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By Root 980 0

his time, Lord Chatham, now ill and failing. On 20 January he moved for the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Boston as evidence that England could afford to “make the first advances for concord.” He said the troops were provocative without being effective. They might march from town to town enforcing a temporary submission, “but how shall you be able to secure the obedience of the country you leave behind you …?” Resistance to “your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen.” What forces now would be required to put it down? “What, my Lords, a few regiments in America and 17,000 or 18,000 men at home! The idea is ridiculous.” To subdue a region extending over 1800 miles, populous in numbers, valorous and infused with the spirit of liberty would be impossible. To “establish despotism over such a mighty nation must be vain, must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retreat: let us retreat when we can, not when we must.”

It was the masterful eloquence of the old Pitt, but arrogant in his mastery, he had ignored political necessities, failed to assemble supporters to vote for his motion, failed even to tell anyone except Shelburne that he was going to speak or make a motion. All he told Shelburne was that he was going to knock on the door of “this sleeping and confounded ministry.” His realism was hard, his foresight precisely on target, but the House did not want realities; it wanted to whip the Americans. Presented with Chatham’s unexpected motion, “the opposition stared and shrugged; the courtiers stared and laughed,” wrote Walpole, and the motion won only 18 votes against 68 nays.

Although his magic dominance was gone, Chatham had not lost the sense that “I know I can save this country and that I alone can.” After privately consulting with Benjamin Franklin and other Americans, he introduced on 1 February a bill for settlement of the American crisis which provided for repeal of the Coercive Acts, freedom from taxation for revenue without consent, recognition of the Continental Congress, which would then be responsible for assessing the colonies for self-taxation to raise revenue for the Crown in return for its expenses, and an independent judiciary with juries and no removal of accused for trial in England. The regulation of external trade and the right to deploy an army when necessary were to be retained by the Crown. Lord Gower, leader of the Bedfords since the Duke’s death, “rose in great heat” to condemn the bill as a betrayal of the rights of Parliament. “Every tie of interest, every motive of dignity, and every principle of good government,” he said, required the assertion of “legislative supremacy entire and undiminished.”

Thirty-two peers voted in favor of Chatham’s plan of settlement, although it was of course rejected by the majority. He could not save an empire for the unwilling. Embittered by sneers in the debate, he vented his frustration in a summary indictment as savage and unsparing as any government is ever likely to hear: “The whole of your political conduct has been one continued series of weakness, temerity, despotism, ignorance, futility, negligence, and notorious servility, incapacity and corruption.”

The next day the Government presented a bill declaring New England to be in rebellion and asking for augmented forces to reduce it to obedience. The nays in the Commons rose to 106, although the bill was quickly passed, together with a Restraining Act to bring economic pressure by excluding the New England colonies from the Newfoundland fisheries and prohibiting them from trade with any but British ports. The Cabinet nominated three general officers to serve in America: Major Generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton. That their future held recall and a surrender was then unimaginable.

At the same time, three regiments were sent to reinforce General Gage, and the King asked Sir Jeffery Amherst, former Commander-in-Chief during the Seven Years’ War, to take command again of the forces in America on the ambivalent theory that as someone known and trusted in