Service without politics? Army, militia and volunteers in Britain during the American and French revolutionary wars

War in History

Volumn 10, Issue 4, 2003, Pages 381-397

  Cookson, J E ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 67650945429     PISSN: 09683445     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1191/0968344503wh288oa     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. Times, 20 June 1798, reporting debate of the 19th.
2. I. D. Gruber, 'For King and Country: the Limits of Loyalty of British Officers in the War for American Independence', in E. Denton III, ed. , Limits of Loyalty (Waterloo, Ont. , 1980), pp. 36-37.
3. The other information is derived from A List of the Officers of the Militia of England and Wales (London, 1779);
4. L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox and the Disintegration of the Whig Party, 1782-1794 (Oxford, 1971), pp. 294-98;
5. R. G. Thorne, House of Commons, 1790-1820 (5 vols, London, 1986), esp. I, p. 135, for a list of the 'regular' opposition, 1790-94.
6. George III to Lord North, 1 Sept. 1779, 29 Oct. 1781, Correspondence of King George III, 1760-1783, ed. Sir J. Fortescue (6 vols, London, 1927-28), IV, p. 418;
7. H. Strachan, The Politics of the British Army (Oxford, 1997), p. 28;
8. A. J. Guy, Oeconomy and Discipline: Officership and Administration in the British Army, 1714-63 (Manchester, 1985), p. 20;
9. R. Wright, ed. , The Life of Major General James Wolfe Illustrated by His Correspondence (London, 1864), p. 253;
10. Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (36 vols, London, 1806-20), XXVII, cols 1310-18.
11. E. H. Gould, 'To Strengthen the King's Hands: Dynastic Legitimacy, Militia Reform and Ideas of National Unity in England, 1745-1760', Historical Journal XXXIV (1991), pp. 329-48.
12. [S. Bever], The Cadet: a Military Treatise (London, 1762), p. 241;
13. Sir L. Namier and J. Brooke, House of Commons, 1754-90 (3 vols, London, 1964), II, p. 145, sub Burgoyne;
14. Major J. Floyd to Lord Herbert, 22 Mar. 1780, Lord Herbert, ed. , Pembroke Papers (2 vols, London, 1942-50), I, p. 433.
15. P. Langford, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman, 1689-1798 (Oxford, 1994), chap. 2 but esp. pp. 131-38.
16. S. Conway, 'War and National Identity in the Mid-Eighteenth-Century British Isles', English Historical Review CXVI (2001), pp. 863-93;
17. S. Conway, The British Isles and the War of American Independence (Oxford, 2000), pp. 166-202;
18. S. Brumwell, Redcoats: the British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755-1763 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 87-88. The army (and navy) may well have been a more effective Britannicizing symbol than the monarchy beset by the controversies of George III's reign. George III, certainly, attached the monarchy to the army in a very public way by reviewing troops and visiting military camps during the American and French wars.
19. A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London, 1891 edn), p. 296.
20. London Magazine (1762), p. 282;
21. D. M. Low, ed. , Gibbon's Journal (London, 1929), p. 58;
22. Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research II, no. 8 (1923), p. 61.
23. Parliamentary History, XXI, cols 221-22. Rockingham's point was that the militia were less dependent than the army on the crown, and therefore more exposed to political contentions.
24. Tories, taken to be pseudo-Jacobites, were largely excluded from the officer class of the early Hanoverian army. See L. Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy: the Tory Party, 1714-60 (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 284-85.
25. The English were severely underrepresented alongside Scots and Irish and significant numbers of foreigners. The percentage of English officers may have been as low as 25%. By 1793 it was as high as 42%. Brumwell, Redcoats, pp. 87-88, 319;
26. A. J. Guy, ed. , The Road to Waterloo (Stroud, 1990), p. 11.
27. Strachan, Politics, p. 28.
28. George III to George Grenville, 16 Nov. 1763, W. J. Smith, ed. , Grenville Papers (4 vols, London, 1852-53), II, p. 162.
29. R. J. Hargrove Jr, General John Burgoyne (Newark, DE, 1983), pp. 221-34.
30. Cf. The argument in Gruber, 'For King and Country'. The rising number of resignations was noted, for example, in Lieutenant General Sir John Irwin to Lord Rochford, 22 Aug. 1775, Lord Rochford to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 16 Sept. 1775, R. A. Roberts, ed. , Calendar of Home Office Papers of the Reign of George III, 1773-1775 (London, 1899), pp. 389-90, 407.
31. Annual Register (1776), Chronicle, p. 123.
32. Gruber, 'For King and Country', p. 28.
33. See also Richard Fitzpatrick, a Guards officer and MP, in Conway, British Isles, p. 136, n. 41.
34. Low, ed. , Gibbon's Journal, p. 10, passim.
35. Newcastle feared that the Tories would use the militia patronage to regenerate their party. J. R. Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1965), pp. 176-78.
36. Earl Poulett to Lord -, 26 Dec. 1761, J. Redington, ed. , Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1760-1765 (London, 1878), p. 92;
37. Earl Temple to John Wilkes, 21 Oct. 1762, Smith, ed. , Grenville Papers, I, p. 491.
38. Cartwright to -, Sept. 1775, F. D. Cartwright, ed. , Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright (2 vols, London, 1826), I, pp. 54-55.
39. Western, English Militia, p. 337.
40. Parliamentary Register, III (London, 1776), pp. 76-77, 90-103, 165-68, 207-8;
41. Lord Weymouth to Lord Mountstuart, 24 Nov. 1775, Roberts, ed. , Calendar of Home Office Papers, p. 475;
42. J. Davis, Historical Records of the Second Royal Surrey Regiment of Militia (London, 1877), pp. 104-5.
43. The corps that responded appear to have been the 1st Battalion Devonshire (John Dyke Acland), Warwickshire (Earl of Hertford), 1st Battalion Essex (Earl of Rochford), Glamorgan (Lord Mountstuart), Surrey (George Onslow). See also Lord North to George III, [26 Nov. 1775], Fortescue, ed. , Correspondence of King George III, III, p. 295: 'The Ardor of the Nation in this cause has not hitherto arisen to the pitch one could wish, & it is [sic] certainly should be encouraged wherever it appears. '
44. Stephen Croft to Lord Rockingham, 19 Dec. 1779, Central Library, Sheffield, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, R136-5a;
45. E. Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000), p. 161.
46. Cary to Christopher Wyvill, 30 Nov. 1779, C. Wyvill, ed. , Political Papers, Chiefly Respecting the Attempt of the County of York and Other Considerable Districts . . . to Effect a Reformation of the Parliament of Great Britain (4 vols, York, 1794-1808), III, p. 115.
47. Benjamin Ferrand, a major in the West Riding militia. The list of the committee appointed on 30 Dec. 1779 is in op. cit. , I, pp. 5-6.
48. G. Claeys, ed. , Political Writings of the 1790s (8 vols, London, 1995), VIII, pp. 118-20.
49. Conway, British Isles, pp. 21-23, 157-64.
50. M. Philp, 'Vulgar Conservatism, 1792-3', English Historical Review CX (1995), p. 49.
51. E. B. De Fonblanque, Political and Military Episodes . . . Derived from the Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. John Burgoyne (London, 1876), p. 65;
52. A. Starkey, 'War and Culture, a Case Study: the Enlightenment and the Conduct of the British Army in America, 1755-1781', War and Society VIII (1990), pp. 1-28.
53. R. R. Dozier, For King, Constitution and Country: the English Loyalists and the French Revolution (Lexington, KY, 1983), p. 109;
54. D. G. Vaisey, 'The Pledge of Patriotism: Staffordshire and the Voluntary Contribution, 1798', in M. W. Greenslade, ed. , Essays in Staffordshire History (Stafford, 1970), pp. 212-13.
55. The Times published lists of 'corps that have contributed' on 5 and 12 Mar. 1798. The subscription list of the Patriotic Fund is appended to the Report of the Committee for Managing the Patriotic Fund (London, 1804).
56. Dozier, For King, p. 160;
57. M. Morris, The Monarchy and the French Revolution (New Haven, CT, 1998), pp. 156-57.
58. H. T. Dickinson, 'Popular Loyalism in Britain in the 1790s', in E. Hellmuth, ed. , The Transformation of Political Culture: England and Germany in the Late Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1990), pp. 522-26.
59. See also J. R. Western, 'The Volunteer Movement as an Anti-Revolutionary Force, 1793-1802', English Historical Review, LXXI (1956), pp. 603-14;
60. E. V. Macleod, A War of Ideas: British Attitudes to the Wars Against Revolutionary France, 1792-1802 (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 70-72.
61. J. E. Cookson, The British Armed Nation, 1793-1815 (Oxford, 1997), pp. 24-7, 210-14.
62. W. Robertshawe, 'The North Regiment of West Riding Yeomanry Cavalry', Bradford Antiquary V (1935-36), pp. 125-27.
63. D. Ginter, 'The Loyalist Association Movement of 1792-3 and British Public Opinion', Historical Journal IX (1966), pp. 179-90.
64. Two examples are the address of the 'different Volunteer Corps' of Devon and Exeter and that of the Loyal Loughborough Infantry. Gazette (1795), pp. 1402, 1403.
65. st July 1796', Chatham MSS, Public Record Office, Kew, PRO 30/8/244, fols. 109-10.
66. Parliamentary History XXXI, cols 83-136, 206-36.
67. J. R. Western, 'The Recruitment of the Land Forces in Great Britain, 1793-9' (PhD diss. , Edinburgh, 1953), p. 243.
68. Cookson, British Armed Nation, pp. 29, 71-72, 79-80.
69. Two examples are Rules and Regulations to be Observed by the Bristol Volunteer Association (Bristol, 1797)
70. and R. (?) Fraser, Hints to the Volunteers of the United Kingdom (London, 1801).
71. General Vyse to Lord Hobart, 4 Jan. 1801, Buckingham Record Office, Hobart MSS, D/MH/H/War/G1.
72. Fox to Lord Lauderdale, c. 1797, British Library, Fox MSS, Add. MS 47564, fol. 31;
73. H. C. Cardew-Rendle, 'Commissioned Officers of the Surrey Volunteers', Notes and Queries CXCV (1950), pp. 212-13;
74. D. Rapp, Samuel Whitbread (New York, 1987), p. 146. I owe this last reference to Dr Austin Gee.
75. Memorandum on Volunteers, 18 Mar. 1803, PRO, WO 1/407/533-46.