1778

1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780

political events

News of General Burgoyne's defeat last autumn thrills Paris, which has for 2 years been secretly supplying money and supplies to the American revolutionists. France's Bourbon monarchy recognizes American independence and formalizes its commitment to helping the colonists defeat their British overlords. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce signed February 6 along with the Treaty of Alliance delights Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Virginia-born diplomat Arthur Lee, now 37, who joined Franklin and Deane at Paris in December, having been appointed in place of Thomas Jefferson (who declined). Lee has charged Deane with disloyalty and embezzlement, and Deane soon returns to Philadelphia to answer the accusations that will eventually be proved false. The Treaty of Alliance stipulates American independence as a condition of peace and requires French and American concurrence in any peace agreement.

John Paul Jones sails his ship Ranger into France's Quiberon Bay February 14 and exchanges gun salutes with Admiral Le Motte Piquet—the first time that a foreign government has officially recognized the Stars and Stripes (see 1777; 1779).

Former British prime minister Viscount William Pitt, earl of Chatham, comes down to the House of Lords April 2 and speaks a few words that win a majority vote against adopting a peace-at-any-price measure, rises again to reply to a query, but falls back exhausted into the arms of friends and dies at London May 11 at age 69. The "Elder Pitt" is honored with a state funeral and a statue in Westminster Abbey, the government appropriates £20,000 to pay his debts, and it confers an annual pension of £4,000 on his descendants.

The Second Continental Congress ratifies the treaties with France May 4 and is so assured by the French alliance that it rejects British peace offers in mid-June.

The Battle of Monmouth June 28 ends in a victory for General Washington, whose army of 11,000 was reduced to 8,000 by hunger, illness, and exposure in winter quarters at Valley Forge. The troops have been drilled at Valley Forge by Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, 46, a Prussian general who performs valuable service. General Charles Lee has gained release from British custody in April, having been exchanged for the recently captured British general Richard Prescott (see 1776). After visiting Philadelphia to complain to the Continental Congress about his lack of promotion he went to Valley Forge and regained his command in May. Lee reluctantly agrees to lead the American attack at the Battle of Monmouth but begins a retreat in the heat of battle; General Washington intervenes to save the day. "Molly Pitcher" gains her soubriquet by carrying water to tired and wounded Continental Army troops; when her husband, George McCauley, is overcome by heat, Mary Hays McCauley (née Ludwig), 23, takes over his cannon and uses it to good effect through the rest of the battle. General Washington gives her the rank of sergeant in the Continental Army. Lee is court-martialed July 4, found guilty August 12, and suspended for 12 months.

The Second Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation July 9.

French warships begin attacking British ships in July, implementing the treaties signed with the Americans in February.

Britain's Shawnee allies kidnap pioneer Daniel Boone, but George Rogers Clark takes the French settlement of Kaskaskia by surprise July 4 and shows them evidence that France has allied herself with the American cause (see 1777). He meets with the tribal chiefs of the upper Illinois area, persuades them that they are being used by the British, and impresses them with his audacity. Clark goes on to take Cahokia and Vincennes, but the British retake Vincennes December 17 (see 1779).

British Loyalists (Tories) and their Native American allies massacre 360 settlers in Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley July 3 and in New York's Cherry Valley November 11. Colonel John Butler has led a force of 1,000 Loyalists and Iroquois allies against the 5,000 inhabitants of the Wyoming Valley, about 300 men and boys have left the protection of Fort Forty to stop them, and many of the remaining men, women, and children who escape into the forests die of starvation.

Mohawk and other Iroquois Nation tribesmen from the villages of Unadilla and Oquaga on the Susquehanna River follow Chief Joseph Brant against the Americans and destroy German Flats near Herkimer, New York, September 17. Americans under the command of Colonel William Butler retaliate October 8 and 10, destroying the Indian villages.

Some 3,000 British troops sail from New York for Georgia November 9 under the command of Lieut. Col. Archibald Campbell, who was released by the Americans May 6 in exchange for Ethan Allen and received orders for the expedition November 8 (see 1776). His men take Savannah December 29 (see 1779).

Spain's cortes enacts a law that abolishes the 50-year-old Caracas Company (Compañia Gupuzcoana) that has governed Venezuela (see 1749; 1797).

The War of the Bavarian Succession begins in July as Prussia's Friedrich II (the Great) invades Bohemia. The elector Palatine has been persuaded to recognize some old Austrian claims to Lower Bavaria and part of the Upper Palatine in the January Treaty of Vienna (see 1777), Austrian troops have occupied Lower Bavaria, but Friedrich has persuaded the elector to renounce Austrian claims and persuaded Saxony and Mecklenburg to join him in opposing the emperor Josef II (see 1779).

Bengal's governor Warren Hastings takes Chandernagor, Pondichéry, and Mahe in the continuing Anglo-Maratha War (see 1776; 1779).

Siamese forces invade the Burmese-held Laotian kingdoms of Luang Prabang and Vien Chan (see 1752); by 1782 there will be Siamese commissioners in both kingdoms and in Champassak as well, they will be obliged to pay tribute to Bangkok, and Bangkok will appoint their kings (see 1805).

human rights, social justice

The Virginia legislature forbids further importation of slaves at the persuasion of Thomas Jefferson (see manumission, 1782).

Virginia property owner Hannah Lee Corbin writes to her brother General Richard Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, 46, to protest the taxation of women since they are not permitted to vote. He replies that Virginia women, like women in some other colonies, do have that right (see 1777).

exploration, colonization

Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, lands on the island of Kauai in January and names the islands discovered by Hawaii-Loa in about 450 A.D. after John Montagu, 4th earl of Sandwich, now 60 and first lord of the Admiralty (see Cook, 1776). Having stopped at Tonga and Tahiti en route from New Zealand, Cook leaves February 2, sails H.M.S. Resolution to the northeast, puts into Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island March 29, and charts the coast northward from Oregon, laying the basis for future British claims to the region (see Drake, 1579; Gray, 1791; Columbia River Valley, 1843). But by year's end Cook has become desperately ill, mentally as well as physically, and is given to fits of rage (see 1779).

commerce

The Continental Congress invites British moral philosopher and finance expert Richard Price to help it with financial advice.

Irish-born New Orleans merchant Oliver Pollock, 41, creates the dollar sign ($) April 1 by some accounts. Pollock has prospered as a land speculator and slave trader but will lose his fortune financing the Revolution in the lower Mississippi Valley.

Scottish coal miners gain freedom from the conditions of virtual slavery under which they have worked until now (see 1775), but they will not have complete freedom until 1799.

technology

The Barron lock patented by English inventor Robert Barron is a double-acting tumbler lock (a tumbler is a lever that falls into a slot in the bolt and prevents it from being moved until it is raised out of the slot by the key to precisely the right height, whereupon the key slides the bolt. Barron's lock has two tumblers, and its key must raise each tumbler by a different amount before the bolt can be shot. All lever (pawl) locks will hereafter employ Barron's principle, but his lock is easily picked by a determined lock picker (see Bramah, 1784; Chubb, 1818).

Spinning jenny inventor James Hargreaves dies in Nottinghamshire April 22 at age 58.

science

Karl Wilhelm Scheele isolates molybdenum (see 1776; Hjelm, 1782).

Botanist Carolus Linnaeus dies at Uppsala January 10 at age 70. The Linnaean Society will be founded at London in 1788 to honor his achievements and safeguard his manuscripts and collections.

medicine

France charters the Société Royale de Medicine and charges it with the study of epidemics.

Mesmerism attracts the elite of Paris with claims that it cures various diseases. Having been accused by Viennese physicians of fraud, Swabian-born physician Franz Anton Mesmer, 44, announces that he has occult powers to effect cures with what he calls "animal magnetism," an invisible, occult force or fluid that derives from the stars and emanates from his body. Gaining support from Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, he founds a Magnetic Institute and induces trances in his patients, using astrology, magic wands, and similar methods, but his methods antagonize the medical profession (see 1784).

literature

Nonfiction: Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America in the Years 1766, 1767, 1768 by Jonathan Carver is published at London and will for years be the most widely read account of exploration and adventure, but Carver, now 67, derives no benefit from its sale.

The philosopher Voltaire leaves his estate of Ferney, near the Swiss border, in February and returns to Paris, where he dies May 30 at age 83; philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau dies at Ermenonville July 2 at age 66.

Fiction: Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entry into the World by English novelist Fanny (Frances) Burney, 26, is published anonymously. Having been encouraged by Mrs. Thrale and Doctor Johnson, Burney virtually invents the social novel of domestic life, and she introduces the phrase, "Before you could say Jack Robinson."

art

Painting: Brook Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley, who has been commissioned by the lord mayor of London to depict the grisly scene in which the lord mayor lost his legs at age 14 while swimming in Havana Harbor. Etcher-engraver-architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi dies at Rome November 9 at age 58, leaving 135 large-sized copper plates bearing views of ancient and contemporary Roman architectural gems. His son Francesco takes the plates to Paris, where they will be published between 1800 and 1807.

theater, film

Theater: The Tutor (Der Hofmeister) by Jakob Reinhold Lenz (adapted by Ludwig Schröder) 1/22 at Hamburg; Raquel by Spanish poet-playwright Vicente (Antonio) García de la Huerta, 44.

Tragedian Lekain (Henri-Louis Cain) dies at his native Paris February 8 at age 48.

music

Milan's Teatro alla Scala opens August 3. The 2,135-seat opera house built by Giuseppe Piermarini, 44, takes its name from a nearby flight of stairs and will become the most famous opera house in the world.

Ballet: Les Petits Biens 6/11 at the Paris Opéra, with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, choreography by Jean-Georges Noverre, 52.

First performance: Symphony No. 31 in D major (Paris) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 6/18 at Paris.

Composer Thomas Arne dies at London March 5 at age 67.

everyday life

A water closet patented by Yorkshire engineer Joseph Bramah, 30, has a valve-and-siphon flushing system that will be the basis of all future toilet plumbing (see Cummings, 1775). Bramah's factory at Pimlico will train other engineers and machine-tool inventors, but his flush toilet will not come into wide use for more than a century.

crime

Parliament establishes the principle of confining prisoners separately with labor and religious instruction after a campaign by philanthropist reformer John Howard (see 1774; 1779).

architecture, real estate

A new building for Brooks's Club at London is completed to neoclassical designs by architect Henry Holland, 33, who has become a partner of landscape architect Lancelot "Capability" Brown and married Brown's daughter.

agriculture

Scottish millwright Andrew Meikle, 59, constructs a pioneer threshing machine; it rubs the grain between a rotating drum and a concave metal sheet, but although it removes husks from grain it is a commercial failure (see 1786; Menzies, 1734).

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