lare a blockade of a port and punish neutrals for violating it,
unless their ships were actually caught in an attempt to enter the
port. Denmark and Sweden joined Russia in what was known as the Armed
Neutrality and promised that they would retaliate upon any nation which
did not respect the conditions laid down.

In domestic affairs Great Britain was divided. The Whigs and Tories were
carrying on a warfare shameless beyond even the bitter partisan strife
of later days. In Parliament the Whigs cheered at military defeats
which might serve to discredit the Tory Government. The navy was torn
by faction. When, in 1778, the Whig Admiral Keppel fought an indecisive
naval battle off Ushant and was afterwards accused by one of his
officers, Sir Hugh Palliser, of not pressing the enemy hard enough,
party passion was invoked. The Whigs were for Keppel, the Tories for
Palliser, and the London mob was Whig. When Keppel was acquitted there
were riotous demonstrations; the house of Palliser was wrecked, and he
himself barely escaped with his life. Whig naval officers declared that
they had no chance of fair treatment at the hands of a Tory Admiralty,
and Lord Howe, among others, now refused to serve. For a time British
supremacy on the sea disappeared and it was only regained in April,
1782, when the Tory Admiral Rodney won a great victory in the West
Indies against the French.

A spirit of violence was abroad in England. The disabilities of the
Roman Catholics were a gross scandal. They might not vote or hold public
office. Yet when, in 1780, Parliament passed a bill removing some of
their burdens dreadful riots broke out in London. A fanatic, Lord George
Gordon, led a mob to Westminster and, as Dr. Johnson expressed it,
"insulted" both Houses of Parliament. The cowed ministry did nothing
to check the disturbance. The mob burned Newgate jail, released the
prisoners from this and other prisons, and made a deliberate attempt to
destroy London by fire. Order was restored under the personal direction
of the King, who, with all his faults, was no coward. At the same time
the Irish Parliament, under Protestant lead, was making a Declaration of
Independence which, in 1782, England was obliged to admit by formal act
of Parliament. For the time being, though the two monarchies had the
same king, Ireland, in name at least, was free of England.

Washington's enemy thus had embarrassments enough. Yet these very years,
1779 and 1780, were t