356 WORK IN WAR-TIME CHAP. 



ties like the destruction of Wyoming sullying its course, 

 and these more on the British than on the American side. 

 The employment of Indians in warfare drew from Burke 

 one of his most eloquent protests, and an indignant plea 

 from the dying Chatham. It was hard to bring a conflict 

 waged over so vast an area of a thinly peopled country 

 to an issue. All the important towns had been taken at 

 one time or another by the British, and provinces had 

 been overrun, but they were not captured ; the people 

 were unconquered, and through the following years, down 

 to Fothergill's death at Christmas 1780, the fate of the 

 war by sea and land, though moving to an inevitable 

 end, was still undecided. 



The effects of the war in England were in the meantime 

 disastrous. Its cost brought heavy taxes, ruin to many 

 industries and general distress. In 1779 the depression 

 in the country was great. Spain declared war in June, 

 and in August the combined fleet of that power and of 

 France like a second Armada entered the Channel and 

 threatened Plymouth for fifteen long weeks, bringing 

 consternation and panic to the southern counties ; whilst 

 the ubiquitous Paul Jones descended upon Whitehaven, 

 raided Lord Selkirk's mansion at Kirkcudbright, and 

 seized a convoy near the mouth of the Humber. 



A movement for reform, economy and the redress of 

 grievances began to take shape among the counties of 

 England. Yorkshire took the lead. Public meetings 

 were in 'those days almost unknown, but there was a 

 tradition that the free-holders of a county might meet 

 together to formulate an address to the king : they had 

 done it in '45. Christopher Wyvill was the apostle of the 

 cause, and at his instance 209 free-holders signed the 

 summons to a memorable gathering at York, which 

 assembled on December 30, 1779. This was the origin 

 of the Yorkshire Association a model which was followed 

 by twenty-eight other counties and at least eleven cities 

 or towns, having as its objects to limit the powers of the 

 Crown, to purify parliament and to enlarge the franchise. 

 Although the Association lasted only a few years, it 



