Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/236

222 Palliser, incensed at these marked censures on himself, vacated his seat in parliament, and resigned his governorship of Scarborough Castle, his seat at the board of admiralty, his colonelcy of marines, retaining only his post of vice-admiral, and demanding a court-martial. This was held on board the Sandwich, in Portsmouth harbour, and lasted twenty-one days, pronouncing finally a sentence of acquittal, though with some censure for his not having acquainted his commander-in-chief instantly that the disabled state of his ship had prevented his obeying the signal to join for the renewal of the fight. This sentence pleased neither party. Keppel thought Palliser too easily let off—Palliser that he was sacrificed to a party feeling against government. Various debates followed on the subject in the house of commons, in which Fox made some attacks on lord Sandwich and the state of the navy. Lord Howe, who had now returned, complained bitterly of the way he had been left with defective forces on the American coast, and declared that he would never serve again under an administration which had shown so much weakness and treachery. In the lords, the earl of Bristol made a similar motion; and such was the dissatisfaction that Keppel resigned the command of the fleet, and his example was followed by Sir Robert Harland, Captain Leveson Gower, Sir John Lindsey, and other officers.



The same spirit pervaded the war-office. Lord Barrington had resigned last November, having long disapproved of the whole conduct of the war, his able plan for its management having been systematically ignored; and now not only Burgoyne but the brothers Howe had met at home, and all in the house were loudly calling for inquiry and as loudly condemning the whole conduct of the war by government. Burgoyne attributed the whole of his failure to the meddling and restricting orders and letters of lord George Germaine at home. He demanded that officers who had been present should be heard in his favour; and Sir Guy Carleton, the earls of Balcarras and Harrington, and a number of others, were accordingly heard, who bore testimony to the bravery of Burgoyne, which no one doubted, but they failed to show that his judgment was equally good. In fact, Burgoyne had committed the most palpable blunders. He had suffered his communication with Canada to be cut off before he knew that he would be met by Sir William Howe at Albany. The expedition to Bennington and other movements were too clearly ill-planned; at the same time, they showed that the American army under Gates amounted to nineteen thousand men, of whom upwards of thirteen thousand were regular troops, so that the surrender of three thousand five hundred famished English and Germans in the midst of such a country was a victory not to be boasted of, except by a people whose only victory it was as yet.

Howe, on his part, called on lord Cornwallis, who warmly defended the generalship of his commander-in-chief; but this partial evidence was not borne out by the notorious facts, nor by the evidence of general Robertson, general Jones, colonel Dixon, and other officers, who demonstrated that whilst the Americans were divided amongst themselves, and Washington was left with a much inferior army in