tion of their independence by the
Colonies divided, and, so far, weakened, the advocates of their cause in
Parliament, one section of whom, led by Lord Chatham, regarded any
diminution of our dominion as not only treasonable, but ruinous; on the
other hand, it procured them the alliance of France and Spain. But it
cannot be said that either of these incidents produced any practical
effect on the result of the war. Lord Chatham's refusal to contemplate
their independence could not retard its establishment; and the alliance
of France and Spain, which brought nothing but disaster to those
countries, could not accelerate it by a single moment. For nearly six
years the war continued with alternations of success, the victories
gained by the British arms being the more numerous, the triumphs of the
Americans being incomparably the more important, involving as they did
the surrender of two entire armies, the latter of which, that of Lord
Cornwallis, in 1781, did, in fact, terminate the war, and with the war
the existence of the ministry which had conducted it. A singularly rapid
succession of new administrations ensued--so rapid that the negotiations
for peace which the first, that of Lord Rockingham, opened, were not
formally completed till the third,[56] known as the Coalition Ministry,
was on the point of dismissal. It would be beside our purpose to enter
into the details of the treaty which constituted the United States, as
they were now called, a nation by our formal recognition of their
independence. Even in that recognition, which was the most important
article of the treaty, no constitutional principle was involved, though
it affords the only instance in our history which can seem to throw a
doubt on our inheritance of that capacity for government which the Roman
poet claimed as, in ancient times, the peculiar attribute of his own
countrymen. It presents the only instance of a loss of territory peopled
by men who came of our blood, and who still spoke our language. It was a
stern and severe lesson; and yet, fraught with discredit and disaster as
it was, it nevertheless bore fruit in a later age which we may be
excused for regarding as an example of the generally predominating
influence of sober practical sense in our countrymen, when not led away
by the temporary excitement of passion, as shown in our capacity to take
home to ourselves and profit by the teachings of experience. The loss of
the American Colonies was caused