1910.1 GENESIS OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 19 



had an immediate effect on the e vents of the last campaign in 

 America: a French squadron off the coast partly prevented 

 Clinton from coming to the assistance of Gornwallis. 



The same policy, then, that roused America to rebellion, 

 also raised all Europe against Great Britain and became one of 

 the chief canses of her defeat. 



The American Revolution rose out of the struggle between 

 the old agrarian policy and the new commercial policy, and it 

 proved successful by virtue of the same struggle, because the 

 narrow, obstinate agrarian policy not only stirred up all forces 

 of resistance against itself, but also weakened the fighting force 

 of the agrarian society itself. 



The Revolution was a conflict between two different types 

 of society, two conflicting economic systems, and it brought about 

 the signal defeat of the old one, the victory of the young one, — 

 not because what is young must necessarily triumph in every 

 conflict of this kind, but because in this case the young forces 

 had grown up to vigorous vitality, while the old society and its 

 ideals were decrepit and decaying. 



