CHAPTER X_A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1.

THE REVOLUTION WITHIN THE BRITISH EMPIRE

THE BRITISH COLONIAL SYSTEM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The contest for world-empire, from which we have seen Great Britain

emerge victorious, was closely followed by a less successful struggle

to preserve that empire from disrupting forces. We may properly leave

to American history the details of the process by which, as the

colonies became more acutely conscious of the inherent conflict between

their economic interests and the colonial and commercial policy of

Great Britain, they grew at the same time into a self-confident and

defiant independence. Nevertheless, as an epochal event in the history

of British imperialism, the American War of Independence deserves a

prominent place in European history.

[Sidenote: Mercantilism and the British Colonies]

The germs of disease were imbedded in the very policy to which many

statesmen of the eighteenth century ascribed England's great career,--

the mercantilist theories, whose acquaintance we made in an earlier

chapter. [Footnote: See above, pp. 63 ff, and likewise pp. 239 f.] The

mercantilist statesman, anxious to build up the power, and therefore

the wealth, of his country, logically conceived three main ideas about

colonies: (1) they should furnish the mother country with commodities

which could not be produced at home; (2) they should not injure the

mother country by competing with her industries or by enriching her

commercial rivals; and (3) they should help bear the burdens of the

government, army, and navy. Each one of these ideas was reflected in

the actual policy which the British government in the eighteenth

century adopted and enforced in respect of the American colonies.

[Sidenote: Regulation of Colonial Industry. Bounties]

(1) Various expedients were employed to encourage the production of

particular colonial commodities which the British Parliament thought

desirable. The commodity might be exempted from customs duties, or

Parliament might forbid the importation into Great Britain of similar

products from foreign countries, or might even bestow outright upon the

colonial producer "bounties," or sums of money, as an incentive to

persevere in the industry. Thus the cultivation of indigo in Carolina,

of coffee in Jamaica, of tobacco in Virginia, was encouraged, so that

the British would not have to buy these desirable commodities from

Spain. Similarly, bounties were given for tar, pitch, hemp, masts, and

spars imported from America rather than from Sweden.

[Sidenote: Restrictions on Colonial Industry]

(2) The chief concern of the mercantilist was the framing of such

governmental regulations of trade as would deter colonial commerce or

industry from taking a turn which conceivably might lessen the

prosperity of the British manufacturers or shippers, on whom Parliament

depended for taxes. Of the colonial industries which were discouraged

for this reason, two or three are particularly noteworthy. Thus the hat

manufacturers in America, though they could make hats cheaply, because

of the plentiful supply of fur in the New World, were forbidden to

manufacture any for export, lest they should ruin the hatters of

London. The weaving of cloth was likewise discouraged by a law of 1699

which prohibited the export of woolen fabrics from one colony to

another. Again, it was thought necessary to protect British iron-

masters by forbidding (1750) the colonists to manufacture wrought iron

or its finished products. Such restrictions on manufacture were

imposed, not so much for fear of actual competition in the English

market, as to keep the colonial markets for English manufacturers. They

caused a good deal of rancor, but they were too ill enforced to bear

heavily upon the colonies.

[Sidenote: Restrictions on Colonial Trade]

More irksome were the restrictions on commerce. As far back as 1651,

when Dutch traders were bringing spices from the East and sugar from

the West to sell in London at a handsome profit, Parliament had passed

the first famous Navigation Act, [Footnote: See above, pp. 277 f., 304

f.] which had been successful in its general design--to destroy the

Dutch carrying trade and to stimulate British ship-building. In the

eighteenth century a similar policy was applied to the colonies. For it

was claimed that the New England traders who sold their fish and lumber

for sugar, molasses, and rum in the French West Indies were enriching

French planters rather than English. Consequently, a heavy tariff was

laid on French sugar-products. Moreover, inasmuch as it was deemed most

essential for a naval power to have many and skilled ship-builders, the

Navigation Acts [Footnote: Subsequent to the Act of 1651, important

Navigation Acts were passed in 1660, 1663, 1672, and 1696.] were so

developed and expanded as to include the following prescriptions: (1)

In general all import and export trade must be conducted in ships built

in England, in Ireland, or in the colonies, manned and commanded by

British subjects. Thus, if a French or Dutch merchantman appeared in

Massachusetts Bay, offering to sell at a great bargain his cargo of

spices or silks, the shrewd merchants of Boston were legally bound not

to buy of him. (2) Certain "enumerated" articles, such as sugar,

tobacco, cotton, indigo, and, later, rice and furs, could be exported

only to England. A Virginia planter, wishing to send tobacco to a

French snuff-maker, would have to ship it to London in an English ship,

pay duties on it there, and then have it reshipped to Havre. (3) All

goods imported into the American colonies from Europe must come by way

of England and must pay duties there. Silks might be more expensive

after they had paid customs duties in London and had followed a

roundabout route to Virginia, but the proud colonial dame was supposed

to pay dearly and to rejoice that English ships and English sailors

were employed in transporting her finery.

[Sidenote: Reasons for Early Colonial Toleration of Restrictions on the

Industry and Trade]

It would seem as if such restrictive measures would not have been

tolerated in the colonies, even when imposed by the mother country.

There were, however, several very good reasons why the trade

restrictions were long tolerated.

[Sidenote: Leniency of Enforcement]

In the first place, for many years they had been very poorly enforced.

During his long ministry, from 1721 to 1742, Sir Robert Walpole had

winked at infractions of the law and had allowed the colonies to

develop as best they might under his policy of "salutary neglect."

Then, during the colonial wars, it had been inexpedient and impossible

to insist upon the Navigation Acts; and smuggling had become so common

that respectable merchants made no effort to conceal their traffic in

goods which had been imported contrary to provisions of the law.

[Sidenote: Fear of the French]

Moreover, the colonies would gladly endure a good deal of economic

hardship in order to have the help of the mother country against the

French. So long as Count de Frontenac and his successors were sending

their Indians southward and eastward to burn New England villages, it

was very comforting to think that the mother country would send armies

of redcoats to conquer the savages and defeat the French.

[Sidenote: Weakness and Disunion of the Thirteen Colonies]

But even had there been every motive for armed resistance to Great

Britain, the American colonies could hardly have attempted it until

after the conclusion of the French and Indian War. Until the second

half of the eighteenth century the British colonies were both weak and

divided. They had no navy and very few fortifications to defend their

coastline. They had no army except raw and unreliable militia. Even in

1750 their inhabitants numbered but a paltry 1,300,000 as compared with

a population in Great Britain of more than 10,000,000; and in wealth

and resources they could not dream of rivaling the mother country.

The lack of union among the colonies sprang from fundamental

industrial, social, and religious differences. The southern provinces--

Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia--were agricultural, and their

products were plantation-grown rice, indigo, and tobacco. New York and

Pennsylvania produced corn and timber. In New England, although there

were many small farmers, the growing interest was in trade and

manufacture. The social distinctions were equally marked. The northern

colonists were middle-class traders and small farmers, with democratic

town governments, and with an intense pride in education. In the South,

gentlemen of good old English families lived like feudal lords among

their slaves and cultivated manners quite as assiduously as morals. Of

forms of the Christian religion, the Atlantic coast presented a bizarre

mixture. In the main, New England was emphatically Calvinistic and

sternly Puritanical; Virginia, proudly Episcopalian (Anglican); and

Maryland, partly Roman Catholic. Plain-spoken Quakers in Pennsylvania,

Presbyterians and Baptists in New Jersey, and German Lutherans in

Carolina added to the confusion.

Between colonies so radically different in religion, manners, and

industries, there could be at the outset little harmony or cooperation.

It would be hard to arouse them to concerted action, and even harder to

conduct a war. Financial cooperation was impeded by the fact that the

paper money issued by any one colony was not worth much in the others.

Military cooperation was difficult because while each colony might call

on its farmers temporarily to join the militia in order to repel an

Indian raid, the militia-men were always anxious to get back to their

crops and would obey a strange commander with ill grace.

[Sidenote: Altered Situation in the Thirteen Colonies after 1763]

With the conclusion of the French and Indian War, however, conditions

were materially changed, (1) The fear of the French was no longer

present to bind the colonies to the mother country. (2) During the wars

the colonies had grown not only more populous (they numbered about

2,000,000 inhabitants in 1763) and more wealthy, but also more self-

confident. Recruits from the northern colonies had captured Louisburg

in 1745 and had helped to conquer Canada in the last French war.

Virginia volunteers had seen how helpless were General Braddock's

redcoats in forest-warfare. Experiences like these gave the provincial

riflemen pride and confidence. Important also was the Albany Congress

of 1754, in which delegates from seven colonies came together and

discussed Benjamin Franklin's scheme for federating the thirteen

colonies. Although the plan was not adopted, it set men to thinking

about the advantages of confederation and so prepared the way for

subsequent union.

[Sidenote: More Rigorous Attitude of Great Britain toward the Colonies

after Accession of George III, 1760]

Not only were the colonists in a more independent frame of mind, but

the British government became more oppressive. During two reigns--those

of George I and George II--ministers had been the power behind the

throne, but in 1760 George III had come to the throne as an

inexperienced and poorly educated youth of twenty-two, full of ambition

to be the power behind the ministers. Not without justice have

historians accused George III of prejudice, stubbornness, and

stupidity. Nevertheless, he had many friends. The fact that he, the

first really English king since the Revolution of 1688, should manifest

a great personal interest and industry in affairs of state, endeared

him to many who already respected his irreproachable private morality

and admired his flawless and unfailing courtesy. Under the inspiration

of Lord Bute, [Footnote: The earl of Bute (1713-1792) became prime

minister in 1762, after the resignations of Pitt, who had been the real

head of the cabinet, and the duke of Newcastle, who had been the

nominal premier. Bute in turn was succeeded by George Grenville (1712-

1770).] the "king's friends" became a political party, avowedly intent

on breaking the power of the great Whig noblemen who had so long

dominated corrupt Parliaments and unscrupulous ministries.

[Sidenote: Grenville, Prime Minister, 1763-1765, Executor of the

Colonial Policies of George III]

George III attempted at the outset to gain control of Parliament by

wholesale bribery of its members, but, since even this questionable

expedient did not give him a majority, he tried dividing the forces of

his Whig opponents. This was somewhat less difficult since Pitt, the

most prominent Whig, the eloquent Chauvinist [Footnote: Chauvin, a

soldier in Napoleon's army, was so enthusiastic for the glory of the

great general that his name has since been used as an adjective

denoting excessive patriotism and fondness for war.] minister, "friend

of the colonies," and idol of the cities, had lost control of the

ministry. England, too, felt the burdensome expense of war, and the

public debt had mounted to what was then the enormous sum of

£140,000,000. George III, therefore, chose for prime minister (1763-

1765) George Grenville, a representative of a faction of Whig

aristocrats, who, alarmed by the growth of the public debt, and jealous

of Pitt's power, were quite willing to favor the king's colonial

policies. Great Britain, they argued, had undergone a costly war to

defend the colonists on the Atlantic coast from French aggression. The

colonies were obviously too weak and too divided to garrison and police

the great Mississippi and St. Lawrence valleys; and yet, in order to

prevent renewed danger from French, Spaniards, or Indians, at least ten

thousand regular soldiers would be needed at an annual expense of

£300,000. What could be more natural than that the colonists, to whose

benefit the war had redounded, and to whose safety the army would add,

should pay at least a part of the expense? This idea, put forward by

certain Whig statesmen, that the colonists should bear part of the

financial burden of imperial defense, was eagerly seized upon by George

III and utilized as the cornerstone of his colonial policy. To such a

policy the Tories, as ardent upholders of the monarchy, lent their

support.

[Sidenote: The Sugar Act, 1764]

Grenville, the new minister, accordingly proposed that the colonists

should pay about £150,000 a year,--roughly a half of the estimated

total amount,--and for raising the money, he championed two special

finance acts in the British Parliament. The first was the Sugar Act of

1764. Grenville recognized that a very high tariff on the importation

of foreign sugar-products into the colonies invited smuggling on a

large scale, was therefore generally evaded, and yielded little revenue

to the government. As a matter of fact, in the previous year,

Massachusetts merchants had smuggled 15,000 hogsheads of molasses

[Footnote: Large quantities of molasses were used in New England for

the manufacture of rum.] from the French West Indies. Now, in

accordance with the new enactment, the duty was actually halved, but a

serious attempt was made to collect what remained. For the purpose of

the efficient collection of the sugar tax, the Navigation Acts were

revived and enforced; British naval officers were ordered to put a

peremptory stop to smuggling; and magistrates were empowered to issue

"writs of assistance" enabling customs collectors to search private

houses for smuggled goods. The Sugar Act was expected to yield one-

third of the amount demanded by the British ministry.

[Sidenote: The Stamp Act, 1765]

[Sidenote: Opposition in the Colonies]

The other two-thirds of the £150,000 was to be raised under the Stamp

Act of 1765. Bills of lading, official documents, deeds, wills,

mortgages, notes, newspapers, and pamphlets were to be written or

printed only on special stamped paper, on which the tax had been paid.

Playing cards paid a stamp tax of a shilling; dice paid ten shillings;

and on a college diploma the tax amounted to £2. The Stamp Act bore

heavily on just the most dangerous classes of the population--

newspaper-publishers, pamphleteers, lawyers, bankers, and merchants.

Naturally the newspapers protested and the lawyers argued that the

Stamp Act was unconstitutional, that Parliament had no right to levy

taxes on the colonies. The very battle-cry, "Taxation without

Representation is Tyranny," was the phrase of a Boston lawyer, James

Otis.

At once the claim was made that the colonists were true British

subjects and that taxation without representation was a flagrant

violation of the "immemorial rights of Englishmen." Now the colonists

had come to believe that their only true representatives were those for

whom they voted personally, the members of the provincial assemblies.

Each colony had its representative assembly; and these assemblies, like

the parent Parliament in Great Britain, had become very important by

acquiring the function of voting taxes. The colonists, therefore,

claimed that taxes could be voted only by their own assemblies, while

the British government replied, with some pertinency, that Parliament,

although elected by a very small minority of the population, was

considered to be generally representative of all British subjects.

[Sidenote: The Stamp Act Congress, 1765]

Many colonists, less learned than the lawyers, were unacquainted with

the subtleties of the argument, but they were quite willing to be

persuaded that in refusing to pay British taxes they were contending

for a great principle of liberty and self-government. Opposition to the

stamp tax spread like wildfire and culminated in a congress at New York

in October, 1765, comprising delegates from nine colonies. The "Stamp

Act Congress," for so it was called, issued a declaration of rights--

the rights of trial by jury [Footnote: The right of trial by jury had

been violated by British officials in punishing smugglers.] and of

self-taxation--and formally protested against the Stamp Act.

[Sidenote: Repeal of the Stamp Act, 1776]

Parliament might have disregarded the declaration of the Congress, but

not the tidings of popular excitement, of mob violence, of stamp-

collectors burned in effigy. Moreover, colonial boycotts against

British goods--"nonimportation agreements"--were effective in creating

sentiment in England in favor of conciliation. Taking advantage of

Grenville's resignation, a new ministry under the marquess of

Rockingham, [Footnote: Rockingham retired in July, 1766] a liberal

Whig, procured the repeal of the obnoxious Stamp Act in March, 1766.

While the particular tax was abandoned, a Declaratory Act was issued,

affirming the constitutional right of Parliament to bind the colonies

in all cases.

[Sidenote: The Townshend Acts, 1767]

That right was asserted again in 1767 by a brilliant but reckless

chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend, who, without the

consent of the other ministers, put through Parliament the series of

acts which bear his name. His intention was to raise a regular colonial

revenue for the support of colonial governors, judges, and other

officers as well as for the defense of the colonies. For these

purposes, import duties were laid on glass, lead, painters' colors,

paper, and tea; the duties were to be collected by English

commissioners resident in the American ports; and infractions of the

law in America were to be tried in courts without juries.

[Sidenote: "The Boston Massacre"]

The Townshend Acts brought forth immediate and indignant protests.

Colonial merchants renewed and extended their nonimportation

agreements. Within a year the imports Boston from Great Britain fell

off by more than £700,000. The customs officers were unable or afraid

to collect the duties strictly, and it is said that in three years the

total revenue from them amounted only to £16,000. Troops were

dispatched to overawe Boston, but the angry Bostonians hooted and

hissed the "lobsterbacks," as the redcoats were derisively styled, and

in 1770 provoked them to actual bloodshed--the so-called "Boston

Massacre."

[Sidenote: Lord North, Prime Minister, 1770]

At this crucial moment, King George III chose a new prime minister,

Lord North, a gentleman of wit, ability, and affability, unfailingly

humorous, and unswervingly faithful to the king. Among his first

measures was the repeal (1770) of the hated Townshend duties. Merely a

tax of threepence a pound on tea was retained, in order that the

colonies might not think that Parliament had surrendered its right to

tax them. Lord North even made an arrangement with the East India

Company whereby tea was sold so cheaply that it would not pay to

smuggle tea from the Dutch.

[Sidenote: "The Boston Tea Party," 1773]

But the colonists would not now yield even the principle of

Parliamentary taxation. [Footnote: Despite the fact that the colonists

had regularly been paying import duties on molasses and on foreign

wine.] They insisted that were they to pay this tax, trifling as it

might be, Parliament would assert that they had acknowledged its right

to tax them, and would soon lay heavier taxes upon them. They,

therefore, refused to buy the tea, and on a cold December night in 1773

a number of Boston citizens dressed up like Indians, boarded a British

tea ship, and emptied 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

[Sidenote: The Five "Intolerable Acts," 1774]

Boston's "Tea-Party" brought punishment swift and sure in the famous

five "intolerable acts" (1774). Boston harbor was closed; Massachusetts

was practically deprived of self-government; royal officers who

committed capital offenses were to be tried in England or in other

colonies; royal troops were quartered on the colonists; and the

province of Quebec was extended south to the Ohio, cutting off vast

territories claimed by Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia. This

last act, by recognizing and establishing the Roman Catholic Church in

French-speaking Quebec, excited the liveliest fear and apprehension on

the part of Protestants in the English-speaking colonies.

[Sidenote: First Continental Congress, 1774]

Agitators in the other colonies feared that their turn would come next,

and rallied to the aid of Massachusetts. The first Continental Congress

of delegations from all the colonies [Footnote: Except Georgia.] met in

1774 in Philadelphia "to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper

measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for the

recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil

and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great

Britain and the colonies." The Congress dispatched a petition to the

king and urged the colonists to be faithful to the "American

Association" for the non-importation of British goods.

THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1775-1783

[Sidenote: Revolt of the Thirteen Colonies]

Neither king nor colonies would yield a single point. William Pitt, now

earl of Chatham, in vain proposed conciliatory measures. The colonies

fast drifted into actual revolt. In May, 1775, the second Continental

Congress met at Philadelphia, but already blood had been shed at

Lexington (Massachusetts), 19 April, 1775, and New England was a hotbed

of rebellion. The Congress accepted facts as they were, declared war,

appointed George Washington commander-in-chief, sent agents to France

and other foreign countries, and addressed a final petition to the

king.

[Sidenote: The Declaration of Independence, 1776]

But it was too late for reconciliation, and events marched rapidly

until on 4 July, 1776, the colonies declared themselves "free and

independent states." [Footnote: The colonies on the recommendation of

Congress set up independent governments and these state governments

were formally federated in accordance with "articles of Confederation

and perpetual Union," drawn up in Congress in 1777 and finally ratified

in 1781.] The Declaration of Independence was remarkable for two

things, its philosophy and its effects. The philosophy was that held by

many radical thinkers of the time--"that all men are endowed by their

Creator with certain unalienable rights"; that among such rights are

life, liberty, and the exclusive right to tax themselves; and that any

people may rightfully depose a tyrannical ruler. We shall find a

similar philosophy applied more boldly in the French Revolution.

In America the Declaration was denounced by "Tories" as treason, but

was welcomed by "patriots" as an inspiration and a stimulus. To show

their joy, the people of New York City pulled down the leaden statue of

King George and molded it into bullets. Instead of rebellious subjects,

the English-speaking Americans now claimed to be a belligerent nation,

and on the basis of this claim they sought recognition and aid from

other nations.

[Sidenote: Difficulties and Early Successes of the British]

For over three years, however, the war was carried on simply between

rebellious colonies and the mother country. Had the grave nature of the

revolt been thoroughly understood in England from the outset, the

colonists might possibly have been crushed within a short time, for

many of the richest colonists were opposed to the war; and even had the

"people of the United States" supported the struggle unanimously, they

were no match for Great Britain in wealth, population, or naval power.

As it was, Great Britain allowed the revolution to get under full

headway before making a serious effort to suppress it. In 1776,

however, a force of about 30,000 men, many of whom were mercenary

German soldiers, commonly called "Hessians," was sent to occupy New

York. Thenceforward, the British pursued aggressive tactics, and

inasmuch as their armies were generally superior to those of the

colonists in numbers, discipline, and equipment, and besides were

supported by powerful fleets, they were able to possess themselves of

the important colonial ports of New York, Philadelphia, and

Charlestown, [Footnote: Name changed to Charleston in 1783.] and to win

many victories. On the other hand, the region to be conquered was

extensive and the rebel armies stubborn and elusive. Moreover, the

colonists possessed a skillful leader in the person of the aristocratic

Virginian planter who has already been mentioned as taking a part in

the French and Indian War. At first, George Washington was criticized

for bringing the gravity of a judge and the dignified bearing of a

courtier to the battlefield, but he soon proved his ability. He was

wise enough to retreat before superior forces, always keeping just out

of harm's way, and occasionally catching his incautious pursuer

unawares, as at Princeton or Trenton.

[Sidenote: British Reverse at Saratoga, 1777]

One of the crucial events of the war was the surrender of the British

General Burgoyne with some six thousand men at Saratoga, on 17 October,

1777, after an unsuccessful invasion of northern New York. At that very

time, Benjamin Franklin, the public-spirited Philadelphia publisher,

was in Paris attempting to persuade France to ally herself with the

United States. Franklin's charming personality, his "republican

plainness," his shrewd common sense, as well as his knowledge of

philosophy and science, made him welcome at the brilliant French court;

but France, although still smarting under the humiliating treaty of

1763, would not yield to his persuasion until the American victory at

Saratoga seemed to indicate that the time had come to strike. An

alliance with the United States was concluded, and in 1778 war was

declared against Great Britain.

[Sidenote: Entrance into the War of France (1778), Spain (1779),

Holland (1780)]

[Sidenote: Isolation of Great Britain]

The war now took on a larger aspect, and in its scale of operations and

in its immediate significance the fighting in the colonies was dwarfed

into comparative insignificance. In the attack upon Great Britain,

France was dutifully joined by Spain (1779). Holland, indignant at the

way in which Great Britain had tried to exclude Dutch traders from

commerce with America, joined the Bourbons (1780) against their common

foe. Other nations, too, had become alarmed at the rapid growth and

domineering maritime policy of Great Britain. Since the outbreak of

hostilities, British captains and admirals had claimed the right to

search and seize neutral vessels trading with America or bearing

contraband of war. Against this dangerous practice, Catherine II of

Russia protested vigorously, and in 1780 formed the "armed neutrality

of the North" with Sweden and Denmark to uphold the protest with force,

if necessary. Prussia, Portugal, the Two Sicilies, and the Holy Roman

Empire subsequently pronounced their adherence to the Armed Neutrality,

and Great Britain was confronted by a unanimously hostile Europe.

[Sidenote: The War in Europe]

In the actual operations only three nations figured--France, Spain, and

Holland; and of the three the last named gave little trouble except in

the North Sea. More to be feared were France and Spain, for by them the

British Empire was attacked in all its parts. For a while in 1779 even

the home country was threatened by a Franco-Spanish fleet of sixty-six

sail, convoying an army of 60,000 men; but the plan came to naught.

Powerful Spanish and French forces, launched against Great Britain's

Mediterranean possessions, succeeded in taking Minorca, but were

repulsed by the British garrison of Gibraltar.

[Sidenote: The War in America]

On the continent of North America the insurgent colonists, aided by

French fleets and French soldiers, gained a signal victory. An American

and French army under Washington and Lafayette and a French fleet under

De Grasse suddenly closed in upon the British general, Lord Cornwallis,

in Yorktown, Virginia, and compelled him to surrender on 19 October,

1781, with over 7000 men. The capitulation of Cornwallis practically

decided the struggle in America, for all the reserve forces of Great

Britain were required in Europe, in the West Indies, and in Asia.

[Sidenote: The War in the West Indies]

[Sidenote: Battle of Saints, 1782]

Matters were going badly for Great Britain until a naval victory in the

Caribbean Sea partially redeemed the day. For three winters an

indecisive war had been carried on in the West Indies, but in 1782

thirty-six British ships, under the gallant Rodney, met the French

Count de Grasse with thirty-three sail of the line near the group of

islands known as "the Saints," and a great battle ensued--the "battle

of Saints"--on 12 April, 1782. During the fight the wind suddenly

veered around, making a great gap in the line of French ships, and into

this gap sailed the British admiral, breaking up the French fleet, and,

in the confusion, capturing six vessels.

[Sidenote: The War in India]

While the battle of Saints saved the British power in the West Indies,

the outlook in the East became less favorable. At first the British had

been successful in seizing the French forts in India (1778) and in

defeating (1781) the native ally of the French, Hyder Ali, the sultan

of Mysore. But in 1782 the tide was turned by the appearance of the

French admiral De Suffren, whose brilliant victories over a superior

British fleet gave the French temporary control of the Bay of Bengal.

[Sidenote: Defeat but not Ruin of Great Britain]

[Sidenote: Treaties of Paris and Versailles, 1783]

Unsuccessful in America, inglorious in India, expelled from Minorca,

unable to control Ireland, [Footnote: The Protestants in Ireland had

armed and organized volunteer forces, and threatened rebellion unless

Great Britain granted "home rule" to them. Great Britain yielded and in

1782 granted legislative autonomy to the Irish Parliament. See below,

p. 431.] and weary with war, England was very ready for peace, but not

entirely humbled, for was she not still secure in the British Channel,

victorious over the Dutch, triumphant in the Caribbean, unshaken in

India, and unmoved on Gibraltar? Defeat, but not humiliation, was the

keynote of the treaties (1783) which Great Britain concluded, one at

Paris with the United States, and one at Versailles with France and

Spain. Let us consider the provisions of these treaties in order, as

they affected the United States, France, and Spain.

[Sidenote: The United States of America]

By the treaty of Paris (3 September, 1783), the former thirteen

colonies were recognized as the sovereign and independent United States

of America,--bounded on the north by Canada and the Great Lakes, on the

east by the Atlantic, on the west by the Mississippi, and on the south

by Florida. Important fishing rights on the Newfoundland Banks and the

privilege of navigation on the Mississippi were extended to the new

nation. When the treaty of Paris was signed, the United States were

still held loosely together by the articles of Confederation, but after

several years of political confusion, a new and stronger federal

constitution was drawn up in 1787, and in 1789 George Washington became

first president of the republic. The republic thus created was the

first important embodiment of the political theories of Montesquieu and

other French philosophers, who, while condemning titled nobility and

absolute monarchy, distrusted the ignorant classes of the people, and

believed in placing political control chiefly in the hands of

intelligent men of property and position.

[Sidenote: Results to France]

Had it not been for the disastrous battle of Saints, France might have

dictated very favorable terms in the treaty of Versailles, [Footnote:

In 1786 a supplementary Anglo-French treaty restored regular commerce

between the two nations, and recognized that Great Britain had no right

to seize traders flying a neutral flag, except for contraband of war,

_i.e._, guns, powder, and provisions of war.] but, as it was, she

merely regained Tobago in the West Indies and Senegal in Africa, which

she had lost in 1763. [Footnote: See above, p. 317.] The equipment of

navies and armies had exhausted the finances of the French government,

and was largely responsible for the bankruptcy which was soon to

occasion the fall of absolutism in France. Moreover, French "radicals,"

having seen the Americans revolt against a king, were, themselves, the