red the alliance which had been formed
for the purpose of curbing him, and the result of the election had
virtually condoned his breach of the constitution. This apparent
victory, however, had been won only by a direct appeal to the people,
and all its advantages accrued to the people, and not to George III. His
ingenious system of weak and divided ministries, with himself for
balance-wheel, was destroyed. For the next seventeen years the real
ruler of England was not George III., but William Pitt, who, with his
great popular following, wielded such a power as no English sovereign
had possessed since the days of Elizabeth. The political atmosphere was
cleared of intrigue; and Fox, in the legitimate attitude of leader of
the new opposition, entered upon the glorious part of his career. There
was now set in motion that great work of reform which, hindered for a
while by the reaction against the French revolutionists, won its
decisive victory in 1832. Down to the very moment at which American and
British history begin to flow in distinct and separate channels, it is
interesting to observe how closely they are implicated with each other.
The victory of the Americans not only set on foot the British revolution
here described, but it figured most prominently in each of the political
changes that we have witnessed, down to the very eve of the overthrow of
the coalition. The system which George III. had sought to fasten upon
America, in order that he might fasten it upon England, was shaken off
and shattered by the good people of both countries at almost the same
moment of time.

CHAPTER II.

THE THIRTEEN COMMONWEALTHS.

[Sidenote: Departure of the British troops, Nov. 25, 1783.]

[Sidenote: Washington resigns his command, Dec. 23.]

"The times that tried men's souls are over," said Thomas Paine in the
last number of the "Crisis," which he published after hearing that the
negotiations for a treaty of peace had been concluded. The preliminary
articles had been signed at Paris on the 20th of January, 1783. The news
arrived in America on the 23d of March, in a letter to the president of
Congress from Lafayette, who had returned to France soon after the
victory at Yorktown. A few days later Sir Guy Carleton received his
orders from the ministry to proclaim a cessation of hostilities by land
and sea. A similar proclamation made by Congress was formally
communicated to the army by Washington on the 19th of April, the eig