presently marched his army back to the Hudson and made his
headquarters at Newburgh.

[Sidenote: Overthrow of George III.'s political schemes, May, 1784.]

When Lord North at his office in London heard the dismal news, he walked
up and down the room, wringing his hands and crying, "O God, it is all
over!" Yorktown was indeed decisive. In the course of the winter the
British lost Georgia. The embers of Indian warfare still smouldered on
the border, but the great War for Independence was really at an end. The
king's friends had for some time been losing strength in England, and
Yorktown completed their defeat. In March, 1782, Lord North's ministry
resigned. A succession of short-lived ministries followed; first, Lord
Rockingham's, until July, 1782; then Lord Shelburne's, until February,
1783; then, after five weeks without a government, there came into power
the strange Coalition between Fox and North, from April to December.
During these two years the king was trying to intrigue with one interest
against another so as to maintain his own personal government. With this
end in view he tried the bold experiment of dismissing the Coalition
and making the young William Pitt prime minister, without a majority in
Parliament. After a fierce constitutional struggle, which lasted all
winter, Pitt dissolved Parliament, and in the new election in May, 1784,
obtained the greatest majority ever given to an English minister. But
the victory was Pitt's and the people's, not the king's. This election
of 1784 overthrew all the cherished plans of George III. in pursuance of
which he had driven the American colonies into rebellion. It established
cabinet government more firmly than ever, so that for the next seventeen
years the real ruler of Great Britain was William Pitt.

CHAPTER VIII.

BIRTH OF THE NATION.

[Sidenote: The treaty of peace, 1782-83.]

The year 1782 was marked by great victories for the British in the West
Indies and at Gibraltar. But they did not alter the situation in
America. The treaty of peace by which Great Britain acknowledged the
independence of the United States was made under Lord Shelburne's
ministry in the autumn of 1782, and adopted and signed by the Coalition
on the 3d of September, 1783. The negotiations were carried on at Paris
by Franklin, Jay, and John Adams, on the part of the Americans; and they
won a diplomatic victory in securing for the United States the country
between the Alle