The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 2, Winter 2019 | Page 110

The Saber
Britain enjoyed a powerful
navy, but that navy had fallen into a
state of neglect because the British did
not expect the American rebellion to be
a large-scale conflict and thus failed to
mobilize for war. 1 Even if the British anticipated
the coming conflict correctly,
there was simply no money with which
to strengthen the navy in 1775. 2 As a
result, American privateers and smugglers
managed to circumvent British
attempts at interdicting war materiel
and supplies. Following the formal intervention
of foreign powers in 1778
and 1779, the British situation became
even more tenuous. The power of the
British navy could have initially provided
Great Britain with a significant
advantage in the American Revolution,
but a weak economic situation prevented
the Royal Navy from exercising its
full might against the rebellion. The
entry of the French and Spanish navies
into the conflict compounded Britain’s
problems, and it had to alter its overall
war strategy. The combined strength of
the French and Spanish navies exceeded
the power of the Royal Navy and
thus forced Great Britain to refocus its
naval might from the American colonies
in order to protect her imperial
possessions.
The early years of the war were
the ideal time for Great Britain to strike
at the rebellion and crush it with a
powerful demonstration of force. This,
however, did not occur for a variety of
reasons. Early in the war, Parliament
simply did not believe that the rebellion
was a serious concern. 3 As such, they
neither mobilized the navy, nor injected
enough ground forces into the colonies
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