Thus it was that the war ended.Great Britain had urged especially the case of the Loyalists, the return to them of their property and compensation for their losses.She could not achieve anything.Franklin indeed asked that Americans who had been ruined by the destruction of their property should be compensated by Britain, that Canada should be added to the United States, and that Britain should acknowledge her fault in distressing the colonies.In the end the American Commissioners agreed to ask the individual States to meet the desires of the British negotiators, but both sides understood that the States would do nothing, that the confiscated property would never be returned, that most of the exiled Loyalists would remain exiles, and that Britain herself must compensate them for their losses.This in time she did on a scale inadequate indeed but expressive of a generous intention.The United States retained the great Northwest and the Mississippi became the western frontier, with destiny already whispering that weak and grasping Spain must soon let go of the farther West stretching to the Pacific Ocean.When Great Britain signed peace with France and Spain in January, 1783, Gibraltar was not returned; Spain had to be content with the return of Minorca, and Florida which she had been forced to yield to Britain in 1763.Each side restored its conquests in the West Indies.France, the chief mainstay of the war during its later years, gained from it really nothing beyond the weakening of her ancient enemy.The magnanimity of France, especially towards her exacting American ally, is one of the fine things in the great combat.The huge sum of nearly eight hundred million dollars spent by France in the war was one of the chief factors in the financial crisis which, six years after the signing of the peace, brought on the French Revolution and with it the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy.Politics bring strange bedfellows and they have rarely brought stranger ones than the democracy of young America and the political despotism, linked with idealism, of the ancient monarchy of France.
The British did not evacuate New York until Carleton had gathered there the Loyalists who claimed his protection.These unhappy people made their way to the seaports, often after long and distressing journeys overland.Charleston was the chief rallying place in the South and from there many sad-hearted people sailed away, never to see again their former homes.The British had captured New York in September, 1776, and it was more than seven years later, on November 25, 1783, that the last of the British fleet put to sea.Britain and America had broken forever their political tie and for many years to come embittered memories kept up the alienation.
It was fitting that Washington should bid farewell to his army at New York, the center of his hopes and anxieties during the greater part of the long struggle.On December 4, 1783, his officers met at a tavern to bid him farewell.The tears ran down his cheeks as he parted with these brave and tried men.He shook their hands in silence and, in a fashion still preserved in France, kissed each of them.Then they watched him as he was rowed away in his barge to the New Jersey shore.Congress was now sitting at Annapolis in Maryland and there on December 23, 1783, Washington appeared and gave up finally his command.We are told that the members sat covered to show the sovereignty of the Union, a quaint touch of the thought of the time.The little town made a brave show and "the gallery was filled with a beautiful group of elegant ladies." With solemn sincerity Washington commended the country to the protection of Almighty God and the army to the special care of Congress.Passion had already subsided for the President of Congress in his reply praised the "magnanimous king and nation" of Great Britain.By the end of the year Washington was at Mount Vernon, hoping now to be able, as he said simply, to make and sell a little flour annually and to repair houses fast going to ruin.He did not foresee the troubled years and the vexing problems which still lay before him.Nor could he, in his modest estimate of himself, know that for a distant posterity his character and his words would have compelling authority.What Washington's countryman, Motley, said of William of Orange is true of Washington himself: "As long as he lived he was the guiding star of a brave nation and when he died the little children cried in the streets." But this is not all.To this day in the domestic and foreign affairs of the United States the words of Washington, the policies which he favored, have a living and almost binding force.This attitude of mind is not without its dangers, for nations require to make new adjustments of policy, and the past is only in part the master of the present; but it is the tribute of a grateful nation to the noble character of its chief founder.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
In Winsor, "Narrative and Critical History of America", vol.VI(1889), and in Larned (editor), "Literature of American History", pp.111-152 (1902), the authorities are critically estimated.
There are excellent classified lists in Van Tyne, "The American Revolution" (1905), vol.V of Hart (editor), "The American Nation", and in Avery, "History of the United States", vol.V, pp.422-432, and vol.VI, pp.445-471 (1908-09).The notes in Channing, "A History of the United States", vol.III (1913), are useful.Detailed information in regard to places will be found in Lossing, "The Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution", 2 vols.
(1850).
