American Revolution For Dummies by Steve Wiegand

Author:Steve Wiegand
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119593515
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2019-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

Who won?

The miraculous emergence of the United States as a nation, from a war won over a formidable foe and against long odds, was a significant victory for millions of Americans who had taken great risks, made huge sacrifices, and suffered great loss.

But the British actually did okay, too. Britain’s economy weathered the war well, and the innovations in manufacturing processes that marked the Industrial Revolution continued full steam. North’s eventual replacement as prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, proved to one of the ablest leaders in British history.

The most important practical value of America to Britain — as a trading partner — remained in place, as did its cultural ties with the United States. When a French diplomat prodded a British official at the treaty-signing party that America “would form the greatest empire in the world,” the Brit replied “Yes, monsieur, and they will all speak English, every single one of them.”

Britain’s longtime foes, Spain and France, were both sharply weakened by the war and would suffer significant hangovers from it in the decades to come.

Relieved of its commitments in America, Britain turned much more of its colonial attention to what would become the crown jewel in its empire: India. General Cornwallis, for example, who had been the goat at Yorktown, became the British governor-general of India. As Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, wrote, “The independence of the United States of America is more or less contemporaneous with the loss of freedom in India.”

Even King George eventually came around. “I was the last to consent to the separation,” he told John Adams in 1785, after Adams had become the U.S. minister to Britain. “But the separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.”

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