Fusiliers (29 page)

Many of the Fusiliers therefore soon found themselves in a hell of screaming and whizzing metal as they clung to their posts in the tops. Corporal John Fowler was killed and three light company men wounded.

Isis
responded in kind, attacking César’s rigging, but increasingly, as the ships drew together, directing fire on to her decks. ‘Their musketry’, wrote one officer, ‘was silenced by that of our marines and a detachment of the Light Company of the 23rd.’ Those trying to manage the French warship found themselves under a hail of small arms fire from
Isis
.

Captain Raynor added to the pressure, managing to get his ship around to César’s stern and give three broadsides that amounted nearly to rakes along the length of the 74, cutting down many men as they went. This was a very dangerous moment for the Frenchman, for such salvoes could be devastating. One French officer was seen to emerge from below decks to dump papers into the sea, an act that marked him for death at the hands of one of the Fusiliers sniping from the tops.

The slugging match went on for one hour and thirty-five minutes before ‘the enemy sheered off and bore away to the south west’. When the Fusiliers realised what was happening they sent up a loud Indian war whoop, that exultant cry that they had heard in the forests of Pennsylvania and Jersey. In addition to the casualties among the Fusiliers, thirteen seamen had been wounded on board the
Isis
. Neither captain had been gratified with a prize, but there was general satisfaction in Howe’s fleet with the pluck with which the smaller ship repulsed her assailant.

A triumphant Lionel Smythe wrote to England, estimating the damage done to the French 74:

He has lost his right [yard] arm and his first lieutenant a def [inite] with about 20 killed and 50 wounded. He does Captain Raynor the justice of saying that our ship was so well worked as to prevent his getting any guns to bear whilst he suffered from the quick well directed fire of the
Isis
.

Even that violent Whig, Captain Fitzpatrick of the Guards, got caught up in the anti-French ebullience of the moment, writing enthusiastically about the Isis’s action. Unfortunately for the remainder of the 23rd, none of their detachments aboard other vessels
experienced a similar fight, so the Light Bobs were lucky enough to hog the action once more.

One week after the storm, d’Estaing returned to Narragansett Bay off Newport with his crippled ships. The Americans were all for pressing on with the attack on Newport immediately, but the French admiral had other ideas. The fleet entrusted to the admiral by his king was a prized asset, the result of a vast investment in the navy in order to try and catch up with the English. D’Estaing did not want to risk the chance of Howe sailing into the bay on some raid to beat up his damaged ships at anchor. Furthermore, he was uncertain how the balance of naval forces might tip against the French. The admiral therefore informed his allies that he would soon sail for Boston where he intended to repair his squadron.

The Americans were furious but could do nothing. In the days that followed, thousands of New England militia decided to go home. There were accusations of French betrayal and a hopelessness about conquering General Pigot’s defences. As the Franco-American siege plan disintegrated, the British commander decided to send the Americans at the gates of Newport packing.

On 29 August, the British, seeing the Americans had struck their tents at the siege lines, came out to pursue them off the island. The redcoats raced five miles quickly up to Quaker Hill on the north of the Island, where the enemy had posted troops to cover a withdrawal over the ferries. Here the two armies fought a sharp little battle, as the American rearguard protected their evacuation.

After the events of the 13th, Admiral Howe too had seen to the repair of his ships, taking them to New York, before sailing back to Rhode Island escorting dozens of transports carrying an army under General Clinton. These seventy sail arrived at Rhode Island on 1 September. The relief force, unneeded, returned to New York two days later.

Frederick Mackenzie knew that Clinton had reacted with petulance upon his arrival at Rhode Island, being annoyed that Pigot had driven the Americans back on his own. ‘As they did not come in for any share of the credit,’ wrote Mackenzie, ‘they thought proper to find fault with every thing, and went off in a very ill humour.’ The Fusilier captain remembered that he had played a prominent role in convincing Pigot of the value of racing up to Quaker Hill and harassing the Americans and was therefore particularly irked by Clinton’s bad grace. While Mackenzie was himself an officer demanding high standards, he could
at least grasp the wider picture and see beyond the petty jealousy of his commander-in-chief: the British had beaten off a concerted attack by their allied enemies and thus averted a disaster that might have eclipsed even Saratoga.

Several weeks after their action at sea, the Fusiliers were back in New York. Officers and men got reacquainted with their favourite houses of the coffee, drinking and whoring varieties. There was a general uncertainty about what lay ahead. The government in London had still not recovered from the double shocks of Saratoga and France’s entry into the war. Recriminations had to be played out for Burgoyne’s disaster and a discussion had about how Britain could possibly prosecute a global war on so many fronts. All of this would take many months, being slowed by the pace of transatlantic letter-writing and the King’s need to rally political support at home for the war.

It had been understood for months that Clinton would have to send a large force to the Caribbean – a place regarded by many officers as a disease-ridden hell. Ten British regiments were packed off under James Grant, who, being part of William Howe’s inner circle, had nothing to expect but disappointment if he remained close to Clinton. With this detachment, late in 1778, the commander-in-chief had lost a sizeable proportion of his battle-hardened redcoats. These included Earl Percy’s pride and joy, the 5th, and other regiments, like the 4th, who had shared the experience of the Fusiliers’ campaigning around Boston. There were many farewells to old friends, including Jo Ferguson, the Scottish officer formerly of the 23rd, who went to the Caribbean on Grant’s staff.

As to the consequences of losing such a proportion of the army, consideration had already been given to abandoning Rhode Island, bringing as many troops back into play (albeit many of them from the German states) as had just been sent off with Grant. But the weeks following a heroic defence were not the best time to do this, and anyway, there were other options including withdrawing the army from New York. The Ministry would have to make its mind up, and they would have to reconcile the very different demands of King and Parliament, which was anxious to debate these issues.

‘The meeting of Parliament will determine the fate of this country and settle the wavering opinion of many here,’ wrote Captain Smythe in November. Discussions around the 23rd’s mess table or in New
York’s better society had convinced the young Irishman that ‘the majority think a total evacuation of the frontier colonies (Rhode Island and Halifax excepted) will take place in Spring, while the main army take post in Canada and joining the irregulars and Indians proceed to the destruction of the country’. Such a strategy, exploiting both Danbury-style naval raids and expeditions from Canada into the northern states of a kind that had been started that year by parties of Tories and Iroquois, would aim to force Congress or the states to the expense of garrisoning scores of possible targets while torching many valuable commodities – in sum to destroy the new republic economically.

As he sat reading the
New York Gazette
after his return from sea, Lieutenant Colonel Balfour found his anger getting the better of him. In the extracts of dispatches printed in that paper, he could detect unmistakable signs of the Ministry, in the form of its American Secretary, Lord Germain, seeking to put the blame for Saratoga on his former chief. General Howe’s intimates were also angry that Clinton had abandoned Philadelphia, ashamed that the previous year’s sacrifice had been thrown away so peremptorily.

Balfour was an astute enough political operator to suspect the
Gazette
’s publisher, James Rivington, of selecting stories and quotations from public dispatches to support Clinton and Germain while blackening Howe’s name. In a former time Balfour might have gone to curse such a scoundrel at James Grant’s table or jab at the offending newspaper paragraphs in front of Admiral Howe. But Grant was bound for the Caribbean and Lord Howe had turned over his command and set sail for England, penning Balfour a warm letter of thanks for the 23rd’s service at sea before he went. In this season of departures, the colonel himself had obtained leave to travel home as well, having urgent public and private business there. He decided to deal in person with Rivington before he left.

Rivington was something of an institution in the city. English born, he had emigrated to America eighteen years before, setting himself up as a printer and bookseller. In the troubled days of 1775 Rivington had endured all manner of insults and threats from the Patriot party for trying to publish both points of view in his paper. Fearing for his life, Rivington fled after the war started, but returned following the capture of New York in 1776 and resumed publication. Late one November’s evening in 1778 though, he found Colonel Balfour on his doorstep.

Balfour pointed to some offending paragraphs in the paper and asked Rivington what his motive was for publishing them. Rivington stood his ground, and argued the rights of a free press. Balfour’s big physical presence and forceful manner meant he usually got his way, but not this time. Realising that the printer would not budge, the colonel became equally intransigent, and rather more indignant. Rivington wrote, ‘This gentleman (disappointed in his expectations of an answer to his requisition) left me suddenly with the following menace: “I am Sir W. H.’ s friend and I shall allow it to go no further.”’

Rivington realised that Balfour was going back to England and wrote to a confidant in Lord Germain’s office telling him to be on the lookout for the lieutenant colonel in order to deny him any favours: ‘You are to be apprized how far [Balfour] should be thought deserving of the countenance of the most elegant nobleman in the British realm.’ The publisher asked his correspondent to reply swiftly, ‘which shall immediately be answered in case Colonel Balfour’s bludgeon may not put an end to the existence, dear sir, of your ever faithful and obedient servant’. While delivered in a knowingly melodramatic way, Rivington’s final words left little doubt either about the temperature of his conversation or of Balfour’s desire to intimidate.

Just a few days later, Balfour too boarded a ship bound for England. He disliked Atlantic crossings but found no reason to stay in America, ‘this hated country’, while there was no prospect of further campaigning. He had in any case been induced to go by his great patron. General Howe. Nettled by government whispering, Balfour’s master was demanding an open examination, in front of Parliament, of his conduct of the war and would need some of his former staff to assist him.

Faced with the King’s refusal to accept defeat, the issues of what had gone wrong in America had combined with those about how Britain could carry on fighting, to produce a monumental political crisis. The Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal Welch Fusiliers packed his trunk and endured his crossing, as he prepared to second his regimental master (Howe), in battle at Westminster.

 

FIFTEEN

 

Or How Lieutenant Colonel Balfour Fought at Home

By the last day of 1778, Nisbet Balfour was in London; having enjoyed a speedy Atlantic crossing, he came by coach from Portsmouth to the metropolis. He had been invited to spend the following day, the first of 1779, with Admiral Lord Howe.

Balfour, however, was in no mood to celebrate. He was ill: dyspeptic and listless, suffering ‘a very violent scorbutic disorder’. There would be no Hogmanay boozing, nor would he partake of the fine feasts on offer at his Lordship’s, for a physician had prescribed a strict vegetarian diet and Balfour was a man who knew how to execute orders. The colonel’s corporeal concerns gave him, in any case, less anguish than those of his family.

His homecoming brought dread intelligence that the ship on which his brother Walter was travelling back from India was believed lost at sea. This was shocking news indeed, coming after the deaths of two other brothers and his father. The colonel’s mother was stricken with grief, and he reflected, ‘No family ever experienced so many tragical accidents as ours. Indeed we are well-nigh totally extinct.’

The Balfours of Dunbog were also well-nigh totally broke. Some of their property had been sequestrated after the 1715 Jacobite rising, because of the suspicion of disloyalty. They had been trying to disprove this charge ever since, pawning their few lands buying advancement in the King’s service. When that money had gone, Nisbet had run up thousands of pounds of debt buying his majority and lieutenant colonelcy. His early days back in England were therefore punctuated by letter-writing to friends and patrons seeking some sort
of pension for his mother. Always a volatile woman, she had been prostrated with sorrow for Walter. Balfour postponed the emotional turmoil of his reunion with her while he attended to military business in London.