The American army had sunk into a condition of appalling destitution. In September, Washington wrote that ‘at least 1,000 men were barefooted and have performed the marches in that condition;’ 6 and in the depth of winter the misconduct or inefficiency of the commissaries appointed by the Congress, and the general disaffection of the people, had reduced the revolutionary forces to a degree of misery that almost led to their destruction. On one occasion they were three successive days without bread. On another, they were two days entirely without meat. On a third, it was announced that there was not in the camp ‘a single hoof of any kind to slaughter, and not more than twenty-five barrels of flour.’ There was no soap or vinegar. ‘Few men’ had ‘more than one shirt, many only the moiety of one, and some none at all;’ and, besides a number of men confined in hospitals or farmers' houses for want of shoes, there were on a single day 2,898 men in the camp unfit for duty because they were ‘barefoot and otherwise naked.’ In the piercing days of December, numbers of the troops were compelled to sit up all night around the fire, having no blankets to cover them, and it became evident that unless a change quickly took place the army must either ‘starve, dissolve, or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can.’ In three weeks of this month the army, without any fighting, had lost by hardship and exposure near 2,000 men. 1 So large a proportion of the troops were barefoot that ‘their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet.’ 2 Yet week after week rolled on, and still, amid unabated sufferings, a large proportion of those brave men held together and took up their winter quarters, diminished indeed in numbers, and more than once defeated in the field, but still unbroken and undismayed, within a day's march of a greatly superior army of British soldiers.

The time was, indeed, well fitted to winnow the chaff from the grain; and few braver and truer men were ever collected around a great commander than those who remained with Washington during that dreary winter in Valley Forge, some twenty miles from Philadelphia. ‘For some days past,’ wrote their commander on February 16, 1778, ‘there has been little less than a famine in the camp; a part of the army has been a week without any kind of flesh, and the rest three or four days. Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery, that they have not been ere this excited by their sufferings to a general mutiny and dispersion. Strong symptoms, however, of discontent have appeared in particular instances, and nothing but the most active efforts everywhere, can long avert so shocking a catastrophe.’ 1 Many, indeed, fell away. ‘No day, nor scarce an hour passes,’ wrote Washington in December, ‘without the offer of a resigned commission.’ 2 Many fled to the country and to their friends, and not less than 3,000 deserters came from the American camp to the British army at Philadelphia. 3

But while the American army in Pennsylvania seemed thus on the eve of dissolution, and owed its safety chiefly to the amazing apathy of the English, an event had happened in the North which changed the whole fortune of the war, and made the triumph of the Revolution a certainty. We left the greater part of the northern American army posted in the strong fort of Ticonderoga and in a series of neighbouring entrenchments, which, it was believed, might be long maintained against the enemy. General Carleton had been lately superseded by General Burgoyne in the command of the English army in those quarters. Burgoyne was already well known to fame. He had served with distinction in the war in Portugal. He had been a member of Parliament and a frequent speaker, and he had attained much reputation in another and very different field, as the author of an exceedingly popular comedy, called the ‘Heiress.’ He was esteemed a good soldier and a man of much general ability and ambition, though not equally distinguished for the rectitude of his judgment. In June 1777 he marched from St. John's at the head of a well-appointed army of nearly 8,000 men, about half of them foreigners; and he soon after summoned the Indians who had taken arms, to a war feast, and in an emphatic speech impressed upon them the duty of humanity in war, offered a reward for every prisoner brought in alive by the savages, and threatened severe punishments against all who were guilty of outrages against old men, women, children, or prisoners. He afterwards issued a proclamation to the insurgents, which was greatly and justly blamed. He enumerated in highly coloured terms the crimes which had been committed against the loyalists, promised impunity and protection to all who would lay down their arms, but threatened those who resisted with the most terrible war, and reminded them that a word from him would abandon them to the ferocity of the Indians.

The advance upon Ticonderoga was made by land and water, and the army and fleet arrived before it on July 1. Works were speedily thrown up. Batteries were planted; a hill which commanded the chief fortifications of the Americans, and which had been left unguarded, was seized; and General St. Clair, who commanded the American forces, having hastily summoned a council, it was agreed that the whole army could only be saved from capture by an instant evacuation of the fortress and of all the adjoining works. Congress had been already informed that between 13,000 and 14,000 men were required for their defence, and less than 3,500 were left to guard them against an English force which was much larger than the Americans had anticipated. On the night of July 5 the Americans precipitately abandoned the fortification. Their flight was disastrous in the extreme. Ninety-three cannon were left in Ticonderoga. The chief part of the provisions and stores were embarked on 200 boats and despatched up the South River to Skenes-borough, but on the morning of the 6th the English fleet hastened in their pursuit, burst through a ponderous boom which had been constructed to impede its progress, overtook the American flotilla, burnt three galleys, captured two others, and took or destroyed the greater portion of the stores and provisions. The American army which retreated by land was rapidly pursued, and the rearguard, consisting of 1,200 men under Colonel Warren, was overtaken and almost annihilated. It is said that not more than ninety men rejoined the ranks. St. Clair succeeded, however, after a rapid march of seven days, in gaining Fort Edward, where Schuyler was stationed with the remainder of the Northern army. The combined forces of the Americans now numbered 4,400 men, including militia, and they hastily fled before the approaching army of Burgoyne in the direction of Albany. 1

The evacuation of Ticonderoga, and the crushing disasters that immediately followed it, struck a panic through New England which had hardly been equalled when New York or Philadelphia was taken. The strongest post in the American possession had fallen almost without a blow, and it appeared for a time as if the design which the English generals were seeking to accomplish would be speedily attained. It was the object of Burgoyne, in co-operation with Clinton, who was stationed at New York, and with Howe, who was stationed at Philadelphia, by occupying the whole line of the Hudson, to sever New England from the Central and Southern States, and, by thus isolating the part of America which was seriously disaffected, to reduce the whole contest to narrow limits. Washington wrote in great alarm describing the evacuation as unjustifiable and almost inexplicable, and John Adams declared that the Americans would never learn to defend a post till they had shot one of their generals. Charges not only of incapacity but of treachery were freely made. Schuyler was deprived of his command and replaced by Gates, who, as a New Englander, was more acceptable to the soldiers. Such small reinforcements as could be raised were hastily despatched, and with them was Lincoln, who was very popular with the Massachusetts militia, and Benedict Arnold, whose high military qualities were now generally recognised. The country into which the English had plunged was an extremely difficult one, full of swamps, morasses, and forests, but at length on July 30 the Hudson was reached.

But by this time the first panic had subsided, and a spirit of resistance had arisen wholly unlike anything the British had yet encountered during the war. The militia of New England and of the disaffected portions of New York were called to arms, and they responded with alacrity to the summons. It was partly a genuine enthusiasm for the cause, for the New Englanders had thrown themselves into the Revolution with an earnestness which was almost wholly wanting in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and their keen intelligence fully realised the importance of the crisis. It was partly also the dread of Indian incursions, and the many instances of Indian atrocities perpetrated under the shelter of the English flag, which roused, as they always roused, the dormant energies of the people. The American army soon rose to more than 13,000 men. 1 Burgoyne found himself enormously outnumbered in the heart of a country where the natural difficulties of obtaining provisions, preserving communications, procuring intelligence, and moving troops were immense. Two isolated detachments of German troops, under Colonel Baum and Colonel Breyman, accompanied by some Indians and by some loyalists, were totally defeated near Bennington, with a loss of 600 or 800 men, and of four cannon. An attempt made by another separate expedition to capture a small fort called Fort Stanwix failed, after some severe fighting, in the course of which many wounded and prisoners were brutally murdered by Indians in the English service. False intelligence of a defeat of Burgoyne, and exaggerated accounts of the force that was sent to relieve the fort, induced St. Leger, who commanded the expedition, hastily to abandon the siege, and his artillery and stores fell into the hands of the garrison. But still Burgoyne pressed on, and, having with great difficulty collected provisions for thirty days, he crossed the Hudson, marched for four days along its banks, and on September 19 he encountered the American forces at Stillwater. The American wing which was first attacked was commanded by General Arnold, who appears to have fought, as he always did, with eminent courage and skill. 2 The battle was fierce and obstinate, and was only terminated, after about four hours' fighting, by the approach of night. The English retained the field of battle, but all the real advantages were on the side of the Americans. The dwindling army of the English was reduced by between 500 and 600 men, while the loss of the Americans was probably somewhat smaller.

The hunting season of the Indians had now begun, and as they had obtained little plunder and were much dispirited by the combats of Bennington and Stillwater, they began rapidly to desert. A large proportion of the Canadian volunteers followed their example. Provisions were beginning to run short. By crossing the Hudson the English had greatly added to the difficulty of maintaining their communications with the storehouses on Lake George. An expedition was planned by Gates and Arnold to recover Ticonderoga, and although it failed in its main object, it succeeded in intercepting large supplies intended for the English. The army of Burgoyne was now reduced to little more than 5,000 men, many of them incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and they were limited to half the usual allowance of provisions. The forage was soon exhausted, and the horses perished in numbers through hunger. The only hope remaining was that relief might arrive from New York, and Burgoyne had already succeeded in sending a message to Clinton describing his situation, and he had arranged all his later movements with a view to such relief. An attempt was made from New York to effect it, but the relieving army never reached the unhappy commander. The almost certain prospect of capturing a British army elated the Americans to the highest degree, and new volunteers rapidly poured in. On October 7 another desperate fight took place; Arnold had all but succeeded in capturing the British lines, when he was laid low by a severe wound; and the British lost, besides many killed and wounded, 200 prisoners and nine pieces of cannon. Next day, Burgoyne retired to Saratoga, where he was speedily surrounded by an army nearly four times as large as his own, and so advantageously posted that it was scarcely possible to attack it. Burgoyne estimated the number of his own men who were still capable of fighting as not more than 3,500. 1 All communications were cut off; the hope of relief from New York was almost gone, and the small amount of provisions in the camp was nearly exhausted. Burgoyne refused, even in this extremity, to yield without conditions, but on October 17, 1777, the memorable convention was signed, by which the whole British army, with all its arms and artillery, were surrendered to the enemy.

The number of men who surrendered, including Canadians, irregular and militia troops, camp followers and labourers, was about 5,800, and it was stipulated, among other things, that they should march out with the honours of war, and that they should be permitted at once to return to England on condition of not serving again in North America during the war. The overwhelming nature of the disaster was at once felt on both sides of the Atlantic. Clinton, who had captured some forts and advanced some distance along the Hudson to the relief of Burgoyne, retired to New York. The small garrison which had been left at Ticonderoga, knowing that it was impossible to defend that post against the army which was now free to act against it, hastily abandoned it and retreated to Canada.

In Europe, one of the first effects of the calamity was to fix the determination of the French ministers. Their desire of injuring and humiliating Great Britain had hitherto been restrained by their dread of war, by the miserable condition of their finances, by their fear that the long succession of American disasters would lead, either to a speedy compromise or to a total subjugation of the insurgents. It is a common error of politicians to overrate the wisdom of their opponents and to underrate the influence of resentment, ambition, and temporary excitement upon their judgments or their acts; and many of the best English observers appear to have believed in 1777 that France would not enter openly into the war, but would content herself with the line of sagacious policy which had been indicated by Turgot. This appears to have been, on the whole, the opinion of Burke. 1 It was the decided opinion of Gibbon, who visited Paris in August; 2 and the King, though quite aware of the secret assistance which the French were giving to the Americans, expressed his belief, in September, that the chances of war with France had greatly diminished. 3

It is probable, indeed, that the French ministers themselves were undecided until the tidings arrived, in the first week of December, of the surrender of Saratoga. In those tidings they heard the knell of English dominion in America, of English greatness in the world. Their decision was speedily taken. On the 17th of that same month they informed the American commissioners that they were resolved to enter into a treaty of commerce with America, to acknowledge and support her independence, and to seek no advantage for themselves except a participation in American commerce and the great political end of severing the colonies from the British Empire. The sole condition exacted was that the Americans should make no peace with England which did not involve a recognition of their independence. 1 On February 6, 1778, treaties to this effect were formally signed in Paris.

It will now be necessary to revert to the course of opinion in England. The undoubted popularity of the war in its first stage had for some time continued to increase, and in the latter part of 1776 and the first half of 1777 it had probably attained its maximum. At the close of 1776 the greater part of the Rockingham connection, finding themselves beaten by overwhelming majorities, abstained from attending Parliament except in the mornings, when private business was being transacted. A great part of the majorities against them consisted, no doubt, of courtiers and placemen, of representatives of Cornish boroughs, or other nominees of the Government; but the Whigs at this time very fully admitted that the genuine opinion of the country was with the Government and with the King. The victory of Long Island, the capture of New York, Fort Washington, and Fort Lee, the successful invasion of the Jerseys, and at a later period the battle of Brandywine and the occupation of Philadelphia and of Ticonderoga, convinced a great section of the English people that the insurrection was likely to be speedily suppressed, and that the area of real disaffection had been extremely exaggerated. The Declaration of Independence, and the known overtures of the Americans to France, were deemed the climax of insolence and ingratitude. The damage done to English commerce, not only in the West Indies, but even around the English and Irish coast, excited a widespread bitterness, and it was greatly intensified by a series of attempts which were made at the close of 1776 and in the beginning of 1777 to burn the arsenals at Portsmouth and Plymouth, and the shipping at Bristol. Several houses at Bristol were actually destroyed, but at last the culprit was detected and convicted, and he proved to be an artisan who had recently returned from America, and who by his own confession had acted at the direct instigation of Silas Deane, the American commissioner at Paris. 1 Besides all this, war in itself is seldom unpopular in England. English privateers were soon afloat, rivalling in their gains those of the colonies, and the spirits of patriotism, combat, domination, and adventure were all aroused.

Sir George Savile, writing confidentially to Rockingham in January 1777, described the condition of opinion in the most emphatic terms: ‘We are not only patriots out of place, but patriots out of the opinion of the public. The reputed successes, hollow as I think them, and the more ruinous if they are real, have fixed or converted ninety-nine in one hundred. The cause itself wears away by degrees from a question of right and wrong between subjects, to a war between us and a foreign nation, in which justice is never heard, because love of one's country, which is a more favourite virtue, is on the other side. I see marks of this everywhere and in all ranks.’ 2 In his admirable letter on the American question addressed to the Sheriffs of Bristol, which was published in the beginning of 1777, Burke made no secret of his belief that English opinion had deserted the Americans. A few months later he wrote to Fox that ‘the popular humour’ was far worse than he had ever known it; that his own constituency, Bristol, had just voted the freedom of the city to Lord Sandwich and Lord Suffolk; that ‘in Liverpool they are literally almost ruined by this American war, but they love it as they suffer from it.’ ‘The Tories,’ he added, ‘do universally think their power and consequence involved in the success of this American business. The clergy are astonishingly warm in it; and what the Tories are when embodied and united with their natural head, the Crown, and animated by their clergy, no man knows better than yourself. The Whigs … are what they always were (except by the able use of opportunities), by far the weakest party in this country. … The Dissenters, their main effective part, are … not all in force. They will do very little.’ 1

Measures were carried without difficulty suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in the case of persons suspected of high treason committed in North America or on the high seas, or of piracy, and granting letters of marque and reprisal against American vessels. Supplies amounting to a little less than 13 millions were voted for the expenses of the year, and an address, which was moved by Lord Chatham in May, for repealing the many oppressive Acts relating to America since 1763, was easily rejected. The language of the Opposition in their private correspondence, and sometimes in public, was that of extreme despondency. Burke was never weary of impressing upon the people that the American question should not be decided by philosophical or historical disquisitions upon the rights of Parliament or of provincial assemblies, but by considerations of practical policy, and that no possible good could result from the course which was being pursued. The English, he argued, never could get a revenue from America. They were masters only of the ground on which they encamped. They were rapidly, by the employment of savage allies and of German mercenaries, depriving themselves of every friend in America. They were adding enormously to their own national debt, and were exposing themselves to the danger of a foreign war under most disadvantageous circumstances. Nor were these the only evils resulting from the contest. The party most hostile to British liberty was raised to power. The principles of liberty were discredited. Precedents were admitted and a bias was created extremely hostile to the British Constitution, and some of its most essential maxims, being violated in America and asserted by insurrection, would soon cease to be respected at home. The Duke of Richmond even expressed his firm belief that Parliament in its present mood would be perfectly ready to establish despotism in England. 1

The Whig secession was a very short one, and it was imperfectly observed. Fox, who was now rapidly rising to a foremost place among the opponents of the Ministry, never joined it. His speeches at this time, by the confession of the best judges, were among the most powerful ever heard in Parliament; and a significant letter is preserved in which the King recommended North to push on as much business as possible during a few days when the young orator was at Paris. 2 Whether, however, these speeches were as advantageous to the Whig party as they were to the reputation of the speaker, may, I think, be much doubted. It was one of the peculiarities of Fox, which he showed both during the American War and during the war of the French Revolution, that whenever he differed from the policy of the Government, he never appeared to have the smallest leaning or bias in favour of his country. Believing at this time that his friends were as completely proscribed as the Jacobites in the two preceding reigns, and that he had nothing to look forward to except the reputation of a great orator, 1 he placed no check upon his natural impulses. More than any other man he gave the Whig party that cosmopolitan and unnational character which was one of the chief sources of its weakness, and which it only lost at the Reform Bill of 1832. Chatham, in his most vehement denunciations of the policy of the Government, never forgot that he was beyond all things an English statesman, and the greatness of England was at all times the first object of his ambition. Burke, although he was guilty of innumerable faults of temper and taste, and although he was quite prepared to recognise the Independence of America, if it became necessary, seldom failed to put forward reconciliation as the ultimate end of his policy; and in his letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol in 1777 he offended some of the more violent members of his party by expressing his earnest wish that the whole body of authority of the English Crown and Parliament over America which existed before the Stamp Act, might be preserved perfect and entire. 2 But the language of Fox was that of a passionate partisan of the insurgents. I have already mentioned his eulogy of Montgomery, who fell at the head of the American army. In one of his letters he described the first considerable success of the English in America as ‘the terrible news from Long Island,’ and spoke of what would happen ‘if America should be at our feet—which God forbid.’ 3 In Parliament he exerted all his eloquence to show that it was the true interest of France and Spain to draw the sword in favour of American Independence. 1 When the news of the crushing disaster of Saratoga arrived, the Opposition did not suspend for a single day their party warfare; they expressed no real desire to support the Government in its difficulties, and Fox at once signalised himself by a furious invective against Lord George Germaine, accusing him of disgracing his country in every capacity, and expressing his hope that he would be brought to a second trial. 2

In every stage of the contest the influence of the Opposition was employed to trammel the Government. In 1776 they denounced the garrisoning of Minorca and Gibraltar with Hanoverian soldiers as a breach of the Act of Settlement. 3 After the surrender of Saratoga, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Glasgow each raised a regiment. Several independent companies were raised in Wales, and the patriotic enthusiasm was so strong that no less than 15,000 soldiers were presented by private bounty to the State. 4 But the Opposition did everything in their power to discourage the movement. They denounced the raising of troops by private subscription as unconstitutional and dangerous to liberty, while they dilated upon the indefensible condition of the country in a strain that must have greatly encouraged the French, 5 and Fox at the same time moved that no more troops should be sent out of England. 6 The statement of Wraxall that the Whig colours of buff and blue were first adopted by Fox in imitation of the uniform of Washington's troops, 1 is, I believe, corroborated by no other writer; but there is no reason to question his assertion that the members of the Whig party in society and in both Houses of Parliament during the whole course of the war wished success to the American cause and rejoiced in the American triumphs. 2 Benedict Arnold was attacked, Franklin and Laurens were eulogised in the British House of Commons in a strain which would have been perfectly becoming in the American Congress, and the American cause was spoken of as the cause of liberty. 3 Dr. Price, who was one of the great lights of the democratic party, and whose knowledge of finance was widely celebrated, was invited by the Congress at the end of 1778 to go over to America and to manage the American finances. He declined the invitation on the ground of his feeble health and spirits, but with a profusion of compliments to the Assembly, which he ‘considered the most respectable and important in the world,’ with the warmest wishes for the success of the Americans, and without the smallest intimation that the fact that they were at war with his country made it difficult for him to place his talents at their disposal. 4 In 1781 a young poet of the party, who afterwards became the great Sir William Jones, told how Truth, Justice, Reason, and Valour had all fled beyond the Atlantic to seek a purer soil and a more congenial sky. 1 ‘The parricide joy of some,’ wrote Sir Gilbert Elliot about this time, ‘in the losses of their country makes me mad. They don't disguise it. A patriotic Duke told me some weeks ago that some ships had been lost off the coast of North America in a storm. He said 1,000 British sailors were drowned—not one escaped—with joy sparkling in his eyes. … In the House of Commons it is not unusual to speak of the Provincials as our army.’ The same acute observer expressed his conviction that the North Ministry had repeatedly made mistakes which would have destroyed it had it not been for the course which was adopted by the Opposition. ‘It was the wish of Great Britain to recover America. Government aimed at least at this object, which the Opposition rejected. … The principles [of Government] respecting America were agreeable to the people, and those of Opposition offensive to them.’ 2

And while the Opposition by their grossly unpatriotic language and conduct exasperated the national feeling, the King, on his side, did the utmost in his power to embitter the contest. It is only by examining his correspondence with Lord North that we fully realise how completely at this time he assumed the position not only of a prime minister but of a Cabinet, superintending, directing, and prescribing, in all its parts, the policy of the Government. It was not merely that he claimed a commanding voice in every kind of appointment. The details of military management, the whole course and character of the war, and sometimes even the manner in which Government questions were to be argued in Parliament, were prescribed by him; and ministers, according to the theory which had now become dominant in Court circles, were prepared to act simply as his agents, even in direct opposition to their own judgments. We have already seen that Lord Barrington, who, as minister of war, was most directly responsible for the manner in which the war was conducted, had distinctly informed his brother ministers as early as 1774 that he disapproved of the whole policy of coercing the colonies, that be believed the military enterprises which he organised could lead to nothing but disaster, and that he was convinced that, though the Americans might be reduced by the fleet, they could never be reduced by the army. We have seen also that, although Barrington never failed to express his opinions frankly and fully to the Cabinet, he consented, at the request of the King, to remain the responsible minister till the end of 1778. Lord Howe and Lord Amherst agreed with Barrington in thinking that an exclusively naval war was the sole chance of success, and it is extremely probable that this opinion was a just one. In the divided condition of American opinion, the stress of a severe blockade might easily have rendered the Revolutionary party so unpopular that it would have succumbed before the Loyalists, had it not been strengthened by the great military triumph of Saratoga, and by the indignation which the outrages of British and German troops and the far more horrible outrages of Indian savages had very naturally produced. But the King had a different plan for the war, and Barrington obediently carried it out. ‘Every means of distressing America,’ wrote the King, ‘must meet with my concurrence.’ He strongly supported the employment of Indians, and in October 1777 he expressed his hope that Howe would ‘turn his thoughts to the mode of war best calculated to end this contest, as most distressing to the Americans,’ which, the King reproachfully added, ‘he seems as yet carefully to have avoided.’ 1 It was the King's friends who were most active in promoting all measures of violence. Clergymen who in, the fast-day sermons distinguished themselves by violent attacks on the Americans or by maintaining despotic theories of government, were conspicuously selected for promotion. The war was commonly called the ‘King's war,’ and its opponents were looked upon as opponents of the King. 2

The person, however, who in the eye of history appears most culpable in this matter, was Lord North. He disclaimed indeed the title of Prime Minister, as a term unknown to the Constitution; but as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer he was more than any other person responsible to the country for the policy that was pursued, and but for his continuance in office that policy could hardly have been maintained. Nearly all the great politicians of Europe—Frederick in Prussia, Turgot in France, Chatham and Burke in England—pronounced the course which the English Government were adopting to be ruinous; and the bitterness with which the Opposition attacked Lord North was always considerably aggravated by the very prevalent belief that he was not seriously convinced of the wisdom of the war he was conducting, and that the tenacity with which he pursued it long after success appeared impossible, was due to his resolution, at all hazards to his country, to retain his office. The publication of the correspondence of George III. has thrown a light upon this question which was not possessed by contemporaries, and, while it completely exculpates North from the charge of excessive attachment to office, it supplies one of the most striking and melancholy examples of the relation of the King to his Tory ministers. It appears from this correspondence that for the space of about five years North, at the entreaty of the King, carried on a bloody, costly, and disastrous war in direct opposition to his own judgment and to his own wishes. In the November of 1779 Lord Gower, who had hitherto been one of the staunchest supporters of the Government, resigned his post on the ground that the system which was being pursued ‘must end in ruin to his Majesty and the country;’ and North, in a private letter to the King, after describing the efforts he had made to dissuade his colleague from resigning, added these memorable words: ‘In the argument Lord North had certainly one disadvantage, which is that he holds in his heart, and has held for three years past, the same opinion with Lord Gower.’ 1 And yet in spite of this declaration he continued in office for two years longer. Again and again he entreated that his resignation might be accepted, but again and again he yielded to the request of the King, who threatened, if his minister resigned, to abdicate the throne, who implored him, by his honour as a gentleman, and his loyalty as a subject, to continue at his post, who reiterated his supplications in letter after letter of passionate entreaty, and who, though perfectly aware that Lord North regarded the war as hopeless and inevitably disastrous, uniformly urged that resignation would be an act of culpable, cowardly, and dishonourable desertion. Unhappily for his country, most unhappily for his own reputation, North suffered himself to be swayed and became the instrument of a policy of which he utterly disapproved. He was an amiable but weak man, keenly susceptible to personal influence, and easily moved by the unhappiness of those with whom he came in contact, but without sufficient force of principle to restrain his feelings, or sufficient power of imagination to realise adequately the sufferings of great bodies of men in a distant land. His loyalty and personal attachment to the King were stronger than his patriotism. He was cut to the heart by the distress of his Sovereign, and he was too good-natured to arrest the war.

The King was determined, under no circumstances, to treat with the Americans on the basis of the recognition of their independence; but he acknowledged, after the surrender of Burgoyne, and as soon as the French war had become inevitable, that unconditional submission could no longer be hoped for, and that it might be advisable to concentrate the British forces in Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas, and to employ them exclusively against the French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies. 1 He consented, too, though apparently with extreme reluctance, and in consequence of the unanimous vote of the Cabinet, that new propositions should be made to the Americans. The stocks had greatly fallen. No recruits could any longer be obtained from Germany; the ministerial majorities, though still large, had perceptibly diminished, and outside the Parliament, Gibbon noticed, even before the news of Saratoga arrived, that the tide of opinion was beginning to flow in the direction of peace. 2 On December 10, 1777, a few days after the surrender of Burgoyne had been announced, when the attitude of the French was yet unknown, and when Parliament was about to adjourn for Christmas, Lord North announced that at the close of the holidays he would bring in a project of conciliation.

The next day Chatham made one of his greatest speeches on the subject. Though now a complete invalid, he had several times during the last few months spoken in the House of Lords on the American question, with little less than his old eloquence, and with a wisdom and moderation which in his greater days he had not always exhibited. America, he emphatically and repeatedly maintained, never could be subdued by force; the continued attempt could only lead to utter ruin, and France would sooner or later inevitably throw herself into the contest. He reprobated, in language that has become immortal in English eloquence, the policy which let loose the tomahawks of the Indians upon the old subjects of England. In a passage which is less quoted, but which was eminently indicative of his military prescience, he had in November spoken of the total loss of the army of Burgoyne as a probable contingency, 1 and he dilated on the insufficiency of the naval establishments in a language which was emphatically repudiated by the ministers, but which subsequent events fully justified. He strongly maintained, however, that England and America must remain united for the benefit of both, and that though every week which passed made it more difficult, and though the language of the ministers, and especially the employment of Indians, had enormously aggravated the situation, it was still possible, by a frank and speedy surrender of all the constitutional questions in dispute, and by an immediate withdrawal of the invading army, to conciliate the colonies. ‘America is in ill-humour with France on some points that have not entirely answered her expectations; let us wisely take advantage of every possible moment of reconciliation. Her natural disposition still leans towards England, and to the old habits of connection and mutual interest that united both countries. This was the established sentiment of all the continent. … All the middle and southern provinces are still sound … still sensible of their real interests.’ ‘The security and permanent prosperity of both countries’ can only be attained by union, and by this alone the power of France can be repressed. ‘America and France cannot be congenial; there is something decisive and confirmed in the honest American that will not assimilate to the futility and levity of Frenchmen.’ Prompt, conciliatory action was, however, necessary, and he accordingly strenuously opposed the adjournment, which left the country without a Parliament in the six critical weeks that followed the arrival of the news of the capitulation of Saratoga. 1

His counsel was rejected, but in the course of the recess some private overtures were vainly made to Franklin by persons who are said to have been in the confidence of the English Government. The feeling of uneasiness in the country was now very acute, and it was noticed that in January 1778 the Three per Cents, stood at 71 1/4, whereas in January 1760, which was the fifth year of a war with the united House of Bourbon, they were 79. 2 On February 17, North rose to move Bills of conciliation which virtually conceded all that America had long been asking. The Act remodelling the constitution of Massachusetts and the tea duty, which were the main grievances of the colonies, were both absolutely and unconditionally repealed. Parliament formally promised to impose no taxes upon the colonies for the sake of revenue, and although it retained its ancient right of imposing such duties as were necessary for the regulation of commerce, it bound itself that those duties should always be applied to public purposes in the colony in which they were levied, in such manner as the colonial assemblies should determine. It was enacted also that commissioners should be sent out to America to negotiate a peace, with full powers to treat with Congress, to proclaim a cessation of hostilities by land and sea, to grant pardons to all descriptions of persons, and to suspend the operation of all Acts of Parliament relating to the American colonies which had passed since February 1763. 1

The propositions were listened to with blank amazement by the most devoted followers of the ministers. They were in effect much the same as those which Burke had vainly advocated nearly three years before. They completely surrendered all for which England had been contending at such a ruinous cost, and the speech with which Lord North introduced them was one of the most extraordinary ever made by an English minister. He contended that his present measures were not only perfectly consistent with his present opinions, but consistent also with the opinions he had always held and with the policy he had always pursued. He never, he said, had any real belief in the possibility of obtaining a considerable revenue from America. The policy of taxing America was not his, but that of his predecessors. He found the tea duty established and was not able to abandon it. The measure enabling the East India Company to send its tea to America, paying a small duty there, but with a drawback of the much larger duty previously paid in England, was in reality an act not of oppression but of relief, and it had only been turned into a new grievance by the combined artifices of demagogues who wished to produce a separation, and of smugglers who feared that the contraband trade in tea would be extinguished. The coercion Acts had been introduced on account of great acts of violence which had occurred in the colonies. They had not produced the results that were hoped for, and he was quite prepared to abandon them. They had, however, been so far from representing what, in the opinion of North, ought to be the permanent relations of England to the colonies, that he had accompanied them by a conciliatory measure which he still thought would have formed the happiest, most equitable, most lasting bond of union between the mother country and her colonies. He had proposed that any colony might secure itself against all taxation by Parliament if it would, of its own accord, raise such a sum towards the payment of its civil government and towards the common defence of the Empire as Parliament thought sufficient. The proposal was most honestly meant, but the Americans had been persuaded, partly by their own leaders, and partly by the English Opposition, that it was a deceptive one. He had afterwards authorised Lord Howe and his brother to negotiate with members of the Congress in 1776, but it was then objected that the commissioners had insufficient powers. This objection was obviated by the present Bill. The new commissioners would be instructed to endeavour to induce the colonies to make some reasonable, moderate, and voluntary contribution towards the cost of the common empire when reunited, but no such contribution was to be demanded as essential; the right of Parliament to tax the colonies was formally and finally renounced, and the States were not to be asked to resign their independence till the treaty with the mother country had been agreed on and ratified in Parliament. It was added in the course of the debate on the part of the Government, that a security of the debts of Congress, and a re-establishment of the credit of the paper money which had now been so enormously depreciated, would be one of the objects of the Commission and, it was hoped, one of the chief inducements to the Americans to receive it with favour.

The speech, wrote a keen observer, 1 was listened to ‘with profound attention, but without a single mark of approbation to any part, from any description of men or any particular man in the House. Astonishment, dejection, and fear overclouded the whole assembly.’ Everything, as devoted followers of the Ministry explained, except independence, was conceded, and offers were made which a little before would certainly have been welcomed with alacrity. Now, however, they clashed against two fatal obstacles—the treaties with France, which, though not yet formally declared or ratified, were already signed, and the antecedents of the ministry, which made it impossible that any proposals that emanated from it could be received without hostility and distrust. That Lord North in his speech truly represented his own later opinions on American questions is very probable, but they were at least opinions which were utterly opposed to those which the world ascribed to him and to the general policy of his party. He was the special leader of men who in every stage of the long controversy had uniformly shown themselves the most implacable enemies of the pretensions of the colonies, and who had spared no insult and no injury that could exasperate and envenom the conflict. Sandwich and Rigby, Weymouth and Hillsborough, Wedderburn and Germaine, the King's friends and the Bedford faction, were very naturally regarded by the Americans as their most rancorous enemies. The language of the ministerial newspapers, the disposal of ministerial patronage, the gradual displacement of every politician who leaned towards a milder policy, had all abundantly indicated their spirit.

In such hands it was scarcely possible that conciliation could succeed. The commissioners appointed were Lord Carlisle, William Eden, and George Johnstone, a former governor of Florida. The first two were as yet very little known in politics, but after the Declaration of Independence, Lord Carlisle had moved the address in answer to the royal Speech which denounced the Americans as rebels and traitors, while Eden had been Under-Secretary to Lord Suffolk, the most vehement advocate of the employment of Indians in the war. Johnstone had, it is true, opposed the ministerial measures relating to the colonies, and he was well known in America; but he greatly injured the cause by private overtures to members of Congress, endeavouring by personal offers to obtain their assistance, and after much angry altercation he withdrew from the Commission. Congress unanimously declined any reconciliation which was not based on a recognition of American independence. The commissioners appear to have done everything in their power to execute their mission. They even went beyond their legal powers, for besides promising the Americans complete liberty of internal legislation, they offered an engagement that no European troops should be again sent to America without the consent of the local assemblies, and they also offered an American representation in the English Parliament. Gates was in favour of negotiation, and Lee, who had now lost almost all sympathy with the American cause, was on the same side; but, though a great section of the American people would have gladly closed the quarrel by a reconciliation, the Congress was in the hands of the insurgent party. In October the commissioners published a manifesto appealing from the Congress to the people, offering the terms which had been rejected to each separate State, and threatening a desolating war if those terms were not accepted. Offers, however, emanating from the North ministry were almost universally distrusted, and the new alliance with France was welcomed with enthusiasm. On May 4, 1778, the treaties of alliance and commerce were unanimously ratified by Congress. On the 13th of the preceding March the latter treaty had been formally communicated by the French ambassador at London, and immediately after, the ambassadors on each side were recalled, and England and France were at war.

The moment was one of the most terrible in English history. England had not an ally in the world. One army was a prisoner in America; and the Congress, on very futile pretexts, had resolved not to execute the Convention of Saratoga, which obliged them to send it back to England. The great bulk of the English troops were confined in Philadelphia and New York. The growing hostility of the German Powers had made it impossible to raise or subsidise additional German soldiers; and in these circumstances, England, already exhausted by a war which its distance made peculiarly terrible, had to confront the whole force of France, and was certain in a few months to have to encounter the whole force of Spain. Her navy was but half prepared; her troops were barely sufficient to protect her shores from invasion; her ministers and her generals were utterly discredited; her Prime Minister had just admitted that the taxation of America, which was the original object of the war, was an impossibility. At the same time, the country believed, as most men believed both on the Continent and in America, that the severance of the colonies would be the beginning of the complete decadence of England; and the Imperial feeling, which was resolved to make any sacrifice rather than submit to the dismemberment of the Empire, was fully aroused. It is a feeling which is rarely absent from any large section of the English race, and however much the Americans, during the War of Independence, may have reprobated it, it was never displayed more conspicuously or more passionately than by their own descendants when the great question of secession arose within their border.

There was one man to whom, in this hour of panic and consternation, the eyes of all patriotic Englishmen were turned. In Chatham England possessed a statesman whose genius in conducting a war was hardly inferior to that of Marlborough in conducting an army. In France his name produced an almost superstitious terror. In America it was pronounced with the deepest affection and reverence. He had, in the great French war, secured the Anglo-Saxon preponderance in the colonies; he had defended the colonies in every stage of their controversy about the Stamp Act, and had fascinated them by the splendour of his genius. If any statesman could, at the last moment, conciliate them, dissolve the new alliance, and kindle into a flame the loyalist feeling which undoubtedly existed largely in America, it was Chatham. If, on the other hand, conciliation proved impossible, no statesman could for a moment be compared to him in the management of a war. Lord North implored the King to accept his resignation, and to send for Chatham. Bute, the old Tory favourite, breaking his long silence, spoke of Chatham as now indispensable. Lord Mansfield, the bitterest and ablest rival of Chatham, said, with tears in his eyes, that unless the King sent for Chatham, the ship would assuredly go down. George Grenville, the son of the author of the Stamp Act, and Lord Rochford, one of the ablest of the late Secretaries of State, employed the same language, and public opinion loudly and unanimously declared itself in the same sense. Lord Barrington represented to the King ‘the general dismay which prevails among all ranks and conditions, arising from an opinion that the administration was not equal to the times, an opinion so universal that it prevailed among those who were most dependent and attached to his ministers, and even among the ministers themselves.’ ‘Every rank,’ wrote one of the foremost bankers in London, ‘looks up to Chatham with the only gleam of hope that remains; nor do I meet with anyone who does not lament and wonder that his Majesty has not yet publicly desired the only help that can have a chance to extricate the country from the difficulties which every day grow greater, and must otherwise, I fear, become insurmountable.’ The Rockingham party believed, what Chatham still refused to admit, that the only possible course was to acknowledge at once the independence of America; and the old jealousies that divided them from Chatham were far from extinct. But the Rockingham party also agreed in thinking that it was now in the easy power of France and Spain to give ‘a deadly blow’ to this country, and as Chatham had clearly said that America could never be overcome by force, the difference between them was in reality chiefly in the more or less sanguine hope they entertained of the possibility of conciliation. The Duke of Richmond, who of all prominent politicians was the most vehement supporter of the necessity of admitting the independence of America, sent to say that ‘there never was a time when so great a man as Lord Chatham was more wanted than at present,’ and that if Chatham thought it right to make another attempt to prevent the separation of the colonies he would ‘be the first to give him every support in his power.’ Lord Camden, who now usually acted with the Rockingham party, and was somewhat alienated from Chatham, wrote of him to Rockingham: ‘I see plainly the public does principally look up to him, and such is the opinion of the world as to his ability to advise as well as execute in this perilous crisis, that they will never be satisfied with any change or arrangement where he is not among the first.’ 1

Everything seemed thus to point to a Ministry under the guidance of Chatham as the last hope of English greatness. Alone amid the accumulating disasters of his country and the concurrence of the most hostile parties the King was unmoved. He consented indeed—and he actually authorised Lord North to make the astounding proposition—to receive Chatham as a subordinate minister to North, in order to strengthen the existing administration; but this was the utmost extent to which he would go. His own words, which are too clear for cavil or for dispute, should determine for ever his claims to be regarded as a patriot king. ‘I declare in the strongest and most solemn manner,’ he wrote to North, ‘that though I do not object to your addressing yourself to Lord Chatham, yet that you must acquaint him that I shall never address myself to him but through you, and on a clear explanation that he is to step forth to support an administration wherein you are First Lord of the Treasury. … I will only add, to put before your eye my most inward thoughts, that no advantage to this country, no present danger to myself, can ever make me address myself to Lord Chatham or any other branch of the Opposition. … Should Lord Chatham wish to see me before he gives his answer, I shall most certainly refuse it. … You have now full powers to act; but I do not expect Lord Chatham and his crew will come to your assistance.’ ‘I solemnly declare,’ he wrote on the following day, ‘that nothing shall bring me to treat personally with Lord Chatham;’ and again, a little later, ‘No consideration in life shall make me stoop to opposition.’ 1

It is worthy of notice that the determination of the King at any cost to his country, and in defiance of the most earnest representations of his own minister and of the most eminent politicians of every party, to refuse to send for the greatest of living statesmen at the moment when the Empire appeared to be in the very agonies of dissolution, was not solely or mainly due to his own opinions on the American question. Chatham had declared, as strongly as the King himself, his determination not to concede American independence; and the King, by permitting Lord North to introduce his conciliatory Bills, had sanctioned the surrender of every other constitutional question in dispute. The main motives that influenced the King were personal. The many provocations he had undoubtedly received from Chatham had produced in his eminently sullen and rancorous nature an intensity of hatred which no consideration of patriotism could overcome, and he also clearly saw that the triumph of the Opposition would lead to the destruction of that system of personal government which he had so laboriously built up. Either Chatham or Rockingham would have insisted that the policy of the country should be directed by its responsible ministers, and not dictated by an irresponsible sovereign. It is not difficult to detect in the passionate expressions of the King that the great question in whose hands the real and efficient determination of the policy of government was to rest, was that which most deeply affected his mind. The Opposition, he said, ‘would make me a slave for the remainder of my days.’ ‘Whilst any ten men in the kingdom will stand by me I will not give myself up into bondage.’ ‘I will never put my hand to what would make me miserable to the last hour of my life.’ ‘Rather than be shackled by those desperate men (if the nation will not stand by me, which I can never suppose), I will rather see any form of government introduced into this island, and lose my crown than wear it as a disgrace.’ No change, he emphatically said, should be made in the Government which did not leave North at its head, and Thurlow, Suffolk, Sandwich, Gower, Weymouth, and Wedderburn in high office. On such conditions he well knew that he could always either govern or overthrow the administration. 1

This episode appears to me the most criminal in the whole reign of George III., and in my own judgment it is as criminal as any of those acts which led Charles I. to the scaffold. It is remarkable how nearly, many years later, it was reproduced. Terrible as was the condition of England in 1778, the dangers that menaced it in 1804 were probably still greater. The short peace of Amiens had ended; Napoleon, in the zenith of his power and glory, was preparing the invasion of England, and the very existence of the country as a free and independent State was menaced by the most extraordinary military genius of modern times, disposing of the resources of the greatest and most warlike of continental nations. Under these circumstances, Pitt strenuously urged upon the King the necessity of a coalition of parties, and especially of the introduction of Fox into the ministry. Fox had not, like Chatham, shown the genius of a great war minister; but he was at the head of a powerful party in the State, and, as he had been one of the strongest opponents of the war when it first broke out, his acceptance of office would not only have given Government the strength it greatly needed, but would also have been the most emphatic demonstration of the union of all parties against the invaders. But the obstinacy of the King proved indomitable. He ‘expressed his astonishment that Mr. Pitt should one moment harbour the thought of bringing such a man [as Fox] before his royal notice.’ He announced that the great Whig statesman was excluded by his ‘express command;’ and when, in the succeeding year, Pitt resumed his efforts, the King said ‘that he had taken a positive determination not to admit Mr. Fox into his councils, even at the hazard of a civil war.’ 1

It is an idle, though a curious question, whether it would have been possible for Chatham at the last moment to have induced the Americans to acquiesce in anything short of complete independence. If the foregoing narrative be truly written, it will appear manifest to the reader that a great part of the American people had never really favoured the Revolution, and that there were many of the remainder who would have been gladly reunited with England on terms which Chatham was both ready and eager to concede. The French alliance had, however, made it a matter of honour and of treaty obligation for the Americans to continue the struggle, and passions had risen to a point that made reconciliation almost hopeless. The Rockingham party, in strongly asserting that an immediate recognition of American independence was the true policy of England, probably took a more just view of the situation than Chatham, while, on the other hand, their declaration would have greatly aggravated the difficulty of carrying out his policy. Nor was it possible that the task of reconciliation, even if it were practicable, could have been reserved for Chatham. The sands of that noble life were now almost run. On April 7, 1778, he appeared for the last time in the House of Lords. Wrapped in flannel, supported on crutches, led in by his son-in-law Lord Mahon, and by that younger son who was destined in a few years to rival his fame, he had come to protest against an address moved by the Duke of Richmond calling upon the King to withdraw his forces by land and sea from the revolted colonies. His sunk and hueless face, rendered the more ghastly by the still penetrating brilliancy of his eyes, bore plainly on it the impress of approaching death, and his voice was barely audible in the almost breathless silence of the House; but something of his old fire may be traced in the noble sentences of indomitable and defiant patriotism with which he protested ‘against the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy,’ and laughed to scorn the fears of invasion. After the reply of the Duke of Richmond, he tried to rise again, but fell back senseless in an apoplectic fit. He lingered till May 11. It was afterwards remembered that, as he lay on his death-bed looking forward to his own immediate end, he caused his son to read to him the passage in Homer describing the stately obsequies of Hector and the sorrow and despair of Troy.

The death of Chatham would under any circumstances have made a profound and general impression, and the closing scene in the House of Lords was eminently fitted to enhance it. It was an exit, indeed, combining every element of sublimity and pathos. So awful a close of so glorious a career, the eclipse of a light that had filled the world with its splendour, the remembrance of the imperishable glory with which the dying statesman had irradiated, not only his country, but the dynasty that ruled it, the prescience with which he had protested at every stage against the measures that had ruined it, the lofty patriotism which, amid many failings and some follies, had never ceased to animate his career—appealed in the strongest manner to every sensitive and noble nature. Lord North showed on the occasion the good-feeling and generosity which never failed to distinguish him when he was able to act upon his own impulses; and Burke, though he had long and deeply disliked Chatham, combined with Fox in paying an eloquent tribute to his memory. The vote of a public funeral and monument, and a Bill paying the debts of the deceased statesman and annexing, for all future time, an annuity of 4,000 l . a year to the title of Chatham, were carried almost unanimously through Parliament.

Beneath this decorous appearance, however, we may trace some very different feelings, and there were those who looked with indifference, if not with pleasure, on the death of Chatham. When he was struck down by the fatal fit the King wrote curtly and coldly to North, ‘May not the political exit of Lord Chatham incline you to continue at the head of affairs?’ When Parliament a little later voted a public funeral for the most illustrious of English statesmen, the King wrote, ‘I was rather surprised the House of Commons have unanimously voted an address for a public funeral and a monument in Westminster Abbey for Lord Chatham, but I trust it is voted as a testimony of gratitude for his rousing the nation at the beginning of the last war … or this compliment, if paid to his general conduct, is rather an offensive measure to me personally.’ When the funeral took place it was observed that all persons connected with the Court were conspicuously absent. 1

Among the politicians of the Opposition also there were some who looked upon the removal of Chatham in a very similar spirit. The Duke of Portland, who at a later period became the head of the Whig connection, wrote to Rockingham declining, on the plea of private business, and in terms that are singularly disgraceful both to his head and heart, to be present at the funeral of Chatham. ‘I feel no inducement,’ he wrote, ‘to attend the ceremony this morning, but the pleasure of meeting you.’ He approved of the conduct of Lord Rockingham in attending the funeral, but added a sentence, which is peculiarly painful as showing the opinion of the man to whom, beyond all others, Chatham was attached by the warmest personal and political friendship. ‘Lord Camden might possibly not be much mistaken in considering Lord Chatham's death as a fortunate event.’ 2 Chatham, indeed, though in his own family he was one of the most amiable of men, and though in the country at large he was the object of an almost adoring affection, never had the power of attaching to himself real private friends. Camden and Shelburne were the two statesmen to whom he appears to have given his fullest confidence, but Camden considered his death a fortunate event, and Shelburne, in his posthumous memoir, did the utmost in his power to blacken his memory.

His death, though it gave substantial unity to the Opposition, no doubt on the whole strengthened the Government. By far the greatest name opposed to it was removed, and nearly the whole Opposition now advocated the concession of complete American independence, for which the country was most certainly as yet not prepared. The declaration of France aroused the indignation of the nation and changed the sentiments of many. Perhaps the class among whom the Americans had hitherto found the warmest and most uncompromising friends were the Presbyterians of Ulster, and a letter from Buckingham, the Lord Lieutenant, written immediately after the new war had become inevitable, asserts that ‘by accounts received from very good authority, the idea of a French war has not only altered the language but the disposition of the Presbyterians.’ 1 In England, too, many who had refused to regard the Americans as enemies, determined, as a matter of patriotism, to rally round the Government, now that a foreign enemy was in the field. 2 The militia were called out; some great noblemen undertook to raise regiments. The old spirit of international rivalry, the old self-confidence, and the old pugnacity were fully stirred, and the nation prepared with a thrill of not unjoyful enthusiasm to encounter its old enemy. 3

In the negotiations that had taken place just before the death of Chatham it had at one time appeared not improbable that a considerable fusion of parties might be effected. Fox, though usually acting with the Rockingham Whigs, had not yet finally attached himself to them, and it is a remarkable fact that, although he at this very time surpassed all other politicians in the extraordinary violence and power of his attacks upon the ministers, he had no disinclination to take office with them in a coalition ministry. He appears to have insisted only that places should be found for some other members of the Whig party, that the measures he had protested against relating to America should be repealed, and that Lord George Germaine should be excluded. 1 Negotiations arising from the desire of Lord North to resign went on in an intermittent manner for several months, and in January 1779 Fox wrote to Lord Rockingham, expressing a decided inclination for a coalition ministry, provided that North, Germaine, and Sandwich were no longer members. He contended that it was only by a gradual introduction of a Whig element into the Cabinet that the national policy could be modified. Rockingham, on the other hand, acting on the opinion which Burke had steadily advocated, considered that the party connection or organisation must be inflexibly maintained, and that the Whigs should only accept administration in a body and on such terms as would enable them fully to control its policy. Richmond wrote a long and very able letter advocating the same view, and it is evident that he considered a junction of Fox with the greater part of the North ministry extremely probable. 2

The opinion of Rockingham and Richmond prevailed, and all overtures to the Whigs were at this time rejected, but in the course of 1778 a few minor changes were made. In February Sir W. Howe, at his own request, was recalled from America and succeeded in the command of the English army by Sir Henry Clinton. In March, in consequence of a personal quarrel, the resignation of Lord G. Germaine was tendered and accepted, but it was afterwards withdrawn, apparently on account of the difficulty of finding a successor, and shortly after some changes were made in the legal appointments. In the negotiations that preceded the death of Chatham, Shelburne had noticed and deplored the growing importance of lawyers in politics, and it was from this class that by far the ablest of the King's friends were drawn. The ministry of Lord North was on the whole very deficient in ability, but its Attorney-General and its Solicitor-General were both men of extraordinary talent.

Thurlow and Wedderburn—the Moloch and the Belial of their profession—had both made it their line of policy to attach themselves specially to the King. Thurlow was not a great lawyer, but he was a most powerful and ready debater, a man of much rugged sense and indomitable courage, coarse, violent, arrogant, shameless and profane. A leonine countenance, a loud commanding voice, fierce, shaggy brows, a demeanour like that of an insolent counsel brow-beating a timid witness and manifestly delighting in his distress, a quickness of repartee that seldom or never failed him, and a complete freedom from every vestige of deference, modesty, or hesitation, all added to the impression of overbearing and exuberant strength which he made on those with whom he came in contact. On a single question—the excellence of the African slave trade—he appears to have had a genuine conviction almost rising to enthusiasm, but in general, though he had a strong natural bias towards harsh and despotic measures, he seems to have taken his politics much as he took his briefs, and he had that air of cynical, brutal, and almost reckless candour which is sometimes the best veil of a time-serving and highly calculating nature. Wedderburn, who had already astonished the world by the flagrancy of one great act of apostasy, had not indeed the daring or the power, the genuine simplicity and directness of intellect that enabled Thurlow to play so great a part in politics, but he excelled him and almost all his other contemporaries in the art of elaborate and subtle reasoning, and he was in the highest degree plausible, insinuating, persevering, dexterous, and intriguing. Both of these men played a great part in the political system of George III. as representing especially the King in Cabinets which did not possess his full confidence, and in June 1778, Lord Bathurst, being induced to resign the Chancellorship, was replaced by Thurlow, who thus passed into the Cabinet. The promotion was one for which the King was extremely anxious with a view to the apparently imminent resignation of North.

In America the intervention of France speedily changed the conditions of the war. Philadelphia, though it had so lately been the seat of the Revolutionary Congress, never appears to have shown any restlessness under the English occupation. There were, no doubt, many Whigs among the young men, and a portion of the population had emigrated, but there appears to have been no popular movement against the English, no difficulty in supplying them with all that they required, no necessity for any military measures of exceptional stringency, no signs of that genuine dislike which had been so abundantly displayed at Boston. The English officers were received in the best society with much more than toleration, and they soon became extremely popular. The winter during which the forces of Washington remained half-starved at Valley Forge, and in which their commander complained so bitterly of the sullen or hostile attitude of the population, was long remembered in Philadelphia for its gaiety and its charm. In May, 1778, a more than commonly splendid festival was given by the English officers in honour of Sir William Howe, who was just leaving America, and of his brother. It was called the Mischianza, and comprised a magnificent tournament, a regatta, a ball, and a great display of fireworks, with innumerable emblems and exhibitions of loyalty to England. It brought together one of the most brilliant assemblages ever known of the youth, beauty, and fashion of Philadelphia, and it was afterwards remembered that the unfortunate Major André was one of the most prominent in organising the entertainment, and that the most admired of the Philadelphian beauties who adorned it was Miss Shippen, soon after to become the wife of Benedict Arnold. 1

Very soon, however, the aspect of affairs was changed, and in June, 1778, Clinton, in consequence of express orders from England, evacuated Philadelphia, and prepared to fall back on New York. The blow was a terrible one, and no less than 3,000 of the inhabitants went into banishment with the British army. 2 The Delaware was crowded with ships bearing brokenhearted fugitives who had left nearly all they possessed, and of those who remained many were banished or imprisoned by the Americans. The retreat was effected without much difficulty, though the Americans tried to impede it, and fought a battle with that object at Monmouth. In July, Count D'Estaing arrived off the coast with a French fleet of twelve ships of the line, four frigates, and about 4,000 French soldiers. He had hoped to find Lord Howe's fleet still in the Delaware, where it had gone to co-operate with the army in Philadelphia, and as that fleet was less than half the size of his own, it would in this case scarcely have escaped. The English, however, were already at New York, and D'Estaing followed them there; but though he for a time blockaded, he did not attempt to force the harbour. The French had for a few weeks a complete command of the sea, and by the advice of Washington an attempt was made to capture, or annihilate, the British force which had occupied Rhode Island since December 1776, and which now amounted to about 6,000 men. An American force of 10,000 men, consisting partly of a section of the army of Washington and partly of militia and volunteers raised in New England, was placed under the command of General Sullivan, and it succeeded on August 9 in landing on the island. The French fleet had a few days before forced its way into Newport harbour and obliged the English to burn several transports and warships in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy.

The operations of the French and Americans appear, however, to have been badly combined, and they ended in complete and somewhat ignominious failure. Four ships of the line—the first ships of a fleet sent from England under Admiral Byron—had just joined Lord Howe, who hastened, though still inferior to the French, to encounter them, when a great storm separated and dispersed the rival fleets, and greatly injured some of the French ships. To the extreme indignation of the Americans, and in spite of an angry written protest by Sullivan, the French admiral refused to pursue the enterprise, and withdrew his ships under the shelter of the batteries of Boston. Between two and three thousand of the troops of Sullivan at once deserted, and it was with much difficulty, and after some hard fighting, that the remainder succeeded in effecting their retreat. 1 Clinton, with 4,000 men, had hastened to the relief of Rhode Island, but owing to adverse winds he arrived just too late, and returned to New York.

Several small expeditions, however, were made, and the war on the part of the English was in 1778 carried on with energy and success, but sometimes with great harshness and barbarity. They destroyed two or three little naval towns which had been conspicuous resorts of American privateers, burnt numerous houses and great quantities of shipping, and carried away much cattle and large stores of arms. They surprised by a night attack a regiment of light cavalry in New Jersey, and also a small brigade under Count Pulaski, and they almost cut them to pieces, little or no quarter being given. A more considerable expedition, was sent to Georgia, where the loyalist feeling had always been very strong, and it speedily captured Savannah, the capital of the province, and drove the American troops into South Carolina. The inhabitants of Georgia for the most part gladly took the oath of allegiance; many of them bore arms in the service of the Crown, and a State legislature acknowledging the royal authority was once more established in the province. Some predatory guerilla war was carried on with various success along the borders of Florida, and a very horrible Indian war raged near the Susquehanna. The desolation of the new and flourishing settlement of Wyoming by 900 Indians, accompanied by about 200 loyalists under Colonel John Butler, has furnished the subject of a well-known poem by Campbell. It was accompanied by all those circumstances of murder, torture, and outrage that usually followed Indian warfare, and about three months later it was terribly avenged by some Pennsylvanian troops under another Colonel Butler. In November D'Estaing sailed from Boston, quickly followed by an English fleet, to carry the war into the West Indies.

The magnitude of the empire and interests of England was indeed vividly illustrated by the enterprises of the year, and there was no want of that vigour and daring which in the earlier American operations had been so conspicuously absent. In Hindostan the English at once took up arms against the French settlers, and before 1778 had ended all the French possessions in India had fallen into their hands, except the little the English islands of St. Vincent and Grenada. At home the English discovered with alarm that the naval preparations of France were much more considerable than they had anticipated. The command of the Channel fleet was given to Admiral Keppel—an appointment very creditable to the Government, for Keppel was a member of Parliament on the side of the Opposition, and was appointed only on account of his great professional eminence. He sailed in June towards the French coasts, and captured or destroyed two French frigates before war had been formally declared, but retired precipitately on discovering that the French fleet was much greater than his own. Having received reinforcements, he again sailed in July, and fought a somewhat larger French fleet off Ushant. The battle was indecisive. It was terminated by a sudden squall and the approach of night, and next day neither commander was disposed to renew it.

The result created much disappointment in England, and bitter recriminations broke out between Keppel and Sir Hugh Palliser, the second in command. The conflict was greatly increased by party spirit, for both admirals were members of Parliament, and they were attached to opposite parties. Each of them demanded a courtmartial. Keppel was in all respects fully acquitted, and he received the thanks of the House, but he was so angry at what he conceived to be the bias of the Government that he threw up his command; while Palliser was also acquitted on every serious point that was alleged against him, though he was censured for not having apprised the commander-in-chief of the disabled state of his ship during the battle. Public opinion in London, and also in the navy, ran violently in favour of Keppel. London was illuminated for two nights on the occasion of his acquittal, and some serious riots were directed against Palliser and against the Admiralty.

The rapid growth of the navy of France was the most alarming feature of the year, but on the whole the English appeared still to hold their accustomed pre-eminence in seamanship. It was feared that the sudden outbreak of the war with France would lead to the destruction of a great part of the British commerce which was now afloat, but these fears were not realised. By sound seamanship, by good fortune, and by the neglect of the enemy, an important fleet of merchantmen from the East Indies, another from Lisbon, and a third from Jamaica, all arrived in safety, 1 while English privateers swept every sea with their usual enterprise and success. It was computed that by the end of 1778 the Americans alone had lost not less than.900 vessels. 2

The internal dissensions, and the great want of any efficient organisation which had hitherto impaired the American enterprises, continued unabated. At the end of 1777 there was a long and bitter cabal against Washington by Generals Gates, Miffin, and Conway, supported by some members of Congress, and forged letters attributed to Washington were printed and widely disseminated. Lee, who had now been exchanged and again put at the head of an American army, was removed from his command by court-martial on account of his disobedience to Washington at the battle of Monmouth, followed by disrespectful language to his chief. An extreme jealousy of the army was one of the strongest feelings of Congress, and a long and painful dispute took place with the commander-in-chief about the wisdom of providing half-pay for the American officers when the war was over. In some very remarkable and well-reasoned letters, Washington urged its absolute necessity. ‘Men may speculate,’ he wrote, ‘as they will; they may talk of patriotism; they may draw a few examples from ancient stories of great achievements performed by its influence; but whoever builds upon them as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war, will find himself deceived in the end. … I know patriotism exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest; but I will venture to assert that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest or some reward.’ In the English army commissions were so valuable that companies had lately been sold for from 1,500 l. to 2,200 l. , and 4,000 guineas had been given for a troop of dragoons. In America all prices had risen to such a point through the depreciated currency, that it was scarcely possible for an American officer to live upon his pay, and he had nothing to look forward to when his service had expired. The result of this state of things was abundantly seen in ‘the frequent defection of officers seduced by views of private interest and emolument to abandon the cause of their country,’ ‘Scarce a day passes without the offer of two or three commissions,’ and ‘numbers who had gone home on furlough mean not to return, but are establishing themselves in more lucrative employments.’ ‘The salvation of the cause,’ Washington solemnly avowed, depends on the establishment of some system of half-pay, and without it the ‘officers will moulder to nothing, or be composed of low and illiterate men void of capacity for this or any other business.’ ‘The large fortunes acquired by numbers out of the army afford a contrast that gives poignancy to every inconvenience from remaining in it.’ But for the sudden prospect of a speedy termination of the war given by the French alliance, Washington doubted whether in the beginning of 1779 America would have ‘more than the shadow of an army,’ and in spite of that alliance he believed that few officers could or would remain on the present establishment. 1 A compromise was at last effected in 1778 by which the officers who served to the end of the war were to receive half-pay for seven years, and the common soldiers who served to the end of the war a gratuity of 80 dollars. 2

The enlistments, as usual, continued very slow. Scarcely a third part of the men voted by the different states actually came in, and it was found necessary to take extraordinary measures to obtain recruits. In the beginning of the war a few free negroes had been admitted into the army of Washington, and in 1778 a regiment of slaves was raised in Rhode Island. They were promised their freedom at the close of the war, and the owners were compensated for their loss. The negroes proved excellent soldiers; in a hard-fought battle that secured the retreat of Sullivan they three times drove back a large body of Hessians, and during the latter years of the war large numbers of slaves were enlisted in several states. 3

Some recruits were also drawn from another and a much more shameful source. The convention of Saratoga had explicitly provided that the captive army of Burgoyne should without delay be sent to Boston, and should there be met by English transports and embarked for England, on the condition that it should not serve in North America during the existing war. This article was naturally disliked by the Congress, as it allowed the English troops to be employed either in home garrisons or in foreign service, except in America, and it was deliberately and most dishonourably violated. The keen legal gentlemen who directed the proceedings of Congress had no difficulty in discovering pretexts, though they were so flimsy that it is difficult to understand how any upright man could for a moment have admitted them. Something was said about a deficiency in the number of cartouche boxes surrendered, but the ground ultimately taken was an expression in a letter of General Burgoyne. Shortly after the surrender six or seven English officers had been crowded together in one room without any distinction of rank, contrary to the 7th article of the convention, and Burgoyne, in remonstrating against the proceeding, had incautiously used the expression, ‘the public faith is broken.’ This, the Congress maintained, was equivalent to a repudiation of the convention by one of its signers. Burgoyne at once wrote disclaiming any such intention, and he formally pledged himself that his officers would join with him in signing any instrument that was thought necessary for confirming the convention, and removing all possible doubt of its being binding upon the English Government. The Congress, however, pretended to be unsatisfied, and resolved to detain the English troops ‘till a distinct and explicit ratification of the convention of Saratoga be properly notified by the Court of Great Britain to Congress.’

No such ratification could be obtained for several months, and it was doubtful whether the English would consent to it, as it involved a recognition of the Congress, and was at the same time absolutely without necessity, according to the terms of the convention. The commissioners, however, who came to America in 1778 with the fullest powers to negotiate on the part of the King and Parliament, offered to renew the convention; and Sir H. Clinton subsequently sent to the Congress instructions from the English Secretary of State authorising him expressly to demand a fulfilment of its terms, and, if required, to ratify in the King's name all the conditions stipulated in it; but the Congress still refused to release the prisoners, who were thus by an act of barefaced treachery detained in America for several years. 1 After a time, many of them were persuaded to enlist in the American army, and Massachusetts appears to have especially employed them as substitutes for her own citizens, who refused to serve. Washington strongly censured this practice, which was as impolitic as it was dishonourable, for many of the captive soldiers only joined the American army in order to escape, and soon found themselves again under their own flag, where, under the very peculiar circumstances of the case, they were gladly welcomed. 2

On the part of the English there were manifest signs of a fiercer spirit and a harsher policy than had hitherto been pursued, and a very bad impression was made by some sentences in the address issued by the English Commissioners before they left the continent after their unsuccessful mission. While making wide offers of pardon and reconciliation to the separate states and to all individuals who renewed their allegiance to the Crown, they added that hitherto the English had as much as possible ‘checked the extremes of war, when they tended to distress a people still considered as our fellow-subjects and to desolate a country shortly to become again a source of mutual advantage.’ By throwing themselves into the arms of the natural enemy of England, the Americans had changed the nature of the contest, ‘and the question is, how far Great Britain may by every means in her power destroy or render useless a connection contrived for her ruin and for the aggrandisement of France. Under such circumstances the laws of self-preservation must direct the conduct of Great Britain; and if the British colonies are to become an accession to France, will direct her to render that accession of as little avail as possible to her enemy.’ 1

It is extremely difficult amidst the enormous exaggerations propagated by the American press to ascertain how far the English in this contest really exceeded the ordinary rights of war. It was the manifest interest of the revolutionary party to aggravate their misdeeds to the utmost, both for the purpose of inflaming the very languid passions of their own people and of arousing the indignation of Europe, and much was said in the excitement of the contest which seems singularly absurd when judged in the dispassionate light of history. George III. was habitually represented as a second Nero. The Howes—who, whatever may have been their other faults, were certainly free from the smallest tendency towards inhumanity—were ranked ‘in the annals of infamy’ with Pizarro, Alva, and Borgia. There were proposals for striking medals representing on one side the atrocities committed by the English, and on the other the admirable actions of the Americans—for depicting British barbarities upon the common coins, for introducing them as illustrations into school-books in order to educate the American youth into undying hatred of England. 2 If we put aside the Indian wars, it does not appear to me that anything was done in America that was not very common in European wars, but there were undoubtedly many acts committed for which the English had deep reason to be ashamed. Owing apparently to a want of management or proper organisation, the American prisoners who had been confined in New York and Fort Washington after the battle at Long Island were so emaciated and broken down by scandalous neglect or ill-usage that Washington refused to receive them in exchange for an equal number of healthy British and Hessian troops. 1 There were numerous instances of plunder and burning of private houses brought home to the British soldiers or to their German allies; and several small towns were deliberately burnt because they had fired on the British soldiers, because they had become active centres of privateering, or because they contained stores and magazines that might be useful to the American army.

In the horrible tragedy at Wyoming the English do not appear to have been directly concerned, but some American loyalists took part in, or prompted its worst atrocities, and the hatred between the loyalists and the Whigs became continually stronger. The former were being rapidly driven to despair. The wholesale confiscation of their properties; their shameful abandonment on many occasions by the British troops; the innumerable insults and injuries inflicted on them by their own countrymen; and the almost certain prospect that England must sooner or later relinquish America, had rendered their position intolerable. The Congress, by a resolution passed in December 1777, ordered that all loyalists taken in arms in the British service should be sent to the States to which they belonged to suffer the penalties inflicted by the laws of such States against traitors. 2 When Philadelphia was reoccupied by the Americans, Washington vainly desired that pardon should be granted to such loyalists as consented to remain in the town, but no such proposition was listened to. Two Quaker gentlemen of considerable position in Philadelphia, who were convicted of having actively assisted the English during the period of the occupation, were hanged; and twenty-three others were brought to trial but acquitted.

It is, however, but justice to the Americans to add that, except in their dealings with their loyal fellow-countrymen, their conduct during the war appears to have been almost uniformly humane. No charges of neglect of prisoners, like those which were brought, apparently with too good reason, against the English were substantiated against them. The conduct of Washington was marked by a steady and careful humanity, and Franklin also appears to have done much to mitigate the war. It was noticed by Burke, that when a great storm desolated the West Indian Islands in 1780, Franklin issued orders that provision-ships should pass unmolested to the British as well as to the other isles, while the English thought this a proper time to send an expedition against St. Vincent's, to recover it from the French. 1 In the instructions which Franklin gave to Paul Jones in 1779, he ordered him not to follow the English example of burning defenceless towns, except in cases where ‘a reasonable ransom is refused,’ and even then to give such timely notice as would enable the inhabitants to remove the women and children, the sick and the aged. 2 In the same year he issued directions to all American captains who might encounter the great nagivator, Captain Cook, not only not to molest him, but to give him every assistance in their power as a benefactor to the whole human race. 3

The relations of the Americans with their new allies were by no means untroubled. In the army the jealousy between the American and the foreign officers was extreme. Even Washington was once tempted to express a wish that there was not a single foreigner in the army except Lafayette, 1 and some of the strongest feelings of the American population were shocked by the alliance with the French. The New Englanders had always been taught to regard France as a natural enemy, and they were Protestants of Protestants. Congress, having very lately expressed its unbounded horror at the encouragement by England of Popery in Canada, had now allied itself with the leading Catholic power against the leading Protestant power of Europe. Very bitter indignation was felt and expressed at the conduct of Count D'Estaing in retiring from Rhode Island, and it needed all the tact and unvarying moderation of Washington to prevent at this time an open outbreak. At Boston and at Charleston there were violent riots between the French sailors and the populace, and several lives were lost.

The subsequent departure of the French squadron for the West Indies was deemed a proof that France was only regarding her own interests in the contest. A plan of again invading Canada with a combined force of French and Americans was propounded by Lafayette in 1778, and was warmly espoused by many members of Congress, but Washington, in a most remarkable secret letter, warned them of its extreme political danger. The French, he said, had no doubt bound themselves by the treaty of alliance not to regain any of the territory in America which they had abandoned at the Peace of Paris, but if a large body of French troops found themselves in possession of the capital of the province which had so lately belonged to France, and which was bound to France by the ties of religion and race and old associations, was it likely that they would relinquish it? By keeping Canada France would gain a vast commerce, absolute command of the Newfoundland fishery, the finest nursery of seamen in the world, complete security for her own islands, and what, perhaps, she would value not less, a permanent control over the United States. If, as seemed probable, France and Spain would soon combine to destroy the naval power of England, they would be without a rival on the sea, and France could always pour troops into Canada, which would make all resistance by the Americans hopeless. In such case, America might again seek to be united with England, but she would find that England, if she had the disposition, would not have the power to help her. Nor was it difficult for the French to find a pretext for holding Canada, for they might treat it as a pledge or surety for the large sums for which America was already indebted to France. 1

These arguments had probably a considerable weight with Congress, and the projected invasion was abandoned. The secret instructions, however, furnished by the French Government to Gerard, their minister in America, have of late years been laid before the public, and they show that France not only had no intention of taking possession of Canada, but also that she was determined as far as possible to discourage all attempts of the Americans to invade it. The possession of Canada and Nova Scotia by the English, and, if it could be attained, the possession of the whole or part of Florida by the Spaniards, would, in the opinion of the French ministers, be eminently favourable to French interests, for it would keep the American States in a condition of permanent debility and anxiety, and would, therefore, make them value more highly the friendship and alliance of France. So important did this consideration appear to Vergennes, that he assured the French ambassador at Madrid of his perfect readiness to guarantee to England her dominion over Canada and Nova Scotia. 1

The folly of continuing the war after the French alliance had been declared, was keenly felt not only by the English Opposition and by continental Europe, but even by Lord North himself; but the determination of the King, and the pride that would relinquish no part of the British Empire, still prevailed, and sanguine hopes were entertained that American resistance might even now speedily collapse. 1 Nor were those hopes without some real foundation. In May 1778 Washington himself expressed his fear that ‘a blow at our main army, if successful, would have a wonderful effect upon the minds of a number of people still wishing to embrace the present terms, or indeed any terms, offered by Great Britain.’ 2 Recruits, which were always obtained with great difficulty and in insufficient numbers, became still more rare as soon as there was a prospect of foreign assistance, and the depreciation of the continental currency continued with an accelerated speed. Nothing in the American Revolution is more curious than the obstinacy with which the several States, to the end of 1778, refused the urgent and repeated entreaties of Congress to impose some serious taxation in order to meet the enormous expenses of the war. 3 Whether it was timidity, or indifference, or parsimony may be difficult to say, but Congress everywhere met with a refusal, and the consequent derangement of the currency steadily grew, and in reality imposed far more serious loss than the heaviest taxation. But for the large sums of money which France annually sent, the struggle could hardly have continued, and already to those brave men who still continued to serve their country in the field without entering into questionable speculations, life was fast becoming almost impossible. Washington wrote in October 1778 that the most puny horses for military purposes cost at least 200 l. , a saddle 30 l. or 40 l. ; boots 20 l. ; flour sold at different places from 5 l. to 15 l. per hundredweight; hay from 10 l. to 30 l. per ton, and other essentials in the same proportion. 1 Six months later Mrs. Adams wrote to her husband that all butchers' meat was from a dollar to eight shillings per lb.; corn 25 dollars a bushel; butter and sugar both 12 s. a lb.; a common cow from 60 l. to 70 l. ; labour six or eight dollars a day. 2 ‘Unless extortion, forestalling, and other practices which have crept in and become exceedingly prevalent and injurious to the common cause, can meet with proper checks,’ wrote Washington, ‘we must inevitably sink under such a load of accumulated oppression.’ 3 The evil was a growing one, and in the last month of 1778, when the French alliance and the immediate prospect of a Spanish alliance appeared to make the triumph of America a certainty, Washington was writing in a tone of extreme despondency: ‘Our affairs are in a more distressed, ruinous, and deplorable condition than they have been since the commencement of the war;’ ‘the common interests of America are mouldering and sinking into irretrievable ruin if a remedy is not soon applied.’ 4

A feeling very much of the same kind was beginning to press upon the mind of the French Minister, who was now the main support of the American cause. Two confidential letters written by Vergennes to the French ambassador at Madrid, in November 1778, are very curious, as showing that the closer view which the alliance had given him of the character, dispositions, and circumstances of the American people had profoundly disappointed him. With a little more energy England, he was convinced, might have totally suppressed the revolt, and even now, and in spite of the active intervention of France, he had great fears lest the whole edifice of American Independence should crumble into dust. 1

In truth the American people, though in general unbounded believers in progress, are accustomed, through a kind of curious modesty, to do themselves a great injustice by the extravagant manner in which they idealise their past. It has almost become a commonplace that the great nation which in our own day has shown such an admirable combination of courage, devotion, and humanity in its gigantic civil war, and which since that time has so signally falsified the predictions of its enemies, and put to shame all the nations of Europe by its unparalleled efforts in paying off its national debt, is of a far lower moral type than its ancestors at the time of the War of Independence. This belief appears to me essentially false. The nobility and beauty of the character of Washington can indeed hardly be surpassed; several of the other leaders of the Revolution were men of ability and public spirit, and few armies have ever shown a nobler self-devotion than that which remained with Washington through the dreary winter at Valley Forge. But the army that bore those sufferings was a very small one, and the general aspect of the American people during the contest was far from heroic or sublime. 1 The future destinies and greatness of the English race must necessarily rest mainly with the mighty nation which has arisen beyond the Atlantic, and that nation may well afford to admit that its attitude during the brief period of its enmity to England has been very unduly extolled. At the same time, the historian of that period would do the Americans a great injustice if he judged them only by the revolutionary party, and failed to recognise how large a proportion of their best men had no sympathy with the movement.

END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.