Sunday, Jul. 04, 1976

Aggressive King, Divided Nation

Since the fastest ships still take a month or more to cross the Atlantic, the British obviously do not yet know about the Declaration of Independence. Just after Parliament recessed on May 23, however, TIME'S London correspondent assessed the mood of the kingdom and found a mixture of Tory arrogance and Whig protest that can only be strengthened by the Declaration. His report:

This is the year, the British government promises, that the Rebellion in America will be crushed. "Once those Rebels have felt a smart blow, they will-submit," predicts King George III, while Colonial Secretary Lord George Germain confidently talks of victory in one vigorous campaign. The vacillations of Lord North, the head of the government, seem ended: he now demands that the Americans be reduced to "a proper constitutional state of obedience."

And so, despite serious domestic opposition, the government is turning its entire power against those "ungrateful monsters," as one Tory journalist calls the Americans. "If they are condemned unheard, it is because there is no need of a trial," thunders Dr. Samuel Johnson, London's leading literary figure and a confirmed anti-American.* "The crime is manifest and notorious. Their deliberations were indecent and their intentions seditious."

The Navy, which North had allowed to fall greatly below strength in the early '70s, is rapidly being expanded. The number of seamen will almost double, from last year's 16,000 to 28,000, and new ships are being outfitted at Chatham, Plymouth and Portsmouth. Press gangs are out nightly along the Thames to find able-bodied men--and some not so ablebodied. Relying on the peaceful words of the Bourbon Kings of France and Spain, the Admiralty has sent most of its active war vessels --24 ships of the line and 20 frigates--to form an ever growing fleet off the American coast.

The Army, which raised 200,000 men only 15 years ago in the war against France, is trying to recruit 55,000 to conquer the Americans, who are thought to be no match for well-trained European troops. Reflecting a general sentiment, the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, says that the Americans are "raw, undisciplined, cowardly men." For lack of volunteers to fight what many consider a civil war, however, the government has turned abroad, first, and in vain, to Russia, then to Britain's traditional allies in northern Germany. Nearly 18,000 mercenaries were hired earlier this year (at an initial cost of about -L- 128,000 plus annual subsidies of ,-L-125,000) from the German principalities of Brunswick, Hesse-Cassel and Hanau. More than 16,000 have already set sail for the Colonies. Indeed, at least one-third of Britain's expeditionary force is likely to be German.

To provide for the accelerated war, much of Britain's industry has been mobilized. Yorkshire looms are supplying soldiers' uniforms, and Chatham sail-and ropemakers are working overtime to help equip ships for the Atlantic convoys. Other manufacturers throughout the kingdom are equally busy providing linen, shirts and blankets--not to mention muskets and cannon. To feed the Germans, farmers are being asked to grow more cabbages.

The North regime's belligerence is even more impressive considering the opposition it faces. Even important segments of the military have made clear their disapproval. Lieutenant General Sir Jeffrey Amherst and Admiral Augustus Keppel, two highly esteemed officers, have said that they would serve against any European enemy but not against the Americans. Indeed, at least nine general officers reportedly turned down the American command before General Howe accepted it.

In the House of Commons, the Whig opposition is led by Edmund Burke, 47, an Irishman who has become America's most eloquent defender, and Charles James Fox, 27, a witty, rakish aristocrat who is serious about only one thing, politics. In the House of Lords, the Whig leader is the Marquis of Rockingham, who is given credit for decency and honesty but is not an effective politician. In both houses, the opposition can count on about one-third of the vote. Its speakers have opposed the King's policy almost every day during the debates of the last session. Inveighing against the "cruel civil war," 19 Lords signed a dissenting petition last October. Said they: "We [shall not] be able to preserve by mere force that vast continent and that growing multitude of resolute freemen who inhabit it, even if that or any other country was worth governing against the inclination of all its inhabitants." With typical wit, Fox made the same argument to Lord North in the House of Commons: "Lord Chatham [government leader when Canada was taken from the French], the King of Prussia, nay, Alexander the Great never gained more in one campaign than the noble Lord has lost. He has lost a whole continent." Colonel Isaac Barre, a fiery speaker whose face was disfigured at the Battle of Quebec, cried out: "Give us back our Colonies! You have lost America! It is your ignorance, blunders, cowardice which have lost America."

Opposition newspapers, whose circulation has increased because of war news, are equally sharp. The St. James's Chronicle (circ. 2,000) calls the North ministry the most "obstinately cruel and diabolically wicked" ever to inhabit the earth. The Kentish Gazette daringly writes of the "corrupt influence of the Crown"--the King is traditionally immune from such criticism--and says that "our brave American fellow-subjects are not yet corrupted, but gloriously stand up in defense of their undoubted rights and liberties." In a pamphlet that has sold 60,000 copies, an almost unheard-of number, Dr. Richard Price, a Unitarian minister, bluntly argues the Colonists' case: "What have they done? Have they crossed the ocean and invaded us? ... On the contrary. This is what we have done to them ... And yet it is we who imagine ourselves ill used."

The war is also unpopular in many working-class towns. Lots of people have relatives in America, and they feel as abused as the Colonists by King and Parliament. Army recruiters are lucky if they escape unharmed in some places. In one town the whole recruiting party was severely beaten and its drum was broken to bits; several other towns have agreed not to send even a single man into service. One officer writes about the "invincible dislike of all ranks of people to the American service." John Wesley, the Methodist leader, who is not himself pro-American, has written to a friend: "The bulk of the people heartily despise His Majesty and hate him with a perfect hatred. They wish to imbrue their hands in his blood."

Still, the opposition is unlikely to stop the war or even slow it so long as King George and his majority in Parliament support it. The King directs the government on essential matters of policy, and he is more belligerent even than most of his ministers. Through his ability to grant sinecures, offer jobs and give outright cash bribes--not to mention his unquestioned power to appoint new members to the House of Lords --George has firm control of at least a third of the members of both houses, the "King's Friends," while another third can almost always be counted on to fall into line.

The opposition, though often eloquent, is divided, dispirited and lacking the fiery leadership of someone like Lord Chatham. (Now 67, ill and half mad, he rarely even visits Westminster.) The merchants and manufacturers who depended on the -L-4 million American trade were earlier among the most influential opponents of the war, but so far the hostilities have done relatively little harm, since British businessmen have found new customers in Russia, Spain and Italy for Birmingham steel, Manchester cotton and Yorkshire woolens. They seem largely unaware of Whig estimates that the fighting will cost roughly -L-10 million a year (with the national debt already something like -L-130 million). As for the press, with a combined readership of perhaps 400,000 out of a population of 8.7 million, it has less influence than it would like to believe.

If the North government can, in fact, end the war this year, as it pledges, the Tories will probably remain entrenched in power for another generation. On the other hand, if the war should drag on for another year or two--or if Britain should be defeated--there may very well be a political upheaval.

*Johnson once called the Colonists "a race of convicts [that] ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging."

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