Chapter 29

THE REVOLUTION WITHIN THE BRITISH EMPIRE

THE BRITISH COLONIAL SYSTEM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The contest for world-empire, from which we have seen Great Britain emerge victorious, was closely followed by a less successful struggle to preserve that empire from disrupting forces. We may properly leave to American history the details of the process by which, as the colonies became more acutely conscious of the inherent conflict between their economic interests and the colonial and commercial policy of Great Britain, they grew at the same time into a self-confident and defiant independence. Nevertheless, as an epochal event in the history of British imperialism, the American War of Independence deserves a prominent place in European history.

[Sidenote: Mercantilism and the British Colonies]

The germs of disease were imbedded in the very policy to which many statesmen of the eighteenth century ascribed England's great career,-- the mercantilist theories, whose acquaintance we made in an earlier chapter. [Footnote: See above, pp. 63 ff, and likewise pp. 239 f.] The mercantilist statesman, anxious to build up the power, and therefore the wealth, of his country, logically conceived three main ideas about colonies: (1) they should furnish the mother country with commodities which could not be produced at home; (2) they should not injure the mother country by competing with her industries or by enriching her commercial rivals; and (3) they should help bear the burdens of the government, army, and navy. Each one of these ideas was reflected in the actual policy which the British government in the eighteenth century adopted and enforced in respect of the American colonies.

[Sidenote: Regulation of Colonial Industry. Bounties]

(1) Various expedients were employed to encourage the production of particular colonial commodities which the British Parliament thought desirable. The commodity might be exempted from customs duties, or Parliament might forbid the importation into Great Britain of similar products from foreign countries, or might even bestow outright upon the colonial producer "bounties," or sums of money, as an incentive to persevere in the industry. Thus the cultivation of indigo in Carolina, of coffee in Jamaica, of tobacco in Virginia, was encouraged, so that the British would not have to buy these desirable commodities from Spain. Similarly, bounties were given for tar, pitch, hemp, masts, and spars imported from America rather than from Sweden.

[Sidenote: Restrictions on Colonial Industry]

(2) The chief concern of the mercantilist was the framing of such governmental regulations of trade as would deter colonial commerce or industry from taking a turn which conceivably might lessen the prosperity of the British manufacturers or shippers, on whom Parliament depended for taxes. Of the colonial industries which were discouraged for this reason, two or three are particularly noteworthy. Thus the hat manufacturers in America, though they could make hats cheaply, because of the plentiful supply of fur in the New World, were forbidden to manufacture any for export, lest they should ruin the hatters of London. The weaving of cloth was likewise discouraged by a law of 1699 which prohibited the export of woolen fabrics from one colony to another. Again, it was thought necessary to protect British iron- masters by forbidding (1750) the colonists to manufacture wrought iron or its finished products. Such restrictions on manufacture were imposed, not so much for fear of actual competition in the English market, as to keep the colonial markets for English manufacturers. They caused a good deal of rancor, but they were too ill enforced to bear heavily upon the colonies.

[Sidenote: Restrictions on Colonial Trade]

More irksome were the restrictions on commerce. As far back as 1651, when Dutch traders were bringing spices from the East and sugar from the West to sell in London at a handsome profit, Parliament had passed the first famous Navigation Act, [Footnote: See above, pp. 277 f., 304 f.] which had been successful in its general design--to destroy the Dutch carrying trade and to stimulate British ship-building. In the eighteenth century a similar policy was applied to the colonies. For it was claimed that the New England traders who sold their fish and lumber for sugar, molasses, and rum in the French West Indies were enriching French planters rather than English. Consequently, a heavy tariff was laid on French sugar-products. Moreover, inasmuch as it was deemed most essential for a naval power to have many and skilled ship-builders, the Navigation Acts [Footnote: Subsequent to the Act of 1651, important Navigation Acts were passed in 1660, 1663, 1672, and 1696.] were so developed and expanded as to include the following prescriptions: (1) In general all import and export trade must be conducted in ships built in England, in Ireland, or in the colonies, manned and commanded by British subjects. Thus, if a French or Dutch merchantman appeared in Massachusetts Bay, offering to sell at a great bargain his cargo of spices or silks, the shrewd merchants of Boston were legally bound not to buy of him. (2) Certain "enumerated" articles, such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, and, later, rice and furs, could be exported only to England. A Virginia planter, wishing to send tobacco to a French snuff-maker, would have to ship it to London in an English ship, pay duties on it there, and then have it reshipped to Havre. (3) All goods imported into the American colonies from Europe must come by way of England and must pay duties there. Silks might be more expensive after they had paid customs duties in London and had followed a roundabout route to Virginia, but the proud colonial dame was supposed to pay dearly and to rejoice that English ships and English sailors were employed in transporting her finery.

[Sidenote: Reasons for Early Colonial Toleration of Restrictions on the Industry and Trade]

It would seem as if such restrictive measures would not have been tolerated in the colonies, even when imposed by the mother country. There were, however, several very good reasons why the trade restrictions were long tolerated.

[Sidenote: Leniency of Enforcement]

In the first place, for many years they had been very poorly enforced. During his long ministry, from 1721 to 1742, Sir Robert Walpole had winked at infractions of the law and had allowed the colonies to develop as best they might under his policy of "salutary neglect." Then, during the colonial wars, it had been inexpedient and impossible to insist upon the Navigation Acts; and smuggling had become so common that respectable merchants made no effort to conceal their traffic in goods which had been imported contrary to provisions of the law.

[Sidenote: Fear of the French]

Moreover, the colonies would gladly endure a good deal of economic hardship in order to have the help of the mother country against the French. So long as Count de Frontenac and his successors were sending their Indians southward and eastward to burn New England villages, it was very comforting to think that the mother country would send armies of redcoats to conquer the savages and defeat the French.

[Sidenote: Weakness and Disunion of the Thirteen Colonies]

But even had there been every motive for armed resistance to Great Britain, the American colonies could hardly have attempted it until after the conclusion of the French and Indian War. Until the second half of the eighteenth century the British colonies were both weak and divided. They had no navy and very few fortifications to defend their coastline. They had no army except raw and unreliable militia. Even in 1750 their inhabitants numbered but a paltry 1,300,000 as compared with a population in Great Britain of more than 10,000,000; and in wealth and resources they could not dream of rivaling the mother country.

The lack of union among the colonies sprang from fundamental industrial, social, and religious differences. The southern provinces-- Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia--were agricultural, and their products were plantation-grown rice, indigo, and tobacco. New York and Pennsylvania produced corn and timber. In New England, although there were many small farmers, the growing interest was in trade and manufacture. The social distinctions were equally marked. The northern colonists were middle-class traders and small farmers, with democratic town governments, and with an intense pride in education. In the South, gentlemen of good old English families lived like feudal lords among their slaves and cultivated manners quite as assiduously as morals. Of forms of the Christian religion, the Atlantic coast presented a bizarre mixture. In the main, New England was emphatically Calvinistic and sternly Puritanical; Virginia, proudly Episcopalian (Anglican); and Maryland, partly Roman Catholic. Plain-spoken Quakers in Pennsylvania, Presbyterians and Baptists in New Jersey, and German Lutherans in Carolina added to the confusion.

Between colonies so radically different in religion, manners, and industries, there could be at the outset little harmony or cooperation. It would be hard to arouse them to concerted action, and even harder to conduct a war. Financial cooperation was impeded by the fact that the paper money issued by any one colony was not worth much in the others. Military cooperation was difficult because while each colony might call on its farmers temporarily to join the militia in order to repel an Indian raid, the militia-men were always anxious to get back to their crops and would obey a strange commander with ill grace.

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

With the conclusion of the French and Indian War, however, conditions were materially changed, (1) The fear of the French was no longer present to bind the colonies to the mother country. (2) During the wars the colonies had grown not only more populous (they numbered about 2,000,000 inhabitants in 1763) and more wealthy, but also more self- confident. Recruits from the northern colonies had captured Louisburg in 1745 and had helped to conquer Canada in the last French war. Virginia volunteers had seen how helpless were General Braddock's redcoats in forest-warfare. Experiences like these gave the provincial riflemen pride and confidence. Important also was the Albany Congress of 1754, in which delegates from seven colonies came together and discussed Benjamin Franklin's scheme for federating the thirteen colonies. Although the plan was not adopted, it set men to thinking about the advantages of confederation and so prepared the way for subsequent union.

[Sidenote: More Rigorous Attitude of Great Britain toward the Colonies after Accession of George III, 1760]

Not only were the colonists in a more independent frame of mind, but the British government became more oppressive. During two reigns--those of George I and George II--ministers had been the power behind the throne, but in 1760 George III had come to the throne as an inexperienced and poorly educated youth of twenty-two, full of ambition to be the power behind the ministers. Not without justice have historians accused George III of prejudice, stubbornness, and stupidity. Nevertheless, he had many friends. The fact that he, the first really English king since the Revolution of 1688, should manifest a great personal interest and industry in affairs of state, endeared him to many who already respected his irreproachable private morality and admired his flawless and unfailing courtesy. Under the inspiration of Lord Bute, [Footnote: The earl of Bute (1713-1792) became prime minister in 1762, after the resignations of Pitt, who had been the real head of the cabinet, and the duke of Newcastle, who had been the nominal premier. Bute in turn was succeeded by George Grenville (1712- 1770).] the "king's friends" became a political party, avowedly intent on breaking the power of the great Whig noblemen who had so long dominated corrupt Parliaments and unscrupulous ministries.

[Sidenote: Grenville, Prime Minister, 1763-1765, Executor of the Colonial Policies of George III]

George III attempted at the outset to gain control of Parliament by wholesale bribery of its members, but, since even this questionable expedient did not give him a majority, he tried dividing the forces of his Whig opponents. This was somewhat less difficult since Pitt, the most prominent Whig, the eloquent Chauvinist [Footnote: Chauvin, a soldier in Napoleon's army, was so enthusiastic for the glory of the great general that his name has since been used as an adjective denoting excessive patriotism and fondness for war.] minister, "friend of the colonies," and idol of the cities, had lost control of the ministry. England, too, felt the burdensome expense of war, and the public debt had mounted to what was then the enormous sum of £140,000,000. George III, therefore, chose for prime minister (1763- 1765) George Grenville, a representative of a faction of Whig aristocrats, who, alarmed by the growth of the public debt, and jealous of Pitt's power, were quite willing to favor the king's colonial policies. Great Britain, they argued, had undergone a costly war to defend the colonists on the Atlantic coast from French aggression. The colonies were obviously too weak and too divided to garrison and police the great Mississippi and St. Lawrence valleys; and yet, in order to prevent renewed danger from French, Spaniards, or Indians, at least ten thousand regular soldiers would be needed at an annual expense of £300,000. What could be more natural than that the colonists, to whose benefit the war had redounded, and to whose safety the army would add, should pay at least a part of the expense? This idea, put forward by certain Whig statesmen, that the colonists should bear part of the financial burden of imperial defense, was eagerly seized upon by George III and utilized as the cornerstone of his colonial policy. To such a policy the Tories, as ardent upholders of the monarchy, lent their support.

[Sidenote: The Sugar Act, 1764]

Grenville, the new minister, accordingly proposed that the colonists should pay about £150,000 a year,--roughly a half of the estimated total amount,--and for raising the money, he championed two special finance acts in the British Parliament. The first was the Sugar Act of 1764. Grenville recognized that a very high tariff on the importation of foreign sugar-products into the colonies invited smuggling on a large scale, was therefore generally evaded, and yielded little revenue to the government. As a matter of fact, in the previous year, Massachusetts merchants had smuggled 15,000 hogsheads of molasses [Footnote: Large quantities of molasses were used in New England for the manufacture of rum.] from the French West Indies. Now, in accordance with the new enactment, the duty was actually halved, but a serious attempt was made to collect what remained. For the purpose of the efficient collection of the sugar tax, the Navigation Acts were revived and enforced; British naval officers were ordered to put a peremptory stop to smuggling; and magistrates were empowered to issue "writs of assistance" enabling customs collectors to search private houses for smuggled goods. The Sugar Act was expected to yield one- third of the amount demanded by the British ministry.

[Sidenote: The Stamp Act, 1765] [Sidenote: Opposition in the Colonies]

The other two-thirds of the £150,000 was to be raised under the Stamp Act of 1765. Bills of lading, official documents, deeds, wills, mortgages, notes, newspapers, and pamphlets were to be written or printed only on special stamped paper, on which the tax had been paid. Playing cards paid a stamp tax of a shilling; dice paid ten shillings; and on a college diploma the tax amounted to £2. The Stamp Act bore heavily on just the most dangerous classes of the population-- newspaper-publishers, pamphleteers, lawyers, bankers, and merchants. Naturally the newspapers protested and the lawyers argued that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional, that Parliament had no right to levy taxes on the colonies. The very battle-cry, "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny," was the phrase of a Boston lawyer, James Otis.

At once the claim was made that the colonists were true British subjects and that taxation without representation was a flagrant violation of the "immemorial rights of Englishmen." Now the colonists had come to believe that their only true representatives were those for whom they voted personally, the members of the provincial assemblies. Each colony had its representative assembly; and these assemblies, like the parent Parliament in Great Britain, had become very important by acquiring the function of voting taxes. The colonists, therefore, claimed that taxes could be voted only by their own assemblies, while the British government replied, with some pertinency, that Parliament, although elected by a very small minority of the population, was considered to be generally representative of all British subjects.

[Sidenote: The Stamp Act Congress, 1765]

Many colonists, less learned than the lawyers, were unacquainted with the subtleties of the argument, but they were quite willing to be persuaded that in refusing to pay British taxes they were contending for a great principle of liberty and self-government. Opposition to the stamp tax spread like wildfire and culminated in a congress at New York in October, 1765, comprising delegates from nine colonies. The "Stamp Act Congress," for so it was called, issued a declaration of rights-- the rights of trial by jury [Footnote: The right of trial by jury had been violated by British officials in punishing smugglers.] and of self-taxation--and formally protested against the Stamp Act.

[Sidenote: Repeal of the Stamp Act, 1776]

Parliament might have disregarded the declaration of the Congress, but not the tidings of popular excitement, of mob violence, of stamp- collectors burned in effigy. Moreover, colonial boycotts against British goods--"nonimportation agreements"--were effective in creating sentiment in England in favor of conciliation. Taking advantage of Grenville's resignation, a new ministry under the marquess of Rockingham, [Footnote: Rockingham retired in July, 1766] a liberal Whig, procured the repeal of the obnoxious Stamp Act in March, 1766. While the particular tax was abandoned, a Declaratory Act was issued, affirming the constitutional right of Parliament to bind the colonies in all cases.

[Sidenote: The Townshend Acts, 1767]

That right was asserted again in 1767 by a brilliant but reckless chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend, who, without the consent of the other ministers, put through Parliament the series of acts which bear his name. His intention was to raise a regular colonial revenue for the support of colonial governors, judges, and other officers as well as for the defense of the colonies. For these purposes, import duties were laid on glass, lead, painters' colors, paper, and tea; the duties were to be collected by English commissioners resident in the American ports; and infractions of the law in America were to be tried in courts without juries.

[Sidenote: "The Boston Massacre"]

The Townshend Acts brought forth immediate and indignant protests. Colonial merchants renewed and extended their nonimportation agreements. Within a year the imports Boston from Great Britain fell off by more than £700,000. The customs officers were unable or afraid to collect the duties strictly, and it is said that in three years the total revenue from them amounted only to £16,000. Troops were dispatched to overawe Boston, but the angry Bostonians hooted and hissed the "lobsterbacks," as the redcoats were derisively styled, and in 1770 provoked them to actual bloodshed--the so-called "Boston Massacre."

[Sidenote: Lord North, Prime Minister, 1770]

At this crucial moment, King George III chose a new prime minister, Lord North, a gentleman of wit, ability, and affability, unfailingly humorous, and unswervingly faithful to the king. Among his first measures was the repeal (1770) of the hated Townshend duties. Merely a tax of threepence a pound on tea was retained, in order that the colonies might not think that Parliament had surrendered its right to tax them. Lord North even made an arrangement with the East India Company whereby tea was sold so cheaply that it would not pay to smuggle tea from the Dutch.

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

But the colonists would not now yield even the principle of Parliamentary taxation. [Footnote: Despite the fact that the colonists had regularly been paying import duties on molasses and on foreign wine.] They insisted that were they to pay this tax, trifling as it might be, Parliament would assert that they had acknowledged its right to tax them, and would soon lay heavier taxes upon them. They, therefore, refused to buy the tea, and on a cold December night in 1773 a number of Boston citizens dressed up like Indians, boarded a British tea ship, and emptied 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

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

Boston's "Tea-Party" brought punishment swift and sure in the famous five "intolerable acts" (1774). Boston harbor was closed; Massachusetts was practically deprived of self-government; royal officers who committed capital offenses were to be tried in England or in other colonies; royal troops were quartered on the colonists; and the province of Quebec was extended south to the Ohio, cutting off vast territories claimed by Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia. This last act, by recognizing and establishing the Roman Catholic Church in French-speaking Quebec, excited the liveliest fear and apprehension on the part of Protestants in the English-speaking colonies.

[Sidenote: First Continental Congress, 1774]

Agitators in the other colonies feared that their turn would come next, and rallied to the aid of Massachusetts. The first Continental Congress of delegations from all the colonies [Footnote: Except Georgia.] met in 1774 in Philadelphia "to deliberate and determine upon wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies." The Congress dispatched a petition to the king and urged the colonists to be faithful to the "American Association" for the non-importation of British goods.

THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1775-1783

[Sidenote: Revolt of the Thirteen Colonies]

Neither king nor colonies would yield a single point. William Pitt, now earl of Chatham, in vain proposed conciliatory measures. The colonies fast drifted into actual revolt. In May, 1775, the second Continental Congress met at Philadelphia, but already blood had been shed at Lexington (Massachusetts), 19 April, 1775, and New England was a hotbed of rebellion. The Congress accepted facts as they were, declared war, appointed George Washington commander-in-chief, sent agents to France and other foreign countries, and addressed a final petition to the king.

[Sidenote: The Declaration of Independence, 1776]

But it was too late for reconciliation, and events marched rapidly until on 4 July, 1776, the colonies declared themselves "free and independent states." [Footnote: The colonies on the recommendation of Congress set up independent governments and these state governments were formally federated in accordance with "articles of Confederation and perpetual Union," drawn up in Congress in 1777 and finally ratified in 1781.] The Declaration of Independence was remarkable for two things, its philosophy and its effects. The philosophy was that held by many radical thinkers of the time--"that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights"; that among such rights are life, liberty, and the exclusive right to tax themselves; and that any people may rightfully depose a tyrannical ruler. We shall find a similar philosophy applied more boldly in the French Revolution.

In America the Declaration was denounced by "Tories" as treason, but was welcomed by "patriots" as an inspiration and a stimulus. To show their joy, the people of New York City pulled down the leaden statue of King George and molded it into bullets. Instead of rebellious subjects, the English-speaking Americans now claimed to be a belligerent nation, and on the basis of this claim they sought recognition and aid from other nations.

[Sidenote: Difficulties and Early Successes of the British]

For over three years, however, the war was carried on simply between rebellious colonies and the mother country. Had the grave nature of the revolt been thoroughly understood in England from the outset, the colonists might possibly have been crushed within a short time, for many of the richest colonists were opposed to the war; and even had the "people of the United States" supported the struggle unanimously, they were no match for Great Britain in wealth, population, or naval power. As it was, Great Britain allowed the revolution to get under full headway before making a serious effort to suppress it. In 1776, however, a force of about 30,000 men, many of whom were mercenary German soldiers, commonly called "Hessians," was sent to occupy New York. Thenceforward, the British pursued aggressive tactics, and inasmuch as their armies were generally superior to those of the colonists in numbers, discipline, and equipment, and besides were supported by powerful fleets, they were able to possess themselves of the important colonial ports of New York, Philadelphia, and Charlestown, [Footnote: Name changed to Charleston in 1783.] and to win many victories. On the other hand, the region to be conquered was extensive and the rebel armies stubborn and elusive. Moreover, the colonists possessed a skillful leader in the person of the aristocratic Virginian planter who has already been mentioned as taking a part in the French and Indian War. At first, George Washington was criticized for bringing the gravity of a judge and the dignified bearing of a courtier to the battlefield, but he soon proved his ability. He was wise enough to retreat before superior forces, always keeping just out of harm's way, and occasionally catching his incautious pursuer unawares, as at Princeton or Trenton.

[Sidenote: British Reverse at Saratoga, 1777]

One of the crucial events of the war was the surrender of the British General Burgoyne with some six thousand men at Saratoga, on 17 October, 1777, after an unsuccessful invasion of northern New York. At that very time, Benjamin Franklin, the public-spirited Philadelphia publisher, was in Paris attempting to persuade France to ally herself with the United States. Franklin's charming personality, his "republican plainness," his shrewd common sense, as well as his knowledge of philosophy and science, made him welcome at the brilliant French court; but France, although still smarting under the humiliating treaty of 1763, would not yield to his persuasion until the American victory at Saratoga seemed to indicate that the time had come to strike. An alliance with the United States was concluded, and in 1778 war was declared against Great Britain.

[Sidenote: Entrance into the War of France (1778), Spain (1779), Holland (1780)] [Sidenote: Isolation of Great Britain]

The war now took on a larger aspect, and in its scale of operations and in its immediate significance the fighting in the colonies was dwarfed into comparative insignificance. In the attack upon Great Britain, France was dutifully joined by Spain (1779). Holland, indignant at the way in which Great Britain had tried to exclude Dutch traders from commerce with America, joined the Bourbons (1780) against their common foe. Other nations, too, had become alarmed at the rapid growth and domineering maritime policy of Great Britain. Since the outbreak of hostilities, British captains and admirals had claimed the right to search and seize neutral vessels trading with America or bearing contraband of war. Against this dangerous practice, Catherine II of Russia protested vigorously, and in 1780 formed the "armed neutrality of the North" with Sweden and Denmark to uphold the protest with force, if necessary. Prussia, Portugal, the Two Sicilies, and the Holy Roman Empire subsequently pronounced their adherence to the Armed Neutrality, and Great Britain was confronted by a unanimously hostile Europe.

[Sidenote: The War in Europe]

In the actual operations only three nations figured--France, Spain, and Holland; and of the three the last named gave little trouble except in the North Sea. More to be feared were France and Spain, for by them the British Empire was attacked in all its parts. For a while in 1779 even the home country was threatened by a Franco-Spanish fleet of sixty-six sail, convoying an army of 60,000 men; but the plan came to naught. Powerful Spanish and French forces, launched against Great Britain's Mediterranean possessions, succeeded in taking Minorca, but were repulsed by the British garrison of Gibraltar.

[Sidenote: The War in America]

On the continent of North America the insurgent colonists, aided by French fleets and French soldiers, gained a signal victory. An American and French army under Washington and Lafayette and a French fleet under De Grasse suddenly closed in upon the British general, Lord Cornwallis, in Yorktown, Virginia, and compelled him to surrender on 19 October, 1781, with over 7000 men. The capitulation of Cornwallis practically decided the struggle in America, for all the reserve forces of Great Britain were required in Europe, in the West Indies, and in Asia.

[Sidenote: The War in the West Indies] [Sidenote: Battle of Saints, 1782]

Matters were going badly for Great Britain until a naval victory in the Caribbean Sea partially redeemed the day. For three winters an indecisive war had been carried on in the West Indies, but in 1782 thirty-six British ships, under the gallant Rodney, met the French Count de Grasse with thirty-three sail of the line near the group of islands known as "the Saints," and a great battle ensued--the "battle of Saints"--on 12 April, 1782. During the fight the wind suddenly veered around, making a great gap in the line of French ships, and into this gap sailed the British admiral, breaking up the French fleet, and, in the confusion, capturing six vessels.

[Sidenote: The War in India]

While the battle of Saints saved the British power in the West Indies, the outlook in the East became less favorable. At first the British had been successful in seizing the French forts in India (1778) and in defeating (1781) the native ally of the French, Hyder Ali, the sultan of Mysore. But in 1782 the tide was turned by the appearance of the French admiral De Suffren, whose brilliant victories over a superior British fleet gave the French temporary control of the Bay of Bengal.

[Sidenote: Defeat but not Ruin of Great Britain] [Sidenote: Treaties of Paris and Versailles, 1783]

Unsuccessful in America, inglorious in India, expelled from Minorca, unable to control Ireland, [Footnote: The Protestants in Ireland had armed and organized volunteer forces, and threatened rebellion unless Great Britain granted "home rule" to them. Great Britain yielded and in 1782 granted legislative autonomy to the Irish Parliament. See below, p. 431.] and weary with war, England was very ready for peace, but not entirely humbled, for was she not still secure in the British Channel, victorious over the Dutch, triumphant in the Caribbean, unshaken in India, and unmoved on Gibraltar? Defeat, but not humiliation, was the keynote of the treaties (1783) which Great Britain concluded, one at Paris with the United States, and one at Versailles with France and Spain. Let us consider the provisions of these treaties in order, as they affected the United States, France, and Spain.

[Sidenote: The United States of America]

By the treaty of Paris (3 September, 1783), the former thirteen colonies were recognized as the sovereign and independent United States of America,--bounded on the north by Canada and the Great Lakes, on the east by the Atlantic, on the west by the Mississippi, and on the south by Florida. Important fishing rights on the Newfoundland Banks and the privilege of navigation on the Mississippi were extended to the new nation. When the treaty of Paris was signed, the United States were still held loosely together by the articles of Confederation, but after several years of political confusion, a new and stronger federal constitution was drawn up in 1787, and in 1789 George Washington became first president of the republic. The republic thus created was the first important embodiment of the political theories of Montesquieu and other French philosophers, who, while condemning titled nobility and absolute monarchy, distrusted the ignorant classes of the people, and believed in placing political control chiefly in the hands of intelligent men of property and position.

[Sidenote: Results to France]

Had it not been for the disastrous battle of Saints, France might have dictated very favorable terms in the treaty of Versailles, [Footnote: In 1786 a supplementary Anglo-French treaty restored regular commerce between the two nations, and recognized that Great Britain had no right to seize traders flying a neutral flag, except for contraband of war, _i.e._, guns, powder, and provisions of war.] but, as it was, she merely regained Tobago in the West Indies and Senegal in Africa, which she had lost in 1763. [Footnote: See above, p. 317.] The equipment of navies and armies had exhausted the finances of the French government, and was largely responsible for the bankruptcy which was soon to occasion the fall of absolutism in France. Moreover, French "radicals," having seen the Americans revolt against a king, were, themselves, the more ready to enter upon a revolution.

[Sidenote: Results to Spain]

Better than France fared Spain. By the treaty of Versailles she received the island of Minorca and the territory of Florida, which then included the southern portions of what later became the American states of Alabama and Mississippi. [Footnote: The Louisiana territory, which had come into Spanish possession in 1763, was re-ceded to France in 1800 and sold by France to the United States in 1803. Eighteen years later (1821) all of Florida was formally transferred to the United States. And see below, p. 532.]

[Sidenote: Settlement between Great Britain and Holland, 1784]

Holland, the least important participant in the war, was not a party to the treaty of Versailles, but was left to conclude a separate peace with Great Britain in the following year (1784). The Dutch not only lost some of their East Indian possessions, [Footnote: Including stations on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of India.] but, what was more essential, they were forced to throw open to British merchants the valuable trade of the Malay Archipelago.

THE REFORMATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE

[Sidenote: New Conciliatory Colonial Policy]

The War of American Independence not only had cost Great Britain the thirteen colonies, hitherto the most important, [Footnote: The thirteen colonies were not actually then so profitable, however, as the fertile West Indies, nor did they fit in so well with the mercantilist theory of Colonialism.] oldest, and strongest of her possessions, and likewise Senegal, Florida, Tobago, and Minorca, but it had necessitated a terrible expenditure of men, money, and ships. More bitter than the disastrous results of the war, however, was the reflection that possibly all might have been avoided by a policy of conciliation and concession. Still it was not too late to learn, and in its treatment of the remaining colonies, the British government showed that the lesson had not been lost.

[Sidenote: Quebec Act, 1774] [Sidenote: Board of Control in India, 1784] [Sidenote: Separate Parliament for Ireland, 1782]

On the eve of the revolt of the English-speaking colonies in America, a wise measure of toleration was accorded to the French inhabitants of Canada by the Quebec Act of 1774, which allowed them freely to profess their Roman Catholic religion, and to enjoy the continuance of the French civil law. To these advantages was added in 1791 the privilege of a representative assembly. India, too, felt the influence of the new policy, when in 1784 Parliament created a Board of Control to see that the East India Company did not abuse its political functions. Even Ireland, which was practically a colony, was accorded in 1782 the right to make its own local laws, a measure of self-government enjoyed till 1 January, 1801. [Footnote: See below, p. 431.]

[Sidenote: Decline and Gradual Abandonment of Mercantilism]

British commercial policy, too, underwent a change, for the Navigation Acts, which had angered the American colonies, could not now be applied to the free nation of the United States. Moreover, the mercantilist theory, having in this case produced such unfortunate results, henceforth began to lose ground, and it is not without interest that Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, the classic expression of the new political economy of free trade,--of _laisser-faire_, as the French styled it,--which was destined to supplant mercantilism, was published in 1776, the very year of the declaration of American independence. Of course Great Britain's mercantilist trade regulations were not at once abandoned, but they had received a death-blow, and British commerce seemed none the worse for it. The southern American states began to grow cotton [Footnote: During the war, cotton was introduced into Georgia and Carolina from the Bahamas, and soon became an important product. In 1794, 1,600,000 pounds were shipped to Great Britain.] for the busy looms of British manufacturers, and of their own free will the citizens of the United States bought the British manufactures which previously they had boycotted as aggrieved colonists. In this particular, at least, the loss of the colonies was hardly a loss at all.

[Sidenote: Extent of the British Empire at Close of Eighteenth Century]

Even for those ardent British patriots who wished to see their flag waving over half the world and who were deeply chagrined by the untoward political schism that had rent kindred English-speaking peoples asunder, there was still some consolation and there was about to be some compensation. In the New World, Canada, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and smaller islands of the West Indies, and a part of Honduras, made no mean empire; and in the Old World the British flag flew over the forts at Gibraltar, Gambia, and the Gold Coast, while India offered almost limitless scope for ambition and even for greed.

[Sidenote: Extension of the British Empire in India] [Sidenote: Warren Hastings]

To the extension and solidification of her empire in the East, Great Britain now devoted herself, and with encouraging results. It will be remembered that British predominance in India had already been assured by the brilliant and daring Clive, who had defeated the French, set up a puppet nawab in Bengal, and attempted to eliminate corruption from the administration, Clive's work was continued by a man no less famous, Warren Hastings (1732-1818), whose term as governor-general of India (1774-1785) covered the whole period of the American revolt. At the age of seven-teen, Hastings had first entered the employ of the British East India Company, and an apprenticeship of over twenty years in India had browned his face and inured his lean body to the peculiarities of the climate, as well as giving him a thorough insight into the native character. When at last, in 1774, he became head of the Indian administration, Hastings inaugurated a policy which he pursued with tireless attention to details--a policy involving the transference of British headquarters to Calcutta, and a thorough reform of the police, military, and financial systems. In his wars and intrigues with native princes and in many of his financial transactions, a Parliament, which was inclined to censure, found occasion to attack his honor, and the famous Edmund Burke, with all the force of oratory and hatred, attempted to convict the great governor of "high crimes and misdemeanors." But the tirades of Burke were powerless against the man who had so potently strengthened the foundations of the British empire in India.

[Sidenote: Cornwallis]

In 1785 Hastings was succeeded by Lord Cornwallis--the same who had surrendered to Washington at Yorktown. Cornwallis was as successful in India as he had been unfortunate in America. His organization of the tax system proved him a wise administrator, and his reputation as a general was enhanced by the defeat of the rebellious sultan of Mysore.

The work begun so well by Clive, Hastings, and Cornwallis, was ably carried on by subsequent administrators, [Footnote: For details concerning British rule in India between 1785 and 1858, see Vol. II, pp. 662 ff.] until in 1858 the crown finally took over the empire of the East India Company, an empire stretching northward to the Himalayas, westward to the Indus River, and eastward to the Brahmaputra.

[Sidenote: The Straits Settlements] [Sidenote: Australia]

In the years immediately following the War of American Independence occurred two other important extensions of British power. One was the occupation of the "Straits Settlements" which gave Great Britain control of the Malay peninsula and of the Straits of Malacca through which the spice ships passed. But more valuable as a future home for English-speaking Europeans, and, therefore, as partial compensation for the loss of the United States, was the vast island-continent of Australia, which had been almost unknown until the famous voyage of Captain Cook to Botany Bay in 1770. For many years Great Britain regarded Australia as a kind of open-air prison for her criminals, and the first British settlers at Port Jackson (1788) were exiled convicts. The introduction of sheep-raising and the discovery of gold made the island a more attractive home for colonists, and thenceforth its development was rapid. To-day, with an area of almost 3,000,000 square miles, and a population of some 4,800,000 English-speaking people, Australia is a commonwealth more populous than and three times as large as were the thirteen colonies with which Great Britain so unwillingly parted in 1783.

ADDITIONAL READING

BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY. A very brief survey: J. S. Bassett, _A Short History of the United States_ (1914), ch. viii, ix. The most readable and reliable detailed account of mercantilism as applied by the British to their colonies is to be found in the volumes of G. L. Beer, _The Origin of the British Colonial System_, 1578-1660 (1908); _The Old Colonial System_, 1660-1754, Part I, _The Establishment of the System_, 2 vols. (1912); _British Colonial Policy_, 1754-1765 (1907); and _The Commercial Policy of England toward the American Colonies_ (1893), a survey. From the English standpoint, the best summary is that of H. E. Egerton, _A Short History of British Colonial Policy_ (1897). Other valuable works: C. M. Andrews, _Colonial Self-Government_ (1904), Vol. V of the "American Nation" Series; O. M. Dickerson, _American Colonial Government, 1696-1765_ (1912), a study of the British Board of Trade in its relation to the American colonies, political, industrial, and administrative; G. E. Howard, _Preliminaries of the Revolution, 1763- 1775_ (1905), Vol. VIII of the "American Nation" Series; Reginald Lucas, _Lord North, Second Earl of Guilford_, 2 vols. (1913); and the standard treatises of H. L. Osgood and of J. A. Doyle cited in the bibliography to Chapter IX, above.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Sir G. 0. Trevelyan, _The American Revolution_, 4 vols. (1899-1912), and, by the same author, _George the Third and Charles Fox: the Concluding Part of the American Revolution_, 2 vols. (1914), scholarly and literary accounts, sympathetic toward the colonists and the English Whigs; Edward Channing, _A History of the United States_, Vol. III (1912), the best general work; C. H. Van Tyne, _The American Revolution_ (1905), Vol. IX of the "American Nation" Series, accurate and informing; John Fiske, _American Revolution_, 2 vols. (1891), a very readable popular treatment; S. G. Fisher, _The Struggle for American Independence_, 2 vols. (1908), unusually favorable to the British loyalists in America; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. VII (1903), ch. v-vii, written in great part by J. A. Doyle, the English specialist on the American colonies; J. B. Perkins, _France in the American Revolution_ (1911), entertaining and instructive; Arthur Hassall, _The Balance of Power_, 1715-1789 (1896), ch. xii, a very brief but suggestive indication of the international setting of the War of American Independence; J. W. Fortescue, _History of the British Army_, Vol. III (1902), an account of the military operations from the English standpoint.

THE REFORMATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. A good general history: M. R. P. Dorman, _History of the British Empire in the Nineteenth Century_, Vol. I, 1793-1805 (1902), Vol. II, 1806-1900 (1904). On Ireland: W. O'C. Morris, _Ireland_, 1494-1905, 2d ed. (1909). On Canada: Sir C. P. Lucas, _A History of Canada_, 1763-1812 (1909). On India: Sir Alfred Lyall, _Warren Hastings_, originally published in 1889, reprinted (1908), an excellent biography; G. W. Hastings, _Vindication of Warren Hastings_ (1909), the best apology for the remarkable governor of India, and should be contrasted with Lord Macaulay's celebrated indictment of Hastings; Sir John Strachey, _Hastings and the Rohilla War_ (1892), favorable to Hastings' work in India. On Australia: Greville Tregarthen, _Australian Commonwealth_, 3d ed. (1901), a good outline, in the "Story of the Nations" Series; Edward Jenks, _A History of the Australasian Colonies_ (1896), an excellent summary; Edward Heawood, _A History of Geographical Discovery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_ (1912); Arthur Kitson, _Captain James Cook_ (1907).