‘Founded in Lasting Interests’: British Projects for European Imperial Collaboration in the Age of the American Revolution*

Abstract

This article examines various British proposals for co-operation with other European imperial powers to counter the rebellion of the American colonies or curb the pretentions of the new United States. Historians have paid little attention to these projects, mainly because none of them eventuated in the co-operation their authors envisaged. But their lack of success is not a reason to dismiss them as unimportant; their failure reveals much about British attitudes at the time.

Keywords:

• European imperial co-operation
• American Revolution
• eighteenth century

I should like to thank the owners and custodians of the manuscripts from which I quote, especially the Marquis of Bath. My thanks are likewise due to Dr Kate Harris, curator of the historical collections at Longleat, for assisting with access to materials in her care. I am also indebted to Professor P.J. Marshall for his drawing my attention to William Knox's suggestion of 1786, and to Professor Hamish Scott for advice on the Thynne Papers at Longleat.

Notes

1. M. Jensen (ed), English Historical Documents, ix, American Colonial Documents to 1776 (London, 1969), 875.

2. P.H. Smith et al. (eds), Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789. 26 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1976–2000), xvi. 561; xvii. 279.

3. See R.B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (New York, 1965), 173–90.

4. M.A. Giunta et al. (eds), The Emerging Nation: A Documentary History of the Foreign Relations of the United States under the Articles of Confederation, 1780–1789. 3 vols (Washington, D.C., 1996), iii. 360.

5. For the fears, see esp. J.H. Hutson, ‘The Partition Treaty and the Declaration of American Independence’, Journal of American History, lviii (1971–2), 877–96; and D. Armitage, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 44–6. For notice of British schemes of the 1770s, see N. Tracy, Navies, Deterrence, and American Independence: Britain and Seapower in the 1760s and 1770s (Vancouver, 1988), 122–6; G.W. Rice, The Life of the Fourth Earl of Rochford (1717–1781). 2 vols (Lewiston, N.Y., 2010), ii. 581–5.

6. See, esp. J.R. Dull, The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774–1787 (Princeton, 1975), 213.

7. R.C. Simmons and P.D.G. Thomas (eds), Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments respecting North America, 1754–1783. 6 vols. to date (Millward, N.Y., 1982-), vi. 175.

8. St. James's Chronicle, or the British Evening Post, 23 Sep. 1775. The same piece was published in the Public Advertiser, 27 Sep. 1775.

9. [Edmund Jennings,] Considerations on the Mode and Terms of a Treaty of Peace with America (London, 1778), 24.

10. Letter from ‘An American’ in Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 30 Oct. 1775.

11. [Anon.,] Considerations on the American War. Addressed to the People of England (London, 1776), 56. Some catalogues identify Israel Mauduit as the probable author of this pamphlet, though the basis for the attribution is not clear. Mauduit wrote the much more famous Considerations on the Present German War (London, 1761), but the sketch of his life in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, compiled by Karl W. Schweizer, does not regard the 1776 publication as one of Mauduit's works.

12. [Adam Ferguson,] Remarks on a Pamphlet lately Published by Dr. Price, Intitled, Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government and the Justice and Policy of the War with America (London, 1776), 47.

13. Historical Manuscripts Commission (subsequently HMC), Stopford Sackville MSS. 2 vols. (London, 1904–10), ii. 21.

14. [Anon.,] Essays Commercial and Political, on the Real and Relative Interest of Imperial and Dependent States, particularly those of Great Britain and Her Dependencies (Newcastle, [1777]), 85–7.

15. West Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds, Grafton Papers, Ac. 423/190.

16. V. Merolle (ed), The Correspondence of Adam Ferguson. 2 vols (London, 1995), i. 134, 137.

17. Grafton had resigned as lord privy seal in Oct. 1775, on the grounds that ‘the Americans [were] too strong’ and therefore could not be coerced; conciliation, in Grafton's view, was the only option: [Oxford,] Bodleian Library, North MS d. 25, fo. 47.

18. [Alnwick Castle, Northumberland,] Percy Papers, vol. L, pt. A, fo., 90, Hugh, Earl Percy, to Edward Harvey, 28 July 1775.

19. See, e.g., K.G. Davies (ed), Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783: Colonial Office Series. 21 vols (Shannon, 1972–81), xi. 124, Thomas Gage to the Earl of Dartmouth, 20 Sep. 1775; Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, Hertford, Ratcliffe of Hitchin Priory Papers, D/ER C347/1, Henry Farrington Gardner to John Ratcliffe, 19 Aug. 1775; Calderdale Archives, Halifax, Lister of Shibden Hall MSS, SH 7/JL, Jeremy Lister to his father, 15 July 1775.

20. Nottingham University Library, Newcastle of Clumber MSS, NeC 2384, Henry Clinton to the Duke of Newcastle, 18 Aug. 1775.

21. See, e.g., Gage's letters of 20 Aug. and 12 Sep. 1775, in Davies (ed), Documents of the American Revolution, xi. 80–1, 105; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Amherst Papers, U 1350 079/12, James Robertson to Lord Amherst, 21 Dec. 1775; [Ann Arbor, Michigan,] William L. Clements Library, Clinton Papers, Robertson to Henry Clinton, 13 Jan. 1776.

22. See, e.g., the proposal of Captain Archibald Blane to use black recruits to fill the ranks of British regular regiments in America, submitted in a letter to the Secretary at War: [London,] B[ritish] L[ibrary,] Barrington Papers, Additional MS 73,589, fos. 88–9; and the speech in the House of Commons of William Lyttelton, former governor of South Carolina, 26 Oct. 1775, in Simmons and Thomas (eds), Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments, vi. 96.

23. Sir J. Fortescue (ed), The Correspondence of King George the Third. 6 vols (London, 1927–8), iii. 239.

24. See, e.g., [Kew,] T[he] N[ational] A[rchives of the United Kingdom], Colonial Office Papers, Intercepted Letters, CO 5/40, fos. 28-9, [Arthur Lee] to Landon Carter, 23 Sep. 1775.

25. See J. Ferguson (ed), Papers Illustrating the History of the Scots Brigade in the Service of the United Netherlands, 1572–1782. 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1899–1901); and J. Miggelbrink, ‘The End of the Scots-Dutch Brigade’ in S. Murdoch and A. Mackillop (eds), Fighting for Identity: Scottish Military Experience, c. 1550–1900 (Leiden, 2002), 83–103.

26. See R. Atwood, The Hessians: Mercenaries from Hessen-Kassel in the American Revolution (Cambridge, 1980), ch. 2.

27. For the negotiations with one such entrepreneur, Lt.-Col. Georg Heinrich Albrecht von Scheither, an officer in the Hanoverian Army, see TNA, War Office Papers, WO 43/405.

28. See the reports of his speech in Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 30 Oct. 1775, and Craftsman; or Say's Weekly Journal, 4 Nov. 1775.

29. For the manoeuvring leading to Rochford's replacement, see P.D.G. Thomas, Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, 1773–1776 (Oxford, 1991), 283–5. For the Sayre case, see J. Flavell, When London was Capital of America (New Haven, 2010), 159–62.

30. Longleat House, Wiltshire, Thynne Papers, Bath MSS, Official Correspondence, E5 B1, parcel N-Y, Rochford to Weymouth, 28 Nov. 1775. The quotations in the following four paragraphs are taken from this letter.

31. S. Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven, 2009), 320.

32. G.-T.-F. Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissmens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes. 6 vols (Amsterdam, 1770). Raynal was in fact only one of the authors, or even just the editor; other writers, including Diderot, played a part in compiling a text that Jonathan Israel sees as overturning colonialism: see Israel's Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750–1790 (Oxford, 2012), ch. 15.

33. Rice, Life of the Fourth Earl of Rochford, i. 23–38.

34. See the entry, by Geoffrey Rice, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

35. Bodleian Library, MS Lyell Empt. 37, e.g., fos. 8, 9, 11.

36. See, e.g., Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 338, fos. 12, 89; MS Eng. Lett. c. 339, fos. 49, 58.

37. H.M. Scott, ‘Diplomatic Culture in Old Regime Europe’ in H.M. Scott and B. Simms (eds), Cultures of Power during the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 2007), 58–85.

38. H.M. Scott, British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution (Oxford, 1990), 167–70.

39. Ibid., 182–5.

40. TNA, Granville Papers, PRO 30/29/3/3, fos. 232-5, ‘The Situation of Europe’, 16 Nov. 1772.

41. Scott, British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution, 186.

42. For an early indication of his peace-loving sentiments, see, e.g., Bodleian Library, MS Eng. Lett. c. 339, fo. 27, Rochford to Robert Keith, 28 Feb. 1750. For his nearly contemporaneous concerns about French designs, see MS Eng. Lett. c. 338, fo. 3, draft of a letter to the Earl of Holderness, 1/22 Nov. 1749. In 1751, Rochford even suggested (perhaps in jest) that the English should drink Italian red wine rather than Claret, in order to weaken ‘an Enemy’ (MS Eng. Lett. c. 340, fo. 22).

43. TNA, Granville Papers, PRO 30/29/1, Rochford to Lord Gower, 10 Oct. 1772.

44. See, e.g., the evidence that Rochford passed on to the then American Secretary, the Earl of Dartmouth, in September 1775, in [Stafford,] Staffordshire Record Office, Dartmouth MSS, D(W)1778/II/1523; and Rochford's letter to Horace St Paul, the secretary to the British Embassy in Paris, 15 Sep. 1775, in TNA, State Papers France, SP 78/296.

45. HMC, Stopford Sackville MSS, i. 137.

46. Simmons and Thomas (eds), Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments, vi. 94.

47. BL, Grantham Papers, Additional MS 24,163, fo. 33.

48. Fortescue (ed), Correspondence of King George the Third, iii. 283; H. Doniol, Histoire de la participation de la France à l’établissment des État-Unis d’Amérique: correspondence diplomatique et documents. 5 vols (Paris, 1886–92), i. 236 (de Guines to Vergennes, 10 Nov. 1775).

49. Hutson, ‘The Partition Treaty and the Declaration of Independence’, esp. 879–83. De Guines claimed that the idea of an alliance was put to him by J. Pownall, Dartmouth's Undersecretary: see Doniol, Histoire de la participation de la France, i. 189, 233–6, 254.

50. Longleat House, Thynne Papers, Bath MSS, Official Correspondence, E5 B1, parcel N-Y, Stormont to Weymouth, 29 Nov. 1775, 31 Jan., 7 Feb. 1776.

51. Bedfordshire Record Office, Bedford, Lucas of Wrest Park Papers, L 29/213.

52. BL, Grantham Papers, Additional MS 24,162, fo. 143.

53. T.W. Copeland et al. (eds), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke. 10 vols (Cambridge, 1958–78), iii. 294.

54. Fortescue (ed), Correspondence of King George the Third, iii. 530.

55. George III to North, 13 Jan. 1778, ibid., iv. 14.

56. BL, Auckland Papers, Additional MS 34,420, fo. 352, Knox to William Eden, 7 Jan. 1786. Another version of this letter is in the Knox MSS at the William L. Clements Library.

57. For Spa's attraction to the Irish upper classes at this time, see HMC, Various MSS, 8 vols (London, 1901–14), vi. 135.

58. HMC, Stopford Sackville MSS, i. 194, 212, 273.

59. E. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament, 1692–1800: Commons, Constituencies and Statutes. 6 vols (Belfast, 2002), iv. 217.

60. Longleat House, Thynne Papers, Bath MSS, Official Correspondence, E5 B1, parcel N-Y, Clermont to Weymouth, n.d., but probably 1777.

61. BL, Auckland Papers, Additional MS 34,420, fo. 352.

62. Ibid., Hardwicke Papers, Additional MS 35,912, fos. 256-64.

63. See Rice, Life of the Fourth Earl of Rochford, ii. 582.

64. In the autumn of 1775, Pinto had tried hard to persuade Rochford of the need for the British government to support Portugal against Spain. See, e.g., TNA, State Papers Portugal, SP 89/80, fos. 120, 124, Pinto to Rochford, 8 Oct. and 3 Nov. 1775.

65. R.B. Morris (ed), John Jay: The Winning of the Peace (New York, 1980), 146.

66. J.R. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (New Haven, 1985), ch. 13. For a patriotic assessment of the Spanish role, see T.E. Chávez, Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift (Albuquerque, NM, 2002).

67. Davies (ed), Documents of the American Revolution, xv. 178.

68. Scott, British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution, 315; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Sandwich Papers, SAN/F/44, Sandwich's notes for cabinet, 19 Jan. 1781.

69. BL, Auckland Papers, Additional MS 34,420, fos. 355-6.

70. HMC, Various MSS, vi. 201.

71. L.J. Bellot (ed), ‘William Knox Asks What is Fit to be Done with America?’ in H.H. Peckham (ed), Sources of American Independence: Selected Manuscripts from the Collections of the William L. Clements Library. 2 vols (Chicago, 1978), i. 163–87.

72. Knox was the author of The Claim of the Colonies to an Exemption from Internal Taxes Imposed by Authority of Parliament, Examined (London, 1765).

73. W. Knox, Considerations on the Present State of the Nation. Addressed to the Right Hon. Lord Rawdon, and the Other Members of the Two Houses of Parliament, Associated for the Preservation of the Constitution, and Promoting the Prosperity of the British Empire (London, 1789), 28.

74. W. Knox, Extra-Official State Papers. 2 vols (London, 1789), ii. 53.

75. W. Cobbett and J. Wright (eds), The Parliamentary History of England. 36 vols (London, 1806–20), xxiii. col. 604 (7 March 1783).

76. See S. Conway, Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe in the Eighteenth Century: Similarities, Connections, Identities (Oxford, 2011), 94–7; P.J. Marshall, Remaking the British Atlantic: The United States and the British Empire after American Independence (Oxford, 2012), ch. 5.

77. Hamish Scott refers to Weymouth's ‘habitual indolence’ in his article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [http:/www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27425, Accessed 23 Nov. 2013].

78. For the contemporary view of the Duke of Bedford, who thought Canada should be given back to the French, see BL, Newcastle Papers, Add. MS 32,922, fos. 449–51, Bedford to the Duke of Newcastle, 9 May 1761. (It should be said that he had argued the opposite in 1746: see Lord John Russell (ed), Correspondence of John, Fourth Duke of Bedford. 3 vols (London, 1842–6), i. 182.) For historians’ views, see esp., Lewis Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution, 2^nd ed. (London, 1961), 281–2; J. Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (Oxford, 1976), ch. 5 (for the arguments of L.H. Gipson, the leading American imperial historian); L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, 1992), 135–6.

79. See, e.g., Scott, British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution, ch. 12; A. Stockley, Britain and France at the Birth of America: The European Powers and the Peace negotiations of 1782–1783 (Exeter, 2001). As Shelburne explained in September 1782 to Gérard de Rayneval, Vergennes’ Undersecretary, in India ‘things must remain … as they were established in 1763’: Bedfordshire Record Office, Lucas of Wrest Park Collection, Robinson Papers, L 30/14/307, Shelburne to the Earl of Grantham, Sep. 1782.

80. See, esp., J. Black, A System of Ambition? British Foreign Policy, 1660–1793 (London, 1991), ch. 12; B. Simms, Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783 (London, 2007), chs. 22–3.

81. See esp. H. Furber, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600–1800 (Oxford, 1976), ch. 7.