ABSTRACT
The American Revolution is one of the most important events in modern history. Britain's isolation was more profound in 1783 than it had been in 1775. British politicians, for perfectly sound domestic political and economic reasons, ended up making a separate peace. As for the two Bourbon powers, France and Spain, contemporary perceptions on all sides cast them as Britain's inveterate enemies as far as the future was foreseeable after 1763. The overtowering geographical reality of the American war was the sheer distance between Britain and America, a factor vividly illuminated in the work of Piers Mackesy. In the aftermath of Lexington, General Gage and his army found themselves ultimately besieged in Boston by hordes of enthusiastic Patriot militia. In 1776 Colonel Washington, having forced Howe to pull out of Boston to establish a more viable base at Halifax, Nova Scotia, foolishly decided to put his novice army to the test of battle without further preparation.
