A letter from the Government addressed to the Commander-in-Chief as "George Washington, Esq.," was sent back unopened. Battles were lost and won, the courage and resources of the Americans holding out for years as if by miracle, until when reinforced by France the end drew near; and was reached with the defeat of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown.
[Sidenote: Independence Acknowledged, 1782.]
It was a dreary morning in 1782 when a humiliated King stood before the House of Lords and acknowledged the independence of the United States of America!
Thus ended a contest which the Earl of Chatham had said "was conceived in injustice, and nurtured in folly."
It was during the American war that the Press rose to be a great counterbalancing power. Popular sentiment no longer finding an outlet in the House of Commons, sought another mode of expression. Public opinion gathered in by the newspapers became a force before which Government dared not stand. The "Chronicle," "Post," "Herald" and "Times" came into existence, philosophers like Coleridge, and statesmen like Canning using their columns and compelling reforms.
[Sidenote: Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 1788.]
The impeachment of Warren Hastings, conducted by Burke, Sheridan, and
Fox, led to such an exposure of the cruelty and corruption of the East
India Company, that the gigantic monopoly was broken up. A "Board of
Control" was created for the administration of Indian affairs, thus
absorbing it into the general system of English Government (1784).
James Watt had introduced (in 1769) steam into the life of England, with consequences dire at first, and fraught with such tremendous results later, changing all the industrial conditions of England and of the world.
In 1789 England witnessed that terrific outburst of human passions in France, which culminated in the death of a King and a Queen. An appalling sight which made Republicanism seem odious, even to so exalted and just a soul as Burke, who denounced it with words of thrilling eloquence. Then came Napoleon Bonaparte, and his swift ascent to imperial power, followed by his audacious conquest almost of Europe, until Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, led the allied army at Waterloo, and Napoleon's sun went down.
In 1812 the United States for a second time declared war against England. That country had claimed the right to search for British-born seamen upon American ships, in order to impress them into her own service and recruit her Navy. The "right of search" was denied, and the British forces landed in Maryland, burned the Capitol and Congressional Library at Washington, but met their "Waterloo" at New Orleans, where, under General Andrew Jackson, they were defeated, and the "right of search" is heard of no more.