Carlisle Peace Commission

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The Carlisle Peace Commission was a group of British peace commissioners who were sent to North America in 1778 to negotiate terms with the rebellious Continental Congress during the American Revolutionary War. The commission carried an offer of self-rule, including parliamentary representation within the British Empire. The Second Continental Congress, aware that British troops were about to be withdrawn from Philadelphia, insisted on demanding full independence, which the commission was not authorised to grant.

The Peace Commission marked the first time that the British government formally agreed to negotiate with Congress. A previous informal attempt at negotiation, now known as the Staten Island Peace Conference, had taken place in 1776.

Background

{{See also|Diplomacy in the American Revolutionary War|Philadelphia campaign}}

The first attempt at negotiation between Great Britain and the rebellious Thirteen Colonies after the outbreak in April 1775 of the American War of Independence took place in September 1776, when a committee from the Second Continental Congress agreed to meet with Admiral Lord Richard Howe, who had been given limited powers to treat with colonies individually. The limited authority given to both Howe and the American negotiators made it a virtual certainty that nothing would come of the meeting. The meeting was a failure, partly because Congress had recently declared independence from Britain, something that Howe was not authorised to recognise, and partly because the American commissioners had no substantive authority from Congress to negotiate.

After the British defeat at Saratoga in October 1777 and fearful of French recognition of American independence, the British prime minister, Lord North, had Parliament repeal such offensive measures as the Tea Act and the Massachusetts Government Act and sent a commission to seek a negotiated settlement with the Continental Congress.

The commission was empowered to offer a type of self-rule that Thomas Pownall had first proposed a decade earlier and later formed the foundation of British Dominion status.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ALDbuNPu_IQC&q=Carlisle+Commission&pg=PA121| title=British friends of the American Revolution | author=Jerome R. Reich| page=121| publisher=M.E. Sharpe| year=1997| isbn=978-0-7656-0074-5}} The fact that the commission was authorised to negotiate with the Continental Congress as a body also represented a change in official British government policy, which had been to treat only with the individual states.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u_lhtog-ckcC&q=Carlisle+Peace+Commission&pg=PA135| title=Turning the world upside down| author=Neil Longley York| pages=135–136| publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group| year=2003| isbn=978-0-275-97693-4}}

The historian David Wilson is of the opinion that the war could have been avoided if the terms it proposed had been offered in 1775.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X2GrR0Eyh-4C&q=Carlisle+Commission&pg=PA60| title=The southern strategy | author=David K. Wilson| page=61| publisher=Univ of South Carolina Press |year=2005| isbn=978-1-57003-573-9 }} The historian Peter Whiteley, however, notes that George III would have been unlikely to agree then to make such an offer.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pCZLeb-4lfYC&q=lord+north| title=Lord North | author=Peter Whiteley| page=175| publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group| year=1996| isbn=978-1-85285-145-3}}

Commission

William Eden organized and served on the commission, but it was headed by the Earl of Carlisle and included George Johnstone, who had served as Governor of West Florida. Walpole remarked that Carlisle, then a young man, was "very fit to make a treaty that will not be made"{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/almostmiracleam00ferl| url-access=registration| quote=Carlisle Commission.| title=Almost a miracle | author=John E. Ferling| page=[https://archive.org/details/almostmiracleam00ferl/page/270 270]| publisher=Oxford University Press US| year=2007| isbn=978-0-19-518121-0 }} and that he "was totally unacquainted with business and though not void of ambition, had but moderate parts and less application." Richard Jackson declined to serve after it became known that the United States and France had signed a Treaty of Alliance.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4wvJ_eb9LUYC&q=Carlisle+Peace+Commission+lord+north&pg=PA299| title=The Long Fuse| author=Don Cook| page=299| publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press| year=1996| isbn=978-0-87113-661-9}} The commissioners also learned of the Franco-American alliance before they set out in April.

One thing that the commissioners did not learn before their departure was that General Sir Henry Clinton had been ordered to evacuate Philadelphia even though his orders had been issued one month before they left. Carlisle was of the opinion that the administration had done so intentionally since they might not otherwise have gone at all. Carlisle wrote to his wife of the situation: "We all look grave, and perhaps we think we look wise. I fear nobody will think so when we return.... I don't see what we have to do here."Willcox, p. 229 Upon learning of the planned withdrawal, Carlisle appealed to Clinton to delay it, but in rejecting the appeal, Clinton cited his orders to act without delay. That prompted Carlisle to observe that the administration wanted the commission to be "a mixture of ridicule, nullity, and embarrassments."Willcox, p. 230 Eden was upset for not being told of Clinton's orders since the British intent to withdraw further stiffened American resolve.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dhCWEA_aUsMC&q=Carlisle+Commission&pg=PA72| title=Documents of the emerging nation | author=Mary A. Giunta, J. Dane Hartgrove| page=72| publisher=Rowman & Littlefield| year=1998| isbn=978-0-8420-2664-2 }}

On June 13, the commissioners sent a package of proposals to Congress, which was then holding sessions in York, Pennsylvania.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MkqBV79cVMkC&q=Carlisle+Commission&pg=PA80| title=Gouverneur Morris | author=James J. Kirschke| page=82| publisher=Macmillan| year=2005| isbn=978-0-312-24195-7 }} Congress replied by insisting for American independence to be recognised or all British forces to withdraw first from the states, terms that the commission was not authorised to accept. The commission attempted to appeal to public opinion with warnings of widespread destruction but was unsuccessful.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xux-LSxSY6cC&q=Carlisle+Commission&pg=PA1779| title=Chronological History of U.S. Foreign Relations: 1607-1932 | author=Lester H. Brune | isbn=978-0-415-93915-7 | year=2003 | publisher=Routledge}} Johnstone tried to bribe some congressmen, and the Marquis de Lafayette challenged Carlisle to a duel over some anti-French statements that he had made.[http://www.nps.gov/revwar/revolution_day_by_day/1778_main.html Date in History: 1778 National Park Service]{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/memoirsofgilbert00duco| title=Memoirs of Gilbert Motier La Fayette | author=Henri La Fayette Villaume Ducoudray Holstein | author-link=Henri La Fayette Villaume Ducoudray Holstein | pages=[https://archive.org/details/memoirsofgilbert00duco/page/41 41]–43| publisher=Charles Wiley| year=1824}}

Thomas Paine denounced the British proposals.Kevin T. Springman, "Notes and Documents: Thomas Paine's Response to Lord North's Speech on the British Peace Proposals." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 121.4 (1997): 351-370. [https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/view/45189/44910 online] Gouverneur Morris wrote several essays against the proposals.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MkqBV79cVMkC&q=Carlisle+Commission&pg=PA80| title=Gouverneur Morris | author=James J. Kirschke| page=83| publisher=Macmillan| year=2005| isbn=978-0-312-24195-7 }} The commissioners circulated a manifesto,{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/pictorialfieldb06lossgoog| quote=Carlisle Peace Commission manifesto| page=[https://archive.org/details/pictorialfieldb06lossgoog/page/n364 350]| title=The Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution | author=Benson John Lossing| year=1852| publisher=Harper and Brothers}} which was printed in the Hartford Courant on October 10, 1778.[http://www.prices4antiques.com/ephemera/newspapers/Newspaper-Hartford-1778-Connecticut-Courant-Carlisle-Commission-Manifesto-4-Pages-D9998532.htm Newspaper; Hartford, 1778, Connecticut Courant, "Carlisle Commission Manifesto", 4 Pages.] The Marquess of Rockingham, a leading opponent of the war, objected to the threats in the manifesto and moved to disavow it.{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ALDbuNPu_IQC&q=Carlisle+peace&pg=PA85| title=British friends of the American Revolution | author=Jerome R. Reich| pages=85–86| publisher=M.E. Sharpe| year=1997| isbn=978-0-7656-0074-5}}

Aftermath

Johnstone sailed to Britain in August, and the other commissioners returned in November 1778. The British, being unable to bring General George Washington's Continental Army to a decisive engagement, resumed the military campaign and turned to a southern strategy as their next attempt to win the war in North America. A further attempt in December 1780 to seek a diplomatic peace, in the form of the Clinton-Arbuthnot peace commission, failed, and there were no further substantive peace overtures until the American victory at Yorktown in 1781 and the eventual Treaty of Paris.{{cite book | last=Pearson | first=Major Jesse T. | title=Failure Of British Strategy During The Southern Campaign Of The American Revolutionary War | publisher=Pickle Partners Publishing | date=2015-11-06 | isbn=978-1-78625-220-3}}{{cite book | last=Hibbert | first=Christopher | title=Redcoats and Rebels | publisher=Pen and Sword | publication-place=Barnsley, South Yorkshire | date=2008-01-30 | page=viii | isbn=978-1-84415-699-3}}

Along with being passed over for promotion and the money promised him from the British to capture West Point, the failure of that negotiation effort was a contributing cause for Benedict Arnold to abandon his comrades and switch over to the side of the British during the American Revolution.{{cite book | last=Merrill | first=Jane | last2=Endicott | first2=John | title=The Late Years of Benedict Arnold | publisher=McFarland | publication-place=Jefferson, North Carolina | date=2022-05-25 | isbn=978-1-4766-3864-5 | page=17}}

References

=Primary sources=

Commager, Henry Steele and Richard Morris, eds. The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution As Told by Participants (1975) vol 2 pp 691–701 [https://archive.org/details/spiritofseventys011271mbp online]

External links

[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/95998/Carlisle-Commission Encyclopædia Britannica]
[http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781577180999_chunk_g97815771809995_ss1-44 Blackwell]
[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781402740862/page/258 The Real History of the American Revolution, Alan Axelrod]

Category:1778 in Great Britain

Category:1778 in international relations

Category:1778 in the United States

Category:British laws relating to the American Revolution

Category:Diplomacy during the American Revolutionary War

Category:United States diplomacy