The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn Part 1

The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn.

by Henry P. Johnston.

PREFACE.

The site now occupied by the two cities of New York and Brooklyn, and over which they continue to spread, is pre-eminently "Revolutionary soil." Very few of our historic places are more closely a.s.sociated with the actual scenes of that struggle. As at Boston in 1775, so here in 1776, we had the war at our doors and all about us. In what is now the heart of Brooklyn Revolutionary soldiers lay encamped for months, and in the heat of a trying summer surrounded themselves with lines of works. What have since been converted into spots of rare beauty--Greenwood Cemetery and Prospect Park--became, with the ground in their vicinity, a battle-field. New York, which was then taking its place as the most flourishing city on the continent, was transformed by the emergency into a fortified military base. Troops quartered in Broad Street and along the North and East rivers, and on the line of Grand Street permanent camps were established. Forts, redoubts, batteries, and intrenchments encircled the town. The streets were barricaded, the roads blocked, and efforts made to obstruct the navigation of both rivers. Where we have stores and warehouses, Washington fixed alarm and picket posts; and at points where costly residences stand, men fought, died, and were buried. In 1776 the cause had become general; soldiers gathered here from ten of the original thirteen States, and the contest a.s.sumed serious proportions. It was here around New York and Brooklyn that the War of the Revolution began in earnest.

The record of what occurred in this vicinity at that interesting period has much of it been preserved in our standard histories by Gordon, Marshall, Irving, Hildreth, Lossing, Bancroft, Carrington, and others. In the present volume it is given as a single connected account, with many additional particulars which have but recently come to light. This new material, gathered largely from the descendants of officers and soldiers who partic.i.p.ated in that campaign, is published with other doc.u.ments in Part II. of this work, and is presented as its princ.i.p.al feature. What importance should be attached to it must be left to the judgment of the reader.

The writer himself has made use of these doc.u.ments in filling gaps and correcting errors. Such doc.u.ments, for example, as the orders issued by Generals Greene and Sullivan on Long Island, with the original letters of Generals Parsons, Scott, and other officers, go far towards clearing up the hitherto doubtful points in regard to operations on the Brooklyn side. There is not a little, also, that throws light on the retreat to New York; while material of value has been unearthed respecting events which terminated in the capture of the city by the British. Considerable s.p.a.ce has been devoted to the preparations made by both sides for the campaign, but as the nature of those preparations ill.u.s.trates the very great importance attached to the struggle that was to come, it may not appear disproportionate. The narrative also is continued so as to include the closing incidents of the year, without which it would hardly be complete, although they take us beyond the limits of New York.

But for the cheerful and in many cases painstaking co-operation of those who are in possession of the doc.u.ments referred to, or who have otherwise rendered a.s.sistance, the preparation of the work could not have been possible. The writer finds himself especially under obligations to Miss Harriet E. Henshaw, of Leicester, Ma.s.s.; Miss Mary Little and Benjamin Hale, Esq., Newburyport; Charles J. Little, Esq., Cambridge; Mr. Francis S. Drake, Roxbury; Rev. Dr. I.N. Tarbox and John J. Soren, Boston; Prof. George Washington Greene, East Greenwich, R.I.; Hon. J.M. Addeman, Secretary of State of Rhode Island, and Rev.

Dr. Stone, Providence; Hon. Dwight Morris, Secretary of State of Connecticut; Dr. P.W. Ellsworth and Captain John C. Kinney, Hartford; Miss Mary L. Huntington, Norwich; Benjamin Douglas, Esq., Middletown; Mr. Henry M. Selden, Haddam Neck; Hon. G.H. Hollister, Bridgeport; Hon. Teunis G. Bergen, Mr. Henry E. Pierrepont, J. Carson Brevoort, Esq., Rev. Dr. H.M. Scudder, and Mr. Gerrit H. Van Wagenen, Brooklyn; Mr. Henry Onderdonk, Jr., Jamaica, L.I.; Frederick H. Wolcott, Esq., Astoria, L.I.; Hon. John Jay, Charles I. Bushnell, Esq., Miss Troup, Mrs. Kernochan, Prof. and Mrs. O.P. Hubbard, Gen. Alex. S. Webb, Rev.

A.A. Reinke, New York City; Mr. William Kelby, New York Historical Society; Prof. Asa Bird Gardner, West Point; Hon. W.S. Stryker, Adjutant-General, Trenton, N.J.; Richard Randolph Parry, Esq., Hon.

Lewis A. Scott, and Mr. J. Jordan, Philadelphia; Hon. John B. Linn, Harrisburg; Mrs. S.B. Rogers and Mr. D.M. Stauffler, Lancaster; Dr.

Dalrymple, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore; Hon. Caesar A.

Rodney, J.R. Walter, and W.S. Boyd, Wilmington, Del.; Oswald Tilghman, Esq., Easton, Md.; Hon. Edward McPherson, Rev. Dr. John Chester, and Lieutenant-Colonel T. Lincoln Casey, Washington; President Andrews and Mr. Holden, Librarian, Marietta College; and Mr. Henry E. Parsons and Edward Welles, Ashtabula, Ohio.

The cordial and constant encouragement extended by the Rev. Dr.

Richard S. Storrs, President of the Long Island Historical Society, and the interest taken in the work by Hon. Henry C. Murphy, Benjamin D. Silliman, Esq., and the Librarian, Mr. George Hannah, are gratefully acknowledged.

NEW YORK CITY, June, 1878.

PART I.

THE CAMPAIGN.

CHAPTER I.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CAMPAIGN--PLANS AND PREPARATIONS.

"Our affairs are hastening fast to a crisis; and the approaching campaign will, in all probability, determine forever the fate of America."

So wrote John Hanc.o.c.k, President of Congress, June 4th, 1776, to the governors and conventions of the Eastern and Middle colonies, as, in the name of that body, he reminded them of the gravity of the struggle on which they had entered, and urged the necessity of increasing their exertions for the common defence. That this was no undue alarm, published for effect, but a well-grounded and urgent warning to the country, is confirmed by the situation at the time and the whole train of events that followed. The campaign of 1776 did indeed prove to be a crisis, a turning-point, in the fortunes of the Revolution. It is not investing it with an exaggerated importance, to claim that it was the decisive period of the war; that, whatever anxieties and fears were subsequently experienced, this was the year in which the greatest dangers were encountered and pa.s.sed. "Should the united colonies be able to keep their ground this campaign," continued Hanc.o.c.k, "I am under no apprehensions on account of any future one." "We expect a very b.l.o.o.d.y summer in New York and Canada," wrote Washington to his brother John Augustine, in May; and repeatedly, through the days of preparation, he represented to his troops what vital interests were at stake and how much was to depend upon their discipline and courage in the field.

But let the significance of the campaign be measured by the record itself, to which the following pages are devoted. It will be found to have been the year in which Great Britain made her most strenuous efforts to suppress the colonial revolt, and in which both sides mustered the largest forces raised during the war; the year in which the issues of the contest were clearly defined and America first fought for independence; a year, for the most part, of defeats and losses for the colonists, and when their faith and resolution were put to the severest test; but a year, also, which ended with a broad ray of hope, and whose hard experiences opened the road to final success.

It was the year from which we date our national existence. A period so interesting and, in a certain sense, momentous is deserving of ill.u.s.tration with every fact and detail that can be gathered.

What was the occasion or necessity for this campaign; what the plans and preparations made for it both by the mother country and the colonies?

The opening incidents of the Revolution, to which these questions refer us, are a familiar chapter in its history. On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, an expedition of British regulars, moving out from Boston, came upon a company of provincials hastily forming on Lexington Common, twelve miles distant. The att.i.tude of these countrymen represented the last step to which they had been driven by the aggressive acts of the home Parliament. Up to this moment the controversy over colonial rights and privileges had been confined, from the days of the Stamp Act, to argument, protest, pet.i.tion, and legislative proceedings; but these failing to convince or conciliate either party, it only remained for Great Britain to exercise her authority in the case with force.

The expedition in question had been organized for the purpose of seizing the military stores belonging to the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony, then collected at Concord, and which the king's authorities regarded as too dangerous material to be in the hands of the people at that stage of the crisis. The provincials, on the other hand, watched them jealously. King and Parliament might question their rights, block up their port, ruin their trade, proscribe their leaders, and they could bear all without offering open resistance. But the attempt to deprive them of the means of self-defence at a time when the current of affairs clearly indicated that, sooner or later, they would be compelled to defend themselves, was an act to which they would not submit, as already they had shown on more than one occasion. To no other right did the colonist cling more tenaciously at this juncture than to his right to his powder. The men at Lexington, therefore, drew up on their village grounds, not defiantly, but in obedience to the most natural impulse. Their position was a logical one. To have remained quietly in their homes would have been a stultification of their whole record from the beginning of the troubles; stand they must, some time and somewhere. Under the circ.u.mstances, a collision between the king's troops and the provincials that morning was inevitable. The commander of the former, charged with orders to disperse all "rebels," made the sharp demand upon the Lexington company instantly to lay down their arms. A moment's confusion and delay--then scattering shots--then a full volley from the regulars--and ten men fell dead and wounded upon the green. Here was a shock, the ultimate consequences of which few of the partic.i.p.ants in the scene could have forecast; but it was the alarm-gun of the Revolution.

Events followed rapidly. The march of the British to Concord, the destruction of the stores, the skirmish at the bridge, and, later in the day, the famous road-fight kept up by the farmers down to Charlestown, ending in the signal demoralization and defeat of the expedition, combined with the Lexington episode to make the 19th of April an historic date. The rapid spread of the news, the excitement in New England, the uprising of the militia and their hurried march to Boston to resist any further excursions of the regulars, were the immediate consequence of this collision.

Nor was the alarm confined to the Eastern colonies, then chiefly affected. A courier delivered the news in New York three days later, on Sunday noon, and the liberty party at once seized the public military stores, and prevented vessels loaded with supplies for the British in Boston from leaving port. Soon came fuller accounts of the expedition and its rout. Expresses carried them southward, and their course can be followed for nearly a thousand miles along the coast. On the 23d and 24th they pa.s.sed through Connecticut, where at Wallingford the dispatches quaintly describe the turning out of the militiamen: "The country beyond here are all gone." They reached New York at two o'clock on the 25th, and Isaac Low countersigns. Relays taking them up in New Jersey, report at Princeton on the 26th, at "3.30 A.M." They are at Philadelphia at noon, and "forwarded at the same time." We find them at New Castle, Delaware, at nine in the evening; at Baltimore at ten on the following night; at Alexandria, Virginia, at sunset on the 29th; at Williamsburg, May 2d; and at Edenton, North Carolina, on the 4th, with directions to the next Committee of Safety: "Disperse the material pa.s.sages [of the accounts] through all your parts." Down through the deep pine regions, stopping at Bath and Newbern, ride the hors.e.m.e.n, reaching Wilmington at 4 P.M. on the 8th.

"Forward it by night and day," say the committee. At Brunswick at nine the indors.e.m.e.nt is entered: "Pray don't neglect a moment in forwarding." At Georgetown, South Carolina, where the dispatches arrive at 6.30 P.M. on the 10th, the committee address a note to their Charleston brethren: "We send you by express a letter and newspapers with momentous intelligence this instant arrived." The news reaching Savannah, a party of citizens immediately took possession of the government powder.

The wave of excitement which follows the signal of a coming struggle was thus borne by its own force throughout the length of the colonies.

And from the coast the intelligence spread inland as far as settlers had found their way. In distant Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, men heard it, and began to organize and drill. At Charlotte, North Carolina, they sounded the first note for independence. From many points brave and sympathetic words were sent to the people of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and in all quarters people discussed the probable effect of the startling turn matters had taken in that colony. The likelihood of a general rupture with the mother country now came to be seriously entertained.

Meanwhile the situation to the eastward a.s.sumed more and more a military aspect. On the 10th of May occurred the surprise and capture, by Ethan Allen and his party, of the important post of Ticonderoga, where during the summer the provincials organized a force to march upon and, if possible, secure the Canadas. The Continental Congress at Philadelphia, after resolving that the issue had been forced upon them by Great Britain, voted to prepare for self-defence.

They adopted the New England troops, gathered around Boston, as a Continental force, and appointed Washington to the chief command. Then on the 17th of June Bunker Hill was fought, that first regular action of the war, with its far-reaching moral effect; and following it came the siege of Boston, or the hemming in of the British by the Americans, until the former were finally compelled to evacuate the city.

It is here in these culminating events of the spring and summer of 1775 that we find the occasion for the preparations made by Great Britain for the campaign of 1776. Little appreciating the genius of the colonists, underrating their resources and capacity for resistance, mistaking also their motives, King George and his party imagined that on the first display of England's power all disturbance and attempts at rebellion across the sea would instantly cease. But the sudden transition from peace to war, and the complete mastery of the situation which the colonists appeared to hold, convinced the home government that "the American business" was no trifling trouble, to be readily settled by a few British regiments. As the season advanced, they began to realize the fact that General Gage, and then Howe succeeding him, with their force of ten thousand choice troops, were helplessly pent up in Boston; that Montreal and Quebec were threatened; that colonists in the undisturbed sections were arming; and that Congress was supplanting the authority of Parliament. A more rigorous treatment of the revolt had become necessary; and as the time had pa.s.sed to effect any thing on a grand scale during the present year, measures were proposed to crush all opposition in the next campaign. Follow, briefly, the course of the British Government at this crisis.

Parliament convened on the 26th day of October. The king's speech, with which it opened, was necessarily devoted to the American question, and it declared his policy clearly and boldly. His rebellious subjects must be brought to terms. "They have raised troops," he said, "and are collecting a naval force; they have seized the public revenue, and a.s.sumed to themselves legislative, executive, and judicial powers, which they already exercise, in the most arbitrary manner, over the persons and properties of their fellow subjects: and although many of these unhappy people may still retain their loyalty, and may be too wise not to see the fatal consequence of this usurpation and wish to resist it, yet the torrent of violence has been strong enough to compel their acquiescence, till a sufficient force shall appear to support them. The authors and promoters of this desperate conspiracy have, in the conduct of it, derived great advantage from the difference of our intentions and theirs. They meant only to amuse by vague expressions of attachment to the parent state, and the strongest protestations of loyalty to me, whilst they were preparing for a general revolt. On our part, though it was declared in your last session that a rebellion existed within the province of the Ma.s.sachusetts' Bay, yet even that province we wished rather to reclaim than to subdue.... The rebellious war now levied is become more general, and is manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire. I need not dwell upon the fatal effects of the success of such a plan.... It is now become the part of wisdom, and (in its effects) of clemency, to put a speedy end to these disorders, by the most decisive exertions. For this purpose, I have increased my naval establishment, and greatly augmented my land forces, but in such a manner as may be the least burthensome to my kingdoms. I have also the satisfaction to inform you, that I have received the most friendly offers of foreign a.s.sistance, and if I shall make any treaties in consequence thereof, they shall be laid before you."

A stranger in Parliament, knowing nothing of the merits of the controversy, would have a.s.sumed from the tone of this speech that the home government had been grossly wronged by the American colonists, or at least a powerful faction among them, and that their suppression was a matter of national honor as well as necessity. But the speech was inexcusably unjust to the colonists. The charge of design and double-dealing could not be laid against them, for the ground of their grievances had been the same from the outset, and their conduct consistent with single motives; and if independence had been mentioned at all as yet, it was only as an ulterior resort, and not as an aim or ambition. The king and the Ministry, on the other hand, were wedded to strict notions of authority in the central government, and measured a citizen's fidelity by the readiness with which he submitted to its policy and legislation. Protests and discussion about "charters" and "liberties" were distasteful to them, and whoever disputed Parliament in any case was denounced as strong-headed and factious. The king's speech, therefore, was no more than what was expected from him. It reflected the sentiments of the ruling party.

As usual, motions were made in both houses that an humble address in reply be presented to his Majesty, professing loyalty to his person, and supporting his views and measures. The mover in the Commons was Thomas Ackland, who, in the course of his speech at the time, strongly urged the policy of coercion, and emphasized his approval of it by declaring that it would have been better for his country that America had never been known than that "a great consolidated western empire"

should exist independent of Britain. Lyttleton, who seconded the motion, was equally uncompromising. He objected to making the Americans any further conciliatory offers, and insisted that they ought to be conquered first before mercy was shown them.

The issue thus fairly stated by and for the government immediately roused the old opposition, that "ardent and powerful opposition," as Gibbon, who sat in the Commons, describes it; and again the House echoed to attack and invective. Burke, Fox, Conway, Barre, Dunning, and others, who on former occasions had cheered America with their stout defence of her rights, were present at this session to resist any further attempt to impair them. Of the leading spirits, Chatham, now disabled from public service, alone was absent.

Lord John Cavendish led the way on this side, by moving a subst.i.tute for Ackland's address which breathed a more moderate spirit, and in effect suggested to his Majesty that the House review the whole of the late proceedings in the colonies, and apply, in its own way, the most effectual means of restoring order and confidence there. Of course this meant concession to America, and it became the signal for the opening of an impa.s.sioned debate. Wilkes, Lord Mayor of London, poured out a torrent of remonstrances against the conduct of the Ministry, who had precipitated the nation into "an unjust, ruinous, felonious, and murderous war." Sir Adam Fergusson, speaking less vehemently and with more show of sense, defended the government. Whatever causes may have brought on the troubles, the present concern with him was how to treat them as they then existed. There was but one choice, in his estimation--either to support the authority of Great Britain with vigor, or abandon America altogether. And who, he asked, would be bold enough to advise abandonment? The employment of force, therefore, was the only alternative; and, said the speaker, prudence and humanity required that the army sent out should be such a one as would carry its point and override opposition in every quarter--not merely beat the colonists, but "deprive them of all idea of resistance." Gov.

Johnstone, rising in reply, reviewed the old questions at length, and in the course of his speech took occasion to eulogize the bravery of the provincials at Bunker Hill. It was this engagement, more than any incident of the war thus far, that had shown the determination of the "rebels" to fight for their rights; and their friends in Parliament presented it as a foretaste of what was to come, if England persisted in extreme measures. Johnstone besought the House not to wreak its vengeance upon such men as fought that day; for their courage was deserving, rather, of admiration, and their conduct of forgiveness.

Honorable Temple Lutrell followed with an attack upon the "evil counsellors who had so long poisoned the ear of the Sovereign."

Conway, who on this occasion spoke with his old fire, and held the close attention of the House, called for more information as to the condition of affairs in the colonies, and at the same time rejected the idea of reducing them to submission by force. Barre entered minutely into the particulars and results of the campaign since the 19th of April, as being little to England's credit, and urged the Ministry to embrace the present opportunity for an accommodation with America, or that whole country would be lost to them forever. Burke, in the same vein, represented the impolicy of carrying on the war, and advised the government to meet the colonists with a friendly countenance, and no longer allow Great Britain to appear like "a porcupine, armed all over with acts of Parliament oppressive to trade and America." Fox spoke of Lord North as "a blundering pilot," who had brought the nation into its present dilemma. Neither Lord Chatham nor the King of Prussia, not even Alexander the Great, he declared, ever gained more in one campaign than the n.o.ble lord had lost--he had lost an entire continent. While not justifying all the proceedings of the colonists, he called upon the Administration to place America where she stood in 1763, and to repeal every act pa.s.sed since that time which affected either her freedom or her commerce. Wedderburne and Dunning, the ablest lawyers in the House, took opposite sides. The former, as Solicitor-General, threw the weight of his opinion in favor of rigorous measures, and hoped that an army of not less than sixty thousand men would be sent to enforce Parliamentary authority.

Dunning, his predecessor in office, questioned the legality of the king's preparations for war without the previous consent of the Commons. Then, later in the debate, rose Lord North, the princ.i.p.al figure in the Ministry, and whom the Opposition held mainly responsible for the colonial troubles, and defended both himself and the king's address. Speaking forcibly and to the point, he informed the House that, in a word, the measures intended by the government were to send a powerful sea and land armament against the colonists, and at the same time to proffer terms of mercy upon a proper submission. "This," said the Minister, "will show we are in earnest, that we are prepared to punish, but are nevertheless ready to forgive; and this is, in my opinion, the most likely means of producing an honorable reconciliation."

But all the eloquence, reasoning and appeal of the Opposition failed to have any more influence now than in the earlier stages of the controversy, and it again found itself in a hopeless minority. Upon a division of the House, the king was supported by a vote of 278 to 110.

The address presented to him closed with the words: "We hope and trust that we shall, by the blessing of G.o.d, put such strength and force into your Majesty's hands, as may soon defeat and suppress this rebellion, and enable your Majesty to accomplish your gracious wish of re-establishing order, tranquillity, and happiness through all parts of your United Empire." In the House of Lords, where Camden, Shelburne, Rockingham, and their compeers stood between America and the Ministry, the address was adopted by a vote of 69 to 33.[1]

[Footnote 1: Outside of Parliament, all shades of opinion found expression through the papers, pamphlets, and private correspondence.

Hume, the historian, wrote, October 27th, 1775: "I am an American in my principles, and wish we could let them alone, to govern or misgovern themselves as they think proper. The affair is of no consequence, or of little consequence to us." But he wanted those "insolent rascals in London and Middles.e.x" punished for inciting opposition at home. This would be more to the point than "mauling the poor infatuated Americans in the other hemisphere." William Strahan, the eminent printer, replied to Hume: "I differ from you _toto coelo_ with regard to America. I am entirely for coercive methods with those obstinate madmen." Dr. Robertson, author of _The History of America_, wrote: "If our leaders do not exert the power of the British Empire in its full force, the struggle will be long, dubious, and disgraceful. We are past the hour of lenitives and half exertions."

Early in 1776, Dr. Richard Price, the Dissenting preacher, issued his famous pamphlet on the _Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War_, which had a great run. Taking sides with the colonists, he said: "It is madness to resolve to butcher them. Freemen are not to be governed by force, or dragooned into compliance. If capable of bearing to be so treated, it is a disgrace to be connected with them."]

This powerful endors.e.m.e.nt of the king's policy by Parliament, however, cannot be taken as representing the sense of the nation at large. It may be questioned whether even a bare majority of the English people were ready to go to the lengths proposed in his Majesty's address. The Ministry, it is true, pointed to the numerous ratifying "addresses"

that flowed in, pledging the support of towns and cities for the prosecution of the war. Some were sent from unexpected quarters. To the surprise of both sides and the particular satisfaction of the king, both Manchester and Sheffield, places supposed to be American in sentiment, came forward with resolutions of confidence and approval; and in ministerial circles it was made to appear that substantially all England was for coercion. But this claim was unfounded. As the king predicted, the loyal addresses provoked opposition addresses.

Edinburgh and Glasgow, despite the efforts of their members, refused to address. Lynn was said to have addressed, but its members denied the a.s.sertion, and claimed that the war was unpopular in that town.

The paper from Great Yarmouth was very thinly signed, while Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, and other places sent in counter-pet.i.tions against the war. The justices of Middles.e.x unanimously voted that it was expedient to reduce the colonies to a proper sense of their duty; but at a meeting of the freeholders of the same county, held at Mile-end, to instruct their members in Parliament, little unanimity prevailed, "much clamor arose," a protest was entered against the proposed resolutions, and only one of the sheriffs consented to sign them all. London, as the country well knew, sympathized largely with America, but in a manner which nullified her influence elsewhere. Her populace was noisy and threatening; Wilkes, her Lord Mayor, was hated at court; her solid men kept to business. "Are the London merchants," wrote the king to Lord North,[2] "so thoroughly absorbed in their private interests not to feel what they owe to the const.i.tution which has enriched them, that they do not either show their willingness to support, either by an address, or, what I should like better, a subscription, to furnish many comforts to the army in America?" An address from this quarter, signed by "respectable names," he thought might have a good effect, and one was presented on October 11th, with 941 signatures; but it was entirely neutralized by the presentation, three days before, of another address more numerously signed by "gentlemen, merchants, and traders of London," in which the measures of government were condemned. When the point was made in the Commons that the war was a popular measure in England, Lutrell promptly replied that he had made many a journey through the interior of the country during the summer season, and had conversed with "a mult.i.tude of persons widely different in station and description," only to find that the ma.s.ses were in sympathy with the colonists. The division of sentiment was probably correctly represented by Lord Camden early in the year, in his observation that the landed interest was almost wholly anti-American, while the merchants, tradesmen, and the common people were generally opposed to a war.[3]

[Footnote 2: "Correspondence with Lord North." Donne.]

[Footnote 3: Upon this point Dr. Price said: "Let it be granted, _though probably far from true_, that the _majority_ of the kingdom favor the present measures. No good argument could be drawn from thence against receding."]

Having voted to push the war in earnest, Parliament proceeded to supply the sinews. On November 3d, Lord Barrington brought in the army estimates for 1776. Fifty-five thousand men, he reported, was the force necessary and intended to be raised for the purposes of the nation, the ordinary expense of maintaining which would be something over 1,300,000. Of these troops, twenty thousand would be retained to garrison Great Britain, ten thousand for the West Indies, Gibraltar, Minorca and the coast of Africa, while the actual force destined for America was to be increased to thirty-four battalions, each of 811 men, including two regiments of light horse, amounting, in the aggregate, to upwards of twenty-five thousand men. Barrington, at the same time, frankly acknowledged to the House that these figures showed well only on paper, as none of the regiments for America were complete, and, what was a still more unwelcome admission, that great difficulty was experienced in enlisting new recruits. Nothing, he said, had been left untried to secure them. The bounty had been raised and the standard lowered, and yet men were not forthcoming.