XXX ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



" city, there to await with his officers and men, the arrival of the next 

 " summer's campaign. Thenceforward during all the autumn and 

 " winter and the spring, he refrained as much as possible from aggres- 

 " sive military enterprises, which, besides being likely to prove disagree- 

 '' able to the Americans, would have brought, of course, some inconveni- 

 " ence upon himself. This mighty general had, indeed, a truly martial 

 '^' fondness for the smiles of pretty women, for balls and routs, for 

 " dinners, theatricals, heavy gaming and heavy drinking; and he chose 

 " to dedicate those flying hours which were given to him in Philadelphia, 

 ^' to that mode of existence which the moralists have been wont to 

 " describe as riotous living.'' 



" With a military sybarite like this in Philadelphia, the surrounding 

 " inhabitants who had at first regarded him and his army with no little 

 '■' terror, soon came to regard both with some derision." 



Howe might have crushed the rebellion and prevented foreign 

 interference, but he let the precious moments pass, never to return. 

 Then came the intervention of three of the great powers of the age, and 

 the game was up. 



The eJEîect of this has never been fully appreciated in 

 the United States; they claim the credit of the success for themselves, 

 but we must remember that France was at the summit of her greatness 

 in the reign of Louis 14th, and still retained great power and prestige 

 when, in 1778, she declared war against Great Britain. Spain still 

 ranked as a first-class power, with all her great colonial Empire intact, 

 and Holland was still a maritime nation of considerable strength, with 

 the proud traditions of the time when her celebrated Admiral Van 

 Tromp sailed up the Channel with a broom at his mast-head. Such 

 was the combination which Great Britain and Ireland, with a popula- 

 tion of about 12,000,000, had to fight, and when the Count de Grasse, 

 with the allied fleet, secured the temporary command of the sea by his 

 superior force, it led to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis and the war 

 was then practically over. 



When the struggle ended, the rebels had absolute control, and 

 used the power they had acquired in the harshest spirit against those of 

 their fellow countrymen who had opposed them, and drove away into 

 exile all except the humblest and most temporising among them. 



It is interesting to consider what the United States lost by this 

 expulsion of the defeated party. Mr. Wm. Kirby describes them with 

 great eloquence: 



*' They formed undoubtedly the best and wealthiest class in the 

 old colonies. But all classes were present among them, — judges, lawyers, 

 legislators, clergymen, soldiers, merchants, yeomen and handicraft men 



