had been as loyal to their prince and as proud of their country as the people of Kent or Yorkshire, separated themselves by a solemn act from the Empire.  For a time it seemed that the insurgents would struggle to small purpose against the vast financial and military means of the mother country.  But disasters, following one another in rapid succession, rapidly dispelled the illusions of national vanity.  At length a great British force, exhausted, famished, harassed on every side by a hostile peasantry, was compelled to deliver up its arms.  Those Governments which England had, in the late war, so signally humbled, and which had during many years been sullenly brooding over the recollections of Quebec, of Minden, and of the Moro, now saw with exultation that the day of revenge was at hand.  France recognised the independence of the United States, and there could be little doubt that the example would soon be followed by Spain.

Chatham and Rockingham had cordially concurred in opposing every part of the fatal policy which had brought the State into this dangerous situation.  But their paths now diverged.  Lord Rockingham thought, and, as the event proved, thought most justly, that the revolted colonies were separated from the Empire for ever, and that the only effect of prolonging the war on the American continent would be to divide resources which it was desirable to concentrate.  If the hopeless attempt to subjugate Pennsylvania and Virginia were abandoned, war against the House of Bourbon might possibly be avoided, or, if inevitable, might be carried on with success and glory.  We might even indemnify ourselves for part of what we had lost, at the expense of those foreign enemies who had hoped to profit by our domestic dissensions.  Lord Rockingham, therefore, and those who acted with him, conceived that the wisest course now open to England was to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and to turn her whole force against her European enemies.

Chatham, it should seem, ought to have taken the same side.  Before France had taken any part in our quarrel with the colonies, he had repeatedly, and with great energy of language, declared that it was impossible to conquer America, and he could not without absurdity maintain that it was easier to conquer France and America together than America alone.  But his passions overpowered his judgment, and made him blind to his own inconsistency.  The very circumstances which made the separation of the colonies inevitable made it to him altogether insupportable.  The dismemberment of the Empire seemed to him less ruinous and humiliating, when produced by domestic dissensions, than when produced by foreign interference.  His blood boiled at the degradation of his country.  Whatever lowered her among the nations of the earth, he felt as a personal outrage to himself.  And the feeling was natural.  He had made her so great.  He had been so proud of her; and she had been so proud