d. 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.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
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 enemie