In 1760, the British political pamphleteer, Israel Mauduit, claimed, ‘Money may, in a qualified sense, be allowed to be the sinews of war; but it must find men to make up the flesh and substance of our armies.’Footnote 1 Published in the middle of the Seven Years War, Mauduit's claim suggests the need to augment John Brewer's concept of the fiscal-military state in order to explain the spectacular growth of Britain's international power during the eighteenth century. Drawing on the work of P. K. O'Brien, P. Mathias, and P. G. M. Dickson, Brewer's The sinews of power: war, money and the English state, 1688–1783 (1994) demonstrated how Britain's public administration and its system of taxation and public debt allowed it to wage war efficiently and effectively across four continents.Footnote 2 Brewer acknowledged the need to recruit manpower, an element of preparation for war which has since been more fully explored in other studies.Footnote 3 In Lawrence Stone's view, however, Brewer had his priorities correct: money was the key. According to Stone, British victory over France was not due to ‘military prowess, technological innovation or diplomatic skill’, but rather to ‘overwhelming financial superiority. At bottom, victory in war was a question of money, not men, since money could always be used to hire men and Europe was full of mercenaries willing to serve a reliable paymaster.’Footnote 4
This article redirects attention to manpower. It emphasizes the importance not merely of mobilizing men, but also of conserving the wellbeing of men raised.Footnote 5 British victory depended on the state caring about the wellbeing of its troops, and on the state being perceived to care.Footnote 6 It shows that both government ministers and commanders in the field believed that evident lack of concern for the wellbeing of men could affect support for the war at home, and recruitment. The wider public also had practical reasons for caring about this issue: ill-fed, badly organized, and sick troops were less likely to prevail in combat. Finally, there was a moral dimension: favourable depictions of military leaders in this period emphasized their humane care for the men in their charge.
Identifying concern for the welfare of troops is most easily accomplished by looking for evidence of attempts to prevent disease. In eighteenth-century medical theory, disease was not simply a contagious pathogen. Rather, contemporaries recognized that disease arose because of disorder in an individual's constitution, as well as from unhealthy environments lacking proper sanitation and adequate provisions. The welfare of troops thus required commanders who ensured regular supplies of fresh provisions, salubrious accommodation, and close attention to the state of their men in general. By the same token, the outbreak of epidemic diseases among men was evidence of the failure of state infrastructure. The health of armed forces was thus essential to military victory for many reasons. At a practical level, disease among troops led to manpower shortages and hence likely defeat, especially during sieges and colonial campaigns, both of which were highly characteristic of eighteenth-century warfare. While death as a result of battle was an unsurprising end for a soldier or sailor, contemporaries viewed death due to disease as both inglorious and objectionable. Reports of disease among troops therefore also led to recruitment problems, caused friction among colonial and allied civilian populations, and were targets for opposition politicians on the home front. At a broader level, disease among the armed forces could be seen as a symptom of disorder: physical, social, political, and moral.
The Seven Years War, with its wide variety of European and extra-European theatres, provides a particularly interesting case study in the notion and practices of the caring fiscal-military state. This article begins with a brief overview demonstrating that officials recognized the practical importance of disease prevention during campaigns, before turning to instances that illustrate both how disease threatened British fiscal-military effectiveness in particular theatres, and how such threats were countered. During the 1762–3 Portuguese campaign, disease was regarded as a sign of ill-discipline, and jeopardized military and political alliances. At Havana in 1762, the fear, reports, and actual outbreaks of disease threatened American colonial support and recruitment for British campaigns. Throughout the controversial campaigns in the German states, disease was interpreted as a symptom of bad governance, and used in partisan criticisms concerning the conduct of the war. Fear of criticism led to attempts on the part of the government and military authorities to constrain soldiers' communications home. By the same token, the article shows that representations of popular commanders, such as John Manners, marquess of Granby, included references to the care taken of men under their command. Military victory was not only about strategy, command, and technology, but nor was it solely a question of money. Manpower could not simply be bought, but needed to be nurtured in the long term through a demonstration that the British state cared about the ‘flesh and substance’ of its armies.
I
The Seven Years War provides an excellent example of the effectiveness of Britain's fiscal-military state. In many ways, the war typified eighteenth-century British experience of warfare: the main adversaries were Catholic France and Spain; fighting was simultaneously conducted in colonial theatres and on the European continent (with little actual fighting on British soil); Britain used foreign mercenaries, particularly German soldiers; and victory depended not least upon the Royal Navy. Yet this war was also in many ways exceptional and spectacular: Britain's military successes ensured the establishment of the British empire, securing Canada and the American colonies, strategic islands in the West Indies, bases along the west coast of Africa, victory in the Philippines, and new power and expanding involvement in India. With the Peace of Paris in 1763, Britain emerged as the greatest military and imperial power of the modern age, together with a debt of £133 million. This victory was secured through the workings of the fiscal-military state, while the war and its imperial outcome further consolidated this state structure.
Although military historians have generally not paid much attention to the role of disease in war, those engaged in battle were well aware that disease killed far more men than did the enemy, and that disease outbreaks could influence the outcome of a campaign. Whether in India, North America, or Europe, warfare during this period was characterized by long sieges, in which the attacking force besieged a fortified holding, battering its defences with land and/or naval artillery, and attempting to cut off supplies of provisions and ammunition. After initial small skirmishes and mutual artillery barrages, open battle was fought only once one side had exhausted its provisions and manpower.Footnote 7 Since sieges forced troops to crowd into small holdings with limited provisions and fragmented sanitary and medical arrangements, siege warfare resulted in high rates of sickness. Eighteenth-century medical theory claimed that disease was caused by miasma: a concept which originally related to ideas of pollution, and referred to putrefaction of the air occasioned by decaying matter and the sick, and generally associated with bad smells. Epidemic disease thus arose when bodies and their effluvia were crowded into unventilated environments.Footnote 8 Miasmatic theories seemed vindicated by instances of sickness such as those during sieges. An unknown British military engineer who kept a diary during the French siege of Fort St George, Madras (Chennai) early in 1759, recorded a sick rate of 60 per cent among the British forces.Footnote 9 He also remarked that, although the British successfully resisted the French siege on this occasion, it was always more difficult to be the besieged army partly due to the sickness that arose:
In every place besieged whatever care has been previously taken a thousand things must still be done when the place is invested and the front to be attack'd discover'd; these bring hard duty on the garrison which added to offensive smells, want of many little necessarys, and a confine'd air, soon occasion extraordinary sickness among the soldiers, especially where there is a want of secure places to rest in, & no inhabitants or labourers to ease them of working duty.Footnote 10
Officers were cognizant of hazards, and uses, of disease during campaign. Prince William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, while commander of the German-allied army in Western Europe, remarked in 1757 to Lord John Ligonier after a two-month siege, ‘I expect in very few days the good news of the surrender of Prague. Famine & sickness has executed what Bombs & red hot Balls could not.’Footnote 11 In the West Indies, the aptly named ‘black vomit’ was more feared than battle, and its consequences were taken into account when forming military strategy. Admiral Charles Knowles, a veteran of the disastrous Cartagena campaign in 1741, recommended, ‘[w]hatever is to be effected in the West Indies must be done as expeditiously as possible, or the climate soon wages a more destructive war, than the enemy’.Footnote 12 Dark-coloured vomit, feverish agonies, and sudden death are all symptoms of yellow fever, a disease endemic in the West Indies during the eighteenth century and probably imported from West Africa by slaving ships.Footnote 13 Given that yellow fever fatally struck only large groups of newcomers, the disease seemed to offer French and Spanish garrisons a natural defence against besiegers. Eighteenth-century officials stationed in the West Indies were well aware of the role of disease in defensive strategy; the historian, Christian Buchet, has observed that the Spanish nicknamed yellow fever the ‘fièvre patriotique’.Footnote 14
Colonial warfare thus accentuated difficulties associated with disease. Not only did British forces have to contend with a foreign climate and its specific diseases, but traditional supplies and adequate supply routes were often lacking, while the transportation of reinforcements often also proved impossible. At Quebec, after Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham in September 1759, for example, British forces garrisoned during the winter months suffered from such high rates of sickness that they lost control of the Plains when the French re-attacked in spring 1760. Suffering from scurvy, caused by a lack of fresh provisions due to the garrison's isolation among hostile Amerindian and colonial French during the winter, over 600 men died from disease between November 1759 and April 1760.Footnote 15 By contrast, only 58 British soldiers had died during the September battle on the Plains. Of more consequence was that out of an original force of 7,300 only 2,612 men were reported as fit for duty by the end of April 1760.Footnote 16 As a result, when the French forces attacked on 28 April 1760, the British garrison was forced to retreat. Brigadier-General James Murray, the commanding officer, partly blamed disease for the defeat, writing to William Pitt that scurvy, ‘getting the better of every precaution of the Officer, and every remedy of the Surgeon, became as universal as it was inveterate’.Footnote 17
In India, the same problems arose, but with even more acute troop shortages. Having to fight against both native Indian and French forces, and obliged to contend with a voyage that usually lasted four months (with scurvy and other diseases reducing the numbers on board), commanding officers constantly requested more troops and sought to conserve whatever manpower was immediately available. The correspondence of Robert Clive, Charles Watson, Eyre Coote, and other commanding officers constantly referred to attempts to station men in salubrious environments, and to follow the advice of surgeons and physicians about maintaining the health of their troops. Writing to the East India Company's Secret Committee in London shortly after his victory at Plassey, Clive explained that he had carefully garrisoned the troops in a healthy location, as ‘the lives of men are very precious at this critical juncture’.Footnote 18 As the ‘heaven-born’ commander himself recognized, an outbreak of disease could entail defeat, and hence disease and disease prevention informed military strategy.
II
Although lacking a modern grasp of medical complexities, contemporaries recognized that essentially epidemic disease encountered on campaign arose from a lack of order, and, hence, lack of care for troop welfare. More specifically, the most common diseases of the army and navy – scurvy, ‘fevers’ (usually typhus), and the ‘flux’ (dysentery or diarrhoeal diseases) – arose when provisions were lacking, accommodation was inadequate, and when an initial outbreak was not quickly isolated and given sufficient attention. Scurvy was caused by a lack of vitamin C from fresh fruit and vegetables. Its incidence among eighteenth-century troops resulted from the lack of means to supply such foodstuffs during long naval operations and in the wilderness of the American colonies. Typhus was highly contagious, with fever, debility, and mortality rates ranging from 10 to 70 per cent.Footnote 19 It was common in times of hardship, such as during famines, and in the crowded conditions of urban slums or badly administered institutions. It was thus common in times of war and dearth, often spreading from troops to surrounding civilian populations.Footnote 20 Dysentery and diarrhoeal diseases were also found in crowded populations living in unsanitary and transitory circumstances. The disease's origin is an infected individual or animal reservoir, which carries the viral, bacterial, or parasitic pathogen and usually passes it on from infected stools. Infected matter, commonly carried by flies, is then transmitted to drink or food that is ingested by susceptible individuals. Through the symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting, one infected individual can easily contaminate their surroundings, and especially a camp's water supply, thereby quickly spreading the disease. As a result, a clean water supply, sewage removal, and general sanitation measures were (and still are) the best preventatives against such outbreaks, not only by separating refuse from food and water, but also by preventing flies from multiplying.Footnote 21
Given how these diseases were caused and spread, it is unsurprising that contemporaries associated disease outbreaks, especially among troops, to the breakdown of military order. Orders from military officials repeatedly stressed the importance of discipline and cleanliness in camp to avoid what was often termed ‘disorder’; meaning both disease as disorder within an individual, and also the lack of discipline in camp directly related to an outbreak of disease. Preventing disease required discipline and an orderly camp, and thus was the responsibility of military officers. An order from August 1759 recorded, ‘HSH [Prince Ferdinand] recommends the greatest cleanliness in camp particularly during this hot weather & the officers as far as leisure will admit of it see that the soldiers keep themselves clean, to prevent the disorders that must arise from being dirty.’Footnote 22
During campaigns where troops were stationed far from central authority, officers recognized the importance of establishing a reliable infrastructure. The British campaign in Portugal provides evidence of what could happen if such infrastructure was lacking, as well as illustrating the measures taken by British officials to ensure the care of British soldiers. An attack on Britain's ally, Portugal, was part of a combined Spanish–French strategy to divert British troops away from defence of the British Isles. In early 1762, British ministers agreed to send 6,000 troops to Portugal ahead of an anticipated Spanish invasion. At a time when Britain was financially exhausted by six years of formal warfare and had already begun peace negotiations, the government was unenthusiastic about initiating another large campaign. Moreover, since Spain had not yet invaded Portugal, the British were under pressure to keep their support secret and hence to avoid exposing Portugal to accusations of instigating hostilities, which, to some extent, explains Britain and Portugal's weak preparation. The armed forces were initially commanded by James O'Hara, Lord Tyrawley, with Admirals Edward Hawke and Charles Saunders cruising off Brest and Ushant. From June 1762, John Campbell, earl of Loudoun, and George Townshend were second and third in command to Supreme Commander Count zu Lippe-Brükeberg. The joint Anglo-Portuguese operations successfully defended the key Portuguese bases from Spanish attack in the face of superior numbers of Spanish forces.
The operations in Portugal provide insights into the difficulties that arose from campaigning on foreign, if allied, territory. Although the British troops had arrived in good health, by late July 1762 Townshend reported to Loudoun from Santerem that his soldiers had started to fall ill from fevers and fluxes. He added, however, ‘it is occasioned merely by climate & not to be imputed to inattention in officers nor irregularity of the men’.Footnote 23 By August, Townshend was embroiled in larger problems stemming from a lack of provisions. As foreign forces stationed in allied territory, the British troops were dependent on local civilians for accommodation and provisions. Usually, towns opened their convents to the soldiers, contracted out for foodstuffs such as bread and meat, and established markets where soldiers could purchase fresh vegetables and fruit. In early August 1762, however, Townshend complained to Loudoun:
we are so extreamly irregularly supplied with meat here, that it is extreamly difficult to preserve that discipline which is to be wished & which I must do ye Commanding Officers of Corps as well ye rest, ye Justice to say they do their utmost to maintain. Some companies of Ld Blaney's regiment have been for instance a whole week without Meat. Now my Lords[hip], as sickness discontent and desertion attends our service upon these occasions I should have ventured to day to have sent ye Quarter Master to take an Ox in ye Country paying a fair price for it.Footnote 24
A week later, upon his men having had no food for two days, Townshend put the local magistrates under armed guard and ordered groups of his men to go into the countryside to seize cattle, again insisting on ‘paying ye owners a fair price for them’.Footnote 25 He admitted that this was drastic action which could cause problems for British relations with the Portuguese, but defended it by explaining that such measures prevented more harmful consequences. Townshend noted that, without a central supply of provisions, soldiers were likely to act rashly and pillage local crops, thereby upsetting the civilian population more than his own orders, as well as causing diarrhoeal disorders among soldiers who would have over-indulged on pillaged fruit. Townshend remarked that such lack of provision was ‘ye source of sickness mutiny & desertion’, and hence would have caused complete, and so far worse, disorder among his men.Footnote 26
Townshend's account of his actions is remarkable for two reasons. First, he clearly linked a lack of proper provisions to physical disorder in the form of sickness, and to social and military disorder in the form of pillaging and desertion. To maintain order, Townshend enacted strict military discipline, both by ensuring that the commanding officers closely watched over troops, and by using military force to demand regular and proper provisioning from the local civilian authorities. Indeed, regarding his placement of armed guards among the townspeople, Townshend recognized that this was both for the welfare of his own men (in demonstrating to the local population the army's potential might and so encouraging their co-operation) and for the safety of the civilians (in ensuring that his men adhered to their military discipline of not pillaging, but rather paying for provisions demanded). He elaborated: ‘I at ye same time reinforced ye Town Guard & placed proper centries to protect ye Town. This appearance which in fact protected ye Inhabitants; had ye best effect for as for the Bakery performed wonders that night & 3 Reg[imen]ts were fed before morning.’Footnote 27
Second, Townshend's careful explanation demonstrates that he was aware of his duty not only to care for his men and ensure they remained under his discipline, but also to avoid antagonizing the local civilian authorities and the townspeople. In his correspondence with Loudoun, Townshend included a copy of his general orders to show that he had ensured soldiers only bought food that could be spared and did not enter the town without proper passes. Guards had also been posted along the edges of the camp ‘to prevent disorders and to take up all Stragglers’.Footnote 28 Similarly, when Loudoun received complaints of British soldiers' ‘irregularities’ in July 1762, Townshend inquired into the details, discussing them with local authorities and an interpreter, and asking at the largest local store (a draper's) if the inhabitants were intimidated or alarmed about the British soldiers quartered nearby. While the inhabitants did not seem to be afraid of the soldiers, Townshend ensured that courts martial were conducted among the troops, and those found guilty of breaches of military discipline flogged. He proudly reported, ‘The number of men I have seen in ye streets whose backs cannot bear their coats and the general surprise of the Inhabitants at the rigour of the punishments they have seen, are I believe sufficient witnesses, that there has been no connivance at the sins of the men.’Footnote 29 These two points were interdependent, Townshend declaring:
the case taken by ye Reg[imen]ts to detect & punish all misbehaviours in the soldiers, I am in hopes we shall soon see something like a market established. The inhabitants are very shy of us, but by punctual Payment & good discipline, I hope we shall wear out soon ye disadvantage which allways attends strangers upon their first arrival.Footnote 30
Ensuring regular provisions was thus necessary to maintain the men's welfare and the army's discipline, especially when abroad.
Although, as troops in a foreign land, British troops were dependent on local civilians for provisioning and accommodation, in Portugal they did not have to recruit among local populations. In the colonies, especially in North America, the need to protect local sources of recruitment was a further reason why British officials had to concern themselves with the conduct and welfare of their men. American colonists drove a harder bargain in relation to provisioning than the Portuguese authorities. When James Abercromby, during his brief tenure as commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, found that fresh meat and vegetables to be sent from Boston to British troops at Halifax were not forthcoming, he demanded that the Massachusetts governor, Thomas Pownall, rectify this shortage. Pownall refused, stating that to force the colonists to do so would cause worse damage in the long term, in relation to the need to recruit:
I am sensible that when the general Interest of His Majestys Service and the particular Interest of a Colony comes in competition, this particular Interest must give way, and it is not from a regard to the Province to which I stand more immediately related, but from a sincere Desire to promote the general Service that I have not yet pressed a compliance with the Measure you have been pleas'd to recommend to me.Footnote 31
Abercromby concurred in order to ensure that his orders should in ‘no ways be accessary to discouraging your People from entering into the Service’.Footnote 32 In this case, Abercromby could readily source provisions elsewhere and so did not need to compromise the chances of future local recruitment. On other occasions, however, such a ready adjustment was more difficult to find.
In India, British officers were also concerned with preventing disorders, and especially disease, during the notoriously sickly wet season. In the early period of the Seven Years War, optimism prevailed that Europeans could adapt to the hot climate over time. James Lind, a contemporary authority on disease and hot climates, claimed:
The constitution of Europeans, by length of time, becomes seasoned to the East and West Indian climates, if it is not injured by the repeated attacks of sickness upon their first arrival. Europeans therefore, when thus habituated, are generally subject to as few diseases abroad as those who reside at home.Footnote 33
Yet this optimism did not prevail throughout the eighteenth century. With exposure to the rigours of campaigning, and with larger numbers of Europeans serving in India than ever before, such physical adaptation appeared more difficult to justify by the close of the war.
Officials theorized that, rather than aspiring to adapt to the native environment, style of warfare, and culture, British forces must use discipline to lessen the deleterious effects of the local climate. Such discipline involved a moderate lifestyle (avoiding alcohol, spicy foods, excessive exercise, and sexual activity) to avoid disease and distinguishing European troops from the increasing number of native soldiers recruited as labouring forces. While the native troops' lower rate of disease was a result of their differing physical constitution, it was their lack of discipline that justified native soldiers' lower military status. Discipline would maintain the health, as well as the military superiority, of British forces serving in foreign climates and alongside indigenous troops. At the outset of the war, Colonel Scott in his plan for the conquest of Bengal reminded Company officials that ‘the preserving our conquest, must depend on the preservation of our people, towards which the strictest discipline & temperance must likewise contribute’.Footnote 34 Writing after the close of the war, Major Caillaud reflected on the situation of the British, and observed that discipline was to be applied both to the British and to native forces, in order for the British to maintain control in India:
By discipline and good order to preserve amongst the Europeans that superiority which may compensate that inequality of numbers, to render the seapoys usefull and at the same time guard against the dangers which that part of our military system may be liable to … To a greater degree of natural courage, to more skill in the art of war, and to discipline, and order opposed to confusion and irregularity we owe our superiority over the Asiatick.Footnote 35
In the form of moderate living and healthy, drained settlements, discipline would prevent disease among British troops, while disciplined natives would enhance combined Anglo-Indian military prowess.
III
Although eighteenth-century medical thinkers grouped the West Indies and India together as ‘hot climates’ that gave rise to similar diseases, the West Indies were recognized as notoriously troublesome. According to Lind's theory of ‘seasoning’, the ‘merchant, farmer, or soldier, thus constitutionally naturalized to the country, becomes more useful, and his services may be more depended upon there, than ten new arrived unseasoned Europeans’.Footnote 36 Yellow fever, the most deadly and prevalent disease of the West Indies, once contracted and survived, conferred lifelong immunity on an individual. As yellow fever in children had mild and often unnoticed symptoms, populations in areas with endemic yellow fever could become imperceptibly immune. The presence of the virus was then discernable only when non-immune new adults arrived and suffered its violent symptoms: high fever, delirium, black vomit, bleeding from various parts of the body, and death within a few days. In these respects, the observations of Lind and his medical contemporaries were not mistaken, and their conclusion that the disease was limited to European newcomers arriving in a tropical climate is understandable.
To West Indian campaign administrators, this meant that British regular troops should be accompanied by men accustomed to the climate. In the campaign against the Spanish at Havana in 1762, disease encouraged the recruitment of American-born provincial soldiers, yet also threatened provincial willingness to enlist. Initially, black regiments from Jamaica were requested for the Havana campaign, and when this demand proved difficult to fulfil, George Keppel, third earl of Albemarle and commander of the land forces, asked for ‘500 men from Jamaica accustomed to a hot climate’.Footnote 37 As well as the few men that could be obtained from British West Indian islands, troops from North America were preferred to British regulars. Although the American colonies did not have the same climate as the West Indies, their troops were considered more seasoned for the West Indies than Europeans, perhaps because yellow fever epidemics were common in regions such as Philadelphia well into the nineteenth century.
Consequently, the commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, Jeffrey Amherst, was asked to provide 4,000 provincial American troops for the campaign against Havana. This demand proved difficult to fulfil and the provincial assemblies were convinced that fear of disease was the cause of laggardly recruitment. From their bad experiences in the 1740s, when provincial soldiers had been sent on the spectacularly disastrous Carthagena expedition, in which only 3,000 men had returned fit for duty out of an original 11,000, with no prize money as the campaign had ended in defeat, provincials were understandably wary about campaigns in the West Indies.Footnote 38 As the army officer, William Blakeney, had ominously warned the duke of Newcastle, minister of defence, in 1740:
from the highest to the lowest, the Inhabitants of these Provinces seem to set a great value on themselves, and think a regard is due to them, especially in the assistance they are able to give the Mother Country on such occasions; and, as they are a growing power, should they be disappointed in what is promised them and which they expect, future occasions of the like nature may suffer for it.Footnote 39
As a result, Albemarle was instructed in 1762 to
take especial care, that they [the provincials] be treated with all such proper attention and humanity, that they may not return home disgusted with the service, but on the contrary, may be induced readily and chearfully to act in conjunction with our regular forces on any future occasions.Footnote 40
Even so, the provincial assemblies were reluctant to raise the requested troops. If, suggested Colden, Amherst could declare that the troops were to serve only in North America (and not the West Indies as rumour claimed), and would not be pressed into the regular service, the requested regiments would quickly be completed.Footnote 41 Similarly, Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire complained to Amherst: ‘I shall meet with little difficulty, neither would there be any opposition in levying the 143 men, if I could assure the men that they were to serve in regiments, at Halifax, Quebec, or Montreal, but the people in general entertain terrible thoughts of serving in the West Indies.’Footnote 42 Other provinces had still not provided the necessary recruits by the end of May, forcing Amherst to remind governors that if the requested number was not raised, they must be drafted from the provincial militia.Footnote 43 Finally, in June 1762, two divisions of troops sailed from America. Admiral George Pocock waited impatiently for their arrival while stationed at Havana, observing ‘the season of the year is not favourable to the health of Europeans’.Footnote 44
The British campaign began well, with troops arriving within sight of Havana on 6 June. By mid-July, however, sickness had considerably weakened Albemarle's force. Out of a total of 11,203 rank and file troops, only 5,553 were fit for duty, with a staggering 4,056 sick in the camp, and a further 807 sick elsewhere, presumably in a general hospital.Footnote 45 With the help of North American reinforcements at the end of July, British troops secured the Moro fort on 31 July. Yet sickness continued to increase, and regardless of their nearby provenance, the troops from North America were soon ill. As a characteristically terse journal entry of Commodore Augustus Keppel (Albemarle's brother) for 6 August records, ‘the reinforcements from North America have been landed on that side, they begin already to fall sick. The sickness in the squadron still increases.’Footnote 46 While the British began firing on Havana on 11 August, the Spanish governor, Prado, asked for a suspension of fire by 2 pm that afternoon, in order to negotiate terms of surrender, which were signed on 14 August 1762. A British return dated 13 August 1762 lists a total of 279 troops killed in battle, 601 wounded, 52 dead from wounds, and 657 dead from sickness, for a complete total of 988 dead since the army had landed on Cuba.Footnote 47
Even with only 657 soldiers dead from sickness, Albemarle's army was far from healthy when it took possession of Havana. Albemarle confessed to Charles Wyndham, second earl of Egremont (secretary of state), that, although the terms of capitulation were favourable for the British, he might have agreed to worse as ‘I wanted to get into the town at any rate, the army was so very sickly.’ Footnote 48 He had, however, actually demanded, and been granted, from Prado more than what was first proposed. Although the siege was over, the worst of the sickness had only just begun. The Highland regiments, who proved unusually sickly, were sent to North America to recover: out of 1,823 rank and file embarked, only 101 were fit for duty. Amherst saw the Highland regiments in New York, and wrote to John Calcraft and Townshend on their condition, describing them as ‘such feeble, worn out objects in general, as I never before saw’.Footnote 49
Meanwhile, in Havana, the troops were not faring much better than the Highlanders. On 7 October, Albemarle wrote to Egremont reporting:
our sickness instead of diminishing increases daily notwithstanding the great care and attention that is paid to the sick. We have buried upwards of 3,000 men since the capitulation … and in many parts of the country the militia and peasants are still in arms for want of troops showing themselves amongst them.Footnote 50
Returns of killed, dead, and wounded from 7 June to 4 October 1762 show that Albemarle was scarcely exaggerating: 4,295 rank and file died during this period (3,307 since the capitulation), of which 3,788 was from sickness.Footnote 51 By 11 October, Albemarle's force was reduced to 880 fit for duty and 5,713 sick, out of a total 7,225 rank and file.Footnote 52 Only a few months later, in January 1763, did news reach the British garrison that peace between France, Spain, and Britain had been agreed, and the British vacated Havana early in July 1763.
When news of victory reached Britain at the end of September, it was greeted with jubilation. Newspapers such as the Gazette and the London Chronicle reprinted detailed accounts of the siege, including the terms of surrender. The returns of 13 August were reprinted, detailing the number of troops killed, wounded, and dead, but omitting the total number of troops and the numbers sick.Footnote 53 In the siege journal of the chief engineer, reprinted in most newspapers, no mention of sickness appeared. In Albemarle's letters announcing British victory, also widely reprinted, disease was not mentioned. Albemarle included only one sentence on problems encountered, tersely concluding, ‘the difficulties the officers and soldiers have met with, and the fatigues they have so chearfully and resolutely gone through, are not to be described’.Footnote 54 The Gentlemen's Magazine and the Annual Register also expressed happiness with the siege's conduct, with brief references to sickness simply demonstrating the superior ability of British soldiers and sailors to withstand adversity. The news that Havana, long deemed impregnable by the Spanish, had fallen to the British had influenced peace negotiations between the two countries.Footnote 55
Throughout the course of the campaign, hardly any news on the progress of the siege appeared in English newspapers. Although readers were remarkably well informed about the nature and destination of a Cuban attack which was meant to remain secret, from June until late September very little news on Havana was reported.Footnote 56 What did circulate in London newspapers took the form of optimistic rumours.Footnote 57 After the reports of victory and the details of capitulation in late September and early October, British readers received no more news on the British troops stationed at Havana.
In the American colonies, one finds more remarks on the conduct of the campaign, including more on the hardships suffered by the troops – indeed pessimistic exaggerations on their state. This was partly because news of the siege could more easily reach American colonial newspapers while it was still in progress, and so was not overshadowed by victory. By 2 August 1762, the Boston Evening-Post reported: ‘there were great desertions from both sides; that it began to be sickly in our camp; and that we had lost a great many soldiers in killed and wounded since they landed’.Footnote 58 In early September, the Boston Gazette reported ‘a considerable sickness among [our troops]’.Footnote 59
Those in the American colonies would also have been more aware of sickness among the regiments since large numbers of British troops of diverse origin were dispatched there to recover, along with Spanish soldiers and Governor Prado. Various New York and Boston newspapers reported on the arrival of the first ships carrying troops from Havana, who were the sickly Highland Regiments which had left Havana ‘merely because they were by sickness rendered incapable of duty’.Footnote 60 Throughout October, November, and December 1762, colonial newspapers continued to report on the health of the troops stationed at Havana, including fairly accurate reports on the low number of men remaining fit for duty in the garrison. In early November, the Boston Gazette published a letter stating that the Spanish had 6,000 active soldiers upon their surrender, ‘and we were not able to bring more than half that number fit for duty’.Footnote 61 This was printed alongside reports from London that the British peace treaty proposed to return Havana to Spain, even before it was known whether the city had been taken. Rumours about the shocking state of the troops in Havana freely circulated in the American colonies, and the few letters sent by provincial soldiers to relatives only increased fears. Stationed in Montreal, General Thomas Gage complained to Amherst in November 1762:
Your account of the Havannah troops are dreadful indeed, every post brings the news of fresh deaths by the means of private letters; which causes worse effects on people's imaginations, than if they had a regular list of all who are really dead.Footnote 62
Returning troops also brought diseases back with them to the provinces. Governor Colden of New York wrote to Amherst, apprehensive about the contagious diseases troops would bring back from the West Indies. While Amherst assured Colden that all regulations concerning quarantine and medical examinations would be followed, he also chided the governor for selfishness in not considering the sickly troops.Footnote 63 Even though care was taken to keep troops in army hospitals, an outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia during the autumn of 1762 was thought to have started with sailors recently arrived from the West Indian campaign.Footnote 64 The sickness at Havana not only reduced the number of troops available for later campaigns in North America, but it also weakened the army, with soldiers frequently ill, which seriously affected the army's response to Pontiac's War, and at various points jeopardized British success.Footnote 65
This is not to suggest that later open hostilities in the American colonies stemmed directly from the Havana campaign or other campaigns during the Seven Years War. The taking of Havana was first announced in American colonial newspapers on 13 September 1762, and the many celebratory sermons and entertainments indicate that provincials still clearly considered themselves a province of the British empire. Yet, as Richard Harding has suggested, the Seven Years War intensified tensions in American society about the British army's role, and colonial responsibilities, as large numbers of troops were quickly raised, employed, and deployed in the provinces. In the case of Havana, close geographical proximity to the West Indies meant that North American troops were sought as a possible means to moderate the unhealthiness of the tropical climate. Close proximity also meant that those in the colonies were not shielded from the horrors attending a siege in the West Indies.Footnote 66
For Britain, the taking of Havana in 1762 was certainly a military victory. It was also in many ways an economic success: prizes of £735,000 were distributed among the British armed forces that lived until Havana surrendered; and more broadly, Britain's governance of Cuba between August 1762 and July 1763 was regarded as successfully profitable, both in terms of finance and population. These eleven months of British rule proved a spur to Spanish reforms of the later 1760s and served as a model for Spanish colonial economic practice well into the 1790s.Footnote 67 Yet, this account demonstrates how costly the taking of Havana was in other terms, as it jeopardized recruitment and relations with the American colonies. In this case, if the welfare of troops was in doubt, or if reports suggested as much, the long-term effectiveness of the fiscal-military state was challenged, regardless of its short-term military and financial success.
IV
While there was general support in Britain for campaigns in the North American colonies, involvement in European theatres was a divisive issue. Opposition politicians exploited popular resentment towards the king's involvement in European affairs as elector of Hanover. In general, continental warfare was described as expensive: land campaigns raised tax levels and required British dependency on German mercenary armies, while the German state of Hanover provided no trade or revenue, unlike the West Indies and the American colonies. At the same time, theories of political arithmetic linked a nation's strength to its population size and military manpower, often explicitly comparing Britain to more populous France: sickness therefore was a national concern.Footnote 68 Critics charged that continental campaigns were particularly costly in terms of troops. Instead of labouring at home or protecting British commerce in the colonies, British soldiers sent to serve in Germany were dying, if not from colonial diseases, then from less exotic fevers and diarrhoea. As diseases common in European army camps (mostly typhus and dysentery) occurred when provisions ran short and discipline faltered, reports often linked ill-health among the troops to official mismanagement and thereby sparked political criticism.
Complaints about the ill-management of German campaigns became especially prominent early in 1761, when British officers on home leave spread reports of disease and bad supplies regarding the British troops stationed in Germany. In January, Newcastle impatiently inquired with various military commanders whether the complaints were true and asked that they be silenced. In a letter to the marquess of Granby, Newcastle exclaimed:
I am amazed your Lordship gave leave to so many Gentlemen to come over here. It is incredible what mischief they have done by their Imprudent Discourse … The Distress of the Army is universally talk'd of, & their want almost of every thing, and the decrease of their numbers is likewise much observed upon.Footnote 69
Such complaints were focused on the administrative body responsible for supplies to the troops, known as the Commissariat, and a parliamentary enquiry opened in April into its role and that of the Treasury. The enquiry, the report of which was directed by Newcastle and written up by Secretary at War Viscount Barrington, found no evidence of corruption among Treasury or Commissariat officials. The duke of Devonshire and other officials concluded that such criticism represented a partisan political manoeuvre to embarrass Newcastle and to place further pressure on the ministry to end the continental campaign.Footnote 70
In published accounts of the war, connections between disease, bad management, and criticism of foreign policy were made clear. The Annual Register of 1761, for example, summarized how British troops in Germany had been ill-supplied during the previous year's campaign, and concluded:
whatever were the causes of this scarcity; it was bitterly felt by the troops, and was accompanied by diseases which thinned them extremely. This raised a general discontent in the army, which was speedily communicated to England, where the people … did not confine their complaints to the conduct of the war, but began to fall into an almost general dislike of the very system upon which it was pursued. Much of the old dispute between the naval and continental schemes was renewed; and enforced with many additional topics.Footnote 71
Popular opposition pamphleteers also made these connections explicit, not only linking mismanagement with complaints about the loss to the domestic workforce, but also polemically comparing British and French foreign policy as related to their overall effects on national strength. In his best-selling pamphlet, Occasional thoughts on the present German war (1761), Israel Mauduit argued:
The ordinary land force of France therefore, with the addition of Saxon, Wirtemberg, and other corps, natives of Germany, and inured to the food and climate of that country, as much as the Hessians and Hanoverians, has furnished every year of the war hitherto an army superior to ours. Britain maintains in this war above two hundred thousand of its natives in its pay. In which country then has the war taken off the most hands from its agriculture and manufactures? Or which country can best afford to send its subjects to cut each others throats, or rot in the hospitals of Germany?Footnote 72
British officials reacted to such criticisms and to claims of high rates of sickness in various ways. Vigorously responding to reports about the state of British military hospitals in Germany, Barrington immediately solicited advice regarding the state of medical care from both military and medical men, and immediately implemented their recommendations regarding personnel and supplies, all of which required money. Barrington's official correspondence demonstrates that he initiated the improvements, even on occasion pre-empting cabinet decisions, and suggests that his concern and action over medical care stemmed from a recognition that he was directly responsible for the state of the armed forces. Indeed, Barrington was particularly annoyed by any suggestion that he might have placed unsuitable men in the service of the army for reasons of personal preferment.Footnote 73
Officials also responded to reports of disease among British troops by censorship. While the exact mechanisms of such restrictions and the degree of control over reporting are difficult to ascertain, censorship of letters and reports was certainly common. After the first raid on the French coast in 1757, Captain George Rodney complained to George Grenville about how his letters, together with those from officers of the fleet, were indefinitely detained by the Post Office.Footnote 74 Following another failed raid on the French coast, army officer Sir John Irwine complained likewise in 1758, describing to George Sackville how he and other officers:
have for some time past been treated like people guilty of high treason, we have not only been confined, but in effect debared the use of pen, ink, and paper; for the two last expresses that left the fleet carried only the General's and Commodore's letters.Footnote 75
In similar vein, an anonymous pamphlet arguing for the removal of British troops from continental Europe not only described such troops as ‘rotting by peacemeal in the wilds of Germany’, but also asked:
Are we to imagine, because we do not hear the groans, perhaps the reproaches, of our starving, slaughtered, expiring countrymen, in Westphalia, that none such are vented? Because, perhaps by the rigid rules of war and politics, the complaints of the survivors do not come to our ears; because the military law does not even admit of such complaints being either published in the camp, or transpiring into the public, can we imagine they do not exist?Footnote 76
With political theorists and pamphleteers holding officials responsible for the welfare of troops, and with disease among troops linked to poor provisioning and irresponsible governance, the health of British troops also featured in political debates, and hence attracted official censorship.
More broadly, the health and welfare of troops, and indeed of Britain's lower orders in general, was a moral concern. Political arithmeticians viewed the nation's strength in terms not only of revenue, but also of moral vigour. As John Brown's treatise, The estimate of the manners and principles of the times (1757), argued, Britain's military and naval losses at the opening of the Seven Years War were due to the negative influence of trade and commerce, which had adversely affected British manners and thus weakened all of British society:
these effeminate Manners and this Defect of Principle … have produced a general Incapacity, have weakened the national Spirit of Defence, have heightened the national disunion [which] seems to have fitted us for a Prey to the Insults and Invasions of our most powerful Enemy.Footnote 77
Whereas France maintained its national vigour and strength by ensuring that ‘Candidates for public Employ go thro’ a severe and laborious Course of Disipline', Britain's labouring population had not only declined, but was becoming physically weaker due to intemperance and diseases common to commercial urban centres.Footnote 78
V
Good leadership – political, military, and naval – combined humanitarian and economic concerns. By contrast, disease was seen as a manifestation of inferior leadership. This maxim was demonstrated not only in censorship of its incidence, but also in praise of commanders such as the marquess of Granby, described as uniting military valour with humanitarian virtues. Such appreciation was reflected in paintings that portrayed the glories of the war and its commanders to the British public, as well as in published texts. Significantly, several widely viewed paintings of scenes from the Seven Years War by Francis Hayman, Edward Penny, and Benjamin West illustrate not battlefield victories, but instead military officials as benevolent and humanitarian commanders.
Edward Penny's The marquess of Granby relieving a sick soldier (1764) shows Granby giving charity from his private purse to a sick soldier. David Solkin has argued that this image united both the public and private spheres: Granby's ‘modest act of charity brings the military man and the man of feeling together as one’.Footnote 79 Although Granby was shown spontaneously responding to an individual's immediate needs, his portrayal was displayed publicly. Indeed, Solkin has estimated that Penny's was the most widely disseminated painting of the period, with more engravings sold than West's famous Death of Wolfe. Hence it both manifested and fostered public expectations that officials be concerned with the welfare of troops.Footnote 80
Sickness among soldiers was seen as evidence of physical, political, and moral disorder, because it reflected ill-discipline among the ranks, ill-administration and corruption among officials, and the declining strength of the British state. The effectiveness of the British state depended on it being perceived as strong: by preventing disorder, and when that proved impossible, by limiting reports of such disorder. Townshend's decision to put Portuguese civil authorities under military guard in order to establish British military supply infrastructure was not just a show of force on the part of the dominant ally, but a necessary measure to restrain his army from committing acts of arbitrary violence. Negotiating with American provincial authorities, adapting to India's climate and environment, reorganizing British hospital administration in Germany, and censoring details of campaigns were all strategies that ensured the continued effectiveness of the fiscal-military state. Local partnerships were, of course, fundamental to the functioning of the British fiscal-military state, both in Britain and in the colonies. The negotiations outlined here were not simply partnerships, however, but symbiotic relationships, demonstrating the responsiveness of the British state to local demands and local conditions. At the same time, when campaigns were not entirely successful (even if ultimately victorious), the perceived significance of public opinion – in terms both of future recruitment and opposition criticism – prompted British officials to try to manage what was reported. British victory, and warfare in general, was not simply about the fiscal resources and administration of the state. The effectiveness of the British fiscal-military state, and hence its long-term strength, relied on it caring, and showing that it cared, about the welfare of its armed forces, whether at home or in far-off allied and colonial territories.
