George III. stormed loudly, and, at a hint that American independence must follow, threatened to freight a large boat with his ponderous heaviness, and be transported to Hanover; but he soon concluded to take another bucolic roll in the rich English clover, and to postpone turning himself out into the thin grazing lands along the Weser. The American George rejoiced with temperate joy, thanked God for the crowning mercy, ordered divine service to be performed throughout the camps, and thanksgiving turkeys to be rendered to, and thanksgiving by, the troops. And so ended 1781, as all years should end, with thanksgiving and turkey. Christmas dinners, or something else in America, had the effect of turning the English stomach against the war ministry of Lord North. “Let us have peace,” piped the English House of Commons to the watch on the deck of the still fine, but somewhat battered, Royal George. “Ay! ay!” responded the first mate. So the ship was hove to, and a gentleman stepped down the ladder let down her sides, was rowed to the French shore, and at Paris met four American ex-rebels,—Adams, Franklin, Jay, and Henry Laurens. These five gentlemen, on the 30th of November, 1782, sitting at a round table covered with green baize, signed a preliminary agreement for peace, which was joyfully attested by many millions of witnesses. This agreement was dressed up with new ribbons ten months after, and then became a fixed, resolute treaty,—a gay, laughing, sunny break in our history,—but in the English chronicles a flinty, hard, jagged fact, against which the waves of national pride long broke sullenly and hoarsely. England had sent one hundred and twelve thousand five hundred and eighty four soldiers and twenty-two thousand seamen to this unjust, successless war; had lost many thousands out of their ranks; had lost much solid, precious money; lost credit and honor, more precious still; and now at last lost the colonial empires themselves. She had thus millions of reasons for not being jolly. [Illustration: NEW YORK EVACUATED, NOVEMBER 25, 1783. (p. 304) ]