. . . . . . . . 75
V FRENCH INTERVENTION AND BRITISH FAILURE, 1778-1781 . . . 96
VI BRITISH PARTIES AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1778-1783 . . 114
VII THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES, 1781-1793 . . . . . . 129
VIII THE FIRST PERIOD OF COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM, 1783-1795 . . 149
IX THE TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1795-1805 169
X THE SECOND PERIOD OF COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM, 1805-1812 . . 189
XI THE WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" AND WESTWARD
EXPANSION, 1812-1815 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
XII END OF THE ANTAGONISM: A CENTURY OF PEACE . . . . . . . . 236
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

{9}

THE WARS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA

CHAPTER I

THE ELEMENTS OF ANTAGONISM, 1763

In 1763, by the Peace of Paris, England won a position of unapproached
supremacy in colonial possessions and in naval strength. The entire
North American continent east of the Mississippi River was now under
the British flag, and four West India sugar islands were added to those
already in English hands. In India, the rivalry of the French was
definitely crushed and the control of the revenues and fortunes of the
native potentates was transferred to the East India Company. Guided by
the genius of Pitt, British armies had beaten French in Germany and
America, and British fleets had conquered French and Spanish with
complete ease. The power of the Empire seemed beyond challenge. Yet
within this Empire itself there lay already the seeds of a discord
which was soon {10} to develop into an irrepressible contest, leading
to civil war; then, for a generation, to drive the separated parts into
renewed antagonism, and finally to cause a second war. Between the
North American colonies and the mother country there existed such
moral, political, and economic divergence that nothing but prudent and
patient statesmanship on both sides of the Atlantic could prevent
disaster.

The fundamental source of antagonism lay in the fact that the thirteen
colonies had developed a wholly different social and political life
from that of the mother country. Originally, the prevailing ideas and
habits of the colonists and of the Englishmen who remained at home had
been substantially the same. In England, as in America, the gentry and
middle classes played a leading part during the