General Nathaniel Greene.
The battle of Eutaw Springs practically ended the war in the South. The
British were victorious, but all the advantages of the battle accrued to
the Americans. The British loss was nearly 1,000; the American, 600. In
ten months Greene had driven the British from all Georgia and the
Carolinas except Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah.
Destiny decreed that Washington should strike the last blow for his
country's freedom on the soil of his own State. Cornwallis found himself
in Virginia, the last of May, at the head of 7,000 troops. He ravaged
the State, destroying $10,000,000 worth of property. Lafayette, pitted
against him with 3,000 men, could do little. In August Cornwallis
withdrew into Yorktown, and began fortifications. Lafayette's quick eye
saw that the British general had caged himself. Posting his army so as
to prevent Cornwallis's escape, he advised Washington to hasten with his
army to Virginia. Meanwhile a French fleet blocked up the mouth of
Chesapeake Bay and of James River and York River, cutting off
Cornwallis's escape by water. The last of September Washington's army,
accompanied by the French troops under Rochambeau, appeared before
Yorktown. Clinton, deceived by Washington into the belief that New York
was to be attacked, was still holding that city with 18,000 men. The
American army, 16,000 strong--7,000 French--began a regular siege.
Cornwallis was doomed.
Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
General Daniel Morgan.
Two advanced redoubts of the British works were soon carried by a
brilliant assault in which the French and the American troops won equal
honors. On the 19th Cornwallis surrendered. The captive army, numbering
7,247, marched with cased colors between two long lines of American and
French troops, and laid down their arms.
The news of Cornwallis's surrender flew like wild-fire over the country.
Everywhere the victory was hailed as virtually ending the war. Bonfires
and booming cannon told of the joy of the people. Congress assembled,
and marching to church in a body, not as a mere form, we may well
believe, gave thanks to the God of battles, so propitious at last.
CHAPTER VII.
PEACE
[1782]
The peace party and spirit in England increased month by month.
Burgoyne's surrender had dissipated the hope of speedily suppressing the
rebellion. And as the war dragged on and Englishmen by bitter experience
came to realize the bravery, endurance, and national feeling of the
Americans, the conviction spread that three millions of such people,
separated from the mother-country by three thousand miles of boisterous
ocean, could never be conquered by force. Discouragement arose, too,
from the ill conduct of the war. There was no broad plan or consistency
in management. Generals did not agree or co-operate, and were changed
too often. Clinton and Cornwallis hated each other. Burgoyne superseded
Carleton, a better man. But for Lord Germain's "criminal negligence" in
waiting to go upon a visit before sending the proper orders, Clinton
might have met and saved Burgoyne.
There were enormous and needless expenses. By 1779 England's national
debt had increased 63,000,000 pounds; by 1782 it had doubled. Rents were
declining. The price of land had fallen one-third. Hence the war became
unpopular with the landed aristocracy. British manufacturers suffered by
the narrowing of their foreign markets. American privateers, prowling in
all seas, had captured hundreds of British merchant-men. English
sentiment, too, revolted at certain features of the war. Ravaging and
the use of mercenaries and Indians were felt to be barbarous. Time made
clearer the initial error of the government in invoking war over the
doubtful right of taxing America. An increasing number of lawyers took
the American view. Practical men figured out that each year of
hostilities cost more than the proposed tax would have yielded in a
century.
In February, 1778, Parliament almost unanimously adopted proposals to
restore the state of things which existed in America before the war, at
the same time declaring its intention not to exercise its right of
taxing the colonies. Washington spoke for America when he said, "Nothing
but independence will now do." The proposals were rejected by Congress
and by the States separately.
England's difficulties were greatly increased by the help extended to
America from abroad. France, eager for revenge on England, early in the
war lent secret aid by money and military supplies. Later, emboldened by
the defeat of Burgoyne, the French Government recognized the United
States as an independent nation. By a treaty, offensive and defensive,
the two nations bound themselves to fight together for that
independence, neither to conclude a separate peace.
The benefit from this treaty was moral and financial rather than
martial. At Yorktown, to be sure, the French forces rendered invaluable
aid. Without De Grasse's French fleet at the mouths of the York and
James rivers, the British might have relieved Cornwallis by sea. But
Congress needed money more than foreign soldiers, and without France's
liberal loans it is difficult to see how the government could have
struggled through.
Spain, too, joined the alliance of France and the United States and
declared war against England, though from no love for the young
republic. This action hastened the growth of public opinion in England
against the continuance of the American war. In the House of Commons,
Lord Cavendish made a motion for ordering home the troops. Lord North,
prime minister, threw out hints that it was useless to continue the war.
But George III., summoning his ministers, declared his unchanging
resolution never to yield to the rebels, and continued prodding the
wavering North to stumble on in his stupid course.
It was struggling against fate. The next year saw Holland at war with
England, while Catherine, Empress of Russia, was actively organizing the
Armed Neutrality, by which all the other states of Europe leagued
together to resist England's practice of stopping vessels on the high
seas and searching them for contraband goods.
Lord Cornwallis.
England was now involved in four wars, without money to carry them on.
North's majorities in Parliament grew steadily smaller. No doubt much of
the opposition was simply factious and partisan, but it had, after all,
solid basis in principle. England was fighting her own
policy--economically, for she was destined to free trade, and
politically, inasmuch as the freedom which our fathers sought was
nothing but English freedom.
The surrender of Cornwallis tipped the scale. Lord North, when he heard
the news, paced the room in agony, exclaiming again and again, "O God,
it is all over!" The House of Commons, without even a division, resolved
to "consider as enemies to His Majesty and the country" all who should
advise a further prosecution of the war. North resigned, and Shelburne,
Secretary of State in the new ministry, hastened to open peace
negotiations with Franklin at Paris.
Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Franklin, now venerable with years, had been doing at the court
of Versailles a work hardly less important than that of Washington on
the battlefields of America. By the simple grace and dignity of his
manners, by his large good sense and freedom of thought, by his fame as
a scientific discoverer, above all by his consummate tact in the
management of men, the whilom printer, king's postmaster-general for
America, discoverer, London colonial agent, delegate in the Continental
Congress, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, had completely
captivated elegant, free-thinking France. Learned and common folk, the
sober and the frivolous alike, swore by Franklin. Snuff-boxes,
furniture, dishes, even stoves, were gotten up a la Franklin. The old
man's portrait was in every house. That the French Government, in spite
of a monarch who was half afraid of the rising nation beyond sea, had
given America her hearty support, was in no small measure due to the
influence of Franklin. And his skill in diplomacy was of the greatest
value in the negotiations now pending.
These were necessarily long and tedious, but Jay, Franklin's colleague,
made them needlessly so by his finical refusal to treat till England had
acknowledged our independence by a separate act. This, indeed,
jeopardized peace itself, since Shelburne's days of ministerial power
were closing, and his successor was sure to be less our friend. Jay at
last receded, a compromise being arrived at by which the treaty was to
open with a virtual recognition of independence in acknowledging Adams,
Franklin, and Jay as "plenipotentiaries," that is, agents of a sovereign
power. Boundaries, fishery rights, and the treatment of loyalists and
their property were the chief bones of contention.
As the negotiations wore on it became apparent that Spain and France,
now that their vengeance was sated against England by our independence,
were more unfriendly to our territorial enlargement than England itself.
There still exists a map on which Spain's minister had indicated what he
wished to make our western bound. The line follows nearly the meridian
of Pittsburgh. This attitude of those powers excused our
plenipotentiaries, though bound by our treaty with France not to
conclude peace apart from her, for making the preliminary arrangements
with England privately. At last, on November 30, 1782, Franklin, Jay,
and John Adams set their signatures to preliminary articles, which were
incorporated in a treaty of peace between Great Britain and the United
States, France, and Spain, signed at Paris on September 3, 1783. David
Hartley signed for England. Our Congress ratified on February 14, 1784.
The treaty recognized the independence of the United States. It
established as boundaries nearly the present Canadian line on the north,
the Mississippi on the west, and Florida, which now returned to Spain
and extended to the Mississippi, on the south. Despite the wishes of
Spain, the free navigation of the Mississippi, from source to mouth, was
guaranteed to the United States and Great Britain. Fishery rights
received special attention. American fishermen were granted the
privilege of fishing, as before the war, on the banks of Newfoundland,
in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in all other places in the sea where
the inhabitants of both countries had been accustomed to fish. Liberty
was also granted to take fish on such parts of the coast of Newfoundland
as British fishermen should use, and on the coasts, bays, and creeks of
all other British dominions in America. American fishermen could dry and
cure fish on the unsettled parts of Nova Scotia, Labrador, and the
Magdalen Islands. America agreed, for the protection of British
creditors, that debts contracted before the war should be held valid,
and should be payable in sterling money. It was also stipulated that
Congress should earnestly recommend to the several States the
restitution of all confiscated property belonging to loyalists.
