1759 - Political Events

Political Events

A Portuguese court finds seven members of the nobility guilty of having participated in last year's Conspiracy of the Távoras: all four members of the Távoras family plus José Mascarenbas, duque d'Aveiro, and three servants are burned, beheaded, or broken on the wheel January 12; the Jesuits are expelled from Portugal September 20. Gabriel Malagrida will be found guilty of treason and heresy and burned to death in September 1761 (but see 1777).

French forces triumph over Ferdinand of Brunswick (Braunschweig) April 13 at Bergen, near Frankfurt in the continuing Seven Years' War, but Ferdinand beats the French August 1 at the Battle of Minden in Westphalia, even though his allied army of 42,500 British, Hanoverian, Hessian, and Prussian troops (46 infantry battalions, 61 cavalry squadrons, 187 guns) are outnumbered by the 54,000 (80 infantry battalions, 61 cavalry squadrons, 170 guns) under the command of the marquis Louis de Contades, who loses 7,086 dead, wounded, and taken prisoner (the allies lose 2,762 men, 1,330 of them British, but capture 43 French guns and effectively remove the French threat to Hanover).

Russian forces defeat the Prussians July 23 at Kay, and Friedrich II suffers his worse loss ever on August 12 as a coalition of Austrian and Russian armies gains victory at the Battle of Kunersdorf, four miles east of Frankfurt-on-Oder. General Gideon von Loudon, 42, commands the Austrian forces, Count Petr Soltikov the Russian, and together they have 90,000 men to Friedrich's 43,000. The Prussians try to storm a hill held by the Russians, and General Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz sustains a severe wound. Having lost 178 guns, to say nothing of 20,000 dead and wounded (Austro-Russian losses total 15,700 dead and wounded), Friedrick considers abdicating.

Austria's count Leopold von Daun surrounds a Prussian army commanded by Friedrich August von Finck, 41, at Maxen and takes some 13,000 prisoners. Finck is court-martialed, dismissed from the army, and imprisoned in a fortress.

Spain's Ferdinand VI dies at Villaviciosa de Odón August 10 at age 45 after a 13-year reign. He has lived in a state of melancholy bordering on madness since the death last year of his Portuguese wife, Barbara, and is succeeded by his half brother, now 43, who has ruled Naples and Sicily since 1734 as Carlos VII and will reign until his death in 1788 as Carlos III of Spain.

The Borbón family retains its hold on Naples and Sicily, installing Carlos VII's 8-year-old son on the throne. A regency will rule until 1767, continuing the liberal reforms instituted by Don Carlos, whose son will reign until 1806 and from 1816 until his death in 1825 as Ferdinand IV (but see 1798).

Admiral Edward Boscawen takes command of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean fleet and pursues a French fleet to Lagos Bay, where he takes three large enemy ships and burns two (see 1758). He returns to Spithead with his prizes and 2,000 sailors. A French fleet under the command of Admiral Hubert de Brienne, comte de Conflans, heads southeast from Brest November 14 with a 21-vessel squadron to pick up troops for a projected invasion of Britain. He has taken advantage of an opening in the blockade mounted by Admiral Edward Hawke, now 49, whose fleet of some 23 ships overtakes Conflans November 20, drives his vessels into Quiberon Bay, destroys nine of the French ships in a 3-hour battle, and thwarts the invasion attempt. Hawke retires from sea duty after a distinguished career and will serve as first lord of the Admiralty from 1766 to 1771.

Burmese troops massacre British merchants at Negrais in October on suspicion that they assisted a local revolt (see 1757). The incident suspends relations between the British East India Company and Burma's Aloung P'Houra (see 1760).

The Mughal emperor Alamgir II is assassinated at Delhi November 29 at age 60 on orders from his vizier Imad ul-Mulk Ghazi-ud-Din, who fears another Afghan invasion and wants to forestall the possibility of Alamgir being captured and used against him. Having disregarded the welfare of his subjects in his 5-year reign, Alamgir is succeeded by his son ali Gauhar, 31, who has found refuge with Shuja-ud-Dawlah, nabob of Oudh, and will reign at least nominally until his death in 1806 as Shah Alam II. Hoping to regain territories from the Afghans who took Delhi 2 years ago, he demands tribute from Bengal and Bihar, thus coming into conflict with the British East India Company (see 1760).

Colonial merchant and soldier Sir William Pepperrell is promoted to lieutenant general but dies at his native Kittery, Maine, July 6 at age 63 (Maine will remain part of Massachusetts until 1819).

French Canada falls to the British September 13 following General Wolfe's victory in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec City (see 1758). Wolfe has scaled the heights of the city and come out of the darkness with an army of 5,000 men to surprise the French field marshal Louis Montcalm, marquis de Saint-Véran, who falls mortally wounded at age 58 (Wolfe, too, is mortally wounded). Credited with halting the French flight is the 22-year-old British officer Barry St. Leger, a man of Huguenot descent who served under General Abercrombie 2 years ago and last year participated in the siege of Louisburg. British troops under Sir Jeffery Amherst have taken Fort Ticonderoga July 27 and gone on to take Crown Point. Amherst has been in the army since age 14 and is appointed commander-in-chief of British North America (see 1760).

British forces under Brig. Gen. John Forbes, 49, occupy Fort Duquesne, built by the French 5 years ago at the fork of the Ohio River, but General Forbes dies along with many of his men. The British build a new, larger fortress that they call Fort Pitt after their secretary of state William Pitt.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety," writes Benjamin Franklin.

British forces seize the sugar-rich Caribbean island of Guadeloupe from its French colonial defenders and will occupy it for 4 years (see 1703; commerce, 1761). A British expedition headed by General Robert Monckton sails from New York in November to take Martinique but is repulsed (see 1762).

Britain's Board of Trade writes to Thomas Pownall in November that he will be replaced as colonial governor of Massachusetts and given the more lucrative but less important governorship of South Carolina (he will resign that position before taking office). An able if unceremonious leader, he has made enemies at London by upholding the constitutional authority of the civil government against the war powers claimed by the military, and when he returns to England in June of next year both houses of the Massachusetts General Court will escort him to his barge.

Former British colonial army officer George Washington, now 26, marries Virginia widow Martha Custis (née Dandridge), 27, January 6 at her estate in Kent County; she has been the richest widow in Virginia, and although Washington's Mount Vernon estate pales in comparison to that of his neighbor Thomas Fairfax, who virtually owns the Shenandoah Valley, the Washingtons become leaders of the Southern plantocracy.