Burgoyne’s surrender marked the turning of the tide against the British arms.  True, the three campaigns of purely civil war, begun in 1775, had reached no decisive result.  True also that the Independence declared in 1776 had no apparent chance of becoming an accomplished fact.  But 1777 was the fatal year for all that.  The long political strife in England, the gross mismanagement of colonial affairs under Germain, and the shameful blunders that made Saratoga possible, all combined to encourage foreign powers to take the field against the king’s incompetent and distracted ministry.  France, Spain, and Holland joined the Americans in arms; while Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and all the German seaboard countries formed the Armed Neutrality of the North.  This made stupendous odds—­no less than ten to one.  First of the ten came the political opposition at home, which, in regard to the American rebellion itself, was at least equal to the most powerful enemy abroad.  Next came the four enemies in arms:  the American rebels, France, Spain, and Holland.  Finally came the five armed neutrals, all ready to use their navies on the slightest provocation.

From this it may be seen that not one-half, perhaps not a quarter, of all the various forces that won the Revolutionary war were purely American.  Nor were the Americans and their allies together victorious over the mother country, but only over one sorely hampered party in it.  Yet, from the nature of the case, the Americans got much more than the lion’s share of the spoils, while, even in their own eyes, they seemed to have gained honour and glory in the same proportion.  The last real campaign was fought in 1781 and ended with the British surrender at Yorktown.  From that time on peace was in the air.  The unfortunate ministry, now on the eve of political defeat at home, were sick of civil war and only too anxious for a chance of uniting all parties against the foreign foes.  But they had first to settle with the Americans, who had considered themselves an independent sovereign power for the last five years and who were determined to make the most of England’s difficulties.  No darker New Year’s Day had ever dawned on any cabinet than that of 1782 on North’s.  In spite of his change from repression to conciliation, and in spite of dismissing Germain to the House of Lords with an ill-earned peerage, Lord North found his majority dwindling away.  At last, on the 20th of March, he resigned.

Meanwhile every real statesman in either party had felt that the crisis required the master-hand of Carleton.  With Germain, the empire-wrecker, gone, Carleton would doubtless have served under any cabinet, for no government could have done without him.  But his actual commission came through the Rockingham administration on the 4th of April.  After three quiet years of retirement at his country seat in Hampshire he was again called upon to face a situation of extreme difficulty.  For once, with a wisdom rare enough in any age and