ABSTRACT
Gunboat diplomacy was employed to obtain a satisfactory settlement of disputes with France over Turks Island in the West Indies and the Gambia in West Africa, and with Spain over logwood cutting on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Despite European protectionism and neutral rights, the focus of British public and political attention was trans-oceanic rather than European. A good example was provided by opposition to proposed fiscal legislation in 1783, opposition that helped explain the care the ministry was to take three years later when preparing the way for a trade treaty with France. As a result of the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1775, Britain, internationally, was weakened and apparently vulnerable. The peace settlement saw empire and, even more, trade subordinated to an attempt to end the war and, in particular, to shelve issues in dispute with America and France, both in order to bring the conflict to a close and to divide the opposing coalition.
