A.b. 1782.] REIGN OF GEORGE III. 307 THE COMTE DE GRASSE SURRENDERING HIS SWORD TO SIR SAMUEL HOOD ON BOARD THE VILLE DE PARIS. that he asked every morning, "Is it taken?" and, on being answered in the negative, always added, "Well, but it soon must be." The French prince and general displayed the same high courtesy towards their brave antagonists as they had done in America. The duke de Crillon sent to general Elliot a plentiful supply of fruit, vegetables, and game for his own table, and promised that if he would let him know what he liked best he would continue to furnish them. The general replied with equal expressions of politeness and obligation, but assured the duke that it was a point of honour with him to indulge himself in nothing better than his soldiers could get, and therefore entreated him to send no more. The comte D'Artois also sent in by the same opportunity a packet of letters, which had been seized by the Spaniards, written by the wives and relatives of the officers and soldiers. He had got them from the king of Spain, who intended no such civility. De Crillon, seeing that his bombardment from shore produced little effect, determined to make the attack also from the sea. Amongst the multiplicity of inventions which the offered rewards had produced, the chevalier D'Arcon, a French engineer, had produced a scheme which excited the most confident expectations. The plan was to construct ten monster floating batteries of such capacity that they should carry the heaviest artillery, and so made and defended that they could be neither sunk nor burnt. The neighbouring fort of Algesiras was already in an unprecedented bustle in the construction of these engines, under the direction of the chevalier D'Arcon himself. Loud was the clangour of hammer and saw, and, as the secret could not be long preserved, equally busy was the garrison within, preparing furnaces, and laying ready huge piles of balls, to be discharged red-hot at these machines as soon as they arrived. The idea of the hot balls was said to be that of the lieutenant-governor Boyd, which had been at once eagerly adopted by general Elliot; the soldiers luxuriating in the expected effect of what they named "the hot potatoes.' To constitute the intended batteries, ten large ships of from six hundred to one thousand four hundred tons burthen were cut down, and made bomb-proof on the top. They were to be prevented sinking by the enormous thickness of the timber in their bottoms, and their sides, which were to be six or seven feet thick, bolted, and covered with raw hides. They were to be rendered more buoyant by thicknesses of cork, and the interstices were to be filled with wet sand to prevent combustion. There were to be plentiful supplies, by means of pumps, pipes, and cisterns, of water, everywhere, to put out fire, for they seem to have been aware of the burning balls preparing for them. To defend the assailants on these batteries, they were furnished with hanging roofs, constructed of strong rope netting covered with thick layers of wet hides, and these so sloping that it was calculated that the balls and shells would glance off into the water. Two hundred thousand feet of timber were consumed in the construction of these invincible batteries, and the whole country round was drained of hides of horses and cattle for their covering. They were then supplied with brass cannon, so managed that a whole broadside could be fired at once. As a rumour of the approaching visit of lord Howe had reached the Spanish camp, all was in haste to anticipate his arrival, and take the great fortress before he could succour it. Accordingly the great united fleet of Spain and France, which so lately had paraded in the British Channel, sailed into Algesiras Bay, and on the 13th of September the great floating batteries were hauled out by a number of the ships, and anchored at regular distances, within six hundred yards of the English works. There they were supported by forty gun-boats, with long guns; forty bomb-boats, mounted with twelve-inch mortars; five large bombketches, and an immense raft, also mounted as a battery. There were also a dozen of frigates and lesser vessels acting as tenders, and three hundred row-boats busy supplying them with ammunition. Whilst this extraordinary armada was approaching and arranging, the most tremendous fire was kept up from the land, with three hundred long guus and mortars, to divert the attention of the garrison; but old general Elliot was ready with his red-hot balls, and, the moment the floating batteries came within gunshot distance, he poured into them a most destructive fire-hail. The Spaniards, notwithstanding, placed and secured their monster machines in a very short time, and then four hundred cannon from land and sea played on the old rock simultaneously and incessantly. The spectacle at this moment, perhaps, never was exceeded in intense interest and sublimity. There was not a summit or slope of the Spanish hills all round, including those of Algesiras and Cabareta Point, but was thronged with spectators. For some time, the hot balls appeared to do no damage. The timbers, being of green wood, closed up after the balls, and so prevented their immediate ignition. In other cases, where smoke appeared, the water-engines dashed in deluges, and extinguished the nascent fire. But anon the fire from the batteries began to slacken; it was discovered that the balls which had many of them pierced into the timbers three feet deepwere doing their work. The floating battery, commanded by the prince of Nassau, on board of which was also the engineer, D'Arcon, himself, was found smoking on the side of the garrison, at two o'clock in the day. No water could reach the seat of the mischief, and by seven o'clock it had become so extensive as to cause the firing to cease, and to turn the thoughts of all to endeavours for escape. Rockets were thrown up as signals for the vessels to come up and take off the crews. But this was found impracticable. The garrison actually rained deluges of fire, and all approach to the monster machines was cut off. No vessel could approach, except at the penalty of instant destruction. For four more hours, the vaunted floating batteries remained exposed to the pitiless pelting of the garrison. Before midnight, the Talla Piedra, the greatest of the monster machines, and the flag-ship, Pastora, at her side, were in full flame, and, by their light, the indefatigable Elliot could see, with the more precision, to point his guns. The flames of the burning batteries and the fiery sweep of the blazing balls illuminated the whole scene with a terribly sublime splendour. Seven of the ten floating machines were now on fire; the guns aboard the had entirely ceased, and those on land, as if struck with A.D. 1782.] NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE WITH UNITED STATES. 309 to Howe's thirty-four, and, having the weather-gage, had every advantage. But after a partial firing, in which they received great damage from Howe, they hauled off, and got into Cadiz bay. Howe, then dispatching part of his fleet to the West Indies, and a second squadron to the Irish coast, returned home himself. The news of the grand defence of Gibraltar produced a wonderful rejoicing in England; thanks were voted by parliament to the officers and privates of the brave garrison; general Elliot was invested with the order of the Bath on the king's bastion in sight of the works which he had preserved, and on his return, in 1787, at the age of seventy, he was created a peer as lord Heathfield of Gibraltar. But the noblest fame which the veteran has achieved was that accorded by his enemies, who venerated him for his virtues, and long remembered with blessings his humanity in seeking with such zeal to save his defeated assailants. wonder and despair, ceased too. Then were heard the in the late gales, but they had still at least forty-four sail shrieks of the unfortunate crews on board the burning machines, and the English general, ceasing his fire, sent out captain Curtis, with his marine brigade of gun-boats, our only naval force there, to save the shrieking Spaniards. Before this could be accomplished, two of them blew up; but the English sailors dashed amongst the flaming wrecks, picking off their horrified enemies, or gathering them from floating fragments of timber to which they were clinging. At the utmost peril of their lives, they managed to bring off about two hundred and fifty of the sufferers, but not without considerable injury to themselves. Captain Curtis had an almost miraculous escape. One of the machines exploding when he was actually lifting men from it, involved him and his boatswain in the cloud of fire and smoke. General Elliot, who saw the occurrence, believed the whole boat's crew destroyed; but presently the pinnace emerged from the smoke, with the coxswain killed, several of her crew injured, but the captain alive. The bottom of the boat, however, was driven in by some of the falling timber, and the sailors only kept her afloat by stuffing their jackets into the hole. Thus vanished all the proud hopes built on the invention of the chevalier D'Arcon. That sanguine engineer was on board the Talla Piedra till the last moment. In the morning, he saw the whole of his leviathan machines destroyed, his one hundred and fifty fine brass cannon, with an immense amount of property beside, were all at the bottom of the sea; the whole scheme had vanished like a dream, and one thousand poor wretches had been killed, more than six hundred besides, were wounded or prisoners. In the first agony of his thoughts, he wrote to the French ambassador at Madrid:-"I have burnt the temple of Ephesus! Everything is gone, and through my fault. What comforts me under my calamity is, that the. honour of the two kings remains untarnished." It might have been imagined that this magnificent and destructive repulse would have convinced the allies that the siege was hopeless, but they were pretty well informed that general Elliot had well nigh exhausted his ammunition in this prodigal death-shower, and they had still their great combined fleet, snug in the narrow bay, with scouts in the straits to prevent the carrying in of supplies. But on the 24th of September news arrived at Madrid that the fleet of lord Howe was under weigh for Gibraltar. Immediately two thousand land troops were put on board the fleet, but it still continued to lie in the bay of Algesiras. On the 11th of October lord Howe's fleet came in sight, convoying one hundred and fifty transports and trading vessels, carrying all sorts of supplies for the garrison of Gibraltar. Howe's fleet of thirty-four sail-of-the-line, six frigates, and three fire-ships, though in the immediate neighbourhood of one of fifty sail-of-the-line, besides a number of frigates and smaller vessels, managed to get into the bay of Gibraltar all safe, and amid the wildest acclamations of soldiers and inhabitants. By the 18th all the store-ships had discharged their cargoes, and had passed through the straits, and on the 19th lord Howe followed them with his fleet. The enemy's fleet then came out after him, and the next day they were in the open ocean, and Howe proceeded to their leeward to receive them. Some of their vessels had suffered With these superb demonstrations on the part of England terminated the war. Her enemies discovered that her hoped-for fall was yet far off, and were much more inclined to listen to overtures of peace, of which they were now all in great need. Before the dissolution of the Rockingham ministry, private negotiations had for some time been going on betwixt the English government and Franklin in Paris. Lord Shelburne, as secretary of state, had received an intimation of pacific views from Franklin, and had dispatched Mr. Richard Oswald, a London merchant, well versed in American affairs, to have an interview with the doctor. Franklin, with an astonishing coolness of demand, proposed that not only should the independence of the United States be acknowledged, but that Canada should be thrown into the bargain. This looked rather like a studied insult than a real desire for negotiation. The English ministry, how. ever, without regarding for a moment the proposition regarding Canada, continued to state their views of a treaty, and Thomas Grenville was also dispatched to endeavour to induce M. Vergennes to enter into the negotiations on the part of France. Upon the formation of the Shelburne cabinet, and the news of Rodney's victory over De Grasse, the negotiations were still continued, Mr. Grenville only being recalled, and Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert, afterwards lord St. Helens, being put in his place. France, Spain, Holland, were all groaning under the costs and disasters of the war, yet keeping up an air of indifference, in order to enhance their demands. The Americans were more decided, for they were stimulated by the accounts of the wretched condition of affairs at home. It was represented to Franklin by congress, that, however France or Spain might delay proposals for peace, it was necessary for the United States. That, with their coasts blockaded by an English fleet, now augmented to twentysix sail of the line, besides frigates, fire ships, &c., and the French so completely beaten at sea, without money and without credit, the American population, as well as the army, were fast sinking into the lowest condition of human misery. The position of Franklin, nevertheless, was extremely difficult. There was the treaty of alliance betwixt France and the States of 1778, strictly stipulating that neither party should conclude either peace or truce without the other. What added to the difficulty was, that France had, within the last two years, shown an unusual interest and activity of assistance. It had not only dispatched a fleet and army to America, but, besides its annual loans and advances to the United States, it had made them free gifts, amounting, together, to twelve millions of livres. Franklin, in order to strengthen his hands for the important crisis, requested that other commissioners might be sent to Paris; and John Jay quickly arrived from Spain, John Adams from Holland, and Henry Laurens from London. The American commissioners soon became strongly impressed with the sentiment, that France and Spain were keeping back a peace solely for their own objects; and this was greatly confirmed by a letter of M. de Marbois, the secretary of the French legation at Philadelphia, which had been seized by an English cruiser, and had been laid by Mr. Fitzherbert before them. This letter appeared to be part of a diplomatic correspondence betwixt the French minister, Vergennes, and the French minister in America, which threw contempt on the claims which America set up to a share of the Newfoundland fisheries. It created a strong belief that France was endeavouring to keep America in some degree dependent on her; and Jay and Adams were extremely incensed at Vergennes, and not only accused Franklin of being blindly subservient to the French court, but it made them resolve that no time should be lost in effecting a separate treaty. Vergennes contended for the rights of the Indian nations betwixt the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, and of Spain on the lower Mississippi, and this the American commissioners called an attempt to divide and weaken their territory. Vergennes sought only to restrain them from aggressions. When these matters were afterwards cleared up, the Americans were convinced that the French had, notwithstanding appearances, acted throughout with entire good faith towards America. The suspicion, excited, however, for the time, operated to determine a separate and prompt treaty, and to cause the Americans to let fall any such chimerical demands as that of Canada. A private and earnest negotiation for peace was therefore entered upon as soon as a severe illness of Franklin permitted. There was no difficulty in these negotiations as to the full and entire recognition of the independence of the states. The great and difficult points were but two-first, that regarding the fishery; and second, regarding the interests of the loyalists or tories. The British commissioners stood out strongly for the free permission of all who had been engaged in the war on the English side to return to their homes, and for the restitution of all property confiscated in consequence of such partisanship. The American commissioners endeavoured to get rid of this demand by saying the recommendations of congress would have all the effect that the English proposed. This the commissioners properly regarded as so many words, and they stood out so determinedly on this head, that it appeared likely that the negotiation would be broken off altogether. At last Franklin, who was never at a loss for subtle devices, said they would consent to allow for all losses suffered by the royalists, on condition that a debtor and a creditor ac count was opened, and that allowance was made for all the damages done by the royalists on the other side, in burning houses and plantations, carrying off slaves, &c.; commissioners to be appointed for the purpose of settling all these claims. The English envoys saw at once that this was a deception, that there would be no meeting, or no use in meeting, and they therefore abandoned the point; and the question of the fishing being in part conceded, the provisional articles were signed on the 30th of November, by the four American commissioners on the one side, and by Mr. Oswald on the other. In the preamble, it was stated that these articles were to be inserted in and to constitute a treaty of peace, but which treaty was not to be concluded until the terms of peace were also settled with France and Spain. This proviso, however, by no means affected the treaty with America. This secret treaty was made binding and effectual so far as America and England were concerned. The first article acknowledged fully the independence of the United States. The second fixed their boundaries, much to the satisfaction of the Americans; and liberty was secured to them to fish on the banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and wherever they had been accustomed to fish, but not to dry the fish on any of the king's settled dominions in America. By the fourth, fifth, and sixth articles it was engaged for congress that it should earnestly recommend to the several legislatures to provide for the restitution of all estates belonging to real British subjects who had not borne arms against the Americans. All other persons were to be allowed to go to any of the states and remain there for the settlement of their affairs. Congress also engaged to recommend the restitution of all confiscated estates on the repayment of the sums for which they had been sold; and no impediments were to be put in the way of recovering real debts. All further confiscations and prosecutions were to cease. By the seventh and eighth articles the king of England engaged to withdraw his fleets and armies without causing any destruction of property, or carrying away any negro slaves. By these articles, the navigation of the Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, was to remain for ever free and open to both parties. If West Florida happened to be in the possession of England at the termination of a general peace, a secret article determined its boundaries. Such were the conditions on which this great contest was finally terminated. The Americans clearly had matters almost entirely their own way, for the English were desirous that everything should now be done to conciliate their very positive and by no means modest kinsmen, the citizens of the United States. It was, in truth, desirable to remove as much as possible the rancour of the American mind, by concessions which England could well afford, so as not to throw them wholly into the arms of France. The conditions which the Americans, on their part, conceded to the unfortunate royalists consisted entirely of recommendations from congress to the individual states, and when it was recollected how little regard they had paid to any engage ments into which they had entered during the war-with general Burgoyne, for example the English negotiators felt, as they consented to these articles, that, so far, they would prove a mere dead letter. They could only console themselves with the thought that they would have protected A.D. 1782.] THE TREATY OF PEACE SIGNED. the unhappy royalists, whom Franklin and his colleagues bitterly and vindictively continued to designate as traitors. Franklin showed, on this occasion, that he had never forgotten the just chastisement which Wedderburn had inflicted on him before the privy council for his concern in the purloining of the private papers of Mr. Thomas Whateley, in 1774. On that occasion, he laid aside the velvet court suit, in which he appeared before the council, and never put it on till now, when he appeared in it at the signing of the treaty of independence. For eight long years, filled with the great and anxious interests of a world, the sting of his own private chagrin had never died out. And so the war of American separation was ended! On the part of England, it had been conducted with a degree of imbecility in all departments, in council and in action, with a wonderful blundering, and a total lack of foresight, such as no other period of her history can parallel. On the part of the Americans, it had been maintained with no want of Dravery or ability, but a want of generosity and regard to principle and engagements, which astonished the whole world. In the very winding-up, in the last act of all-the treaty-they had been equally treacherous to their allies, France and Spain, as they had been to their enemies, the English. Bound by the most sacred engagements not to make peace without their allies, most sacred because doubly binding from gratitude, they, as soon as their own turn was served, made peace alone, and unknown to their friends and supporters. To England the honour of good faith at least remained, and it was surely no dishonour to have failed in a contest with four nations at once, some of them the most powerful in the world. For it was not by America that its own independence was achieved; it was by the united and gigantic action of France, Spain, Holland, and their colonists. In this contest France had spent seventy million pounds sterling; Spain, forty thousand; and Holland, ten millions. Such was the price paid by the European nations to snatch from us our American colonies. They succeeded in separating those included in the United States; but, to say nothing of the long-consequent exhaustion of Spain and Holland, or of the frightful Nemesis which France brought directly upon herself, fulfilling to the letter the warnings of the sagacious Turgot, the envy of Europe was no nearer to its gratification. England soon rose into a higher and more wonderful development: able to do battle against the whole world in arms; able, by her Nelson, to triumph on the seas, by her Wellington on land. England was taught one great lesson by the contest with America, one by which she has wisely profited, to allow her colonies to govern themselves. She had yet to be taught another, equally needed to cease her interference in continental quarrels betwixt kings and their people. Whilst learning these grand truths, she has gone on colonising and civilising all round the globe, in a manner unknown to any other nation in any other age. She has assumed a higher tone of magnanimity and Christian wisdom at home and abroad. Has America derived anything like these advantages? She has grown in population, but has she grown in real political greatness? With her free institutions, are her people or her public opinion free? Would she not have derived more true glory, more real freedom, a higher tone of public sentiment, had she remained 311 a portion of the great British empire? Every traveler thence brings home the sorrowful verdict of the best and most interesting portion of her population, that it is not the best but the worst and overwhelming portion of her community that sways her destinies. Every one glances with terror at the corruptions of principles and the perversions of Christian truths which the great canker of black slavery in her heart—a canker from which England has long freed her colonies-more and more inspires. Lord Macaulay, almost with his dying breath, has put on record his deliberate verdict, that the boasted institutions of the United States, established on the separation of England, have proved an utter failure. The great historian, accustomed to weigh the character of nations, foresees the terrible consequences which must necessarily result from such a state of things. Surveying the social and political elements at present effervescing in the United States, he says:-"Is it possible to doubt what sort of legislature will be chosen? On one side is a statesman preaching patience, respect for vested rights, strict observance of public faith; on the other is a demagogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and usurers, and asking why anybody should be permitted to ride in a carriage and drink champagne while thousands of honest folks are in want of necessaries? Which of the two candidates is likely to be preferred by a working man who hears his children crying for more bread? I seriously apprehend that you will, in some such season of adversity as I have described, do things which will prevent prosperity from returning. Either some Cæsar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman empire was in the fifth, with this difference-that the Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions." Unquestionably, if there be a divine ruler of the universe, the disregard of human rights by the Americans on the one hand, and of principles of political and diplomatic integrity on the other, will produce their certain punishment in terrors and convulsions; and it will, in our opinion, be only through such a purifying process that America will eventually rise to sounder principles and nobler sentiments than at present. When the conduct of the American commissioners, in making a separate peace, came to the knowledge of the French government, great was its indignation. M. Vergennes, writing to the minister of France at Philadelphia, thus plainly expressed himself:-" You will surely be gratified, as well as myself, with the very extensive advantages which our allies, the Americans, are to receive from the peace; but you certainly will not be less surprised than I have been at the conduct of the commissioners. They have cautiously kept themselves at a distance from me. Whenever I have had occasion to see any one of them, and inquire of them briefly the negotiations, they have constantly clothed their speech in generalities, giving me to understand that it did not go forward, and that they had no confidence in the sincerity of the British ministry. Judge of my surprise when, on the 30th of November, Dr. |