Debating Foreign Policy in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Jeremy Black

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317154266
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: History

It was during the course of the eighteenth century that Britain's status as a major maritime and commercial power was forged, shaping the political, economic and military policies of the nation for the next two centuries. Starting from a relatively minor role in global affairs before 1700, Britain rapidly rose to become a significant player in European affairs, and leading imperial power by 1800. In this commanding contribution to the subject, Jeremy Black draws on his extensive expertise to examine how British political culture and public debate in this period responded to, and in part shaped, this transition to an increasingly prominent role in world affairs. Rather than offering a familiar narrative of Britain's eighteenth-century foreign policy, this book instead focuses upon how this policy was debated and written about in British society. Taking as a central theme the debate over policy and the development of public culture and politics, the study explores how these were linked to developing relations with Europe and helped shape colonial strategies and expectations. It highlights how widely shared concerns about such issues as national defence, the strength of the Royal Navy and trade protection, presented little consensus in how they were to be realised and were the subject of fierce public debate. The book underlines how these kinds of issues were not considered in the abstract, but in terms of a political community that was divided over a series of key issues. By probing the problems and issues surrounding the need to define and discuss Britain's foreign policy in semi-public and public contexts, this book offers a fascinating insight into questions of perceived national interest, and how this developed and evolved over the course of the eighteenth century. This work complements the author's other studies by joining the institutional focus seen there to a wider assessment of public politics and print culture, and as such will make a central contribution to studies of eighteenth-century Britain and Europe.

1 Introduction: Debating Policy

DOI: 10.4324/9781315576022-1

‘The rank Jacobites, alias Gold Boxmen of London, do not seem to relish the King of Prussia’s great success. They had rather see things in confusion, and the people with gloomy than cheerful aspects’.

Edward Owen, London printer, earlier printer of the Gazette, 1757. News of Britain’s ally fed through Britain’s politics. ¹

¹ Owen to Edward Weston, 20 May 1757, Weston-Underwood papers.

The eighteenth century was the first of two centuries that were very much Britain’s, both in terms of the power she gained and wielded, and because of the impression she made elsewhere, both with this power and with regard to the influence now referred to as soft power. Such a situation, however, scarcely seemed likely at the start of the period. Indeed, in 1688, England had been successfully invaded, beginning a British civil war that may have been perfunctory in England and Wales and relatively short in Scotland and Ireland, but that was traumatic, notably in Ireland; a civil war that helped transform the politics of all parts of the British Isles.

By 1704, in contrast, British troops under John, 1^st Duke of Marlborough were on the River Danube, playing, thanks to their victory at Blenheim, a key role in the geopolitics of Europe. The battle might be domesticated by using the name Blenheim for the palace built for Marlborough in the Oxfordshire countryside, but the British had won as leading members of an allied army in which the Austrians also played an important role. In addition, by 1763, Britain was clearly the major power in the European overseas world and the only power able to project power around the globe. This process, however, did not appear seamless or inevitable to contemporaries threatened with invasion by France or Spain, not least in 1692, 1708, 1719, 1744–6, and 1759. These threats continued, notably in 1779 and throughout the period from 1795 to 1805.

Indeed, part of the challenge in any discussion of Britain’s strategic culture and foreign policy is to distinguish, and reconcile, short, medium and long-term factors, attitudes and goals. It is also valuable to use foreign policy as a way to approach the character and operation of Britain as a state and political system in this important period. There is, moreover, the analytical challenge posed by the widespread belief at the time (and today) that British policy should and, less consistently, did respond to popular views. This response was seen as a product of the nature of the constitution, and also as the way to ensure support for government (and also opposition) arguments. Defenders of British foreign policy argued that it was strengthened by such support, but critics of particular ministries charged that there was a failure to reflect popular views as well as to forward national interests, although there was also criticism that ministries and policies changed too often. ² Foreign rulers, ministers and diplomats commented on the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy, sometimes with praise, but frequently critically. This relationship led to the presentation of an instrumentality in British foreign policy with arguments, generally self-interested, as by Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia, that particular British policies would be acceptable and politically helpful at home ³ and were chosen accordingly. He was not alone. In 1742, in a letter intercepted by the British government, which devoted much effort to the information obtained by espionage and discussed it among ministers, ⁴ Wasner, the perceptive Austrian envoy, reported that the spirit of the nation was very much in favour of help to Austria and that it would be dangerous for the government not to agree. ⁵

² London Chronicle, 5 Ap., Con-Test, 9 Ap. 1757. ³ Frederick to Podewils, 21 Ap. 1742, Polit. Corresp., II, 121. ⁴ Newcastle to Robert Walpole, 2 Nov. (os) 1723, BL. Add. 32686 fol. 387; K. Ellis, The Post Office in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Administrative History (Oxford, 1958); S.P. Oakley, ‘The interception of posts in Celle, 1694–1700’, in R.M. Hatton and J.S. Bromley (eds), William III and Louis XIV (Liverpool, 1968), pp. 95–116; P. Fritz, ‘The anti-Jacobite intelligence system of the English ministers, 1715–1745’, Historical Journal, 16 (1973), pp. 265–89; W. Gibson, ‘A eighteenth-century paradox: The career of the Decipherer-Bishop, Edward Willes’, British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 12 (1989), pp. 69–76. ⁵ Wasner to Stainville, 12 Ap. 1742, NA. SP. 107/53.

Public opinion, a presence and pressure at once nebulous and effective, was linked to exploitation by politicians in critical comments both by foreign diplomats and by British ministers, as when Thomas, Duke of Newcastle, long a key Whig minister, referring in 1756 to the irritation of the ‘nation’ by bad news, wrote that this had been exploited for particular ends. ⁶ Moreover, the impossibility of resisting the ‘torrent des factions’ was cited by William, 4^th Earl of Rochford, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, in explaining to the French envoy in 1772 why, if France backed Sweden openly against Russia, the British government would be obliged to support the latter. ⁷

⁶ Newcastle to Gerlach Adolf von Münchhausen, key Hanoverian minister, 26 Nov. 1756, Hanover, Des 91 v. Münchhausen I Nr. 24 fol. 2. ⁷ Adrien-Louis, Count of Guines to D’Aiguillon, 15 Sept. 1772, AE. CP. Ang. 500 fol. 123.

Such analyses, however, begged the question of how best to assess public views, and, in particular, how to respond when they were divided. It was unclear, moreover, how far these divisions would lead to policy consequences. Thus, to return to 1742, diplomats had to assess the likely consequences of the collapse of unity among the Whigs after the replacement of Sir Robert Walpole as head of the ministry and, in particular, the consequences of this collapse for the decision by the new ministry to adopt a markedly pro-Austrian stance in the War of the Austrian Succession. ⁸

⁸ Wasner to Gundel, 14 June 1742, NA. SP. 107/53.

The first section of this book relates to the mechanisms, extent and quality of debate over foreign policy, which is understood throughout to relate to policy during both peace and war. For much of the century, Britain was at, or close to, war, and it is somewhat artificial to distinguish policies during wartime, or linked to the possibility of war, from those of peacetime. Such a distinction was not made by contemporaries, British or foreign. Moreover, the limited value of the idea of such a distinction was enhanced by the extent to which hostilities could be committed when Britain was formally at peace, as with Spain in 1718 and 1727, or with France in 1754–6. Moreover, there might be large-scale peacetime military preparations, as during crises with Spain in 1726, 1729, 1735, 1770 and 1790, with France, as in 1731 and 1787, or with Russia in 1720 and 1791.

This situation, moreover, helps ensure a continuum between foreign policy and strategy, or what used to be called grand strategy. Indeed, strategic culture, the parameters shaping the definition and formulation of policy as well as the dominant set of assumptions, emerges in this book from the complex political situation of eighteenth-century Britain as a key area of public debate, discussion, aspiration, and even contested public myth. This position is not incompatible with the standard use of the concept of strategic culture in modern scholarship as the context within which military tasks were ‘shaped’ ⁹ , a standard usage that reflects discussion of distinctive ways of war ¹⁰ and that draws on the authority of cultural interpretations of warfare. ¹¹ In practice, the concept of strategic culture has to address its historical context, specifically the issue of coherence and consistency in face of the contested character of national interests, the rage and range of debate, and the roles of politics and contingency. In short, there is a revenge of history on theory.

⁹ R. Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, New Jersey 1976); K. Booth, Strategy and Ethnocentrism (London, 1979); C.G. Reynolds, ‘Reconsidering American Strategic History and Doctrines’, in his History of the Sea: Essays on Maritime Strategies (Columbia, South Carolina, 1989); A.I. Johnston, Cultural Realism_ Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, New Jersey, 1995); C.S. Gray, ‘Strategic Culture as Context: The First Generation of Theory Strikes Back’, Review of International Studies, 25 (1999), pp. 49–70; L. Sondhaus, ‘The Strategic Culture of the Habsburg Army’, Austrian History Yearbook, 32 (2001), pp. 225–34; W. Murray, ‘Does Military Culture Matter’, in J.F. Lehman and H. Sicherman (eds), America the Vulnerable. Our Military Problems and How to Fix Them (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2002), pp. 134–51. For valuable historical applications, E. Ringman, Identity, Interest and Action: A Cultural Explanation of Sweden’s Intervention in the Thirty Years War (Cambridge, 1996) and G. Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven, Connecticut, 1998). ¹⁰ Eg. A.R. Lewis, The American Culture of War (New York, 2007). ¹¹ T. Farrell, The Norms of War. Cultural Beliefs and Modern Conflict (Boulder, Colorado, 2005).

The very existence of strategy, strategic culture and strategic policy in the eighteenth century is highly problematic as far as some well-informed scholars are concerned ¹² , as the delay in the development of the explicitly-formulated idea of strategy, and in its use in such a language, are held to have reflected conceptual and institutional limitations. However, this analysis links the absence of an articulated school of strategic thinking, which is certainly the case by later standards, with a lack of strategic awareness that was not the case. The word was not used in English until about 1800 when it was borrowed from the French. The earliest citation in the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1810.

¹² R. Middleton, The Bells of Victory: The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry and the Conduct of the Seven Years’ War, 1757–1762 (Cambridge, 1985), p. 23; J.B. Hattendorf, England in the War of the Spanish Succession: A Study of the English View and Conduct of Grand Strategy, 1701–1712 (New York, 1987); N.A.M. Rodger, ‘The idea of naval strategy in Britain the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’, in G. Till (ed.), The Development of British Naval Thinking (Abingdon, 2006), pp. 19–33. For a more positive response, B. Simms, ‘“Ministers of Europe”: British strategic culture, 1714–1760’, in H.M. Scott and B. Simms (eds), Cultures of Power in Europe during the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 110–32.

Yet, although the information available did not meet later standards, strategic awareness was very much seen earlier, especially during crises. For example, as far as the Royal Navy was concerned, there was considerable experience of balancing between tasks, as can be seen with the detachment of squadrons from home waters for the Baltic and the Mediterranean in the 1720s, and such awareness was also seen in the relationship between proactive and reactive policies. The latter relationship was an aspect of a more general dilemma posed by the decision of how to respond not only to the threat of invasion but also that of action on behalf of the Jacobites, the supporters of the exiled Stuarts. Thus, in 1759, there was tension within the ministry over how far military resources should be retained to cope with a planned French invasion or sent abroad to pursue attacks on French interests. Moreover, a strategy of commercial interdiction played a role in operations against the Dutch in the late seventeenth century and, including a powerful transoceanic dimension, in the Anglo-Spanish crisis of 1725–7. Furthermore, the planned use of naval power in international crises, as in 1730, 1731, 1735 and 1770, can be seen as wide-ranging and reasonably sophisticated given limitations with communications and institutional support.

The same is true of planned operations on land, although here there was a greater complexity in planning and execution because such operations involved coalition warfare. Thus, there was an intertwining of military planning and diplomatic exigencies, as can be seen in successive conflicts, for example the War of the Spanish Succession, in which Britain was involved as a combatant from 1702 to 1713, and again in the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Britain was directly involved in this role from 1743 to 1748. Strategy thus existed as a concept and a practice, even if there was a lack of any unpacking of strategy and policy, a lack that reflected the absence of any institutional body specifically for strategic planning and execution, and also the tendency, in politics, government and public debate, to see strategy and policy as one, and necessarily so. As much of the scholarly discussion of the eighteenth century relates to terms not employed by contemporaries, such as Enlightenment, it is difficult to see why those relating to strategy should not be employed.

Strategy was also linked by contemporaries to debate about the relationship between military strength and the political system. Despite the grounding of parliamentary monarchy as a central aspect of the Glorious Revolution, earlier opposition to a standing army as a supposed aid to tyranny was reprised in the eighteenth century, notably in the 1720s, and interest...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Dedication Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Note on Dates, Spelling and Titles
• Preface
• Prologue: Documentary Culture and the Historian
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: Debating Policy
• 2 The Mechanisms of Debate
• 3 The Extent of Debate
• 4 The Quality of Debate
• 5 The New Age of War, 1689–1714
• 6 A Continental Dynasty: Britain and Hanover, 1714–60
• 7 Rethinking Interventionism, 1740–55
• 8 Strategic Culture and Imperial Warfare, 1754–63
• 9 An Empire Under Challenge, 1763–83
• 10 New Definitions and Problems, 1783–1815
• 11 Conclusions: Debating Britain and Europe
• Selected Further Reading
• Index