Bombast And Broadsides: The Lives of George Johnstone

9. Conclusion

9. Conclusion George Johnstone has been described as "an enigmatical character."l The purpose of this biographical study has been partly to assess the significance ofhis splintered career but also in part to decipher the enigma. Although many questions still remain unanswered, the recurring patterns discernible in his varied activities give the clue to some aspects ofhis complex personality. They suggest that, although intelligent, he was not so much a cerebral as an emotional being, a man of passions in the Age of Reason. Examples of pride, courage, anger, and affection abound in Johnstone's life, but ambition, developed to the point where it is not too strong to describe it as a passion, was salient: ambition for money, place, and prestige. Horace Walpole epitomized the man when he called Johnstone one who went "upon the highway of fortune."2 Considering the strength of his ambition, Johnstone must have been disappointed at his life's achievements. He had been a governor, it is true, but ofa lesser colony and had been soon recalled. He had been a commodore in the navy, but not an admiral. In diplomacy success had evaded him. In politics he had served in no administration. In the East India Company he had failed to ward off that governmental intervention against which he had fought for years. Above all he died possessed ofonly moderate means. Yet, considering the disadvantages under which he labored, the wonder is not that he achieved so little but that he achieved so much. He came from a good but unimportant family. He had to educate himself; unlike so many of his colleagues, he lacked the political advantages offriendships formed in the halls of Eton, Trinity College, or Leiden. He lacked wealth too, for although he acquired considerable sums from prizes and from his naval and diplomatic appointments, he also lost much through litigation and the confiscation ofhis land in West Florida and Grenada, while as the father of six children he had many commitments. A frugal life-style was always difficult for Johnstone, since one of his brothers had married the richest heiress in England and another was a nabob. His comparative poverty may have tempted him into decisions which were politically unwise. Had he possessed a private fortune in 1779, for example, he might well have held out for a post in the administration instead of accepting command of the Romney. His connections, too, so very important a ladder for any ambitious man in the eighteenth century, were second or third rate when he was young, with the exception of Bute, who was for a very short time the weightiest subject in Britain. In later years, it is true, his circle ofinfluential friends was such that he was safe from the inconveniences which might befall the friendless, and to take a case in point, he was not courtmartialed , as he might and perhaps should have been, for failing to attack Suffren. Finally, to conclude this list of hindrances to Johnstone's ambition , there was his nationality. The anti-Semitism of eighteenth-century 182 Conclusion England was prejudice against Scots and was often present when not avowed. It was because Johnstone was fiercely ambitious that he was prepared to put his undoubted courage, proven by his gallant behavior at Port Louis and Saldanha, at the service of others. There seems little doubt that in fighting Germain he risked his life to serve his patron Lowther, although he probably hoped to acquire .eclat for himself as well. Other duels or affairs, as with Captain Crookshanks or Lieutenant Governor Browne, he would certainly have regarded as undertaken in defense of his honor, although they more truly bear testimony to the deep-seated anger ofwhich he was capable when thwarted. As Wraxall said, he was "an implacable enemy." When he was an officer ofthe crown, Johnstone's animosity often expressed itselfin dismissals or courts-martial, a pattern evident when he was lieutenant on the Tryal, abundantly repeated in Florida, and renewed on the voyage to the Cape. It has been noted how the special anger reserved for former associates persuaded him to urge the extermination of the Creeks in 1766 and a war ofdesolation against the Americans in 1778. In a system where he might have exercised absolute power he would have been a very dangerous man. Nevertheless, great animosity was only one side of a medal which had great amity on the other. All the same, the fact that Johnstone enjoyed lifelong personal friendships...