Parliament's Missed Chance for Peace
Where Britain chooses to fight a war
This continues my series marking the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution. Previously was The Portsmouth Powder Alarm and Battle, on 14 December 1774.
On this day two hundred fifty years ago - 1 February 1775 - the British Parliament rejected Earl William Pitt's proposal to resolve the conflict with America. Instead, they would push forward to war.
Since October (if not earlier) the colony of Massachusetts had been in undeclared but open revolt, led by the Patriots in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. In the rest of America, Committees of Correspondence and Inspection formed by the First Continental Congress were coordinating the Patriot cause and increasingly acting as the government.
It took time for news of this to travel across the ocean. Gage's dispatches from September - in the leadup to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress - finally reached London at the end of October. Even then, they didn't fully appreciate how committed people were to the Patriot cause. But when the king and ministers heard this, they appreciated it enough to be enraged. "It was to no purpose any longer to think of expedience," Thomas Hutchinson said, summarizing King George's response; "the Province was in actual rebellion, and must be subdued."
America did have friends in Britain. This shouldn't be a surprise; the Patriots were fighting for the same principles that Britain had fought for in the Glorious Revolution ninety years earlier: "the liberty of Englishmen" to be governed by their own representatives. Everyone - both in the British government and in America - continued to think of themselves as committed to those principles.
Many Englishmen, inspired by this, supported the American cause. Edmund Burke, Member of Parliament, had recently invited Parliament to "Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free"; John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London who had recently fought for free speech, would soon be criticizing the war as "unjust, felonious and murderous."
But perhaps the greatest friend of America was William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. As Prime Minister, he had helped win the French and Indian War, destroyed his health in the process, and been rewarded with an earldom in his semi-retirement. Since then, he had spoken against the Stamp Acts - saying "I rejoice that America has resisted" - but left government due to his declining health.
However, the American situation pulled him back to Parliament despite his political coalition having fallen apart. He saw the Patriots were fighting for the same "glorious spirit" of liberty that he was committed to. And on top of that, he (unlike most other Members of Parliament) saw that it would be almost impossible to conquer America if it did come to war.
Benjamin Franklin was in London at the time, as an agent (a delegate or ambassador) from the Pennsylvania colonial legislature and several other colonies as well. He supported the colonial cause, though he still opposed war and hoped for a peaceful resolution. When Pitt returned from retirement, he quickly seized on Franklin as an ally.
Parliamentary elections happened to be in progress when Gage's dispatches arrived in October, and the new parliament opened (on November 30th) with a solid pro-government majority. King George, and his prime minister Lord North, had ensured that majority with their powers of patronage.1 The friends of America, such as Pitt and Edmund Burke, would have to fight as a minority.
Still, defeat wasn't certain. At the time, political factions were very disorganized; eminent personalities (like Pitt's) and eloquence (like Pitt could readily command) could often convince individual Members of Parliament. Pitt had never been good at making individual connections (when he'd been Prime Minister, his friends had done that part). What's more, he was now in the House of Lords. As Prime Minister, he'd always sat and debated in the Commons, but he'd been made an earl in his retirement, so he could not sit in the Commons even if he'd somehow won another election there. But even in this strange place and circumstances, he wouldn't give up the fight.
So, Pitt tried. In December, with Franklin's help, he proposed an act withdrawing troops from America and recognizing the Continental Congress. Meanwhile, though no one in England knew it yet, the first shots had already been fired: New Hampshire Patriots had attacked the British flag.
Pitt's proposal finally came up for debate on January 20th, with the news of the attack still having not reached England. He used all his eloquence:
This resistance to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen; it was obvious... We shall be forced ultimately to retract: let us retract where we can, not when we must... These violent, oppressive acts... must be repealed - you will repeal them... Avoid, then, this humiliating, disgraceful necessity... Make the first advances to concord, to peace and happiness.
But Pitt had been away from London too long, and lost his connections. King George had exerted too much influence. Minds were already made up. Pitt's proposal failed, 18-68.2
Shortly afterwards, North and the cabinet made their own decision, and wrote - but did not send - new orders for General Gage: he must go on the offensive against the Patriots, arrest their leaders, and reconquer New England. Gage had already said this was impossible - and he was right - but the cabinet dismissed it all as cowardice, and refused to believe what he said about how strong the Patriots were. They were merely "a tumultuous rabble," Lord Dartmouth insisted, "without any appearance of general concert... that could render them formidable."
Just after this - in the last week in January - news of the battle in New Hampshire reached London. The Patriots had fired on the British flag. King George and the cabinet were now even more enraged.
But Pitt persevered. Despite the news of the battle, on 1 February, he again proposed recognizing the Continental Congress, and suspending the Coercive Acts, insisting only on the theoretical supremacy of Parliament.
Benjamin Franklin was in the speaker's gallery at the time, on Pitt's invitation, though his hopes of peace were already getting thinner. He reported on the reaction to Pitt's new proposal. Lord Sandwich - the second speaker in the debate - said
"it ought to be immediately rejected with the contempt it deserved. That he could never believe it the production of any British peer. That it appeared to him rather the work of some American; and turning his face towards me... said, he fancied he had in his eye the person who drew it up."
This proposal too failed, 32-61. It had gotten some more votes than Pitt's last proposal... but mostly because more Lords were present to vote. It had still solidly lost.
Franklin, crestfallen, wrote to Charles Thomson3 that Parliament treated it "with as much contempt as they could have shown to a ballad offered by a drunken porter... Their conduct hardly entitles them to common respect... They appeared to have scarce discretion enough to govern a herd of swine."
Lord North and King George now knew they had a clear majority.
On February 2, Parliament - at North's urging - followed up by officially proclaiming Massachusetts was in rebellion. This was quite true. It had obviously been true ever since the Provincial Congress had assembled in October. But, proclaiming it - by an overwhelming vote of 296-106 - meant Parliament had given up the opportunity to reconcile. They were determined to suppress the rebellion.
On February 10, Parliament followed with the Restraining Act, banning coastal trade between all the colonies. This had some sense to it in that twelve of the colonies4 had sent representatives to the illegal Continental Congress, but ludicrous since Britain couldn't possibly begin to enforce it. It passed 261-85. On February 20th, Parliament went even farther, 274-88, with the so-called Conciliatory Resolution. They promised that Parliament wouldn't impose internal taxes on any colony that sent to Britain the same total the taxes would've collected. Benjamin Franklin, still in London, responded cynically "It seems to be the language of a highwayman." Not one colony even considered taking the offer.
With that made up, Lord Dartmouth (for the cabinet) finally sent the new orders to General Gage. On March 16th, the ship carrying them left port. The time for Parliamentary debate was over; the time for making decisions was over.
The war had not been inevitable. Pitt, Burke, and others had seen the justice of the Patriots' cause, and tried to keep England from fighting to defend "intolerable wrongs." But, despite all their efforts, the chance for peace had slipped away. Britain was now committed to its course of action: war.
Gage would finally receive those orders on April 14, 1775. We don't know his reaction, but he must have been dismayed. He was being ordered to do the impossible. Still, as a loyal soldier, he felt bound to try. His attempt to arrest some Patriot leaders and seize some of their gunpowder would finally spark all-out war.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin had already left Britain, his dreams of peace ruined. There was no more purpose for a colonial delegate in London. He arrived in Philadelphia on 5 May 1775, a converted supporter of the war that had by then broken out. Immediately, the Pennsylvania legislature chose him for the Second Continental Congress.
William Pitt would, as the war continued, continue defending America in Parliament, until 7 April 1778 when he collapsed on the House of Lords floor while speaking in favor of ending the war on any terms possible. His last words there were "My Lords, any state is better than despair; if we must fall, let us fall like men." He would die four days later.
Four years after that, with the British Army defeated at Yorktown, Lord North would finally resign. The Earl of Shelburn succeeded him as Prime Minister, and King George was forced to accept his insistence that Britain recognize the United States as independent. The cause of liberty that they had failed to compromise with in 1775, they would finally be forced to recognize in full.
Lord North and King George enjoyed a very good relationship. At the time, the King still had a large degree of freedom to choose who he wanted as prime minister, and he had personally selected North.
This was in the House of Lords; apparently most lords had stayed away from Parliament that day.
Charles Thomson was a committed Patriot and leader of the Sons of Liberty in Philadelphia. He would be chosen as Secretary of the Second Continental Congress, where he continued to serve until the Constitution of 1789 - the only person remaining in Congress throughout its tenure.
The exception was Georgia, where the colonial legislature had a Loyalist majority in mid-1774.