Lord George Germain

Examples of Lord George Germain in the following topics:

• Britain's War

  • Lord George Germain served as Secretary of State for America during the Revolutionary War.
  • He was the primary architect of British strategy in the Revolutionary War, working closely with British Prime Minister Lord Frederick North.
  • Germain and North also underestimated the strength of the colonists.
  • As the British army suffered strategic defeats in battles such as Saratoga and Yorktown, the Whigs’s gained prominence within Parliament and Lord North’s ministry began to collapse.
  • George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville by Nathaniel Hone the Elder, 1766

• Conclusion: The Fight for Independence

  • King George III’s hostility weakened many colonists’ attachment to Great Britain and ultimately strengthened the movement for independence.
  • The Second Continental Congress established the Continental Army in June 1775 and elected George Washington as its commander-in-chief.
  • Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for the American Department, bore responsibility for strategy and coordination of British operations during the war and underestimated the difficulties posted by the North American terrain.
  • Britain also attempted to negotiate for peace in June 1778 when Lord Frederick North, Britain’s Prime Minister, dispatched the Carlisle Peace Commission to North America.
  • General George Washington and his army made camp at Valley Forge from December 1777 to June 1778 to protect Pennsylvania from the British.

• Georgia and South Carolina

  • Expectations for this support base were fueled by accounts of Loyalist exiles in London who had direct access to the American Secretary, George Germain.
  • Following the victory at Charleston, General Clinton turned over British operations in the South to his second-in-command, Lord Cornwallis.
  • General Gates was replaced by George Washington's most dependable subordinate, Continental General Nathanael Greene.

• The First Emancipation

  • Lord Dunmore's Proclamation was the first mass emancipation of enslaved people in United States history.
  • In November 1775 Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a controversial proclamation, later known as Lord Dunmore's Proclamation.
  • The 1776 Declaration of Independence refers obliquely to the Proclamation by citing, as one of its grievances, that King George III had "excited domestic Insurrections among us."
  • The governor formed them into the Ethiopian Regiment, also known as Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment.
  • Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment was probably the first black regiment in the service of the Crown during the revolution.

• The Aftermath of Saratoga

  • The British government of Lord Frederick North came under sharp criticism when the news of Burgoyne's surrender reached London.
  • This defeat prompted Lord North to issue a proposal for peace terms in Parliament.
  • General George Washington’s army shadowed Clinton’s, and Washington successfully forced a battle at Monmouth Courthouse on June 28, the last major battle to take place in the North during the Revolutionary War.
  • Following the Patriot victory at Saratoga, Lord North's government was heavily criticized for their management of the war effort.

• The Calm Before the Storm

  • However, they did not repeal the duty on tea, which Prime Minister Lord North kept in order to assert Britain's right of taxing the colonies.
  • The North ministry's solution was the Tea Act, which received the assent of King George in May of 1773.
  • Lord North, seen here in Portrait of Frederick North, Lord North (1773–1774), painted by Nathaniel Dance, was prime minister at the time of the passage of the Tea Act.

• Slavery during the Revolution

  • In fact, Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation was the first mass emancipation of enslaved people in United States history.
  • Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves who would fight for the British during the Revolutionary War.
  • Five hundred such former slaves from Virginia formed Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment, which is most likely the first black regiment to ever serve for the British crown.
  • George Washington issued an order to recruiters in July 1775, ordering them not to enroll “any deserter from the Ministerial army, nor any stroller, negro or vagabond.”
  • George Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment in the Continental Army in January 1776 in response to a need to fill manpower shortages in America’s fledgling army and navy.

• Economic Retaliation and Reaction to the Townshend Acts

  • In Virginia, the non-importation effort was organized by George Washington and George Mason.
  • When the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a resolution stating that Parliament had no right to tax Virginians without their consent, Governor Lord Botetourt dissolved the assembly.
  • The Massachusetts House of Representatives began their own campaign against the Townshend Acts by first sending a petition to King George asking for the repeal of the Revenue Act, and then sending a letter to the other colonial assemblies, asking them to join the resistance movement.
  • In Great Britain, Lord Hillsborough, who had recently been appointed to the newly created office of Colonial Secretary, was alarmed by the actions of the Massachusetts House.

• Surrender at Yorktown

  • The combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by the comte de Rochambeau resulted in a decisive victory over the British army forces commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Charles Cornwallis.

• The Year of Blood

  • The battle occurred ten months after Lord Cornwallis's famous surrender at Yorktown, which had effectively ended the war in the east.
  • Peace negotiations between the United States and Great Britain created a temporary respite from the escalation, but in November 1782, Continental George Rogers Clark delivered the final blow of the Year of Blood, destroying several Shawnee towns in the Ohio Country.