ABSTRACT
Discredited by its long and unavailing prosecution of the American war, the North ministry fell in March 1782. A government headed by the Marquis of Rockingham and resolved on ending the now unpopular struggle against the rebels came to office. No matter what came of negotiating with the Americans, however, British possessions elsewhere in the hemisphere still needed to be held against the French. With this in mind, the new ministry planned to reinforce the Army in the West Indies with some of the troops removed from North America. Such a move, it was thought, would at least strengthen Britain’s defensive position in the sugar islands; at best the British share of these islands might be increased at French expense – if not by armed force, then perhaps at the conference table. 1
