Clinton, Henry, Sir, 1738?-1795

Sir Henry was the son of Admiral George Clinton (c.1685-1761) and grandson of Sir Francis Fiennes Clinton, 6th Earl of Lincoln. His father was Governor General of Newfoundland, 1732-1741, and of New York, 1741-1751. Rather than follow his father into the navy, Sir Henry embarked on a military career. He advanced steadily through the ranks, partly assisted by the patronage of his relative, the 1st Duke of Newcastle under Lyne. By the 1770s he had reached the rank of Colonel of the 12th Foot, and was also a serving M.P., holding firstly the Newcastle seat of Boroughbridge (1772-1774) and then the Newcastle seat of Newark (1774-1784). In 1775, grief-stricken by the early death of his wife, he accepted the post of third in command of the British forces in North America.

By the winter of 1777-1778, Sir Henry had become Commander-in-Chief of the British army in North America. This promotion occurred during the American War of Independence - a war which effectively marked the end of his military career. When Cornwallis surrendered in 1781, the war was essentially ended and Sir Henry returned to England in June of the following year, suffering from a battered and bruised reputation, which he spent much of the final years of his life trying to redeem.

After returning to England, Sir Henry saw occasional military service, served in parliament as M.P. for Launceston (1790-1794) and accepted the governorship of Gibraltar. Sadly, he was never to reach Gibraltar, dying in December 1795 before he could take up his post.

An engraved portrait of Sir Henry, by Francesco Bartolozzi, after John Smart, is available on the National Portrait Gallery website.

Family
He married Harriet Carter (d 1772), daughter and co-heir of Thomas Carter and had two sons and two daughters

General Sir William Henry Clinton (1769-1846)
General Sir Henry Clinton (1771-1829)
Augusta, m Henry Dawkins M.P in 1788
Harriet, m Major General Harry Chester in 1799
Following the death of his wife, Clinton set up home in Paddington, London, with his mistress, Mary Baddeley, wife of Captain Thomas Baddeley (d 1782) and their five children. He also had an illegitimate daughter from a liaison with a Mrs Preussen.

General Sir Henry Clinton, KB (16 April 1730 – 23 December 1795) was a British Army officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1772 and 1795. He is best known for his service as a general during the American War of Independence. He arrived in Boston in May 1775 and was the British Commander-in-Chief in America from 1778 to 1782. He was a Member of Parliament for many years due to the influence of his cousin Henry Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle. Late in life, he was named Governor of Gibraltar, but he died before assuming the post. Henry Clinton was born on 16 April 1730, to Admiral George Clinton and Anne Carle, the daughter of a general.[1] Early histories claimed his birth year as 1738, a date widely propagated even in modern biographic summaries In 1739 his father, then stationed at Gibraltar, applied for the governorship of the Province of New York. He won the post in 1741 with the assistance of the Duke of Newcastle (who was his brother's brother-in-law).[4] He did not actually go to New York until 1743. He took young Henry with him, having failed to acquire a lieutenant's commission for the 12-year-old.[5] Henry's career would also benefit from the family connection to the Newcastles.[6]

Records of the family's life in New York are sparse. He is reported to have studied under Samuel Seabury on Long Island, suggesting the family may have lived in the country outside New York City.[6] Clinton's first military commission was to an independent company in New York in 1745. The next year his father procured for him a captain's commission, and he was assigned to garrison duty at the recently captured Fortress of Louisbourg.[6] In 1749, Clinton went to Britain to pursue his military career. It was two years before he received a commission as a captain in the Coldstream Guards.[7] His father, after he returned to London when his term as New York governor was over, procured for Clinton a position as aide to Sir John Ligonier in 1756.[8] By 1758 Clinton had risen to be a lieutenant colonel in the 1st Foot Guards, which was later renamed the Grenadier Guards, and was a line company commander in the 2nd Battalion and was based in London. Clinton was back with the 2nd Battalion coming out of winter quarters, at Paderborn in February 1761 and with the unit at the Battle of Villinghausen on 16 July 1761, then under Prince Ferdinand, the Hereditary Crown Prince, at the crossing of the Diemel, near Warburg, in August, before wintering near Bielefeld. His father died this year necessitating a return to England to resolve family affairs. While Clinton was campaigning with the army in 1761, his father died. As the new head of the family, he had to unwind his father's affairs, which included sizable debts as well as arrears in pay. Battles he had with the Board of Trade over his father's unpaid salary lasted for years, and attempts to sell the land in the colonies went nowhere; these lands were confiscated during the American Revolution, and even his heirs were unable to recover any kind of compensation for them. His mother, who had a history of mental instability and played only a small part in his life, died in August 1767.[13]

On 12 February 1767, Clinton married Harriet Carter, the daughter of landed gentry,[14] and the couple settled into a house in Surrey. There is some evidence that the marriage was performed in haste; six months later, the household accounts contain evidence of a son, Frederick. Frederick died of an illness in 1774, two years after his mother. Although Clinton did not write of his marriage, it was apparently happy. The couple produced five children: Frederick, Augusta (1768), William Henry (1769), Henry Jr. (1771), and Harriet (1772). Clinton's wife died on 29 August 1772, eight days after giving birth to Harriet.[15] It took him over a year to recover from the grief. He took his in-laws into his house, and his wife's sisters took over the care of his children.[16] His second and third sons later continued the family tradition of high command. Upon the death of the Duke of Newcastle, his patronage was taken up by the latter's nephew and successor Henry Pelham-Clinton. Although he was sometimes instrumental in advancing Clinton's career, the new duke's lack of attention and interest in politics would at times work against Clinton. Clinton also complicated their relationship by treating the young duke more as an equal than as a noble who should be respected.[17] A second patron was King George III's brother the Duke of Gloucester. Clinton was appointed Gloucester's Groom of the Bedchamber in 1764, a position he continued to hold for many years. However, some of Gloucester's indiscretions left him out of favour at court, and he was thus not an effective supporter of Clinton.[18]

Clinton, along with Major Generals William Howe and John Burgoyne, was sent with reinforcements to strengthen the position of General Thomas Gage in Boston. They arrived on 25 May, having learned en route that the American War of Independence had broken out, and that Boston was under siege.[26] linton's expedition to the Carolinas was expected to meet a fleet sent from Europe with more troops for operations in February 1776. Delayed by logistics and weather, this force, which included Major General Charles Cornwallis as Clinton's second in command and Admiral Sir Peter Parker did not arrive off the North Carolina coast until May.[40] Concluding that North Carolina was not a good base for operations, they decided to assault Charleston, South Carolina, whose defenses were reported to be unfinished. Their assault, launched in late June, was a dismal failure. Clinton's troops were landed on an island near Sullivan's Island, where the rebel colonists had their main defenses, with the expectation that the channel between the two could be waded at low tide. This turned out not to be the case, and the attack was reduced to a naval bombardment.[41] The bombardment in its turn failed because the spongy palmetto logs used to construct the fort absorbed the force of the cannonballs without splintering and breaking.[42]


Commanding General George Washington,
Continental Army
Clinton and Parker rejoined the main fleet to participate in General Howe's August 1776 assault on New York City. Clinton pestered Howe with a constant stream of ideas for the assault, which the commander in chief came to resent.[43] Howe did however adopt Clinton's plan for attacking George Washington's position in Brooklyn. At the 27 August Battle of Long Island, British forces led by Howe and Clinton, following the latter's plan, successfully flanked the American forward positions, driving them back into their fortifications on Brooklyn Heights.[44] However, Howe refused Clinton's recommendation that they follow up the overwhelming victory with an assault on the entrenched Americans, due to a lack of intelligence as to their strength and a desire to minimize casualties. Instead, Howe besieged the position, which the Americans abandoned without loss on 29 August.[45] General Howe was rewarded with a knighthood for his success.[46]

Howe then proceeded to take control of New York City, landing at Kip's Bay on Manhattan, with Clinton again in the lead.[47] Although Clinton again suggested moves to cut Washington's army off, Howe rejected them. In October Clinton led the army ashore in Westchester County in a bid to trap Washington between the Hudson and Bronx Rivers. However, Washington reached White Plains before Clinton did.[48] After a brief battle in which Washington was pushed further north, Howe turned south to consolidate control of Manhattan. By this time the relationship between the two men had broken down almost completely, with Howe, apparently fed up with Clinton's constant stream of criticisms and suggestions, refusing to allow Clinton even minor deviations in the army's marching route.[49]

In November Howe ordered Clinton to begin preparing an expedition to occupy Newport, Rhode Island, desired as a port by the Royal Navy. When Howe sent General Cornwallis into New Jersey to chase after Washington, Clinton proposed that, rather than taking Newport, his force should be landed in New Jersey in an attempt to envelop Washington's army.[50] Howe rejected this advice, and Clinton sailed for Newport in early December, occupying it in the face of minimal opposition.[51] In January 1777 Clinton was given leave to return to England.[52] General Howe submitted his resignation as Commander-in-Chief in America in the wake of the 1777 campaigns, and Clinton was on the short list of nominees to replace him—despite being mistrusted by Prime Minister North, principally over his many complaints and requests to resign. Clinton was formally appointed to the post on 4 February 1778. Word of this did not arrive until April, and Clinton assumed command in Philadelphia in May 1778.[64] France had formally entered the war on the American side by this time. Clinton was consequently ordered to withdraw from Philadelphia and send 5,000 of his troops to the economically important Caribbean. For the rest of the war, Clinton received few reinforcements as a consequence of the globalisation of the conflict with France.[65] His orders were to strengthen areas in America that were firmly under British control, and do no more than conduct raiding expeditions in the American-controlled areas.[66]

There was a shortage of transports for all of the Loyalists fleeing Philadelphia, so Clinton acted against his direct orders and decided to move the army to New York by land instead of by sea.[67] He marched to New York and fought a battle with Washington's army at Monmouth Court House on 28 June.[68] Clinton burnished his reputation at home by writing a report on the movement that greatly exaggerated the size of Washington's Continental Army and minimised the British casualties at Monmouth.[69]

Arriving in New York, he and Admiral Howe were faced with a French fleet outside the harbour. Fortunately, Admiral d'Estaing decided against crossing the bar into the harbour, and sailed instead for Newport.[70] Once Clinton learned of his destination, he marshalled troops to reinforce the Newport garrison while Lord Howe sailed to meet d'Estaing. Both fleets were scattered by a storm, and the Americans failed to take Newport before Clinton arrived.[71] Clinton sent the supporting force on a raid of nearby communities, while he returned to New York to organize the troops that were to be sent southward.[72]

Clinton sent a detachment to strike at Georgia that took Savannah in December, and it gained a tenuous foothold at Augusta in January 1779.[73] He also detached troops for service in the West Indies in a plan to capture St. Lucia; the expedition was a success, compelling a French surrender not long before the French fleet arrived.[74]

Clinton managed to establish a harmonious relationship with William Eden, a member of the Carlisle Peace Commission. This commission had been sent in a vain attempt at reconciliation with the American Congress. Despite its failures, Eden and Clinton got along, and Eden promised to make sure that Clinton's dispatches received favourable distribution in England.[75]

Clinton found himself dealing with the tit-for-tat murders taking place between the Patriots and Loyalists, and he was in office when Captain Huddy was murdered, which eventually led to the Asgill Affair. Early in 1779 Clinton sent his trusted aide, Lieutenant Duncan Drummond, to England in order to argue Clinton's request to be recalled. On 30 June 1779, Clinton issued what has become known as the Philipsburg Proclamation (so named because it was issued from his headquarters at the Philipsburg Manor House in Westchester County, New York). This proclamation institutionalized in the British Army an offer of freedom to enlisted runaway slaves that had first been made in a similar proclamation by Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore in 1775. He justified this offer by citing the fact that the Continental Army was also actively recruiting blacks. The proclamation led to a flood of fugitive slaves making their way to British lines to take advantage of the offer,[86] and the issue of slave repatriation would complicate Anglo-American relations as the war was ending.[87] In 1782, after fighting in the North American theater ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Clinton was replaced as Commander-in-Chief by Sir Guy Carleton, and he returned to England. In 1783, Clinton published a Narrative of the Campaign of 1781 in North America in which he attempted to lay the blame for the 1781 campaign failures on General Cornwallis. This was met with a public response by Cornwallis, who leveled his own criticisms at Clinton. Clinton also resumed his seat in Parliament, serving until 1784.[95]

Not much is known about what Clinton did from 1784 until he was re-elected to Parliament in 1790 for Launceston in Cornwall, a pocket borough controlled by his cousin Newcastle. Three years later, in October 1793, Clinton was promoted to full general. The following July he was appointed Governor of Gibraltar, but he died at Portland Place before he was able to assume that post.[96]

He was buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

Born April 16, 1730; The date of birth long been disputed; family records in College of Arm London do not have it; date taken from Clement's Library notebook from Clinton