The Politics of British Military and Naval Mobilization, 1775-83

English Historical Review

Volumn CXII, Issue 449, 1997, Pages 1179-1201

  Conway, Stephen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 79953612541     PISSN: 00138266     EISSN: 14774534     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/CXII.449.1179     Document Type: Article

References (149)

1. See, for instance, James E. Bradley, Popular Politics and the American Revolution in England (Macon, Ga., 1986) and Religion, Revolution and English Radicalism (Cambridge, 1990)
2. John Sainsbury, Disaffected Patriots: London Supporters of Revolutionary America (Kingston/Montreal, 1987)
3. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven/London, 1992), pp. 132-46; Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715-1785 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 237-84, 357-75, 47-33
4. The Correspondence of Richard Price, ed. W. Bernard Peach and D. O. Thomas (3 vols., Durham, N.C./Cardiff, 1983-94), i. 247.
5. The Selected Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, ed. Ann Finer and George Savage (London, 1965), p.217.
6. The Diary of Sylas Neville, 1767-1788, ed. Basil Cozens-Hardy (Oxford, 1950), pp. 24 5-6.
7. See, e.g. Surrey R[ecord] O[ffice], Guildford Muniment Room, Onslow Papers, 173/2/1, 125, 126.
8. John Warren, bishop of St Davids, A Sermon preached before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal.. on Friday, February 4, 1780 (London, 1780), p. 16.
9. Richard Price, the pro-American radical writer, was, according to a staunchly loyal Anglican clergyman, 'against all principles of Government': Staffordshire RO, Bagot Papers, D 3259/13/18/4.
10. Records of the Borough of Leicester, ed. Mary Bateson, Helen Stocks and G. A. Chinnery (7 vols., London, Cambridge, and Leicester, 1899-1974), v. 240.
11. See, for instance, Richard Watson, bishop of Llandaff, A Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge, on Friday, February 4th, 1780 (Cambridge, 1780), p. 6. For his hostility to the American workwar see Watson to Rockingham, 10 Dec. 1778; Leeds Archives, Rockingham Letters, vol aa, Ramsden Papers.
12. The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ed. Thomas Copeland et al. (10 vols., Cambridge, 1958-78), iv. 125.
13. The most significant exceptions are J. R. Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1965) and John Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue (Edinburgh, 1985); but both of these excellent books, as their titles suggest, focus on the politics of the militia. A splendid essay by Nicholas Rogers, 'Liberty Road: Opposition to Impressment in Britain during the American War of Independence', in Jack Tar in History, ed. Colin Howell and Richard J. Twomey (Fredericton, N. B., 1991), is also distinctly relevant, but again concentrates on only one aspect of the story that this article attempts to tell.
14. Stephen Conway, The War of American Independence (London, 1995), pp. 37-8.
15. This, of course, was what happened in many trades-most spectacularly with seamen's wages: see Arthur Young, A Tour in Ireland (London, 1780), pt. i, p. 276; The Parliamentary History of England, ed. William Cobbett and J. Wright (36 vols., London, 1806-36) [hereafter, PH], xix. 709
16. T. S. Ashton, An Economic History of England: The Eighteenth Century (London, 1955), p-226.
17. See, for instance, Mary Hardy's Diary, ed. Basil Cozens-Hardy (Norfolk Rec. Soc, xxxvii, 1968), p.43; Leeds Mercury, 25 June 1782; P[ublic] Rfccord] Offfice], WO 34/138, fos. 2j6-8.
18. But see PRO, HO 42/205, fo. 181, and note that a meeting in Glasgow in 1782 rejected Lord Shelburne's popular militia proposals partly, at least, because it was feared that it would be damaging to the local economy to take 'the laborious part' of the town away from regular employment. But in this case political fears about arming the labouring poor were almost certainly more important. See infra, p. 1195.
19. See, e.g., Correspondence of the Reverend Joseph Greene, ed. Levi Fox (Dugdale Soc. xxiii, 196;), p. 12 j ; Diaries of John Thorp of Preston Candover: Hampshire RO 65 M82/2, p. 745.
20. For instance, Capt. Edward Meux Worsley to Lord Barrington, 21 July 1778: PRO, WO 1/1000.
21. See B[ritish] L[ibrary], Hardwicke Papers, Add. MS 35660, fo. 181
22. Burke Correspondence, iv. 109.
23. See, for instance, PRO, WO 4/965, pp. 12, 17-18, 98. Both acts also made specific provision for exempting harvest labourers from impressment: 18 Geo. Ill, c. 53, s. 45; 19 Geo. Ill, c. 10, s. 57.
24. See, for instance, Capt. James Alms to Philip Stephens, 18 Dec. 1777, PRO, ADM 1/1445; Capt. Robert Roddam to Stephens, 29 Aug. 1777, PRO, ADM 1/2390; WO 4/95, p. 424; WO 4/96, p. 266; WO 4/102, p. 351; WO 4/103, p. 92; WO 4/112, p. 337. For an apprentice found guilty of fraud for enlisting, see Worcestershire RO, Quarter Sessions Order-book, vol. v, 1773-90, fo. 87.
25. For instance, Matthew Lewis to Sir Stanier Porten, 24 April, 1 July 1779: PRO, WO 4/106.
26. 'List of Recruits Rais'd for the 46th Regiment', 9 Feb. 1776: PRO, WO 1/992.
27. Essex RO, Quarter Sessions Records, Q/SBb 33/23.
28. PRO, WO 1/1005, p.605. For large-scale desertion of impressed men, see WO i/ioO2, p.l5.
29. See, e.g. 'The State of the Case of what happened on the 3o:lh July [1778]', PRO, ADM 1/1708
30. Peter Marshall, Bristol and the American War of Independence, (Bristol, 1977), p. 15. For the same kind of resistance in an earlier period see N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World: An Anatomy of the Georgian Navy (London, 1986), pp. 174-6, 181-2.
31. Gentleman's Magazine, xlix (1779), 213.
32. Kent Archives Office, Amherst MSS, U 13 50 076/9.
33. See, for instance, entry of 5 May 1779, Diary of Samuel Pipe Wolferstan, Staffordshire RO, D 1527/4; entry of 25 June 1778, Diary of John Tompkins, West Sussex RO, Add. MS 12091.
34. See BL, Auckland Papers, Add. MS 34412, fo. 343.
35. The Correspondence of George III, ed. Sir John Fortescue (6 vols., London, 1927-8), iii. 522-5.
36. Ibid., iii. 247, 249, 250.
37. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Laing MSS (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1914-25), ii. 487.
38. Ibid.
39. 'Cap'. Campbell's Recruiting Instructions', 15 Dec. 1775: New York Public Library, Bayard-Campbell-Pearsall Papers, box 13.
40. See 'Colonel Scheiter's Terms' and 'Remarks on Lieutenant Colonel Scheiter's Plan', PRO, T. 1/514, fos. 127, 130-1. For the distribution of Scheiter's Germans, see PRO, WO 4/96, pp. 257, 389, 462; WO 4/99, p. 198.
41. The best modern account is Rodney Atwood, The Hessians (Cambridge, 1980).
42. PRO, WO i/ioo7, p.6)3;Lt.-Col. William Dalrymple to Charles Jenkinson, 7 March 1779: PRO, SP 41/28.
43. See Stephen Conway, "The Recruitment of Criminals into the British Army, 1775-81', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, lviii (1985), 57.
44. PRO, WO 4/966, p. 144.
45. PRO, WO 34/116, fo. 196. There was also some adverse comment on the competition of the volunteer units with the army for recruits (see PRO, SP 41/33, fo. 72). But it was generally accepted that the volunteers were composed for the most part of men unlikely to join the regulars.
46. BL, Auckland Papers, Add. MS 34412, fos. 343-4. See also the comments of Lord Barrington, who had favoured a naval blockade even before Lexington and Concord: Shute Barrington, The Political Life of William Wildman, Viscount Barrington (London, 1814), pp. 150-6.
47. See Nicholas Tracy, Navies, Deterrence and American Independence (Vancouver, 1988), ch. 6
48. Daniel A. Baugh, "The Politics of British Naval Failure, 1775-1777', American Neptune, lii (1992), 221-46; BL, Hardwicke Papers, Add. MS 35427, fo. 19.
49. N. A. M. Rodger, The Insatiable Earl: A Life of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (London, 1993). PP-"5-37-
50. PRO, ADM 7/1445-6.
51. 19 Geo. Ill, c. 6y, s. 42.
52. 18 Geo. Ill, c. 53, s. 6; 19 Geo. Ill, c. 10, s. 40. See also PRO, WO 26/29, P-^9-
53. 19 Geo. Ill, c. 10, s. 41. This was used in newspaper advertisements to promote recruiting: see, for example, The British Chronicle, or, Pugh 's Hereford Journal, 1 April 1779; Reading Mercury and Oxford Gazette, 10 June 1782.
54. Robert Kent Donovan, 'The Military Origins of the Roman Catholic Relief Programme of 1778', Historical Journal, xxviii (1985), 79-102. For extensive recruitment of Irishmen, see HMC, Lothian MSS (London, 1905), p. 355; Lt. George Urquart to Sir William Forbes, 3 Jan. 1780: National Library of Scotland, Fettercairn Papers, box 5.
55. Kent Archives Office, Amherst MSS, U 1350074/38, 39, 41.
56. Correspondence of George HI, iv. 418. The King had a point: for Richmond's influence over appointments to the Sussex militia see West Sussex RO, Goodwood MS 1975.
57. Shute Barrington, Life of Barrington, pp. 163-4.
58. BL, Add. MS 38593, fo. 41.
59. See Christopher Wyvill, Political Papers (5 vols., York, n.d.), i. 254-5.
60. See Correspondence of George III, v. 70-1, 75.
61. Peter Smyth, ' "Our Cloud-Cap't Grenadiers": The Volunteers as a Military Force', Irish Sword, xiii (1977-9), 195.
62. See R. B. McDowell, Ireland in the Age of Imperialism and Revolution, 1760-1801 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 2 54-74. For a recent and illuminating account of the political aspect of the volunteers see Ian R. McBride, 'Scripture Politics: The Religious Foundations of Presbyterian Radicalism in late Eighteenth-Century Ireland' (Univ. of London, Ph.D.Thesis, 1994), pp. 63-78.
63. The Earl of Buckinghamshire to Sir Charles Thompson, 12 Oct. 1779: Hull University Library, Hotham Papers, DD HO 4/20.
64. HMC, Twelfth Report, Appendix, Pt. x, Charlemont MSS (London, 1891), p. 359.
65. HMC, Dartmouth MSS (3 vols., London, 1887-96), ii. 474.
66. Pembroke Papers (1780-1794), ed. Lord Herbert (London, 1950), pp. 203-4.
67. Dr Williams's Library, Wodrow-Kenrick Correspondence, MS 24.157 (74)-
68. PRO, SP 54/47, fos. 74-5, 135, 137, 306-7.
69. PRO, SP 54/48, fos. 103, 105, 107, 125, 127.
70. See, for instance, the royal commission given to John Challen, appointing him captain of a Sussex volunteer company, 2 Nov. 1779: East Sussex RO, Add. MS 1, 023.
71. Hull RO, Borough Records, BRL 1386/4.
72. PRO, HO 42/205, fo. 132. See also PRO SP 41/33, fo. 301, and Great Yarmouth Corporation Records, Norfolk RO, Y/TC/ 36/20/10.
73. See PRO, WO 34/103, fo. 376; WO 34/104, fo. 26.
74. Sheffield Archives, Rockingham MSS, Ri-i8j4a.
75. Burke Correspondence, iv. 122-3.
76. PH, xx. 928.
77. 22 Geo. Ill, c. 79.
78. The second clause of the 'Heads of a Plan' sent by Shelburne referred to the appointment of officers 'either by Commission from His Majesty, or from the Lord Lieutenant of the County, upon the Recommendation of the Chief Magistrate of the Town in which the Corps are raised'. See, for example, Leicestershire RO, Lieutenancy Papers, LM 8/8/3. F°r t n e background, and the role of the new commander-in-chief, Gen. Henry Seymour Conway, see Western, English Militia, pp. 217-19
79. John Norris, Shelburne and Reform (London, 1963), pp. 162-3.
80. PH, xxi. 733.
81. For the part played by Lord Mahon, soon to be an opposition MP, in the resolutions to this effect adopted by a meeting in Kent, see Mahon to Wyvill, 23 July 1780: North Yorkshire RO, Wyvill MSS.
82. PH, xxi. 728.
83. Letters of Edward Gibbon, ed. J. E. Norton (3 vols., London, 1956), ii. 187. See also The Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox, ed. Countess of Ilchesterand Lord StavordaJe (1 vols., London, rjo 1), i. 296.
84. See his letters to his mother: BL, Althorp Papers, F8 and 9.
85. See, for instance, Reading Mercury and Oxford Gazette, 19 Oct. 1778; The Letters of Sir William Jones, ed. Garland Cannon (2 vols., Oxford, 1970), i. 213, 264.
86. PH, xviii. 857, 863.
87. Western, English Militia, pp. 130, 255-64, 306-7, 309-14, 367-8
88. Paul Langford, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman, 1689-1798 (Oxford, 1991), pp. 298-9.
89. See Lt.-Col. Thomas Bruce to the Earl of Ailesbury, 2 Aug. 1778: Wiltshire RO, Savernake MS 9.
90. See Western, English Militia, pp. 211-15.
91. Burke Correspondence, iv. 91.
92. PH, xviii. 1449.
93. Ibid., xix. 457.
94. Ibid., xx. 929-30.
95. Ibid., xix. 81-3. Luttrell's proposals appear to have been based on Robert Tomlinson, A Plan for a Practicable.. Method of Manning the Royal Navy.. Without the Usual Mode of Impressing Seaman (London, 1774).
96. PH, xx. 968.
97. This also explains the opposition of some MPs to the pressing clauses of the Recruiting Acts: see ibid., 114. It should be added, however, that once in power, the opposition continued to authorize the use of the press to man the navy: see, for instance, Hull RO, Borough Records, BRL 1320.
98. See, for example, Thomas Townshend to the Duke of Rutland, 19 July 1782: Leicestershire RO, Lieutenancy Papers, LM 8/8/6.
99. PH, xx. 114, 148.
100. Ibid., xix. 618.
101. Ibid., xxi. 359. 1 . Ibid., xix. 621, 626, 633.
102. Ibid., 688, 689; xxi. 339. See Colley, Britons, pp. 105-32, for English hostility to the Scots in this period.
103. PH, x[x. 685. 1 . Ibid., 631.
104. Ibid., xx. 114.
105. See Western, English Militia, pp. 212-13, 2 I4"IS-The act in its final form merely allowed volunteer companies to be added to the established militia regiments: 19 Geo. Ill, c. 76.
106. BL, Leeds Papers, Add. MS 27918, fo. 72.
107. PRO, HO 42/205, fo. 251. See also Surrey RO, Guildford Muniment Room, Borough Records, BR/OC/2/9/1/U).
108. Hull RO, Borough Records, BRL 1386/4; City of Liverpool Municipal Archives and Records.. /700 to.. 18}), ed. Sir James A. Picton (Liverpool, 1907), p. 183.
109. See PRO, HO 42/205, fos. 136-7
110. Tony Hayter, The Army and the Crowd in Mid-Georgian England (London, 1978), pp. 73-4.
111. Dr Wilhams's Library, Wodrow-Kenrick Correspondence, MS. 24.157 (74).
112. A Selection of Thomas Twining's Letters, ed. Ralph S. Walker (2 vols., Lampeter, 1991), !. 183-5.
113. The Noels and the Milbankes, ed. Malcolm Elwin (London, 1967), p. 198.
114. Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, ed. Robert Renwick et al. (11 vols., Glasgow, 7881-1916), vii. j / j-2 r , J57, 607-8, viii. 46-50.
115. PRO, HO 42/205, fos. 171, 206. For Manchester see Peter Marshall, 'Manchester and the American Revolution', Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, lxii (1979-80), 168-86.
116. PRO, HO 42/205, fo. 249. For Huntingdon see Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 17*4-1790 (3 vols., London, 1964), i. 311-12.
117. Noels and Milbankes, pp. 197-8.
118. Wiltshire RO, Wansey Papers, 3/4/4/2.
119. Correspondence ofRichard Price, ii. 125.
120. Volunteer companies were even created by the artificers and workmen in the King's Works: see Correspondence of George III, iv. 430.
121. PRO, WO 34/116, fos. 20-1.
122. Handbill, j Sept. 1780: BL, press mark 1850 c 10 f. 115. See Sainsbury, Disaffected Patriots, as index, for Kirkman.
123. 'A General Militia, acting by a Weil-Regulated Rotation, is the only Safe Means of Defending a Free People', in Tracts, concerning the Ancient and only True Legal Means of National Defence, by a Free Militia (London, 1781), pp. 42, 47.
124. Ian F. Beckett, The Amateur Military Tradition, i))8-i94) (Manchester, 1991), p. 70
125. Mary Hardy's Diary, p. 4}; Rev. William Palgrave to William Weddell, 2 Sept. [1782]: Leeds Archives, Rockingham Letters, vol. 3b, Ramsden Papers.
126. Bradley, Religion, Revolution and English Radicalism, p. 390 (Table 10.2).
127. Shelburne to Smyth, 11 June 1782: Essex RO, Smyth Family Papers, D/DFg Zi.
128. BL, Pelham Papers, Add. MS 33128, fo. 79. See also The Town Book of Lewes, 7702-/877 (Sussex Rec. Soc, lxix, 1973), pp. 68-9; PRO, HO 42/205, fos. 152-4.
129. The Morning Post, and Daily Advertiser, 19 July, 12, 30 Aug. 1779.
130. A. Temple Patterson, A History of Southampton, 1700 1914. Vol. I: An Oligarchy in Decline, 1700-1835 (Southampton, 1966), p. 92.
131. PRO, SP 54/45, fos. 801, 803; Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, vii. 486, 490, S05, 517, 556, viii. 6; City of Liverpool Municipal Archives, pp. 180, 181; Beverley Corporation Minute Books (1707-183 t), ec\. K. A. MacMahon (Yorks. Arch. Soc, Rec. Ser., cxxii, 1958), pp. 57, 58, 60; Leeds Intelligencer, 17 March 1778.
132. For instance, Reading Mercury and Oxford Gazette, 1 Jan. 1776; Records of Leicester, v. 238; d r y of Liverpool Municipal Archives, p. 180; PRO, T. i/527, fo. 303.
133. Correspondence of George III, iii. 257.
134. See Thomas Bartlett, The Fall and Rise of the Irish Nation: The Catholic Question 1690-18}O (Dublin, 1992), pp. 83-7
135. Thomas P. Power, Land, Politics and Society in Eighteenth-Century Tipperary (Oxford, 1993), pp. 270, 278-9.
136. Knollis to Lord Barrington, 12 March 1776: PRO, WO 1/992.
137. Hampshire RO, Banbury Papers, 1 M44/66, fo. 32.
138. Leeds Mercury, 10 Feb. 1778.
139. See HMC, Verulam MSS (London, 1906), pp. 124-5; Windham Papers (2 vols., London, 1913), i. 19-20; PH, xix. 758-61; Wilson, Sense of the People, pp. 419-20.
140. Gentleman's Magazine, xlvi (1776), 576. See also Sainsbury, Disaffected Patriots, pp. 28, 134-9; and, more generally, PRO, ADM 1/5117/9.
141. British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, BM 5295.
142. Letters of Gibbon, ii. 89. See also Letters from an Ulster Land Agent, 1774-8}, ed. W. H. Crawford (Belfast, 1976), p. s, for the situation in Northern Ireland, where Presbyterian sympathy with the Americans was no doubt reinforced by the apparent willingness of Irish Catholics to enlist in the British army. Recruiting in the Protestant parts of Ulster seems to have picked up only with the coming of the war against the traditional Bourbon (and Catholic) enemies: see BL, Liverpool Papers, Add. MS 38344, fo. 3; Staffordshire RO, Dyott Papers, D 3388/17/6.
143. Bradley, Religion, Revolution and English Radicalism, p. 3 5 5.
144. The Private Papers of John, Earl of Sandwich, ed. G. R. Barnes and J. H. Owen (4 vols., London, 1932-8), 1. 340. Nottingham's corporation had petitioned the king against the war in 1775, and in 1779 it made Admiral Keppel, the opposition hero, a freeman: Records of the Borough of Nottingham (9 vols., Nottingham, 1882-1956), vii. 137-9, 166-7.
145. See W. M. Elofson, 'The Rockingham Whigs and the Country Tradition', Parliamentary History, viii (1989), 90-115, and 'The Rockingham Whigs in Transition: The East India Company Issue 1772-1773', ante, civ (1989), 947-74.
146. A point made by J. E. Cookson in his important article on "The English Volunteer Movement of the French Wars, 1793 181 y. Some Contexts', Historical Journal, xxxii (1989), 867-91.
147. See Geoffrey Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne (2nd edn., London, 1987), pp. 64-81.
148. See Arthur N. Gilbert, 'Army Impressment during the War of Spanish Succession', The Historian, xxxvi (1976), 689-708.
149. See P. J. Marshall, 'A Nation Defined by Empire, 1755-1776', in Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History, ed. Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer (London, 1995), p. 211.