The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn | Page 8

so treated, it is a disgrace to be connected
with them."]
This powerful endorsement of the king's policy by Parliament, however,
cannot be taken as representing the sense of the nation at large. It may
be questioned whether even a bare majority of the English people were
ready to go to the lengths proposed in his Majesty's address. The
Ministry, it is true, pointed to the numerous ratifying "addresses" that
flowed in, pledging the support of towns and cities for the prosecution
of the war. Some were sent from unexpected quarters. To the surprise
of both sides and the particular satisfaction of the king, both
Manchester and Sheffield, places supposed to be American in
sentiment, came forward with resolutions of confidence and approval;
and in ministerial circles it was made to appear that substantially all
England was for coercion. But this claim was unfounded. As the king
predicted, the loyal addresses provoked opposition addresses.
Edinburgh and Glasgow, despite the efforts of their members, refused
to address. Lynn was said to have addressed, but its members denied
the assertion, and claimed that the war was unpopular in that town. The
paper from Great Yarmouth was very thinly signed, while Bristol,
Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton,
Dudley, and other places sent in counter-petitions against the war. The
justices of Middlesex unanimously voted that it was expedient to
reduce the colonies to a proper sense of their duty; but at a meeting of
the freeholders of the same county, held at Mile-end, to instruct their
members in Parliament, little unanimity prevailed, "much clamor
arose," a protest was entered against the proposed resolutions, and only
one of the sheriffs consented to sign them all. London, as the country
well knew, sympathized largely with America, but in a manner which
nullified her influence elsewhere. Her populace was noisy and

threatening; Wilkes, her Lord Mayor, was hated at court; her solid men
kept to business. "Are the London merchants," wrote the king to Lord
North,[2] "so thoroughly absorbed in their private interests not to feel
what they owe to the constitution which has enriched them, that they do
not either show their willingness to support, either by an address, or,
what I should like better, a subscription, to furnish many comforts to
the army in America?" An address from this quarter, signed by
"respectable names," he thought might have a good effect, and one was
presented on October 11th, with 941 signatures; but it was entirely
neutralized by the presentation, three days before, of another address
more numerously signed by "gentlemen, merchants, and traders of
London," in which the measures of government were condemned.
When the point was made in the Commons that the war was a popular
measure in England, Lutrell promptly replied that he had made many a
journey through the interior of the country during the summer season,
and had conversed with "a multitude of persons widely different in
station and description," only to find that the masses were in sympathy
with the colonists. The division of sentiment was probably correctly
represented by Lord Camden early in the year, in his observation that
the landed interest was almost wholly anti-American, while the
merchants, tradesmen, and the common people were generally opposed
to a war.[3]
[Footnote 2: "Correspondence with Lord North." Donne.]
[Footnote 3: Upon this point Dr. Price said: "Let it be granted, though
probably far from true, that the majority of the kingdom favor the
present measures. No good argument could be drawn from thence
against receding."]
Having voted to push the war in earnest, Parliament proceeded to
supply the sinews. On November 3d, Lord Barrington brought in the
army estimates for 1776. Fifty-five thousand men, he reported, was the
force necessary and intended to be raised for the purposes of the nation,
the ordinary expense of maintaining which would be something over
£1,300,000. Of these troops, twenty thousand would be retained to
garrison Great Britain, ten thousand for the West Indies, Gibraltar,

Minorca and the coast of Africa, while the actual force destined for
America was to be increased to thirty-four battalions, each of 811 men,
including two regiments of light horse, amounting, in the aggregate, to
upwards of twenty-five thousand men. Barrington, at the same time,
frankly acknowledged to the House that these figures showed well only
on paper, as none of the regiments for America were complete, and,
what was a still more unwelcome admission, that great difficulty was
experienced in enlisting new recruits. Nothing, he said, had been left
untried to secure them. The bounty had been raised and the standard
lowered, and yet men were not forthcoming. Anticipating this dearth,
he had warned the king of it as early as July, when the latter first
determined to increase the army. "I wish, sir, most cordially," wrote
this faithful secretary,