I need only briefly summarize the incidents which ended in the year 1782
with the final loss of the American Colonies, and the simultaneous
achievement by Ireland of an apparent legislative independence. To take
America first, the Stamp Act was passed in 1765, and, thanks to the
tumult it created, repealed by the Whigs in 1766, though the Declaratory
Act which accompanied the repeal neutralized its good results. The new
Revenue Duties on glass, paper, painters' colours, and tea were imposed
in 1767, reviving the old irritation, and all but that on tea were
removed, after a period of growing friction, in 1770. Another
comparative lull was succeeded by fresh disorder when in 1773 the East
India Company was permitted to send tea direct to America, and Boston
celebrated its historic "tea-party." The coercion of Massachusetts
followed, with Gage as despotic Military Governor, and, as a result, all
the Colonies were galvanized into unity. In September, 1774, the
Continental Congress met, framed a Declaration of Rights, and obtained a
general agreement to cease from all commerce with Britain until
grievances were redressed. Fresh coercion having been applied, war broke
out in 1775. The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776,
by John Hancock, President of Congress and the descendant of an Ulster
exile, and was first read aloud in Philadelphia by Captain John Nixon,
the son of an evicted Wexford farmer. Another Irishman, General
Montgomery, led the invasion of Canada.[14] The war, with manifold
vicissitudes, dragged on for eight years; but the surrender of
Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, virtually ended the physical
struggle, while the resolution of the House of Commons on February 27,
1782, against the further prosecution of hostilities, ended the contest
of principle.

The turning-point had been the intervention of the French in 1778, and
the same event was to turn the scale in Ireland. There, for many years