the war was extremely unpopular with the British nation at large; and from the 12th of December to the 4th of the following March, motion after motion was brought forward in the house, for the termination of the war, when, on this latter day, a resolution was moved by General Conway, “that all those should be considered as enemies to his majesty and the country who should advise, or by any means attempt, the further prosecution of the war in America.”
On the 20th, the administration of Lord North terminated, and the advocates of peace and American independence immediately came into power, the Marquis of Rockingham being at the head of the ministry. Hopes of some possible accommodation were entertained, by Lord Shelburne and his party, according to Lord Chatham’s ideas. Overtures were made to Adams at the Hague, and to Franklin at Paris, to ascertain whether the United States would agree to a separate peace, and to something short of the entire recognition of their independence. Sir Guy Carleton, who was appointed to supersede Sir Henry Clinton, was commissioned to treat for peace. He addressed, therefore, a pacific letter to Washington, and put a stop to the predatory incursions of the loyalist Indians, which had been long the scourge of the New York frontiers. Powers to treat were communicated to congress; but that body declined to negotiate except in conjunction with France, and at Paris. Franklin also had returned for answer, through Richard Oswald, a British merchant who had formerly large commercial dealings with America, and who had been sent to Paris for the purpose of sounding him, that nothing short of independence, satisfactory boundaries, and a participation in the fisheries, would be admitted as the foundation for a treaty.
On July 1st, Lord Rockingham died, and Lord Shelburne succeeded him. The views of the king were now strengthened by his minister’s disinclination for the dismemberment of the empire. Rodney had captured nearly the whole fleet of De Grasse in the West Indies, and England was again triumphant in the western hemisphere. Nevertheless the king, in proroguing parliament on July 11th, spoke of his anxious wish for peace. In August, an act of parliament was obtained, authorising a negotiation with America, and Oswald returned to France, to treat with the American agents and commissioners, Franklin, Adams and Jay.
Difficulties arose immediately. The commissioners were authorised to conclude a peace with the agents of certain Colonies. Jay objected, and refused to proceed until Oswald came empowered to treat with the agents of the “United States of America.” This objection being overcome, others had arisen in the meantime. The French minister, Vergennes, from what motive does not exactly appear—perhaps from not being wholly favourable to the new republic—while he instigated the Americans to insist on their share of the Newfoundland fishery, urged the British government not to make the concession. The British agents, however, aware of the double dealing of Vergennes, exposed it, and satisfied the American commissioners that in this respect nothing was to be feared; and no time was lost in bringing the treaty to a conclusion. On the 30th of November, therefore, the preliminaries of the articles of peace were signed at a private meeting unknown to Vergennes, although this proceeding was contrary to their original treaty with France and the late orders of congress.
Vergennes complained of being duped, and felt, or pretended, great indignation at what he called American chicanery; nevertheless, so little did it affect him that, a few days afterwards, he agreed to advance a new loan of six million of livres, to enable America to meet the expenses of the coming year. But there was good reason for suspicion: Vergennes was soon afterwards discovered, in conjunction with Spain, labouring to limit the boundaries assigned to the United States, and earnestly advising the British not to yield too liberally.[52]
So anxious was the British minister to announce the coming peace, that eight days before the preliminaries were signed by the American agents, he addressed a letter to the lord mayor of London, to acquaint him with the speedy conclusion of the negotiations, and that parliament would be prorogued in consequence from the 26th of November to the 5th of December.
On the 5th of December parliament accordingly met, and the king announced that, in pursuit of a general pacification, he had offered to declare the American colonies free and independent states; and added, with evident discomposure of manner, that in admitting the separation of the colonies from the crown of Great Britain, he had sacrificed every consideration of his own to the wishes and opinion of his people.
On the 20th of January, 1783, the preliminaries of peace were signed at Paris, the American signatures being those of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and Henry Laurens. Before signing the address, Franklin, it is said, put on triumphantly the dress suit, which he had never worn since the day of Wedderburn’s attack in the British privy council.[53]
The British monarch acknowledged by these arrangements the freedom, sovereignty and independence of the United States, relinquishing all claims to the government, proprietary, and territorial rights of the same. The boundaries allowed embraced a larger extent of territory than the States, when colonies, had claimed. At the commencement of the negotiation, the British commissioners had claimed the country north of the Ohio as a part of Canada, to which, indeed, the Quebec act annexed it. They sought also to extend the western limits of Nova Scotia, as far as the Pemaquid, according to the old French claim. These points, however, were compromised; the peninsula of Upper Canada was yielded to the British, the eastern boundary of the United States remaining fixed at the St. Croix. The northern limit of Florida, according to the proclamation of 1763, was agreed to as the southern boundary of the United States, being the river St. Mary’s from its mouth to its source, a due west line thence to the Apalachicola, and from that river to the Mississippi, the 31st degree of north latitude. But, by a secret article, it was agreed that if Britain, at the peace with Spain, should still retain West Florida, the northern boundary of that province was to be a due east line from the mouth of the Yazoo to the river Chattahoochee.
Full liberty was secured to the Americans to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank, and all other banks of Newfoundland, as also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and all other places in the sea where they had formerly been accustomed to fish. The navigation of the Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, was for ever to remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States alike. All the British armies, garrisons and fleets, were to be withdrawn with all convenient speed from the United States, without causing any destruction, or carrying away of negroes, or any other property of the Americans; this last clause being inserted at the instance of Henry Laurens, who represented the slaveholding interests of America, and who had arrived at Paris two days previous to the signing of the preliminaries. A great deal was said on the subject of allowing compensation to the American loyalists, an unfortunate class which had strong claims on the British government. The American commissioners, however, resolutely opposed all compensation, Franklin even declaring that they would rather risk a war by themselves alone than consent to any indemnification for the enemies of and the traitors to their country. A clause was, however, inserted, earnestly recommending the legislatures of the respective States to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties which had been confiscated, belonging to real British subjects.
While these negotiations and events were taking place in Europe, all was not peace and satisfaction in America; and as regarded the case of the loyalists, the prospect of peace with the concession of Great Britain was anything but acceptable. We will take one incident to show the state of feeling between the two parties. After the American successes in the Carolinas and Georgia, and the capitulation of York Town, the loyalists, maddened by the loss of their property and friends, and the hopeless prospects before them for the future, determined to take the law into their own hands, and on the first occasion hang a republican in retaliation. White, a loyalist, had been put to death for some cause on the 30th of March; on the 12th of April, therefore, Joshua Huddy, a captain in Washington’s army, was seized and hanged, with the following label on his breast: “We, the refugees, having beheld with grief the murders of our brethren, determine not to suffer without taking vengeance, and thus begin; and have made use of Captain Huddy as the first object to present to your view; and further determine to hang man for man while there is a refugee existing. Up goes Huddy for Philip White!”
Savage as was this spirit of vengeance, it was the natural growth of the terrible struggle which for so many years had been going forward in the heart of the country, and which gradually transformed men into fiends. This Philip White, it appears, was murdered by a set of men called the “Monmouth Retaliators,” at the head of which was a General Forman, otherwise “Black David.” Captain Huddy, it was said, was also himself a retaliator. Sir Henry Clinton immediately ordered the murderers of Huddy to be arrested; and Captain Lippincott, their leader, being tried by court-martial, a verdict of Not Guilty was returned, on the plea that he had merely acted in obedience to the commands of his superiors, the “Directors of the Board of Associated Loyalists.” Washington, dissatisfied with this decision, demanded that Lippincott should be given up to him, to be tried by republican law, which being refused, he wrote again, declaring that he, too, in that case, would retaliate. A few days after this second letter, Sir Henry Clinton was superseded by Sir Guy Carleton, who brought with him the first intimation of the willingness of the British government to treat for peace with the United States on the basis of their independence. To him Washington applied on the subject of Lippincott, declaring, as he had already done to Sir Henry Clinton, his intention of retaliation, if Lippincott were not given up. The young officer selected by lot for this melancholy and wicked purpose was Captain Asgill, a prisoner taken at York Town, son of Sir Charles Asgill, and only nineteen years of age. Sir Guy Carleton, in reply to Washington’s demand, very properly broke up the Society of Associated Loyalists; but Lippincott was still not given up. In the meantime, the rank and peculiar circumstances of young Asgill had aroused a strong party to intercede in his behalf; but it was not until November that this young man was set at liberty and allowed to return home. Whether in reality he would have suffered innocently under Washington’s threat of retaliation, we cannot say; but his liberation appears rather to have been the result of interference than a voluntary concession on the part of the American commander. Lady Asgill wrote, in July, a very affecting letter to the French minister Vergennes, beseeching his interference as a friend of Washington’s, with that commander; and this letter being read by Vergennes to the king and queen of France, they commissioned the minister to add their desires to his own, “that the inquietudes of an unfortunate mother might be calmed, and her tenderness reassured.” Washington, on this, forwarded the copy of Lady Asgill’s letter, which had been sent to him, together with that of the French minister, to congress, and the result was an order from that body, dated 7th of November, to set Captain Asgill at liberty.