SOMOS PRIMOS: Spanish Patriots in the American Revolution

Biographical data

Granville W. Hough of Laguna Woods, CA, is Professor Emeritus, California State University, Fullerton, and a retired Lieutenant Colonel, Regular Army. He has been an amateur genealogist and historian for forty-five years, with more than twenty-five books to his credit, including eight written with his daughter, N. C. Hough, on Spanish soldiers of the Borderlands who served during the time of the American Revolutionary War. Listings of these books may be viewed on the web site for the Library of Congress or on the web site of the Family History Center at Salt Lake City.

Granville was a student at Mississippi State University in Nov 1942 when he joined the Army Enlisted Reserve shortly before his 20th birthday. He was soon on active duty as an infantryman, but he was
appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point and joined the class there in Jul 1943, graduating in Jun 1946 with a BS in Military Art and Engineering. He served in the Regular Army as an artilleryman, intelligence analyst, and general staff officer until Jan 1969, concentrating on Cold War and technical intelligence research. After graduating from the Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth in 1959, he was assigned to the Pentagon, where he was able to begin his weekend hobby of genealogical and historical research in the Library of Congress and the National Archives. In subsequent assignments, Granville also graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the Air War College.

The Army had constantly changing needs for people with higher education skills during the Cold War. Responding to those needs, Granville gained a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from USC in 1955, a Master’s degree in Business Administration from George Washington University in 1965, and a PhD in Public Administration from American University in 1971 (after retirement.)

From 1969 through Spring, 1992, Granville taught business management at California State University, Fullerton, serving three years of that time as Management Department Chairman. His specialty in teaching was Project Management.

In 1991, Granville joined the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution. His research experience has indicated to him that much of the history of the American Revolution is incomplete and misleading. He strongly believes that the NSSAR, and other patriotic organizations, should be at the forefront of revising the history we teach our children about our country and those who have worked with us as allies, co-belligerents, and even as enemies.

In 1996 I learned that the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution, had turned down a California applicant who had no receipt to prove his soldier ancestor had donated one or two pesos to defray the costs of the war with Britain from 1779 into 1783. This seemed a strange denial as the applicant's ancestor had risked his life as a soldier, so why worry about a donativo? I told my SAR chapter I could develop a rationale for acceptance of Spanish soldiers as patriots, and it said go ahead.

I knew Louisiana soldiers serving under Governor Bernardo de Gálvez had been accepted as Patriots since 1925, and that French soldiers and sailors who served under General Rochambeau and Admiral de Grasse had been accepted since 1903.

So I developed the rationale and looked for applicants to test it. We found two descendants of California soldiers, with clear lineages, and got our first California descendants admitted in 1998.

I had no intent of publishing anything, but concluded it might be useful publish the rationale, then to list names of California soldiers, visiting sailors, and other men who were of the right age to make the donativo.

My daughter joined me in the research, and we did the first book on California, mostly rationale, then the second book giving the names of nearly everyone in California under Spanish jurisdiction during the war period, and most of their descendants until American occupation in 1848, about 5000 persons.

It was interesting research, and no one had ever done such a compilation of Spanish soldiers and sailors. We then did Arizona and Northern Sonora, then New Mexico. We were able to get our first descendant of a New Mexico soldier accepted in 1999. We moved on to Texas where we found a couple of people had already been accepted but there was no composite list. So we did one, including all the territory now under Texas jurisdiction.

Up to this time we had worked on more than 20 Presidios, more than 10 flying companies of mounted infantry units, and militia units of the larger towns. When we worked on Louisiana, we encountered our first organized Spanish Regiment, the Regimento de Infanterie de Luisiana. Then we went on through the West Indies in the seventh volume with numerous Spanish and colonial regiments, then finally back to Northern Mexico for the backup units for the Presidios in the eighth volume. We have four more volumes in progress.

Along the way, we were questioned on the work we were doing, mainly based on the way people were taught American History. The question was: "How can we accept descendants of Spanish soldiers. Spain has always been our enemy." And that is exactly the way many influential American historians have depicted it. But that is not the way Spanish soldiers and sailors saw it at the time. They, just like Americans, fought the British where they were or wherever they were sent. They celebrated all victories over the British, no matter who won them.

But there is one quote from a highly regarded American historian at the time of WW I and is still quoted: He made a statement that John Adams and John Jay in negotiating for peace with Britain had no reason to consider Spanish interests as Spain had been of no help to the American colonies and wished them ill.

He apparently knew nothing of Spanish aid or of the DeGrass/Saavedra Accord which governed French and Spanish operations in the Western Hemisphere from July 1781 until the end of the war. He was not aware that a Chesapeake Bay Campaign (Yorktown) was the first item of that accord and that its success was due to five elements, two of them Spanish: Washington's Army, Rochambeau's French Army, DeGrass' French Fleet, Spanish financing, and Spanish covering for France in the West Indies.

Nor did this eminent American historian have the faintest idea what SECURED Yorktown, or why the four British staging areas at New York, Charleston, Penobscot Bay, and Detroit were never used by the British to reinvade. Few Americans know that the British were straining mightily in 1782 and 1783 just to hold on in the West Indies. Bernardo de Gálvez was waiting to invade Jamaica during that time with 10,000 troops at Guarico in Haiti. He was joined in Venezuela in Feb 1783 by nearly all of Rochambeaus's American Expeditionary Force which had fought at Yorktown, 10,000 more French troops. French General d'Estaing was lining up 20,000 more French and Spanish troops at Cadiz in Spain awaiting orders to sail.   And Bernardo de Gálvez was already designated as the overall commander of the invading forces. The British had to negotiate or lose everything in the West Indies. That imminent threat in the West Indies is what SECURED Yorktown and made it into the victory we celebrate.

I will point out two other false beliefs which have harmed our relationships with our neighbors:

One is that the War with Mexico began when Mexican troops attacked American troops on Texas soil near the Rio Grande. I defy any historian to show evidence that Texas ever extended south of the Medina River. The Mexican War started when pro-slavery President James K. Polk in May 1848 sent American troops into Mexican territory south of the Medina and Mexicans defended their land. It is clear we started the Mexican War under false pretenses.

Another false belief is that the Spanish American War was started when saboteurs blew up the battleship Maine on 17 Feb 1898. I defy any historian to show that there were any saboteurs near the Maine that night, whether Spanish, Cuban, or some other.   Most likely, the Maine blew up from instantaneous combustion of overheated coal in confined ship storage. Admiral Rickover headed the last committee to study that explosion. The Navy had destroyed all physical evidence, but had pictures of bent metal. Admiral Rickover's committee reported that the pictures simply gave no conclusive evidence on why the explosion occurred. It seems quite clear, today, that we entered the Spanish-American War under false pretenses.

These three fallacies have biased American history and textbooks for generations. They constantly come up in one form or another, in editorials, from TV commentators, politicians, patriotic speakers, and even from reviewers of SAR applications.

But the study of service records of Spanish soldiers shows interesting and remote places where they served, each with some relation to the war with Britain. Last December, I predicted the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution, would in time remove all geographic restrictions on where Spanish patriots served when enough SAR members understood the relationships among the nations fighting the British.   I mentioned one year, ten years, or even 50 years. It actually happened in just over 50 days when in March of this year, the Society did remove all geographic restrictions.   Male descendants of Spanish soldiers in service 1779-1783, can now join our organization, no matter where the ancestor served.

Spanish Contributions to the American Revolutionary War

“DISCURSO PRONUNCIADO POR EL SR. CONSUL GENERAL
EL 29 DE MARZO DE 1979 ANTE LA LOUISIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY,”
by Hon. José Montero de Pedro, Marqués de Casa Mena, Consul General de España
Shared by Dr. Granville Hough

It is a great pleasure and satisfaction for me to be with you this evening on the occasion of the viewing of the films about the life and career of Bernardo de GÁLVEZ in Louisiana. In accepting the invitation of the Louisiana Historical Society my address will deal with the Spanish contribution to the cause of the American Revolution.

Ask any American, with the exception of the trained historian, what he knows of the aid given by Spain to the United States in its struggle for independence during the Revolutionary War and the answer will be short and instantaneous - “Nothing”. Ask the same question of many students of American History and the answer will be the same. And yet, the Spanish contribution to the birth of the United States was enormously important.

Let it be recognized frankly that neither France nor Spain entered the struggle for the independence of the American Colonies from pure altruism. Nations have always acted for reasons of state, as they do to this day. But this is not to say that the participation of the two countries did not substantially contribute to the winning of independence.

The story of the contribution of France has often been told. But what of the contribution of Spain? That story has been sadly and inexplicably neglected. It is the purpose of this short address to reveal or remind you of that story, as dispassionately and objectively as possible.

Modern research carried out in archives in Spain, France, and Washington reveal that the courts of Madrid and Paris had agreed, early in the year 1776, upon a plan for giving assistance secretly to the
revolting colonies. It was agreed between them that in order to insure the secrecy, since neither Court was to appear as an ally of the insurgents, all monies and supplies should be handled by a third party and appear as open business transactions. (italics added). (Comment by GWH: Why was it feasible on 4 July 1776 for the American Colonies to declare independence? One partial answer is that the framers knew that France and Spain were in support and would presumably be trading partners for the future. Without such support, it would not have made sense to declare independence from one’s lifeline, and the war would have taken some other course.)

Sympathy for the Americans, when they began open hostilities against the mother country, ran high throughout Spain. At that time, however, Spain was not in a position to make her sympathy openly known. She was engaged in a war with Portugal over possessions in South America that was costing her vast amounts in money and many men and ships. England, the open ally of Portugal, held the dangerous points of Minorca, Mahan, and Gibraltar. Her navy was the most powerful on the seas, second in numbers only to the Spanish fleet.

Carlos III, was, at this time, diplomatically involved in peace negotiations with Portugal and could ill afford to enter into any alliance that might endanger the successful conclusion of these negotiations. To become openly engaged in the struggle of the American colonists against their mother country would certainly lead to a declaration of war against England and invite an immediate blockade of all Spanish ports, thus ending all possibility of signing the desired treaty with Portugal. Such was the position of Spain when the Americans began hostilities against England. It also sufficiently explains the reasons why Spain decided to keep secret her aid to the revolting colonies.

It was arranged accordingly that, to start with, the two Bourbon Courts would make an outright gift of two million “livres tournaises,” one million to come from each Court. One of the first moves consisted of setting up a fictitious company to direct the aid program, make purchases of supplies, arrange for their shipment to the Colonies, contact American agents living in France, and account for the money spent. (Comment by GWH: the dummy company was the famous “Rodrigue Hortalese and Company,” and its main director was the French playwright and statesman Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais of France.) Thus, in June 1776, when the American Revolution had just begun, we find both Spain and France acting officially, though under the seal of secrecy, as allies of the English colonies against their mother country. Even before this date, however, supplies had been going out on a haphazard basis through the ports of Spain, France, and Holland, as ship captains from America picked up arms and ammunition in personal trading ventures. Moreover, much important trade of this nature had been going on through the Spanish ports in the West Indies. Using these same ports as bases, American captains had been able to prey upon British merchant vessels during the first months of the war. (italics added).

By September 1777, Spain had already furnished the American insurgents with 1,870,000 livres tournaises, but before long, it became apparent to the court of Madrid that the funds which had been given equally by the two nations were being credited, by the Americans, solely to the Court of France.

Nevertheless, Spain was still maintaining in 1777 the cloak of secrecy over its operations, a secrecy believed to be vital to the security of its (Spain’s) American dominion. For this reason, when Charles III decided to send Juan Miralles as an observer to the headquarters of General Washington in 1777, Miralles took up his duties under the patronage of the French Ambassador, following the instructions of the Spanish Court. Miralles’ position was humiliating. He felt, and not without reason, that the affairs of Spain were being adjusted to the indirect advantage of France. But it proved impossible to bring about a change in his status. Washington and Miralles became very close friends. The Spanish diplomat died in Washington’s headquarters, at Morristown, in April 1780. The highest military honors were rendered to him as if he had been a fully accredited ambassador. Washington paid his final tribute to his friend in a letter to the Governor of Havana saying of him “in this country he has been universally esteemed and (his death) will be universally regretted.”

In the fall of 1777, Washington, his army short of clothing and war supplies, was facing the winter that might well decide the fate of his country. Desperate agents of the colonies were becoming more and more indiscreet, announcing openly the sources of aid to America. By giving the strong impression that Spain and France were actually their open allies, they hoped to weaken England’s will to continue the war.

Finally, on the 21st of June 1779, Spain declared war against Great Britain. But before that happened, the hard-pressed Americans were being placed in possession of sorely needed supplies along the western frontier through the Spanish Governor of Louisiana in New Orleans, Bernardo de GÁLVEZ. New Orleans was this to become crucial to the cause of the American Revolution. There, the story of the collaboration between Oliver POLLOCK, who was well on his way to becoming one of the
greatest financiers in North America, and the young Spanish Governor, Bernardo de GÁLVEZ, would remain forever a glorious affirmation of the friendship between Spain and the struggling new nation.
It is not my purpose to go into the narrative of the campaigns which followed. I would rather mention very briefly some of its more relevant details.

Fortunately the renewed interest in their own history awakened in Americans by the celebration of the Bicentennial year has reminded many of the decisive importance of the role played by Bernardo de GÁLVEZ in the unfolding of the American Revolution. Nevertheless, not many Americans know about the “Marcha de Gálvez” and about the fight which took place along the Caribbean (Gulf) coast of the United States or up the Mississippi Valley, in which Americans and Spaniards fought together
against the common English foe. And this is so because there is a tendency to consider the American Revolution as a series of dramatic events taking place in a comparatively small area along the Eastern Seaboard, forgetting the crucial importance that the Mississippi River Valley and the Northeast Coast of the Gulf of Mexico did actually have in the success of the uprising.

The celebration of the Bicentennial has been an excellent opportunity to bring back to the arena of the American Revolution the role played by Louisiana and the rest of the territories of North America which were once under the sovereignty of Spain (italics added.)

Spain’s attitude in the first moments of the Revolution was clearly expressed by Don Bernardo de GÁLVEZ when he wrote Colonel MORGAN, at the time Commander in Fort Pitt, on August 9, 1997. After expressing his support for the colonists’ cause, GÁLVEZ said: “Your can count on me
extending whatever aid is within my power to give, as long as I appear to be totally ignorant of it.” That cautious attitude was totally in line with the secrecy requested for the operation by the court of Spain, as was mentioned before.

Spain’s entry into the War came at a time that was highly critical for the Colonists, who were trying to fight the strongest nation in Europe almost barehanded. In 1778, the center of gravity of the war had been transferred from the North to the South and there the fortunes of war were not exactly favoring the Colonists. That year the English took Savannah and Augusta, as well as other towns, causing severe setbacks for the American forces which had lost some 5,000 men.

It was then the British hastened to put into action their long contemplated plans for the capture of New Orleans, and there is little doubt that their success would have given them permanent command of the Mississippi Basin, from Canada to the Gulf.

It is very easy to imagine what the consequences of such a situation would have meant to the cause of the American Revolution. With the British already controlling all the Eastern Coast, Canada and Florida, their possession of the Mississippi Valley would have strangled the rebellion to death.

Spain contributed to prevent this from happening by entering the Revolutionary War and providing the Colonists with secure Southern and Western borders, from its (Spain’s) bases in Louisiana and Cuba. This was extremely important since it prevented the American Revolutionaries from getting encircled. Supplies could continue to flow up the Mississippi and, from then on, the Colonists would be able to wage their war of Independence with their backs well protected.

The Spanish Commander-in-Chief was Don Bernardo de GÁLVEZ. In September 1779, he led his forces 115 miles north of New Orleans in eleven days, in what is known as the “Marcha de Gálvez,” capturing Manchack (Manchac), Baton Rouge and Natchez, British posts on the Mississippi. Then he turned on Mobile, which he conquered by the end of March 1780, leaving only Pensacola, capitol of West Florida, that was to be surrendered to him by Brigadier General John CAMPBELL, together with
1100 prisoners, by the summer of 1781.

Spain’s declaration of war on England forced the British to fight on several fronts at the same time, having to oppose the combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 90 vessels which was laying siege to Gibraltar, and (which) had even threatened to invade England itself. In this way, they tied up a sizeable percentage of the British fleet from the Indian Ocean to the Caribbean, making it impossible for England to effect a blockade on the American Coast, and so facilitating the operation of an
ever-growing fleet of American and foreign privateers. The activities of Spanish privateers were also an important factor as they helped to cripple English means of communication and transportation. Among these privateers was the Spaniard Jorge Farragut, father of the first American Admiral. (Footnote: Jorge Farragut was actually father of David G.Farragut, famous for his capture of New Orleans in the Civil War, April 1862.)

(The above was published by the Genealogical Research Society of New Orleans, P. O. Box 51791, New Orleans, LA, 70151, in its journal, New Orleans Genesis, vol 71( June 1779) 269-270, and used with permission.)

Who and What won the Revolutionary War?
Sea power, clandestine aid, unknown treaties, treasure ships, biological warfare, U-boats, or other?
By Granville W. Hough
South Coast Chapter, CASSAR
Somos Primos, December 2002

In reviewing several thousand records of individual soldiers and sailors who served in the Revolutionary War under American, French Spanish, and Dutch flags, my daughter and I had to ask ourselves, over and over, what these individuals were doing in the places listed for their service. We began to get new insights (to us) on what it all meant. When we read what American, French, and Spanish historians say about the war, we had to remind ourselves they were talking about the
same war the individual soldiers and sailors of our study actually fought and died in. To the British, Yorktown in 1781 was just a failure in application of sea-power, not particularly interesting in the long run of British successes. To the French, the failure of the invasion of England in 1779 was just the result of biological warfare (unintended ??) which devastated the Spanish and French fleets, but not the British fleet. To the French, Les Saintes, with its loss of more than 3100 killed or captured, was not a climactic battle which changed the course of naval warfare, but just a setback which had little effect on the outcome of the war. The list goes on and on. Even the agreements which governed conduct of the war, or clandestine aid, or privateering, are unknown or ignored by many historians. (endnote 1)

The Effect of the U. S. Victory at Saratoga

Few Americans saw with greater clarity than George Washington how the future of the nation lay in sea power. For without access to the sea there would be no arms and supplies, no markets and access to worldly goods through trade. No one courted more avidly the representatives of France and Spain than did Washington, for these countries had enough sea-power to divert Britain away from the local land conflict of the thirteen colonies.

The Battle of Saratoga (Sep 1777) convinced France the colonies could win. For over a year France and Spain, each separately, and together in a secret 50-50 financial partnership, had been covertly supplying the Americans with money, arms and war materials. (endnote 2). France
formally recognized the U. S. as a nation by signing a treaty of Friendship and Trade on 6 Feb 1778, as well as a secret military treaty. An (undeclared) war with Britain soon erupted, and Britain
immediately changed her priorities to reflect the new reality.

First, protect the homeland from invasion;
Second, protect the sugar islands and timber resources of the West Indies;
Third, restore the 13 colonies to British sovereignty;
Fourth, hold Gibraltar and Mediterranean sea bases;
Fifth, advance British interests in other areas.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "This fact shows how the French alliance had changed the nature of the war. It now became to a large extent a contest between the two navies (e. g., British and French), the principal evolutions of which occurred in West Indian and European seas." Perhaps the statement could be improved from the French perspective if the Indian Ocean were added. Certainly the result was much of what George Washington had hoped for. (endnote 3)

Britain Wins the First Strategic Moves

Britain aligned her available forces in the Western Hemisphere by pulling General Clinton back from Philadelphia to New York so she could send 5000 of Clinton’s troops to take the initiative in the West Indies. Of course, George Washington gained maneuver room; but it also gave the West Indies commanders the forces needed to capture the port of St Lucia on 30 Dec 1778. With this naval base thirty miles from the French base at Fort Royal, Britain could monitor French naval activities in the West Indies. For the British, this became the most important naval outpost in the West Indies for the remainder of the war. The British also strengthened their hold in Central America.

In protecting its homeland, Britain relied on its navy; and the first engagement was at Ushant, just off the coast of France. The British forces met the French forces and fought an inconclusive engagement on 27 Jul 1778, though each side claimed victory. What it actually did was to make the British realize the French Royal Navy had been rebuilt and retrained well enough to meet the British head on. It caused the French to pause in their thinking they could conquer Britain with sea and land forces in a cross-channel attack. They realized after Ushant that the British navy was standing by and concentrated to fight any invading force every step of the way. The British had met their first challenge to the homeland, and they kept the initiative afterwards. The French ambition to invade Britain did not die immediately, but each time the French put out feelers, the British navy was waiting. The concentration of British sea power near the British Isles did allow greater access by other ships to the southern route to the West Indies, then northward to the United States.

The French were committed to aid America and sent an Expeditionary fleet under Admiral Count d’Estaing on 12 April 1778 to that end. This fleet arrived at the Delaware River too late to stop General Clinton on his way back to New York. Then it went on to New York, but it would not enter the harbor to attack. It did engage the British at sea near Newport, but bad weather hampered operations.

D’Estaing went on to Boston to refit and repair, having achieved neither American nor French objectives. Then he moved on to the West Indies where France had real interests. General Bouillé had already captured Dominique in 1778. This cut the British islands in two but this was balanced by the British capture of St Lucia. D’Estaing failed in his attempt to recapture it. He captured St Vincent and Grenada and fought several successful naval engagements, preventing the British from
either recapturing these islands or accomplishing their other aims. From there he decided to intervene again in the American colonies at Savannah, Georgia, which the British had captured and fortified. He led a land and sea force to Savannah, joined with American forces, and laid siege to it in Sep 1779. British regulars and Loyalist units made a brilliant defense and soundly defeated both Americans and French in Oct 1779. Admiral d’Estaing sent the West Indies troops back to their bases and took his own fleet to France.

Britain gained strategically and lost economically in these first West Indies battles, but St. Lucie was of greater strategic value than the islands she lost. She also gained in the U. S. by holding Savannah and fortifying New York, but lost when she abandoned Narraganset Bay, Rhode Island, which soon provided an excellent naval base and safe haven for Rochambeau’s Expeditionary Force.

Welcome Help from Spain and India Sultan
France as a member of the Bourbon Alliance with Spain encouraged that country to enter the war. In the 12 Apr 1779 secret Convention of Aranjuez, the conditions for Spain’s entry were established. As summarized by historian Jonathan R. Dull in his book, The French Navy and American Independence, page 142, this Convention activated the articles of the Bourbon Family Compact relating to mutual assistance in case of war. It contained an article relating to mutual assistance for the invasion of Britain in accordance with the operational plans then held in France. Spain promised not to make a separate peace, (probably recognizing France’s obligation to the American colonies not to make peace unless American independence was secured, though the American colonies/United States were not mentioned in the Convention). Then Dull continues, page 143, "The critical section of the convention related to the war aims of the Bourbons. Spain and France promised not to end the war until the former had obtained the restitution of Gibraltar and the latter the abrogation of the restrictions placed in 1763 upon fortifying Dunkirk. Floridablanca (the Spanish negotiator) tried unsuccessfully to insert the capture of Minorca and the Atlantic coast of Florida into the category of absolute preconditions for peace. Each power then announced its other war goals. France announced her intention to acquire the expulsion of the British from Newfoundland, freedom of commerce and the right to fortify her trading posts in India, the recovery of Senegal, the retention of Dominica, and the rectification of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), governing commercial relations with Britain. Spain announced her intention to obtain the reacquisition of East and West Florida, the expulsions of the English from their illegal settlements on the Bay of Honduras, the revocation of English timber rights on the coast of Campeche, and the restitution of Minorca." (endnote 4.)

When the naval and army needs for each objective of the Convention are considered, it is clear that it was a Europe-centered approach to the war. There was of course no mention of any French Expeditionary Force to the United States. The plans to invade England were a central feature and had been drawn up by French officials Sartine and Montbarey, and had been ready since 19 March, with 20,000 troops to occupy the Isle of Wight and subsequently to land at Gosport from which the Portsmouth naval arsenal and hopefully the British fleet could be destroyed by mortar fire. Vergennes hoped the transports and supply ships could be collected by the end of May. Spain was to pay for the invasion. The Irish nationalists were extremely interested in invading Britain, and both Spain and France had Irish Regiments which would have been enthusiastic participants.

Both France and Spain wanted a quick and decisive stroke, BUT: Dull notes, page 134. "Since to attack England would require 70,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, Vergennes (the leading French minister) suggested instead to attack Ireland with 27,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, half to be provided by each country. Vergennes expected the Irish, particularly the Irish Presbyterians with their passion of democracy, to rise against the English…." When the Spanish made clear they would not provide troops, but only limited naval support, Vergennes began to consider alternative invasion plans. This went on all through the summer of 1779. One plan after another was studied and put on hold. The British spy network in France and Spain reported on the planning and put the British people on alert. Alfred T. Mahan, in his Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence, page 117, stated: "The alarm in England was very great, especially in the south. On the 9th of July a royal proclamation had commanded all horses and cattle to be driven from the coasts, in case of invasion. Booms had been placed across the entrance to Plymouth harbor, and orders were sent from the Admiralty to sink vessels across the harbor’s mouth. Many who had the means withdrew into the interior, which increased the panic…"

The situation was finally resolved in August, 1779, when the Spanish fleet joined six weeks late, and both fleets suffered from an epidemic. (The name of this disease and the number of casualties it caused have not been found, and it apparently did not affect the British fleet. In the U. S. political climate of late 2002, it would surely be credited to biological warfare.) The combined but sickness- weakened French and Spanish fleet of 65 warships could not even find, let alone destroy, the English fleet of 35 warships protecting the British Isles, such destruction being the prerequisite for invasion. The troops waiting to attack had to go on to other missions. Though Britain did not know it at the time, it gained its first priority objective of protecting the homeland from invasion in August, 1779. The French minister, Vergennes, gradually moved the focus of the war to the Western Hemisphere, though the terms of the Aranjuez Convention were not changed.

Other hostilities by Spain began immediately at sea, in West Florida, and in Central America. Greatest successes were achieved by Governor Bernardo de Gálvez of Louisiana, who captured Baton Rouge in 1779, then Mobile in 1780, then focused on Pensacola in 1781. In 1780, Spain sent an army of 10,000 men to the West Indies to support its activities there. Her main effort, however, was in her adjacent waters where she blockaded Gibraltar and laid siege to it, and moved to recover all the Balearic islands she had lost after the Seven Years War.

When the news of war with France reached India in 1778, the British authorities there moved against the French installations with the intent of eliminating the French presence in India. They captured Pondicherry in the Bay of Bengal in 1778. A fleet arrived to help in 1779. British capture of the French port of Mahé on the Western shore of India alarmed the Sultan of Mysore, and he declared war on the British in July 1780. This diverted the British efforts for some time until the Sultan could be neutralized. By 1781, both France and Britain had fleets in the Indian Ocean protecting their individual interests, as explained below.

The Netherlands Takes a Beating

Under the guise of free trade, the Netherlands had been involved from the beginning in clandestine support of the Americans. Her island port of St Eustatius in the West Indies was the world’s busiest port in 1778 and 1779, handling the majority of supplies and arms bound for the United States. Britain was determined to shut it down. When the British ministries learned on 16 Dec 1780 that the United Provinces of the Netherlands had resolved to join, without delay, the Armed Neutrality Pact with Russia, Sweden, Prussia, and Italy, Britain sent orders for Admiral Rodney to seize the Dutch West Indies and South American possessions, and similar orders were sent to the East Indies.

The Ambassador at the Hague was recalled. On 20 Dec 1780, Britain declared war on the Netherlands. Admiral Rodney captured St Eustatius on 3 Feb 1781, and captured or neutralized all other Dutch outlets in the West Indies and in Surinam. (He actually captured 130 merchantmen in the port, including one Dutch frigate. He also captured a Dutch warship with a convoy of Dutch ships which had just left. He left the Dutch flag flying for more than a month after the surrender, and captured 50 more American ships loaded with tobacco. A convoy from Guadeloupe was brought in. Records vary, but most totals come to more than 200 sail. This gave him several thousand prisoners, with which he filled all the available space in Barbados and Jamaica. Likely, he converted some of the merchantmen into prison ships. For many months later, almost every armed ship going to New York, Halifax, and the British Isles had its contingent of prisoners.) In August, 1781 the Dutch fleet was defeated at Dogger Bank in the English Channel, and the Netherlands was unable to protect her overseas possessions either in the Dutch East Indies on in the West Indies. The Netherlands became the heaviest loser of the war in terms of net loss per citizen. As the American naval historian, Mahan, noted: "…The principal effect, therefore, of the Armed Neutrality, upon the war was to add the colonies and commerce of Holland to the prey of English cruisers."

King Carlos’ Personal Representative Expedites War in the Western Hemisphere

Don Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis was personal representative of King Carlos III in the West Indies (endnote 5). His journal, only recently translated (1989), notes that on the way to Havana in late 1780, his ship was captured by the British, who accepted his claim to be a Spanish merchant and took him to Jamaica. They put him on parole, giving him an opportunity to get around in the country where he quietly studied its defenses. In early 1781, he was finally able to get put aboard a ship to Cuba and immediately began to carry out his mission. His mandate was to speak as the King and do the following in priority:
(1) capture Pensacola;
(2) remit rapidly to Spain all funds possible;
(3) to assist the president of Guatemala to expel the English from Nicaragua;
(4) and in conjunction with the French, conquer Jamaica.
He galvanized Spanish authorities to reinforce General Matías Gálvez in Central America and General Bernardo Gálvez at Pensacola. He personally went to Pensacola, where he took part in the final part of the Siege and in the negotiations. This completed the first mission given him by King Carlos III. Whether oversight or Spanish lack of concern for the interests of the United States, Gálvez and Saavedra released the captured British when they agreed never again to fight the forces of Spain. These British soldiers were immediately sent to bolster the defenses of New York City, where they stayed until 1784.

It was a few weeks later when Saavedra showed up in St Domingue to develop further plans for an invasion of Jamaica. Within a week after his arrival on 12 Jul, he had met with all the key government and military officials and had analyzed the defenses of Cap Français. Admiral de Grasse arrived from a successful venture on 16 Jul and by the time he had docked, Saavedra had analyzed the armament and sheathing of every ship in his fleet. He and de Grasse met officially on 18 Jul and showed each other their official orders: Saavedra’s authorization from Madrid to deal with de Grasse and other French officials; and De Grasse’s authorization to deal with Saavedra and Spanish officials. They analyzed the opportunities and settled on three: "These were to aid the Anglo- Americans powerfully, in such a way that the English cabinet would in the end lose the hope of subduing them; to take possession of various points in the Windward Islands, where the English fleets lying in protected forts were threatening French and Spanish possessions; and to conquer Jamaica, the center of the wealth and power of Great Britain in that part of the world." (page 200, Saavedra Diary.) For simplicity in this essay, they are referred to as Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III.

What next happened is best put in Saavedra’s words (pages 200, 201), "Then Comte de Grasse made known to me the project already agreed upon, that of taking possession of Chesapeake Bay in North Carolina (actually in Virginia) and penetrating inland by way of the deep rivers that empty
into it, in order to cut off the retreat and prevent the reinforcement of the army of Lord Cornwallis, who was in that area. At the same time General Washington, Comte de Rochambeau, and the Marquis de Lafayette, who had already agreed to the plan, would encircle him on all sides with their respective troops and totally destroy him or oblige him to surrender." This was the ideal activity to accomplish the first part of their agreed plan. When de Grasse let Saavedra know of the Chesapeake Bay Campaign, he, with de Grasse’s help, developed their plan in French and English, made six copies, signed them, and dispatched them to their respective governments in Madrid and Paris. When these papers were accepted in Madrid and Paris, they became known as the "de Grasse – Saavedra Convention." They governed the subsequent French-Spanish relations and conduct of war in the Western Hemisphere. They were, in effect, the operational plans for Vergennes’ moves to shift the war to that hemisphere, modifying the focus of the Convention of Aranjuez. These papers explain the urgency for getting funds for de Grasse to take to Rochambeau. But there was one hitch: de Grasse could not raise the money (endnote 6).

Havana Citizens Help Finance Attack on North American Mainland

De Grasse had received a 6 June 1781 letter from General Rochambeau that Rochambeau’s funds on hand were insufficient to maintain his army after 20 August, that there was no money available in America, and that it would be advantageous to the Royal service for de Grasse to borrow in the islands 1,200,000 livres in gold by means of bills of exchange drawn on M. de Serilly, Treasurer- General of the Army. As de Grasse and his wife had rich sugar plantations in Haiti, de Grasse first tried to use these plantations as collateral in order to raise the money, but was only able to gain 50,000 livres that way. At no point in his diary did Saavedre ever mention any mortgage on de Grasse properties in St Domingue, but others indicate that was the case for these 50,000 livres. De Grasse then tried to get money from Governor Lillancourt of St Domingue, but that treasury was empty. On 25 July, seeing de Grasse was having no success, Saavedra gave him 100,000 pesos, from funds assigned to the Santo Domingo Treasury but in temporary safe-keeping at Cap Français. Saavedra also believed there was money in the Havana Treasury which he could authorize, so on 26 Jul de Grasse wrote Rochambeau that he would bring the money in specie as requested. Saavedra departed for Havana on 4 August and arrived there on 15 Aug; but to his surprise, there was no money in the Treasury.

So on 16 Aug 1781, Saavedra turned to the people of Havana, who in six hours sent to the Treasury 500,000 pesos in specie. By 18 Aug 1781 Saavedra was able to get these funds to Mananzas and into the French fleet, and de Grasse set off to the Chesapeake Bay. The specific amounts mentioned by Saavedra were the three amounts noted above, a total of 600,000 pesos and 50,000 livres. (The money was disembarked at its destination and placed in the cabin of Commissar Blanchard, Financial Officer for Rochambeau, where during the first night its weight broke the floor and the specie fell into the basement.) The Battle of Yorktown in Sep/Oct 1781 clinched American Independence and effectively ended the land war in the United States, and it blocked the British third priority of regaining the thirteen colonies, though neither of these were obvious at the time.

The de Grasse – Saavedra Convention also explain why de Grasse was so impatient after Yorktown to return to the West Indies. Phase II was waiting for him, and de Grasse must have considered it was his personal obligation to do what he had committed the French government to do. In the following months, de Grasse in the West Indies did indeed accomplish enough of Phase II, recovering islands which had been lost to Britain and taking British islands, to go on into Phase III, the invasion of Jamaica. While concentrating troops for that operation in 1782, he met his fate at Les Saintes.

Allied Gains Always Mixed with Losses
Despite the Dutch losses, the year of 1781 must have been the high point for those fighting Britain, particularly in the Western Hemisphere. Early in the year, General Bernardo Gálvez, with French help, had captured Pensacola. In September and October, the Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown Campaign was successfully completed. After the Chesapeake and Yorktown battles, Admiral de Grasse left the Chesapeake Bay for the West Indies and began to recover islands taken by the British. French General Bouillé recaptured the former Dutch island of St Eustatius by a night raid on the port fort from the land side; he also recaptured other islands the British had taken. Duc de Crillon, a French general leading French and Spanish troops, in July landed 14,000 troops on Minorca in the Mediterranean Sea and doomed Port Mahon, which finally fell 5 Feb 1782, giving Spain one of its objectives. The French Captain (later Admiral) Suffren defeated a British fleet at Porto Praya in the Cape Verde Islands, then reinforced the Dutch in the Cape in South Africa, then moved on into the Indian Ocean.

The Siege of Gibraltar was making slow progress, and the British were seriously overextended. The Spanish, however, lost a naval encounter with Admiral Rodney off the coast of Spain, with the Spanish admiral being captured. This was one of only a few fleet confrontations the Spanish had with the British, and this one seemed to make the whole Spanish navy overly cautious. (With respect to the Spanish navy, the author of this essay notes that its year by year experience, for generations, had been, first and foremost, to guard or serve as the treasure ships which moved the riches of Spanish America and the Philippines across the Atlantic to Spain. This was an absolutely essential duty, for the treasure ships were the economic lifelines of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish admirals could and indeed did fight on other assignments, but they did best what they were experienced in doing, guarding or being the treasure ships.)

By 1782, operations to invade Jamaica were well underway in the West Indies. Large British and French fleets were poised to support or repel the invasion. While Admiral de Grasse was concentrating troops for the Jamaica invasion, he was forced into a climactic battle at Les Saintes
and was thoroughly defeated on 9 and 12 April. He lost five of his thirty warships in the battle and two more later in the pursuit. His fleet was scattered, but gradually rallied by Admiral Rigaud de
Vaudreuil who took command. On 13 April Admiral Vaudreuil had 10 ships. On 14 April and in following days he was joined by five more. When he got to Cap Français, he found five more, bringing his total to 20. The five remaining ships had fled to Curacao, 600 miles away, and were able to rejoin the fleet later in May.

According to French sources, de Grasse’s fleet suffered 791 killed, 1119 wounded, 415 disappeared. These figures seem absolutely accurate for the categories listed because all the ships engaged had killed and wounded, not just those captured. The category left out is the largest one, the able-bodied mariners and soldiers from the seven captured ships who were taken to prisons in Kingston, Jamaica, and other places. How many were there? We actually have the names of 4200 mariners assigned to the seven vessels captured, the Ville-de-France, Glorieux, Caton, Hecto, César, Ardent, & Jason. All these records are for the time of Les Saintes except the César, which is for the end of 1779. When the soldiers permanently assigned to the ships are added in, the French combatants killed, died of wounds, captured, and disappeared in the Les Saintes actions must be a greater number than the 3100 figure given by American authors (endnote 9). (De Grasse was himself captured on his warship and taken to England where many people came to visit him. His behavior was so well received that he was asked to contribute to peace negotiations.)

Les Saintes stopped the invasion of Jamaica in 1782, and established a naval standoff in the West Indies and no further great naval battles took place, even though the combined French and Spanish warships were greater than the British. The fleets watched each other and maneuvered hither and yon. The British and French gained in caution. (The Spanish fleet was already cautious.) The British did take the initiative in small, privateering and profiteering operations, with the example of Rodney’s fortunes from St Eustatius before them. They quickly reestablished themselves on the Central American coast, recaptured the Bahamas on 7 May 1783 so Nassau could be reestablished as a privateering base, and wreaked havoc on Allied privateers and shipping. (World War II veterans remember the German U-boats, and the privateers were the U-boats of the Revolutionary War.)

Americans were best privateers because they had little else. The British also got very good at it toward the end of the war, with naval vessels joining in when an opportunity arose. The Spanish had black and mixed descendants of buccaneers whose normal occupation was smuggling and piracy. Also flying the Spanish flag were familiar names such as Jean Lafitte and Captain Jorge Farragut (grandfather of Capt David Farragut of Civil War fame.)

At Gibraltar, the siege slowed down into a stalemate. Each time the garrison and people were reduced to eating grass to stay alive, a British fleet would break through the blockade with supplies. However, the great effort against Gibraltar on 13/14 Sep 1781 was a fiasco with all ten floating batteries sunk or disabled. In Oct 1782, British Admiral Howe, by skillful maneuvering, was able to get through the stronger Spanish and French blockade and replenish the garrison, reducing any Spanish or French hope of starving the garrison and people. Shortly afterwards, preliminary peace negotiations began, with an agreement on 30 Nov, 1782 with the United States, and in January,
1783 with France and Spain. Peace with the Dutch was not signed until 1784.

Meanwhile, the British Admiral Hughes took a fleet into the Indian Ocean where it fought with Admiral Suffren five times, on 17 Feb, 12 Apr, 6 Jul, 3 Sep 1782, and 20 June 1783. Though neither side could claim a decisive naval victory, Admiral Suffren was able to frustrate British plans and protect French land victories. The British had earlier captured the French port of Mahé on the West Coast of India, then in the Bay of Bengal the French trading post at Pondicherry (1778), then
Cuddalore (1782), the Dutch port of Trincomalee on Ceylon (1782), the latter three recaptured by the French. A British historian Piers Mackesy in his book, The War for America, stated: "The British Army’s situation was serious…"; with French forces on land holding the advantage, far more so than the peace negotiators knew (endnote 8). A small French force under La Pérouse also got into Hudson’s Bay, Canada, and captured several frontier forts. But the tide had turned. There were no more serious discussions of a French invasion of England. However, concentration of forces to invade Jamaica were well advanced; and Saavedra went to Paris and Madrid to seek support for Jamaica operations. The fact that he had been there and studied the fortifications paid off.

After Les Saintes, the Spanish and French leaders in the West Indies had taken stock of their combined army and naval fleet strength and again began to concentrate their forces for the invasion of Jamaica, the third part of the de Grasse – Saavedra Convention. Saavedra was able to arrange for 9 million pesos to be furnished from Mexico to support the invasion, 18 times the amount which
guaranteed the Yorktown success. The Expeditionary Force to America, so successful at Yorktown under Rochambeau, was moved in Dec 1782 from Boston to Puerto Cabello in Venezuela to take part in the invasion. General Bernardo de Gálvez was to be the Spanish commander and leader, with a total of 20,000 troops, mostly waiting in St Domingue. General Marquis de Viomesnil, of the
Expeditionary Force was to be French commander and second in command of the French forces of about 8,000 troops. Saavedra was able to encourage the reinforcements gathered at Cadiz in Spain under Comte d’Estaing of a combined land force of 12,000 men plus an escort sea force of 24 ships of the line by early 1783. D’Estaing was to take along the Governor-designate of Jamaica, Marquis de Lafayette. But it was too late. Britain had gained its second priority, its most productive sugar islands, in the peace negotiations.

Exhaustion Breeds Peace

Peace negotiations went on while concentration of battle forces for the Jamaica operation continued, as well as a hot naval and land war in and near India, and a privateering and profiteering war in Western Hemisphere. Being outnumbered in capital ships, Britain was faced with the possible loss of Jamaica and all her sugar islands. She was barely hanging on at Gibraltar and India was all but gone, though the peace negotiators did not know that. In the United States, she only held New York and Charleston. She had lost Minorca in the Mediterranean and Tobago and other islands in the West Indies. Britain was forced to negotiate, but she, like Saddam Hussein in 2002, was very good at that. In these negotiations, she accepted the independence of the United States. She gave up advantages gained in 1763 at the end of the Seven Years War. She retained the Dutch port of Nagapotam but gave up Trincomalae in the East Indies.

France had made good on her promises and had assured the independence of the United States, but at great cost. In 1987, the estimated cost of France’s participation was set at 1500 million livres. Translated into 2002 currency it comes out as 4. 5 billion dollars, huge by any standard, for which Americans should be forever grateful. (Endnote 7) France and Spain had been initially unable and later unwilling to invade England; further, the war had put the French Royal finance on the road to bankruptcy. France was ready to negotiate, and in these negotiations gained nearly all her Aranjuez objectives. She gave up all her sugar island conquests except Tobago and regained St Lucie.
Spain’s losses were less than those of France as she was in the conflict a shorter time and furnished less financial aid to America. She had failed in her main aim to retake Gibraltar. She even offered to exchange Puerto Rico for Gibraltar, but the planter monopolists of Jamaica and the sugar islands objected because they feared what the competition would be if Puerto Rico were in British
hands. Spain was having financial difficulty and was ready to negotiate. In these negotiations, she kept West Florida and Minorca and gained East Florida, and blocked the British in Central America.
The peace treaty was finally signed 3 Sep 1783, with all participants in the war financially depleted and emotionally exhausted.

And the Winner is ….?,

In the global conflict which the American Revolution became, with Britain conducting five wars at once, in as many different theatres of operation, it is clear that Britain lost the immediate war; but, as a prudent loser must, she took careful stock of her situation. From these postwar analyses, she gradually evolved a recovery plan through the following years and decades which placed her
ahead as a world power. Although the combined French and Spanish battle fleets outnumbered the British battle fleet at the end of the American Revolution, they could never combine operations well enough to overcome the British. Britain gained naval superiority over other nations by default, but she retained that superiority until World War II. What she did not win in war, she negotiated into the Peace Treaty and gained relative advantages in commerce which allowed her to recover before France and Spain. She was able to observe, with minimal participation, when the winners, France and Spain, went into self-destruct in the next two decades. She was also careful to be never again caught fighting an allied coalition that could assemble superior naval strength. Of her five priority objectives, she lost the third priority one, her 15 colonies, 13 to America and 2 to Spain. She kept Canada and Ireland and laid the foundation for the British Empire. What she lost in her fifteen colonies, she began, slowly and carefully, to replace in India, Africa, Australia, Pacific Ocean, and elsewhere. Many historians indicate Britain flat out lost the war, and that her subsequent development had nothing to do with war, coming later at other times and for other reasons. But this author concludes that the foundation of her empire was in her careful analysis of events of the eight years which preceded 3 Sep 1783.

Without this war to shake her up and get her refocused, the world would have developed much differently. Because she supported the great ocean explorer, Capt James Cook (1728-1779), Britain also came out of the conflict knowing more about the Pacific Ocean than any other power. Capt Cook and his scientific explorations really opened the Pacific world, which had partly been known to the Spanish but kept secret by them. He experimented with sauerkraut and citrus and confirmed that scurvy (the ancient scourge of sailors) could be prevented. British sailors became known as
"limeys" but were the most "fit to fight" sailors in the world. He confirmed there was no usable "Northwest Passage." Cook’s sightings on the British Columbia coast and brief stop on Vancouver Island supported a British claim of discovery which almost led to war with Spain later, but was avoided with an agreement of joint rights. Eventually Britain successfully expanded the claim to all of Western Canada. Spain never took advantage of Cook’s discoveries, but France did make a start with the great voyage of La Pérouse after the war. (This voyage was the high point of the 1780 decade for the isolated Spanish communities he visited on the Pacific rim. His descriptions of Los Californianos are the best available discussions on early California life and customs. His ships were the first non-Spanish vessels the Californians had ever seen.)

In 1779 Joseph Banks proposed in Parliament a solution to handling the British criminals and riffraff formerly sent to the American Colonies. He had seen Australia when he was with Capt Cook, and knew the Southeastern Coast could be colonized. He also thought it would be a suitable place to resettle American Tories, but that did not happen. However, Australia was soon colonized with
soldiers and convicts as a British possession.

How the World Has Changed Since Then!

Older SAR members can recall our post-World War I grade school texts. When we read our first America history text, we gloried in the accounts of Bunker Hill, Stony Point, Saratoga and Yorktown. Then we picked up our geography text for the next class and marveled at the world map with all that pink representing the British Empire.

No teacher pointed out that these were two aspects of the same story of how the United States became a great nation and Britain became a world empire. No teacher suggested that the climactic battles which determined these outcomes were not fought by the United States but by our allies and co-belligerents. The genius of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and other founding fathers was not on American battlefields but rather in involving Britain’s traditional enemies to join in fighting her.

It was also the genius of the Founding Fathers to set up a representative democracy which gradually became the model for the rest of the world, sweeping away all that British pink on the world globe as well as the multicolored holdings of other European empires. Those ideas and ideals of the Founding Fathers continue today on every continent.
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Endnotes

1. Before preparing the essay above, My daughter N. C. Hough and I wrote eight books, each of which is complete with references. The general title is "Spain’s {Borderland area} Patriots in its 1779-1783 War with England – During the American Revolution" (Society of Hispanic History & Ancestral Research Press, Midway City, CA 92655). For full title replace {Borderland area} with the name below and note the publication date: California, Part 1, 1998; California, Part 2, 1999; Arizona, 1999; New Mexico, 1999; Texas, 2000; Louisiana, 2000; West Indies (2001), this book includes Spanish, French; Dutch, and American Patriots); and Northern New Spain – From South of the U. S. Border, 2001.
As we cannot travel, we exhausted the lending libraries of the National Genealogical Society and the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, then settled for one reference per week of interlibrary loans for items not in the lending libraries. We went through everything indexed for the Orange County (CA) Public Library System, The Library for the University of California, Irvine, and the Saddleback College Library (Mission Viejo, CA). We used the resources of the Family History Center, Salt Lake, UT, through its Mission Viejo facility to find the service records for Spanish soldiers who served during the war period and later. Through the internet we studied summaries of several thousand files in the Documentary Relations of the Southwest, University of Arizona, Tucson. We studied the holdings of the History Institute of the Army War College to see if we missed anything. We purchased books not otherwise available. We know we have learned a bit about the individual soldiers and sailors who fought against Britain, where they served, and why they went there. We also know that American historians and histories are ignorant or mute on three significant aspects of the war: (1) that Spain as well as France, both together and separately, provided financial aid and war materials to America beginning in 1776 and continuing throughout the war; (2) that the military and naval actions of Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown and subsequently in the Western Hemisphere were the first phase of the "de Grasse-Saavedra Convention," and (3) that the primary source of funding for Spain, and indirectly to France and America, were the "treasure ships" from Spanish America, the product of work by the peoples from the West Indies through the Philippines and in South America. Without these treasure ships, and the work of those Hispanic peoples providing the treasures, there would have been no funding, no support, probably no
successful Revolution.

2. Aid to America by Spain and France is a subject which should be carefully re-analyzed by American historians. What this author has learned about this aid is that Spain and France each furnished aid separately, and they agreed to share the costs of some aid 50/50. France furnished more aid; however, Spain furnished substantial aid at critical times. Not as characteristic of Spanish
aid but found in French aid is that merchants and other private individuals made large contributions with no apparent involvement of the French government. Finally, it can be argued that French aid was less self-serving than that of Spain. What has been overlooked even by those who know about Spanish aid is that much of it came from Spanish America, not European Spain, and even that which
came from Spain was financed by Spanish America through periodic treasure ships. The aid which flowed through New Orleans up the Mississippi/Ohio River system and enabled the U. S. post-war boundary to shift from the crest of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River came from Mexico with no French support.

Each Spanish area had its special products, and we can consider Mexico as an example? Above and in footnote 5 below, the activities of the personal representative of King Carlos III, Saavedra, are described; and his second priority was simple: SEND MONEY. In November, Saavedra went to Mexico to carry out this priority and inspect the facilities there. On 19 Nov 1781, he met with the Viceroy and got his agreement to send as much money as possible to Havana.

On 22 Nov, he examined the mint and the functions of all its divisions, where 20 to 23 million pesos were minted each year. On 23 Nov he examined the House for the Smelting of Gold and Silver. On 24 Nov, he examined the gunpowder factories of Santa Fe (under construction) and Chapultepec (in operation). On 6 Dec 1781, he visited a region of copper mining, where the interest was in making artillery pieces and preparing copper sheathing for armed vessels. On 13 Dec 1781, he was back in Veracruz where he observed the counting and packing of 1 million pesos for the waiting French frigate Courageuse, which carried food supplies for two months of navigation. Saavedra did not state it was to support Rochambeau’s forces or where it was headed, but it was clearly needed by the French government to support operations somewhere. On 15 Dec, he observed the packing of 2 million pesos for the San Francisco de Asís, which he was to accompany and deliver to Havana. While in Mexico, he arranged for one regiment to be sent immediately to join General Bernardo Gálvez for the invasion of Jamaica. While Saavedra did not visit a foundry in Mexico where artillery pieces were made, other sources indicate one was in operation. Saavedra’s itinerary allowed him to check only a few of the resources from Mexico flowing into the war.

Later, American frigates from time to time went to Havana and picked up money to be delivered to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The activities of the Spanish representative to the Continental Congress, Juan de Mirales, may be useful in determining how much support Spain gave, both before Spain declared war and afterwards. The total amounts are not known. In the 1790’s a Spanish official who had worked with clandestine aid was designated to prepare a total so the United States could pay. He went to Mexico City but died there before he could complete his accounting. No one else took up the task. Spanish officials became engrossed in their European peninsular affairs, and the United States paid what had been previously documented. The remainder has not been paid to this day.

3. The Encyclopaedia Britannica in any edition is good for general discussions of the Revolutionary War as seen by the British, and perhaps by others in Europe. Most articles are substantially accurate in most editions, though historians prefer more exact works. We used the 1955 edition which is at least representative of the point we are making in the quote. We find few historians who disagree with the quote. We ourselves never read the sections below until we looked to see if they supported our initial draft of the above essay. They did, so we used some of their language rather than our own. What we do find are objections to wording of the recommended reading sections "American Revolution, The (1775-1781)" (Vol 1:795-801), "Great Britain" and "Defense:Army" Vol 10:679 and 688, and "United States of America," Vol 22:786-787. Perhaps these objections to the wording are the best recommendations for reading them.

4. Dull, Jonathan R., The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774-1787, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1975. Some historians have endeavored to show that a French invasion of England was a Spanish pre-condition to entering the war which was set at the Convention of Aranjuez. Dull makes clear this was not the case. The planning in France was already complete at that time. Spain merely signed on at Aranjuez to support it. Dull devotes two chapters to this subject. In the preliminary discussions leading up to the Convention of Aranjuez, Floridablanca (the Spanish minister) encouraged a Europe-focused approach to the war, with an invasion of England a central part. This would draw English forces away from the over-extended Spanish empire. France got very serious about invading England, and completed planning to do so. After the Convention of Aranjuez was agreed to, the costs of such an invasion began to emerge. Further, in the summer of 1779, Spain made clear it would provide no troops and only limited naval support. Then in August, 1779, when the combined French and Spanish naval forces were so unsuccessful, Vergennes abandoned the English invasion and began to move the focus of the war to the Western Hemisphere, while concentrating in Europe on capturing convoys, which would effectively place economic pressure on England. Another interesting point about the early French-Spanish negotiations was that Floridablanca in 1777 would not even begin serious discussions on entering the war until the "treasure ships" were safely in Spanish ports. While Dull seems to indicate this was a matter of recovering the battleships on treasure ship duty, this author considers it was equally the necessity for getting the funds in hand for running the Spanish government and supporting any war effort.

5. "Journal of Don Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis during the commission which he held in his charge from 25 June 1780 until the 20th of the same month of 1783," edited by Francisco Morales Padron, and translated by Ailean Moore Topping (University of Florida Press, Gainesville, VL, 1989. For those not fortunate enough to have read this journal, it may be useful to review who he was and what he did. Saavedra was a Spanish noble who was well educated, fluent in Spanish and French, with a working knowledge of English, who had served in the Spanish Army but had joined the diplomatic corps. He was the King’s personal representative in the West Indies, elegant and soft-spoken, but who carried a big stick. When the ship on which he was traveling was captured by
the British, he played the part of an innocent Spanish merchant. He was taken to Jamaica but was put on parole when he expressed a desire to look for commercial opportunities and to improve his English. What he actually did was analyze the British defenses, as he was an expert in that field. While on such a trip, he accidentally ran across two Spanish officers from Central America, also on parole from a prison ship, from whom he got a thorough understanding of the British attacks in Central America, and of the problems faced by General Gálvez (General Matias Gálvez, the father of General Bernardo Gálvez, sometimes referred to as the "other General Gálvez"). Saavedra actually then knew more about the Central American situation than was known in Havana. He knew more about Jamaican fortifications and defenses than any other Spaniard. He could plan the invasion of Jamaica.

6. The funds for Yorktown are discussed in Saavedra’s diary, pages 204-212. The translator and editor, Francisco Morales Padron, added an explanatory footnote on page 208 in which he explained the sequence of events as taken from Henri Doniol, Vol 4:649, Histoire de la participation de la France a l’etablissement des Etats-Unis d’Amerique (Paris, 1884-92); and pp 24-67, Eduardo J. Tejera, La Ayuda Cubana en la Lucha por la Indepencencia Norteamericana (Miami:Ediciones Universal, 1972). The funding arrangements are also discussed in Loliannette, Spanish diplomatic policy and contribution to the United States independence (Umi, 1990).

One question which one might well ask is why the people of St Domingue, a richer colony than Cuba, would not lend the money. This also puzzled Saavedra, who stated on page 208: "It was said that this reluctance of the French to serve their king in so urgent a juncture originated in the fact that, having on another occasion lent money against bills of exchange drawn on the Royal Treasury, the people lost confidence when the redemtion of the bills was delayed for a much longer period than was stipulated in them, and so they refused to give their money even for a premium of 25 percent."

Many legends have grown up about the funds which de Grasse brought from St Domingue and Havana to Comte Rochambeau’s forces. The man who arranged the funds, Saavedra, recorded the facts simply and clearly. As he made no mention of any mortgage on de Grasse properties in his diary, it is not clear how or where such mortgage applied. It most likely applied to the 50,000 livres raised in St Domingue. Certainly it did not apply to the 100,000 pesos of Santo Domingo funds which Saavedra turned over to De Grasse. Certainly it did not apply to the Spanish government funds Saavedra expected to find in Havana. When Saavedra found no money in the Havana treasury, an announcement was immediately promulgated among the Havana citizens in which it was proclaimed that anyone who wished to contribute toward aiding the French fleet with money should send it
immediately to the treasury. Two French officers were sent to collect the funds (and Saavedra does not indicate whether they merely went to the treasury or whether they conveyed the money from the citizens to the Treasury). In six hours the French officers had 500,000 pesos. It is very questionable that the citizens who provided money knew of any mortgage. The citizens of Havana had already loaned money to the Spanish government in Madrid, and a loan to the French government in Paris, an ally of Spain, would have been treated no differently. To Saavedra, representing the Spanish King, any mortgage on de Grasse private properties was not of enough consequence to record.
Probably the source of this legend is best found on in these words: "Grasse profited from his stay in the Antilles to obtain from the Governor 3400 men as reinforcements for Rochambeau. He could also conclude, through the good will of the Spanish governor of Havana, a loan of 1,200,000 livres for which he gave as security his private fortune." (p 13, Du Ministiere des Affairs Etrangeres, Les Combattants Francaise de la Guerre Americaine, 1778-1783, Washington Imprierie Nationale, 1905. This reference was the result of work by French and American representatives of the Sons of the American Revolution to record the names of French Patriots. They of course did not consult Spanish records, and it was 84 years before the record made by Saavedra, the man who arranged the funding, was made available in English.

The other more romantic legend is that the ladies of Havana took their jewels and sold or hocked them and gave money to support the Battle of Yorktown. This is indeed pure fantasy. The best one can gather from what Saavedra recorded is that the people had previously loaned money to the Spanish crown, and this was a similar act, though he does not specify so. Second, the destination of the French Fleet was a secret. Neither de Grasse nor Saavedra knew that Cornwallis
was going to arrive or had arrived at an insignificant little river town called York. All the public knew from the proclamation and request for contributions was that the fleet was moving north to attack the British on mainland America.

Of course, Saavedra and key Spanish officials knew the Chesapeake Bay destination, but they would not have disclosed it. While the two French officers collecting the money on 16 August may also have known the Chesapeake Bay destination, it is also unlikely they would have disclosed it. Their mission was to receive the money, whether from the Treasury or from whomever had it, and get it to Matanzas, where a frigate was waiting to take it to the fleet. Thirdly, no females show in the record of those who provided the money. If there were a shortfall in the promised 1,200,000 livres or if there were a subsequent collection of funds for Americans in which Havana ladies could have contributed their jewels, Saavedra did not mention it.

8. When the Spanish officials in Madrid learned that Admiral Hughes’ fleet was headed into the Indian Ocean, they concluded his target might be Manila, in a repeat of the British capture of Manila during the Seven Years War, some thirty years earlier. Immediately, packet boats were dispatched with messages to be taken to the Spanish Pacific ports and forts and from Acapulco on to Manila with a warning of possible attack by a British fleet in the Pacific. The small Spanish San Blas (Mexico) Navy was still recovering from its unsuccessful search for Captain Cook. Of course, the Spanish had no inkling of how well Admiral Hughes would be occupied around India by Admiral Suffren. Perhaps a rumor was deliberately set to mislead the Spanish. If so, it worked. Each night, the California Presidios on the coast had to take their horses each evening several kilometers inland to prevent their capture by coastal invading British. It is interesting to compare this to the British actions in July 1779 when they thought the French were invading.

9. Joachim Merlant, a French poet and Army captain, published a summary of French participation and costs/losses as: La France et la guerre de l’independence americaine (1776-1783) (Paris, F. Alcan, 1918), which was translated into English as: Soldiers and Sailors of France in the American War for Independence (1776-1783, (1920). Merlant obviously took his figures from someone else; but, for the years indicated, he shows French losses to be 45,289 men and vast war materials as follows: at sea, 63 fighting ships, 3668 cannon, 32,609 officers and mariners (unseparated total); on land, 697 officers and 11,830 soldiers,…; and uncounted merchantmen and smaller ships and supplies lost to privateers and mishaps. These figures can be challenged, but they seem quite reasonable considering the total numbers of persons involved through the two years of preparation and clandestine support and five hot war years, plus the areas where they were fighting. Dull shows 70 fighting ships (frigate and larger) removed from the registry during this period. How Merlant got 63 of this 70 is not clear. He may have included losses to fighting ships smaller than a frigate. In deaths, he should have included those who died in service for whatever reason. For example, those who say the invasion of Britain would have been successful had not an epidemic swept through the French and Spanish fleet in August 1779 should know how many died in that plague.

For those sent to the West Indies, there was a period from arrival of a soldier or sailor until he had become immune to tropical diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever, and others. In this period of "seasoning," or arrival sickness, death losses might be quite high, twenty percent or more. After this period, the troops would be called "seasoned." After battle service and battle losses, they would be called "seasoned and battle-hardened."

The figures for losses as a result of the Les Saintes actions can be checked for reasonableness by using the 1905 work of the French and American SAR members, who listed the names of the mariners assigned to the ships. Les Combattants Français de la Guerre Américaine, quoted above, is an early and current reference used to check French soldier/sailor descendant eligibility for joining the SAR. Just count the names for each ship and eliminate those who died before 9 April 1782. Then assume some reasonable number of effectives on board such as 75%, and you have 3150 mariners present for duty and on board. Then add in the rmy contingents normally assigned to each ship, say 100 men at 75% present, and you have 575 more. 3725 French combatants, whose fate was to be killed or captured. You don’t have to argue whether the pre-invasion army troops were on the battleships or on the transports. Of those captured, many were sent to England as prisoners on the captured French warships. That fleet was caught in a huge hurricane and some historians estimate 3500 persons drowned when the ships foundered. This 3500, if accurate, included the prisoners, the British guards for the prisoners, and the British sailors manning the vessels. Les Saintes was a huge disaster for the French, just as Chesapeake Bay/Yorktown was a huge disaster for the British. Even though the King of France brought de Grasse out of disgrace in 1788, the French people did not. (Historians do not like the statement that the consequences of Les Saintes were more dead French combatants than Americans lost in non-combatants on 9/11 2001 in New York City).

As author, I wish to acknowledge very useful comments from fellow members of the Sons of the American Revolution, Jacques de Trentinian and Albert D. McJoynt, who certainly do not agree with all my conclusions or even with many facts I believe are well documented.