12. Six ships fell to the British, but one caught fire and burned to the water's edge, while three were so mauled that they foundered before reaching port. The battle of Saints is famous for the skilful tactics of the victor and for the important results of the victory. Combined with the successful defence of Gibraltar, it induced the allies to bring the war to a close by the Treaty of Versailles (1783). By this treaty the independence of the United States was acknowledged. But beyond the loss of her American colonies, Britain had weathered the storm with little damage to herself. 13. The forcible separation, however, between the mother-country and her colonies bequeathed for many generations a feeling of bitterness between the two nations. But a better day has now dawned. A new bond of sympathy has arisen between them as two branches of the same Anglo-Saxon race. They are divided by a wide ocean, but at critical times it has been plainly proved that "blood is thicker than water." A voice has passed across the ocean from either side, and this is the message it tells:-- "Kinsmen, hail! We severed have been too long: Now let us have done with a worn-out tale, The tale of an ancient wrong, And our friendship last long as Love doth last, And be stronger than death is strong." (3) AUSTRALASIA BROUGHT TO LIGHT. 1. Britain had now lost her chief colonies in the New World, but a newer world was waiting for her to occupy. This newer world was Australia, whose existence was not known until fifty years after Columbus made his famous discovery. The first to get a glimpse of Australia were the Dutch, who called it New Holland; but they only touched on its northern and western coasts, and knew nothing of the extent and character of the interior. To a Dutchman also, named Tasman, is due the honour of having first lighted on New Zealand and Tasmania, but he did little or nothing in exploring these lands and mapping out their coasts. It was reserved for an Englishman, the famous Captain Cook, to explore the coasts and definitely fix the situation of those southern lands that now form so important a part of King Edward's Realm. 2. This celebrated explorer was the son of a day-labourer in Yorkshire, and, when a boy of six or seven, was set to work at bird-scaring on a farm. The farmer's wife, taking an interest in the lad, taught him to read and write, which few poor boys in his days were able to do. A year or two later we find him ship-boy to a collier. Whilst serving as a sailor before the mast, James Cook did what was seldom done by men in his position, he went on with his learning, and mastered the rules of navigation and the mode of making charts. For thirteen years he went on learning his business as a mariner, and training himself to take things as they came and to look on hardships and coarse or scanty fare as matters of no account in a seaman's life.