s,
and then he and Clinton agreed to return to New York. Such were the
events of the war in America during this campaign. It commenced with
bright hopes of success on the side of the British; it closed by those
hopes being dashed to the ground. The fall of York Town was but a
prelude to the emancipation of North America.

[Illustration: 160.jpg THE BRITISH SURRENDERING TO GENERAL WASHINGTON]

LOSS OF THE BRITISH DOMINION IN FLORIDA.

Further south the British dominion was already diminished. Early in
this year Don Bernardo Galvez arrived in the Gulf of Mexico with a
considerable squadron, and a land force of 8000 Spanish troops. Before
he could reach Pensacola he was overtaken by a hurricane, in which four
of his ships were lost, with 2000 men on board; and he was obliged
to run back to the Havanna. Solano, the chief admiral, had previously
arrived at the Havanna, and being supplied with more ships and troops
Galvez again put to sea. This time he succeeded in his designs.
Pensacola, the last of the British fortresses, was reduced by him,
and its fall completed the conquest of all Florida. The fortress was
defended by General Campbell, who had a motley group of negroes, red
Indians, foreign adventurers, and a few British regulars under his
command; but, on the 9th of May, after his principal powder-magazine
had been blown up, Campbell found himself under the necessity of
capitulating. He had gallantly defended the place for two months,
although he had not more than nine hundred and fifty men under his
command, and had to sustain the siege against a fleet of fifteen sail
of the line, and a land force almost ten times the number of his own
troops. Thus Florida, which was one of the principal acquisitions made
by the British during the last war, remained to the Spaniards.

ATTACK ON MINORCA.

In Europe the Spaniards not only continued the siege of Gibraltar, but
also undertook the reduction of Minorca. This island had recently been
offered to the Empress of Russia, as a bait to secure her friendship to
Great Britain, and to induce her to become mediatrix for a peace, on the
basis of the last treaty of Fontainbleau. At first the lure seemed to
be acceptable, and Potemkin, the minister of Catherine, was anxious to
obtain the acquisition; but subsequently the empress seemed to think
that the British empire must soon become dismembered, when probably she
might obtain more; and she therefore declined accepting i