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and carried some stringent Resolutions. meetings, and with the like result, were held in Southwark, and for the counties of Middlesex and Surrey. We do not find that the example spread any farther from London; yet, no doubt, throughout the country by this time popular favour had wholly departed from the war against the Colonies. It was still, it seemed, to be carried on at a large cost, while even, by the avowal of Ministers themselves, there was to be no more vigour in its prosecution, nor hope in its result.

There was another event which added, if to add were possible, to the heat of the Opposition at this juncture. Intelligence having been received of the equipment of a fleet at Brest to supply and reinforce the East and West India squadrons, Admiral Kempenfeldt was despatched to intercept it with twelve sail of the line. Kempenfeldt met the enemy some thirty leagues from Ushant, the convoy being, in some degree, scattered by a storm; and he succeeded in taking fifteen transports, conveying above a thousand soldiers and above five hundred seamen. Next, he prepared to engage the ships of war, which he found forming in battle order, and commanded by the Comte de Guichen; but, contrary to his expectation, they amounted to nineteen sail of the line, besides two others, armed en flute. In the face of so superior a force, Kempenfeldt reluctantly forbore from an attack, and sailed back to England. His return, which took place just before the Christmas Recess, became a signal for the loudest clamours and most violent invectives against his chief, Lord Sandwich. When the Secretary of the Treasury in the House of Commons was moving the usual adjournment, "What! adjourn! adjourn!" said Byng the member for Middlesex, "we ought to sit "through the holidays to inquire into this miscarriage." Not less decided were the sentiments of Savile. "The "question of Kempenfeldt"-thus he writes to Lord Rockingham, seems to lie in a mighty narrow compass. "When you sent out twelve ships, did you know they "had nineteen or not? If you did not, culpable igno66 rance; if you did, worse." Sir George adds, however: "I do not say that these two dilemmas ought to hang a

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1782.

RETIREMENT OF LORD G. GERMAINE.

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"man." Kind and relenting reasoner, not to push his point so far!

*

Parliament met again in the latter part of January. During the Recess, the Ministers had, in some measure, matured their scheme of policy. They determined to proceed without Lord George Germaine, whom they found as keen as ever for the subjugation of the Colonies. Indeed he had taken occasion, not long since, in the House of Commons, to declare that be the consequences what they might, he never would be the Minister to sign any treaty that gave independence to America. The King agreed to his resignation, provided it were dignified with a peerage. "No one," wrote His Majesty,

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can then say he is disgraced." As his successor was selected a worn-out veteran, Welbore Ellis-the "Mani"kin," and the "Grildrig," of Junius, a man who was ridiculed for his diminutive stature, not in him redeemed by any loftiness of mind.

Accordingly, soon after Parliament had reassembled, the Gazette announced the creation of Germaine as Viscount Sackville, and the appointment of Ellis as Secretary of State. Loud was the Opposition outery against both. But though the choice of Ellis might be laughed at or lamented, there was a more tangible objection to the peerage of Lord George. Even upon the first reports of it, the Marquis of Carmarthen moved in the Peers, that to recommend to the Crown for such a dignity any person labouring under so heavy a sentence of a Court Martial was derogatory to the honour of the House of Lords. And when the new-made Viscount took his seat the same motion was renewed. Thus the old complaint of his conduct at Minden was again ripped up; thus his first speech in that House was the attempt to clear himself from an opprobrious imputation.

The tidings that came from time to time of the progress of the war were by no means such as to raise the drooping spirits of the Ministry. In the West Indies,

* Sir George Savile to George Rockingham. (Memoirs, by Lord Albemarle, vol. ii. p. 440.)

† On Sir James Lowther's motion. (Commons Debate, December 12. 1781.)

even before the close of the preceding year, the Marquis de Bouillé had surprised and retaken the island of St. Eustatia, mainly through the negligence of the English commander, Colonel Cockburn. Our other new conquests of Demerara and Essequibo were in like manner wrested back from us. Next De Bouillé turned his arms against our old and valuable possession of St. Kit's, where he landed 8,000 men, protected by De Grasse's fleet. Basseterre, the capital of the island, was built of wood, and could make no defence on the land side, but the troops and Militia, headed by General Fraser and Governor Shirley, took post on the rugged heights of Brimstone Hill. Sir Samuel Hood, also, who had followed the French Admiral in returning from the Chesapeak, interposed, by a bold manoeuvre, between him and the French forces on shore, and most gallantly repulsed two separate attacks, by which De Grasse hoped to recover his lost anchorage ground. But Hood could only delay, he could not prevent, the surrender of the settlement; and the small islands of Nevis and Montserrat soon followed; so that of the entire Leeward cluster Barbadoes and Antigua only remained in British hands.

Only a few days, however, from the capitulation of St. Kit's, the British fleet was cheered by the return of Rodney. He came out from England with recovered health, and most eager to engage. "I will bring you "back a present of De Grasse,"such were his words at parting to a private friend. He came out also with the fullest confidence of the administration. "The fate of "this empire is in your hands," wrote to him Lord Sandwich, "and I have no reason to wish that it should be "in other." any

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Another disappointment to the English Ministry, though rather at an earlier period, came from the Cape of Good Hope. Against the Dutch settlement in that quarter there had been despatched from England an expedition, under General Meadows and Commodore Johnstone. The Dutch settlement was, however, secured by the timely arrival of the Bailli de Suffren with his

*Life of Lord Rodney, by Mundy, vol. ii. pp. 170-182.

1782.

LOSS OF MINORCA.

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fleet, on his way to the East Indies; and the British officers were reduced to an attempt upon some Dutch merchant-ships that lay at anchor in Saldanha Bay, about fourteen leagues to the northward of Cape Town. The enterprise was successful, and several prizes were made; but they could afford no equivalent for the frustration of the design upon the Cape.

But all other disappointments-since Lord Cornwallis's at least were cast into the shade by the loss of the island of Minorca. General Murray had continued to maintain St. Philip's Castle with the greatest gallantry. Thus, on one occasion, by a sudden and well-directed sally, he had surprised and chased the Duke de Crillon from his head-quarters at Cape Mola. But besides the havoc of war, our soldiers were laid low by diseasesnot putrid fevers only, but scurvy and dysentery had set in among them. It was found that their zeal often rose superior to their strength. We are told of several soldiers who died on guard; their generous ardour to defend the place having made them hide their sickness to the last, and kept them from the hospitals. In the beginning of February there remained less than 700 fit for duty; and even of these five-sixths were already tainted with the scurvy. The General having left nothing that valour or skill could do untried, found it necessary to capitulate on the 5th of the same month. The troops felt that sickness, and nothing but sickness, had subdued them, and were heard to exclaim with honourable indignation as they marched to lay down their arms, that they surrendered them to God alone. They obtained not merely all the honours of war by the articles of capitulation, but moreover, as Murray gratefully acknowledged, the most kind and considerate treatment from the free will of their gallant enemy.* * And thus was the best harbour of the Mediterranean lost to England.

Meanwhile the campaign in the House of Commons was full as eagerly pursued. Before the close of

* General Murray's despatch of Feb. 16. 1782. See also the Ann. Regist. for that year, p. 216., and Coxe's Bourbon Kings of Spain, vol. v. p. 105.

January, Fox, in a most noble speech, complained of the ill success of our naval forces, and ascribed it solely to Lord Sandwich. Early next month he brought these charges to a vote, when the Government prevailed against him by a majority of only twenty-two. A fortnight afterwards Fox renewed the same motion in another form; when in a fuller House, the Ministerial majority dwindled to nineteen. But there now stepped forward, as the principal assailant of Lord North, a member far indeed below Fox in ability and eloquence, but as greatly his superior in age, in experience, in disinterested views. This was General Conway. Much as he had failed as a leading Minister some years before, it was not forgotten that he had been the person to propose the repeal of the obnoxious Stamp Act; and he enjoyed high respect on all sides as a gallant soldier, as a highminded and accomplished gentleman.* On the 22nd of February, the next sitting of the House after the Navy debate, he moved an Address to the King entreating His Majesty "that the war on the Continent of North "America might no longer be pursued for the imprac"ticable purpose of reducing the inhabitants of that 66 country to obedience." In reply, or rather explanation, the new Secretary of State, Mr. Welbore Ellis, made a most ambiguous statement of his views, giving Burke some reason to exclaim that only the person and not the system had been changed; and at last, with all the exertions of the Ministers, they only prevailed by a melancholy majority of one, the numbers being for the motion 193, and against it 194.

No sooner were these numbers announced than Fox rose to taunt Lord North with delay in bringing forward his Budget for the year. Being answered that the business was fixed for the 25th, Colonel Barré next inveighed against the Minister for bringing it forward at all. An angry scene ensued. Barré, besides calling

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*The politics of Conway, though at all times rather vague, are described at this time by his close friend Horace Walpole: "He had never engaged in any concert or counsels with Lord Rockingham, "and if he leaned to any faction by ties it was to the Duke of Grafton, who chose him into Parliament, and who adhered to Lord "Shelburne." (Memorials of Fox, vol. i. p. 449.)

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