1779
1771 1772 1773 1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780
British forces under the command of Archibald Campbell take Augusta January 31 and restore Georgia's colonial status as His Majesty's forces find themselves stalemated in the north and try to split the rebel resistance by dividing it (see 1778), but Loyalist support does not materialize. Campbell begins a withdrawal February 14, and the British have mixed fortunes elsewhere; General William Moultrie repels them February 3 at Fort Royal, South Carolina, and they surrender Vincennes to George Rogers Clark February 25. Clark has taken his men through freezing, chest-high water to reach Vincennes; they have had little to eat, but they deceive the British governor Henry Hamilton into believing that their numbers are much larger than 180. Clark sends Hamilton to Williamsburg, Virginia, where he will be imprisoned until 1783, but the British will not give up Fort Detroit until the end of the war.
The marquis de Lafayette returns to France early in the year and persuades the French government to send an expeditionary force of 6,000 men to help the Americans in their fight for independence. He hopes to lead the force himself, but Louis XVI selects Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, 54, comte Rochambeau (see 1780). Lafayette will be back in America by April of next year, and by 1781 the French will have sent an estimated 12,000 soldiers and 32,000 sailors, to say nothing of cannon, powder, food, money, even uniforms to help the American rebels.
General Henry Clinton takes command of British forces in North America, replacing General William Howe, who resigned his command before the start of operations this year and returned home to Britain.
The Continental Congress votes March 11 to authorize creation of an Army Corps of Engineers (see Gridley, 1775; Putnam, 1776; West Point, 1802).
Patriot John Hart dies at his Connecticut home May 11 at age 67 (approximate), having signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and then been driven by the British from his wife's bedside as she was dying, had his fields and gristmill destroyed, lived in forests and caves while the redcoats hunted him in the hills, and returned to find that his 13 children had fled for their lives.
British troops take Stony Point and Verplanck, New York, May 31, but lose Stony Point July 16 to Anthony Wayne, who has attacked "Little Gibraltar" at midnight and is knocked unconscious by grapeshot. General Washington orders the post evacuated, and the Americans raze its fortifications.
John Adams returns home from France in June and is immediately elected to the Massachusetts constitutional convention, despite criticism that he has abandoned democratic ways in setting his table with forks. Now 43, Adams almost singlehandedly writes his state's constitution, making sure that it contains the words, "a government of laws, not of men" (see 1775).
Spain asks Britain to cease hostilities against the American colonies and recognize their independence. The Spanish have loaned the colonists 219 bronze cannon, 200 gun carriages, 30,000 muskets, 55,000 rounds of ammunition, 12,000 bombs, 4,000 tents, and 30,000 uniforms and will give the colonists $5 million before the War of Independence is over. Britain asks Spain to halt her aid, offering to give up Florida, Gibraltar, and codfishing rights off Newfoundland in exchange for withdrawal of the Spanish support, but Spain declares war on Britain June 21 and lays siege to Gibraltar.
The largest American naval armada to be assembled during the Revolution leaves Boston July 19 under former privateer Dudley Saltonstall, 44, with orders to dislodge the British from a fort they are building at the head of Penobscot Bay. Saltonstall has 19 armed vessels with 344 guns and 24 transports with some 2,000 men, while the British have only 700 men under Brig. Gen. Francis McLean, but after drawing his ships into battle formation at the mouth of the river Saltonstall sees that he is hopelessly outmatched and refuses to attack. His land-force commander General Solomon Lovell and second-in-command General Peleg Wadsworth of the Massachusetts militia put 200 men ashore but get little support from the expedition's artillery commander Paul Revere. British reinforcements arrive August 14 as seven ships from Halifax land 1,530 men and 204 guns. The demoralized Americans flee upriver toward Bangor, run their ships ashore and destroy them, and walk home to Boston through the woods after sustaining horrific losses from smallpox, which Thomas Jefferson will later write "was sent into our army by the [British] commanding officer in Quebec." The disastrous expedition has cost Massachusetts $7 million, Saltonstall is cashiered for incompetence October 7 (he returns to privateering), Revere is court-martialed for cowardly misconduct.
General John Sullivan, Continental Army, marches through western New York's Genessee Valley in a punitive expedition against the Tories and their Iroquois allies. The Seneca brave Otetiani, 21, is known as Red Jacket because he has worn British colors, but he retreats at Sullivan's approach and tries to make a separate peace; Sullivan refuses and systematically destroys Native American villages, going on to defeat his foes in the Battle of Newtown near Elmira in the continuing War of Independence. General James Clinton, 42, writes about the Iroquois, "Bad as the savages are, they never violate the chastity of any women their prisoners" (see 1777).
Captain John Paul Jones sails in August with a Continental Navy squadron of five ships (see 1778). France's Louis XVI has given him an old East Indiaman early in the year, Jones has refitted the Duc de Duras and renamed her the Bon Homme Richard in honor of his patron Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack. He rounds the British Isles, and on September 23 engages H.M.S. Serapis, which along with H.M.S. Countess of Scarborough is escorting Britain's Baltic trading fleet (see 1777). Franklin's secretary is a spy for the British and has revealed the Continental plans; heavily outgunned and outmanned, Jones moves in close off Famborough Head, lashes his ship to Serapis and continues to grapple with the enemy even after Bon Homme Richard begins to sink. Asked by Captain Richard Pearson, Royal Navy, if he will strike his colors, Jones is defiant (his alleged reply ["I have not yet begun to fight!"] will be invented many years hence), and after 3½ hours of bloody combat it is Pearson who surrenders, having lost 100 killed, 60 wounded out of 325. Jones has lost 150 killed and wounded out of 332 and transfers survivors to Serapis; his Bon HommeRichard sinks 2 days later.
The Battle of Baton Rouge September 21 ends British hopes of controlling the Mississippi Basin. The Spanish governor of Louisiana Bernardo de Galvez has moved upriver from New Orleans with a force of Spaniards, Frenchmen, Germans, Acadians, free blacks, Indians, and Americans. He tricks British forces under Lieut. Col. Dickson at Fort New Richmond into thinking that he is preparing an attack from the east, he opens fire at dawn with a roundshot volley from the south, and the British surrender within a few hours. Natchez falls to Governor Galvez, and Spanish troops that were landed last year in Florida drive the British out of some Florida Gulf ports (see 1781).
British forces at Savannah come under siege September 16 by 1,500 Americans led by General Benjamin Lincoln, 46, and 3,500 French troops led by naval commander Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, 50, comte d'Estaing (see 1778). Admiral John Byron, Royal Navy, arrives with reinforcements in September and Lord Howe returns to Britain. The French and Americans are joined October 9 by the Continental Army's Polish military adviser Count Kazimierz Pulaski, who charges the British lines at the head of his cavalry but sustains a mortal wound and dies October 11 at age 32; combined American and French casualties total 244 killed, 584 wounded (the 3,200-man British and Loyalist garrison, under the command of General Augustine Prevost, loses only 40 killed, 63 wounded) and the Americans abandon the siege October 20 after 34 days. General Lincoln and Lachlan McIntosh move northeast to defend the port of Charleston (but see 1780).
British forces evacuate Rhode Island in October.
The capital of Virginia moves from Williamsburg to Richmond (see 1699; real estate, 1935). Virginia's governor Patrick Henry commissions Philip Mazzei to seek a loan from the grand duke of Tuscany, but the British capture Mazzei and imprison him for 3 months; when he finally reaches Europe his efforts are thwarted by Benjamin Franklin, who holds to the idea that only the national government may contract a foreign debt.
General Washington sends his incompetent commander General Israel Putnam to recruit soldiers in Putnam's native Connecticut, but Putnam suffers a paralytic stroke in December, ending his military career.
The War of the Bavarian Succession in Europe ends May 13 with the Peace of Teschen. Austria retains only the part of Lower Bavaria bounded by the Inn, Salzach, and Danube.
Persia's first Zand ruler Karim Khan Zand dies at Shiraz in March at age 73 (approximate), precipitating a civil war that will continue until 1796.
A British force sent from Calcutta by Warren Hastings reaches Surat and breaks the coalition between the Marathas, the Mysore rajah Haidar Ali, and the nizam, but Maratha forces surround the expedition 23 miles from Poona (see 1778). Commanded by Colonel William Cockburn and controlled by Colonel John Carnac, the expedition is forced to negotiate. The Convention of Wadgaon signed January 13 requires that Britain stop marching through Bengal, surrender all Maratha territory annexed since 1773 (including Salsette Island), and share the revenues from the state of Broach with the Maratha chief Daulat Rao Sindhia, but British authorities in Bengal disavow the terms and the first Anglo-Maratha War will continue until 1782 (see Mysore War, 1780).
Spanish viceroy Antonio María Bucareli y Ursua dies at Mexico City April 9 at age 62 after a 6½-year administration in which he has pacified Native American tribes in the north of New Spain, encouraged the settlement of California, eliminated the bands of criminals that previously roamed at will through the country, reformed the tax system, established fixed weights for coins, initiated welfare programs, constructed the mental asylum of San Hipólito, and founded a hospital for the poor.
French naval forces seize St. Vincent and Grenada in the British West Indies (see 1763; 1783).
The French West African port of Gorée falls to British forces, who attack the French in Senegal.
The Massachusetts state constitution written largely by John Adams says, "All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties."
Polynesian natives kill Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii February 14 after a brief skirmish occasioned by the theft of a cutter (see 1778). Dead at age 50, Cook has explored more of the Earth's surface than any man in history, changed the map of the world, set new standards of cartography, navigation, seamanship, and the care of crewmen, and introduced to the English language some Polynesian words such as taboo (kapu) and tatoo. Four of his marines are also killed, and the islanders carve up his body, returning some parts to his men for burial at sea while keeping some bones as relics.
Robert Walpole and scores of other British merchants smuggle arms and provisions to the American colonies through the West Indies, especially through the Dutch island of St. Eustatius (see 1634). The merchants are sympathetic to the American cause and eager for profit (see politics [Rodney], 1781).
The failure of a bill in Parliament to regulate the frame-knitting industry produces a riot at Manchester October 9 (see Arkwright, 1769; Hargreaves, 1770). By some accounts a Leicestershire man named Ned Ludd who is said to live in Sherwood Forest breaks into a house "in a fit of insane rage" and smashes two machines used for knitting hosiery; Parliament made machine breaking a capital offense in 1721, but the law has lapsed and the "Luddites" destroy 300 machines, throwing them into the streets (see 1811).
English millhand Samuel Crompton, 26, devises a muslin wheel, or spinning mule, that spins yarns suitable for muslin, but he lacks the funds needed to obtain a patent for his improvement on the 1770 spinning jenny and is tricked into revealing his secret, a landmark in the Industrial Revolution (a term that will not be used until 1881) (see Thorp's ring spinning machine, 1828).
Experiments on Vegetables by Dutch plant pathologist Jan Ingenhousz, 49, establishes some of the principles of photosynthesis (as it will be called beginning in 1898; see Senebier, 1782; Pelletier, Caventou, 1817). Ingenhousz learned on a visit to England of Joseph Priestley's 1774 efforts to "improve" polluted air by introducing live plants, and he ascribes air purification to the action of sunlight on leaves to produce "dephlogisticated air" (French chemist Antoine Lavoisier will soon give it the name oxygen); see 1784).
Botanist Joseph de Jussieu dies at Paris April 11 at age 74, having introduced the heliotrope (Heliotropium peruvianum) into Europe.
Thomas Jefferson introduces a Statute for Religious Freedom in the Virginia General Assembly, but it does not pass (see 1776). Patrick Henry has proposed a tax to help sustain "some form of Christian worship" for the state, but Jefferson has designed a law that would completely separate Church and State, others have supported his view, and it will prevail (see 1786).
Virginia jurist George Wythe, 53, is appointed to the first American professorship of law at the College of William and Mary. Thomas Jefferson studied law in his office, Wythe signed the Declaration of Independence as a delegate to the Continental Congress, and Jefferson has been influencial in gaining Wythe the appointment.
Dartmouth College founder Eleazar Wheelock dies at Hanover, New Hampshire, April 14 at age 68, having spent the last 9 years of his life preaching, teaching, raising money for the college, and supervising construction of buildings for it.
Nonfiction: "A Vindication of Some Passages in the Fifteen and Sixteenth Chapters of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Edward Gibbon responds to critics who have accused Gibbon of falsifying his evidence in his ironic treatment of the rise of Christianity (see 1776). Gibbon obtains a position as commissioner of trade and plantations, using that sinecure to compose a state paper ("Mémoire justificat") responding to critics on the Continent who have questioned Britain's policy in America (see 1781).
Fiction: My Father's Life (La Vie de mon père) by Restif de la Bretonne, whose rambling work gives a vivid picture of peasant life.
Poetry: "The House of Night" by Philip Freneau, who has returned after 3 years as secretary to a rich planter in the West Indies to serve in the militia against the British.
Painting: George Washington at Princeton by Charles Willson Peale, now 38, who returned to the colonies in 1769 after studying at London with Benjamin West; Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough; The Death of the Earl of Chatham by John Singleton Copley; Marie Antoinette by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, whose charm and beauty have won the queen's friendship as well as her patronage. Jean-Siméon Chardin dies at Paris December 6 at age 80.
Theater: Iphigenia in Tauris by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 4/6 at Weimar; The Fatal Falsehood by Hannah More 6/5 at London's Covent Garden Theatre; Albina, Countess Raimond by Hannah Cowley 7/31 at London's Haymarket Theater; The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan 10/3 at London's Royal Theatre in Drury Lane, a revision of the 1671 burlesque by the late duke of Buckingham: "Nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible" (II, i.) Sheridan caricatures fellow playwright Richard Cumberland as Sir Fretful Plagiary; actress Dorothea Jordan appears at Dublin's Crow Street Theater in Henry Fielding's farce The Virgin Unmasked.
Actor-playwright-theater manager David Garrick dies at London January 20 at age 61.
Opera: Iphigenia in Tauris (Iphigénie en Tauride) 5/18 at the Acadème de Musique, Paris, with music by Christoph Willibald Gluck, now 64.
First performances: Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in E flat major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1/15 or shortly thereafter at Salzburg, following Mozart's return after an 18-month absence in Munich, Augsburg, Mannheim, Paris, Strasbourg, and lesser towns; Symphony No. 32 in G major by W. A. Mozart; Symphony No. 33 in B flat major by W. A. Mozart, in July at Salzburg.
Olney Hymns is published with 63 verses by English poet William Cowper, 47, and 283 by the Reverend John Newton, 54, evangelical curate at Olney, Buckinghamshire, who was a slave-ship captain before he began preaching at age 33. Hymn singing has been uncommon in England up to now, but Cowper's "Light Shining Out of Darkness" and Newton's "Amazing Grace," "Glorious Things Of Thee Are Spoken," and "One There Is Above All Others" will gain wide popularity. "God moves in a mysterious way/ His wonders to perform," Cowper has written.
James Rivington's Gazette in British-occupied New York carries an advertisement April 21: "To the GOLF PLAYERS. The Season for this pleasant and healthy Exercise now advancing, Gentlemen may be furnished with excellent CLUBS and the veritable Caledonian BALLS by enquiring at the Printer's."
The Oaks has its first running at Epsom Downs May 10 in Surrey with financial support from the 26-year-old Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th earl of Derby, who succeeded to the title in February 1776 upon the death of his grandfather. His mare Bridget wins the 1½-mile stakes race, the earl will establish the Derby in June of next year, the mile-long test will be extended to 1½ miles (a mile and four furlongs) in 1784, and Lord Derby will win it for the first time in 1787 with his horse Sir Peter Teazle.
Cabinetmaker Thomas Chippendale dies of tuberculosis at London in November at age 61.
Parliament authorizes construction of two penitentiaries where prisoners will be kept in solitary confinement, assigned to supervised jobs, and given religious instruction in an effort to reform them (see 1778). Enacted at the persuasion of reformer John Howard, the laws will not be effectively enforced (see 1782).
Richard Bagnal finds sweet corn (Zea mays saccharata) along the Susquehanna River and makes the first written report of what has apparently been produced by a spontaneous natural mutation that keeps the sugar from turning to starch as readily as in ordinary varieties of maize. The Iroquois have been growing it for years, and Bagnal, an officer with General Sullivan, carries seeds back to his hometown of Plymouth, where he plants them. New England farmers begin raising sweet corn, but it will be little used by Americans for another 70 years and remain largely unknown in the rest of the world for more than a century after that (see Jones, 1879).
General Sullivan finds apple-bearing trees being grown in native settlements.
The willow pattern for English porcelain is developed at Caughley, Shropshire, by designer Thomas Turner, whose weeping willow, pagoda-like structures, three men on a bridge, and a pair of swallows are supposed to imitate blue-on-white Chinese designs on porcelain made at Ching-te-chen and imported from Nanjing (Nanking). Willow-patterned porcelain will also be made at Lowestoft in Suffolk, at New Hall in Staffordshire, and elsewhere in England.
Massachusetts chocolate maker John Hannon disappears at sea after sailing for the West Indies to buy cacao beans (see 1777). Dr. James Baker takes over the company from Hannon's widow (see 1764; 1824).
Lazzaro Spallanzani proves that semen (carrying sperm) is necessary to fertilization (see 1856; Spallanzani, 1768).
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