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War with America
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when this happened. A real hero, patient, resourceful and brave, called George Washington, commanded the American army. We never sent enough troops; we had not, in fact, enough troops to send. Though we often won battles, we suffered some very severe disasters.
They ask French help, 1778.The Americans very soon sought French help, and France was delighted at such a chance of avenging her losses in the former war. The French fleet, though small, had been much improved since that war, and was able to draw away our ships from the coast of America to all quarters of the world. Naval war with France, 1778–83.We were just able to defend the rest of our Empire (except Minorca, which we now lost again); but not to beat our colonists at the same time. Spain, and even our ally Holland, soon joined France; and for a few months, we had the navies of all the world against us. So, when Lord Cornwallis, with seven thousand men, was obliged to surrender to a French and American force at Yorktown in 1781, we determined to withdraw from America; after which, having our hands free, we finished the naval war victoriously in other quarters of the world. Rodney smashed a great French fleet in the West Indies; and Lord Heathfield, at Gibraltar, beat off the siege of that rock, which had lasted for three years. Peace of Versailles, 1783.By a Treaty signed in 1783 we acknowledged the Independence of America, gave back Florida and Minorca to Spain, and some small West Indian islands, as well as Senegal in West Africa, to France. These were serious losses; yet France had been even harder hit by the war than we had been. She had hoped, in return for her help, to receive perpetual trading privileges with America; but the Americans showed no more gratitude
