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Hello all, Eric Rivenus with the most notorious

podcast here.

Each week I interview an author or historian about a historical true crime, tragedy, or disaster.

Subject matter ranges from gun slingers to gilded age murder to gangsters to to pirates, to wild prison breaks.

My guests spring their incredible knowledge directly to you.

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Cheers and have a safe tomorrow. Hello, and thank you for joining the American Revolution.

This week, episode 237, The King's Speech.

Last week we talked about the efforts by the Continental Congress to bring other European

powers into the war against Britain in 1779. This week I want to look at the situation also in late 1779 from the

perspective of the British government. For the King the year had not been a good one.

It got off to a difficult start when it was revealed that the government had broken up a

plot to assassinate the King in late 1778.

Much of 1779 was spent in divisive hearings. The Navy became

deeply divided as a result of courts-martial related to the Naval Battle of Ushan, then parlour Courts'

then Parliament held hearings into the loss of Burgoyne's army at Saratoga,

which divided both the army and the ministry itself. The Naval Courts Marshal of Admiral's Keppel and Palliser

dragged through the spring of 1779 and as I said this led riots, it led to divisions within the naval leadership, it affected political

leaders, and the whole mess actually threatened to bring down the first Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich.

He only avoided censor by Parliament when he successfully appealed to his friend in the House of Lords Lords to put off the censor vote shortly after Sandwiches Lover was assassinated by a jealous

suitor. By late 1779, the British Navy and the administration that ran it was a divided mess.

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