Independence (37 page)

Fox's speech in the debate on the king's address was his first on the American war. He said little that had not been said on numerous occasions by others. He characterized North as “the blundering pilot” who had conveyed the nation to this crisis. He agreed that “the Americans had gone too far,” but he took issue with the monarch's contention that the colonists sought independence. And like Grafton, Fox said that he had been deceived by the ministry. He had voted to send more troops to America in 1774 because North's government had said that doing so would “ensure peace” without bloodshed. The ministers had been wrong. Fox pronounced that he could no longer “consent to the bloody consequences of so silly a contest about so silly an object, conducted in the silliest manner that history … had ever furnished … and from which we were likely to derive nothing, but poverty, misery, disgrace, defeat, and ruin.”
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North largely left the government's defense to Sandwich, who despite the bloodbaths suffered along Battle Road and on Bunker Hill, ludicrously raised the familiar canard about American “cowardice and want of spirit.”
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The implication of his remarks was that victory would be easily attained. To no one's surprise, when the debate concluded, both houses brushed back the opposition to the king's position. By huge margins each house announced its “entire concurrence” with the monarch's wish to “suppress this rebellion” with “the most decisive exertions.”
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Ending the debate did not close the matter. Too many MPs wanted to discuss waging war. Some questioned the ministry's authority to hire the foreign troops that were sent to the Mediterranean, and others raised doubts about the government's estimates of the cost of expanding the naval and land forces in North America. In addition, the discussion kept coming back to the Olive Branch Petition. Congress's entreaty to the king was read in the House of Lords early in the month, and on November 10 Richard Penn, who had carried the supplication across the Atlantic and was still in London, was summoned to testify. Among other things, he told the legislators that the sentiments of Congress reflected public opinion in the colonies and stressed that the Americans had gone to war “in defence of their liberties,” not to secure independence.
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Many opposition MPs seized on Congress's petition to assert that “the colonists were disposed to an amicable adjustment of differences.” Peace was possible, several observed. Others questioned the wisdom of pursuing a conquest that would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to achieve. One said that time would tell whether or not the colonists were cowardly, but there could be no question that they possessed arms and knew how to use them. More than one observed that the Americans also knew their country intimately and would use its rivers and other “natural barriers” to their advantage. Shelburne, who had been the first to ask why the king refused to receive Congress's solicitation, spoke at length for a second time on the opportunity presented by the Olive Branch Petition for peacefully resolving the American question. Shelburne raised another matter that was on the minds of many. If the war lasted beyond 1776, he warned, the danger would grow that France would enter the fray. French belligerency, he said, would increase the likelihood that Congress would declare American independence and that America would win the war and make good on its break from the empire. Sandwich responded for the government. To concede to the demands of the rebels, he said, would “render up the rights of this country into the hands of the colonists.” To back down, he continued, would bring “disgrace” and lessen Great Britain's standing “in the eyes of all Europe,” perhaps with fatal consequences.
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A few days later, on November 16, Burke delivered the last of his three major speeches on the American crisis before independence. In the spring of 1774, and again during the following winter, he had made long, impassioned addresses attacking Britain's taxation of the colonists, his second effort coming when war hung in the balance. Burke's final oration was also incredibly lengthy—it consumed nearly four hours—and while his critics thought it “tedious” and not his best effort, many believed it was superior to Chatham's antiwar speech during the previous winter.
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Burke maintained that three approaches existed to the American problem. First, Great Britain could seek to crush the rebellion solely by the use of force. He doubted that victory could be achieved and was certain that it could not be accomplished by the number of troops that North had proposed sending to North America. Second, Great Britain could mix war and negotiation. Once the Continental army had suffered a sharp blow at the hands of the redcoats, terms could be offered to the colonial assemblies. Burke thought such a plan was fanciful. Rather than humbling the colonists, Britain's use of force would render the Americans less willing to reunite with the mother country. The third, and surest, way to “restore immediate peace,” according to Burke, was to offer genuine peace terms without delay. The terms must not—could not—include the repeal of the Declaratory Act or of all American legislation enacted since 1763. To rescind the Declaratory Act would strip Parliament of all authority over America. To invalidate all recent acts might destroy Anglo-American commercial ties. Instead, Burke proposed offering the Continental Congress terms that included the renunciation of Parliament's authority to tax the colonists; recognition of the Continental Congress's authority to legislate for the colonies; repeal of the Townshend Duties and Coercive Acts; revocation of decades-old legislation that prohibited certain forms of manufacturing in the provinces; and pardons for all who had borne arms against Great Britain in this war.

Burke closed with an assessment of political realities in the colonies. A majority in Congress, he said, wished to reconcile with the mother country, and he believed that the terms he proposed were consistent with the conditions stipulated by the First Continental Congress. Shrewdly, Burke told the House of Commons that an offer of generous terms “would be the true means of dividing America” and crippling its solidarity behind the war, thus compelling Congress to accept peace.
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Burke had hit upon the great fear of the likes of John Adams. Because Galloway had exposed what had occurred in the First Congress, and because of the correspondence of Adams and Harrison that had gone awry, London knew that deep divisions existed among the rebels. Burke held forth the option of exploiting those breaches as the best means of finding a peaceable solution to the crisis.

Fox had said in private that Burke's speech “will be the fairest test in the world to try who is really for war and who is for peace.”
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The first to answer Burke was Lord Germain, who during November's American debate had finally succeeded Dartmouth as the American secretary. This was Germain's maiden speech as a minister. It was midnight when he obtained the floor. Germain struck one observer as “much flustered,” and the new minister in fact confided to a friend that he “felt very awkward.”
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He began by saying that he would never surrender the right of taxation. If that meant war, he did not shrink from it. Great Britain had great resources and was “equal to the contest.” The government, he went on, was sending the reinforcements asked for by the “officers serving on the spot.” They believed the increased numbers of regulars would be sufficient “to restore, maintain, and establish the power of this country in America,” and so did he. Germain pointed out that Congress had spurned the North Peace Plan. Indeed, it had not responded to the peace proposals made by Camden, Chatham, Burke, and Hartley during the previous winter. He declared that what Burke had proposed would not win over the Americans. The Americans, he argued, would see the terms proposed by Burke only “as gratuitous preliminaries” and would demand still more concessions, which “would put us on worse ground.”
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North had been silent throughout the debates, but he rose when Germain took his seat. The first minister concurred with his new American secretary. Offering little that was new, North even repeated word for word some points made by Germain. At four A.M., immediately after North concluded his speech, the House of Commons rejected Burke's conciliatory terms by a two-to-one margin.
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Parliament had been in session for nearly a month, and North had divulged only his plans for increasing Britain's armed forces in North America. Nothing had been said about palliative measures, though rumors were swirling that the government planned to send a peace commission across the sea. The talk had largely been inspired by the cryptic passage in the king's address alluding to “persons … so commissioned” to restore the colonies to their proper allegiance. Germain had also fueled expectations of peace commissioners. In his rejoinder to Burke, Germain alluded to “the plan of sending commissioners,” adding that he hoped they would “inquire into grievances.”
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Four days after Burke's long speech, North spoke at length and finally informed Parliament of the government's plan. He revealed that commissioners would be sent to America to grant pardons and “enquire into … any … real grievance that would be remedied.” He offered no new conciliatory proposals. He merely reiterated the plan that Parliament had approved in February: that the colonies tax their inhabitants to raise an amount of revenue stipulated by the imperial government, in return for which Parliament would no longer levy taxes on America. North clung to the slender hope that his supposed peace offering, counterbalanced by the full might of the British army and navy, offered the best chance of avoiding total war. Coercion and the threat of subjugation alone could sunder American unity and bring at least some of the colonies to their senses.

Given his pugnacious outlook, North introduced one new policy. Hoping to ratchet up the pressure on the colonists, the prime minister introduced the American Prohibitory Bill, soon to be labeled the “Capture Bill” by its foes. North's proposed legislation called for a naval blockade of each colony, the seizure of American goods discovered at sea, and the impressment into the Royal Navy of captured American seamen. North was confident that the measure would bring a rapid end to the colonists' “treasonable commotions.” Not only would it frustrate the insurgents' every hope of obtaining foreign assistance, North thought, but also the threat of austerity posed by a blockade would result in an American capitulation before June or July, when the military campaign of 1776 was likely to begin in earnest. Should that not be the case, North continued, it was the government's intent to deal with the American rebels by coupling maximum force with severe economic coercion. When the colonists had been brought to their knees by defeat on the battlefield and privation sown by the prohibition of their trade, the so-called peace commissioners would accept the American surrender and grant pardons to at least some of the colonists.
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Burke and Fox never for a moment believed that the Americans would yield to North's strong-arm tactics. They believed, in fact, that further duress would only fuel the colonists' resolve to stand up against their mother country. Burke, answering North in his rich Irish brogue, retorted that the administration's “plan of this year is to enforce the conciliatory motion of last year by military execution.” Working in tandem, Fox followed and spoke longer than his newfound ally. The Americans would see through North's deception and understand that the ministry had no intention of negotiating. They would understand that North's real purpose was “a declaration of perpetual war.” The American Prohibitory Bill, Fox raged, lays bare “the want of policy, the folly and madness, of the present set of ministers.”

The history of this crisis, Fox asserted, was that first Parliament imposed on the colonists “cruel and tyrannical laws.” When the Americans objected, they were answered with “another [law] more rigorous than the former.” When the colonists complained further, government sent “fleets and armies against them.” The American Prohibitory Bill would be the final step. Whereas Burke had offered a peace plan built around genuine conciliation, North offered a “wretched policy” tantamount to total war. It would not divide the Americans; it would unite them against the mother country. It would push America to declare independence. Burke concurred with Fox, and in very nearly the final word in the debate, predicted that the day would come when the “damnable doctrines of this Bill would fall heavy on this country.” Burke's oration fell once more on stony ground. The House of Commons passed the bill by more than a four-to-one margin.
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When Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, John Adams had prayed that the British government would be afraid to pursue negotiations, for he feared that serious talks would bring about a peace that left the Americans with less than they could achieve by continuing the war. Franklin had never for a moment thought that North's government would act on Congress's petition. “It now requires great Wisdom” on the part of Britain's leaders “to prevent a total Separation” of the colonies from the mother country, he had said back in the summer. “We shall give you one Opportunity more of recovering our Affections and retaining the Connections,” he had remarked when Penn departed to carry the petition across the sea, but Franklin had not been sanguine.
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Adams's prayers had been answered, and Franklin's suspicions had been borne out. Great Britain's last chance of preventing American independence by peaceful means had come and gone, spurned by a king and ministry that saw negotiation as weakness and gambled that the Americans were too feeble, divided, and craven to effectively resist the use of force.