America's Path Not Taken

During the American War for Independence, then as now, a diversity of viewpoints were held by men on both sides. There were those of the Crown forces, adherents of the Whig party, who were quite sympathetic to the cause of the American Patriots. Such sentiments reached all the way up to the commander of the Crown forces in North America, Lt. General Sir William Howe, to HRH the Prince of Wales. Meanwhile, among the American leadership were those who espoused the eventually successful cause of independence in some sort of republican union but also those, not often remembered, who preferred the goal of greater concessions and self-government within the British Empire and under the ultimate sovereignty of the Crown. One of these men was Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania. Born in Maryland, his family moved to Pennsylvania and young Joseph studied law alongside William Franklin, illegitimate son of the famous Ben Franklin, eventually becoming a lawyer in Philadelphia. Originally a Quaker, he converted to the Church of England and married the daughter of a very wealthy and well-connected family. He became a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, later Speaker of the House until 1774 and, again alongside Franklin, was most known for his efforts to have Pennsylvania become a Crown Colony rather than a Proprietary Colony of the Penn family.

As his political career demonstrated, Galloway was no republican firebrand. Indeed, he has more than once been referred to as an Anglo-American nationalist, which would certainly make him unpopular today even if nothing else were known about him. He had objections to the state of affairs in the colonies but, again, like many, his objections were not to the British Empire itself but rather with the subordinate place of the American colonies within it. He believed that the British constitutional monarchy as it was then, was the best system of government in the world and that the British, be they in the home islands or North America, were the best people in the world. He felt that the only problem was that the British subjects in America were not governed in the same way as the British subjects in Great Britain and that if this inequality could be resolved, there would be no further animosity. Indeed, he was convinced that, like himself, most Americans were loyal to the British Crown and were only being driven to disobedience by agitators in America and thoughtless policies on the part of the Parliament in London. In 1774 he had sufficient prominence and popularity to be chosen as a member of the Continental Congress (or Philadelphia Congress) which had no validity as far as the British were concerned but which would be the primary governing body of the colonies during the War for Independence.

In this capacity, Galloway proposed something quite similar to what Benjamin Franklin had previously suggested at the time of the French and Indian War known as the "Albany Plan" ("Join or Die") which was for the unification of the North American colonies within the British Empire. This proposal became known as the "Galloway Plan" or "Galloway's Plan for Union" which called for what would later be termed "Dominion status" in which the American colonies would unite together under a common colonial government but still under the sovereignty of the British Crown. Effectively, under the Galloway Plan, the American colonies would become a self-governing, autonomous partner of Great Britain within the British Empire. The colonial assemblies would appoint representatives to a parliament of their own which would be on equal terms with the parliament in London and would be presided over by a President-General appointed by the King. The American parliament would have jurisdiction over all domestic affairs, including taxation, but the parliaments in both Britain and America would each have veto power over what the other passed so that neither could impose any action detrimental to the other. The British Empire would thus become an Anglo-American partnership of a sort.

Unfortunately for Galloway, Massachusetts enacted an anti-British boycott one month before his proposal came up for a vote which was a boon for the radicals and put moderates such as himself at a clear disadvantage. Nonetheless, in October of 1774, when his plan was voted on, it was defeated only by a single vote with five in favor and six opposed. Worse still, the radicals were worried that this would display a lack of resolve on their part in dealing with the British and so it was agreed that his proposal and the very narrow vote on it, be stricken from the record. Understandably outraged by this, and seeing little hope for a compromise, Galloway left Congress and made his plan public himself the following year. He could see that there would only be two choices allowed to any American colonist; to support the King or to support total independence and, forced to choose, he would take the side of the King. His objections to British tax policy and trade regulations was not so great as his fundamental loyalty to the hereditary monarch of his nation. In late 1776, early 1777 he joined General Howe and the British army in the campaign to take Philadelphia. Once accomplished, he was made chief of police and head of civil affairs, earning praise for his administrative talents and his organization of loyalist militia forces.

The following year, when the British abandoned Philadelphia, he withdrew with them to New York and from there, with his daughter, took ship to England where he became a prominent advocate for the American loyalists and an adviser to the British government on American affairs. Still thinking that this view of American public opinion was the correct one, he asserted to the British authorities that there were many American loyalists in the colonies who could be instrumental in bringing the conflict to a successful conclusion. His advice may well have influenced the southern campaign in which the British had counted heavily on an outpouring of support and volunteers from American loyalists. In the meantime, the same year he left for England, 1778, the Pennsylvania Assembly convicted him of high treason and ordered the confiscation of all his property. His wife, Grace, had stayed behind in Philadelphia in the hope of saving their property (which was actually her property rather than his) but, of course, this made no difference and she was forcibly evicted from their home. In Britain, Galloway was also called as a witness at the trial of General Howe over his conduct of the war in America in which Galloway had few positive things to say about the general. Howe, to be fair, had little positive to say of Galloway either, accusing him of meddling in military affairs during the occupation of Philadelphia.

When the war ended in defeat for the Crown forces, Galloway settled down to a quiet life in England, devoting himself to religious study and literary pursuits until his death in 1803. His plan has mostly been forgotten today but it is notable that something similar would ultimately become quite common within the British Empire as the colonies of Canada and Australia united to become self-governing dominions in due time. Would his plan have worked? It would certainly have worked in keeping the English-speaking peoples united but as we can see across the British Commonwealth today, may well have fallen victim to the liberal laxity which has affected so many others. Yet, the retention of the American colonies within the British Empire may well have brought about a dramatic change in world history in a myriad of ways one can only speculate about today. That, we can never know, but it remains true today that the view of Galloway, and the basis of his plan, that the people of one language and one nationality should be united, are still not without supporters even while so many push against the notion, just as they did in his own time.

Thanksgiving Day, On the Bright Side

Tomorrow the United States celebrates Thanksgiving Day (though I myself do not) and someone online yesterday came at me with powerful volley against the holiday, probably having read previously that I do not celebrate it and expecting me to concur. I did somewhat but certainly not entirely. This was all the more strange in that this person did celebrate Thanksgiving and will be doing so again. If you think something is as bad as he seemed to, I would think the right thing to do would be to not take part. However, while I, myself, do not, I have said before that I have no problem with those who do and I have no special animus against the holiday. Giving thanks is good, we are supposed to give thanks all the time and these days a great many people have a serious lack of gratitude at every level in my opinion. So, having said before that I do not celebrate it and why I do not, I thought, in the interest of goodwill and truth, I would assuage any anxiety good monarchists might have about it.

The strangest thing the person I spoke to hit me with was the notion that Thanksgiving Day was some sort of Puritanical conspiracy to replace Christmas. Rest assured, there is nothing to such a notion. Thanksgiving was most widely celebrated in various ways at various times by people in New England who, early on, probably were not celebrating Christmas anyway (Puritans tended to dislike the holiday). By the time Thanksgiving became an official, national holiday the Puritans were long extinct and today Christmas (thanks to consumerism) is more apt to displace Thanksgiving Day than the other way around. So, I can hardly see how such an idea could have anything behind it. The Puritan origins are not something I am fond of, thanks to their embrace of republicanism later on, but it is entirely up to you and may depend on where you live if the Puritans had anything to do with it anyway. Ask any native of the Old Dominion state of Virginia and they will proudly tell you that the first Thanksgiving was not celebrated in New England at all but in Virginia by English colonists who were certainly not Puritans (depicted in the image above).

Texans, as I have written about before, know that both are wrong and that the first Thanksgiving in what would become the United States was celebrated in west Texas near what is now El Paso. However, to this day it is still a matter of debate as to where the tradition started in the English colonies, whether Virginia or Massachusetts. I may be biased but it seems to me the Virginians have the stronger claim, having it actually set out in a legal charter from 1619 whereas in New England it was simply a local custom with no official backing that I ever heard of. The New England Pilgrims, as I did mention before, professed their loyalty to King James I of Great Britain though I personally have my doubts about their absolute sincerity. There would, however, be little room for such doubts about the colonists of Virginia who were not Puritans and who even named their colony after England's most famous queen. Virginia, at least up until the War for Independence, was considered rather more on the royalist side compared to some others.

Thanksgiving Day did not become an official holiday until centuries later, even quite a while after the United States had already been established. It was first decreed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln and this had practically nothing to do with the early English colonists but was supposed to be a day of thanksgiving for the recent victories of the Union armies during the American Civil War. Needless to say, this meant that the holiday did not catch on in the south for a very long time. I might also add that in Canada the Thanksgiving Day holiday has very explicitly royalist origins, being first celebrated to give thanks for the recovery of the Prince of Wales after a serious illness and later moved to its current place on the calendar so as not to detract from the rather more solemn observance of Armistice Day after World War I.

I would say one of the good things about Thanksgiving Day is to call to mind the colonial history of America which is all too often forgotten, that life in what is now the United States did not suddenly begin in 1783 and certainly not in 1776 but goes back to those colonists from the Kingdom of England and the conquistadors of the Kingdom of Spain, the Voyageurs of the Kingdom of France and so on and so forth. It can be an occasion to highlight the European roots of the country, its existence as a product of Western Civilization and that every last corner of this land was once reigned over by hereditary monarchs. America has its roots in the empires of Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, even Russia and to lesser extent a few others and those roots are not republican or anything to do with the revolutionary claptrap that is still being sold to people today. For myself, family gatherings have lost their appeal as not many of my family are left at this point and I will be spending the holiday alone. However, I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with it, giving thanks is good, focusing on the family is good and if you choose to celebrate it, I wish you all the best and hope you make the best of the occasion.

Related Posts:
The Real "First Thanksgiving"
Why I Don't "Do" Thanksgiving

The Many Times the U.S. Almost Fought Spain (But Didn't)

Americans who learned their history will have at least a passing familiarity with the Spanish-American War. This has sometimes been referred to as the best war America ever fought. The outcome was never seriously in doubt, America was in no real danger, the enemy was gallant and honorable and the gains seemed to far exceed the cost (though this was a false perception as no great wealth came pouring in from Puerto Rico or The Philippines in the years that followed). For the last time, chivalry was still the rule and the U.S. forces repeatedly showed great courtesy to their honorable Spanish adversaries. It was a short, gallant and victorious war, fought on land and sea some distance from the United States. In other words, the ideal conflict. However, most are probably unaware that prior to the Spanish-American War, the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain had come very, very close to going to war with each other and on more than one occasion. Time and time again, an American war with Spain seemed imminent before the two actually came to blows for those few months in 1898.

King Carlos III of Spain

The United States of America came into being, winning their independence, alongside the Kingdom of Spain. However, the two were more like co-belligerents than actual allies. The Kingdom of France and the United States were allies but the Spanish, while supportive of the American war effort, were mostly anti-British rather than pro-American. They fought a common enemy in the form of the Anglo superpower of the day, but the two countries had very little in common. When American independence was secured, neither side had any misgivings about the attitude of the other. Americans had distrusted the Spanish as British colonists and continued to do so as U.S. citizens. The Spanish distrusted Anglos who flew the King’s Colours and continued to distrust Anglos flying the Stars & Stripes. The primary reason Spain had come to the aid of the rebel colonies was not because they sympathized with their cause but that splitting the British empire would lessen the danger to the Spanish empire (or at least, so King Carlos III hoped).

Hardly had the United States been firmly established than did potential war with Spain become a talked about possibility. The first major Spanish-American crisis came in 1785, sparked by a dispute over where the exact border was between the U.S. state of Georgia and the Spanish colony of La Florida. The Yazoo Strip was the disputed ground and the Spanish worked to incite the native American Indians of the region to attack the United States. The Spanish also later banned all American trade with the Spanish West Indies and then cut off all commerce to the western territories by closing the mouth of the Mississippi River to American business. This tended to hurt people on both sides of the border and finally the Spanish government sent over an agent named Don Diego de Gardoqui to negotiate a settlement. He offered to allow U.S. trade with the West Indies in exchange for which the U.S. would not make use of the Mississippi River for 25 years. Obviously, this would be very good for the seafaring merchants of New England but ruinous for those on what was then the western frontier of America.

The U.S. Secretary of Foreign Affairs, John Jay, was heavily influenced by the eastern merchants and agreed to the Spanish offer. However, it had to be ratified by the Congress (this was the Confederation period) to be a legally valid treaty and the proposal received only 7 of the 9 votes required to pass. Jay was castigated by westerners and the move was so unpopular that Kentucky’s provincial Governor James Wilkinson began conspiring with the Spanish to take Kentucky out of the realm of the United States so they could come to their own agreement. This potential revolt in Kentucky was stopped only when Spanish authorities agreed to reopen the Mississippi to American shipping, though with a hefty duty imposed on them.

Thomas Pinckney

Tensions were still relatively high in 1795 when Spain, recently defeated by the revolutionary French, feared an Anglo-American attack on their territory in western North America. At this time, U.S. politics in terms of foreign affairs tended to be divided into the more revolutionary, pro-French camp represented by Thomas Jefferson, and the more conservative, Anglophile camp represented by Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson wanted to give the French revolutionaries every assistance. Hamilton did not, but would have been perfectly happy to go to war against Spain, alongside Britain, and expand the territory of the United States. The Spanish realized this and were anxious to come to an agreement before they gained a foreign enemy in addition to their problematic relationship with France. So, in 1795 Thomas Pinckney, U.S. envoy to Spain, signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo which granted the Yazoo strip to the United States, settling the Georgia-Florida border dispute and allowed American boats unlimited access to the Mississippi with deposit rights.

The next potential conflict with Spain came in 1819 over American claims that bandits, escaped slaves and renegade Indians were attacking U.S. territory from Spanish Florida. General Andrew Jackson was sent in on a punitive expedition against the largely Seminole Indians in Florida, seizing several outposts and infuriating the Spanish. However, this was so soon after the Peninsular War, in addition to ongoing colonial troubles of their own in Mexico and elsewhere, that the Spanish government could do little to respond. America’s top diplomat, John Quincy Adams told the Spanish that they would be held responsible for the failure to keep order in their own province or Spain could simply shed itself of the problem by turning Florida over to the United States. The Spanish decided this would be the more cost-effective solution after the U.S. agreed to pay $5 million toward the claims of U.S. citizens against the Kingdom of Spain. The Spanish also agreed to relinquish their claim to the Oregon territory and the United States agreed to stop making trouble for Spain in Texas where American land pirates had been teaming up with Mexican revolutionaries to try to break the province away from the Spanish Crown. This agreement was the Adams-Onís Treaty.

King Fernando VII

Anyone who thought that peace and friendship would follow, were to be mistaken as the old Anglo-Latin rivalry began to appear again very soon after. In the wake of the Peninsular War and a period of seemingly constant civil war and instability in Spain, the Spanish empire began to fall to pieces as one after another country across Latin America declared their independence. Figures such as the South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar were very popular with the American people and the United States was quick to grant recognition to the new Latin American republics. From 1821 to 1823 Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Argentina were recognized by the United States. The British Empire, anxious to see the end of the Spanish imperial monopoly on trade with Latin America, also welcomed the independence of these new countries but, of course, the Kingdom of Spain did not and the restored Kingdom of France was likewise not to happy about seeing their Bourbon royal relatives lose their empire. A plan began to form for King Louis XVIII of France and King Fernando VII of Spain to launch a joint Franco-Spanish military campaign to crush the upstart Latin Americans and restore Spanish rule in Central and South America once and for all.

This caused some alarm in both Washington and London. In 1823 it seemed that, once again, war with Spain and (another) war with France was on the horizon. George Channing, the British Foreign Secretary, called for a show of Anglo solidarity in response and suggested a joint British-American warning for France to mind its own business. John Quincy Adams, America’s top diplomat, sympathized but did not want to be seen as playing second fiddle to the British. Instead, the U.S. adopted the Monroe Doctrine, drawn up by a collaboration of Adams, Jefferson and Madison, which declared the Americas “off limits” to any further European colonial meddling or else there would be trouble with the United States. The British Empire, whose American colonies were secure, backed the Monroe Doctrine and any chance of France aiding Spain in restoring the Spanish empire in Latin America instantly vanished. At the time, the United States could do little to actually enforce the Monroe Doctrine but Britain, with the powerful Royal Navy, certainly could and so with British support the Monroe Doctrine was unassailable.

This put off any potential trouble with the Kingdom of Spain for some time, however, events in Spain and America also played a part. The United States was beset by problems between the states, westward expansion and trouble with one of those breakaway Latin American republics, namely Mexico. Spain, meanwhile, after the death of King Fernando VII, saw Spanish royalists focus all of their attention on fighting each other over the throne with the outbreak of the First (of many) Carlist Wars and any chance of regaining control of Latin America faded into the distance. Nonetheless, tensions and threats of war would return again, more than once, before the Nineteenth Century was finished. Increasingly the focus would fall on Cuba, Spain’s most prized possession in the Caribbean and which, after his foray into Florida, General Jackson had offered to conquer while he was in the neighborhood and all. The U.S. government refused permission for that but many Americans, particularly southern Americans were anxious to see Spain expelled from Cuba and the island annexed by the United States which would add more support for the southern, pro-slavery faction in the U.S. Congress.

Queen Isabella II

Unfortunately for the Spanish, they faced a double threat from American southerners on one side and Cuban rebels on the other. Even though the two often had very different goals, both opposed the continuance of Spanish rule over the island and were pragmatic enough to make common cause against the Queen of Spain. In 1848 U.S. President James K. Polk offered to buy Cuba from the Spanish but Queen Isabella II rejected the offer (and likely thought it rather impertinent as well!) but the southern advocates of an American invasion of Cuba found a powerful ally in the person of Spanish-Cuban dissident General Narciso Lopez. He came, as a refugee, to the United States and quickly gained popularity throughout the south for advocating an invasion of Cuba. This, he promised, would instantly spark a massive popular uprising against the hated Spanish. Actually, even by the time of the Spanish-American War, Spanish rule was not so widely unpopular as the Cuban independence-advocates have always alleged. Invading Cuba became the favorite hobby of American southerners and in no time at all General Lopez had enlisted several hundred volunteers to his cause. However, the U.S. government was another story and wanted no part of this Cuba business and managed to thwart the enterprise.

Colonel Crittenden

General Lopez and his southern backers, however, did not give up so easily and in 1850 another expedition was assembled, again of a few hundred volunteers, and this time they managed to get to Cuba and successfully land their forces at Cardenas. The problem was that there was no massive, spontaneous uprising of Cubans and the Spanish army responded quickly. The American volunteers were given a sound thrashing by the Spanish troops and had to retreat back to sea where they were pursued by a Spanish warship all the way back to America. Nonetheless, Lopez was nothing if not persistent and the American southerners were undeterred by this disaster. In no time at all a third expedition was assembled in 1851. This time there were 500 men, mostly Americans with a sprinkling of Cuban dissidents and again they invaded Cuba. It was bold, it was brave but, once again it was a disaster. Once again, there was no massive Cuban uprising to support them and once again the Spanish army crushed them decisively. This time, there was no retreat, the expedition ending with the survivors being taken prisoner. Lopez, who was legally a traitor, was strangled to death while Colonel William L. Crittenden of Kentucky along with 50 American volunteers were executed. There remained about 162 captives and more than half were U.S. citizens.

Unlike the previous fiascos, this time there were Americans who had been killed but not in battle and Americans being held prisoner. What had started as a private enterprise to spark a rebellion in Cuba, soon turned into an international incident that threatened to escalate to full blown war. Violent anti-Spanish riots broke out in New Orleans (a popular organizing and embarking point for such adventures) where the office of a Spanish newspaper was destroyed and the Spanish consulate was ransacked. Across the country in numerous American cities, mass meetings were held denouncing the Spanish and demanding action from the U.S. government. The Spanish government, understandably frustrated with the continued attacks on Cuba, seriously considered declaring war on the United States. Such a disaster was averted only thanks to the quick diplomatic efforts of President Millard Fillmore’s administration. Secretary of State Daniel Webster offered Her Catholic Majesty his deepest regrets on behalf of the United States for the incident and agreed to pay Spain $25,000 for the property destroyed in New Orleans. The Spanish, in return, released the American prisoners. Once again, war had been averted.

Pierre Soule'

Real peace was not so easy though as the Spanish continued to harbor deep resentment and distrust of the United States, for which they honestly had every justification in this case. Cuba would remain the most sensitive spot for U.S.-Spanish relations. In February of 1854 the Spanish authorities in Havana seized the American merchant ship Black Warrior for failure to show a cargo manifest. This was the law but it was a law that was not usually enforced, the Spanish were just being a little testy. The fact that the law was technically on the side of Spain did not matter much to most Americans who were also feeling testy and likewise tended to dislike the Spanish. This time it was in America that a public outcry for a declaration of war against Spain rose up. Although a foreign war might have been just what the doctor ordered to distract an American public that was about to start killing each other on a record-breaking scale, President Franklin Pierce did not want to go to war with the Kingdom of Spain over one ship. Pierce instructed Pierre Soule, the U.S. minister to the court of Queen Isabella II, to deliver a formal protest over the seizure of the Black Warrior and demand compensation from Spain.

Soule, a French exile who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, zealously set to work to do as he was told. In fact, he was altogether more zealous than diplomatic. Pierce had wanted a formal protest for the sake of public pride, an indemnity and then to forget the whole matter. However, Soule delivered a note that delivered the basic message but had the tone of an ultimatum, with a demand for payment of $300,000 with the Spanish government given forty-eight hours to reply. Such a note could have easily led to war. Fortunately, Secretary of State William Marcy was able to intervene and moderate the American demands so that the incident could be handled in a more diplomatic way. Yet, this was not the end of it as the incident highlighted the danger that Cuba posed to Spanish-American relations. Soule, therefore, met in Ostend, Belgium with the American minister to Britain, James Buchanan, and the American minister to France, James Y. Mason to discuss this situation. The three came to an agreement and issued the Ostend Manifesto which called for the United States to offer to buy Cuba from Spain for $120,000,000. If Spain refused the offer, the U.S. would consider itself justified in invading the island and taking it by force.

William L. Marcy

This was not, needless to say, any sort of official document, just a kind of recommendation for Secretary of State Marcy. However, then as now, anything written down is bound to get leaked to the public and as soon as the Ostend Manifesto made the papers, the abolitionists and much of the northern part of the United States erupted in outrage at what was seen as blatant warmongering on the part of the southern, slave-holding part of the country to add Cuba to their ranks. This caused a huge controversy, the note being published in March, 1855, and Marcy was forced to publicly disavow the Manifesto and Soule was forced to resign. The United States and the Kingdom of Spain each ignored it as it had no official backing but it did serve to enflame the worsening tensions between the northern and southern states in America.

So it was that peace prevailed between Spain and America, however, it was mostly due to the Monroe Doctrine and the most serious European involvement in the Americas came when the United States was engulfed in its own Civil War and thus unable to do much about anything else. Spanish forces participated in the intervention, along with the French and British against the Juarez government, resulting in an extended French conflict on the side of Mexican conservatives against Juarez and the crowning of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico in 1864. The United States protested but could do little about it so long as the Confederacy remained alive. In 1861 the failing Dominican Republic came under new management and actually requested re-admission into the remnant of the Spanish empire, a request which Queen Isabella II graciously granted. However, that reunion lasted only until the final defeat of the Confederates in 1865 and the month following the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, the Queen of Spain annulled the annexation, being in no position to risk a confrontation with the United States.

The Battle of San Juan Hill

The American Civil War also played at least a small part in the eventual outbreak of the actual Spanish-American War in 1898. President William McKinley, himself a Union veteran of the Civil War, appointed four former Confederate generals to command volunteers in the invasion of Cuba; Major General Joseph Wheeler and Major General Fitzhugh Lee being the most prominent. This is a clear indication that President McKinley hoped to use the war with Spain as a way of reuniting the north and south against a foreign foe, bringing the country together. In retrospect, given all that had gone before in Spanish-American relations, it is rather remarkable that when actual war did break out, it was fought without much real animosity. Rather than a vicious, bitter struggle, Americans found out that the Spanish were not the cruel villains they had imagined. On the contrary, U.S. forces were impressed by the valor and gallantry of their Spanish adversaries, which resulted in a number of chivalrous displays that would be increasingly scarce in conflicts going forward.

General Joaquin Vara del Rey

When the USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor, though this point was never mentioned by the “yellow press” the Spanish reacted quickly to help rescue American sailors from the water. During the war, Spanish Brigadier General Joaquin Vara del Rey with only 550 men held off 12,000 U.S. troops for 10 hours at El Caney, being killed himself during the battle. The American forces were so impressed by his heroic stand that they buried him with full military honors as a final salute to a worthy foe. After the Battle of Santiago, Spanish Admiral Cervera was pulled from the water by the American forces and piped aboard the USS Iowa complete with an honor guard of U.S. Marines. Commodore Winfield Schley, speaking to the men of the USS Brooklyn, said to them, “Admiral Cervera is aboard the Iowa. We have vanquished him today, and I hope you will not cheer, but show your generosity to him for his courage.” It was a classic image of chivalry, of respect for an honorable foe rather than a hated enemy. After so many, many years of animosity, so many occasions when conflict almost erupted, when the two sides did finally meet in battle, they found out that their prejudices did not coincide with reality. Given what was to happen since, the victorious side in the Spanish-American War, may have had just as much, perhaps even more, cause to regret the conflict than the losing side did.

Suggesting an American Monarchy, for the Wrong Reason

The New York Times, that liberal bastion of leftist propaganda, recently saw fit to publish an article titled, “Consider a Monarchy, America” by one Nikolai Tolstoy, chancellor of the International Monarchist League. I must question the motives of such an institution as the New York Times allowing such a person to write such an article for their paper but kudos to Mr. Tolstoy for having a go at it. He, of course, remarks on the widespread amount of contempt that exists for both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and argues for a royal Head of State, apart from the head of government, as a solution for the United States of America. It is a good argument that he makes, however, it is not really an argument for traditional monarchy and makes a number of assumptions with which this Mad Monarchist would have to disagree. The case he makes could just as easily, and more realistically, be made for having a republic of the sort that currently exists in countries such as Germany or Italy with a figurehead president as Head of State and a prime minister who effectively runs the country. A simple look at either of these countries would, however, show that to be no recipe for success.

The first example he names as a model the USA could follow is, as he calls it, “contented Canada”, America’s northern neighbor. However, the very fact that it is necessary to have a Canadian Monarchist League to fight against the forces of republicanism in that country, would tend to reveal that not everyone in Canada is so ‘content’ with their constitutional monarchy. Certainly American conservatives would look at a country with strict gun control, strict controls on freedom of speech, socialized health care, higher taxes, heavier regulations, a larger welfare state, a tiny military, two official languages and a country that only recently elected leftist daddy’s boy Justin Trudeau prime minister as a disastrous example to follow. If Canada is content it is only because the population as a whole has largely been brow-beaten or propagandized into more uniformity of thought. This is a country that, not so long ago really, actually changed its national flag in an effort to be more “inclusive” and “multicultural”, something which no American would ever even consider for a single, outrageous moment!

Mr. Tolstoy asserts that dictators have disliked monarchies, which is largely true, but also seems to imply that monarchy would prevent dictators from coming to power. Germany is cited as the obvious example, with the inclusion of a quote from Mr. Churchill effectively blaming America for the downfall of the German Kaiser and thus the coming to power of Adolf Hitler. Now, that, I must point out, is rather rich considering that Churchill was second to none in urging America to get involved in the First World War, but it also ignores the fact that the German Kaiser was ultimately brought down by the Germans themselves and that the U.S. refused to ratify the disastrous Versailles Treaty and made its own separate peace agreements with the Central Powers. The rise of Hitler had very little to do with the United States and much more to do with the damaging reparations payments Britain and France demanded as well as the carve-up of territories with various other soon-to-be Allied nations made by the French and British long before the United States ever entered the war.

The author does, however, give America credit for allowing the Japanese to retain their monarchy after World War II, though this does tend to discredit his previous argument given that the Empire of Japan was a monarchy that was partners with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. What goes too far is the line that, “This wise policy enabled Japan’s remarkable and rapid evolution into the prosperous, peaceful democratic society it has been ever since.” Honestly, if the monarchy was what was responsible for this, then Japan should have already been a “prosperous, peaceful democratic society” before World War II and the U.S. occupation, which, Mr. Tolstoy seems to imply, that it was not; which is rather a problem. In point of fact, Japan was prosperous before the war, was fairly democratic by the standards of the day at least and though not peaceful, since the war Japan has had no choice but to be peaceful considering that it is illegal for the Japanese government to go to war unless it is attacked and since the war it has been under U.S. military protection and when you are protected by the most powerful military on earth it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to attack you.

More bizarre, however, is Mr. Tolstoy’s effort to refute the argument of incompetent hereditary rulers by pointing to existing political dynasties in America. Strangely, he uses the example of the thoroughly discredited Bush family rather than the more topical but more controversial example of Hillary Clinton, wife of a former President (perhaps the NYT wouldn’t have allowed the article to appear if he had). However, it seems quite absurd to say that, “Americans chose to be governed by George Bush II” as an argument given that, again, his opening example of a monarchy America could be more like was Canada which just chose to be governed by a prime minister who is also the son of a former prime minister! His next line that, “The framers of the Constitution were, without question, men of preeminent judgment and intellect” also does not jive with the overall argument that the system which they established (on their second try, having made a pig’s breakfast of the first effort) is the one he is advocating be abandoned.

The core of the problem I have with the article overall, however, begins to be revealed in his next paragraph which points to the conservative icon Edmund Burke, a British statesman of incomparable ability who took the side of the American colonists in the war for independence (he was a Whig rather than a Tory) but who was an ardent defender of the British system of constitutional monarchy and became even more famous for his eloquent opposition to the monstrous French Revolution. Starting there, and in the lines that follow, Mr. Tolstoy makes it abundantly clear that he is arguing for a largely ceremonial monarchy according to the liberal worldview, which I do not share and which I do not think has been good for monarchy or ultimately good for anyone else. Frankly, I think this worldview, which I have previously referred to as the ‘republican/revolutionary mentality’ has ruined many outstanding monarchies among the precious few that remain in the world. Many of these countries are, I think, in a terrible state but I would certainly not blame this on their being monarchies but rather on the fact that they have become too nominal about being monarchies and have adopted the republican mentality or the liberal worldview if you like which is at odds with the fundamental concept of monarchy itself.

Personally, I tend to think that if HM Queen Elizabeth II were ruling the United States according to her own good judgment, America would be better off but that is not what is being proposed here, nor is it the case in the U.K. or Canada or anywhere else in the English-speaking world. It is not that the argument being presented here is necessarily wrong, it is rather subjective, but I do think it is something of a double-edged sword. After all, if things in Denmark, Belgium or Britain are fine and dandy, if Canadians are so content, and that is attributed to their constitutional monarchs, then if you think things in these places are not so great, if Canadians become less than contented, then logically their monarchs could be held to blame and that, I think, would be very unfair. It would be, if you can follow me, like keeping your cat in a cage and then blaming it for not catching any mice. If your cat is caged and you do not have any mice, I don’t think the fact that you have a caged cat is the reason for your lack of rodents.

The bottom line, for me, is that the public attitude, the prevailing mentality of the modern world in most parts of it, is the real root of the problem. For those unhappy with the two presidential candidates on offer today, would you be any more happy with them or think them any less disastrous if they were running for prime minister rather than president? Does the monarch in Britain or Canada or Spain have anything at all to do with how political parties choose their candidates? Did the Queen of Canada or her vice-regal representative have any real choice other than to approve of Justin Trudeau? No. According to the British political model, Hillary Clinton could still have been a candidate to be head of government because she was the choice of her party and in the British political model it is even more clear that the candidate for the top job is the choice of the party elites and not the party membership. The only candidate who might have been prevented from nomination is Donald Trump since he was able to achieve that status in spite of the adamant opposition of Republican Party elites and in the British system he would not have been able to win without their approval. Personally, I would be no happier if the choices for the person to govern America were Hillary and Jeb! Bush rather than Hillary and the Trump.

The real problem is with the liberal political system itself which, as I have pointed out before, has broken down. It has broken down partly because of its own inherent flaws and partly because it is based on everyone agreeing to abide by one set of rules and that is no longer the case. It is a system that *cannot* work if only one side follows the rules. It cannot work if one party is protected by the Justice Department and effectively given immunity from prosecution, it cannot work if the press refuses to scrutinize one party and it cannot work if one party can simply import new voters when their arguments fail to convince the existing population. Both sides have to be subject to the same rules and that is blatantly no longer the case. Europe is in much the same situation. In the U.S. if the ruling political class cannot get the public to vote for what they want, they simply get the Supreme Court to impose their wishes on the country. In Europe, if the people do not do as they are told, you have the unelected, unaccountable European Union leadership to impose its wishes in similar fashion. Monarchs, where they survive, have nothing to do but watch, having been stripped of any power to do good or repress evil.

Lastly, in case anyone draws the wrong conclusion from this, I am not saying that the existing, constitutional monarchs of the world are not worth defending. I firmly and adamantly believe that they are worth defending and must be defended. It is far easier to tear down than it is to restore and once the last semblance of monarchy is gone, it almost never comes back. Even if only the bare bones are left, I would fight to death to defend those bare bones and then push back to see their sinews grow back until they are healthy and vigorous once again. Monarchies must be seen in a cultural and not purely a political context. You don’t abandon your culture because others have sullied it, you don’t give up on your national traditions just because others have tried to pervert them. And, I would say, your view of monarchy should not be affected by presidential candidates and whoever wins tonight should make no difference. You should support your monarchy because it is yours and that should be enough.

The Royal Response to American Independence

The news of the outbreak of the American War for Independence was received in the royal courts of Europe in a way that many today would probably be shocked to know. Post-war perspectives have caused many to take a slanted if not outright false view of how the conflict, and the new country it created, was viewed by the crowned heads of Europe. Most of the major monarchs of Europe actually took a favorable view of the American rebels, each for their own reasons based on the fashionable political trends of the time, their own national histories and, of course, realpolitik. Some of those most would expect to embrace the American cause, actually did not and, contrarily, some of those who did make common cause with the Patriots of America, did so reluctantly and with great misgivings about the whole affair. Simplistic thinking about the period will doubtless cause many to be surprised to know how even the British Royal Family looked at the rebel colonists in North America. It was not what most people probably assume.

King George III

Starting with the royals most affected, the British, the first thing that must be done is to set aside the entire list of crimes cited as “evidence” of the tyranny of King George III in the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson. It is as close as one could possibly get to being completely untrue. King George III was not a tyrant, never acted against the wishes of his government and never overstepped his legal authority. It was only that the King presented an easier target to vilify than the nameless, faceless members of Parliament who passed the legislation which the American colonists objected to. In fact, if one reads his own words on the subject, King George III was at every step leading up to the outbreak of war, always anxious to avoid conflict and resolve the matter peacefully. He was prepared to be reasonable but certainly felt that what was being asked of the colonists was not at all out of order. Once violence did erupt, however, he was the most committed in all of Britain to continuing the war until victory was secured. He threatened, more than once, to abdicate rather than accept American independence or to accept the Whig party into government who would push for such a thing.

As the war went on, the King became understandably bitter and voiced contemptuous views of the American populace, despite the fact that two-thirds were active or passive loyalists. However, as he said to John Adams, the first U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, while he was the last to agree to the independence of America, he was indeed the first to extend a hand of friendship to the new nation and work to retain it as part of the British trade network and commercial empire. What many would find more surprising though, is that the King’s son and heir, the Prince of Wales and future King George IV, was allied with a political faction that practically cheered every American victory in the war. This group was backed by the Prince of Wales and focused around Charles Fox, the Marquis of Rockingham and Edmund Burke. Members of this group even took to wearing the colors of Washington’s Continental Army to show their solidarity with the American cause and most of these men were wealthy and/or aristocratic which says something about just how “revolutionary” the war in America really was. Fox and Burke would later part company over the much more revolutionary war in France with Fox supporting the revolutionaries and Burke staunchly opposing them.

Ben Franklin meets the King & Queen of France

Of course, no monarchy was more central to the American cause than was the Kingdom of France. Indeed, France would prove the most critical in not only securing the existence of the United States but also establishing the first political divisions in the new country. King Louis XVI was the first foreign ruler to recognize the independence of the United States and then formed a military alliance with the Americans against the British. Yet, at the same time, King Louis XVI was, by almost all accounts, very reluctant to ally his country with the United States. As a Church-backed, absolute monarch brought up to believe in the “Divine Right of Kings”, helping largely republican rebels fight against their own King was very troubling for him. However, as his family had a history of supporting the Stuarts, there were plenty of people to assure him that King George III was no legitimate monarch anyway and anything they could do to weaken the British Empire would be beneficial for France. As it turned out, it gained France very little but the French had been nursing a grudge for some time since their defeat in the French and Indian War and previous conflicts at the hands of the British.

In the end, no one did more than King Louis XVI of France to ensure victory for the United States in the War for Independence. Many Americans were truly grateful for this and never forgot it. Portraits of King Louis appeared in taverns around the country and the town of Marietta, Ohio was named in honor of Queen Marie Antoinette. However, one problem was that the most Francophile of the American founders were also the most radically republican. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, for example, were extremely pro-French but very anti-monarchy, though they did effectively make common cause with Napoleon Bonaparte. On the other side of the political divide, the more conservative Americans such as George Washington remained essentially Anglophiles and never forgot that the French had been pursuing their own interests rather than being truly committed to the American cause. Washington was convinced that the King Louis had been more the enemy of England than a friend of America and so he too, after independence, was quick to be friendlier with the British than the French.

King Louis XVI

Ultimately, the only major impact the war in America had on France was in putting even more strain on an economy that was threadbare to begin with. Ideologically, the two sides had little in common. Some of the French officers who fought in America embraced the Revolution, others remained royalists. The death of King Louis XVI gave the U.S. the opportunity to break off the previous agreements made with France and the first foreign war the U.S. fought, known as “The Undeclared War” was against republican France. George Washington was adamant that the French Revolutionary spirit not be allowed to spread to America. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was quick to embrace the French Revolution and is the one who purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon. Another Francophile, President James Madison, was the one who started the War of 1812 with Great Britain at a time to coincide with Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, effectively putting America on the same side as Napoleonic France. Unfortunately for Madison, the war was a disaster for the United States. As this illustrates though, the earliest political divisions in the United States were centered on one faction that favored friendship with Britain and another that favored friendship with France. Sadly, none had much time for King Louis, one side because he was French and another because he was a king.

The other monarch which, after France, contributed the most to the eventual American victory was King Carlos III of Spain. His reaction to the war in America was very much similar to that of his cousin in France. Being one of the “Enlightened Despots”, he too was supportive of the American push for representative government, welcomed the colonies being able to trade outside the British Empire and was also anxious to recoup previous Spanish losses to Britain from past conflicts. Yet, he too was rather hesitant about coming to the assistance of the Americans. Unlike France, the Kingdom of Spain still possessed a massive empire in the Americas, stretching from roughly the modern Canadian border to the southern tip of what is now Chile and Argentina. King Carlos III was less concerned about the cost involved as he was that some of his own colonial subjects might try to follow the example of the British-American colonists.

King Carlos III

As it turned out, such fears were unfounded as the Spanish, unlike the French, took a more national as opposed to political view of the conflict. They tended to regard the American colonists as British, regardless of what flag flew over them, and never expected there to be long-lasting animosity between the British and Americans. King Carlos III viewed the British Empire in North America as a threat to his own colonial domains and thus an American victory would divide the forces of the English-speaking world while those of the Spanish-speaking world would still be united under the Spanish Crown. So it was that he entered the conflict as an ally of France rather than the United States directly and rather than sending ships and soldiers to fight alongside the Americans, as the French did, waged his own parallel war against Great Britain which proved very successful, regaining Minorca, Florida and control of most of the gulf coast. The recapture of Gibraltar was the only Spanish operation that did not end in victory for King Carlos III.

Prince Willem V

The other major European power that came to the aid of the Americans, with both recognition and joining in the war against Britain was The Netherlands or, as it was known at the time, the United Provinces. This, however, represents a very different case from France and Spain which had monarchs who were reluctant to help the Americans but eventually came around to giving the United States absolutely vital assistance to the winning of the ultimate victory. The Netherlands was a republic at the time but one which was divided between a more republican faction and a more royalist faction known as the “Orange Party” for their wish to see the Prince of Orange given more power and ultimately to become outright monarch of The Netherlands. The republican faction was whole-heartedly sympathetic to the American cause, for both political and business reasons. American colonists boycotting British goods had been the best of customers to the Dutch merchant class and they were very hostile to the British and the competition in trade the British Empire represented. The Prince of Orange, Willem V, however, took the opposite position. He had succeeded his father as Stadtholder in 1766 and was very much supportive of the British and King George III. The anti-Orange faction had the power and the Dutch government recognized the United States and went to war with Britain but it was very much against the wishes of Prince Willem V who did everything he could to hinder efforts to help the Americans.

Frederick the Great

If it seems surprising that the leading royal figure in a country allied with the United States would be so hostile to it, one might find it even more surprising just how friendly toward the American cause the very absolutist and militaristic King of Prussia was. Britain had traditionally been an ally of Prussia and the attitudes of America certainly did not seem to be aligned with the attitudes of Prussia. However, as with others, America benefited from the intense hatred so many monarchs had for the British. King Frederick the Great of Prussia had previously had Britain as his only major European ally. Yet, when new governments disengaged Britain from the continent to focus on colonial expansion, Frederick the Great took this as a betrayal and never forgave the British for it. He viewed the British as false, duplicitous and thoroughly treacherous and never made much secret of his sentiments. He was, of course, not in a position to help the Americans or go to war with Britain but he nonetheless was jubilant to see Britain lose the largest portion of her empire (as it existed at the time) and cheered every American success. He was so exuberant that he later sent George Washington an ornate sword with a greeting, in his words, “from the oldest general in Europe to the greatest general in the world” which shows that “Old Fritz” was letting his enthusiasm for the American cause run into extreme exaggeration. No doubt this zealous moral support also played a part in some Americans considering the Prussian monarch’s younger brother, Prince Heinrich, as a potential ‘King of America’.

In the neighboring Kingdom of Denmark, a major power at the time, the war in America coincided with a political division between proponents of absolutism and constitutional government as well as a lack of royal leadership due to the insanity of King Christian VII. There was widespread support for the Americans among the Danish public and even more in the Danish colonies which, of course, was a cause for concern by those in the government. The outpouring of support in the press for the Americans was also embarrassing given that Denmark was, at the time, allied with Great Britain. Those pushing for constitutional government naturally sympathized with the Americans but there was also economic realities to consider. Denmark was, for example, a major importer of rice from South Carolina and this caused considerable resentment against the British for the Royal Navy blockade of the American coast. These facts had an impact on Danish popular opinion but it likely would have amounted to nothing more were it not for another royal friend of the United States which was Empress Catherine the Great of Russia.

Catherine the Great

Here again was a case of sympathy for America being driven by a hatred of the British. King George III had tried to enlist the Russians as allies on more than one occasion as well as trying to hire Russian troops as mercenaries to fight the American rebels. The Russian Empress responded to all such requests with an adamant “nyet!” The feeling was largely mutual as King George III remarked about how uncivil the Russians were in their response and spoke condescendingly of them as a barbaric and uncivilized people. The Russian Empress was likewise never slow to speak out about how much she detested King George III and found fault with all he did. While being careful to suppress any American political ideas in Russia, Empress Catherine was determined to do all she could, short of war, to hinder Britain and aid the United States. The Russians really played a major part in making sure that Britain was diplomatically isolated while American envoys were able to freely make appeals across the continent.

It was the Russian Empress who organized the League of Armed Neutrality to thwart the Royal Navy blockade of the American colonies as well as other countries at war with Britain. Many of these countries had little to no trade with the American colonies directly but they did do a great deal of business with France and Spain. Ultimately the League included Denmark (and Norway), Sweden (and Finland), Prussia, Austria, Portugal, Naples and even Turkey along with Russia. The Netherlands was set to join but the British acted first, seizing a Dutch ship and prompting The Netherlands to declare war on Britain, making them a participant in the war rather than a neutral. This made life very difficult for the Royal Navy which was trying to enforce a blockade but was hindered by the threat of making enemies out of all of these neutrals if they did so. As a result, of all the neutral powers of the time, the Russian Empire was doubtless the most helpful to the Americans in ultimately winning the independence of the United States. As it happens, when that came about, Empress Catherine derided King George III for recognizing American independence, which she had done all she could to help, saying that she would sooner commit suicide than to grant such recognition to any rebellious subjects of her own.

Emperor Joseph II

For a fledgling republic, the struggling United States actually had more monarchial support than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland did. However, while still neutral, one major monarchy that was most sympathetic to Britain was one many might find surprising; Imperial Austria (nominally the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but by that time *very* nominally). The Empress-Mother, Maria Theresa, wrote to King George III, offering him moral support and Emperor Joseph II was even more vociferous, saying to the British ambassador in Vienna that, “The cause in which England is engaged…is the cause of all sovereigns who have a joint interest in the maintenance of due subordination…in all the surrounding monarchies.” Just as the American cause was fairly popular with elites in Britain, it may surprise some that a monarch known as “the People’s Emperor” was so opposed to the idea of American independence but Joseph II, while regarded as an “Enlightened Despot” was very much a royal absolutist and feared that the example of America might be followed by people in his own domains, particularly the Austrian Netherlands, what is today Belgium.

In this, Emperor Joseph II was not wrong as toward the end of his reign the Catholics and liberals in that land came together to depose him and declare independence as “The United States of Belgium”, the first bid for Belgian independence which Joseph’s brother and successor later suppressed. However, realpolitik also played a part in the Austrian attitude toward America and the rather cold reception that John Adams received when he came to Vienna to make the case for the Patriot cause. The Austrians had been trying to improve relations with Great Britain so as to isolate the Kingdom of Prussia which Emperor Joseph II had fought, unsuccessfully, early in his reign. However, the issue was complicated by family politics. The Emperor’s little sister, Marie Antoinette, was, after all, Queen of France which was America’s strongest ally. That marriage had been arranged to bind together France and Austria and the last thing the Austrian Emperor wanted was for Britain and France to be at war, since he desired friendship with both.

Emperor Joseph II

The result of all this was that while Emperor Joseph II was the most supportive of King George III among the crowned heads of Europe, he was prevented from taking any actual steps to help him and rather urged the British and French to make peace but that peace could only be obtained along with American independence so it really placed the Hapsburg monarch in an impossible situation from his point of view as the circumstances came together to favor the Franco-American cause at the expense of Britain. Another monarch, as he was at the time, was Pope Pius VI who had been a consistent critic of Emperor Joseph II (the effects of which were seen in Belgium to be sure) and while he certainly was opposed to many of the principles behind the American war, regarding it mostly as a feud between Protestants and, in the end, could hardly be very critical considering that the biggest foreign supporters of the United States were the Catholic kingdoms of France and Spain, whose support the Pope needed particularly since his relations with the Austrian Emperor had been rather strained. Catholic Poland sent soldiers of fortune to help the Americans and the Church had long supported the Irish in opposition to Great Britain (though the French Revolution would change attitudes dramatically on that front). It was at the invitation of the papacy, interestingly enough, that papal ports were opened to American trade in 1784 and the Pope later gave permission for the establishment of a U.S. consulate in Rome in 1797.

So it was that, among the crowned heads of the world, the United States of America was met with more support than opposition. King George III did not want it to come to war but, of course, pressed the fight zealously when it did. King Louis XVI of France and King Carlos III of Spain, after some initial hesitation, backed the Americans and gave absolutely vital support to the winning of independence for the United States. The Dutch backed the Americans though the Prince of Orange supported Britain, the King of Prussia cheered the Americans and the Empress of Russia worked to isolate Britain and make the United States acceptable in the halls of power across the Old World. The Austrian Emperor sympathized with Britain but more than anything else wanted there to be peace between Britain and France which could only benefit America. King Gustav III of Sweden was quick to recognize the United States, making Sweden the first neutral power to do so. Part of the reason for this was what was politically fashionable at the time but realpolitik proved the bigger factor as did the extent of the unpopularity of the British. British success had garnered a great deal of jealousy, past British victories left many thirsty for revenge and British policies had alienated former friends such as Prussia.

St Mark's republic

The Europe of the 18th Century was, of course, a very monarchial place but not exclusively so. What is just as interesting as the outpouring of royal support for the fledgling United States is the reaction of the European republics. The Dutch, as mentioned, gave staunch support but, interestingly enough, the oldest significant republic in Europe did not. That was, of course, the “Most Serene Republic of Venice” in Italy. The Venetian ambassadors in France and Spain met with the American envoys but, perhaps surprisingly, the Republic of Venice refused to recognize the independence of the United States or to have any formal correspondence with the Americans whatsoever. One effort at formal communication was made, by the Americans, but this was ignored by the Venetian government. The Republic of Genoa did finally come around to recognizing the United States, after independence was won, in 1791 but the Republic of Venice never did the same. There has been some speculation as to the reason for this but the most likely reasons are the opposition of Austrian Emperor Joseph II to American independence and the extent of trade ties that Venice had with the British Empire. In any event, we are presented with the rather humorous fact that an American Patriot like John Adams had more praise for the government of the British Empire than he did for the Republic of Venice, the oldest significant republic in Europe.

Washington at the raising of the Grand Union flag

What does all of this boil down to? At the time of the outbreak of the American War, Britain seemed to be on top of the world and one thing that always accompanies the top spot is the fact that there is no shortage of those wishing to bring you down and who are quick to blame every misfortune of their own on your success. Spain, France, Germany, and more recently the United States itself has been in this position and faced similar opposition. The war in America offered all the major powers other than Britain an opportunity to advance themselves or at least see British power reduced and supporting the United States was the way to make that happen. If this seems to reveal a glaring lack of solidarity on the part of the monarchies of the world, one should also keep in mind that because monarchy was the dominant form of government in the late 18th Century, most did not suspect that the institution itself was in any great danger. The Americans, moreover, were not behaving as the French later would. King George III faced the threat of a loss of territory and prestige, not the loss of his throne or his life and there was no drive to wage an ideological war against the monarchies of the world, again, as the French would later do. On the contrary, the American leaders tailored their message to its audience and actively sought recognition and support from the crowned heads of Europe. As we have seen, they overwhelmingly received it. And, for those monarchs who looked with disdain on the republican Americans, they were confident enough in the superiority of monarchy to assume that the American experiment would soon fail on its own while they, upheld by the hand of God, would endure forever. That, however, is another story for another time.

The Kingdom of Spain in the American War for Independence

In any history of the American War for Independence the emphasis tends to be placed on the fight in what became the United States, which is probably because of how powerful the U.S.A. eventually became. However, the British Empire was the strongest power in the world at the time and, unfortunately, one thing that comes with being on top is that everyone else is looking to take you down (something modern day Americans should be able to understand very well). Before it was all over, the Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Spain and the United Provinces of the Netherlands had all decided to take advantage of the opportunity the war in America presented by going to war against Great Britain. Even the Empress of Russia was quick to recognize the United States as they too, at that time, had interest in North America. While the focus is usually on battlefields along the American east coast, the fighting actually carried over to the periphery of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe and even as far away as India. While the contribution of the French, at least in regards to the fighting in North America, is fairly well known, the part played by the Kingdom of Spain is seldom mentioned.

King Carlos III

At the time of the outbreak of rebellion in the British American colonies, Spain was under the rule of His Catholic Majesty King Carlos III, who came to the Spanish throne in 1759, already famous for his conquest of Sicily and Naples in southern Italy. He brought about a revival in Spanish fortunes with his, sometimes positive and sometimes negative, style of “enlightened absolutism”. So, he fostered greater freedom of speech, opinion and inquiry, private property rights, more freedom of religion and a greater emphasis on science and practical knowledge in education. He lowered taxes, promoted trade and business, furthered industrialization, which were good things, but he also banned bullfighting, considering it a brutal and barbaric sport, and expelled the Jesuits from Spain, partly due to accusations against them and probably influenced by a dispute he had with the Pope over his gaining of the crown of Naples and Sicily. Nonetheless, he was a devout Catholic which no one ever doubted. When war broke out in the British colonies, King Carlos III was, like King Louis XVI of France, reluctant to look favorably on the rebel colonists for fear that his own colonial subjects might follow their example but he was ultimately persuaded to join their cause.

King Carlos III had signed the “Family Compact” with the Kingdom of France and the results of the relatively recent French and Indian War had made him very nervous about the British. He feared that the British Empire was growing too powerful, that it would upset the balance of power in Europe and that a victorious Britain would conquer the Spanish colonies in America just as they had taken Canada from France in the last war. On May 8, 1779 the Kingdom of Spain declared war on Great Britain and Ireland, though as an ally of the Kingdom of France rather than the fledgling United States outright. The goal of the King of Spain was to weaken Britain on the world stage and recover lands that the Spanish had lost to Britain in the French and Indian War. His troops did not fight alongside the American colonists as the French did but the Spanish declaration of war had a major impact on the American cause. It greatly enlarged the scope of the conflict for Britain, removed the comfortable supremacy the British had enjoyed in the naval war and forced the British military to mostly go on the defensive in America while they redeployed forces to guard against attacks from the Spanish around the world.

The Anglo-Spanish conflict got off to a good start for Spain when, in September of 1779, Spanish troops and Louisiana militia seized the British garrison at Baton Rouge, taking them by surprise as they had no idea as yet that Britain and Spain were at war. A large Franco-Spanish fleet, filled with soldiers, had actually assembled that summer with the intention of invading Britain but, while they gave the British authorities a good scare, they ultimately called off the expedition. They were confident that they could defeat the British and land their forces but were not so confident that they could maintain naval supremacy and feared losing their whole invasion force if they were left isolated in enemy country. The longest and most intense military operation of the conflict began almost as soon as Spain issued its declaration of war which was the siege of Gibraltar. The British rushed help to the embattled garrison but it only arrived in early 1780, after the garrison had endured a brutal winter in miserable conditions. The two sides remained locked in combat in what would be the longest siege British military forces have ever endured.

Don Bernardo de Galvez

On the North American mainland, the leading Spanish official was the Governor of Louisiana, Don Bernardo de Gálvez. His mission was to secure Spanish control of both banks of the Mississippi River (of which the seizure of Baton Rouge was a good start) and to reclaim for the Spanish Crown their lost province of Florida. Fortunately for Spain, Gálvez proved to be a very capable man. He had good contacts with the Americans, had sold them guns, powder and loaned them money for other supplies. He was in touch with the American leadership and, perhaps most importantly, he had an established network of spies and informants thanks to his uncle, the Spanish Minister for the Indies, so that he was quickly made aware of British activities in the Caribbean and the Gulf coast. After organizing the first cattle drive in Texas history, moving 10-15,000 head of cattle from Goliad to Louisiana to feed his army, Gálvez launched a successful offensive against the British in the region. Throughout 1779 and 1780 his Spanish troops captured Natchez, Louisiana and Mobile in what is now Alabama.

At the same time, Gálvez was the primary source of munitions and supplies for the American expedition into the Midwest led by George Rogers Clark. The British had few military resources in the region but Governor Hamilton worked to rally the Indians to supplement his small force of redcoats to deal with the Americans as well as to attack Spanish outposts in the region. In 1780 a force of around a thousand Indians under British command attacked St Louis, Missouri, Fort San Carlos, defended by around 300 Spanish troops, mostly militia, under Captain Fernando de Leyba, the lieutenant governor. Although greatly outmatched, the Spanish had worked to fortify the area and with the support of the local French population they managed to repel the Indian attack and so secured Spanish control of the upper Louisiana territory from the British for the rest of the war. The following year the Spanish launched a counter-raid into British territory taking Fort St Joseph in what is now Niles, Michigan, probably the farthest north that Spanish forces ever fought in the Americas.

Capt-Gen of Guatemala Matias de Galvez

The British, however, did not rest solely on the defensive although they were limited due to the large number of enemies they had to guard against. In 1780 an expedition was planned by the Governor of Jamaica to use limited resources to achieve a dramatic result. His plan was to attack the Spanish in Central America, moving up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua to attack Granada, cutting Spanish America in half and giving Britain access to the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish had only a minimal military presence in the area and would be vastly outnumbered by the British led by Colonel John Polson in charge of the land forces and a young Lt. Horatio Nelson commanding the naval escort. In April they attacked Fort San Juan (aka Fortress Immaculate Conception). The Spanish held off superior forces for some time but finally surrendered, however poor planning meant that the British began to run out of vital supplies and tropical disease took a heavy toll with most of the Blacks and Miskito Indians they had recruited to provide the bulk of their manpower abandoning the expedition. In the end, the British failed to reach Lake Nicaragua and the whole expedition was abandoned and thereafter deemed the costliest failure of the entire war with Spain.

That same year, Don Bernardo de Gálvez made an effort to take Pensacola, Florida, the last major prize yet to be won in his campaign along the gulf coast. However, a hurricane intervened and ruined the expedition. 1781 was to be different. Of course, students of U.S. history will remember that it was in that year that the American War for Independence reached its climax with the siege of Yorktown, Virginia. Most know that the siege would not have been won without the assistance of considerable land and naval forces from the King of France but not many are aware of the Spanish contribution. Direct military assistance was not possible (nor needed obviously) but it was the Spanish who managed to raise funds amounting to 500,000 silver pesos in Havana, Cuba to buy vital supplies for the American forces and to pay the Continental Army (which had long been a huge hardship for the fledgling American government). The surrender of the British army under Lord Cornwallis was a devastating blow to the British war effort but was even worse for morale at home. It was the largest mass surrender of British troops in history up to that time and would remain so until World War I but in the aftermath Britain still held all of the most vital, strategic points in the American colonies.

Spanish troops at the siege of Pensacola

Because of the intervention of the French, Dutch and Spanish, however, Britain had more than the thirteen colonies to worry about and the people at home and certainly the politicians were weary of the conflict. Nor was it the only disaster London had to deal with. Prior to the siege of Yorktown, Gálvez had managed to reform his invasion fleet in Cuba that had been scattered by a hurricane the previous year. In February, with a force of about 7,000 men, Gálvez set out to capture the port of Pensacola. His army consisted of about 1,300 regular soldiers (including several hundred Irish exiles) as well as a great many militia from Cuba (including mixed race African-Cubans), New Orleans and Mobile. Opposing him was British General John Campbell who had 3,000 regulars but fewer troops overall with the remainder numbering only a little over 500, most of whom were Indians but including a few American loyalists as well. Gálvez conducted a classic siege operation, engineers digging trenches to advance his lines, heavy use of artillery, grenades and so on as the attackers inched ever closer to the British fortifications. Gálvez himself was wounded by enemy fire and had to turn over command to Colonel Jose de Ezpeleta.

The Spanish assault on Pensacola

The siege began on March 9, 1781 and was a long and brutal affair. General Campbell did not simply remain on the defensive but launched several attacks of his own on the Spanish lines. As time dragged on, bad weather forced the Spanish fleet to withdraw, there were supply shortages and heavy rains forced the men to fight in trenches flooded with water. Somewhat to his surprise, Gálvez was approached by a number of Indian chiefs offering to sell food to the Spanish army, even though many Indians of the same tribes were fighting with the British. Gálvez accepted their offer and also asked them if they might be able to persuade their countrymen to abandon the British and stop attacking his lines! They would have been well advised to escape as the Spanish received reinforcements, bringing their total number up to about 8,000 men, and began the formal assault on Pensacola on April 30 with a large-scale artillery bombardment. On May 8, a shell hit the magazine in Fort Crescent, killing many British troops. Spanish light infantry (los Cazadores) charged forward, through the smoke and debris and captured the fort, moving in canon to fire on the two adjacent British forts. The concentration of firepower soon convinced General Campbell that Fort George could not hold.

British troops sortie at Gibraltar

On May 10, 1781, after suffering 200 casualties, Campbell surrendered his remaining 1,100 troops along with Ft George, the Prince of Wales redoubt and all of West Florida to the Spanish. It was the crowning achievement for Don Bernardo de Gálvez and his campaign along the gulf coast. For his victory, King Carlos III promoted him to lieutenant-general and awarded him the governorship of west Florida along with that of Louisiana. All throughout the Americas, Spanish forces had been successful in their major operations while also managing to defeat British attacks on their own territory. Closer to home, the “Great Siege” of Gibraltar continued to drag on with no sign of the British defenders cracking (many of the defenders were Germans from Hanover) but the island of Minorca was a different story. From August 1781 to February 1782 a Franco-Spanish force landed on the island and besieged the main British garrison at Fort St Philip. The fight was largely a massive artillery duel but eventually British defenses were reduced and, more critically, the garrison began to fall victim to scurvy and other symptoms of privation until finally their commander agreed to surrender.

The embattled garrison was shown great honor and respect by the Franco-Spanish forces and many wept in sympathy as they marched out of the ruined fort, haggard and sickly but with their heads still held high. The commander of the Spanish forces, Louis des Balbes de Berton de Crillon, duc de Mahon (a Frenchman but serving in the Spanish army) was then chosen by King Carlos III to take charge of the still on-going efforts to regain Gibraltar. That would ultimately end in disappointment but an unauthorized Spanish attack on The Bahamas was successful, the British garrison surrendering without a fight. Gálvez had also planned an ambitious effort to conquer Jamaica but a British naval victory followed by the British agreement to end the war put a stop to this. In the subsequent Treaty of Paris, the British were able to mitigate their losses to Spain somewhat by granting more favorable terms to the Americans, such as in ceding the North American Midwest to the United States, keeping it out of Spanish hands. The Bahamas were handed back to Britain by Spain in exchange for East Florida, which, combined with the Spanish conquest of West Florida, saw the entire region restored to the Spanish Crown.

The King & Queen of Spain visit Washington's tomb

In the end, Spanish involvement in the American War for Independence had been a brilliant success. With the exception of Gibraltar, which successfully withstood the Spanish siege, King Carlos III had gained everything he had hoped to achieve by backing the United States against Great Britain. Florida had been regained, as had Minorca and while the lands east of the Mississippi had been ceded by Britain to the United States, Spanish territory had been secured from the British, the British threat to Spanish dominance of Central America had been defeated and Spanish holdings in the Caribbean escaped unscathed. Spanish attacks on British positions, particularly those which the Americans could never hope to have threatened, played a major part in the winning of independence for the United States, as did the contribution of funds, military supplies and foodstuffs to the American forces. Although not often as well remembered, the Spanish contribution was ultimately as vital to the American victory as was the more well known assistance of the Kingdom of France.