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Home Great Britain and her Relations with America after the Seven Years War, 1763-1783 1763-1783; Part 9 |
1763-1783; Part 9The Americans were now in despair. But meanwhile what had been gained in the south whilst Cornwallis was there was lost after his departure, owing to the small number of troops he could leave behind. Moreover, Clinton would not or could not spare any reinforcements from New York for the further operations of Cornwallis himself. The latter, therefore, retired to the coast, to York Town, expecting to be supported by the British fleet. But he was blockaded instead by the French fleet which the British admirals in the West Indies had failed to defeat, and Washington arrived in command of a superior force to cut off his retreat by land. The position of Cornwallis was then hopeless; and, after an attempt to break out, he was forced to surrender (1781). The navy, as someone said at the time, " had the casting vote in the contest"; and the surrender at York Town practically ended the war. Charlestown was subsequently recaptured by the colonists, and only New York was left to the British.Elsewhere things had been going badly. Nearly all the West Indian islands were lost, except Barbados and Jamaica. Gibraltar was hard pressed. The British position in India was precarious. Early in 1782 Minorca was captured by the French, an event which led to the fall of Lord North's ministry. But two successes in that year enabled Great Britain to retire from the war with some credit. In April, Rodney fought the French fleet off Dominique in the West Indies in a battle known as the "Battle of the Saints". He won a great victory, his fleet succeeding in breaking through the French line-of-battle, and the French flagship itself being captured (When war broke out between France and Great Britain, Rodney was at Paris in an impecunious condition, and his creditors refused to let him go home. A French nobleman, however, chivalrously came to his rescue with a loan, and Rodney returned. During his two and a half years of command in the American War, Rodney captured a French, a Spanish, and a Dutch admiral, and added twelve line-of-battle ships, all taken from the enemy, to the British navy, including the Ville de Paris, the great ship which the city of Paris had given to the French king). In September a combined attack upon Gibraltar by the French and Spaniards with forty-nine ships of the line and ten floating batteries on the sea side, and with an army of forty thousand men on the land side, signally failed, owing to the pertinacity of Eliott, the governor, and the seven thousand men under his command. Shortly afterwards a British fleet brought final relief to the garrison, which had withstood a siege for three years seven months and twelve days. |
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