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 The American War of Independence 321 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL, NEAR BOSTON {Fravi the engraving o^ the pictwre bv John TTumhuU in the British Museitiii) So the American War of Independence began, though for more than a year the colonists showed themselves extremely unwilling to sever their links with the mother land. It was not until the middle of 1776 that the Congress of the insurgent states issued " The Declaration of Independence." George Washington, who like many of the leading colonists of the time had had a military training in the wars against the French, was made commander- in-chief. In 1777 a British general, General Burgoyne, in an attempt to reach New York from Canada, was defeated at Free- mans Farm and obliged to surrender at Saratoga. In the same year the French and Spanish declared war upon Great Britain, greatly hampering her sea communications. A second British army under General Cornwallis was caught in the Yorktown pen- insula in Virginia and obliged to capitulate in 1781. In 1783 peace was made in Paris, and the Thirteen Colonies from Maine to Georgia became a union of independent sovereign states. So the United States of America came into existence. Canada remained loyal to the British flag. For four years these States had only a very feeble central govern-