Summary

With the receipt of the jolting account of Bunker Hill, George III, the Ministers, Lords and Commons awoke to the realization that they were con­fronted with a real war. The idea of chastizing recalcitrant radicals and mis guided tradesmen in America was abandoned. The colonists must be subdued and forced to submission by hard blows. By the spring of 1776 the British gov­ernment would have an army of some 20,000 men in North America and along its coasts an overwhelming fleet. But regiments at home were still of skeleton size or existed only on paper, and the Royal Navy was in a woeful state from neglect, incompetence, and corruption. Time was required to fill out military ranks and to ready and manships.

Of course, not all voices of moderation and conciliation were stilled. Edmund Burke spoke of America and the Americans as—"a remote and difficult country, and such a Spirit as now animates them, may do strange things. Our Victories can only complete our Ruin." And, merchants who were feeling the loss of the American trade did not hesitate to express deep concern about the course of events.

Efforts to stop the flow of arms and ammunition into the colonies were intensified by tightening coastal and harbor patrols and by appeals to continental governments to extend the embargo on the shipment of munitions to America. The conduct of General Gage and Admiral Graves became the subject of mounting criticism in official circles. The general was recalled, the government ostensibly seeking his advice, but Gage never returned to his command. Rear Admiral Molyneux Shuldham was ordered out to relieveGraves. Thus, the two senior British officers in North America were to leave the scene under a cloud as the flames grew hotter.

Russia was approached for the hire of some of the troops seasoned in the war with Turkey, but this move came to nought. Various German princes offered soldiers at a price and the Court of St. James's had this possibility under consideration in August of 1775.

Any Spanish expectations that Britain's troubles presented a golden oppor­tunity to retake Gibraltar and Minorca were shattered, at least temporarily, by the stunning defeat administered to the Spaniards by the Barbary corsairs on the shores of Algiers in July.

France, very naturally, watched and carefully evaluated every move in the widening American conflict. De Guines, French ambassador in London, dis­patched a stream of correspondence across the channel which kept the foreign minister, Count de Vergennes, fully informed of the political climate, build up of forces, and the state of British naval strength and deployment.

Caron de Beaumarchais, shuttling between London and Paris, foresaw that the revolt in the American colonies held the greatest consequences for France. In September, a memorial prepared by Beaumarchais was laid before Louis XVI. The sensible people of England were convinced, he wrote, that the colonies were lost to the mother country and that the end of the crisis would bring war with France.

Vergennes, likewise, assessed the meaning to France of large increases in British land and sea strength in America. Should a settlement be reached with the colonists, could not such a force tum on the French West Indies?

Perhaps because he did not fully trust the judgment of the flamboyant Beaumarchais, the astute foreign minister selected an agent to go to America, learn the disposition of the colonists, assure them that France was friendly, and that clandestine aid could be expected from private merchants but that recognition from the French Court was not to be expected. This agent, Archard de Bon­ vouloir, sailed for America, via London, on September 8, 1775.