261

DUKE OF GRAFTON RESIGNS.

on the one side, to provoke invectives against the
Americans, which exasperated the quarrel; and
on the other, an extravagant vindication of their
proceedings, which encouraged them to persevere.
After the summary rejection of the terms which
Lord North had sent out to the colonies in the
spring, the government abandoned farther negoti-
ation, and prepared for active measures of repres-
sion. Before Christmas, Lord North brought in
a bill to prohibit commercial and other intercourse
with the insurgent colonies, as in the case of a
country with which England was at war. Some
important changes in the administration took
place. The Duke of Grafton, who had long hesi-
tated between a conciliatory and coercive policy
with regard to the colonies, now shrunk from the
responsibility of decisive action, and resigned the
privy seal. His place was filled by Lord Dart-
mouth, a friend and faithful servant of the King.
General Conway, always weak and irresolute, took
the opportunity when the post became most ar-
duous, to resign his office of Secretary of State
for the northern department, which at that
time included the administration of the colonies
and war.
His successor was a man of a very
different stamp. Twenty years before, Lord
George Sackville had been ignominiously dis-
missed the army for want of courage, decision,
and conduct in the field; now he was selected as
the person most fitted by courage, vigour, and
ability, for the direction of civil affairs in their

Ch. 20

1775

262

Ch.20.

1775

LORD GEORGE SACKVILLE.

utmost emergency. Nor was it disputed by candid observers, that this eminent person, recovering from a disgrace sufficient to crush any man, had since displayed in a remarkable manner those very qualities in which he had appeared so fatally deficient on one memorable occasion. The public who knew little or nothing of Lord George Germained beyond the one dark passage in his life, loudly censured this appointment to which they rashly attributed the disaster which afterwards befell the British arms. The other changes in the administration were indicative of hostility to the Americans. Lord Weymouth, one of the ablest of the Bedford party, resumed the office which he had held a few years previously; and Lord Lyttelton, who had lately distinguished himself by the violence of his denunciation against the rebellious colonists, was added to the cabinet council. The first step taken by the newly-organized administration, was one which infused a fresh spirit of animosity into this unhappy civil war. Troops were hired from the Landgrave of Hesse, and other petty German princes, who had been employed as military jobmasters by England during the seven years' war. The colonists bitterly complained, and not without cause, that the parent country should attempt to chastise her rebellious children by such instruments as these; and even

He had taken this name on succeeding to an estate, which had been bequeathed to him by his aunt, Lady Betty Germaine.

THE SOUTHERN STATES EXASPERATED.

continental despots censured the employment of foreign mercenaries upon such a service.

263

Ch.20.

1775

more's impru

ings.

The intemperate conduct of Lord Dunmore, Lord Dunthe fugitive Governor of Virginia, about the same dent proceedtime, served to inflame public indignation throughout the Southern Colonies. After some hasty measures, followed by a precipitate retreat from his government, this nobleman proclaimed martial law, and offered freedom to all negroes the property of rebels. The most fearful consequences might have been apprehended from a sudden emancipation of the black people; but, happily, the persons to whom this proclamation was addressed, regarding Lord Dunmore as having no longer the power to perform his promises or to execute his threats, paid but little attention to it. A few hundreds only joined his standard. The force thus assembled, though wholly insufficient to recover or maintain the province, enabled Dunmore to inflict wanton injury. After having been worsted in an encounter with the provincials, he set fire to the flourishing sea-port town of Norfolk, and hastened with a ship-load of followers to join the main army under General Howe.

the Southern

These wanton and vindictive proceedings on Alienation of the part of a man who had for many years been States. honoured and respected as the representative of their sovereign, and who assuredly had no commission to confiscate and destroy the property of the Colonists, went far to alienate the Southern provinces from British connection, and to advance

264

Ch.20.

1775

EMPLOYMENT OF MERCENARIES.

the common cause. But when it became known throughout America that their liberties were to be suppressed by means of foreign mercenaries, hired for the purpose from paltry princes, who eked out a wretched state of sovereignty by trading in the blood of their subjects, the indignation of the people knew no bounds; even to this day, enlightened Americans who can discuss in a calm and candid spirit the great transactions of the last century, allude to this insulting measure in terms of abhorrence and disgust.

But painful as such a proceeding must have been to the Colonists, who upon the analogy of 1642, affected to stand upon the untenable position of resisting the King's troops without denying his sovereignty, the British Government were not without justification in the step which they had taken. The employment of mercenaries was in accordance with numerous precedents. Nor is there any distinction, as regards all lawful means of warfare, between civil war and hostilities against a foreign enemy. It was never pretended that the Dutch soldiers, who accompanied the Prince of Orange in 1688, landed on English ground for any other purpose than to assist the people in obtaining their liberties; and if Feversham and his English army had offered battle, the Hollander would have fought by the side of one Englishman against another in a quarrel

• North American Review, July, 1852.

CONDITIONS OF ENLISTING.

purely English. The Prince of Orange and his
gallant countrymen were not, indeed, hirelings,
but as far as the argument is concerned, that is
a collateral point of no value. They had no
concern in the quarrel between James the Second
and his people; and whether they aided one side
or the other as friendly auxiliaries, or as mere
mercenaries, their interference was open to the
same remark. It was certainly not from any
desire to infuse unnecessary bitterness into this
unhappy strife, that the English Government had
recourse to the services of the Duke of Bruns-
wick, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and the
Count of Hanau, but from the necessity of
the case.
The whole amount of English troops
available for service in America during 1776
did not exceed 25,000 effective men of all arms,
a force hardly adequate for the main operations
in Massachusetts, and which made no provision
for a campaign in Canada, or for the detached
services which such a warfare would require. The
enlistment of regular troops under the voluntary
system, which the constitutional jealousy of a
standing army would alone permit, had never
supplied a sufficient complement for the purposes
of war.
The great increase of trade and com-
merce had rendered recruiting still more difficult.
The standard had been lowered and the bounty
had been raised, yet men were still wanting; and
such was the exigency, that the Minister, in laying
the army estimates before the House of Commons,

265

Ch.20.

1775