hostility, had been renewed between him
and his brother-in-law would, in all probability, have been a second
time violently dissolved. For now the quarrel between England and the
North American colonies took a gloomy and terrible aspect. Oppression
provoked resistance; resistance was made the pretext for fresh
oppression. The warnings of all the greatest statesmen of the age were
lost on an imperious court and a deluded nation. Soon a colonial senate
confronted the British Parliament. Then the colonial militia crossed
bayonets with the British regiments. At length the commonwealth was torn
asunder. Two millions of Englishmen who, fifteen years before, had been
as loyal to their prince and as proud of their country as the people of
Kent or Yorkshire, separated themselves by a solemn act from the Empire.
For a time it seemed that the insurgents would struggle to small purpose
against the vast financial and military means of the mother country. But
disasters, following one another in rapid succession, rapidly dispelled
the illusions of national vanity. At length a great British force,
exhausted, famished, harassed on every side by a hostile peasantry, was
compelled to deliver up its arms. Those governments which England had,
in the late war, so signally humbled, and which had during many years
been sullenly brooding over the recollections of Quebec, of Minden, and
of the Moro, now saw with exultation that the day of revenge was at
hand. France recognized the independence of the United States; and there
could be little doubt that the example would soon be followed by Spain.

Chatham and Rockingham had cordially concurred in opposing every part of
the fatal policy which had brought the state into this dangerous
situation. But their paths now diverged. Lord Rockingham thought, and,
as the event proved, thought most justly, that the revolted colonies
were separated from the Empire forever, and that the only effect of
prolonging the war on the American continent would be to divide
resources which it was desirable to concentrate. If the hopeless attempt
to subjugate Pennsylvania and Virginia were abandoned war against the
House of Bourbon might possibly be avoided, or, if inevitable, might be
carried on with success and glory. We might even indemnify ourselves for
part of what we had lost, at the expense of those foreign enemies who
had hoped to profit by our domestic dissensions. Lord Rockingham,
therefore, and those who acted