[Manuscript]: "Plan of Defence for Ireland" (March 27th, 1778): Annotated by Henry Clinton, British Commander in North America during the American Revolution (1778-82)

(DUNDAS, David; Henry Clinton)

About this Item

Unpublished manuscript. Folio (8" x 12½"). Contains 80 manuscript pages in ink on the rectos and versos, consisting of the title page: "Plan of Defence for Ireland" [1p.]; the main report dated March 27th, 1778, titled at the head of the first text page: "Considerations, with regard to the Invasion and Defence of Ireland in Case of a Rupture with France" [53pp.]; followed by an updated supplemental: "Memorandum 1st July 1779" [26pp.] that includes statistical information. Stitched contemporary marbled paper wrappers. The wrappers are rubbed and split at the spine, else near fine. Sir Henry Clinton s personal copy, annotated by him, of the British plan to defend Ireland in the event of a French attack during the American Revolution. Prepared by British General Sir David Dundas while he was Quartermaster-General in Ireland, in response to the 1778 French Treaty of Alliance with the United States. The report assesses the vulnerability of the homeland and its protection, including British fears of a two-front war if France attacked Ireland with the military support of the United States: "The Americans might in a bravado send 1500 or 2000 to land in the north. Their proclaiming liberty and licentiousness to the infatuated multitude, there is no knowing what confusion they might occasion." Written in a neat clerical hand, the plan also includes later pencil annotations (dated 1804) presumably written by Clinton's son William Henry Clinton, who served as Quartermaster-General in Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars, in 1804-05. Two of Sir Henry Clinton's marginal ink annotations are dated in pencil "1793-4" in the same later hand. A remarkable unpublished manuscript, of which there is only one other known copy purportedly in the British Library. It was sold by the Clinton heirs in 1886 and was eventually acquired by Dr. Otto Fisher, who built his celebrated collection in the 1920s-40s. Still legible on the title page is the faint (erased) pencil note from the original sale: "Plan of Defence for Ireland, with MSS notes in the margin in the handwriting of Sir Henry Clinton." At the beginning of his report, Dundas candidly expresses the difficulties Britain would have in confronting a war on two fronts, and how a conflict in the British Isles would limit the forces Britain could deploy to America: "It seems probable, that the beginning of a French war, will be the end of an offensible American one. The recall of the foreign troops must be decisive … The foreign troops recalled, our own National Force remaining in America cannot exceed 25,000 men . This number would be barely sufficient for the preservation of New York and its dependencies nor is it clear they could be long there in safety . Philadelphia is out of the question, Rhode Island would never be worth keeping … But the necessary arrangements for altering the nature of the war, for collecting and transporting in safety the troops to their different destinations, and for preventing attempts which the enemy may now meditate and with an inferior force, in the present divided state of the American fleet and army, are most weighty and serious considerations. It is only in her commerce, and distant settlements that we singly can distress France. Any attack made at home even if we could transport our whole American Army at once, is too chimerical to be mentioned. The experience of the last war in the several [attacks] we made on their coast fully evince this." He goes on to consider: "Our superiority at sea, which we must always suppose, as it gives every advantage in those enterprises, so it also affords the great security of our distantly settlements." Here, Henry Clinton comments in the margin (re: "superiority at sea") with the note: "and which we never scarcely ever had in America." Dundas continues: "As our strength lies in attacking the extremities, so theirs does at aiming directly at the center. It is the general and avowed opinion in France that at home we are most vulnerable.

Seller Inventory # 604257

Bibliographic Details

• Title: [Manuscript]: "Plan of Defence for Ireland" (March 27th, 1778): Annotated by Henry Clinton, British Commander in North America during the American Revolution (1778-82)
• Binding: Softcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Americana