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Rh was determined by the fact that the British resolved to transfer the main seat of war to the Southern states, in the hope that Georgia and South Carolina might be detached from the Union. At the close of 1778 Savannah was captured. In

September 1779 D'Estaing returned and assaulted Savannah, but, failing to capture it, sailed for France. In 1780 Clinton sailed from New York, besieged Charleston with a force much superior to that of Lincoln, and captured it (May 12). State government in South Carolina ceased. But the chance of detaching those states from the Union and of bringing the war in that region to an end was finally lost by the British. This was chiefly due to an order which recalled the paroles of many of those who had surrendered at Charleston and required that they should perform military service under the British. The attempt to enforce this order, with the barbarities of Colonel Banastre Tarleton and certain Tory bands, provoked a bloody partisan conflict in the upper districts, especially of South Carolina, which contributed more than any other cause to turn the scale against the British in the remote South. By the winter of 1781 they were forced back to Charleston and Savannah. (See .)

74. During the summer of 1780 Washington was prevented from accomplishing anything in the North by the demoralized condition of the finances and by the decline of public spirit. It was very difficult to secure recruits or supplies. The pay of the troops had fallen so into arrears that some of them had already begun mutiny. A second French squadron and military force, under De Ternay and Rochambeau, landed at Newport, but they were at once shut up there by the British. Clinton and Cornwallis were now planning that the latter, having put down resistance in the remote South, should march through North Carolina and Virginia to Baltimore and Philadelphia and that a junction of the two British forces should be effected which, it was believed, would complete the ruin of the American cause. This, too, was the period of Arnold's treason and the death of André. But the turn of the tide in favour of the Americans began with the partisan warfare in South Carolina, which delayed the northward march of Cornwallis, who retired to

Wilmington and thence marched north with a small force into Virginia, and in July retired to Yorktown, in the peninsula of Virginia. Washington and Rochambeau had meantime been planning a joint move against the British at New York, or possibly in Virginia, and a letter was sent to De Grasse, the French admiral in the West Indies, suggesting his co-operation. De Grasse replied that he would sail for the Chesapeake. This confirmed Washington and Rochambeau in the opinion that they should march at once for Virginia and, after junction with the force of Lafayette, co-operate with De Grasse against Cornwallis. By well-timed movements the forces were brought together before (q.v.), and Cornwallis was forced to surrender on the 19th of October 1781.

75. As the effect of this event was to drive Lord North from power in England, it proved to be the last important operation

of the war in America. The king was compelled to give way. Rockingham was called into office at the head of a cabinet which considered the recognition of American independence to be indispensable. The negotiations fell into the hands of Shelburne, the friend of Franklin and disciple of Adam Smith. Richard Oswald was the leading British agent, while Franklin, Jay, John Adams and Henry Laurens were the American negotiators. From the first the acknowledgment of independence, the settlement of the boundaries and the freedom of fishing were insisted on as necessary terms by the Americans. Free commercial intercourse and the cession of Canada to the United States, partly in payment of war claims and partly to create a fund for the compensation of loyalists, were also put forward as advisable conditions of peace. The first three points were early conceded by the British. They also agreed to restrict Canada to its ancient limits. But discussions later arose over the right to dry fish on the British coasts, over the payment of debts due to British subjects prior to the war,

and over the compensation of the loyalists. Adams vigorously insisted upon the right to dry and cure fish on British coasts, and finally this concession was secured. Franklin was opposed to the demands of the loyalists, and they had to be content with a futile recommendation by Congress to the states that their claims should be adjusted. It was also agreed that creditors on either side should meet with no lawful impediment to the collection of their debts. Both France and Spain considered the claims of the Americans to be excessive, and were not inclined to yield to them. But the Americans negotiated directly with the British and the articles were signed without consultation with the French government. This course was offensive to Vergennes, but it was insisted upon as necessary, especially by Jay and Adams, while the diplomatic skill of Franklin prevented a breach with France. Peace was formally ratified on the 3rd of September 1783.

76. The American army was now disbanded. Since the close of active military operations both officers and men had been striving to secure their pay, which was hopelessly in arrears. Congress had voted half-pay to the officers for life, and many had agreed to accept a commutation of this in the form of full pay for a certain number of years. Certificates for these amounts were issued. But in this, as in other cases, it was found impossible to procure the money for the purpose from the states. Parts of the army repeatedly mutinied, and it was only the influence of Washington which prevented a general outbreak against Congress and the civil government. When the disbandment was finally effected the officers found their certificates depreciated in value and the states indisposed to honour them. They consequently received only a small part of their due, and the privates scarcely anything. This deplorable result was due in part to poverty, but quite as much to bad faith. The country was left in a most demoralized condition, the result of the long war and the general collapse of public and private credit which had accompanied it. It should not be forgotten that the conflict had taken to a considerable extent the form of a civil war. In many of the states Loyalists and Whigs had been arrayed against one another, and had been more or less fully incorporated with the two contending armies. In general the Loyalists showed less capacity for combined action than did their opponents, and in the end they were everywhere defeated. The real tragedy of the conflict will be found, not in the defeat of the British, but in the ruin of the Loyalists. It was accompanied by wholesale confiscations of property in many quarters, and by the permanent exile of tens of thousands of the leading citizens of the republic. These were the émigrés of the War of American Independence, and their removal deeply affected property relations and the tone and structure of society in general. Many of those who had been social and political leaders were thus removed, or, if they remained, their influence was destroyed (see ). New men and new families rose in their places, but of a different and in some ways of an inferior type. By this process sympathizers with the War of Independence gained and kept the ascendancy. British and monarchical influences were weakened, and in the end the permanence of republican institutions was ensured. But, as had been foreseen, society in this period of transition exhibited so many repulsive features as almost to cause the stoutest hearts to despair.

.—Sources: The records in which are contained the materials for the internal history of any one of the British colonies are the land papers, the minutes of the executive council, the journals of the upper and lower houses of the legislature, the laws and the correspondence and miscellaneous papers which originated from the intercourse between the colonial authorities—especially the governor—and the home government or other colonies and states. Every one of the original states has published these records in part, in series which are known under the general names of colonial records or archives or documents, or provincial papers. The first seven volumes of the Provincial Papers of New Hampshire (Concord) contain general records, while other volumes are filled with local and miscellaneous records. Massachusetts has published Records of the Colony of New Plymouth (12 vols., Boston, 1885-1887), the Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686 (5 vols., Boston, 1853-1854), the Records of the Court of Assistants (1 vol.), and its laws for the entire