naval officer. He took
advantage of the French alliance to secure a little fleet, part American
but mostly French; and with it he cruised boldly around Great Britain,
bidding defiance to her navy and plundering her shores, in some faint
imitation of the depredations her troops had committed in America. The
fight of Jones in his flagship against the English frigate Serapis has
become world-famous, and the grim resolution with which the American won
his way to victory in face of apparent impossibilities, taught the
Britons that on sea as well as on land they had met their match.[6]

For a time the island kingdom bore up against all her foes. The most
famous of the many sieges of Gibraltar occurred; and for three years the
French and Spanish fleets sought unavailingly to batter the stubborn
rock into surrender.[7] But at last a second British army was trapped
and captured at Yorktown by the French and Americans.[8] Then England
yielded. It was impossible for her longer to undertake the enormous task
of transporting troops across three thousand miles of ocean. She needed
them at home; and many of the English people had always protested
against the fratricidal war with their brethren in America. American
independence was acknowledged, and England was left free to demand a
peace of her European foes.[9]

The antagonisms roused by this bitter war, in which British troops had
repeatedly and cruelly ravaged the American lands and homes, were long
in fading. Canada had stood loyally by Great Britain, and the break
between the northern land and the other colonies was sharp and final.
Even throughout the States which had become independent, a portion of
the people had loyally upheld British rule; and on these unfortunates
the liberated Americans threatened to wreak vengeance for all that had
been endured. Thus came about a vast emigration of the "Tories" or
Loyalists from the new States to Canada. They brought with them the
bitterness of the expatriated, and Canada became yet more firmly
British, more "anti-American" than before.[10]

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Of even greater influence were the consequences of the American
Revolution as affecting Continental Europe. Estimates have differed
widely as to just how much the French Revolution was caused by that
across the ocean. Certain it is that Frenchmen had been enthusiastic in
America's cause, that many of their officers fought under Washington,
and returned home deeply infused