At Water's Edge: Britain, Napoleon, and the World, 1793-1815

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AT WATER’S EDGE: BRITAIN, NAPOLEON, AND THE WORLD, 1793-1815 ______

A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board

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In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

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by Christopher T. Golding May 2017

Examining Committee Members:

Dr. Gregory J. W. Urwin, Advisory Chair, Department of History Dr. Travis Glasson, Department of History Dr. Rita Krueger, Department of History Dr. Jeremy Black, External Member, University of Exeter (UK)

ABSTRACT

This dissertation explores the influence of late eighteenth-century British imperial and global paradigms of thought on the formation of British policy and strategy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It argues that British imperial interests exerted a consistent influence on British strategic decision making through the personal advocacy of political leaders, institutional memory within the British government, and in the form of a traditional strain of a widely-embraced British imperial-maritime ideology that became more vehement as the conflict progressed. The work can be broken into two basic sections. The first section focuses on the formation of strategy within the British government of William Pitt the Younger during the French

Revolutionary Wars from the declaration of war in February 1793 until early 1801.

During this phase of the Anglo-French conflict, British ministers struggled to come to terms with the nature of the threat posed by revolutionary ideology in France, and lacked strategic consistency due to acute cabinet-level debates over continental versus imperial strategies. The latter half of the work assesses Britain’s response to the challenges presented by Napoleonic France. Beginning with the debates surrounding

Anglo-French peace negotiations in late 1801, the British increasingly came to define

Napoleonic France as a regime harboring imperial aspirations that represented an explicit threat to British imperial interests. By defining the Napoleonic regime as an aspirational imperial power, British opponents of the Peace of Amiens provided the intellectual framework for the hegemonic struggle between land and sea powers that

iii would define the Anglo-French struggle until its conclusion in June 1815. While Britain ultimately proved successful in defeating France in Europe, the expanse of the conflict also exposed the strengths and weaknesses of British force projection outside of Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

For Carolyn.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the years ranging between 1793 and 1815, the British Admiralty dispatched a steady stream of orders to naval officers. These orders represented the blood flow of

British maritime power—an essential component of Britain’s ability to project and aspire to naval dominance on a global scale. Within many of these missives, Admiralty secretaries inserted a mundane but significant formulaic expression that preceded the officer’s orders. The Admiralty’s orders were immediate, but their execution awaited

“the moment wind and weather will permit.” The statement represented both a necessary caveat for operations at sea in the age of sail, and an awareness that the

Admiralty ultimately operated at the discretion of powers beyond its direct control. In many respects, the research and writing of a dissertation occurs at the discretion of and with the support of its own “wind and weather,” and numerous individuals and institutions deserve recognition for their role in aiding the completion of this work.

First and foremost, I must express gratitude to the community of faculty, staff, and graduate students of the history department of Temple University. In particular, I wish to thank Drs. Gregory J. W. Urwin, Rita Krueger, and Travis Glasson for serving on both my comprehensive exam and dissertation committees. As an advisor, Dr. Urwin has challenged my thinking and writing when necessary, and provided ample and much appreciated support throughout my graduate studies. Similar thanks go to Drs. Krueger and Glasson, who played vital and significant roles in my intellectual development and the ultimate completion of this project. Thanks are owed as well to Martin Clemis and

Jean-Pierre Beugoms, who read and commented on early drafts of chapters.

Additionally, the commiseration and friendship of Earl Catagnus, Eric Klinek, Jason

Smith, and Joshua Wolf over the years have played an important counter to the often solitary nature of dissertation research and writing. Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not express gratitude for the help of the department’s secretaries over the years, with specific thanks to Vangeline Campbell.

I owe debts of gratitude beyond the confines of Temple University, as well. Dr.

Jeremy Black agreed to serve as the external member of my dissertation committee at a late hour, which is no small thing for a scholar of his stature and I greatly appreciate his willingness to take on the role. While at the University of Pennsylvania I benefited immensely from participation in a small reading group run by Dr. Arthur Waldron, which stimulated an early interest in British maritime power during the French

Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. At the University of St. Andrews, where I began my graduate work, Drs. Guy Rowlands and Steve Murdoch deserve particular thanks for their support of a fledgling student. Closer to home, I would like to thank the

Masséna Society for including me on a panel at the 2014 Consortium on the

Revolutionary Era and the encouragement I received at the conference—particular thanks are owed to Drs. Mark Gerges and Donald D. Horward. Additionally, portions of

Chapter 3 and 6 benefited from the comments and suggestions of anonymous readers during the review process for publication.

Like most historical research projects, this dissertation represents the final result of years working with archival material. As such, I cannot express enough thanks to the various staff members of the archives and libraries I visited. The bulk of the archival

vii material that supports this work comes from the British National Archives, which is a model of archival efficiency—to the nameless and faceless staff members that kept my reserved cubby filled with documents, thank you. Additional praise and appreciation go to the staff of the British Library, National Maritime Museum, William Clements

Library, Rubenstein Library, and the National Library of Scotland. To the staff of Paley

Library at Temple University and the many affiliated libraries and librarians that filled numerous loan requests over the years, many thanks. In researching this project, I also benefited greatly from two research grants from the College of Liberal Arts at Temple

University.

Most important of all, I need to express immense gratitude to my family. My mother and father committed to and supported my education at all levels throughout my life. To them I owe my love of reading and intellectual curiosity. This dissertation testifies to their investment in me as much as anything else, and a debt I will never fully repay. Thanks for the support and patience of my mother and father-in-law, who I am not sure entirely appreciated the scope of working on a dissertation until they aided in a move and came face-to-face with the many boxes of books accumulated during research.

To Maxx, Winston, Wellington, and the sadly departed Pepper, you provided a

(sometimes) welcome distraction from the doldrums of the computer or book. To

Everett, who will one day understand all of this, thank you for mercifully starting to sleep on a schedule. To Emmeline, who arrived a fortnight following the defense of this dissertation, thank you for waiting your turn.

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Lastly, Carolyn, to whom this work is dedicated. We met, married, and became

Everett’s parents between the inception and completion of this dissertation. “Thank you” is well shy of the necessary mark owed to the partner of a dissertating graduate student, but forever thank you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………..………………….…………….iii

DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………………v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………………….vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………...…………..xi

LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………….…………………...xii

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION: “THE IRRESISTIBLE STREAM OF EVENTS”…………………...…...1

2. MISPERCEPTIONS AND FAILURES: THE WAR AGAINST FRANCE, 1793-95...……19

3. “A CONTENTION OF PURSE”: THE IMPERIAL COUNTER-REVOLUTION, 1795-98…………………………..……...58

4. A WAR FOR EUROPE, OR FOR EMPIRE?: THE WAR OF THE SECOND COALITION, 1798-1801……………………..…………103

5. THE SHEPHERD AND THE WOLF: THE PEACE OF AMIENS, IMPERIAL INSECURITY AND THE OUTBREAK OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS, 1801-5…..………….…………….145

6. THE LIMITS OF MARITIME HEGEMONY, 1806-9………………………...……………187

7. THE FRAYING EDGE OF EMPIRE: BRITAIN AND NORTH AMERICA, 1807-15……………………………….………….236

8. CONCLUSION: THE “SMALL SPOT IN THE OCEAN”...……………...………………291

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………...………………….305

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BL British Library, London

BNA British National Archives, Kew

Castlereagh Corr. Correspondence, Despatches, and other Papers, of the Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry, ed. Charles William Vane, 12 vols. (London: William Shoberl, 1851)

Dropmore Papers The Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq. preserved at Dropmore, Historic Manuscript Commission, 10 vols. (London: H. M. Stationary Office, 1892-1927)

George III Corr. The Later Correspondence of George III, ed. A. Aspinall, vols. 2-5. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963-70)

NMM National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

Parliamentary Debates Hansard Parliamentary Debates, United Kingdom, 1st ser. (1803-20)

Parliamentary History Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England … to the year, 1803, William Cobbett, vols. 31-33 (London: R. Bagshaw, 1818)

Spencer Papers Private Papers of George, Second Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty 1794-1801, eds. Julian S. Corbett and Rear- Admiral Sir H. W. Richmond, 4 vols. (London: Navy Records Society, 1913-24)

WCL William Clements Library, Ann Arbor

Windham Papers The Windham Papers, William Windham and Archibald Philip Primrose Rosebery, 2 vols. (Boston: Small Maynard, 1913)

LIST OF FIGURES

3.1. “The Board of Controul. or the Blessings of the Scotch Dictator” 65

5.1. "John Bull Visited with the Blessings of Peace” 150

5.2. “The Ray of Hope” 162

5.3. “Maniac Raving’s-or-Little Boney in a Strong Fit” 174

5.4. “The Plumb-Pudding in Danger: -or- State Epicures Taking un Petit Souper” 183

6.1. “News from Calabrial –capture of Buenos Ayres! –i.e.- the comforts of an Imperial déjeuné at St Cloud’s” 197

7.1. Naval Ships and Naval Displacement, 1715-1815 246

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: “THE IRRESISTABLE STREAM OF EVENTS”

In February 1793, Britain belatedly entered the fray against Revolutionary

France. The immediate aims of William Pitt the Younger’s government were limited in nature—the containment of France’s revolutionary ideology, and the entirely traditional pursuit of poaching colonies in the West Indies. Over two decades later, the European conflagration reached a merciful and long-awaited conclusion when a British-led coalition army, with critical and timely Prussian assistance, defeated Napoleon

Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. In the intervening years, the Anglo-

French conflict evolved into a hegemonic struggle that spread beyond Europe to Africa, the Middle East, Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, and North and South America. Put more succinctly, it became a world war.

With specific focus on British policy and strategy, this dissertation explores the transformation of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars into a global and imperial conflict. How, why, and to what extent did the British Empire and its associated imperial-maritime ideology affect the formation of British policy and strategy between 1793 and 1815? Another, closely related, question also runs through this study: how did the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars impact Britain’s imperial project? I argue that Britain’s imperial interests and ideology played an important role in influencing British policy and strategy as the Anglo-French conflict progressed and demanded an ever greater mobilization of resources by the British state. The vectors of

1 this influence were manifold, but chiefly consisted of the personal advocacy of political leaders, ingrained institutional memory, the necessary defense of extant British colonial interests, and a British imperial-maritime ideology that had roots dating to the sixteenth century. Additionally, the Anglo-French conflict unwittingly accelerated a transitionary phase in British imperial history begun by the War of American Independence. The course of the conflict cast light on the declining strength of Britain as an imperial entity in the Atlantic Ocean, while concurrently creating opportunities that resulted in the significant expansion of British India and establishment of British hegemony in the

Indian Ocean.

In many respects, the fact that the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars spilled beyond the boundary of Europe was well within the normal parameters of

European warfare at the close of the eighteenth century. Throughout the century, clashes between European states—often Britain and France—spread in due course to their distant colonial possessions. In contemporary living memory, the War of Austrian

Succession and Seven Years’ War had their colonial offspring in the imperial periphery throughout the world, the latter concluding in France’s expulsion from North America.

The reverse proved equally true during the War of American Independence. French support of the rebelling colonies morphed the conflict into a global conflict, in which the final shot fired in anger occurred in India.

Indeed, there is little doubt that responsible British ministers conceived of colonial strategies as entirely traditional in nature. For example, in May 1797, Henry

Dundas, Secretary of State for War, rose in the House of Commons and aggressively

2 denounced critiques of the government’s pursuit of colonial warfare as, effectively, demands that the government renounce a basic responsibility to preserve and protect

Britain’s imperial interests. He went on:

If gentlemen would look back to our history, they would find that in no war which was well conducted, had such a principle entered into the minds of ministers; nor was there ever a war, in which it had not been held the best and wisest policy to direct our force against the colonial interests of the enemy, and to the protection of our own. Therefore, when gentlemen stated that the West-India war was criminal, because there had been a great expense of money and lives, they were, in fact, uttering a gross libel on every administration which had ever conducted a war for Great Britain.1

The ground beneath Dundas’ argument was softer than his rhetoric suggested, however. It was, in fact, debatable whether traditional eighteenth-century imperial- maritime strategies met the challenges posed by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.

In a rebuttal to Dundas’ remarks, the famed parliamentarian, and admirer of the French

Revolution’s ideals, Charles James Fox argued that “the avowed object [of the war] was the destruction of the Jacobin government established in France.” Given that objective,

Fox suggested, the logic of Dundas’ argument collapsed: “for supposing we had acquired every island belonging to the enemy in the West Indies, it would not advance us one step to our object of destroying the internal government of France.”2 Fox, a leading critic of government policy in the 1790s, overstated the clarity of the

1 Parliamentary History, vol. 33 (1797-1798), cols. 581-83.

2 Parliamentary History, vol. 33 (1797-1798), cols. 588-90.

3 government’s position with regard to regime change in Paris. Nevertheless, his comment did touch upon the core tension in British strategic discourse throughout the

Anglo-French conflict relative to continental intervention and entanglement, which was particularly acute in the 1790s. The French Revolutionary and, especially, Napoleonic

Wars represented a substantive break with the norms of eighteenth-century European diplomacy and warfare.3 Specifically, limited conflicts defined by dynastic politics, balance of power, and negotiated settlements, progressively gave way to strategies of annihilation and the advent of “total war.”4 Additionally, a general consensus existed among Europe’s governing class that revolutionary ideology and Napoleonic rule were incompatible with European stability and diplomatic order. The former development necessitated a massive expansion in military means, while the latter suggested that a necessary precondition for lasting peace was regime change as opposed to negotiated peace.5

3 Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

4 For brief treatments on this topic, see R. R. Palmer, “Frederick the Great, Guibert, Bülow: From Dynastic to National War,” and Peter Paret, “Napoleon and the Revolution in War,” in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 91-119, and 123-42.

5 British debate over the merits of continental and imperial-maritime policies held a prominent position in British strategic discourse in the eighteenth century. With regard to the development of imperial-maritime—“blue water”—strategic thought, see Daniel A. Baugh, “Great Britain’s ‘Blue-Water’ Policy, 1689-1815,” The International History Review 10:1 (February, 1988): 33-58. On Britain’s relationship to the Continent, see Jeremy Black, The Continental Commitment: Britain, Hanover, and Interventionism, 1714-1793 (New York: Routledge, 2005); Black, Trade, Empire and British Foreign Policy, 1689-1815 (London: Routledge, 2007), 115; Black, Debating Foreign Policy in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Burlington: Ashgate, 2011); and Karl W. Schweizer, “The Vote of Credit Controversy, 1762,” in Statesmen, Diplomats and the Press—Essays on 18th Century Britain (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), 21-36.

Before moving on, it is worth briefly pausing to address the notion of strategy in

Britain at the close of the eighteenth century. As naval historian N. A. M. Rodger observes, the word “strategy” did not appear in the English lexicon until roughly 1800, and, even then, was not applied in the modern sense of the term. This leads Rodger to argue, “To discuss ‘British naval strategy’ of the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth century is to impose an anachronistic modern category on the thinking of the time.” He continues, “The idea of British naval strategy must really mean the strategic element in

British naval policy, as far as it can be isolated with the benefit of hindsight.”6 Rodger’s cautionary observation is well heard, but the absence of “strategy” in contemporary vocabulary did not necessarily equate to an inability to think in terms that we can retroactively describe and analyze as “strategic” thought.

That being said, British strategic thought—particularly with regard to its imperial periphery—reflected the frictions and limitations inherent to the communication capabilities of the era. Ministers in London operated with full awareness that weeks if not months would pass before official correspondence could reach distant stations. Of necessity, ministers delegated considerable responsibility for decision making to commanders on the scene. Contemporary British strategic thought, therefore, tended towards the abstract and conceptual as opposed to specific, which, ideally, resulted in commanders understanding desired ends along with possessing the freedom

6 N. A. M. Rodger, “The Idea of Naval Strategy in Britain in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in Geoffrey Till, ed., The Development of British Naval Thinking: Essays in Memory of Bryan Ranft (New York: Routledge, 2006), 19-33.

5 to respond to on-the-ground realities quickly and decisively. As this dissertation will show, however, maintaining any degree of centralized command and control over the imperial periphery proved elusive as lines of communication stretched out geographically and temporally.

Scholarly assessment of Britain’s imperial-maritime policies during the era of the

French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars varies greatly. Not without reason, a

Eurocentric approach holds a prominent position in the literature. Such works situate the Anglo-French conflict’s ultimate center of gravity on the Continent, and marginalize or dismiss Britain’s colonial policies as wasteful and largely ineffective divergences from the decisive theater. In effect, the embrace of imperial-maritime policies by various

British ministers represented ministerial malpractice. A related argument characterizes

Britain’s imperial-maritime pursuits as merely byproducts of the British government’s inability to exert itself on the Continent. Such arguments feature prominently in Piers

Mackesy’s influential works on British policy during the period, and extend into writings on the Napoleonic Wars in Europe by scholars such as Charles Esdaile,

Christopher D. Hall, and Rory Muir.7

7 Perhaps the most famous and lingering historiographic critique of Britain’s imperial- maritime policies came from the pen of Sir John W. Fortescue, who claimed that, “The secret of England’s impotence for the first six years of the war may be said to lie in the two fatal words, St. Domingo.” J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army (London: Macmillan and co., 1915), vol. 4, 325. Piers Mackesy, Statesmen at War: the Strategy of Overthrow 1798-99 (New York: Longman, 1974), and War Without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt 1799-1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). Much of Mackesy’s work on the French Revolutionary War rests on the outlook of the British Foreign Office and Lord Grenville, as opposed to the more colonially-minded War Office and Henry Dundas. Mackesy foreshadowed his analysis of British policy in the 1790s in The War for America 1775-1783: “One lesson, however, was misapplied. The American War had been largely fought and decided in the West Indies. And when the struggle with France was renewed the

In contrast to such works stands a body of literature that tends to adopt an imperial-maritime analytical lens, and, predictably perhaps, offers a less critical analysis of British imperial-maritime policies. Works by historians such as Michael Duffy and

David Patrick Geggus ably demonstrate the economic ties that bound the West Indies to

Britain and France, and the contemporary perception of the value in capturing the sugar-rich colonies found there.8 A more recent work by Martin Robson on British South

American policy during the Napoleonic Wars draws attention to the ways that early nineteenth-century Britain was essentially an Atlantic entity, as opposed to “European,” and driven by a modus operandi of maritime economic expansion.9 A staunch imperial perspective within the historiography can be found in the work of Edward Ingram, who

Cabinet turned without hesitation to that theater. The flower of the army was drawn irresistibly away from the periphery of Europe to perish among the fevers of the Antilles.” Mackesy, The War for America 1775-1783 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 518. On British inability to intervene on the Continent, see Mackesy, “The Problem of an Amphibious Power: Britain Against France, 1793-1815,” in Naval War College Review 30:4/267 (Spring 1978), pp. 16-25. On the Napoleonic Wars, see Christopher D. Hall, British Strategy in the Napoleonic Wars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992); Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996); and Charles Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars: An International History (New York, Penguin Books, 2009), in particular, 263-65. For an example of works that focus on British naval strategy relative to the Continent during the Napoleonic Wars, see Christopher D. Hall, Wellington’s Navy: Sea Power and the Peninsular War 1807-1814 (London: Chatham Publishing, 2004); and James Davey, The Transformation of British Naval Strategy: Seapower and Supply in Northern Europe, 1808-1812 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012).

8 Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War against Revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987); and “World-Wide War and British Expansion, 1793-1815,” in P. J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 184-207. David Patrick Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue 1793-98 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982); and “The Cost of Pitt’s Caribbean Campaigns, 1793-1798,” in The Historical Journal 26:3 (September 1983), pp. 699-706.

9 Martin Robson, Britain, Portugal and South America in the Napoleonic Wars: Alliances and Diplomacy in Economic Maritime Conflict (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011).

7 argues that a blinkered view of the European theater ignores that, “The wars were also fought for the expansion and defence of the British empire.” Indeed, Ingram forcefully argues that the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars spawned an imperial transformation of the British state, which rendered Britain a “dual monarchy, governed from London and Calcutta and as vitally interested in the defence of India as in the

European balance of power.”10

This dissertation is primarily interested in the connective tissue that existed between Britain’s continental and imperial-maritime policies throughout the French

Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As historian Bruce Collins asserts, British military power played a central role in the expansion of the British Empire, which is underappreciated in imperial historiography.11 Despite the fact that a significant expansion of the British Empire in the Indian Ocean occurred during the Anglo-French conflict, it is difficult to characterize this process as anything amounting to what we

10 Edward Ingram, Commitment to Empire: Prophecies of the Great Game in Asia 1797-1800 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 11-12. See also, Ingram, Britain’s Persian Connection, 1798-1828: Prelude to the Great Game in Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). Ingram’s argument falls in line with the British imperial “swing to the east” thesis, first advanced by Vincent T. Harlow in The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763-1793, 2 vols., (London: Longmans, 1952-64). Harlow’s argument has been debated by scholars in the years since it was first published. For concise examples of more “global” perspectives of the Second British Empire, see Martin Lynn, “British Policy, Trade, and Informal Empire in the Mid-Nineteenth Century;” and P. J. Marshall “Britain Without America—A Second Empire?” in P. J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 101-21, and 576-95.

11 Bruce Collins, War and Empire: The Expansion of Britain, 1790-1830 (London: Longman, 2010).

8 might now label a “grand strategy” on the part of the British government in London.12

Rather, British foreign policy and strategy represented something of a moving target as ministers responded to events; the vicissitudes of cabinet-level debates ran their course;

British imperial actors took advantage of the autonomy created by distance; and different governments formed and came into power. As the following chapters will demonstrate, though, British foreign policy and strategy did conform to an overall developmental arc of greater emphasis—or reliance—on imperial-maritime interests and policy as the conflict progressed and expanded. To be sure, one impetus for this process was British awareness of their limited ability to directly intervene on the Continent, but an equally important factor were positive arguments in favor of imperial-maritime centered strategies.13 This argument runs counter to that of Mackesy, who claimed that one effect of the French Revolutionary Wars on British strategic thought was a clear victory for continental over colonial policy. “The truth was clear that in the last resort

12 This is not an insignificant point, as it counters the occasionally voiced misperception that Britain entered the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793 with a coherent imperial-maritime agenda premised on self-aggrandizement. For example, in Andrew Roberts’ recent and well- received biography of Napoleon Bonaparte, he writes of the British government’s response to the French Revolution: “Britain saw an opportunity to use her maritime power to sweep French trade from the world’s oceans, neutralize or capture French colonies and cement her position as the world’s greatest commercial power after her humiliation in America only a decade earlier.” Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York: Viking, 2014), 42. In fact, Britain entered the conflict largely as a defensive response to the threat of French occupation of Antwerp, and, at the outset of its involvement in the war, Pitt’s government completely lacked the strategic clarity and purpose Roberts attributes to it. On this point, see John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt, Volume Two: The Reluctant Transition (London: Constable, 1983), 348.

13 Pitt acknowledged Britain’s inability to unilaterally act on the Continent as early as May 1794, but also viewed the destruction of French commerce as a potentially “fatal” blow to Revolutionary France. Ehrman, The Reluctant Transition, 356.

Europe must have absolute priority in British strategy,” he writes. “The British ministers of the Napoleonic Wars did not follow Dundas’s logic, but Grenville’s.”14 British ministers of the Napoleonic Wars may not have followed Dundas’ 1790s logic to the letter, but, for better or worse, they operated in both his intellectual shadow and debt.15

In approaching this topic, I have given attention to how imperial paradigms of thought and structural aspects of the British imperial state framed policy debates and outcomes. Britons possessed a deeply rooted and widely-held imperial-maritime ideology that dated to imperial advocates writing in sixteenth-century England. Indeed, the British Empire was an important feature of eighteenth-century Britons’ developing national identity.16 Perhaps more importantly, throughout the course of the eighteenth century the British state transformed from an ambivalent imperial metropole into an unapologetic imperial state. The key moment of this transformation was the Seven

14 Mackesy, War Without Victory, 229.

15 Dundas has long received sharp criticism for his handling of military policy, but enjoys a far more favorable reading within British imperial historiography. For example, Ingram glowingly describes Dundas as “the most important public figure in the British Empire between the loss of America and his impeachment in 1806.” Ingram, Commitment to Empire, xi.

16 David Armitage, Ideological Origins of the British Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Daniel A. Baugh, “Maritime Strength and Atlantic Commerce: The Uses of ‘A Grand Marine Empire,’” in Lawrence Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689- 1815 (New York: Routledge, 1994), 185-223. Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715-1785 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). On British national identity, see Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). On the developing political influence of imperial-maritime interests in the eighteenth century, see Perry Gauci, The Politics of Trade: The Overseas Merchant in State and Society, 1660-1720 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); and David Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Years’ War, the outcome of which precipitated a series of attempts by Parliament to assert greater control over the British Empire in the following decades. These imperial reforms led to rebellion and rupture with the thirteen North American colonies, but they proved far more successful in British India.17 As a result of these decade- and century- long imperial developments, upon the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars,

British imperial-maritime interests and ideology possessed greater economic and political influence over strategic thought than during any previous European conflict in

British history.

At root, this is a work centered in the imperial metropole and the sources reflect this. I have made extensive use of archival material from the British National Archives at

Kew. Specifically, the voluminous correspondence produced by the British Admiralty,

War Office, and Colonial Office. Additionally, I have drawn on manuscript material

17 On the importance of the Seven Years’ War, see Fred Anderson, The Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British America, 1754-1766 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000). For examples of works on North America, see Alison Olson, Making Empire Work: London and American Interest Groups, 1690-1790 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992); Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, “The Formation of a Commercial Lobby: The West India Interests, British Colonial Policy and the American Revolution,” The Historical Journal 40:1 (March, 1997), pp. 71-95; and Eliga H. Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000). On the limited nature of metropolitan authority in early eighteenth-century British India, see Philip J. Stern, The Company- State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundation of the British Empire in India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). On the development of British India in the latter half of the eighteenth century, see C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World 1780-1830 (New York: Longman, 1989); H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); P. J. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead Eastern India 1740-1828 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); and Anthony Webster, The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790-1860 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2009).

11 housed at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, David M.

Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University, James Ford Bell

Library at the University of Minnesota, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich

(UK), and the British Library. Lastly, this project also draws upon the wealth of published correspondence, writings, newspapers, political cartoons, and parliamentary debates available from the period.

The progression of this work is chronological in nature, and can be loosely broken into two sections. The first half of the dissertation, Chapter 2-4, centers for the most part on the cabinet-level debates over continental and colonial policy within

William Pitt the Younger’s government throughout the French Revolutionary Wars. The latter half of the dissertation, Chapters 5-7, shifts gears slightly to consider the imperial- maritime nature of the Napoleonic Wars and the challenges this created for various

British governments. The chapters are as follows:

Chapter Two, “Misperceptions and Failures: The War Against France, 1793-95,” assesses the strategic response of William Pitt the Younger’s government to the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France in February 1793. Pitt erroneously believed that

France’s revolutionary state lacked long-term viability due to lack popular support and fiscal wherewithal. Under the auspices of this faulty position, the British government pursued a series of disjointed policies marked by limited aims and means, and short- term thinking. In Europe, the British dispatched a small army under the command of the

Duke of York to intervene in the Low Countries in February 1793 alongside a multi-state coalition army that included contingents from Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, and

Austria; and, beginning in mid-1794, the British supported a royalist counter- revolutionary insurgency in Western France. Outside of Europe, a British expeditionary force arrived in the West Indies in early 1794 with orders to capture France’s colonial possessions. By the summer of 1795 these strategic initiatives stood in tatters, with significant effect on British continental diplomacy and strategy. The collapse of the First

Coalition and defeat of the counter-revolution in Western France bred continental apathy within the British government. Additionally, the spread of France’s revolutionary ideology to the West Indies threatened a general breakdown of Britain’s

West Indian slave-based economy, and necessitated immediate and aggressive action on the part of the British government. These events combined greatly enhanced the position of Henry Dundas within the British Cabinet, who fervently believed in the prioritization of Britain’s imperial-maritime interests.

Chapter Three, “’A Contention of Purse’: The Imperial Counter-Revolution, 1795-

98,” explores Henry Dundas’ strategic thought and management of British policy in the mid-1790s. A proud Scotsman and Briton, Dundas aligned himself closely at an early stage in his political career with the management and development of British India. By the mid-1790s he was both the President of the Board of Control and Secretary of State for War, which meant that he was nominally in charge of both Britain’s colonial possessions and the Anglo-French conflict. This background heavily influenced Dundas’ perspective on Britain’s strategic interests and the imperial-maritime roots of British power. Dundas believed contemporary conflict to be economic and attritional in nature, which shifted the center of gravity of the Anglo-French conflict away from Europe to

13 maritime colonies and commercial trade. These views are essential to understanding the devastating casualties Dundas deemed acceptable in combatting the spread of revolutionary ideology in the West Indies. Importantly, Dundas deviated from a traditional Atlantic-centered conception of the British Empire in his outlook, and advocated a more global perspective that granted greater importance to the security of

Britain’s quickly emerging eastern empire. Dundas’ imperial-maritime strategic arguments failed to fully convince his cabinet colleagues, but hinted at the reorientation of the British Empire on the horizon.

Chapter Four, “A War for Europe, or for Empire?: The War of the Second

Coalition, 1798-1801,” delves into the imperial parameters of the War of the Second

Coalition on two fronts. In London, a fierce policy debate developed between Dundas and Lord Grenville over the merits of an aggressive continental strategy aimed at the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, favored by Grenville, and a conservative imperial- maritime strategy, backed by Dundas. The backdrop to this cabinet debate was the presence of an isolated French army in Egypt, which greatly alarmed Dundas and provided the impetus for the ambitious governor-general of India, Richard Wellesley,

Lord Mornington, to pursue an active agenda of imperial expansion. This chapter puts forward two primary claims. First, the division between Dundas and Grenville owed less to a difference of opinion concerning continental versus imperial-maritime policy, but rather continental optimism versus pessimism, and short versus attritional victory.

Second, British imperial expansion in India in the late 1790s was directly associated with the conflict in Europe, but did not manifest from an active expansionary agenda in

London. In the wake of the Second Coalition’s collapse, however, British opinion soured on continental involvement, and imperial gains, such as Mornington’s conquest of

Mysore, assumed a prominent position in defenses of policies pursued by Pitt’s government as a counterweight to continental failures.

Chapter Five, “The Shepherd and the Wolf: The Peace of Amiens, Imperial

Insecurity, and the Outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, 1801-1805,” examines the role of

British imperial-maritime interests and anxieties in the British debates surrounding the

Peace of Amiens. The preliminaries of peace, which reached London in October 1801, enjoyed widespread public and political support from a war-weary British society.

Nevertheless, a marginal but prominent and vocal opposition led by Lord Grenville mounted a spirited assault on the terms of peace. Tellingly, British opponents of peace demonstrated little concern for the continental ramifications of the agreement, which effectively affirmed French hegemony in Western Europe. Rather, they castigated the negotiated terms as a failure to suitably provide for the security of the British Empire.

British imperial anxiety only grew during the brief peace, as the British government and public increasingly came to view Napoleonic France as an aspirational imperial entity and, as such, an explicit threat to British imperial-maritime interests. Significantly, this imperial characterization of Napoleonic France helped erode the foundation of the Peace of Amiens, provided a compelling justification for continental intervention that joined the competing British camps of continental and imperial-maritime strategic preference, and defined the Anglo-French conflict as an imperial struggle between land and sea hegemons—an understanding that endured in Britain until its conclusion.

Chapter Six, “The Limits of Maritime Hegemony, 1806-9,” focuses on the limits of British maritime force projection as the Napoleonic Wars entered a period defined by

French control over the Continent and British mastery of the ocean. This chapter looks specifically at the challenges faced by the governments headed by Lord Grenville—the

Ministry of All Talents—and the Duke of Portland. Each ministry dealt with the same basic strategic situation, which necessitated the policing and, where possible, expansion of British maritime commerce and hegemony as a counter to Napoleon’s stranglehold over the Continent. Assailed by institutional memory, public opinion, and the allure of amphibious capabilities, both ministries struggled to properly assess the strengths and weaknesses of British maritime force projection with disastrous outcomes. For the

Ministry of All Talents, this resulted in a dubious and ultimately embarrassing foray against Spain’s South American colonies following the unauthorized capture of Buenos

Aires by Captain Sir Home Popham. The Duke of Portland’s government attempted to proactively capture or destroy European ships of the line as a means of denying their use by Napoleon, which enjoyed successful operations against isolated Copenhagen and friendly Lisbon, but an ambitious attempt against Antwerp failed with tragic consequence.

Chapter Seven, “The Fraying Edge of Empire: Britain and North America, 1807-

15,” identifies the ways in which the War of 1812 represented the culmination of imperial-maritime influence on British strategy throughout the Anglo-French conflict, and simultaneously exposed the frailty of Britain’s position as an Atlantic imperial entity. The War of 1812 was, in large part, a direct byproduct of the strategic stalemate

16 between Britain and France in Europe. Specifically, Britain’s uncompromising assertion of maritime authority—which included the unapologetic impressment of U.S. citizens in the Royal Navy—chafed neutral nations, and ultimately culminated in the breakdown of

Anglo-American relations. The Anglo-American conflict was one which the British government desperately wished to avoid, as it drew resources and attention away from

Europe in the midst of British involvement in the Peninsular War. Importantly, therefore, the outbreak of the second American war directs attention to the ways

Britain’s imperial interests pulled the government’s attention away from the Napoleonic struggle in Europe. The ensuing conflict demonstrated Britain’s significant advantage in naval power over the fledgling U.S. Navy, but Britain struggled to consistently and effectively project power beyond the confines of the Atlantic Ocean. The British could not effectively secure the U.S.-Canadian border, failed to gain maritime control over the

Great Lakes to the United States, and, in the Treaty of Ghent, cast aside their relationship with Native American tribes, who had represented an essential auxiliary of British force projection in North American throughout the eighteenth century. Indeed, if judged as a

North American continental conflict, as opposed to a maritime conflict, the British demonstrably lost the War of 1812.

Writing to Lord Auckland in June 1801 as the War of the Second Coalition neared its conclusion, Hugh Elliot, the British envoy-extraordinary to Saxony, opined “that the abilities of public men in England are very much upon a level, and that when they in their turn are called upon to guide the helm of state, they will all pretty nearly hold the same course, and only be carried in some degrees quicker or slower down the irresistible

17 stream of events.”18 Elliot’s assessment of Britain’s political elites at the dawn of the nineteenth century was a flawed generalization, but not without insight. This dissertation contends that the weight of imperial-maritime ideology, imperial possessions and commerce, imperially-invested political actors, and imperial institutions—including the state itself—meant that, by the late eighteenth century, the

British Empire was something of a headwater for the “irresistible stream of events.” The empire was a font of British strength, an anxiety provoking strategic liability, and an anchor that supported and assured a distinction between “British” and European interests.

18 Hugh Elliot to Lord Auckland, June 1, 1801, in Robert John Eden, 3rd Baron Auckland, ed., The Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland, 4 vols., (London: R. Bentley, 1861-62), 4:134-35.

CHAPTER 2

MISPERCEPTIONS AND FAILURES: THE WAR AGAINST FRANCE, 1793-95

On February 1, 1793, the revolutionary government in Paris declared war on the

Dutch Republic and Britain. Two weeks later, Lord Auckland, the British ambassador at

The Hague, sent urgent pleas for British military intervention on the Continent as soon as possible: “Men, commanders, ships and money! We could not ask for more if this country were part of Yorkshire; but I incline to think that it should be considered as such for the present[.]”1 Within the month, the British government dispatched the Duke of

York, a prince of the blood, to the Continent to work alongside Dutch and other allied forces in an effort to hold the line against French troops and ideology pushing across their border. For Britain, thus began a conflict that would plague Europe and the world, in one guise or another, for the next twenty-two years.

This chapter addresses the opening phase of British involvement in the French

Revolutionary Wars, with particular attention to the strategic choices made by the

British government and their respective outcomes. This period of the conflict was effectively a prologue to the significantly expanded conflict that developed. A period in which Britain and its allies failed to fully appreciate the transformative political and military capacity of the French Revolutionary state. Indeed, as historian Paul Schroeder has persuasively argued, it would take more than a decade for the rest of Europe to fully

1 Lord Auckland to Lord Grenville, February 15, 1793, in Dropmore Papers, 2: 379-80.

19 come to terms with the transformed reality created by the French Revolution.2 In Britain, the guiding force behind policy during this period was the misperception that

Revolutionary France represented a house of cards, which directly led to Pitt’s government prioritizing short-term strategies in the first two years of the Anglo-French conflict. Short-term thinking, however, resulted in unfocused, reactionary, and disconnected strategic pursuits running in parallel to, and, occasionally, undermining one another.

Upon the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France, the prevailing belief of the

British government of William Pitt the Younger was that France’s revolutionary government could not and would not sustain itself for long; that the chaos created by the revolution and supposedly shallow political support the French state enjoyed would lead to a quick collapse of the regime under the weight of its own troubles. For Britain and the continental powers, pressure and time were allies.3 Though the British government never wavered in their desire for a restoration of monarchical government in France, a general reluctance to take ownership of what we might now term nation

2 This is the central argument advanced within Schroeder’s analysis of the breakdown and reconstruction of the European diplomatic and political order surrounding the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Paul Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763- 1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).

3 This was an idea that persisted for some time, wrong though it increasingly proved to be. Pitt referred to his longstanding argument concerning the inadequacy of French finances on December 30, 1796, while defending the decision to engage in peace negotiations with France. Morning Post and Fashionable World, December 31, 1796, Issue 7739. Gale Group Databases. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, soon to become a committed and important member of Pitt’s faction, devoted his maiden speech in the House of Commons to this idea on October 29, 1795. John Bew, Castlereagh: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 86-87.

20 building led to carefully crafted and ambivalent British messaging with regard to their desired ends for the French state. In truth, Pitt hoped that Prussia and Austria—both equally ambivalent about intervening internally in French affairs—would take the lead in applying direct pressure on the revolutionaries in Paris. The cumulative result was an allied campaign of containment and preservation of the status quo beyond the French border, as opposed to the explicit overthrow of the French government in February 1793.

The British logic for these campaigns was cogently expressed in a memorandum written by Henry Dundas, the British Secretary of State for War, in February 1794:

In order to destroy the Convention, we are not to infer that it is necessary for the allied Armies to arrive at Paris. It is possible if we can prevent the torrent of Anarchy from breaking into the neighbouring Nations, that the mere lassitude and despair of the French under the infernal System of Despotism which has taken place, may at last induce them to set aside the Convention, and to return to the blessings of Law, Benevolence & Religion.4

Pitt reiterated this sentiment in a January 1795 speech in the House of Commons in which he stated, British ministers “only professed their hope of making such an impression upon the interior of [France] as might lead to a secure and stable peace; and of being able, by the assistance of those well-disposed persons who were enemies of the present system, to establish a government honourable to them and safe to ourselves.”5

4 Henry Dundas, “Private Minutes On the Subject of the Ensuing Campaign,” February 6, 1794, Melville Papers 1794, fol. 3, WCL.

5 Parliamentary History, vol. 31, col. 1211-1228.

Between February 1793 and the summer of 1795, the British government employed three primary strategies in pursuit of its limited aims. The first focused on direct continental intervention in the form of a small British force dispatched in support of the Dutch Republic under the command of the Duke of York. This intervention occurred in conjunction with a mult-state coalition involving Britain, the Dutch

Republic, Prussia, and Austria, which the British government underwrote with substantial subsidy payments. In addition to the continental campaign, a British expeditionary force arrived in the West Indies in early 1794 tasked with the capture of

France’s West Indian possessions. Lastly, the British provided support to royalist counter-revolutionaries in Western France. This scheme gained significant ministerial support beginning in mid-1794 from William Windham, Britain’s Secretary of State at

War, who, unlike the majority of the British Cabinet, was an avowed counter- revolutionary. Of these three strategic approaches, only the campaign in the West Indies survived beyond 1795 with any marks of success to its name, and those were minimal.

Alternative contemporary opinions existed but went unheeded. In April 1793, for example, the Duke of Richmond, Master-General of Ordnance, beseeched Pitt to greatly curtail Britain’s continental commitment in favor of a maritime-centered strategy against

France. Richmond anticipated protest from Britain’s continental allies, but advised Pitt to inform them, “That we never had it in our contemplation to engage in a Continental war, which is always so ruinous in expense and so much against the sentiments of this nation.” Britain, Richmond argued, would better serve continental interests through naval operations along France’s coastline and against its colonial possessions, “perhaps

22 more so than by engaging in a plan of war which would be unpopular.” This line of reasoning stemmed from his quickly growing frustration with the lack of focus in British strategy between 1793 and 1795, which he viewed as attempting too much with too little and self-destructive in nature. Richmond failed to influence Pitt’s policies despite repeated attempts, and his role in the Cabinet diminished until his dismissal in February

1795.6

The utter failure of Britain and its allies to effectively counter Revolutionary

France during this period of the conflict carried with it considerable costs. The acrimonious collapse of the First Coalition damaged Britain’s diplomatic and military relationship with continental states. Similarly, the defeat suffered by French royalist counter-revolutionaries in Western France seemed to invalidate the notion that a royalist insurrection might topple the revolutionary regime. When combined, these outcomes contributed to an already extant sense of British continental apathy that would fester throughout the 1790s. More importantly, however, Britain’s strategic failures strengthened the position of the imperially-inclined and continentally-ambivalent Henry

Dundas within the British Cabinet, which would have a lasting effect on British policymaking.

6 Duke of Richmond to William Pitt, April 5, 1793, in J. Holland Rose, “The Duke of Richmond on the Conduct of the War in 1793,” The English Historical Review 25:99 (July 1910), pp. 554-55. John Ehrman has an extended analysis of the Duke of Richmond’s criticism of William Pitt’s management of the conflict in John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt, Volume Two: The Reluctant Transition (London: Constable, 1983), 261-97.

WAR IN THE LOW COUNTRIES, 1793-94

In one of the more famous disparaging quips to emerge from this period, Arthur

Wellesley said of his experience campaigning under the Duke of York, “At least I learned what not to do, and that is always a valuable lesson.” The fallout from the Duke of York’s operations was manifold. The duke’s reputation as a field commander suffered enormously, especially among the movers and shakers of London society. Those smug denigrators, conveniently overlooked the impact of poor peacetime training on the

British army’s ineffectiveness in Flanders. They also ignored an even more alarming reality, the significant improvement of French forces by 1794.7 The failure of the British

Army, however, was less important to the long term course of the conflict than the diplomatic damage done during the campaign. By the time the British government determined to remove the Duke of York from command in late November 1794, it viewed their potential allies on the Continent with a potent mixture of disgust and distrust.

There was little altruistic about the British decision to provide support to the

Dutch Republic, and the region serves as one of the best examples of British consistency throughout the entirety of the conflict with France. In 1792, as war drew near, it was clear to William Pitt that the Scheldt estuary represented a vital national interest to

7 For an examination of British military training during the eighteenth century, see J. A. Houlding, Fit For Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715-1795 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). On the topic of the improving effectiveness of the French Revolutionary Army, see John A. Lynn, The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France, 1791-94 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984).

Britain.8 Twenty-one years later, with the end of the war in sight, Lord Bathurst,

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, wrote to the then Field Marshal Arthur

Wellesley, “Our great object is Antwerp. We cannot make a secure peace if that place be left in the hands of France.”9 The importance of Antwerp and the Scheldt was simple:

French possession of the port and waterway represented a direct threat of maritime invasion to Britain. For this reason, the Duke of York’s expedition proved to be the first of multiple attempts to neutralize the maritime threat created by French control of the

Scheldt estuary.

Although remembered today as a debacle, the British campaign in the Low

Countries got off to a successful start. Pushing away from the coastline, coalition forces captured Condé-sur-l’Escaut on July 10, 1793, quickly following this success by capturing Valenciennes on July 28 after a bold assault two days earlier. Shortly thereafter, however, the allies suffered a setback in their attempt to capture the port town of Dunkirk.10 Henry Dundas viewed the capture of Dunkirk as key to securing public support for this land campaign due to “strong prejudices against the strength of

8 Ehrman, The Reluctant Transition, 247

9 Lord Bathurst to Duke of Wellington, December 31, 1813, in Second Duke of Wellington, ed., Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshall Arthur Duke of Wellington. 15 vol. (London: John Murray, 1858-72), 8: 450-52.

10 The reason for the failure to capture Dunkirk has been much debated, and an excellent account can be read in Michael Duffy, “’A Particular Service’: The British Government and the Dunkirk Expedition of 1793,” English Historical Review 91:360 (July 1976), pp. 529-54. Duffy argues that despite early assessments, the true culprit in the failure before Dunkirk was a confluence of factors as opposed to any single individual. He does, however, single out William Pitt and Henry Dundas as having largely avoided blame that likely should have fell on their heads.

[Britain] being directed in any other channel than that of naval operations.”11 Despite this failure, it appeared that the coalition had accomplished much in 1793 as the opposing sides settled into winter quarters. The British had achieved their first two objectives in relatively quick succession, and small allied victories further to the east bolstered the overall situation. The failure to capture Dunkirk was a blow, but the town was of less interest to Britain’s allies than it was to Britain.12

When the spring campaign season opened in 1794, coalition forces began to face a stiffer test from the French and cracks appeared. By September, the French had recaptured the chief prizes of the 1793 campaign, Valenciennes and Condé-sur-l’Escaut.

At that point, William Pitt grew concerned about investing any more resources in the

Low Countries.13 William Windham, sent to observe the British military operations, informed Pitt that the blame for the deteriorating situation rested with the Duke of

York.14 Heeding Windham’s advice, discussions began concerning the replacement of the duke, a delicate matter given his close relationship with George III. Dundas hoped that the cabinet could remove the duke from the field and assuage his ego by installing him as the Commander in Chief of the British Army, but the ministers did not know if

11 Henry Dundas to Sir James Murray, April 16, 1793, in Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland, 3: 23-26.

12 Auckland proposed that the British seek to maintain Dunkirk in the event of peace, but this failed to interest the Austrians. Lord Auckland to Lord Grenville, July 14, 1793, in Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland, 3: 79-80.

13 William Pitt to William Windham, September 10, 1794, in Windham Papers, 1: 231-33.

14 William Windham to William Pitt, September 16, 1794, in Windham Papers, 1: 239-43.

26 he would go along.15 Regardless, Pitt could not make such a change immediately because he assumed that his desired successor, Charles, First Marques Cornwallis, would not accept the position under the circumstances. Pitt made no move to relieve the

Duke of York until late November. By that point strategic thinking in London was rapidly changing.16

The French success in pushing back coalition forces and eventually forcing the

British troops to evacuate the Continent created problems that extended beyond the battlefield. The Duke of York’s reputation was not the only casualty produced by this affair. As early as September 1793, following the failure at Dunkirk, the Duke of York expressed doubts regarding the trustworthiness of Dutch allies.17 Windham, even as he was damning the Duke of York’s performance, had little patience left for the Dutch.

“The conduct of the Dutch is such as to create every day new resentment,” he wrote to

Pitt in September 1794. “Anything so brutish, stupid, and selfish, was never seen. I am quite persuaded, that the only way to deal with them is to make them know, that what they can do for themselves will not be done for them; and that if they should choose by leaving it undone, to let their country be ruined, it is their affair much more than it is ours.”18

15 Henry Dundas to William Pitt, 1794?, PRO 30/8/157, pp. 154-57, BNA.

16 William Pitt to William Windham, September 21, 1794, in Windham Papers 1: 246-49; and William Pitt to George III, November 23, 1794, in George III Corr., 2: 271-74.

17 Duke of York to George III, September 17, 1793, in Correspondence of George III, 2: 96-97.

18 William Windham to William Pitt, September 19, 1794, in Windham Papers, 1: 243-46.

Frustration with Dutch military performance in the field constituted only a portion of the resentment that built among the British during the campaigns of 1793-94.

British strategy for the Continent depended on good working relations with foreign powers, and they relied particularly on Austrian and Prussian support. Plans circulating in January 1794 for the coming year hinged on an army of 140,000 Austrians supplemented with an additional 100,000 Prussians. In comparison, the British planned to supply 40,000 troops—both British and German—and the Prince of Orange would mobilize another 20,000 men. The catch was that Prussia demanded a subsidy of £2 million before it would field any troops. Britain was willing to cover half of that sum, but yet another source of tension between the British and the Dutch was the demand that the Dutch foot part of the bill for their own defense.19

As events unfolded, however, the British became increasingly distrustful of

Prussian motivations and goals—and, as it were, with good reason. The threat represented by France in 1793-94 did not prompt its European neighbors to mount a truly unified front. Prussia was more than happy to take British subsidy payments, but it was not necessarily going to fully commit itself to a crusade to which it was not fully married. As Paul Schroeder argues, one of the fundamental flaws to British diplomacy at this point was a lack of awareness for the concerns of Central and Eastern European

19 Lord Auckland to the Grand Pensionary of Holland, January 24, 1794, in Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland 3: 170-74. The deal that the British put on the table to begin with involved the British paying £1 million, while the Dutch and Austrians would pay £500,000 each. Auckland explained to the Grand Pensionary that he simply did not expect the full subsidy to have a chance of passing Parliament, and also doubted that the “country in general” would accept it either.

28 states—i.e. Prussia, Austria, and Russia.20 This disconnect between the allies was a wedge that only grew ever wider in 1794 as the French applied pressure to the coalition.

Events in Poland complicated matters further in the spring of 1794 when a revolt broke out against its partition at the hands of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. This pulled

Prussian attention away from the conflict with France at a precarious time.21 By July, the

British were aware that Count Haugwitz, their primary supporter in the Prussian court, was losing political sway. In addition to this, reports surfaced that the Prussian effort to suppress the Polish revolt had met with greater difficulty than anticipated. In mid-

August 1794, the British ambassador to Prussia, Lord Malmesbury, then traveling with the Prussian army under Field Marshall Wichard Joachim Heinrich von Möllendorf, reported that that the Prussian general was against the subsidy treaty, and he feared that

Britain could expect nothing from the Prussian army. In late September, Lord Grenville, the Foreign Secretary, made one last push to get the Prussian force into the field against

France, and informed Malmesbury to make explicit threats about the withdrawal of subsidy payments should greater activity not occur on the part of Prussia. By the end of

October, Grenville had clearly reached the end of his rope with Prussia. In a scathing letter sent to the British representative in Berlin, Arthur Paget, Grenville fumed “that the

20 Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, 193.

21 Ibid., 144-50.

29 conduct of Prussia has been such as to evince the most settled determination to elude all its engagements.”22

Thus by the close of 1794, active British engagement on the Continent had resulted in the coalition’s defeat and French occupation of the Dutch Republic, as well as a significant deterioration in the diplomatic relationship between London and the courts in Berlin and Vienna. In the case of Austria, the damage was moderate compared to

British disgust over the lack of Prussian military assertiveness. It had become clear, however, that Austrian and British interests were not well aligned. Writing to Grenville in February 1795, Windham noted that Austrian adherence to policies of acquisition had

“ruined everything.” He recognized, however, that hypocrisy infected British expectations of the continental powers on this front: “Our mouths are unfortunately stopped by our own proceedings in the West and East Indies.”23 Windham’s palpable frustration mattered little. Britain remained reliant on Austrian cooperation on the

Continent, a reality highlighted by the Prussian withdrawal from the conflict via the

Peace of Basel in April 1795.

22 Arthur Paget to Lord Malmesbury, July 12, 1794; Arthur Paget to Lord Grenville, July 19, 1794; Arthur Paget to Lord Grenville, August 2, 1794; Lord Malmesbury to Arthur Paget, August 16, 1794; Lord Grenville to Lord Malmesbury, September 29, 1794; Arthur Paget to Lord Grenville, October 7, 1794; and Lord Grenville to Arthur Paget, October 24, 1794, in The Rt. Hon. Sir Augustus B. Paget, ed., The Paget Papers: Diplomatic and Other Correspondence of the Right Hon. Sir Arthur Paget, G.C.B. 1794-1807 (London: William Heinemann, 1896), 9-11, 13-14, 25-28, 50-52, 58-59, 76-77. On at least one front, the Prussians had reason for complaint as well. Lord Malmesbury promised the Prussians a subsidy payment at the outset of negotiations, but the British had failed to deliver apparently due to procrastination on William Pitt’s part, see Ehrman, The Reluctant Transition, 340.

23 William Windham to Lord Grenville, February 12, 1795, in Windham Papers, 1: 284.

The looming French occupation of the Dutch Republic in the winter of 1794-95 led to Henry Dundas beginning a campaign for expanded strategic scope. On November

16, 1794, Dundas wrote to Grenville concerning the Dutch Cape Colony, which he feared the French would attempt to capture as soon as they consolidated control over the Dutch

Republic. Dundas had very low hopes that the local populace in the Cape Colony would resist a French takeover attempt. If the French took possession of Cape Colony, it would provide them a convenient strategic platform from which to launch attacks on British shipping to and from India. Dundas, therefore, argued that the British government should press the Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, to grant the

British rights of occupation and defense of Dutch territories until the cessation of hostilities. Two days later, a Cabinet Minute effectively announced the end of British efforts to defend the Dutch Republic’s territories on the Continent. The Prince of Orange arrived in London in early 1795, and quickly wrote letters to the governors of Dutch colonies ordering their acceptance of British stewardship. The French occupation of the

Dutch Republic, then, represented a key piece in the globalization of the conflict.24

In two letters addressed to William Pitt during this period of strategic crisis, Lord

Auckland captured the shifting mood in London. On November 28, Auckland privately confided his thoughts on short-term strategy to Pitt. No longer in office, Auckland lacked direct influence over British policy, but as a close confidant of Pitt continued to have the ear of the prime minister. He lamented that the British had not opened their

24 Henry Dundas to Lord Grenville, November 16, 1794; and Minute of Cabinet, November 18, 1794, in Dropmore Papers, 2: 645-46.

31 ports to Dutch merchandise already, but noted that it might become necessary for the

British to pursue far more aggressive policies going forward. It was possible that the

British may need to steal away the majority of Dutch naval and shipping capabilities, financial wealth, and foreign territories before they fell into the hands of the French. This level of ruthlessness, however, would not appear in British policy for another decade for the most part. The only exception being the fate of the Dutch colonies, where Auckland’s mind closely mirrored the thoughts of Dundas.25

The second letter, dated January 18, 1795, amounted to a eulogy for the campaign in the Low Countries that had begun with Auckland’s call to arms in

February 1793. Given the state of affairs, Auckland argued, continued military exertions on the Continent only served “to increase our danger & to bring on despondency.” He accepted that “National honour” may require some further British support of continental allies, but this should be limited and “in effect to divert the exertions of the

Enemy.” This was not capitulation, however. “If the necessity of prosecuting the War were even less urgent than it is,” he wrote, “I trust that the Nation would have the firmness & wisdom to prosecute it: but certainly its fate must be decided on the

Ocean.”26

25 Lord Auckland to William Pitt, November 28, 1794, in Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland, 3: 266-75. In many respects Auckland’s arguments prophesized the highly aggressive policies of the Napoleonic period.

26 Lord Auckland to William Pitt, January 18, 1795, PRO 30/8/110, pp. 27-30, BNA.

The British were not yet ready to give up entirely on Europe and the quest for a short war, but French successes and dysfunctional continental alliances had dealt immense damage to those hopes. The Dutch and Prussians had proven to be ineffective and untrustworthy as allies, while the British believed that the Austrians had failed to put aside self-interest in pursuit of the common cause. The British Army itself performed to a level below the expectations of ministers, but that was a marginal problem given the British reliance on coalition armies in which British troops would always represent a minority. Of graver concern, perhaps, was the presence of the French flag in Antwerp, and the control that granted to the Revolutionary French state over

Dutch maritime capabilities. The coalition’s failure in 1793-95, then, left the British wary of the continental states with their maritime flank exposed.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

In September 1793, a small British force sailed east from Jamaica and made a series of amphibious landings along the coast of the French colony of St. Domingue.27

The British captured several coastal position at this stage, the most important being

Môle Saint Nicolas. The British attack occurred in response to the threat posed by a civil war that had been raging among the white plantation owners, free black population

(Gens du Couleur), and the slave population since 1791. By the summer of 1793 the situation in the French colony appeared to be spiraling out of control to Jamaican

27 The British used the blanket term “St. Domingo” in much of their contemporary correspondence. The island of Hispaniola was divided between the French colony of Saint- Domingue on the western side, and the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo on the eastern side.

33 planters, a sentiment that the French commissioners seemed to confirm when they declared the emancipation of the slave population.28 The small British force on St.

Domingue faced long odds, however. Allied with French plantation owners in a quest to reestablish the slave system, they were both vastly outnumbered and possessed few inducements to bring the various factions within the colony to heel. The war in the West

Indies had begun without direction from London.

Of the three strategies to emerge in the first two years of war with Revolutionary

France, only the West Indian strategy continued beyond the summer of 1795 without meaningful pause. By that point, however, the opportunistic strategy of predatory coup de main operations on French islands had transformed into a desperate struggle against the expansion of revolutionary ideology. The West Indies, therefore, represent how the nature of Britain’s understanding of, and relationship to the struggle against

Revolutionary France transformed. Unlike the conflict in the Low Countries, the misperceptions that underlay British failures in the West Indies was not the strength of the enemy per se, but the rigors of the environment, the frictions of distance, and, most importantly in the case of St. Domingue, the challenge posed by revolutionary ideology’s offer of slave emancipation.

British West Indian policy during the 1790s has never been devoid of controversial aspects. Opposition criticized British West Indian policy vociferously at the time as ill-conceived, wasteful, and poorly attuned to the conflict’s center of gravity in

28 Decree of General Liberty, Léger Félicité Sonthonax, August 29, 1793, in Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus, eds., Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006), 120-25.

France—a view that dominated the historiography until relatively recently.29 More recent scholarship on the war in the West Indies has done much to resuscitate a more balanced approach to British West Indian policy.30 The economic importance of the West

Indies to the British economy has been the primary contextual defense of British policy at the time. This carries particular weight given the ascendance of Henry Dundas’ opinion as continental alliances deteriorated. Dundas was both closely attached to

British imperial policy as a bureaucrat, and strategically inclined to emphasize economics in contemporary warfare. “All modern Wars are a contention of Purse,” he wrote to William Pitt in the summer of 1794, and given the fiscal importance of the West

Indian sugar trade to Europe, it is impossible to imagine the British ignoring the region.31

In 1796 and 1797, Henry Dundas told the House of Commons that British operations in the West Indies did not aim at conquest and financial reward, but security.32 At best, Dundas was being disingenuous. The orders dispatched to Admiral

29 For example, see J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. 4 (London: Macmillan and co., 1915), 325. Fortescue lambasted British West Indian policy and Dundas, more specifically.

30 The key work on the British war in the West Indies is Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War Against Revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987). For a closer examination of the British occupation of Saint Domingue, See David Patrick Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue 1793- 1798 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982).

31 Henry Dundas to William Pitt, July 9, 1794, PRO 20/8/157, pp. 160-68, BNA.

32 Henry Dundas speeches of February 18, 1796 and May 18, 1797, Parliamentary History, vol. 32, col. 752; and vol. 33, col. 584.

Sir John Jervis on November 16, 1793, make this clear. They informed the admiral that the “reduction of some of the French islands in the West Indies … will not only give additional strength, security, & value to the British Possessions in that Quarter, but tend to furnish a just indemnification for the war[.]”33 By the close of the eighteenth century, the West Indian trade contributed significantly to the economies of both Britain and

France. In 1790, it constituted 15.5% of total British trade. For France, the sugar produced by the colony of St. Domingue and its other West Indian islands accounted for nearly a third of all the nation’s foreign trade.34 Despite his protestations, economic reward maintained a consistent position in Dundas’ strategic outlook throughout the 1790s.

In fairness to Dundas, however, West Indian policy did offer meaningful security benefits to British commercial interests. In January 1793, Dundas received a memorandum generated by a meeting of West India merchants in London. These gentleman addressed an act passed in the previous session of Parliament relative to the exportation of sugar, but they connected this concern with worries about the expected conflict with France. The merchants complained that in December 1792 the threat of conflict began to damage the sugar market, the cost of insurance had doubled due to the threat of privateers, and the price of wages for sailors and provisions “have arisen considerably.” In the West Indies themselves, they worried over the food supply for the

33 Admiralty to Admiral Sir John Jervis, November 16, 1793, ADM 2/1346, BNA.

34 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 9-13.

36 slave population, and that defensive measures had “greatly multiplied Taxes there.”35

British naval supremacy could reduce or nullify many of these fiscal frictions, which would be greatly aided by possession of West Indian ports that could support French naval operations and privateering on the western side of the Atlantic.36 Additionally,

Britain proved more than willing to cater to the needs of its merchants by providing naval escorts for convoys.37 Thus, capturing the French colonies in the West Indies offered definite security advantages for British possessions and trade.

The British expeditions to the West Indies, then, primarily operated under the guidance and direction of raw economic and imperial-maritime logic. This represented a compelling argument to a British state that was heavily indebted by the close of the eighteenth century, and concurrently engaged in tension filled subsidy negotiations with

35 Richard Neave to Henry Dundas, January 30, 1793, British West India Papers: 1793- 1804, James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota.

36 American privateers operating in cooperation with French West Indian islands during the War of American Independence caused havoc to British West Indian trade. See Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 154-58.

37 For example, orders for Admiral Gardner read: “In compliance with the Request of the West India Merchants, I am commanded by my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to signify their directions to you to appoint a Convoy for their homeward bound Trade to sail from the Leeward Islands in the course of the next month, and another to sail on the 1st of August next; taking care that their departure be not delayed beyond those Periods as it will otherwise affect the Insurance.” Admiralty to Admiral Gardner, May 2, 1793, ADM 2/1345, BNA. In October of the same year, Lord Hood operating in the Mediterranean Sea received a schedule of convoy orders produced by a committee of British merchants. Admiralty to Lord Hood, October 16, 1793, ADM 2/1346, BNA. What is striking is the direct influence that British merchants could have in these instances. In the case of Hood, the convoys were to be dispatched from Britain, but the Admiralty ordered Hood to divert resources for the protection of trade according to the schedule provided by the merchant lobby.

37 its continental allies.38 In fact, it is a logic that would only increase as the war dragged on in the years ahead. There were, however, significant reasons for policy makers to exhibit caution. Weather and distance could—and did—significantly retard the ability to properly support British efforts in the West Indies; and deadly tropical diseases represented a known risk to European troops in the region—particularly during the summer. In addition to these frictions, the slave revolt in the French colony of St.

Domingue and the eventual emancipation of slaves there in 1793 deeply complicated

British policy.

The British expeditions to the West Indies suffered from numerous setbacks in

1793. The difficulty experienced by the Duke of York’s incursion in the Low Countries necessitated reinforcements which came from units earmarked for the West Indies. In

August 1793, counter-revolutionaries surrendered the French port of Toulon to a combined Anglo-Spanish fleet, and British ministers rushed troops on hand to the defense of the city. The latter event spurred Dundas to complain to George III about the cannibalization of the West Indian expedition.39 The expedition to the West Indies finally

38 For a study on the growth of British debt in eighteenth century Britain, see John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688-1783 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). Fiscal concerns plagued the British state throughout the war with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. The conflict demanded a heavily expanded force on both land and sea while also involving large subsidy payments to form coalitions against France in Europe. See J. E. Cookson, “Political Arithmetic and War in Britain, 1793-1815,” in War & Society, 1:2 (September 1983): 37-60. For a detailed study of British subsidy negotiations and payments, see John M. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France 1793-1815 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969).

39 In fact, Dundas complained repeatedly about the subordination of the West Indian expedition to events on the Continent. Henry Dundas to George III, October 2, 1793; October 26, 1793; and November 15, 1793, in George III Corr., 2: 105, 113, and 121.

38 set sail on November 26, 1793, under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Charles

Grey and Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis, who were both experienced officers and personal friends—an asset for combined operations during the era. By mid-January 1794, Grey and Jervis assembled their force in Carlisle Bay, Barbados, and prepared a campaign intended to deal a devastating blow to French trade.40

Grey and Jervis spent a short period training their combined force in amphibious landings before deciding to attack Martinique as opposed to the French colony of St.

Domingue. This decision proved momentous, as it may have sealed the fate of the

French plantocracy on St. Domingue and denied potential control over the island’s wealth to Britain.41 The assault on Martinique began on February 5, 1794, and within two weeks the British laid siege to Fort Bourbon. On March 25, the French commander on the island, General Donatien Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, Vicomte Rochambeau, negotiated the surrender of the fort and island to the British. The capture of Martinique was strategically significant, as the island held the primary naval base for the French in the region and without it they would be incapable of mounting a major naval expedition.42

The British expedition did not rest on its laurels. A lightning assault on St. Lucia resulted in the capitulation of the French garrison after only two days on April 3. The

40 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 41-60.

41 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 62-3. In contrast, Geggus suggests that it is possible that the window of success did not close with the decision of Grey and Jervis, but that as late as 1796 the French colony remained susceptible to a strong push by the British. Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution, 386-87.

42 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 67-88.

39 following day, the British once again embarked in preparation for an invasion of

Guadeloupe. After regrouping at Martinique, the expedition set sail on April 8, and four frigates raced ahead to secure an anchorage for the fleet off two islands called The

Saints, notable for being the location of Admiral Sir George Rodney’s defeat of the

French fleet under the command of the Comte de Grasse in 1782. Grey and Jervis began landing troops almost immediately upon the fleet’s arrival on the night of April 10-11 near Point-á-Pitre. Ten days later, Guadeloupe fell to the British. In less than three months, the British expedition had accomplished much and had good reason to congratulate itself. It was, however, to be the highlight of the expedition as the sickly season was approaching and the difficult problem that was the island of St. Domingue loomed before them.43

Following the British occupation of St. Domingue in September 1793, Sir Adam

Williamson transferred from Jamaica to the French colony. Upon receiving his official appointment as governor of the island, Williamson released a proclamation which made clear that his primary responsibility was to restore order and stability to the island, and return the planter class to their former position.44 Williamson, however, lacked the necessary manpower to achieve these goals. On May 5, 1794, four British regiments arrived at Martinique, which granted Grey a small disposable force. Grey dispatched

Major General John Whyte to St. Domingue with three regiments to reinforce Colonel

43 Ibid., 89-97.

44 Adam Williamson, “Proclamation of his Excellency SIR ADAM WILLIAMSON…,” in Gentleman’s Magazine (August 1795): 666-68.

John Whitelocke there. It was at this point, however, that yellow fever began to quickly disable Grey’s effective complement. Between April 1 and June 1, disease struck down

2,000 Redcoats, leaving Grey with 4,761 fit for duty. Eight hundred and seven men died in May alone. In response to this crisis, Grey reconsidered his position and cancelled an assault on Cayenne.

Whyte reached Môle Saint Nicolas, St. Domingue, on May 19, and linked up with the occupying force under Whitelocke. The two determined to move on Port-au-Prince, which the British captured on June 4 following a short offensive operation against the city. Whyte settled into Port-au-Prince, which meant that he remained in a known hotbed of disease. On June 8, further reinforcements arrived and brought with them the yellow fever raging among British troops on Martinique. Over the next two months,

Whyte’s command disintegrated as yellow fever claimed the lives of 40 officers and 600 rank and file.45 From the safety of London, Dundas expressed shock at the reports of the impact disease was having on the expedition, but hoped that the maladies affecting the troops would not be “so severely felt” by the next account. In the meantime, Dundas organized medical personnel and supplies for shipment to the West Indies.46 Despite

Dundas’ hopes and exertions, yellow fever remained the chief scourge of the British force in the West Indies.

45 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 97-104.

46 Henry Dundas to Major General Adam Williamson, August 25, 1794, WO 6/5, pp. 5-9, BNA.

By the time Dundas lamented the impact of disease on Grey’s expedition, he was well aware that the strategic situation in the West Indies faced a new complication. In early June 1794, a small French force slipped into the Caribbean and landed on

Guadeloupe. By June 5, the French counterattack had succeeded in expelling the British from the port of Point-á-Pitre, Guadeloupe, and what remained of the garrison retreated to Basse Terre. A desperate resistance against the French republican forces continued despite the ravages of disease and the lack of reinforcements until December 10, when

British Major-General Robert Prescott finally surrendered Fort Matilda on Basse Terre.

With the loss of Guadeloupe, the British entered a new phase in the conflict for the West Indies. Victor Hugues, the lone surviving civil commissioner dispatched from

France, had significantly raised the stakes by announcing that the French Convention had abolished slavery on February 4, 1794. Hugues worked diligently to spread the revolution throughout the islands, and quickly transformed the nature of the conflict.

Insurrections broke out on Grenada, St. Vincent, and St. Lucia in quick order. The British lost St. Lucia entirely on March 18, 1795, while the other two islands remained in jeopardy and scenes of vicious fighting. The loss of Guadeloupe, then, knocked the

British onto the defensive in the West Indies.47

In the spring of 1795, as British forces lost the initiative in the West Indies, the government was only partially committed to the effort there. As events played out on the far side of the Atlantic, most of the British cabinet remained focused on the allied

47 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 115-56.

42 campaign in the Low Countries, and royalist counter-revolutionaries in Western France.

The prime exception was Henry Dundas, who was both well aware and deeply concerned by the arrival of revolutionary ideology in the West Indies. In Europe, revolutionary ideology represented a threat to the established systems of governance, but in the West Indies it carried with it claims of racial equality and, even more dangerously, the abolition of slavery. If Britain allowed the ideological seeds planted by

Victor Hugues to grow, it would mean the destruction of the British West Indian sugar economy. In order to stave off such an event, grave sacrifices would be necessary.

ROYALISTS AND INSURRECTION

The British embrace of the French royalist cause in the spring of 1795 proved to be the last gasp of the belief in the flimsiness of the French Revolutionary state.

Comparatively speaking, supporting a royalist insurgency was the cheapest pathway to

Bourbon restoration adopted during the first two years of the war. The counter- revolutionaries did not demand prohibitive subsidy payments as was the case with the allied coalitions, nor were the high costs in both transportation and British casualties of the West Indies in play. Nevertheless, the ill-fated British attempt to spawn an insurrection in Western France in the summer of 1795 coincided with a transformation in

British strategy.

As the French Revolution escalated from the comparative calm of 1789 into the chaos of the early 1790s, it caused French dissenters to seek refuge in the surrounding areas of Europe. The first of these émigrés came from the House of Bourbon in the form

43 of Charles-Philippe, Comte d’Artois, the youngest brother of Louis XVI. On the night of

July 16-17, 1789, the king ordered d’Artois to vacate France until the troubles washed over. His sojourn was to be a long one. The French refugee population began with the staunch royalists, but political moderates and Catholic émigrés fled France as events unfolded as well. French émigrés spread throughout Europe, but Britain came to hold the largest population—at any given time approximately 12,500 émigrés lived in Britain until the Peace of Amiens in 1802.48 The flood of dislocated Frenchmen caused some consternation in London, and led to the passage of the Aliens Act in January 1793. The

Act forced aliens to register upon arrival as well as make themselves known to local authorities. Its purpose was to give the government knowledge of the whereabouts of the refugee population, and, ideally, aid in suppressing any French espionage efforts.

When these refugees first arrived, the British held a policy of neutrality and did not intend to meddle in the tumult playing out in France. As the British became more directly engaged in the conflict, they began to see the advantages of making common cause with French émigrés.

The most salient factor complicating British relations with counter- revolutionaries was their reticence to embrace a direct role in regime change. It was a problem that Pitt was well aware of, but believed he held a solution to. In a letter to

48 Kirsty Carpenter, Refugees of the French Revolution: Émigrés in London, 1789-1802 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999) 39-43. Carpenter has also discussed the central importance of London to the emigration in: “London: Capital of the Emigration” in Kirsty Carpenter and Philip Mansel, ed. by, The French Émigrés in Europe and the Struggle against Revolution, 1789-1814 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999), 43-67.

Grenville in October 1793, Pitt argued that they should avoid the possibility of alienating any future “form of regular government” in the event that a monarchy failed to materialize. This was a necessarily vague understanding, as Pitt intended to maintain that “monarchy [was] the only [form of government] from which we expect any good, and in favour of which we are disposed to enter into concert.” In practice, this meant that Britain would favor avowed royalists with its support, but Pitt’s administration would not box itself in with any statement that would suggest they were unwilling to work with alternatives to the Bourbon monarchy.49

This did not mean, however, that the British were hesitant to leap at opportunity.

When the French port of Toulon surrendered to Anglo-Spanish naval force in the

Mediterranean in August 1793, it quickly ascended the list of British strategic priorities.

Lord Auckland, who had pushed for British intervention in the Low Countries that spring, fervently embraced the opportunity presented by Toulon. “All reasonings in this age are subject to disappointment[,]” he wrote to Lord Henry Spencer in early October

1793, “but Jacobinism is certainly more likely to receive its death-wound in the South of

France than in Flanders or on the Rhine.”50 The problem with such opportunism was that it derailed existing planning. In this case, it led to an exchange highlighting the short-term thinking animating British strategy in the late summer and fall of 1793. In response to Henry Dundas protesting the delay of Grey and Jervis’ expedition to the

49 William Pitt to Lord Grenville, October 5, 1793, in Dropmore Papers, 2: 438-39.

50 Lord Auckland to Lord Henry Spencer, October 7, 1793, in Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland, 2: 121-22.

West Indies, George III argued that time sensitivity justified the prioritization of Toulon.

Whereas an expedition to the West Indies would be viable in the future, British operations along the French coastline would only increase in difficulty as the revolutionary state consolidated its control.51 Toulon, however, only remained a distraction for a short time. Paris refused to accept the loss of its key Mediterranean port and sent an army to reclaim it. The city fell in December 1793, yet another failure of

British strategy.

Supporting a royalist counter-revolutionary insurrection was a path open to the

British that gained favor as other schemes fell by the wayside. In November 1793, Pitt seemed to hold “that there [would] be little hope of putting an End to the War without penetrating pretty far into the interior of France[.]”52 That, however, was only possible if the allies controlled the frontier, and this was clearly not the case at any point in 1793-95.

Whether political support for such an invasion existed in Britain is also debatable. A

French-led insurrection, however, would sidestep political opposition while achieving the desired ends. Supporting counter-revolutionaries played to many British strengths, in fact. What the counter-revolutionaries needed most of all was money, weapons, and ammunition—all of which the British navy could smuggle in from the sea.

There were some significant drawbacks, though. Paris was well aware of the counter-revolutionary threat and zealously pursued measures to guard against it. By

51 George III to Henry Dundas, November 16, 1793, in George III Corr., 2: 121-22.

52 Lord Henry Spencer to William Windham, November 11, 1793, in Windham Papers, 1: 176-82.

46 late 1794 when the British began to seriously consider supporting the royalist cause, the republican crackdown in the Vendée was already winding down and Paris was attempting to conciliate the population. Historian David Bell labels the pacification measures of Revolutionary France as the first true examples of total war.53 In short, engaging directly in what was by this stage a French civil war would involve the British in a situation with grave dangers for those on the ground, and it is unclear whether they fully appreciated this reality.

Support for the royalist cause surfaced in London prior to late 1794, but it was relatively isolated. The two main proponents of this approach within the government were the Duke of Portland and William Windham. Writing to Windham after news of the capture of Martinique arrived in March 1794, Portland complained that such successes paled in comparison to what a “real French Army in the Vendée” could achieve.54 Portland and Windham, however, did not enter the government until the summer of 1794. By that point the Vendée was in flames, and British hopes for a viable royalist strategy shifted further north to the Chouannerie, a royalist counter-revolutionary

53 David A. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2007). Bell says of the conflict in the Vendée: “What made it total was rather its erasure of any line between combatants and noncombatants and the wanton slaughter of both—and at the behest of politics more than military necessity. In fact, from a strictly military point of view, Turreau’s ‘hell columns’ had no serious purpose at all. His plan was a witches’ brew of hatred, fear, fantasy, and pure folly; its execution an unmitigated horror, and counterproductive to the extent that it spurred further resistance. But then, extermination of the enemy, as opposed to disarming it, has hardly ever served a serious military purpose.” (p. 184).

54 Duke of Portland to William Windham, April 16, 1794, in Windham Papers, 2: 186-88.

47 movement in Brittany under the loose leadership of Joseph Geneviève, Comte de

Puisaye. Puisaye’s counter-revolutionary efforts had achieved little success, but he became a de facto leader in the region and clung to the position with great pride. After making contact with the British, Puisaye eventually departed for England to press his appeals in person. Landing on Jersey Island on September 17, 1794, Puisaye arrived just in time to reap the rewards of shifting policy as the campaign in the Low Countries was falling apart.55

The British had paid some attention to operations along the French coastline in advance of Puisaye’s arrival, but other operations had previously taken priority. British ministers began to warm to operations along the French coastline in the late fall and early winter of 1794-95, however, as confidence in continental allies eroded. With the new year, Windham urged action on the royalist front. “The time for preparations is slipping away very fast,” he wrote to Lord Grenville on January 1, 1795, “and after some examples that we have seen, we have no reason to hope that the opportunities of repairing what may now be lost will be numerous or long continued.” At this point,

Windham advocated a British agreement with the émigré army under the Prince de

Condé, but Condé reached an understanding with the Austrians instead.56 By process of

55 For a detailed look at the British interactions with Puisaye and the Chouans, see: Hutt, Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution.

56 William Windham to Lord Grenville, January 1, 1795; Lord Grenville to Windham, January 5, 1795, in Dropmore Papers, 3: 1-2, 5.

48 deduction, then, Puisaye and his bands of Chouans became the only feasible royalist element for the British to interface with.

As the spring wore on, the British determined to coordinate with the plans of

Puisaye, which resulted in a scheme centered on a British supported landing in a sheltered natural harbor called Quiberon Bay. The British and Puisaye believed that the natural defenses provided by the area’s geography, and the lack of hostile forces in the vicinity would allow Puisaye and a small force of royalists to land and rally dissidents who would receive British arms and materiel. On June 27, 1795, the royalist troops, nominally under Puisaye’s command, landed on a small peninsula and issued a call for the Chouans to gather.57 Early reports of what appeared to be a successful beginning excited Pitt. Writing to Grenville on July 6, the prime minister crowed, “Our troops have been received with open arms.” Indeed, the situation appeared so promising that Lord

Spencer, Windham, and Pitt felt that the Count d’Artois should join the royalist counter- revolution there as a representative of the royal family.58

57 Hutt, Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution, 2: 276-77.

58 William Pitt to Lord Grenville, July 6, 1795 in Dropmore Papers, 3: 89. On July 8, the Admiralty issued orders to Admiral Adam Duncan, commanding the North Sea fleet, to retrieve the Count d’Artois from the allied headquarters. Evan Nepean to Admiral Duncan, July 8, 1793, ADM 2/1349, pp. 143-45, BNA. In a nod to the absurdity of nobility, in a separate missive Nepean informed Duncan, “If great secrecy & caution are not observed, in bringing the Comte from the Continent, he will certainly be arrested before he embarks.” D’Artois had accumulated significant debts in London, and even wartime necessity could not save him from debtor’s prison if his creditors discovered his presence. Evan Nepean to Admiral Duncan, July 8, 1795, ADM 2/1349, pp. 145-46, BNA.

Events at Quiberon quickly began to take a turn for the worse, however. A week after Pitt wrote to Grenville, disturbing reports of mounting difficulties for Puisaye began to leak into London.59 Following their landing on June 27, the royalists dithered in expanding their beachhead. This allowed a republican force under the command of

General Louis-Lazare Hoche to gather in the area and bottle up the royalists on

Quiberon peninsula. On July 16, the royalists attempted to break through the republican lines, but this ended in a stiff repulse and the situation deteriorated from there. On the night of July 20-21, Hoche launched a well-designed assault on the royalist held, but poorly defended Fort Penthièvre. Republican grenadier units, masked by a storm moving through the area, scaled rocks along one side of the fort’s walls and silenced its guns allowing a secondary force to approach. The fort fell before gunfire could rouse the nearby Puisaye.60

The loss of the fort precipitated the collapse of the royalist position on the peninsula. In an effort to preserve as many men as possible, Puisaye ordered the withdrawal of the royalist forces to Port Haliguen where the British fleet would rescue them from the closing circle of Hoche’s army. Royalists poured into the area of the port, but the British ships, under the command of Commodore Sir John Warren, could only embark a small number. Approximately 2,500 royalists—including Puisaye—reached

59 William Pitt to Lord Grenville, July 13, 1795 in Dropmore Papers, 3: 90-91.

60 Hutt, Chouannerie and Counter-Revolution, 2: 318-20.

50 the safety of the sea, and after a short and futile defense some 6,000 others surrendered to Hoche—of these, 1,000 were émigrés.

If the story of the Quiberon expedition ended there, a period would suffice rather than an exclamation point. As Warren and Puisaye retreated to the inhospitable island of

Houat, the French republican army marched the expedition’s prisoners inland.61 What followed transformed the expedition from disastrous to tragic. The émigrés that surrendered to Hoche were guilty of a capital offense in Revolutionary France: they had returned. When all was said and done, Hoche presided over the execution of 748 men and another 500 died in captivity. These facts served to spawn harsh recriminations of

British policy in the House of Commons for some time. Richard Brinsley Sheridan observed that while British blood was not spilled on Quiberon peninsula, “British honour … bled at every pore, and the murtherous enterprises must one day ‘sit heavily on the souls’ of the authors of them.” Sir Banastre Tarleton seethed that the émigrés had been “sent to be murdered, totally murdered, on the coast of France.”62

Pitt did not immediately lose hope for successful operations along the French coastline, but harsh criticism of what had transpired was not confined to the opposition in the House of Commons.63 Major General Lord Moira, who commanded the British

61 News of the failure of the Quiberon expedition arrived in London on July 29, and the Admiralty quickly absolved Warren of any blame. Evan Nepean to Commodore Sir John Warren, July 31, 1795, ADM 2/1349, pp. 173-75, BNA.

62 Morning Chronicle, October 30, 1795, Issue 8120. Gale Group Databases. Morning Chronicle, December 3, 1795, Issue 8149. Gale Group Databases.

63 Pitt believed that the garrison on the Quiberon peninsula surrendered on July 13, but this did not dissuade his support for the expedition. Indeed, by the end of August 1795, Pitt

51 units waiting to support a successful royalist breakout at Quiberon, provided a heavy dose of cold water for any optimism present in London. At a pragmatic level, Moira argued, the defeat meant that the British once again lacked a safe port to supply operations beyond the coastline. Additionally, he assumed the collapse of royalist forces and ensuing events inflicted a stark psychological blow upon royalist morale, and that the operation left the Chouans exposed to conventional forces along the coastline. Given the circumstances, if Pitt considered continued operations advisable, then Moira assumed that Pitt “must have information respecting the interior of the province that” he was not privy to. On a more damning note concerning the recently lost royalist force,

Moira noted that circumstances suggested that “any assemblage of our friends in the neighbourhood of Hoche’s army was not very formidable.”64

The tragic end of the Quiberon expedition eventually disabused Pitt of any notions that the war would be easily won. On August 14, 1795, less than a month following the withdrawal from Quiberon peninsula, a momentous cabinet meeting convened. Faced with collapsed alliances on the Continent, the dangerous spread of revolutionary ideology in the West Indies, and now a failed royalist uprising in Western

France, the Cabinet proposed the largest expeditionary force in British history. The

British government would gather 24,000 men, and their destination would be the West

hoped that Lord Moira would land with 14,000 British infantry, and 3,000 cavalry. William Pitt to Lord Grenville, July 13, 1795, in Dropmore Papers, 3: 90-91.

64 Earl of Moira to William Pitt, July 30, 1795, in George III Corr., 2: 365-68.

Indies.65 On August 20, Warren, still with the remnants of the Quiberon expedition, received orders from the Admiralty to return all available transport ships for West

Indian service.66 July 21, 1795, therefore, is a strong contender for the date on which the

British government began to view the defeat of Revolutionary France as a significant challenge, and began planning for an extended conflict.

A survey of the British strategic situation by mid-1795 revealed a bleak landscape to British ministers. Despite the exertions of the army and navy, the British had few successes on which to hang their hat. The campaign to defend the Low Countries had concluded in the complete withdrawal of British troops, and the French occupation of the Dutch Republic forced the government to contemplate the security of Dutch colonial possessions throughout the world. In the West Indies, Britain retained possession of

Martinique and a toehold within the French colony of St. Domingue, but the human cost had been extreme and the spread of revolutionary ideology to the Caribbean represented a potential existential threat to the British slave economy in the region. The ill-fated support of the royalist cause in Western France had done little more than embolden opposition in the British Parliament, and dealt a potentially mortal wound to the counter-revolutionary movement there. Even the great British naval victory of June

65 The plan called for 15,000 troops earmarked for the Leeward Islands under the command of Major General Sir Ralph Abercromby, and 9,000 troops sent as reinforcements to St. Domingue. Cabinet Minute, August 14, 1795, in George III Corr., 2: 380-81.

66 Admiralty to Commodore Sir John Warren, August 20, 1795, ADM 2/1349, pp. 197-99, BNA.

1, 1794—the “Glorious First of June!”—represented a tactical success but strategic failure for Britain, as the French fleet martyred itself to assure that a much-needed grain convoy safely reached French shores.

The British government was not cowed, however. The West Indian expedition that emerged from the August 14, 1795, cabinet meeting indicated a sea change that had been percolating for some time. In October 1794, the Cabinet had considered intelligence stating that a French squadron of tens ships had been sighted leaving the French port of

Brest, presumably making sail for the West Indies. Dundas prepared a Cabinet Minute that urged the dispatch of naval reinforcements to defend Britain’s West Indian interests, which, significantly, he intended to draw from Admiral Howe’s Channel Fleet. George

III acquiesced to the request, and noted that “in the present situation the West Indies are the great object to be attended to[.]” The king assumed that the French intended to recover their lost sugar colonies, a process already underway. In the summer of 1795, then, the British government fully committed to that object.67

The failure of Britain’s strategic pursuits between February 1793 and July 1795 bred lasting consequences, which defined many of the parameters of British strategic thought and debate in the years that followed. Most immediately, it disabused the

British government of the notion that France’s revolutionary government(s) would quickly collapse under modest international military pressure. A more committed and unified coalition would be necessary to bring France to heel, which stood as a collective

67 Henry Dundas to George III, October 10, 1794 and George III to Henry Dundas, 11 October 11, 1794, in George III Corr., 2: 253.

54 action problem that would take years to solve. To an extent, British subsidy payments to continental allies reflected the timidity and poorly coordinated nature of the counter- revolutionary commitment of Europeans states. Between 1794 and 1795, the British government provided £8,095,315 in subsidies to the Continent, a two year total it would not match again until 1812-13.68 Within the British Cabinet, a degree of daylight appeared between Pitt and his cousin Lord Grenville. Disillusioned with continental operations, Pitt gravitated towards maritime strategies and closer to the orbit of Dundas.

Conversely, Grenville, while discouraged by the actions of continental states, retained a more continental outlook on the conflict and drifted in the direction of the more fervent counter-revolutionaries within the cabinet, the Duke of Portland and William

Windham.69

With regard to British strategic priorities, therefore, the belated acceptance that the defeat of Revolutionary France would require a protracted effort led to a strategic drift away from a staunch continental commitment. Piers Mackesy argues that this shift derived from Britain’s inability to effectively project force beyond Europe’s coastline— i.e., the embrace of “blue water” strategy was a matter of necessity as opposed to choice.70 There is a degree of truth to this charge, as Pitt himself recognized Britain’s

68 John M. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France 1793-1815 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 365-68.

69 Ehrman, The Reluctant Transition, 2: 547; and Peter Jupp, Lord Grenville, 1759-1834 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 187-88.

70 Piers Mackesy, “Problems of an Amphibious Power: Britain Against France, 1793- 1815,” Naval War College Review 30:4/267 (Spring 1978), pp. 16-25.

55 limited means of direct continental intervention. A more accurate characterization, however, is that it represented a strategic retrenchment around British strengths and interests. As the Duke of Richmond had admonished Pitt in April 1793, the British state, at an institutional level, was poorly equipped to pursue continental intervention at any degree of scale.71 This was a matter of both British society’s traditional antipathy towards the army, and the priorities generated by the reality of Britain’s status as an imperial-maritime state. While the British army wilted in the years following the War of

American Independence, Pitt’s government invested heavily in the maintenance of the

Royal Navy to the impressive tune of £64,549,000 between 1784 and 1792.72 Thus, due to inclination and choices that predated the French Revolution, the British state was well- prepared to participate in a large-scale conflict reliant upon its maritime power, but poorly-prepared to do so in a continental war.

Assessing Britain’s military and diplomatic position sometime in early 1795, Henry

Dundas argued that Britain could not act against France on the Continent without support from Prussia. In the event Prussian supported materialized, however, he believed Britain should pursue a continental policy only so long as it could “be accomplished without in any degree interfering with our operations on the coast of

France or with our Separate efforts by Sea and Land for reducing under the Dominion of

71 Ehrman, The Reluctant Transition, 356, 485. For a detailed study of the British Army, see J. A. Houlding, Fit For Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715-1795 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).

72 Roger Knight, Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory, 1793-1805 (New York: Allen Lane, 2013), 27.

Great Britain the Dutch and French Possessions in every quarter of the Globe.” In fact, he proposed that Britain generate the required £2 million subsidy payment to entice

Prussian military engagement against France from the captured revenue of Dutch colonial possessions.73 As the next chapter will demonstrate, Dundas argued for nothing less than an imperial-maritime war against Revolutionary France.

73 Henry Dundas, Memorandum, undated [1795], Melville Papers 1795, fol. 5, WCL.

CHAPTER 3

“A CONTENTION OF PURSE”: THE IMPERIAL COUNTER-REVOLUTION, 1795-98

From a British vantage point, failure defined the strategic landscape by August

1795. On January 19, the Batavian Republic emerged from the ashes of the Dutch

Republic as a client state of France. In April, the Peace of Basel made Prussia’s withdrawal from hostilities official. The disastrous Quiberon expedition in July did permanent damage to the royalist émigré cause in London, and also exposed the weakness of Britain’s ally Austria when Vienna refused to support the royalist landing in Quiberon Bay with operations in Franche-Comté.1 In the West Indies, the spread of revolutionary ideology spurred on by the French commissioner, Victor Hugues, threatened the breakdown of the plantation economy.

An unsigned 1795 memorandum amongst Henry Dundas’ papers offers two significant insights into the momentum of British strategy in response to this deteriorating situation. First, the British increasingly came to believe that continental allies offered little hope of bringing the war to an acceptable conclusion. The second, and related observation, was that the war with France, at a fundamental level, was economic in nature. Only Britain had the capability to inflict damage to French commerce, and thus “bring about an advantageous peace.” The author reached the logical conclusion

1 Michael Durey, William Wickham, Master Spy: The Secret War Against the French Revolution (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009), 52-54.

58 that British interests should govern strategic policy. “England then,” the author wrote,

“is that whose views and projects are the most important to be acquainted with when we are [trying?] to consider the means of making peace and the probability of their success.”2 Though the author is unknown, it is difficult to believe that the commercially- minded Dundas disagreed with the proffered strategic analysis. Thus as Britain assumed a role of primacy in prosecuting the war against Revolutionary France, the front lines of the conflict shifted from France’s borders to the arena of commerce and trade.

Defining British strategy along these lines was far from novel. Prior to the Seven

Years’ War, British strategic thought divided along partisan lines, with the Whigs tending to favor continental strategies, while the Tories and opposition Whigs backed maritime, “blue water” strategies. Success forged something of a consensus during the

Seven Years’ War when William Pitt the Elder developed a hybrid form of maritime strategy that paired robust naval operations with the subsidized armies of continental allies. The coronation of George III in 1760 further bolstered continental detachment due to the new King’s weaker personal attachment to the territory of Hanover. The strength of Pitt’s approach was its ability to leverage Britain’s naval power and maritime commerce in pursuit of continental objectives, and, in 1763, it resulted in the expulsion of France from North America and the emergence of Britain as the preeminent European power.3

2 Unsigned, 1795, Melville Papers 1795, fol. 1, WCL.

3 For a treatment on the history of British blue water strategy, see: Daniel A. Baugh, ‘Great Britain’s “Blue-Water” Policy, 1689-1815,” The International History Review 10:1 (February, 1988): 33-58. For an examination of the role Hanover played in British foreign policy, see: Jeremy

On the surface, British strategy of the mid-eighteenth century and the mid-1790s bear considerable similarity, but this similarity masked forces pushing the British state in a new direction. As had been the case in the 1750s, Britain found itself entangled in a continental conflict in which potential continental alliances existed.4 The strategy of Pitt the Elder, however, was largely Atlantic in nature, and a confluence of internal and external forces began to challenge the Atlantic paradigm in the mid-1790s. Internally, the creation of the Board of Control in 1784 placed military responsibility for the East Indies in the hands of the British state whenever war broke out, which proved a momentous change. This development became even more salient when the President of the Board of

Control and William Pitt’s war minister were one and the same man, Henry Dundas.

Externally, the spread of revolutionary ideology in the West Indies made Britain’s

Black, The Continental Commitment: Britain, Hanover and Interventionism, 1714-1793 (New York: Routledge 2005). For an assessment of the strategic shift that took place when George III came to the throne, see: Karl W. Schweizer, “The Vote of Credit Controversy, 1762,” in Statesmen, Diplomats and the Press—Essays on 18th Century Britain (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), 21-36; and Jeremy Black, Trade, Empire and British Foreign Policy, 1689-1815 (London: Routledge, 2007), 115. Piers Mackesy, ‘Problems of an Amphibious Power: Britain Against France, 1793- 1815,’ Naval War College Review 30:4/267 (Spring 1978), 16-25. Mackesy places a great deal of emphasis on the idea that British blue water strategy and amphibious operations were built more of necessity than choice during this period. See also, Christopher T. Golding, “Amphibians at Heart: The Battle of Copenhagen (1807), the Walcheren Expedition, and the War against Napoleon,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 90:363 (Autumn 2012), pp. 167-88.

4 This stood in stark contrast to the War of American Independence, when Britain’s diplomatic isolation from the Continent allowed France to project force outside of Europe with impunity. Piers Mackesy draws a direct parallel between the West Indian campaigns of the War of American Independence and the strategy pursued in the 1790s. Piers Mackesy, The War for America 1775-1783 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964). Similarly, Michael Duffy argues that the War of American Independence loomed large in the minds of William Pitt the Younger and Henry Dundas when they devised the West Indian campaigns. Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War Against Revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 3-5.

60 traditional approach to the region unfeasible, and forced significant, undesired compromise upon the British state.

In the mid-1790s, the British Cabinet remained committed to an Atlantic-centered paradigm, but the pressures of the war against Revolutionary France exposed the beginnings of Britain’s imperial “swing to the east” and the Atlantic world’s declension in British imperial thought. In the West Indies, the introduction of revolutionary ideology challenged the prioritization of the Caribbean, and created an opening for a reorientation of the British metropole towards its eastern possessions.

HENRY DUNDAS: AN IMPERIAL SCOTSMAN

If any one man was the harbinger of the reorientation of the British Empire, that was most likely Henry Dundas. The reasons for this stemmed as much from trends in

British society in the latter half of the eighteenth century as any personal proclivities of the man himself, but his ascent as Secretary of State for War in the 1790s bestowed additional influence on his views. Henry Dundas was, by any measure, a product of his cultural background and professional environment.5 Often depicted flatly as an imperialist or as colonial-minded, Dundas championed strategic ideas that blurred the

5 A handful of biographies of Henry Dundas have been written. They universally paint the picture of a fiercely loyal Scotsman, workaholic politician, and convivial alcoholic. Holden Furber, Henry Dundas: First Viscount Melville 1742-1811, Political Manager of Scotland, Statesmen, Administrator of British India (London: Oxford University Press, 1931); and Cyril Matheson, The Life of Henry Dundas: First Viscount Melville 1742-1811 (London: Constable & Co., 1933). His most recent biographer, Michael Fry, emphasizes that Dundas was less of a reactionary conservative than often presented, and did much to elevate Scotland within the union. Michael Fry, The Dundas Despotism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992).

61 lines between colonial and continental power, and pushed the East Indies into the foreground of British strategy. This perspective was the product of Dundas’ Scottish roots, and a professional political career defined by the imperial periphery from the start and dominated by the management of Britain’s East Indian interests in the decade prior to the outbreak of the war with Revolutionary France.6 Tracing the lines of Dundas’

Scottish lineage and professional career, therefore, teases out the changing dynamics of

Britain’s relationship with its imperial holdings in the latter decades of the eighteenth century.

The dates of Dundas’ life are striking for their serendipity. He was just shy of his fourth birthday when the Battle of Culloden ended the Jacobite threat to the Hanoverian dynasty in 1746. That British victory soon led to an opening for the political normalization of Scotland within the United Kingdom, which would open doors to

Dundas after he entered politics. In February 1763, the same month that the Treaty of

Paris confirmed Britain’s imperial spoils from the Seven Years’ War, Dundas gained admission to the Scottish bar. In October 1774, Dundas won Midlothian’s seat in the

6 Michael Duffy argues that the “swing to the east” came about as a reaction to the French Revolutionary Wars, as opposed to the more organic process presented here. Duffy’s argument is convincing insofar as it outlines an acceleration of the “swing,” but the development of the Board of Control in 1784 and Dundas’ close relationship with East Indian affairs in the decade prior to the war cannot be ignored. Michael Duffy, "The French Revolution and British Attitudes to the West Indian Colonies," in David Barry Gaspar and David Patrick Geggus, eds., A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 78- 101; and “World-Wide War and British Expansion, 1793-1815,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 184-207.

House of Commons and gave his maiden speech on February 20, 1775.7 Two months later British troops and colonial militia exchanged shots at Lexington and Concord.

The American War of Independence provided a litmus test for Dundas’ views on the British Empire as well as the role of Scottish MPs in managing Britain’s overseas possessions. Thirty years after Culloden, Scottish politicians remained what amounted to an interest group within the House of Commons, and their interest was Scotland.

Dundas, however, immediately upon entering Parliament adopted a more expansive and involved perspective. As one of his biographers put it, “Though connected with the

Scottish department he never forgot, or allowed others to forget, that he was, in the first place, a member of the British Parliament, and a minister in the British Government, and as such interested in every matter affecting the British Empire.” This inclusive mindset made Dundas a staunch supporter of Lord North’s government and its conduct of the war in North America.8 Henry Dundas, therefore, made plain from the outset of his political career that he viewed the world through British eyes.

The arrival of William Pitt the Younger in the House of Commons in 1781 delineated a new stage in Dundas’ political career. Pitt was a rising political star, but

Dundas shied from attaching himself too quickly to the younger man. Nevertheless, events pushed the two MPs together. The political chaos caused by the British defeat at

7 Fry, Dundas Despotism, 21-22, 51-52.

8 Matheson, Life of Henry Dundas, 35-36. Linda Colley charted the rising influence of Scottish MPs following the Battle of Culloden, and argued that it was not until 1780 that Scottish prospects took off in state-appointed offices. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 125-26.

63 the hands of their former North American colonies created opportunities for political maneuver, and by the spring of 1783 Dundas began to work towards Pitt holding the premiership. On December 19, 1783, his efforts bore fruit. Pitt replaced Lord North as prime minister, and at the age of twenty-four set out on an administration that stood the next seventeen years. Pitt’s rise to power owed much to Dundas’ backroom politicking, and a permanent political partnership and friendship formed.9

Although Dundas did not sit in Pitt’s Cabinet in the 1780s, he did play a dominant role in overseeing British interests in India during a period of momentous reform. For much of the eighteenth century the British East India Company operated as a de facto sovereign entity in the East Indies.10 This reality presented a host of problems, the most important being that the British state had no control over the foreign policy of a region it viewed as increasingly vital to the nation’s economic strength. The first major piece of legislation of Pitt’s administration sought to curtail these assumed powers of the

East India Company. Henry Dundas had a leading role in drafting the India Bill of 1784, which represented a watershed moment in the British state’s relationship to its Indian possessions. The bill created the Board of Control to manage British interactions with native powers, and effectively made the British state a sovereign actor in the East Indies

9 John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Years of Acclaim (London: Constable & Co., 1969), 102-4, 132; Fry, Dundas Despotism, 92-95.

10 Philip J. Stern, The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundation of the British Empire in India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Fig. 3.1. This James Gillray cartoon demonstrates the public awareness of Henry Dundas’ sway over British Indian policy. Dundas, seated with paperwork in front of him, manages affairs and grants patronage to Scots while William Pitt and Lord Sydney play a game of push-pin. The cartoon highlights English fears over Scots gaining control over patronage within the British state and using it to further other Scots at the expense of Englishmen. In reality, Dundas managed patronage carefully, and consciously avoided appointing Scots beyond a point where it may have resulted in scandal. (Cartoon by James Gillray. “The Board of Controul. or the Blessings of the Scotch Dictator.,” published by R. Phillips, 1787. Image courtesy of the British Museum, Registration Number 1868,0808.5631. ©Trustees of the British Museum.)

for the first time.11 The board consisted of six members, but Dundas assumed the role of

active leadership and became a publicly acknowledge expert on Indian affairs in the

following years.12

11 For a treatment on the British government’s increasing role in the East India Company’s dealings, see Anthony Webster, The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790-1860 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2009). Philip Lawson, The East India Company: A History (New York: Longman, 1993), 124-25.

12 Ehrman, The Years of Acclaim, 192; and Furber, Henry Dundas, 11.

The importance of Dundas’ management of the Board of Control appears profound when applied to the wars with France in the 1790s. Writing to Lord Spencer,

First Lord of the Admiralty, on the subject of the French occupation of Egypt in an undated letter, Dundas made it clear that defending Britain’s Indian possessions was personal to him. “I tremble,” he wrote, “for the loss of all my exertions for twelve years past.”13 In December 1799, a tired and dispirited Dundas attempted to resign as

Secretary of State for War to devote his attention to India. In a letter to Pitt, he wrote that

“the service of India … is in truth my proper element[.]”14 Dundas proved his commitment to India shortly thereafter by fighting against king and cabinet members for the expedition that expelled the French from Egypt in 1801.15

That Dundas attached himself to imperial policy in this way was fitting for a

Scot. One of the notable aspects of the British Empire in the late eighteenth century was the opportunities it presented for ambitious Scotsmen to improve their economic standing, and this was particularly true of the East Indies.16 By 1750, a third of all British nabobs were Scots, and the percentage rose to about half in the 1770s. This Scottish hegemony declined somewhat during Dundas’ administration in the 1780s and 90s, but,

13 Matheson, Life of Henry Dundas, 252.

14 Henry Dundas to George III, December 8, 1799; and Dundas to William Pitt, undated, in George III Corr., 3: 303, 304n.

15 Piers Mackesy, War Without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt 1799-1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 142-62.

16 Colley, Britons, 128-32.

66 at 30-40 percent, still remained disproportionately high compared to the Scottish portion of the British population. Within Dundas’ family alone, three of his brothers had gone to

India, with only one returning home alive. None of Dundas’ brothers managed to become rich, but sent back a half-Indian niece who lived with the family until she died in her twenties.17

Dundas’ Scottish roots played a prominent role in developing his views on the

British Empire in more subtle ways as well. For Scotland, the erasure of its border with

England brought with it economic expansion, which taught Dundas the value of free market economics. In 1775, Dundas struck up a correspondence with Adam Smith, and this friendship led to Dundas securing a salaried position for Smith in 1777. When Smith published The Wealth of Nations, Dundas was among its first readers, and later introduced the celebrated economist to William Pitt. Dundas’ knowledge of the Scottish economy and discussions with Smith framed his views on the nettlesome topic of the

Irish Union, and the belief that unrestricted trade would be good for both sides. When it came to the empire as a whole, Dundas believed that expanding British trade and commerce was the purpose of empire as opposed to conquest. In some respects, then,

Dundas was an early advocate of the indirect empire of the nineteenth century.18

17 Fry, Dundas Despotism, 112.

18 Fry, Dundas Despotism, 62-3, 198; and Martin Lynn, “British Policy, Trade, and Informal Empire in the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 101-21.

The importance of Henry Dundas’ close relationship with the British Empire took on new meaning when he assumed a position within Pitt’s Cabinet in 1791. Pitt originally intended Dundas to serve as a placeholder as Home Secretary until Charles,

Marques Cornwallis, could return from a stint as Governor-General in India. Events in

India, however, delayed Cornwallis’ return to Britain. By the time Cornwallis arrived home in 1793, Pitt had come to view Dundas as indispensable and refused to remove him from the Cabinet. In the summer of 1794, Pitt formed a coalition with the Duke of

Portland. This coalition introduced a more hawkish anti-revolutionary ideology into the

Cabinet, which stood in contrast to the more neutral stance of Pitt and other cabinet members.19 Portland assumed Dundas’ post of Home Secretary, but, unwilling to cede control of colonial affairs to Portland, Pitt removed those responsibilities from the office and placed them in the new cabinet position he designed for Dundas, Secretary of State for War. Additionally, Dundas remained the minister primarily responsible for overseeing the management of the East Indies through the Board of Control. Dundas’ portfolio, then, explicitly fused management of the war with imperial oversight, and placed that responsibility in the hands of an individual predisposed to the eastern portion of the empire.20

19 Durey, William Wickham, Master Spy, 44.

20 Ehrman, The Years of Acclaim, 409-14. The logic behind the creation of the cabinet position of Secretary of State for War was so that the “triumvirate” of Pitt, Dundas, and Lord Grenville could maintain control over imperial and military policy despite the inclusion of the Portland Whigs in the Cabinet. For an analysis of the triumvirate, see Michael Duffy, “Pitt, Grenville, and the Control of British Foreign Policy in the 1790s,” in Jeremy Black, ed., Knights Errant and True Englishmen: British Foreign Policy, 1660-1800 (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1989), 151-77.

Despite reservations about becoming Secretary of State for War, Dundas held admirably clear views on the nature of the conflict that Britain faced. Ambivalence colored his thinking about continental Europe. Dundas was never an ideological crusader against the French Revolution, but by 1794 he came to appreciate that the Paris regime posed a threat to European security. At the same time, he held onto the view throughout the 1790s that France represented Britain’s natural enemy, and remained unconvinced that the restoration of the French monarchy would result in lasting friendship between the two countries. This is a possible reason why he had never strongly supported the royalist émigrés.21 More importantly, Dundas fervently believed that commerce and trade defined contemporary warfare. In fact, Dundas argued in the summer of 1794 that Pitt should assume the position of war minister, because, as

Secretary of the Treasury, he was uniquely empowered to manage the war as a

“contention of purse.”22

Given the firmness of Dundas’ convictions, he could not imagine that France perceived the war differently than he did. In an August 1795 memorandum, Dundas argued that the most effective strategy for France would be to pursue a maritime insurgency campaign against British foreign possessions. Due to the ongoing trouble caused by ideology and insurrection in the West Indies, this was not an unreasonable

21 Dundas to Spencer, March 24, 1796, in Spencer Papers, 1: 239-41; and Dundas to Pitt, September 24, 1794, PRO 30/8/157, pp. 168-73, BNA.

22 Dundas to Pitt, July 9, 1794, PRO 30/8/157, fol. 160-67, BNA.

69 position. Rather than seeking a major fleet engagement, the French could dispatch a trickle of ships to distant stations, and once their numbers achieved critical mass, they could interdict the lines of communication to Britain’s colonies. French success along these lines, Dundas believed, “would put a decisive end to the war in [their] favour.”23

Less than a year later, in March 1796, Dundas argued that “in the present war … there can be no real injury done to this country but in its distant possessions.” As such, “the

Eastern World is [France’s] only rational object.”24 His views on this front were not without merit. When the French National Convention abolished slavery in February

1794, it declared, “the English are dead today. We are hurling liberty into the New

World … In vain Pitt and his accomplices will apply political pressure to try to repeal the effects of this good deed; they will be dragged into the void.”25

Dundas’ position on the importance of extra-European strategies appears extreme, but it did not lack evidence in its favor. By the late 1790s, extra-European goods represented 58 percent of Britain’s retained import trade, and 69 percent of Britain’s domestic export. This was a reality Dundas would have been intimately familiar with. It was also a solid foundation for placing British interests firmly outside of Europe so long

23 Appreciation by Dundas, August 24, 1795, in Spencer Papers, 1: 148-49.

24 Dundas to Spencer, March 24, 1796, in ibid., 1: 239-41.

25 The Abolition of Slavery, French National Convention, February 4, 1794, in Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus, eds., Slave Rebellion in the Caribbean, 1789-1804: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006), 129-32. On the subject of French strategy in the Caribbean, see also Edward L. Cox, “The British Caribbean in the Age of Revolution,” in Eliga H. Gould and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Empire and Nation: The American Revolution in the Atlantic World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 275-94.

70 as one defined warfare in financial terms. Europe did retain a dominant position in

Britain’s re-export trade at 78 percent, which Napoleon attempted to leverage against

Britain through the Continental System later in the war. The East Indies still held a minority position against that of the West Indies in trade volume by the end of the eighteenth century, but in both real terms and public awareness the importance of East

Indian trade was on the rise.26

Henry Dundas was far from unique in late eighteenth century Britain, but his views were far from predominant within the British Cabinet. Lord Grenville, for one, favored a continental approach to Revolutionary France when and where possible, and it was his voice that largely defined British strategy prior to 1795. Nevertheless, in

Dundas, we see both a background and professional career which cultivated a paradigm that stretched beyond the traditional confines of the Atlantic world, and pressed for a more imperial view of Britain’s interests. As the continental alliances of 1793-94 began to falter and Britain assumed a larger role in the war with France, this perspective assumed a prominent position in the debates over defining British interests and strategy.

26 R. P. Thomas and D. N. McCloskey, “Overseas Trade and Empire 1700-1820,” in Donald McCloskey and Roderick Floud, eds., The Economic History of Britain Since 1700, vol. 1, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 87-102; and H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 37-43.

THE PULL OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE

By 1795, the combination of his ministerial portfolio and personal relationship with William Pitt the Younger arguably made Dundas the second most powerful political figure in Britain, but there were very real limits to that power. When Dundas accepted the post of Secretary of State for War, he did so despite reservations that the power of other cabinet members would reduce the office to that of paper pusher for the joint decisions of the Cabinet.27 In particular, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord

Spencer, held a position more than capable of derailing any grand strategy that Dundas might pursue. As the scope of the conflict swelled beginning in the summer of 1795, these two men found themselves involved in a debate over the strategic center of gravity of the conflict—Dundas placed it in the global imperial periphery, while Spencer countered with the traditional European Atlantic. This debate highlighted the limitations of British naval power, and proved that it was far easier to theorize grand imperial strategies than it was to realize them.

In an era when explicit statements of strategic thought are sometimes hard to come by, Henry Dundas has left historians a clear picture of his mind and motivations.

Writing to Spencer in 1799, Dundas argued that the “safety of Europe” depended on

Britain “being the paramount commercial and naval Power of the world.”28 This philosophy guided Dundas throughout his tenure in office. At first glance, his ideas

27 Dundas to Pitt, September 24, 1794, PRO 30/8/157, pp. 168-73, BNA.

28 Dundas to Spencer, August 12, 1799, in Spencer Papers, 3: 109-11.

72 differed little from British strategic thought throughout the eighteenth century. Beneath the surface, however, the changing nature of the British Empire demanded refinements.

Dundas desired that Britain “appear with pride and superiority” in the English Channel,

Mediterranean, East Indies, and West Indies. Failing to hold sway in these theaters, he claimed, was “beneath [Britain’s] scale of naval character in the world.”29 Britain was a global maritime hegemon, and Dundas felt it should act as one.

The fall of the Dutch Republic in January 1795 serves as one of the clearest examples of how Dundas perceived the war in global terms. On February 16, Dundas drew up orders directing Captain John Blankett to take Major-General Sir James Henry

Craig and a small force to the Cape of Good Hope and attempt to peacefully secure the

Dutch colony with the understanding that Britain would return it to its old masters after hostilities came to an end.30 Three days later, Dundas sent out two more directives concerning Dutch colonies. Major-General Robert Abercromby, the lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief at Bombay, received orders to occupy the Dutch controlled port of Trincomalee, and General Sir John Vaughan, commanding in the Leeward

Islands, was to take the Dutch South American and West Indian colonies under his protection.31

29 Dundas to Spencer, October 31, 1796, in ibid., 1: 329-33.

30 Henry Dundas to Captain John Blankett, February 16, 1795, CO 77/57, pp. 6-14, BNA.

31 Henry Dundas to Major-General Robert Abercromby, February 19, 1795, CO 77/57, pp. 38-45, BNA; “Abercromby, Sir Robert (1740?–1827),” Raymond Callahan in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP, 2004); online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, January 2008,

Operations in the East Indies brought together a complicated matrix of public and private interests, and for this reason cabinet members granted considerable discretion to Dundas in crafting policy. When the effort to gain control of the Cape of

Good Hope expanded in March, the Admiralty placed Rear-Admiral Sir George Keith

Elphinstone directly under Dundas’ authority. This was something of an oddity for the

Admiralty, which jealously guarded its powers over naval matters. The East Indies, however, proved to be an exception to this rule, as Dundas held similar authority over

Captain Peter Rainier, who sailed in the Indian Ocean at the same time.32

Dundas’ orders to Elphinstone reached the latter on March 21, and dispatched the future Lord Keith on a mission that exemplified the relationship between the British state and the Honorable East India Company. Elphinstone’s primary objective was the capture of the Dutch Cape Colony, but in the event that proved impossible he was to sail into the Indian Ocean and capture the Dutch settlement of Cochin on the Malabar Coast.

Dundas also hoped that Elphinstone’s fleet might offer protection to the Portuguese settlement of Goa. The latter location, Dundas feared, offered a position of “great facility in affording assistance to the Native powers who may be disposed to be inimical to the

http://www.oxforddnb.com.libproxy.temple.edu/view/article/47 (accessed July 22, 2014); and Henry Dundas to General Sir John Vaughan, February 19, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 192-203, BNA.

32 Admiralty to Rear-Admiral Sir George Keith Elphinstone, March 15, 1795; and Admiralty to Captain Peter Ranier, February 23, 1795, ADM 2/127, pp. 488, and 399, BNA.

Company’s interests.” Dundas assumed, therefore, that Goa would be an object of

French attention in any effort to destabilize East Indian trade.33

Dundas’ expansion of the war in the East Indies in the spring of 1795 prefigured a wider embrace of strategies outside of Europe. In August 1795, Dundas’ views gained traction when the Cabinet drew up orders for the massive West Indian expedition under the command of Major-General Sir Ralph Abercromby. The Cabinet quickly followed that decision by advising the total removal of British forces from the Continent on

September 7. An infuriated George III informed Lord Grenville that he was unable to accede to the withdrawal until he had “maturely weighed the situation in which every

German Prince is placed by this change.”34

By October, however, the king began to come around. Commenting on the ongoing peace negotiations with France, he noted that he continued to believe that the

“unnatural formation” of the revolutionary state would lead to its dissolution, but in the meantime suggested that Britain should give a “steady attention to obtaining our own advantages.” Those advantages were in the West Indies.35 By the spring of 1796, Dundas

33 Henry Dundas to Rear-Admiral George Keith Elphinstone, March 21, 1795, CO 77/75, pp. 62-72, BNA.

34 Cabinet Minute, August 14, 1795; and Cabinet Minute, September 7, 1795, in George III Corr., 2: 380-81, and 400-1; George III to Lord Grenville, September 10, 1795, in Dropmore Papers, 3: 134.

35 George III to Henry Dundas, October 11/12?, 1795, in George III Corr., 2: 411. Disgust with continental allies loomed large at this time, and bubbles to the surface in George’s distaste for the situation that Britain then found itself in. Less than a month later the Duke of York sent a scathing letter to his father on the conduct of the Prussian court. Duke of York to George III, September 14, 1795, in ibid., 2: 403-4.

75 appeared to have made George a full convert. At that point, he not only embraced extra-

European strategies, but hoped that British “successes in both the East and West Indies,” followed by an acceptable peace, would “so far humble our enemies as to reduce them to be unable for many years to give us any trouble.”36

Though the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope began under the altruistic auspices as set by Dundas, there is good reason to view his stated motives suspiciously.

The Dutch colony, squatting on the sea route between the Indian Ocean and Europe, represented an important strategic location. In an October 1795 letter to the Duke of

York, Dundas labeled the Cape of Good Hope the “Key of the Sovereignty and

Commerce of India.” A strategic memorandum, written in 1795, argued that Britain’s priority should be “reducing under the Dominion of Great Britain the Dutch and French

Possessions in every quarter of the Globe.” Word of the September 16 capture of the

Cape of Good Hope arrived in London on November 11, and by December a jubilant

Dundas began to argue for the outright annexation of the Dutch colony. Whether annexation had always been Dundas’ intention is unclear, but he wasted little time in arguing for it following the British capture of the colony.37

36 George III to Henry Dundas, March 2, 1796, in Ibid., 2: 463-64. In early July, when word of the capture of St. Lucia and Ceylon arrived in London, George expressed similar sentiments once again. George III to Henry Dundas, July 3, 1796, in ibid., 2: 493.

37 Dundas to Duke of York, October 5, 1795, WO 6/131, pp. 80-90, BNA; and Furber, Henry Dundas, 113-14. Dundas repeatedly used the same phrasing in reference to the Cape of Good Hope. In a speech before the House of Commons in April 1796: “News,” St. James's Chronicle or the British Evening Post, April 28, 1796 - April 30, 1796, Issue 5984, Gale Group Databases. http://www.infotrac.galegropu.com.libproxy.temple.edu [All newspaper material accessed from this database.]; and Dundas to Spencer, November 5, 1797, in Spencer Papers, 2: 215-16. Dundas’ movement towards outright annexation, as opposed to protection, of the Cape of Good Hope is

Following the successful seizure of the Cape of Good Hope, the demands upon the navy’s resources rose considerably. In February 1796, a small Dutch fleet managed to evade the British navy’s blockade and the British attempt to intercept it en route to the

Dutch colony. The poorly prepared Dutch fleet ultimately surrendered to Elphinstone in

August 1796 without firing a shot.38 The following summer, Admiral Joseph de Richery’s

French squadron caused considerable alarm and confusion after it escaped into the

Atlantic. Richery harassed British fisheries near Newfoundland before returning to

Europe. In the meantime, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker sailed from European waters for the

West Indies believing that Richery’s destination was St. Domingue.39 The conflict expanded further on August 19 when France and Spain signed an offensive pact directed against Britain.40

clear by mid-January 1796. Henry Dundas to George III, in George III Corr., 2: 454. Henry Dundas, Memorandum, undated [1795], Melville Papers 1795, fol. 5, WCL. Fortescue provides a short account of the campaign colored with his critical views of Dundas’ strategy. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, vol. 4 (London: Macmillan and co., 1915), 392-402.

38 The correspondence relative to the escape of the Dutch fleet can be found throughout the month of February in ADM 2/1350, BNA.

39 Admiralty to Admiral Henry Harvey, July 15, 1796; and Admiralty to Admiral Hyde Parker, July 15, 1796, in ADM 2/1350, BNA. The communication related to the location of Admiral Richery’s fleet captured the fog of war at sea. On September 17, 1796, Evan Nepean wrote to Admiral John Jervis that they believed Richery was at Cartagena, Spain, and ordered Jervis to hold any British ships that had been ordered to detach for the West Indies. Evan Nepean to Jervis, September 17, 1796, ADM 2/1350, BNA. Five days later, on September 22, HM Frigate Andromeda reported that merchants sighted Richery off the coast of Newfoundland on September 1, reawakening concerns for St. Domingue. Nepean to Parker, September 22, 1796, ADM 2/1350, BNA.

40 Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 162-3.

The entrance of Spain as an active belligerent placed the Admiralty under considerable duress in terms of both increased enemy ship totals as well as geographic scope. The Admiralty responded by deciding to pull out of the Mediterranean to the

Atlantic in late August 1796.41 Further afield, the Admiralty sent out orders, on

September 2, to all commands calling for aggressive action against both the ships and possessions of Spain.42 In theory, such orders stretched the scope of the conflict to the

South American and East Asian possessions of the Spanish Empire. Indeed, Dundas seriously contemplated an expedition to South America in January 1797. The plan called for a force from the Cape of Good Hope to sail east and pick up a contingent from New

South Wales before traversing the Pacific Ocean to attack Spain’s South American possessions. Dundas scrapped the proposed expedition in March 1797, but it was not forgotten.43

Vacating the Mediterranean exposed a divide between Dundas and Spencer, and the overwhelming nature of maintaining global supremacy was the crux of the matter.

The primary objective of the British naval presence in the Mediterranean were the

French and Spanish fleets in their respective ports, but this had the secondary benefit of guarding against French incursions into the Eastern Mediterranean where they might

41 Admiralty to Jervis, August 24, 1796; and Admiralty to Jervis, August 31, 1796, ADM 2/1350, BNA. They reached the final decision to evacuate the Mediterranean on August 28, 1796.

42 Admiralty to Commanding Officers, September 2, 1796, ADM 2/1350, BNA.

43 George III to Dundas, January 24, 1797, in George III Corr., 2: 537-38; Nepean to Rear- Admiral Thomas Pringle, January 26, 1797; Nepean to Pringle, March 6, 1797, ADM 2/1352, pp. 11-14, and 51, BNA; and George III to Dundas, March 10, 1797, in George III Corr., 2: 553.

78 work to threaten the trade of the Indian Ocean.44 On October 28, 1796, Dundas wrote to

Spencer complaining about the naval withdrawal from the Mediterranean. Two days later, Dundas’ under-secretary in the War Office, William Huskisson, attempted to apply further pressure on the Admiralty in a letter which argued that Britain’s first priority ought to be “to maintain [its] decided naval superiority on every station.” Spencer’s biting response, written on October 31, cut the War Office down to size. Citing the drain on naval resources between the East and West Indies, he informed Dundas that anyone who felt Britain could maintain “superiority … in every sea, has been guilty of vain boasting.”45

At stake in the exchange between Dundas and Spencer was whether the

Admiralty would embrace the imperial paradigm, or hew to a more traditional strategic fleet deployment with a concentrated force in the European Atlantic.46 Dundas held a cavalier view of home defense, and questioned the need to concentrate British ships in home waters.47 In an oft-cited statement, he wrote that the idea of 15,000 French troops

44 Captain Sir W. Sidney Smith to Lord Grenville, January 19, 1795, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 2-5.

45 Dundas to Spencer, October 28, 1796, in Spencer Papers, 1: 321-23; William Huskisson to ? [Spencer most likely], October 30, 1796, Add MS 38734, fol. 209-14, BL; and Spencer to Dundas, October 31, 1796, in Spencer Papers, 1: 323-29.

46 The “Western Squadron” was the basis of Britain’s strategic naval deployment in home waters, see Michael Duffy, “The Establishment of the Western Squadron as the Linchpin of British Naval Strategy,” in Michael Duffy, ed., Parameters of British Naval Power 1650-1850 (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1998), 60-81. The key component in enabling contemporary strategies was the ability for British naval vessels to remain at sea for extended periods of time, see N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (London: Collins, 1986).

47 “I have always differed in opinion,” he wrote to Lord Spencer, “from those who have thought that everything was to be sacrificed to a strong Channel fleet. Home will take care of

79 landing on British or Irish soil would be a more favorable event than learning of such a landing in Jamaica.48 Such reasoning was a byproduct of Dundas’ assessment that the gravest threat to Britain in the war with France was not direct French invasion, but the interdiction of Britain’s imperial trade and commerce. The British could compel a French army to evacuate the home islands, even once landed, but French naval actions against

British colonies and trade could deal a devastating and potentially permanent blow to

British power. These views simultaneously represented, perhaps, Dundas’ most radical departure from standard strategic thought at the time, and the clearest testimony to the importance he placed on the imperial periphery.

Despite Dundas’ sanguine views of Britain’s ability to repulse a French landing, the breakout of the Brest fleet on December 16, 1796, highlighted the need for greater attention to the security of home waters. News of the defensive failure reached London on December 20, and the Admiralty immediately sent out word to all stations.49 After eleven days of silence, the Admiralty learned that seventeen French ships of the line were in Bantry Bay, off the coast of Ireland.50 Fortunately, the weather-battered French

itself.” Dundas to Spencer, March 24, 1796, in Spencer Papers, 1: 239-41. On the topic of British defensive preparations against invasion, see Roger Knight, Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory, 1793-1805 (New York: Allen Lane, 2013).

48 Dundas to Spencer, August 24, 1796, in Spencer Papers, 1: 317-18.

49 Nepean to Numerous, December 20, 1796, ADM 2/1351, BNA. Intelligence claimed the fleet consisted of “about 43 sail” in total, of which 14-16 were ships of the line. Nepean to Admiral Sir Robert Brice Kingsmill, December 21, 1796, ADM 2/1351, BNA.

50 Nepean to Admiral Lord Bridport, December 31, 1796, ADM 2/1351, BNA.

80 fleet did not attempt to land its troops, and slinked back out to sea without having accomplished anything significant. Any lingering doubts over the need for improved home defense were likely put to rest when a small French raiding force landed in

Pembrokshire, southwest Wales, in February 1797.51

In response to the all too real threat of French invasion, Dundas recognized the need for more rigorous home defense measures but not at the expense of a global maritime presence. In late 1797, he penned a memorandum on home defense advocating an active defensive strategy in the English Channel. He suggested the creation of four light cruiser squadrons along the coastline with dedicated land forces. Ideally, these squadrons would facilitate spoiling hit-and-run attacks along the French coast by taking advantage of their amphibious capabilities, while also standing in readiness to defend against invasion attempts. Spencer circulated a memorandum in February 1798 that largely adopted these ideas.52 Dundas had not, however, sacrificed his preference for increased emphasis on defending the imperial periphery. In January 1801, he wrote to

Spencer still arguing for an even distribution of Royal Navy ships across Britain’s global

51 Duke of York to Lieutenant-General James Rooke, February 25, 1797, in George III Corr., 2: 543-44.

52 Dundas [most likely], “Memorandum on Home Defence,” undated [late 1797]; and Spencer, “Ideas for the Channel the Ensuing Season,” February 6, 1798, in Spencer Papers, 2: 233- 38, and 299-301. Due to an ongoing dispute over soldiers being placed under naval authority while aboard vessels, it proved impossible to directly attach soldiers to ships. They eventually reached a compromise solution by placing the soldiers by fitting out fourteen “old men-of-war” as troopships. Spencer, “Ideas for the Defence of the Channel,” February 15, 1798, in Ibid., 2: 295- 98, 296n. On the subject of the controversy over naval discipline, see: Julian S. Corbett, ibid., 1: 135-37.

81 security interests. The idea being that when, not if, an enemy fleet got to sea, the

Admiralty would need to detach fewer vessels to strengthen foreign stations.53

The debate between Spencer and Dundas over naval deployment that began in

August 1796 cast light on both a difference in strategic prioritization and the limits of naval resources. When pressed by Spain’s entrance into the war, the Admiralty decisively sided with consolidation in the European Atlantic. As Spencer explained to

Dundas, limited naval resources drove this decision more than anything else. Dundas’ arguments, however, made clear that in his mind the matter of contention was one of priorities, with the Admiralty overemphasizing home defense at the expense of the imperial periphery. Given the heavy commitment of British resources in the West Indies in the summer of 1796, it is clear that it was the marginalization of the East Indies that caused Dundas angst.

“A WAR OF DEVASTATION, FIRE, AND PLUNDER”

That the West Indian theater defined the British war effort of the mid-1790s should be no surprise given the extent of blood and treasure expended. In October 1795, just shy of half of all British battalions were either in or destined for the West Indies.54

Additionally, there is little doubt that the mortality and casualty rate for the West Indian

53 Dundas to Spencer, January 15, 1801, in ibid., 3: 290-91.

54 Of 105 battalions at Dundas’ disposal—excluding the Scotch Brigade, deployed to Gibraltar—51 were either in or destined for the West Indies: Leeward Islands (11), St. Domingue (7), Jamaica (1), destined for Leeward Islands (23), and destined for St. Domingue (9). Dundas to Duke of York, October 5, 1795, WO 6/131, pp. 80-90, BNA.

82 expeditions reached shocking extremes. In the definitive work on the West Indian campaigns, Michael Duffy reckons that the British army suffered 42,250 deaths in the

West Indies, and 62,250 total casualties—70 percent of all British officers and men dispatched to the Caribbean. If we add the navy and transport service to these totals, the numbers balloon to 64,250 to 69,250 dead, and 87,250 to 97,250 total casualties. Disease felled the vast majority of these men, not enemy fire.55 Little wonder Richard Brinsley

Sheridan, a leading critic of Pitt’s government, brought forward a motion in the House of Commons demanding a public accounting of West Indian policy in April 1796.56

The war in the West Indies began as a traditional response by Britain to war with

France, but the spread of revolutionary ideology into the free black and slave communities altered this calculus quickly.57 By mid-1795, it was no longer practicable for

Britain to pursue the ideologically neutral strategy of imperial conquest that backed the campaign of Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Grey and Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis in the West Indies. As revolutionary ideology with its call for emancipation took root and caused insurrection in the West Indies, it threatened not just British trade but the colonial system itself. This situation dictated that Dundas resort to reactionary strategies

55 Duffy’s calculation for casualties covers 1793-1801. Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 333-34; Roger Norman Buckley, “The Other War: The Struggle Against Disease and the Revolution in Military Medicine,” in The British Army in the West Indies: Society and the Military in the Revolutionary Age (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998), 272-322.

56 “News” True Briton, April 14, 1796, Issue 1030.

57 In Duffy’s rehabilitation of the West Indian campaigns he situates them within the imperial economics of the late eighteenth century. It is certainly how contemporaries both understood and justified the campaigns. Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 3-37.

83 that attempted to deal with the exigencies of the moment in an effort to preserve the colonial system. Unlike in Europe, therefore, Britain adopted the role of a counter- revolutionary force in the West Indies with aplomb. This new posture achieved mixed results, however, and the nature of the conflict did much to erode support for British operations in the West Indies.

The argument presented here suggests something of a caveat to the general consensus of historians concerning the ideological nature of the approach taken by Pitt’s government in its confrontation with Revolutionary France. Within what was effectively a self-contained theater, ideology played an important role in both policy and strategy due to the French embrace of slave emancipation. For obvious reasons, slave emancipation had little to do with the ideological component of the struggle against

Revolutionary France in Europe. In the West Indies, however, the notion of liberty, equality, and fraternity, when extended to the black population necessitated a direct and immediate response from the British imperial state.58

The ideological nature of the conflict is the reason that St. Domingue cast such a large shadow over British strategy at the time and since. The failure to quarantine and suppress revolutionary ideology among free blacks (Gens du Couleur) and slaves on St.

Domingue in 1794 signaled a dramatic shift in the strategic situation. Only a narrow slip of water separated the French colony from Jamaica, the crown jewel of Britain’s West

58 For an argument that ideology did play a role British military policy, see Philip Schofield, “British Politicians and French Arms: The Ideological War of 1793-1795,” in History 60, no. 250 (June 1992): 183-201.

Indian possessions, which received priority attention in London. British troops had arrived in St. Domingue in the fall of 1793 to suppress the slave rebellion with the explicit support of the French planter class, who had offered British sovereignty over the colony in return for the restoration of the slave society.59 Shortly thereafter, Major-

General Sir Adam Williamson transferred to St. Domingue from Jamaica, and assumed the role of British governor for the colony. Once established, Williamson published a proclamation that laid out his primary responsibility, which was to restore order and stability to the island and return the planter class to their pre-revolution status. As to his executive power, Williamson announced, “it shall be used … to retrieve and preserve properties.”60 By the summer of 1794, however, British concern over the spread of revolutionary ideology began to override the interests of the French planters of St.

Domingue.

It was on St. Domingue that British strategy quickly adopted non-traditional policies in an attempt to regain control. In a September 29, 1795, letter to Major-General

Gordon Forbes, Dundas ordered Forbes to engage in a campaign to win the hearts and minds of the island’s inhabitants. He singled out the free blacks, who “cannot fail to facilitate the reduction or add to the resistance of the Island, according to the disposition which may prevail among them towards this Country.” To secure their support, Dundas

59 David Patrick Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue 1793-98 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 48-67.

60 Major-General Sir Adam Williamson, “Proclamation of his Excellency SIR ADAM WILLIAMSON…,” in Gentleman’s Magazine (August 1795): 666-68.

85 directed Forbes to grant “whatever civil Rights may be enjoyed by the White

Inhabitants” on St. Domingue. That this response was a measure of desperation is evident because once granted, St. Domingue would be the only British island in the West

Indies on which free blacks enjoyed equal rights.61 As recently as 1792, the Jamaican

Assembly had, by contrast, rejected a petition by free blacks for only moderately increased civil rights.62

This offer of equal rights, however, paled in comparison to the decision to begin forming British units of free blacks and slaves. In 1794, as a result of the pressures of emancipation and troop shortages, Williamson formed units from the local black population without authorization from London. When Dundas learned of Williamson’s activities in October 1794, he informed Williamson that, while the idea had merit, he should avoid any promise of emancipation, “which if carried to too great an Extent would inevitably create the most serious Evils.”63 The difficulty of maintaining British troops in the West Indies led to officers clamoring for the ability to raise further black regiments, and, in April 1795, they won over Dundas.

On April 17, the pressures of military necessity broke through the dam of West

Indian lobbyists. Dundas dispatched orders to General Sir John Vaughan, who had replaced Grey as commander in the Leeward Islands, which fully captured the lobby

61 Dundas to Forbes, September 29, 1795, WO 6/5, pp. 151-63, BNA.

62 David Geggus, “Jamaica and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt, 1791-1793,” The Americas 38:2 (Oct., 1981): 219-33.

63 Dundas to Williamson, October 7, 1794, WO 6/5, pp. 12-15, BNA.

86 pressure from both sides of the issue, as well as the political awareness required of

Vaughan in raising troops from free blacks and slaves in the West Indies. The

“hesitation” of the British government to embrace the use of black troops in the West

Indies derived from concern over the potential response of slaves on British islands, and the “opinions and apprehensions of the Planters on the success of a measure so deeply involving … the interests of the Colonies.” Dundas, however, had little personal anxiety in adopting the measure, and believed that the officers advocating for black troops did so with “serious and attentive consideration of a Question of such magnitude.” Dundas granted Vaughan the ability to purchase slaves to fill the ranks, or offer a bounty to entice free blacks to enlist. Dundas made it clear, though, that Vaughan should not offer emancipation as an inducement to join the ranks. “Any ill timed Encouragement of this nature,” Dundas wrote, “and more especially if it terminated in Disappointment would give rise to the most serious Evils, and … might be considered by the Negroes themselves as a concession made by necessity in imitation of the French, and as the first step towards those dangerous expedients to which the Enemy have had recourse in order to increase their Forces in that Quarter of the World.”64

These policy changes represented a rare moment during the period when the

British embraced something other than the desired status quo ante bellum, and a very fundamental change to their intervention on the island of St. Domingue. More broadly,

64 Dundas to General Sir John Vaughan, April 17, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 245-51, BNA. The letter to Vaughan corresponds with a similar dispatch to Williamson on St. Domingue, April 17, 1795, WO 6/5, pp. 136-38, BNA.

87 the acceptance of the political importance of the Gens du Couleur stands in stark contrast to events as recently as 1792, when the Jamaican Assembly rejected a petition by free blacks for moderately increased civil rights.65 Central to these developments was British impotence in St. Domingue, and manpower weakness more generally in the West Indies.

Thus, the resort to arming slaves and free blacks in the West Indies was not indicative of a true shift in British thinking with regard to slavery and race. Enslaved black men and women would remain the primary labor force of Britain’s West Indian colonies, and blacks remained a subordinate class. The dire nature of the situation, however, mandated compromises of the hard line that had existed between white and black skin in the British colonies. The ideological challenge presented by emancipation, therefore, forced the British state to take the momentous step of arming black men to preserve slavery and maintain the British West Indian plantation economy.

From the outset of British occupation, events in St. Domingue and elsewhere in the West Indies played an important role in the ongoing debate in Parliament concerning the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. For example, the Morning

Chronicle reported in July 1794, “General Whyte writes, that in the district of Port-au-

Prince alone there is more sugar now nearly ready to cut than in all Jamaica—a decisive proof that the plantations in the West Indies may be cultivated by freemen as well as by slaves.”66 In February 1795, William Wilberforce rested his assault on the slave trade by

65 David Geggus, “Jamaica and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt, 1791-1793,” The Americas 38:2 (October 1981), 219-33.

66 News. Morning Chronicle, 18 July 1794, Issue 7729. [italics in the original]

88 citing the danger of that trade’s continuance in the aftermath of revolutionary ideology’s arrival in the region. “The policy of the French was not calculated,” he argued, “to render the islands valuable to themselves, but dreadfully fitted for the purpose of rendering them dangerous possessions to us.” He went on, “Every shipful of negroes which came from Africa, either directly added to the force of our enemy, if carried into the French islands or added to it indirectly, and perhaps still more dangerously, by increasing the number of disaffected, if brought into our own.”67

Throughout these debates, the architect of West Indian policy, Dundas, attempted to straddle the line while defending British strategy. On the one hand, he commiserated with critics of the slave trade, but argued only for a gradual elimination of the slave trade which took into account the rights of merchants and planters, and sought to limit the financial damage to those groups due to parliamentary policy. Dundas, however, felt that the “circumstances of the present war” rendered immediate abolition of the slave trade impossible to consider. The “circumstances” being a reference to the pivotal importance Dundas placed on the colonial system to Britain’s ability to continue the war with France.68

As an object lesson, the civil war in St. Domingue could equally serve as confirmation of racial fears, and bolster arguments against the abolitionist movement.

An anonymous letter to Gentleman’s Magazine in December 1794 stated, “If all the

67 Parliamentary History, vol. 31, col. 1321-28.

68 Parliamentary History, vol. 31, col. 1337-41.

89 shocking enormities committed at St. Domingo since the French have recovered possession of part of it, in consequence of the decree of [the] Convention for immediate emancipation of the Negroes, be true, it is to be hoped, for Heaven’s sake, we shall hear no more of abolishing the slave-trade.” The author proceeded to argue that the “Negroe race, who with all the boast of what their common nature is capable of, are but a set of wild beasts when let loose without controul.”69 Dundas echoed these sentiments in defending British policy in the House of Commons. According to the account of a

February 1796 speech in Lloyd’s Evening Post, Dundas declared that the French pursued

“a war of devastation, fire, and plunder.” In the same speech, Dundas pushed back forcefully against the arguments of abolitionists, when he “described the cruel atrocities exercised at Guadeloupe, at St. Domingo, and other Islands, where the negroes were let loose[.]”70 According the pro-government Evening Mail’s account of a May 1797 speech in the House of Commons, Dundas announced that he was unsure whether Britain would ultimately retain St. Domingue, but in either event it was critical that the colony

“be preserved from the destruction with which the principles of anarchy introduced among the blacks threatened it.” Dundas went on to observe that even if Britain returned St. Domingue to France, “it was much better for the interests of the West India

69 Anonymous, Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1794, 1167.

70 “News,” Lloyd’s Evening Post, February 17-19, 1796, Issue 6004.

90 possessions of this country, that it should be restored with some check over the Negroes, than in the savage and barbarous state in which it would otherwise be placed.”71

The formation of the British West India Regiments, which began with the April

1795 order to Vaughan, represented both the most extreme step for the British state and the best tool for maintaining the economic system of the West Indies. Despite the protestation of West Indian assemblies—particularly Jamaica’s—the regiments inarguably proved to be a positive for their interests. From 1795-1808, the British government turned into the largest individual purchaser of slaves, which, in turn, meant that the British government had a vested interest in maintaining the slave trade itself.72

Additionally, as the regiments solidified, they provided a consistent garrison force in the region, and there is compelling evidence correlating the pacificity of the enslaved population to the presence of troops and little more.73

Ironically, the True Briton reported that William Wilberforce had advocated for the use of black troops for the defense of British interests in the February 1795 debate over the abolition of the slave trade. Citing French success in arming former slaves on

Guadeloupe, Wilberforce argued that, given the effects of disease and large slave

71 News. Evening Mail, 17-19 May 1797. In a notable contrast, Cobbett reported Dundas’ comments without the harsh racialized language present in the Evening Mail’s account. Cobbett, Parliamentary History, vol. 33, col. 581-86.

72 Roger Norman Buckley, Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1795-1815 (New Haven, 1979), 55-56.

73 David Geggus, “The Enigma of Jamaica in the 1790s: New Light on the Causes of Slave Rebellions,” in The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, 44:2 (April, 1987), pp. 274-99.

91 population of the West Indies, it was both wasteful and futile to continue to dispatch

British troops to the region. “Instead therefore of using force” to restore order, he argued, rebelling slaves “may be made the defenders of the West India Islands.” Slaves did become the defenders of the West Indies, but in doing so incentivized the British government to preserve the slave trade as a means of manning its West Indian garrisons.74

The West India Regiments exposed the cynicism of British policy with regard to race and slavery in the West Indies. In a memo concerning the management of the regiments, the cold rationale of the system of slavery comes out fully. In order to

“establish what there is in the East Indies a Military Cast,” the memo’s author argued that the British government should purchase female slaves to be the wives of men in the

Regiment. The children of these union would be “brought up for the Regiment,” and allow the British to keep “Black soldiers separate from the other Negroes.”75 In 1802, a mutiny of the Eighth West India Regiment displayed the effectiveness of the distinction established between black soldiers and plantation slaves. The primary cause of the mutiny was nothing less than rumor that the British army intended to sell the regiment from lifelong military service into plantation slavery.76

74 News. True Briton, 27 February 1795, Issue 667; and Parliamentary History, vol. 31, col. 1321-28

75 Unsigned Memo, Undated, British West India Papers: 1793-1804, James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota.

76 Buckley, Slaves in Red Coats, 76-78.

The public scrutiny of policy relative to St. Domingue obscured the fact that the strategic priority in the West Indies was Jamaica. In early 1795, the news arriving in

London suggested that the British position was on the brink of collapse. In response,

Dundas’ optimism for offensive success began to fade, and he announced that the primary goal was the “interior & exterior safety of the Island of Jamaica.”77 In June,

Dundas received word from the British governor on the island of St. Vincent of difficulties there with the local population of Caribs. The proposed solution was the

“total removal” of the population.78 By the end of the month, Dundas ordered 4,000 reinforcements ahead of schedule for the Leeward Islands in response to the degrading situation on the islands of Grenada and St. Lucia, and advised General Sir John Vaughan that he was to assume a defensive posture and avoid offensive operations.79

The arrival of Alexander Lindsay, the Earl of Balcarres, to take up his post on

Jamaica as governor appeared to confirm the sagacity of the decision to fall back on a more passive approach. Writing to the Duke of Portland on May 30, Balcarres warned of a deteriorating situation on Jamaica and the possibility of French intrigue doing real

77 Dundas to Portland, February 13, 1795, WO 6/163, pp. 35-45, BNA; Dundas to Sir John Vaughan, January 23, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 182-85, BNA; and Dundas to Williamson, February 10, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 188-91, BNA.

78 Dundas to Vaughan, June 4, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 268-72, BNA.

79 Dundas to Vaughan, June 29, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 272-78, BNA. The reinforcements had not set sail by July 11, which was further reason for Vaughan to demonstrate caution. Dundas to Vaughan, July 11, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 278-80, BNA. It was not until late September that the reinforcements for Grenada and St. Vincent finally arrived off Martinique. Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 152.

93 harm. In response, he had taken repressive measures against the French population on the island, many of whom were refugees from St. Domingue.80 In July, a revolt—largely of Balcarres’ making—broke out amongst the Trelawney Maroon population on Jamaica, which appeared to signal the spread of the ongoing revolt on St. Domingue to the British colony.81

By the fall of 1795, Dundas could draw few positives from the West Indies.

Lobbyists for the islands of St. Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago begged for reinforcements, but Dundas wished to avoid sending over Abercromby’s slowly preparing force piecemeal. He hoped that Major-General Charles Leigh, who had assumed command in the Leeward Islands after Vaughan died in June 1795, possessed enough manpower to reinforce the various islands.82 Throughout September, Balcarres sent missives detailing his struggle to suppress the Maroon rebellion on Jamaica and the measures he had taken, which included commandeering British units intended for St. Domingue.83

80 Earl of Balcarres to Portland, May 30, 1795, in Lord Lindsay, Lives of the Lindsays; or a Memoir of the Houses of Crawford and Balcarres, vol. 3 (London: John Murray, 1849), 33-34.

81 Balcarres to Dundas, July 21, 1795, in Lives of the Lindsays, 40-41.

82 Dundas to Major-General Charles Leigh, September 17, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 291-92, BNA; This order at the same time that Abercromby wished to dispatch 3-5,000 troops as soon as possible to hold territory already under British control. Huskisson to Dundas [?], September 21, 1795, Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, [separate items] box 1, Rubenstein Library, Duke University.

83 Balcarres to Dundas, September 21, 1795; “Lord Balcarres’ Speech to the Assembly,” September 22, 1795; and Balcarres to Dundas, September 29, 1795, in Lives of the Lindsays, 69-70, 70- 71, and 72-74.

Balcarres’ reports impacted significantly on Dundas’ view of the strategic situation. In September, he had expressed confidence in an active campaign for the recapture of St. Lucia and Guadeloupe, but the apparent threat to Jamaica trumped any acquisitions in the Leeward Islands.84 On November 24, Dundas granted Balcarres the ability to commandeer any troops that arrived from Ireland for service on Jamaica.

Importantly, Dundas intended these men for service in the Leeward campaigns, and he warned Balcarres that “it will not be possible for you to divert any part of this force … without exposing the whole plan of Campaign in the Leeward Islands to the risk of total failure.”85 Balcarres, therefore, held discretionary power over any attempt to recapture the strategically important island of Guadeloupe. The following day, Dundas wrote to

Leigh informing him that his principle concern was the “preservation of the Sovereignty of the Islands of Saint Vincent and Grenada.”86

Events continued to drive Dundas towards a strategy of retrenchment around

British possessions in the West Indies. The expedition under the command of General

Sir Ralph Abercromby and Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh Christian experienced immense delays and setbacks following its conception in August 1795. It finally got to sea in

November, only to have severe weather force the fleet back into port on November 18 and then again on January 29. At that point, Dundas and Abercromby limited the

84 Dundas to Major-General Gordon Forbes, September 29, 1795, WO 6/5, pp. 151-63, BNA.

85 Dundas to Balcarres, November 24, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 306-9, BNA.

86 Dundas to Leigh, November 25, 1795, CO 5/271, pp. 309-13, BNA.

95 objectives of the expedition to the recapture of St. Lucia, the security of the beleaguered islands of St. Vincent and Grenada, and the occupation of the Dutch island of Demerara.

Abercromby then embarked on the frigate Arethusa and got to sea on February 14, but it was not until mid-April 1796 that his combined force fully assembled in the West

Indies.87

It is tempting to blame the difficulty of the expedition getting to sea entirely for the more circumscribed list of objectives that Abercromby finally carried to the West

Indies, but that would ignore the drift away from an aggressive strategy dating to

September 1795. In early January 1796, a consensus appears to have formed within Pitt’s

Cabinet in favor of prioritizing St. Domingue, which the British continued to view as a problem connected to the security of Jamaica. These Cabinet discussions came in advance of the alteration to Abercromby’s orders in early February, and were entirely consistent with the carte blanche Dundas granted to Balcarres on Jamaica in late

November. The single most telling aspect of the overall strategy pursued in the West

Indies by the spring of 1796 was the omission of Guadeloupe from Abercromby’s targets. Guadeloupe represented the primary French military threat in the Caribbean, and in sidestepping the French colony British ministers accepted that combating revolutionary ideology and restoring economic stability to British islands now defined the war in the West Indies.88

87 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 199-216.

88 Spencer to Dundas, January 1796, in Spencer Papers, 3: 223-27; Pitt to Lord Grenville, January 3, 1796, Dropmore Papers, 3: 166-67; and Dundas to George III, January 10, 1796, in George III Corr., 2: 453-54.

Combat in the West Indies reflected the ideological, and counter-revolutionary nature of British strategy by early 1796. In early October 1795, Balcarres ordered the removal of all French nationals on Jamaica to St. Domingue—he incorrectly believed them to be the cause of the ongoing Maroon rebellion.89 The difficult mountainous terrain that served as the Trelawney Maroon’s base of operations frustrated British attempts to end the insurgency, which resulted in Balcarres making a controversial decision to import dogs from Cuba to hunt down the Maroon population. The dogs proved ineffective in the rough terrain due to lack of water, but resulted in harsh criticism in British newspapers and a stern rebuke of Balcarres by Dundas.90

In late December, Major-General George Walpole negotiated an agreement with the Trelawney Maroons to end the rebellion. As part of the agreement, Walpole promised the Maroons that the British would not deport them from the island.

Following a short campaign in January to bring remnants of the rebellion to heel,

Balcarres absolved himself and the Jamaican Assembly of any responsibility to

Walpole’s settlement with the Maroons. Noting that he had not involved himself in the negotiations, he believed that “the country and myself are unfettered.”91 Balcarres’

89 Balcarres to Major-General George Walpole, October 3, 1795, Lives of the Lindsays, 76-77.

90 Dundas to Balcarres, February 21, 1796, CO 5/271, pp. 321-25, BNA. The matter went public in July when British newspapers published a letter damning Balcarres and the Jamaican Assembly. The author, Norman Mcleod, believed that Balcarres operated under the spell of the Jamaican planters, who he described as “men who derive their riches and consequences from the misery of human beings[.]” “News,” Morning Chronicle, July 7, 1796, Issue 8343.

91 Walpole to Balcarres, December 25, 1795; and Balcarres to Dundas, January 30, 1796, in Lives of the Lindsays, 99, 116-18.

97 actions infuriated Walpole, but the Jamaican Assembly voted to deport the defeated

Maroons to Nova Scotia. The unfortunate Trelawney Maroons departed their home on

June 6, 1796. The remaining Maroon population in the Windward portion of Jamaica submitted to an oath of allegiance to George III.92

The decision to remove the rebel Maroon population from Jamaica established a precedent in advance of Abercromby’s campaigns, which began in the spring of 1796.

Shortly after he arrived, Abercromby assumed control over the Dutch colonies of

Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice without struggle. Successful operations then regained control on St. Lucia (May 25), St. Vincent (June 11) and its rebelling Caribs (June 15), and

Grenada (June 19). With order restored, the British followed the example of Jamaica and attempted to sanitize the islands of perceived threats to the islands’ security. On both

Grenada and St. Vincent justice for French planters who participated in the insurrection broke along racial lines, with Whites being far more likely to receive reprieve from execution than Mulattos. When the British granted clemency, they deported the offenders to Honduras. As for the rebel Caribs on St. Vincent, British conduct may have amounted to genocide according to Duffy. Determined to remove the rebel Caribs from the island, a brutal scorched earth campaign culminated in the British imprisoning 5,080

92 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 259-60. For a detailed account of the Maroon rebellion, see Mavis C. Campbell, The Maroons of Jamaica 1655-1796 (Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc., 1988).

98 members of the tribe in concentration camps in October 1796. On April 11, 1797, only

2,026 Caribs disembarked from British ships on the Spanish-held island of Rattan.93

Though the conflict was anything but traditional on the ground, Dundas continued to present it as such to his critics. In May 1797, Dundas decided he had heard enough of the Opposition’s criticism of West Indian policy. In response to accusations that the West Indian war was “criminal,” Dundas averred that the Opposition had uttered “a gross libel on every administration which had ever conducted war for Great

Britain.”94 Dundas was not wrong in referencing the traditional nature of expeditions to the West Indies, but he well knew that his war in the West Indies was different.

Economic gain, the “contention of purse,” figured into all prior European fighting in the West Indies, but the introduction of revolutionary ideology had fundamentally altered the region’s strategic parameters. Nowhere was this dynamic more clearly on display than St. Domingue. In a letter to Major-General John Graves

Simcoe in November 1796, shortly before he departed to assume command in the colony, Dundas bemoaned the dramatic and unwelcome realities of the war within the colony. Citing the deleterious effect of disease on European soldiers in St. Domingue, the emancipation and arming of free blacks and former slaves had “rendered it indispensably necessary for their Opponents to have recourse to the same mode of

Warfare.” Moreover, “It is only by this last class of people [Negroes], or by the Natives

93 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 221-40, 257-59.

94 Hansard Parliamentary Debates, 1st ser., vol. 33 (1797-98), cols. 582-86.

99 of the West Indies, that a War, either offensive or defensive, can be carried on with

Success.”95 Two years prior to the eventual British withdrawal from St. Domingue,

Simcoe’s orders reflected a shocking admission of the ineffectiveness of European arms and agency to shape events in St. Domingue.

Active British involvement on St. Domingue came to a close in October 1798, but there had been little change in British goals for the colony. Brigadier General Sir Thomas

Maitland, who had negotiated the British agreement to withdraw with General

Toussaint Louverture, advised Dundas in December 1798 that the agreement should only represent a stopgap in the effort begun by Williamson in 1793. The legitimization of the slave rebellion and the new order on St. Domingue was a “smaller evil” than the

French Directory gaining control over the island’s trade, Maitland observed. Once

Britain reached peace with a “settled Government in France,” he expected that Paris would attempt to restore “the original Colonial System if that be practicable,” and that

Britain should allow them to try. In the meantime, Maitland argued that Britain should work through Toussaint to “crush” agents of France, and grasp “as large a proportion of the produce of Saint Domingo as possible.”96

Maitland’s letter to Dundas pointed to the altered reality of warfare in the West

Indies caused by the French Revolution. Prior to the introduction of revolutionary

95 Dundas to Major-General John Graves Simcoe, November 25, 1796, WO 6/6, pp. 93-124, BNA.

96 Brigadier General Sir Thomas Maitland to Dundas, December 26, 1798, WO 6/6, pp. 270-89, BNA.

100 ideology, European states fought over their West Indian colonies, but did not threaten the colonial system itself. It was this aspect of the fighting that required such a significant number of British soldiers and seamen to serve in the region, harsh repressive tactics, and the raising of black regiments. The latter must have privately galled the abolitionist William Pitt, even if he accepted the pragmatism of the measure.97 The

British state had proven up to the task of restoring order, but by 1798 the horrific cost of operations in the West Indies resulted in a grudgingly accepted stalemate.

Close inspection of British strategy in the mid-1790s, reveals two salient details that point towards the breakdown of the traditional eighteenth-century Atlantic perspective. First, Henry Dundas championed a paradigm that increased emphasis on the East Indian portion of the British Empire. This paradigm developed from organic processes taking place at an institutional and cultural level within Britain in the latter half of the eighteenth century, as opposed to a reaction to the revolutionary period. This argument had minimal impact at the time, but portended significant change to the imperial orientation of the British state. Second, the French Revolution’s impact upon warfare in the West Indies greatly increased the cost of operations in that theater, and did much to delegitimize strategies centered on the sugar rich islands of the Caribbean

97 Pitt’s complicity and hypocrisy in the forming of the West Indian regiments infuriates Roger Buckley. See Buckley, Slaves in Red Coats, 56-62; and The British Army in the West Indies, 138- 44.

101 for both Parliament and the wider public. Indeed, there is evidence that negative public opinion caused by the West Indian campaigns hurt British recruiting efforts after 1795.98

The stigmatization of the West Indies may very well have worked to enhance the appeal of the East Indies. In 1800, Dundas agitated for a large expedition to capture

Guadeloupe and the Spanish island of Cuba. Dundas conceived the plan based on his reading of a memorandum by General Sir David Dundas on the 1762 capture of Havana, which had returned the territory of Florida to the British state in 1763 through the Treaty of Paris. With the cost of the West Indian expeditions still fresh, Pitt dismissed the scheme before it got off the ground.99 As the next chapter will show, however, Henry

Dundas proved more successful in winning military support for the eastern portion of the empire.

98 Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower, 376.

99 Dundas to George III, August 26, 1800, in George III Corr., 401-2; Duffy, “The French Revolution and British Attitudes to the West Indian Colonies,” in A Turbulent Time, 78-101; and Matheson, The Life of Henry Dundas, 286-87.

102

CHAPTER 4

A WAR FOR EUROPE, OR FOR EMPIRE?:

THE WAR OF THE SECOND COALITION, 1798-1801

In a moment of despair during contentious diplomatic negotiations with continental powers in 1798, William Pitt wrote to his Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville,

“I am not … very sanguine in my hopes of any thing, but our continuing to fight well our own battle; and Europe must probably be left for some time longer to its fate.”1 It was a revealing comment. Seven years later, Pitt’s disciple, Robert Stewart, Viscount

Castlereagh, echoed the sentiment more forcefully in a memorandum that distinguished between “objects strictly Continental” and “those more pointedly British.”2 These views reflected an increasing awareness of both Britain’s role as an imperial state distinct from continental Europe, and the importance of that empire to maintaining Britain’s status among its European neighbors.3 That awareness would loom large over the War of the

Second Coalition.

The British approach to continental Europe in 1798 looked much as it had in

1793-94, but with some sharp contrasts. The primary means to British ends was, once again, a continental coalition directed against France and a British supported royalist

1 William Pitt to Lord Grenville, October 29, 1798, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 354-55.

2 Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, “Memorandum Relative to the Projected Expedition, for the Consideration of the Cabinet,” October 21, 1798, in Castlereagh Corr., 6: 25-29.

3 This is a key aspect of the argument made by Edward Ingram in Commitment to Empire: Prophecies of the Great Game in Asia 1797-1800 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981).

103 insurrection within France. Russia, now under the rule of Tsar Paul I, replaced the departed Dutch Republic as a coalition member. British diplomats restarted negotiations in Berlin and Vienna with familiar results—the former ambivalent and neutral, the latter frustrating and, to British eyes, selfish. Unlike in 1793-94, however, the British now acknowledged that the French regime would not collapse on its own, and, led by Lord

Grenville, championed a direct military intervention by coalition forces to restore the

Bourbon monarchy. In short, a “strategy of overthrow” had replaced a strategy of containment.4

Despite Lord Grenville’s best efforts, however, the War of the Second Coalition was not destined to be confined to Europe. In May 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte departed from the French Mediterranean port of Toulon for Egypt. After capturing the strategically important island of Malta in early June, Bonaparte avoided Rear-Admiral

Horatio Nelson’s effort to intercept him and landed his troops at Alexandria on July 1.

The French expedition hoped to threaten Britain’s Indian possessions, and offered the possibility of commercial gains to replace France’s lost Atlantic islands. The scheme

4 John M. Sherwig suggests that Lord Grenville’s diplomacy represented an early predecessor for the diplomatic system that Viscount Castlereagh pursued at the Congress of Vienna. John M. Sherwig, “Lord Grenville’s Plan for a Concert of Europe, 1797-99,” in The Journal of Modern History 34:3 (September 1962), 284-93. In assessing the diplomatic negotiations and why the coalition ultimately failed, Piers Mackesy highlighted that the self-interests of the various states caused friction. Piers Mackesy, Statesmen at War: The Strategy of Overthrow 1798-1799 (New York: Longman, 1974) and War Without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt 1799-1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). In a specific treatment of the Second Coalition, Paul Schroeder argues that the underlying weakness of the coalition was due to Britain’s attempt to “coerce and control” Austria against its own interests. Paul W. Schroeder, “The Collapse of the Second Coalition,” in The Journal of Modern History 59:2 (June 1987), 244-90.

104 confounded British ministers—Lord Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, labeled it

“chimerical and romantic”—but it caused Henry Dundas considerable alarm.5 In British

India, Richard Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, arrived as Governor-General in the spring of 1798, and from the outset of his tenure pursued an active and aggressive policy of imperial expansion with little input from London.

The War of the Second Coalition was, in the end, a global conflict with two primary fronts joined together by a small, isolated French army in Egypt. The strategic and diplomatic challenges faced by Britain in 1798 tugged at the increasing disconnect between Britain’s imperial and European identities and interests. The result was a debate that splintered the triumvirate between Lord Grenville, in favor of an aggressive continental strategy, and Henry Dundas, who favored a more conservative imperial- maritime strategy.6 Despite the imperial overtones, the root cause of this breach had little to do with a divide over continental and imperial policy, but rather continental optimism versus pessimism, and a short versus long path to victory.

5 Lord Spencer to Rear-Admiral Sir Hugh Christian, June 17, 1798, in Spencer Papers, 4: 171-72. For an interesting analysis of French strategy related to the Egyptian expedition, see Edward James Kolla, “Not So Criminal: New Understandings of Napoléon’s Foreign Policy in the East,” in French Historical Studies 30, no. 2 (Spring 2007), 175-201.

6 Mackesy argues that British “maritime and continental strategy became polarized after 1795, as they had never been in the past in spite of much polemical debate.” He ties this argument to the limitations of amphibious warfare. Mackesy, War Without Victory, 228-30.

105

“OUR ENEMY HAS EVERY THING TO GAIN AND NOTHING TO LOSE”

“The Calamitous consequences of Nelson’s alexandria haunts one like a spectre at night and day, and is enough to drive one mad to think of it,” Henry Dundas wrote to

William Huskisson after word of the French landing in Egypt arrived in London.7 The reason Nelson’s failure haunted Dundas so was due to his assessment of the nature of the British Indian Empire at the end of the eighteenth century. Dundas perceived the security of British imperial interests in India as fragile, and particularly prone to enemy intrigue. The French expedition to Egypt, therefore, possessed the potential ability to do immense damage—both economic and political—to the British Empire. The presence of the French army in Egypt acted as a weight upon British strategy throughout the War of the Second Coalition, pulling it south and east away from Europe. It could be ignored, but not forgotten.

A far from unified response to the French Egyptian expedition within the British government was apparent from the outset. Writing in early June 1798, William Pitt noted the “agreeable news” that Bonaparte’s expedition had set sail from Toulon on

May 19 to Grenville, and suggested that Ireland was a possible destination.8 Intelligence had, in fact, discerned Egypt as the expedition’s target by late May.9 On June 13, Dundas wrote a detailed letter to Grenville outlining in stark terms the threat posed by a French

7 Henry Dundas to William Huskisson, [incorrectly dated] February 17, 1798, Add MS 38735, vol. 2, fol. 128-33, BL.

8 Pitt to Lord Grenville, June 1-10, 1798, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 229-30.

9 Spencer to Admiral Peter Rainier, May 30, 1798, in Spencer Papers, 4: 168-71.

106 expedition to Egypt. Possession of Egypt by a hostile power “would be a fatal circumstance to the Interests of this Country,” Dundas argued. Specifically, a hostile power possessing Egypt would facilitate access to India by one of three basic routes: down the Red Sea and into the Arabian Sea; via Constantinople and the Black Sea; or a land route passing through Ottoman territory. Dundas assumed that Bonaparte would prefer the land routes, and it was necessary that Britain get a feel for whether the

Sublime Porte intended to support France reaching India overland.10

A French army marching across the Middle East to reach India may have appeared fanciful, but Dundas was quick to note that British India remained susceptible to attack. “It must not be forgot,” Dundas warned Grenville, “that in all systems of

Intrigue with the Native Powers in India, we labor under a great disadvantage in a competition with France.” British power in India, he argued, was still that of an “upstart power” and it was impossible to imagine that British possessions gained through

“conquests or cessions” made by native rulers had resulted in ironclad loyalty. A French army offering to “deliver [native rulers] from English Bondage without desiring recompence in return” might very well represent an appealing alternative to British imperial claims. “In short,” Dundas concluded, “it is a rivalship where our Enemy has every thing to gain and nothing to lose, and where we have nothing to gain and every thing to lose.”11

10 Dundas to Lord Grenville, June 13, 1798, WO 6/163, pp. 186-202, BNA.

11 Dundas to Lord Grenville, June 13, 1798, WO 6/163, pp. 186-202, BNA.

107

What intelligence the British had on the French expedition seemed to support

Dundas’ concern. On June 16, Dundas enclosed an intelligence report in a dispatch to

Mornington. The report confirmed that the French expedition sailed for Egypt, suggested that the Porte was complicit, and stated that “the Project was, after having secured possession of certain parts of Egypt, to take the nearest route to Arabia through

Persia cross the Indus nearly where Alexander did, and from thence advance into British

Territories.”12 This news paired with word from India led to the opinion within the

Admiralty that Bonaparte’s expedition intended to operate in conjunction with Britain’s rival in Mysore, Tipu Sultan.13 On June 18, Dundas sent orders to all commands in the

East Indies concerning the threat posed by the French army in Egypt, and directed them to grant whatever support necessary to a British attempt to block a French exit from the

Red Sea at the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. In a separate missive to the Duke of York on the same day, Dundas requested 5,000 troops to reinforce British India.14

12 Dundas to Richard Wellesley, Lord Mornington, “Secret Intelligence from Frankfurt,” June 16, 1798, CO 77/58, pp. 87-89, BNA.

13 Mornington had drawn connections between France and Tipu in two separate letters in February 1798. It is not unlikely that these views circulated in London in late May and early June. Mornington to Dundas, February 23, 1798; and February 28, 1798, in Edward Ingram, ed., Two Views of British India: The Private Correspondence of Mr Dundas and Lord Wellesley: 1798-1801 (Bath: Adams & Dart, 1970), 16-28, and 28-43. Spencer to Christian, June 17, 1798, in Spencer Papers, 4: 171-72. Nepean to Rear-Admiral Sir H. C. Christian, June 19, 1798, ADM 2/1353, pp. 149-53, BNA. On June 19, Captain John Blankett wrote to Spencer observing that all information pointed to a French global strategy directed against British India. Blankett to Spencer, June 19, 1798, in Spencer Papers, 4: 172-74.

14 Dundas to Commanders in East Indies, June 18, 1798, CO 77/57, pp. 304-6, BNA; and Dundas to Duke of York, June 18, 1798, WO 6/131, pp. 184-90, BNA.

108

The first priority for Dundas and the Admiralty was to isolate the French force in

Egypt, and interdict the land routes to India from Egypt. Accomplishing this task fell to

Captain John Blankett, who was to command a small naval squadron in the Red Sea.

Dundas pressed the Admiralty to make it clear to Blankett that his mission was of a diplomatic nature more so than a military one. Ideally, Blankett would gather the

“Rajahs or other principle Officers or Persons” in the area under the British flag without recourse to hostilities. In the event they refused, however, Blankett was free to assume a hostile posture and take prize ships.15 Exerting soft power in the region proved difficult, however. Though the Porte was hostile to the French presence in Egypt, provincial entities of the Ottoman Empire that craved increased autonomy, such as the Sheriff of

Mecca, embraced the distraction it provided the imperial metropole.16

Through July and into August, London awaited word of events in the eastern

Mediterranean and Dundas stewed in the face of the blasé response of his cabinet colleagues. On July 26, word arrived of the fall of Malta and Nelson’s chase of the

French fleet towards the Levant. A month later, aware of the French landing, but not yet

15 Dundas to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, June 29, 1798, WO 6/148, pp. 92-93, BNA. For an expanded look at the British diplomatic effort in the region and its long-term consequences, see: Edward Ingram, Britain’s Persian Connection, 1798-1828: Prelude to the Great Game in Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

16 Ingram, Commitment to Empire, 311-12. The effect of the French invasion on the Porte’s diplomacy is perhaps best exemplified by a letter to Tipu Sultan in September 1798. The letter, which was given to the British ambassador in Constantinople, Spencer Smith, argued that France represented a common enemy of both the Porte and Britain. Tipu, therefore, should cease his interactions with the French due to the common bond of Islam, and discard “any idea of joining with them, or of moving against Great Britain.” Sublime Porte to Tipu Sultan, September 20, 1798, in Robert Pearce, ed., Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most Noble Richard Marquess Wellesley (London: Richard Bentley, 1846), vol. 1, 217-23.

109 of Nelson’s victory in Aboukir Bay on August 1, Dundas disclosed to Huskisson the emerging breach in the cabinet between himself and Grenville over the French army in

Egypt. Whereas Grenville remained sanguine about the French army, Dundas believed the British should pursue whatever means at their disposal to destroy Bonaparte’s army—including “the plague” and the “climate.”17

By late September, belated news of Nelson’s crushing victory over the French fleet at Aboukir Bay reached London, and provided some but not complete relief for raw nerves. At the Admiralty, Spencer, who had directed Admiral St. Vincent to deny reinforcements to Egypt through the Mediterranean in late September, felt confident that the French army could not reach India in the current season and very likely would end up disintegrating in Egypt.18 Dundas, however, remained the fly in the ointment. In reporting word of Nelson’s victory to Grenville, he bemoaned the fact that it came “too late for India,” and expressed frustration that Nelson had not received firmer orders to guard against an attack on Egypt. In a calmer missive to Spencer on October 5, he observed that achieving victory over a French force in India was not impossible, but warned that “it would have been a tedious conflict, and attended with such an

17 Evan Nepean to Admiral Lord St. Vincent, July 30, 1798, ADM 2/1353, pp. 166-68, BNA; and Dundas to Huskisson, August 27, 1798, Add. MS 38735, vol. 2, fol. 110-13, BL.

18 Spencer to Dundas, September 25, 1798, Add. MS 38735, vol. 2, fol. 146-7, BL; and Spencer, “Memorandum by Lord Spencer on the French Occupation of Egypt,” October 3, 1798, in Spencer Papers, 4: 184-86.

110 enormous expense, as to have rendered it very doubtful whether this country was equal to it either in point of inclination, or ability.”19

While the destruction of the French fleet was a welcome event, Dundas did not believe that this neutralized the threat to British interests in the East Indies. Dundas, therefore, continued to apply pressure within the government for attentiveness to countering France. Writing to George III on November 13, Dundas repeated an argument he had made in June concerning France’s historical interest in conquering

Egypt for economic benefit.20 A month later, intelligence suggested that the French had begun to negotiate with Portugal over islands in the Philippines and the Portuguese

Indian ports of Goa and Macao. Britain could accept neither development. A French presence in the East Indies would represent a potentially devastating threat to Britain’s trade with China. As far as Goa and Macao, Dundas believed Britain deserved first right of negotiation and assumed the East India Company would assume possession from the

Portuguese if they so desired.21 Dundas hoped that Lord Grenville would make both points clear to the Portuguese through diplomatic channels. At the same time, Dundas put in motion a plan to trap Bonaparte between a British force under Brigadier General

19 Dundas to Lord Grenville, September 28, 1798, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 326-28; Dundas to Huskisson, October 1, 1798, Add. MS 38735, vol. 2, fol. 154, BL; and Dundas to Spencer, October 5, 1798, in Spencer Papers, 4: 186-87.

20 Dundas to George III, November 13, 1798, in George III Corr., 3: 157; and Dundas to Lord Grenville, Inclosure, June 13, 1798, WO 6/163, pp. 202-10, BNA.

21 Dundas to Lord Grenville, December 18, 1798, WO 6/163, pp. 231-35, BNA.

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Sir Thomas Maitland operating from Constantinople and a body of East India Company troops moving into the region from the south via the Red Sea.22

By the end of December, Dundas’ fears that Bonaparte might reach India began to recede. Writing to Lord Grenville on December 20, Dundas noted the lack of evidence that the French had made any preparation to gather transport ships on the Red Sea made it unlikely they could reach India.23 A month later, Blankett wrote to Spencer from the region and, having found no indication of Bonaparte planning to reach India, confirmed Dundas’ suspicions. By early May 1799, Blankett believed that the logistical challenges of transporting the French army from Egypt to India had proven too challenging, and Bonaparte had given up the scheme.24 The French army, however, remained a troubling reality where it was.

A direct French threat to India may not have materialized in 1798, but it would be wrong to dismiss the French expedition to Egypt as a meaningless sideshow. The presence of the French army in Egypt disrupted British trade in the East Indies by tying up limited British naval resources in the Red Sea, which increased the effectiveness of

French privateers operating in the Indian Ocean from the French island of Mauritius.25

22 Dundas to Lord Grenville, December 18, 1798, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 413-14.

23 Dundas to Lord Grenville, December 20, 1798, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 420-21.

24 Blankett to Spencer, January 16, 1799; and Blankett to Spencer, May 3, 1799, in Spencer Papers, 4: 189-90, 193-95.

25 Ingram, Commitment to Empire, 159; and C. Northcote Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 1793-1815 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1954), 147-48.

112

The greater effect, though, was within the British government itself. The triumvirate of

Pitt, Dundas, and Lord Grenville had long exerted its will upon the British Cabinet by operating as a unified front.26 Bonaparte’s ill-fated Egyptian expedition caused a rift between Dundas and Grenville that never healed, and exacerbated their differing opinions on the prospect for victory through continental alliances.

A WAR FOR EUROPE

Events of the year 1798 seemed to conspire to pull British attention away from the Continent even as Lord Grenville attempted to push it to the fore. The French expedition to Egypt under the command of Bonaparte was not the only pressing development beyond the Continent in 1798. Further afield, Mornington began a campaign of British expansion in India that would culminate in the annexation of

Mysore. Much closer to home, the ever-combustible politics of Ireland appeared on the verge of an explosion. What, then, explains Grenville’s blinkered devotion to a continental strategy? Grenville’s commitment to the Continent relied upon an almost impenetrable level of optimism and confidence in the ability for continental allies and campaigns to deliver victory over France. Indeed, what divided Grenville and Dundas in the end relied more on the latter’s lack of faith in Grenville’s continental strategy for a short war than it did with his penchant for the British Empire.

26 For an analysis of the triumvirate, see Michael Duffy, “Pitt, Grenville, and the Control of British Foreign Policy in the 1790s,” in Jeremy Black, ed., Knights Errant and True Englishmen: British Foreign Policy, 1660-1800 (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1989), 151-77.

113

The first signs of Britain reengaging on the Continent came at sea. In February

1797, Admiral John Jervis’ fleet won a victory over a Spanish fleet in the Battle of Cape

St. Vincent, which earned Jervis the title of Earl St. Vincent. In October, Admiral Adam

Duncan, a distant Scottish relative of Dundas, smashed a Dutch fleet at the Battle of

Camperdown. With newfound confidence, and marginally increased naval superiority,

St. Vincent received orders in late April and early May 1798 to detach a small squadron into the Mediterranean to defend Naples and Sicily from a potential French expedition emanating from Toulon. It was Nelson that received this task, and, of course, the French expedition sailed for Egypt and not the coast of Italy.27

As the British returned to the Mediterranean, so too did aggressive policies targeting the French and Dutch coastlines. In mid-April, armed with intelligence of

France commandeering vessels in French ports for an attack on Britain, Dundas proposed pre-emptive attacks using bomb vessels.28 Concurrently, an ambitious amphibious operation calling for an assault on Ostend followed by the capture of

Flushing on Walcheren Island emerged. Captain Home Riggs Popham received orders for the expedition on May 8, and successfully landed troops under the command of

27 Nepean to St. Vincent, April 29, 1798; and Nepean to St. Vincent, May 2, 1798, ADM 2/1353, pp. 97-100, and 107-8, BNA. Nelson took three battleships and four frigates with him into the Mediterranean, and received 10 more ships once reinforcements arrived for St. Vincent’s fleet. Ingram, Commitment to Empire, 37.

28 Dundas to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, April 16, 1798, WO 6/148, pp. 59-63, BNA. Dundas did not write specific orders to the Admiralty other than a general directive to attack French ports. Dundas noted that “it will be impossible to discriminate between commandeered vessels “and the property of unoffending Individuals,” which was to be regretted.

114

Major-General Sir Eyre Coote on May 21 at Ostend. Poor weather, however, complicated re-embarking the force and resulted in the capture of Coote and many of the men under his command after the destruction of the locks connecting a canal between Ostend and

Bruges. The failure to capture Flushing irritated General Sir Charles Grey, one of the operation’s chief planners, but he took solace in denying the use of the canal system to the French.29

In the spring of 1798, new complications arose when rebellion broke out in

Ireland. Viewed as a backdoor to the British Isles for France due to the Catholic population of Ireland, this was a threat that the British could not ignore. Writing to

Mornington in May, Pitt felt confident that “the Rebellion [would] be crushed, before any attempt [could] be made from France.” Pitt did not intend to leave it at that, though.

Tired of the constant threat of rebellion and French intrigue, Pitt was now prepared to pursue the potentially explosive goal of political union with Ireland.30

29 General Sir Charles Grey to Huskisson, April 12, 1798, Add MS 38735, vol. 2, fol. 13-14, BL; Spencer to Dundas, April 25, 1798, Add MS 38735, vol. 2, fol. 17, BL; Admiralty to Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham, May 8, 1798, ADM 2/1353, pp. 111-28, BNA; Dundas to George III, May 14, 1798, in George III Corr., 3: 62; Popham to Huskisson, May 21, 1798, Add MS 38735, vol. 2, 61-62, BL; Grey to Huskisson, May 22, 1798, Add MS 38735, vol. 2, fol. 63, BL; Grey to Dundas, May 22, 1798, Add MS 38735, vol. 2, 65, BL; and Spencer to George III, May 22, 1798, in George III Corr., 3: 65.

30 Pitt to Mornington, May 21, 1798, William Pitt to Lord Wellesley (1796-1804), William Clements Library. Any doubts were likely put to rest when French ships appeared off the coast of Ireland at Killala Bay in late August 1798. Nepean to Admiral Kingsmill, August 27, 1798, ADM 2/1353, pp. 185-86, BNA. A month later intelligence reported that yet another French expedition had set sail from Brest for Ireland on September 17. Nepean to Wickham, September 12, 1798, ADM 2/1353, pp. 209-10, BNA.

115

To deal with the rebellion and pursue union, Pitt called upon Charles, Marquess

Cornwallis, to take up the post of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Upon arrival in Ireland, the well-traveled Cornwallis found a level of violence that astonished him. The problems were particularly prevalent among the British state’s “friends,” who pursued a confessional war against Irish Catholics that only served to inflame matters further. By

October, Cornwallis presciently reported to Pitt, “If it is in contemplation ever to extend the privileges of the Union to Roman Catholics, the present appears to be the only opportunity which the British Ministry can have of obtaining any credit from the boon, which must otherwise in a short time be extorted from them.” Pitt’s government would spend precious time dealing with the contentious debate over Irish union and the fate of

Irish Catholics until the final passage of the Acts of Union in the summer of 1800.31

A French army in Egypt threatening British India and political chaos in Ireland appeared less than auspicious omens of continental success, but in the latter half of 1798

Lord Grenville embarked upon a grand strategy to bring the war to French soil. As

Grenville imagined it, his strategy involved troops from Russia, Austria, and Prussia forming a coalition with Britain directed towards the explicit goal of restoring the

Bourbon monarchy. As it happened, this scheme ran upon shoals from the outset. In an

31 Cornwallis to Portland, June 28, 1798; Cornwallis to Colonel Alexander Ross, July 1, 1798; Cornwallis to Ross, July 24, 1798, in Charles Ross, ed., Correspondence, Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1859), 2: 354-55, 355-56, and 368-69. The Duke of York sent 4 brigades of militia to Ireland in early September to assist Cornwallis in putting down the rebellion. Duke of York to George III, September 2, 1798, in George III Corr., 118-19. Cornwallis to Pitt, October 17, 1798, in Cornwallis Correspondence, 2: 418-19. For an interesting recent assessment on the Irish rebellion and the process of unification, see John Bew, Castlereagh: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

116 effort to push the Austrians and Prussians beyond their longstanding rivalry, Grenville directed the British ambassador in St. Petersburg, Charles Whitworth, to seek Russian diplomatic support in Berlin and Vienna in November 1798.32 Lord Grenville’s brother,

Thomas Grenville, represented Britain in Berlin during the months of discussions that followed and vacillated in his assessment of the Prussian court’s opinion. In early March

1799, Thomas believed that Prussia would not engage in offensive operations against

France, but then grew optimistic by late April. Lord Grenville held out hope for Prussia until late July 1799, at which point he fell back on the idea of a coalition consisting of just

Austria and Russia.33

With Prussia removed, the specifics of Grenville’s plan consisted of three primary components. An Austro-Russian army would operate out of Switzerland along

France’s eastern border, and facilitate the raising of the Bourbon banner by the Comte d’Artois inside French territory at Lyon.34 In June, Russia had agreed to participate in an amphibious assault along the Dutch coastline in conjunction with Britain. The final piece was popular support, which Lord Grenville optimistically hoped to find for the ousted

Prince of Orange in the former Dutch Republic, and in the form of royalists rallying to the banner of d’Artois in eastern France. Additionally, the British planned to support a

32 Lord Grenville to Charles Whitworth, November 16, 1798, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 377-80.

33 Thomas Grenville to Lord Grenville, March 10, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 492-96; Thomas Grenville to Lord Grenville, April 30, 1799; and Lord Grenville to Thomas Grenville, July 30, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 33-36, 207-10.

34 Lord Grenville to Lord Mulgrave, August 7, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 251-58.

117 royalist insurgency in northwest France with arms and materiel. If successful, the coordinated external and internal assault would overwhelm and topple the French

Directory.35

Henry Dundas viewed the entirety of Lord Grenville’s plan with skepticism from the start. In December 1798, Dundas noted to Pitt that continuing to subsidize European states appeared to be a folly given the repeated disappointments Britain had experienced on the Continent. If Austria and Russia proved willing to join a coalition,

Dundas was willing to offer them £100,000 to divide as they pleased and no more.36 By the spring of 1799, Dundas worried that Britain faced a developing manpower crisis.

British recruiting had met the demands of imperial defense, but it had not created a surplus which would facilitate offensive operations.37 Indeed, it was the Dutch expedition that especially worried Dundas—no doubt because, unlike the diplomatic negotiations, it directly involved his office in its planning.

Dundas had two primary concerns with regard to the Dutch expedition. First, the failure to gain Prussian involvement in the coalition had a ripple effect. With Prussian

35 Thomas Grenville to Lord Grenville, June 16, 1799; and Lord Grenville to Lord Mulgrave, August 5, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 95-96, 243-44; Admiralty to Vice-Admiral Andrew Mitchell, August 1, 1799, ADM 2/1356, BNA; and William Windham to Lord Minto, October 29, 1799, in Windham Papers, 2: 132-37. Lord Grenville to Windham, September 2, 1799; and Lord Grenville to Windham, September 5, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 346-47, 359-60.

36 Dundas to Pitt, December 1798, in Dropmore Papers, 4: 433-35. Dundas decisively lost the debate concerning subsidies. The British spent a total of £4,014,204 in subsidy payments 1798- 1800. John M. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France 1793- 1815 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 365-68.

37 Dundas, Memorandum, May 13, 1799, First Viscount Melville Papers, 1798-1799, 18-F, Box 3, Rubenstein Library, Duke University.

118 maintaining its neutrality, it opened the possibility that France would reinforce the Low

Countries with troops from along its Germanic border. Second, citing Britain’s experience rallying American loyalists during the War of American Independence,

Dundas doubted whether Britain should count upon the Dutch populace rallying to their side to any significant degree. He accepted, however, that Lord Grenville was better informed on the subject and would publicly support the plan.38

The weakest portion of Lord Grenville’s plan was Austria. For starters, Austria had a poor working relationship with both Britain and Russia, and a common enemy proved incapable of mending fences entirely. To make matters worse, Austria cast cold water on Lord Grenville’s plans just as he prepared Lord Mulgrave for a diplomatic mission to Vienna to finalize arrangements for the joint campaign. On August 17, a combined Austro-Russian army under the command of the Austrian Archduke Charles and Russian Lieutenant-General Alexander Korsakov in Switzerland suffered a stiff setback along the river Aare at Gross-Döttingen. Shortly thereafter, and much to

Britain’s chagrin, Vienna directed Charles to separate his Austrian army and take it into southern Germany. When Mulgrave arrived on the scene in early September, he reported that the Austrians and Russians despised one another, and to expect little from operations there. Shortly thereafter, on September 25, the Second Battle of Zurich confirmed Mulgrave’s assessment, when a French army led by General André Masséna

38 Lieutenant-General Ralph Abercromby to Lord Grenville, July 24, 1799; Lord Grenville to Dundas, July 30, 1799; and Dundas to Lord Grenville, July 31, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 190- 91, 207-10, 214-15.

119 defeated Korsakov. A second Russian army under the command of General Alexander

Suvorov managed to escape across the Panixer Pass in the Swiss Alps in October, but there were no further Russian actions on that front.39

In contrast to affairs in Switzerland, there appeared to be some basis for Lord

Grenville’s optimism with regard to the Anglo-Russian expedition on the Dutch coast. In late June, Lord Grenville received word that Dutch Vice-Admiral Aegidius van Braam intended to defect and bring over other Dutch ships.40 Indeed, by mid-August, as

Lieutenant-General Ralph Abercromby and the landing force waited out poor weather at sea, even Dundas had grown bullish on the expedition’s potential for success. On

August 28, the British portion of the expedition made a successful landing under

Abercromby’s command near the Helder, at Callantsoog. Two days later, the entire

Dutch fleet off Texel surrendered to the British fleet after terse negotiations.41

39 William Wickham to Lord Grenville, August 17, 1799; Lord Grenville to Lord Mulgrave, August 18, 1799; and Lord Mulgrave to Lord Grenville, September 1, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 288-89, 295-96, and 342-44.

40 Lord Grenville to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, June 25, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 101-2; and Admiralty to Admiral Adam Duncan, June 26, 1799, ADM 2/1355, BNA.

41 Dundas to Abercromby, August 10, 1799; Abercromby to Dundas, August 18, 1799; and Abercromby to Dundas, August 28, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 273-75, 296-97, and 333. Spencer to George III, September 3, 1799, in George III Corr., 3: 256. The fate of the Dutch fleet caused some controversy. The diplomatically ideal solution was that the Dutch ships should serve under the Prince of Orange, who remained a guest of the British state. The British Navy, however, had claimed the Dutch ships as prizes, which placed them into the Admiralty courts. In March 1800, George III granted prize money to the British naval force that “captured” the Dutch ships, and the Prince of Orange received a fleet. Dundas to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, March 19, 1800, WO 6/148, pp. 343-46, BNA.

120

Despite the Anglo-Russian expeditions’ initial successes, it was destined for failure. Shortly after Abercromby established his beachhead, the Duke of York arrived to assume overall command of the combined army. After some early progress inland during September, French General Guillaume Marie-Anne Brune checked York outside of the town of Castricum on October 6. The British position swiftly deteriorated at that point, and York retreated to the beachhead with Brune close on his heels. On October 13, the Admiralty issued orders for Vice-Admiral Andrew Mitchell to withdraw any and all personnel attached to the Prince of Orange. On October 18, York signed the Convention of Alkmaar, in which he agreed to return 8,000 prisoners of war in exchange for the same re-embarkation of the Anglo-Russian troops. It brought an ignominious end to the expedition, and did considerable damage to Anglo-Russian relations.42

The failure of the Dutch invasion attempt ended Dundas’ willingness to support

Lord Grenville’s continental schemes. On October 19, as the grim news from Holland arrived, Lord Grenville wrote to Dundas and admitted to growing doubts concerning his continental strategy. Dundas’ response, the following day, was direct and to the point. He thought there was little chance of a royalist uprising proving successful in the interior of France. As to any intention of pushing British troops into French territory,

Dundas felt they should set aside such plans until an “extensive diversion in more places of France than one” manifested. Dundas did not lack sympathy for Lord

42 Nepean to Mitchell, October 13, 1799, ADM 2/1356, BNA; Official Note, October 14, 1799; Official Note, October 21, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 470-71, and 496; and York to George III, October 21, 1799, in George III Corr., 3: 285.

121

Grenville’s disintegrating strategy, however. In a separate missive to Pitt dated October

24, Dundas commended Lord Grenville’s management of the disparate goals of their continental allies. Nevertheless, Dundas thought it wishful thinking to believe that

Britain might conclude the war in the near future.43

By the end of October, Dundas felt that Britain pursued a strategy at odds with its interests and questioned his continued role in the cabinet. Writing to Mornington on

October 31, with the failing continental strategy clearly on his mind, Dundas noted the importance he “attached to the conquest of all colonial possessions of our enemies,” even to the extent of suffering the considerable losses experienced in the West India campaigns. The justification for such a strategy was his belief “that Great Britain can at no time propose to maintain an extensive and complicated war but by destroying the colonial resources of our enemies and adding proportionately to our own commercial resources, which are … the sole basis of our maritime strength.”44 A dispirited, and certainly overworked Dundas then attempted to resign his post as Secretary of State for

War in early November, which Pitt refused to accept.45

43 Lord Grenville to Dundas, October 19, 1799; Dundas to Lord Grenville, October 20, 1799; and Dundas to Pitt, October 24, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 486-88, 493-95, and 498-99.

44 Dundas to Mornington, October 31, 1799, in Two Views of British India, 206-8.

45 Pitt to Dundas, November 4, 1799, Autograph Correspondence with Lord Melville: William Pitt 1792-1804, William Clements Library. Dundas, in fact, attempted to resign again in early December, and on that occasion took his appeal directly to George III. The king refused to accept Dundas’ resignation unless Pitt acquiesced, and Dundas remained in his position in the cabinet. Dundas to George III, December 8, 1799, in George III Corr., 3: 303.

122

Just as had been the case in 1794, Britain’s failure in Holland resulted in increased attention to the royalists of western France. On October 30, Captain Sir

Richard Keats received orders to transport arms and ammunition to royalists along the coast of Northwest France.46 By December, a planned amphibious assault on the French port of Brest in cooperation with local royalists enjoyed considerable support from

William Pitt. The plan called for the capture of the island of Belle Isle off the French coast in preparation for the descent on the port itself, which royalists would support from the surrounding countryside. If successful, the capture of Brest would deal a devastating blow to French maritime capacity and significantly reduce the threat of French involvement in rebellious Ireland.47 Beginning in May 1800, the planned expedition began to take shape in Quiberon Bay under the command of Brigadier General Sir

Thomas Maitland.48

In June, however, British ministers’ frustration over the ineffectiveness of continental operations prompted them to pay more attention to the Mediterranean.

Word arrived in early June of renewed hostilities between the Ottoman Empire and

46 Admiralty to Captain Sir Richard Keats, October 30, 1799, ADM 2/1356, BNA.

47 Pitt to Spencer, September 4, 1799, in Spencer Papers, 3: 125-26. Pitt to Dundas, December 22, 1799; Pitt to Dundas December 31, 1799, and Pitt to Dundas, January 11, 1800, Autograph Correspondence with Lord Melville: William Pitt 1792-1804, WCL. Piers Mackesy suggests that Dundas cynically created this force as an army of opportunism not tied down to continental warfare, which Britain could then use for colonial warfare when the Second Coalition collapsed. This argument does not appear to hold much water given Pitt’s staunch support of the Brest expedition, which Belle Isle was a subordinate part of. Mackesy, War Without Victory, 101-2.

48 Nepean to St. Vincent, May 8, 1800; Nepean to St. Vincent May 11, 1800; Nepean to St. Vincent, May 28, 1800; and Nepean to Warren, June 2, 1800, ADM 2/1358, pp. 11-12, 31-32, 61, and 71, BNA.

123

France in Egypt, which Admiral Keith was to support. In the western Mediterranean, the allies expected to capture Genoa and Malta shortly, and the Admiralty desired that

Keith give greater attention to the Spanish port of Cadiz. On June 16, the Admiralty drew up orders for Admirals Keith and St. Vincent concerning the transfer of the majority of Maitland’s force from Quiberon Bay to the Mediterranean, where they would come under the command of Abercromby. Well aware of the late hour of this change in course, the Admiralty advised St. Vincent to see through the assault on Belle

Isle in the event that it had begun prior to the arrival of the new orders. Then, on June

21, the Admiralty, at the direction of Lord Grenville, declared to Keith that “the Ultimate

Evacuation of Egypt by the French is considered as an object of the first importance to this Country.”49

At this stage, Malta assumed a position of prominence far larger than the geographic footprint of the small Mediterranean island. Tsar Paul I was the Grand

Master of the Order of Saint John, and took particular interest in Malta as the home of the order. Bonaparte’s capture of the island in 1798 had, in fact, contributed directly to

Russian involvement in the Second Coalition. British capture of the island in September

1800, however, aided in the deterioration of Anglo-Russian relations and a reversal of

Russia’s position vis-à-vis France. The result was direct Franco-Russian diplomatic engagement, a poorly conceived Russian military expedition to threaten British India,

49 Nepean to Admiral Lord Keith, June 3, 1800; Nepean to Keith June 5, 1800, Admiralty to Keith, June 5[?], 1800; Admiralty to Keith June 16, 1800; Admiralty to St. Vincent, June 16, 1800; Unsigned to St. Vincent, June 18, 1800; and Admiralty to Keith, June 21, 1800, ADM 2/1358, pp. 75-76, 91, 93-98, 113-14, 117-19, 131-32, and 139-41, BNA.

124 and the Russian-backed resuscitation of the League of Armed Neutrality amongst the

Baltic States. The latter necessitated a British maritime response, which culminated in

Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson’s famous assault on Copenhagen in April 1801.50

The shift to the Mediterranean signaled the decline of the Continent’s sway over

British strategy, but it was not until reports of the June 14 French victory over Austria at

Marengo arrived in late June that hopes for continental strategies evaporated.51 On July

16, the British Cabinet came to terms with the fact that further hostilities on the

Continent served no purpose. A minute was drawn up directing that Lord Minto, British ambassador in Vienna, inform Austria that Britain was open to an armistice with France if that was in their best interests. A disgusted George III feared the prospect of peace with the French government, and hoped that the cabinet would only accept peace on

“reasonable terms.”52

As July came to a close, the British committed fully to the Mediterranean. On July

24, the British Cabinet determined to cancel the Belle Isle operation entirely, and transfer

50 Ole Feldbæk, “The Foreign Policy of Tsar Paul I, 1800-1801: An Interpretation,” in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Neue Folge, Bd. 30, H. 1 (1982), 16-36. On the Russian involvement in plans directed against India, see John W. Strong, “Russia’s Plans for an Invasion of India in 1801,” in Canadian Slavonic Papers, 7 (1965), 114-26; J. L. Schneiderman, “The Proposed Invasion of India by Russia and France in 1801,” in Journal of Indian History 35 (1957), 167-77; and Kolla, “Not So Criminal: New Understandings of Napoléons Foreign Policy in the East.”

51 News. Lloyd's Evening Post (London, England), June 23, 1800 - June 25, 1800; Issue 6681. George III to Lord Grenville, June 28, 1800, in Correspondence of George III, 3: 368. Lord Grenville to Arthur Paget, July 4, 1800, in Right Honorable Sir Augustus B. Paget, ed., The Paget Papers: Diplomatic and Other Correspondence of the Right Honorable Sir Arthur Paget, G. C. B. 1794-1807, 2 vols. (London: William Heinemann, 1896), 1: 237-38.

52 Lord Grenville to George III, July 16, 1800; Cabinet Minute, July 16, 1800; George III to Lord Grenville, July 17, 1800, in George III Corr., 3: 374-75, 375-76, 376.

125

Maitland and his force south for a potential expedition against the Spanish port of

Ferrol. In the event Ferrol proved infeasible, they would rendezvous with Abercromby at Gibraltar for an attack on Cadiz. This decision set off a tense exchange with an aggravated George III, who, not without reason, questioned why he should support this decision in the wake of months of preparation in Quiberon Bay resulting in an aborted expedition? Dundas received the task of responding to the king, and cited the need for action to stave off public discontent at a force “collected at so much expence” going unused during the campaign season. When that argument failed to mollify the king,

Dundas apologized but held his ground on a constitutional point, arguing that “the appropriation of the national force must in time of war, like every other resource of the

Empire, be subject to the advice and responsibility of your Majesty’s confidential servants.”53

The strategic shift which took place in the British Cabinet in late June and July represented a victory for Dundas, and it must have galled him to defend the prior policies he disagreed with to the king. Indeed, by the spring of 1800 one can detect outright contempt from Dundas for Lord Grenville. Writing to Pitt in April, Dundas said of Lord Grenville, “I wish he would exercise his genius for two months in executing as well as planning, and then he would learn that however desireable the end might be, it was necessary there should [?] be the means.”54 This critique cut to the core of the

53 Cabinet Minute, July 24, 1800; Dundas to George III, July 25, 1800; Dundas to George III, July 27, 1800; and George III to Dundas, July 28, 1800, in George III Corr., 3: 382, 383-84, 386, and 387.

54 Dundas to Pitt, April 11, 1800, PRO 30/8/157, pp. 246, BNA.

126 strategic disagreement between the two men, and echoed their diverging opinions in the summer of 1799 over the invasion of Holland.

Lord Grenville and Dundas did not disagree in principle on the desired ends, but they disagreed considerably on the means of achieving those ends. Lord Grenville proved ever the optimist in his dealings with continental states, which was born out from his belief “that at the end the straightest road is the shortest” to achieve desired goals.55 Such a view was anathema to Dundas, who questioned the efficacy of continental strategies and operations and preferred the long game of amassing resources and maritime power. A view with its own limitations for achieving desired ends on the

Continent. The disintegration of Lord Grenville’s strategy in the summer of 1800 meant that British strategy effectively defaulted to Dundas’ perspective.

A WAR FOR EMPIRE

On September 13, 1799, accounts arrived in London of the British capture of

Seringapatam on May 4. The city was Tipu Sultan’s capital, Britain’s nemesis in India, and its capture represented a watershed moment in British imperial history on par with the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Acknowledging the importance of the moment, even as

British troops fought in Holland, Pitt remarked to Lord Grenville that the news “carries one’s thoughts to a greater distance than any other event could just now from the opposite coasts.” The Settlement of Mysore formalized the British victory, and with it

55 Lord Grenville to Lord Mulgrave, September 6, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 368-69.

127 great imperial expansion, just over a month prior. Writing from India, Mornington gushed over his success in expunging France from the affairs of India, and issued a challenge to the British government at home: “I trust we are for ever established here, if you in England have the firmness to meet all the clamours of monopoly, and to place the government of your Indian empire on a respectable basis.”56 The War of the Second

Coalition was not meant to be imperial in nature, but it is impossible to disentangle events in Europe from British expansion in India.

Richard Wellesley, Lord Mornington, was an ambitious man, enjoyed a close personal relationship with members of the British government, and arrived at Fort St.

George in Madras on April 26, 1798, intent upon making something of his stay. Finding a foil for his ambitions did not prove difficult. Writing en route to India from the Castle of Good Hope in February 1798, Mornington painted a picture of Jacobin agents having infiltrated the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad in the form of French nationals serving as mercenaries, and the very real threat of France conspiring with Tipu Sultan to undermine British interests in India. Combatting this potential union, Mornington opined, required proactive diplomacy with the court of the nizam, the Maratha

Confederacy, and, possibly, seeking a defensive treaty with the Durrani Empire and its ruler, Zeman Shah.57 This latter policy, if pursued, would push the frontier of British

56 Pitt to Lord Grenville, September 13, 1799; and Mornington to Lord Grenville, August 9, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 396-97, 267-68.

57 Mornington to Dundas, February 23, 1798; and Mornington to Dundas, February 28, 1799, in Two Views of British India, 16-28, 28-43.

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Indian policy much further north than it had ever stretched before.58 Given the great distance and weak centralized control of London over affairs in India, Mornington’s missive represented little more than a courtesy to his theoretical masters in London.59

The connections that Mornington drew between India and the war in Europe, and, more specifically, the goals and interests of the British state were tenuous at best.

The French soldiers serving in the court of Hyderabad existed, but were not agents of

Jacobinism—though, Wellesley did succeed in negotiating the removal of these men from the nizam’s service in October 1798.60 He was correct in his belief that Tipu Sultan aspired to ally with France against Britain, and had hard evidence of this fact when the

French Governor of Mauritius, J. H. Malartic, published correspondence between Tipu and himself.61

As Mornington prepared for an active diplomatic and military campaign against

Mysore, however, he deviated from the expected course of both the East India Company

58 For this reason, Edward Ingram argues that the arrival of Mornington in 1798 signaled the beginning of the “Great Game” in Asia, and a process, which would end with the defeat of the Maratha Confederacy in 1818, that resulted in Great Britain transforming “from a peripheral European state into a dual monarchy, governed from London and Calcutta and as vitally interested in the defence of India as in the European balance of power.” Ingram, Commitment to Empire, 11-12.

59 H. V. Bowen argues that Mornington’s tenure “provides the most graphic example of the ineffectiveness of Company rule from London.” H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 206.

60 Mornington to Dundas, November 12, 1798, in Two Views of British India, 102-5.

61 Rosalie Prince Gates, “Tipu Sultan of Mysore and the Revolutionary Government of France, 1793-99,” in Bengal, Past & Present 83 (1964), 7-19.

129 and Dundas. At its heart, the East India Company still conceived of itself as a company of merchants, and its purpose was revenue generation, not empire per se. In principle, the line between trading company and imperial entity had long been blurred, which had necessitated the reforms that Dundas helped author in the 1780s and presided over since.62 After months of preparation and maneuver against Mysore, Mornington showed his cards in a letter to Dundas written on March 16, 1799. Mornington reported intelligence dating from December 1798 of a “strict alliance” between Tipu Sultan and

France. In light of this information, he argued for the annexation of the entire coast of

Malabar from Tipu Sultan.63

In London, Dundas had arrived at almost the exact opposite conclusion. The arrival of Bonaparte in Egypt at the head of an army in the summer of 1798 had given some credibility to Mornington’s early warning of a French threat to India. By spring

1799, however, the threat posed by the French army in Egypt had declined, and Dundas

62 The dual role of trading company and imperial entity managing territory dated to the Treaty of Allahabad (1765), which granted the East India Company the diwani (tax revenue collection) for Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. This role never sat comfortably with the Directors of the East India Company, and led to a transformation of the company into a “very military state.” Bowen, The Business of Empire, 3-6. For an analysis of the specific pressures upon the East India Company at the end of the eighteenth century, see Anthony Webster, The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790-1860 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2009).

63 Mornington to Dundas, March 16, 1799, in Two Views of British India, 122-25. Writing after word of Mornington’s stunning victories reached Britain, Cornwallis, who had been Governor-General between 1786-93, expressed concern over Mornington’s expanded authority. “Amongst other objections,” he wrote in January 1800, authority over the Malabar Coast “would, I think, make the Governor of Madras too great a man for his situation at the head of a subordinate government.” Cornwallis to Ross, January 31, 1800, in Cornwallis Correspondence, 3: 174-5.

130 assumed that Tipu Sultan “must be well informed” of that reality. Moreover, Dundas fretted that any attempt to expand British maritime possessions in India—exactly what

Mornington intended to do—would result in a vast increase in defensive costs. If the raison d’etre of British India was revenue generation, then the primary test question of any policy in India was how it might influence the bottom line. Dundas, therefore, desired that Mornington adopt a cautious approach devoid of active operations, and merely contain Tipu Sultan. Two weeks later, the siege of Seringapatam began on April

5.64

Despite the vast differences of opinion existing in Madras and London, the

French presence in Egypt represented a thread of connective tissue. On May 4, 1799, the same day that Seringapatam fell, Mornington wrote to Lieutenant-General Sir Alured

Clarke on the topic of the French in Egypt, and the threat they posed to India. Citing intelligence of transport ships assembling “at the head of the Arabian Gulf,” Mornington directed Clarke to take security precautions given that the season now permitted passage to India. On May 16, he wrote to Dundas on the same topic in a surprisingly deferential letter given recent events in India. Mornington proposed that he assemble an expeditionary force in India to squeeze Bonaparte in Egypt in coordination with an attack from the Mediterranean. He could not, however, prepare such an expedition until

64 Dundas to Mornington, March 18, 1799; and Dundas to Mornington, March 21, 1799, in Two Views of British India, 125-30, 136-39.

131 he had orders from London. One effect, therefore, of the French expedition to Egypt was the semi-unification of British policy between Madras and London.65

Mornington’s offer did not fall on deaf ears in London, but British strategy concerning the French occupation in Egypt remained essentially passive while Lord

Grenville’s continental strategy was in its most active phase during the summer and fall of 1799. In May, Captain Sir Sidney Smith assisted the Ottomans in halting Bonaparte’s advance out of Egypt at Acre.66 In August, Spencer directed Nelson, then commanding in the Mediterranean, that his primary objective was the island of Malta, and, if possible, the final destruction of the French army in Egypt. In the Red Sea, Blankett pursued the diplomatic agenda he had departed with in June 1798. By the summer of 1799, Blankett arrived at the inhospitable island of Perim in the Straits of Bab-el-Madeb, and established contact with the city of Mocha. In a testament to the information gap inherent to imperial policy, British officials in London would not learn of these events until January 1800. Thus, British maritime power effectively quarantined the French army, even if it could do little to affect its removal.67

65 Mornington to Lieutenant-General Sir Alured Clarke, May 4, 1799, in Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most Noble Richard Marquess Wellesley, 1: 271-74; Mornington to Dundas, May 16, 1799, in Two Views of British India, 149-50.

66 For an account of the failed siege of Acre, see Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York: Viking, 2014), 185-205.

67 Spencer to Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, August 19, 1799, in Spencer Papers, 3: 99-100; Nepan to Blankett, January 30, 1800, ADM 2/1357, pp. 53-55, BNA; and Ingram, Commitment to Empire, 302-10.

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By December 1799, the British Cabinet felt confident that it had trapped the

French army in Egypt, but lacked a coherent and realistic policy for its removal. A

Cabinet Minute composed on December 12 announced that the only acceptable resolution was for the French army, now under the command of General Jean Baptiste

Kléber following Bonaparte’s departure for France, to surrender to Britain as prisoners of war.68 The logic for this was straightforward enough. As long as the coalition powers remained in the field against France, it made little sense for the British to allow experienced French troops to return to Europe. The problem was that there was little incentive for Kléber to accept such terms. The cabinet’s position, therefore, amounted to little more than a declaration to let Kléber and his troops rot in Egypt.

As demonstrated by the signing of the Convention of El-Arish on January 24,

1800, this was a less than ideal situation. The convention, negotiated by Sidney Smith and Kléber, enacted a truce in Egypt between French and Ottoman forces and allowed for the return of Kléber and his army to Europe. Admiral Lord Keith, well aware of opinion in London, swiftly rendered the agreement a dead letter by refusing to ratify the terms of the convention. In response, Kléber lashed out and defeated the Ottoman army at the Battle of Heliopolis on March 20, news of which helped bring British attention back to the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, word of the convention arrived in London on

March 26, and met with disbelief. The British government swiftly settled upon the determination that they would take no direct part in the settlement, and would not

68 Cabinet Minute, December 12, 1799, in George III Corr., 3: 305.

133 provide any shipping or convoy for the return of the French army. Though Keith had already rendered these decisions moot, the government’s response exposed an inability to produce a positive policy for the Levant. The result was an impasse that left a French army in occupation of territory which threatened British India for the benefit of continental allies.69

At this point, Dundas’ frustration with British strategy boiled over once more.

Writing to Spencer on March 31, he declared that the cabinet lacked a sense of direction in its policies. In a memorandum to cabinet members written the same day, Dundas observed in stark terms the lack of agreement on strategy within the cabinet. He would fully support any strategic pursuits that enjoyed unity amongst cabinet members, but he made it clear that he doubted such unity could form around continental strategies. He then went on to outline an ambitious global colonial strategy focused on the expansion of British trade, with considerable attention to the South American markets of the

Spanish Empire. Importantly, Dundas advocated not for imperial conquest and expansion, but trade entrepôts. On the surface, this was a distillation of Dundas’ consistent strategic philosophy. Between the lines and given its timing, however, it was an explosion over the continued subordination of imperial interests to failing continental strategies.70

69 Nepean to Keith, March 28, 1800; and Admiralty to Keith, March 28, 1800, ADM 2/1357, pp. 163-69, and 173-78, BNA. George III to Lord Grenville, March 28, 1800, in George III Corr., 3: 328.

70 Dundas to Spencer, March 31, 1800, in Spencer Papers, 3: 324-25; and Dundas, “Memorandum for the Consideration of His Majesty’s Ministers,” March 31, 1800, Box 5, Henry Dundas Melville Papers, 1771-1831, Rubenstein Library, Duke University.

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Dundas’ memorandum failed to generate support for the global colonial campaign he championed, but in due time his advocacy nudged the Cabinet into a more proactive agenda towards the eastern Mediterranean. Just over a month later, in early

May, the Admiralty began to generate the orders for Keith and Abercromby to begin to move against Cadiz. On May 27, the Admiralty directed Blankett to convince the

“Sheriff of Mecca and the rest of the Country Powers” in the Red Sea region that France represented a common enemy, and that it “was essential for their own preservation” that they should aid in expelling France from Egypt.71 Then on June 19, mere days before word arrived of the Battle of Marengo, the British Cabinet released a minute greatly softening its position on the fate of the French army in Egypt. Keith could return the

French troops to Europe if possible, though they hoped that he could delay their return for as long as possible.72

As Europe moved towards peace following Marengo, the fate of the French army in Egypt assumed greater significance. No longer an immediate military threat, it now represented a potentially powerful negotiating chip at the peace table. Writing to the king on September 28, Dundas argued that France “would make a good bargain if they allowed Great Britain to retain all its conquests, provided they were allowed to consolidate their power in Egypt[.]”George III was open to an expedition against Egypt,

71 Nepean to Blankett, May 27, 1800, ADM 2/1358, pp. 55-58, BNA.

72 Cabinet Minute, June 19, 1800, in George III Corr., 364.

135 but, along with Lord Grenville, felt that Portugal, under threat of French-backed Spanish aggression, deserved Britain’s “first attention.”73

Momentum for Dundas’ position was building, however. On October 3, the cabinet published a minute advocating for an attack on Egypt under the combined command of Abercromby and Keith with no less than 15,000 men chosen from the disposable force then in the Mediterranean. Lord Grenville and Windham registered their disapproval of the plan as part of the minute, which infuriated Dundas. The king acquiesced to the plan, but not without reservation. Drawing a comparison to the deadly

West Indian campaigns, he worried that the expedition “must probably prove a burial ground for them to as great an extent as St. Domingo.” His real animus, however, was for Emperor Francis II and Austria, whose failures necessitated such a measure in his opinion. “I hope everyone’s eyes are now open,” he wrote to the cabinet, “to the shameful pusillanimity of the Emperor and that we must avoid giving up our successes to preserve a broken reed.”74

The plan devised for Egypt by Dundas and the Admiralty was a complicated one. In the Mediterranean, Keith and Abercromby were to command a combined force that would make an amphibious landing on the Egyptian coastline and capture

73 George III to Dundas, September 28, 1800; Dundas to George III, September 28, 1800; and George III to Dundas, September 29, 1800, in George III Corr., 417, 419-20, 420.

74 Cabinet Minute, October 3, 1800; Dundas to George III, October 4, 1800; and King’s Reply [to Cabinet Minute], October 5, 1800, in George III Corr., 3: 423-24, 423, and 424. Dundas responded to the king’s concerns on October 9, and affirmed his belief that the Egyptian expedition was in the best interest of Britain. Dundas to George III, October 9, 1800, in George III Corr., 3: 425-26.

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Alexandria. Their October 6 orders directed them to allow the French to leave peacefully if possible, but Dundas doubted whether General Jacques-François Menou, who replaced the assassinated Kléber in June, would accept such an offer. Both British officers received explicit warning of the disease environment in Egypt due to the outbreak of plague in the French army. Dundas questioned whether the Mediterranean expedition could dislodge the French from the interior of Egypt. Therefore, Captain Sir

Home Riggs Popham received orders to take a naval squadron from Europe to the Red

Sea in support of the amphibious force.75

On the same day Dundas and the Admiralty committed the Egyptian expedition to paper, a military debacle unfolded in difficult seas off the Spanish port of Cadiz that greatly enhanced the chances of success in Egypt. Four months after a descent operation on Cadiz had first begun to receive attention, the combined Mediterranean force under the command of Keith and Abercromby attempted and failed an amphibious assault on the port on October 6-7. The reason for the failure was a combination of poor command and poor weather. The aborted attempt called into question the ability of Keith and

Abercromby to work with one another, and Keith’s ability to command amphibious

75 Admiralty to Keith, October 6, 1800; Dundas to Abercromby, October 6, 1800; and Nepean to Keith, October 13, 1800, in ADM 2/1359, pp. 41-50, 51-65, and 79-80, BNA. A return on the military force in the Mediterranean claimed a paper strength of 35,123 troops spread between Gibraltar, Minorca, Malta, and other locations. Return of the Military force in the Mediterranean, October 6, 1800, in ADM 2/1359, pp. 37-38, BNA. The Admiralty did not produce Popham’s orders until November 1, but a letter to Admiral Peter Rainier, commanding naval officer in the Indian Ocean, on October 10 announced that Popham was to replace Blankett in the Red Sea. In the end, Popham played no role in the Egyptian campaign. Unsigned to Rainier, October 10, 1800; and Admiralty to Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham, November 1, 1800, in ADM 2/1359, pp. 69-71, and 109-19, BNA.

137 landings received scrutiny. Both officers retained their commands, but reforms took place within the combined Mediterranean force. One notable change was the promotion of Captain William Young to a more prominent role due to his experience in the transport service, which greatly facilitated the navy’s ability to assist and support troop landings. In addition to this, the failure at Cadiz provided impetus for practice landings, which gave both army and navy personnel practical experience working together in advance of their attempt on Alexandria.76

As the British Cabinet formulated a plan to expel France from Egypt, Mornington crafted arguments to leverage the French threat from Egypt towards increased operations in the East Indies. France possessed two islands in the Indian Ocean,

Mauritius (Isle de France) and Réunion (Isle de Bourbon), which represented the only locations from which France could support operations against British India. On October

7, Mornington recommended an attack to capture both islands and render the Indian

Ocean into a British lake. Within a week, he proposed an expedition to the Philippines to stifle French intrigue further east. Mornington’s concern over the two islands was not without legitimacy, and the British spy master, William Wickham, believed that France intended to reinforce the islands from Brest in early December 1800.77 In proposing

76 Kevin D. McCranie provides an extensive analysis of both the failed Cadiz operation and the preparations for Egypt in Admiral Lord Keith and the Naval War Against Napoleon (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2006), 93-121.

77 Mornington to Dundas, October 7, 1800; and Mornington to Dundas, October 15, 1800, in Two Views of British India, 304-7, 307-9. Nepean to St. Vincent, December 12, 1800, in ADM 2/1359, pp. 229-30, BNA.

138 maritime expeditions, however, Mornington ran into the one real barrier to his control over East Indian policy in the form of the British navy. Despite his requests for command over British naval forces in the Indian Ocean, Mornington lacked the ability to direct the actions of Admiral Peter Rainier and his fleet.78 Much to Mornington’s frustration, Rainier refused to participate in an expedition to capture the two French islands which left the plan stranded.79

As the Egyptian expedition moved eastward across the Mediterranean, the dull roar of Irish politics became deafening in London. In July and August 1800 the Irish Acts of Union passed in the British and Irish parliaments. This resulted in a united parliament, and enfolded Britain’s first imperial outpost within its political structure.

Achieving this result was largely the labor of Cornwallis and a rising political star,

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh. One of the key elements of their negotiations in

Ireland involved the expansion of Catholic liberties, which enjoyed the support of Pitt and his cabinet.80 George III, however, staunchly opposed the expansion of Catholic

78 Mornington requested control over army and naval officers in November 1798. Dundas did not respond to the request until October 1799, but the answer was an unequivocal no. Mornington to Dundas, November 24, 1798; and Dundas to Mornington, October 12, 1799, in Two Views of British India, 111-12, 192-96.

79 Rainier to Spencer, December 27, 1800, in Spencer Papers, 4: 246-50. Mornington to Rainier, February 10, 1801, in Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most Noble Richard Marquess Wellesley, 2: 69-70.

80 The third volume of Cornwallis’ correspondence contains a great deal of information related to the negotiations that brought about Irish Union. Cornwallis was deeply sympathetic to the plight of Catholics in Ireland, and disgusted when Catholic Relief failed to gain the king’s support. Pushing back against anti-Catholicism in Britain, Cornwallis wrote on December 1, 1800: “They assert, and I speak from high authority amongst them, that the Catholics of Ireland (seven- tenths of the population of the country) never can be good subjects to Protestant Government. What then have we done, if this position be true? We have united ourselves to a people whom we

139 liberties, and this resulted in a political crisis when he learned of the cabinet’s support of such measures in early 1801.81 The breach created between king and prime minister over the plight of Irish Catholics resulted in Pitt’s resignation on February 16, and the eventual ascension of Henry Addington to the premiership on March 14. At the time of

Pitt’s departure, British society was already war weary, but the dissolution of the government led to the removal of the more hawkish element of the British political environment from power. Five days after becoming prime minister, Addington moved to inform France that Britain wished “to enter into an immediate negotiation for the restoration of peace.”82

The inertia of affairs in the early modern period meant that the political situation in London mattered little in the eastern Mediterranean, where the British expeditionary force of Keith and Abercromby made final preparations to land in Egypt. The combined force landed under fire on March 8, 1801, in Aboukir Bay, and followed up that success with victory in the Battle of Alexandria on March 21. It was a costly victory, however, as among the casualties was Abercromby, who died a week later. The British then laid siege to a French garrison in Alexandria, which eventually surrendered on September 2.

The British victory played only a minor role, if any at all, in ongoing peace negotiations,

ought in policy to have destroyed.” Cornwallis to the Duke of Portland, December 1, 1800, in Cornwallis Correspondence, 3: 306-7. See also, Bew, Castlereagh, 126-7, 180.

81 George III to Henry Addington, January 29, 1801, in George III Corr., 3: 476-77. George III to Dundas, February 7, 1801, in Correspondence, Charles, First Marquess Cornwallis, 3: 333.

82 John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle (London: Constable, 1996), 495- 533. Cabinet Minute, March 19, 1801, in George III Corr., 3: 512.

140 but did represent the first significant victory for Britain over an experienced French army during the war.83

The new ministry reaped the reward of this last initiative of Pitt’s government, but the king did not forget the responsible minister. Word filtered back to London from

Egypt of the British victories in late April and early May, long after Henry Dundas had stepped down on March 17.84 Following the French army’s surrender in September, a gracious king visited Dundas in his private home in Wimbledon to admit his error in assuming the worst for the Egyptian expedition and toast to Dundas’ success.85

The choice before the British Cabinet during the War of the Second Coalition can be labeled as one between continental and imperial policy, but the underlying divide within the Cabinet was between the continental optimism of Grenville and the pessimism of Dundas. As Dundas’ March 1800 memorandum made clear, he was not a priori against continental strategies, but he did question the wisdom of placing faith in continental states and alliances given their repeated failures. In addition, what imperial policies Dundas did advocate were fundamentally conservative, defensive, and non-

83 John D. Grainger, The Amiens Truce: Britain and Bonaparte, 1801-1803 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2002), 47-48.

84 The first rumors of the British victory arrived on April 18, 1801. The Morning Chronicle (London, England), Saturday, April 18, 1801; Issue 9956. Lord Hawkesbury to George III, April 28, 1801; Lord Hawkesbury to George III, April 30, 1801; and Hawkesbury to George III, May 1, 1801, in George III Corr., 3: 522, 523, and 523-24.

85 Cyril Matheson, The Life of Henry Dundas: First Viscount Melville 1742-1811 (London: Constable & Co., 1933), 308-9.

141 expansionary. Similarly, while Lord Grenville championed continental strategies to defeat France, he also advocated for hardline positions concerning British imperial acquisitions such as Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope.86 How we define the positions of these two men, therefore, requires great care. The differences between them were real and persisted. The triumvirate of Dundas, Lord Grenville, and William Pitt ceased to function as a unified front in Cabinet meetings, and when Pitt resumed the post of prime minister in 1804 his cousin, Lord Grenville, was conspicuously absent. At the same time,

Henry Dundas and Lord Grenville do not conform entirely to their respective roles of inveterate imperialist and Euro-centric.

The pessimistic position of Dundas relative to the Continent is key to understanding his strategic outlook in the debate with Lord Grenville—as well as his increasing frustration with his colleague. In pursuing continental strategies against

France, Lord Grenville advocated direct diplomatic and military policy focused on achieving a quick victory. Dundas believed this position both wildly optimistic for the

Continent, and out of touch with the realities of Britain’s strengths and interests at the close of the eighteenth century. Insofar that Britain could be a continental power, he argued, it would be because of empire, not despite or independent of it. Indeed, this was central to his contention that contemporary conflicts for Britain represented a

“contention of purse”—an idea echoed by Pitt when he labeled the conflict with France a

86 Lord Grenville to Dundas, May 13, 1799; and Lord Grenville to Thomas Grenville, September 26, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 51-52, and 422-23.

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“war of finance.”87 Significantly, this philosophy effectively framed the conflict with

France as attritional in nature for Britain, which required a long-term as opposed to short-term strategy and outlook. Equally important, Dundas held out little hope for the restoration of the French monarchy through the continental means available to Britain in the late 1790s. This, more than anything, explains the vastly different responses to the

French army in Egypt. To Lord Grenville, it was a body of troops that might otherwise influence affairs in Europe in the immediate. To Dundas, skeptical that the allies could win the war quickly in Europe, it was a stake aimed at the very basis of British power.

Imperial gains came to hold a more prominent position in defense of Pitt’s government following his resignation in the spring of 1801 than they had in debates over policy during the War of the Second Coalition. There was little rebuttal to the critique that Lord Grenville’s continental strategy had demonstrably failed in its goal to reinstate the Bourbon monarchy—a goal largely ignored or denied after the fact. The

British Empire, however, appeared ascendant. On March 25, 1801, in response to a motion by opposition leader Charles Grey for a committee to consider the state of the nation, Dundas dismissed critiques of Pitt’s government. Drawing a direct comparison to the unquestioned successes of the Seven Years’ War, Dundas declared, “Suffice it for me to say, that there is not one success, nor one advantage, either naval or military, obtained in that war, which has not been equaled by the advantages and successes in this war, with the addition of many others.” Dundas was not above laying claim to

87 The Morning Post and Gazetteer (London, England), Wednesday, February 24, 1802; Issue 10417. 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Part II.

143 events Pitt’s government had little hand in, however. Included in those “many others,” was Mornington’s great achievement: “the complete security of our Asiatic empire, by the overthrow of our most inveterate enemy, and the conquest of Mysore.”88

Thus, imperial success compensated for continental failures, and rescued campaigns, alliances, and subsidies never intended to serve imperial ends. Britain had embarked in

1793 on a limited war of containment in the Low Countries, and now found itself entering peace negotiations with a much enlarged France. To counter the label of failure,

Dundas would not be the last to trumpet gains in the Mediterranean, West Indies, and

East Indies. Such views provided fodder for cries of perfidious Albion, but, as Pitt had noted, Europe’s fate was not the same as Britain’s. An understanding the continental states knew all too well.

88 Parliamentary History, vol. 35 (1800-1801), cols. 1070-1106.

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CHAPTER 5

THE SHEPHERD AND THE WOLF: THE PEACE OF AMIENS, IMPERIAL

INSECURITY, AND THE OUTBREAK OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS, 1801-1805

In early October 1801, to the surprise of many and consternation of some, Britain and France reached a preliminary peace agreement that started the process of formally bringing the French Revolutionary Wars to an end. Negotiations had begun the previous

March with Henry Addington’s assumption of the British premiership, and state officials carried on high-level discussions throughout the summer and into the fall. Final negotiations would take place at Amiens, France, between Charles, Marquess

Cornwallis, and Joseph Bonaparte, who maintained close contact with his brother in

Paris, and resulted in a definitive treaty in March 1802, known as the Treaty of Amiens.1

The protracted nature of the negotiating process provided ample time for a marginal but vehement British opposition to the Anglo-French peace to develop. British critics of the peace, much alarmed by their belief that Napoleonic France was both fundamentally untrustworthy and harboring imperial ambitions, argued that the negotiated terms sacrificed Britain’s former continental allies; undermined British

1 For a detailed analysis of the negotiations, see John D. Grainger, The Amiens Truce: Britain and Bonaparte, 1801-1803 (Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2004). Additionally, many letters written and received by Cornwallis while at Amiens can be found in the third volume of Cornwallis’ published correspondence. Charles Ross, ed., Correspondence, Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1859). For a staunchly pro-government account of the negotiations in advance of the preliminary agreement, see Charles Duke Yonge, ed., The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, K. G., …, 3 vols. (London: MacMillan and co., 1868), 1: 53-76.

145 maritime commerce; and exposed the British Empire to French predation by creating the conditions that would allow the development of a powerful transatlantic French empire.

William Cobbett, the famed British political journalist, captured the degree to which

British opponents of peace believed that the British government had demonstrated a dangerous level of naiveté when he likened the peace to an accord between a shepherd and a wolf.2

Perched uncomfortably between the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic

Wars, the Peace of Amiens and the debate it stirred in Britain played an important role in how the British government and public understood the nascent Napoleonic regime and the Anglo-French struggle more broadly. Though British opponents of peace failed to scuttle the British ratification of the Treaty of Amiens, they advanced a substantive argument that characterized Napoleonic France as a potential, if not yet realized, threat to Britain’s imperial-maritime interests. This line of reasoning built upon the arguments that emerged at the close of the War of the Second Coalition, which emphasized the imperial-maritime aspects of the Anglo-French struggle and British successes in that arena. The imperial anxiety expressed by the critics of the terms of peace between

October 1801 and May 1802 expanded during the brief Anglo-French peace and factored into its collapse in May 1803. The imperial characterization of Napoleonic France that gained traction in British discourse during this period provided the intellectual

2 William Cobbett, “A Series of Letters to the Right Honourable Lord Hawkesbury, &c. &c. &c.,” Letter IV, October 19, 1801, in Leonora Nattrass, ed., William Cobbett: Selected Writings. Vol. 2, From Reaction to Rebellion, 1802-10 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1998), 31-38.

146 grounding of a more unified Francophobic outlook for the British government and public than had existed throughout the French Revolutionary Wars.

DEBATING THE PEACE, DEFINING THE WAR

According to historian Paul Schroeder, the Treaty of Amiens represented an agreement in which Britain and France “tacitly accepted” their respective spheres of influence: France in Western Europe, and Britain in India and at sea. In Britain, he observes, what criticism existed was often behind closed doors, and “chiefly condemned

[the treaty] not for its essence—that it endorsed French domination of the Continent and destroyed the so-called balance of power—but for its details—that it meant too much sacrifice for Britain in commercial and colonial gains and in honour and prestige.”3 This analysis undersells both the substance of the opposition’s attack on the Anglo-French peace and the very public component of it. Indeed, while both proponents and opponents of peace in Britain resigned themselves to French continental dominance, opponents of peace characterized the peace agreement as a failure to ensure either the immediate or future security of the British Empire in both parliamentary debate and print. Within the pacific political climate of Britain at the time these arguments failed to gain traction as a justification for continuing the conflict, but they did establish that a primary litmus test of the Treaty of Amiens would be imperial security.

3 Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 226-30.

147

At roughly nine o’clock in the evening on Friday, October 9, 1801, a ship bearing the French General Jacques Lauriston and the signed preliminaries of peace between

Britain and France arrived at Dover. Once ashore, Lauriston stopped at the City of

London Inn as a courier gathered transportation for the party, and dispatched word to

Louis-Guillaume Otto, the French minister plenipotentiary in London, to expect his arrival shortly. By noon the following day, Lauriston reached Westminster Bridge in a coach with “the horses … and drivers, decorated with blue ribbons, and the word Peace upon them.” A raucous and joyous mob quickly began to gather around Lauriston’s coach, which only increased following a short stop at Otto’s London residence before travelling on to prepared apartments at the Reddish Hotel on St. James Street. As the procession made its way towards the hotel, the mob suddenly halted the carriage, “took the horses out, and drew the carriage down Bondstreet to Reddish’s Hotel, rending the air with shouts of joy, some of them mounting the tri-colored cockade.”

The spectacle grew only more chaotic at the Reddish Hotel. Otto presented

Lauriston to the crowd from a first floor window, and Lauriston tossed a handful of guineas to the people below. After a short stopover in the hotel, the two men returned to the coach in order to formally present the preliminaries of peace to Hawkesbury. Once again, the growing mass of Londoners took control of the coach and drew it along to

Hawkesbury’s office, which they reached shortly after two o’clock. In the course of this second journey, “several persons were thrown down and trampled under foot, two of whom, it was thought, could not survive.” The guns of St. James Park fired at two thirty announcing the momentous news of peace, the Tower of London’s guns followed suit at

148 three, and “the populace scampered along all the neighbouring streets, pouring into the

Park, rejoicing; desirous of witnessing the scene.” The London mob next carried

Lauriston and Otto to the Admiralty, where the First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl St.

Vincent, requested that the celebratory throng avoid overturning the coach if they must carry it along. Following an impromptu tour of St. James Park and the surrounding area, the mob returned Lauriston and Otto to the Reddish Hotel. Later that evening, as the crowd continued to mingle in the street outside the hotel, Lauriston donned plain clothes to avoid detection and snuck off to dinner at Otto’s residence after an exhausting first day on British soil. 4

The dramatic arrival of “Citizen Lauriston” to London provides the necessary context for understanding the British reception of peace with France. In addition to

Lauriston’s parade through St. James Park, spontaneous celebrations took place in

London’s playhouses, and illuminations and general revelry occurred throughout

Britain.5 A war-weary British society was ready for peace, and yearned for cheaper prices at market and the reduction of onerous war-time taxation. The outpouring of public support buttressed the position of the British government and its adherents in favor of peace. For the developing opposition to peace, however, the public jubilation

4 Multiple News Items. The Morning Post and Gazetteer (London, England), Monday, October 12, 1801; Issue 10291. 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Part II.

5 Multiple News Items. The Morning Post and Gazetteer (London, England), Saturday, October 03, 1801; Issue 10278. 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Part II; Multiple News Items. The Morning Post and Gazetteer (London, England), Wednesday, October 07, 1801; Issue 10281. 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Part II; and Clive Emsley, British Society and the French Wars, 1793-1815 (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979), 91-92.

149

Fig. 5.1. Artist Charles Williams plays on common themes of plentiful food, the return of family members from military service abroad, and general celebration of peace with France. (Print by Charles Williams. "John Bull Visited with the Blessings of Peace," published by S. W. Fores, October 21, 1802. Image courtesy of the British Museum, Registration Number 1868,0808.6964. ©Trustees of the British Museum.) highlighted the ignorance and danger of public opinion, and the degree to which it existed as a distinct minority.

From the start, questions about the Anglo-French peace swirled in British political circles. The announcement of a preliminary peace agreement in early October, a month prior to the opening of the British Parliament, came as a shock to those outside the British government. Opponents of peace fretted over the preliminary terms of peace, and concern developed surrounding the choice of the elderly but ever-faithful

Cornwallis as Britain’s negotiator. In the wake of the definitive treaty’s announcement in

March 1802, Cornwallis’ negotiating skills received sharp public scrutiny and ridicule

150 from opponents of peace. Nevertheless, in early May both the Lords and Commons took up the task of debating the merits of a definitive treaty that differed little from the preliminaries.6

The Treaty of Amiens has been described as “one-sided” in France’s favor, and not without reason.7 In Europe, the terms effectively confirmed French continental hegemony, affirmed the existing borders of Europe, and recognized the Republic of

Seven Islands. The treaty did stipulate the withdrawal of French troops from Naples and the Papal States, but this proved meaningless in practice. The treaty also called for the evacuation of British forces from the Mediterranean and Adriatic in a month’s time.

Significantly, this meant the withdrawal of the recently victorious British army in Egypt.

In what would become a heated point of Anglo-French contention, the two states agreed to the neutralization of the Mediterranean island of Malta. The treaty returned Malta, along with the islands of Gozo and Comino, to the Knights of St. John, and dictated that

France, Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia would act as guarantors of the independence of the islands. Of far greater importance to British opponents of peace

6 Cornwallis may have been a poor choice in negotiator for the British government. Writing to his close friend, Colonel Alexander Ross, a year prior, Cornwallis opined, “We succeed miserably in our expeditions, which will I am afraid never force Buonaparte to submit to our terms: would to God that we had peace almost on any terms, for it is evident we cannot make war.” Charles, Marquess Cornwallis, to Colonel Alexander Ross, September 17, 1800, in Charles Ross, ed., Correspondence, Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1859), 3: 291-92. On critical public perception of Cornwallis’ role in the negotiations, see the print by Charles Williams, “A Game of Chess,” published by S. W. Fores, 1802, British Museum, Registration Number 1868,0808.6984. Earl of Malmesbury, Diary Entries, April 27 and May 2, 1802, in James Howard Harris, 3rd Earl of Malmesbury, ed., Diaries and Correspondence of James James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury …, 4 vols., (London: R. Bentley, 1844), 4:70-73.

7 Schroder, Transformation of European Politics, 227.

151 were the treaty’s terms relative to territory outside of Europe, which they viewed as indefensible. To achieve peace, the British government agreed to return all foreign conquests except the islands of Trinidad and Ceylon. This included the strategically vital

Cape of Good Hope, which Britain would return to the Batavian Republic. The treaty stipulated that the cape be an open port, but given the Batavian Republic’s status as a

French puppet state this did little to soothe British fears for the sea route to India. In sum, the British government had agreed to pay a heavy price for peace with little in the way of French quid pro quo.8

Though a minority position, it was apparent that the Treaty of Amiens would face stiff opposition from a portion of Pitt’s former cabinet members. William Windham responded to a private note from Addington informing him of the preliminaries of peace on October 1, 1801, and made clear that he was unequivocally opposed to peace with

France on any terms.9 Lord Grenville, who lacked Windham’s ideological fervor but held similarly dim views of the proposed peace’s terms, gauged the opinion of former cabinet colleagues before committing himself to a position on the preliminaries of peace.

William Pitt expressed regret over the loss of the Cape of Good Hope, but, given

Britain’s inability “to make any material impression on the enemy,” felt he could not withhold his support for the proposed terms.10 Henry Dundas seconded Grenville’s

8 Treaty of Amiens, March 25, 1802, http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/ government/diplomatic/c_amiens.html (accessed, March 31, 2016).

9 William Windham to Henry Addington, October 1, 1801, in Windham Papers, 2: 172-73.

10 William Pitt to Lord Spencer, October 1, 1801, in Spencer Papers v. 4, 304-5; and Pitt to Lord Grenville, October 4, 1801, in Dropmore Papers, 7: 45-46, and 49-50.

152 reservations about the terms, but refused to take a public stance against the peace. Lord

Spencer agreed with Grenville, but questioned whether they should speak out publicly against the peace as members of the former government. By October 14, any reservations

Grenville may have harbored had dissipated, as he did Addington the courtesy of informing him that he intended to come out against peace in the House of Lords.11

Grenville’s decision was nothing less than the formation of a new political faction, known to history as the Grenvillites.12 By the end of the month, Grenville’s brother,

Thomas, had reached out to Windham, who remained somewhat independent but agreed to coordinate opposition to the Anglo-French peace in the House of Commons.13

Given the public reception of the preliminaries of peace, the newly formed opposition recognized the need to make its case both through parliamentary debate and in the wider public sphere. A week after he learned of the preliminaries, Windham struck up a correspondence with William Cobbett concerning public opinion. Cobbett

11 Grenville to Dundas, October 4, 1801; Grenville to Pitt, October 6, 1801; Spencer to Grenville, October 9, 1801; Dundas to Grenville, October 10, 1801; and Grenville to Addington, October 14, 1801, in Dropmore Papers, 7: 48, 50-51, 56, 56-58, 59-60.

12 James J. Sack, The Grenvillites, 1801-29: Party Politics and Factionalism in the Age of Pitt and Liverpool (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979), 49-75. The advent of a new political faction in opposition to peace did not escape the notice of contemporary observers. Writing in his diary in October 1801, the Earl of Malmesbury observed, “Lord Grenville and all his family are violent against [the peace]—more like party violence than public wishes; Lord Spencer induced by them to be the same.” Diary Entry, October 1, 1801, in Diaries and Correspondence of James James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury …, 4:60. The development of the Grenvillite party also received public notice during the eventual debate of the definitive treaty, see: Definitive Treaty. The Aberdeen Journal (Aberdeen, Scotland), Wednesday, May 26, 1802; Issue 2837.

13 Thomas Grenville to Grenville, October 23, 1801, in Dropmore Papers, 7: 66-67.

153 believed that despite the “delirium of the multitudes,” the misguided public would ultimately repudiate the peace. On October 14, Cobbett published one of many open letters to Hawkesbury, which castigated the public celebrations of Lauriston’s arrival in

London, and suggested that the Londoners celebrated not peace but the defeat of

England. In December, Cobbett founded the Political Register with the stated goal of shaping national opinion. It was an enterprise closely associated with the anti-peace opposition and partially financed by Grenville.14

At an early stage, the Grenvillite faction coalesced around an anti-peace argument that sought to frame the French Revolutionary Wars as imperial in nature and the proposed peace a failure to secure and defend the British Empire. To an extent, the origin of this line of argument possessed roots in the defenses of British strategy made by members of the government upon the collapse of the Second Coalition, which pointed to imperial gains as a means of shifting attention away from continental failures and claiming British strategic success. These arguments continued throughout the debates surrounding peace with France, with former cabinet members minimizing the importance of Bourbon restoration to British strategy during the French Revolutionary

14 Cobbett to William Windham, October 7, 1801; and Cobbett to Windham, December 1801, in Windham Papers, 2: 173-75, and 180. Thomas Grenville to Lord Grenville, May 5, 1802; Thomas Grenville to Lord Grenville, May 19, 1802; Thomas Grenville to Lord Grenville, July 1, 1802, in Dropmore Papers 7: 94-95, 95-96, and 98-99. For an examination of Cobbett, see John Stevenson, “William Cobbett: Patriot or Briton?,” Transaction of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, 6 (1996), pp. 123-36; and Daniel Green, Great Cobbett: The Noblest Agitator (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1983), 201-27.

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Wars.15 It is difficult, therefore, to disentangle such arguments from the personal politics and self-interest of members of the previous government. This was particularly true of

Grenville, who had championed the Second Coalition in an explicit effort to restore the

Bourbon monarchy.16 In a public demonstration of familial loyalty, Thomas Grenville disputed the notion that Britain had engaged in a counter-revolutionary struggle on the

Continent in the House of Commons. He went on to declare that “he had ever considered it to be a war for indemnity and security,” by which he meant to draw a distinction between continental affairs and the security and expansion of British imperial-maritime interests. A statement decidedly at odds with the strategy pursued by his brother as Britain’s Foreign Secretary, and directly contradicted by Thomas’ involvement two years earlier in negotiations to raise the Bourbon flag in Lyon.17

Critics of the Treaty of Amiens developed two primary lines of attack relative to the imperial parameters of the peace. First, a subtle but important aspect of the negotiated terms involved the non-renewal of prior European treaties. William Elliot, a

15 Such arguments frustrated Charles James Fox, who had been a leading opposition voice in the 1790s and a consistent proponent of peace with France. In response to William Pitt minimizing the importance of Bourbon restoration to British strategy, Fox scoffed, “Who ever imagined that they … would ever have admitted the acquisition of an island in the East and in the West [Ceylon and Trinidad] to be that ‘indemnity for the past, and security for the future,’ for which they had so obstinately and loudly insisted?” Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 72-83

16 John M. Sherwig, “Lord Grenville’s Plan for a Concert of Europe, 1797-99,” in The Journal of Modern History 34, no. 3 (September 1962), 284-93. Piers Mackesy, Statesmen at War: The Strategy of Overthrow 1798-1799 (Longman: New York, 1974) and War Without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt 1799-1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984). Paul W. Schroeder, “The Collapse of the Second Coalition,” in The Journal of Modern History 59, no. 2 (June 1987), 244-90.

17 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 48-54.

155 young member of the Grenvillites, labeled the terms “an unqualified ruin” in the

Commons after reading the preliminaries. “The treaty,” Elliot argued, “abrogated the public law of Europe,” which, significantly, included a century of diplomatic agreements that favored Britain’s imperial commerce.18 Second, critics focused considerable attention on the treaty’s terms relative to colonial territories. With imperial gains held out as “indemnification for the past, and security for the future,” should

Britain accept the distribution of colonial territory proposed by the peace agreement?

Did the acquisition of Ceylon and Trinidad offset the cession of the Cape of Good Hope and French gains on the Continent? How was it possible to contain France in the western Atlantic given its dominance over Spain and the return of its West Indian islands? For critics of the peace agreement, the terms appeared to lack adequate indemnity and provided little in the way of future commercial or military security for the British Empire.

As Lord Auckland noted in the House of Lords, the justification for the non- renewal of prior European treaties derived from the totality of France’s success in upending the political structure of Europe. Auckland possessed considerable experience as a diplomat, and the British government had recruited him to stand as an authoritative voice on European diplomacy in support of the negotiated terms as soon as it became apparent that a concerted opposition would form under the leadership of Lord

18 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), col. 146. “Elliot, William (1766-1818),” in R. Thorne, ed., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1790-1820, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/elliot-william-1766-1818 (accessed June 17, 2015).

156

Grenville.19 In defending the peace he gave particular attention to the Treaty of Utrecht

(1713), which was significant to critics of the peace due to its clauses relative to

European involvement in South America. The century-old agreement, however, carried with it a number of articles that the French Revolutionary Wars had rendered obsolete.

He went on to suggest that the French “had the best of the argument” when they balked at renewing treaties they viewed as “irrelevant, contradictory to existing circumstances, and calculated only to create difficulties and confusion.” 20 Proponents of the peace, therefore, admitted that the treaty stood as a diplomatic acceptance of the French

Revolution’s destruction of the ancien régime’s international order. Auckland’s parry was an effective rebuttal to a weak line of attack for opponents of peace relative to affairs in

Europe, but did little to address concerns outside of Europe.

The core of the complaint against the non-renewal of prior treaties concerned commercial agreements that provided the legal underpinning of Britain’s eighteenth- century global maritime commerce. The British government did hope to negotiate a new

Anglo-French commercial treaty, but such an agreement would never materialize with

Napoleonic France. In the short-term, however, the lapsed commercial agreements played a prominent role in opposition arguments against the definitive treaty. For example, in the run-up to the parliamentary debates in May 1802, Cobbett published

19 Lord Hobart to Lord Auckland, October 17, 1801, in Robert John Eden, 3rd Baron Auckland, ed., The Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland …, vol. 4, (London: R. Bentley, 1861), 142-43.

20 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 756-69, 703-12.

157 three separate open letters addressed to Hawkesbury excoriating the non-renewal of previous treaties and commercial agreements. The failure to renew such agreements,

Cobbett argued, sowed uncertainty within the British commercial community, and, in particular, he feared for British East Indian trade.21 The cause for concern in the East

Indies was the non-renewal of two treaties with France dating to 1783 and 1787, which regulated European trade in the region. On May 3, Windham channeled Cobbett’s reasoning in the House of Commons when he drew attention to the supposedly lost

“advantages” of these agreements, and averred, “It is material to consider what rights, or rather claims, the French exercised before 1783.”22

The critique of the non-renewal of prior diplomatic agreements did more than highlight France’s military success on the Continent, however. It also brought forward frank acknowledgments of the breadth of British imperial gains in India during the

Anglo-French conflict. Though Dundas disagreed with other aspects of the negotiated terms that touched on imperial affairs, he emerged as a staunch supporter of the government front bench when it came to the non-renewal of Anglo-French imperial

21 “To The Right Hon. Lord Hawkesbury,” Cobbett’s Annual Register (London, England), Saturday, April 10, 1802; “To the Right Hon. Lord Hawkesbury,” Cobbett’s Annual Register (London, England), Saturday, April 24, 1802; and “To the Right Hon. Lord Hawkesbury,” Cobbett’s Annual Register (London, England), Saturday, May 1, 1802.

22 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 565-84. Windham and Cobbett communicated over their disregard of the peace. In October 1801, Cobbett wrote to Windham, “I have spoken to many persons … and I find the peace, as a matter of terms in particular, universally condemned.” In December, Cobbett wrote to Windham to announce the advent of the Political Register, through which he hoped to shape national opinion. William Cobbett to Windham, October 7, 1801; and December 1801, in The Windham Papers, 2: 173-75, and 180.

158 agreements relative to India. Indeed, he believed that the line of argument advanced by opponents of peace on this front demonstrated a dangerous degree of ignorance on the state of affairs in India, and that their argument served French as opposed to British interests. On May 12, Dundas rose in the Commons in response to Windham’s comments, and suggested that the debate over lapsed agreements did nothing more than call into question British possessions and rights in India. He went on to echo and extend the argument he had made just over a year prior which lionized the British conquests of Mysore as a defense of the strategy pursued by William Pitt’s government during the War of the Second Coalition. Much as was the case with continental Europe,

Dundas argued, the non-renewal of prior treaties relative to India was irrelevant due to the vast expansion of British power there since 1787. The only effect of revisiting those treaties, in Dundas’ estimation, would be to suggest that France had legitimate reason to claim trade and political rights there. Britain, he announced, was “actually the

[sovereign] of India, and no European power had any right whatever to dispute our title to this power.”23

An Anglo-French dispute over the town of Mahé in the Karingal region demonstrated the degree to which Britain had assumed the role of arbiter of European involvement in India by the close of the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1790, Tipu

Sultan wrested the town from French control, but it quickly became a British possession following Lord Cornwallis’ victory at Seringapatam in 1792. The French made an

23 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 679-86.

159 immediate claim for Mahé and its surrounding territory, but the British had not restored the town prior to the outbreak of war between Britain and France in 1793. By 1802, therefore, the British had possessed Mahé for a decade, and had begun plans to build a road through the area for the purpose of consolidating British control and enhancing economic revenue from the land. Following the Treaty of Amiens, the French repeated their claim for Mahé. When Richard Wellesley, Lord Mornington, assessed the French claims to Mahé and its surroundings, he found them “entirely unsupported by any principle of Justice.” The underlying reason for this decision, made permanent in

January 1803, was that the British claim rested on conquest, and their agreement with

Mysore made no exception for any preexisting French claims beyond a narrow ruling for the restoration of the town of Mahé and its immediate vicinity.24

The imperial confidence voiced by Dundas and exhibited by Mornington’s actions in India paired with a very clear desire on the part of the British government to distance itself from continental entanglement. In explaining the government’s position on the non-renewal of prior treaties, Hawkesbury argued that any treaty agreement with continental obligations for Britain should be “precise and explicit,” and that would not be the case with the blanket renewal of the now lapsed European diplomatic system.

Hawkesbury acknowledged that this represented a substantive break with the Continent

24 “Minute from the Commander in Chief of the Presidency,” Lieutenant-General J. Stuart and G. Strachey, August 13, 1802; Major-General Arthur Wellesley to Stuart, August 5, 1802; Extract, Arthur Wellesley to Colonel Bales, August 4, 1802; Arthur Wellesley to Stuart, September 3, 1802; J. Sumsden to John Chamier, October 28, 1802; and C. Macaulay to Chamier, January 16, 1803, in CO 77/37, pp. 166-67, 168-70, 193-95, 199-201, 248-49, and 301-4, BNA.

160 for Britain. British ministers, he observed, had “determined, if they could not get Europe to do right, they would not be party to her wrongs.”25 An important outcome of the

Treaty of Amiens, therefore, was not just that it brought a temporary peace to Europe. It also enabled Britain to distance itself from continental demands at a moment in time when the British state was assuming a more assertive and confident attitude towards its imperial activities outside of Europe.

Whereas the debate surrounding the non-renewal of prior treaties was systemic in nature, the debate over the treaty’s distribution of colonial territories centered on imperial security. Supporters of the peace did not dispute the importance of imperial security to the evaluation of the definitive treaty, but they characterized the gains for

Britain as substantial in nature. Specifically, the retention of Ceylon in the East Indies and Trinidad in the West Indies, they argued, represented significant geostrategic improvement for the British maritime empire. During the debate over the preliminaries,

St. Vincent informed the House of Lords that Britain “had obtained two of the most valuable islands in the habitable globe, considered in a political or commercial view.”26

The retention of Ceylon, in particular, had been a high priority for the British government throughout the 1790s.27 In Tincomalee, Ceylon possessed a large natural harbor that could serve as a maritime base of operations for the British fleet in the Indian

25 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 756-69.

26 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 57-72.

27 Lord Grenville to Thomas Grenville, September 26, 1799, in Dropmore Papers, 5: 422-23.

161

Fig. 5.2. This Piercy Roberts print captured the skepticism some held for claims that Ceylon represented a significant gain for the British Empire. (Print by Piercy Roberts. “The Ray of Hope,” published by Piercy Roberts, January 1803. Image courtesy of British Museum, Registration Number 1868,0808.7150. ©Trustees of the British Museum.)

Ocean. An additional advantage was its detached but proximate location to mainland

India meant that the island might become a maritime fortress for British force projection in the East Indies. The early returns on Ceylon, however, proved less than ideal due to bureaucratic bickering amongst British imperial officials and a revolt by the Kingdom of

Kandy. Nevertheless, the island remained part of the British Empire until 1972.28

28 Mornington to Hobart, November 30, 1803, CO 77/32, pp. 153-90, BNA; and Lord Camden to Duke of York, February 13, 1805, WO 6/132, pp. 259-61, BNA.

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The cession of the Cape of Good Hope, however, appeared to neuter any advantages derived from possession of Ceylon. The definitive treaty stipulated the return of the cape to the Dutch, which, as critics of peace noted, amounted to little more than granting it to French control upon the outbreak of hostilities. With the cape in its possession, France would be in a position to threaten any British ships passing to or from India, which would necessitate convoys. This led to a somewhat hyperbolic rhetorical question posed by Lord Grenville: “In time of war, how was a single regiment to be sent [to India]?”29 Though the Pittite faction refused to oppose the agreement,

Dundas did admit to the House of Commons that he would not have agreed to relinquish the Cape of Good Hope had he remained in office during the negotiations.

Given the weight of Dundas’ opinion on affairs relative to British India, it was clear that the sacrifice of the cape was a bitter pill to swallow even for some of those that chose to support the definitive treaty.30

Those in favor of peace possessed little defense against the accusation that the return of the Cape of Good Hope to the Batavian Republic represented a strategic threat to the lines of communication with British India. Thus, the primary line of defense relied not on countering that charge, but on diminishing the colony’s importance while ignoring strategic considerations. For example, Vice-Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson informed the House of Lords that he considered the colony to be “merely a tavern on the

29 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 688-99.

30 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 774-77.

163 passage” to India, and one largely unnecessary for East Indian ships with coppered bottoms.31 Nelson’s view echoed that of Vice-Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, who served as commander-in-chief at the Cape of Good Hope. Writing in January 1800, Curtis painted a stark picture of the colony’s resources in a letter to the First Lord of the Admiralty,

Lord Spencer. In a separate missive, dispatched in October 1800, Curtis questioned whether the British could successfully incorporate the colony’s Dutch population and their republican ideology. Curtis acknowledged, however, that the colonial and strategic value of the cape were distinct from one another.32

The peace agreements terms relative to the western Atlantic appeared graver still to the Grenvillites. The treaty restored Martinique and Tobago to France, which

Addington justified as a means of preserving Britain’s traditional ally Portugal.33

Additionally, the treaty granted France sovereignty over French Guiana on the coast of

South America. To compound matters further, in October 1801, Bonaparte extracted

Louisiana from Spain as part of the Treaty of San Ildefonso, which Lord Grenville believed made the eventual French annexation of Florida inevitable. He went on to argue that with France reestablished in the West Indies, and in possession of Louisiana and presumably Florida, the French would be in a position to extend their empire to

31 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 185-86.

32 Curtis to Spencer, January 12, 1800; Curtis to Spencer, October 10, 1800; and Pitt to Spencer, October 1, 1800 in Spencer Papers, 4: 207-10, 232-37, and 304-5.

33 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 667-68.

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“Mexico at any time.”34 A potential outcome of the treaty, therefore, was a French empire stretching across the North American coast of the Gulf of Mexico down to South

America, which would undermine British commercial interests in the region.35

Despite the vociferous opposition led by Lord Grenville, the Addington administration never lacked the votes for the ratification of the Treaty of Amiens.

Nevertheless, the opposition did force a futile but important debate that further exposed the imperial drift of British thought following the War of the Second Coalition and the prominence imperial interests would play in judging the peace to come. A central feature of the debate was that the majority of both proponents and opponents of peace were willing to accept French continental dominance in exchange for British imperial security and, presumed, commercial prosperity. The primary point of contention, however, was whether the Treaty of Amiens actually met these fundamental and necessary aims. Speaking in May 1803, as the resumption of war between Britain and

France loomed, George Canning defined the peace as an “experiment” in British continental disengagement and an embrace of a more insular and selfish outlook on

34 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 688-99.

35 The economic threat to Britain posed by French expansion in South America may have been significant. Javier Cuenca-Esteban has made a compelling, if conjectural, case that British “ghost exports” to South America indirectly through American merchants represented a larger portion of British trade at the time than previously acknowledged. Javier Cuenca-Estaban, “British ‘Ghost’ Exports, American Middlemen, and the Trade to Spanish America, 1790-1819,” The William and Mary Quarterly 71, no. 1 (January 2014), pp. 63-98. One of Cobbett’s open letters to Lord Hawkesbury made these arguments explicitly. In a sense, such rhetoric represented little more than imperial fear mongering, but it captured a growing imperial anxiety focused on France. “To The Right Hon. Lord Hawkesbury,” Cobbett’s Annual Register (London, England), Saturday, April 17, 1802.

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British policy and interests.36 It was a characterization of the definitive treaty few would have disputed in the early morning hours of May 15, 1802, when the House of Commons ratified it without division.37

IMPERIAL DREAMS AND IMPERIAL ANGST

That the Peace of Amiens was short-lived and little more than a truce is something of a historical cliché. The collapse of the peace in May 1803 commenced the final act of the Second Hundred Year’ War between Britain and France. The nominal reason for the outbreak of the war was the small island of Malta, which rests in a strategically important position bisecting the Mediterranean Sea just south of Sicily.

Malta, however, was little more than a vessel into which Britain and France poured their animosity and distrust.38 In Britain, the critiques lofted at the preliminaries of peace and definitive treaty took root and grew in the months following the ratification of the terms as French actions played upon British imperial paranoia. The foundation of the peace was no more secure in France. In addition to Napoleon Bonaparte’s restless ambitions, he harbored a distaste for Britain and its empire that he had imbibed deeply from the institutional culture of Brienne-le-Château, the French military academy he began

36 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 1424-37.

37 Highlighting the minority position of the opposition, the House of Lords passed the definitive treaty the previous morning with a vote of 122-16 in favor. In the House of Commons opponents of peace numbered a mere 20. Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 738, 828.

38 John D. Grainger argues that the lack of mutual trust was the primary cause of the peace’s failure. Grainger, The Amiens Truce.

166 attending at the age of 10.39 As events played out, the British government’s faith in the peace eroded in response to both real and imagined French threats to British imperial interests, which ate away at the somewhat brittle foundation that the peace had begun with. Thus, though the Peace of Amiens was short-lived, during the brief respite the

Anglo-French conflict assumed an imperial and global dynamic, which the British tied to the volatile personal ambitions of France’s first consul and future emperor, Napoleon

Bonaparte.

The first flashpoint of imperial affairs appeared in advance of the definitive treaty’s negotiation, when a French expedition prepared to sail for St. Domingue in late

1801 with the tacit acceptance of the British government.40 At that stage, control of the former French colony rested in the hands of General Toussaint Louverture. Since 1798, the British had adopted a stance of guarded neutrality relative to the affairs of the colony, and even reached a trade and military agreement with Louverture. The British, though, remained deeply uncomfortable with the symbolism of a former slave ruling a colony in such close proximity to Jamaica. It was for this reason that, in early December

1801, Cornwallis suggested that Britain and France might find common cause with regard to St. Domingue. Lord Hobart, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies,

39 Andrew Roberts writes of the Anglophobic culture at Brienne-le-Château: “The intention was to create a generation of young officers who believed implicitly in French greatness, but who were also determined to humiliate Britain, which was at war with France in America for most of Napoleon’s time at Brienne.” Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York: Viking, 2014), 12-13.

40 Grainger, The Amiens Truce, 55-62.

167 echoed this view in March 1802, when he expressed hope to Mornington that the colony would aid in bringing negotiations of the definitive treaty to a speedy conclusion. Such views highlighted the degree to which British officials recognized Bonaparte as a meaningful break from the revolutionary regime at an ideological level, and as a figure that might support the reestablishment of the ancien régime colonial system in the West

Indies.41

Despite the existence of aligned interests with regard to the reestablishment of the slave society on St. Domingue, the return of French power to the West Indies divided

British opinion. Word of French preparations for the expedition to St. Domingue reached London in mid-October 1801, and led to considerable British hand-wringing. At a practical level, the Admiralty, in the process of demobilizing to a peace-time footing, had to take the dispatch of a French naval expedition to the West Indies seriously. St.

Vincent advised the British government to demand that no French ship leave for the

West Indies without a passport. In early April 1802, a month prior to the passage of the definitive treaty, Hobart directed the Admiralty to recall British naval ships from all foreign stations except the West Indies.42 The French expedition also stoked British

41 Cornwallis to Hawkesbury, December 3, 1801, in Cornwallis Correspondence, 3: 399-404; Hobart to Mornington, March 19, 1802, CO 77/58, pp. 131-32, BNA. British newspapers published regularly on the French expedition to St. Domingue, and this included discussion of whether the British should ally with the French there. For example, see, THE WEST INDIES. The Morning Post (London, England), Tuesday, February 01, 1803; Issue 10711. 19th Century British Library Newspapers: Part II.

42 Grainger, The Amiens Truce, 54-55; and Hobart to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, April 5, 1802, WO 6/149, pp. 94-95, BNA.

168 imperial anxiety at a more fundamental level. In an undated memorandum, Edward

Cooke, an aid and confidante to Viscount Castlereagh, who served as the President of the Board of Control in 1802, railed against the British government allowing France to reassert control over St. Domingue. A “State of Free Blacks,” Cooke wrote, represented little risk to British interests, but French control over the colony would “become a consolidated empire, of great strength, inevitably formed to be the destruction of

Jamaica[.]”43

The threat to Britain posed by French reengagement in the West Indies proved illusory, but British anxiety was far from unfounded. Before Bonaparte dispatched the

French expedition to St. Domingue, he gave serious consideration to embracing slave emancipation and Louverture. If Bonaparte had opted to ally himself with Louverture, there is reason to believe it would have significantly enhanced France’s ability to threaten British interests in the West Indies. Instead, Bonaparte broke with revolutionary ideals and dispatched an expedition under the command of his brother-in-law, General

Charles Leclerc, who soon found his force entangled in the same morass experienced by

British forces in the 1790s. Indeed, the apparent impossibility of reinstating the colonial racial system with the colony’s extant population led to Leclerc and General Donatien de

Rochambeau, who assumed command following Leclerc’s death from yellow fever in

November 1802, advocating a genocidal campaign against the colony’s rebellious black population. Any hope of French success in St. Domingue ended in November 1803,

43 Edward Cooke, “Arguments Demonstrating the Continuance of War to be Preferable to the Conclusion of Peace,” undated, in Castlereagh Correspondence, 5: 25-28.

169 when Rochambeau suffered defeat at the hands of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who had assumed command of the rebel army following the French capture of Louverture in May

1802.44

As had been the case throughout the War of the Second Coalition, Britain’s eastern empire continued to be a source of anxiety in London. In August 1802, a mere three months after the ratification of peace, a French maritime expedition to Algiers resulted in the Admiralty delaying its withdrawal from the Mediterranean.45 In

November, intelligence from St. Petersburgh suggested the possibility that France intended to renew war, and Hobart immediately warned George III that France desired gains in the East Indies.46 The following March, as Anglo-French relations deteriorated, the Admiralty directed Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton, commanding in the Indian

Ocean, to maintain vigilance against French designs on Egyptian and Turkish possessions.47 In British India, Mornington and East India Company representatives

44 Pillippe R. Girard, “Rêves d’Empire: French Revolutionary Doctrine and Military Intervention in the Southern United States and the Caribbean, 1789-1809,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 48, no. 4 (Fall 2007), pp. 389-412; Girard, “Napoléon Bonparte and the Emancipation Issue in Saint-Domingue, 1799-1803,” French Historical Studies 32, no. 4 (Fall 2009), pp. 587-618.

45 Hobart to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, August 4, 1802, WO 6/149, pp. 103-5, BNA.

46 Hobart to George III, November 12 [13?], 1802; and George III to Hobart, November 14, 1802, in George III Corr., 4: 59-60. Concern for the East Indies was such that the Admiralty refused to relieve Admiral Sir Peter Rainier’s request to be relieved of his command in the Indian Ocean. Lord St. Vincent to Admiral Sir Peter Rainier, November 16, 1802, in David Bonner Smith, ed., Letters of Admiral of the Fleet, the Early of St. Vincent, Whilst the First Lord of the Admiralty, 1801-1804 2 vols. (London, Navy Records Society, 1921), 2: 265-66.

47 Admiralty to Rear-Admiral Sir Richards Bickerton, March 7, 1803, ADM 2/1360, BNA.

170 drew out their compliance with the terms of the Treaty of Amiens. As late as March

1803, Mornington determined to withhold territory from the Batavian Republic due to concern about a possible Dutch naval expedition to the Indian Ocean.48

By the spring of 1803, the optimism with which the British government had entered into peace with France had badly eroded due to increasing distrust of

Bonparte’s intentions and actions. Just as the French expedition to St. Domingue raised

British hackles in late 1801, the process of British disillusionment with Bonaparte’s faithfulness predated the ratification of the definitive treaty. During the debate over the definitive treaty in May 1802, William Windham attempted to have the Treaty of

Lunéville read before the House of Commons as a means of proving the “bad faith of the

French government.”49 Signed in February 1801 between France and Austria, the treaty stipulated the creation of various independent states, including the Cisalpine Republic.

In January 1802, however, the Cisalpine Republic transformed into the Italian Republic and elected Bonaparte as its first president. Though Pitt continued to support the Treaty of Amiens with relative silence, he privately observed to the Earl of Malmesbury at the time that he had been in error to believe “that Bonaparte had satisfied his insatiable

48 J. B. Edmonstone to R. J. Farquhar, March 18, 1803, CO 77/30, pp. 29-33, BNA. Mornington to Naval Officer, March 18, 1803, CO 77/30, pp. 35-38, BNA . The primary point of contention for British officials was the return of the Moluccas to the Batavian Republic. Correspondence involving the British officer on the ground, Colonel James Oliver, and representatives of the Batavian Republic can be found in the latter portion of CO 77/31, BNA. Much to the chagrin of East India Company officials, Oliver ceded the Moluccas to the Batavian representatives on March 1, 1803. Certificate, March 9, 1803, CO 77/32, pp. 30-32, BNA. Farquhar to Mornington, August 24, 1803, CO 77/32, pp. 79-92, BNA.

49 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), col. 671

171 ambition, and would rest contented with the power and reputation he had acquired.”

He went on to remark, “that no compact, no covenant, made with him, could be secure.”50 French continental maneuvers in the year following the British debates over the peace did nothing to suggest Bonaparte was comfortable with the limits of his already dominant position in Western Europe. In addition to the effective annexation of the Italian Republic, France expanded its political control over the Batavian Republic, intervened as mediator in a civil war in Switzerland in February 1803, and oversaw a

“political revolution” in Germany.51

It was, in fact, the pairing of British distrust derived French actions in Europe and anxiety over the security of its eastern empire that would transform Malta into a casus belli between the two states. In early 1803, Britain continued to maintain possession of Malta in direct contravention of the Treaty of Amiens. The primary reason for this was distrust of Bonaparte, but the failure of European powers to affirm the treaty’s stipulations with regard to Malta complicated the matter to some extent. In February,

France demanded that Britain evacuate Malta in accordance with the terms of peace. A wary Addington administration countered France’s request with an argument that the basis of the Anglo-French peace had been uti possidetis, and that French continental activities in Italy, the Batavian Republic, and Switzerland stood in similar contravention

50 Earl of Malmesbury, Diary Entry, April 8, 1801, in Diaries and Correspondence of James James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury …, 4:64-68.

51 For an analysis of French actions, see Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, 231- 45.

172 of the treaty. The British government, therefore, suggested that it maintain possession of

Malta as commensurate compensation for accepting French continental gains.52

Significantly, Malta held little inherent value to Britain beyond standing as a distant defensive bulwark of British India.53

As Anglo-French diplomacy began to deteriorate over the fate of Malta,

Bonaparte’s language further stoked British imperial anxiety. In February 1803, during discussions attempting to relieve Anglo-French tensions with the British ambassador

Charles Whitworth, Bonaparte bluntly presented an iron fist in a velvet glove. Britain and France, Bonaparte informed Whitworth, “by a proper understanding, might govern the world, but their strifes might overturn it.” In the same meeting, however, he mused that he might easily dispatch 25,000 French troops to Aboukir and recapture Egypt at will if he so desired. The only reason he stayed his hand was his desire to avoid appearing the aggressor.54 He apparently made the latter comment in an attempt to

52 Hawkesbury to Whitworth, February 9, 1803, Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 1293-95. As discussions unfolded, the British reduced their demand to maintaining a military presence on the island for a set period of time.

53 Malta represented an important piece to the preliminary negotiations and the definitive treaty, but it was not recognized as vital British interest in 1801-2. Lord Hawkesbury voiced reservations about sacrificing it due to its strategic importance within the Mediterranean, but, much like the Cape of Good Hope, this was the only compelling reason to retain it. As Pitt and others noted in the debates, the eastern Mediterranean was of limited economic value in comparison to East and West Indian trade, which made Ceylon and Trinidad priorities over Malta. Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 40-48. See also, Castlereagh to Hawkesbury, August 19, 1803, in Castlereagh Corr., 5: 75-82.

54 Whitworth to Hawkesbury, February 21, 1803; and Whitworth to Hawkesbury, March 5, 1803, Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 1297-1302, and 1304-5.

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Fig. 5.3. This James Gillray print, from May 1803, depicts Bonaparte as an unhinged and potentially delusional figure as war resumed. The large paper to his right reads “Plan for Invading G!Britain,” which pairs with the papers in the left corner that have fallen from the overturned desk: “List of Future Conquests … Turkey, Persia, China …,” and “pour le Expeditition a la Lune.” (Print by James Gillray. “Maniac Raving’s-or-Little Boney in a Strong Fit,” published by James Gillray, May 24, 1803. Image courtesy of British Museum, Registration Number 1851,0901.1145. ©Trustees of the British Museum.) soothe Britain’s raw nerves, but instead it served only to confirm British suspicions.

Following the collapse of Anglo-French talks in May, the British government publicly released Whitworth’s report of his exchange with Bonaparte, and it featured prominently in the parliamentary debate that followed. Pitt, who reemerged as an active political figure as events moved towards a renewal of war between France and Britain, observed that Bonaparte’s comments “afforded the most indisputable evidence, that the first consul had formed the determination … of resuming his hostile project against

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Egypt.” In an impassioned defense of the government’s handling of the failed Anglo-

French talks, Robert Dallas directly linked the impasse over Malta to Egypt, British India and the defense of “the integrity and security of the British empire!”55

The alarmist language uttered in parliamentary debate vastly overstated the threat posed by Napoleonic France to the British Empire. Castlereagh, who had emphasized denying France a competitive colonial and maritime empire prior to the definitive treaty, believed that French imperial pursuits in St. Domingue had done more damage to French maritime force projection than Britain could have hoped to accomplish. France, he wrote, “[had] made no successful effort to improve or strengthen any other French colony … no progress in restoring her navy at home, or in replenishing her arsenal.” The French expedition to St. Domingue, he argued, had negatively impacted the French Navy by exposing it to be “in a state of Imperfect equipment.”56

Events in the East Indies upon the resumption of hostilities would further demonstrate the impotence of French force projection outside of Europe. Well before

Mornington learned of the complete breakdown of peace in Europe, he had begun preparations for the outbreak of war in British India. In May 1803, he reached an agreement with the Portuguese viceroy, Francesco Anthonio do Viego Cabral, to allow a

55 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 1387-98, and 1420-25. Edward James Kolla, “Not So Criminal: New Understandings of Napoléon’s Foreign Policy in the East,” in French Historical Studies 30, no. 2 (Spring 2007), 175-201.

56 Castlereagh, “Review of the Relative Political Situation of Great Britain and France,” after March 27, 1802; and Castlereagh, “Grounds for the Justification of the British Government, in Case of the Renewal of War,” [1803?], in Castlereagh Corr., 5: 29-38, and 62-72.

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British garrison at the city of Goa, which they occupied on September 3.57 A separate scheme involved Lord Clive, the British governor at Madras, who Mornington directed to allow French troops and ships to land in British controlled areas while peace persisted. The eventual result was the swift British recapture of Pondicherry, and the neutering of the French threat to India by early September.58

Despite his posturing before Whitworth, Bonaparte was well aware of France’s steep disadvantage in imperial-maritime competition with Britain. As British critics of the Anglo-French peace divined, Bonaparte had hoped to construct a French maritime empire stretching from the West Indies to Louisiana with further additions drawn from ceded Spanish territory—in particular, he coveted Florida. These hopes evaporated in the face of French military failure on St. Domingue and Spain’s refusal to part with more of its Atlantic colonies, however.59 Writing years later, while living in exile on St. Helena,

Bonaparte recognized his policy on St. Domingue as a significant misstep, in fact.

Instead of an attempted military conquest, Bonaparte argued, he should have embraced

57 Mornington to Viceroy Francesco Anthonio do Viego Cabral, May 18, 1803, CO 77/30, pp. 96-98, BNA; Mornington to Hobart, November 15, 1803, CO 77/30, pp. 93-94, BNA.

58 Mornington to Lord Clive, July 9, 1803; and W. Bentinck, J. Stuart, W. Petrie, and John Chamier to Mornington, September 1, 1803, CO 77/31, pp. 19 -23, and 73-76, BNA. See also, Mornington to Hobart, November 20, 1803, CO 77/32, pp. 96-103, BNA.

59 Bonaparte’s interest in Florida confirmed Lord Grenville’s fears voiced in the debate over the definitive treaty. Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 231-32. Girard, “Rêves d’Empire.”

176 slave emancipation, which would have created a powerful French ally in the West Indies and a direct threat to the British West Indian slave-based economy.60

As Anglo-French tensions mounted in early 1803, Bonaparte understood that the

British Royal Navy would once again assert control over transatlantic lines of communication with ease and render France’s colonial possessions easy targets for

British naval expeditions.61 This provided the context for the Louisiana Purchase in April

1803, just as the renewal of war in Europe seemed imminent. The sale of the vast track of

North America to the United States served multiple purposes for France. At a surface level, the deal replenished French coffers on the eve of war. A potential additional benefit was that the sudden expansion of the United States might poison Anglo-

American relations and provide a helpful distraction to Britain on the western side of the

Atlantic. Most importantly, however, it divested France of territory it lacked the ability to defend and stood as a striking admission of the futility of France’s imperial pursuits.62

From a British perspective, the Peace of Amiens collapsed largely due to the imperial ambitions of the Bonaparte regime in Paris. That the threat to the British

60 Girard, “Rêves d’Empire.”

61 In early April, in fact, the Admiralty issued orders for Commodore Samuel Hood, commanding in the Leeward Islands, to deny French reinforcements to Martinique. Hood’s orders advised him to ignore smaller vessels and concentrate on any large transport ships he came upon. In the event a French transport ignored Hood’s warning and maintained course for Martinique, Hood had permission to use force and bring the transport into a British port. Hobart to George III, March 31, 1803, in George III Corr., 4: 87; Admiralty to Commodore Samuel Hood, April 1, 1803; and Evan Nepean to Hood, April 5, 1803, ADM 2/1360, BNA

62 Roberts, Napoleon, 324-26; Grainger, The Amiens Truce, 183-86.

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Empire posed by France was greatly exaggerated is irrefutable with the benefit of hindsight, but perception far outweighed reality in Britain at the time. Indeed, there is compelling evidence that Bonaparte desired to avoid war in the spring of 1803, and, in fact, Whitworth reported as much to the British government whilst in the midst of discussions. Nevertheless, the characterization of France as a significant threat to British imperial interests gained mainstream appeal in the year between the ratification of the

Treaty of Amiens in May 1802 and the resumption of hostilities in May 1803. Perhaps more importantly, the French menace gained a personal face in the form of Bonaparte, who either failed to appreciate or did not care how his actions on the Continent and outside of Europe unnerved the British government and public.63

“TILL … THE PEACE OF THE WORLD AGAIN RESTORED”

The dominant feature of the two and a half years following the collapse of the

Peace of Amiens was Bonaparte’s intended invasion of Britain. For all his foibles,

Bonaparte was no fool, and he fully recognized the strategic limitations created by

63 Roberts, Napoleon, 318-24. Whitworth to Hawkesbury, March 18, 1803, Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 1315-16. Paul Schroeder argues that the Treaty of Amiens held out the possibility of a semi-durable peace based on eighteenth-century balance of power standards, but Bonaparte’s actions, more than anything else, removed this possibility. Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, 213-30. For a blunter assessment of Napoleon’s foreign policy by Schroeder, see “Napoleon’s Foreign Policy: A Criminal Enterprise,” The Journal of Military History 54, no. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 147-62. For a more recent work emphasizing Napoleon’s culpability for the conflict that followed the Treaty of Amiens, see Charles Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars: An International History, 1803-1815 (London: Penguin Books, 2008). The historiographic divide over Napoleon and his actions is longstanding. Though dated, see Pieter Geyl, Napoleon, For and Against (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949).

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France’s lack of a credible colonial and maritime presence. Importantly, the notion of a cross-Channel invasion of Britain was not novel to him. In 1798, the French Directory had tasked him with planning an invasion of Britain, but after reviewing the details and difficulties inherent to such an operation he discarded the scheme and opted for his

Egyptian expedition instead.64 When Whitworth left Paris in May 1803, however,

Bonaparte wasted little time in mobilizing against Britain. Within the month, France occupied George III’s hereditary German territory of Hanover. In June, Bonaparte established the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean, which coalesced in training camps along the French and Dutch coastline to prepare for the invasion of Britain.65 Bonaparte’s threatened invasion created an Anglo-French strategic impasse with a center of gravity in the English Channel that would remain static until Austria entered the Third

Coalition against France in August 1805. Nevertheless, the imperial characterization of the Napoleonic regime’s aspirations that emerged during the Peace of Amiens retained a prominent position in how Britons understood the Anglo-French conflict.

Upon the resumption of war, it was evident that the imperial anxiety that animated British angst throughout the period of peace had helped foster a hardened

Francophobia with Bonaparte as its focal point. In turn, this would play a dominant role in characterizing British attitudes throughout the lengthy Napoleonic Wars. Henry

64 Roberts, Napoleon, 158.

65 For an excellent recent analysis on the creation of the Grande Armée, see Michael J. Hughes, Forging Napoleon’s Grande Armée: Motivation, Military Culture, and Masculinity in the French Army, 1800-1808 (New York: New York University Press, 2012). Roberts, Napoleon, 327-32.

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Dundas, made Viscount Melville in 1802, provided an excellent example of this shift in

British attitude. Throughout the French Revolutionary Wars, he had questioned the necessity and importance of regime change in Paris to British interests, even as he oversaw campaigns that expended large volumes of British blood and treasure combatting revolutionary ideology outside of Europe. By December 1803, however, his views had changed radically. Once the European powers had “recover[ed] their senses,” he argued, Britain should “cooperate with other nations in declaring that Europe will not lay down its Arms till the usurped power presently exercised in France is at an end and the Peace of the World again restored and settled on a Solid Basis.”66

It is important to recognize, however, that the British government found itself no less strategically limited than France upon the outbreak of war. The lack of meaningful

French colonial targets meant that Britain had few options for offensive operations other than spoiling descent attacks along the European coastline, which the Admiralty recognized to be of limited efficacy.67 The Admiralty considered but decided against amphibious expeditions to recapture Martinique, St. Lucia, and Tobago, which would have been both costly and irrelevant to defeating France in Europe in the short term.68

66 Viscount Melville to Aleser [?], December 16, 1803, PRO 30/8/157, pp. 265-8, BNA.

67 Nepean to Admiral Lord Keith, June 18, 1802, ADM 2/1360, BNA. Nepean to Keith, August 23, 1803; Admiralty to Keith, October 1, 1803; and Admiralty to Rear-Admiral James Saumarez, October 1, 1803, ADM 2/1361, BNA. Unsigned to Keith, March 20, 1804, ADM 2/1362, BNA. See also, Tom Pocock, The Terror Before Trafalgar: Nelson, Napoleon, and the Secret War (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002).

68 Admiralty to Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, May 16, 1803, ADM 2/1360, BNA. Minor expeditions did sail to recapture the small Atlantic islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon off the coast

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This meant that the Royal Navy had few distractions to pull resources away from its lurking presence in the English Channel, and the British adopted a defensive posture for the most part.69 On this front, widespread public awareness in Britain of the legitimacy of the French invasion threat benefited the British government. In August 1803,

Castlereagh observed to Hawkesbury that the intended French invasion drowned out all other matters in British public opinion, and had spawned a unanimity of public support for the government throughout the country.70

The resumption of the Anglo-French conflict forced Britain to reluctantly accept the necessity of continental engagement. Writing in March 1802, Castlereagh observed that while Britain preferred and excelled at colonial and maritime warfare, it provided little direct leverage for Britain against Napoleonic France.71 The British government also recognized that the lack of continental alliances allowed Bonaparte to concentrate troops along the coastline, which affirmed the British strategic maxim of maintaining continental alliances to diffuse continental threats.72 Indeed, Addington’s government sought to improve diplomatic relations with Russia, in particular. Those efforts

of Canada. Nepean to Vice-Admiral James Gambier, May 23, 1803; and Admiralty to Gambier, June 8, 1803, ADM 2/1360, BNA.

69 Nepean to Rainier, April 7, 1803, ADM 2/1360, BNA.

70 Castlereagh to Hawkesbury, August 19, 1803, Castlereagh Corr., 5: 75-82. Castlereagh was quite sanguine about the French invasion threat. He believed that Britain could not reach a permanent peace settlement with France until after a failed invasion attempt.

71 Castlereagh, “Review of the Relative Political Situation of Great Britain and France,” after March 27, 1802, in Castlereagh Corr., 5: 29-38.

72 Unsigned Memorandum, June 21, 1803, George III Corr., 4: 109-10.

181 developed over time and eventually resulted in Russia’s involvement in the Third

Coalition that drew the newly-minted Grande Armée away from the English Channel in

August 1805, and culminated in the Battle of Austerlitz the following December.73

Despite the duress created by the French invasion threat, the fundamentally imperial nature of the conflict in British minds continued to have vitality. In February

1805, with the Army of the Coasts of the Ocean encamped on the far side of the English

Channel, the celebrated British cartoonist James Gillray published one of his most famous satirical cartoons, “The Plumb-Pudding in Danger: -or- State Epicures Taking un

Petit Souper.” The cartoon shows Pitt and Napoleon, who had held his imperial coronation the previous December, sitting down to carve up a globe made of plumb- pudding. Pitt, dressed in British military regalia, slices off half the globe, beginning his cut just to the west of the British Isles. An eager-eyed Napoleon, too short to make his cut from a seated position, slices off a much smaller piece containing continental Europe.

The scene is fantastical in that it is devoid of animosity, which Gillray underlined with a quotation in the upper right corner that reads: “’the great Globe itself, and all which it inherit’, is too small to satisfy such insatiable appetites.” The cartoon, therefore, worked

73 Charles John Fedorak, “In Search of a Necessary Ally: Addington, Hawkesbury, and Russia, 1801-1804,” International History Review 13, no. 2 (May, 1991), pp. 221-245.

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Fig. 5.4. Print by James Gillray. “The Plumb-Pudding in Danger: -or- State Epicures Taking un Petit Souper,” published by Hannah Humphrey, February 26, 1805. Image courtesy of British Museum, Registration Number 1935,0522.4.103. ©Trustees of the British Museum. as a commentary on the avaricious imperialism of both governments as the root cause of the conflict, while at the same time presenting a harmonious Anglo-French relationship predicated on the division of the globe into their respective spheres of interest and influence. What the Peace of Amiens aimed to create in theory, but failed to accomplish in practice.

On October 20, 1805, the same day that the unfortunate Austrian General Karl

Mack surrendered the fortress of Ulm to the rapidly advancing Grande Armée, a harried

Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve crept out of the Spanish port of Cadiz with a Franco-

Spanish fleet of 33 ships of the line. Waiting beyond the horizon was British Vice-

183

Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson and a British fleet of 27 ships of the line. Upon sighting the British fleet, Villeneuve attempted to return to port, but it was too late. Adopting a highly aggressive tactical disposition, Nelson divided his fleet into two lines of battle in a perpendicular approach to the Franco-Spanish fleet. His plan was to crash through the

Franco-Spanish line and draw the individual ships into melee actions, which both mitigated Villeneuve’s advantage in ships and maximized the British advantage in seamanship. It proved devastatingly effective. Nelson, mortally wounded by a sniper during the battle, died knowing he had won a signal victory. The British captured 21 ships, and suffered 1,666 casualties compared to 13,781 for the Franco-Spanish fleet.74

The threat of French invasion had evaporated two months earlier with Austria’s reemergence as a belligerent, but the Battle of Trafalgar provided an exclamation point at the end of the period begun when Henry Addington assumed the premiership and announced his intent to negotiate with Revolutionary France. Despite the preeminent role of British colonial interests to both the British debate surrounding the Treaty of

Amiens and the resumption of hostilities, the ensuing Anglo-French conflict centered on the English Channel as opposed to the imperial periphery. This strategic reality demonstrated the truth of Canning’s argument before the House of Commons in May

1803 that a selfish and blinkered focus on British imperial interests was not without cost, and that continental detachment created challenges for managing the threat posed by

Napoleonic France.75 Importantly, however, this was an argument concerning the

74 Rodger, Command of the Ocean, 538-44.

75 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 1424-37.

184 necessities of war with the Napoleonic regime in Europe, not an argument for why war was necessary or what it should be fought for.

Throughout the French Revolutionary Wars, the British struggled to articulate a clear response to the regime in Paris. The majority of the British political class sided with

Pitt’s government in deeming the various revolutionary governments in France as unstable entities that threatened overall continental stability. It was unclear, however, whether the threat posed by the revolutionary regimes in France extended to Britain in any direct sense, which muddled the strategic response of the British government. The inability to form a consistent answer to this question eventually resulted in the cabinet- level feud over continental and imperial strategies that divided Pitt’s government during the War of the Second Coalition.

An important outcome of the British debate over the Treaty of Amiens and the short- lived peace it created was the dissolution of the continental and imperial strategic division in British thought. To a certain extent, this reflected the fact that the Napoleonic regime consciously sought to distance itself from revolutionary ideology and reestablish aspects of the French ancien régime as Napoleon constructed his imperial aura, which created a stable focal point for British attention that had been absent throughout the

1790s.76 This allowed opponents of peace to define the French state—as opposed to intangible target of French revolutionary ideology—as an explicit threat to Britain’s imperial interests. Proponents of peace successfully countered these criticisms in 1801-2,

76 Hughes, Forging Napoleon’s Grande Armée, 136-62.

185 aided to no small degree by a British society desperate for a respite from war.

Significantly, however, the characterization of Napoleonic France as a threat to the security of the British Empire provided a positive argument that regime change in

France served “British” interests. As Britons increasingly came to view the Napoleonic regime as an aspirational global empire as opposed to a containable continental threat, therefore, a common ground emerged that joined the competing camps of continental and imperial-maritime strategic preference.

186

CHAPTER 6

THE LIMITS OF MARITIME HEGEMONY, 1806-9

In the early morning hours of January 23, 1806, William Pitt the Younger passed away. His death wrote a close to a quarter century of political preeminence. It also came at an ominous moment in time. Napoleon’s victory over a combined Austro-Russian army at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, had deflated the euphoria created by the British naval victory at Trafalgar on October 21. Indeed, some believed that news of the French success in early January hastened Pitt’s demise.1

Pitt’s death at the age of only forty-six ushered Britain into a period of political turmoil and transition, but the impact on British policy proved only marginal. To replace

Pitt’s government, George III turned to the familiar figure of Lord Grenville to lead a grouping of political luminaries pulled from various factions that became known to history as the Ministry of All Talents. The Talents enjoyed mixed results, and managed to hold together for a mere thirteen months before giving way to a government formed behind the figurehead of the aging Duke of Portland. Significantly, George Canning and

Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, two prominent protégés of Pitt, joined Portland’s government in the roles of Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for War and the

1 John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt, Volume Three: The Consuming Struggle (London: Constable, 1996), 819-29.

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Colonies, respectively. Castlereagh, in particular, harbored a deep intellectual debt to

Pitt’s views on the war with France.2

Little difference existed in the strategic environments faced by the Talents and

Portland’s government. For each the strategic problem was one that historian Paul

Kennedy insightfully characterized as a conflict between “the whale and the elephant.”

Kennedy went on, “British control of the sea routes could not by itself destroy the

French hegemony in Europe, nor could Napoleon’s military mastery reduce the islanders to surrender.” Perhaps no period of the Anglo-French conflict exemplified this conundrum better than the one in which the Talents and Portland’s ministry toiled. The

British naval victory at Trafalgar left continental navies bereft of the necessary ships of the line to challenge British naval supremacy. Though Napoleon worked diligently to rebuild continental naval losses, this British advantage proved lasting. Indeed, this was a reality that both sides explicitly accepted at the time. In spring 1806, Britain issued an

Order-in-Council placing the Continent under blockade, to which an exasperated

Napoleon responded with the creation of the Continental System. Neither policy could or would end hostilities on its own, so both sides effectively resorted to expanding and

2 Castlereagh owed a great deal of his strategic outlook to both Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville as of 1802, and Pitt. Far from a staunch counter-revolutionary, he supported a more “British” strategic outlook than one concentrated on continental warfare and the defeat of France. John Bew, Castlereagh: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 47-48, 183-86, 575. See also, Wendy Hinde, George Canning (London: Collins, 1973); and Wendy Hinde, Castlereagh (London: Collins, 1981).

188 policing their respective hegemonies on land and sea in a conflict increasingly devoid of respect for neutrality by either side.3

Despite important contrasts in outlook between the Talents and Portland’s ministry, each government struggled to fully understand and conform to the limits of

British force projection in the early nineteenth century. The Talents, with Charles James

Fox as Foreign Secretary, desired and engaged in futile negotiations for peace with

Napoleon, and, therefore, adopted a passive policy towards the Continent.4 In July 1806, however, the unauthorized capture of Buenos Aires by a British amphibious force involved the Talents in South America. Under the direction of William Windham,

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, the British government articulated a rational and limited set of goals for South America at first, but this soon gave way to increasingly grandiose and ill-conceived plans for the conquest of the entire continent under pressure from British popular sentiment and dreams of economic gain. The result was a disastrous military expedition, and the significant weakening of British influence in

South America in the short term. Spurred on by the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit in July

3 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Vintage Books, 1987), 124. Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York: Viking, 2014), 427-31. Richard Glover, “The French Fleet, 1807-1814; Britain’s Problem; and Madison’s Opportunity,” The Journal of Modern History 39, no. 3 (September, 1967), 233-252. Kenneth G. Johnson, “Se trouver en mesure dans la Méditerranée: Napoleon’s Mediterranean Naval Strategy, 1808-1812,” (Paper presented at the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850, University of Mississippi, Oxford, February 22, 2014).

4 Charles James Fox was the key enabling element to these peace negotiations. His death in September 1806 effectively ended any chance for peace. Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York: Viking, 2014), 400-1.

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1807, the Portland’s ministry pursued a zealous defense of British maritime hegemony by extending the maritime conflict into European ports in an effort to remove or destroy any ships of the line that Napoleon might deploy against them. This strategy proved quite successful in limited operations when it targeted Copenhagen on the island of

Zealand, and the friendly Portuguese port of Lisbon. These early successes, however, bred overconfidence and disaster when Britain ambitiously attempted to destroy the maritime capabilities housed in the Scheldt Estuary at Flushing and Antwerp.

The common thread that linked the strategic failures of the Talents and the Duke of Portland’s government was the seductive influence of maritime and imperial paradigms and their concomitant maritime and imperial strategies active in Britain at the dawn of the nineteenth century. A sometimes naïve embrace of these “blue water” strategies existed in both a wider public consciousness along with an entrenched position within the institutional memory of the British government. When shrewdly applied, British maritime force projection could return great reward with only a limited outlay of personnel and materiel, but this same calculus could and did invite strategic overreach with calamitous results.

THE TALENTS AND THE “CONTIGUOUS” ATLANTIC

On the morning of March 6, 1807, Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham sat at the lower end of a table in the state cabin of HMS Gladiator at anchor in Portsmouth Harbor.

At the other end of the table sat an admiral, four vice- and rear-admirals each, and four

190 captains. Present in the cabin were a group of witnesses and reporters.5 The occasion was Popham’s court-martial. Just shy of a year prior, Popham had set sail without orders from Table Bay off Cape Colony with an expeditionary force to capture Buenos

Aires, then part of the Spanish Empire. On the surface, one might simply paint this episode as an example of a Royal Navy officer having gone rogue. Thomas Grenville,

First Lord of the Admiralty in early 1807, labeled Popham’s actions “buccaneering” the same day that his court-martial commenced.6 Popham’s expedition, however, cannot be so easily dismissed.

One of the more compelling aspects of Popham’s unauthorized expedition to

South America in 1806 was the widespread embrace and celebration of the act in

London. News of the expedition and capture of Buenos Aires arrived over the summer and fall of 1806. As ministers processed this information it caused a great deal of consternation, but the acquisition of the South American city did not dismay them.

Quite the contrary, the British government began to formulate expansive plans to consolidate its hold over South America, and the public was jubilant over the acquisition of a new jewel for the British Empire.

While aspects of the episode bordered on the absurd, British interest in Spain’s

South American empire was well established. This rested on multiple justifications, but

5 “Court Martial On Sir Home Popham.” Times, March 9, 1807, pg. 3, Issue 6990, col E. Gale Group Databases. http://www.infotrac.galegropu.com.libproxy.temple.edu. [All Times material accessed from this database.]

6 Thomas Grenville to Marquess Buckingham, March 6, 1807, in John D. Grainger, ed., The Royal Navy in the River Plate, 1806-1807 (Aldershot, UK: Scholar Press, 1996), 169.

191 the most important were commercial factors closely tied both to support of the war in

Europe and the economic connective tissue of Britain’s developing global empire. To top matters off, the explicit connection between Spain and France prior to the outbreak of the Peninsular War meant that South American revenue represented both a boon to

British finances and a blow to those of their enemy. Nevertheless, Popham’s expedition signified a clear example of the imperial tail wagging the metropolitan dog.

The journey that culminated in Popham’s court-martial began on a well-trodden

British path. In late 1805 and early 1806, Popham participated in a military expedition to recapture Cape Colony, which the Treaty of Amiens returned to the Batavian Republic in 1802. Castlereagh made clear to both Popham and Major-General Sir David Baird that the purpose of the expedition was the defense of British India. Indeed, in the event they failed in their attempt to capture the colony, Castlereagh directed Baird to forward on the 38th and 93rd Regiments to reinforce India. In early September, concern developed in

London that a confederation had arisen in India against British power, which compelled

Castlereagh to draw up orders for Baird to detach the regiments to India whether he held Cape Colony or not. In the event the expedition succeeded and Baird held the colony, Castlereagh demanded that he “[transmit] immediate notice thereof to me, in order that adequate reinforcements may be sent out to join you.” Intelligence arrived shortly thereafter that the threat to India had diminished, and it was unlikely that Baird would need to break up his force for its defense. Nevertheless, Popham and Baird should have sailed for the southern Atlantic with little doubt that their priority was to the east, not west. On January 10, 1806, the British force succeeded in subduing the

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Dutch defenders, and assumed the tedious duty of defending the strategically important colony.7

After two and a half months stationed off Cape Colony, a bored and restless

Popham seized an opportunity for action. In late March 1806, an American merchant wrote to Popham extolling the virtues of an attack on Buenos Aires. He argued that

Britain could achieve possession with relative ease and a small force, and that the potential profits of such an expedition would be significant for the British. He even offered to join the expedition and “be one of the five hundred men to attack either”

Buenos Aires or Montevideo. Based upon the correspondence that followed, this appears to have been all the justification Popham needed to organize an operation destined for South America. Popham quickly brought the idea before Baird, who released Brigadier-General William Carr Beresford along with the 71st Regiment to join

Popham on the expedition.8

Upon arrival at St. Helena in the South Atlantic in late April, Popham learned of the death of his political patron, William Pitt, which elicited a slightly panicked justification for his actions. Writing to William Marsden, Secretary of the Admiralty,

Popham provided a clear window into his understanding of how his expedition furthered British interests. Popham’s argument rested on three pillars. First, he cited the

7 Viscount Castlereagh to Marquess Cornwallis, 10 September 1805; Castlereagh to Major- General Sir David Baird, July 26, 1805; Castlereagh to Baird, September 10, 1805; and Castlereagh to Lords of the Admiralty, October 18, 1805, in Castlereagh Corr., 6: 142, 139, 146-7, and 148.

8 T. Waine to Captain Sir Home Popham, March 28, 1806; and Popham to William Marsden, April 13, 1806, in Royal Navy in the River Plate, 16-17, and 19-20.

193 fact that expeditions to Spanish South America had “been so long in agitation” by various individuals in Britain, and he saw little reason why the British government would not support such an expedition at present. His second argument sought to tie an expedition to Buenos Aires to the possession and defense of the Cape of Good Hope. In a sweeping argument, Popham labeled Buenos Aires “contiguous” to the Cape of Good

Hope, and suggested that the African colony required the grain trade of the South

American city. Popham’s final argument rested squarely on commercial gains he expected for British merchants. Citing the “burning testimonies of the merchants of

London,” Popham argued that possession of the port city would grant access to “a great proportion of the wealth of Chili and Peru.” With that, Popham and Beresford set sail across the Atlantic with their small force of roughly 1,600 men.9

At the outset, Popham’s expedition proceeded as well as the American merchant had promised. After departing St. Helena on May 2, the British expedition arrived off the South American coastline of Rio de la Plata on June 8 and began preparations to disembark troops. After a respite of six days to catch their breath, Popham and

Beresford decided to attack Buenos Aires as opposed to Montevideo, and troops began to move amongst the British vessels in preparation for an amphibious landing and

9 Popham to Melville, April 30, 1806; and Popham to Marsden, April 30, 1806, in Royal Navy in the River Plate, 28-9, and 26-8. On Popham’s attention to grain supply for Cape Colony, see: John Lynch, “British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-1808,” in Journal of Latin American Studies 1:1 (May 1969), 1-30. Popham to William Huskisson [?], February 19, 1801, Add MS 38736, vol. 3, fol. 283-84, BL. Popham was not the only British officer to comment on the poor agricultural state of Cape Colony. Captain Sir Roger Curtis to Spencer, January 12, 1800; and Curtis to Spencer, October 10, 1800, in Spencer Papers, 4: 207-10, 232-7.

194 assault on the city. On July 2, Buenos Aires fell to the British after putting up minor resistance, with the British suffering a small number of casualties. The two commanders, flush with victory, dispatched word of their success to London, and began to consolidate their newly won prize.10

As events unfolded off Rio de la Plata, a flustered British government scrambled to determine a response to the unauthorized expedition. On June 24, Popham’s letters written while at St. Helena on April 30 reached London.11 After a month’s consideration, a frustrated William Windham sent orders to Beresford which avoided specifics due to his ignorance of the state of affairs on the far side of the Atlantic. Windham stressed to

Beresford, however, that he and Popham should avoid occupying any territory if they had not done so already, and merely “maintain” themselves for the time being. The primary concern of the British government at this stage, Windham warned, was that the expedition “might incur the Imputation of wishing to promote internal Dissensions, and excite Insurrection against the Government.” If Beresford did not wish to operate under such constraints, he was to take leave and return home immediately. In either case,

Windham desired that Beresford return any superfluous troops to their stations on St.

Helena and the Cape of Good Hope. The Admiralty adopted a far sterner position, and

10 Popham to Marsden, July 8, 1806; and Popham to Marsden, July 8, 1806, in Royal Navy in the River Plate, 37-39, and 39-40.

11 “House of Commons, Friday, Dec. 19.” Times, December 20, 1806, pg. 2, Issue 6923, col C.

195 dispatched Rear-Admiral Charles Stirling to relieve Popham of command, and cooperate with Beresford in following Windham’s orders.12

News of the capture of Buenos Aires, however, transformed the sense in London upon its arrival in early September. On September 13, The Times proclaimed the capture

“one of the most important events of the present war.”13 The following day, in a letter to

Lord Lauderdale, then serving as Britain’s representative in ongoing peace talks, Prime

Minister Lord Grenville expressed his hope that news of the capture of Buenos Aires would “facilitate peace.” A week later, Lauderdale’s secretary wrote back to Grenville,

“The news of Buenos Ayres is exactly what was dreaded here, and it has made a great impression.”14 Reflecting this new reality, Windham dispatched additional orders to

Beresford on September 21. Returning to the themes of his July 24 orders, Windham highlighted the British government’s concern over the possible outbreak of insurrection in South America and the necessity of “a very superior force” to suppress any such development. These concerns “induced” the British government to reinforce Beresford, who was to do everything in his power to maintain the existing class and political

12 Windham to Brigadier-General Beresford, July 24, 1806, WO 6/3, pp. 3-7, BNA. Admiralty to Popham, July 28, 1806; and Admiralty to Rear-Admiral Charles Stirling, July 28, 1806, in ADM 2/1364, pp. 15-16, and 16-20, BNA. In conjunction with these orders, Brigadier- General Sir Samuel Auchmuty received orders to assume command of 1,972 men destined to be reinforcements for Beresford. Events rendered these orders obsolete before Stirling and Auchmuty sailed, however. Windham to Auchmuty, July 24, 1806; and Windham to Beresford, August 6, 1806, WO 6/3, pp. 7-9, and 14-15, BNA.

13 “Capture of Buenos Ayres.” Times, September 13, 1806, pg. 2, Issue 6841, col D.

14 Lord Grenville to Lord Lauderdale, September 14, 1806; C. Goddard to Grenville, September 22, 1806, in Royal Navy in the River Plate, 123.

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Fig. 6.1. A testament to the British reaction to word of Britain’s capture of Buenos Aires. In this James Gillray cartoon, an irate Napoleon swings an urn at Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French Minister of Foreign Affairs. The papers flying from Talleyrand’s hand read: “Defaite de l’Armée de France en Calabria,” and “la Prise de Buenos-Ayres.” On the right side of the image, Gillray included representations of various other challenges faced by Napoleon. (Cartoon by James Gillray. “News from Calabrial –capture of Buenos Ayres! –i.e.- the comforts of an Imperial déjeuné at St Cloud’s,” published by Hannah Humphrey, September 13, 1806. Image courtesy of the British Museum, Registration Number 1868,0808.7486. ©Trustees of the British Museum.) structure. The one notable exception, of course, was the substitution of British for

Spanish authority.15

Adding further pressure to the British government was the level of public excitement over the capture of Buenos Aires. On September 15, The Times trumpeted,

“Buonoparte must be convinced that nothing but a speedy peace can prevent the whole

15 Windham to Beresford, September 21, 1806, WO 6/3, pp. 27-41, BNA.

197 of Spanish America from being wrested from his influence, and placed for ever under the protection of the British Empire.” The article went on, “By such an union we should have a never-failing market for our commodities, and our enemies would be for ever deprived of the power of adding the resources of those rich countries to their other means of annoying us.” Throughout September similar articles appeared extolling the benefits of Buenos Aires; reporting on the arrival of prize money sent home by Popham and Beresford; and noting discussions of the Board of Trade concerning trade between

Britain and Buenos Aires.16 Such celebratory commentary was not confined to newspapers, as demonstrated by the communities of the industrial cities of Manchester and Salford convening to express public thanks. A concerned Lord Grenville observed to Lord Lauderdale that sacrificing Buenos Aires at the peace table may prove difficult due to public response “trumpeted up … by Popham and his agents.”17

While Popham was not entirely responsible for the British public reaction, there is no doubt he played a prominent role in stoking public support for the capture of

Buenos Aires. In addition to the official correspondence sent back to London, Popham also sent word directly to the British merchant community. In one letter, dated July 19,

Popham informed the merchants of Manchester that the days of British trade reaching

16 “London.” Times, September 15, 1806, pg. 2, Issue 6842, col A. “Buenos Ayres.” Times, September 16, 1806, pg. 2, Issue 6843, col B.; “Portsmouth, (Wednesday) Sept. 17.” Times, September 19, 1806, pg 3, Issue 6845, col B.; “Buenos Ayres.” Times, September 25, 1806, pg. 3, Issue 6850, col C.; and “London.” Times, September 26, 1806, pg. 2, Issue 6851, col B.

17 Lord Grenville to Lauderdale, September 22, 1806, Royal Navy in the River Plate, 122-23.

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Buenos Aires only through “neutral bottoms and contraband intrigues” was over.18 On

September 22, the British government moved to officially open direct commercial intercourse with Buenos Aires, and British merchant houses moved quickly to send agents and ships to gain access to the region’s trade.19

Part of Lord Grenville’s concern about public opinion rested in where his mind led him in the weeks after word of the capture reached London. As noted, Grenville’s immediate hope was that the capture of Buenos Aires would help facilitate an acceptable peace with France. In his mind, however, it was quite likely that such a peace would necessitate the British handing Buenos Aires back to Spain. In a letter to Lord Howick,

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he observed that it was possible that they could leverage Buenos Aires to achieve the restoration of Naples, but demand free trade with the city as a condition of its return. In this same letter, Grenville explicitly acknowledged the perceived importance of South America to war on the Continent, noting that “we, by the possession of South America, cut off [France’s] best resource for carrying” on the war.20 On October 1, Grenville responded to a letter from Lauderdale seeking directions

18 Popham to the “Mayor and Corporations” of Manchester, July 19, 1806, Royal Navy in the River Plate, 123.

19 Windham to Beresford, September 22, 1806; George Shee to Beresford, October 8, 1806; Shee to Beresford, October 29, 1806; Shee to Beresford, November 6, 1806; Shee to Beresford, October 20, 1806; Shee to Beresford November 14, 1806; Shee to Beresford, November 25, 1806; Windham to Beresford, December 6, 1806; and Shee to Beresford, December 11, 1806, WO 6/3, pp. 17-27, BNA. In the end, Popham’s public advertisement to the British merchant community backfired. The loss of Buenos Aires resulted in losses for merchants that had heeded his call, which eventually resulted in merchants claiming Popham was liable due to his representations about trade in Rio de la Plata. “A Statement of the Grounds on which Shippers to the River Plate May Claim Relief From Government.” Times, September 22, 1807, pg. 3, Issue 7159, col C.

20 Lord Grenville to Lord Howick, September 29, 1806, in Dropmore Papers, 8: 368-9.

199 for how to handle Buenos Aires in negotiations with France. Grenville informed

Lauderdale that he should consider Buenos Aires a British possession, but he was “not sanguine enough to expect to retain it, without other sacrifices which we should not be willing to make. That was what I meant by its being made useful to the acquisition of peace.” While The Times may have been declaring Buenos Aires a new portion of the

British Empire, Britain’s prime minister was planning to part with it at the peace table for other considerations.21

Despite Lord Grenville’s measured response to the capture of Buenos Aires, his government was not immune to the imperial fever percolating in London. A mere two days after he suggested to Lauderdale that Britain should sacrifice Buenos Aires,

Grenville wrote to his brother, the Marquess Buckingham, about a proposed expedition to attack Mexico from both the Atlantic and Pacific. This line of thought persisted within the British government until February 1807, when ministers drew up a full proposal for

20,000 men from all corners of the empire. This grandiose plan involved not only the capture of Mexico, but also the capture of Manila as well.22 On October 30, 1806, emboldened by the capture of Buenos Aires, Windham dispatched orders to Brigadier-

General Robert Crauford for a South American expedition. With a force of only 4,001 men, Windham directed Crauford to capture “the sea ports and fortresses and [reduce]

21 Lord Grenville to Lord Lauderdale, October 1, 1806, Dropmore Papers, 8: 368-9.

22 Lord Grenville to Buckingham, October 3, 1806; and “Spanish America Memorandum,” likely written in February 1807, in Royal Navy in the River Plate, 128-29, and 157-60.

200 the province of Chili.” On November 10, Rear-Admiral Sir George Murray received his orders attaching him to Crauford’s expedition.23

Importantly, such reactions were not confined to London. In Jamaica, a member of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Eyre Coote’s staff produced a series of documents in late

1806 which outlined both strategies and the potential for greater gains from the conquest of Buenos Aires. The author, possibly Brigadier-General Charles Shipley, argued that any advantages the British might expect from the region would “be incomplete” until the British reduced Peru. This was due to the fact that Spanish loyalists would not

“[submit] till they see their hopes vanish by the Establishment of the British Government on the West as well as the East side of the Andes.” Thus, an expedition to the west coast was a necessary step. Similar to the proposed expedition under the command of

Crauford, he argued that a force of only 5,000 men could capture the west coast.24

In another document, Shipley made explicit arguments for the incorporation of

South America into the British imperial system. Citing the uncomfortable necessity of trade with the United States to supply the staple crop economies of the West Indies,

Shipley outlined a trading network in which the South American provinces would

23 William Windham to Brigadier-General Robert Craufurd, October 30, 1806; and Admiralty Orders to Murray, 10 November 1806, ibid., 136-37, and 143-44.

24 Brigadier-General Charles Shipley [?], “Remarks Relative to Peru,” c. late 1806, box 9, fol. 51, Sir Eyre Coote Papers, WCL. In the year 1806, Shipley, a colonel in the Royal Engineers, was present on Jamaica surveying the island for the Board of Ordnance. “Shipley, Sir Charles (1755–1815),” Roger T. Stearn in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP, 2004); online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, January 2008, http://www.oxforddnb.com.libproxy.temple.edu/view/article/25408 (accessed April 14, 2015).

201 assume that role while also being part of an enclosed British mercantile system. Britain, therefore, should capture and retain the South American provinces “at all events so as to become permanent dependencies of the British Empire.” This represented nothing less than a bold argument for the reconstruction of the eighteenth-century British Empire with South American possessions standing in for the lost North American colonies. This reasoning also echoed the argument made by Popham on St. Helena, with the only difference being the West Indies standing in for the Cape of Good Hope.25

In December 1806, whispers of disaster began to circulate in London. The veracity of the claims was uncertain, but Lord Howick privately observed to Lord

Grenville that the reports “[bore] too strong marks of authenticity.” On January 5, 1807,

The Times ran an article concerning the rumors, and admitted that they were likely true, but absolved the current government of blame. On January 24, official word arrived from Rio de la Plata in the form of a dispatch from Popham. On August 10, 1806, an insurrection had overwhelmed the small force commanded by Popham and Beresford.

Despite the British government’s initial hesitation to embrace Popham’s expedition and fear of indigenous insurrection, news of the loss of Buenos Aires prodded a significant shift in strategic priorities. The government had not been idle as rumor began to arrive concerning Popham and Beresford’s fate. On January 2, the

Admiralty altered Rear-Admiral Murray’s orders. Rather than make his way directly to the west coast of South America, he was now to head for the Rio de la Plata and assess

25 Shipley [?], “Remarks Relative to South America,” c. 1806, box 9, fol. 55, Sir Eyre Coote Papers, WCL.

202 the situation. If the British had lost Buenos Aires, he was to prioritize its recapture.

Additionally, the government pulled reinforcements from Cape Colony to support the renewed effort in South America.26

What transpired off Rio de la Plata following the initial success of Popham and

Beresford need only be quickly summarized. After word of the capture of Buenos Aires reached London on September 13, Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Stirling and Brigadier-

General Sir Samuel Auchmuty sailed with orders to replace Popham and Beresford.

Stirling and Auchmuty arrived off Buenos Aires on December 3, 1806, only to find the city lost and Beresford along with his troops marched inland as prisoners of war following the outbreak of a revolt against British authority. The British captured

Montevideo in early February 1807, which gave them a toehold but little more.

Auchmuty gave up command of the British troops upon the arrival of Lieutenant-

General John Whitelocke on March 10. Whitelocke attempted to recapture Buenos Aires by assault on July 5. When the attempt failed, he agreed to vacate the region.

Whitelocke’s poor showing in the field and even poorer negotiations would ultimately cost him his career. Disgraced by failure, Whitelocke returned to Britain in November, and found himself cashiered from the army in January 1808.27

26 New Orders for Murray, January 2, 1807, Royal Navy in the River Plate, 153-54.

27 “Whitelocke, John (1757–1833),” John D. Grainger in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP, 2004); online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, January 2008, http://www.oxforddnb.com.libproxy.temple.edu/view/article/29300 (accessed April 11, 2015).

203

At the same time that Whitelocke struggled to rectify the British position in the

Rio de la Plata, a public debate swirled in London concerning Popham’s decision to take a British force there in the first place. Given the continued effort by the British government to conquer Buenos Aires, there was little doubt that the city remained an important objective. The Times writer covering Popham’s court-martial, which ran March

6-11, published a highly critical piece on Popham and his defenders on March 16. The defense of Popham, the writer argued, amounted to little more than the ends justifying means. Moreover, such arguments made little sense given the ultimate end of Popham’s expedition. The author then turned to Popham himself. Advancing an argument almost identical to the one made by Windham in July 1806, the writer lambasted Popham for inciting an insurrection due to the insufficient size of his force. He went on, “The whole result of the expedition appears to be, that the officers who planned it have made their private fortunes by it, that the troops they carried thither are all prisoners of war, and that we have a much more difficult task to perform in South America than we had previous to this short-lived capture.” Notably, the value and importance of Buenos Aires was not up for debate, merely Popham’s recklessness in attacking it.28

AN IMPERIALIST STRATEGY?

Britain’s South American adventures took place during a critical period of the

Napoleonic Wars. As Popham sailed with the expedition to the Cape of Good Hope in

28 “Trial Of Sir Home Popham,” Times, March 16, 1807, pg. 3, Issue 6995, col A.

204 the fall of 1805, the battles of Trafalgar, October 21, and Austerlitz, December 2, took place. In October 1806, as the British government mulled the news of Buenos Aires’ capture, the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt resulted in a devastating French victory over Prussia. Following his defeat of Prussia, Napoleon moved against Russia and won a tactical victory at Eylau in a blizzard on February 7-8, 1807, and then decisively defeated the Russians at Friedland on June 14. A humbled and angry Tsar Alexander I then signed the Treaty of Tilsit on July 7, which left Britain isolated in Europe. Word of the treaty arrived in London on July 12, a week after Whitelocke’s failed attempt to recapture Buenos Aires.29

Given the deteriorating situation on the Continent, then, how was it possible for a politically partisan naval officer to hijack British policy into an ambitious South

American agenda? An interpretation put forward by one historian is that the Talents’ policy amounted to that of an “’imperialist’ maritime strategy.”30 There is certainly some weight to this assessment, but, in truth, very little that occurred derived from anything resembling a positive and active agenda on the part of the Talents. A better explanation might be to focus on the state of the British government at the time. The death of Pitt in

29 Canning to Gower, July 22, 1807, in A. N. Ryan, ‘Documents Relating to the Copenhagen Operation, 1807,’ in N. A. M. Rodger, ed., The Naval Miscellany vol. 5 (London: Naval Records Society, 1984), 307.

30 Martin Robson, Britain, Portugal and South America in the Napoleonic Wars: Alliances and Diplomacy in Economic Maritime Conflict (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 100. Not entirely without reason, historians have generally ignored or criticized British involvement in South America. For a good example, see Charles Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars: An International History (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 261-69.

205 early 1806 brought about a period of considerable ministerial turnover until the Duke of

Portland assumed the premiership at the end of March 1807.31 This, combined with the unexpected nature of Popham’s expedition, left British ministers chasing after events as opposed to directing them, and allowed institutional memory to play a more prominent role in decision making than it might have otherwise.

The idea of a British expedition to South America had circulated in London for some time prior to 1806, and, in fact, Popham had been a central figure in those discussions. At some point his close connection to Pitt brought him into contact with

Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan conman, military officer, and aspiring South

American nationalist in search of support from the British government. Miranda and

Popham had fundamentally different goals in South America, but the relationship meant enough to Popham that he invited Miranda to join him in Buenos Aires shortly after the city’s capture.32 In November 1803, Popham wrote a secret paper on South America outlining the case for an expedition. The concern, as Popham explained, was that France would gain possession or control over Spain’s South American colonies, and use those

31 From January 1806 to April 1807, two men held the post of Secretary for War and the Colonies (Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh; William Windham; and Castlereagh again), four men served as First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord Barham; Sir Charles Grey, who became Lord Howick in office; Thomas Grenville; and Lord Mulgrave), and four men served as Foreign Secretary (Lord Mulgrave; Charles James Fox, who died in office in September 1806; Lord Howick; and George Canning).

32 Francisco de Miranda is an enigmatic and colorful figure. He developed a close relationship with William Pitt, but it proved unproductive for meeting Miranda’s nationalistic goals. For biographical treatments, see Karen Racine, Francisco de Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2003); and Robert Harvey, Liberators: Latin America’s Struggle for Independence 1810-1830 (New York: Overlook Press, 2000), 19-59. Popham to Francisco de Miranda, July 20, 1806, in River Plate, 50-51.

206 resources to support the war effort in Europe. Conversely, if the British possessed or controlled South America, they could reverse the commercial advantage, and grant the

“greatest commercial advantages” to British India as well. Buenos Aires was the obvious target for the French, and, therefore, the natural first option for the British to pursue.

Writing to Charles Philip Yorke, the Home Secretary, Popham suggested that a tacit understanding had existed with Henry Dundas that Popham would lead an expedition to South America originating from the Red Sea when he left for that location in late

1800.33

During Popham’s court-martial, Dundas provided testimony that supported many of Popham’s claims. Indeed, Dundas testified that Popham’s involvement in South

American planning had resumed in November 1804. Dundas, who had been First Lord of the Admiralty in 1804, noted he had a “most anxious” interest in the South American market “from the time [he] had occasion to take the public concerns under [his] more immediate consideration.” Dundas, however, was explicit that Popham had no set understanding justifying the expedition to South America. “I do not believe,” he testified, “that his Majesty’s government collectively, had ever come to any resolution of making an attack on South America[.]”34

33 “Secret Paper on South America,” Popham to Secretary Yorke, November 26, 1803, Castlereagh Corr., 7: 288-93.

34 Sir Home Riggs Popham, “A Full and Correct Report of the Trial of Sir Home Popham…,” (London: Printed for J. and J. Richardson, Royal Exchange; C. Chapple, Pall-Mall, 1807), 156-7, 163.

207

It was fitting that Dundas testified at Popham’s trial as he had provided perhaps the most cogent recent argument in favor of British involvement in South America.

Dundas’ March 1800 memorandum in the midst of the fierce policy debate with Lord

Grenville during the War of the Second Coalition made extensive arguments for British involvement in South America. Indeed, the document went so far as to advocate for expeditions to the east and west coast of the continent emanating from the Atlantic and

Pacific, which provides some evidentiary support to Popham’s claim that he was to lead an expedition to South America in late 1800. In the memorandum, Dundas disdained

“all plan of Conquest or Colonization.” Rather, he proposed “to secure to this Country

Commercial Stations in such Positions … to open to us gradually and permanently, a

Commercial Intercourse with the Inhabitants of the rich Provinces of the Continent of

South America.” In short, believing that the Spanish Empire rested on its deathbed,

Dundas wished to tap into new trade markets while avoiding any direct involvement in the political turmoil to come. By 1806, Dundas’ public career was over, but both Lord

Grenville and William Windham would have read the memorandum in 1800, and one can see echoes of Dundas’ arguments in Windham’s hesitant orders to Beresford in July

1806.35

Looking at South American plans produced in the decades prior to Popham’s expedition suggests a consistency in strategic thought with that of 1806-7. In 1780, during the War of American Independence, Colonel William Fullarton penned a plan for

35 “Memorandum for the Consideration of His Majesty’s Ministers,” March 31, 1800, Box 5, Henry Dundas Melville Papers, 1771-1831, Rubenstein Library, Duke University.

208 an assault on the western coast of South America. This plan called for troops to depart from India and make the trans-Pacific voyage in an effort to open South America’s trade to Britain’s East Indian possessions.36 An analogous plan emerged in 1790 during the

Nootka Sound Crisis.37 Writing to Pitt, Sir Archibald Campbell proposed an expedition sail from British India, but in his plan the force would capture Spanish possessions in the Philippines prior to making the voyage across the Pacific Ocean—an idea that drew upon the successful British capture of Manila in 1762 and resurfaced in 1806-7. Once on the west coast of South America, a contingent of troops from Jamaica would join the force from India for an assault on “Mexico and the Western Coast of South America.”

Capturing Buenos Aires in Campbell’s plan required a third expedition, which would sail from Europe.38

36 Colonel William Fullarton, “Extract of a Proposal for an Expedition to South America by India,” June 2, 1780, WO 1/178, 195-97, BNA. The document group is largely made up of files related to the plans for the proposed South American expedition in 1797. Fullarton was still active by the early 1800s. In 1796 he had been attached to a possible expedition to South America under the command of Lord Hugh Seymour, and received consideration for the post on the island of Madeira. Lord Hobart to George III, June 21, 1801; King’s Reply, June 22, 1801; and Hobart to George III, June 22, 1801, in George III Corr., 3: 560-62.

37 On the Nootka Sound crisis, see Jeremy Black, British Foreign Policy in an Age of Revolutions, 1783-1793 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 225-56; and John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Years of Acclaim (London: Constable, 1969), 553-71. Paul Schroeder gives the dispute only minor attention, and suggests that its primary significance was that it displayed that Revolutionary France was a “negligible quantity” at that point. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 70.

38 Sir Archibald Campbell, “Ideas Regarding a War with Spain,” July 1790; and Campbell to Pitt, “Memorandum on South America,” October 18, 1790, in FO 95/7/4, pp. 501-3, and 481-85. On the British capture of Manila in 1762, see Nicholas Tracy, Manila Ransomed: The British Assault on Manila in the Seven Years War (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1995).

209

Notably, both Fullarton and Campbell assumed a cavalier attitude towards fomenting rebellion in South America, which speaks to the transformative impact of

French Revolutionary ideology on British strategy. Fullarton assumed that even a failed expedition to South America would prove “fatal” to Spain, “because her richest possessions would be alarmed, their commerce … interrupted, their Ships destroyed, their Troops plundered & the inhabitants incited to revolt.” Campbell framed his views more nobly. He wished to assist the “Natives” in throwing “off the Spanish Yok and

[resuming] their ancient Government, Rights, Privileges and Religion.” As a reward for this “Act of Liberality,” he presumed that Britain would receive “Preference in all

Articles of Commerce from those extensive and opulent Kingdoms.” By the late 1790s, with the memory of the West Indian campaigns fresh, such views were anathema. In fact, as Windham informed Beresford in July 1806, fear of rebellion was the primary argument against South American expeditions.39

Proposals for South American expeditions emerged again in the late 1790s, and from various locales. The British government, at the behest of Dundas, seriously considered a trans-Pacific expedition to South America like that of Fullarton and

Campbell beginning in January 1797, before putting it aside due to cost in March 1797.40

39 Colonel William Fullarton, “Extract of a Proposal for an Expedition to South America by India,” June 2, 1780, WO 1/178, pp. 195-97, BNA. Sir Archibald Campbell, “Ideas Regarding a War with Spain,” July 1790; and Campbell to Pitt, “Memorandum on South America,” October 18, 1790, in FO 95/7/4, pp. 501-3, and 481-85, BNA.

40 Dundas [?] to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, January 22, 1797; Dundas [?] to Portland, February 21, 1797; [?] to Spencer, March 2, 1797; and Dundas [?] to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, March 4, 1797, in WO 1/178, pp. 121-23, 139-41, 167-69, and 183- 84, BNA.

210

A year later, in January 1798, Dundas told Robert Brook, the British governor on St.

Helena, that it was not the time for an expedition to Rio de la Plata, but promised to revisit the idea in the future.41 Writing to Lord Mornington in October 1799, Dundas noted both the possibility of insurrection in South America and his fear that the United

States would reap the rewards of the Spanish Empire’s collapse if Britain failed to act first.42 In December 1800, Captain Sir Roger Curtis, Commander-in-Chief at Cape

Colony, reported that he had heard that Montevideo was poorly defended and suggested an expedition.43 Popham, therefore, was not unique in his views, simply audacious and insubordinate in pursuing them.

This context does much to explain the halting reaction in London when word of the Buenos Aires expedition arrived in late June 1806. The prevailing British opinion did not dispute the potential value of opening South America’s trade, but the general assumption was that the risk of rebellion outweighed the benefit. Dundas had attempted to circumvent this risk by arguing for the establishment of entrepôts in South America while remaining aloof from the political environment. Similarly, Windham’s July 24 orders desperately sought to confine the operations of Beresford and Popham before they could influence affairs beyond their immediate location. In mid-September,

41 Dundas to Governor Robert Brooke, January 26, 1798, in CO 77/57, pp. 267-68, BNA.

42 Dundas to Richard Wellesley, October 16, 1799, in Edward Ingram, ed., Two Views of British India: The Private Correspondence of Mr Dundas and Lord Wellesly: 1798-1801 (Bath: Adams & Dart, 1970), 188-89.

43 Curtis to Spencer, December 19, 1800, in Spencer Papers, 4: 243-46.

211 however, Popham and Beresford presented the capture of Buenos Aires as fait accompli to the Ministry of All Talents. The policy options for the Talents at that point were far from ideal. Unwilling to foment rebellion against the imperial system, the British government essentially had to choose between evacuation and conquest. The exuberant public reaction made any thought of ordering an immediate evacuation difficult to consider. The Talents, therefore, opted to pursue conquest in an effort to stave off a general insurrection against the imperial system.

Crafting plans for the conquest and political subjugation of South America proved difficult, though. British ministers tended to have a firm grasp on trade numbers and opportunities, but a weaker understanding of geographic realities, seasonal winds and rains, and, more simply, what was actually possible for British force projection. This placed consulted military personnel in the position of tempering wishful thinking. For example, in February 1807, Colonel J. H. Gordon wrote a memorandum attempting to dissuade the Ministry from following through on the idea of having a single officer in command of both coasts of South America. Employing more familiar geography,

Gordon sarcastically quipped, “Is it not in some manner similar to giving an officer commanding in North Holland control over the officer commanding in the

Mediterranean?”44 Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, then attached to a possible South

American expedition, engaged in a series of communications with Lord Grenville between November 1806 and February 1807. Wellesley, familiar with the East Indies of

44 Colonel J. H. Gordon, February 21, 1807, “Confidential Memorandum on Command on Eastern and Western Sides of the Cordillera,” River Plate, 163-64.

212 course, poured cold water on the notion of a coordinated assault involving forces from the Atlantic and Pacific. As he explained to Lord Grenville, the realities of seasonal wind and weather of the various locations made any such scheme logistically impossible.45

The tenor of British opinion about South America grew more pessimistic in the spring of 1807. In the wake of Popham’s court-martial, the generally accepted narrative in London blamed the failure of British arms in South America on the fact that Popham and Beresford had failed to address the independence goals of the local population, which had led to the inhabitants balking at becoming the possession of another

European state. Ironically, Popham and Beresford argued that they avoided specific language concerning the political arrangement due to the fact that they did not have positive orders to do so.46

In late March 1807, the Duke of Portland’s government assumed power and brought new eyes to South American policy. Castlereagh, who inherited the management of military policy as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, shifted

British policy towards an embrace of an independent South American state. In a memorandum for the Cabinet written in May 1807, Castlereagh observed that France’s political domination of Spain directly linked the resources of South America to the war

45 See in particular, “Memorandum on the Subject of a British Expedition to New Spain,” January 25, 1807; Major-General Sir Arthur Wellesley to Lord Grenville, February 17, 1807; and Reports by Wellesley to Lord Grenville [numerous], in Dropmore Papers, 9: 22-25, 41-45, and 479- 93.

46 Castlereagh, “Memorandum for the Cabinet, Relative to South America,” May 1, 1807, in Castlereagh Corr., 7: 314-24.

213 with France. Under these circumstances, Britain was “driven to consider whether those resources may not be made the means of creating and supporting an amicable local government … which the people of South America must equally desire.” British strategy, Castlereagh argued, should assume a role of enabler and protector of South

American independence, and not that of conqueror. Britain would prove their support for independence by making use of local forces, and, if successful, this would deny the economic benefits of South America to France while earning free accesses to South

American markets for their own manufacturers.47

Castlereagh’s plan for a paternalistic role in South America was not to be in the short term. The disastrous defeat of Whitelocke’s force in July 1807 pushed Britain out of

South America with little leverage to assert itself. Reflecting upon Whitelocke’s failure,

Lord Auckland suggested in a letter to Lord Grenville that if they had only “chosen to play the game of independence,” he was confident they “could have placed all the

Spanish provinces on their legs without bloodshed or revolutionary convulsions.” The damage, however, was both done and permanent in his mind. “Many obvious projects,”

Auckland averred, “of infinite importance are gone forever.”48 By summer 1807,

47 Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, “Memorandum for the Cabinet, Relative to South America,” May 1, 1807, in Castlereagh Corr., 7: 314-24. The confused state of British strategy at this stage is apparent from the orders sent to Whitelocke. In early March 1807, Lord Howick directed Whitelocke to pursue an aggressive agenda upon his arrival off Buenos Aires. On May 25, Castlereagh wrote in a missive to Whitelocke that “the general Subject of South America is under consideration … and I trust I shall be enabled soon to communicate to you Instructions for your future conduct.” Lord Howick to Whitelocke, March 5, 1807; and Castlereagh to Whitelocke, May 25, 1807, in WO 6/3, pp. 96-114, and 115-16, BNA.

48 Lord Auckland to Lord Grenville, September 23, 1807, in Dropmore Papers, 9: 137-38.

214 however, the combination of the inability of Britain to control affairs in South America and Napoleon’s continental successes forced British ministers to focus greater attention closer to home.

A WAR WITHOUT NEUTRALS

The Treaty of Tilsit removed any lingering doubts concerning the nature of the conflict between Britain and France. Word of the Franco-Russian treaty arrived in

London on July 12, a mere five days following its signing. The language of the treaty was unambiguous, and called for a “maritime league against Great Britain to which

Denmark and Sweden and Portugal should be invited or forced to accede.”49 Thus, the treaty signaled two important developments. First, the Continental System—announced in the Berlin Decree of November 1806—now extended to Russia, which threatened

British access to important naval stores. Second, and more ominously, it put aside the notion of neutrality on the Continent.

Writing in March 1802, Castlereagh pondered the strategic hypothetical of

Britain standing alone against Napoleonic France. “Can we rely,” he asked, “on

[continental nations] acting with us in such an event? if not ought we to act without them?—or can we afford to postpone the maritime struggle till we can obtain a continental co-operation?”50 In summer 1807, the Duke of Portland’s ministry,

49 Canning to Gower, July 22, 1807, in A. N. Ryan, ‘Documents Relating to the Copenhagen Operation, 1807,’ in The Naval Miscellany, 5: 307.

50 Castlereagh, sometime after March 27, 1802, in Castlereagh Corr., 6: 32-33.

215 unhampered by peace negotiations, emphatically embraced an active maritime struggle independent of continental co-operation focused on the maintenance of British maritime hegemony. In doing so, Portland’s ministry ultimately fell victim to the same vices of strategic overreach that had so marked South American policy under the Ministry of All

Talents.51

The British responded quickly and aggressively to the Treaty of Tilsit. On July 19, the government ordered a force of 16,700 troops equipped and embarked at Hull,

Harwich, the Nore, and the Downs within ten days. General Sir William Schaw

Cathcart, then in command of a force operating in conjunction with Sweden in

Stralsund, received orders to embark his force and rendezvous with the naval commander, Admiral James Gambier, off Copenhagen.52 The goal of the mission was the removal of warships housed in the harbor at Copenhagen. A December 1806 report, by a

Captain Dunbar, stated that 20 ships of the line and 12 frigates were present. A second report, dated July 25, 1807, claimed that the number was 18 ships of the line, 11 frigates, and three 74s under construction. A Captain Beauman believed the Danish ships capable of leaving port within six weeks given the necessary seamen.53

51 For a more detailed analysis of British amphibious capabilities and the Copenhagen and Walcheren expeditions in particular, see Christopher T. Golding, “Amphibians at Heart: The Battle of Copenhagen (1807), the Walcheren Expedition, and the War against Napoleon,” in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 90 (Autumn 2012), pp. 167-88.

52 Castlereagh to Cathcart, July 19, 1807, and Castlereagh to Cathcart, July 29, 1807, in A. N. Ryan, ‘Documents Relating to the Copenhagen Operation, 1807,’ in The Naval Miscellany, 5: 306, and 308.

53 Captain Beauman of HMS Procris, July 25, 1807, ibid., 5: 312.

216

Despite the quickly developing nature of the operation, the British government was aware of the questionable legality of the proposed action. The British justified their intervention in the Baltic against a neutral state as a matter of self-defense in the wake of

Tilsit, but such arguments fell on deaf ears in Denmark. So as the amphibious force assembled, the British government dispatched two diplomats to speak to the Danish court. Brooke Taylor arrived in Copenhagen on August 2, and Francis Jackson reached

Kiel on August 6. Both met with evasiveness. Upon discovering that the Danish court was at Copenhagen, Jackson set off over land and suffered through two hour delays at every horse exchange station from Kiel to Copenhagen. By August 13, Jackson and

Taylor’s quest for a diplomatic solution ceased, and the military force began active operations.54

While Taylor and Jackson attempted to negotiate the surrender of the Danish fleet, an overwhelming British force assembled in the waters near Copenhagen. On

August 2, Gambier’s naval force had completed the blockade of the island of Zealand, on which Copenhagen is located, and isolated the Danish from mainland support. Ten days later, Lord Cathcart arrived with his force from Stralsund, which brought the combined British force to 27,000 troops, approximately 65 naval vessels, and 377 transport ships amounting to 78,240 tons of shipping.55 For its defense, the city of

54 Carl J. Kulsrud, ‘The Seizure of the Danish Fleet, 1807: The Background,’ The American Journal of International Law 32:2 (April, 1938), pp. 280-311.

55 Ole Feldbaek, ‘Denmark and the Baltic, 1720-1864,’ in The Quest of Trade and Security: The Baltic in Power Politics, 1500-1990, vol I: 1500-1890 (Förlag, 1994), pp. 257-295, 278; A. N. Ryan, ‘Documents Relating to the Copenhagen Operation, 1807,’ in The Naval Miscellany, 5: 305; Intelligence Branch of the Quartermaster-General’s Department, comp. by, British Minor

217

Copenhagen relied on 175 guns, and 25 mortars distributed between the Tre Kronnen battery, the citadel, and the arsenal battery. The Tre Kronnen battery represented a significant threat to the British naval force, and consisted of 68 guns and mortars deployed approximately 2,000 yards northeast of the harbor. Additionally, the city possessed 25 gun-boats and a contingent of regular troops amounting to roughly 2,500 men. Following the departure of Frederick VI, the Prince Royal of Denmark, on August

12, command of the city’s overmatched defenses fell to General Ernst Peymann.56

British troops landed on August 16 near the town of Vedbæk and quickly went about subduing the area around Copenhagen. Major Harry Ross-Lewin reported that the Danish troops “did not want for bravery, but were quite inexperienced, and required a campaign or two to make them soldiers.” On August 19, Brigadier-General von

Decken surprised and captured 860 Danish officers and men, along with a depot of cannon and powder near Frederickswork. By the 24th, the British encirclement of

Copenhagen had closed to within 400 yards of the city. The most effective resistance offered by the Danish came from their small gun-boat flotilla, but it had little effect on

British progress. The Danes attempted a final sortie from Copenhagen on August 31, which resulted in some 100 Danish casualties and only minor British losses. The

Expeditions Compiled in the Intelligence Branch of the Quartermaster-General’s Department: Expedition to Copenhagen 1807: Expedition to Bergen-op-Zoom 1813-14 pt. 3 (Hemel Hempstead, 1985), 3.

56 Intelligence Branch, British Minor Expeditions, 3; Three plans of Copenhagen, Denmark, with a printed account of the siege of 1807, MPH 1/617, pp. 6-7.

218 following day, the British completed their siege batteries and the bombardment of

Copenhagen could commence.57

On September 1, Cathcart summoned the city to surrender the fleet protected within its harbor and avoid bombardment. Peymann responded by calling on the city to take up arms in its defense. The populace within the city does not appear to have understood the dire nature of their predicament. One denizen reported that “a great many of them even fancied, that the threatenings of the English would never be carried into effect.”58 At half-past seven the next morning, those individuals learned how wrong they were when the British siege batteries opened up. The British operated 48 mortars and howitzer, 20 24-pounders, and a barrage of extremely destructive rockets continuously until 8am on September 3.59

The damage done to the city was immense, and a testament to both British military capability as well as their devotion to denying Napoleon access to naval power.

The rocket attacks set the wooden structures of Copenhagen ablaze, which ultimately overwhelmed the city’s fire department after four days of fighting the conflagration.

Charles Chambers, a surgeon aboard HM Fireship Prometheus off Copenhagen, wrote in

57 Intelligence Branch, British Minor Expeditions, 4-8; The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature, for the Year 1807 (London: W. Otridge, 1809), 683, 699; Harry Ross- Lewin, ed. by John Wardell, With ‘The Thirty-Second’ in the Peninsular and other Campaigns (Dublin, 1904), 72-73; Intelligence Branch, British Minor Expeditions, 7; Copenhagen plans, MPH 1/617, BNA.

58 Copenhagen plans, MPH 1/617, pp. 41-43, BNA; Intelligence Branch, British Minor Expeditions, 7.

59 Intelligence Branch, British Minor Expeditions, 8; Copenhagen plans, MPH 1/617, BNA.

219 his journal, “I … witnessed unexceptionally the largest fire I ever beheld, which was in the centre of Copenhagen … From the magnitude of the fire, I suspect it must have been burning the whole day, as we saw an immense smoke from nearly the same spot some time before.”60 On September 5, Peymann sought an armistice and negotiations for the city’s terms of capitulation. Two days later, he signed the city over to the British.

In many respects the coup de main assault on Copenhagen represented the ideal use of British force projection in the early nineteenth century. Active military operations lasted a mere 21 days, and once hostilities ceased British sailors went about removing the Danish fleet as the ashes of Copenhagen cooled. All told, the British removed 18 ships of the line, 15 frigates, 6 brigs, and the 25 gun-boats that had pestered them during the attack. It took six weeks to prepare the captured ships for sea, and the British sailed for home on October 21. British losses totaled 56 killed, 179 wounded, and 25 missing.

Danish losses were far more severe. The fires caused by the British bombardment had destroyed almost a third of Copenhagen, and as many as 2,000 civilians may have died due to the siege.61

60 Journal of Charles Chambers, 4 September 1807, in W. G. Perrin, ed., ‘The Bombardment of Copenhagen, 1807: The Journal of Surgeon Charles Chambers of H. M. Fireship Prometheus,’ in W. G. Perrin, ed., The Naval Miscellany vol. 3 (London: Naval Records Society, 1927), 409. The damage inflicted by the Congreve Rockets drew particular scorn from Peymann. On August 23, he wrote, “It deserves to be remarked that the English, besides their bombs, threw a kind of rocket, which civilized nations never made use of before.” General Ernst Peymann, August 23, 1807, MPH 1/617, p. 15, BNA.

61 Septimus Crookes, Particulars of the Expedition to Copenhagen with an Account of the Siege and Bombardment by the English in 1807: Including Articles of Capitulation, a List of the Captured Fleet, Ships Names, Rates, and When Built, With a Return of Killed and Wounded, Officers Names etc. (Sheffield, 1807), 21-22; Intelligence Branch, British Minor Expeditions, 9; Christopher D. Hall, British Strategy in the Napoleonic Wars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 160.

220

What made the assault on Copenhagen such a striking success was that it remained a circumscribed operation with narrowly defined goals, but this almost was not the case. Following the fall of Copenhagen, Castlereagh dreamt of an occupation force holding the island of Zealand for future use. His only concern was whether a small

British garrison could remain on the island without breaking the just signed capitulation. The idea had obvious appeal, as the island would have served as an ideal means for the British to dominate the Baltic Sea. It was only after Cathcart explained the impracticality of the scheme that Castlereagh backed off the idea.62

With the Danish fleet in hand, British attention shifted south to address the fate of the Portuguese royal family and fleet. In the early fall 1807, a French army, under the command of General Jean-Andoche Junot, marched unimpeded on the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. On October 30, the Admiralty prepared orders for Rear-Admiral Sir

Sidney Smith, which directed him to remove the Portuguese royal family to Brazil, bring away any commercial or military vessels capable of the trans-Atlantic voyage, and destroy any ships that he could not remove from Lisbon’s harbor. Separate orders for

Smith, dated November 12, further emphasized the importance Britain placed on denying the Portuguese fleet to France. Despite longstanding Anglo-Portuguese diplomatic ties, in the event the Portuguese court proved obstinate in complying with

Smith’s offer of safe passage to Brazil, he would consider attempting to destroy the

Portuguese fleet in the harbor. As it happened, the Portuguese royal family and fleet

62 Castlereagh to Cathcart, September 12, 1807, and Castlereagh to Hawkesbury, September 28, 1807, in Castlereagh Corr., 6: 178, and 186-7.

221 departed with Smith on November 29. The following day, Junot entered Lisbon with an exhausted detachment having lost the race for the Portuguese navy.63

The following May, the British government watched attentively as French control over the Iberian Peninsula began to disintegrate when the Dos de Mayo uprising launched the Peninsular War. On May 25, Castlereagh wrote to Lieutenant-General Sir

Hew Dalrymple, the Governor of Gibraltar, noting the common cause between Britain and the young insurrection, and vaguely stated that “it will be the object of His Majesty to co-operate as far as the circumstances of His Dominions will admit.” The fate of South

America, however, was of more immediate importance in Castlereagh’s mind. It was “of the utmost importance that the resources of those opulent Provinces should not fall into the Hands of the French.”64 On June 15, Canning rose in the House of Commons and obliquely announced Britain’s commitment to support the Spanish rebellion when he declared that any nation “that starts up with a determination to oppose” France, would instantly become Britain’s “essential ally.”65

The Peninsular War would ultimately prove to be the pathway to considerable martial success for Britain, but Canning’s speech did not signal a deviation from an

63 Admiralty to Rear-Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, October 30, 1807; and November 12, 1807, in ADM 2/1365, pp. 28-30, and 38-42, BNA. On the departure of the Portuguese royal family, see Charles Esdaile, The Peninsular War: A New History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 26-30.

64 Castlereagh to Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple, May 25, 1808, ADM 2/1365, pp. 310-15, BNA. Towards these ends, the British allowed Spanish vessels to sail to South America in order to spread word of both the Spanish revolt against French authority and British support thereof. Pole to Flag Officers, June 30, 1808, in ADM 2/1365, pp. 397-98, BNA.

65 Parliamentary Debates, vol. 11 (1808), cols. 889-91.

222 aggressive and largely independent maritime strategy of global dimensions. At the same time as the Spanish insurrection gained momentum the British fretted over French influence in South America, and by the end of 1808 had dispatched orders for the blockade of Java, Molucca, Batavia, Mauritius, and Isle de Bourbon, and the capture of

Rodriguez by the East Indian squadron under Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Pellew.66

Nearer to home, the strategically vital Scheldt Estuary and the Dutch naval ships and infrastructure it housed grew on the minds of British ministers. Intelligence on May 5 suggested that sinking vessels in the mouth of the Scheldt would render the river impassable for large ships. On June 8, the Admiralty sent orders to Vice-Admiral Donald

Campbell directing him to hire the services of known smugglers to gain intelligence on the location and number of enemy ships in the Scheldt Estuary.67 These were the first glimmers of what would be a costly miscalculation.

The Scheldt Estuary had long drawn the interest of British ministers, and in 1809 a confluence of factors set what was to become the Walcheren Expedition into motion. A similar expedition had received the attention of William Pitt in 1797, and, just as had been the case with South America, the plan continued to simmer in the background over

66 The British allowed Spanish vessels to depart for South America to spread word of the Spanish insurrection against the French controlled throne in the summer of 1808. William Wellesley Pole to Flag Officers, June 30, 1808, ADM 2/1365, pp. 397-98, BNA. Admiralty to Rear- Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, September 19, 1808, and October 18, 1808, ADM 2/1366, pp. 227-28, and 326-27, BNA. J Barrow to Rear-Admiral Albemarle Bertie, December 27, 1808; and Barrow to Rear-Admiral William Drury, December 27, 1808, ADM 2/1367, pp. 110-11, and 111-12, BNA.

67 Pole to Captain Sir Benjamin Hallowell, May 5, 1808; and Pole to Vice-Admiral Donald Campbell, June 8, 1808, ADM 2/1365, pp. 280-81, and 328-29, BNA.

223 the twelve year period between its conception and implementation.68 Nominally, the

Walcheren Expedition had two primary justifications. The first was to create a distraction in Napoleon’s rear to succor the forces of Austria, who had risen in arms against France. Unfortunately, Napoleon recovered from a setback at Aspern-Essling in

May 1809 to defeat Austria at the Battle of Wagram in early July. The Austrians would eventually sign the Treaty of Schönbrunn on October 14, and exited the war once again.

The second justification, similar to the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807, was the Dutch naval presence in the Scheldt. The specific targets of the operation would be the fleet of ships and dockyards at Flushing, on Walcheren Island, and Antwerp. Intelligence on

June 23 placed ten 74s and four smaller ships at Flushing, with seven ships under construction at Antwerp.69 Nor were British concerns about the existing fleet and the ship-building at Antwerp unfounded, as Napoleon had applied pressure for increased production of ships of the line at the dockyards since 1805.70 Unlike Copenhagen, however, the Walcheren Expedition was to be a far more complex operation, involving a much larger force with grander ultimate objectives.

The outbreak of the Peninsular War provides crucial context for understanding the importance of the Walcheren Expedition to British ministers at the time. The

68 Gordon C. Bond, The Grand Expedition: The British Invasion of Holland in 1809 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979), 8-9.

69 Intelligence on Scheldt River, June 23, 1809, WO 1/195, pp. 13-19, BNA.

70 Simon Schama, Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780-1813 (London: Knopf, 1977), 479-80.

224 technical beginning of the Peninsular War occurred with the French invasion of Portugal in 1807 in late 1807, but it expanded rapidly and chaotically following the French invasion and occupation of Spain in early 1808. In March, Charles IV of Spain abdicated in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII, in response to the outbreak of popular revolt. In April,

Napoleon summoned both to the French town of Bayonne, where he forced their mutual abdication and eventually proclaimed his brother, Joseph, king of Spain. In Madrid, however, a popular rebellion against both French occupation and the ancien régime broke out on May 2, and spread quickly throughout Spain. The French response, under the leadership of Joachim Murat, was swift and brutal, and famously captured in Fancisco

Goya’s famed and haunting painting, The Third of May, which depicted the execution of

Spanish rebels by French troops in the streets of Madrid. These events precipitated a guerilla campaign throughout the Iberian Peninsula that taxed French resources and provided a strategic opportunity for the British state.71

British intervention in the Peninsular War occurred in late summer 1808. On

August 21, Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated Junot’s occupation force in

Portugal at the Battle of Vimeiro, but the fruits of this victory quickly spoiled due to the inexplicable surrender that the freshly arrived Lieutenant-General Sir Hew Dalrymple granted to the defeated French in the controversial Convention of Sintra. The convention caused a political firestorm in London and the recall of the senior British officers, including Wellesley, who were held responsible for it. Matters improved little for Britain

71 For a general treatment on the Peninsular War, see Esdaile, The Peninsular War.

225 from there. From late 1808 into early 1809, Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore led a

British army into Spain before reversing course and embarking on a terrible retreat to the Spanish port of Corunna with a French army in pursuit. Moore, one of the most highly-regarded officers in the army, died conducting the defense of the city on January

16, 1809. The arrival of the remnants of Moore’s ragged force in Britain caused a sensation in public opinion. In short, it was no small decision to commit British troops elsewhere on the Continent in 1809 given the depleted and stretched state of the British army.72

Support for an expedition to the Scheldt Estuary was lukewarm at best among

British army officers. General Sir David Dundas, Commander-in-Chief of the army, first learned of the planning on March 22, 1809. At that stage, the army lacked the disposable resources necessary to assemble an expeditionary force of the size called for—largely due to the lingering effects of Moore’s retreat to Corunna. By May, Castlereagh began to actively push for the expedition and asked Dundas to secure the opinions of other officers present in London.73 The return from those officers proved to be less than enthusiastic. One consulted officer, Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Gordon, observed that the

72 Esdaile, The Peninsular War, 87-108, 146-55; Hall, British Strategy in the Napoleonic War, 171-73; and Joshua Moon, Wellington’s Two-Front War: The Peninsular Campaign, at Home and Abroad, 1808-1814 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), 13-25.

73 General Sir David Dundas testimony before Parliament, in Walter Grey, Walcheren: Proceedings on a Motion for Inquiry into the Conduct and Policy of the Late Expedition to the Scheldt: Containing the Whole of the Evidence Printed Verbatim from the Minutes of the House of Commons: With Correct Copies of all the Papers on that Important Subject, Presented to Both Houses of Parliament, by Command of His Majesty: and the Various Documents Moved for by Lord Porchester (London, 1810), 39- 41.

226 planned expedition would risk “the loss of the whole disposable force of the empire.”

The most he could offer in support of the amphibious expedition was that it was “an enterprise of less risk” than a land based operation.74 Such cautionary advice from officers did not dissuade Castlereagh from pursuing the operation, however.

In the arena of naval affairs, Castlereagh stampeded past similar warnings to those given by the army. Captain Sir Home Popham, somewhat controversially attached to the expedition due to his supposed expertise in amphibious operations, grew increasingly alarmed at the slow speed with which the operation came together. In a meeting with Lieutenant-General John Pitt, 2nd Earl Chatham, who would command the land portion of the expedition, and Castlereagh on June 11, Popham warned that they were in danger of losing their window for operations during the warmer season. He urged both men to reduce the number of horses involved, and suggested the use of ships of the line for transporting troops—ultimately, the British transported 15,000 men by these means.75 Chatham officially received command of the nascent operation on May

18, and, on June 18, Castlereagh formerly drew up the plan for an expedition that called for 35,000 infantry and 1,800 cavalry.76 It was not until the following day that

74 Memorandum of Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon, May 31, 1809, in Castlereagh Corr., 6: 260- 61. It is unclear from the source the exact name of this officer, though he was writing from Horse Guards. The memorandum is initialed ‘J.H.G.,’ but there is no match to those initials in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

75 Intelligence Branch, British Minor Expeditions. Pt 4, Expedition to Walcheren 1809 (Hemel Hempstead, 1985), 19-21.

76 Ibid., 256-7; Dundas testimony before Parliament, in Grey, Walcheren, 43.

227

Castlereagh consulted the naval commander, Admiral Sir Richard Strachan, who expressed a similarly pessimistic attitude toward the expedition’s chances as the army officers had.77

In mid-July, as the Admiralty wrestled with the logistical challenges of the expedition to the Scheldt, the commanding officers received the ambitious orders they were to follow. Chatham’s orders, received from the king on July 16, directed him to

“consider that this conjoint expedition has for its object the capture or destruction of the enemy’s ships either building at Antwerp and Flushing, or afloat in the Scheldt.”

Additionally, the orders called for the destruction of the dockyards of Terneuse and

Flushing, and, perhaps most ambitiously, “the rendering, if possible, the Scheldt no longer navigable for ships of war.”78 In the event this task was not challenging enough,

Castlereagh informed Chatham that “other prospects may open themselves, and events occur which may induce his Majesty’s Government to extend their views.”79 Twelve days later, Chatham embarked with a force of 40,143 men and departed for the Scheldt with a naval armada of 35 ships of the line, 18 frigates, 82 gunboats, and 85 other vessels.80

77 Rear Admiral Sir Richard Strachan testimony before Parliament, in Grey, Walcheren, 178-79.

78 George III to Chatham, July 16, 1809, in Grey, Walcheren, 285-86.

79 Castlereagh to Chatham, July 1809, ibid., 292.

80 Intelligence Branch, Expedition to Walcheren, 19-21.

228

The Walcheren Expedition is widely and rightly viewed as a disaster, but early reports provided reason for cautious optimism. The initial landings took place on

Walcheren Island near Fort Den Haak on July 30, which was on the north side of the island.81 The army made steady progress towards laying siege to Flushing on land, but the failure to secure Cadsand, an island just south of Walcheren, allowed French artillery to delay the British navy establishing a blockade of the port until August 11.82 This allowed 3,000 French reinforcements to pass unmolested into Flushing on August 5 and

6.83 On August 10, Chatham learned from a captured French officer that Flushing’s garrison had cut the east dyke allowing water to flood the low-lying island, and, more importantly, that 25,000 French troops were already present at Antwerp.84 Nevertheless, the army pressed on and dug siege lines before Flushing on August 13, and a terrible bombardment ensued until the city’s capitulation two days later. On August 16, an anonymous British officer present in Flushing observed, “Every house is perforated by

81 Admiral Sir Edward William Campbell Rich Owen, Narrative of events July 10-August 3, 1809, COO/2/B/1, NMM; and July 29, 1809, WO 1/190, p. 2, BNA.

82 Chatham to George III, written October 15, 1809 and presented February 14, 1810, WO 1/191, p. 346, BNA; August 3, 1809, WO 1/190, p. 20, BNA.

83 The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature, for the Year 1809 (London: W. Otridge, 1811), 234; Owen to Strachan, 6 August 1809, COO/2/B/2, NMM.

84 August 10, 1809, Journal of Chatham’s Command, WO 1/190, p. 44, BNA. On the sluices being cut, Chatham remarked, ‘but this has been attended as yet with little inconveniences, as the necessary precautions for letting off the water thro’ the sluices in our possession at this place [Middleburg] and at Veer, have been taken, and I have no doubt will be found effectual.’ Chatham received sharp criticism following the operation for his aloofness throughout, and perhaps nothing exemplifies this more than his disconnect with the situation on the ground at this point. Chatham Dispatch, August 11, 1809, WO 1/191, p. 116, BNA.

229 at least one ball, and some of them by a dozen or more.”85 The capture of Flushing was to be the high-water mark for the expedition.

Harsh reality set in rather quickly following the fall of Flushing, and for entirely predictable reasons. Independent of the French forces flooding into the region, disease had taken root among the British troops wallowing in the mud on Walcheren Island. By

August 26, the sick list for the army named 3,467 men and it was “increasing every hour.” The unhealthy environment of Walcheren Island was a known factor, and something Castlereagh had commented upon in October 1807. He observed at the time that intelligence reported a “malignant fever” present on the island, but he went on to remark, “The object is certainly of a magnitude to justify every reasonable risk.”86 On

August 27, 1809, the commanding officers determined that the risk of pressing on was too much and called off further active operations and pulled advanced forces back to the two islands of Walcheren and South Beveland.87 On Walcheren Island, the situation had turned hopeless and amounted to little more than a spiraling health crisis.88 Evacuation

85 Robert Clover to Parents, October 12, 1809, AGC/30/4/9, NMM. August 18, 1809, Officer of the Eighty-First Regiment, Letters from Flushing; Containing and Account of the Expedition to Walcheren, Beveland, and the Mouth of the Scheldt, under the Command of the Earl of Chatham (London: Richard Phillips, 1809), 169-70.

86 Castlereagh to Baron Hawkesbury, October 1, 1807, in Castlereagh Corr., 6: 189.

87 August 13-26, 1809, Journal of Chatham’s Command, WO 1/190, pp. 58-79, BNA.

88 For more on the ‘Walcheren Fever’ see: Bond, The Grand Expedition; Katie Elizabeth Crowe, “The Walcheren Expedition and the New Army Medical Board: A Reconsideration,” The English Historical Review 88:349 (October, 1973), pp. 770-85; T. H. McGuffie, “The Walcheren Expedition and the Walcheren Fever,” The English Historical Review 62:243 (April, 1947), pp. 191- 202; Dispatches from Coote, NA, WO 1/192.

230 orders arrived on November 13, and the majority of the British troops had embarked by

December 9. The following day witnessed the destruction of the flood-gates at

Flushing’s naval basin, and the final contingent of British troops departed on December

22. The expedition had suffered 4,000 casualties—only 106 of them in combat—and accomplished few of its objectives.89 The fallout of the failure played a prominent role in the collapse of the Portland ministry in early October.90

It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the Walcheren Expedition represented a massive conceptual failure by its planners, and this is particularly true of

Castlereagh. It was simply too ambitious, and ministers ignored too many known pitfalls. The value of an assault on Walcheren Island and the goal of reaching Antwerp were of obvious value. The ability to reach Antwerp, however, was a particularly dubious proposition. “If it ultimately succeed,” one contemporary writer said of the expedition, “it will be contrary to probability.”91 The expedition suffered from two significant problems from the outset: faith that the lack of a French and Dutch troops in the region meant that Antwerp was an easy target; and a complete failure of intelligence with regard to the state of fortifications and defenses up the Scheldt. The latter problem

89 Hall, British Strategy in the Napoleonic Wars, 178.

90 The collapse of the Portland ministry is perhaps best remembered for the dramatic duel that took place between Castlereagh and Canning on September 21, 1809. For an analysis of their rivalry and the doomed Cabinet’s dynamics, see Giles Hunt, The Duel: Castlereagh, Canning and Deadly Cabinet Rivalry (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008).

91 Anonymous, Objects of the Expedition: Being a Detailed and Descriptive Account of the Islands of Walcheren, Beveland, Schowen and Cadsand; of the Banks of the Scheldt and Towns and Forts Thereon, etc., (London, 1809), 7.

231 meant that the very premise of a coup de main operation was flawed from the outset, and both commanders cited it after the fact.92 What is more, Castlereagh was not ignorant of the difficulties faced by amphibious forces. In 1805, Castlereagh wrote to Lieutenant-

General Sir John Moore on a proposed assault of the French port of Boulogne. “The prudence of the attempt,” wrote Castlereagh, “must depend entirely on the amount and quality of force the enemy may have the means of bringing against us, during the time necessarily required for the attack.”93

Given Castlereagh’s awareness of the limitation on amphibious operations, knowledge of the disease environment on Walcheren Island, and the various critiques of army and navy officers, how is it possible that the Walcheren Expedition ever left British shores? The first, and most obvious reason is that Castlereagh appears to have fallen victim to tunnel-vision during the expedition’s planning. An expedition of this size, however, did not come together solely at the discretion of one man. Castlereagh may have been the leading proponent, but this was a decision passed through the Cabinet.

Indeed, in many respects the Walcheren Expedition represented the culmination of the aggressive maritime strategy pursued with notable success prior to the summer of 1809 by the Portland ministry. With the Danish and Portuguese fleets secured, and Spain a nominal ally, a blow against Dutch naval capabilities represented a logical next step in

92 Testimonies of Chatham, and Strachan before Parliament, in Grey, Walcheren, 194, and 248.

93 Castlereagh to Lieutenant-General Sir John Moore, September 23, 1805, in Castlereagh Corr., 5: 95.

232 what had become a zero-sum maritime war in the wake of the Berlin Decree and Tilsit.94

In pursuing that end, though, the British Cabinet ignored the limitations of British means and fell into the same trap of strategic overreach that so marked the Talents’ thought patterns with regard to South America.

An inability to properly assess the limits of British hegemony in the early nineteenth century resulted in strategic failure for both the Ministry of All Talents and the Duke of Portland’s ministry. The unexpected capture of Buenos Aires in July 1806 led to a swelling of both public and ministerial expectations that overwhelmed more realistic assessments and responses. The Talents may deserve censure for their handling of South American policy, but any criticism must acknowledge the powerful influence of popular sentiment and institutional memory on their strategic thought, as well as the ministry’s limited control over events once Popham set sail from Table Bay. The

Portland ministry’s embrace of the disastrous Walcheren Expedition is less defensible.

Castlereagh, the responsible minister in 1809, could not plead ignorance of the limits of

British maritime power, but he ignored numerous warnings nevertheless. The result was predictable, and tragic. The Walcheren Expedition, however, did not occur in a vacuum.

Rather, it developed from prior precedent for a ministry devoted to a strategy centered

94 Testifying to this fact, at the same time as the Walcheren Expedition prepared to sail, the British helped the Spanish Government move its vessels from Ferrol to Cadiz to avoid capture by France. Pole to Hotham, July 18, 1809, ADM 2/1368, pp. 32-34, BNA.

233 on the preservation and exploitation of British maritime hegemony throughout its time in office.

A related observation to these two British setbacks concerns how the frictions of nineteenth-century maritime capabilities limited Britain’s ability to project force. The strategies of both ministries operated comfortably within the confines of Britain as a maritime and imperial power. The Talents’ South American policy sought to expand the maritime commerce open to Britain, and the Portland ministry sought to mercilessly preserve maritime hegemony. In both cases, strategic overreach occurred when ministers imagined amphibious forces capable of exerting extended control over populous and defended hostile territory. These plans, enamored with the strategic flexibility created by maritime dominance, ignored the very real limitations of amphibious operations. Hampered by the transport capabilities of the era, amphibious forces were by definition of limited size, which severely curtailed their ability to occupy and defend territory.95 In short, it was in the transition from maritime power to land power that difficulties emerged.

95 Britain established the Transport Board in July 1794 following a review of British experiences during the War of American Independence. This consolidated a job that had previously handled by the Navy, Victualing, and Ordnance Boards. The centralization of this process made the purchase of vessels for transport duty more efficient, but limits existed as far as the volume of tonnage for sale on the open market. M. E. Condon, “The Establishment of the Transport Board-A Subdivision of the Admiralty—4 July 1794,” Mariners Mirror, vol. 58 (1972), pp. 69-84. See also, David Syrett, Shipping and the American War 1775-83: A Study of British Transport Organization (London: Athlone Press, 1970). During the Parliamentary Inquiry of the Walcheren Expedition, Sir Rupert George, Chairman of the Transport Board in 1809, testified that delays to the expedition had been due to a “scarcity of Ships” on the market. Sir Rupert George, testimony before Parliament, in Grey, Walcheren, 107-9.

234

At the same time, the limited nature of these operations in terms of size meant that even in cases of significant failure the blow was far from devastating. For example,

British forces suffered terribly from the Walcheren Expedition, but it did little meaningful long-term damage to British power other than eroding Britain’s disposable troops for foreign service—a not insignificant problem, but a far from mortal or permanent one. This stands in stark contrast to the losses that Napoleon incurred policing French hegemony on the Continent in Spain, Portugal, and, ultimately, Russia.

Thus British maritime hegemony on its own may have been unable to win the war, but, devoid of any serious challenges at sea, it was less likely to lose the war than Napoleon’s attempt to dominate the Continent. Trafalgar, therefore, may not have been a decisive battle in the decades-long conflict, but it did increase the margin of error for British ministers in a way Austerlitz could not for Napoleon. As the next chapter will explore, though, hegemony at sea was no less susceptible to second-order effects than hegemony on land.

235

CHAPTER 7

THE FRAYING EDGE OF EMPIRE: BRITAIN AND NORTH AMERICA, 1807-15

This chapter examines the imperial parameters of the War of 1812 within the context of the Napoleonic Wars. The Anglo-American conflict resulted from the frictions created by British imperial-maritime strategy, and highlighted the competing centripetal and centrifugal forces acting on British policy throughout the Napoleonic Wars.

Beginning in 1808 with the opening of the Peninsular War, the drive to defeat

Napoleonic France in Europe gained increasing traction in British policy.1 Concentration on the Iberian Peninsula did not, however, equate to a relaxation of the imperial- maritime strategy pursued by Britain since the collapse of the Second Coalition in 1801.

Indeed, the challenging nature of the threat posed by Napoleonic France enhanced a strain of British imperial ideology that imagined the empire as a sovereign entity on the high seas and guarantor of international maritime freedoms. The U.S. government’s rejection of such British pretensions of unilateral maritime authority precipitated a transatlantic conflict that exposed the weaknesses of British imperial-maritime strategy and demonstrated Britain’s fading influence as an Atlantic empire at the same time its global reach ascended to new heights.

On June 16, 1812, Henry Brougham rose in the House of Commons and made a lengthy and impassioned call for the repeal of the Orders in Council of January 1807 and

1 For a focused account of British strategy in Europe during this period, see Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).

236

April 1809. In conjunction with the impressment of American citizens into the Royal

Navy, the corrosive effect of the Orders on Anglo-American relations had brought the two nations to the precipice of war at the time Brougham spoke. Citing the importance of American flour imports to sustaining the British army in the Iberian Peninsula and vividly detailing the deleterious impact of the commercial legislation on Britain’s lower class, Brougham expressed incredulousness at the continuation of “an unjust and ruinous quarrel with our kinsmen in America.” In the debate that followed, Viscount

Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, unofficially announced the government’s intention to suspend the Orders. An official announcement of the Orders’ suspension followed a week later, effective August 1. It was a significant victory for Brougham, but in vain. On the far side of the Atlantic, the United States of America had declared war on

Great Britain and Ireland on June 18.2

The War of 1812 defies easy characterization. On the one hand, the Anglo-

American conflict was distinctly North American in nature, a war in which the center of gravity ran along the U.S.-Canadian border into the Indian Country of the Northwest

Territory and bled south along the frontier to the Gulf of Mexico. It was also a war in which American and Canadian national identities solidified and the divide between the two came into greater focus, and one in which the fate of the fraught political and

2 “Brougham, Henry Peter, first Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868),” Michael Lobban in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP, 2004); online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, January 2008, http://www.oxforddnb.com.libproxy.temple.edu/view/article/3581 (accessed January 18, 2016). Parliamentary Debates, vol. 23 (1812), col. 486-548, and 715-21.

237 cultural place of Native Americans in North America was at stake. On the other hand, the Anglo-American conflict was an unintended consequence of the Napoleonic Wars, a byproduct of a strategic stalemate in Europe that resulted in both Britain and France resorting to a zero-sum economic conflict that ceased to respect or allow neutrality on land or at sea. In this contest, British sea power overwhelmed the outmatched U.S. Navy on the high seas after some shocking early setbacks. From a North American perspective, the War of 1812 was a conflict of significant importance and lasting consequence—particularly for Native Americans. From a European perspective, the War of 1812 was a subsidiary affair, overshadowed at the time and since by Napoleon’s disastrous march on Moscow and the subsequent campaigns that resulted in his abdication in April 1814.3

The underlying causes of the War of 1812 reflected both the international and

North American characteristics of the conflict. As the Napoleonic Wars progressed, both

Britain and France adopted policies that eroded neutral rights and attempted to coerce

3 For traditional accounts of the conflict, see Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989); John K. Mahon, The War of 1812 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1972); and J. C. A. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783-1830 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). For a more recent treatment that emphasizes the international elements of the conflict, see Jeremy Black, The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009). Alan Taylor approaches the conflict as a “borderlands” conflict in The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010); and examines the impact of the conflict on the Chesapeake region in The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013). The maritime aspects of the conflict are the subject of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s best historical work, Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812, 2 vols. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968). For more recent scholarship on the maritime war, see Kevin D. McCranie, Utmost Gallantry: The U.S. and Royal Navies at Sea in the War of 1812 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2011); and Andrew Lambert, The Challenge: America, Britain and the War of 1812 (London: Faber and Faber, 2012).

238 acquiescence in each nation’s war aims. The clearest British example of such policies were the British Orders in Council of January 1807 and April 1809. The Orders, retaliation for Napoleon’s similarly intended Berlin Decree (1806) and Milan Decree

(1807), placed severe restrictions on the maritime trade of neutral nations with France, and declared Europe under formal British blockade from the river Ems in the Baltic Sea to the Italian ports of Orbitello and Pesaro.4 This gargantuan attempt at maritime trade regulation by Britain was non-specific in target, but it directly affected a U.S. shipping industry that had leveraged its neutral status in the European conflict to greatly expand its presence in the global carrying trade during the 1790s and early 1800s. A more specific point of contestation in Anglo-American relations was the British practice of impressment. Capitalizing on a common ancestry and language, the Royal Navy may have pressed as many as 15,000 American citizens into service aboard its ships in the

1790s and 1800s due to the increased manpower demands created by Britain’s massive naval campaign against Napoleonic France.5 Specific to North America, the lingering legacy of the American Revolution also played an important role in the U.S. drive towards war with Britain. Anglophobia thrived in the early republic, and some U.S.

4 Order in Council, January 7, 1807, http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/ government/british/decrees/c_britdecrees21.html (accessed January 30, 2016); and Order in Council, April 26, 1809, http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/british/decrees/ c_britdecrees41.html (accessed January 30, 2016).

5 The total of 15,000 pressed American seamen comes from a recent dissertation by Joshua Wolf. Joshua J. Wolf, “’The Misfortune to Get Pressed:’ The Impressment of American Seamen and the Ramifications on the United States, 1793-1812” (PhD diss., Temple University, 2015), 29-63.

239 politicians, particularly frontier Republicans, viewed the conquest of Canada as a means of securing the fledgling nation against the lingering menace of the British Empire to the north, which they linked to Native American hostility along the frontier. In a June 1,

1812, address to the U.S. Congress, President James Madison argued for war by citing all of these justifications. Madison did not ignore the Anglo-French conflict, but dismissed it as an excuse for British policies and acts that undermined American sovereignty, honor, and interests.6

Madison’s attempt to distance the War of 1812 from the European conflict served as good rhetoric, but Anglo-American relations were deeply entangled in the

Napoleonic Wars. The existential nature of the Anglo-French conflict had an understandably profound effect on British policy. The British government judged international diplomacy in relation to its impact on the British war effort, and British officials embraced a rigid and self-righteous view of British policy. In a February 1813 declaration to the British Parliament, George, the Prince Regent, distilled this attitude.

Presenting Britain as a crusading power in defense “of the liberties … of the world,” he went on to chastise the United States: “From their common origin—from their common interests—from their professed principles of freedom and independence, the United

States were the last power in which Great Britain could have expected to find a willing instrument, and abettor of French tyranny.”7 Madison’s administration, of course,

6 “President James Madison to Congress,” June 1, 1812, in American State Papers. Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States … , class 1, Foreign Relations, vol. 3, United States Congress (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832), 405-7.

7 Parliamentary Debates, vol. 24 (1812-13), col. 363-77.

240 viewed matters somewhat differently, but it was not entirely innocent of the charge. The

U.S. Republican Party, which had held power since Thomas Jefferson won the presidency in 1800, viewed France more favorably than Britain, and Madison knowingly engineered the outbreak of war in June 1812 in an effort to capitalize on the distraction created by Napoleon’s Russian invasion.8

THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS

On the surface, the British government’s inertia with regard to the Orders in

Council and its broader maritime policies in the years prior to the War of 1812 is confounding. Given widespread disinterest in conflict with America, why did the British government fail to modify its policies in an effort to appease the United States well in advance of June 1812? A key to answering this question rests in the long-standing, if contestable, vision of Britain’s maritime empire as an arbiter of liberty—particularly commercial liberty—at sea. The Napoleonic Wars enhanced this conception of the

British Empire, and fostered arguments that British maritime policy—no matter how onerous for other nations—served the common good and stood as the final bulwark against French despotism. U.S. critiques of British maritime policy, therefore, ran afoul of dearly held British notions about the character, value, and purpose of the British

Empire, and appeared to align the United States with Napoleonic France.

8 Black, War of 1812, 34-36; Lambert, The Challenge, 55-57.

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Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English political culture and ideology provided the foundation for British imperial ideology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Against a backdrop of deep societal distrust of standing armies and fear that territorial empire would result in a dangerous growth in state power, English imperial advocates championed maritime empire as a safe imperial pathway for domestic civil society. English maritime empire, they argued, would extend and preserve freedom of trade on the high seas. Achieving these goals, however, required placing limitations upon freedom of the seas in the form of the Navigation Acts backed by the power of the

Royal Navy. In fact, a symbiotic relationship existed between expanding maritime commerce, commercial regulation, and naval power. The various Navigation Acts sought to create a vibrant imperial-maritime economic system, which, in turn, trained and employed skilled British seamen that the state could draw upon for naval service.9

By the mid-eighteenth century, there is evidence of wide public embrace in

Britain of the imperial-maritime project imagined and implemented during the preceding century and a half. During the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-42) with Spain,

British Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon’s exploits in the West Indies made him a figure of national prominence at home. In November 1739, Vernon captured the Spanish port of

Porto Bello in Panama with a force of 300 men and a mere six ships. Word of Vernon’s

9 David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Kathleen Wilson, “Empire of Virtue: The Imperial Project and Hanoverian Culture c. 1720-1785;” and Daniel Baugh, “Maritime Strength and Atlantic Commerce: The Uses of ‘A Grand Marine Empire,’” in Lawrence Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689-1815 (New York: Routledge, 1994), 128-64, and 185-223.

242 victory reached Britain in March 1740, and led to public celebrations, commemorative consumer goods such as pottery, and sold-out theatrical productions depicting Vernon’s success.10 The following August, Britons heard the popular anthem “Rule, Britannia!” and its choral command to “rule the waves” for the first time. The broad appeal of

British imperial activity showed no sign of abating by the early nineteenth century, as evinced by the public pressure on the Ministry of All Talents in response to news of the capture of Buenos Aires discussed in the previous chapter.

If anything, the Napoleonic Wars breathed greater urgency into the conception of the British Empire as the sovereign protector of the great common. A May 1809 speech in the House of Lords by Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, captured this vein of British imperial thought, and is worth quoting at length:

The dominion of the seas, for which we ought to contend, is not the mere vague ascendancy of superior force—an ascendancy which, being exercised without rule, may occasionally be absurd, but a regular, systematic, organized sovereignty, under which we ought to give the commerce of all maritime independent nations the same protection as to our own, but with the express condition of their concurring with us in the measures which are necessary for the maintenance of that naval power, which is the last stay of the liberties of the world. Upon these principles, the British naval power might be rendered the basis of a grand maritime confederacy, under which the commercial rights of the associated states might be clearly defined and secured against all interruption. To such nations as are disposed to enter frankly into these views, every commercial advantage, which we can bestow, ought freely to be communicated.

10 Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715-1785 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 140-65.

243

The imperial benevolence that Selkirk offered to Britain’s allies did not, and would not extend to France. “If it be not an idle fancy now to think of peace with France,” he remarked, “the only condition on which it can be concluded with any appearance of safety, is that of her absolute renunciation of all rights on the sea, the surrender or destruction of her ships of war, and the assured renewal of hostilities when the first bolt is driven into a new one.” This uncompromising, Francophobic view is essential to understanding the intellectual environment in which the Orders in Council existed as well as British ambivalence towards American critiques of British maritime policies.11

Equally important to the context of Anglo-American diplomacy prior to June

1812 is a recognition that the Earl of Selkirk’s comments came at a unique moment in the history of British sea power. Despite having long desired sovereignty over the seas—

Charles I optimistically launched a massive warship named Sovereign of the Seas in

1637—the reality was that this notion had remained aspirational as opposed to accomplished for the English and eventual British state.12 In recent memory, the French navy displayed the vulnerabilities of British naval power when French Admiral François

Joseph Paul de Grasse blocked the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, which facilitated both the defeat of Lieutenant-General Lord Charles Cornwallis’ army at Yorktown in October

11 Parliamentary Debates, vol. 14 (1809), col. 344-50.

12 HMS Sovereign of the Seas was more than a mere statement. The 100-gun vessel was the first true three-decker, and proved to be an effective ship in combat against the Dutch Republic. N. A. M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, 660-1649 (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 388-89.

244

1781, and the advent of American independence.13 In fact, in the thirty years prior to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, the British navy represented a diminishing portion of western naval power in both total ships and displacement. Britain retained the largest individual navy throughout this period, but combined navies—especially those of the Bourbon allies of France and Spain—possessed the ability to match Britain on equal terms in raw naval power, if not in skill. During the French Revolutionary and

Napoleonic Wars, however, a dramatic shift occurred. By 1805, Britain possessed more naval ships of greater total displacement than any feasible combination of western powers. The years directly preceding the War of 1812, therefore, represented an exceptional period in British naval history, during which Britain’s ability to dominate the high seas had never been greater. The British government explicitly acknowledged this reality in the Order in Council of January 1807, which scoffed at the notion of a

French blockade “at [a] time when the fleets of France and her allies are themselves confined within their own ports by the superior valor and discipline of the British navy.”14

13 For a general treatment of British strategy during the War of American Independence, see Piers Mackesy, The War for America 1775-1783 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964); and Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013).

14 Order in Council, January 7, 1807, http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/ government/british/decrees/c_britdecrees21.html (accessed January 30, 2016).

245

A. Naval Ships, 1715-1815 600

500

400

300 TotalShips 200

100

British Naval Ships Non-British Naval Ships

B. Naval Ship Displacement, 1715-1815 1000 900 800 700 600 500 400

300 Displacement Displacement (tons) 200 100 0

British Naval Displacement Non-British Naval Displacement

Fig. 7.1. (A) Total number of naval ships; and (B) Total displacement of naval ships. Data includes ship totals for England/Britain, France, Spain, Netherlands, Russian (Baltic Sea), United States (1775-), Denmark/Norway, and Sweden. Source: Jan Glete, Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies, and State Building in Europe and America, 1500-1860, 2 vols. (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1993).

246

Britain translated its maritime dominance into a series of colonial conquests in the years preceding the War of 1812. In the West Indies, the British captured Martinique

(1809) and Guadeloupe (1810). Britain also consolidated its hegemonic position in the

East Indies. In the Indian Ocean, the British engaged in an extended campaign from

1809-11 that resulted in the capture of the long-coveted islands of Île de Bourbon and

Isle de France, the latter becoming Mauritius and remaining part of the British Empire until 1968. The islands had been a base of operation for French naval activity in the

Indian Ocean, and their loss neutered French force projection in the region. Further afield in August 1811, a British amphibious force captured the Dutch colony of Java, which France had annexed in 1810.15

The maintenance of British maritime hegemony on such a scale placed immense strain on the maritime resources of the British state. The French Revolutionary and

Napoleonic Wars resulted in a staggering expansion in British armed forces. The British

Army grew from a mere 40,000 men in 1789 to some 250,000 by 1814. At sea, the Royal

Navy swelled from 16,000 seamen in 1789 to 140,000 in 1812.16 Even with this massive expansion in manpower, the strategic demands placed on the Admiralty spread resources thin.17 By 1812, the British sought to maintain complete control over European

15 C. Northcote Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 1793-1815 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1954), 386, 400-1, 412; and N. A. M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain, 1649-1815 (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 556-57.

16 Linda Colley, “The Reach of the State, the Appeal of the Nation: Mass Arming and Political Culture in the Napoleonic Wars,” in Lawrence Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689-1815 (New York: Routledge, 1994), 165-84.

17 Admiralty to Lord Keith, June 13, 1812, ADM 2/1374, pp. 288-89, BNA.

247 waters through dreary blockade duty, protect trade outside of Europe, and facilitate active operations on the Iberian Peninsula.

The impressment of seamen into the Royal Navy played an important role in enabling Britain to pursue such an expansive maritime strategy, and was, perhaps, the most contentious aspect of Anglo-American diplomacy prior to the War of 1812. As noted earlier, an expectation existed as a matter of policy that the British government possessed the right to demand naval service from British seamen when necessary. In practice, this meant that Royal Navy press gangs would board ships and scour ports for trained seamen and “press” the men into the navy. American grievances related to impressment were two-fold. First, the British regularly impressed sailors from ships sailing under the American flag, which violated both American sovereignty and its rights as a neutral nation. Second, the regular impressment of American citizens as

British subjects challenged the fundamental notion of American sovereign independence.18

American complaints, however, fell on deaf ears in London. The British tended to downplay the number of American citizens that had been illegally pressed while concurrently lodging complaints about the number of British subjects serving aboard

American vessels. In February 1813, Castlereagh defended the British government’s

18 For general coverage of eighteenth-century British impressment, see N. A. M. Rodger Command of the Ocean; and The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (London: Collins, 1986). For a more pointed analysis, see Nicholas Rogers, The Press Gang: Impressment and its Opponents in Georgian Britain (London: Continuum Books, 2007).

248 policies that had led to a second American war by telling the House of Commons that he believed the navy had pressed only 1,600 to 1,700 American citizens. He went on to call into question the legitimacy of U.S. certificates of citizenship carried by sailors, as it was

“well known that these certificates were readily and fraudulently obtained” and the U.S. government and its officers did nothing to stop the abuse.19 Castlereagh’s opinion that

British subjects served aboard American vessels in non-trivial numbers was far from novel. In March 1801, Admiral St. Vincent, then First Lord of the Admiralty, stated in a letter to Thomas Erskine that a “majority of British subjects” maintained the American maritime trade, which he “considered … the greatest evil arising from” American independence.20 Indeed, the U.S. government’s own analysis suggested that British subjects constituted 9,000 out of the 24,000 seamen serving in the U.S. merchant marine.21

A good example of the vehemence of British views on the matter of impressment are those of John Wilson Croker, who was secretary to the Admiralty and a vocal

Member of Parliament on naval affairs. As an Admiralty secretary, Croker had a direct hand in investigating some claims of American citizenship made by impressed sailors.

As he explained in a March 1813 letter to Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, rather than

19 Parliamentary Debates, vol. 24 (1812-13), col. 593-612.

20 Admiral St. Vincent to Honorable Thomas Erskine, March 13, 1801, in John Jervis, Earl of St. Vincent, Letters of Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl of St. Vincent, Whilst the First Lord of the Admiralty, 1801-1804, ed. By David Bonner Smith (London: Navy Records Society, 1921), 1: 290-91.

21 Donald R. Hickey, “The Monroe-Pinkney Treaty of 1806,” in William and Mary Quarterly 44:1 (January 1987), pp. 65-88.

249 finding merit to the U.S. government’s complaints concerning impressment, Croker considered Britain to be the aggrieved party and argued that the U.S. definition of citizenship attempted to negate the British notion of non-transferrable subject loyalty.

Moreover, he believed that the U.S. government cynically stirred controversy surrounding British impressment to “persuade the American Nation that they are at

War with Great Britain in defense of their rights & liberties, when in fact it is a War against the cause of European Independence, and a diversion in favor of the most profligate and powerful despot that ever threatened the liberties of mankind.”22

Croker’s jaundiced assessment of American critiques of British maritime policy underlined the importance of understanding the War of 1812 within the context of the

Napoleonic conflict. From an American perspective, one could justifiably view impressment solely through the lens of competing definitions of citizen and subject.23

Croker, however, linked the debate over impressment to support for Napoleonic France.

This cut to the core of why Anglo-American negotiations surrounding impressment proved so difficult, and echoed Selkirk’s argument that neutral states should embrace or submit to British maritime policy for the greater good.

A final and vital topic concerns situating the deterioration of Anglo-American relations within the wider conflict of the 1800s. The closest the two sides came to a settlement that might have staved off war occurred in December 1806. The Monroe-

22 John Wilson Croker to Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, March 27, 1813, ADM 2/1376, pp. 368-78, BNA.

23 Taylor, Civil War of 1812, 102-6.

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Pinkney Treaty, signed by plenipotentiaries on December 31 after four months of negotiations, was an Anglo-American accord that granted significant commercial gains to the United States. The treaty did not, however, include any concrete British concessions relative to the practice of impressment, and barred the United States from implementing commercial retaliation that targeted Britain. For these reasons, President

Thomas Jefferson refused to even consider ratifying the treaty. A noted Anglophobe,

Jefferson’s poor reception of the treaty was far from surprising, and he had only agreed to the negotiations due to opposition political pressure. Despite the failure of the

Monroe-Pinkney Treaty, the agreement demonstrated a British willingness to make maritime concessions to maintain U.S. neutrality. Importantly, though, the Anglo-

American negotiations also demonstrated the steep maritime imbalance that existed between the two countries. The price of British concessions and U.S. gains was an agreement in which the United States formally acquiesced to British dominion over international maritime trade.24

Following the collapse of the Monroe-Pinkney Treaty, Anglo-American relations hit a nadir from which they never recovered. On June 22, 1807, HMS Leopard, looking to retrieve four Royal Navy deserters, fired on an unprepared USS Chesapeake shortly after the latter vessel sailed from Norfolk, Virginia. Known as the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, the incident fomented widespread anti-British public sentiment and hostility in

24 For a detailed appraisal of the Monroe-Pinkney Treaty, see Hickey, “The Monroe- Pinkney Treaty of 1806.”

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America.25 The following December, Jefferson sponsored an Embargo Act which effectively shut down the U.S. shipping industry with the hope of economically coercing

European belligerents into respecting neutral rights. The extent of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, however, meant that the U.S. government’s embrace of commercial warfare possessed little ability to influence the policies of European states. Indeed, rather than revive negotiations, Britain attempted to circumvent the U.S. government entirely. In

February 1808, British ministers floated an offer of secret negotiations to the northeastern states of the United States, where the commercially-inclined and anglophile

Federalist Party dominated local politics.26

Though American indignation in response to the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair was well justified, perspective is necessary. Word of the incident reached London in late

August 1807, at the same time a British combined force prepared to bombard

Copenhagen, the capital city of neutral Denmark. Off Norfolk, the Leopard retrieved the four British deserters, and left behind four dead and seventeen wounded American sailors. In the Baltic Sea, the British carried off the entire Danish fleet in order to keep it out of Napoleon’s hands, burned a third of Copenhagen to the ground, and may have killed as many as 2,000 civilians.27 Moreover, the assault on Copenhagen was the second

25 Taylor, Internal Enemy, 121-32.

26 Admiralty to Warren, February 16, 1808, ADM 2/1365, pp. 172-3, BNA.

27 Septimus Crookes, Particulars of the Expedition to Copenhagen with an Account of the Siege and Bombardment by the English in 1807: Including Articles of Capitulation, a List of the Captured Fleet, Ships Names, Rates, and When Built, With a Return of Killed and Wounded, Officers Names etc. (Sheffield, 1807), 21-22; Intelligence Branch, British Minor Expeditions, 9; Christopher D. Hall, British Strategy in the Napoleonic Wars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 160.

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British assault on the city in the decade. In early 1801, a League of Armed Neutrality formed among the Baltic States—Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, and Russia—in response to

British imposed restrictions on neutral trade with France. Bearing striking similarity to the British response to the United States’ demands prior to the War of 1812, the British viewed the League of Armed Neutrality as an indirect alliance with France, and responded by sending a fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Vice-

Admiral Horatio Nelson to attack the Danish fleet at Copenhagen and possibly the

Russian fleet at Revel. The latter attack never occurred, but on April 2, Nelson led a

British fleet into a bloody engagement with the Danish fleet off Copenhagen that resulted in the destruction of fourteen Danish ships of the line and the seizure of one other ship of the line for British service.28

Comparing the British operations against Copenhagen and the Chesapeake-

Leopard Affair highlights the degree to which the U.S. government and public failed to grasp the nature of the conflict engulfing Europe. While it was certainly true that British imperial-maritime policy was authoritarian, it was equally true that Britain displayed a markedly greater level of circumspection in its dealings with the United States than with

European states. For example, upon learning of the action between the Leopard and

Chesapeake, the Admiralty admonished Vice-Admiral George C. Berkeley, the British commanding officer in North American waters, for allowing such a provocative act

28 Henry Dundas to Richard Wellesley, January 9, 1801, CO 77/58, pp. 141-42, BNA; and Dundas to Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, March 14, 1801, WO 6/149, pp. 43-49, BNA.

253 against a U.S. warship to occur.29 This is not meant as a defense of British policy as related to the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair and the overall unraveling of Anglo-American relations. To borrow Joseph Fouché’s famous quip, the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair was worse than a crime, it was a mistake. The same can be said to some extent of the British government’s failure to better massage Anglo-American relations in an effort to maintain peace.

The War of 1812 rested within the cul-de-sac created by British imperial- maritime ideology, the pressures created by the Napoleonic Wars, and American naïveté. As the Anglo-French conflict transformed into a struggle between land and sea empires in the early 1800s, the two states increasingly demanded the submission of neutral states to a total war fought on a global scale. For each, this proved costly in 1812.

In Europe, Russia’s refusal to abide by Napoleon’s Continental System precipitated the disastrous French march on Moscow. For Britain, long-standing imperial-maritime ideology provided justification for authoritarian maritime policies, and the dismissal of critiques of British maritime policy as illegitimate and nefarious. The result was a transatlantic conflict with the United States, which greatly expanded the demands on the already strained Royal Navy and exposed British Canada to invasion.

29 William Wellesley Pole to Vice-Admiral George C. Berkeley, August 24, 1807, ADM 2/1365, pp. 10-13, BNA.

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OCEANS, RIVERS, LAKES, AND FRONTIERS

The War of 1812 is often divided into two theaters at the mouth of the St.

Lawrence River. Beyond the river’s entrance existed a maritime conflict fought primarily on the Atlantic Ocean and along the extensive U.S. coastline via British amphibious operations. Up the St. Lawrence to the west, a continental conflict in the Great Lakes region spanned the porous U.S.-Canadian border. Emphasizing the former—despite

American mythology—lends itself to declaring an unequivocal British victory, while the latter witnessed a far murkier outcome.30 From an American perspective, this division of the conflict has considerable merit as the oceanic war and border war were effectively distinct fronts with distinct strategic parameters. From a British perspective, however, this division is artificial and somewhat misleading. For the British government, the strategic challenge posed by a conflict with the United States was not a war at sea and a war on land, but a conflict that demanded both the exertion of British sea power and force projection deep into North America.

Upon the outbreak of the War of 1812, the British strategic response reflected the government’s understanding of the conflict as centered on British imperial-maritime policies. When word of the U.S. declaration of war reached Britain in late July, British officials assumed the conflict would come to a swift conclusion as soon as the U.S.

30 For an explicitly British view focused on the naval war in the Atlantic, see Lambert, The Challenge. Lambert gives particular attention to the American mythology surrounding the War of 1812 on pages 402-48.For a more American perspective of the naval war, McCranie, Utmost Gallantry.

255 government learned of the suspension of the Orders in Council.31 Indeed, as late as

October 1812, with fighting well underway, the British government wished to continue

Anglo-American trade “notwithstanding the present Hostilities.”32 In the meantime, the

British government aimed to compartmentalize and limit the impact of the conflict.

Recognizing the strategic weakness of British Canada, ministers directed Governor-

General George Prevost to assume a defensive posture along the border.33 At sea, the

Admiralty pursued more active operations, and intended to impose a coercive blockade on the U.S. coast and damage the American shipping industry. Towards these ends, the

Admiralty created a unified North American station under the command of Admiral Sir

John Borlase Warren on August 3, which combined the previously independent commands of Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, and Halifax.34 The Admiralty hoped that

Warren’s unified command would enable more efficient and effective control over the maritime conflict in North American waters. In practice, therefore, the British government attempted to extend the imperial-maritime strategy deployed against

France in Europe to North America.35

31 Croker to Sawyer, July 30, 1812, ADM 2/1375, pp. 28-29, BNA.

32 Admiralty to Warren, October 28, 1812, ADM 2/163, pp. 177, BNA.

33 Black, The War of 1812, 61.

34 Admiralty to Warren, August 3, 1812, ADM 2/162, pp. 494-5, BNA.

35 McCranie, Utmost Gallantry, 247.

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The British had good reason to attempt to limit or, better yet, entirely avoid continuing hostilities with the United States in the summer of 1812. Though the Battle of

Trafalgar was not a “decisive” victory within the context of the Napoleonic Wars, its effect on the strategic situation at sea was substantial. The sudden absence of a legitimate European naval threat paired with the Anglo-French commercial war led to the adoption of a smothering strategy of blockade in European waters. The lack of an invasion threat freed the Admiralty of the need for the Western Fleet, which traditionally guarded the maritime approaches of the British Isles. This did not, however, reduce the demands on the Royal Navy, as the British established strong naval presences in the Baltic Sea and Mediterranean in addition to the ever-vigilant Channel

Fleet. This naval strategy was both resource heavy and logistically challenging for the

Admiralty. It was also effective. In particular, British control over the Baltic Sea played an important role in both straining Franco-Russian relations and, despite considerable contempt for British policies towards maritime trade in St. Petersburg, prompting the eventual Russian decision to flee the Continental System. The significant naval demands created by a transatlantic conflict with America would pull much-needed resources away from European waters.36

36 On post-Trafalgar British naval strategy, see James Davey, The Transformation of British Naval Strategy: Seapower and Supply in Northern Europe, 1808-1812 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2012). On operations in the Baltic Sea, see also, A. N. Ryan, ed., The Saumarez Papers: Selections from the Baltic Correspondence of Vice-Admiral Sir James Saumarez 1808-1812 (London: Navy Records Society, 1968).

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In the early phase of the War of 1812, a justified confidence in British naval superiority paired with the government’s commitment to the European theater defined

British actions. In mid-November 1812, the Admiralty allotted Warren a total command of six ships-of-the-line, a 50-gun ship, a 40-gun ship, twenty-three frigates of various sizes, thirty-three sloops, and fifteen smaller vessels. With this force he was to place the

Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River under blockade if the U.S. did not cease hostilities at sea and on land, and remain vigilant against any French squadron that might escape

European waters.37 The Admiralty judged Warren’s fleet large enough to completely arrest U.S. naval operations at sea, but this belief derived from wishful thinking and a lack of respect for the geographic scope of Warren’s command.38 In January 1813,

Warren received further reinforcements, which brought his total primary force up to ten ships-of-the-line, thirty frigates, and fifty sloops. The orders that informed Warren of this reinforcement also pointedly declared that the expansion of his squadron hampered important operations elsewhere.39

37 Croker to Warren, November 18, 1812; Admiralty to Warren, November 27, 1812; and Admiralty to Warren, December 26, 1812, ADM 2/1375, pp. 252-59, 276-78, and 337-38, BNA.

38 Frustration with Warren developed quickly at the Admiralty both due to perceived failures and the consistency and detail of reports from his command. For example, on February 10, 1813, Croker complained to Warren that he had failed to communicate to the Admiralty the whereabouts of U.S. ships and his own dispositions, which necessitated the deployment of British ships in European waters to defend against the unannounced arrival of U.S. ships. He then informed Warren that the Admiralty believed that they had “placed under [his] command a force much greater in proportion than the National Navy of the Enemy opposed to you would seem to warrant.” Croker to Warren, February 10, 1813, ADM 2/1376, pp. 73-87, BNA. Recent scholarly assessments provide and more objective and favorable view of Warren. See, McCranie, Utmost Gallantry, 213-14; and Lambert, The Challenge, 268-69.

39 Croker to Warren, January 9, 1813, ADM 2/1375, pp. 365-73, BNA.

258

The backdrop to the increasing angst in London concerning the Anglo-American conflict was the startling success the U.S. Navy enjoyed in the first months of hostilities.

On August 19, 1812, the USS Constitution defeated the heavily outclassed HMS Guerriere, and displayed the raw power of the U.S. Navy’s “super frigates.” In the ensuing months, the USS United States captured HMS Macedonian in October, and the Constitution captured and burned HMS Java off the coast of Brazil in late December. The propaganda effect of these U.S. victories was significant and lasting, particularly in America—as symbolized by the continued presence of a Constitution in Boston Harbor today. The overwhelming strength of the Royal Navy in the Atlantic Ocean, however, meant that these U.S. victories had only a minor effect on the strategic situation at sea.40

Care is necessary in minimizing the significance of the U.S. Navy’s successes at sea in the first six months of the war, though. The apparent dominance of the U.S. frigates suggested an alarming deficiency in British shipbuilding, which garnered both public and official attention. In March 1813, a Captain Layman published a piece arguing that the Royal Navy possessed a mere eighteen ships—out of a total fleet of

538—that possessed the necessary combination of broadside weight and sailing ability to engage the U.S. frigates single-handedly.41 The following July, the Admiralty issued

40 For a recent detailed account of the opening phase of the naval war, see McCranie, Utmost Gallantry, 26-85. Lambert, The Challenge, 115.

41 Captain Layman, “The Following Comparative Force of English and American Frigates is Given by Captain LAYMAN, in the ‘Precursor’ just published, Where the Subject is Fully Explained,” John Nichols, ed., Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1813, pp. 229-31. Captain Layman is likely William Layman: J. K. Laughton, “Layman, William (1768–1826),” rev. Andrew Lambert, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford:

259 general orders for its frigate officers to make every effort to avoid engaging U.S. frigates without assistance. Given the highly aggressive command culture within the Royal

Navy, the order stood as a striking sign of respect from the Admiralty.42 The Admiralty also converted three 74-gun ships into “razees,” which consisted of removing a deck from the ship and transforming it into a 58-gun frigate capable of competing with the

U.S. super frigates. Additionally, the British ordered the construction of five frigates specifically for service in North American waters that left the docks between September

1813 and August 1814.43

In the spring of 1813, the British government belatedly embraced the fact that the

Anglo-American conflict would require more forceful prosecution. In late March, the

Admiralty issued orders to Warren that directed him to expand the blockade of the U.S. coast from New York to the Mississippi. Additionally, the Admiralty prodded Warren to pursue a more aggressive amphibious campaign along the coastline. Writing to Warren,

Croker suggested that amphibious operations would be “particularly formidable” given the proximity of targets to navigable waters, and that “operations may be carried on

OUP, 2004); online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, 2004, http://www.oxforddnb.com.libproxy.temple.edu/view/article/16224 (accessed December 3, 2015).

42 Croker to Rear-Admiral Edward Griffith, July 9, 1813; and Croker to Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Goodwin Keats, July 9, 1813, ADM 2/1377, pp. 140-42, and 142-44, BNA.

43 Lambert, The Challenge, 253-55. First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Melville, refused to take further steps to counter the U.S. super frigates, which were a naval anomaly at the time.

260 with comparative ease and security, as [landed force] will rarely, if ever, be necessary to advance so far into the Country as to risk its power of retreating to its embarkation.”44

It was clear from Warren’s orders, however, that the conflict in North America remained subordinate to the demands of the continental war in Europe. In 1813, British subsidy payments to continental allies rose to their highest level yet at £7,546,679—the following two years would be higher still.45 It was vital, therefore, that the British economy operate as efficiently as possible, which meant that the Admiralty prioritized the protection of British trade over the destruction of the U.S. Navy and offensive operations along the American coastline.46 Indeed, throughout the War of 1812 the

Admiralty proved responsive to complaints from various quarters about deficiencies in the navy’s defense of British commercial interests.47

44 Croker to Warren, March 20, 1813; and Admiralty to Warren, March 26, 1813, ADM 2/1376, pp. 341-67, and 179-81, BNA. On the British amphibious campaign, see Roger Morriss, Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition: Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 1772-1853 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997), 83-120. Alan Taylor gives a great deal of attention to British operations in the Chesapeake region in The Internal Enemy.

45 John M. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France 1793-1815 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 365-68.

46 Croker to Warren, April 28, 1813, ADM 2/1376, pp. 320-22, BNA.

47 For example, in December 1812 representatives of Lloyd’s filed a complaint with the Admiralty concerning the U.S. depredations on British trade, which the Admiralty promptly forwarded on to Warren. Croker to Warren, December 1, 1812; and Croker to John Bennet, December 12, 1801, ADM 2/1376, pp. 287, and 287-88, BNA. The following January, the Admiralty forwarded a letter from the Merchants of Liverpool to Warren which complained about the “unprotected state” of British trade in the West Indies. Croker to Warren, January 12, 1813, ADM 2/1376, pp. 320-22, BNA. The Admiralty also received and responded to complaints from the governors of Curacao and Trinidad at different stages. Croker to Rear-Admiral William Brown, June 14, 1813, ADM 3/1377, pp. 80, BNA. Barrow to Rear-Admiral Sir Philip Durham, January 12, 1814; and Croker to Durham, February 14, 1814, ADM 2/1379, pp. 73, and 184-85, BNA. In August and September 1814, appeals for improved protection against the activities of U.S. privateers

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The expanded British naval presence in North American waters turned the oceanic naval war decisively in Britain’s favor in the first half of 1813. The last notable success for the U.S. Navy came in early May, when the USS President took advantage of foul weather to evade the British blockade off Boston and make for the open waters of the Atlantic. The sailing of the President furthered the Admiralty’s frustration with

Warren, but the President’s five-month transatlantic voyage before returning to Newport did little damage to British interests. Conversely, on June 1, HMS Shannon defeated and captured the USS Chesapeake with ease in a duel off Boston that pierced the aura of invincibility surrounding the American frigates.48

By the close of 1813, Warren’s blockade of the North American coastline was a demonstrative success. In addition to confining the U.S. Navy’s ships to port, the Royal

Navy had brought the U.S. merchant marine to its knees. Prior to Warren relinquishing his command to Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane in January 1814, the Royal Navy had captured, burned, or sunk almost 1,000 American merchant vessels. George Hubert,

Warren’s secretary and prize agent, personified the extent of British dominance in North

reached the desk of the Prince Regent from the port cities of Liverpool, Greenock, and Glasgow. Lord Sidmouth forwarded the letters on to Lord Liverpool, and asked what measures the government had taken to address the danger to British shipping. Lord Sidmouth to Lord Liverpool, September 5, 1814; Mayor of Liverpool to Prince Regent, August 30, 1814; Sidmouth to Liverpool, September 19, 1814; R. Finlay [Glasgow Provost] to Prince Regent, September 9, 1814; and Sidmouth to Liverpool, September 22, 1814, The Melville Correspondence, 1780-1830, WCL.

48 Croker to Warren, June 19, 1813, ADM 2/1377, pp. 88, BNA; McCranie, Utmost Gallantry, 116-27; and Lambert, The Challenge, 144-45. McCranie and Lambert reach significantly different conclusions about the impact of the President’s cruise. McCranie argues that despite the limited tangible results of the cruise, “Rodgers had caused the British disruption on stations from the coast of the United States to the Arctic, and in the process had forced the British to overreact.” While true, the effect was only ephemeral.

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American waters, as he collected £100,000 in prize money from the station. In a nod to this reality and the ineffectiveness of U.S. maritime economic warfare, the Madison administration ceased its effort to economically coerce European powers in March 1814.

As expected, the overwhelming nature of British sea power had asserted itself along the

American coastline.49

Despite the success of Warren’s Atlantic naval campaign, and to the great frustration of the British government, an end to the conflict remained beyond the horizon. This was largely due to events in Canada, which offered a stark counter- narrative to British victory in the Atlantic and pointed to the inadequacy of assessing the war at sea independent of the inland conflict. While control over the Atlantic applied considerable pressure on the U.S. government and secured imperial lines of communication between London and Quebec, it did not, just as was the case in Europe, assure victory beyond the coastline. Unlike in Europe, however, the Anglo-American conflict tasked the British government with defending British sovereign territory beyond the coastline.

For all intents and purpose, British Canada was an island in the early nineteenth century. To its south rested a watery border with the United States. To its west European power faded away into the frontier. To its north lay the arctic. To its east the Atlantic.

Sparsely populated and plagued by a short growing season, the colony relied on the

49 The Admiralty drew up orders for the end of Warren’s unified command in November 1813, but these orders did not reach him until January. Croker to Warren, November 4, 1813, ADM 2/1378, pp. 146-51, BNA; and Lambert, The Challenge, 251, 268-9, 310.

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British imperial system for supply and defense.50 Imperial control and support from

London was far from easy, however. Lines of communication with Canada ran across the Atlantic to the St. Lawrence, and then extended upriver to the cities of Quebec,

Montreal, and eventually Upper Canada in the Great Lakes region. As one moved up the St. Lawrence the speed of travel slowed considerably, which rendered Lake Ontario much further from British officials in London than a map would indicate. In winter, those same lines of communication all but ceased to exist.51

Both the American and British governments questioned the strength of the empire’s grip on the loyalties of its Canadian subjects, which cast doubt on the security of British Canada. The U.S.-Canadian border was a culturally and economically porous region. Intermarriage and easy cross-border movement meant that families and friends lived and worked on both sides. Additionally, many British loyalists resettled in Upper

Canada following the War of American Independence. From an American perspective, many assumed that Canadian subjects would welcome liberation to the warm embrace of American citizenship. From a British perspective, the potential weakness of Canadian

50 The small population of Canada was an acknowledged weakness in London, and British official occasionally floated ideas that might spur immigration to improve the colony’s defenses during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In 1798, Henry Dundas proposed that French émigrés, who had abandoned the idea of returning to France, might form corps and relocate to Canada or St. Domingue. Henry Dundas to Lord Grenville, May 2, 1798, Dropmore, vol. 4, 184. In 1803, Lord Hobart suggested that Britain offer land in Canada, Jamaica, and Trinidad along with a year’s subsistence as a recruiting bounty for the army. John Sullivan to [Captain?] Richard Gardiner, March 24, 1803, WO 6/138, pp. 446-51, BNA.

51 For a focused analysis of European imperial communication with Canada, see Kenneth J. Banks, Chasing Empire Across the Sea: Communication and the State in the French Atlantic, 1713- 1763 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002).

264 loyalty might undermine the effectiveness of militia needed to support the limited number of regular troops in the colony.52

An additional vital feature of British Canada was the importance of Native

Americans to the geopolitics of North America. The expulsion of France from North

America following the Seven Years’ War left Britain as the dominant European power in

North America, and forced British representatives to deal more directly with native tribes. The consequences of this geopolitical transformation along the frontier were significant and swift. British General Jeffrey Amherst’s failure to appreciate both the limits of European power along the frontier and the necessity of adopting diplomatic and cultural norms that governed European interactions with Native Americans resulted in a costly frontier war known as Pontiac’s Rebellion between 1763 and 1766. In response, the British government attempted to stave off frontier hostilities by limiting westward expansion of its colonies, which alienated frontier settlers and played a role in the political tensions that culminated in the American Revolution.53

52 On the borderlands nature of the conflict and loyalty along the border, see Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 15-74.

53 Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Gail D. MacLeitch, Imperial Entanglements: Iroquois Change and Persistence on the Frontiers of Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). Fred Anderson, The Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British America, 1754-1766 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000). David Dixon, Never Come to Peace Again: Pontiac’s Uprising and the Fate of the British Empire in North America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005).

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The realities of post-revolutionary North America rendered the British Empire and Native Americans natural, if uncomfortable allies. British Canada’s small population of some 300,000 meant that Native American allies were a key component in imperial defense calculations.54 For example, Francis Gore, a British lieutenant-governor in Upper Canada, produced an undated memorandum on “Warlike Indians in Canada.”

Gore tabulated a total of 8,800 potential Native American warriors that Britain might bring forward in defense of Canada. Assessing the potential loyalty of five Native

American villages in Lower Canada, Gore observed, “These villages receiving their presents and supplies from the government stores at Montreal, and under the eye of the

Superintendent General … I believe them to be attached to the British Government.”

Conversely, Gore questioned the loyalty of an Iroquois tribe along the border at St. Regis due to the tribe receiving a pension from the U.S. government in return for lands given over.55 For Native Americans, the Treaty of Paris (1783) created incentives to form a closer relationship with British power emanating from Canada. The treaty, which brought the War of American Independence to a formal conclusion, established clear geographic boundaries between British and American authority, and led to increased

54 This was far from a new development for British force projection in North America. See Brian D. Carroll, “’Savages’ in the Service of Empire: Native American Soldiers in Gorham’s Rangers, 1744-1762,” The New England Quarterly 85:3 (September 2012), pp. 383-429.

55 Lieutenant-Governor Francis Gore, undated, in Francis Bickley, ed., Report on the Manuscripts of Earl Bathurst, Preserved at Cirencester Park (London: H. M. Stationary, 1923), 191-2.

266 state and federal efforts to consolidate U.S. territorial control and erode native sovereignty along the frontier.56

In the years leading up to the War of 1812 it became increasingly clear that conflict loomed between the United States and Native Americans along the frontier.

Under the leadership of a Shawnee war chief named Tecumseh and his brother,

Tenskwatawa, a fledgling nativist movement developed. While Tecumseh attempted to bind disparate Native American tribes from the Great Lake to the Southeast in a common cause against the United States, Tenskwatawa, known by whites as the

“Prophet,” established himself and a group of followers at a place called Prophetstown on the Tippecanoe River. It was there, on November 7, 1811, that Governor William

Henry Harrison of Indiana Territory provoked an altercation that resulted in a lopsided

American victory. Though distinct from the Anglo-American conflict, the battle pushed

Tecumseh into a closer alliance with British power in Canada.57 Two points are essential, though. First, Britain had little direct influence on the development of the nativist movement led by Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa. Second, while the nativist movement found common cause with Britain, it remained distinct and autonomous. In a speech to

British officials at Amherstburg in June 1812, Tecumseh assured the British that Native

56 Alan Taylor, “The Divided Ground: Upper Canada, New York, and the Iroquois Six Nations, 1783-1813,” Journal of the Early Republic, 22:1 (Spring 2002), pp. 55-75. For an excellent analysis of how violence influenced and hardened Native American perspectives of white settlers in the Great Lakes region, see Jeffrey Ostler, “’To Extirpate the Indians’: An Indigenous Consciousness of Genocide in the Ohio Valley and Lower Great Lakes, 1750s-1810,” William and Mary Quarterly 72:4 (October 2015), pp. 587-622.

57 Mahon, War of 1812, 27.

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Americans would defend themselves “like men” if attacked by the United States, but cautioned that upon the outbreak of war “it will be impossible for You or either of You to restore peace between us.”58

Despite the perceived frailty of Canada’s defenses, the first phase of the War of

1812 exposed substantial weaknesses in the U.S. government’s ability to wage offensive operations. The focal point of U.S. strategy at the outset of the conflict was an attempt to quickly invade and conquer Canada, but a combination of British initiative and

American incompetence caused these plans to evaporate quickly. To the west, British

Major-General Isaac Brock directed a small British force to capture Fort Mackinac on the strategically important island of Michilimackinac on July 17, 1812—a measure taken, in part, to shore up Native American alliances. A month later, Brock inflicted a humiliating defeat on the United States when he preyed upon Brigadier General William Hull’s fear of Native American warriors to induce the surrender of Detroit despite the superior strength of the American defenders. To the east, American Major-General Henry

Dearborn’s intended advance on Montreal never materialized. Dearborn’s failure reflected poorly on his suitability for command, but a more glaring problem for the U.S. government was the unwillingness of U.S. militia to participate in offensive operations across the border. Simply put, the lack of a significant professional army and

58 Tecumseh, “We Will Defend Ourselves like Men,” June 1812, in D. E. Graves, compiled by, “In Their Own Words—Aboriginal Leaders and the War of 1812,” The War of 1812 Magazine, no. 2 (February 2006): http://www.napoleon- series.org/military/Warof1812/2006/Issue2/c_abos.html (accessed: December 7, 2015).

268 overreliance on militia to fill a large portion of the ranks meant that the U.S. government lacked the army to enact its preferred strategy.59

The British position in Canada was not as strong as the swift collapse of the U.S. offensive in 1812 might have suggested. The importance of the Great Lakes littoral system to logistics across Canada was immense, and, unlike the open waters of the

Atlantic, British naval power on the lakes was far from awe inspiring. A report drawn up by Lieutenant Colonel A. H. Pye, Deputy Quartermaster General at Quebec, stated that the British possessed a single good ship on Lake Erie and another on Lake Ontario, and both vessels possessed too great of a draft to leave their respective lakes. The rest of the Great Lakes fleet was either unfit for service or quickly falling into disrepair.

Additionally, the British lacked the necessary shipbuilding facilities on the lakes at the outset of hostilities.60 William Jones, who became the U.S. Secretary of the Navy on

January 19, 1813, recognized the opportunity for an aggressive U.S. naval strategy on the lakes. On January 27, the U.S. naval commander on Lake Ontario, Commodore Isaac

Chauncey, received orders from Jones that instructed him “to consider the absolute superiority on all the lakes, as the only limit to your authority.”61

59 [Captain?] John Morris to Madison, August 5, 1812, Papers of James Madison, 5: 116-19. Black, War of 1812, 11-18. Hickey, War of 1812, 2.

60 Lieutenant Colonel A. H. Pye to Governor-General George Prevost, “Report on the Provincial Marine of the Canadas,” December 7, 1811, in The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, 3 vols, ed., William S. Dudley (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1985-2002), 1: 268- 73.

61 William Jones to Commodore Isaac Chauncey, January 27, 1813, in Naval War of 1812, 2: 1813 419-20.

269

By embracing naval competition on the Great Lakes, Jones forced the British

Admiralty’s engagement in a theater of operations it was poorly prepared to exploit. On

March 6, the Admiralty acquiesced to a request by the British War Office to support operations on the Great Lakes, but admitted to ignorance as to the requirements of warfare in that region. The Admiralty tapped Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo for command on the lakes on March 19, and directed him to operate only with the concurrence of Governor-General George Prevost. At this stage, therefore, the Admiralty did not assume direct control over naval operations on the Great Lakes. This was a nod to both the emphasis placed on the theater in London in early 1813, and deference to provincial authority in Quebec.62 It was also an admission of the Admiralty’s inability to provide well-informed direction over operations on the lakes. In September, the

Admiralty would direct Yeo to conduct systematic surveys of the Great Lakes owing to the complete lack of “any Surveys sufficiently accurate and Scientific” at the Admiralty’s disposal.63

On September 10, 1813, the Admiralty’s detached approach to the Great Lakes evaporated in the wilderness of North America. Before that day ended, a U.S. squadron under the command of Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry decisively defeated

62 Croker to Henry Goulburn, March 6, 1813; and Admiralty to Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo, March 19, 1813, ADM 3/1376, pp. 131-33, and 249-52, BNA.

63 Croker to Yeo, September 1, 1813, ADM 2/1377, pp. 321, BNA. Geographic knowledge within the Admiralty remained a problem, which is little surprise given the lack of institutional familiarity with operating on the Great Lakes. In August 1814, the Admiralty sent a series of questions to a number of officers seeking answers to detailed questions about operations on the lakes. Croker to Captain Robert Barclay, et al., ADM 2/1380, pp. 303-4, BNA.

270 the British Commander Robert Barclay on Lake Erie in the first fleet action in American history. Perry’s victory severed Britain’s lines of communication to the west of Lake

Ontario, and placed a combined British and Native American force under the respective commands of Major-General Henry Proctor and Tecumseh in an untenable position at

Detroit. Forced to abandon the fortifications of Detroit due to supply shortages, Proctor and Tecumseh suffered a defeat at the hands of now Major-General William Henry

Harrison at the Battle of the Thames on October 5.64

Despite the geographic remoteness of these actions, the effect of the U.S. victories reverberated across the Atlantic. Losing control of Lake Erie to the United States isolated

Britain’s dependent Native American allies in western Upper Canada, a setback exacerbated by the death of Tecumseh at the Thames. More gravely, Britain’s inability to maintain predominance on Lake Erie cast doubt on its ability to defend Upper Canada.

Word of the British defeats trickled into London in November and December, and dulled the celebratory mood created by a stunning allied victory over France at Leipzig on October 19. At the same moment that victory over the French Empire in Europe appeared to be at hand, the remnants of Britain’s North American empire appeared to be in jeopardy.65

64 David Curtis Skaggs and Gerard T. Altoff, A Signal Victory: The Lake Erie Campaign, 1812-1813 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997). For first-hand accounts, see Master Commandant Oliver H. Perry to Jones, September 10, 1813; Commander Robert H. Barclay to Yeo, September 12, 1813; and Major-General Henry Proctor to Major-General Francis de Rottenburg, September 12, 1813, Naval War of 1812, 2: 488-91.

65 Lord Melville to Admiral Lord Keith, November 3, 1813, in Christopher Lloyd, ed., The Keith Papers vol. 3 (London: Navy Records Society, 1955), 246-47. Croker to Yeo, December 20, 1813, ADM 2/1379, pp. 36-37, BNA. After processing reports from Lake Erie, the British

271

Perry’s victory on Lake Erie did not lead to a collapse of Britain’s position in

Upper Canada, but the impact of the U.S. victory on British strategy was significant and transformative.66 In London, the fallout from the Battles of Lake Erie and the Thames led to the Admiralty assuming direct control over naval operations on the Great Lakes. In late January 1814, the Admiralty made Yeo’s command independent and reinforced him with two battalions of marines that were beyond the control of Prevost.67 Additionally, the American victory on Erie prodded the Admiralty to increase the modest transfer of naval resources from the Atlantic to the lakes, which had begun in late summer 1813.68

In February 1814, the Admiralty ordered Rear-Admiral Edward Griffith to lay up four ships from his command, and send the officers and crew to join Yeo’s command for the spring campaign on the lakes.69 Along the western frontier of Upper Canada, Britain’s

Native American allies felt the immediate and, as events proved, lasting effect of

government believed that Proctor caused Barclay’s defeat by pressing him to sail at a significant disadvantage. Lord Bathurst to Duke of York, February 21, 1814, WO 6/135, pp. 262-64, BNA.

66 Dennis Carter-Edwards, “The Battle of Lake Erie and Its Consequences: Denouement of the British Right Division and Abandonment of the Western Districts to American Troops, 1813- 1815,” in William Jeffrey Walsh and David Curtis Skaggs, eds., War on the Great Lakes: Essays Commemorating the 175th Anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1991), 41-55; Black, War of 1812, 95-101.

67 Croker to Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, January 24, 1814; Croker to Cochrane, January 27, 1814; Croker to Goulburn, January 27, 1814; and Croker to Yeo, January 29, 1814, ADM 2/1379, pp. 100, 112-13, 115, and 130-35, BNA.

68 Croker to Goulburn, August 3, 1813; and Croker to Warren, September 2, 1813, ADM 2/1377, pp. 219, and 327, BNA. Croker to Goulburn, November 3, 1813, ADM 2/1378, pp. 132, BNA.

69 Croker to Griffith, February 9, 1814, ADM 2/1379, pp. 170-72, BNA.

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Britain’s defeats as winter fell. The U.S. interdiction of the British westward lines of communication closed an essential conduit of foodstuffs, weapons, and other supplies to the western tribes. Denied the British trade the tribes relied upon for survival, they reported starvation the following summer.70

The plight of the western tribes following the Battle of Lake Erie is vital to understanding the stakes of the Anglo-American competition for supremacy on the

Great Lakes as well as the wider conflict by late 1813. In November 1812, Madison had delivered his annual message to the U.S. Congress, which specifically looked ahead to the U.S. effort to attain control of Lake Erie and the lakes more generally. In that message, Madison argued that an American “naval ascendancy” on the lakes was

“essential to our permanent peace with, and control over the Savages.”71 Though the

Madison administration deserved no laurels for its management of the opening phase of the War of 1812, an emphasis on a westward understanding of the Anglo-American conflict drew on American geographic strengths, and represented a direct challenge to

Britain’s ability to project force deep into North America. It also redefined the conflict

70 Chetanwakanmani or Little Crow, Chief of the Mdewkanton Sioux, “One Half of our Nation have Died with Shreds of Skin in their Mouths,” June 1814, in D. E. Graves, compiled by, “In Their Own Words—Aboriginal Leaders and the War of 1812,” The War of 1812 Magazine, no. 2 (February 2006): http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/Warof1812/2006/Issue2/c_abos.html (accessed: December 7, 2015).

71 Annual Message to Congress, November 4, 1812, in Robert A. Rutland et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison: Presidential Series, 5 vols. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1984-2004), 5: 429.

273 not as the imperial-maritime dispute the British government preferred it to be, but as a conflict over continental influence and control.

THE OTHER CONTINENTAL WAR

In early November 1814, Britain’s prime minister, the Earl of Liverpool, sought out the opinion of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, concerning the ongoing Anglo-American peace negotiations at Ghent. Wellington’s response offered an insightful and oft-quoted analysis of Britain’s strategic plight in North America.

Wellington argued that there was little good reason to continue the war, and that Britain possessed a poor hand with which to demand American concessions at the peace table.

Without “naval superiority on the Lakes,” he observed, Britain lacked the ability “to maintain an army in such a situation as to keep the enemy out of the whole frontier, much less to make any conquest from the enemy.” Given that reality, he urged

Liverpool to reach an accord with the United States. As Wellington’s comments suggested, by 1814 the United States had succeeded in transforming the War of 1812 into a continental contest, and, despite its vast imperial-maritime might, Britain was losing.72

Events in Europe played an influential role in shaping British operations in

North America throughout the War of 1812, and this remained the case in 1814. On

April 11, the Napoleonic Wars arrived at a false conclusion with Napoleon’s abdication

72 Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, to Liverpool, November 9, 1814, in Arthur Richard Wellesley, 2nd Duke of Wellington, comp. by, Supplementary Despatches and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur, Duke of Wellington, 15 vols. (London: J. Murray, 1858-72), 9: 424-6.

274 and exile to the Mediterranean island of Elba. Freed from the demands of war in Europe, the British government quickly transferred ships and veteran soldiers to the North

American theater. The infusion of reinforcements supported the British government’s embrace of a more aggressive strategy intended to coerce the U.S. government into renouncing an undesired and costly conflict. This was particularly true along the

Atlantic coastline, where the Admiralty and War Office dispatched 1,000 marines, 3,000 experienced troops from the Gironde region of France, and 12 ships from the

Mediterranean to enable an active amphibious campaign along the U.S. coastline under the command of Cochrane.73

The emphasis on an aggressive Atlantic-centered strategy in 1814 spoke to both

British dominance at sea, and the limitations on British force projection beyond the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Upon assuming direct control over naval operations on the

Great Lakes, the Admiralty came face to face with the stark logistical challenges of the region. Prior to the outbreak of Anglo-American hostilities, both countries lacked the necessary facilities to support naval operations on the lakes. This meant that the two

73 Croker to Cochrane, April 4, 1814; Croker to Cochrane, April 15, 1814; Croker to Hamilton, April 27, 1814; and Croker to Cochrane, May 19, 1814, ADM 2/1380, pp. 10-12, 31-33, 59, and 142-46, BNA. Bunbury to Croker, April 26, 1814, WO 6/153, pp. 247-8, BNA. Intended reinforcements for Canada came from the Gironde, the 97th Regiment stationed at Cork with a paper strength of 700 men, and the 4th Battalion of the Royal Scots, who travelled from Holland to Britain before embarking for North America. Bunbury to Croker, April 15, 1814; and Bunbury to Croker, April 19, 1814, WO 6/153, pp. 243, and 246, BNA. Croker to Bunbury, April 26, 1814, ADM 2/1380, pp. 58, BNA. Bunbury to Croker, April 26, 1814, WO 6/153, pp. 247, BNA. Croker to Bunbury, April 27, 1814; and Croker to Bunbury, April 27, 1814, ADM 2/1380, pp. 61, and 60, BNA.

275 fleets had “been built and fitted in the wilderness,” as Chauncey bluntly characterized

U.S. shipbuilding at Sacketts Harbor to his political masters to the south.74

As a flurry of Admiralty orders in the early months of 1814 made clear, however, the United States possessed the significant advantages of operating on both shorter and internal lines of communication to support naval operations on the lakes.75 In January

1814, the British shipyard at Kingston held two ships under construction for service on

Lake Ontario. Lacking the intended complement of cannon for the ships in Canada, the

Admiralty had to ship thirty 24-pounders and twenty 18-pounders across the Atlantic as ballast. In an attempt to take advantage of the vastly superior naval infrastructure at home, the Admiralty also ordered the construction of two frigates and two sloops in

British shipyards for service on the lakes. The four ships would make the transatlantic voyage in frame for completion upon arrival in Canada, and the Admiralty sent Yeo naval dockyard workers to facilitate onsite construction.76

Even with the geographic constraints on naval construction on the lakes, the

Anglo-American competition for naval supremacy reached dizzying heights. Between

1812 and 1814, American and British ship totals grew respectively from twelve and eight

74 Chauncey to U.S. Navy Department, August 10, 1814, The New American State Papers: Naval Affairs, vol. 4, Combat Operations, ed., K. Jack Bauer (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1981), 379-80.

75 On the difficulty of British logistics, see Brereton Grenhous, “A Note on Western Logistics in the War of 1812,” Military Affairs, 34:2 (April 1970), 41-44.

76 Admiralty to Lord Mulgrave, January 18, 1814; Croker to Board of Ordnance, February 7, 1814; Croker to Navy Board, February 7, 1814; Croker to Goulburn, March 3, 1814; and Croker to Yeo, March 7, 1814, ADM 2/1379, pp. 77-78, 156, 157, 248-9, and 292-94, BNA.

276 to thirty and twenty-eight. Additionally, both sides intended to float behemoth warships on Lake Ontario by war’s end. The British shipyard at Kingston produced HMS St.

Lawrence, a three-decker carrying 102-guns in the summer of 1814. The Americans responded by gathering resources for the construction of USS New Orleans at Sackets

Harbor, which would have carried 95-guns had not the coming of peace aborted its construction.77

Despite the resources poured into the naval arms race on the Great Lakes, translating naval construction into a decisive advantage proved elusive for both sides.

Control of Lake Erie enabled the United States to regain Detroit and interdict British communication with western tribes, but did not lead to a legitimate existential threat to

Upper Canada. On Lake Ontario, where the lion’s share of the shipbuilding took place,

Chauncey and Yeo merely sparred to an inconclusive result. The most notable feature of the fighting on Lake Ontario were combined operations undertaken by both sides in

1813. In late April, the U.S. fleet supported a successful assault on York, and participated in the capture of Fort George on May 27. Two days following the loss of Fort George,

Yeo led a British descent against Sackets Harbor that failed to deliver a crippling blow to the port in the face of American resistance, but succeeded in scaring Chauncey into a

77 Black, War of 1812, 139-40. On the USS New Orleans, see Jones to Chauncey, April 6, 1814; Jones to Chauncey, May 27, 1814; Jones to Chauncey, May 31, 1814; Jones to Chauncey, June 7, 1814; Jones to Chauncey, October 24, 1814; and Jones to Samuel T. Anderson, October 24, 1814, in New American State Papers, 4: 337, 348, 350, 358, 387, and 389.

277 more conservative use of his naval force. The lack of naval supremacy on the lake neutered the ability for either side to expand upon successful operations, however.78

Beyond modest shipbuilding by both sides, Lake Champlain and its shoreline remained in relative quiescence prior to 1814. This was largely due to the combined influence of the U.S. government’s deference to the anti-war local politics in the region, and the passivity of Prevost in Lower Canada.79 In the summer of 1814, however,

Prevost led a hesitant advance along the lake’s western shoreline as part of Britain’s strategy to bring the war to a conclusion. At Plattsburgh, Prevost ran into an outnumbered American contingent under the command of Brigadier General Alexander

Macomb, who retreated to a fortified position to await the advancing British army.

Displaying an overabundance of caution, Prevost called for support from British Captain

George Downie, who commanded a small fleet on Lake Champlain. A U.S. squadron under the command of Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough arrived in advance of Downie, and assumed a defensive position in Plattsburgh Bay. On September 11,

Macdonough and Downie fought an engagement that resulted in a resounding

American victory. The British defeat halted Prevost’s advance, and ended any lingering hope for a British advance out of Canada.80 The defeat also led to the British

78 Major-General Henry Dearborn to U.S. Secretary of War John Armstrong, April 28, 1813; Chauncey to Jones, May 28, 1813; Yeo to Croker, May 26, 1813; and Chauncey to Jones, June 2, 1813, Naval War of 1812, 2: 450-52, 463-66, 469-70; and 477-78.

79 Taylor, Civil War of 1812, 269-93.

80 Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough to Jones, September 11, 1814, New American State Papers, 4: 384-85. Yeo to Admiralty, September 24, 1814; and Captain Daniel Pring to Yeo,

278 government’s swift recall of Prevost in order to face a court-martial, which highlighted the unrealistic nature of ministerial expectations in London. Britain’s inability to achieve control of the lakes doomed Prevost’s advance from the start, and no less than

Wellington expected he would make an effective defense of his actions on those grounds.81

The failure of Prevost’s advance from Canada was part of a troubling trend for the British government. The incompetence of American forces played no small role in the successes Britain enjoyed in North America at the outset of the War of 1812. By 1814, however, it became clear during an American offensive along the Niagara front that war had belatedly begun to temper American troops. On July 5, an American force, under the leadership of Brigadier General Winfield Scott, displayed increased tactical skill in defeating an outnumbered British force led by Major-General Phineas Riall at the Battle of Chippawa. Shortly thereafter, on July 25, the Americans confirmed their newfound tactical capabilities in a nighttime engagement at Lundy’s Lane.82

Britain’s inability to effectively project force from Lower and Upper Canada signaled a fundamental weakness to British imperial power in North America, and that meant that Britain’s only means of coercing the U.S. government rested in oceanic sea

September 12, 1814, “Interesting Intelligence from the London Gazettes,” in John Nichols, ed., Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1814, pp. 663-65.

81 Wellington to Liverpool, November 9, 1814, Supplementary Despatches, 9: 424-6. The Admiralty recalled Yeo to be present for Prevost’s court martial on December 12, 1814. Croker to Yeo, December 12, 1814, ADM 2/1381, pp. 77-78, BNA.

82 Black, The War of 1812, 154-58; and Taylor, Civil War of 1812, 387-89, 392-95.

279 power. As noted, Britain had established a dominant blockade along the U.S. coastline by the summer of 1813.83 By its nature, however, naval blockade is an indirect method of warfare that relies on time and pressure to achieve desired ends. Driven by impatience with the costly conflict, the British government determined to increase the tempo of amphibious operations in Chesapeake Bay, dispatch an expedition to Passamaquoddy

Bay on the coast of Maine, and in the summer of 1814 approved operations in the Gulf of

Mexico that would culminate in the failed assault on New Orleans in early January

1815.84 The logic behind this enhanced amphibious campaign, overseen and well- understood by Cochrane, was to leverage British maritime strength to make the continuation of the war as unpalatable as possible for the U.S. government.85 There was a significant flaw in this line of reasoning, though. Britain indisputably possessed the means to inflict damage on U.S. coastal communities with relative impunity, but, short of capturing and holding territory, an amphibious campaign would offer little leverage at the peace table.

83 The British naval blockade was immensely successful, but there were limitations to maritime blockade along the Atlantic coast of North America. A strict blockade north of Cape Cod proved impossible during the winter, but the Admiralty calculated that even during winter it could capture somewhere between a third and half of all shipping emanating from U.S. ports. South of Cape Cod, it was possible to establish a year-round blockade with some local variance. Croker to James Buller, May 31, 1814; and Croker to Cochrane, June 17, 1814, ADM 2/1380, pp. 177-79, and 196, BNA.

84 This chapter elides the details of the British operation in Passamaquoddy Bay. For recent accounts of the operations, see Lambert, The Challenge, 317-20; and Black, War of 1812, 165- 67. The Admiralty informed Cochrane of the intended operation in late April. Croker to Cochrane, April 29, 1814, ADM 2/1380, pp 80, BNA.

85 Lambert, The Challenge, 320.

280

The Chesapeake region’s geography, politics, and economy made it an ideal target of British amphibious operations. The bay’s considerable stretch of coastline, connected waterways, and the relative absence of U.S. naval forces allowed British squadrons to execute hit-and-run landing operations with little threat of retaliation. As

British strategy became more aggressive in 1814, the Chesapeake’s waters also provided access to two obvious targets of amphibious descent operations in Baltimore, a hub of

U.S. privateering activity, and Washington D.C. Additionally, the strength of the

Republican Party in the Chesapeake region, meant that operations in the area punished the constituents of the politicians that the British blamed for the continuation of the conflict. Lastly, the region’s plantation economy provided British commanders with an additional pressure point in the form of runaway slaves.

Slavery, in fact, played an important role in both British operations and wider strategic thought in the latter phase of the war. British ships proved to be a magnet for runaway slaves at an early stage of the conflict, and a recent estimate places the total number of slaves that escaped to the British at 5,000—some 3,405 those individuals came from the Chesapeake region.86 Former slaves provided valuable local intelligence for

British commanders, and even led raiding parties ashore. Prior to 1814, the British government desired that its officers avoid the appearance of encouraging slaves to flee their owners. This policy changed notably in 1814, however. As part of Major-General

Robert Ross’ orders for his command in North America, Lord Bathurst, Secretary of

86 Alan Taylor takes up this topic thoroughly, but for an explanation of the specific numbers, see Taylor, The Internal Enemy, 441-42.

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State for War and the Colonies, permitted him to bring away any willing slaves that supported British operations—the British government was particularly interested in

American slaves willing to enlist in the British West India Regiments. Importantly, slaves that left captivity with the British would do so “as free Persons not subject to any restrictions incompatible with the State of free Persons.”87

On a related front, the British consciously avoided inciting a slave rebellion in the southern states out of a desire to “prevent if possible this war from assuming a more sanguinary character than any in which we have been for a long period engaged.” The

British government recognized, however, that the threat of a slave rebellion loomed large in the anxieties of southern whites. When the U.S. government threatened retaliatory measures against British prisoners of war for Native American acts along the frontier, Warren received orders to inform the U.S. government that he would arm slaves in the southern states and encourage them to rebel if any such retaliations took place.88

Geography and weak defenses exposed the Chesapeake to British maritime predations, but it is important to recognize the limits of British amphibious operations there. On August 24, 1814, one of the most dramatic events of the War of 1812 took place when a British force led by Ross burned the White House and other public buildings in

Washington D.C. Burning the enemy capital served as good propaganda, but the swift

87 Bathurst to Major-General Robert Ross, 1814, WO 6/2, pp. 1-4, BNA.

88 Bathurst to Admiralty, 1814, WO 6/2, pp. 49-51, BNA.

282 return of the British troops to their waiting ships in the Patuxent River pointed to the fact that British amphibious forces lacked the ability to occupy and hold ground.89

Indeed, the British War Office conceived of the amphibious campaign in the Chesapeake as one designed to inflict pain and suffering on the local population, but little more.

Writing on September 29, Bathurst commended Ross for his assault on Washington

D.C., but advised him that a proposed assault on Baltimore should make “its Inhabitants feel a little more the effects of Your visit than what has been experienced at

Washington.” He went on, “You would make that portion of the American People experience the consequences of War, who have most contributed to its Existence.”90

Unbeknownst to Bathurst, Ross had died on September 12 during the failed attack on

Baltimore, and the British combined force left the Chesapeake shortly thereafter.

Whereas operations in the Chesapeake offered little opportunity for continental leverage to Britain, with some qualifications the opposite was true in the Gulf of Mexico.

If the British captured the city of New Orleans they could threaten to control the outflow of the Mississippi and gain greater influence along the frontier and in the southeast. It is clear, though, that Bathurst held no illusions about Britain’s ability to maintain long- term possession of the city. On September 6, Bathurst wrote to Ross, “You will discountenance any proposition of the Inhabitants [of New Orleans] to place themselves

89 Kevin D. McCranie, “’Economizing the British Force’: British Seaborne Expeditionary Warfare in the War of 1812,” (Paper presented at the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750- 1850, University of Mississippi, Oxford, February 22, 2014).

90 Bathurst to Ross, September 29, 1814, WO 6/2, pp. 23-24, BNA.

283 under the Dominion of Great Britain.” Rather, the British government hoped that the territory might void the still recent Louisiana Purchase by popular consent, and return to the Spanish Empire. Bathurst also envisioned a potential scenario where the denizens of New Orleans and its surroundings opted to create an independent state of Louisiana, but viewed such an attempt as unlikely to achieve success. In either case, Bathurst directed Ross to clearly state to the local populace that neither independence nor restoration to the Spanish Crown would be “a sine qua non of Peace with the United

States” for Britain. In a separate missive to Major-General Edward Pakenham, who assumed command following Ross’ death, Bathurst admitted that it was unlikely that the local population would actively support the British due to fear of U.S. reprisals following the war. He hoped, however, that local population might “peaceably … acquiesce in our Possession of the Country during the War.”91

The timing of the British government’s approbation of the New Orleans expedition coincided with the beginning of Anglo-American peace negotiations at Ghent in early August, which was significant for two reasons. First, given Bathurst’s directions to Ross and Pakenham, it is reasonable to surmise that the British government hoped to influence Anglo-American negotiations through operations in the Gulf of Mexico, and little more. Attention is sometimes drawn to Henry Dundas’ intellectual influence on the

New Orleans expedition, but Bathurst’s views fell far short of the “Commercial Stations”

91 Bathurst to Ross, September 6, 1814, WO 6/2, pp. 9-14, BNA; and Bathurst to Major- General Edward Pakenham, October 24, 1814, WO 6/2, pp. 26-27, BNA.

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Dundas envisioned for the opening of the Spanish Empire to British trade.92 Second, the

British desired to secure and solidify the western frontier of the United States as part of any Anglo-American peace agreement. Operations in the Gulf of Mexico provided an opportunity for the British to make contact with and find common ground with the

Creek Confederation, which had engaged in a concurrent but largely distinct conflict with the United States since July 1813. Thus, Bathurst’s orders to Ross, dated August 10, charged him with seeking “every opportunity to cultivate the Goodwill and Respect of the Indian Tribes, and to attach them to the British Interests.”93

The security of Native American tribes along the U.S.-Canadian frontier was a central plank of Britain’s opening negotiating position at Ghent, in fact. Writing on

August 31, 1814, Liverpool informed the British commissioners, “The Object of the

British Government is to fulfil their engagements to the Indians, to secure them against encroachments, and to remove all cause of misunderstanding in the future.” Towards those ends, Liverpool wished to propose an Anglo-American agreement that uniformly addressed their respective relationships with Native tribes, and ceded rights to territory not inhabited by U.S. or British subjects.94 This stance was less altruistic than Liverpool’s language suggested. British negotiations at Ghent aimed for the establishment of a

92 Henry Dundas, “Memorandum for the Consideration of His Majesty’s Ministers,” March 31, 1800, Box 5, Henry Dundas Melville Papers, 1771-1831, Rubenstein Library, Duke University.

93 Bathurst to Ross, August 10, 1814, WO 6/2, pp. 7-8, BNA.

94 Earl of Liverpool, “Memorandum Explaining British Negotiating Position at Ghent,” August 31, 1814, Liverpool vol. 2, 64-7.

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North American political settlement that provided security for British Canada, and

Native American tribes represented a means of checking American aggression and expansion. This was a difficult proposition to implement, however. It was, perhaps, reasonable to suggest a moratorium on the purchase of territory from Native Americans, but, as Castlereagh observed, it was distinctly unreasonable to disallow conquest in the event of Native American hostilities. This left the British in something of a quandary on this point. As Henry Goulburn, under-secretary for war and colonies and a member of the British commission at Ghent, noted, “Causes of war will always be found … and the only difference in the situation of Canada will be, that its frontier will be laid open by a conquering American army under General Harrison, instead of by treaties for sale, as heretofore.”95

Indeed, the primary point of contention in Anglo-American negotiations was the

American demand for a peace premised on the status quo ante bellum, and the British recognition that such a peace would result in an increasingly weak and marginalized

British Canada. From a British perspective, the War of 1812 had demonstrated that the

United States wished “to extend [its] dominions on all sides,” and, moreover, that

Britain had lacked the ability to effectively counter American continental aspirations.96

In August, therefore, the British held to a hardline position that, in addition to strengthening the position of Native Americans, sought to buttress the U.S.-Canadian

95 Goulburn to Bathurst, August 21, 1814, Supplementary Dispatches, vol. 9, 188-89.

96 Goulburn [?], “The British Commissioners to the American,” August 26, 1814, in Supplementary Dispatches, vol. 9, 194-6.

286 border in Britain’s favor by transforming the Great Lakes into a “military barrier” on which Britain held the sole right to possess armed vessels. Additionally, the British wished to retain possession of the strategically important Michilimakinac Island, and

Fort Niagara. The justification for these requests was the fact that Britain was the

“weaker power on North America,” and, therefore, U.S. concession were necessary for

British security.97 From a U.S. perspective, this was, with good reason, an unacceptable foundation for peace. Though the United States lacked the ability to expunge the British

Empire from North America, the War of 1812 had ably exposed the empire’s declining ability to exert power on the continent, and the U.S. negotiators refused to sign an agreement that bolstered British interests while undermining their own.

The stark reality for the British government was that it did not possess the leverage to achieve its hardline position at Ghent, and this fact bore out over time.

Writing to Goulburn on October 21, Liverpool urged him to maintain his resolve in negotiations, and declared the British government’s ability to financially continue the war and willingness to increase pressure along the U.S. coastline. Just shy of a month later, however, Liverpool had accepted the weakness of the British position and committed the British government to finding common ground with the United States.

Liverpool’s sudden pacifism came about in response to both Wellington’s analysis of the state of affairs in North America, as well as the collapse of support for the continuation

97 Lord Castlereagh to Commissioners at Ghent, August 14, 1814; Bathurst to Commissioners at Ghent, October 18, 1814; and Bathurst to Commissioners at Ghent, October 20, 1814, in Castlereagh Corr., 10: 86-91, 168-70, and 172.

287 of war-time property taxes in Britain. With Britain committed to peace, the two sides signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, which, tellingly, restored the status quo ante bellum.98

Writing to George Canning on December 28, Liverpool framed Britain’s continued presence in North America with a combination of realism and fatalism. The

“weakness of Canada,” Liverpool observed, derived from the vast advantage in population possessed by the United States—Canada had a population of approximately

300,000, whereas the U.S. population numbered 7,500,000. Liverpool believed that

Britain could continue to hold and defend British Canada, “but the frontier must in any case be of such prodigious extent, that it never could be made, as a frontier, defensible against the means which the Americans might bring against it.”99

Bathurst underlined what this understanding meant for Native Americans in two letters to Pakenham written on November 27. The British government urged native leaders to reach independent agreements with the United States based on the Treaty of

Ghent, but cautioned that the British state “could not be justified in affording them further Assistance if they should persist in Hostilities.” As a means of strengthening

98 Liverpool to Castlereagh, November 11, 1814, in The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, K. G., Late First Lord of the Treasury, comp. by Charles Duke Yonge (London, MacMillan and Co., 1868), 2: 72-74. Islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy represented the only exception to the restoration of status quo ante bellum. The bay had represented disputed territory prior to the War of 1812, and the two countries agreed to abide by a principle of uti possidetis concerning the islands in the first article of the treaty. Treaty of Ghent, http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/ diplomatic/c_ghent.html (accessed January 30, 2016).

99 Liverpool to Canning, December 28, 1814, Liverpool, 2: 74-77.

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Native American claims to independence and autonomy, the British advised the use of the word “nation” as opposed to “tribe” on any agreement. As the War of 1812 came to a conclusion, therefore, semantics served as a better defense for Native Americans against the encroachments of the United States than the British Empire.100 The British defeat at

New Orleans on January 8, 1815, therefore, was a fitting, if unnecessary, endnote to the

War of 1812.

The War of 1812 was a byproduct of Britain’s authoritarian imperial-maritime strategy, which proved inadequate to the demands of the conflict it spawned in North

America. This, of course, did not invalidate British imperial-maritime strategy, which proved effective in Europe and in British imperial expansion elsewhere—the East Indies, in particular. The Anglo-American conflict, however, did serve as a substantive check to

British imperial power during a period in which the British Empire transformed from its eighteenth-century Atlantic-centered form into its nineteenth-century global form.101

Though it is sometimes asserted with confidence that American claims to victory in the War of 1812 are a matter of myth and nothing more, it is equally problematic to ascribe any degree of victory to Britain. While Britain soundly defeated the U.S. Navy at sea and stymied American offensives directed against Canada, it also struggled to

100 Bathurst to Pakenham, December 27, 1814; and Bathurst to Pakenham, December 27, 1814, WO 6/2, pp. 34-6, and 36-7, BNA.

101 P. J. Marshall, “Britain Without America—A Second Empire?,” in the Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 576-95.

289 control its North American frontier and proved impotent in projecting force against the

United States other than ephemeral amphibious assaults. More importantly still, the

United States effectively severed British alliances with Native Americans, which removed an essential auxiliary of British force projection on the continent. Indeed, the peace negotiations at Ghent made clear the degree to which the conflict had undermined the notion of British imperial power in North America. The United States demand for a peace based on the status quo ante bellum was not an admission of defeat per se, but a recognition that the status quo ante served its own interests and aspirations. Similarly,

British demands for American concessions signaled British awareness that acceptance of the status quo ante confined Britain to a submissive role in North America. Both positions derived from lessons learned during the course of the war. As Liverpool’s dour demographic analysis suggested, the outcome may have been inevitable, but the War of

1812 hurried its arrival.

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CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION: THE “SMALL SPOT IN THE OCEAN”

The object which must naturally first present itself to every minister, must be to give additional vigour to our maritime strength, and security to our colonial possessions. It was to them we were indebted for the unparalleled exertions which we have been enabled to make in the course of this long and eventful contest; it was by them that we were enabled, in the wreck of Europe, not only to effect our own security, but to hold out to our allies the means of safety, if they had been but true to themselves.

—William Pitt, speech in the House of Commons, November 3, 18011

This work has sought to explore the relationship between the British Empire and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In doing so, the preceding chapters have offered a pair of broad and intertwined arguments. First, imperial interests exerted a consistent and growing influence on British policy formation through the personal advocacy of political leaders, institutional memory, and in the form of a traditional and widely-embraced strain of British imperial-maritime ideology that became more vehement as the conflict progressed and escalated. As “British” as opposed to continental interests necessarily came to the foreground in British ministerial thinking, the policies of the British government increasingly built from the foundation provided by Britain’s imperial-maritime interests and strengths. Second, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars indirectly and directly affected Britain’s imperial project with lasting consequence. The Anglo-French conflict occurred during and accelerated a

1 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 57-72.

291 transitionary phase of the British Empire in the wake of the War of American

Independence. The course of the Anglo-French conflict highlighted Britain’s decline as an “Atlantic” imperial entity by exposing the real and expanding limits of British force projection within the Atlantic world. At the same time, the conflict created opportunities for the establishment of a hegemonic British presence in the Indian Ocean, and the significant expansion of British India.

Throughout the French Revolutionary Wars the British government of William

Pitt the Younger struggled to form a coherent and consistent strategic response to

Revolutionary France. At first, Britain’s lack of strategic direction and commitment derived from Pitt’s belief that the revolutionary regime in Paris was politically unstable and fiscally unsustainable, and a relative lack of counter-revolutionary fury within the

British government. As France’s revolutionary government stabilized politically and militarily, its victories on the Continent mounted, and revolutionary ideology arrived in the Caribbean, Pitt’s government engaged in a traditional and increasingly contentious policy debate between continental and imperial-maritime strategies. The main actors in this debate were two members of the triumvirate that dominated British policy under

Pitt’s leadership; Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for War, who advocated imperial policies and openly questioned whether a meaningful connection existed between

British interests and regime change in Paris, and Lord Grenville, the Foreign Secretary, who preferred continental alliances as a means to restore the Bourbon monarchy. As argued in Chapter 4, while this debate concerned the merits of continental and imperial

292 policies at a superficial level, it is more accurate to label it a debate between Dundas’ continental pessimism and Grenville’s continental optimism.

Indeed, a key outcome of the Second Coalition’s failure to restore the Bourbon monarchy was that it exposed the degree to which the partitions between British advocates of imperial and continental policies were more contingent than permanent. As a humbled Grenville admitted at the time, the collapse of the Second Coalition dashed any lingering hope for a swift defeat of Revolutionary France in Europe. As the appeal of continental policy waned, the arguments articulated by Dundas—and occasionally

Pitt—gained greater purchase in the years that followed. Specifically, the notion that

“British”—i.e., maritime and imperial—and continental interests were not one and the same. The correct path for Britain, therefore, laid in an attritional strategy centered on protecting and expanding British imperial revenue and maritime strength. Thus, a key takeaway from this work is that Dundas’ influence on British strategic thought demands greater attention not just in the 1790s, but also as the conflict continued and transformed into the Napoleonic Wars.

The imperial drift of British thinking came into sharp relief in the debates surrounding the Peace of Amiens, which established the intellectual framework for how

Britain would approach the Napoleonic conflict that followed. Though a minority faction, opponents of the Anglo-French peace agreement, led by Lord Grenville, assaulted the negotiated terms in both parliamentary debate and publications.

Significantly, their critiques of the peace remained relatively silent on the continental aspects of the peace agreement, which effectively affirmed French hegemony in Western

293

Europe. Rather, the opposition focused much of its ire on what it deemed to be an utter failure on the part of Henry Addington’s government to secure terms that provided for the continued security and prosperity of the British Empire. Specifically, they argued that the agreement allowed France to establish itself as a powerful transatlantic empire ranging from the Caribbean across the Gulf of Mexico to South America. These arguments failed to stave off the British ratification of the peace agreement in May 1802, largely due to the combination of a war-weary British society and the fact that many, including the influential Pitt, deemed peace a necessity at the time. Nevertheless, the characterization of France as an aspirational imperial entity persisted and undermined the foundation of the Anglo-French peace. A reality only exacerbated by the provocative actions and persona of Napoleon Bonaparte. Upon the renewal of war between Britain and France in May 1803, the imperial characterization of Napoleonic France, and the

British anxieties it entailed, forged a far more unified Francophobic outlook in Britain than the French Revolution and its ideological threat ever had achieved.

British retrenchment along imperial-maritime lines was not simply a fallback option in response to failed continental policies. To a large degree, it was a natural extension of British ambivalence towards continental intervention. As noted, British opinion retained significant divisions with regard to counter-revolutionary policies and regime change throughout the 1790s. The British characterization of Napoleonic France as an imperial threat outside of Europe in addition to being a destabilizing entity within

Europe wedded Britain’s imperial and continental interests, and provided the intellectual basis for British continental intervention until the war’s conclusion. The

294 strength of the British commitment to continental intervention depended greatly on

France retaining its threatening imperial aura, however. Following Napoleon’s defeat and exile to Elba in 1814, the apparent threat posed by France to British interests outside of Europe declined considerably and so too did British commitment to continental intervention. Indeed, the return of British ambivalence towards active military role on the Continent manifested in the government’s foreign policy throughout continental peace negotiations, and found public voice in a spirited parliamentary debate over whether Britain should intervene in French affairs following Napoleon’s return from exile and resumption of power prior to the Waterloo Campaign.2

By the close of 1805, the combined effects of the British naval victory off Cape

Trafalgar in October and Napoleon’s victory over an Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz in December provided the foundation of an Anglo-French hegemonic struggle between sea and land powers. As Dundas had so forcefully argued in the 1790s, the center of gravity of this struggle was fundamentally economic in nature, with France

2 Parliamentary Debates, vol. 31 (1815), cols. 395-447, 454-74. Prior to Napoleon’s return from exile, the British government considered the removal of French power from the Low Countries as the only military intervention on the Continent that would enjoy parliamentary support. Lord Liverpool to Viscount Castlereagh, Lord Liverpool to Castlereagh, December 23, 1814, in The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, K. G.,-- Late First Lord of the Treasury, comp. by Charles Duke Yonge (London, MacMillan and Co., 1868), 2: 85-87. The importance of Antwerp to British foreign policy during the peace negotiations cannot be overstated. Lord Bathurst declared the end of French control of Antwerp a “sine quá non” of any peace agreement. Lord Bathurst to Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, December 31, 1813, in Arthur Wellesley, 2nd Duke of Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, vol. 8 (London: John Murray, 1861), 450-52.

295 implementing the Continental System and Britain zealously attempting to police and expand its advantages in naval power and maritime commerce.

For both Britain and France, this zero-sum struggle, in which the neutrality of other states could not be respected, strained international relations, invited strategic overreach, and defined the parameters of strategic decision making. For France, the maintenance of continental hegemony resulted in the Peninsular War in 1808, which provided Britain with an opportunity to leverage its maritime strength to engage on the

Continent, and, disastrously, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. If the hegemonic struggle exposed the cracks in the foundation of Napoleon’s continental hegemony, it also exposed the limits of British force projection in the early nineteenth century. A combination of the widespread popularity of imperial endeavors and institutional memory drove the Ministry of All Talents’ failed attempt to incorporate Spain’s South

American Empire into the British Empire in 1806. Similarly, the desire to maintain

British naval predominance led to the legally dubious but successful expedition against

Copenhagen in 1807 and the failed expedition against Antwerp in 1809. Lastly, Britain’s aggressive claims of maritime hegemony directly contributed to the breakdown of

Anglo-American relations and the outbreak of the War of 1812. This second American war provided further evidence of Britain’s immense power at sea, but ultimately proved

Britain incapable of effectively projecting force on the North American continent. A fact the British government accepted and affirmed in the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in

December 1814. Though often dismissed as strategic distractions from the European conflict or simply ignored, these operations, expeditions, and, inadvertently, conflicts

296 were features and byproducts of Britain’s imperial-maritime ideology and associated policies, as opposed to mere defects or raw ministerial incompetence.

The check on British power in North America in 1814 directs attention to the transforming orientation of the British Empire under the duress of global conflict between 1793 and 1815. The spread of France’s revolutionary ideology to the enslaved black population of the West Indies in the mid-1790s dramatically increased the cost of operations in the region for Britain. Indeed, the casualty totals of the West Indian campaigns—between 87,250 and 97,250—cast a lingering pall over British recruiting efforts in the years that followed, and stigmatized West Indian operations in British public opinion.3 Additionally, Britain’s failed attempt to suppress the slave rebellion on

St. Domingue provided a focal point for British abolitionist criticisms of slavery and the slave trade, which gained momentum and culminated in the successful passage of the

Slave Trade Act in 1807. The Talents’ confused effort to incorporate Spain’s South

American colonies into the British Empire presented a similar signal of the shifting winds of empire in the Atlantic Ocean. In South America, the British government ran afoul of a burgeoning nationalist independence movement that had little interest in trading a Spanish yoke for a British one. An important outcome of the French

Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, therefore, was that it forced the British government to permanently part ways with Britain’s eighteenth-century imperial aspirations and claims within the Atlantic littoral space. This tied into a larger narrative

3 Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar, and Seapower: The British Expeditions to the West Indies and the War Against Revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 333-34.

297 of European imperial decay and decline in the Atlantic Ocean in the early nineteenth century. Britain retained its West Indian colonies and Canada, but also acknowledged its inability to dictate affairs beyond the coastline of the Atlantic.

If the Anglo-French conflict spurred a decline of Britain’s traditional Atlantic empire, the opposite was true for its eastern empire. Throughout the latter third of the eighteenth century Britain’s imperial interests in India assumed an increasingly prominent position within the empire economically, intellectually, and politically. The outbreak of war with Revolutionary France enhanced the importance of British India in two ways. First, the elevation of Henry Dundas to a cabinet level position in 1794 placed a staunch and personally invested advocate of British India at the highest level of government. Second, the conflict created an opportunity for an ambitious governor- general in India, Richard Wellesley, Lord Mornington, to engineer a conflict and present the conquest of Mysore as a fait accompli to the British government. The effect of

Mornington’s actions in altering the balance of the British scales of empire was of immense significance. The annexation of Mysore greatly increased the geographic scope of British controlled India, and between 1797/8 and 1812/13 the annual receipts for

British India doubled from £8.06 million to £16.34 million.4 Domestically, the collapse of the Second Coalition in Europe bequeathed the conquest of Mysore a prominent position in defenses of the policies of Pitt’s government. Further British gains associated with the European conflict in Mauritius, Ceylon, and the Cape of Good Hope by the end

4 Bruce Collins, War and Empire: The Expansion of Britain, 1790-1830 (London: Longman, 2010), 219-20.

298 of hostilities would reinforce Dundas’ claim before the House of Commons in 1802 that

Britain had become “the [sovereign] of India.”5

If Britain increasingly perceived the Anglo-French conflict through an imperial- maritime lens, what was the efficacy of British imperial-maritime power in combating

Revolutionary and Napoleonic France? Of necessity, any answer to this question must draw a degree of distinction between the conflict in Europe, and the more explicitly

“British” conflict outside Europe. As historian Paul Schroeder argues in The

Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848, a lasting and durable European peace remained an impossibility until the European powers gained the collective will to address the diplomatic and military challenges spawned by the French Revolution and escalated by Napoleon. Despite repeated British attempts to forge continental alliances to contain and bring regime change to France, the necessary commitment to collective action against France failed to coalesce until 1812 when Russia assumed a leading role on the Continent.6 This reality stood as a stinging commentary on British continental impotence, but also testified to the insight of Dundas’ strategic arguments in the 1790s.

Dundas, of course, pressed his line of reasoning further with what amounted to a grand strategy premised on the security and expansion of Britain’s maritime empire and commercial revenue as a means of enhancing Britain’s continental power. Significantly,

Dundas’ strategic arguments assumed and accepted a drawn out conflict of economic

5 Parliamentary History, vol. 36 (1801-1803), cols. 679-86.

6 Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848 (Oxford University Press: New York, 1994).

299 attrition—i.e., a “contention of purse,” as he described to Pitt in 1794.7 It is important to emphasize that Dundas’ strategic arguments did not amount to an outright dismissal of continental interventionism, as evidenced by his grudging facilitation of Grenville’s policies during the War of the Second Coalition and staunch support of Britain seeking a continental alliance to remove Napoleon from power following the collapse of the Peace of Amiens. British pursuit of imperial aggrandizement drew contemporary criticism on the Continent, as well as within the historiography of the French Revolutionary and

Napoleonic Wars as selfish and counterproductive. For example, an observer in Vienna wrote to Lord Grenville in October 1796: “Your enemies spread everywhere the idea that you oppose pacification with a view to aggrandize yourselves in the two Indias, regardless of the blood lavished on the continent of Europe.”8

Yet, a holistic view of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars suggests that Dundas’ imperial-maritime approach was largely correct if judged in realpolitik terms. At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain possessed far more influence over continental affairs than it had in the 1790s due to its fiscal clout. To be sure, British exertions on the Iberian Peninsula represented a critical drain on French resources, but it is important to recognize the degree to which those campaigns relied upon maritime power.9 Writing to London following the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont on March 1,

7 Dundas to Pitt, July 9, 1794, PRO 30/8/157, pp. 160-67.

8 Unsigned to Lord Grenville, October 5, 1796, in Dropmore Papers, 3: 258.

9 Christopher D. Hall, Wellington’s Navy: Sea Power and the Peninsular War 1807-1814 (London: Chatham Publishing, 2004).

300

1814, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and the British Foreign Secretary, observed that the treaty established the breadth of Britain’s continental power after two decades of warfare. With British subsidized troops accounted for, he reported, “our engagements

[are] equivalent to [Austria, Prussia, and Russia’s] united … This, I trust, will put an end to any doubts as to the claim we have to an opinion on continental matters.”10 Indeed, the British government conducted its foreign policy throughout the peace negotiations in 1814-15 well aware of its significant fiscal advantages over continental states and the diplomatic leverage this created. For example, when Austro-Russian tensions developed surrounding negotiations over the dissolution of Poland, Liverpool was confident that a swift declaration that the British government would not make British coin available to finance further European conflict would force cooler heads to prevail in foreign courts.11

Though British imperial-maritime power played a significant role, both fiscally and militarily, in defeating Napoleonic France in Europe, the results achieved outside of

Europe were decidedly mixed. The vast expansion of British India paired with the obvious decline of British influence on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean. The

Treaty of Ghent and the lengthy continental negotiations that culminated in the

Congress of Vienna diplomatically solidified the structural changes to the British Empire these outcomes suggested. At Ghent, as noted, the British ultimately accepted a reduced

10 Viscount Castlereagh to William Hamilton, March 10, 1814, in Charles William Vane, ed., Correspondence, Despatches, and other Papers, of Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry, vol. 9, (London: John Murray, 1853), 335-36.

11 Liverpool to Castlereagh, December 23, 1814, in The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, 2: 85-87.

301 position in North America, whereas Castlereagh secured Britain’s position in the Indian

Ocean by retaining the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, and Ceylon.12

Perhaps more importantly, British ministers rarely exerted great control over colonial warfare, which often resulted in British imperial warfare being reactive as opposed to a product of an active agenda. Britain’s West Indian campaigns began as a traditional imperial strategy to capture France’s imperial revenue streams, but devolved into costly counter-revolutionary campaigns to preserve the slave economy of the region. The arrival of a French army in Egypt in 1798, simultaneously led to divisive policy arguments within the British Cabinet between continental and imperial policy, and linked the European conflict directly to British India. The expansion of British India as a result of the supposed French threat emanating from Egypt occurred without governmental approval and despite voiced reservations about such policies, not because of a desire for imperial expansion in London. In South America, Sir Home Popham’s unauthorized capture of Buenos Aires derailed the Ministry of All Talents’ policies due to a combination of popular appeal, institutional memory, and undisputed commercial value. Lastly, the War of 1812 was an undesired conflict, born from Britain’s rigid

12 Colonial matters played only a limited role in active peace negotiations amongst the European powers. Britain did selectively relinquish captured territories that offered little net gain to the British Empire. The only colonial matter that the British pressed for in continental negotiations was the end of the Atlantic slave trade, but with limited success. For recent scholarly treatments on the negotiations, see Adam Zamoyski, Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon & the Congress of Vienna (New York: HarperCollins, 2007); Mark Jarret, The Congress of Vienna and its Legacy: War and Great Power Diplomacy after Napoleon (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2013); and Brian E. Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014).

302 imperial-maritime ideology and policies, which exposed British Canada to invasion and

British maritime commerce to predation by the U.S. Navy and American privateers at a time when the Peninsular War demanded governmental attention and resources.

The British Empire, therefore, was not a one-way street for policymakers in

London. By the late eighteenth century, Britain was an imperial-maritime state with interests stretching across the Atlantic Ocean and east into the Indian Ocean. Britain’s imperial-maritime empire and its supporting institutions represented a vital source of revenue, a key component of British force projection through its naval and maritime establishments, and, lastly and significantly, a strategic liability exposed to foreign threat. Britain’s longstanding imperial-maritime ideology supported imperial-maritime expansion as a boon to the commonweal, and expanded throughout the French

Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars to define Britain’s maritime empire as the last bulwark against the malevolent intentions of French global hegemony. Additionally, the scale and power of Britain’s imperial-maritime empire was unique among the constellation of European states by the close of the eighteenth century, and provided a degree of insulation and intellectual distance from continental affairs and tumult. As

Schroeder observes, eighteenth-century “Britain was only marginally a European country.”13 An observation with merit not simply due to the imperial-mindedness of

Britons, but because it was, in fact, objectively true. As Pitt concluded in the 1790s,

13 Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, 298.

303 though a far from ideal outcome, the Continent could burn to the waterline without necessarily representing an existential threat to Britain or its interests.

This was a reality that British ministers might temporarily ignore in pursuit of a mutually beneficial continental stability, but, at the helm of an imperial state, could not fully or permanently set aside as the conflict progressed and expanded in scope, difficulty and stakes. Indeed, one of the most significant outcomes of the French

Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was the degree to which the distinction between

“British” and continental interests rose to the surface and hardened between 1793 and

1815. Writing in August 1799 to Lord Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Dundas observed, “We are a small spot in the ocean without territorial consequences, and our own power and dignity as well as the safety of Europe, rests on our being the paramount commercial and naval Power of the world.” He then asked, “If, then, the securing this just pre-eminence is at this moment in our hands, why are we so much to refuse ourselves and our posterity to allow it to pass by?”14 Though the results were uneven and, perhaps, not entirely what Dundas had hoped for, the moment did not pass by.

14 Henry Dundas to Lord Spencer, August 12, 1799, Spencer Papers, 4: 109-11.

304

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