The disturbances in America, excited by the tea duty, broko out in the summer of 1773. The Gasp6 schooner was attacked and burned at Providence, in Rhode Island, in June ; the destruction of the tea by the mob at Boston took place in December. Another year however was spent before the quarrel assumed the character of a regular contest of arms. Hostilities commenced with the battle of Lexington, April 19th 1775; that of Bunker's Hill followed on the 16th of Jane. Still the resistance of the colonists had not taken the form of an avowed determination to throw off the dominion of the mother-country. It was not till the evermemorablo 4th of July 1776 that the contest was brought to this point by the Declaration of Independence. In the course of the next year many French officers joined the Americans, and it became evident that the governments both of France and of Spain were about to take part publicly with the revolted colonies. Meanwhile, on the 16th of October, the convention of Saratoga, and the surrender of Burgoyne, inflicted the first great blow upon the British cause. On the 6th of February 1778 a treaty was signed between tho Americans and France, in which their independence was acknowledged. War between England and France of course immedi ately followed this act. In Juno 1779 Spain too at last openly joined the hostile confederacy ; and before the end of another year England had found still another enemy in Holland. The convention of the northern powers of Russia, Denmark, and Sweden (soon after joined by Holland, Prussia, and the Emperor), for the maintenance of what was called the armed neutrality—being in fact a defiance of the power of Great Britain to enforce the commonly-recognised rights of belli gerents—was also established in the course of tho year 1780. At home this was the year of the Protestant riots, when London was for nearly a week in the hands of a devastating mob, which was not put down till after a great effusion of blood, as well as destruction of property. The popular mind in Ireland moreover was in a state which occasioned the greatest alarm : the inhabitants were embodied as volunteers to the number of fifty or sixty thousaud, and the British parliament had already in the beginning of this year been compelled to yield to some, and was soon to be forced to concede more, of the demands of these petitioners with arms in their hands.
Meanwhile the nation was becoming heartily tired of the war; and the ministry, surrounded by so many embarrassments, stood at the lowest point of unpopularity. These feelings continued to increase in the publio mind as new failures and calamities further demonstrated tho incapacity, or the ill fortune, with which the affairs of the country wero conducted. Even in the East, where the French had at tho commencement of the war been again driven from all their settlements, the successes of Ryder Ali now seemed to be fast changing the faco of affairs. In America the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, on the 19th of October 1781, in effect terminated the struggle. Lord North and his colleagues resigned on the 20th of March 1782, on which the Marquis of Rockingham was once more placed at the head of a new ministry ; but his death about three months after his acceptance of office again overthrew all the arrangements that had been made. Lord Shelburne having succeeded to the place of first lord of the treasury and premier, Mr. Fox and all his friends immediately resigued. Among the new appointments was that of Mr. Pitt to the office of chancellor of the exchequer, in the room of Lord George Cavendish. It is said to have boen by the persuasions of Lord Shelburne that tho king was at last, after extreme reluctance, prevailed upon to consent to acknowledge the independence of the colonies. The preliminaries
of a peaco were signed at Paris on the basis of that acknowledgment on the 30th of November, and on the 3rd of September 1783 the war, which had resulted in so largo a curtailment of the domiuions of the British crown, was formally brought to a close by the signature of definitive treaties with America, France, and Spain. Peace with Holland was also concluded at Paris, June 20th, 1784.
In the meantime however the famous coalition between the followers of Mr. Fox and of Lord North, parties which had been so long and so bitterly opposed, had succeeded in the beginning of April 1783 in driving Lord Shelburne and his friends from power. Lord North and Mr. Fox now became secretaries of state together, with the Duke of Portland as first lord of the treasury and nominal premier. This arrangement however was soon overthrown. The new cabinet was exposed from the first to a storm of public outcry, and this greatly aided the determined efforts of the crown to shake itself free from a ministry that had been forced upon it. The only strength of the coalition indeed lay in the existing House of Commons. The defeat of Mr. Fox's India Bill in the House of Lords by the private exertion of the influence of the crown, 17th of December, on the question of going into committee, was followed the next day by the dismissal of both Fox and North, and the immediate appointment of a new ministry with Mr. Pitt at its head. The contest of parties which ensued is the most memorable in the annals of parliament. It was only terminated by the dissolution of the parliament, 24th of March 1784, and the overwhelming majority of supporters which the result of the elections gave to the court and tho ministry in the new House of Commons. Throughout this long and violent struggle, Mr. Pitt's own firmness and resolution were seconded by the steady support of the king, who is said to have openly declared his determination, rather than receive back Mr. Fox as minister, to resign his crown and retire to Hanover.
The formidable front presented by the Irish volunteers in the season of the national difficulties and disorders had extorted from the British parliament, in 1782 and 1783, the repeal of the restrictive statute of 1720 [Gm= I.], and the acknowledgment (by the 23 Geo. IH., 0.28) of the complete independence of the parliament of Ireland. Both in Ireland and in England the agitation of the question of parliamentary reform occupied public attention for some time after the conclusion of the war; but it was productive of no results. On the 2nd of August 1786, an attempt was made upon the king's life by a madwoman named Margaret Nieolson, who struck at him with a knife as he was alighting from his carriage at St. James's, but missed her aim. In November 1788, his majesty was visited with a second and more serious attack of illness, which was admitted to be delirium, and from which he did not recover till the following March. On this occasion Mr. Fox and his friends contended that the powers of the government devolved as of right upon the Prince of Wales; but parliament stood by Mr. Pitt in his opposition .to that doctrine, and a bill conferring the regency upon the prince with certain restrictions had nearly passed both houses when tho king recovered. The parliament of Ireland in the mean time had made use of their lately acquired independence to offer the prince the government of that kingdom, without any restrictions. As the prince had attached himself to the party of which Mr. Fox was the head, expectations of important political changes were excited by tho prospect of his royal highoese becoming the hoed of the state.