The Cabinet nominated three general officers to serve in America: Major Generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton. That their future held recall and a surrender was then unimaginable. At the same time, three regiments were sent to reinforce General Gage, and the King asked Sir Jeffery Amherst, former Commander-in-Chief during the Seven Years’ War, to take command again of the forces in America on the ambivalent theory that as someone known and trusted in the colonies he might bring the “deluded people to due obedience without putting a dagger to their throats.”
