George Germain

Lord George Germain, born George Sackville, was secretary of state for the colonies from 1775 to 1782 and the minister most responsible for Britain's conduct of the American war. His earlier career had ended in disgrace. At Minden in 1759 he commanded the cavalry and repeatedly failed to charge when ordered, denying the allies a complete victory; he demanded a court martial to clear his name and was instead found guilty of disobedience and declared unfit to serve the king in any military capacity. He rebuilt a political career regardless, changed his surname to Germain on inheriting an estate, and entered the North ministry as the hard line against the colonies. His strategy rested on a belief that most Americans were loyal and would rally once the army appeared. It was wrong, and the machinery he ran to act on it was worse: instructions written in London for commanders three thousand miles away, sent months apart, with no clear line of authority between Howe in New York and Burgoyne coming down from Canada. The result was Saratoga in 1777, a British army surrendered because two commanders had different ideas of the plan. He stayed in office five more years, resigned after Yorktown, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Sackville, which the Lords protested on account of the Minden verdict. He had been a capable administrator before Minden and was not stupid; the failure was one of judgement about a war he never saw. Horace Walpole remarked that he had the misfortune of being disliked by everyone who worked with him. The Lords entered a formal protest against his peerage in 1782, and he took the title anyway. He died at Stoneland in 1785.

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