he most important in America, was given up to the rebels; and British
ships carried the first large body of unhappy and disappointed Loyalists
to Halifax. On July the fourth of the same year the Declaration of
Independence was passed, after much hesitation and discussion, and
published to the world by the continental congress assembled at
Philadelphia. The signal victory won by the continental army over
Burgoyne at Saratoga in the autumn of the following year led to an
alliance with France, without whose effective aid the eventual success
of the revolutionists would have been very doubtful The revolutionists
won their final triumph at Yorktown in the autumn of 1781, when a small
army of regulars and Loyalists, led by Cornwallis, was obliged to
surrender to the superior American and French forces, commanded by
Washington and Rochambeau, and supported by a French fleet which
effectively controlled the approaches to Chesapeake Bay.

The conduct of the war on the part of England was noted for the singular
incapacity of her generals. Had there been one of any energy or ability
at the head of her troops, when hostilities commenced, the undisciplined
American army might easily have been beaten and annihilated Boston need
never have been evacuated had Howe taken the most ordinary precautions
to occupy the heights of Dorchester that commanded the town. Washington
could never have organised an army had not Howe given him every possible
opportunity for months to do so. The British probably had another grand
opportunity of ending the war on their occupation of New York, when
Washington and his relatively insignificant army were virtually in their
power while in retreat. The history of the war is full of similar
instances of lost opportunities to overwhelm the continental troops. All
the efforts of the British generals appear to have been devoted to the
occupation of the important towns in a country stretching for a thousand
miles from north to south, instead of following and crushing the
constantly retreating, diminishing, and discouraged forces of the
revolutionists. The evacuation of Philadelphia at a critical moment of
the war was another signal illustration of the absence of all military
foresight and judgment, since it disheartened the Loyalists and gave up
an important base of operation against the South. Even Cornwallis, who
fought so bravely and successfully in the southern provinces, made a
most serious mistake when he chos