American Crisis Read online

  While Barney made ready to sail and Vergennes prepared to meet with the Spanish in London, an extraordinary scene took place. On the morning of December 5 members of Lords and Commons gathered to commence the third session of the Fifteenth Parliament.91 As usual, the opening ceremonies included the king’s address. Long before His Majesty arrived, members and guests crowded into the chamber. Among them was Elkanah Watson, a young American merchant from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Watson sat with his friend John Singleton Copley, an American artist. The two men, according to Watson, had seats “exactly in front … elbow to elbow with the celebrated Admiral Lord Howe.” Outside “it was a dark and foggy day,” and inside Watson felt the “gloom.” Among the saddest he spotted were “some dejected American royalists.”92

  Watson and the others waited nearly two hours until “a tremendous roar of artillery” announced the arrival of the king. “He entered by a small door on the left of the throne, and immediately seated himself upon the Chair of State … Apparently agitated, he drew from his pocket the scroll containing his speech.” Watson was close enough so that he could hear “every tone of his voice” and see the “expression of his countenance.” After a few perfunctory remarks King George III, who was “celebrated for reading his speeches, in a distinct, free, and impressive manner … hesitated [and] choked” as he told the House that he had declared the colonies “Free and Independent States.”93 When Watson heard those words, “every artery beat high, and swelled with [his] proud American blood.” With evident joy he proclaimed, “The great drama was now closed.”94

  Watson was premature. Not only was there still much to tidy up in Europe—France and Great Britain had not signed a treaty, and there was the question of Dutch and Spanish interests—but in America Congress knew virtually nothing of what had been transpiring in Paris. Its commissioners had kept that body in the dark.

  Chapter Eight

  While negotiations were progressing slowly in Paris, in New York Carleton was trying his best to ease relations with Washington. On August 2, the day after he delivered the disheartening news to Justice Smith that the king was consenting to American independence, Carleton wrote to Washington with the same information, expecting that the American commander would recognize this concession as evidence of “the pacific disposition of the Parliament and People of England towards the Thirteen Provinces.” He was also pleased to tell him that the king had ordered the release of the American diplomat Henry Laurens, who for more than a year had been confined in the Tower of London. Laurens had been set free on parole in the hope that Congress would reciprocate by releasing General Cornwallis from his parole.1 As much as the loyalists believed that the news from London announced the end of the world, Carleton was convinced that in contrast the rebels would be jubilant. He had misjudged his adversary.

  Having endured seven years of war “and the wide-spread desolation, resulting from the stubbornness of this very King,” American patriots were not in a forgiving mood.2 In a terse three-sentence letter from Newburgh on the same day, Washington acknowledged receipt of Carleton’s letter and told the general that he was forwarding it to Congress and would await the members’ “Instructions.”3 True to his word, he conveyed the letter “to the Eye of Congress” and asked that he be furnished with “Directions.”4 The post rider delivered the package on the evening of Thursday August 8 toward the end of a long and exhausting week in Congress.

  Philadelphia was hot. Inside the stuffy halls of the Pennsylvania statehouse (Independence Hall) tempers had grown warm. Congress had spent the day in a fierce and unpleasant debate. The session had opened well enough. Members were still congratulating themselves on the good news from The Hague. Although they had not received any official communications, unofficial accounts had drifted in reporting that their undiplomatic diplomat John Adams had persuaded the Dutch burghers to recognize the United States, raising hopes that as a consequence of recognition Dutch bankers might offer a substantial loan.5 Coming at a moment when the Congress was, as usual, nearly broke, this news was a tonic to all. It was especially pleasing to an anti-Gallican clique who saw in Dutch support an opportunity to wean the Congress off dependence on French gold.

  Even in the euphoria surrounding the Franco-American alliance, there had always been persistent skeptics who welcomed French aid but not the entanglements that went with it. The notion of hitching America’s wagon to a French team produced queasy feelings. Critics of the alliance complained “that their great cause had become intricately entangled in the affairs of Europe.” The war for independence had become, as far as Europe was concerned, a skirmish in an interminable “struggle for supremacy between two great powers.”6 The loudest voice in this chorus of dissent belonged to a Virginian, the unreconstructed revolutionary Arthur Lee.

  “Ambitious, impetuous, witty, talkative and fond of scheming and intriguing,” Arthur Lee had at one time or another offended nearly everyone.7 Born into one of the “First Families of Virginia,” he left the Old Dominion to seek education in England, which included attending Eton College and earning a degree in medicine from Edinburgh. From Edinburgh he went to London to study law at Middle Temple. He found law a congenial vehicle in which to advance his political ambitions. In the tumultuous years leading up to the Revolution, Lee gained a reputation as an outspoken radical and a strong supporter of colonial rights.8 Signing himself Junius Americanus, he authored pamphlets asserting colonial rights against the royal prerogative and parliamentary authority. His writings brought him to the attention of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and its Speaker, Samuel Adams, who noted, “[Lee] has served the American Cause in a manner which I have long wished some able pen would have undertaken.”9

  In the fall of 1770, following the death of its longtime London agent, the elderly Dennys de Berdt, the Massachusetts House sought a replacement.10 Although they had never met Arthur Lee, Adams, James Otis, and other Whig leaders had read his essays and shared his radical views. They lobbied for his appointment as agent for the colony. A more cautious faction argued for the ever popular, and less radical, Benjamin Franklin as a better choice. Franklin won the contest but not before Adams engineered an agreement that Lee might be Franklin’s substitute should he be incapacitated or absent. In effect they were coagents. Neither appointee was pleased with the other.11

  In the fall of 1776 Congress sent Lee to Paris to join Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane as commissioners charged with securing French aid.12 Lee’s appointment led to the infamous scandals that had resulted in Deane’s recall in 1778 and Lee’s in 1780. The affair had left deep divisions in Congress.13

  In 1781 the Virginia House of delegates elected Lee to Congress. His mere presence, let alone his actions, rekindled the flames of controversy. Not surprisingly, Lee was particularly agitated toward the French and often vented against their influence on Congress. The news from The Hague gave him occasion to rise again to inveigh against the French. What especially stuck in his craw were the instructions of June 15, 1781, which had ordered the American commissioners to place themselves entirely in the hands of the French government.14 On Thursday morning August 8, Lee spoke of the “honor and safety of these states.” To preserve this “honor,” Lee moved “that the instructions given on the 15th June 1781 to the ministers plenipotentiary for negotiating a peace be reconsidered.”15

  Lee’s motion flared a heated and long debate. His fellow Virginian James Madison sought a compromise. After first admitting that the instructions of June 15 were “a sacrifice of national dignity” and then justifying them as a necessary “sacrifice of dignity to policy,” Madison “parried” the issue and offered a typical legislative compromise: form a committee. And so it was done.16

  On Friday morning in the wake of Thursday’s raucous debate, Washington’s dispatch came to the floor. Although rumors of peace had been floating about, the news from Washington was the first official confirmation of progress. Embarrassment may well have been the first feeling in the chamber. The membe
rs were chagrined that such vital news came via General Carleton. Their own commissioners had been silent for nearly six months, yet obviously they had not been inactive. They simply had neglected to inform Congress.17

  Aside from chagrin, the members of Congress had little to say except that “having received no advices from their ministers abroad of what was passing in Europe,” they thought it wise “to refer the letter to a Committee that they might consider and report what was proper to be done.” Arthur Lee, John Rutledge of South Carolina, and John Witherspoon of New Jersey took the assignment.18

  Over the weekend the committee prepared their report. They dismissed Carleton’s communication as a “mere matter of information.” Since they had “received no information on this subject from their commissioners negotiating a peace, no public measure can or ought to be taken.” The only course was to carry “on the War with vigor.”19 Secretary at War Benjamin Lincoln warned General Knox, “We must not relax in the present state of things and thereby lay ourselves open to a stroke.”20 Others saw the overture as little more than an offer of “Irish” independence.21

  Some members, not wanting to appear completely intransigent, sought to smooth Congress’s sharp edge of rejection by offering a measure to release General Cornwallis from his parole. The motion brought down a howl of protest. The most virulent objections came from the South Carolinian Edward Rutledge, John’s younger brother. His state had suffered mightily under the rampages of Cornwallis’s army. According to Charles Thomson, Rutledge “inveighed against” the motion “with so much warmth and indignation that it was rejected with a loud and general no from every part of the house.”22

  Not everyone in Congress welcomed the prospect of peace. Gouverneur Morris, for example, the influential assistant superintendent of finance and a former member from New York, was blunt on the point. He told his friend Matthew Ridley that it was “not much for the Interest of America that [peace] should be made at present.”23 Morris feared that any prospect of an imminent end to the war would freeze the Congress into a state of inaction. It was only the discipline of war and the threat of an enemy that kept Congress, indeed the entire nation, focused and together. Morris’s views were shared by a small but powerful cadre of politicians and military officers whom historians have dubbed “nationalists.” Although hardly consistent or cohesive, these members shared a belief in the need for a more powerful central government. In their opinion the revolutionary spirit had worn thin. “Benevolence, disinterestedness, virtue”—the fuels that had stoked the “Spirit of ’76”—had been driven to ground by selfishness, parochialism, and greed.24 Powerful centrifugal forces tore at the weak fabric of union. Men like Gouverneur Morris, his boss Robert, along with Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and others, urged a more national view.

  Within the Congress there was a general division between nationalists (conservatives), who favored a strong central government, and their opponents, who rested their faith on local and state governments. The various state constitutions and the Articles of Confederation embodied the views of those attached to local government.25 While these two worldviews persisted—radicals and conservatives—only rarely did they come to the floor of Congress.26 For the most part Congress was kaleidoscopic. Members came and went with an alarming frequency. States often did not have enough members present to vote. (The Articles required two members present for a state to vote.) Regional alliances did exist (South, Middle, North), but these were unstable and at no time did any one region have sufficient strength to control events. This was particularly true since the Articles required an extraordinary majority of nine votes on any major issue and a unanimous vote to amend the Articles. These stiff requirements guaranteed stalemate.27 Instead of any broad alignment Congress grouped in “clusters,” appearing as “aggregates of individuals who generally thought alike and sometimes acted together, but who also felt free to ‘defect’ from their ostensible allies on particular (and often critical) issues.”28 In the summer of 1782, as Congress confronted the threat of peace, the want of money, and a restless army, nationalists and radicals divided openly into opposing forces.29

  In its search for a secure and regular income, on February 3, 1781, Congress approved the imposition of a national impost of 5 percent on goods entering the United States. In terms of revenue, it was relatively modest, estimated to raise slightly more than $500,000. Symbolically, however, it was of enormous import since it would give to the central government, for the first time, an independent source of revenue.30 Congressional approval, however, was only the first step. To become law, the impost needed the unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures. Radicals, who saw the impost as an invasion of states’ rights, fought the measure tooth and nail, particularly in New England and most especially in Rhode Island. Nonetheless, by the summer of 1782 all states but Rhode Island had given their approval. The measure hung in limbo with the nationalists, led by Robert Morris, pressing hard for approval, certain that peace would erode political will. Good news from Paris would create bad news in Philadelphia. They feared the confederation would collapse.

  The fate of the impost was inextricably linked to another issue upon which the Congress split. As the impost and peace remained suspended in uncertainty, disturbing rumors arrived from Newburgh. The long-suffering officers of the Continental army, men to whom Congress had made multiple unfulfilled promises, were grumbling. It was hardly the first time that the officers had murmured among themselves, but now there was urgency to their protests. Like the nationalists who fretted that peace would undermine the confederation, they realized that an end to the war would lessen their influence with Congress. A body that had ignored them in war would surely abandon them in peace.

  Pay was the issue. When the Revolution was new, the “Rage Militaire” swept America. Enthusiastic young men, “Sunshine Patriots” certain of victory, and convinced it would be a short war, rushed to enlist in the ranks of the American cause. More substantial citizens, the stuff of which officers were made, were equally enthused. Seeing glory and honor in the struggle for independence, they too were carried along by the rushing stream of patriotism.31 This was a citizens’ army that disdained the European model of a well-drilled, well-dressed professional body distinct from the people it served. Righteousness, virtue, and élan would triumph over the manual of arms. Such bright and shining dreams faded quickly. Romantic notions that moral superiority would win battles shattered as Washington’s army took a drubbing in New York, made a brief comeback in Trenton and Princeton, but then suffered defeat around Philadelphia and marched to a special Gethsemane at Valley Forge. Despite defeat in the field, however, popular support for independence grew, but not necessarily the desire to fight or pay for it. Sensing abandonment by the people at home, an increasing number of soldiers opted to leave the army. Many went home legally as their enlistments expired. Thousands deserted. Finding new recruits was difficult. Volunteering went out of fashion.

  Reluctantly, Congress came to the conclusion, as did the commander in chief, that only a professional army could win the war. Money and benefits, particularly cash bounties, not emotional appeals, became the inducements to serve, and so Congress and the states, sometimes in competition, rushed to offer promises of pay, bounties, and land to those who would enlist or stay in service. In making these commitments, they were erecting a preposterous structure on a pitiful foundation. Congress and the states had saddled themselves with commitments they could not possibly honor and upon which they soon waffled.

  Broken promises ate away at morale. In the enlisted ranks soldiers protested with sullen behavior or simply deserted. In more extreme situations men stayed in camp and mutinied. Over the course of the Revolution on at least fifty occasions armed soldiers refused to obey lawful orders and threatened their officers. The scale of these mutinies ranged from a few disaffected individuals to the rising of entire regiments.32 Such miscreant behavior in the Continental army, combined with its increasing “professionalism,”
did great harm to its public image and made it appear more and more like the oft-despised European armies rather than a virtuous American militia. The gap between civilian and military was growing.

  Officers too felt disaffection. By British standards, the only comparison that mattered, American officers were poorly compensated. In order to maintain a proper professional style through uniforms, horses, and equipment, they often had to dig into their own meager resources. Frustrated, they voted with their feet in opting to resign. According to General Nathanael Greene, “near a thousand officers resigned” during the winter at Valley Forge.33 By spring 1778 Washington was reporting two or three officers per day were asking leave to return home.34 Both those who stayed and those who left were increasingly angry and blunt about their treatment. Blaming Congress for the ills they endured, they pictured themselves as martyrs who alone were holding true to revolutionary principles. General Gates’s views were not unusual when he told Robert Morris that Congress was filled with “Tyranny and Ambition.” If there was any hope, according to the general it would be found in “Our Military men” who have “Honour, Wisdom, and Attachment to one another.”35

  Valley Forge was the nadir. “Our Troops are naked” and “worn out with fatigue,” wrote Greene, describing those dark winter days.36 Food was scarce. Morning, noon, and night, mess was the same—fire cake, a foul concoction of dough cooked on a hot stone. General James Mitchell Varnum warned that “the situation is such that in all human probability the Army must soon dissolve,” while the commander in chief described the dire situation as a “fatal crisis.”37 With the rank and file starving and officers departing at an alarming rate, Washington decided on radical measures. He ordered Greene to forage the countryside, taking all “Cattle and Sheep fit for slaughter.” Greene carried out his orders with a vengeance, reporting to Washington, “[The] Inhabitants cry out and beset me from all quarters, but like Pharoh I harden my heart.” He ordered his men to “forage the Country very bare.”38 Supplies arrived, and for his efforts Greene was appointed quartermaster general.