During the war many had feared that British victory would mean the overthrow in England of constitutional liberty. The defeat, therefore, of the king’s purpose in America seemed a victory for liberalism in England as well as in America. Personal government was overthrown, and no British king has gained such power since. The dangers to freedom of speech and of the press were ended. Corruption and daring disregard of public law received a great blow. The ancient course of English constitutional development was resumed. England never, it is true, yielded to her colonies what America had demanded in 1775, but she did learn to handle the affairs of her colonies with greater diplomacy, and she does not allow them now to get into such an unsympathetic state. Great Britain herself was not so near ruin as she seemed; she was still to be the mother of nations, and the English race was not weakened, though the empire was broken. In political, social, and intellectual spirit England and America continued to be much the same. English notions of private and public law still persisted in independent America. The large influence which the Anglo-Saxon race had long had upon the world’s destiny was not left with either America or England alone, but with them both. America only continued England’s “manifest destiny” in America, pushing her language, modes of political and intellectual activity, and her social customs westward and southward--driving back Latin civilization in the same resistless way as before the Revolution. For America much good came out of the Revolution. Americans had acted together in a great crisis, and Washington’s efforts in the army to banish provincial distinctions did much to create fellow-feeling which would make real union possible. With laws and governments alike, and the same predominant language, together with common political and economic interests, future unity seemed assured. The republican form of government was now given a strong foothold in America. Frederick the Great asserted that the new republic could not endure, because “a republican government had never been known to exist for any length of time where the territory was not limited and concentrated”; yet America, within a century, was to make it a success over a region three times as great as the territory for which Frederick foretold failure.[98] SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY MILITARY, BETWEEN THE BATTLE OF YORKTOWN, 1781, AND THE BATTLES ON THE LAKES, 1813 AND 1814 1782. Holland recognizes the independence of the United States. The British evacuate Savannah and Charleston. Signing of the preliminary treaty of peace with Great Britain. 1783. Peace of Versailles between Great Britain, the United States, France, and Spain. Great Britain acknowledges the independence of the United States, restores Florida and Minorca to Spain, and cedes Tobago to France. Evacuation of New York by the British.