After the fighting had begun, he wrote: "I have not the courage to write about America. The boldest tremble, and the most vigorous talk of peace. And yet not more than sixty-five rank and file have been killed." And again: "The conquest of America is a great work; every part of the continent is either lost or useless."
On the other hand, Charles James Fox, who was now one of the great leaders of the Whig party, never lost an opportunity of showing his sympathy for the American cause, and rejoicing at its victories. He and his little band of followers adopted as their colors those which Washington made the uniform of the Continental army—buff and blue.
When the British government hired Hessian soldiers for America, the great Pitt said:
"You cannot conquer America. If I were an American, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms—never, never, never!"
At first, the American colonists fought only for relief from oppressive laws and had no intention of seeking independence. But gradually their ideas grew larger, and on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted a Declaration of Independence. After giving the reasons for their separation, this document declared that—
"These united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."
It was a hard struggle upon which the colonists had embarked. They drove the British from Boston, but were themselves driven out of New York City. Then the British captured Philadelphia, and made ready to separate New England from the other colonies by sending an army under General Burgoyne up the Hudson, to meet one which was to come down from Canada. Fortunately for the American cause, this attempt failed, and Burgoyne was obliged to surrender his 7,000 men at Saratoga, in October, 1777.
This was a great victory for the Americans. Nevertheless, their army spent the next winter at Valley Forge, in Pennsylvania, amid terrible hardships. General Washington, who never spoke carelessly, said that many of his men were "without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lie on, without shoes, for the want of which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet." Unless help came from abroad, the colonies would surely be conquered.
But help did come. The French had long been watching for an opportunity to take revenge upon their old enemy, England. They had secretly helped the Americans, before this, by sending them money and supplies, and by letting French officers, like Lafayette, come over to assist them. The victory over Burgoyne now encouraged the French government to come out openly, in aid of the colonists; and, in 1778, a treaty was made, by which France recognized the independence of the United States, and agreed to renew her war with Great Britain. More money and supplies were sent to the Americans, and French soldiers and French fleets came to their assistance. The next year Spain also made war upon Great Britain; and two years after that, Holland did likewise.
In England, the news of Burgoyne's surrender was for a time helpful to the government. Instead of discouraging the people, it made them more determined than ever to subdue the colonies. But the news of the alliance between France and the colonies caused a change. Pitt proposed that the soldiers should be called back from America, that the colonies should be allowed to have their way in everything except out-and-out independence, and that the two parts of the Empire should then unite in a common war against France.
Many people at this time demanded that Pitt should be restored to power. But he was now an old man, suffering from a painful disease. One day (in 1778) he had himself carried to the House of Lords, of which he was now a member as Earl of Chatham; and he spoke passionately against a motion to grant independence of America. He was opposed, he said, to "the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy." The effort was too much for him, and he fell senseless to the floor. He was carried to his home, and four weeks later he died. Perhaps it was well that he did not live to see the dismemberment of the great empire which his genius had contributed so much to build.
In 1780, the British changed the seat of war and attacked the southern colonies. After much fighting, Lord Cornwallis, who was at the head of their army marched north into Virginia, and took up a position at Yorktown, on Chesapeake Bay. Here he was surrounded by a French and American land force, under Washington. A French fleet succeeded in beating off the British fleet, and Cornwallis was forced to surrender (October, 1781). This was the second great disaster which the British experienced in this war.
It was, indeed, the real end of the war, so far as America was concerned. For a time, fighting continued between the British fleets and those of France, Holland, and Spain. But, in 1783, a peace was made, at Paris, between all parties. England gave up some territory to France—an island in the West Indies, and some African coast lands; while to Spain she surrendered Florida. Most important of all, she acknowledged the independence of the United States. The boundaries of the new nation were to be Canada and the Great Lakes on the north, the Mississippi river on the west, and Florida on the south.
At the beginning of the war, Great Britain possessed, in America, not only what her own colonists had founded, but also what she had taken from France, and from Spain, in 1763. Now, she was left with Canada alone—a vast and important domain, but cold and inhospitable.
The loss of the American colonies seemed, at the time, a great calamity. But the British Empire has become greater and more powerful, since the separation, than it ever was before; and in America there has developed a great nation, of kindred speech and institutions.
England learned many lessons from this war. One of these was how to rule colonies without oppressing them, and so to keep them a source of strength. Another and greater lesson was this; that the government must obey the will of the people, and not that of the King. The war not only brought independence to the American colonies; it formed an important step, also, in the process by which greater political liberty was gained by the people of Great Britain.
Topics for Thought and Search
Compare George III. with George I. and George II.; in what ways were the latter better Kings than the former?
Find out what you can about Edmund Burke; about Charles James Fox.
Make a list of the causes of the American Revolution.
Were Fox and Pitt patriotic when they sympathized with the Americans? How can you justify their course?
Make a list of the territories that England gained and those that she lost between 1689 and 1783.
Industrial and Social Changes
While Great Britain was winning Canada and India, and losing the Thirteen Colonies, important changes were taking place at home in ways of manufacturing and in modes of living.
From the early days of civilization, to the end of the Middle Ages, there had been little change in the tools used by such workers as the spinner, weaver, the farmer and carpenter. Now there came a series of inventions which greatly increased the product of man's labor, and changed his whole manner of living.
The first important changes came in spinning and weaving. The art of spinning fibers into thread, and weaving this into cloth, was one of the oldest of human arts. But, for thousands of years, it had changed very little. The wool or cotton was placed on a "distaff," held under the left arm, while the fibers were drawn out and twisted into thread with a "spindle," twirled by the right had. This was the method used in ancient Greece and Egypt, as shown by, their monuments. This was still the method generally used in modern Europe, almost down to the eighteenth century. Then the "spinning-wheel"—first run by hand, and later by foot—began to come into use, and increased the speed of spinning. But, at best, the spinning wheel could only spin two threads at a time, and its work was far from rapid.